Depths of Blue Read online

  Booted feet on hard earth came closer and closer. Torrin tensed, readying herself for confrontation. She slid her knife out of the scabbard. Jak muttered angrily to herself.

  “Jak, shush,” the smuggler hissed.

  The sniper gave no indication that she’d heard her and kept speaking in a low, insistent voice. The footsteps drew closer; Torrin pulled Jak back against her body and slid a hand over her mouth.

  “Jak, it’s me,” Torrin whispered when she started to thrash. At her voice, Jak quieted momentarily. She relaxed against Torrin, who cautiously removed her hand from Jak’s mouth.

  “I don’t feel good, Mom,” Jak complained quietly.

  “I know, baby. But you need to be quiet or the bad men will hear us.” With Jak clutched against her, Torrin could tell her fever had spiked again. The hallucinations were back, stronger than ever. She wasn’t sure how much more of this Jak’s body could take. It was amazing that she’d lasted this long. As high as her fever was, Torrin was astounded Jak hadn’t yet gone into convulsions.

  “Okay,” Jak sighed. She lay quietly in Torrin’s arms, restless movements twitching through her slight frame.

  Through the branches, Torrin could barely make out two forms in the darkness of the clearing. She couldn’t hear anything; the men had stopped moving. Had they stopped because they’d heard Jak or were they simply resting? Her hand hovered in the air over the sniper’s mouth, in case she seemed ready to make another outburst. The sound of her heartbeat thundered in her ears, and she wondered why the soldiers couldn’t hear it. Over the sound of her heart, she almost didn’t hear them start walking again. Finally, after what seemed like days, the two men left the area. She lay there with Jak for another ten minutes before deciding the coast was clear enough to risk talking aloud.

  “Tien, are there any life signs in our immediate vicinity?”

  “Negative, Torrin. You are clear for the time being. I see no one between you and the camp.”

  “Good. I need to take care of Jak before we can start moving again. Let me know if anyone heads our way again.”

  Torrin sat up. There was only enough room under the branches for her to sit, albeit she had to do so hunched over. She pulled Jak against her and held her up with one arm while fishing out a water flask. She dug around a little longer before she found the pill bottle of fever-reducing pills Lambert had sent along with them. There weren’t many left and she carefully shook two out into her palm.

  “Jak.” Torrin shook her lightly. “You need to take your medicine.”

  The face Jak made, eyebrows drawn down and nose scrunched over pursed lips would have been comical if not for the direness of their situation. “I don’t wanna,” Jak complained.

  “It’s important. Open your mouth.”

  Jak shook her head petulantly but was in no shape to resist Torrin when she put the pill in her mouth and forced her to take a drink from the canteen.

  “That’s awful,” Jak gasped, retching dryly.

  “I know.” Torrin grimly administered another pill. “You need to take some more.” Jak numbly accepted another swig from the canteen, then turned her head into Torrin’s shoulder. Hopefully the pills she’d swallowed would take effect soon. Torrin hummed tunelessly and stroked Jak’s sweat-laden hair away from her forehead as she rocked the sniper in her arms. Jak’s fragility was terrifying. Torrin didn’t know what she’d do if Jak didn’t survive. In a frighteningly short period of time, Jak had set up shop in her head and in her heart. To have to let her go now when she’d only just found her was not something she wanted to face

  Slowly, Jak began to perk up. Finally she opened her eyes and looked up at Torrin.

  “Why are we stopped?”

  “You were out of it. I had to get your fever down.” Torrin handed her the canteen. “Have some more water.”

  Jak accepted the canteen and drank deeply. They were losing the battle with dehydration.

  “That’s probably enough. You don’t want to drink all of it.” Torrin took the container back and Jak nodded.

  “Give me a few moments and we can get on with it,” Jak told her. Pulling herself up, she was able to sit without support, but she kept one hand in Torrin’s. Her flesh was still too hot to the touch and Torrin gently stroked the back of her hand. Keeping in contact with the sniper helped her stay calm over the rising panic she was feeling at Jak’s deterioration.

