Chapter Twenty-One

The ship ground to an absolute halt, the stillness heavy with bad portent, not even a single shudder of the engines running underfoot, just before the alarms started blaring.

The complete lack of motion sent nausea pooling in Ari’s stomach faster than rocking loops and swift turns ever did. Orin worked silently, nostrils flaring as he ripped a panel from the dash to pick through the nest of wires underneath. He held his breath as he ripped some of them apart and twisted them back together again in a small shower of sparks, not even flinching when they landed against his skin.

Ari sat in the copilot’s chair, lacing up his boots as lights flashed all around them. Orin remained barefoot but had thrown on a shirt, left hanging open with tails trailing down his hips as he squatted beneath the dash to tear open another panel.

Ari stared at the com light, the only dark spot on the wildly flashing dash.

“Do you think it is the Enforcers again?” he asked, trying to keep his voice level as he swallowed against the growing sense of dread.

Orin grunted, dropping a panel to the floor with an echoing clang.

“No Enforcers out here.”

He cursed loudly under another shower of sparks, lights continuing to flash, but the alarms finally silenced in a void of sound so abrupt that it hurt, clapping against Ari’s ears.

Orin popped open a small hatch and retrieved both of their weapons. Face stark, he handed Ari his pistol, igniting Ari’s fear. “You remember everything I taught you. Always shoot first and aim true. Won’t get a second chance out here.”

Ari gripped his pistol with numb fingers, standing to follow Orin as he stalked out of the cockpit. Orin stopped him with a firm hand against his chest.

“You stay in there. I’m locking the doors behind me. It’s the most defensible room in the ship. They’ll come through the bay doors, but I’m gonna try to kick her engines back on before they can get in. Get ready to set Delilah going full throttle as soon as you’re able.”

Ari studied Orin’s face, drawn tight and stark with a fear Ari had never seen there before. There was still a small mark in the shape of Ari’s mouth peeking out of his collar, framed perfectly by the open halves of his rumpled shirt.

“What is happening? Who is coming? I don’t understand.”

Orin grabbed the back of Ari’s head and pressed a hard kiss to his temple before stepping back over the threshold into the galley.

“Raiders,” he said, hushed voice amplified in the sucking abyss of sound. “Now you get ready to be the pilot, honey. I’m giving her one last kick in the pants.”

Ari shook his head, slapping his hand over the door panel before Orin could shut it. “I can’t. I’m not— My brother is the brave one. Not me. Theo leads, and I follow; that’s the way it’s always been. I don’t know how to be brave without him.”

Orin barked out an incredulous bite of laughter, sweeping his arm in a broad gesture encompassing the entire ship. “You’ve given everything you have to a no-account bastard pilot and flung yourself headfirst over the Verge to find your brother. You’re so brave it’s downright foolhardy.”

Ari gripped harder at the door panel, flexing his fingers in agitation. “It’s no less than he would have done for me.”

Orin’s dimples popped in his right cheek, twinkle briefly appearing through the murky haze of fear. “Sugar, all that tells me is that you’re both extraordinary.”

Ari pulled strength from the rush of warmth that ran through him at the words. He released the panel as he stepped back and said with a determined if somewhat shaky breath, “Alright. I’ll be ready.”

As the door shut between them, Orin’s focus never left his face, his hand half extended almost as if he’d intended to reach for Ari one more time.

The locks spun into place, shockingly loud in the booming silence of the cockpit.

Ari sat in the pilot’s seat, one hand gripping the throttle and the other his pistol.

The muffled sounds of Orin banging around and cursing came through the steel of the door. Ari closed his eyes for a moment, breathing deeply against the nausea and fear, trying to picture Theo’s smile. Orin’s face, complete with dimples, popped up alongside, as if making room for himself in Ari’s thoughts.

Ari opened his eyes after a few more seconds, and the gun dropped from his numb fingers. It skidded noisily across the floor as ice entered his veins.

Right in front of him, through the view screen, there was a, well, Ari supposed one could call it a ship.

It was an amalgamation of several smaller ships all chopped into jagged pieces and welded together into this monstrosity, huge and hideous and headed straight for them.

As Ari watched in frozen horror, part of the ship broke off, leaving chunks of debris scattered around as it veered away and propelled toward their ship at an alarming speed.

Delilah shuddered all around him as if echoing his fear.

Ari gripped the throttle at the first hint of motion, throwing them forward with a hard push. He choked out a sob of relief as they hurtled from the ship in a burst of speed, Orin’s triumphant shout muffled through the door.

