Escape (21 page)

“Good to know
—
shakra! I'm being hailed by the destroyer!”

Kieran saw it too. The light on his comm was blinking red, indicating an incoming transmission. A quick look at the comm display revealed that the transmission was coming from the destroyer, on an open comm band.

“Calm down, Ferrel. They're hailing the entire area.”

Kieran punched a button to accept the destroyer's transmission and a deep, commanding voice erupted from his cockpit speakers.

“Attention to the pilots of the MF-19’s who just flew out of the independent trading depot,
Corollary,
this is Vindicator Terrelis of the
Adamantine
. Disengage your cloaks and bring your ships to the coordinates 19-46-27. You are under arrest for suspicion of
—
”

Kieran cut the vindicator off with a decisive stab of his finger. “Good thing these ships have such good cloaking systems.”

“Yeah, good thing.” Ferrel sounded shaken.

“Follow me. I'm going to take us on a roundabout course to the corvette
—
just in case.” Kieran stomped on the left rudder pedal, slewing his interceptor to port.

“Roger that.”

* * *

Kieran and Ferrel met up in the corridor between the pair of hangar berths in the keel of the corvette. They didn't even bother to strip out of their flight suits before running up the ramp from the hangar. Ferrel led the way as they sprinted down the corridor to the cockpit. When they arrived, they fell into their flight chairs and began fumbling with their seat restraints.

Panting desperately and looking at the sensor screens, Ferrel said: “They haven't spotted us. Thank Deus.”

Kieran brought the engines online slowly, and at low power so as to avoid detection. His brow was furrowed in concentration as he brought the corvette around in a slow turn toward the TLS gate which would take them southbound on the IF-57.

“Where are we headed?” Ferrel asked.

Kieran was too busy to reply. His attention was divided between the navcomp and the comm. After a moment, he said, “Why don't you go check on Dimmi?”

“How about you answer my question first.”

Kieran looked up, an expression of strained patience on his face. “We're going to Da Shon.”

Ferrel frowned. “Where?”

“You must have been sleeping through astronomy. Da Shon is one of the most densely populated planets on the frontier. It’s also one of the few remaining planets with an independent government
—
the Union has no jurisdiction there.”

“Oh. Sounds perfect.”

“Yeah. Now go check on Dimmi.”

“I’m going, I’m going
—
” Ferrel released his seat restraints with a double
click.
“
—
don’t go getting your balls crossed, man.” And with that Ferrel walked down the aisle from the cockpit to the rest of the ship.

Kieran watched him go, the autopilot keeping them on course for the TLS gate. When he was sure that Ferrel was gone, he went back to composing his comm message.

Jilly, I hate to involve you in this, but I’ve gotten myself into some trouble with one of the clans. They’re going to come looking for you to gain leverage over me. Get away from the outpost, okay? Lie low for a while. If you need to reach me, I’ll be at the Da Shon orbital transfer station all day tomorrow.

-
Kieran

When he was done writing the message, Kieran attached his digital fingerprint to it for authentication, and then sent it to Jilly’s quarters via an interstellar comm message, which would be beamed through trilinear space from the TLS gate to TLS gate until it reached Outpost 110. The message would probably arrive in half an hour, with still plenty of time for Jilly to read it and charter a flight off the station. Just in case she forgot to check her comm messages, he sent a duplicate of the message to her netmail account.

That should be enough to keep her away from the likes of Brathus and Garlan.
At least until he’d had a chance to come to an amicable arrangement with them. He’d be more than happy to pay them and Dimmi double to make them go away.

He just hoped that would be enough.

* * *

Ferrel returned to the cockpit five minutes later, shortly after they'd disappeared through the TLS gate. Kieran turned from watching the mesmerizing flow of colored light that was trilinear space as Ferrel flopped into the copilot's seat.

“So? How's she doing?”

Ferrel quietly shook his head. “She's still out cold, man. If this keeps up, we're going to have to set her up in medbay. The last thing we need is for her to die in our care.”

Kieran let out a long sigh and ran a hand along his stubbly jaw. “You think it's that serious?”

Ferrel turned to him with a grimace. “I don't know. You want to risk it?”

“I guess not. Come on.” Kieran unbuckled his seat restraints, stood up, and started down the aisle. When he didn't hear Ferrel's footsteps following, he turned in the open door to the cockpit, an expectant look on his face.

“I just came from there, man. You can handle it, right?” Kieran was just about to insist that the boy come along when Ferrel continued: “I knew you could.” And with that, he turned back to the swirling, multicolored view of trilinear space.

How much trouble can he get into?
Kieran wondered and left the cockpit at a brisk stride.

When he stepped into the brig, he found Dimmi lying crumpled on the floor just behind the bars of her cell. Stopping on the other side of the bars, he frowned down at her. After a moment he put a hand to his right ear, triggering the comm piece he had inserted there. It was set to broadcast through the ship’s intercom.

“Hey, kid
—
did you move our esteemed prisoner?”

Silence.

“Ferrel?”

“Yeah, man, what? I was just trying to catch a few moments’ of unconsciousness myself, so this better be good.”

“Did you move Dimmi?”

“I didn't even go into the cell, why?”

“You didn't notice she was on the floor? We laid her on the sleeping pallet, remember?”

Ferrel made an impatient sound. “So what? She got up, walked around a bit, and passed out again.”

“And you don't find that strange?”

