I nod. “I can’t ask for any more than that.”
“On the contrary. One day, you will be able to. I hope we get there together.”
I nod again, but can’t say anything else. I’ve been disappointed way too many times in my life to believe we could end up being like family, which is what I think he’s offering. But that’s okay, because being a tight crew is good enough for me.
“What are you going to do about him?” Jeffers asks, switching focus to the clearpanel. He lifts a hand toward the float chamber and Macon inside it.
“Nothing for right now. Could you make sure he gets food and a place to sleep in one of the brig chambers?”
“I could. But maybe it would be better if you did that.”
I shake my head. “I can’t. He hates me.”
“He just needs time to heal. We all do.”
“Yeah. And in the meantime I have to worry about him stabbing me between the shoulder blades.”
Jeffers gives me a scolding look. “He had plenty of opportunity to do that before you found out who he really is, and he was never anything but willing and accommodating.”
“Yeah, when he was trying to get his hands on the disk and was waiting for his ride outta here.” I shake my head. “I love Macon, but I can’t trust him.”
“If you say so.” Jeffers bows and backs up a step. “I’ll go now if that suits you.”
I sigh. We’re back on formal terms, apparently. “Yes, it suits me fine. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
Jeffers leaves me on the flightdeck alone, and I sit there trying to figure out what to do next. Should I check out the progress made by my engineers and lieutenant? Visit the biogrid to see how Lucinda’s getting along? Take a nap and sleep off this crazy tea that’s still making me feel a little woozy? Move Captain Boob over to his dead ship and seal him inside? Beg forgiveness from the boy who I know will never give it?
I stand, my decision made based on the theory of which is the greater evil.
Chapter Twenty
STANDING OUTSIDE THE FLOAT CHAMBER, I watch Macon through the portal window as he stares into the abyss. I wonder what he’s thinking, if he’s planning my demise or waiting for the moment he’ll be released into the Dark where he’ll suffer a painful death. Maybe he’s thinking back to that moment in the challenge pit when I stood over him with my knife at his throat. I know that’s all I can think about now.
The door slides open, and I step over the threshold. “Macon.”
He doesn’t turn or say anything.
“Macon, I’m here to move you to another spot.”
“I’m fine here.”
It’s so strange to see him still being Rollo, but to hear him being Macon. I’ve never been so fully conned in my entire life.
“Well, I’m not fine with you here. Come on.”
I back out of the door, waiting for him to follow me. He takes his time about it, but eventually he’s there in the threshold, looking straight ahead. Eye contact is too much to expect, I suppose.
I gesture with my hand out. “This way.” My original plan to bring him to another holding chamber is suddenly overruled by my intense desire to make a connection with him. Any connection will do. I just need to keep him close…
He steps out and moves in front of me, walking as though he’s moving down death row instead of away from it with every step.
“Take a left up ahead, and climb the stairs on your right.”
He stops at the base of those stairs. “This goes up to the main deck.”
“Yes, it does.”
“I thought you were going to put me in the brig.”
“So did I.” I jerk my head up toward the top of the stairs. “Go on. I don’t have all day.”
He ascends, looking down at me when he reaches the top of the short stairway. “You should probably put me down below.”
When I come up behind him, he moves to the right to give me room to stand in the corridor next to him. I see this as a move toward peace, because he could have easily pressed the advantage and kicked me in the teeth; instead, he showed me he didn’t want to appear threatening.
“Why?” I ask. “You going to stab me while I sleep?” I stare at him, looking for the truth or a lie in his eyes.
A sad smile I remember well comes out from a face I still don’t recognize, effectively twisting my heart into a knot. The pain is intense.
“I’ve thought about it.”
“And?”
He shrugs.
“Come on.” I don’t wait for him to answer or follow, I just go down the hallway that leads to the chamber where I’ve settled in. I finally stop when I’m at the door next to my own.
“What’s this?” he asks.
“This is your room until we dock at the next station or you piss me off, whichever comes first.”
“But this is right next to your bunk.”
“Yeah. Exactly.”
“Aren’t you worried I’ll come after you while you sleep?”
“I have a lock.”
“Which I could easily disable, as you well know.”
He was always pretty good with that stuff in training. Better than I was for sure.
“I guess I’ll just have to take that risk.”
He looks at the two doors and deflates a little. “I get it. Keeping friends close and enemies closer. You haven’t forgotten your training, have you?” His smile isn’t friendly; it’s bitter and angry, and I don’t blame him for turning it on me.
“Something like that.” I put my hand on the keypad and the door slides open. The smell in the room is slightly stale, but thanks to the vacuum cycles, it’s clean. A bare bunk awaits.
“After you,” I say.
He steps inside, walking down the short ladder steps to the floor. When he’s fully inside, he turns to face me.
When I reach the bottom of the stairs, I call out to the compubot. “Adelle?”
“Yes, Captain?”
“The occupant of this room is Macon, formerly known as Rollo. You have his biorhythms in your system already.”
“Yes, I do.”
“He is to be kept in this chamber unless I come to retrieve him or give someone else the authority to do that.”
