Chapter 6

SIX

" C 'mon, hon. Come back."

Zed blinked, fighting to focus. A pale circle of a face hovered over him surrounded by a nimbus of scarlet hair, lit by the gentle, ambient light of an open wallet. He knew who owned those riotous curls but words, thoughts, memories wouldn't coalesce. Pain sliced through his head and churned up nausea in his gut. Swallowing hard, he concentrated on breathing.

"Gonna puke?"

He closed his eyes and shook his head, groaning at the movement.

"It's okay if you need to. Believe me, I've seen worse." A gentle hand rubbed his back and he realized he lay on his side, curled into a recovery position. Another realization nudged him—Ness. This was Ness. His friend and doctor. "I'm sorry I couldn't let you sleep longer."

"M'okay."

"Like hell. But we might have to make a run for it and none of us can carry you for long."

Make a run for it? He opened his eyes again, squinting in anticipation of the med bay's harsh lights—except they weren't there. It was dark, far darker than the Chaos ever got, what with the ambient lighting everywhere. Unless the power was completely out—that was scary. But the room felt different. The acoustics were off and it was missing that familiar and comforting smell of metal and circuits.

"Wha—"

"We are on Risus, Mr. Anatolius." Qek clicked slowly. "I was attacked and abducted as I left the restroom. You, Elias, Fixer and Nessa rescued me, though you phase-shifted in the process."

Right. And there'd been a fight before that when he'd Zoned. Zoning twice and phase-shifting—no wonder he felt so shitty. "Eli and Flick?"

"They have left the cavern on a scouting mission to ensure we did not leave a trail."

Cavern? So they weren't in the bunker anymore, then. That explained the pervasive smell of damp stone. Zed didn't remember walking anywhere, but he figured Elias and Flick had managed to half-carry him. "Flick is probably leaving a brand new trail. He's awful in the woods."

Qek clicked in a tone Zed had come to learn meant agreement. "He was not enthusiastic about the task but Nessa stated that he had to leave or she was going to render him unconscious and she could not handle two patients at once."

"Sounds like Flick." Zed let his eyes drift closed for a second. Holding them open was hard. "How long was I out?"

"About an hour," Ness said. "How are you feeling?"

"Shitty." Worse, actually. But admitting to the depth of the shittiness wouldn't help their situation any. He'd do what he had to do to make sure they got off this rock intact. "Ping Flick, would you?"

"Already done." Ness brushed his hair off his forehead. He let the motion soothe him and he drifted until he heard footsteps approaching.

"He's awake?" Flick's voice was breathless, either from exertion or worry. Maybe both.

Zed squinted up at him. "Yeah."

Flick knelt on the floor beside Zed, and Ness made room for him. "How are you doing?"

"I think it'll be a few hours before I can play any basketball."

"You suck at basketball."

"I—" He did? He remembered playing basketball. He could picture himself with the ball in his hands. But that was it. No memories of sinking any baskets, or dribbling or…anything. "Right." He turned to Elias, trying to ignore the intensity of Flick's gaze. "So what's the situation?"

"Less than ideal." Elias settled down nearby, cross-legged, with his back braced against the wall. "It's well after midnight, local time. We could hear people in the bush—sound travels out here—but I didn't see anyone."

"You think it's Agrius out there?"

"Yeah. And I think that's the main reason we haven't been found. Apparently Agrius thugs can't find their asses in the dark without a microscope and a big fucking spotlight. The colonists don't seem to be thrilled to have criminals hanging around, so they're not helping them. Or at least, none of them but the reeve. No homegrown know-how, no finding us. I hope." Elias pulled a scuffed and scarred wallet out of his pocket and tossed it over to Flick, who handed it to Zed. "Grabbed that from the Agrius bitch we taped to the chair. Looks like they were trying to pick us off one by one."

"Huh." Zed scrolled through the message log, not admitting that he couldn't read anything. The letters all blended together and—God, his head ached. "But Vinchy was in on it?"

"Yeah, they cut him a deal when they dug up our manifest and found out we'd be making a stop here."

"I'm going to find a way to make our manifests private, I swear to God," Flick grumbled.

"That would not endear us to station quartermasters or the AEF. We could be labeled pirates," Qek pointed out.

"I'll make it temporary."

"I do not think?—"

"We need to get off this rock. Talking about anything else is a waste of air right now." Elias glared at his crew. "Agrius will be all over the shuttles and Zed…man, no offense, but we can't depend on you, and we have nothing but Fixer's knife."

"And I wonder why that is," Flick muttered.

"Fix, will you fucking shut it?" Elias pinched the bridge of his nose. "We were told not to bring weapons, so showing up with stunners would have been a bad idea. Colonists can be twitchy about shit like that."

