Dragonfly (18 page)

“It is and you know it.” Dragonfly clenched his hands to keep them still. “What Verenski’s people did to you can’t be undone, okay? Get over it.
Madre de dios
, I should do us all a favor and put you out of your misery.”

Spider’s expression darkened, dangerous. “You know
nothing
about my misery—”

“We all know everything about your misery! It’s splattered all over the fucking Empire! How much revenge is enough, Lukas? When will you be satisfied? Ever?”

Every muscle in Spider’s body wound tight, like a tiger ready to spring, and his left hand darted for his weapon. But Dragonfly already had the jump on him, his little atomflash straight and level. Very sharp. I hadn’t even known he had that.

“Try it,” he snapped. “We’ll both die. That what you want?”

My muscles jerked tight, but too late. Lux had already whipped his poisongun from nowhere, leveling it at Dragonfly with one eye tilted over the sights, and Vish snaked off the table and brandished an ugly nerve pistol.

Fuck.

If they shot Dragonfly, I’d be next. One weapon against four. Not good.

“Hell, why not?” Spider said. “God knows I’ve nothing better to do any more.”

He advanced, pulling out his disruptor and switching it to his right hand. It quivered as he aimed, and he cursed and clenched his fingers tighter.

I didn’t think. I just dived into the middle, arms outstretched. “Whoa. Chill on the testosterone, guys. Let’s talk about this like grown-ups.”

Dragonfly’s aim didn’t waver. “Lazuli, get away.”

His stupid courage impressed me. It also pissed me off. Maybe just because I was standing on the bridge of a rebel battleship with four weapons simultaneously pointed at my head because of him. But for a kick-ass terrorist figurehead, he was dumbfuck careless with his own life.

“Yeah,” I snapped, “because us all shooting each other is really going to help at this point.”

Silence.

Then Spider laughed, dark and rich like coffee. “Keep this one, Sash. She suits you.” But he didn’t lower his weapon.

Dragonfly sighed and let his aim slip, and the creeping tension in the air melted away. “Fine. Torture that girl if it makes you feel good. Do whatever you want with her. I don’t care. Just leave me out of it.” And he pushed Lux’s poisongun aside and stalked away along the battlebridge.

I didn’t know what else to do but follow.

***

I caught up with him as he jammed his finger on the door switch at the far end, and his stormy mood swamped me like a thundercloud. He wouldn’t look at me. Didn’t speak. Didn’t even acknowledge I was there.

I waited until the door ground shut behind us, and then I turned on him as we walked, the anger boiling tight in my chest finally exploding. “Are you insane? What did you say to me about little things? Are you
trying
to get yourself killed?”

He glared, hot and dark. “Why do you care?”

“Are you kidding? If they shoot you, I’ll be next. I swear, if you die before we get off this ship, I’ll bloody well bring you back so I can kill you again.”

The emotion in my voice surprised me, and my throat caught as we stalked down the warm red-lit corridor, almost too fast for me to keep up. I’d been threatened, insulted, chased, shot at. Guess it’d been a tough day.

Dragonfly scraped back sweaty hair, muscles roping tight in his forearms. “Spider’s like a child. He has to have his own way. Just let him do his thing, and when he’s done he’ll drop us off somewhere—”

“But what about Natasha?” I demanded. “You said yourself Spider will kill her. We can’t just leave her here!”

“Why not?”

My mouth dried. “Excuse me?”

He flashed me a dark glance, and it chilled me. “Toughen the fuck up. Lukas is right. She’s a snotty rich bitch who never wanted for a thing in her life. Why do you care if she dies screaming?”

I stopped, incredulous. This was a test, right? He was testing my loyalty to the rebellion? But he stopped with me, and there was none of that melting warmth in his gaze. His chocolate eyes had set cold and hard and empty, drained of every soft and giving gleam.

My hands twisted. “Umm …”

“Gotta hand it to Lukas—it’s a good joke, yes? That admiral will have to sit on his fat, dumb hands while his daughter dies. Hell, we should just kill her now and get it over with.” His mouth curled in a tiny smile, but no humanity lurked in it. Only sharp, animal hatred.

My stomach sickened. I opened my mouth, and nothing came out. And that’s when it hit me. I’d actually believed it. I’d believed in him. The man who’d killed Mishka and my friends. For some stupid reason, I’d truly thought he might be different.

