The one in the middle appeared to be unaugmented and had hair that was bleached a pure white and stood up in two ridges at either side of his head. No skin was visible on any of them except their faces and hands, but Apirana knew that their bodies would be covered with tattoos even more intricate than his own.
They were Yakuza.
He sketched a quick bow and switched to Japanese, which along with English was the official language of the West Pacific Nations. ‘Ah, good day. I am afraid you are mistaken.’
‘I think not,’ the man in the middle replied, touching fingers to his own face. Apirana had immediately pegged him as the leader; the other two were almost certainly bodyguards or enforcers. ‘I know a Mongrel when I see one.’
Apirana sighed. Turf war between gangs and organised crime syndicates ran as a sort of dark counterpart to the border disputes between governing bodies, and while they might not have racked up the same sort of body count they were just as vicious, if not more so. It could be that this Yakuza clan ran Pundamilia, or they wanted to muscle in on it, or they’d simply seized on the opportunity to victimise someone they perceived as a Mongrel mobster. Whatever the cause, this had the potential to end very badly.
He tried again. ‘These are not gang marks, they are my heritage. Not every tattooed Maori is a Mongrel.’ If he could at least keep them busy long enough for Kuai to reach the Captain then the game would change dramatically . . .
‘Unlucky for you, then,’ White Hair said, with a smile that Apirana didn’t like the look of in the slightest. Well, that was it: he wasn’t going to try to fight off three Yakuza in the middle of a void station, so since stalling them hadn’t worked the only option left was running for— ‘A.?’
Jenna’s voice brought his head around involuntarily. The slicer was still standing in the electronics stall despite his instruction to get clear, and he was about to yell at her to run as a precursor to doing the same thing himself when she nodded sideways.
Another Yakuza was standing some ten feet away, and he had Kuai in an apparently effortless half nelson. The mechanic’s head was pushed forwards and down at what had to be an uncomfortable angle, and Kuai’s comm-piece dangled casually from the gangster’s free hand.
Apirana looked again at Jenna, who’d now pulled her sleeve back and was doing something with the bulky, manacle-like bracelet she wore on her right forearm when not on the ship. He’d always assumed it was some sort of health monitor, although he had no idea what good she thought it could do now. ‘Jenna, get out of here.’
‘You can’t take them all,’ she replied, just loud enough for him to hear. The Yakuza holding Kuai was smiling at them, and Apirana could see the two augmented thugs advancing slowly in his peripheral vision.
‘Then go get help!’ he hissed. She was right, of course, but he wasn’t going to bug out and leave Kuai alone.
Jenna shot him a glance, her fingers darting over her bracelet and fiddling with the controls. ‘Just keep them busy for a few seconds.’
He blinked.
What the hell was that supposed to mean?
But whether or not she’d actually gone mad, he was out of options. He
hated
being out of options.
He lunged sideways without warning, took three quick steps and barrelled into Voice Box. The Yakuza raised his metal hand to try to ward him off, but while Apirana might have lost an arm-wrestling match to the augmented thug there was nothing to be done about weight and momentum, and Apirana had a lot of both. He slammed into his opponent and used both hands to shove the man backwards into White Hair, sending them both sprawling to the floor.
Visor adjusted quickly to the unexpected disappearance of his companion and fired off a kick with one of his metal legs which slammed into Apirana’s ribcage. It hurt – a lot – but Apirana managed to hook his arm under the artificial limb before Visor could withdraw it again, then simply slammed his fist into the Yakuza’s face. The man fell backwards, legs thrashing desperately, but Apirana lifted one boot and stamped down hard on his chest. He felt something crack beneath his foot and heard the man’s breath explode out of him with an agonised moan of pain, then stamped on the Yakuza’s face in an attempt to smash his visor. He connected, but his attention was wrenched around by a scream behind him.
Kuai was struggling against his captor, a small, red-stained blade in his hand – the mechanic’s multitool, which he must have pulled from his pocket during the commotion. The Yakuza who had a hold of him was bleeding from his left thigh but the wound didn’t look deep enough to cause him a major problem.
‘Look out!’ Jenna yelled, and Apirana whirled back around just in time to see Voice Box advancing on him, blue-white light crackling on his fist.