"If we'd been armed, Zed might not have had to Zone twice!" Flick's hand squeezed Zed's, hard.

"They probably would've confiscated the weapons on landing, anyway," Ness interrupted. "It's a moot point. We don't have them so we need a plan that won't call for them."

"Full-on assault is out?—"

Zed shook his head. "I can do whatever needs to be done."

"No."

"Flick—"

"You have no fucking idea what you look like right now," Flick growled. "The answer is no. You're incapacitated."

"I'm not?—"

"No! You fucking selfish prick."

Zed's brows arched. "I'm selfish because I want to save my crew?"

"No, you're selfish because you're not fucking admitting—" Flick gritted his teeth and turned away.

Ness gripped Flick's shoulder for an instant before he shrugged off her hand. Typical Felix. "He's right, Zed. You need more recovery time."

He wanted to argue—the words to do so sat on his tongue but he didn't have the energy to voice them. Or the energy to pretend he was perfectly fine. "All right." He sighed. "So we need to get off the rock and back to the station. Is there an AEF detachment here?"

"No, Mr. Anatolius," Qek said. "You commented on that when we arrived."

Shit. Another hole in his memory. "I'm still groggy," he said with a shrug. "There was a squad on the station, though, right?" Please let me be right.

"Yes. They are guarding the remains of the space elevator until such time that it can be rebuilt. I believe they have had some problems with scavengers."

"Okay." So there was an AEF squad on the station and…"There isn't a detachment here?"

Elias and Ness shared a look and Zed wanted to groan. That question had been answered already, hadn't it? "No AEF detachment on the colony," Elias confirmed.

"And no space elevator…" That was important. That meant something…after a second, the knowledge clicked into place. "The colony will have an evacuation protocol. Would've been implemented after the destruction of the elevator—extra shuttles. They might be in shit shape because they're not used, but they'll be there."

"Like life rafts?" Ness frowned, obviously trying to picture it.

"Sort of. But they'll be fully functional shuttles, not like the pods on ships."

Qek clicked. "I have successfully interfaced with the Chaos. Checking public maps." Her blue fingers swam through the hologram over her wallet. "I believe I have located the emergency shuttles. There is a large clearing on the other side of the colony that is identified in public maps as the evacuation gathering point."

"That'd be the spot." Zed let out a long, slow breath, his eyes closing.

"Hey," Flick said, squeezing his hand. "You going to be good to get there?"

Zed opened his eyes and met Flick's worried gaze. "I'll do what I need to do."

Even if it meant Zoning to push the fatigue and the pain aside so he wouldn't endanger his crew.

A forest during the day would be disturbing enough. At night, even with moonlight slanting through the canopy, the scene was spooky. The tall, straight trees interfered with lines of sight, and leaves and shit kept rustling. Other movement teased the periphery of his vision now and again. Elias assured him it was just the trees—weird, alien trees with smooth trunks and spindly limbs that formed odd cross patterns. In daylight, they might resemble elongated snowflakes. Felix's mind wanted to conjure greater horrors. Indigenous wildlife, carnivorous insects, an undocumented sentient species. Whatever the colonists were afraid of. Confronting Agrius would almost be preferable.

He combatted his fears the way a soldier should—using the extra adrenaline to sharpen his focus. He tried not to let Zed's condition distract him too much.

Qek stopped and raised a fist, calling a halt to their single-file column through the forest. Felix held his knife, Nessa had a hypo-syringe, and Elias hovered just close enough to Zed to catch him if he stumbled. Zed had himself. That left Qek holding the map. Given that and the fact her eyesight was more adaptable than the rest of the group's—something about the spectrum of light on her home planet—she made the obvious vanguard. A blue hand flashed down, patting the air, and the group responded by crouching low.

Felix spared a thought for the fact that Qek had researched human tactical hand signals—his amusement all too brief—before leaning toward Zed. Biting his tongue, he didn't ask if Zed was all right. He simply pressed his cheek to the larger man's shoulder in a gesture of affection, support…need. For a moment, anxiety almost claimed him. The fear running through his veins gave a quick jerk, causing him to twitch all over. He breathed through it, drawing comfort from the familiar scent of the man next to him.

The breeze delivered an odd sucking sound. The movement was some distance to relative west, however, and their path lay almost due north. There was no need for them to investigate or engage.

After a while, Qek stood and the rest of the group followed. She turned and spoke in a low tone. "Not human. And as we have no weaponry with us, not likely to bother us."

"Don't tell me you believe that shit," Felix murmured.

