allies and enemies 02 - rogues (9 page)

“I don’t care. I owe you now.” It was a sudden ferocious growl. “Get up.”

She snapped her eyes open. He wasn’t focused on her. He peered down the hallway, the direction that they had just come. His eyes tracking something.

“More are coming.” He pulled her to her feet. “Move.”

Her strides were poorly matched to his as they sprinted. At each new T-junction, Korbyn paused just long enough to trigger the hatch closed behind them. He was buying time, slowing down their pursuers.

How many Zenti were left? After the five that I…

You didn’t do it. Tyron did.

They reached a larger corridor and he pulled her back before she could make it out into the open. He shoved her against an alcove. She drew in a breath, ready to protest, and he slapped a hand over her mouth. It was reflex, an unthinking motion on his part. Erelah braced herself for the painful wave that came from the connection with him. Skin on skin, the thing that triggered the Sight.

Nothing
.

She twisted away. Korbyn didn’t seem to notice. His attention was ahead, their destination.

“Too easy.” He leaned back into the alcove.

He noticed her startled expression. “What.”

Nothing had happened with that contact. No Sight. No pain. She tested, pushing out to him just the slightest. Nothing. It was as if he were
not there
.

She shook her head. Keeping the revelation to herself. “Why do we wait?”

“This is the last passage to the aux hangar where that bird of yours is stowed.”

Then why—

A subtle shift undulated the deck underfoot. The cycle time of the engines slowed. Dead stop.

“I think we’re about to be boarded—”

There was a sudden spine-snapping jolt to the deck, the walls. Erelah toppled. The grate chewed into her palms. An ear-splitting complaint of metal echoed around them. A popping nestled against her eardrums with the change of air pressure. A breach warning warbled into life, aged and uneven. Scratchy with static on disused speakers, an automated voice reported in Regimental a breach on a level and section that meant nothing to her.

“Boarding lancet,” Korbyn spat.

“They still
use
those?”

That was absurdly outdated tech, as dangerous to the users as it was to the ship being attacked. The flash of confusion in his eyes was gone just as soon as it had appeared.

There was a sensation of more grinding metal on metal, sudden violent shudders in succession. The sound drew closer like the slow march of a giant.

Safety bulkheads. At least something worked on Korbyn’s boat. They’d seal off access to the bay, to the stryker. There’d be no way out then. If whoever was attacking was enough to make Korbyn nervous, she wanted none of it.

“Out of time,” he hissed. His back was to her while he prodded at the screen of a malfunctioning interface.

This was her only chance. Erelah pushed off the wall and ran.

16

Faster!
Erelah rounded the corner into the bay, Korbyn somewhere in her wake.

Move! Maybe if I get to the stryker first…

Keeping low, she slipped into the hanger, half-drenched in shadow. One glimpse of the sleek lines of the
Jocosta
poised in the center of the deck and a spike of relief shot through her. A dark figure darted beneath the vessel’s wing. Erelah dodged behind the wasted hull of an atmo runner.

She risked a quick look from her hiding spot. The uncertain light picked out the man’s features. Spivey!

The deck lurched, throwing her into plain view. The pressure change pushed at her eardrums, a precursor to the shutting of the cargo bay’s emergency bulkhead.

She scrambled back into hiding. Panic squeezed her lungs. Had he seen her?

The thud of a heavy tread announced Korbyn’s approach. He’d made it inside before the bulkhead shut.

Even if she could get to the
Jocosta
there was no guarantee she could find the remote frequency for the cargo doors in her lifetime. So much for making it to the
Jocosta
without him.

Now what?

Darting into the open space of the hangar would make her an easy target for Spivey or other Zenti lurking nearby. Going back wouldn’t work. There was a third option. She squirmed beneath the low-slung belly of a derelict runner and tucked her legs against her chest.

Heart thudding, she watched as heavy boots approached in a purposeful stride. They slowed, drawing a path along the runner’s side.

Was that Korbyn? Or Spivey? In her scramble, she’d lost track.

Erelah pulled herself further along under the runner. Her hands encountered a puddle of something warm and wet. She squinted in the dimness. Blood. She shuddered. The body of a Zenti lay nearby. Beyond him lay two more. It had been a butchering.

