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The energy lash is agony across my back. One of the older boys who was on the ship when we arrived told me screaming makes it hurt less and satisfies the sadistic streak of the crewmember wielding the whip; to make the punishment shorter. Maybe it is true. I'm too young to know anything about psychology, or what the word "sadistic" means. I scream because of the pain.
It feels as if it's searing the flesh off my bones, but I know it's not. There won't be any marks on me after this punishment. That's why the slavers use the energy lash on us. Human trafficking does not offend their clientele, but they don't want to see any signs of abuse on the merchandise—or at least not that kind.
Mandy got me into this trouble. She's never resolved herself to our fate. She cries at night and calls for her momma. She wandered off a few hours ago, looking for her parents again—walked out of the small bunkroom assigned to me and the five other kids from our settlement that I'm in charge of. She got back into engineering and almost lost a finger in a locker door. It's badly bruised, and she hasn't stopped crying since they brought her back.
It's not the first time she's gotten me whipped. I try to tell myself it's because she's so young, but my brother Anthy is even younger, and he's no trouble. Of course, Anthy is always smiling and sweet, in spite of our misery. He doesn't really know what has happened to us. He laughs and plays, and the crew likes him. Mandy just cries and has a snotty nose all the time. She's still one of the five kids I have to protect from the lash. They're little. They don't understand.
The energy from the lash sizzles over my nerve endings one last time and I scream.
***
SOMETHING PATTED MY cheek.
I opened my eyes.
A tiny angel with solemn features stared down at me, its hair the color of watery bloodstains on white cloth.
"Saura," I croaked. This wasn't my dewdrop.
A quizzical expression came over the angel's face. After a moment, the expression deepened to a puzzled frown.
There were things beyond the angel's head: beams, ducts, vents. Station things.
I shuddered. Moved my hand.
Memory came back in a blaze of agony. My hand was a charred wreck. I—we—were under attack. Idwal had sealed me in, and there was a kid... I reached out and grasped the angel by the arm with my good hand. Felt the rough surface of a transition suit beneath my own glove.
This kid.
Apparently, enough time had passed for it to recover consciousness and remove its headgear. I couldn't tell whether it was a boy or a girl, but it was a beautiful human child. The kind people exclaim over and instantly adore.
Like my little brother Anthy.
Not the sort of child one expects to find on a retired matter processing facility on the edge of nowhere.
Was this our cargo? The question flashed in my head. Were the larger beings who accompanied it part of the deal?
There was all that extra Human food in our third cabin...
What had those two clown-idiots back at Mandragala gotten us into?
I was still functioning. The software in my head and the nanites the corps put in my body were working to contain pain and repair tissue, but nothing inside me could fix that much charred skin, and the pain-drain wasn't going to work for long. I had to get additional relief into my system if I wanted to get us out of here.
I released the kid's arm and fumbled with the tool pack on my hip. After a few seconds of watching, she—for some reason I thought it looked like a she—pushed the pack's cover back and looked at me.
It contained several items, and she didn't know which one I wanted.
"At the top, in the fold," I whispered. Ragged pain tore at my brain. If I didn't secure relief soon, I'd slip into shock.
The kid frowned, expression sad, and shook its head.
"Talk!" I barked in frustration. The expensive language software buried in my head couldn't do anything until I had a few sounds to work with. "Dammit, say something. Anything!"
She flinched at the anger my voice but stayed beside me.
This was not the time for a language lesson. I plucked at the flap with my good hand, trying to get at the tiny, precious cylinder nestled there. She watched for a moment, then lightly pushed my hand away and tugged at the fold. The tape securing it separated and the ampoule rolled out.
Mother Universe, it was intact! I closed my eyes for a second in gratitude. When I opened them, the kid had it in her hand.
She held it out to me.
I reached, positioning it carefully in my fingers. My hand shook with pain and the anticipation of relief, but the kid held rock steady, allowing me to grasp it firmly between my thumb and two fingers before letting go. As long as I held one of the ends pressed against my skin and put pressure on the opposite one, the precious painkiller would inject.
