Chapter 14 HUNTER
HUNTER
GREETINGS, SAYS A VOICE from near the ceiling.
I startle, banging my head against the underside of the desk, and hiss a curse as I reach up to check if I’m bleeding.
Beside me, Cleo’s gone perfectly still. I assume you have access to a headset, the voice continues.
Please set it to channel four. I’d like to have a conversation.
I’m not sure if my head’s spinning from the whack I just gave it, or the trance Cleo had me in a moment ago.
She looks just as shaken, but after a moment she blinks, and then twists so she can snake an arm up onto the desk, grab the chief engineer’s headset, and pull it down. I hold my hand out for it, and she scowls and puts it on over her own ear.
This would be a lot easier if either of us was a follower.
I lean in to try to hear the conversation, but don’t want to touch my face against hers after the moment we just had – then she makes an annoyed sound and yanks me closer, so I let myself press my cheek to hers.
She taps the headband to bring up a display that only she can see, then swipes her finger through the air, presumably choosing channel 4. A voice issues from the headset immediately, broadcasting on a loop, I guess.
… Let us know when you’re receiving. Repeat, once you’re ready to talk, let us know—
‘What do you want?’ Cleo demands. She sounds different – she’s made her voice lower, rougher, older than it is. It’s a smart move. I wouldn’t have thought of it.
We want to find a resolution that works for all of us, says the voice. It’s low, authoritative.
‘The Pirate,’ Cleo whispers, her mic off. That would be my guess, too – this voice sounds like it belongs to the leader we saw on the bridge. The guy with the eye patch.
How did you get left behind? he asks, his tone light, curious.
‘I was in bed with your mom,’ Cleo drawls. ‘I didn’t hear the evac alarm over the sound of her screaming.’
My gaze snaps up, but there’s a snort of static over the channel, and I realize he’s laughing. Okay, he says slowly. This I can work with. Let me start by apologizing for the fact that we shot at you.
‘It sure didn’t feel like the start of a beautiful friendship,’ Cleo agrees, her casual tone at odds with the tension in her expression.
Fair. We didn’t actually come here to kill anyone. That’s why we were so careful to evacuate the station before we began.
‘So why did you come here?’ Cleo asks without missing a beat. Her fingers are drumming on her knee, and I trace the path of her tattoo up her forearm, flowers and vines curling around each other.
My mind flicks back to the files I caught them trawling through when I was in the greenhouse, watching them opening the UN Central Registers one by one. We can’t ask about those specifically – no value in telling them what we know.
It doesn’t matter why we’re here, the Pirate says. What matters is that you are too. Here’s my offer: come join us, and we’ll take you with us when we’re done.
Now it’s Cleo’s turn to laugh. ‘And then you’ll set us free, trusting in our goodwill and our silence?’
Not immediately, no, he admits. But this is your best option, I promise you that. Later, we’ll release you. Trust me when I tell you that you don’t want to be here at the end of this. As I said, we didn’t come here to kill anybody. We’re not that kind of criminal.
‘And yet you brought guns.’
Well, he says, and I can hear the shrug. Other people could be that kind of criminal.
‘I thought there wasn’t supposed to be anybody here,’ Cleo presses. Do they teach debate at engineering school?
The Pirate lets out an audible sigh. I think we’ve all learned a lot today about how plans don’t always unfold the way we want them to.
Cleo reaches up to tap her headband again, muting the line. ‘We can’t trust him,’ she murmurs.
‘Not for a minute,’ I agree. ‘But I’m interested to hear what he says. The more we get him to talk, the better.’ I can practically hear my mother’s voice in my ear. Mouth shut, ears open. Learn more than you share.
Cleo brings the headset back online. ‘I’m wondering why you’d take us with you,’ she says. ‘Why you wouldn’t just shoot us, as soon as you see us. What’s in it for you, to keep us alive? And do not say you prefer a clean conscience.’
All right, I won’t, the Pirate replies. For a start, I’d like to know how to extract my team member from the classroom you managed to electrify.
‘We’re not useful once you know that,’ Cleo points out.
No, he agrees. And we’ll figure out how to get her out by ourselves, eventually. I’m trying to demonstrate a little goodwill here, by giving you an opportunity to demonstrate yours.
‘Hey,’ Cleo replies, grinning. ‘You know who else is full of goodwill toward me?’
Again, I hear the Pirate’s sigh. Let me guess. My mother.
