Atrophy (6 page)

Rian stalked closer to look down on him, a cold glint in his eyes. The guy might not have another weapon on him—actually, he probably had a dozen other weapons on him—but no doubt he also knew at least fifty ways to kill someone with his bare hands.

Anger dulled some of his pain, and it was easier to be irate than hurt. He huffed out, “What kind of moron throws a knife at someone standing behind their sister?”

Rian glanced at Zahli, who was speaking on the comm, then looked back at him and rested a hand on his belt in a more relaxed stance.

“I could have thrown that knife with my eyes closed and I still wouldn’t have hit Zahli. And it’s only a flesh wound, so get your bleeding ass up off my sister’s floor.”

Clenching his jaw and sucking in a sharp breath at the fresh stab of pain, Tannin accepted the hand Rian held out and climbed to his feet. However, if he’d thought the guy was just being helpful, he’d been mistaken. Rian changed his grip, grabbed Tannin’s shirt on the opposite shoulder, and steered him toward the door.

Another woman appeared at the hatchway, but got out of their way when Rian shoved him through. Tannin stumbled and slammed into the opposite bulkhead, swallowing a curse as his wound jostled. But he’d barely gotten a handle on that as Rian started hustling him along. Another woman and two men emerged from their respective quarters before they reached the end of the corridor.

“Morning, Cap’tin. Killing people before breakfast again, huh?” one of the guys greeted. He had a gun on either hip and a knife like the one currently sticking out of his own shoulder.

“Rian, where are you taking him?” Zahli caught up with them and followed on his other side.

“The brig.”

“You can’t, he’s injured.” One of the other women joined in the argument, presumably the ship’s doctor.

“I know he’s injured. I stabbed him.”

They reached the steps. Rian forced him down a couple until Zahli managed to squeeze past them and stand in the middle of the stairway, feet wide, hands on her hips.

“Why are you taking him to the brig?”

Rian slammed him into the wall one handed and the knife shifted, grating against bone in his shoulder. Pain hazed his vision, and he swore through a rigid jaw as Rian held him there while he faced Zahli. “So I can go get some officers to come and drag his ass back out with the other inmates.”

“You can’t!” Zahli’s vehement announcement silenced everyone. “He asked for my help, and I told him he could have aegis.”

Tannin clamped a hand over his throbbing shoulder and focused on Zahli’s determined features, no hint of the slight untruth showing. A person accused of a crime could ask a ship’s captain for
aegis
—an amnesty before conviction and the right to be taken to whichever planet he chose. Different planets once had varying systems of law, which had meant some crimes had less serious punishments, but it didn’t make any difference these days. Since the Assimilation Wars, IPC justice had whitewashed every known planet. Even the outer planets with a reputation of being lawless would bend to IPC justice if necessary.

Rian shook his head. “Aegis only works if the person in question hasn’t been convicted yet. Since he’s a citizen of Erebus, I think it’s pretty safe to say he’s been convicted.”

Zahli’s unwavering stare became indignant, with a good dose of stubbornness backing it up. “At least let Kira take care of his shoulder first.”

Rian sighed. “Fine, I’ll take the knife out.”

“No—!” Zahli reached out but Rian turned and yanked the blade out of his shoulder.

White hot pain sliced through his chest and blackness clouded his vision. Tannin blew out a hard breath, tilting his head back against the wall, trying to hold himself up. No way was he going to pass out anywhere near Rian, the demented sonuvabitch.

Through the haze, Tannin felt a cool hand on his cheek and then smelled the fresh rain scent. His name on Zahli’s lips brought him back from the edge of oblivion. He straightened, though the floor seemed to be slanting away from him, which made standing damned difficult.

“I’m taking him to the medbay, Rian, and then we’re going to have a
talk
.” Zahli shouldered her brother out of the way and took his arm, while the other woman, Kira he guessed, hooked her elbow through his on the other side. He could feel the warm trickle of blood seeping down his chest and abdomen, and hoped Rian hadn’t been lying when he said he hadn’t hit anything vital.