Had the mutineers turned on each other? The quiet, reasoning part of her did not care. It meant fewer of them to outrun.

Breathing in shallow gulps, she watched as the boots paused. Then they took up stride again, heading around the aft of the runner. A brief flutter of relief washed over her. The plodding pace continued to her left then along her flank. The footsteps paused. Forced to lie on her stomach in the confined space, she could not turn completely around. Moving her lips in silent prayer to Miri, she struggled to listen over her pounding heart.

Silence followed.

Then, slowly, another footfall. And another. Moving away. The spring of panic in her chest uncoiled. She cautiously exhaled the breath she’d been holding.

Rough hands latched onto her ankles, dragging her out with undeniable strength. She screeched into Spivey’s victorious grin.

He planted a foot on her sternum, pressing down. The air left her lungs in a wounded rush.

“Gotcha! Where’s Korbyn then, girl?”

She rolled from beneath his boot and propelled herself into a corner against the hull of the runner.

“Right here.” Korbyn appeared over Spivey’s shoulder. The Zenti turned in time to catch a heavy coil spanner across his jaw. There was a distinct cracking sound. A spray of warm droplets peppered her face.

“Running off a smart move?” Korbyn hissed, pulling her to her feet.

She was still catching her breath when she saw the dark shape move over Asher’s shoulder. Sensing her shift of attention, he turned and caught the butt of a rifle against his temple. He collapsed to the floor, thick blood already pouring from his face.

The shape was a Eugenes male, built like a mountain. Red hair sprouted from his head in a wiry brush and a heavy beard woven into ratty braids ran down his chest. He reeked of stale rum and sweat.

The giant prodded Asher’s body. “Welcome back, brother. Lucien’ll be glad to see you.”

He spread a crazed grin at Erelah. “Today just gets better and better, don’t it?”

17

Asher drifted between pain and swimming grayness. Heavy hands moved him with graceless trundling. Then his body smacked against cold deck plates. Rough voices coughed out words. Throaty chuckles like growls. The shuddering thrum of a ship’s engine rattled his aching skull. Smaller, harsher, like a scrub runner, but with atmo engines.

After a time, there was the scratch of shifting fabric.

“Korbyn…wake up. Please.”
A voice filled with breathless panic. The girl.

He wanted to care, but found he lacked the power to do so. Things drifted from gray to black.

The blackness split open. He was aware of a silent muttering, a threadbare whisper woven into a familiar pattern of words. It evoked memories of restless bored mornings from his childhood of being forced to sit still and feign attention. A prayer. The constant rasp of it against his thudding skull was what finally goaded him to surface, if just to tell the annoyingly pious speaker to shut up.

He opened his eyes. Well, his left eye. The right was swollen, the view from it a halo-ridden haze. Inches from his face were boots, ones he recognized. The girl’s. Tilley. But that wasn’t her name. It was something she stole, just like she stole thoughts.

Her face was a pale mask above her knees. Eyes squeezed shut, lips moving in that now-unmistakable litany. A prayer to Nyxa for her mercy on the dead.

“I’m not dead. No use praying on it,” he croaked.

She gasped, instantly kneeling down over him. “Oh, thank Miri. I thought I was alone.”

Her voice was a fearful whisper, hard for him to hear with one ear pressed to the deck and the other filled with the complaint of the engines. He shifted, rolling onto his side, and found his hands bound at his back. They’d thought to bind his ankles too.

Splendid.

It was the hold of a runner, the interior stripped of grav benches or even gear harnesses for re-entry, what Ix’s men called the “pit” where they stuffed slaves.

“How long?” His jaw was a throbbing raw knot.

“What?”

“How long have I been out?”

“An hour…a little longer.” She swallowed. Her distrust seemed pushed aside; her shoulders sagged with relief. “I thought you were dead.”

“Day ain’t over yet.” He sat up, the move made awkward by the shackles. His head swam and then settled.

Her shaking hands brushed a clump of hair from her face. Mech-locks bound her wrists, impossible to pick without taking an inch of flesh with it. He wagered his were the same.

“These men. How many are there?”