“No, man, I don’t. I told you she needs a visit to medbay. Now let me get a little downtime, okay? You know it’s kind of past my bedtime, and I’m just a kid, so you should know better than to kefick with my rythyms.”

“Yeah, sweet dreams, little one.” Kieran turned his comm piece off and sidestepped to the security panel between the two cells. He typed in the command and security code to open the left-hand cell and walked inside. Stepping over Dimmi's arm, he got down on his haunches beside her.

Devoid of the angry lines she wore while she was awake, her face was uncommonly beautiful. Kieran brushed her hair back from her forehead to check if the swelling had gone down where she’d hit her head.

Kieran’s hand froze, lightly brushing the skin of her forehead with his fingertips. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing
—
or feeling.

Her forehead was smooth and unblemished.

Just three hours ago he'd left her in her cell with a rising red lump the size of his fist protruding from her forehead. Frowning, he thought:
you sure do bounce back fast. Then again, you are still unconscious, aren't you?
Kieran pressed a pair of fingers to her neck.

Her pulse beat strong and steadily against his fingers. That had to be a good sign, right? But it was worrying that she had woken up only to pass out again.

Working his arms beneath hers, he lifted her to her feet, and then bent down to catch her beneath the knees and sling her between his arms. She was lighter than she looked. Frowning with a mixture of worry for himself (he would never be able to pay Brathus off if something happened to her) and for Dimmi, Kieran made his way from the brig and into the gleaming corridor beyond. He didn't know where the medbay was, so he resigned himself to do a bit of walking. He found it a minute later, near the end of the corridor, not far from the door to the hangar bay.

Kieran spared a hand to wave across the door sensor, and the door slid aside. The lights came on automatically and Kieran spent a moment studying the room. Half a dozen alloy-frame beds, all of them empty and magnetically rooted to the gleaming floor. Equipment stood around the room, similarly secured to the floor, in the event that the inertial dampeners and/or artificial gravity failed.

To his right Kieran spied a bed with a neuroimager standing beside it. He walked up to the bed and laid Dimmi down on the plain white sheets. She didn’t even stir.

Kieran grimaced, but turned from her to the neuroimager. He spent a moment fiddling with the controls, hoping he could intuit how to operate it. How would he even be able to read the results? Perhaps the ship’s computer could help him.

Probably.

Once he had figured out how to turn the imager on, Kieran reached for one of the two knobby black helmets clipped into a rack on the side of the machine. There was a wire trailing from each hemisphere of the helmet
—
one blue, one white
—
one for each hemisphere of the patient’s brain. With the helmet in hand, Kieran stepped up to the head of the bed, switched the helmet to a one-handed grip, and used his other hand to lift Dimmi's head. He slipped the helmet over her head and began turning back to the machine
—

That was when her deep, red-brown eyes popped open. They quickly found his, and her hand shot out and grabbed his arm in a vice grip. He actually winced to feel her fingers tighten on his forearm. She was stronger than she looked.

“You're awake,” he said, feeling stupid the minute the words left his lips. He gave a hesitant smile and pointed to her forehead, where the lump should have been. “No hard feelings I hope.”

She sat up and shook her head slowly. “What?”

Kieran frowned, feeling a sudden spike of dread in his gut. “Don't you remember what happened?”

Dimmi met his green eyes without even blinking hers. After a long moment of silence, she shook her head again. “I guess not.” She looked around suddenly
—
her head swinging quickly from side to side, sending her auburn pixie cut flaring. She turned back to him, her eyes suddenly wide. “Where am I?”

Kieran winced. “Shakra! You mean you don't remember anything at all?” Dimmi’s hand fell from his forearm, and her face grew slack. He gripped her by the shoulders, craning his neck until they were face to face. Forcing his voice to be calm, he asked: “Can you tell me your name?”

Her brow furrowed briefly, and she blinked
—
finally. “It's
 
.
 
.
 
.
Dimmi, right?”

“Thank Deus! Yes! That's your name.” Kieran let out a nervous laugh and let go of Dimmi's shoulders.

“But where am I? And
 
.
 
.
 
.
” she was looking around the room again. “Am I
 
.
 
.
 
.
sick?”

Kieran shook his head and pointed again to her forehead. “You just bumped your head. Don't worry
—
your memory should come back soon. Right now you're on a corvette that was payment for a job you helped me and a friend of yours to pull.”

Dimmi's eyebrows shot up. “A whole ship for payment? That must have been some job. Who are you?”

Kieran hesitated, wondering how much he should tell her. Then his face split into a grin that he hoped she wouldn't notice was fake, and he said: “I'm Kieran Hawker. A good friend of yours.”

Dimmi looked dubious, so he added: “We go way back.”

She nodded slowly, then swung her legs over the side of the bed.

“Here, let me help you,” Kieran said, reaching an arm around her waist. For a wonder she let him, and he lifted her from the bed. She gripped his arm for balance, and this time her grip was a more natural strength.

“Thanks,” she whispered.

Definitely some neurons misfiring there,
Kieran thought. The fiercely independent Dimmi he’d met would never have let him help her like that
—
much less thank him for it.

“Come on, let’s go meet the other member of our team. He’s up in cockpit right now.”

She nodded. “Okay.” Her voice sounded small and scared, and her hand hadn’t left his arm.

Kieran frowned, wondering all the way as he led Dimmi from medbay, through the corridor beyond, and to the cockpit:
what am I thinking? The minute she remembers what happened, she’s going to kill me.