Dragonfly (22 page)

I folded my arms, all too aware of my bare midriff and his eyes on it. I had a taut midriff. He looked impressed. That wasn’t the point.

“All right, you caught me trying to free her.” I fought to keep my voice low. “Go on, shoot me if it’ll make you feel good.”

“What? No. I …” He powered down the flash with a wet hiss, and I could have sworn he looked sheepish, that ironic twist to his lip. “I guess I thought you weren’t coming. I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry?” His words made no sense. My blood boiled hotter. I wanted to shove him into the wall, crack his head back into the plastic. “About what, your little speech to me up by the bridge? You should be fucking sorry after the lies you’ve spun. You want to leave her here, fine. You’ll just have to stop me.”

I pushed him aside and reached for the door.

“Please.”

I halted, my heart thick.

He didn’t grab me. Didn’t aim his weapon. Didn’t even move. Just that one little word, stressed to cracking with all the compassion I’d ever felt from him. And it stopped me like a steelplated wall. I didn’t have to turn. The bathroom mirror showed me his face, and my stomach knotted.

He swallowed. “Those things I said … they weren’t true. I guess I … Well, I thought you’d be better off here.”

“You thought
what
?” Now I did turn, and I stared at him, bewildered.

“With Lukas. In the middle of the action. You’re so young. So angry. You don’t need lessons from me. You can go your own way.”

“But—”

“No, Lazuli.” He hushed me with a gentle finger on my lips. “Natasha is a suicide mission. You don’t want to come.”

“Bloody right I want to come!” I swiped his hand away, furious. Had he tricked me again? I didn’t know what was real any more. He made me feel slow, and I hated it. I wasn’t used to being the stupid one.

But it was more than that. Strange warmth flooded my heart, and I realized it was relief. I hadn’t been wrong. There really was more to him. And that made me madder still.

If we survived this, I’d kill him for that alone.

“I don’t care what you think,” I snapped. “I’m not leaving her here. If that makes me soft, then just shoot me and get it over with.”

I caught my breath, appalled. On the list of smart things to say right now,
kill me if you think I’m soft
didn’t feature.

But he closed his eyes briefly and sighed, pressing one hand over his heart and dipping his head in old-fashioned apology. “
Lo siento, señorita
. I don’t know what to say. I shouldn’t have doubted you.”

Bewilderment stuffed my head with cotton. “So … what was all that by the bridge? Trying to scare me off?”

“And for Spider’s benefit. The ship hears everything.”

“Even this?” I glanced around, agitated. We were keeping our voices low, but that meant nothing to a surveillance system.

He shrugged. “Maybe.”

“Then how can I trust that you’re telling me the truth?”

He checked the charge on his flash and primed the contacts. “Well, I’m about to go get myself killed saving an Imperial admiral’s daughter from my best friend. That enough to convince you?”

“But …” I swallowed. I had to know, but I dreaded it. “Why?”

“Because Lukas’s ego isn’t worth her life. And because some ideas are worth dying for. It’s up to us to decide which.”

My guts knotted. Fancy words, but they pierced an aching spot deep inside. What did I have that was worth dying for? The Empire? Mishka? My promotion? I’d never thought of death as a satisfying end. More like a screaming injustice, with a curse on my lips and rage burning in my heart. Damn him for his convictions.

But it wasn’t like I had a choice. If I stayed here, I was dead. Natasha was a means to an end, and so was he.

“If we get out of this alive,” I said, “I’ll give you a list.”

“Thank you.”

His gaze glowed warm.

I squirmed again. “Don’t thank me yet. What’s your plan?”

“You already saw it. Get her out of the cabin, hide, get off the ship.”

“As good as mine, then. How exactly will we get away?”

“Shuttlecraft?”

“Can you steal it?”

He laughed. “Can you fly it?”

I gave him a lofty scowl. “Maybe not as flashy as Lux, but I can try, so long as you don’t mind a few dents.”

“Then I can steal it, so long as you don’t mind a few burned bits.”

“Okay.” I thought hard, my head aching in the heat. “But how will we get back to Vyachesgrad? That shuttle only had a basic battlenav. What’s to stop Spider chasing us down and blowing us to spacedust?”

Dragonfly flipped out his golden hyperchip and flashed it at me. “Didn’t think I’d been admiring the scenery for the last hour, did you?”

“I figured you showered.”

“You noticed.”

I’d noticed, all right. Wet hair, bare skin, fresh clean scent … “Don’t flatter yourself.”