"There are documented species that are attracted to sound and light. It is entirely possible this planet hosts a creature that is drawn by laser and pulse fire."

Wonderful.

They left the forest, and though tight spaces often made him nervous, Felix found he missed the cover of the trees. The hard ground was awash with pale light from one of Risus's two moons. The terrain between them and the evacuation port looked clear, but that could be a problem. No cover.

"If we move a little farther west, the slope of the ground should cover us," Zed said.

Qek tapped her display. "You are right."

She made another hand signal, pointing them to the west. Felix tamped down the urge to smile at the ashie's imitation of human gestures. Then he remembered that whatever had passed them had been to the west.

Wonderful.

They didn't have to deviate far. As they fell into their line, Zed moved behind him. Felix turned to protest, but the look on Zed's face stopped him. Grim determination—not only to be rearguard, but to proceed. To shepherd his crew out of danger. Tipping him a quick nod, Felix turned and followed Nessa. Elias moved up behind Qek.

Sixteen tense but quiet minutes later, they were again crouched in a line, arrayed side by side this time. Felix's calves ached from the incline, which had sharpened after they left the forest. He could only imagine how crappy the rest of the crew felt. The evacuation port lay before them in a large clearing that somewhat resembled a bowl. Probably a natural crater. To the east, they could just make out the lights of the main settlement. To the west lay the horror of the dark and whatever critters Risus played host to. Hopefully Agrius were still bumbling through the forest, several klicks behind them.

"How long is the night cycle on Risus?" Zed asked.

"Six Standard hours," Qek said. "The days here are short, only about eighteen Standard hours, and we are currently in their summer season."

"Is that other moon going to rise before dawn?"

The first moon gave off enough light for them to see. Any more light would make their progress across the shuttle port more obvious to perimeter security or electronic surveillance.

"How much time do we have left before dawn?" Elias asked.

"The second moon will rise after dawn, which is in about twenty minutes." Qek pointed toward the east and Felix noted that the light there wasn't all due to the settlement. A faint, bluish tinge extended along the horizon.

"We need to find a suitable shuttle and get off the ground fast, then," Zed said.

Nessa cocked her head. "You think there is more security here during the day cycle?"

"I think we need to use whatever advantages we have. If we can't get any of those shuttles operational, we need to find a way to stay invisible until we can figure out an alternate plan."

Felix huffed out a short breath. "We'll get one of those shuttles working, won't we, Qek?"

Qek turned a wrinkled smile in his direction. "Success is ten percent inspiration and ninety percent perspiration."

"‘Where there's a will, there's a way' would have done it." Felix glanced at Zed as he uttered the phrase.

A small hut, similar in appearance to the low bunker Qek had been kept in, served as the only outbuilding. Eight shuttles of varying configurations sat on the hard crater floor, arranged around the hut like spokes of a very odd wheel. Four of the craft were intra-system buses. Bulky, difficult to maneuver out of a straight line, but suitable for ferrying twenty or so colonists from ground to station, maybe a little way beyond. Of the other four, the closest was a definite no go. The small shuttle was little more than a wreck.

Zed had noticed it too. "Decompression damage. It's a wonder they found enough pieces to assemble into a shuttle shape."

"Every piece might be useful, though." Felix turned his attention to the next candidate, hoping a visual inspection of the field might narrow their choices enough that they didn't have to spend too long inside the crater.

"What about the Epsilon on the opposite side of the building?"

Felix lifted his gaze toward the shuttle Qek had pointed out. From afar, he could see no hull damage. The wing configuration indicated the craft had good lift and would have great speed and maneuverability in the upper atmosphere. The large tail end suggested an engine with enough thrust to get it off the ground quickly.

After eyeballing the rest of the field, Felix nodded toward the Epsilon. "Let's start there."

Elias jumped into the crater first, hissing slightly as he landed. Straightening, he limped to the side and called up, "The ground is as hard as ceramix."

Geologically speaking, the crater made an excellent landing field. The hard-packed soil of Risus might make farming a nightmare—hence the need for shipments of shit—but it could withstand high temperatures and substantial weight without changing composition…much. Ness dropped down second, then Felix helped lower Qek. Anticipating an argument with Zed, he jumped down next, then stepped aside. Zed landed next to him with a quiet grunt.

"Don't bite my head off, but are you okay?"

Zed stared at him for a second. "Peachy."

"Because we need you and Eli to stand guard while we get this shuttle up and running."

Expression softening by such a minute degree, Felix might have imagined it, Zed gripped his shoulder. "I'm good, Flick. Head feels like a bruised melon, but I'm steady."

"I don't know what a melon is." A useless comment, but better than what he wanted to say.