Knuckletasers. Shit.
He tried to dodge the blow, but the same mass which had allowed him to send a grown man flying like a ten-year-old tackled by a rugby prop forward worked against him and the punch hit him squarely in the chest.
The metal arm was like a piledriver. The force of the blow to his chest would have knocked him back anyway, but the added kick of the voltage left him on his back, staring at strip lighting and feeling like his lungs had been replaced by sieves. He managed to roll onto his side, despite his muscles seemingly having turned to jelly, and caught a glimpse of Jenna. She’d removed the bracelet from her wrist now, and she pressed one last button with an air of finality and threw it onto the floor in front of her. It landed with a clatter not six feet from where Apirana was sprawled, with one light flashing an angry red.
And every single light went out.
Total power failure on a void station meant one thing: Death. With no life support to pump and recycle the air, no heating to keep the deathly chill of deep space at bay and no way through the docking hatches back to the ships which would provide a means of escape, everyone on board would essentially be doomed. Understandably, the sudden blackout was met with screams and shouts of alarm.
Apirana staggered up to his feet. Give it a second . . .
Emergency lights flickered into life, dimmer than the originals but still bright enough. He’d hoped that the Yakuza would be caught off-guard, but what he saw surprised him so much that he himself just stopped and stared.
Voice Box was clutching at his metal right arm with his flesh-and-blood left hand, but the prosthetic was hanging limp and apparently useless at his side. Apirana got the distinct impression that the man would have been swearing at it, but the speakers in his throat were apparently not working either. Meanwhile, Visor was pulling himself away across the floor, his legs trailing behind him.
Apirana took that all in, then took a quick twostep run-up and did his best to drive one of his boots clean through Voice Box’s chest. The kick sent the panicked Yakuza flying again, this time into a stall apparently selling tools and spare parts which collapsed onto him with a sound like an avalanche in a scrapyard.
White Hair clearly didn’t like the way the fight was going and turned to run for it as soon as Voice Box was buried by falling metal. Apirana let him go and turned around to find Kuai panting hard and holding his multi-tool, with his assailant having apparently come to the same conclusion as his boss. Visor, meanwhile, was calling out for his friends in a pained, piteous voice; it appeared that he’d lost the ability to see as well as the ability to walk, but Apirana wasn’t certain if that was thanks to Jenna or his boot.
He fixed Jenna with an incredulous stare. ‘What was
that
?’
‘High-intensity, short-range EMP,’ the slicer replied absently, stooping to pick her bracelet up gingerly: Apirana got the impression that it had suddenly become rather warm. She saw his confused expression and elaborated. ‘Electro-magnetic pulse. I figured if half their bodies weren’t working properly you could probably take them out.’
‘Lemme get this straight,’ Apirana said, pinching the bridge of his nose. ‘All this time you’ve been carrying about a . . . an EMP, on your fucking
arm
?’
‘Only when I was off the ship,’ Jenna explained hurriedly, ‘and it takes a very specific keycode to activate it.’ She looked over at the immobile Yakuza, still wailing in Japanese. ‘Let’s get out of here. Probably best not to draw any more attention than we already have.’
Apirana grunted and took a quick look around them. He was used to being the subject of stares, but there was more than just casual interest being directed towards the three of them and the damage his fight had caused. He also saw a bulge in one pocket of Jenna’s flight suit, roughly the size of the Truth Box she’d mentioned earlier, and did his best to suppress a slight smile as he nodded.
‘Right. Let’s go find the Captain.’
The return of the lights had headed off the immediate hysterical reactions, but a lot of people were still moving in a determined manner towards wherever their ships were berthed. Apirana, Kuai and Jenna fell in with the general push of the crowd but he kept a close eye on their surroundings as he pulled out his comm and keyed in Drift’s ident, alert for anyone who looked like they might have any sort of Yakuza link.
Drift picked up after the second beep.
+A., where the hell are you? What’s going on? Kuai was babbling something about trouble but then the call cut off, and I called you but you didn’t pick up.+
‘I was probably fighting one of
’
em,’ Apirana replied grimly, looking down at his shirt and noticing the four small burn marks on it for the first time. He lowered his voice a little, trying to speak no louder than his earpiece needed to pick up the words. ‘Four Yakuza, Cap. They decided to make trouble for me, an’ at least two of
’
em were augmented.’
