Blowback (11 page)

Tom took a step back. Threat assessments. She was asking him
for a threat assessment. “Collect intel. Determine the enemy’s goals, find out
his objectives and then make sure you don’t let him get it. Preferably you blow
his head off,” Tom answered. If he had to play nice and answer her questions to
get out of this room, he would.

“Little mice, all scatter. How many do you catch?”

Tom stopped breathing. He might not be smart when it came to
women or even understanding most of the human race, but he knew the answer to
that and he didn’t fucking like it. Da’shay seemed to sag, her whole body
relaxing as she all but collapsed against the door, her back still holding it
closed. “Scattering mice. Run them down,” she whispered. Tom’s guts twisted
with fear. Lions chasing deer and security personnel all knew the same thing—if
you tried chasing every single one of your prey, you fucking lost them all.
Give people two or ten pictures of perps and they’d ignore them. But if you
focused on one, there weren’t no way in hell that one infiltrator could get
away. You put up one picture on the internal screens, you sent all your
trackers after one man, and you were going to get him.

“Captain, how sure are you that Da’shay’s on our side?” Tom
called.

The pounding stopped. “You want to stop and talk on that
now?” Ramsay sounded pissed.

“She’s saying we have to split up. She’s saying won’t
neither of us get out if we don’t take different paths,” he said without
mentioning that Da’shay was also telling him Tom had to be the one who got
caught.

Tom tightened his hand around his knife. Ramsay would never
end himself; it wasn’t in his nature to know when to give up, but funny enough,
not all that long ago, Tom had learned to do exactly that. If he ran slower
than Ramsay, made poorer choices, he could lead the pursuit away and then kill
himself before giving them any intel. That still left the
Kratos
stuck
at dock, but hopefully Hou wouldn’t be high enough in the power structure to
keep her planetside. It was a chance for Ramsay to get out of Capital City.

“Captain, go. She’s not budging on this and we’re losing
time.”

“Tom!” Ramsay pounded at the door.

“Just go. You stay out there and she’s going to keep me
here. Go! I’ll meet you back at the ship.” Tom watched Da’shay and the relief
on her face as muffled footsteps quickly vanished on the other side of the
door.

“Right then, if I’m going down, I’m going to take as many of
them with me as I can. It’ll give Ramsay more time to get clear,” Tom said with
this weird calm that came over him. “Unless you want to be the first, you’d
best get out of my way.” Tom pointed his knife at Da’shay.

She slowly looked up at him, something hard and feral in her
expression. “Want you to kill them all,” she said darkly.

He frowned at her. He’d never gotten that clear of a
sentence out of her before. “Then move, and I’ll do my best to get you that,”
Tom said.

She shook her head. “The knife has to go higher. Cut off the
arms and doctors put more on.”

“Move before I move you,” Tom said. He didn’t have time for
this. The city’s construction meant that everyone had to travel mazelike
hallways and multiple elevators, but the guards would get here soon enough. He
had to be out of this room or they’d cut him down before he could reach even
one of them.

She shook her head. “I want you to cut off the head. So many
whispers, but you can ignore the voices.”

Tom raised his knife. Fuck. She heard voices?
Genta
were crazy in the old-fashioned sense of the word. What they did never seemed
to make much sense to anyone other than themselves, but hearing voices was the
sort of thing that got you sent in for some creative redecorating in the brain
by fancy docs. He’d never heard of a
genta
having anything like that.
Then again,
genta
were half human, so maybe the great genetic
manipulators had chosen the wrong human donor for Da’shay’s human parent.

“Not much time, the whispers are already gnawing at me.” Her
face twisted in despair and then she stood up so fast that Tom took an
involuntary step back.

“They can see inside your thoughts, so think on hate and
hate and hate. You can think so clear. Only one thought, always one thought.”

“You calling me stupid?” Tom demanded. It was one thing for
him to know it about himself, but he didn’t rightly appreciate other people
calling him that.

