Escape (24 page)

Somehow she’d recovered her memories of everything up to her imprisonment, but had forgotten all the memories she should have had of being an amnesiac. And somehow he had forgotten everything that had happened after Dimmi had pulled him into her room and kissed him. If she hadn’t been so aggressively suspicious of what he'd done last night, he might have had the time to be suspicious himself. Clearly, he’d blacked out at some point
—
since he couldn't remember going to bed, and he definitely hadn’t awoken in one. Maybe he had suffered a head injury himself? He
had
hit his head
—
aboard the
Corollary
, when he’d hitched a ride in that freight car with Ferrel. Was it possible that he’d had some sort of delayed concussion? Kieran shook his head wearily, wishing Jilly were there. She would have been able to tell him if it that was possible, and also whether Dimmi’s memory gaps could be explained by her concussion
—
or if those gaps in her memory foretold brain damage. The last thing he wanted was to have to hand Dimmi back to Brathus with some form of permanent or semi-permanent injury.

Glancing to the door, Kieran considered his options. He could leave Dimmi inside the cabin and lock it from the outside. He’d have to change the door’s security code to prevent her from using the security panel inside to let herself out. And she might still be able to hack the door. Alternatively, he could put her back in her cell.

That was probably the safest option.

With a sigh, he got down on his haunches beside her, worked his arms beneath hers, and was just about to lift her to her feet when he saw something odd. Dimmi had an ugly, purple-blue lump on her forehead, unsuccessfully hiding behind a few locks of her auburn hair.

Yesterday, when he’d locked Dimmi in her cell after she'd been knocked unconscious, he'd noticed a rising red lump in the same place on her forehead. Last night, when he’d taken her to medbay to get a brain scan, there had been no lump. And now, scarcely a minute after cracking her skull with his, she had a huge, swollen bruise.

Can a bruise appear that fast?

* * *

Ferrel was gargling with water in his room’s cleansing station. It was the first thing he’d thought to do when the shipboard alarm had woken him from a deep, dreamless sleep
—
get rid of that bitter, metallic aftertaste!

What did I eat last night? Not a whole lot.
Maybe that's the problem
.

Take a mouthful of water, gargle, spit, repeat
—
it wasn’t helping much. Ferrel continued like that for a few minutes. At some point in his compulsive routine, the alarm shut off, telling him that Kieran was likely awake.

Ferrel spat out another mouthful of water and grimaced. Still bitter. He wiped his mouth on a nearby facecloth, and gave a comprehensive shiver. His teeth began chattering, reminding him that he was naked. Ferrel turned and eyed yesterday’s dirty clothes
—
they were lying in a heap on the floor beside the shower. He hadn’t thought to bring spare underwear, but he could probably buy some on Da Shon. Bending down, Ferrel picked up the pile of clothing and got dressed. At least there would be spare flight suits hanging on the racks in the hangar.

Realizing he was forgetting something, Ferrel eyed the shower stall and briefly debated getting undressed and taking a nice warm shower
.
 
.
 
.
 
.
But it would be pointless to get clean without clean clothes, so he went to satisfy the hollow ache in his stomach instead.

Ferrel locked his door behind him and began walking down the corridor to the mess hall. He would probably find Kieran already there, keying his selection into the meal dispenser.
That is, unless Dimmi recovered her memory in the middle of the night and knifed you in your sleep
.
 
.
 
.
 
.

The last door along the corridor slid open just as Ferrel was about to walk past. The boy turned and blinked stupidly at what he was seeing.

“Rough night, I see.” Ferrel watched Kieran backing out of the room with Dimmi slumped in his arms.

“Rough morning, actually. Mind giving me a hand?” Kieran nodded to the door’s control panel.

Ferrel grudgingly obliged. “Seriously, man, what did you do to her?” he asked as he keyed the door to close.

“Nothing,” Kieran replied. “At least, nothing that I remember. She tried to seduce me last night
—
and then I woke up on the floor with no memory of how I’d gotten there.”

Ferrel snorted and turned to him with a lurid grin. “Sounds to me like she drugged you, and then
 
.
 
.
 
.
well, who knows what she did, right?”

Kieran was frowning patiently at Ferrel. “You think she drugged and raped me? Yeah, that’s a likely scenario.”

Ferrel shrugged. “She’s a Carloni. Tough defalitas, you know. She’s capable of anything, I’d bet.”

Kieran shook his head. “She woke up accusing me of the same thing. Oddly enough she was her old self, but couldn't remember anything that happened last night. The last thing she remembered was waking up in her cell and discovering that we’d done a strip search on her.”

“I’ll bet she was happy about that.”

“Not so much. She attacked me.”

“So that’s why she’s unconscious again, huh?” Ferrel nodded to Dimmi. “Self-defence?” He raised his eyebrows. “Or maybe you did rape her.”

“She knocked herself out, you dumb cretitch
—
headbutting me.”

“That’s your story
—
I wonder what hers is?” His eyes drifted to Dimmi. “I guess I can’t ask her.”

Kieran’s eyes flashed, and his face twisted into a furious sneer. He took a quick step forward andFerrel took a quick step back.

Ferrel raised his hands placatingly. “Hey, man, take a tranquilizer, okay? I didn’t mean anything by it. I’m going to go get some breakfast. I’d advise you lock her up quickly, so you can be manning the controls when we drop out of TLS.” Without waiting for Kieran to give a reply, Ferrel turned and walked into the mess hall.

