Nethereal (Soul Cycle Book 1) (6 page)

Jaren barely heard Nakvin’s words. His inhibition against outside contact gave way to the shrieking alarms in his head, and he touched the sapphire stud at his ear.

“Deim!”

“I hear you,” the junior steersman said from the
Shibboleth's
bridge.

“Put a call through to Tharis,” Jaren said in a voice that brooked no argument. “Get Teg on the line.”

Nakvin’s hand fell to her side. Though excluded from Jaren’s two-way conversation, the look she cast at him shifted from irritated to anxious as the seconds passed. Finally, Deim spoke two words that sent Jaren charging for the stairway. “No response.”

The others asked no questions before joining their leader’s sudden retreat.

“What's wrong?” Nakvin shouted as she ran beside him, her robes hoisted to her knees.

“We're going back to Tharis—maybe even in time if Deim breaks the speed record.”

Jaren sprang past Nakvin. Mounting the steps three at a time, he’d reached the middle of the spiral when someone screamed. He glanced over his shoulder and started.

Something had latched onto the last man in line. It resembled a giant bat, but its flesh was living, moving stone. The monster's fossilized talons gripped the underside of the steps above. Its ribbed wings enshrouded its thrashing victim. Dark runnels flowed from their serrated edges. Jaren stifled a cry when stalactite teeth sank into the man’s face, piercing his eyeball. A screeching growl issued from the rock bat's throat, harmonizing with its victim's cries.

“What the hell is—” was all Nakvin could say before the roar of Jaren’s rodcaster drowned out her voice. The blast of light and heat that accompanied the sound left a mash of glowing pebbles and steaming flesh strewn upon the stairs.

The stench of lightning and burned meat stung Jaren’s nose. He met his Steersman’s wide-eyed glare and ejected the spent shell with a flick of his wrist. “Keep moving,” he said.

Jaren’s men parted around him like a rock in a stream. He didn’t break eye contact with Nakvin until she gathered herself up and bolted past him.

When he was sure that the thuergs hadn’t left any other surprises, Jaren turned and leapt up the stairs. He burst through the ruined door, sprinted across the field, and cleared the
Shibboleth's
gangway mere seconds behind the others. He and Nakvin kept running.

“Take us up, Deim!” Jaren snapped as he charged onto the bridge.

To his credit, Deim didn’t hesitate. The
Shibboleth
leapt skyward, sending the vessel's crew and cargo teetering backward. Every color inverted as the ship plunged into the ether.

“Never transition so close to a celestial body!” Nakvin said.

“We’re going for the record, right?” asked Deim.

“Take us into the deep ether,” Jaren said.

While Deim focused on flying, Nakvin turned to the captain. “Are you sure?” she asked.

“We’ll get home faster.”

“Or a stray spark will blow us apart.”

“Right now, I just hope there’s a home to go back to,” Jaren said.

Teg stalked down an empty corridor deep within Melanoros. He slowed as he neared an intersection and dropped into a crouch about a foot from the corner. He held still for a second and listened, detecting the anxious breathing of two men.

Teg eased his head around the edge just enough to steal a quick glance at two of the guildsmen who’d invaded his home. The Enforcers stood shoulder to shoulder before the door, clutching automatic rifles. They hadn't noticed him.

When the Enforcers' breathing told him that their heads were turned, Teg pivoted around the corner, pressing against the cool rough wall to maintain the smallest possible profile. Even if the second man noticed him when the first fell, he would be startled and off-balance.

Teg took aim. The Enforcers’ leather long coats offered negligible protection. The matchbox-sized personal aura generators on each man's belt were another story. The fields they projected could dampen a blow enough to negate its lethality—as Teg knew from recent experience. His would-be killer had aimed well. If not for his PAG, he’d be lying in a shallow, dusty grave.

Teg squeezed his left gun's trigger twice, producing two subtle cracks. The first shot shattered the tiny box at the first man's waist. The next took him center of mass, and he fell.

As predicted, the slain Enforcer's partner wheeled toward the shots' point of origin. A burst from his rifle sent out puffs of acrid smoke, but the bullets flew high over Teg’s head.

Teg now had all the time in the world. He waited until his target was fully facing him. Then, with his dominant right hand he fired twice more with identical results to his first volley.

