Читать книгу: «Into the No-Zone», страница 5

‘Was that the shooting we heard last night?’ I ask.

She spills some of the soup she’s pouring into my bowl. ‘It’s got a bit of meat in it this time. Eat up now, before it goes cold.’

I gaze at her, suspicious. ‘Rona?’

Finally she meets my eye, looking so troubled I get a lump in my throat and wish I’d kept my mouth shut.

‘It’s Sky,’ she says.

My heart goes bang. ‘Is she all right? What’s happened?’

‘I’m sorry, Kyle. She’s gone.’

‘Gone? What do you mean gone?’

My foster-mother sighs. ‘Last night a windjammer launched without clearance. The winch-launcher was hacked and remote-controlled. They tried to shoot it down. It got away.’

That heavy blaster fire last night . . .

I feel dizzy, like I’ve stood up too fast.

‘No way! Sky wouldn’t clear off without me –’

Words stick in my throat as the truth sucker-punches me. Ness must have come up with the goods about her sister’s location. And here’s me, trapped and useless. A liability, that’s all.

Colm doesn’t look surprised, but clutches at straws for me.

‘Are you sure it was Sky?’

Rona slumps down on to a stool. ‘It was the Never Again, your mate Dern’s ship. He has form for clearing off when the going gets tough, I hear. Only he was found later in a ditch, tied up and gagged, a lump on his head big as a lizard egg.’

I groan. ‘Don’t tell me. Sky did it?’

She nods and tucks away a stray lock of her greying hair. ‘Dern says she poured a liquor bottle down his neck before clobbering him. He’s mad as hell. Can’t say I blame him.’

My spoon slips from my hand and clatters on the table.

‘I don’t believe this.’

I’d been sure that if push came to shove and Ballard couldn’t protect us, Sky would get off her arse and rescue us.

Colm was right though. Sky doesn’t care.

‘I’m sorry,’ Rona says, reaching for my hand.

But I’m too gutted and too fast . . . and I won’t let her have it.

8
A CLOSE CALL

I toss and turn, tangled in my excuse for a blanket. Dark thoughts stomp around behind my closed eyes, keeping me awake. Can Ballard really save our necks? Stomp . Or was that just talk? Stomp . After all we’ve been through together, how could Sky run out on me like that? Stomp. Stomp . It’s all I can do not to moan out loud. Colm’s bench creaks as he turns over and I hear his fed-up-sounding sigh. Seems he can’t sleep either.

I turn over again so my back is to the guards, pull the gun Ballard gave me out from where I’d stuffed it between my sleeping roll and the wall, feel the weight of it in my hand.

Stomp. Stomp. Stomp . I push that thought away. Hard.

Instead I try to picture Sky’s blink-and-you-miss-it smile. But all I can see in my mind’s eye is her scrunched-up angry face, scowling at me for not being mad keen to go looking for Tarn.

I curse her. And ache with missing her.

One of our guards stirs behind me. I hear her big yawn.

I put the gun back, squeeze my eyes shut, pretend to be asleep. And sleep, being sneaky, claims me when I least expect it to. Next thing I know, I’m on my back and Sky’s astride me. She’s dressed all weird and wild like a Reaper, beads and feathers and mud-plastered hair. Bare-armed, bare-legged, skirt rucked up on her thighs. She’s rocking back and forth, crooning stuff in some weird language. Somehow I know I’m only dreaming, but don’t fight it. With both hands, Sky starts smearing spirals of blue dye on to my bare chest. My hands are resting on her knees. Smooth knees, no scarring, no shrivelled skin from when her leg got crushed. I slide my hands slowly higher, expecting to get slapped. The dream-Sky growls deep in her throat and leans forward, her breasts brushing my chest. She kisses me like she means it. Like she used to.

Only to suddenly rear back up.

I stare in horror and disbelief. She’s still mostly Sky, but the lower half of her face ripples and becomes the snout of a nightrunner showing me a maw full of sharp fangs.