“Understood.”
“Adelle, Macon is a very accomplished lock and connections disruptor. He will more than likely try to escape this room.”
“What do you wish me to do if he attempts to do that, Captain?”
I stare at Macon and he stares back as I issue my response. “Alert me. And maintain current status of his location at all times.”
“As you wish, Captain.”
Macon sits down on the bed. “I guess I’m in the brig after all.”
I shake my head. “You are welcome to leave the room and assist the crew anytime you want. You just need to ask me first. You’re not a prisoner, you’re just being monitored.”
He snorts. “Big difference.”
I shrug. “It can be. It’s entirely up to you and how you look at it.” I rest my weight on one leg and cock a hip. “What did you expect? That I’d just forget that you snuck on here with ulterior motives?”
He plays with his hands, not looking at me. “I just did what I had to do to survive.”
Another twisting of my heart muscle. Ugh. Hurts. My voice softens. “I know. I get it. And some day I want you to tell me how you did that when you left the OSG.”
He shakes his head but doesn’t elaborate.
“Another time. I have things to do.” I back out of the room and at the last minute turn to go up the short steps. “Call me if you need anything.”
“A fritter would be nice.”
I smile without turning around. “Fritters are for crew. You want a fritter, go to work.” I leave without waiting to hear a response from him. I figure he needs some time to think about what I’ve said and to contemplate the situation he’s found himself in. He has to decide if he’s here to get along until it’s time t
o get off the ship, here to try and kill me, here to sell me out, or here to stay. I doubt very highly he’s capable or willing to select the last option, but everything inside of me is hoping he will anyway.
Chapter Twenty-One
MY NEXT STOP IS THE brig and the chamber holding Captain Boob. I mean Bob. Pressing the comm button outside the door, I lean into it so he’ll be sure to hear me. “Captain Bob. Ready to go back to your ship?”
I hear a rustling sound and then a voice coming from somewhere near the transmitter. “I was ready a couple hours ago.”
I roll my eyes. “You haven’t been in here that long.” I place my hand on the keypad and the door opens.
He’s standing right there, his big hulking form taking up almost the entire entrance. He sounded so cranky and tired when he spoke a couple seconds ago, I’m not expecting his hand to shoot out and grab me by the neck, but it sure as hell does, faster than I would have thought possible.
I try to scream, but my air is already cut off. He’s squeezing my windpipe with intent to kill, murder in his eyes as spittle flies from his mouth and he grunts his next words out. “I’ll teach you to disrespect your elders … try to take my ship? I think I’ll take yours instead.”
My leg shoots out without conscious thought, and my boot catches him in the thigh. Unfortunately, I missed the most sensitive spot between his legs, but my strike is strong enough to help loosen his grip and allow some oxygen into my lungs and brain. I take a deep breath before he tightens his fingers again and squeezes even harder, cutting off my air once more.
I gag as I try to pull in just a molecule or two of oxygen. It’s impossible; my windpipe is completely collapsed under his hand, and I know that even when he releases me, if he releases me, I’m still going to have a hard time breathing. There’s permanent damage happening under that iron grip of his.
Somehow, cold, rational logic seeps in to my oxygen-starved brain. This is no game, no simple lesson he’s trying to teach me. I’m going to die in less than two minutes if I don’t do something drastic.
He and I reach for my knife at the same time. I’m faster because I have more practice, and he has that cut on his other hand already slowing him down, thank the universe for that.
The handle’s in my fingers, and I’m closing them to get a better grip on it, but then his blood from his earlier injury starts flowing all over everything including my weapon and makes it too slippery. Just as I slide it free of the holder, it falls from my grip and lands on the floor.
His free hand comes up and bashes me across the face, first in one direction and then the next, managing to not only loosen a couple of my teeth, but also to fling blood into my eyes. I’m blinded, the terrible stinging making my lids slam shut automatically.
The feeling of my life draining away combined with my sudden blindness causes a panic to rise up in me like I’ve never known before. It takes me to another level of crazy, almost as if I’ve already left this realm and on my way to the next. I don’t even notice when my training takes over.
The first thing I do is attempt to knock his choking hand away with a short but sharp punch to his brachial artery. His arm bends at the elbow as the shock and then numbness hits him, but his hand doesn’t stop squeezing my neck. I have two seconds to wipe my forearm across my eyes and blink a couple times in an attempt to bring my opponent into focus before he’s raising his hand to punch me again. His fist makes contact and a ringing starts in my head.
Even while stars are floating in the air in front of me and a grayness is closing in on me, I still manage to see my chance when it comes, though. The arm attached to the hand choking me is bent from my earlier strike, bringing my target in just close enough for me to reach it.
My fist thrusts out to deliver a brutal, full-force punch to the mid-line of his sternum between the first and second ribs. I put everything I have into that hit, too, because I know my survival depends on it. Bones have cracked under the force of that maneuver in the past. I feel my own fracture at the middle finger, second joint.
