I raise my head. Nothing is right. The thing with my face took over my body. How many did I kill? Six? Eight? Wounded more, and without treatment they will die too. The fragile lines of the tally are being scored over with new deaths. It’s hopeless. No matter what I do, I only take more lives.
‘Low,’ the General hisses. ‘We do not have time for this. Get up.’
She’s standing above me, her arms straining under the weight of the blaster. Numbly, I climb to my feet.
‘Get the guns.’
I edge forwards and feel underneath the scratched, blinking navigation screen. The floor around the pilot’s chair is a mess of pipe ash and protein wrappers and crumpled bulletins. The wiring under the nav panel is loose too, as if it has been pulled out and repaired many times over. As soon as I feel the oily metal and plastic of the guns taped to the underside I want to recoil. I use my sleeve to rip the weapons from their hiding place and send them skidding across the deck. Two army pistols and one old-fashioned thing that fires metal bullets.
‘Good,’ the General says. Beneath the grazes and grime, her face is bloodless. ‘Now. Tell him where he’s going.’
‘Don’t you know?’ the man asks in mild surprise. ‘I mean, isn’t that the point of a hijacking?’
Considering he has a gun aimed at him, he seems oddly at ease. I look at him more closely, taking in the rumpled clothes, the untied boots. They’re civilian garments, the shirt intricately patterned and well-made, not army surplus like most on Factus. No facial tattoos to suggest he is ex-Accord. No scars on his neck from the hulks, no dog tags to hint that he fought somewhere, with some vigilante splinter group. His black hair is unwashed and unruly, his black moustache and vague beard speak more of laziness than a particular style. Not part of a crew, then. So what was he doing in the Pit? He glances over at me, and shifts the unlit pipe from one side of his mouth to the other.
‘Eyes front,’ the General orders. ‘And we have not hijacked you. We have commandeered this ship. It’s different.’
‘It’s the gun, you see, it gives the wrong impression.’
‘Shut up. Is there anyone else aboard?’
‘Just me.’
‘And what were you doing at the Pit, alone?’
The man smiles. Good teeth, real, not fibreglass or gunmetal. ‘Waiting on my cargo.’ He catches my eye again. ‘I’m a courier. Freelance.’
Of course. I drop into the co-pilot’s seat. ‘He is a smuggler,’ I say.
‘And now I’m a hostage. Hijackee? Is that a word?’
‘Well, we’ll have to ditch him.’ The General looks around critically. ‘I suppose I could fly this… heap. What was it before you butchered it? An Orel 250?’
‘Butchered?’ The man sounds genuinely offended. ‘Charis is a hybrid. And you wouldn’t be able to fly her. No one can but me. She’s a complicated lady.’
The General grunts in disdain.
‘What are we going to do?’ she mutters to me. ‘You’re the expert on this goddam place, come up with something.’
I close my eyes, trying to think. ‘You need to get off-world?’
‘Yes, genius. And I need to use a long-range wire, to contact the others.’
‘What others?’
‘The other Generals. From C Class.’ She licks her cracked lips. Perspiration streaks her temples and her neck. ‘If Commander Aline was telling the truth about my condition, they will be affected too. Together, we can compare intel, form a plan to obtain treatment…’ The words falter, her eyes rolling. The blaster tumbles to the floor as she collapses.
‘A port,’ I order the pilot, hauling her upright. ‘Take us to a port.’
His gaze slides sideways again, first to the General, then to the gun on the floor. ‘Otroville is a day’s flight east,’ he says carefully. ‘Or there’s Landfall F—’
‘No. No towns, no army bases. No Accord.’
‘Accord’s everywhere.’ The man frowns. ‘There’s a freight port out west, towards the Edge. Depot Twelve. Dirtrat sort of place, used for mining goods, mostly, but you might be able to barter passage there. You got money, anything to trade?’
I don’t even have my medkit anymore. It was lost in the scramble from the Pit. For some reason, that thought hurts worse than my injuries, like a thorn, lodged deep in my chest. What good was I, without it?
‘Yes,’ I say vaguely, remembering the General’s words about money, in off-world accounts. ‘We can pay.’
‘Well, in that case…’
He swings the chair around. One leg crossed casually over the other, displaying the pistol strapped to his ankle.
‘See now, I’m in a tricky situation.’ He reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out a wad of dried century leaves, which he packs into the pipe. ‘I am down a cargo, and the folk expecting it will not be best pleased if I show up empty-handed. But if you were to pay me, I can restock in the U Zone, you get your ride, and we forget this whole hijacking business ever happened.’
When I don’t reply, he shrugs. ‘Or you look kinda tired. If you fall asleep, I might be obliged to try and kill you, at least throw you off board. Leave you out in the middle of nowhere for the Seekers.’
In my grip, I feel the General’s muscles trembling.
‘Fine,’ I say. ‘Fine. We will pay. Just get us there.’
The man brings out a battered silver lighter – a relic from the old world. He flicks it a few times before a flame catches, and the bowl begins to smoulder. The pungent scent of dried century fills the cabin.
‘Lady,’ he smiles, ‘we have ourselves a deal.’
* * *
Night falls as we fly. I sit in the co-pilot’s seat and watch: the gathering dark, the marbled pink of Brovos in the sky, the rainbow shimmer of Delos, the many winking lights of orbiting ships. And beyond the lights… nothing. Just the Void, an unfathomable web of dark matter. It tugs at me. None of the probes sent