Just as the creature lunges for my throat, I wake up again.

‘What you playing at?’ Colm mumbles.

Dazed, still shaking from my nightmare, I think I’ve kicked him.

‘Shut it!’ one of the guards hisses, finger to his lips.

Behind him, the other guards fan out silently. Pulse rifles levelled, they cover the armoured door. And I’m awake enough now to hear the thumps and bangs and shouting outside.

Colm jumps up. ‘What’s going on?’

I roll off my bench as the guard who shushed us hustles over.

‘We’ve got company,’ he says. Working quickly, he topples our heavy wooden benches on to their sides, piles one on top of the other and orders us both to take cover behind them.

‘Stay down. And don’t worry, we won’t let them get you.’

The words are hardly out of his mouth before something strikes the door with a massive clang. The armour plating buckles inwards, its centre glowing an ugly red. Thick, foul-smelling smoke writhes inside through the badly cracked frame.

The guard curses and scuttles back to rejoin his mates.

‘Hardliners?’ Colm says.

I don’t waste time answering and make a lunge for my old slug-thrower where it’s fallen on the floor. Only two blaster rounds, but that’s two more than having no weapon at all.

The door is struck again and comes crashing in like some giant has given it the boot, taking two of our guards with it. There’s a deafening thump as it hits the floor. More acrid smoke billows in. Through this I glimpse armed figures shuffling inside.

Our guards open up, pouring lethal green pulses into the smoke. Some of the attackers drop, the rest scramble back outside and take cover behind the door frame. Sticking their rifles inside, not bothering to aim, they return fire. A red beam lashes over Colm and me and hits the cave wall right behind us. I duck down, expecting a shower of rock splinters. When they don’t come I look up and see sparks crawling over the rock.

‘Shocker beams!’ Colm says. ‘They want us alive.’

‘Yeah? Wanting’s one thing, and getting’s another,’ I say.

It’s so weird. I spent the night shaking, but I’m not shaking now. I risk a look over our bench barricade and see the guard who stuck us here get hit. He staggers back, foaming and twitching, covered in sparks. Hits our bench. Goes down. Stays down.

I thrust the gun at Colm. ‘Cover me!’

Before he can stop me, I throw myself over our barricade and make a dive for the downed man’s pulse rifle. Angry red shocker beams buzz around me. Colm yells at me to come back. I ignore him, pick up the rifle, spray a few wild shots at our attackers and grab for the man’s belt of spare mags. It takes several heart-stopping seconds to rip them free of his body before I scramble back.

Colm drags me down into cover. ‘You’re mad!’

I give him the ammo belt and squirm around until I’m kneeling facing the door. ‘Just feed me fresh mags when I shout.’

An attacker leans in and fires a burst through the doorway.

I lash back with a burst of my own. The feel of the weapon thumping back into my shoulder is good. But the firefight gets fierce confusing after that. There’s smoke everywhere, lit up by dazzling beams. A man screaming in his last agony.

My rifle locks open, so I duck back down. ‘I’m out, I’m out.’

Colm fumbles a fresh pulse mag at me. I ditch the empty, slot the new one home and start firing again.

They throw smoke cans and rush us, twice. Both times we beat them back. But more of our fighters are hit. Squinting through the smoke I see only one of our guards is still standing. And she’s been winged – her left arm hangs uselessly by her side.

I’m out again. Colm throws me the last mag on the belt.

And now there’s loads more yelling outside. A volley of green pulse-rifle blasts, seemingly fired from outside, smacks into and around the mangled door frame. With a thin scream, one of our enemies staggers inside, only to be hit again and again. He pitches forward on to his face, his back leaking smoke.

Next thing I know our attackers quit shooting at us, forced to turn and face a savage counter-attack from their rear.

Colm grins at me, his face slick with sweat. ‘About time!’

‘Better late than never.’ I grin back.

