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It took Mack and me a little bit to obey Marl’s order. Whatever a hard-burn warp was, it was obviously not meant to be done outside a pod, where its effects couldn’t be neutralized. Sitting up was hard. Standing up was harder.
For a long minute, I didn’t know if my legs were up to the challenge.
“I hate you,” I said, watching as Mack struggled slowly to his feet.
He managed the briefest quirk of his lips.
“I hate me, too,” he said, and we both staggered over to the nearest wall, and leant on it.
Marl watched us all the way, his Blazer held casually across his body. He didn’t seem to be enjoying himself. His gaze was assessing, his expression full of calculation.
“You find yourself another stray?” he asked, his gaze flicking briefly to me.
Mack looked at me.
“This one?” he said, his lip curling in distaste. “She’s not one of mine. She’s an Odyssey trainee.”
Marl’s gun came up, and Mack pushed off the wall to stand in front of me.
“Odyssey won’t be happy if you shoot her.”
Marl raised his head and looked over the Blazer.
“You mean she’s worth more money than what they state in the files?”
“Yeah.”
Marl lowered the Blazer, and Mack slid back over to the wall, and slumped against it.
“Sure she is,” Marl said, and fired.
I dived to one side, but I was going to be way too slow. It was Mack’s shove that got me out of the firing line, just not quick enough. The bolt burned its way into my shoulder, and smashed Mack’s hand into the wall.
And that was when I realized Marl hadn’t ever been going to kill any of us. He was using an energized projectile burst, sure, but he was using it on low power. I just let myself slide back down to the floor, and knew when Mack slid down beside me. Judging from the look on his face, Marl found the whole situation immensely satisfying.
He walked closer, and looked us over.
“I think it might be better, if the pair of you were my guests for the duration,” he said, and I watched silver light envelope us all.
When it cleared, we were in a med bay, and there were doctors on stand-by. Mack was out. I put it down to shock, all too aware of the way my own skin was going clammy and the shivers had started rolling through me. Yeah. Shock. Which didn’t stop the medic’s greeting to Marl from being any less funny.
“You shot them?” he asked, clearly horrified. “Four hard-burn jumps and you shot them?”
“Way,” Marl said, and pointed the blazer toward him. “Votra pwen?”
Whatever he was speaking, I made a note I needed to learn it. The medic, however, seemed to favor Galbas.
“No point,” he said, raising his hands in surrender. “You’re just making sure we don’t get bored. I get it.”
“Question me, again, and you’ll understand it very well,” Marl told him. “Get them patched. Mack has agreed to negotiate.”
Whatever this negotiation was, it was a big thing. I watched the medic’s eyes widen, and he hurried toward us. It didn’t take him long to have us wrapped and being stretchered into surgery or med-boxes, whichever he deemed would serve us best.
“Gel tank,” he said, when he’d gone over me from top to toe. He looked down at me. “No idea what you were doing to get in this shape, but that takes more than a hard-burn warp and a Blazer hit. You need to sleep and heal.”
I didn’t even have to think about that one. Sleep sounded great, healing even better, but the sight of the hypoderm in his hand had me trying to scramble out of the box in the opposite direction. Unlike Doc, though, he wasn’t on his own, and I was grabbed and stuffed back inside before I’d gotten off the table.
“Trypanophobia,” he muttered, pressing the hypoderm into my skin, while a colleague held me still. “That would have been handy to know.”
“You and whose army?” I murmured, as I went back to sleep.
I wondered how Mack was doing, and Tens, and maybe what was happening to the rest of the crew. Wondered if Odyssey wouldn’t have been a better option...
I felt a lot better the next time I woke, but I woke up naked, and I woke up alone. At least, I wasn’t bound. I was also not in a gel tank. I was in a med box. It made me curious as to exactly how long I had been asleep... and how long it would be before I was let out, again.
Not long, as it happened. If I hadn’t known any better, I would have said they were waiting for me to wake up. There was a brief flash, and the box folded down around me, leaving me on a small hard bed set against a wall, and looking straight into the barrel of Marl’s Blazer... again. I forced myself to take my eyes off the pointy end, and to track back up its length to the face above it.
Even then, I didn’t say anything. I just stared, and waited, and stayed very, very still.
“Cutter,” Marl said. “What would you say if I told you Odyssey are offering a one-million-credit retrieval fee for your sorry hide.”
I felt my eyes widen at the figure, and swallowed, willing myself not to move and get myself shot. I didn’t take my eyes off his face as I replied.
“I’d say I wasn’t worth that much,” I said, and waited.