+You took them all out?+
The Captain wasn’t even bothering to try to hide the incredulity in his tone, and Apirana couldn’t blame him; he’d been about three seconds from having his face caved in by a metal fist.
‘Not me; Jenna did something fancy with an EMP an’ crippled the circuitheads, an’ the others lost the taste for it after that.’
+She did
what
? Is that what knocked the lights funny a few moments ago?+
Apirana blinked, taken back by the venom in the Captain’s voice.‘Yeah, but it’s okay, the backup power came on—’
+She couldn’t know that! I don’t care how fucking smart she is, she couldn’t have known that! Tell me you’ve got whatever-it-was that made it.+
‘Uh, no,’ Apirana admitted, casting a glance at the bracelet which Jenna had now refastened onto her wrist.
+Do it.+
‘I don’t really think I need to—’ Apirana began.
+
Me cago en la puta
A., just do it! And meet us back at the ship as soon as you can.
If
we can get through the damn airlock after her little stunt.+
The connection clicked and died. Apirana frowned in surprise. It wasn’t like the Captain to be that . . . tetchy. Especially not where Jenna was concerned.
‘Problem?’ Jenna asked tensely.
‘You might wanna gimme that bracelet,’ Apirana muttered, holding out his hand. The diminutive slicer looked up at him, confused.
‘It’s one-use only.’
‘Yeah, even so,’ Apirana said. ‘Captain din’t sound pleased, so let’s show him you ain’t gonna be doing it again.’
‘I . . .
what
?’ Jenna spluttered, ‘those bastards were—’ She stopped, looked around quickly, then moderated the volume of her voice. ‘They were trying to
hurt
you. What the hell was I supposed to do, let them?’
‘Well, they din’t manage it,’ Apirana told her. ‘Much,’ he added, rubbing his chest ruefully. ‘Look, I’m damn grateful, but just gimme the bracelet t’keep the Captain happy for now an’ we can discuss it with him when we’re outta here, right?’
‘Fine.’ Jenna uncoupled the bracelet and passed it over to him, but he could tell she was seething beneath her attempt at a calm exterior.
They reached the docking corridor without further incident, but the door didn’t release when Apirana punched in the code. He grimaced and tried again, with no luck. ‘Ah, hells. This anything to do with you?’ Looking around, he could see that other doors seemed to be similarly inconvenienced, judging by the reactions of people clustered around them.
‘Maybe,’ Jenna said shortly, pulling a screwdriver from somewhere. ‘Move.’ He stepped aside to give her access, then stood as casually as he could between her and the rest of the station so his large frame hid as much of her as possible from view.
It was while he was stood there scanning the crowd for trouble that he saw Drift approaching, his face thunderous. Micah and Rourke followed behind him, with the Dutch mercenary wheeling a trolley bearing tanks of oxygen, but the Captain was striding out in front with an expression Apirana had rarely witnessed before.
‘Any time now would be good,’ he murmured, hoping Jenna could hear him while Kuai hovered nervously. The only reply was a metallic whisper and a sudden sensation of space at his back; he looked over his shoulder to see the door sliding aside and Jenna screwing the cover of the control panel back into place, her face still sullen.
He turned back towards the others, who were now only a few metres away. ‘You get enough air?’
‘The recycling system’s working pretty much one hundred per cent efficient, that should be fine,’ Kuai replied hastily, casting a worried glance at Drift’s face.
‘Take it through,’ Drift said, not looking at them. He jerked his head; Apirana grimaced but moved to one side to reveal Jenna, whose defiant stare faltered a little when she saw the Captain’s expression.
‘What the hell do you think you’re playing at?’ Drift demanded flatly as the others filed past. ‘We’re on a void station in the middle of nowhere and you start playing around with an EMP? What if the backups hadn’t kicked in? How would you have sliced your way out of something when there’s no fucking
power
for your precious little systems to work? Then we get stuck here, which means we don’t make the delivery deadline, which means—’ He cut himself off, apparently in frustration, but this was an emotion Jenna clearly shared.