"Cameras are inactive," Qek reported.

Felix looked up. The field wasn't fenced and perimeter security consisted of cameras mounted on the tall poles dispersed throughout the crater. The domed caps were as dark as the lights suspended beneath them.

Lazy wiring.

Zed squeezed Felix's shoulder, let go and moved toward Elias. "Let's check out that building in the center."

Felix turned to Nessa. "Stay with them?"

She tracked Elias and Zed toward the building and Felix led Qek into the cover of the closest shuttle. From there, they ducked from shadow to shadow until they reached the nose of the Epsilon. A check of his bracelet showed eight minutes had passed, leaving dawn only twelve minutes away. Felix wanted to imagine daylight wouldn't inhibit their escape, but he also felt the urgency of their quest. Zed might still be on his feet, but he couldn't last for much longer. Qek had said she was well, but the bruise on her face bothered him. The rest of the crew was tired and stressed. Not a good combination. Felix knew his own last nerve was close to fraying and though Nessa could be the most emotionally resilient member of their group, she'd be hard-pressed to deal with more casualties than they already had—not without more supplies.

Ducking under the wing, Felix began a visual inspection of the hull. Wallet out, Qek moved toward the hatch. "Standard Epsilon lock, not currently encoded," she reported.

"Nice."

The hatch opened with a soft expulsion of gas.

"Should I wait for you to accompany me inside?"

Felix lifted his head. "Go ahead. I'll be right behind you. Hull looks pretty good at a glance. We'll be able to tell more from onboard systems, though."

Wind kicked across the crater from the north, bringing with it some of those weird sucking sounds. Felix scanned the edge of the field, but saw nothing. Swallowing dryly, he tapped his bracelet and tried to access the Net for information about the Epsilon class shuttle. No connection. A quick check showed his ripmail to Elias still languished in his outbox. "Fuck. Hey, Qek, you still connected to the Chaos? "

"I am."

Felix stepped through the hatch and sniffed. The interior of the shuttle smelled both familiar and not. "Second question, can you fly one of these? Because if you can't, we're going to have to try downloading some specs."

The shuttle was small with a capital S. Seating for pilot, copilot and two passengers. One of them would have to strap themselves into a cargo pod for liftoff. There were four such bays, each a recessed shelf enclosed by webbing, two to each side of the main and only cabin. Didn't even look as if the ship had a john.

"If we get this bucket off the ground, we need to head straight to Risus Station."

"I concur." Qek tapped the pilot's console, and a mixture of colored light flooded the cabin. "Power is good."

"Power is very good."

"A full systems check will take forty minutes."

"We probably don't have that kind of time. Start with hull integrity and essential systems. Thrusters, life-support."

"Stand by."

Settling her small frame into the pilot's chair, Qek immersed herself in the holographic display.

Thumping sounds ended with Elias scrambling through the hatch. "Tell me this thing is ready to go."

"Can't do that, captain," Felix said. "What's up?"

Nessa pushed into the shuttle behind Elias, but her attention remained focused on the outside.

"The bunker is empty, locked up tight. Zed got up on the roof to check out the approach and saw a line of vehicles on the road. Maybe two klicks out. Two skippers and something smaller, he thinks."

Agrius had that many people on the ground? Jesus, Joseph and Mary.

"We don't know that they're all Agrius," Elias put in as if party to his thoughts, "but I can't imagine the reeve will be happy to part with one of his shuttles."

Nessa leaned into the interior of the cabin. "Maybe it's colony security and they're on our side." She leaned back out.

With his head all but shaved, hair-raising opportunities were generally felt all across his scalp. Felix skimmed a palm over the top of his head as he started forward. "Where's Zed?"

"Still on the roof."

Felix angled past Elias. "If he thought we could trust colony security, we wouldn't be out here on our own. He needs to get into the shuttle. Now."

Ness turned to block the hatch. "I'll get him. You help Qek."

Scalp prickling all over again, Felix shook his head. "No. I'll get him."

"Fix—"

"You know as well as I do what he's planning."

She bit her lips together.

"Let me outside."

Nessa moved aside and Felix jumped down and strode toward the bunker. He couldn't see Zed, so he assumed he was lying down across the roof.

"Zed!" Still no movement. "We're about to get this thing off the ground. C'mon, let's go."

A boot appeared, then a knee. Finally Zed's face showed over the edge of the roof. He made an impatient gesture, waving Felix back toward the shuttle. Felix planted his feet and put his hands on his hips.

"Flick—"

"Don't do this. You're not a soldier and we're not civilians. We're crew."

"One of the skippers has a pulse cannon mounted to the roof."

