Foothold E-Book

Mannah Pierce

• Herausgeber: Clink Street Publishing
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 698

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

Foothold is the second part of a science fiction saga set in an interstellar world of the far future where spacer crews live and trade between the stars. It begins where Cast Adrift ended; the Willow has been destroyed and the survivors amongst the crew scattered. Jax is in the hands of his enemies. Will Tre's loyalty to Jax mean that he abandons the rest of his crew? Will Jax let him? How will Rae react to being separated from Jax? Just how dangerous is Kip when he is determined to save the people he loves? And where is Ean?

Leseprobe

Foothold

Book Two of Reaching out of the Shadows

by

Mannah Pierce

Cover image was commissioned from Curtis Hamilton

Contents

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1

Rae scampered along the service duct. He had three thoughts: track Jax; stay hidden; be on Scar’s ship when it left.

The three men in the corridor above him were walking too fast to be carrying two pods. Rae was pretty sure that one of them, probably Scar, had Jax slung over his shoulder. Being unconscious, on his belly and with his head hanging down would explain the way Jax’s breathing sounded.

It was easy at first. The ducts followed the corridors. Then the duct came to a dead end. There was a grille. Rae peered through. It was a shaft with a ladder.

Boots appeared and he pulled back. It was the man carrying Jax. Rae inhaled deeply; imprinting the man’s scent into his consciousness. Another man followed, carrying Noe. After him came a third.

Rae breathed more shallowly as the second and third man passed. He wanted to follow the first one, not the second or third. The first man was carrying Jax.

Once they had gone he crept forward and investigated the grille. It was unlocked and hinged. Rae shut his eyes: concentrating on listening; making himself wait until the men left the ladder before opening it.

A glance up and down; the shaft was empty. Rae moved: out of the duct and onto the ladder; down at a steady speed; holding his breath each time he passed an opening; stopping at the first rung that did not smell of the man’s sweat.

This had to be the corridor they had taken. Rae pricked his ears and took a lungful of air. Yes, this was the way they had gone.

There was a grille from the shaft into a duct under the corridor, just like the level above. Rae scampered along it, closing the gap between him and Jax.

This level was a lot noisier and, as they continued along the corridor, busier. Rae’s confidence started to evaporate. The ship they were on was much bigger than he had thought; more like a small spacestation than a ship like the Willow.

It might have a docking bay. If it did, that was where Scar’s ship would be. Trouble was, a docking bay would be completely separate from the big ship, because they were depressurised before the smaller ship was launched.

How was he going to get into the docking bay and then onto the ship?

He risked catching up; with all the noise purebreds should not hear him. Someone else had joined the group; there were four men rather than three.

“Is the Talon ready to go?” the first man asked.

Having heard him speak, Rae was sure that the man carrying Jax was Scar.

“Yes, Captain Scar,” the new person answered, confirming Rae’s deduction. “Fully fuelled and provisioned.”

“And the crew?”

“Most of them. There are a few stragglers.”

“Anyone we can’t lift without?”

There was a short pause. “Medico Kem has yet to arrive. He has reported in and is on his way.”

Scar growled. “If he wasn’t so good at his job…” He trailed off, leaving Rae wondering what Scar did to people who disobeyed him. “We launch as soon as he is aboard. I want everyone at their stations and I want the docking bay evacuated so we’re ready to go. Kem’ll have to come aboard suited, along with any others who make it in time. Make sure someone is ready to give them suits and instructions.”

“Will do, captain.”

That sounded hopeful, which was good because that was when his luck with the duct ran out. There was a junction and no duct going the way Jax went; Rae guessed Scar and the other men had crossed the threshold of the docking bay.

Then there was a siren and a booming voice. “Docking bay prepare for depressurisation. Depressurisation will begin in three minutes. Leave the docking bay or suit up.”

He was wearing a suit.

Rae went back along the duct to the last junction, listened and followed the duct under the quietest corridor. Then he was out through the next hatch cover and walking back along the corridor towards the docking bay at a purebred’s pace, raising his helmet to hide his ears and fur.

“Docking bay prepare for depressurisation. Depressurisation will begin in one minute. Doors are closing. If you are not in a suit, leave the docking bay.”

Rae had not allowed for the doors closing before depressurisation started. He closed the access points on his suit, shut his faceplate and started to run.

He made it just as the doors started to close.

The docking bay was deserted; Rae guessed that everyone was on the ship, which looked about the size of the Willow. He ducked behind what could be a crane and waited, listening to his suit adapting as the air pressure dropped.

At least he was on the right side of the door; Jax’s side. If it came to it, he could cling to the outside of the ship.

Then a light over a much smaller door next to the big doors started flashing; it was an airlock and it was cycling. The light went blue and the door opened. Out stepped one…two…three…people in suits.

Rae had to decide if he should join them and bluff his way onto the ship. It was risky but it had to be better than trying to cling to the hull.

The first two men sprinted towards the open airlock. The third was trying to do the same but he was carrying three large cases and making a hash of it, first dropping one and then another.

Rae was moving before realising that he had made the decision. He picked up the case that was currently on the floor and walked towards the ship.

The third man followed.

The airlock was the same size as the smaller one on the Willow. Getting four people and three large cases in was tight and the cases had to be piled one on top of the other. Being crammed together gave Rae an excuse to be between the cases and the wall where eye contact with the others was impossible. No one prodded him, touched helmets or tried to plug a communication cable into his suit. He could sense the other people’s agitation; they were shifting from foot to foot. Rae imagined them thinking about Scar and how cross he was going to be that they had delayed launch.

He needed a diversion, so the men would not see where he went. The latches for the top case’s lid were less than a hand’s span from his nose. Reaching up, he flipped them open.

The light went from red to blue, the inner door of the airlock opened and the first two men jumped out, ran to a ladder and started climbing upwards. The third man went to pull the top case from the pile and, as Rae had hoped, the lid fell open scattering the contents across the floor.