But he wasn’t. He just did what he had to, no more and no less. He hadn’t stopped Spider from killing me on Vyachesgrad because he gave a shit. He hadn’t kissed me in Esperanza’s docking ring because he didn’t want to kill those trolls. He just had a hard-on for Lazuli in her cute tight shorts. He’d been trying to impress me and, like a naive rookie with stars in her eyes, I’d fallen for it.

Worse. I’d wanted to fall for it. I’d let him lead me on when all along I’d known he had ice in his heart.

My pulse thudded hot, and all the awkwardness I’d ever felt around him came spearing back like a poison dart. I tried a smile, but it misfired. “So all that about it not being worth a life was bullshit?”

“What did you think? That fighting the Empire is black and white? That you can keep the moral high ground and stay alive?” He laughed. “Grow up, little girl. This is the real world. If they won’t see sense, we have to hit them where it hurts.”

I edged away. “Then why did you punch Spider, if you don’t care what he does with Natasha?”

“I don’t like being lied to.” He shrugged, careless, but his gaze stabbed a threat. “You might want to remember that.”

Suddenly I was very aware of the atomflash just a quiver from his talented left hand.

Did he suspect me for an Imperial agent? I didn’t know. But he could have killed me any time, only he’d spared me, for some dark and twisted reason of his own. I was damned if I’d wait around any longer to find out what it was.

I swallowed, tight. “You don’t trust me.”

“You’ve given me no reason to. You’re soft, Lazuli. You talk a good fight, but when it comes to doing what’s necessary, you cringe away. Frankly, I don’t have time to walk you through this. Either you’re in or you’re out.”

I nearly punched that smug little smile off his face. “Fine. Don’t let me keep you. We’re even, Sasha. Next time Spider tries to kill me, don’t do me any favors.”

And I stalked back toward the bridge, my eyes stinging warm.

20

I ignored the rest of the crew as I marched into the elevator and slammed my fist on the button. Vish giggled—when was that skinny redhead ever not giggling?—and Spider sent me a handsome smirk that hacked at my nerves. Even Gus the cat yawned and eyed me with disdain as the elevator door snapped shut. I half-expected them to stop me, and ask what I was doing, but they didn’t. They probably thought we’d had a lovers’ tiff.

I banged my skull back into the rippled metal wall, my nerves fraying. They could think what they liked. I was done listening to Dragonfly’s bullshit. He was everything evil I’d thought he was, and worse. I didn’t want to breathe air he’d touched for a moment longer than I had to.

I fumed, kicking the grated floor as the elevator sank to the sublevels, red digits flashing on the display. Director Renko could go to oblivion with
short of termination
. I’d kill the lying son of a spaceworm the next safe chance I got. Look him in the eyes as he choked to death on shatterglass. Win my promotion to black ops, get a set of telescopic cyber-retinas, and spend the rest of my career wearing tight black body armor and shooting insurrectionists in the back. They deserved it, the entire rotten-hearted lot of them.

Not that I was furious with myself, or anything. Not that I was melting with embarrassment that I’d fallen for Dragonfly’s lies even for an instant. Nikita would laugh his handsome blond butt off.

But I didn’t have time to cringe about that now. I needed off this madhouse of a ship, and I wasn’t leaving Natasha Verenskaya behind. Even if she was a snotty rich bitch, the kind of superior, self-obsessed whiner I’d always despised. Of no use to anyone. Part of the problem, with her stupid racism and thoughtless arrogance. That wasn’t the point. I was an Imperial operative. It was my job to save her, even if she wasn’t particularly worth saving.

But my skin itched, uncomfortable. I might have to kill Spider’s crew to get her out. Four lives for one. And even I had to admit, some wildly creative minds lurked on this ship. Involuntarily, I recalled Dragonfly with glowing symbols reflecting in his eyes as he tossed off a string of math only a few hundred people in the galaxy were capable of. Carrot-headed Vish flashing a six-crew battleship on his own. Even Lux, the shuttle pilot from hell. How much waste was an ignorant teenager worth?

I shook my head, clearing my mind. That decision wasn’t mine to make. I had standing orders, and they said
Protect the Empire at all costs
. A bunch of cocky rebels meant nothing.

At last, the elevator jerked to a halt, and I marched out into the mess hall, its rows of gleaming silvermetal benches neat and deserted in the dark. Only safety lights along the bulkheads shed any illumination, and pools of shadow hung close under the low ceiling. Spider and his ratty geniuses were smart enough to conserve power at least.