"Then we need to go now. " Zed opened his mouth and Felix raised a hand. "I'm not leaving without you."

"Goddamn you, Felix. Get on the fucking shuttle."

"No. If you were planning a heroic action, you shoulda run down the road."

"You'd only have followed me." Zed sounded tired.

"Damn straight." Behind him, the shuttle's engines clicked. A soft whine followed ignition, then slowly built in intensity so that Felix could barely hear himself breathe. Still, he called out again. "I'm coming up there."

He started forward.

Zed disappeared from view, causing Felix's heart to jerk against his breastbone. Blood hissed and snapped in his veins—panic, sharp and stinging. "Zed!" He reached for the roofline and jumped, fingertips only just scraping the edge. "Fucking fuck. Zed!"

A shadow dropped down beside him, then an arm swept around his shoulders. He was hauled up off the ground with breathless speed. Seconds later, the blur that was Zed thrust him through the shuttle hatch. Curling forward, Felix grappled with the indistinct shape in front of him, desperate to catch and hold Zed, stop him from senseless sacrifice. His fingers slid down the twitching fibers of Zed's SFT before glancing off his belt.

"Eli, grab him!"

Light flared behind the bunker, silhouetting the low and blocky shape. The skippers had crested the last hill up to the crater.

The blur that was Zed suddenly stuttered. He slumped forward, obviously having lost the ability to Zone, and Elias caught him. Felix grabbed a hold of his shirt. Beams of light crossed over the top of the bunker, illuminating a sky that was no longer dark. Felix caught a glimpse of Zed's face—too slack, too pale.

"Hurry!"

From the side, Nessa helped pull until they'd hauled Zed's heavy body inside the hatchway. Felix slapped the panel to seal the door. Sucking in air, he fought two urges. No, three. The shitstorm of emotion inside him needed an outlet, and Zed would make a good fucking target. Given what he'd just tried to do, he should wake up with a few extra bruises or maybe a broken nose. Equal parts of Felix simply wanted to cling to him, though. Wrap himself around Zed, align their bodies so they touched all the way down, and hold him tight enough that he'd have to be pried away with a crowbar.

Instead, he acted on the most sensible urge, the need to do something useful. Choking on something that felt suspiciously like a sob, Felix gained his feet and backed away from Zed. "Get him strapped into one of those cargo shelves." He turned and pulled forward to the copilot's chair.

Qek glanced over. "We have a secure hull and enough power to leave the planet."

Blinking, Felix studied the holographic display, noting errors and warnings across the board. Likely, most of the faults were a simple matter of disuse. Calibration shifts and broken linkages. But he saw nothing that warned him off using the shuttle to escape the planet's atmosphere. Hauling in a breath so raw it hurt his throat, he said, "Let's do it."

Qek activated the external feeds, and a hazy image shimmered into being over the cockpit display. A skipper pulled around the side of the bunker, dark figures spilling out. Small flashes of light could be muzzle flare. They didn't worry him as much as the cannon strapped to the top of the vehicle. Inside the shuttle they wouldn't hear personal arms fire unless a lucky shot knocked out an essential system. The pulse cannon would punch a hole in the hull plating. Felix swore softly when he saw the telltale glow of the arming mechanism. Not a subtle weapon. How had they even got it planetside—and weren't they afraid of the beasties in the woods?

"Get strapped in!" he yelled as he scanned his share of the console. Several flickering lights requested his attention. Safeties for the copilot to disengage. He glanced at Qek. "Ready?"

"As I will ever be," she said, her tone not quite as glib as perhaps she hoped.

Felix tapped his console, giving full control to the pilot. Qek's blue fingers flew across her console. Beneath them, the shuttle shuddered. The muffled whine of the engine rose to a roar and then they were up, off the ground. Felix watched the view of the crater dwindle in the external feed. Two more vehicles slid into view. The barrel of the cannon was lifting toward the shuttle.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck."

Then a large shadow rolled into the crater from the north. Felix enhanced the visual. The shape was a number of multi-limbed creatures moving in a pack formation. The trajectory of gunfire changed, as did the angle of the pulse cannon.

"The stories are true?" Surely those shapes were colonial security, just multi-legged and…

Shit and double shit.

"It seems the ban on energy weapons is valid," Qek said.

"That's…" Letting gravity push his head into the headrest, Felix breathed out. "I never want to come back here. They can take their Risilium and stuff it."

"I am in complete agreement with you."

Felix couldn't turn his head, so he called out. "How's everyone doing back there?"

"We're good, Fix, just get us off this rock," Elias shot back.

Ness added a grunt and Zed let out a long, low moan before starting to retch.

"Now he decides to vomit."