She shook her head. “You see danger in a flick of an
eyebrow. Not stupid. Single-minded. Always single-minded. Not like Ramsay. Too
many rivers.” She looked at him and her face was full of the sort of clear
anger Tom normally only saw on humans. “You have to give them another flavor.
Hate and hate and hate. Nothing more than mercenary hate. Mercenary with
mercenary hate, no deceit. No calculations.”

That was terrifyingly close to making sense, only Tom wasn’t
sure he wanted to understand her. “You want them to capture me?” he demanded.
It wasn’t in his nature to give up like that.

“Have to. Only with a taste will they think they know the
flavor.” She shook her head. “Whispers and whispers.” She caught the sides of
her head in her hands, rocking like a migraine had taken her, and Tom rushed
her, swinging his fists in one last, desperate attempt to get free. He thought
he was going to make it, but at the last second, she jerked herself out of the
way of his fist and caught his wrist. Her body was steel, pushing him toward
the wall, and Tom struggled to turn himself so he could counterattack. Instead,
she was there, pushing him, slamming him into the wall so hard that the breath
went out of him. He could lift her so easy, but she was so strong that without
leverage, he couldn’t move her.

She grabbed his wrist and pinned it to the wall. “I promise.
Promise I’ll come for you, but they have to trip through your brain. Let the
enemy walk past so you can strike at the back.” She rested her forehead against
Tom’s spine and he could feel himself start to shiver. He didn’t mind facing
death, but she was talking about letting someone go ripping through his brain.
She was talking about laying down while they scanned his brain and picked out
all the thoughts. “I’ll come for you. Father promised, but never came back like
he promised. I will.”

Tom bucked as hard as he could. “You don’t go talking about
my fucking father.”

“Distract them with hate and they’ll think Ramsey
unimportant.”

“Oh I can hate you just fine,” Tom said, still straining to
free himself. What the hell right did she have talking about his father? When
he found out who had let her into his records, Tom was going to space them
right after shoving the damn printout of Tom’s personnel file right up their
ass.

“Do,” she whispered, her hands still holding him prisoner.
“Hate me because I’ll tell them I want you. I’ll tell them to enslave you.”

Tom froze. “No,” he said, fear ripping through him.

“Won’t let you die.”

Tom tried to calm his heart and keep an even tone. “Listen
up, pea brain. I’d rather be dead than be a slave, so if you’re giving me to
them to cover for Ramsay, I can live with that. I ain’t going to take offense
at you making a good strategic move.” Tom took a deep breath and willed Da’shay
to listen to the next bit. “But if they’re done with me and they don’t want to
go giving me back to Ramsay, then you let them kill me. I’d rather take a quick
bullet to the brain than be branded a slave, you got that?”

“Won’t let you die,” she said. With her free hand, she
reached up to stroke his neck before her fingers paused right over his pulse
point.

“You fucking let me die, you back-stabbing motherless
bitch—” Tom tried to hunch his shoulder to keep her away from his carotid
artery. It didn’t work. She pressed her thumb into his skin hard enough to
sting and almost immediately Tom could feel himself get light headed.

“Hate and more hate, but I’ll still come for you,” she
promised, but it sounded a lot more like a threat as Tom slipped away into the darkness.

Tom glared at the new man who walked through the door, but
he couldn’t really intimidate anyone chained to a low platform with his wrists
chained far enough away from his ankles that he was bent forward. He’d be more
comfortable laying down the way the restraints were intended to be used, but
hell would freeze over before he’d lay down for these people. “So, I hear
you’ve claimed this one once the examination is done.”

“I ain’t playing slave for no one,” Tom said in his most
dangerous voice. He’d cleared out entire bars by threatening people with that
voice, but the doctor kept his gaze focused on Da’shay, ignoring him
altogether. She sat in the corner, both feet pulled up into her chair and her
chin resting on her knees.

“Miss?” the doctor asked as he took a step toward Da’shay.
She was staring off into space, and for a second, Tom nursed the hope that she
would mentally bug off and leave him to be executed in peace. Instead she shook
her head and looked up at the doctor.