Metal scraped behind me, and I whirled. Shadows danced, empty. No one.

I breathed deep, calming my skipping pulse. Guess I was getting jumpy.

I headed for the galley at the far end, where arclights buzzed in the refrigeration system. I’d done enough time on battleships to know where everything was, at least as far as the enlisted marines’ quarters, the armory, the dropship bays and the brig were concerned. Ask me for directions to the officers’ wardroom and I’d be stumped. Briefly I wondered where Spider and his crew slept.

I ripped open the diagonal clasps of my marine uniform so I could pull it off my shoulders and tie the arms around my hips. It felt alien, too tight, and underneath my black top was plastered to my skin with sweat. The temperature in here wasn’t helping. Whoever Spider had put in charge of climate control obviously came from a jungle planet, because the air hung hot and stifling, the smell of warm septurium alloy thick.

I rounded the corner into the galley to see Foxy Lady scraping some crumbling freeze-dried stuff from a plastic ration packet into a pot, her face a mask of concentration under her spiky pale hair. Her laser rifle lay within reach on the metal bench.

On the floor, Natasha crouched in her long coat, her wrists smartcuffed to a bolted-down table leg. Her gaze darted from me to Foxy, sizing us up. She swallowed, wiping hair from her face with a trembling forearm. “Please. Let me go. I haven’t seen anything. I won’t tell anyone. Just don’t let them—”

“Shut up, bitch.” I kicked at her ankles, hoping it looked harder than it was.

Maybe she thought I was on the good side. Maybe she thought she’d get sympathy from the women on the crew. Whatever it was, I didn’t want Foxy thinking I had any pity for Imperials. I needed her to leave me alone with Natasha, just for a moment, so I could tell the girl what would happen next.

Problem was, I didn’t know what to do next. Getting her off this ship was difficult. We were in slipspace, which made using a marine dropship a bad idea. As soon as we lost velocity, we’d pop out into real space, and depending on our trajectory that could be anywhere. Dropships had only arc-rocket propulsion and no slipspace drive, and drifting in space with a sullen teenager at the mercy of whatever horny, slipmad pirate happened to come by wasn’t my idea of a rescue.

No, I needed a ship with its own slipdrive. A shuttlecraft or a fighter. Not the sort of thing Spider was likely to let me saunter off with. And not easy to steal alone. I didn’t like my chances of luring any of his sycophantic crew turncoat. Except Dragonfly.

I shivered, warm with remembered wrongness. The less I thought about him, the better.

I pointed at the rations. “Mind if I share?”

Foxy shrugged lean shoulders, wary.

I peered into the pot as she dripped in water to make it go further. Rice and corn. I remembered the packaged food from my marine days, wrapped in flexible freezeplastic, designed to last for weeks in a soldier’s kit. You ripped the packet open and a tiny atomflash went off inside, heating the food on the spot. But it always tasted better from a real cookpot.

Foxy sparked the arcburner on one of the stoves and slapped the pot over the red-hot glow, and the salty smell made my mouth water. I hadn’t eaten since that deadmeat kebab on Vyachesgrad, and it seemed like weeks ago.

“Got any grapefruit?” I asked.

“Huh?” Foxy poked at the grey mixture with her fork, doubtful.

“The fruit salad pack. They taste good together. Here.” I rummaged in the half-empty ration bin and came up with a yellow packet, dented at the corners but unbroken. They hadn’t changed in seven years. This one was out of date, but they often were. Hadn’t killed me yet. I cracked the corner and squeezed the sticky fruit mixture into the pot.

Foxy stirred, licked the fork and grunted, flicking me an empty glance. “Not bad.”

I nodded, careful not to smile. She didn’t seem the sort to make instant friends. Still, she hadn’t shot me yet. That was a promising sign.

I fetched three clean bowls from the big stainless dishwasher—it was nearly empty, with dirty dishes stacked head-high on the bench beside it—and Foxy dumped in our dinner with a big spoon: two large helpings and one small.

Natasha got the small one. Another promising sign.

The girl looked at her dinner bowl where Foxy had set it on the floor, away from her cuffed hands. “Can I have a spoon?”

Foxy didn’t look at her. “No.”

“But I can’t reach. Can you—”

Foxy shoved the bowl toward her with one toe. “You want it or not?”