The man crouched down to pick them up and Rae took his chance. He shot out of the airlock towards the shaft, opening his faceplate on the way. Jumping onto the ladder, he slid down; if the ship was anything like the Willow, there would be fewer people at the tail end.

Three levels down he took his first deep breath. The level that was hydroponics on the Willow smelt like a badly kept, overcrowded crewroom. He could no longer smell Jax and there were only faint, stale traces of Scar’s scent.

He scrambled back up the ladder, deciding to hide on the second level down from the airlock. On the Willow, all parts of that level were well over one gee; patches were as high as five. In Rae’s experience, purebreds avoided places where the gravitational field was high.

Sure enough, it was a storage hold. Like on the Willow, the storage crates were piled floor to ceiling and wedged tight. Rae looked about for a hiding place. At the moment all that mattered was being out of sight but that would change once the Talon undocked and switched on her gravitational field generators. Then there would be places that were five gee, maybe higher.

To his relief someone had painted parts of the floor red; Rae guessed they were the dangerous bits.

Then the ship started moving. Rae was momentarily weightless and then there was an ominous rumble. It sounded a bit like the Willow’s lateral rockets only much, much louder. Then it was as if the floor was pushing up on the soles of his feet. He just managed to lie down before it felt like six men were sitting on his chest. It was all he could do to breathe.

Scar was using rockets to accelerate the Talon.

Rae told himself that it would have to stop soon; no ship carried that much rocket fuel. The floor was hard; it felt like his bones were bending. At least his suit gave his neck and spine some support.

Then, thankfully, it no longer felt like six big men were sitting on his chest and a small push sent him floating away from the floor; they were in free fall.

A siren, three short bursts, and he was upside down and being slammed into what had been the ceiling. A twist and he managed to turn his landing into a roll. Then he crawled to a place between stacks where the gravitational field was lower; less than two gee.

They had activated the ship’s gravitational field generators.

He curled up for a while, recovering.

After a while he took a few sips of water and began searching his suit for food, finding a high energy bar in a thigh pocket. Breaking the wrapper, he gave an exploratory sniff. It wasn’t as bad as those he used to steal in Carrefour. He bit in, regretting leaving his backpack with Kip, but then he shook himself; Kip would look after his stuff and Rae was better at finding food than Kip would be.

What next? The Talon was like the Willow; there was no network of service ducts large enough for him to crawl through. No, he would have to wait for ship’s night. He checked the chronometer built into his suit and tried to remember how to set an alarm. A few false starts and he worked it out.

He would sleep now and look for Jax later.

***

Kip lay in the duct, staring at the place Rae had been. Questions cascaded through his mind, each generating a multitude of possible answers, all of them terrifying. Soon every part of his mind was yammering with fear.

Then he remembered Tre’s lesson. This was like getting into his suit. Kip grabbed the panic, thrust it into a corner of his mind and slammed down a partition, creating some space to think.

Rae was doing what he did best. Kip would do the same; he would find a way to hack the ship’s systems.

Usually the outer edges of any ship were less busy than the core. Kip decided to crawl in a straight line until he came to a dead end. It would be safer there than here, which would be one of the first places they started looking if Rae was discovered.

There wasn’t much space. It would be easier without his suit but there wasn’t enough room to get out of it.

He backed up to where they had entered the duct; there was enough room there to turn around.

The backpacks were where they had left them. He tied the straps to his left ankle and set off, slow but steady, trying to make as little noise as possible.

The layout appeared logical, which was promising. The main ducts, the ones big enough for him to crawl through, were set out as a grid. They were lit; the light level was similar to ship’s night. At regular intervals there were smaller ducts, too narrow for him, that carried services to individual rooms.

Kip could see pipes and cables. He wanted to stop and investigate but was determined to reach a dead end first.

There wasn’t one. Instead he found himself at a T junction rather than a crossroad. Having decided that this was as far as he was going to go, Kip settled down to begin work.

The cables were of types he recognised. They were even colour-coded, which was nice. He could see a data cable, suggesting that they used a hardwired network, or at least had one. There was a junction box right there, which meant that he didn’t have to cut a wire, which was good because interrupting the data flow might draw attention.

Within five minutes he was wearing his goggles and studying a plan of the ship, the Maul, overlaid with a map of the data network. He risked a tiny ping and located his position; at the outer edge of level C+3.

The ship was a five layer 175-hex-eight-6, so she had five separate gravitational field arrays spaced nine levels apart. She was five times longer than the Willow and about four times as wide; big. Kip was three levels above the third gravitational field generator array.

Further investigation confirmed that this was not a busy level, which was good. It was a ‘mission level’ rather than an ‘operational level’, a ‘supplies level’ or a ‘residential level’. From what Kip could glean within a few minutes, ‘a mission level’ was kept empty so that it could be used for the purpose of the current ‘mission’.

Kip guessed the current mission was getting Jax, delivering him to the client and making sure there weren’t any witnesses. That didn’t require a whole level. It appeared to only need a room for the pods and some guards, especially now that Scar had taken Jax.

That left a lot of empty rooms; maybe he could use one.

Not yet though; it would be far too risky and there were more urgent matters. Top of his list was finding out what was happening and second was getting a message out there in case someone, probably Tre, was in a position to respond to it.

It turned out that the crew of the Maul weren’t into data collection. They had sensors but they mainly used the live feeds; they didn’t record much so there wasn’t a lot for Kip to review. All he managed to establish was that Scar’s ship, the Talon, was on its way to Verdant and that the Willow had been destroyed.

They had recorded the Willow’s destruction, perhaps to provide the client with proof that they had done as instructed. Kip watched. It made him angry. How dare these strangers, these mercenaries, these pirates, destroy the home Ean had built for them?