“Callan, security detail.” Rian stepped back, though his cold eyes stayed on him, freezing him from the inside out. There was no doubt the guy was silently telling him if he tried anything, he was a dead man.

The guy who’d had the two guns earlier stepped forward, except now he had an even more impressive show of weapons holstered and sheathed over his body.

If Tannin hadn’t been in so much damned pain, he might have found that funny. “All that arsenal, just for me?”

Callan shoved him in the back as the girls led him back up the steps. “I’m right behind you, scum-roach, so if you even look like you’re thinking about trying anything, I’ll make you a few new holes.”

“That’s enough, Callan.” Zahli shot the guy a dark look as they reached a landing and turned to another short flight of stairs.

Callan backed off and stomped up the stairs behind them. “He’s a criminal living on Erebus, Zahli. Doesn’t that maybe make you think Rian was right to stab first, ask questions later?”

“Sometimes people just need to have a little faith.” Zahli glanced up at him as she repeated the words he’d said to her back in her quarters, her gaze concerned as she glanced at his shoulder. He couldn’t remember the last time anyone had looked at him with anything even close to caring.

They paused at the end of the passageway. Kira swiped her hand over a control panel, double doors sliding open to reveal the bright, sterile glow of a medbay.

Callan stayed by the doors while Kira led him to one of the cots. He sat with stiff movements and the doc wasted no time cutting away the overalls and his shirt underneath. Zahli stood near his knees, arms crossed and brow furrowed as she watched the doctor work. He thought about telling them not to bother. Once he got put out onto the violent streets of Erebus, he’d no doubt suffer far worse than what Rian had served him.

He winced as Kira pulled away part of his shirt that’d gotten stuck in the wound. He focused on Zahli for distraction, wondering what it would be like to actually get to know her beyond the two stabbings they’d been involved in over the last half a rotation. Except all that did was make the hollow cavity in his chest widen. Seeing Zahli and the brief glimpse of the life she had here on the
Imojenna
with her brother and the crew, it was like looking at something he’d never dared dream about and realizing with lucid comprehension he would never know it, never live it.

At least when they sent him back into hell, he’d have a few distinct memories of Zahli to hold onto during the hardest moments, including the one when he’d have to watch this ship launch into orbit, taking her and this tantalizing taste of freedom with it.

K
ira was giving her a
look
. And Callan’s glare might as well have set her hair on fire the way it burned a hole in the back of her head. But Zahli didn’t care. Maybe she was nuts. She might have put her faith in twisted serial killer, but something about Tannin pulled at her.

Ever since he’d burst into that room on Erebus and then helped her escape the building without so much as a word about the man she’d just killed, he hadn’t been far from her thoughts, as much as she’d tried to put
everything
out of her mind. Logic told her she should be afraid of him, or at least wary. He must have done something bad to end up on the infamous prison planet. Yet, he’d said that he didn’t belong on Erebus and she wanted to believe that. But her motives weren’t purely altruistic.

After feeling so guilty about him helping her and then not being able to do anything for him in return, worrying that one day he would take the blame for her actions, taking Tannin with them was the easiest and most obvious way to make sure no one ever found out she’d killed an IPC officer. She’d meant it when she’d told him that helping him escape was the least she could do.

And the other thing she couldn’t get out of her mind? Tannin mentioning her brother being a
trained assassin
.

Two or three years before the end of the Assimilation Wars fit into the time when Rian had gone missing, those long years when she’d thought him dead. After he’d come back, he’d been a different man. And then he’d gone and all but ended the war in one crazy, heroic deed. Years later, he still refused to talk about what had happened to him during the time he’d been missing.

It seemed too farfetched to believe he’d really been some sort of trained government assassin, but considering the way Rian had been since the war had finished, the people he’d killed, maybe it wasn’t so removed from the realms of possibility after all.

So she needed to know what Tannin had heard from this other inmate about Rian. Risky, but that burning desire to uncover the truth had been haunting her for years. Adding the debt she owed Tannin for helping her, and it had clinched her decision to trust him, to help him escape.

