Local Star, Aimee Ogden [ebook reader that looks like a book txt] 📗

“I’ve got control of this fighter. Don’t worry.” The Tiresh slid into place between the Scooper and the tunnel. A well-timed burst of the upper engine cut their inertia so hard Triz slammed against her restraints.

“It’s going to be over soon, Triz.” Casne sounded like she believed that. So Triz believed it too. “We did it. You did it.”

“ . . . Okay.” The Scooper was so close now. In Triz’s head a refrain roared: she’s not really going to do this. She’s not really going to do this. Kalo flipped a switch, and billows of frozen white gas erupted from the seams in the plastiglass. They bloomed out of the Tiresh like tiny nebulae. “Tell me when.”

Casne pulled a lever and the Tiresh hummed. Over Triz’s head, a black cable unspooled. It struck home in the Scooper, and held fast; another brief spasm from the Tiresh’s engine’s bruised Triz’s ribs. It also broke the Scooper’s inertia and held it close in the boarding hook cable’s embrace. “All right,” Casne said, “we’re go in three—two—one—now!”

“Now, Triz!”

Triz blew out as hard as she could. Overhead, the plastiglass parted like a breaking window. Casne kicked out from her seat, and the Scooper was still so far away, except that it wasn’t at all, was it, and the plastiglass shell closed overhead, and black sparks tore at Triz’s vision, she couldn’t see to release another injection of coolant, but they’d stopped now anyway, Kalo only needed sub-min engine effort to collect Casne, or was it Triz who was out there, going hand-over-hand between one ship and the next, and what the shitting stars was he yelling at her about now, she just needed a little rest . . .

Chapter Eleven

Sound returned slowly. Raised voices, what felt like an icy collar pinned around her neck. Triz blinked her eyes open. Her head was pounding, and her mouth tasted like she’d been guzzling rotten algae. “I think I threw up,” she said, coughing. Those were Casne’s frozen hands on her shoulders, Casne’s body squeezed in alongside hers, Casne’s laughter in her ears. When she kissed Triz’s forehead, her lips left a burning-cold imprint. Triz’s head lolled to the other side, where Rocan slouched beside her in the empty gunner’s couch. Blood trickled down his face from the space where his eyes should have been, and his left wrist bent inward at a nauseous angle.

“You did it,” Triz said.

“Thanks to you,” said Casne, still drifting in the space just over Triz’s head. “Are you sure you didn’t miss your calling not joining the Fleet?”

“We’ll get the Admiralty to start a new division.” Kalo sounded space-roughened. Triz would feel a little better about her own performance if he’d lost his lunch mid-vent too. “Combat Mechanics. It’s catchy.”

Triz wanted to tell Casne she should sit down and buckle up like the respectable Fleet officer she was—but found she didn’t have it in her. She clutched Casne’s bloody, space-cold hand and pressed herself into the shelter of Casne’s cold body until it warmed against her. Together they stretched their necks and watched Vivik grow big and bright and blissfully closer on the face of the plastiglass.

By the time they touched down, the regular lights in the wrenchworks had come back on, albeit not at quite their full intensity. Rocan had also come around, cursing and spitting at Kalo and Casne as they maneuvered him out of the Tiresh. “The Cyberbionautic Alliance will never accede to the hidebound rules of unmodified humanity,” he said, as they hauled him up by his elbows and dragged him toward the battered doors of the remaining lift, with Triz leading the way. “Nor will I. I will not stop, nor rest, until your memories are unwound from the fabric of the universe, until your genes unspooled from the common bindings of humankind. Until—”

Triz turned around and struck him in the belly with the flat of her belt wrench.

He gasped for air, staggered, and fell silent. A temporary solution, but sometimes temporary solutions were the best path to someplace more permanent.

“Triz.” Casne shook her head.

Triz ignored her and keyed in a lift call.

But she hadn’t yet finished when the lift doors shivered and ground open. The doors parted, and inside stood Quelian, flanked by half a dozen Justice officers.

“Hi, Quelian,” Triz said as he stared at her in shock. “Sorry, we kind of made a mess of the ‘works.”

Before Quelian could ask what happened, his daughter stepped forward and saluted. “Quelian Vivik Orist.” Casne’s cold formality to her father gave Triz goosebumps. “I stand to remand myself, and Rocan Dustald-3 Melviq of the Cyberbionautic Alliance to the wisdom of Justice.”

Triz bit her tongue on an inappropriate comment about the level of wisdom currently on offer there.

At Quelian’s nod, the Justice officers moved forward to flank Casne and Rocan. “Put the Ceebee in cryo,” Quelian ordered. His gaze fell on his daughter next. “Considering the current state of Justice, Captain Casne is remanded to her usual onhab quarters for the time being.” He gave them the location marker of Triz’s pairhome. When he finished, he looked as if he would have liked to say something else. Of course, saying things was never Quelian’s strong suit. Not saying the right things, certainly. He nodded once at Casne, and she returned the gesture in kind. Triz turned away from whatever understated familial communion was happening without her there, and found herself face to face with Kalo.

“Come on, greasemark,” he said, and flung his bad arm across her shoulder. “My bootlaces are untied. Carry me out of here while the grownups figure this out.”

Chapter Twelve

After new evidence was provided by a pair of Ceebees left for dead by their lord commander in his ill-fated escape from Justice, a missive from Centerpoint waived the necessity for Quelian to recuse himself. The Ceebee lieutenants testified in the circular court at the crown of Justice, raising their voices to speak over