After that he gave up on looking for information and switched to working out how to send a message to Tre. The best starting point had to be whatever signal the beacons in the pods were giving out.

A quick check confirmed that the pods didn’t seem to have beacons or to be broadcasting any signals. Kip expected that. They were loaded with stealth technology so that no one but Tre could find them. Unfortunately no amount of stealth technology had stopped someone watching them being ejected and picking them up.

Kip kept looking; there was no way Tre didn’t have a way of tracking Jax’s pod.

By the time he had found it and worked out a way to mimic it, Kip was stiff, tired, thirsty, hungry and desperate for a pee. Peeing outside his suit didn’t seem like a good idea when he was trying to hide. The only sensible option was to connect his penis to the tube that led to a reservoir in his suit.

It was even trickier when stuck in a service duct; Kip silently thanked Ean for insisting he practised.

Resealing his suit, he looked for a meal bar. There were plenty in Rae’s pack. He ate half of one and had a few mouthfuls of water from the bottle built into his suit.

Then he pushed on, modulating the signal to carry data and sending his message. He did not bother to encode it. If anyone was skilled enough to find the pods’ signal hidden in the background radiation, they wouldn’t be slowed down by any code simple enough for Tre to decipher.

***

Tre had watched the Willow explode, partly because the death of such a fine ship should have a witness but mostly to make sure that there was no potentially lethal shrapnel heading in his direction.

Then he activated and boosted his suit’s receiver. Once his inbuilt processor had filtered the pods’ signals out of the background radiation he would be able to track Jax’s pod.

Instead of an immediate result, a percentage appeared in the lower left corner of his field of view. It was increasing but far too slowly. For a moment he wondered if the suit was malfunctioning.

Then he realised that he was comparing it with the Willow’s receiver and processors. The technology in his body and his suit had been cutting edge twenty standards ago. Now it was old fashioned; second rate.

He dared not activate the suit’s scanners; that would overload his processor even more.

Instead he used his eyes. He could see three ships, one large and two small, and a sea of debris; wreckage from the Willow and the remains of the small fighters. One of them was arcing across his field of view, split open, with the body of a small hybrid still strapped into the pilot’s chair.

Disposable; that was how most people thought of hybrids, particularly ones with fewer human genes like these ones. Maybe, if he was honest, Tre had thought the same way before Rae.

Then he spotted them; the swarm of small, dark, space-suited figures who may have left the Willow to avoid the explosion but who were now on their way back to continue scavenging.

Tre had a bizarre image of them crawling all over him, disassembling his suit.

He selected a trajectory that would take him away from the wreckage but towards the ships. He accelerated slowly and changed direction gradually; if the hybrids’ vision was like Rae’s they would be hypersensitive to sudden changes in movement.

Even that simple manoeuvre slowed the upward crawl of the numbers towards one hundred.

Watching it wasn’t going to speed it up. Tre allowed his mind to wander for a moment only to stop himself; he could not afford to think about Ean. Instead he concentrated on the tactics behind the attack.

He had never heard of pirates who masqueraded as rescuers and had a battalion of undersized hybrids. Given that he went out of his way to research the different types of attack, especially at gates, Tre wondered if they had been imported from another sector specifically for this job.

It was possible, particularly if a mother ship had been sent to fetch them; it had been over two standards since Jax had gone into hiding.

How had they identified the Willow as Jax’s hiding place? Noe? Art? Klennethon Darrent? No, not Klennethon Darrent. Klennethon Darrent was going to be annoyed if anything had happened to Kip.

Tre smiled; people who annoyed Klennethon Darrent suffered.

Who was behind the attack? Gil? The Edgers? Another clan? He had no way of knowing.

The numerals were making a sudden push towards the finishing line: ninety-six, ninety-seven, ninety-eight, ninety-nine…The results of the analysis appeared and Tre scanned it eagerly.

Five occupied pods, two unoccupied, all clustered together on the largest ship. None of them contained Jax. Worse, Jax was no longer within one hundred paces of the pod he had been in, because if he had been the beacon would be broadcasting that fact.

The urge to roar, to charge, to destroy, was overwhelming. Tre recognised it for what it was; a surge of adrenaline. He held himself rigid, riding it out; refusing to react until the worst of it had passed.

He decided that there were three possibilities. Firstly, Jax could still be on the ship but there could be shielding between him and the pod, preventing the transponder in his brain operating. Second, he could be in this system but more than one hundred paces away from the pod.

The third possibility was based on the fact that two of the pods had vanished. There had been nine, now there were seven.

The receiver built into his suit was more than adequate. Pods’ beacons were activated when they were occupied. Either the pods had been destroyed or they were no longer in this system.

Tre looked in the direction of the gate; Jax and his pod could already be through it.

He speeded up, no longer caring if one of the hybrids spotted him. Either Jax was still on that ship or someone on that ship knew where he had gone.

Halfway between where the Willow had been and the large ship, an extra pod appeared on the display in the lower left of his field of view. It was flashing.

Flashing? His processor had started translating the message from long-short to text before his brain had caught up.

Jax is prisoner on a14-hex-eight-6 called the Talon, heading for Verdant, to be delivered by a man called Scar to whoever paid the pirates. Noe is with him to be kept not delivered.

A string of numbers followed and then the text message repeated.

It had to be Kip. Tre was confident no one else could have sent him a message that way.

Jax and Noe being on a different ship from their pods explained the empty pods if not the vanishing ones. Noe being with Jax was suspicious, particularly if he was to be kept. It suggested that Noe might have history with the pirates.

Tre had not seen the Talon leave, which was puzzling.

He turned his attention to the numbers Kip had sent and quickly worked out that it was information about the Talon’s trajectory and progress. Further analysis revealed that it had undocked from the large ship while he had been hiding in the cupboard.

The thought of it made him irrationally angry. He wanted to hunt down the little hybrids one by one and break every bone in their bodies.