When he’d first jumped on her as she’d been coming out of her quarters, yeah, she’d been terrified; she’d thought for half a second that the officer from the day before hadn’t been dead after all and had come to finish what he’d started. Pressed against the wall, it’d taken a few moments for the fear to recede enough to recognize Tannin as the guy who’d helped her instead. As soon as she’d registered that fact, the fright had drained from her body and she’d rashly decided whatever his reason for being there, he wouldn’t hurt her, not after he’d gone out of his way to stop that officer attacking her.

Tannin had no doubt lived a hard life; there were obviously some scars that ran deep within him. If he’d bullied or forced her co-operation, it would have lived up to what she expected of an Erebus inmate. Instead, when she’d looked into his eyes, she’d seen a gleam of pain that had become a little too familiar, one that speared right into the middle of her chest. It was almost the same glint her brother occasionally got in his gaze, the one that told her many of his scars ran deep, and he’d die before letting any of them into the light of day. Trying to help Rian had become an exercise in futility, though she would never give up on him. However, while she might not be able to help her brother, she could help Tannin. And him mentioning a clue about Rian’s missing time had assured the deal.

Kira held up her Multifunction Remedial Device—the laser could treat all kinds of superficial wounds and lesions, from regenerating burns to clearing bruises and knitting tissue and skin back together. “All right, I’m going to repair the wound. This may hurt a bit.”

The doctor placed the MRD against Tannin’s flesh and Zahli grimaced in sympathy. Saying
this may hurt a bit
was like saying an asteroid might cause a bit of damage. That thing stung like a frecking bitch. In fact, usually with an injury this bad, Kira would offer some pain relief. However, the only sign of discomfort Tannin made was to turn his head to the side as his shoulder muscles tensed.

“Sen says we can get off the ground whenever we’re ready.” Rian was back, stopping just behind Kira and looking over the doctor’s shoulder at where she worked on Tannin’s wound.

“Did you call the Erebus authorities?” And did she really want to know? Zahli swallowed over a sudden tightness in her throat. And did she really want to know?

Rian glanced at where she stood next to Tannin’s knee so she moved closer until her hip touched his leg. No doubt asking for Rian to do Tannin some more damage, but her brother was going to have a fight on his hands to kick Tannin off this ship. She didn’t want Rian to know about what had happened to her, because she couldn’t be sure he wouldn’t go on a furious rampage and blast half the compound into dust.

Rian rested his hand on the hilt of his sheathed knife. “Not yet. I wanted to find out why this scumrat decided to sneak aboard my ship first. Kira, hook him up to the emotion resonator and neuron scanner.”

Kira sighed and took out a cloth to wipe the blood from Tannin’s wound before pressing the MRD against his skin again. “What for?”

“So as soon as he tells the first lie, I can stab him in the other shoulder.”

Anger pricked Zahli and for half a moment she seriously considered smacking her brother upside the head. He could be so flip at the stupidest times. “Rian, this isn’t funny.”

“Who said I was joking?” He took his knife out and flicked it handle over blade.

She glared at him then snatched the weapon from mid-air and slammed it down on the hovering diagnostic-cart, causing the other instruments sitting there to clatter together.

“Stop being a jerk. Tannin needs our help.”

Rian made a face. “
Tannin
? And just why are you so eager to help him, Zahli? You know what’ll happen if we get caught assisting his escape? We’ll
all
end up living on Erebus. Are you really asking the entire crew to risk their lives for a convicted killer?”

Tannin shrugged away from the doc’s administrations, putting himself half in front of her as he stood. “Just because I was
convicted
of a crime doesn’t make me a killer. Besides, even if I
had
killed someone, I wouldn’t be the only one standing in this room who’d done that, now, would I?”

Callan unholstered his nucleon gun as Rian stepped forward, getting right in Tannin’s face.

“You’re pushing your luck, scumrat. I’d be well within my rights to dump your dead body out my cargo hold before I launch from this hole of a world.” Rian bumped Tannin back a step, but Tannin came right back at him again.

At this rate, they’d be pummeling each other in another second.
Stupid macho idiots
. Zahli slid between them, pressing her back against Tannin’s chest as she shoved at Rian’s shoulders. “Fighting is not going to solve this.”