Dragonfly (23 page)

Who was the weaponeer on Spider’s crew? Not Foxy. Vish was the pilot, Spider the captain. That left Lux, with his creepy premonitions. Or the mysterious Asshole Number Five. Either way, the psychosis quotient on this ship had just spiked. Great.

Natasha started to climb down carefully, clutching the ladder tightly. I yanked her ankle, tumbling her into my arms.

Dragonfly vaulted down beside her and sprinted for a console, dust drifting from his hair. “
Un momento.
”

“Ten minutes, you say?”

“Plus or minus.” He jammed his hyperchip into the slot, fingertips racing over the touchscreen.

A black storage compartment hung bolted to the wall beside the console, locked with a virtual combo. It looked like a gun locker. I pushed Natasha aside, and attacked it with my best roundhouse kick, a yell bursting from my lips. Metal crunched and folded, and the flimsy lock broke. I tore the buckled cover away, hinges screeching.

Plasma pistols, shiny and black, a small model but still deadly. Little cylindrical charges already inserted, lightstrip glowing to show they were full, or close enough.

I ripped a pair from their hinges and stuffed a handful of extra charges into my shorts. “We have guns,” I called.

“Excellent.” Dragonfly popped his chip and caught the pistol I tossed him. “One for her?”

“You shitting me? She’ll set her own hair on fire.”

“I can shoot.” Natasha’s voice quavered, but she kept it steady.

She was doing okay, I admitted grudgingly, for a schoolgirl who’d never gotten her nails dirty.

Dragonfly quirked his eyebrows. “Would you want to do this unarmed?”

I didn’t have time to argue. I grabbed another pistol and thrust it into her hands. “Pay attention. Safety, power, trigger. Point and squeeze. Don’t close your eyes when you fire, and if you aim it at me, I’ll blow your head off. Got it?”

She swallowed, and fumbled the safety off. At least she knew that much.

We ran, the hard floor clanging under our feet. No shock protection here. The black walls gleamed with red-lit instruments. Glittering cyberware was molded into twisted green neuroflesh, metal and skin contorted like a beast in pain. Here and there, dead synapses rotted, stinking, the excess organics no longer trimmed by careful Imperial maintenance crews, and in one corner I thought I saw an aborted attempt at a limb. Neuroflesh was alive and melancholy with half-remembered genetic instinct, and if you left it alone, it grew.

Another ladder down, this time to the reactor level, a massive open space where the slipspace drive flavored its quarks and charged its photons and plied whatever other quantum black arts were necessary to warp the fragile cosmic fabric to its will. We sprinted along under a metal catwalk, past the long shiny cylinder of the starboard particle accelerator, our reflections bulging monstrous in the dim purple light.

Dragonfly ran beside me, Natasha close behind, as we approached a T-junction where the accelerator curved to the right.

“I assume you know where you’re going?” he said.

I panted, my breath light but strong. Times like these, I was even more thankful for the ultragym. “Now why would you assume that?”

“Stubbornness? No, wait. Denial that we’re about to die?”

Or had he already mined the dataspace for info about Lazuli, secretly-ex-military rebel wannabe? I didn't have time to allay his suspicions. We needed to get out of here. “Deny away then. Should be another set of elevators beyond this junction—”

Bright plasma rounds sizzled into the floor as we hurtled into the corridor. Hot metal splashed my boots and I skidded to a halt, off balance.

Dragonfly yanked me back. Natasha collided with us, and we thudded into the wall for cover.

Distant laughter drifted from the left. “Told you so,” sang Lux, ripe with giggles, and more plasma fire skipped across the floor like a rock on water, leaving molten holes in its wake.

At least two guns, maybe three. I gritted my teeth. They’d known just where to find us. Little bastard really did think like other people.

Natasha huddled against the wall, her knuckles white as she gripped her pistol. “That spiky-haired one’s a freak,” she muttered. “Your friends really suck.”

Dragonfly touched her chin. “Hey. You’re doing well. Just a little further.”

She jerked away, but not before she blushed, and I had to grin. Little schoolgirl had a crush. Not that I could blame her. He looked dangerous and piratical, dusty chocolate hair spilling loose, bare arms coated in soot and sweat. Just like a dirty rebel scumbag, in fact, for the first time since I’d met him. The irony didn’t escape me.

“Shuttlebay is still three levels down,” I whispered. “They’re in the way. Like our chances of winning a shootout?”