“Hurt him and I’ll disembowel you,” she said in the same
tone of voice she might use to discuss the weather.

“I…of course not. If you’re claiming him lawfully, I would
never damage someone’s property.”

“Ain’t nothing lawful about it.” Tom switched to glaring at
Da’shay.

“I do believe you broke the law, and on Nodar that makes you
a slave.”

“I ain’t property,” Tom snapped. “I’m a human being, and
slaving is just about the lowest thing one human can do to another.” Tom didn’t
think he’d felt so helpless since he’d been a boy on
Beauteous
. He
hadn’t liked the feeling then and he wasn’t too fond of it now. Facing death at
the back end of the
Kratos
had been a good site less unpleasant.

“If you don’t learn to curb your tongue, your tongue, vocal
cords or both could be removed.” The doctor’s voice was cold.

Tom hadn’t even opened his mouth to make a reply before the
doctor was nearly flying across the room. He crashed into a small tray and then
fell to the ground as silver instruments clattered to the stone floor all
around him.

“No. They can’t be. He’s mine and I said you can’t hurt him.
Hurt him and I’ll disembowel you.” Da’shay was standing beside Tom’s platform,
her elbows bent and her hands curled into claws so that her body reminded him
of those pictures he’d seen with her ripping slavers to pieces. He really
wouldn’t mind her going into a killing rage right here and now, but he sure as
hell didn’t want to beg for her protection. He wasn’t playing that game.

“Fuck. I’d rather have him rip out my vocal cords than have
any reason to be grateful to you,” Tom snapped.

“If she won’t control you, the city guardians can confiscate
you, slave. Remember that.” The doctor’s face was twisted with hate as he stood
up. This wasn’t the sort of man who would unchain Tom to give him a fair chance
to protect himself and all that stood between him and Tom was Da’shay. How long
would it be before she lost interest or got confused and left him to get beaten
to death by some worm like this doctor?

Tom pulled against the chains again. At this point, he
wanted to die, but he sure as hell didn’t want some cowardly pissant doing the
killing. He couldn’t control the rage that rolled through him. All he could do
was pull against the chains, knowing that he wasn’t ever going to be able to break
them.

The doctor looked from Tom to Da’shay, his expression slowly
vanishing beneath a mask of indifference. “Some people want to see him.”

Da’shay shivered. It wasn’t a little thing like getting a
chill; this was a huge, whole body shiver—the kind Becca always called having
someone walk over your grave.

“They won’t take no for an answer.” The doctor took a step
forward and Da’shay’s arms bent more. Oh yeah, she was getting ready to go off.
Tom grinned at the thought of her disemboweling the doc. For a second, time
hung in the balance, and then Da’shay turned to look at him. Her hand came up
to touch his face and Tom jerked back as far as he could with the chains. It
wasn’t enough. She rested her fingertips against his cheek and then stood
there, breathing fast. Her large eyes were so dilated that they looked all
black and her face was strangely flushed, leaving a chalkiness to the blue
color of her skin.

“Anyone who sees has little bits of their brain ripped out.”
She leaned forward and Tom strained against the chains holding him. “Chewed on
bits. Gnawed away.”

“Fine. They can gnaw my brain out with a bullet. Dead is
better than playing slave.”

She shook her head sadly. “Not dead. Never dead, just little
bits and pieces pulled away, skin with the scab. They’d pull bits of Tom out,
gray matter rich with neuronal cell bodies lying on a silver tray.”

Tom curled his hands around the chains and tried to control
the fear that threatened to overwhelm him. He said no, but they could strap him
down to a table and pull his brain out of his head one cell at a time and he
couldn’t do a damn thing about it.

“No. Tom should stay Tom. Always. Can’t see them with their
fingers come to touch and taste.” Her hand darted forward and caught his shirt.
Tom frowned, wondering what she was doing, and then she ripped the fabric. The
bottom third of his shirt pulled off in one big strip of fabric.