A few deep breaths got the worst of it under control. He didn’t remember the suit affecting him so badly. He had to focus on following Jax, which was not going to be easy. The Talon was unusually quick. It must have used its rockets; a drive could not accelerate a 14-hex-eight-6 like that, even if the ship’s mass was stripped down to a minimum.

A few basic calculations confirmed what Tre had feared. He could not catch up with the Talon. Worse, his suit, despite being designed for travel as well as survival, did not have the range to get to the planet. He could make it to one of the spacestations but it would take ten days and he would have to put himself into stasis for most of the journey to conserve oxygen.

No, he needed a ship, the quicker the better.

By the time he was closing on the smallest of the three ships, Tre had decided that the time for discretion and subtlety was over. So far the sensible approach had only led to a gap between him and Jax that was growing minute by minute.

The ship was ideal. She was small, sleek and she looked fast; more like a yacht than a ship people lived on. He considered the possibility that she was not part of the pirates’ flotilla but dismissed it; she was far too near the large ship not to be associated with it.

About one hundred paces distant, he launched a jammer. If detected, which was unlikely given its shielding, it would look like debris. At worst it would be used as target practice.

The occupants appeared oblivious to its approach. Once the jammer was within three paces of the hull it began broadcasting.

Tre waited until it was attached to the hull to begin sniping. The small calibre, high velocity, ultra-hard rounds pierced the hull in places that should ensure multiple holes in each cabin but minimal damage.

What occurred next would depend on who was aboard. Most spacers would react to multiple breeches in the hull by abandoning ship. They would not even wait long enough to work out what was happening. Spacers who hesitated died.

A few might be more interested in defending the ship. An exceptional tactician, and the pirates obviously had at least one of those among them, might sacrifice the ship in order to eliminate a potential threat.

That was why Tre had risked using the jammer; he did not want someone activating a self-destruct from one of the other two ships.

He saw one, two, three pods leave as he landed near the airlock. Two shaped charges, one larger, one smaller, dealt with the inner and outer doors of the airlock.

They had not even shut the inner blast doors while they evacuated ship.

Five seconds and he was in the control room. The systems were not locked and appeared to be standard. He closed blast doors and deactivated the data network in case there was anyone left on the ship.

Then he set course, activated the drive and fired the rockets.

***

Once Kip had the message for Tre broadcasting, he went back to collecting data. The ship’s live feeds, all forty-two of them, were connected via his interfaces to a dedicated section in his data crystal array. That done, he sorted out a three-by-three, four-deep display for his goggles.

The other five live feeds were sound; a microphone he had managed to activate in the control room, the main intercom and their four most used radio channels.

He connected the control room microphone one of his earpieces, the intercom to the other and the radio channels to his suit radio.

There was a burst of static from one of the speakers in his suit. Kip stopped what he was doing and began analysing that radio signal.

It was from a jammer. It had to be Tre. Kip brought up the live feeds, wishing that the people controlling the detectors were more efficient.

What would Tre do? The answer was obvious. He would steal a ship to follow the Talon. Not this one, it was far too slow.

Only how would the pirates react? Not well; Kip knew that much. At worst they would destroy the stolen ship. At best they would radio the Talon and tell Scar to destroy it.

He had to do something. Problem was, all his efforts so far had been focused on staying hidden and collecting data. He hadn’t even considered trying to control the ship.

There wouldn’t be time for anything subtle.

There was a panicked voice in his left ear; the earpiece that was connected to the microphone in the control room.

“The commander’s yacht is moving away. I can see escape pods. It must have been boarded.”

“Calm down!” a steadier voice ordered. “Open a channel to the Dagger.”

Then there was more of the static, this time via the microphone in the control room.

“Mulligan’s teats.” The voice sounded less steady now. “Get me the commander on his private channel. Get the attack rats back into their fighters and on standby.”

Kip didn’t know what attack rats were but they sounded bad. Fighters had to be launched. He hacked into system control only to find that only key systems like power and life support were controlled centrally; orders might be given from the control room but they must be implemented locally.

One of the other speakers in his suit activated. “This is the commander.”

“This is Kurt, commander. Someone has taken control of the Dagger.” The voice was steady again.

“Transmit the self-destruct command,” the commander ordered. “The code is eight-five-alpha-two-zeta-nine.”

Kip hadn’t thought of that. He should have concentrated on taking out the transmitter. Tre was going to die.

“Radio communications to and from the Dagger have been jammed, commander,” Kurt admitted.

Relief washed over him. Tre had thought of it, even if he hadn’t. Kip made himself concentrate, exploring different options with the separate layers of his brain. He had to find a way to stop the commander.

“Get the attack rats into their ships,” the commander ordered. “And man the guns.”

Then Kip thought of it. Nothing on a ship worked without power. Even the drive went into maintenance mode when its electricity supply was interrupted.

“The first wave of rats will be ready to launch in two minutes,” Kurt replied. “Gunners are powering up turret one and five.”

Kip checked. Yes, he could do it. Only there wasn’t time to be selective. He took down all the batteries or none. Everything would be switched off, even life support.

Once the power was down, he would not have the means to reinstate it. People could, probably would, die.

He was in a suit. So was Rae if he was still on board. The others were still in their pods. Kip smashed through the security settings and deactivated all batteries.

The lights went out. The live feeds were cut off one by one. All the vibrations and hums he could feel or hear ceased.

He had killed the ship.

Kip lay there, staring at the inside surface of his goggles.

What had he done?

2

Jax was thrust into consciousness. He recognised the signs; he had been given a wake-up shot. His suit was gone. He was lying on what felt like an examination couch with the head end raised. There was something across his neck, which he refused to admit was frightening.

He made himself stay still, his eyes closed, like his trainers and Tre had taught him.

“Why isn’t he waking up?” a deep, rough voice demanded. It was no one he recognised.