They sped away at full throttle until Delilah shuddered once more before falling back into utter stillness, half of the dash blinking off with a high-frequency drone.

The silence after that was even louder than before.

The cockpit rocked with the horrific screeching sound of metal scraping together as the other ship pulled flush.

Ari held his breath, falling to his knees to scramble for his pistol under the dash when he heard the bay doors opening, lasers discharging immediately.

There was so much shouting, then a loud thump, and then two, and then it sounded as if someone were dragging crates across the floor, metal screaming in protest above the men’s voices.

Ari could feel the butt of his pistol just peeking out from where it was wedged beneath the dash. He stretched his fingers toward it, sweaty hand slipping on the smooth pearl handle.

It sounded like someone was tearing panels off the wall, shaking the entire ship with the force of their destruction.

The door to the cockpit opened so quietly Ari might not have noticed if he hadn’t been staring at it in abject terror.

A pair of large boots filled the doorway, scuffed and scarred and plated with chrome.

“Well, what do we have here? Already on his knees. Convenient.”

Ari had the handle pinched between his two middle fingers, but it slipped out of his grasp when he was yanked to his feet by the back of the neck.

The man was barely taller than him, but twice as wide. The blood drained from Ari’s face as he caught his pale eyes, caged behind a transparent yellow visor welded into the man’s ruddy flesh at his temples. Wires crawled out like spider legs at each joint, some of them extending down to his jaw.

“I think we might have scored a Doll this time,” he called to his companion, stepping back out of the cockpit with Ari in tow.

All traces of numbness left Ari at the sight of Orin sprawled and bleeding on the floor.

Ari began to struggle in earnest, kicking wildly and clawing at his captor. To his stomach-churning horror, a chunk of the man’s forearm skin came away beneath Ari’s fingers, exposing overlapping metal plates smeared with blood and a clear viscous fluid.

“Aw shit, fucking Doll’s gonna make me have to get regloved. Here, you take him.”

He shoved Ari at the other man, taller but thinner, teeth blindingly white against his pitted dark skin. More than blindingly white. They were actually glowing, phosphorescent.

Ari was distracted enough by the preternaturally glowing teeth that the man was able to bring his wrists together in front of him to slap him in cuffs, extending painfully from his wristbone to halfway up his forearms. He clamped his lips together against the awful sound that wanted to escape, clawing at his throat like a caged wild thing.

Glowing Teeth shoved Ari away, laughing as he stumbled in a desperate attempt to avoid stepping on Orin’s hand.

Yellow Visor circled Ari, scanning him critically before turning to prod Orin’s still form with his boot. “This one’s Verge trash, all marked up. Damaged goods. We’ll throw him in with the dents and scratches. The mines will take him for a decent price, at least, with that size.”

Relief flooded Ari at the confirmation that Orin was alive. He had been burning holes in his broad back as he watched and waited for it to rise and fall. It did, but slowly and shallowly. He stared down at Orin’s soft brown hair, his head turned the other way so Ari couldn’t even see his face.

Yellow Visor turned back to Ari, boots screeching against the floor with a metallic crunch at every step. “This one though. He’s a perfect little Doll. Core bred and soft as anything.”

Ari tried to jerk away as he flicked out a knife, cutting Ari’s shirt open across his belly before sliding his hand under the waistband of Ari’s trousers to dig dirty fingertips into the vulnerable hollow of Ari’s hip.

Acid rose in his throat as he tried to pull away, some of that sound escaping his lips, burning all the way out.

“All this fine virgin skin. Not a mark on him. Some house will be happy to put their brand down; it should stand out really nice on his pasty ass. We’ll get a good payout on this one, mark my words.”

Glowing Teeth grunted, digging the fingers of one hand into the wires embedded in the opposite elbow with a horribly wet clicking sound. “Better be a good payout. This Verge rat’s gonna be hell to lift. Come on, man, let’s get them loaded and see if Toya wants to take on their shitty little ship. You can play with the Doll on your own time. They creep me the fuck out.”

He bent into a squat and hooked his arms under Orin’s shoulders, elbows bending with the sound of a ratchet wrench, before standing with another loud grunt and dragging Orin toward the bay doors like a massive rag doll.

Orin’s knees knocked hard against the threshold, and Ari rushed to lift one of his legs with his cuffed hands, trying to keep him from further injury.

Yellow Visor laughed as he pulled Ari away, his damaged arm still leaking rivulets of blood and thick globs of fluid, punishingly tight around Ari’s waist.

“You hear that, Doll? You and me are gonna get to play. Guess I should probably warn you, I never learned to play nice.”