“Are you telling me they wouldn’t pay it?” he asked, and the gun didn’t waver.
I swallowed, again, as fear spread tendrils through my chest, and reached into my belly. When I answered, it was as truthful as I knew how.
“If Odyssey offered it, they’ll pay it,” I said. “I just don’t understand why they would pay that much.”
That much was very true, and I watched when Marl registered it, and swung the Blazer away from me. I did not expect his next question.
“Do you want to go back?”
“No,” was out before I could stop it, and I wondered where he was going with this.
“Did Mack offer you a home?”
Well, that was easy.
“No,” I said, and let all the disappointment I could possibly feel load that single syllable with emotion.
Marl laughed.
“Odd,” he said, “when you’re just the sort of pet he likes to adopt.”
“Whatever,” I said, and lay back down. “What. Thehell. Ever.”
And I closed my eyes.
I’m not sure what reaction Marl expected, but that wasn’t it.
“I could just shoot you, right now,” he said, and I cracked an eyelid to find myself looking down the end of the Blazer, once more.
“Then why the hell don’t you?” I asked, sounding just as tired and thoroughly sick of being threatened as I felt, especially when there was nothing I could do about it.
The gun didn’t waver, so I closed my eye, and shifted to get more comfortable.
“Just get it done,” I said, and waited.
I’m not sure what I was waiting for, the sound of the Blazer going off, the sound of Marl walking away in disgust. I didn’t know.
All I knew was that I was tired of being in someone else’s possession with no avenue of escape. He could shoot me, sell me, use my skills, or do worse, and I wouldn’t be able to stop him. No matter what I tried; it was his ship, his med bay, his domain.
And when I could leave it, I would.
Until then, I was going to have to wait, and to endure.
“Mack wants you in the conference room,” Marl said, and I opened my eyes.
Mack did, did he? At least the Blazer was no longer in my face.
I sat up, and wondered why Marl was smiling.
“Even knowing you’re not part of his crew, you run when he calls,” he said, and I glared at him.
“Don’t your crew do the same?” I sniped back.
In hind sight, it might have been better not to rub in the fact his leadership skills were lacking. Back then, I didn’t know that his crew most certainly did not go running when Marl called. I watched his hands tighten around the Blazer, and saw the nearby medic’s face go pale. All I could do was ignore both, and hope for the best.
“This way,” Marl said, and turned away.
I slid off the bed and stopped.
“Hey,” I said, and he glanced back over his shoulder. “I’m...”
The word ‘naked’ caught in my throat, but I was loathe to walk out into the corridors of a strange ship with nothing on. I tried again.
“I’ve got nothing to wear.”
He looked back, and then he glanced over at one of the medics. It was a signal the man must have been waiting for, because he tossed me a sealed plastic package. Why he couldn’t have done that without me asking, I didn’t know, but I didn’t complain. I had clothes, and I wasted no time getting into them.
“Hurry up,” Marl said, when I stopped to pull socks onto my feet. “You’re holding up business discussions.”
Seeing I was almost dressed, he started moving toward the door, again. I followed, all too aware of the armed men who fell in behind me as I left the medical center, and the anxious look on the medics’ faces, as they watched me go. That last did not bode well, but I stored it for reference, later, and kept walking.
I was tempted to activate my implant, and see what I could glean from the systems of the ship around me, when I realized it was already active. I almost stopped, but then Marl spoke.
In my head.
Sooo not good.
“Took you long enough,” he said, and a spike of pain shot through my skull, dropping me to my knees. “That was your only warning.”
I nodded, and got back up onto my feet. Of course, they’d hacked the implant. I sure hoped Mack had something to remedy this one, because I was useless as long as Marl held the trigger. Marl didn’t seem to need any other answer, but continued further down the corridor, before opening a double set of doors on the right-hand side.
I guess it wasn’t surprising that Mack was cuffed to the table he was seated at.
“Cutter,” he said, and that one world held an ocean of relief.
“Mack,” I replied, just as Marl used the implant to tell me not to respond.
I couldn’t help it. I grinned at him.
“Good to see you, Ma—” and I hit the floor, as lightning lanced through my skull.
“What did you do?” Mack shouted, and, again, I replied.
“Hacked the i—” This time, the pain was worse, but I started laughing, once it stopped.
“Do it again,” I challenged, and Marl stared at me.
“She’s no good to you, if you fry her brain,” Mack said, and he sounded tired, “and she will push you to that point, if she can.”
“Shut up, Mack,” I said, but I stayed down on the floor, drawing in ragged breaths as I tried to work out how to provoke Marl, once more.