I pop my head up again to see better, just as our last guard left standing goes for payback. She dumps her rifle, grabs a grenade and pulls the pin with her teeth. Only as she swings her arm back to chuck it a stray pulse-rifle shot slams into her chest.

She screeches and flies backwards.

The grenade arcs through the smoky air, clatters off the bench. Without thinking – gom that I am – I catch it.

‘Just because you’re nublood and heal so fast, Kyle,’ Rona says, grinding the words out through her teeth, ‘that doesn’t mean you have to keep getting yourself hurt!’

Fleur snorts. I squirm around and glare at her.

‘What?’ she says.

‘Hold still,’ Rona snaps.

She’s using long-jawed pliers to dig iron and rock out of my scorched butt and lower back, and it hurts like crazy. I’d be howling and yelling, only I’m shamed enough already at Colm and Fleur watching me bent over a table with my trousers around my ankles. Beside my head is a metal dish. Each lump of rock Rona drops into it makes it rattle. Fragments of metal ring it like a bell.

It’s nearly full, and not for the first time.

‘How much more?’ My jaw aches from gritting my teeth.

Rona swabs some stinging painsucker paste on to the latest hole she’s dug into me. ‘I’m nearly there.’

Exactly what she told me the last time, and the time before.

It was Fleur’s lot who showed up to save us. The deadheads. She says ever since details of the peace deal got around, they’ve been waiting to make their move. And they won’t be thanked either, saying they owed me and now we’re quits.

One bit of shiny among all the crap, I guess.

Crap like the casualties they took. Five dead, one still busy dying from a blaster shot to the chest. He’s over on another table, his breathing horrible and liquid. Rona’s done all she can.

More people dead because of me.

Ballard, who’s been and gone already, said my quick thinking made their sacrifice worthwhile. Me, I wonder what the dead guys would say? And I got lucky, that’s all. The lid had already been kicked off the shit-pit. My throw didn’t miss and the pit was deep enough to swallow most of the grenade’s blast. Okay, so I caught some shrapnel and I’m covered in filth – most of which isn’t even mine – but I’m still alive. As for my brother, not a fraggin’ mark on him. Seems I shielded him from harm . . . and the rest.

The deadheads don’t owe me now. Reckon he does. Big time.

‘Done,’ Rona announces. She holds a twisted bit of iron up to the light, squints at it and clatters it into the dish.

With a groan of relief, I stand and haul my trousers up.

‘Aw,’ Fleur says, and laughs.

Worth a scowl, only I can’t be bothered. I’m too busy hobbling around, making sure I can still walk. Seems I can. Colm hands me back my holstered pistol and I clip it on to my belt. Rona rinses her butcher tools under the tap. I watch blood and bits of me swirl around and around and disappear down the hole.

If only I could disappear that easily . . .

It’s been quiet for a while, but now more vicious-sounding gunfire lashes back and forth outside. I make out the crackle and snap of blaster fire, the heavy tump-tump of pulse rifles.

Rona sighs. ‘More fighting and dying. Where does it end?’

Before he left us, Ballard said he was going to make one last appeal to the pro-treaty and hardliner factions. I can’t help wondering now if the shooting is their answer to him.

My brother’s over by the chamber’s hatch, guarding it. He’s ditched his sling so he can wield a pulse rifle. From his set face I can tell it’s costing him pain. According to Fleur, her deadhead mates are covering the key ladders and trapdoors in the tunnel complex. Ballard couldn’t spare any of his fighters.

‘Wonder who’s winning?’ Fleur says.

‘Who cares?’ I say. ‘If hardliners win, we’re killed. If pro-treaty wins, we’re handed over. Either way we’re fragged. We need to get the hell out of here, and quick.’

‘Oh, Kyle, please don’t start that again,’ Rona says. She takes a break from packing away her healing gear to scowl at me.