“He’s awake,” a softer, more conciliatory, but equally unfamiliar, voice replied. “He’s just being cautious.”

He was in the hands of strangers.

He opened his eyes slowly. It was a small infirmary with two examination couches including the one on which Jax was lying. A tall, muscular man with a scar across his throat was sitting on a chair between the two couches. Lurking close to the door, as far away from the scarred man as possible and looking as if he wanted to run, was a smaller man with sandy hair and eyeglasses. On the second couch, the other side of the scarred man, lay Noe; still unconscious.

Jax wished it were Rae on the other couch, not Noe. Belatedly, he realised that he could not move his hands or his feet. He checked. There were wide, leather cuffs attaching his wrists and ankles to the couch. Thinking about it, the strap across his neck felt like leather as well.

The scarred man leaned forward. Jax had to stop himself cowering away. He refused to admit his fear, never mind show it.

“So you are Joaquin Oro Sebastiano Socorro of the Navaja’s son,” the scarred man stated.

Jax’s mind filled with everything he had learnt about the way his father operated. Did this man admire his father or loathe him? He decided to say nothing.

The scarred man’s hand came towards him. Jax tried not to tense. A finger traced the line of his chin.

“So pretty,” he commented.

Jax managed to stop himself freezing. He heard Tre’s voice in his head: stay relaxed; never allow your enemy to read you. Did this man want him? Was he going to poke him? Where was Tre?

“The commander says I cannot have you,” the scarred man continued. “You have to be delivered untouched to the client.”

It was a relief but Jax tried not to show it. Who was the commander? More importantly, who was the client?

“So he gave me a substitute,” the scarred man continued, gesturing towards Noe. He leaned forward and whispered into Jax’s ear. “Everything I do to him is something I want to do to you.” He leaned back and turned to the other man. “Wake him up. Then get out.”

The man with the eyeglasses sidled around the edge of the room and pressed a hypospray to Noe’s neck. Then he scuttled out the door.

There was a delay before Noe’s eyes opened. Jax could feel the man watching him rather than Noe. He remembered one of his trainers, not Tre, talking about using loved ones in torture situations. Looking away was bad, because it made the torturer do worse things to make you react.

He no longer wished it was Rae on the couch rather than Noe.

Then Noe’s eyes fluttered open and Jax felt the man’s attention leave him.

“Who are you?” Noe asked in a whisper with huge eyes and a quiver in his voice.

“You can call me Captain Scar,” the man answered. He leaned towards Noe. “You are mine now.”

Noe gave a tiny whimper and drew back but at the same time his lips parted and his knees moved a little apart.

The man, Scar, groaned slightly and shifted in his chair. His eyes momentarily went back to Jax but Noe made another whimper, this time a little more breathy, and Scar’s gaze was drawn back.

It was a standoff. Jax watched; fascinated. Scar was battling to cling to his original plan; the one where he used Noe to get to Jax. Noe was determined that Scar would forget about Jax and only be interested in him. Every time that Scar remembered that Jax was there, Noe would shift his position or make a sound or use those amazing eyelashes.

Then, suddenly, Noe had won. Scar moved. He gathered Noe up, slung him over his shoulder and headed for the door.

As soon as he was over Scar’s shoulder, Noe’s gaze locked with Jax’s. His eyes said, “I have done my part, now it’s up to you.”

Jax hoped his gratitude showed.

Once the door had shut Jax assessed his surroundings. It looked and felt like a ship or a spacestation. He listened more carefully. He was on a ship. It did not sound very different from the Willow. He searched the room with his eyes. On the wall was a small chronometer; it was evening. Jax focused on the smaller figures displaying the date, intent on finding out how long he had been in stasis. To his surprise it was still the same day; this morning they had all been together on the Willow.

He tried moving his arms. It was hopeless. He shut his eyes to help him think. Maybe he could work on the man with eyeglasses when he returned. Perhaps Noe would find out some useful information.

Given what Scar had said, the ship was on its way somewhere to deliver Jax to someone. He took a few deep breaths. The transfer from Scar to the client would probably be his best chance of escape or, more likely, Tre’s best chance to rescue him.

Then the door slid open only there was no one there. For a moment Jax hoped to see Rae’s whiskered face peering around the doorjamb but instead it was the man with the eyeglasses.

“Captain Scar left,” Jax informed him in what he hoped was a warm and confident voice. “He took Noe with him.”

The man slipped into the room and closed the door behind him. He looked at Jax as if he could not quite believe what he was seeing. “Is that the other boy’s name? Noe?” he asked cautiously.

“Yes,” Jax answered. “I’m Jax.”

“Emanuel Rafael Jax Esteban of the Navaja,” the man specified, as if reminding himself this wasn’t just any lad of thirteen standards. “My name is Kem. Do you need a drink? Or food? Please inform me if you have the urge to urinate or defecate.”

Jax wondered how old Kem was; probably in the first half of his fourth decade. His eyeglasses and his choice of language, combined with him being in an infirmary, suggested some medical training. “And how did you come to join the Talon’s crew, Medico Kem?” he asked.

The man was motionless for a moment. Then he blinked. “Wrong place, wrong time,” he admitted.

Jax tried not to show his delight. Kem was terrified of Scar and it sounded like he had been captured rather than recruited. If Jax could build a relationship, perhaps the medico would help him; as little as looking the other way for a split second could be crucial. “I am thirsty,” he said.

Kem was gentle and caring. He lifted the head of the couch higher, so that Jax could drink more easily, and tilted the cup carefully. Jax did not ask for the restraints to be unfastened. Under the circumstances it was an unreasonable request that was more likely to alienate Kem than be successful.

“Do you know what happened to the rest of my crew?” Jax asked.

Kem glanced at the closed door. “I treated one of them on the Maul; a big man who had been knocked senseless and had a cut to his scalp.” He pointed to the hairline above his right eye.