He made his way over to the meal dispenser, selected crowley eggs and porkine ham, and waited for the machine to prepare it.

Kieran walked wordlessly by, heading to the corridor on the other side off the ship which led to the brig.

Ferrel watched him go with a worried frown and wondered:
what
did
happen last night?

* * *

Kieran was in the pilot's chair, sipping a hot cup of perk in a special, no spill mug while Ferrel sat quietly beside him, watching the countdown to normal space. The streaking swirl of colored light that was trilinear space looked like they were hurtling down a tunnel of rainbow-colored flames; Kieran's eyes drifted out of focus in sympathy.

The ship's computer began an audible countdown in a feminine voice: “Five, four, three, two
 
.
 
.
 
.
”

The rainbow-colored flames disappeared in a bright flash that the auto-polarizing transpiranium of the cockpit canopy couldn't entirely block.

Ferrel gasped when he saw where they were, and Kieran smiled. The boy had probably been expecting the cold, star-studded blackness of space. What he saw instead, was that they were in the midst of a dark indigo cloud, intermittently lit from within by bright flashes of light
—
like lightning flashing behind a veil of dark blue curtains.

“Where are we?”

“Da Shon.”

Ferrel shook his head. “I know that, but is this some kind of
—
look out!” Barely a milé-astrom away, hurtling toward them at incredible speed was a misshapen brown lump of rock. Based on its speed and theirs, it would either collide with them or make a near miss in a matter of a second.

Kieran turned away from the controls and held his hands up to Ferrel, one of them still holding his mug of perk. “Look, no hands!” he said, flashing a grin.

Ferrel only had time to gape at him before the cockpit's simulated sound system broadcast a bone-thundering explosion of energy. A straight, red bolt of energy flashed by them, briefly illuminating the interior of the cockpit in a bloody red glow before colliding with the rock that was hurtling toward them.

With a deafening
BANG!
the rock was vaporized, and Ferrel turned to look just in time to see a hail of pebbles no larger than his thumbnail splash harmlessly across their bow. The sound system produced a sound like that of water striking the side of a hover car.

Ferrel saw a telltale blue-white glow envelop the black nose of the corvette, and said, “You dropped out of TLS with the shields engaged.”

Kieran nodded and took another sip of his perk. “Pays to be careful.”

“Did we shoot the asteroid?”

“No. Check the gravidar. The TLS gate is guarded by a triad of point defense satellites. Da Shon exists in the heart of the Blue Flower Nebula, orbiting the local sun amidst a perpetual ring of asteroids
—
known locally as the Ring of Fire.”

Ferrel was peering out through the cockpit canopy, his eyes trying to pierce the surrounding gloom, searching for another asteroid. Every now and then a bright flash lit the indigo clouds from within.

“What's the flashing about?”

Kieran set his mug down in the holder alongside his chair. “Da Shon's point defense satellites, I expect. Don't worry, we won't run into anything; those point defenses exist for the sole purpose of keeping an approach corridor clear.”

A blinking red light lit up the comm panel with an accompanying
beep, beep, beep
.
 
.
 
.
 
.

Kieran stabbed the transmit button.

“Attention UBER corvette
—
Dark Invader
—
this is Da Shon Orbital: the Union has no jurisdiction here, so I hope you’re just passing through.”

Ferrel turned to Kieran with a look of horror. “Dark Invader? Please tell me that's not us.”

Kieran shrugged. “I guess that what’s the SID code says.” He smiled and held down the transmit key for a reply. “Da Shon Orbital, this is the shadow-class corvette you just incorrectly identified as an UBER vessel
—
we were actually hoping to stay for a while.”

“Right, well I have the
Dark Invader
listed as registered to the Union Bureau of Exploration and Reconnaissance, so that's going to be a problem. If you were planning to do some undercover work, you should have picked a more neutral ship.”

“Our vessel has recently been
 
.
 
.
 
.
repatriated. We were hoping to exchange it here for something less conspicuous.” Kieran noticed Ferrel staring at him and turned from the comm to ask: “What?”

“You may as well have told him we stole it, man!” Kieran wasn’t holding the comm transmit key, so Da Shon Orbital couldn’t hear Ferrel’s remark, but laughter came rippling through the comm anyway. Ferrel’s attention was deflected to the comm speakers.

“You
stole
a Union vessel? Well, Da Shon is always looking to expand its defense fleet. Welcome,
Dark Invader.
”

“Thank you
—
”

“Oh, and prepare for boarding.”

“What? But you just said
—
”

“We can’t risk that you’re actually a Union vessel. You understand. Power down and prepare for boarding. Da Shon Orbital out.”

“Great!” Ferrel exclaimed. “Just keficking great!”

“Calm down. Da Shon is about as far from the Union’s circle of friends as a planet can get
—
they just want to make sure we really did steal this ship.”

“You’re yanking my balls.”

“No, I’m not. The planet is full of criminals, terrorists, anarchists, and other lowlifes. We’ve got nothing to fear here
—
well, except for the possibility that we might be robbed or slashed from guts to gullet by a wandering lunatic. It’s the perfect place to hide from patrollers and sell this baby.” Kieran patted the control console lovingly.

Ferrel was shaking his head. “And I guess it didn’t occur to you that this would also be the
perfect
place to run into the Carloni clan.”

Kieran winced. “Ummm
 
.
 
.
 
.
” He really hadn’t thought of that.