allies and enemies 02 - rogues (25 page)

“Dr. Northway, this is very important. Where’s the other female brought here with you?”

58

At least the rains had stopped.
Asher snorted.

The pain retreated to a dull ache and he barely registered the squish of blood in his boot. Everything took on the quality of the distant and unimportant. Erelah watched from her nearby hiding spot. The pinched look on her face made him realize just how much zoning out he was doing. He shook his head to clear it. It enlivened the buzz in his ears and sent the landing field into a spin.

The approach had been the girl’s idea. He spotted the cluster of figures in the distance, near the installation’s main hangar. There were few details, but the huddle represented the remains of the Guildsman picket. One of them was dressed in a cloak. Ulrid.

The man had the luck of a scythe cat.

He noted a slender figure dressed in dingy blue. Northway.

That was why Erelah froze. He could practically hear her resolve crumble.

A new set of figures spread onto the field. The Human soldiers moved with the same impressive stealth. Things were lining up for a final confrontation. Asher did not want to be there for it or the aftermath.

“She sent for them,” he said.

“I know. But this doesn’t seem right. There’s something not…
right
.” Her mouth pressed into a flat grimness as she studied the field. He could imagine the calculations, probabilities playing out behind those wide green eyes.

Northway would return to her people, dangerous as they seemed. This was what the healer wanted. So why did Erelah have such hesitation? None of it was their problem. But if they waited long enough, it would soon be. Each moment that ticked by was another they could not spare.

“Erelah.” He waited until she looked up at him. “Now. Or it’s too late.”

Her reply was a stiff nod. She stepped out from behind the crate and into full view of the field. “I should stay.”

He bolted upright. Pain lanced down his side. “What—”

A volley of shouts echoed across the field. The words were indiscernible. He watched the flash of a pulse round strike a figure. More fierce barks of the Human weapons answered. There was a red plume of blood. Several more figures collapsed to the mud.

Asher dove forward, looping his free arm through the girl’s. Fresh pain ripped along his flank. He forced her into a sprint with him across the open field. She kept pace but her attention was still riveted in Northway’s direction.

They crossed into the open field. No cover nearby. He felt the itch between his shoulder blades.
There. Right there is where they’ll shoot me.

The ungainly slope of the vessel stuck out against the gunmetal sky like the carcass of a mammoth tortoise. Erelah had picked it out: a Cassandra.
Insisted,
was the more accurate word.

The mid-body hatch was blessedly unlocked.

Asher forced her as far as the threshold when her pale hand clutched its edge. She drew in breath perhaps to protest once more, but faltered.

From across the field more shouts. They’d been spotted.

Pops dinged off the heavy shield plating of the Cassandra’s hull. The Human’s ballistic rounds dotted the mud of the field, leaving tiny craters.

Asher pulled her hand from the frame and shut the hatch behind them. Heavy thuds struck the outside. He turned to check her, see if she’d been hit, but she was already darting to a larger passage, her moves certain.

He let the bulky alien weapon clatter to the deck. His legs were leaden as he pulled himself along to the passage. He paused at the junction to the main passage. Asher had never been on such a vessel in his life. Yet a vacant familiarity pressed in around him.

He scoffed, realizing it was
her
memories. Erelah knew a different Cassandra. Her brother’s.

The walls shimmied. The engines roared and the deck canted at an unhealthy angle. Asher pitched against the bulkhead. He slid down and braced himself with legs and arms between the frame and the wall. There was another shift and the engines uttered a startled whine as they fought Volgen’s gravity.

He dared the deck to move again. A right turn would lead him to the galley, crew quarters and ultimately the cargo hold. To the left lay the short ladder to the command loft, an option that might as well have been in a distant solar system. The thought of scaling those four short rungs made the muscles in his injured side seize painfully.

He steeled himself and climbed back to his feet.

Get the navsys set. And then you can curl into a dark hole somewhere—

The flicker of movement at his right. He threw himself back, but the massive form still hit him hard. His side struck the wall. Agony stole his breath.

Ceric’s fist caught him in the throat.