‘This is our last chance,’ I say, struggling to keep my voice level. ‘While they’re fighting among themselves, we slip away. We’d be doing Ballard a favour. He wouldn’t have to defend us. But if we stay down here we’ll end up caught like rats in a trap. Those kids who bust us out will have died for nothing.’

I dart a glance at Colm, and he nods reluctant agreement.

Rona chews her lip, says nothing. Fleur doesn’t look chuffed either. ‘Ballard ordered us to hold here till he got back.’

‘What if he doesn’t come back?’

She goes to answer, but Colm hisses a warning.

‘I heard something!’ He steps back and levels his rifle.

I’m hauling my pistol out when two big deadhead kids shove Murdo Dern through the hatch and into the chamber. His hands are clasped behind his head, his jacket and jumpsuit are a mess, and his blaster holster flaps loose and empty at his hip.

Despite this he grins at us. ‘Take it easy, guys, it’s only me!’

Fleur jumps up. ‘What’s he doing here?’

‘Caught him sneaking about outside,’ one of the kids reports. ‘Says he needs to talk to Kyle. Life or death, he says.’

The other kid hands a blaster to Fleur. Murdo’s, I reckon.

Rona sniffs, very loudly.

‘No need to be like that, I’m here to help,’ he says, looking from Colm to me. ‘And glad to see you’re alive and kicking.’ His face scrunches up. ‘Wow. You stink!’

‘Shit happens,’ I say, my face burning.

Meanwhile, the deadhead who handed her the blaster whispers something to Fleur. She scowls. Not good news then.

‘What’s going on?’ Rona says.

‘Schroeder’s pro-treaty lot seized the windjammers and the landing fields. An anti-treaty mob is on its way to take them back. Ballard and a few fighters loyal to him are stuck in the middle, trying to keep the peace. It’s getting nasty.’

‘Nasty?’ Murdo snorts. ‘The Deeps has had it.’

Fleur tells the two deadhead kids who brought him in that we’ll take it from here. They clear off back to their posts in the tunnels.

‘So, Murdo,’ I say. ‘You going to tell us, or what?’

His eyes narrow. ‘Let’s go somewhere quiet, Kyle. You and me.’

‘No chance, Dern,’ Rona says, shaking her head.

And she’s right too. ‘Quit messing,’ I say. ‘Just tell us.’

He loses the grin and rubs his stubble. ‘I want to make a deal.’

Rona lets loose another disapproving sniff.

Murdo ignores her. ‘I figure if anyone knows where that bitch Sky cleared off to in my Never Again it’s you, Kyle.’

‘How could he know?’ Rona says.

‘Maybe I do,’ I say quickly. ‘But why would I tell you?’

Murdo’s grin stretches itself across his battered face again. ‘You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. I’ll get you out of this mess and in return you’ll help me track Sky down so that I can get my Never Again back.’

Hope thumps my head so hard I can hardly think. A way out.

‘Sounds good to me,’ I say, looking around.

‘If you find Sky, what’ll you do to her?’ Fleur says.

Murdo blanks her. ‘That’s the deal, Kyle. Take it, or leave it.’

9
NEGOTIATIONS AND INTERROGATIONS

I don’t get to say whether I’ll take Murdo’s deal or leave it because my brother butts in with a ‘Hang on!’ and a wary look.

It’s catching. Rona and Fleur look sceptical too.

I throw my hands up. ‘Why not?’

Colm looks past me to Murdo. ‘How can you get anybody out? Without your jammer you’re trapped here the same as us.’

It’s like he slapped me. Why didn’t I think of this?

Murdo doesn’t blink though. ‘I don’t do trapped. A friend is on her way here to pick me up, and there’s room for Kyle too.’

My guts flip-flop between despair and hope.

‘Pick you up? How?’ Colm says. ‘The landing areas have been seized. If she puts down, no way they’ll let her take off again.’

