Читать книгу Under Shadows - Jason LaPier - Страница 11

Nine days in Xarp space, in a damn dropship. No sleeping tubes. Lucky Jerk, always prepared, had packs of Delirium-G hidden in pockets all over his flight uniform. But when he dug them all out and pooled them together, there were only a handful of doses. Dava, Lucky, and Thompson had to share them. Which meant rationing. Which meant going for hours, riding Xarp raw, pulling spacetime out of reality and into some mindless dimension where nothing meant anything, pulling it thinner and thinner until that point where they wanted to just die and end it all. Open up the windows and suck out to the black. Welcome oblivion. And just before reaching that tipping point, popping a pill and zonking out. A different kind of mindlessness. One of acceptance. Of disconnection.

And with the mindlessness, with the emptiness, old ghosts came to fill the void. They came because they’d been dodged too often. Sidestepped with the day-to-day fight for survival. They came because in the emptiness, they could not be ignored.

“Lay down now, Davina.” Her father. The tang chemical smell of oil that never left his skin.

“Where’s Ma?”

“Right here, Davina. We’ll be right next to you.” Her mother wore a perfume, what was supposed to smell like flowers. It was a special occasion for her to not have the familiar scent of damp dirt. The cough that accompanied her sing-song words. The cough that made them all flinch.

“How long is it?”

“It’s far,” her father said. His voice was musical too. It was how her parents had met; folks sang together in those days. “So far that we have to go to sleep.”

“Why do we have to go so far?”

“It’s what people do,” her mother said. She always had this answer, no matter the question. “People move. There are better places out there. A better home for us.”

“We had a home.”

“This one will be better.”

“Why?”

The cough again. The collective flinch. “You trust us, doncha, Davina?”

“Yes.” Said too quickly. To cover the lie.

“What we had was not a good home.” Her father hung his head, spoke into his chest. “Maybe it was at one time, but ain’t no more.”

“So everyone is going to leave?”

They looked at each other. Then her mother looked away. Her father frowned and met her eyes. “No.” His face darkened, his voice became smoke. “We have to leave them.”

“Why?”

A bad energy grew in the space around her. Rows of beds like the one she was sitting in. Beds that were cylinders, beds that had covers on them. Anxiety in the air. In the hurried voices, the commands in the distance, echoing around the massive chamber. Drawing her parents’ attention. Causing them to glance. To fidget. To cower.

“Lay down now, Davina,” her mother said. “Don’t make no trouble, just lay down and it will be over fast.”

“Why do we have to leave them?”

Her father’s strong hand on her chest. Flattening her into the tight cylinder-bed, like stowing something into a cupboard. The eyes bearing down, pinning her into place. The eyes that would not be argued with.

“Because we’re lucky, Davina.”

She hadn’t trusted them. All they did was lie. Lie to her about how things would be okay, how things would get better.

Her mistrust had been justified. When she woke up, they were gone. And there was no home.

Nine days with those ghosts. Nine days of seeing them and losing them. Crossing and re-crossing the border between their presence and their absence.

To hide from them, Dava thought about the more recent betrayals. The snakes in her own house. Kindled that fire, forcing it to grow, refusing to let it fade. Then they docked with the base and took the first step out of the ship, and there it went. Smothered into smoke by the heavy air of failure and loss. The half-gravity of the slow swing of the station’s arms pulled heavier than the fattest of planets.

The welcome from Space Waste was not warm. Which was just fine by Dava, since she’d come looking to pick a fight. But it was so cold there, she was unable to rile anyone she came across. Those that had survived the assault had become living dead. No one was excited to see that she and Thompson-Gun and Lucky Jerk were still alive. Nor were they disappointed. They were just nothing.

As the coals smoldered, she pushed herself to storm for Rando Jansen. She wanted explanations. But he was locked away. Planning another attack, was the word. And Dava wasn’t allowed in, according to the malaise-laden guard posted outside the war room. She’d been demoted. No longer a capo. For her failure in the assault, though the guard didn’t reveal that much out loud.

