Then the ship headed away from Perdition at full speed. Jael wasn’t sure, but it seemed to be safe enough to unstrap. Reaching up, he unfastened the netting, so Dred could step away and stretch. She went aft, crouching behind the other women to stare out the maintenance rig’s view screen. A little gasp escaped her; he understood that reaction. He choked up a bit too, staring at the stars all around them. Darkness and light, some faint and others in white-hot clusters. Even in an empty system like this one, there was beauty if you’d been starved of it long enough.
“So far, so good,” Calypso whooped.
She launched out of her seat and grabbed Dred in a tight hug, one arm about her neck, and Jael stepped back in reflex. So he was surprised when the tall woman grabbed him with her free arm and hauled him in, openly affectionate. Squished between the two of them, his heart did a strange awkward two-step, back and forth. It was hard enough to accept that Dred loved him, but in that moment, he realized he mattered to the others, too. Calypso would probably fight for him; Martine already had. And Tam . . . hell, he could probably call him a friend, too.
He let out a slow breath and disengaged with a pat for both of them. That should do it. To his amusement, Calypso actually kissed his ear and stroked his head like he was a kid.
Never was, actually. But he didn’t mind the gesture.
“We probably spaced Silence,” Dred said softly.
Probably. Possibly.
After everything that woman had survived and accomplished, it was hard to write her off. He imagined her standing alone in Perdition, even now. Hell, maybe she is Death’s Handmaiden. For her sake, he wished it was true—that she was about to achieve something instead of just reaching the terminus of a sad, atrocious life.
“I was wondering,” she added.
Jael cocked his head. “What’s that?”
“If Rebestah was an auditor, why did we find her handheld in the docking-bay area. That dormitory wasn’t designated for white-collar workers.”
Excellent question.
“There’s no way to be sure . . . but I suspect she must’ve lived there for a while. After everyone else pulled out, before Monsanto locked the place down.”
Dred looked thoughtful. “That makes sense. It’s kind of sad, though . . . she was still wearing the Monsanto uniform.”
“Maybe she knew it was important. She just couldn’t make the pieces fit with the VR running constantly in her head.”
“Poor Silence,” she whispered.
Jael couldn’t believe he agreed. Gently, he kissed her cheek, eyes full of apology. “Some things can’t be changed.”
“I know. And I’m not sorry we left her. I only wish I’d ended her personally.”
Yeah, that’s enough talk about people we didn’t kill.
“How’s your head?” he asked, turning to what had become the main side of the ship.
“Hurts like hell,” Tam answered. “But it’s not debilitating.”
“That’s good. Would suck if you dozed off and never woke up.”
Tam’s mouth twisted in amusement. “More for me than you.”
“Show of hands, who thought we’d die before we got this thing out?” Martine called.
Nobody put their arms up, Jael suspected because they didn’t want to admit to such private doubts. He wanted to run and scream, but there was no space. If people left their seats, there wasn’t even room for everyone to stand in the hold. If the air refreshers burn out . . . but no. It’s too early to list all the ways this can go horribly wrong.
Leaning over, he saw the shallow nick on Tam’s scalp. Not serious, like he said. Surprise fluttered through him at how relieved he was. Some of the tension seeped away as he straightened, leaning on Tam’s seat. Vost glanced back like he didn’t like having someone right behind him, but Jael gave two fucks for the merc’s comfort zone.
He’s got to know he’s on the razor’s edge now. The asshole just cashed in his value.
Setting aside the question of whether he should execute Vost, he peered out the screen. The transport he’d arrived on didn’t have a viewer, so he’d only seen the station from the inside, where it looked like a maze and felt like hell, but it was hard to get a sense from the internal schematics. For a few seconds, he just soaked it in.
Perdition was a massive, steely structure, H-shaped, with levels that rotated slowly to create their own gravity. He had no idea what the center level had been used for during the place’s mineral-refining days, but based on the central location, it seemed likely the executives had apartments there. Currently, dark spots and jagged holes pocked the surface, and blinding flashes popped all over, hinting at more explosions.
“It’s collapsing,” he said.
“And that’s a problem for us,” Vost replied.
“Yeah.” Dred came up behind them, rested her head on Jael’s shoulder, and stared at the station they all hated. “Before, you mentioned a shrapnel wave . . . ?”
“When Perdition blows completely, there won’t be a shock wave like there would be with grav, but we still have to worry about light-energy displacement and the debris field.” Vost always sounded cranky when he explained things.
“What does that even mean?” Calypso demanded.
“That the farther we are,” Tam said, “the less likely it is that we’ll be smashed apart when Perdition goes boom.”
The tall woman made a face. “Ah. So . . . can this heap go any faster?”
30
Nice Knowing You
Tam tapped away on the handheld, ignoring the laughter coming from the central hold. While he needed more than estimates, the craft didn’t have the equipment, so there was no way to gather more data. Martine had yielded the pilot honors to Vost, and now they were hauling top speed away from the station. The fuel reactor hadn’t blown yet; if it had, Perdition would be disintegrating at a much faster rate. He couldn’t remember what the computer had said before or even how long it had been since the first warning.
