The fighter slowed until it was stationary, hovering above the smoke on neutral buoyancy contragrav. She lowered the power to the contragrav, and the ship began slowly sinking through the smoke.
It settled softly on its landing gear about a hundred meters from Wahid and Fitzpatrick. They were together in the one clearing free of burning wreckage, but she could see they hadn’t escaped unscathed. Fitzpatrick lay on his back, Wahid bent over him, the contents of an emergency medkit scattered around them.
“Damn,” she muttered through clenched teeth. She didn’t know if she was more pissed at herself or at Mosasa.
She popped the canopy as the fighter powered itself down. When she jumped down into the sand, Wahid had turned toward her. He leveled a gamma laser at her.
“You?” he sputtered.
“Is Fitzpatrick all right?”
“What the fuck were you and Mosasa doing?” he yelled across at her.
“Is he all right?”
“Yeah, a building exploded in his face. He’s fucking wonderful!”
“There was a squad of—”
“You think I’m blind?” Wahid kicked something in the sand at his feet. A half-melted gauntlet arced toward her, landing palm-up between them. A blackened splinter of bone still poked from the wrist. “I saw a whole fucking army waiting for us. I want to know why the fuck they were here, and why the fuck your AI-loving boss decided it was such a fucking great idea to send us here.”
Parvi didn’t know what to do to defuse the situation. She tried to change the subject. “How’s he injured?”
“Just a little shrapnel from some friendly fire.” Wahid started walking toward her, the laser aimed squarely at her midsection. “Good old Fitz had you all figured out, too.”
“What do you mean?”
“The shits that you blew to hell. They knew the hangar, they took it out, right?”
“Yes.”
“Why the fuck weren’t we in it when they blew it up?” He shook his head. “Hell, why the fuck didn’t a sniper with a missile take out the aircar when I drove all so trusting into Mosasa’s little rendezvous?”
“I don’t know.”
“You think your boss does?”
“I—”
Parvi’s answer was cut off by a subsonic rumble. Above them, the smoke swirled into a vortex centered above the open desert beyond Parvi’s fighter. The tendrils of smoke twisted and parted, revealing a massive, blocky form that was still slowing to a stop on the strength of massive maneuvering jets. The aircraft’s nose was blunt, narrow, and sloped backward to mold into a hundred-meter-long wingless body that managed to look stubby despite its size. The skin of the craft was a patchwork of random paints, patches, and sealant in various shades of gray and brown. It was ugly as hell, and looked nothing like the sleek tach-ship Mosasa had parked in the hangar for the benefit of his new employees.
Wahid stared at the descending cargo ship and seemed to have some trouble deciding where to point the laser.
Inside, Parvi sighed a little in relief. “Why don’t you put the laser down and help move Fitzpatrick.”
“What is that?”
“That’s our ship,” Parvi said.
The barrel of the laser pointed down, toward the sand. “But what about—”
Parvi walked past him, toward Fitzpatrick. “Save the questions for Mosasa. I just work here.”