The thing was illegal as hell, but all spacers carried one. Security everywhere knew and ignored it—unless you were unlucky enough to encounter the one dirty bastard who would confiscate it to resell. Those guys didn't last long on the job. Word got out, and they met a knife to the ribs in a dark corner somewhere. Spacers watching out for fellow spacers. Sometimes that it was all the justice we had. Carrying the little ampoule was that important. It meant the difference between life and death at times like this.
I fumbled, desperately afraid of dropping the thing before I could inject its contents. I could crush the shell in my teeth and swallow the stuff, but the effects took longer that way. If I passed out from pain before it started to work and my body chose shock over waking, we were probably going to die.
I got the ampoule positioned against my charred skin so my thumb could press the end. It was designed for a gloved spacer hand to use—the accidents in space that made its possession a necessity frequently happened outside a ship during repair—but my hand shook too hard. I dropped my head back onto the deck plate in frustration.
Tried to rally my strength again.
The pain suddenly subsided.
The kid held up the empty injection cylinder with a questioning look.
Even if she didn't speak, at least she had good sense.
She placed the empty ampoule back in the hidden fold while I took a deep breath and waited for the painkiller to spread its effect. The stuff bought a spacer time to return to their ship after an injury. It would keep me clearheaded and pain-free for an hour at best. It wouldn't cure anything and it sure as hell wouldn't rescue us.
When the shakiness cleared my body, I sat up and looked around. We were in the airlock, with the tabletop jammed widthwise and slanted upward in the opening. With the restoration of air, the gravity field inside the lock had restored.
I was in serious trouble. Pushing down panic, I positioned my left arm in my lap and rolled my forearm upward. Ignoring the blackened, oozing thing beyond the cuff of my suit, I mentally ran through the Spacer Prayer—meant to cover every entity in the known universe—then pressed the commlink buried in the skin of my inner forearm. The sleeve might have protected those controls.
Or the energy blast that cooked my hand might have traveled up the nerves and bone to destroy the circuitry. Hence the prayer.
A vibration of response sent a rush of dizzying relief through me. I had contact with the world outside my body. I keyed the sequence to buzz Saura.
No response. I tried the ship. Nothing. Either Saura was lying low, or she and the Hand were gone. Temporarily, I hoped.
I tugged off my headgear. The smell of burned flesh and dust hung in the air.
The kid watched me warily, ready to spring away if I reached out again. A strange woman on an alien station; yeah, I understood her reaction. For kids, most adults were bad news. I counted myself lucky she was willing to get near enough to help me at all.
I took the opportunity to look at her.
She looked Human. She had pale skin, the kind of porcelain that went with white hair. I checked her eyes—usually that's a giveaway for another specie-origin. Human-normal brown irises regarded me with steady intelligence. She had two arms and two legs, two nostrils and two ears—the right number for any features that counted. I guessed her age at six years.
Had she realized the fate of the people who had traveled with her yet? I'd seen tears and sorrow on more small faces than I cared to remember, but hers was not one. Either she didn't know, or she'd exhausted her reactions while I was out. If I could persuade her to speak, my translation software could cue in on whatever language she spoke and tell me where she and the dead spacers came from.
"Who are you?" I gestured with my good hand, fingers fluttering at my mouth to indicate words coming out, and pointed at her.
When she shook her head, dismay washed over me. The movement did not indicate confusion at my question. It said she did not speak.
But she could hear.
"Freedom? Amaterasu? New Palestine, Beijing, New Chai?" I named some of the worlds that distinct Human languages dominated.
She squeezed her face in a funny expression then frowned at me again.
If she were mute, she would have used her hands. If her people communicated by expression—something I'd never heard off—it would take more time than we currently had to understand each other.
"We have to find a way into the next section and up to my ship." I got to my feet, paused until a swirl of dizziness passed, then clambered over the plate and out into the ring. The lights had dropped several levels in brightness while we were in the airlock. As I stood there, they dropped again and the red lights around the lock hatch shut off with a loud mechanical clack. The warning sounds that had clamored relentlessly over the past hours were dropping off in noticeable stages.
Section Ten was shutting down.