Chain reaction imminent.
He didn’t want to alarm everyone else. They didn’t seem to realize how serious the danger, despite the comments Vost had made. But the merc commander obviously knew a fair bit about physics because tension flattened his mouth into a pale line, and his shoulders were hunched as he worked the control panel, trying to coax more speed out of the damaged engine.
“How does it look?” he asked quietly.
“Honestly? Not good. All my calculations indicate that we’ll still be in range when the station goes critical.”
“And the debris field will crack us open.” That was the probability the handheld kept predicting, too, no matter how he ran the numbers.
“We’re just not fast enough.” Vost slammed a hand against the arm of his chair, a muscle ticking in his jaw.
“Would lightening the load help?”
The merc cut him a look. “Don’t think I forgot you offering to open my throat, little man. Don’t get any bright ideas. You can’t space my corpse without endangering everyone on board.”
“True. We don’t have an airlock.” His disappointment was only partially feigned.
“Would it be better if we level with them?” Vost asked.
It seemed to be a sincere question.
Tam listened to the others talking. While he couldn’t make out individual threads of conversation, he caught the bright spark of Martine’s laughter and the lower rumble of Jael’s voice, teasing her. Dred wasn’t saying much, but Calypso took up the slack. They’re so fragging happy. We beat the odds.
He sighed. “No. It’s not as if they can do anything. We’re already worrying enough for everyone, don’t you think?”
“I’m working the angles, like I always do. I’m not thinking about anything but getting out of range right now. I can’t promise we’ll live . . . but if we don’t, it won’t be beca
use I gave up.”
“It’s good to be in the cockpit with you.” To his surprise, he meant it. “But . . . I have a question.”
“As long as it doesn’t take much concentration, I’ll answer.” Vost adjusted a setting and the engine whined.
“Don’t kill it.”
“I won’t. What’s on your mind?”
“What happened with Keelah?”
A long silence.
“You say that like I know something.”
“Vost, you may be many reprehensible things, but I never imagined you were a man who murdered females for no reason.”
“Will you believe me if I tell you the truth?”
“I guess we won’t know unless you try.”
So while he ran hopeless numbers, he listened to Vost’s side of the story. Once the merc finished, he weighed the facts. “What did you hope to accomplish by giving her the codes?”
“I didn’t think she hated me so much . . . she never gave any sign of it. So one, I thought she could be my backup. If something happened to me—other than one of you lot sticking a shiv in me—you could still get off station. Honest to Mary, I thought she was the least likely to turn on me, so I gave up the info.”
“But she decided she’d rather end you.”
“Yeah. She’d scavenged a poison blade from Silence. Ask yourself, how the hell would I get my hands on something like that? All I did was turn it on her. And I didn’t enjoy doing it.”
“No more than you enjoyed inciting mass murder over the comm. Because it didn’t matter what we did to each other, correct?”
The merc’s uncomfortable silence told Tam he was right.
• • •
VOST had a thousand reasons to feel guilty, but Keelah’s death bothered him more than most. Because she never snarled at him, he hadn’t realized her true feelings. And because of that error in judgment, she died. If they survived, he could wallow in regret.
For now, though . . .
“You have kids?” he asked Tam.
“None that I know of.”
“Then I don’t expect you to get it. But if you had any, you’d understand.”
“What?”
“That I’m prepared to do anything to see his face again.”
Wordless, the other man nodded. He might not feel it in his heart, but maybe this was a starting point. If not, well, there’s nothing else I can say. Vost knew he was riding hard on the end justifies the means argument. He tapped the console.
Frag. Can’t go faster. Our time’s almost up.
Pushing the engines meant running out of fuel sooner, and as it was, they wouldn’t make it out of the system. Which had been chosen as the site for the prison because there was nothing else here. In passing through, he’d come across a satellite and rubble field, junk that Monsanto likely jettisoned ages ago, plus five or six depleted planetoids, none of which could sustain life and had been deemed unfeasible for terraforming. If there had been any more profit to be wrung from the area, the corporation would’ve done it.
In that moment, he felt incredibly small with the stars surrounding him . . . and trapped on a piecemeal junker with people who’d rather see him dead. Tam had said nothing after his confession, so he might have a knife with his name on it the minute he closed his eyes. Vost was prepared for that contingency, however.
If I live to make another deal with them.
He glanced out, and the brightest of lights practically blinded him. As Perdition died behind them, the big boom rayed out from the station in a widening sphere, a ghostly fireball with fluorescent echoes. The supercharged particles created a corona, shining through the ship even at this remove. Vost braced for the others to notice—to ask difficult questions.
“Why’s it so bright?” Martine yelled on cue.
Aiming a look, Vost let the other man field it. He kept quiet.
After a few seconds of reflection, Tam said, “Station fireworks. Enjoy the ride.”