  “All right, let’s go,” Jak announced. “I’m as good as I’m going to get.” Good was a relative statement. Jak still needed Torrin’s help to crawl out of their hiding place. They started out at a walk, Torrin practically carrying her. Slowly they made their way through the trees until the light of a campfire was visible through the trees ahead.

  “Tien, we’re in place. Are you ready?”

  The AI sounded mildly excited. “I am, Torrin.”

  Torrin looked over at Jak, who nodded back at her. “Fire when ready then.”

  The stillness of the night was broken by a mechanical whirring the two women could hear, even back in the trees as they were. Torrin could see movement between the trees as the Orthodoxans reacted to the unanticipated sounds. A sharp noise came up like a loud wind and ended with a concussive thud. Across the clearing, a stand of trees vaporized in a flare of plasma. Shouts filtered back to them through the trees. The Orthodoxans were extremely worked up.

  Two more whooshes and brilliant flares shattered the night. Torrin could see all sorts of movement now.

  “Tien, what’s your status?” she asked urgently.

  “The soldiers do not wish to leave what shelter they have here, Torrin. I think they are aware that I cannot shoot them. They seem to think I am shooting at some elusive enemy.”

  “Crap.” Torrin turned to Jak. “We have another problem.”

  Jak quirked an eyebrow at her.

  “The soldiers don’t want to leave their shelter. They think Tien is shooting at someone else and they’re hunkering down.”

  “I told you, dumb as hell.” Jak shook her head. “I guess we need to make things a little less comfortable down there.” She pulled the sniper rifle off her shoulder and started loading it.

  “Are you sure you’re up for that?”

  “We can’t afford me not to be. I need you to watch my back.” The sniper surveyed the area and pointed off to the right. “There’s a bit of a rise and a break in the trees off that way. We’ll set up there.” She put her left arm around Torrin’s shoulders, and they skirted their way through the woods to the break in the tree line.

  The clearing where the ship sat was lit by burning trees on three sides. Burn marks were visible on the surface of the Calamity Jane and Torrin cursed internally. She was going take every scorched centimeter of paint out of the hides of the Orthodoxans.

  Jak assumed a prone position and was taking a bead on the soldiers grouped back against the ship. They’d erected a hasty barrier of crates and boxes and had their heads down, weapons bristling out of every cranny imaginable. With Jak ensconced, Torrin unlimbered her own weapon, thumbed the safety off the assault rifle and slammed a fresh magazine home.

  “Let me know about those patrols,” she radioed to Tien through the transmitter.

  “Confirmed, Torrin. They are moving toward our position, but none are in the immediate vicinity.”

  That was reassuring. Even though she’d been expecting it, she still jerked when Jak took her first shot. The report shattered the silence and there was a shocked yell behind the flimsy barricade. Shots rang out in response, but the return fire was spotty, uncoordinated. The Orthodoxans were shooting blind. The sniper calmly lined up her next target. Torrin knew when Jak stuck her tongue out between her teeth that she was ready to take her shot. Sure enough, another shot rang out and more return fire came from the trapped soldiers.

  “Torrin, there are two soldiers coming your way,” Tien reported quickly.

  She blistered the air with a torrent of invectives and kept her eyes open for the patrol.

/>   “They are closing in at your two o’clock.”

  “Thanks, Tien,” Torrin said as she caught sight of the first man. She raised her assault rifle and squeezed off a few rounds, catching the soldier in the torso and spinning him around. He dropped to the ground, but his companion ducked behind a tree.

  “I’ll be back,” Torrin tossed over her shoulder to Jak, who was busily lining up her third shot.

  The trees faded quickly into darkness the further she got from the clearing. She would be at a complete disadvantage there, but she needed to draw the soldier away from Jak. Working her way to the soldier’s left, Torrin tried to flank him. He’d been expecting the move and a muzzle flash bloomed in the dark as he fired on her. She ducked behind a tree and crouched, wondering what she should do.

  “He is moving toward you, Torrin,” Tien informed her.