Having suffered the excruciating pain that comes from this kind of hit in my own training, I’m not surprised when my opponent loses his grip on my throat entirely and bends forward at the waist, holding his chest and grunting. Right now he’s not only suffering the effects of a cracked rib or two, but his heart is probably experiencing a pretty severe arrhythmia. Booyah, asshole! That’ll teach you to crush my windpipe!
When the oxygen comes rushing back into my lungs and brain, I want to fall to the floor weeping with happiness and relief, but I can’t even take a moment to enjoy the feeling of my life force returning. This guy’s playing for keeps, and he’s not down for the count yet. Lucky for me, his temporary paralysis and bent-over posture put him in the perfect position for retribution. Time to end this game once and for all. I’m having flashbacks to the Level challenges I faced and won. It’s not pretty to be reliving my past like that, to be doing things here that I did there, but I’m not sorry. Because I’m not just protecting myself right now, I’m protecting my crew.
With that thought in mind, I bring my elbow down with all the force I have in me, delivering a crushing blow to his pulmonary plexus. With a wheezy grunt, he falls flat on his face at my feet, his neck exposed right next to my boot. How convenient.
My nostrils flare as I draw my leg back and tense my core muscles to deliver the kick of the century. His carotid artery is my destination, and I’m pretty sure I hit it when his entire body freezes in an arch of pain after I make contact. My foot is throbbing from the abuse I’ve just delivered to both of us. I think I’ve broken at least one toe.
Gurgling sounds start coming out of his throat, and his hands reach out, scratching at the floor as if to drag his body away; but their efforts are in vain. His body goes nowhere as his face turns almost blue.
I limp two steps back to put some space between us, wiping blood —both his and mine— from my face and eyes with my one good hand. I can finally see clearly again, and what lies before me fills me with equal measures of relief and regret.
He’s not going to be getting up anytime soon to hurt me. In fact, I don’t think he’s going to be getting up ever again. Pink foam gathers at the corners of his mouth as his body stiffens for a few seconds, bucks a couple times, and then goes slack. Blood from his hand pools over the grate beneath him, the sounds of the drops hitting the empty storage space below overly loud. Wet-sounding gasps pass through his lips and then nothing.
I don’t know how long it is before I hear boots nearby, but there are several and they’re coming fast. Tam is the first one to arrive, followed shortly by Gus and then Baebong.
“Holy shit … what the hell happened here?” Tam asks.
I look over to see him staring at me. There’s fear in his eyes, but I don’t know if it’s fear for my safety or in response to me.
Gus points at Captain Bob. “He doesn’t look good.”
Baebong doesn’t say anything. He just walks over and stands next to me, close enough that his arm is touching mine.
I pull strength from his presence. It’s then that the painful throbbing of my broken finger and toes makes it into my conscious brain. Definitely more than one toe is broken. Dammit.
“Did he attack you?” Tam asks, moving to face me a little more. He’s ignoring the body on the ground now.
I open my mouth to speak, but can only croak unintelligible words at him. My throat is swelling badly.
“Of course he attacked her,” Baebong says, sounding disgusted. “Look at her neck. Look at her face.”
I reach up to touch my throat, but Baebong takes my hand and holds it tight. “Don’t. You need MI or you’re going to be in trouble. Come on.”
The others move out of the way quickly as he pulls me behind him. When I limp and then trip over one of Captain Bob’s legs and almost go down, Baebong swings me up into his arms and holds me like a stupid baby.
I struggle to get away and yell at him, but all I manage to do
is sound and look like a dying goat.
“Just relax, would ya? Jesus, let a person help once in a while.”
I give up on getting away from him as he strides down corridors and up and down stairs with me in his arms. We finally arrive at the infirmary, a place I had yet to visit. And now here I am as a patient.
Jeffers looks up from what appears to be an inventory check. “What happened?” He moves over to join Baebong, the twins, and me at one of the two exam tables in the room.
“Captain Boob.” Baebong says.
I start to laugh but it hurts too much to continue, making tears prick my eyes.
“Look at her neck,” Gus says. “Looks like he put her in a noose and swung her around with it or something.” He leans in so close, I can feel his breath on my skin. He points as he stares and whistles. “Look at that swelling there. Damn. She’s lucky her neck wasn’t broken.” Apparently, my horrific injuries are fascinating.
“Lie back,” Jeffers says, pushing on my shoulder.
I try to listen, but as soon as I get past the vertical, I feel like I’m suffocating. I fight to right myself and hate the fact that tears break free and trail down my cheeks.
He nods. “Okay, okay, no lying back. I get it. Just wait here.” He turns his attention to Gus. “Help me find the supplies I need.”
Gus and Jeffers turn around, their backs to me, and Baebong moves to stand between my legs where they hang over the edge of the table. “You’re going to be fine.” He looks all over my body. “Is any of this blood yours?”
I shrug.
Tam points to my face. “She’s got that under her eye. And that next to her nose. That’s her blood there.”
Baebong squints. “Yeah. Not too bad, though. Maybe a couple stitches. I think most of this,” he gestures at my flight suit, “belongs to that fatass.”
“Good,” Tam says. He looks at Baebong. “You want me to be sure that guy’s dead?”