Calypso cheered. Mary. The sound of palms slapping in back reached him. He didn’t feel good about keeping them in the dark, figuratively, since the whole ship was suffused with wild, potentially lethal illumination. When all that energy catches up to us . . .
“The reactor just went up,” he murmured.
More and more flashes, no sound. It was an impressive light show, even as the station crumbled. Whole sections whirled away. What had been an H turned into twin vertical axes, then they fell apart. Fear laced through him in a way he’d never known. He checked the readings, and sure enough, energy levels were rising outside and closing fast. The debris would be moving too fast for him to track it, let alone dodge it, and it wasn’t like this thing had any maneuverability. He tensed, listening to the moan of the engines; they were already giving a hundred percent. The cockpit was loud, and the cabin might not even be radiation-proof.
Yet another test I didn’t have time to do because these idiots thought I was more dangerous than the demented demolitionist running amok.
But he understood why now, at least.
So much fragging energy harnessed to keep that thing running. And now it’s unleashed.
Tam plugged the handheld into the console, then a holo appeared, prompting him to enter certain figures. “This’ll help me do the math.”
“Velocity, hull density and integrity versus solar wind and the debris field . . . did you factor for everything?”
“You know it’s not really solar wind, right?”
“Like verbiage matters right now.” Tense, he watched the numbers ticking away.
The other man sighed. “Fine, then. Yes, I input all the data we possess. Happy?”
“Not really.”
The simulation ran for precious moments; and then their likelihood of survival appeared. The bottom of Vost’s stomach dropped out.
“Nice knowing you,” Tam said.
• • •
AN icy wind ripped everything in two. The grim one comes. Death took her up in his arms and carried her up into infinity. For endless moments, she spun in his embrace, perfectly at peace. Then the burning began. It choked out her sense of him, and suddenly, she cut free.
Rebestah. I am Rebestah Saren.
She opened her eyes. The universe was bright and cold, nothing but stars. She could not breathe, but she had a name. A name, I have a name. It felt like awakening from a long, terrible dream. One blink, another, then it was all frost. Something burst and gave in her head.
Red. The reddest red.
Color. This is color.
Scarlet resolved into a lovely, slender woman’s skirt, blowing in a warm, flower-scented breeze. The sun shone like molten gold overhead, and the flowers had no end. Mother, she tried to call, but she was small, and the delicate white petals tickled her cheeks as she ran.
Laughter.
“Come and find me, Reba! Come and find me.”
She ran, smiling. The red skirt sparkled with threads of silver. On the summer wind, she smelled her father’s pipe, a sweet and savory smell that meant Mama had banished him from the house. She called it a filthy habit, smiling as she did so, and there were always hugs, afterward. She also smelled a sweetness, lovely yellow cake. The sky was so, so . . . what? She’d forgotten colors existed like this. They had names.
Blue.
Lemon yellow.
Green grass.
“Where are you?” No sound came out, but somehow her mother heard.
“I’m close, Rebestah. Come and find me.”
Someone had set tea and cakes out for her. She gobbled them down, and her father came running then. He twirled her up into his arms. And somehow, she fit against the curve of his hip. Other memories cascaded through her brain. It . . . hurt.
Remembering hurt.
Darkness flashed.
Skin.
Bone.
Stars.
It’s all broken.
“My darling girl,” her father whispered. “Come home.”
Then he dissolved into blood mist and his tongue flopped on the lovely clean grass. Tears burned her cheeks. It hurts. Why does coming home hurt?
She ran, and the flowers ate her. Their green stems grew tiny razor-fangs, each one snapping at her skin until there were divots missing. Why can’t I weep? Rebestah had no breath, nothing but pain.
I had a brother. Where are you, Duval?
And then he was there, so young and fresh. He tossed her in the air, once, twice, as he had in the days before. When she came down for the third time, his face peeled away, and a skull snapped its teeth, until she couldn’t bear it. She fled into the flowers though they gnawed at her, more, more. In the midst of the field, a tall tree grew, spreading branches and shade. Shelter, shelter me. For a few precious seconds she leaned against its trunk. The tree lowered its boughs and rammed a branch through her chest, then cord woven of human skin dropped from the sky and looped about her throat.
She couldn’t breathe.
No air.
No voice.
No more.
The rope broke.
Rebestah ran, but she had no strength. Beauty lies. It lies. The flowers ended in a crystalline pool with bright rocks sparkling beneath the water. Her mother, impossibly, waved to her from the bottom. Through the flickering surface, she saw the pretty furniture from their sitting room, the rug she used to sleep upon.
The pond sang, “Come and find me, Reba.”
She smiled and dove.
The dark let her go when she sank beneath the blue, floating, floating. When she sucked the water deep into her lungs, the red of her mother’s skirt spread around her.
Everything in the world washed clean.
31
Mercenary Behavior
Dred couldn’t take her eyes off Perdition’s destruction, still visible behind them.