| she said. “The Sturm will be here soon, and we are better off beating them here, where we have help of a sort, than trying to outrun them. The Javans won’t know we cross-decked you to Ariane. We can easily do that without them finding out. Their tech isn’t as good as ours and we have Hero.” The Intellect pulsed with a proud golden hue. “The local intellects are vastly overmatched by my tremendous capabilities.” Commander Hardy rolled her eyes at Alessia. “Look, he’s not wrong,” she said, even though she did look like she was chewing something sour as she said it. “But it is important that when you get to Lermontov, you stay on the ship with Sergeant Cox and the others. Sephina knows people on that station. So, it’s a sure bet they’re not very nice people. You’ll want to avoid them. The ship will be inspected, but Seph and the others will hide you. Booker will know what to do. It’s a gangsters’ yacht. There’ll be somewhere. And if Sephina says you have to get out of the system, if she says it’s time to go, then it’s time. Do not wait for us.” Alessia stood up straight and looked her square in the eye. “Because you won’t be coming, will you?” Lucinda’s expression was unreadable, but her answer was clear. “No, Alessia. We won’t.” They said you weren’t supposed to dream in stasis, but they said a lot of shit that turned out to be |
burned. Half the length of the fuselage was a blackened, melted husk, buried in flame retardant foam. Bodies surrounded it. Bodies lay everywhere, entwined in grotesque parodies of carnality. Arms and legs entangled. Fingers laced through clothing and hair. Heads pulled back. Throats exposed. Teeth sunk deep into flesh. Clothes torn and drenched in blood, not sweat. Eyes gouged. Innards trailing over the deck plating like discarded nightwear. Station gravity here at the surface was minimal and the long, blue-gray loops of viscera floated off the deck plating like blind, giant worms. Some of the marines swore. Cox swore back at them to shut the fuck up and keep moving. Lucinda kept moving. A droplet of some foul organic liquid splashed against her visor, persisting as a brown smear until she sprayed the faceplate clean with a thin stream of solvent from the nozzles in her left gauntlet. In her right hand she kept her personal weapon at the ready. She focused on sweeping her arc with the holo sights of the carbine, glad to be buttoned up inside her armor, breathing clean air. She checked the outside temperature. Twenty-one degrees Celsius. The whole station would reek of death and horror. “Sturm,” one of the marines announced, but without urgency. The marine squad came to a halt, fanning out to provide a secure perimeter while Sergeant Cox examined the body of the enemy trooper. Or the largest part of that body, anyway. The legs and some of the lower torso |