It sounded like Vic. Jax remembered Tre ordering Vic out of the engine room. It was good to know that he had made it.

“He was doing fine by the time I left,” Kem assured him. “And I think there were others, brought onto the Maul in pods.”

Jax guessed that ‘Maul’ was the name of the other ship. He tried a big-eyed look, like Noe had used but less extreme. “Thank you,” he replied. “It helps to know at least some of them survived.”

Kem flushed slightly, as if no one had said anything so nice to him in a long time.

By the time ship’s night was approaching Jax had made considerable progress. The ship, the Talon, had not jumped and they were headed for a planet, so that had to be Verdant. They would be there within three days because when Jax had asked how long he would be stuck on the couch, Kem had answered two nights and two more days. From what Jax remembered about the Verdant system that was remarkably quick. The Talon’s crew was large, over thirty, but was divided into what Kem called officers, crew and servants. There were about two dozen crew, who were mostly muscle and did little other than squabble and fuck while they were travelling; they lived in the tail end of the ship. There were six officers other than Scar. They lived in the head end of the ship with Kem and three servants.

Jax noticed that Kem did not think of himself as officer, servant or crew.

It was like the officers and the servants made up the actual crew while the ‘crew’ were what Jax’s tutors would have called marines. Jax would have liked to know more but he knew better than to press. Kem was lonely. He wanted to talk. Asking specific questions risked drying up the flow. However, he decided it would be safe to ask one.

“Do you think Noe will be coming back?”

Kem hesitated. “I don’t know.” He bit his lip. “He looked very young. Is he experienced? With men?”

Jax was careful how he answered; Noe had been playing a role. “He’s a cat,” he replied.

The medico looked relieved. “Then he’ll probably stay in Captain Scar’s rooms. Nero, the captain’s orderly, will see to him.”

Jax realised that Kem had been worried that Noe would require treatment beyond what ‘Nero’ could provide. He tried not to think what might be happening to Noe. Instead he made a note that if Nero was Scar’s personal servant, he must be someone Scar trusted.

Kem’s gaze had gone to the chronometer. “It will be night soon. I will be sleeping next door. You are safe. Apparently the commander himself said that no one must touch you.”

Jax hadn’t thought of that until Kem mentioned it. He imagined someone coming in when he was strapped down.

“You will be fine,” Kem assured him, picking up on Jax’s reaction. “The blast door this side of the crewroom is locked while we are underway. Some of the crew sniff stuff when they are bored. Captain Scar does not trust them to behave when they are high. They have been known to raid the supplies and even…” Kem stopped himself. “You will be fine,” he repeated.

Kem lowered the head end of Jax’s couch until it was only slightly raised and draped a cover over him. Jax found himself wondering if the man had children. If he did, he might be willing to take some risks in order to return to them.

The ship’s lights dimmed as the chronometer reached midnight. Jax lay back and shut his eyes. It would be sensible to sleep. Sleeping would conserve his reserves and mean that he was ready for action should an opportunity present itself.

Only he couldn’t. His mind was too busy. He wondered where Rae was. Jax hoped he was safe. As for Tre, an unwelcome little thought had started to grow. Was he dead? Was there any other explanation for Jax ending up in the hands of strangers?

He had just started to drift away when he heard the door open. For one awful moment he thought it might be Scar or, worse, some of the crew high on stuff.

Rae’s whiskered face appeared.

Jax had never been so pleased to see anyone. When Rae’s eyes lit up and his whiskers arched, Jax wanted to run to him and hug him so he was fine with Rae jumping onto the couch, butting Jax’s shoulder with his head and uttering small yips of pleasure.

It was only for a moment. Then Rae pulled himself together and began working on the strap holding Jax’s right wrist.

“Stop,” Jax ordered.

Rae obeyed but pulled back a bit and gave a ‘why not’ whisker-twitch.

“You might not get it done up in time if someone comes,” Jax reminded him. “First of all you need to find a hiding place in here in case you hear someone coming along the corridor.”

They spotted a hatch cover under a trolley. Jax watched Rae making a careful note of where and how the trolley was positioned before moving it to investigate. Under the cover was a void that, surprisingly, was empty.

On the Willow Ean used all such cubbyholes for storage.

Rae practised jumping into the hole, repositioning the trolley and then sliding the cover into place. It was reassuringly quick. Rae re-emerged and came over to the couch.

Jax imagined Scar pulling the trolley away and yanking off the cover to reveal Rae crouched in the hole beneath. “Maybe you should still hide somewhere else during the ship’s day,” he suggested. “Somewhere with more exits.”

Rae looked at him and twitched his whiskers, which Jax interpreted as agreement.

***

Rae already knew where he was going to hide. As soon as the ship’s lights had dimmed, he had gone scouting. Creeping up the shaft, he had quickly picked up Scar and Jax’s trail. It had led to the level in the same place as the crewroom level on the Willow. Rae had resisted the urge to go straight to him. Instead he had investigated the level below.

Hiding there was a bit more risky. Nose-end levels were used more because the direction of the gravitational field was always the same. On the other hand, the field was still high and it hadn’t looked like anyone lived there. Rae had found storage rooms, a gym and room with some unused hydroponics equipment.

He’d decided he’d be fine as long as he avoided the gym and had picked out a new place amongst the hydroponics equipment. Then he had gone to find Jax and found him in an infirmary.

Despite being in the infirmary Jax didn’t look injured, which was a relief. Rae wanted to curl up next to him, like they did in Jax’s bunk on the Willow, but there wasn’t enough room on the narrow couch. Instead Rae sat at Jax’s feet where there was space because Jax wasn’t as tall as an adult.

Just being close to him made Rae happier.

Jax told Rae what he had found out about the Talon and the other people on it, all of which was useful. Rae then told Jax everything that had happened to him, some of which made Jax smell very anxious and unhappy. Rae realised that Jax didn’t like it when Rae took big risks, like bluffing his way onto the ship.