  “Good, let me know which way he’s coming.” He might be able to see in the dark like Jak, but he didn’t have an AI reporting her every move to him. Knowing his movements leveled the playing field a little bit.

  “He has paused, Torrin. I do not believe that he is sure what to do.”

  She needed to bring him to her. Maybe if he believed she was wounded, he would let down his guard. She groaned loudly and listened closely for any movement.

  “He still hesitates.”

  She let out another groan and followed it up with a sobbing cough.

  “That has done it, Torrin. He is moving toward you, around the tree to your right.”

  The grin that spread across her face looked nasty, she knew. It was the first and last thing the soldier saw when he came into sight. His mouth gaped in surprise and her muzzle flashed. At close range, the slugs from the rifle tore his chest apart in multiple sprays of blood. Torrin paused long enough to put a bullet through his temple, then hurried back to Jak.

  Below their low hill, several bodies lay half in, half out of the barricade. Still, the soldiers clung to their little bit of shelter.

  “Are they ready to run?”

  “I think they need a little something else to push them over the edge,” Jak replied in a distracted tone. She was lining up another shot.

  “I know just the thing.” Torrin activated the subdermal transmitter. “Tien, let’s give them something to really worry about. Lower the cargo bay doors.” A breath later and the loud clunks of clamps releasing rang out through the clearing. Torrin could see consternation running through the group clustered below. The release of the clamps was followed by a rumbling groan as the ramp started to lower.

  Unable to take it any longer, the soldiers finally broke. As one they scrambled over their barricade and headed for the dubious shelter of the tree line.

  “Time to go.” Torrin leaned down and scooped Jak into her arms. Adrenaline and Jak’s fragile condition made her weight negligible. Forcing her way through the bushes, Torrin sprinted down the hill toward the lowering ramp. She was halfway to the ship before the Orthodoxans realized what was happening. Scattered gunfire rang out from the woods, kicking up the ground by her feet. She wove an evasive pattern, trying to avoid the ever more insistent bullets whizzing past her. Fire creased the back of her right calf; she stumbled, righted herself and kept on.

  With a deafening whoosh and thud, a vast swath of trees disappeared in a searing fireball. The Orthodoxans had forgotten that the ship’s fire could reach them in the trees. The sound of scattered shots was replaced by screams of men burning alive. Torrin tried not to think about them. She resumed her sprint and reached the ramp to the cargo bay just as it hit the ground. Without bothering to slow, she pounded up the ramp, which began to lift as soon as she hit it, and into the cargo area. Lights flickered on in front of her as she ran.

  “The elevator is ready for you, Torrin,” Tien informed her. The doors hissed open and she raced through, her lungs burning. Cradling her burden carefully, Torrin slid to the floor. Behind her the doors closed and the elevator whirred to life.

  “Jak, are you all right?” Torrin maneuvered Jak around to get a better look at her face. Her heart stuttered to a stop in her rib cage when Jak’s head lolled forward limply. She grabbed her by the cheeks and tilted her head back. There was no way to tell if the sniper still drew breath. Torrin bent and held her ear to Jak’s chest.

  “Dammit, dammit, dammit!” she breathed. “You’d better still be alive, or I’ll…” Her voice trailed off. There. Yes, there it was. It was faint, desperately so, but there was a heartbeat. She raised her head and rubbed the back of her hand roughly across her eyes, angrily dashing tears away.

  “Tien, power up the med bay!” Torrin yelled more loudly than she probably had to.

  “It is already done, Torrin.” The AI’s impenetrable calm washed over her and she worked to pull herself together. “However, we have other problems.”

  What now? Would this never end? She wanted to leave and never come back. More than anything else, she wanted the little, complicated woman in her arms to be all right. Everything she’d been through since arriving on Haefen seemed destined to end in ruin.

  “What kind of problems?” The elevator doors apparently had been standing open for a while. She gathered Jak back into her arms and stood, grunting with effort. The dash from the forest to the ship had burned away her last stores of energy. She needed to focus on getting Jak to the med bay, then she could take care of the latest wrinkle to her plans.