‘You think I don’t know that? There are loads of ways to skin a fourhorn. Forget your damn landing fields and quit with the dumb questions. Do we have a deal, Kyle, or don’t we?’

And then everyone is staring at me.

I swallow. ‘On one condition. You get us all out, not just me.’

Murdo pulls a face like he’s swallowed something sour. He glances quickly around the room, as if counting heads.

‘Deal. But that’s it,’ he says grimly.

More gunfire bangs and crackles outside, even closer now.

Murdo hoists an eyebrow and pretends to listen. ‘Hear that? It’s let’s-get-out-of-here time. Come on, Kyle, as soon as you tell me where Sky’s headed we can all be on our way.’

‘I don’t think so,’ Rona says, using her no-messing voice. ‘Get us out first, Dern. When we’re safe, Kyle will tell you.’

Murdo scowls. ‘Don’t trust me, huh?’

Rona curls her lip. ‘I’ve been around too long.’

‘It’s a deal,’ I say quickly. ‘So what do we do now?’

Murdo spits on his hand. ‘I want your word you can find Sky.’

‘I can find her,’ I say, and spit on mine.

We shake on it. As we do he pulls me close and shoves his face in mine. ‘I’m taking a fierce chance, Kyle,’ he hisses. ‘Everybody and his mutt is after you now. Slayers, Gemini, you name it. If you’re screwing with me, you’ll wish that you’d stayed here.’

‘Cuts both ways,’ I say, tugging my hand free.

Murdo gives me one last narrow-eyed glare and fixes his grin back in place. ‘Okay, here’s the score. I’ll go find a comm and tell my friend to expect more bodies. Meanwhile, you guys want to lose those Gemini uniforms and get back into rags like you wore when you first got here. She’ll be here at sunrise. Meet me at the Brokeback trailhead an hour before that. And this is crucial – we travel light. If you’re not wearing it, dump it.’

Rona glances at her overstuffed bag full of healing gear.

He shakes his head. ‘Forget it.’

‘Brokeback trailhead, hour before dawn,’ I say. ‘We’ll be there.’

Murdo heads off, but looks back from the hatch.

‘I’ll have my blaster back too,’ he says.

Fleur scowls and throws it to him. He holsters it and ducks outside. Colm goes and pushes the hatch closed behind him.

And now Rona turns on me, her eyes troubled.

‘Do you really know where Sky’s gone?’

I lick my lips. ‘Sort of.’

She looks at me like I’ve grown horns or something.

Fleur laughs. ‘This I’ve got to hear. You don’t know, do you?’

I dart a look at Colm. He’s frowning too, but doesn’t look at me like I’m mad. I figure he’s thinking what I’m thinking.

‘We need to talk to a guy called Ness,’ I say.

Quickly I explain how Sky had him hacking the nav-comm of the captured Slayer transport that once carried her sister.

Rona knew this. Fleur looks surprised.

She’s smart though. ‘You think Ness cracked it.’

‘And told Sky. Now she finally knows where Tarn was taken, so she steals Murdo’s Never Again and clears off after her.’

‘Leaving us behind,’ my brother mutters.

Rona sighs. I don’t know why – he’s just telling it like it is.

‘Only problem is,’ Fleur says, wincing at me, ‘Ballard’s orders were to keep you here until he’s back.’

My head spins. She can’t be serious, can she?

The dying deadhead kid on the table moans now, real pitiful. We all look around; it’s impossible not to. Rona runs to check on him. When I look back, I see Fleur shaking her head.

‘Frag my orders,’ she says. ‘I’ll go. Where do I find this Ness?’

‘What if she can’t find him?’ Colm asks, looking gloomy.

‘She’ll find him,’ I say, pawing through some old clothes the deadheads brought us. We’ve all traded our Gemini uniforms for whatever fits best. I’m after a jacket now.

‘What if he’s been killed?’

I curse. ‘Then we lie. I’ll make something up.’

