Breakout (23 page)

He
cared
about things in a way he never had before. Hell, once he wouldn't have given a shit that a couple of worthless bastards ruined a young girl's life.
Sad story, everybody's got one. So cry me a river.
That indifference had sloughed right off, thanks to Dred.

She made me join the human race.
Silently grieving, he touched Keelah's head lightly, saying good-bye. Lost in reverie, for once his instincts let him down.

Jael didn't hear the person slip up behind him.

28

All Hands on Deck

Dred stepped into the ship cautiously. Not just because the doors had low clearance, but she also bore in mind that a live, bare wire had fried Duran. Vost couldn't have meant for that to happen. She guessed that was a result of his being rushed instead of dispatching the rest of them to “investigate” the station alarms.

Like
we
could undo whatever Silence did. If Ike were still around, maybe. But without him, it was just an invitation to divide and conquer.

“Where do you need me?” she called.

“Come aft,” Vost answered.

Martine was in the bow pilot's seat, fiddling with the instruments as Dred slid past into the cargo space in the middle of the craft, where Calypso was working to fix the electrical problem. She navigated past the coil of wires and popped her head into the secondary seating area. This vessel was the strangest patchwork monster she'd ever seen, with dueling cockpits and hung together with hope.

“I'm here.”

“Hold this for me.”

“How's that?” She covered his hands with hers.

Vost pulled back. “Good. We have to get the engines firing in sequence, or we're fragged. I'm nearly there, but it's hard to concentrate knowing the station could blow any minute.” The merc's hands shook as he adjusted something.

“We have a couple of hours before the whole station goes boom,” she joked.

He cut her a daggered look. “You think that's amusing? I suspect you haven't studied physics, or you'd be worried about the impact of the shrapnel wave on our little raft.”

“Like a backdraft, you mean?”

“I hope you don't see it firsthand. We need to put some distance between us and Perdition, ASAP.” He raised his voice. “Try it now, Martine!”

A roar came from the front of the ship. The gauges showed numbers Dred couldn't interpret, and Vost studied them before letting out a whoop. The excitement was so boyish that, for a few seconds, he looked utterly unlike himself. “All right, we're golden.”

“That means we can take off?”

“This is as ready as we can be. I'll fine-tune once we're out of danger.”

“We're just missing Tam and Jael. I'll find them.”

“You have five minutes,” he said flatly.

“Excuse me?”

“I'm taking off in three hundred seconds. So round up the survivors and get them on board because I'm not dying today.” Vost didn't look at Dred as he settled into the pilot's chair.

She ground her teeth as she let go of the lever and whirled to locate the other two. But when she got to midship, she paused by Calypso. “If he tries to leave us, stop him.”

The other woman glanced toward Vost. “You got it. Don't care if he's holding our exit pass, he tries to bail, and he can die with us convicts.”

“Seems fair,” she muttered. “Sit tight, I'll be back soon.”

But before she could exit, a boom rocked the whole room. Dred stumbled into Calypso, who caught her and braced both of them against the shuddering walls. “What the hell?”

Dred shook her head, but she was already moving. That explosion sounded way too close to be random station damage. Martine jumped out ahead of her and spun in a slow circle.

“Shit,” the smaller woman said. “The blast door's down.”

“Force field?” Dred asked, hopping out of the craft.

“Gone, too. We're on emergency power now, all over the station. It won't be long before we lose life support.”

“Must be Silence,” Calypso yelled. “There's nobody else.”

There was smoke everywhere. Whatever Silence had used to take down the blast door, it wasn't clean-burning.

“Where the hell did she get the gear?” Martine asked.

“She raided one of Ike's caches,” Dred said, swearing. “I thought she just destroyed it, but she must've taken whatever Ike left and blown the container.”

“Mary curse it,” Calypso snarled.

“Guard the ship,” she told the tall woman. “Martine, help me find Jael and Tam. They have to be in the bay somewhere.”

“Let's hope Silence doesn't get to them first.”

Dred ignored Calypso's grim mutterings and raced toward the doors. If she knew Jael, he'd have gone to investigate the damage.
Assuming he can.
The smoke was thicker this way, with smoldering piles of rags littering the floor on the way to the exit. She coughed and ran on, covering her face with a forearm. Her heart thumped a warning, telling her to prepare for the worst.
He's gone, he's gone, he's gone.

And Vost won't wait.

In all honesty, she wouldn't blame Calypso if she made a deal with the merc. Why should she die for some random assholes she met in a max-sec hole? Same with Tam and Martine, really. None of them had anything in common once you removed the fact that they had been sentenced to die in the same place.

“Jael,” she shouted, giving up on stealth.

If that crazy bitch comes at me, we'll have it out.
Actually, she welcomed that prospect. What the Monsanto bastards had done to Rebestah was beyond wrong, but Silence had hurt Jael in ways that could never be forgiven.
I'd love an hour with her and a really sharp knife.
But with the station disintegrating below them, it looked like Silence would be getting a swift death.

More than she deserves.

“Jael! Where are you, love?” The endearment slipped out.

When a pair of hands grabbed her, she knocked them away and came up in fighting stance, but Martine's face resolved in the smoke, pressing close to hers, and Dred nearly punched her. She let out a breath and was sorry when she sucked in smoke. Dred doubled over, and Martine led her away from the worst of it. She sucked in mouthfuls of clean air with a desperation that gave her some sense how bad it would be to die in vacuum.