Asher’s lungs seared. He drew in a desperate gulp of air and tackled Ceric’s legs just as a jolt shook the entire ship. They fell to the deck, side by side.

A metallic clatter nearby. Asher saw it. A combat knife.

His eyes met Ceric’s. They both scrambled for the blade. Ceric was faster, uninjured.

The knife plunged in a vicious gleaming arc. Asher rolled. Metal bit metal near his ear. The blade was wedged into the deck plate.

He pushed up, driving an elbow back into Ceric’s exposed torso as the man struggled to free the knife. Asher scrambled to his feet, fighting another drunken jolt from the ship.

What the Sceelah was she doing up there?

Ceric’s foot lashed out, tripping him up. Asher toppled forward. Gripping a junction box, he managed to stay upright. The action sent another shriek of pain up his flank. He rolled along the wall to face Ceric and leveraged a kick. Mistimed, it fell short. Ceric dodged easily and moved in. They grappled. Another lurch of the deck sent them both to the opposite wall. Something heavy slid against his boot. It was the boxy Human rifle.

The distraction was enough to give Ceric an opening. His forearm snaked around Asher’s throat and squeezed. Asher reached for the rifle, taking Ceric’s weight on. Something in his back popped. His fingers danced across the grip of the weapon. A punch drove electric pain into his left flank.

“For Selto,” Ceric growled. The grip on Asher’s throat tightened. Bright red bloomed before his eyes. He clawed at the arm. His strength crumbled as his lungs screeched for air.

He’ll kill her next. A bad death. She doesn’t deserve that.

The thought renewed his struggles, but not enough to make a difference. Black certainty washed over him.

Yellow light burst the dim. The arm looped around his neck twitched, then went limp. Ceric’s lifeless weight dragged him to the deck.

“Korbyn.”

He followed the voice. It was as if he were at the bottom of a well.

Erelah was a pale face above him framed by a wild spill of dark hair.

“Stay awake. Stay with me.”

Throat on fire, he drank in one greedy breath after another. She tugged on him, muttering frantic things. Finally, he relented and rolled into a seated position against the wall. The world resettled like a joint popping back into place. Ceric’s body lay in a spreading pool of blood. Half his face was a charred ruin.

She still clutched the pulse gun. He guided it from her grip.

That’s twice now she’s saved you.

“Not rid of me yet,” he choked.

She sat on her heels. “Good. Because I need you.”

He smirked. “Didn’t think you were interested.”

“That’s
not
what I meant.” Her mouth compressed. “The navsys doesn’t make sense. I cannot get a lock on any of the flexers.”

“And I thought you cared.”

She flashed a sour look.

With limbs a thousand times too heavy, he stood up. The girl at first tried to help, but he waved her off. She darted up the ladder to the command loft. He pulled himself up after her. At the top, he sagged, resting his head against the railing. Gravity seemed to shift, rocking him back toward the open space of the corridor below.

She gripped his shirt, pulling him back.

He heaved onto the loft and practically toppled over onto her. This time he did allow her help. Her frame trembled with the strain. They shambled over the lip of the sunken grav bench where he collapsed with a painful grunt.

“All the FPs are locked out. They’re there. But
not
there.” She slid the interface forward.

Asher saw the navsys settings. She was clever enough to have forced an override. It was a good thing she hadn’t. The rads of a collapsed FP could cook a crew in seconds.

“Thing to know about the Reaches.” He thumbed through the frames. “It’s always trying to kill you. Even the empty places between the stars.”

The velo could get them through the Ironvale’s only working flexer in this region. Ulrid’s outpost didn’t even merit a manned Poisoncry picket. A quick glance at the sensory horizon told him what he had guessed. It was unmonitored. But for how long? They had to be quick.

The girl was watching him, waiting for some trick.

Asher had none left.

His fingers hesitated over the screen.

He completed the sequence for the destination.

It was the only place left.

Home.

59

“Here.” Erelah pulled at his duster, trying to peel it off him. “Get this off.”

Asher caught her wrists. “Easy. If you want to see me naked, just ask.”

“Do you ever
stop
?” She gave an exasperated grunt. “I have Rachel’s medikit here. You’re no good to me dead.”