Teg scanned the intersecting halls in each direction before tending to his victims. He shot them both twice more—once in the chest and once in the head—before dragging their corpses into the alcove fronting the door they'd guarded. The effort set his wounded back to throbbing, but he didn’t let the pain distract him. He deposited the bodies out of harm's way; then crouched before the door and applied the Formula.

First, he concentrated all of his attention on the immediate vicinity, taking in every detail and making certain that nothing seemed out of place. When none of his senses raised an alarm, he felt safe to proceed.

Next, he took an ebony rod liberated from one of the Enforcers and waved it over the door. The lack of a reaction ruled out most Worked traps.

Continuing the process begun in the first step, Teg made a thorough visual inspection of the door. When he was satisfied that there were no hair-thin tripwires or concealed explosives, he moved on to the last and riskiest part of the test. Removing his supple leather gloves, he ran his fingers across the surface of the door and its frame, minutely feeling every rivet and seam. When the examination was concluded, Teg held his breath and pressed his ear against the cold metal hatch. The only sound was the moderate ringing caused by the rifle’s report. Nothing moved on the other side.

With a sharp exhale Teg replaced his glove, crouched down, and tried the handle. The latch’s click made his muscles tense more than the recent gunfire. He eased the door open, moving back as it swung toward him. As soon as the opening was wide enough to peek through, he did so and found the room empty of people but filled with potentially useful things.

Teg returned to the vestibule and dragged the corpses into the storeroom. Then he shut the door behind him. Confident that he could work without being disturbed, he searched the dead Enforcers and turned up another zephyr. He removed the magazine, emptied it, and loaded four bullets into each of his own pistols.

Teg holstered his guns and set about gathering the items he needed. He carefully balanced a canister lid atop a lighting tripod, affixed a couple of candles to the lid, and lit them with his pocket-sized ether torch. After covering the burning tapers with a glass pitcher, Teg used ventilation tape to ensure an airtight seal.

Taking a deep breath, Teg drew his splinterknife and cut holes in the bases of five plastic drums plastered with warning labels. Crystal clear liquid spread across the floor, smelling like a distant storm. This done, Teg exited as quickly as prudence allowed, taking one of the bodies with him.

Once he’d dumped the corpse in the antechamber Teg returned to the storeroom. He attached one end of a thin wire to a steel ring on the tripod and crept outside while holding tightly to the other end. Leaving the door cracked just enough to admit his hand, he fastened the cord’s loose end to the inner handle.

Teg was turning to leave when inspiration struck. He reached back into the room with a surgeon's care and pulled the second corpse’s limp hand through the opening. Then he padded back to the intersection, looked both ways, and took the twisting passage that would place him atop the mountain.

Teg gave the guildsmen ten minutes to spring his trap, and they didn’t disappoint. Knowing the volatility of super-concentrated ether, he abandoned stealth for speed when the first muted explosions thundered from below.

Teg emerged from the fiery maze onto the peak’s level plain. Wrathful howls and the staccato crack of gunfire filled the stifling air. He was dismayed—but not surprised—to find a dozen or so pirates battling three times as many guildsmen.

The mercenary accounted for five Enforcers at the cost of his remaining ammo. Still greatly outnumbered, he drew his knife and prepared for close combat.

A guildsman advanced and raised his rifle. Teg lobbed his blade into the weapon's forestock and immediately regretted the act. But his foe was thrown off guard, and Teg used the distraction to close the distance. It was too late to shoot by the time the Enforcer saw him coming. The guildsman thrust the rifle’s shoulder stock at his foe’s face, but Teg angled his upper body perpendicular to the blow, evading it by a hair’s breadth.

Teg grabbed the rifle, clasping one hand over the breech and the other under the forestock. Then he gave the weapon a sharp twist, pulling it toward himself. The gun came free of its owner's grip, and Teg seized it. He performed the maneuver his opponent had attempted; pistoning the rifle’s butt into the guildsman’s face and shattering his jaw. Another Enforcer tackled Teg from behind, spilling both men onto the hard volcanic plateau.

Teg barely registered the keening whine of the
Shibboleth's
drifters. The ground shook, and black geysers of rock sprayed upward as the ether-runner launched its forward torpedoes. Teg knew that the torps were of middling yield, but their human targets would have met prettier ends in the blades of a combine.