So Rae decided not to tell Jax about his plan. Rae had thought of it as soon as Jax told him that the blast door to the tail-end crewroom was locked. Rae intended to kill everyone this side of the locked door and hope that he and Jax could work out how to operate the ship.

Then Jax suggested that they wait another day before doing anything so that they could collect more information. According to Medico Kem, they had tomorrow, tomorrow night and the next day before they reached Verdant. Rae thought about it and agreed. He would be able to listen to the crew from his new hiding place and Jax could get more information out of Medico Kem.

Also it would give Rae more time to decide about Noe. Was Noe still part of the Willow’s crew, so should live, or had he joined the Talon’s crew, so should be killed? Jax might think that Noe had gone with Scar to protect him but when Noe used his eyelashes it affected Jax’s judgement.

After that Jax fell asleep. Rae couldn’t because he had to listen in case anyone came. It was still good to be so close to Jax, even if he was asleep.

It was difficult when the chronometer showed a hundred minutes to ship’s dawn. Rae didn’t want to leave but he must. Ean was often up by ship’s dawn. The same might be the same for some of the people who lived on the Talon.

He didn’t wake Jax. Jax looked pale and tired; he needed to sleep. Rae made sure that the hatch cover and trolley were perfectly placed and then listened at the door.

He could hear Jax asleep behind him and adult purebreds in the two cabins either side. Slipping out into the corridor, he went past doors to three cabins with one person sleeping in each; the mature purebred male he had been able to hear from inside the infirmary, a younger purebred male and an older purebred male who wouldn’t be able to run fast or far.

Next was the galley, the smell of which was nowhere near as good as Ean’s galley but still enough to make Rae’s stomach rumble. He made himself walk by; it was much safer to check the storage hold for food.

He paused at the junction with the main corridor that ran the width of the ship from one shaft to the other. Did he scout out the whole level or should he go straight down the nearest shaft?

He decided that a few minutes’ scouting might pay off in the long run, so he turned left rather than right. Reaching a door he sniffed the edges. They smelt of Scar and another man. Rae listened carefully, concentrating on each sound in turn. There were two sleeping men, one of whom Rae was pretty sure was Scar.

The other man was probably the one Jax had called Nero, Scar’s personal servant.

There was a third, more familiar sound; Noe. He was separate from Scar and Nero. Most importantly, he was not asleep.

This was the moment. Should he trust Noe? Did he need to? Could he really kill ten adult purebreds before one of them put a hole in him with a laser pistol? Pirates used guns; everyone knew that.

Jax trusted Noe, even if Rae didn’t.

He crept further along the corridor, pressing his ear against the wall at intervals, but the sound of Noe faded so he turned and worked his way back, past the mouth of the corridor that led to the infirmary.

There was another narrow corridor on the other side, just before the shaft. Rae had one last check for any new sounds and turned down it. He pressed his ear against the wall to his left; Noe was louder here while the noises that Scar and Nero were making were fainter.

Rae found one of the struts that held the wall panels, took a deep breath and tapped. There was no change to the way Noe sounded. He tapped harder.

Noe was suddenly very quiet. Rae tapped again and there were sounds of Noe moving about followed by a soft clunk. Rae recognised the sound of the open end of a cup being pressed against the wall panel; one of the tricks purebreds used to hear properly.

Rae tapped until the sound of the cup being slid about stopped. Now they should be on opposite sides of the strut.

Noe tapped out a message in long-short. “Jax?”

Rae hesitated but then replied. “Rae.”

“Stowaway?”

“Yes.”

“Access to infirmary?”

“Ship’s night.” Rae thought about it and added, “Next. Hide now.”

“Get lots sleepdrug next night. Tap after. Hide now. Go.”

It was a good idea; Rae didn’t know how and when they could drug the Talon’s crew but having the sleepdrug opened up more options. “Gone,” he tapped.

Then it was down the shaft to look for food among the storage crates before settling into his hidey-hole for the day.

***

When Jax woke up he discovered that Rae had left. He told himself that was good, because it was long past ship’s dawn, but Jax could not help but miss him. Jax hoped that Rae was well hidden and that he wouldn’t take it on himself to do anything rash.

He really wanted to pee. He tried to think of something, anything, else but quickly all that mattered was not wetting the bed, which would be shameful. Luckily Medico Kem arrived before Jax lost the battle.

Kem had a bottle around Jax’s rod within seconds; Jax guessed he had looked pretty desperate. Then he fed Jax a meal bar broken into small pieces and some water.

Jax hated being cared for as if he was a baby but Kem made it as easy as possible, distracting him with conversation.

About halfway through the morning Kem tensed up. Instead of doing small tasks and talking about nothing in particular, he was rereading the same screen on his tablet and glancing towards the door.

He had to be expecting someone and, from how uncomfortable Kem was, it was probably Scar.

So Jax was ready when the door slid open and Scar strode in. What he wasn’t expecting was for Scar to look back over his shoulder and speak to someone behind him in the corridor.

“Now!” he ordered.

For one horrific moment Jax thought it might be Rae but it was Noe. Noe looked different, far more like the Saber’s cat than the Noe who had lived on the Willow. His clothes were too tight and too skimpy; his eyes heavily painted and his lips bright pink.

Scar had sexy clothes that were small enough to be tight on Noe. It was not a good thought. Whatever the ‘client’ intended to do to him, Jax was grateful that he had specified that Jax should be ‘untouched’. Otherwise it might be him in those clothes with that paint on his face.

He stopped short of imagining what else Scar had done to Noe. Instead he thought about what Noe would do to stay alive. Given his history, the answer was absolutely anything.

Scar ordered Kem out and then pointed to a chair. Noe sat down with one ankle on the other knee and a hand strategically placed to display a wrist and draw attention to his crotch.