“Close your eyes,” she said as she took the shirt fabric and
folded it.

“Fuck you,” Tom answered. He braced for the hit that would
follow, but she reached up with the blindfold. Tom strained back so far that
his wrists popped, but he couldn’t actually stop her as she tied it around his
head.

Both her hands came around his face, her warm palms resting
on his cheeks, and it was everything Tom could do not to go wild with panic.
She pulled him closer until he could feel her breath against his skin. “Hate.
All hate. They’ll brand you next, but as long as you don’t see them, the fire
will only touch your skin, never you. Never you.” She shifted, and then he
could feel her forehead against his. The intimate gesture panicked him about as
much as the steel around his wrists.

His stepfather had been like that when he’d first started
coming around. His father hadn’t been dead but a couple of months and the farm
had been turning to weeds when this man showed up, all smiles and gifts and
promises. Tom had been fool enough at six to think that promises meant
something, but he sure as hell didn’t have that illusion now. He was locked in
the dark and in the middle of enemy territory. There really wasn’t much room
for many illusions.

“Do what you’re going to do. I’ll die still hating you,” he
promised her. Her hand slowly withdrew and Tom focused on listening to the
room. The door opened and he could hear shoes against the stone floor.

“Captain Smyth’s death runs through him?” The voice had an
almost childlike tone, high and nasally. “Here is Da’shenya. Unexpected.”

“Little rivers change the course of big ones,” Da’shay said.

“Big rivers drown women. Little rivers swim new banks.” Then
the new one started speaking some alien language that wasn’t anything Tom knew.
It was a wheezing sort of sound. The speaker finished and the room was silent;
Da’shay didn’t answer.

Tom held his breath. The voice wasn’t chirping and clicking
like a
meaiai
and
casslit
didn’t talk at all. Maybe it was a pure
genta
. The pure ones were large and had tentacle-like arms that doubled
as legs. They were so massive that to move fast they had to switch to a
six-legged run using those thick tentacles.

Something brushed over Tom’s cheek and he flinched away.
“Fuck you,” he snapped. He didn’t care if this thing could have his vocal cords
ripped out; he wasn’t a kid who had to smile as someone shit on his life.
They’d shit on his life all the same, but he had a right to tell them to fuck
themselves as they did it.

Hands caught his head. “I can gag him if you like.” It was
the doctor. Tom twisted and nearly got his teeth in the doctor’s hand before a
stronger hand caught his chin.

“He’s mine.” Da’shay’s fingers tightened, holding Tom still
as that same feathering touch brushed across his cheek. “Taste but no eating.
Mice gnawing tunnels through rock and termites through flesh.”

“Control him or I’ll call in the guardians,” the doctor
said, but the words were barely out of his mouth before Da’shay’s hand vanished
from his face and then Tom heard a god-awful crashing noise. He gave a grim
smile. He might hate Da’shay, but he hated all these other bastards too, so she
could go right on hitting them.

“My slave,” Da’shay said firmly, her hand catching his face
again, and Tom felt a new flare of hatred. He’d come to terms a long time ago
with the probability of dying in the line of duty, and three days ago he’d
decided that maybe death weren’t even worth avoiding, but he sure as hell
wasn’t going to be anyone’s slave.

“Motherless bitch,” he snapped out. Oddly, the fingers
holding him loosened. The feather touch returned and Tom shivered in revolt.

“Hatred uncontrolled. He’ll break neck on rope.” The
feather-light touch vanished and air moved past him as something moved. Fast.
He tried to flinch back more, but he was already straining as hard as he could
against the restraints. “Kill fast for kindness.”

“No.” Da’shay snapped the word out.

“Da’shenya,” the voice said. The word lilted oddly in the
middle.

“Mine,” Da’shay just about snarled. “Tasted him. Mine. He
didn’t see.” Da’shay’s hand cupped Tom’s face, her fingers resting on his
blindfold. “Take him and I will disembowel.” From her tone, Tom could guess
that she wasn’t bluffing. Her anger skittered over his skin like spiders. He
held his breath as he waited to see how this new man would react, but a new
plan was forming now.