The sound of raised voices came from beyond the shut hatch that led to the pilot’s den. She peered over her shoulder in that direction like a startled animal. The light through the small window carved a renewed fear on her face. Fresh tears wet her eyes.

“No. Focus. Look at me.” He nudged her knee. “How many?”

She nodded, the motion jerky. “Seven that I could see. There’s a big one they called Ott. I think he’s in charge. They’re bringing us to someone named Lucien.”

He cursed under his breath. Ott would have
volunteered
for this one. The sod had it in for him.

“You know him? Lucien?” she asked.

“Let’s say he’s going to be happy to see me in a rather murdery way.” Asher twisted around to rest against the bulkhead beside her. The effort renewed an ache in his ribs and reminded his headache to be a bitch. It was not helping, because he needed to think.

A seven-man team called for more than one runner. The a-grav was on, which meant they were still using the subs. Ott wasn’t stupid enough to risk using a flexer just to get back to Ix faster, especially if he’d used more than one ship. That meant maybe another four hours before they reached the
Jennali Noble
, Ix’s requisitioned vessel.

“Who is he?”

“One of the biggest warlords in the Reaches, sworn enemy of my Guild. And a monumental pain in my ass.”

“Oh Miri.” The panicky sound crept back into her voice. “What do we do?”

“I have a plan…I think.”

Her eyebrows drew up. “You
think
?”

“Did you talk to any of them? You say anything?” He angled around to face her.

Tilley shook her head, chewing her lip. “Because Tyron wouldn’t have.”

He frowned. She hung no explanation onto this comment and went back to staring in the direction of the pilot’s den, frozen like a cornered marsh hare.

Tyron.
The same name she had used when she took out the Zenti in the corridor. He could use that calculating coolness again, but it was not forthcoming, additional evidence that she lacked control over this ability.

“Tilley?” He leaned against her. “Hey. It’s important you don’t talk to them, any of them. They hear your fancy accent and they’ll know what they have, the way I did. You got it?”

She nodded, swallowing.

“What about you? Can you do that…thing? Like you did to me? The next time one of them comes back here, maybe?” An idea was forming under the blanket of ache in his brain.

“Sight-jack?” She shook her head. “It’s not working right. I feel weaker, sort of sick. It felt like I was coming apart.”

“Coming apart?” More evidence that she lacked an instruction manual. “I don’t—”

“All awake now, brother? Thought Ix would have to behead a man in a coma. No sport in that.” Asher recognized the meaty voice: Ott. The light from the pilot’s den outlined his monstrous silhouette.

The girl folded further into the bulkhead.

“Always great to see you,” Asher replied.

Ott moved with a speed mismatched to his lumbering shape. Asher braced himself in time for the kick to his ribs. He fell to his side with a labored gasp.

“That’s for Dida,” Ott spat.

“It was ages ago,” Asher grunted, straining to right himself.

“Still matters, Korbyn.” Snorting like a blood-mad bull, he seized the back of Korbyn’s jacket and shoved him to the deck face down.

Tilley uttered a strangled screech.

“Gonna learn you a little lesson about personal property. Thinking I’ll take what’s yours and make you watch,” Ott growled.

He was talking about the girl.

“I wouldn’t do that.” Asher rolled his face against the deck, tasting blood. From this angle he could see the girl wedged against the bulkhead, narrow chest heaving. Her stare danced between them.

“Why not?” There was an evil amusement.

“Ix gets first still, don’t he?”

“What he don’t know…” Ott pressed hard against his skull, punctuating.

Asher grunted. “But
I’ll
know. And the girl. It’ll be pretty much apparent that she’s been had.”

Tilley’s stare landed on Asher now. Her eyes widened further.

“Got yourself a velo hack there, Ott.
Prime
.” He sensed Ott’s hesitation and pushed on. “Snagged her off’n Delphix, right from under those Poisoncry witches.”

He prayed that Ott lacked the ability to calculate that the tech stronghold was too far from the
Mercy’s
location to have made sense. Any Poisoncry tech was a commodity you didn’t want damaged.

“Delphix? Don’t look like no engine hack.” Regardless, doubt crept into Ott’s voice.