“No.” Dragonfly’s gaze was dark, candid. If he’d lied before, he wasn’t lying now. Refreshing.

I adjusted my sweating grip. “Okay. Thorn tubes are next level, down to the right. It’s our only option.”

“You want to jack into a neuroware fighter? You’ll fry your brain.”

More shots, the floor catching fire. I risked a look around the corner, and dodged back from the barrage of plasma rounds that greeted me. Long narrow corridor, Spider up on the catwalk, Foxy and Lux at ground level. Vish must have stayed on the bridge. No sign of Asshole Number Five.

I crouched, ready to jump. “They’d be stupid to follow us, wouldn’t they? I’ll fly it without neural contact. We’ll just have no weapons. You got a better idea?”

“Actually, I do.”

Dragonfly wrapped his hand in my hair, dragged me close and planted his lips on mine. Hot, alive, dangerous. Addictive. A thrill junkie, just like me. I wanted to open my mouth, wrap my wrists around his neck, press my body against him until we burned.

I jerked back, my pulse stumbling.

He grinned, devastating. “You didn’t say it had to be a
helpful
idea.”

“Oh, please,” muttered Natasha, rolling her eyes. “You guys are way too old.”

I glared at him, and hefted my weapon meaningfully. “There’s something seriously wrong with you.”

“You noticed. Ready?”

“Readier than you.” I jumped up, and we danced out into the arc of fire.

***

I ran backward and laid down rapid fire, holding the recharge lever back with my left hand to shoot faster. Lux hit the deck, spraying his fire, and Foxy dived for cover in a doorway. My shots sputtered. I released the lever and the recharge kicked in with a hiss. I switched my aim to Spider up on the catwalk, and metal splashed as my shots sizzled into the handrail. Behind me, Dragonfly, with Natasha, sprinted for the ladder at the far end, firing as he ran, his plasma bolts
schlupping
over my right shoulder. Ozone and hot metal stung my nose, the familiar stink of battle. My pulse banged harder, hotter, slicing my nerves to a fine fighting edge.

Spider shot at Dragonfly, missed and cursed colorfully. “Fine,” he called. “Leave. It’s what you’re good at. You coulda said goodbye this time.”

I fired another barrage at him, and the panel behind him burst into flames.

We reached the ladder, and Dragonfly shoved Natasha down one-handed. I covered, crouching low. He dragged me back, and together we stumbled down to another steel floor, noisy with the rush of coolant through thick white pipes bolted to the ceiling.

“This way.” I dragged him up the corridor to where the wall was riddled with man-sized holes like cocoons. Fighter tubes, a quick-release system for pilots. Drop in, lock out, depart.

Boots clattered behind us on the ladder, and shots carved molten holes in the floor.

We pushed Natasha into the tube first. She squealed as she slipped down the slide. I shoved Dragonfly forward, but he hung back, and I gave up and vaulted into the tube. I slid down the plastic-smoothed steel on my butt, my sweaty thighs catching, and landed in a pile of torn nightgown and soft bruised limbs. I dragged us both to our feet on the fighter’s tiny deck.

No room to walk. Just a square meter of flat white deck between two steeply tiered seats, dark clearviews slanting down above a glass instrument panel and a virtual display that kicked on as I entered and filled the air with diagnostics and navspace data in fine green detail.

I pushed Natasha up into the weapons chair, holstered my pistol and vaulted down into the pilot’s seat, pulling the harness over my shoulders and clipping it tight.

Above us, plasma sizzled, and Dragonfly dropped to the deck. He jumped behind me into weapons and dragged Natasha into his lap, yanking the harness on over both of them. “In. Let’s go.”

Already I’d primed the slipspace drive to howling. I cut contact and slammed my palm on the airlock release. Air hissed, and plastic slammed shut, and with a clunk of releasing magclamps and a rich arcfuel spray, we shot out into blackness.

26

Eighty-seven minutes and thirty-two seconds later by the clock, the clearview shimmered blue, and we dropped out into real space, the light-sprinkled sphere of Vyachesgrad outpost glittering in the clearview.

After leaving
LightBringer
, we’d locked onto the nearest slipspace beacon, and by the time Vish (or whoever) repaired the mess Dragonfly’s magic chip had made of their navspace, we were long gone. It was simple to navigate via the slipspace beaconweb back to Vyachesgrad. Whatever stealthy trajectory
LightBringer
was flying, it hadn’t taken us far from the station.