He traced a lazy finger over the naked curve of my waist. “And here I was thinking you wore this for me.”

I shoved him away, flushing. He never gave up. “You gonna tell me what that does or not?”

“I set up a little accident in the virtual navspace. To be instigated remotely from the chip when we’re ready. They can’t follow us if they’re in real space.”

“You’ll leave them stuck without slip?”

“No. It’ll only take Vish ten minutes to fix it. But in ten minutes, we’ll be gone.” That maddening little smile. “Have I impressed you yet?”

“We’ll see if it works first.” Hell, compared to my non-existent plan, it was fucking brilliant. “What about getting Natasha out of that cabin? And how do we reach the shuttlecraft bay without getting caught?”

“I was hoping you’d have a few ideas on those.”

I chewed my thumbnail. “Well, I suppose we could just blast her out and run for it.”

“Set a feedback in the atomflash? Could work. Might blow half the corridor away with it—”

“—and Natasha too. Okay, bad idea. What if …” A spark ignited in my mind. “Can you set that accident of yours off from anywhere?”

Dragonfly shrugged. “Sure. So long as there’s a console.”

“Right.” I fidgeted on the spot, ready. “You go down to the shuttlebay and do what needs doing. I’ll break her out. Give me a few minutes, then set your accident in motion, and I’ll run her down there while they’re still figuring out what’s going on. Okay?”

“It’s the worst plan I’ve ever heard. I’m in.” He wristed his hair back. “How will you break her out?”

“I have no idea. I’ll think of something.”

“I could neutralize the voice recognition nodes. Give you a chance to … what’s the word? Play a trick?”

“Spoof it?”

“That’s the one.”

“D’you think you can?”

A shrug. “I wrote the codes. I should be able to unwrite them.”

“Figures. Give me your flash.”

I tensed, ready for argument. If he wouldn’t give me his weapon, it’d prove he wasn’t really on my side. But he handed it over without pause.

As I took it, his fingers brushed mine. He hesitated. “Look …”

I turned away. I didn’t want apologies, explanations. I didn’t want anything that made him human.

He held on. “Lazuli?”

I averted my face. “There’s nothing to say, okay? Can we just get on?”

He touched my chin, warm, making me look. His gaze was guarded, shadowed so I couldn’t see in. “Just so you know. If we live, this isn’t over. If you come with me, you’ll see my life. It’s up to you if you learn from it.”

I hesitated, unsure. Was that trust? Would he finally let me in on his secrets? I should be pleased my plan was working. And I was. But he scared me, this Dragonfly, with his sincerity and weary sorrow. It made me wonder how he’d become that way. If I dug too deep, I might discover something I wouldn’t like.

Whatever. We’d probably be dead in the next ten minutes anyway.

His fingers lingered on my chin, and I wanted to rest my cheek in his palm, close my eyes, let him kiss me goodbye. I wanted to slam his head into the wall so hard his teeth shattered.

I jammed the atomflash in my pistol holster and walked stiffly to the console. “You want a go at that voice system?”

“Yes. But show me surveillance first. I want to know where they are.”

He stepped up beside me, but he didn’t try to touch me again.

I was grateful. I was angry. I didn’t know what I was.

I brushed my finger over the screen. “Valet, show me the crew.”

The display lit the air, divided into four this time. The bridge, where Spider lounged in the command chair, and Foxy and Lux threw virtual dice on the comms station display. The next screen showed Vish curled sleeping on a dark blue quilt like a pimply red-headed elf, his fingers tucked under his chin. The third screen, hash. And in the fourth, that empty corridor again, dappled in dark red shadow.

I peered closer, and my skin prickled. It wasn’t the same corridor.

In the original image, the light had shone from the left, throwing the doorframes into sharp relief. In this one, the shadows definitely speared from the right, and in the image’s corner, I spied the faint outline of a ladder.

It was the corridor outside this room.

And as I watched, movement glinted deep in the shadows. Elusive, like all those other shadows I’d been jumping at since I got here. My scalp tingled, and swiftly I checked the other screens. Spider, Lux, Foxy, Vish. All present and correct.

I glanced at Dragonfly. He glanced at me. And my stomach flipped cold.

Silently, I pulled out the atomflash. Powered it, a faint hiss. Tiptoed to the door.

Dragonfly wrapped his fingers around the locking handle, and when I jerked my head, he pulled it open. I whirled out and covered left, aiming two-handed into the dark.

A dark giggle, and a flash of wild black hair.

I fired. Heat flared, and the stink of charred hair stung my nose. I sprinted around the corner, but he—she?—had already fled.