Finally, she managed to corner Captain 2-Bit at the drinking hole. He blinked when he saw her – it’d been the biggest reaction she’d gotten since her arrival.

“Captain,” she said, drawing close under the dim lights. “Tell me what he’s planning.”

He frowned at her, then motioned to the bartender. “Sorry about the demotion, Dava.” He glanced at her glass.

She was drinking a well-aged whiskey. “Yes, the demotion came with a diet. But Moora didn’t have the heart to enforce it.”

Moora the bartender silently slid a skinny glass of yellow ale in front of 2-Bit and turned away.

“There’s D-K,” he said after taking a small sip from the top. Eyes still on his beer. “Lots of it around.”

That would explain all the disconnected faces. “What happened in the war room?”

He sighed, trying to hang his shoulders heavy with the weight, then snuck a sideways glance at her and winced. “Top secret.”

2-Bit was a good leader, always looked up to by the grunts and the flyboys, but he was naive – almost intentionally so. It was a quality Dava respected: she knew he preferred everything to be straight. But 2-Bit wasn’t stupid, in that he was well aware of his own weaknesses. So he played along with games of deceit as best he could. Given the choice, he’d prefer bold truth over subtlety or riddle.

“Captain,” she said. “We’ve known each other a long time.”

“Eight years,” he said without hesitation.

“Moses was taken prisoner.”

He blew out a sigh and took a hard drink. “We figured.”

“A lot of us were taken prisoner,” she said. “Are we going to get them back?”

He stared into his beer until she touched him on the shoulder. He looked at her and looked down. “RJ,” he said. “Underboss Jansen says it’s time to press on. That ModPol ain’t expecting us to make another move right now.”

“So it’s a good time for us to make another move.” Against the warning in her chest, she prayed this meant a move to go after Moses.

“Yes.”

She drained her whiskey and tilted the empty tumbler at Moora. “Captain, I know I got busted down.”

“Dava …”

He shriveled as Moora came by and refilled her glass. “You can still tell me anything, Captain. Look around at who’s left. You and I have been here the longest.”

He glanced up at her, then took a swallow of beer. He nodded and looked up to the ceiling and became suddenly lost in some unseen clouds. “Of course, girl. Of course, Dava. Such a young girl when I met you. But always strong. So strong. Should be you leading these people. Not me, not RJ. Not Moses.”

“Hey,” she said, feeling her face grow hot and her hands grow tight. “Moses—”

“Moses,” 2-Bit said back to her with an unexpected fire in his eyes that stunned her into silence. The rare anger faded quickly and he looked up again. “He’s just a little lost, is all. He’s old, like me. We don’t know what to do any more. We don’t know what it’s for sometimes.”

She caught herself trembling as she raised her glass to her mouth, as the warm liquid graced her lips. Anger, or fear? Moses could preach. Had she mistaken a gift of the tongue for drive, for purpose? No. He always had a plan.

“I want you to tell me what RJ is planning,” she said firmly.

2-Bit took a deep breath. “It’s another assault,” he said. “This time, on the mining colony of Ipo. A little moon. You know it?”

“No.” She leaned back slightly. “Captain, look at what’s left of us. How can we do another assault?”

“Fresh crop,” he said, bobbing his head in a rehearsed compliance. “More recruits just come in.”

“From where?”

“Jansen convinced the Misters to join us. Convinced them that it’s better to be united.”

“United.”

“Against ModPol.”

She nodded heavily, halfway between uncontrollable raging hatred for the Misters and respect for what actually sounded like a good idea. The Misters. Rival gang of nobodies. And yet they’d almost killed her a few months ago. More concerned with turning a profit than anything, peddling drugs and weapons.

But the point had been made. Space Waste was damaged, and in no condition to continue petty squabbles with other gangs while at war with ModPol. Even still, shoring up the ranks and immediately going on the attack was risky.