The ship landed within fifty yards of where Teg and the Enforcer wrestled. The guildsman fought like a rabid lion, commanding most of Teg's attention. But soon, the mercenary heard a shrill whirring that caught his notice. Daring to take his eyes from his opponent, Teg saw that the
Shibboleth's
rotary cannon had started spinning in preparation to fire. Furthermore, it was pointed in his direction.

“No! No!” Teg screamed in visceral denial. He threw all of his weight into a desperate roll that wracked his tortured back and spun the Enforcer into the space he’d just occupied. Then the flash and thunder of the cannon cast him into a sightless void.

He thought his mother hummed a song that she saved for the rare occasions when his father was home. But then Teg remembered that his father was years in his grave. He opened his eyes—actually, they'd already
been
open; but now they could see again. Teg found himself staring into a pair of bright silver eyes. He didn't find their color odd, but the face they peered from was upside-down.

“Teg?” asked a beautiful, hauntingly familiar voice. “Tegren?”

Teg's composure returned at the sound of his right name. “Only my mom calls me that,” he told Nakvin, who leaned over his supine form.

“We're evacuating,” she said. “Wake up and get on the ship.” Then she stood, straightened her robes, and started up the
Shibboleth's
boarding ramp.

Wincing from the pain in his back, Teg stood. Only then did the Enforcer's disembodied arms release his midsection and drop lifeless to the ground.

Jaren rounded on Crofter. “What in the Nine Circles was that!?” he cried. The
Shibboleth’s
forward gunner had fired into close combat involving his own crewmates. The reckless stunt had almost disintegrated Teg. In fact it would have, had the swordarm’s roll ended an inch too short.

Crofter returned Jaren’s look but quickly averted his eyes. “I don't know!” the gunner whined, his voice rising in panic. “Firing the torps made me feel like I was finally giving the Guild some payback. Then I saw that Enforcer wrestling with Teg, and I thought, 'what's this gun for if it can’t pick off one more piece of Guild trash,' right?”

Teg emerged from the armory as Crofter finished his sentence. He'd obviously heard the rest, because he drew a pair of fresh zephyrs and opened fire at the gunner's feet. “What's
this
gun for?” Teg asked between each shot. “What's
this
gun for?”

Bridge personnel hit the deck to avoid the ricocheting slugs. Crofter tried to flee but found his movements controlled as if he were a puppet and Teg's bullets the strings.

Jaren was sympathetic to his swordarm’s wrath, but punishing the gunner’s recklessness by endangering everyone else only compounded the problem. The captain drew his own zephyr, but Teg suddenly folded to the floor, revealing Nakvin standing behind him brandishing her poisoned dagger.

“He needed the rest, anyway,” she said.

“Is he dead?” Crofter asked, still standing on one foot.

Nakvin shook her head. “I just gave him a scratch. He should come to sometime tomorrow—unless we leave him on his back and he chokes on his own vomit.” The caveat sounded closer to a suggestion than a warning.

Jaren’s order emerged in a harsh monotone. “Get him to his quarters.”

“We've got a Guild courier coming in hot from the west,” Deim said from the Wheel.

Jaren turned to the young steersman. “Get us out of here.”

“Where to?”

“I don't care. Away from here. Anywhere.” Jaren slumped back in his chair and watched pillars of smoke rising from the fires that consumed his dream of an independent Tharis.

The weeks that followed the Melanoros raid blurred into a series of narrow escapes from the ever more remote hideouts where Jaren and his crew sought refuge. No matter how far they ran, the Guild was always close behind. The constant ordeal pushed crew morale to the limit.

Seeing Ambassador's Island through the
Shibboleth’s
bridge canopy made Jaren feel at ease for the first time since fleeing Tharis. Despite it singular name, the old way station was actually two asteroids joined by a bundle of girders, ducts, and walkways. The dual structure hung idle in space, its knobby surface dark.

Jaren thought back to his last visit. Back then the Island had sustained a mid-sized customs office plus numerous shops, eateries, daily and hourly rate lodgings, and a theater. He’d since heard that a collision of two celestial bodies had placed the Island at the expanding edge of a rubble cloud. Now that he saw the tumbling debris field wryly dubbed the Pebble Mill, Jaren understood the station’s abandonment.