“Be good,” Scar growled.

Noe put both feet flat on the floor, held his hands in his lap and looked up at Scar through his eyelashes.

Then Scar drew his knife. The edge looked wickedly sharp. Jax watched it coming closer.

“What would you do if I cut him?” Scar challenged.

Jax realised that the question was directed at Noe and the knife at him. He braced himself for Noe’s answer.

Noe’s chin came up and he sniffed. “You won’t,” he replied.

Jax wondered if Noe had a death wish.

The knife stopped. “I won’t?” Scar queried, his tone dangerous.

“You will follow the commander’s orders,” Noe told him with confidence. “It is your code and you will honour it.”

Jax wondered again who the commander was and why Scar obeyed him.

Scar snorted. “I shouldn’t have left you with Nero,” he acknowledged. “How do you feel about him?” he demanded, gesturing towards Jax.

Noe glanced briefly in Jax’s direction and shrugged. “Not much,” he replied as if uninterested by the question. “We were members of the same crew. Now we aren’t. A cat belongs to the crew strong enough to take him. I ended up on the Willow because my crew challenged for Jax and our enforcer lost. The Willow was too Trad for me but they did their duty by me. They fed me and clothed me.” He fixed Scar’s gaze. “It was boring. I cleaned and sewed and did laundry.”

It was utterly convincing; Jax had no idea if Noe believed what he was saying or not. All Jax knew was that Noe was telling Scar what he thought Scar would like and, based on Scar’s slight smile, it seemed to be working.

Then Scar scowled. His arm shot out and he grabbed Noe by the neck. Scar’s hand was huge; the fingers and thumb wrapped around the sides of Noe’s neck, almost touching at the back.

Noe’s eyes widened briefly in shock and his hands started upwards by reflex. Jax saw him control his reaction: drop his hands to his lap; close his eyes; relax his mouth.

For the first time Jax realised that Noe was, in his way, amazing.

Scar turned on Jax. “What about you? Should I snap his neck for his disloyalty to you?”

He refused to panic. Instead Jax emptied himself of emotion, as he had been trained to do in crisis situations. “He is your cat now. It is up to you what you do with him,” he replied.

Scar’s grasp loosened and somehow, Jax did not know how, Noe smiled. Every part of his body broadcast the message that he was Scar’s and that Scar could do whatever he wished.

“You will do,” Scar stated and, again, it was directed at Noe rather than Jax.

Noe pouted, making it clear that he wished to be considered more than sufficient; there was no hint that he resented Scar for threatening to snap his neck. Scar responded with a less than convincing scowl and signalled that Noe should leave. Noe headed towards the door and, to Jax’s relief, Scar followed.

Neither of them acknowledged Jax’s existence as they left.

Jax just lay there for a moment, fighting a sudden surge to struggle against his bonds. He shut his eyes and forced himself to relax. Staying calm conserved resources and kept your enemy guessing. Also, if it came to it, it was a Navaja’s duty to die with his dignity intact.

A question crept into his mind. What would Noe do when he and Rae tried to take the ship? The truth was, Jax didn’t know.

It was difficult waiting for ship’s night. He tried talking to Kem but the medico was less forthcoming than the day before and was called away mid afternoon. There had been a fight amongst the men who lived in the tail end of the ship. Kem had vanished with his medical kit and returned much later looking weary.

Jax watched as he replenished the supplies in his kit. The combination for the coolbox where the drugs were kept was 270321; Jax wondered if it was the date Kem had met the love of his life or even the day his child had been born.

“Do you want me to bring you some food from the galley?” Kem asked him as he closed his kit, placed it in a locker and locked the door.

“No thank you,” Jax replied. You never ate an enemy’s food unless there was no other option. “Strange food might disrupt my gut,” he added.

Kem nodded and took out another meal bar from a drawer. “Only two more nights and a day,” he pointed out.

“Two more nights?” Jax queried. The day before Kem had said two nights, not three.

Kem looked apologetic as he unwrapped the bar. “I was going on the landing slot, which is booked for tomorrow evening, but apparently we are keeping you until the following morning.” He cut the brown, sticky block into small pieces. “Captain Scar will have built some slack into the schedule. The commander would not be pleased if the rendezvous had to be postponed.”

Jax decided to push for more information. “Isn’t he worried that the client will attack the ship as soon as it is on the ground, pretending to be someone else, so he doesn’t have to pay?”

Kem’s hand paused briefly halfway to Jax’s mouth. “Beck and Cage were complaining that the captain was paying out for a secure berth. Maybe that is why.”

Jax moved his head to take the food between his teeth. As he chewed, he considered what Kem had said and how it might affect them. A secure berth was usually a silo that could be sealed; the planetary equivalent of a private dock in a spacestation.

Getting out of a private dock was easy; all the security was focused on others not getting in. Was a secure berth the same?

He realised that Kem was holding another piece of food two finger-widths from his lips. Jax decided to concentrate on eating; the last thing he wanted was Kem questioning what he was thinking.

Once he had finished, he shut his eyes as if he was tired so that Kem would leave him alone and he could think.

“I could give you something to help you sleep tonight,” Kem offered.

Jax’s eyes snapped open; that was the last thing he wanted. “No, I am fine.”

It felt like ship’s night would never come but finally it did. Jax was determined not to fall asleep but next thing he knew he was being woken by Rae shaking his arm.

“I’m awake,” he insisted.

Rae twitched his whiskers in disbelief. “I talked to Noe using long-short. He suggests stealing sleepdrug.”

Jax took a moment or two to catch up. Rae had been in contact with Noe?

Working out a plan was hampered by Noe being locked up in one room and Jax strapped down in another but Rae went between them until they had it. Jax told Rae the combination for the coolbox and Rae took the sleepdrug from the back of the supply, filling the vials with water on the off chance that Kem would check them.

They discussed taking other drugs but decided against it.