I cursed, and my mind flashed back to that dirty corridor on Vyachesgrad. Foxy and Lux pinning Dragonfly to the wall. Spider stalking from the shadows. And someone hitting me. From behind.

It wasn’t Vish. He’d stayed behind to flash us back to the battleship. I’d known all along, and I’d just been too dumb to realize it. There was a fifth crew member on
LightBringer
.

And he’d just heard everything we’d said.

25

“Shit.” I wiped my brow with my forearm. “Who the hell was that?”

“No idea. Does it matter? We just lost our surprise.” Dragonfly held out his hand. “Give me that. We’ll blow the door.”

I flipped the handgun butt-first for him to take, and we ran back to Natasha’s cabin. Whoever Asshole Number Five was, no doubt he’d scuttled straight for a comms unit to tell Spider our plan. We had minutes. Seconds, maybe.

“Guess it doesn’t matter if we make noise now,” I said.

“Like we’ve got a choice. Shield your eyes.” He fired rapidly down the corridor, the pure white flashes dazzling me. Ten or fifteen shots at nothing in particular to drain the charge. Then he put a single shot into the doorframe beside the lock at point-blank. The white plastic coating vaporized. Metal hissed and popped, electricity zapping from a melted conduit. A security alarm screeched. The air sizzled with charge, and hair lifted on my arms.

“Cable,” he snapped.

I tore off a piece of the broken conduit, my fingers singeing, and handed it to him.

“Natasha, get back,” I yelled. “We’re gonna blow the door.”

Swiftly he stripped the superconducting wire clean, and jammed both raw ends under the atomflash contacts. A feedback circuit. He fired the flash, and the wire glowed hot. “Something to tie it with.”

I yanked the shrinkband from my hair. “Good enough?”

“
Es perfecto
.” He wrapped the elastic rubber around the trigger and yanked it tight. The wire sizzled, and he jammed the makeshift bomb into the broken plastic beside the door.

We both dived for cover just in time.

Boom
. The walls shuddered, and we hit the floor together. Molten metal splashed. He covered me, shielding me from the radiant heat, but my hair still singed and stank and my bare skin stung like sunburn with tiny shrapnel.

Hot metal dust clouded and settled. I pushed him off me and scrambled up, wiping soot from my eyes. A ragged hole gaped in the wall, exposing the entire cabin and half the one next to it. Smoke billowed. Flames licked the plastic walls, the brown stink of burning polymer like acid in my mouth. And in the corner, under the table, cowered Natasha, streaked in soot and speckled with blood. If he hadn’t fired the flash half-empty first, she’d probably be dead.

Tears striped her dirty face, and she crunched shaking fists in her ruined nightgown. “Don’t hurt me. Please.”

Dragonfly crawled over to her, coated in dust and dirt, and split her cuffs with a tiny plastic disruptor. More surprises. Had he stolen that from Foxy, or did he have it all along?

“Come on. We have to run now,” he told her. “Stand up.”

She shrank away, and I crouched before her, frustrated. We didn’t have time for this. “Told you I’d come for you, didn’t I? Well, here I am. Sasha will help us. Just do as we say and everything will be fine.”

Her chin firmed. “Okay.” She stumbled up, gripping his hand, her legs shaky.

He steadied her. “Elevator, Lazuli. Before they get it. Go.”

My mind raced as I hurtled around the corner through acrid smoke. We’d melted our only handgun; we were weaponless.

As I skidded to a halt in front of the elevator, my heart sank. Lights shifted along the panel above the door. Spider’s crew were already on their way down, and there was only one elevator in this section. And even if we found another, we’d never get all the way down to the shuttlecraft bay before them.

I ran back to the corner and collided with Dragonfly and Natasha. “Too late,” I panted. “Ladder.”

I skidded down the ladder on my hands, plastic scorching my palms. Next level was battle systems. Lights blinked on rows of dark green neuropanels, the air damp and heavy. Green neon plasma conduits rippled beneath the black grille floor, and the lights shone blue, the longer wavelengths filtered out. Somewhere here lay the virtual weaponspace, a black cocoon where tech-sharpened operators fed masses of battle data directly from the sensors to their brains with savage electrodes that left no room for error or distraction. Battleship weaponeers were a sought-after breed, highly intuitive and borderline psychotic. When they jacked into one fight too many, their conscious minds sloughed away into the machine and they emerged as drooling vegetables. They said that if you listened carefully on a silent night in the weaponspace, you could hear them screaming.