She watched 2-Bit’s hands quiver by mere micrometers as he lifted his glass. “How’s he going to be sure this next attack is going to pay off?”

His eyes dropped sheepishly. “Intelligence,” he mumbled into his beer before taking a long pull.

“Like the kind of intelligence Basil Roy gave us.” She decided not to waste time making up a story about how she knew he wasn’t on the base. “Where is our illustrious hacker anyway?”

He looked at her, his voice cool skepticism. “He disappeared.”

Damn 2-Bit. He was going to make her spell it out. “So we go on this mission, Basil Roy giving us directions. We run into an ambush. Then he disappears.”

2-Bit cocked his head slightly. “Ambush?”

“Did you really think we just lost a fair fight?” She drained her whiskey and stood up. “I have to show you something.”

She found a quiet corner of the station and recounted the details of the breach-and-board to Captain 2-Bit. The army of ModPol Defenders camped out in the cargo bays. Anyone they didn’t slaughter, they’d captured. She watched the concern spread slowly across his face, but he was only going on her word. Then she showed him some of the BatCap footage that she and Thompson-Gun and Lucky Jerk had retrieved. As he saw with his own eyes the clearly prepared ModPol fighter ships disguised as asteroids reveal themselves and pinch into the Space Waste ships, his concern turned to fear. Eyes widening, breath catching.

2-Bit was no idiot, and although he wanted to trust Jansen, the evidence was stacking up. Basil Roy was Jansen’s man, and Roy had clearly deceived them. The hacker’s disappearance fed 2-Bit’s distrust. And yet she couldn’t bring him around to fully distrusting Jansen. 2-Bit wanted to believe that Roy had deceived all of them, Jansen included.

In the end, Dava got 2-Bit to agree to stay on his toes and keep a watchful eye on things. And to look the other way while she went about her own business. He’d let slip that the next attack was going to be on Ipo; apparently the miners there had struck a vein of some material ideal for packing into torpedoes and hurling at other ships, exploding spectacularly whether they made a direct hit or not. Whatever kept him busy, she didn’t really care.

Thompson came around to find her eventually, once 2-Bit had stumbled away, half-drunk, half-confused, all useless. They walked around the outer corridor toward their old barracks to see who or what might have moved in during their absence.

“These Misters,” Thompson was groaning. “Place is crawling with them. Flighty bastards. Not much good except for fodder.”

“Something tells me Jansen sees us all that way.”

The old hallways felt like home, but not like home at the same time. Everything had changed, and now it was like she was walking through a memory, a twisted museum commemorating something that once was, now no longer.

Thompson was carrying a case, and Dava nodded at it. “Got yourself a replacement Tommy-Gun?”

She frowned down at it. “Yeah. It’s my only spare. Not as good as the one ModPol lifted off me.”

Dava knew how much Thompson-Gun’s namesake meant to her. She’d watched her friend customize the piece over the years. It had been a work of art as much as a weapon. “Better hold onto this one,” she said in a mirthless attempt at teasing her.

Thompson shook it off, changing the subject. “I heard a rumor,” she said in a low voice. She must have held her tongue until she felt they were out of earshot of anyone important. “About where they took the prisoners.”

“Heard from who?”

“It’s a rumor, Dava. There is no who.”

“Then what?” She tried to keep her voice low, but it wanted to leap out of her chest. She clutched the handholds tighter as they drifted in the low gravity. “Where?”

“The Pollies have that new lockup. The zero-G place. In the outer belt.”

She took this in. It made sense, except for the fact that there weren’t Pollies on the ModPol transport, they were all Fenders. Military, not police. “Must be the Fenders didn’t want to deal with the prisoners.”

“Or they had a deal, made a trade or something.”

“Aren’t they all ModPol?”

Thompson laughed. “Yeah, but they’re like factions, you know?”