I rolled my shoulders, tense, the display painting green and red streaks onto my body. Escape from the psycho rebels: check. But now we had to return the admiral’s daughter and retrieve
Ladrona
, and Vyachesgrad would be on high alert.

The station loomed closer, its docking arms gleaming with floodlights. I twisted a virtual knob, and the gammaspace filter stained the clearview scarlet. The approach grid popped up. All the vectors were outlined in yellow, except for one narrow arc.

“Well, look at that,” I said. “They’re closed for approach.”

“What are the chances?”

Pretty much the first thing Dragonfly had said for the whole trip. Not that I’d been the queen of conversation either. My nerves still stretched sharp from the firefight, and my thoughts kept lurching back to how he’d kissed me, to the hot weight of his body pressing mine into the floor outside Natasha’s cabin, and what it’d be like if he did both at once. It wasn’t a subject I wanted to discuss.

Natasha had crawled from the harness as soon as he let her, and now she curled in the tiny deck area between the seats, her face pale under the soot. He’d reclaimed her pistol. She didn’t look happy.

I craned my neck to eye him. “We could call them up and tell them we’ve got her on board.”

He laughed. “Nice idea. If you want them to shoot us as soon as we step off the ship.”

“Then what do you suggest, smart-ass?”

“I think our etherwave just went offline.” He touched a pulsing light in the display above my head, and the red stripe indicating transmitter power slipped to zero.

“O-kaay.”

“Turn the gammaspace off. It’s vector zero-six-zero arc three, or thereabouts. Just fly us in like you’ve got no comms, and we’ll deal when we get there.”

“And they won’t send their Slivers to intercept us because?”

“Maybe it’ll be our lucky day. You got a better idea?”

I shrugged, tense, and reached for the arc rockets, rocking the ship from side to side in the universal signal for
I can’t hear you.

As I reached the approach grid boundary, etherwave crackled. “Thorn on zero-six-three, this is Vyachesgrad Black, identify.”

Black was the marine control callsign. The station was on security lockdown. I snorted, safe with our transmitter switched off. “Idiots.”

Closer and closer we came.

“Thorn, the station is in secure lockdown. Identify or we will launch interceptors.”

“Sure, why not? We’re a pair of crazy rebels bringing back your admiral’s daughter. Why don’t you come kill us?”

“I hope they do!” Natasha’s girlish voice stung harsh. “I hope they come in their ships and blow you out of the sky!”

“Shut up, party girl.” I shot her a scowl. “There’s gratitude for you.”

“Thorn, this is Vyachesgrad. Respond—”

“And you can shut up too.” I flicked the receiver off, but my hands jittered on the controls. They hadn’t launched interceptors. Why not? What were they up to?

“Relax. They won’t scramble an attack.” Dragonfly spoke softly, calm.

I was neither. “Why not?”

“Because Lukas told them not to, remember? For all they know, he’s right here, ready to flash out of slipspace and blow them all to oblivion.” Metal clicked as he jammed a new charge into his pistol. “Try the vertical docking ring, close to
Ladrona
. I don’t want to have to blast my way out. And get ready to run.”

“Already on the way.”

I cozied the ship up to an empty slot on the docking ring—not as stylish an approach as Dragonfly’s, but close—and the automatic airlock extended, clunking against the hull and attaching itself to the outer hatch with an electric crunch of magnets. Even the Imperial security lockdown hadn’t overridden the docking safety protocols. Maybe Verenski was still hoping Spider would return his daughter alive. Lucky for him we’d taken matters into our own hands.

We had seconds before marines were on top of us. My fingers fumbled unclipping my harness, and I cursed, forcing myself to slow down. Finally I peeled the straps off and climbed from the chair. Dragonfly was already up, and for a moment all three of us crowded into the tiny deck space.

I sucked in a spice-scented breath and flushed. Damn. Thinking was difficult with my breasts jammed up against his chest. “What do you think? Human shield?”

“Untidy.” He jammed his hand between us and came up with a coiled silver smartcuff. “How about this?”

Natasha squealed and scrambled for the airlock tunnel. “Get that thing away from m—ugh!”

We grabbed a thrashing ankle each, dragged her down and tossed her into the pilot’s chair. Efficiently, Dragonfly cuffed her wrists to the seat post.