Chapter 41
Home Stretch
“Oh, c’mon, Drey, this is too much,” Davik protested, but it fell on deaf ears.
Drey had insisted on paying for his ride on The Argent by dragging him to dinner at every station they stopped at along the way. And this last night, he had chosen a noodle house with a nightcap at a fancy bar around the corner.
“Nah, I owe you for the ride. C’mon. At least have one drink.”
Drey patted the barstool beside him, and Davik ceased any attempts to dissuade him. Clearly, the man was trying to garner some goodwill. No reason to stand in his way.
“Alright, but I don’t really have much of a palate for anything alcoholic other than what you can get in a can. Any suggestions?”
There was a metallic glint as the merc laughed. The lines of mil-augs along his jaw and cheekbones shone on his weathered, honey-tan skin. Drey might be out of the Sol Forces, but he was packing enough metal to be as formidable as a Hornet shock trooper these days.
“Yeah, we’re gonna put some hair on your chest. Well, at least a bit more of it. You and your brother are hairy sons of bitches.”
Davik snorted. “Alright, what’s the prescription then, Doc?”
Drey waved down the bartender. “Vikel Five whiskey, two fingers, neat. For both of us, please and thank-you.”
When they were presented with their twin glasses of brown liquor, they clinked them together.
“To our dysfunctional little family. Collecting strays and having pups,” Davik said.
“Yeah. Dysfunctional, alright.”
They both took a sip, and Davik let out a light wheeze. “Christ, that’s smoky.”
Drey laughed hoarsely. “Yeah, I hear it tastes like how a forest fire smells. No idea what that would even smell like, but it’s my go-to cure for heartbreak.”
Davik swirled his glass slowly, watching the thick liquor cling to the tumbler. “Eh, the only cure for that is time, I think. But this is a nice way to round out the night.”
He took another tentative sip, this time letting it sit on his tongue as he inhaled. It was woody, almost syrupy, but not sweet. Not bad, but not something he would return to. As he sipped it down, he felt a bloom of heat in his throat and chest that forced out a little relaxed breath.
“I’m sorry for all the shit I said about her. On the ship, I mean.” Drey kept his eyes on his glass, turning it idly. “I know it didn’t pan out, but that doesn’t change the fact that I was being an asshole.”
“You were. But I figured it was less about her specifically. You were just in a bad state, saw something that set you off. She just got caught in the crossfire. You didn’t even know her. “
Drey nodded slowly before taking a hearty swig. “Wish I had. Not sure if it was her or your adventure cracking a Fed locker, but you seem different. Good different. Like, you seem to be taking less shit. Or … I don’t know. Maybe that isn’t it. More resilient?”
Davik took a large swig himself. Then regretted it, doing his best to keep a sprouting cough at bay.
“Well, near-death experiences, great head, and then suddenly getting dumped, I think kinda—” He relented to the cough, wheezing before he continued.
“Kinda feel like I’ve gone through hell and lived to tell the tale. What’s the worst that’ll happen?”
Drey let out a howling laugh and clapped Davik on the shoulders. “Woof. I’m sorry, Dav. But, shit, I think you’re better for it, right?”
“I can hope,” he said with a shrug. “Skated along rock bottom, bounced back up. At least now I know I can crawl back if everything goes sideways again.”
Drey nodded solemnly. The man was looking at him, but it was hard to get a read on his expression. He was chewing over something, but Davik wouldn’t pry. Maybe the merc had his own heartbreak he was nursing, too.
“I’ll get the tab,” Drey offered as they finished their drinks. “Alright, onto the home stretch, kiddo.”
They were about an hour out from the station Drey was destined for when the passenger in question sauntered into the cockpit. He settled down into the copilot’s seat and gave Davik a brief nod.
The two spent a minute in amicable silence, staring out into the yawning sky before them. They were getting closer to higher traffic areas, with occasional freighters passing near, so Davik had dropped the ship to a safer speed on approach.
“I have to say, you aren’t a speedster like Carissa, but you keep a good pace with this old bird.”
“I just trust my tools. Keep the sensors tuned, pull updated path and trajectory data at every port, make sure she sings pretty in the engine bay. She does all the hard work.”
“Still, nothing to scoff at.” Drey looked around the cockpit, at all the stickers and charms that Carissa and Fia had adorned the place with. “You happy with the work you do? This life, I mean?”
“Happy is a strong word,” Davik said with a shrug, leaning back with one hand poised over the navigation console. “I’m comfortable. I have options. I know what I’m good at, and I know what isn’t good for me. Specifically, tall women with an affinity for violence.”
“I’ll drink to that.”
“But, yeah, I don’t think the word is happy. I’m alright. I think I’m—”
The screen in front of him flashed. There was a nearby vessel whose trajectory intersected theirs with potential impact in under a minute. He sat bolt upright and pulled up the manual controls to break free from their pattern and get out of the way.
“What the hell, are they drunk?!” Davik said, locking his hands around the yoke.
His communications console lit up with a flare of alarms. Proximity alerts, hail requests, cease trajectory orders, all with Federation imprints.
Davik felt his blood run cold. He wasn’t hauling anything illegal.