“Have you seen Jael?” she gasped out.

“I checked near the bodies, where I saw him last, but I can't find him or Tam. They're not answering when I call, either.” The other woman didn't say she was worried, but Dred heard it in her voice, in the flex of her jaw.

Silence.

•   •   •

“LOVE
is a fearsome thing,” Tam said.

Jael stood up and whipped around, his heart pounding like mad. “Good thing you didn't want me dead.”

The other man smiled. “I wouldn't live long if I did. Dred's rather fond of you.”

“Maybe a bit. I was just . . . saying good-bye. To Keelah, not Duran.”

“He wasn't the most endearing soul. I suspect Calypso only bedded him to assert some control.”

“I've slept with people for worse reasons,” Jael muttered.

“As have I.”

“We'll probably be leaving soon. Want to take a last walk, make sure we didn't leave anything vital in the dormitory or control room?”

“Sounds good.”

They left the bay floor and went to the dorm first. He checked the mattresses while Tam peered into the footlockers. In the bottom of one he found the entertainment console that Keelah had taken apart and put back together. He tapped the power button and found that she'd fixed it.
This might make the time pass faster.
Which was probably what Keelah was thinking when she worked on it. Sighing, Jael pocketed the unit.

“Anything?” he asked Tam.

The other man shook his head.

Then a massive detonation rocked everything. He slammed into the bed frame, and the world went sideways. Jael didn't think he was out long; he tended not to lose consciousness, so it was more like being stunned. He shoved to his hands and knees, smelling smoke. Cocking his head, he located Tam by zeroing in on his heartbeat, a feat that required blotting out the rest of the world. He didn't use that selective focus a lot, but time mattered.

When he got to Tam, he found him out cold, blood trickling from a head wound. Cursing, he lifted him and picked a path over the toppled furniture. In the smoke, he could only make out the vague shape of the ship.
There we go.
Jael took two steps in that direction, and a more localized explosion took out part of the ship.

He went down in the back blast, and he threw himself on top of Tam as debris rained down. Shock numbed him.
That was one of the engines.
Silence's plan became transparent then. She didn't need to kill them in combat; it wasn't like she cared about that anyway. All she had to do was harry, sabotage, strike, and retreat. If she delayed them long enough, they'd all die with her, and
that
must be what she wanted. She wanted the grand finale, one last offering to Death.

In hindsight, he wished they'd put guards on the door, as soon as the force field went down, but then again, that person probably would've been killed outright when she took out the blast door. He strained to see through the smoke and saw a couple of murky shapes trying to put out the fire at the bow of the vessel. Stumbling to his feet, he picked Tam up again and headed in that direction.

It turned out to be Vost and Calypso. The merc had soot smeared all over his face, and he snapped, “Where the hell have you two idiots been? If not for you, we'd already be gone.”

He ignored the insult. “How bad is the damage?”

“I can't tell. Can't fragging see.”

Calypso produced a light and flashed it across the affected area. “We have to patch the hull. Now.”

“Let me put Tam inside, and I'll find the parts. You get the soldering kit.”

The other woman nodded. Once he'd strapped Tam into a seat, Jael raced out.
Need a strong panel, something that won't tear loose at the least resistance.
Silence was probably around here, but he wanted to live more than he wanted to kill her. As he laid hands on a scrap of metal the right size, Dred shouted his name, her voice hoarse with smoke inhalation.

“Over here,” he yelled back.

It took a few back-and-forth calls for her to locate him, then Dred raced up with Martine hot on her heels. She almost knocked the sheeting out of his hand when she grabbed him around the neck in a death-love strangle-hug. Jael patted her back gently while mouthing,
What's wrong?
at Martine.

“She thought Silence got you.”

“Oh.” He exhaled slowly. “I'm fine, love. She's slinking around, and it makes my skin crawl. But we have to fix the ship.”

Martine let out a string of curses. “Swear to Mary, I can't live in peace until I stick a knife in that woman's eye.”

“That makes two of us.” Dred's green eyes glinted with a martial light. “You three work on repairs with Vost. Martine and I are going hunting.”

He grabbed her arm before she could take off. “That's a stupid move, queenie.”

Jael hadn't called her that in ages, and it registered on Dred with a flare of aggravation. She shook off his hand. “She's got to die. For what she did to you, and now the ship. It's just . . . that's what needs to happen.”

Cupping her face in his hands, he shook his head. “That's what she wants. For us to choose revenge over life. She'll ghost around this place, and if you two aren't helping, we might not make it out of here. Choose me instead. Choose life.”

For a long moment, she held his gaze, trying to stare him down. But Jael didn't waver. He gave two fucks for Silence.
She'll die anyway. She'll die alone.
He intended to rob her of what she wanted most; that would be the most awful penance. Even now, a small part of him wished he could save the hopeful, idealistic girl Silence had been.

Sorry, Rebestah. If any of those bastards are still alive, I'll hunt them down for you.

Dred snarled. “Fine. Let's go. But you understand, I'm doing this for you, no other reason. My knife hand is so stabby right now.”

“Mine too,” Martine muttered. “But all hands on deck and whatnot. Let's fix our piece of shit and get gone before it's too late.”