He leaned forward and allowed her to tug the duster down his shoulders. Erelah stepped across his legs. In the tight space, she was forced to straddle them. She leaned across the bench to reach the heavy black duffel of equipment. For a brief moment, her torso pressed against him. He cleared his throat and turned his head aside. She glared at him, daring him to make another off-color comment. The bag thunked to the bench.

Biting her lip, she peeled his shirt away. There was so much blood. Much of it seemed to have dried. The wound was not too deep, merely long and ragged.

The foreign memories flooded her, woven together.

Atilio, bleeding out on the altar. Valen, joking about the cell-seal to hide the depth of his injury.

She shook her head, trying to force the Tyron-memories away.

If anything, get the Sight to work for me. Just once.

Rachel.
She wanted those memories, her skills as a healer. She forced herself to concentrate, pulling at the threads and errant fragments of memory until she found Rachel’s.

There: she found what she needed. Her hands plunged into the bag. She withdrew the slick packaging of the wound prep agents.

Korbyn had been staring at her. For how long? She had expected another crass innuendo, but there was a strange softness there.

“Where are you taking us?” She unwrapped the packet. A sharp twist activated the pain pharms and adhesives that would seal the wound. He was big. She had to guess how much of the pharms to embed in the seal. Too much would make his breathing stop.

“Narasmina.” His voice sounded thicker, somehow defeated.

“Why there? Why not Hadelia? To Jon.”

An edge entered his voice. “Poisoncry controls the flexer there…all the flexers. Even using this one was a risk, but Narasmina’s small, hardly worth the bother.”

The way he said the name—Poisoncry—made it sound layered with threat.

“Why is Poisoncry such a problem? I don’t understand.” She grabbed a clean bundle of gauze and dabbed at the wound.

“I forget. You’re not from here.” He clenched his teeth as she worked. “It all gets mixed up: what part’s your memory and what part’s mine. Only Poisoncry has the tech to open and close the flexers. Ironvale and Splitdawn are mighty, but it’s really Poisoncry that controls the Reaches.”

She sank back, satisfied that worst of the blood was gone. “How’d they even get so powerful?”

“Poisoncry Guild holds the tech—the bases, labs, the kennels. Ironvale had most of the shipbuilders and what remained of Fleet. And Splitdawn had the soldiers, powered armor, infantry. When the Collapse came, that’s how the power settled. Guilds just grew that way.” It was odd hearing the gravity in his voice as he described something that Origin considered only a footnote to an embarrassing insurrection.

She spread the bandage between her hands, poised over the gash. “This is going to hurt.”

He nodded. “I know.”

Erelah slapped the seal into place over the wound, using perhaps a little more force than necessary. There was a faint hissing sound as the substrates bonded with the exposed wound.

Korbyn yelped. “Nyxa! Warn me first, right?”

“I did.”

He twisted, placing his free hand over the seal, testing. His spine softened with relief as the pain-killing pharms kicked in. He gave her a drowsy smirk. His eyes half-lidded. “Dosed me…clever you.”

Within a few minutes, his chin drooped to his chest. Soon his breathing was slow and deep. A small part of her felt guilty about tricking him. There was a greater element of satisfaction in finally feeling in control of her circumstances.

She maneuvered to sit at his side on the bench. His annoyingly ever-present duster took up half the space. With a satisfied grunt, she tossed it aside. Metal struck metal as something fell from its voluminous folds to the deck.

Twisting in the tight space, she groped blindly along the floor. Claiming the item, she pulled it into the full light of the console.

It was the
Jocasta’s
jdrive.

Erelah drew in a shaky breath. “You really were just coming back for your coat.”

Korbyn’s voice was still drowsy. He shifted, fumbling for her, his moves uncoordinated. “It’s not like that. Not anymore.”

“Rachel was right about you.” Erelah avoided him easily. She stepped across his outstretched legs.

“If you could see it the way I did. It was a way back for me, but Ironvale would use this, for good. To make things right. To break Poisoncry’s power.” There was a raw plea in his tone. Why did he still bother to pretend?