Dava couldn’t draw those boundaries in her mind, couldn’t fathom what the cops and the soldiers would trade for. “This rumor – it’s making its way around the base?”

“Of course.”

“Anyone asking why we’re not hitting the prison?”

They stopped, and Dava realized they’d reached the hatch of Thompson’s chamber. “Of course,” she said again. “But RJ is saying they might be expecting that.”

“RJ,” Dava muttered. He was probably right about that. Or he was right in the words he was feeding to the grunts. Spinning the rumors to tell the story his way. Was he capable of that level of manipulation? He’d fooled Moses.

She could kill him. He was probably well guarded and plenty paranoid at this point, but she was the best. She could find a way.

It was strange to admit, but she’d never killed without being on the job. She’d never taken it on her own volition to assassinate. Although Basil Roy might count. No one had ordered to spill his blood.

What would Moses want her to do? She was so certain of Jansen’s deceit. She didn’t need hard evidence. She didn’t need a confession from the late Basil Roy. She just knew it. If Moses knew something as strongly as she did, would he order the hit?

He would weigh it out. He would lay all the cards on the table, flip them over into proper piles, see all the players, the moves, the outcomes. She couldn’t see any of that. She couldn’t see the consequences. She never had to before, but now that she had the option to take things into her own hands, she was stuck. How was she supposed to predict the consequences of assassinating the underboss of Space Waste?

Every one of those empty faces she’d passed drifting through the empty base. They burned her. They fled, those that lived, those that were uncaptured – they were all guilty of leaving the rest behind. But in the end, Dava had fled as well. Those faces, she hated them for being so stupid, for being used, but then Dava had been used as well. Those faces were mirrors. Reflecting what she hated about herself.

“Who can we get to go with us?” Dava said, barely in control of the words as they came out.

“Go where?”

“I don’t know yet.” She just knew she needed a crew. That was the first step. Mutiny against Jansen wasn’t going to pay off, and she had no idea what might happen if she managed to kill him. Who was loyal to him? It was a sure bet the newly arrived Misters were. No, before she could do anything, she needed to find out who could stand with her. “It doesn’t matter where we’re going or what we’re doing. Who can we trust to join us?”

“How many do we need?”

Dava bit her lip. “A small crew. They have to be solid. If you’re not sure, they don’t make the cut. I only want ringers.”

Thompson nodded and pulled open her hatch. “Give me a couple of hours. I’ll send you a message and we’ll meet.”

*

By the time they gathered together in the dark shadows behind the tanks in the recycling pod, the seed in Dava’s mind had grown into a full-blown plan. She looked around at her posse.

“Alright, Tommy. Who are these piece-of-shit bastards?”

Thompson-Gun’s face twisted into a snarling smile. She slapped a lean, muscular woman on the arm and nodded. “This here’s Seven-Pack. Close-combat specialist. She and I used to run under Professor One-Shot.” She frowned. “Until Poligart.”

Dava had heard the story about Poligart, though she hadn’t paid much attention. The one habitable moon of Sirius-7 and location of a small but strong colony. The incident was one of the first encounters with some Misters. A small crew of Wasters, lead by One-Shot, got into some kind of shootout. They’d been outnumbered and came out on top, but One-Shot didn’t make it. “Yeah, Seven-Pack,” Dava said, looking the woman up and down, recognizing her from around the base. She had blood-red skin and matching red hair and had probably been born on Poligart. “I heard you took out a bunch of those bastards yourself.”

“She did,” Thompson said. “Got her leg all fucked up in the process. Missed the attack in Eridani, but now she’s good to go.”

Dava nodded. “Close-combat specialist. And what does Seven-Pack mean?”

With a quiet shudder, a revolver appeared in the woman’s hands, the barrel pointing skyward. She flipped open the cylinder, spun it with a flick. “Six,” she said, then flicked it closed and triggered an unseen switch. With a tiny pop, a blade as long as her hand sprang from the side of the barrel. “And number seven, never runs out of ammo.”