She’s got him on the back foot, half charmed, half annoyed. I’m fascinated by her savvy, her quick instincts. It’s clear she knows how to talk to people like him – a mix of smarts and sass, not pushing too hard, but certainly not giving way.
I’m guessing she learned to do this when she was on the run from the debt collectors. I can’t imagine what that was like, but it’s made her tough in ways that are different from the ones I’m used to.
She’s been through so much, and it makes her prickly, that much I can tell. It brings her shields up in moments like the one we just had. If she’d leaned forward even a millimeter, we’d have kissed. My chest tightens just thinking about it.
Is it stupid to be thinking about kissing Cleo with five mercenaries still out there hunting for us? Sure. It might also be the last chance I get.
I only realize Cleo’s ended the call when she pulls the headset off.
‘All done?’ I ask, blinking back to the problem at hand.
‘It never would have worked out between us,’ she replies with a shrug.
I can’t help it. I wink and gesture at my dusty, sweaty self. ‘How could it, when you’ve got all this right here in front of you?’
Cleo rolls her eyes. ‘Let’s find a better place to shack up, just in case someone comes to visit. And I think we’d better get started on some gifts for the neighbors.’
4 HOURS, 36 MINUTES REMAINING
About forty-five minutes later, I’m laying out five headsets on a table in a corner of the cafeteria.
The room’s gone into power-saving mode for some reason, the lights dimmed, and even if someone walks straight through here – and I’m hoping they will pretty soon – they’re unlikely to notice them sitting there.
Half the other tables were littered with food and trays when we came in, but Cleo hurriedly cleared them away before she disappeared. That’ll be relevant in a minute, with any luck.
I’m listening for any news on the headset we stole from the chief engineer’s office, keeping an eye on the door to the corridor outside as I get my little speaker connected to a battery and check the settings on the headsets.
If this works, it’s going to be the most obnoxious thing I’ve ever done, and I once sold a guy his own company back for twice the price, after renaming it in honor of my childhood cat.
I’m straining to hear footsteps and trying to keep my hands from shaking as I bring up the display on the next headset and swipe through to channel 4. I can’t afford to miss the only warning I’ll have when company arrives.
There are cameras here in the cafeteria, but a pair of wire clippers took care of their connection in just a few seconds. They’re not the sort of thing you carefully protect against sabotage when you build a peaceful base.
We had to take out a bunch of others as well, as diversions, so our friends wouldn’t come right here, and that chewed up precious minutes. If we pull this off, though, it’ll be worth it. We’re still about four and a half hours from blastoff.
Then I hear the sound I’ve been waiting for, and my heart kicks up a notch.
I slip around to the far side of the table I’m working at, sinking down to crouch behind it as one of the mercs strides into the cafeteria, pausing to look around at the half-lit room, the dozens of tables stretching out in neat rows.
I see his shoulders slump as he thinks about having to search around and behind and between every one of them.
Then Cleo’s voice comes from the kitchen, and I think he and I both stop breathing.
‘I think this is going to work,’ she calls. ‘Let me take a look.’
The merc is a Nordic blond, sharp-featured and muscular. He’s the remaining member of the pair we saw patrolling the corridor – the Boxer was the other.
This is the kind of guy who stirs an instinct in the back of your mind telling you to stay very, very far away from him.
Telling you that he’ll hurt you without even thinking about it.
He wears a pressure suit like we do, and like us, he’s peeled it down halfway, the arms tied around his waist. His upper half is in a tight black T-shirt that was presumably designed to show off biceps the size of my head, and it’s getting the job done admirably.
I would very much prefer not to go anywhere near him if I can avoid it. You just know he gets up at dawn, takes a cold shower, and then does chin-ups before breakfast. One-handed.
He draws his gun, stalking toward the kitchen, and I silently set down my headsets and speakers, preparing to move.
Mr Chin-Up creeps past the serving counter and makes it to the entrance, disappearing into the kitchen. With a deep, steadying breath, I rise to my feet to sneak after him.
‘Are you listening?’ Cleo calls. ‘And hey, we should get more snacks while we’re here.’
On silent feet I jog across to the kitchen, making it to the entrance, my mouth dry. Will they have knives in there? Will I have time to grab one if I have to?
The kitchen is a long, narrow space, crowded with pots and pans, bunches of herbs and vegetables picked from the greenhouse, and big pots still sitting on the stove where the cooks abandoned them during the evacuation.