“Get up,” he said, and I started to snicker.
Yeah, that would do it.
“Make me,” I said, but he didn’t fall for it, just signaled to two of the guards.
They hauled me into a seat, and then stood, one on either side to make sure I didn’t slide out of it.
Well, that was a bit of a bust. Mack looked at me, and shook his head.
“Are you trying to get yourself killed?” he asked, and I stared back at him, thinking through my answer, very carefully.
“Mack,” I finally said, “if the option is working for this asshole, or being dead, then maybe I am.”
And pain shot through my skull with such force that I came to cradling my head on my arms, and with two very strong hands gripping my shoulders.
“You feel better now?” Mack at his most sarcastic.
I giggled, because it was better than any other sound I wanted to make, and he turned to Marl.
“Delight said she was trouble on a stick,” he said, and I’m pretty sure he immediately regretted it.
“Really?” Marl shot back. “They tried impalement, did they? Over at Odyssey? Because that option has appeal.”
Say what? It did? I raised my head and looked at Mack.
“Good one, asshole.”
And Marl laughed, his merriment echoing inside my head. “What do you say, Cutter? Pointy or blunt?”
I felt my face go pale, and looked across at Mack.
“What’s the matter, smart-ass?” Marl taunted. “Cat got your tongue.”
I opened my mouth to respond, and Mack kicked me in the shin. They’d obviously let him keep his boots. Either that, or he’d been a lot luckier in the footwear department than I had, because that hurt!
“Ow!”
“If we could get down to business,” Mack said. “Because, honestly, she’s hard enough to keep alive as it is, without adding you to the mix.”
“The job,” Marl said, and the end wall of the conference room dissolved into several screens, each one showing Mack’s ship and the personnel aboard her. Granted, most of them were in their emergency pods, and had been sent into stasis by Marl’s people, but then there were cases like Tens, and the doc, who were very much conscious and alive. “I take it I now have enough of value for you.”
Mack stared at the screens, and Marl tapped a button, bringing up one of the crew pods.
“How about, now?” he asked, tapping a sequence of commands that woke the sleeper out of stasis, and then sent a trickle of liquid flowing into the pod. Where the fluid touched, it steamed and bubbled, eating away at the crewman’s flesh, while Marl piped his screams throughout the ship so the rest of Mack’s crew could hear.
“Stop!” Mack shouted. “Please, stop,” and I almost cheered when a pair of Marl’s men came stalking into the stasis chamber.
My elation faded, when they flipped the lid, and fired a short burst into the capsule.
I stared at the screen, and then at Mack, numb to the core. Marl’s hands moved over his keyboard, again.
“Fine!” Mack snapped, and Marl’s fingers hesitated.
Mack tried again.
“Yes. Yes, you have enough collateral. Just leave my crew alone.”
“Deal,” Marl said, and turned to me.
I saw Mack go suddenly tense, and the conference room doors opened. One of the medics came in carrying two lengths of steel, which he set against one wall. Another crewman came in, towing a heavy metal block, with a socket.
I registered the tapering shapes at the ends of each of the steel lengths, and tried to push my chair away from the table. Mack caught my movement, and looked at Marl.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“You said she wasn’t part of your crew,” he said, and Mack’s face took on a wary look.
“Yes, but she’s worth a lot of money to Odyssey,” he said, “and you don’t want them on your tail.”
Marl looked at me, and smiled, and I felt a chill wash over me, felt my face change from pale to red to pale, again.
“Yes, but she doesn’t want to go back to them. And I don’t think she wants to work for you, either.”
Mack shrugged.
“We can’t have everything we want,” he said. “If she wasn’t Odyssey’s, I’d keep her, whether she wanted to stay, or not.”
Oh, he would, would he?
Marl rested his elbow on the table, and his cheek in his palm. He tilted his head and gave me a long, slow look.
“You see, profit or no, I rather like the idea of impalement,” he said, and Mack sighed.
“Alright, she’s mine,” he said. “You can’t.”
And Marl raised both eyebrows.
“I have a shipful of your people that says I can,” he replied. “She can’t be worth every single life.”
I looked at Mack and shook my head. I wasn’t. I knew I wasn’t. I wasn’t worth the million Odyssey were offering, if they even were, and I definitely wasn’t worth the death of a single one of his people in stasis.
“Pointy!” I said, hoping I’d read Marl right. “I prefer pointy. It’ll pierce through vital organs fast, and kill me quicker. Give me pointy.”
And they both turned to stare, Mack in complete and utter horror, and Marl with an oily, sickening satisfaction.
