“Who are you?” the man asked, frowning as his eyes skimmed Auri’s bedraggled appearance. Could he tell she was a DISC agent? If she commissioned his aid, would he transport her back to the nearest military base as law required?
His voice carried a slight twang she recognized from the holos based on Kaido, marking him as a native. Dark hair had been brushed back from his face, cut short on the sides but long on top in the popular style. His nose was terribly crooked. She guessed it had been broken more than once.
“I’ll repeat myself,” he said, shifting his gun to point at her chest. “Who. Are. You?”
Auri wasn’t keen on trusting anyone after the pirate fiasco. “Does it matter?” Her fingers curled tighter around the disc handle, prepared to yank it free of the straps.
Birdie growled, baring her teeth. Auri’s training told her to command the dog to take down the gun, but there were too many dangers. Birdie could easily be shot. Could easily be killed.
Ty’s repeated warnings about her dog surfaced. Her annoyance had felt justified at the time, but he was right. She did treat Birdie like a friend, not the weapon and asset she was meant to be. Refusing to command her to go for the gun was a disservice to Birdie and a disservice to the hours they’d trained together. But Auri couldn’t imagine what she would do if something happened to her dog.
“Since I can tell you plan to hurl that weapon at me”—the man gestured to the disc at her back—“I definitely think who you are matters.”
Auri cleared her throat but didn’t release her grip on the disc. “I was attacked by pirates. I landed nearby and was hoping to find some shelter or help in this district, but…” She trailed off, the abandoned settlement finishing the sentence for her.
The man nodded in understanding. His grip on the gun was lax, but Auri suspected if she even twitched, she’d have a bullet in her chest. “You wouldn’t be the first to be the victim of piracy,” he said. “Though most people traveling to the rim take precautions.”
Auri’s eyes ran over his arms, the sleeves of his shirt shoved up to his elbow, a wrist-length glove on his left hand. His left arm was completely covered with spirals of tattooed letters. On the right he wore a black cuff over the spot where his barcode should be, just like the pirates had. The meager contents of her stomach turned to lead. Why would a lawful citizen want to hide their barcode? Unless they weren’t lawful…
She could throw her disc before he fired. Break his wrist or at least get the weapon pointed somewhere other than her chest. She’d been commended for her quick reactions back in basic, but her head hadn’t been cracked open then.
Her sweaty fingers slipped on the metal handle as her grip shifted. She tensed, moving to attack.
Birdie yelped in pain.
Auri whirled around. The dog lay curled on the ground. A small, green-feathered dart stuck out of her haunches.
“Who—?” She raised her disc just as something sharp buried itself in her neck. The pain was barely a pinprick before numbness swept her body. Auri blinked once and suddenly she was on the ground. The man with the gun knelt in front of her. His hand moved toward her neck, but she couldn’t feel if he touched her.
“What did you inject her with?” he called over his shoulder. His hand eased away from her neck to reveal a dart identical to Birdie’s pinched between his thumb and forefinger.
Open-toed sandals baring midnight skin walked into her line of sight. She couldn’t turn to see his face, but the heady scent of tobacco drifted over her as the man approached. His voice was deep and melodious with a smoker’s huskiness. “A mild sedative. But I can shoot her again if you—”
“I was in the middle of questioning her. She looks like a Fed agent. What am I supposed to do now, busu?” The man raised Auri’s injured arm and unwound the gauze. Her panic felt as if it belonged to someone else. It was concerning in a logical way, but the emotional response was absent. Disbelief flickered across his face.
She blinked. When she opened her eyes again, shadows hovered at the edges of her vision like an inverted star.
“—just leave her. The wild dogs can finish her off,” the second man was saying with a laugh.
“No.” The first was adamant, the word a command. At the very edge of her vision, she could see her disc in his hands. One of her organic fingers twitched the tiniest amount in answer to the longing in her chest to possess her weapon. “She might be useful in other ways. I’ll—”
“Wait, she’s still conscious. Her clank components must interfere with the sedative’s effectiveness. I doubt she’ll remember this conversation, but I would guard your tongue.”
“You know how I feel about that word.” The first man rose, her disc still in one hand. He seemed to fade. “Get… the doctor… over here. I’ll need help moving her. She’s pretty beat up.”
Birdie, Auri tried to say, don’t forget my dog.
“Cyborg components, then. But this is stupidity,” the other man said. “You’re risking yourself and…”
Despite her panic over Birdie being left, something snapped inside Auri. The tether that kept her conscious unraveled. Her eyelids fluttered in a final blink.