Their licenses were up to date. He was well within the velocity limits in this sector.
There’s no reason he should be hounded by the Feds.
There was one unknown he hadn’t accounted for. One that sat next to him.
“This is the F.V. Karnel. To the captain of The Argent, you have a person of interest aboard your vessel. Cut your engines and prepare for interception and boarding on the authority of the Federation of Sol.”
“Shit. Drey, I thought you said you were on the up and up,” Davik hissed.
He didn’t have time to pore through all the possibilities.
There was enough time. They were a minute out, and if his sensors were right, it was a large, heavy cruiser bearing down on them.
It was a beast of a vessel, but not one meant for maneuvering.
The Argent wasn’t a corvette, but it could whip about face faster than they could.
“Boots down, buckles on,” Davik barked as he clipped into the seat and grabbed the manual thrust and axis controls. “You owe me so much more than a fucking drink after this—”
Drey was not buckling in. He was standing. Standing behind the pilot’s seat, with something metallic pressed against Davik’s temple.
“Hands off the controls, kiddo,” he whispered.
Davik’s hands froze. Sweat beaded across his brow. All of his screens were alight with trajectory warnings, authoritative commands to kill engines, and blaring sirens warning of the legal ramifications for continuing their path.
A sharp click echoed, followed by the whirring of the plasma pistol as it charged with a high-pitched whine. Davik lifted his hands off the controls in shaky surrender.
“Keep ‘em up there. This’ll be easier that way.”
Davik felt his pulse pounding so hard he could almost taste the metallic tang of blood in his mouth.
This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t be happening.
But no matter how much adrenaline was thrumming through him, there was no fighting this.
There was a gun to his head, a Federation ship en route.
Even if he broke free of the interception craft, there would be two hundred and fifty pounds of man and at least fifty pounds of aug between him and the door.
He kept his hands upright and still, save for the slight tremor in them.
The tremor was part fear and part rage, with no safe route to funnel it toward.
With a practiced movement, Drey clasped the cold steel cuffs over Davik’s wrists, the sound of the lock snapping shut a crisp and distinct click among the chaotic alarms from the navigation console.
“F.V. Karnel, the target’s been detained. The Argent will be ready to tractor in momentarily,” Drey rumbled into the comms.
The screens immediately calmed, and Drey set to disabling the engines. Now that Davik was restrained, the merc holstered his pistol with a smooth motion. The uncanny calmness in all his movements made him want to scream.
The entire world had just been pulled out from under him, twisted sideways, and the only thing holding him here was the cold steel on his wrists.
And in that moment, a slow chill of realization trickled into his mind.
“You’re a goddamn rat,” Davik said with as much conviction as he could muster. Drey was keeping his eyes forward, but he could see his shoulders tense at the accusation. “You’ve been a scum-fucking, bounty-flipping, Sol-sucking rat. This whole time.”
His words weren’t heated anymore. It was his turn to be awash in calm indifference.
“Every job, every fucking job we take you on. Every time something goes wrong. Inventory is missing. Local law is already waiting to impound us. One of our crew gets pinched at the docks over a misdemeanor that nobody should have bothered scanning him for.” He took a labored breath as an incredulous smile formed on his lips. “This whole time. It’s been you.”
Drey stayed silent, and the silence made his forced calm crack.
Despite the restraints, he reeled back to kick Drey in the side as hard as he could. Even if it did nothing, he had to make some sort of impact. He had to get a reaction. He had to know for certain.
It elicited nothing but a light grunt. Davik’s rage curled into his throat, and he nearly spat every consonant as he screamed at the immobile rock of a man in front of him. This monolith, who was slowly dismantling the life he had finally built.
“You goddamn boot-licking son of a bitch! You are the reason Marius got put on ice, aren’t you?! Marius was like a brother to you, you piece of shit!”
Drey spun around and crashed both of his palms on the chair beside Davik’s face.
“You were supposed to be the one on ice! It was supposed to be you, but Marius decided to be a goddamn hero!” Drey looked as desperate as Davik felt, and his voice wavered like he was on the verge of tears.
“Why me? What did I do to deserve that!? I did nothing but help you!”
“You didn’t deserve it, kiddo.” Drey pulled back and rubbed both of his hands down his face, his voice dropping to a sullen rumble.
“But you also would have been fine. You would have rallied. You don’t have a wife or kids.
You’d have maybe two, three dozen winks on ice.
And when you’d get back, I’d have— I would have figured everything out.
Gotten ahead of things, made enough to pay you back. ”
“You think you can pay someone back for that? That’s half a lifetime! Everyone I knew would be dead, Drey!” Davik kicked out once more, this time landing the blow squarely in his stomach. It elicited another grunt, but still, he barely moved.
The cool calm settled back over the merc’s features. Drey pulled out a small syringe injector and primed it.
Alerts on the screens flurried. This time, paired with the abrupt, jarring sensation of the ship being tugged in a new direction.
They were being pulled in, and judging by the alerts, they were going to be swallowed into the belly of the behemoth of a ship.
Davik craned his head forward to see out the window towards where they were being dragged.
The hiss of the injector was the last thing he heard as the world went dim.