“Blunt it is,” he said, and moved to set the appropriate spike in the metal base.
“You are completely out of your tiny little mind,” Tens said, and Mack’s cuffs popped open.
I wondered how Tens was even talking in my head, and how Marl could be so contentedly working on completing the device he was going to use to kill me, and be so completely unaware, and then Tens spoke again.
“Now!”
And Mack exploded into action. The two guards beside me turned toward him, raising their weapons, and I reached up, and dragged both barrels down, managing to yank one out of a guard’s hands.
They’d had to let go of me to bring their weapons up, so I pushed my chair out between them, keeping a solid hold on one weapon, while getting out of the chair and slamming an elbow into the rib of the guard I hadn’t disarmed.
He yelped as ribs cracked, and I stepped clear of him, his partner, and the chair, turning the weapon I’d retained a grip on, and shooting the guard that had been holding it. I didn’t stop turning, but shot each guard in the arc I took to turn back to the one I’d injured. He was recovering, but his main concern was in reaching Mack, who had a hold of Marl, and was busy trying to take Marl’s Blazer.
It’s amazing how tenacious a guy can be when someone’s trying to divest him of the weapon they intend to kill him with. I shot the guard twice, and took out the last one standing. There was no way I could get a clear shot at Marl, but I had another alternative that would work just as well. I crossed the room, and grabbed the pointy length of metal that had been left standing against the wall.
Mack saw me, and his eyes widened, as he realized exactly what I was going to do. For a moment, I saw him torn between turning Marl away from me, or holding him steady, but circumstances decided his action. The conference room’s doors shook as reinforcements arrived, and Mack turned to face them, interposing Marl between the potential threat, and himself—which turned the man side-on to me.
And that was all I needed. I took the steel pole with the pointy tip, and drove it into Marl’s side, shoving it in deep as it found the space between his ribs. And I kept pushing even as Mack took the Blazer from Marl’s grip, and slipped its strap from around the man’s neck.
By then, Marl had stopped screaming, and the room was silent.
I dropped the haft of my makeshift spear, and turned away. Unfortunately, that only brought me face to face with another corpse, this one with the all-too-distinctive hole made by the weapon I’d fired from the other side of the table.
I reeled away from that, too, and tripped over a third corpse, one of the guards who’d been going to Marl’s aid. I think I’d shot him, too. He was sporting a similar hole to the first one.
I stopped, and backed away, and someone grabbed me from behind, at which point I started yelling, and trying to break free.
“Cutter,” said Mack’s voice, in my ear. “Cutter!”
I twisted against him, trying to break his hold, so he changed tactics.
“Tens.”
“I got it.”
And pain lanced through my skull, again, momentarily sweeping me away from the carnage I’d created in trying to save Mack, and murder Marl.
This time, when I came round, I was still in the conference room, and there were others at the table. I was also in someone’s lap, tucked against a broad chest, which was encased in body armor. A dozen faces turned my way, when I stirred, and Mack’s arm tightened across me.
“Sit tight,” he said, speaking through the implant. “We’re almost done, here.”
So, I closed my eyes and sat, trying not to imagine what the others thought of me, trying real hard not to remember the feel of the metal punching through Marl’s flesh and scraping past his bones. I focused on the meeting, instead. From the sound of it, Mack was brokering some kind of treaty.
And it had been a long time coming.
I was guessing this wouldn’t be the right place to try and escape him, so I stayed. Curled in his lap. Letting the warmth of his body counter the chill that had settled along my bones. While he finalized the details of docking fees, shore leave, medical facilities, and payment, and then he handed the ship over to the big guy I’d shot free in Bastien’s basement.
“She’s all yours,” he said, and I heard chairs shift as they were pushed away from the table.
To my surprise, Mack stayed seated. At first, I thought it was because of me, so I tried to get off his lap, but his arm tightened around me, and I stilled.
“Mack,” I whispered, in the privacy of our skulls. “Let me go.”
“In a minute,” he said. “Just hold still.”
And there was something final in his voice, so I subsided.
I listened as the other attendees left the table, and left the room, opening my eyes only when I thought we were alone.
“What’s this all about?” I asked.
And then I saw we weren’t alone, that the guy I’d rescued was standing right next to Mack’s chair and looking directly at me.
“Does she need to be restrained?” he asked, and I felt Mack’s arms tighten.
“Not if you’re introduced properly,” Mack replied, as I tested the strength of his grip.
I looked up at the guy, and then at Mack.
“Why would I need to be restrained?” I asked, “... or introduced?”