When the power cut off, the air pumps and temperature controls would go. We'd have the section's oxygen—until it got too cold for our lungs. Then we had our suits to protect us until their power reserves ran out. I would be dead from shock long before that happened, but the kid...
She followed me across to the gigantic doors that sealed us away from Section One. The Proambu announcements stopped abruptly and another level of lighting shut down. In the dimness, I searched for an override switch to open a way between the sections, though I didn't expect to find one. The hard truth of survival in space is that a few beings trapped on the wrong side of a decompressing section are not worth risking the integrity of a whole facility. Still, I walked the length of the door in case the Proambu did supply an access hatch. If they did, I missed it. Section Nine's wall would be the same.
The pumps stopped, and a vast silence settled over the place. We had a big problem if the Thief's Hand didn't appear outside Section Ten to rescue us soon and that couldn't happen because of the threat lurking outside.
A twitch on my right sleeve drew my attention. The kid was staring out past the airlock.
A wave of dismay washed over me. The light-eating blotch against the starlight had returned, only this time it was smaller. The ghost had sent in a shuttle.
The kid tugged for me to retreat toward the core. Whoever was on the shuttle terrified her.
They terrified me, too. "You stay here," I told her.
I went to the airlock to snatch up our headgear. For a brief moment, as I stood there watching the star-devouring smudge thread its way nearer, I felt a surge of hope. The station's security system would surely sense its presence and strike in defense. Then I realized, with all the scattered debris swirling outside, Idwal had probably shut down the local defense array.
The kid put her headgear on when I handed it to her. I secured mine, then, catching the material of her suit between two fingers, I drew her back to the structures fronting the inner core. They were plain, solid constructions and I knew from my earlier search that the door on the third one would open.
Putting my right hand on her back, I pushed her inside. "Wait here," I said.
The look in her eyes said she wanted to protest; she didn't know how.
I closed the door.
The people on the shuttle would see that the airlock stood open stationside and was empty. If they wanted the kid, they were going to have to come inside and I didn't want her in my way if I had to defend our position.
If things went really bad, I just hoped she had the sense to stay hidden and, conversely, to come out in time to make contact with Saurubi.
Yeah, that might be a bit much to ask of anyone. It wouldn't fall on her if I could prevent it.
I walked back to the outer glass.
The shuttle had activated bright external lights and was nudging aside the debris its mothership had created to make its way closer to the station wall. The death-black hull, with its outline of spiny edges, created an odd effect. It sucked away any light that fell on it like the event horizon of a black hole, an effect I'd never seen before.
This shuttle was larger than a Human one, marking the inhabitants as larger, too. Several species in the Whooex met that description. Outside the Whooex Union, who knew how many species existed?
Whoever they were, they weren't coming inside while the plate held the doors to the airlock open. Even if they activated the outer controls, Idwal would never let them override that obstacle. They didn't realize it yet, but we were at an impasse. Getting inside would demand a really aggressive action on their part. My instincts told me they would try.
An attack would delay Saura's arrival, which squeezed the window tighter on the time the kid and I had.
Damn that Frairy and MoMo!
I drew my tazer and dropped down between some chairs back toward the wall of Section Nine. They were bolted to the floor, with little risk of them rushing out the airlock if whoever was out there managed to breach the ring. I breathed in slowly to sharpen focus and prepared to pick off boarders as they came inside. There would be flying debris. Some of the overhead fixtures could wrench out of their settings. But the invaders would have combat gear similar to mine. I slid the setting on the tazer to its highest level, to kill, and buzzed Saura one more time while I waited.
No response.
Heart pounding, I gave in and queried the Hand directly.
On the third try, I got a low-level, double pulse in my wrist. It was the signal the ship was shutting down.
Mother Universe! Had I missed a response from Saura during all the craziness, warning me the Hand was under attack? I tried to run a quick back search, but the program didn't respond. Shit! What had I missed? What had happened to make Saura put herself into a SAC and place the ship's power on reserve? It didn't tell me if she was injured or if the Hand had sustained damage.
There was no rescue coming anytime soon.
I wanted to roar in frustration. What had I been thinking, talking to a Frairy and a MoMo? I'd gotten us shanghaied into this job, and now everything was falling apart.