To be fair, it does seem ages since Fleur set off to find Ness. Long enough for me to have a long overdue scrub anyway. And with every minute that crawls by, the sounds of fighting outside get louder and closer. I try not to think about that. Instead I go to ask Rona for something for my stinging backside, only to see her pull a bloody sheet over the kid with the sucking chest wound.

‘He’s gone,’ she says, like his dying is her fault.

I didn’t even know the poor guy’s name. How crap is that?

A good while later Fleur’s back, shoving a lanky man before her.

‘Ness!’ I call out. ‘Am I glad to see you.’

‘And what about me?’ Fleur says, smiling. Then she spots the sheet-covered body on the table and the smiles fades.

‘Why’ve I been brought here?’ Ness says, his voice up and down. Marks on his long face tell me he didn’t come willingly.

‘Relax,’ I say. ‘Nobody’s going to hurt you.’

‘She did,’ he says, scowling at Fleur.

Fleur shrugs. ‘The gommer gave me no choice. I found him snivelling under his bunk and he wouldn’t come out.’

‘I was not snivelling. I’ve got a cold, that’s all.’

‘Leave him be,’ Rona says. ‘As if there isn’t enough fighting!’

Before anybody can stop her she leads him to an empty healing table, sits him down and starts treating his bruised face.

‘Can’t that wait?’ I say, twitching.

‘Won’t be a minute.’

Except she is of course. And all we can do is grind our teeth.

‘There. That’s better.’ She steps back at last.

Ness goes to hop down from the table, but I shove him back. ‘You found out where the Slayers took Sky’s sister, didn’t you?’

He swallows hard, and nods.

‘And you told Sky?’ I hold my breath.

‘You know what Sky’s like – she made me tell her.’

I shoot the others a relieved told-you-so look.

‘So tell us what you told Sky.’

Ness glares at me ‘Why should I?’

The crash of an explosion shakes the chamber. A crackle of blaster fire answers it. My brother curses under his breath, real nasty too, and aims his pulse rifle at Ness’s head.

‘You’ve got five seconds!’

Ness looks horrified. He’s not alone – I think we all do.

‘Colm?’ Rona says.

My brother’s finger whitens on the trigger. ‘Four.’

‘You’re no killer,’ Ness says.

Colm sets his jaw. ‘You sure about that?’

Ness glances at me. ‘Is he serious ?’

Out of the corner of my eye I see Rona’s mouth hanging open. By now though I’m pretty sure what my twin is up to.

‘He’ll blow your head off, Ness,’ I say. ‘He’s mean like that.’

‘Two,’ Colm hisses.

‘What happened to three?’ Ness protests.

‘One!’

‘All right, all right, I’ll tell you!’

I shove Colm’s rifle aside, just in case. ‘Let’s hear it.’

Ness takes a second to get his breath back. ‘You won’t like it.’

‘Get on with it!’

‘The Slayers flew Sky’s sister to the No-Zone.’

And now it’s his turn to be stared at like he’s sprouted horns.

We’ve all heard of it, but only in fireside tales told by hungry wordweavers to earn a crust. It’s make-believe to scare little children. A distant land crawling with Reapers and weird, bug-eyed monsters. Enter the No-Zone, you won’t come out alive!

‘There’s no such place,’ Colm says, and aims his rifle again.

Ness’s eyes bulge behind his glasses.

‘There must be. It’s marked on the Slayer nav charts!’

The guy says it so fiercely, so desperately, I can tell he’s not bullshitting. I push Colm’s pulse rifle down again.

‘Sky’s headed to this No-Zone?’

Ness nods miserably. ‘I guess. Where else?’

He mumbles something else that I don’t catch because I’m too busy feeling hollow inside. Murdo will freak when we tell him Sky’s headed someplace that doesn’t exist. Bound to. But what kills me is being reminded how she ran out on us.

Ran out on me .

I’d forgive Sky most things. I’ll never forgive her for this . . .