He’d grown up fast on the farm. From his stepfather, he’d
learned how to make a full grown man about as angry as a human could be without
having his heart explode. By the time he was fifteen, Tom figured that if he
couldn’t make his stepfather happy, he was going to control when the old man
blew up. Getting a strap taken to his backside felt like an odd sort of victory
when he’d been the one to pick the time and place.

So if Da’shay had that same temper, the same explosive rage
that lurked under a slimy layer of sweet, then Tom knew how to strip away those
layers. Give him time and he’d get her to turn that anger on him. Then he
wouldn’t have to feel this helpless rage or, even worse, the nagging feeling as
if he should be grateful to Da’shay for protecting him. It was that gratitude
that was the real evil and he fucking knew it.

“New rivers break new bones.” The new voice declared.
Da’shay’s hand moved down to his shoulder and Tom wished he had enough slack in
the chains to shake her off.

“Old rivers gone dry. New rivers only break what swims
upstream.”

“Da’shenya upstream swimming.”

“Nope,” Da’shay said firmly. Tom was starting to think he
was the only sane person in the room. The silence lasted several minutes and
Tom couldn’t do a blessed thing but sit helpless on a table and silently curse
all of them.

“Him you keep.” With that, the door opened, but Tom couldn’t
hear any footsteps. He held his breath, struggling to figure out what was going
on in the room, but things had gone deathly silent.

“I doubt you have the ability to care for or keep track of a
slave, especially one so untrained.” That was the doctor. Tom eased forward a
little to take the strain off his wrists.

“Mine,” Da’shay repeated, her hand still on his shoulder.

“Yes, well, have you considered having someone train him?”

“No,” Da’shay snapped, her hand vanishing from Tom’s shoulder.
Tom hoped that meant that the doctor was getting hit again. He did appreciate a
woman who knew how to throw a right hook.

“Yes, well, you had better do something or you will lose him
as quickly as you brand him. Understand?” The door opened again and Tom could
hear the doctor march out, his footsteps a little too fast for anger. He was
afraid. That felt good, at least until Tom realized that meant he was alone
with Da’shay.

Fingers touched his cheek and he flinched back before he
could control the urge. She could do what she wanted, but he sure as hell
didn’t have to give her the pleasure of reacting. After that he sat still as
she reached around and untied the blindfold. She stood looking at him.

“I’d fail as a slave. Be best for both of us if you just
ended it here,” Tom said, swallowing the bile that climbed up his throat at
begging for his own death.

She backed away, her hands tucked deep in the pockets of her
dress. Slowly she started to shake her head. “Behind enemy lines,” she
whispered. Her eyes darted around the room as if searching for something and
Tom found himself looking too. There were a couple of dozen good places to hide
a microphone or camera, but chained to the table, he couldn’t check any of
them. “Lie in wait. Tall grass, waiting. Watching. Captain scratches. Watch the
ship.”

He wasn’t a total idiot. Even though she was rambling, he
could tell easy enough that she thought he should survive and counterattack.
Sometimes on a job the best part was the waiting. Lying stomach down in the grass
by himself, he felt a real calm as he focused on the job, so it wasn’t the
waiting that was the problem. The problem was that he didn’t trust her to be
right about having a chance to strike back. If they branded him, Tom would be
nothing more than a slave.

“Wrong, wrong. Strong hand. Wait for the right scratch,”
Da’shay said with a frown as she moved back into the corner. Tom opened his
mouth to argue, but when Da’shay’s eyes went up to the opposite corner of the
room again, he closed his mouth without saying anything. Reasoning with her
wasn’t exactly a winning proposition to start with, and if there was any chance
that someone was listening, Tom didn’t want to give them any more ammunition.
So far, it seemed as if people were buying the story that him and Ramsay were
only pissed off mercenaries, and he’d like to keep it that way. If he started
talking, he might go and say something stupid.