No. Training and rational thought pushed through. The Hand had responded to me. The ship was functional. Saura was safe. All I had to do was take care of these bastards, then I could leave the kid here, go outside and up the wall of the facility to the Hand. Secure more painkillers, check on Saura, and bring the Hand down to the kid—who appeared to be part of our intended cargo. We had a third SAC to go with the third cabin. I could set our destination back to Mandragala and we'd work out a strategy for the rest after we got home.
I had a plan.
Can you do that, Zant?
Ser, yes ser!
The shuttle came to a stop several meters outside the airlock. I settled lower to the floor to watch the hatch slide open and three long, thin, bipedal figures in black suits emerge. Two arms, two legs, and a head. I ran through the catalog of Whooex specie-members in my software. They could be any of several.
One of the crew moved across the gap to peer inside the airlock, then motioned at the other two. Someone inside the shuttle bay shoved a bulky item out. They wrestled with the thing and it blossomed outward.
A net. The bastards had a freaking net! My heart plummeted. They were going to blow the lock and catch whatever rushed out with the air.
They were after the kid, and they wanted her alive. Otherwise, they would have just blown this section and left. I was merely an inconvenient witness. They would bundle her aboard their ship and shove me toward the sun, with an additional slice to my suit material.
I looked around, searching for something to give me an edge—as if things had magically changed in the last couple of minutes.
Nothing.
Meanwhile, the first guy was attaching some large, round objects to the outside of station. Magnets with lockdowns. I heard the solid thud of their contact and a secondary "thup" as they secured onto the plasglass surface. The other two blacksuits began securing corners of the net to the anchored magnets.
A long mechanical item emerged from the hatch. As they passed it forward my heart sank even lower. Mechanical jaws. Standard gear for military assault on a station airlock.
Section Ten would soon be open to the universe.
I got up and stumbled over to the doors. Kicked tentatively at the plate wedged between them. With a little work and careful timing, I might have one defensive weapon against the murdering bastards outside—if I could manage the task with one hand and a rapidly diminishing painkiller.
The blacksuit closest to the airlock finally saw me. It paused. Across a gap of several meters we stared at each other, though neither of us could see the other's features through our headgear.
Word of my presence traveled back to command inside the shuttle. I saw activity at their hatch. Someone peered out then disappeared again. The blacksuit resumed its work.
They had dismissed me as a low-level threat.
Big mistake!
I climbed inside the airlock. The inner doors had slammed closed on the tabletop so fast they caught it mid-fall, angling the lockside end upward a half of a meter. I put the fingers of my right hand under its edge and lifted.
The plate slipped up a fraction.
The door actuators whined.
I lifted again, being careful not to flip the thing out of the grip of the doors. There was little chance of that happening, however: it took every gram of strength I had to move the plate.
The guy working the jaws finally realized what I was up to and redoubled his efforts to pry the spaceside doors open.
He'd be at that awhile. Grimly I yanked up one more time, maximizing the angle to catch as much of the air blast exiting the station as possible. When those outer doors opened, the plate was going out into space. It wouldn't stop the inevitable, but it might punch a hole in the net and do some damage. And, as it blew outward the inner doors would slam closed again, causing the boarders to force them open, too. It would only inconvenience them, but it would give me a chance to take out one or two with my tazer as they came inside.
If the painkiller lasted.
I set aside my weapon and activated the beacon in my suit. That would allow Saura to recover my body if they threw me into the Vasty. Then I climbed back inside the ring.
The last of the section lights had shut down while I repositioned the plate, so the only light now came from the gas giant slowly moving past Section Nine's wall, and the shuttle's external lamps. That actually worked for me. I walked toward the core, making sure the blacksuit with the hatch-buster observed me. It was the logical place to retreat. When I got into the shadows, however, I cut over along Section Nine's wall, back through the seats to settle in position across from the airlock. When I was satisfied I had a clear, unobstructed line of fire, I situated the base of a seat between my thighs, locked my ankles and rolled left then right, making the chair base strike my thighs. The suit material turned rigid, locking me in place.
I wasn't going anywhere.
Too bad the pain relief meds were seriously beginning to wear off.