  “They have a tank, Torrin” was the extremely unwelcome answer. “It is possible that our hull will stand up to what they can unload, but I make no guarantees.”

  “Fine,” Torrin replied tersely, teeth gritted as she maneuvered through the medical bay’s doorway while trying not to knock Jak’s head on the doorframe. “Start up the engines. We’ll take off as soon as I load Jak in the autodoc. You can start treating her while I find someplace on this planet not crawling with misogynistic, homicidal assholes.”

  “Are you certain, Torrin?” The ship’s voice held a hint of uncertainty. “The League picket is currently in orbit almost directly above us. If I power up the engines, they will almost certainly see our power signature.”

  Unable to take it any longer, Torrin let loose a guttural shriek of anger. Her frustration, weeks of uncertainty, of forced dependence and confinement bubbled to the surface. “What the fuck!?” Chest heaving, she stood immobile in the middle of the med bay, Jak’s form clutched to her chest and her head buried in the crook of the sniper’s shoulder. Jak’s hand slid over Torrin’s head, weakly stroking the stubble of her shaved scalp.

  “S’okay,” Jak mumbled, barely audible. “S’okay.”

  Galvanized by Jak’s actions, Torrin moved forward and deposited her on a low table that jutted out of the far bulkhead, monitors, displays and readouts blinking on the wall above it. Two arms unfolded from the table’s side.

  “Just start the engines!” Torrin ordered, her hands busy at the fastenings of Jak’s fatigues. Fortunately, she’d gotten a lot of practice in undressing the other woman over the past week and a half. Quickly, she stripped Jak down to her skin. “I’ll take care of the League ship when I get to it. Let’s take care of the disaster we have in front of us.”

  She spared one moment to look over the woman lying naked on the table in front of her. Jak looked so vulnerable. Torrin knew she’d been losing weight rapidly, but to see her nude for the first time in days was a shock. Gaunt didn’t begin to describe it; skeletal was closer.

  The graze on the back of her leg wasn’t anything to worry about, Torrin decided after a glance down. It still bled sluggishly but was already starting to clot. They had far bigger things to worry about than that scratch.

  “She’s all yours,” Torrin snarled. “If you fuck this up, Tien, I’m permanently disabling you.” She hurried out the door as more leaves unfolded from the side of the table. The whole contraption started reforming over Jak’s form, obscuring her from Torrin’s last backward glance.

  “I will do my best, Torrin,” the AI assured her so
lemnly.

  Torrin tore forward, ducking her head to avoid bulkheads and sliding sideways through doors that had just opened in front of her. She entered the bridge and threw herself into the pilot’s chair. The safety harness fastened itself around her, snugging her body into the chair. On the display she could see a large heat signature approaching them on the ground from the north. Orbiting above them, on another display, was the energy signature of the League’s picket ship.

  Her hands danced across the consoles, and both main plasma cannons swiveled. Two bolts of plasma lanced toward the oncoming tank as she redlined the engines.

  Weeks of enforced idleness had taken their toll on her beloved ship. The engines whined and protested as she drove them ruthlessly past their safety limits. It was time to break the pull of the planet’s gravity. She needed to bust out so desperately she could feel it in her chest. Steel bands tightened around her rib cage until she could barely breathe. She hated being tied down and now that she was so close to getting out of there, she felt the confinement all the more. The taste of blood, salt and iron, filled her mouth. She’d bitten through her lip.

  The engines quit whining and flipped over, belting out a deep, throaty roar. Torrin slid her hands across the control panel and the ship hovered, rotated, then leaped forward. Behind them, the clearing erupted in a conflagration as the engines’ exhaust heated the ground well past its flashpoint. Streaming backblast, the Calamity Jane clawed its way out of the planet’s gravity. Torrin yelled exultantly as they broke out of Haefen’s pull and the buffeting of their hurried trajectory through the atmosphere suddenly ceased. She grinned wolfishly. She was back in her element, where she belonged.