Dava watched the gun slide back into its holster and noted that Seven-Pack’s belt was well stocked with cartridges. She definitely approved of the blade, but was glad to see the shooter wasn’t going to run short on ammo. They would need every bullet.

“Next up.” Thompson reached up to thump the chest of a tall and lanky baby-faced man. “This is Half-Shot. Younger brother of Professor One-Shot.”

“Half-Shot.” Dava snorted. “Z’at mean you’re half as good?”

The boy slowly unslung a long and expensive-looking rifle from his back and hefted its barrel across the front of his chest. “Raymond’s specialty was sniping. Headshots, when he could get them. Vital organs when he couldn’t. One bullet, one kill.” He raised the gun an inch. “Fuck those old-fashioned bullets. These motherfuckers cut through everything. One shot, at least two kills.”

Dava reached out and touched the gun, felt the heat coming through the casing even while it was powered down. Her eyes flicked up to meet his. “Sorry about your brother. He was a good capo. He didn’t deserve to get shot by some piece-of-shit Mister.”

Half-Shot’s eyes narrowed, and she could see his pupils jitter. Like they wanted to shoot glares elsewhere, but he was keeping them in check. “Yeah, well. It was a lucky shot.”

“Uh. Sorry about that.”

Dava turned to see Lucky Jerk behind her, tipping sheepishly from side to side. The Poligart story was coming back to her. Lucky had once been a Mister. Press-ganged into their crew, if she were to believe his story. In any case, he’d found himself as one of the few left alive. Thompson would have liquidated him, except that he could fly a ship and she needed a pilot.

Half-Shot grunted. “Was he shooting at you?”

“Well, yeah,” Lucky said.

“Then what’s done is done,” he said. Dava looked at him for a long moment to try to decide whether what was done really was done. The burn of her stare stirred him to speak again. “Tommy-Gun brung him on. I ain’t gonna cross her.”

“Good. There’s few of us here and we need to be solid.” Against the far wall, there leaned a massive figure with ghost-white skin. “Who’s the big guy?”

“That’s Polar Gary.”

“What, like a polar bear?” Lucky said with a knowing nod. “All big and white.”

“A polar bear?” Thompson flared at him, causing him to flinch. “No one has seen a fucking polar bear in four hundred years, asshole. We call him Polar Gary because he’s bipolar. So don’t piss him off.”

“Sorry, Tommy.” Lucky straightened up to give a nod in the direction of the big man. “Sorry, Polar Gary.”

“Whatever.” Gary’s deep voice was more vibration than sound.

Dava could hear Lucky whispering to Thompson, “Does he med? Why not just get gene therapy?”

Thompson’s reply was low and weighty. “When he was a domer, yeah, he was medicating. He came to us to get away from that pacification bullshit.”

The word pacification jolted Dava with déjà-vu. A teenager from Earth, orphaned, forced to live in the domes. Always getting into trouble. Always troubled, always troubling. They’d put her on a special diet, which she’d seen at first as straight discipline, another form of forced conformity. When she caught herself staring blissfully at the fake clouds in the sky, she realized they’d been drugging her food. The confrontation with her guardians that followed was muddy in her mind; most memories from that time were hard to solidify.

Pacify her.

“So.” Thompson’s voice jarred her back to the present. “That makes five grunts: me, you, Seven-Pack, Half-Shot, Polar Gary. And Lucky, if we need a pilot.”

Dava looked around at them. It was a small outfit, but that was good. She didn’t know all of them well. She had no choice but to trust them, but that seemed easier at this point. Was it desperation? Or was it that they’d be easier to leave behind if she cared less for them?

Whatever it was, it didn’t matter. There was a job to do, and though she hadn’t gotten any order, she knew it needed to be done.

“I assume we need a pilot,” Thompson prodded.

“We need several.”