She slung the pack over her shoulder, checked the pistol at her hip, then reached back into the boat for the long TSF weapons case.
The boat rose in the water when relieved of the weight, and she had to rest the case against the wall to readjust the anchor line. When she was satisfied the boat wasn’t going to float away, Cara took the case and started the long climb up the dripping stairwell.
* * * * *
The Sykes apartment was on the thirtieth floor, the first in from the stairwell. Cara stood in the open doorway and looked into the living room where her dad had grown up. There was a waterlogged couch in one corner with a low coffee table. One wall was covered in the framed art her grandma had loved, now sagging and molded.
Cara crossed the threshold, the floor squishing under her boots. She checked the three bedrooms, finding collapsed beds and chests of drawers sprouting multi-colored layers of fungus. In the infrared, colors swam and shifted as if she had entered some virtual realm. If she switched off the goggles, she found herself standing in darkness, with only the sound of dripping water to indicate where she was. The IR brought out the ghosts.
Eventually she stood in the dining room with a hand on the table, tapping a corroded spoon. This was where her Grandma Sibine had taught her dad how to roll pasta, just as he had taught her and Tim in the Sunny Skies.
It was hard to imagine how her family had come from this place to piloting a ship on the far side of Neptune. Everywhere she looked, she found details out of her father’s stories.
If she looked from the kitchen to the front door, she could almost imagine the tall form of her Grandpa Charlie coming back from one of his long trading expeditions, a man who had somehow lived without the Link… getting by on his wit and sass, as he’d liked to say.
Cara stood in the apartment for nearly half an hour, listening to the creaks and the dripping of water as the sun came up through the broken windows. With the IR off, some of the magic went out of the place, and everything became drab. It was an abandoned apartment in an abandoned building where only birds and alligators ventured. Just fifty kilometers away, the gleaming towers of modern Summerville flashed in the sunrise.
Picking up her weapons case again, Cara told the apartment goodbye and climbed the remaining flights of stairs to the building’s roof.
Her dad had told her the story of standing on the roof with Grandpa Charlie the day he left for the TSF. She had been carrying her dad’s weapons case around for years with the intention of bringing it back here. A run-in with the local administrative police had landed her in prison on a little detour, but now she was going to finish her task.
Cara pushed open the warped door from the stairwell to the roof and found a world of greys and pinks in the coming sunrise. The roof spread out in front of her, littered with vents, another moldy couch, and several chairs scattered around.
As she came around the entry shack, Cara was surprised to see a woman standing near the western edge of the roof. She was turned away so Cara couldn’t see her face, but she knew it was Lyssa instantly.
The minute Felix had said she was being followed by Weapon Born, she had known this moment would come. She had expected Lyssa at every stop during the long trip from Alten Baltimore down through Charlotten.
“You took your time,” Cara said. She set the case down next to her boots.
Lyssa turned. She was wearing her human frame, dressed in the blue coveralls she was always wearing in the newsfeeds, her shoulder-length brown hair moving lightly in the breeze.
“You didn’t make it easy,” she said. She walked a few steps closer, looking tentative.
Cara gave the rest of the roof a more thorough inspection. They appeared to be alone, but others would be watching from a safe distance. Lyssa did nothing alone.
They faced each other across the space. Lyssa nodded at the case.
“That was Andy’s.”
“It was my mom’s first. She left it for him at Kalyke. That was before you…came on board.”
“I remember it, though,” Lyssa said. “Why was it so important for you to bring it here?”
“It has his voice in it.”
Cara knelt next to the case and laid it flat. When she realized Lyssa hadn’t moved, she glanced up at her.
“You can come closer. I won’t bite.”
Lyssa’s fists were clenched at her sides. “Are you sure? You’ve been avoiding me for so long.”
Though the Weapon Born was hesitant, she took a few more steps forward, until she was only a meter away.
“Yeah,” Cara said. “I have.”
“Why?”
Cara rubbed the worn catch with her thumb. “Do I need a reason?”
“Yes!” Lyssa shouted suddenly. “I’m alone without you.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is true. Being part of your dad did something to me, something I can’t escape and no one can explain. You might not need me, but I need you, Cara.”
Cara let her head drop. She closed her eyes, knowing that this was why she had come here.
She had been expecting Lyssa for a long time, running from her, really, because she didn’t know what to say. Just as she had been dragging the weapons case from Mars to Jupiter and then the Scattered Disk… every crew considering her just a little insane, just as Felix had thought she was crazy for going back for it in the prison, she kept her past close without knowing what to do with it. Her own ugly, angry pet, scratching her as it nuzzled close.
She was done being crazy.
But she also had to face Lyssa.
“You blame me for his death,” the SAI said. “I know you do. You want to be alone so you won’t hurt. But people love you, Cara. People love you and you can’t see it.”
“You can’t push everyone away,” Lyssa said.
Cara held her hand over the protective padding cradling the weapons, then selected a grenade. She hefted it in her hand, enjoying its weight, then thumbed the selector switch to thermite.
“I used to blame you,” she said. “I admit that. But I don’t anymore. My dad was caught up in a system that was going to grind him up whether you’d come along or not.”
Cara stood.
Lyssa took a step back, raising her hands. “What are you going to do with that?”
“Set myself free.”
Cara activated the grenade and tossed it into the open case.
The grenade landed and did nothing for a second, then popped with a white flash. In another second, the case was engulfed in brilliant, blue-tinged flame.
It melted, falling in on itself, and then the plascrete beneath it gave way. The whole molten center fell through the roof.
Lyssa walked up beside Cara, and together, they watched the last bits of the case melt and slide away.
Cara took a deep breath. “Well, that wasn’t as meaningful as I thought it would be. I should have dumped it a long time ago.”
“You don’t mean that,” Lyssa said.
“Of course not, that’s why I said it.”
“Cara.”
Without warning, Lyssa wrapped her fingers around Cara’s right wrist. Her grip went from human-like to iron.
ANGRY HORNETS
STELLAR DATE: 3.14.3011 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Summerville, Jerhattan
REGION: Earth, Terran Hegemony InnerSol
“What are you doing?” Cara demanded.
“I’m not letting you get away again. There are forces that want to hurt you. I haven’t been the only one trying to find you.”
“I know. Someone contacted me in the prison. I dumped them.” Cara pulled against Lyssa’s grip. “Let me go.”
“I can’t,” Lyssa said. “I’m sorry.”
With a roar, two small gunship
s rose on either side of the building. They were TSF models, with light armament and point defense cannons hanging from their bellies. A third transport rose behind them and floated over the edge of the roof, landing a few meters away. The wash from its engines blasted water and debris all over the space.
“You take me prisoner, and this is going to end badly,” Cara said. “We can leave this on good terms.”
“I have to take you in, for your own safety.”
Cara reached across her body for her pistol. She dragged it free as Lyssa tried to grab at her free hand. She managed four shots at the transport’s antenna assembly on the side of its nose. The third shot hit true, caving in the rounded safety cowling.
Lyssa shouted at her, but her voice was lost in the transport’s engines. The craft had lifted a meter off the roof, its damaged sensors affecting its ability to maintain its position close to the rooftop.
With a shout, Lyssa turned to wave at the hovering transport.
As the SAI’s attention was drawn away, Cara brought her pistol around and shot at Lyssa’s forearm.
In a spray of fabric, organic material, and alloy substrate, the pulse pistol ruptured Lyssa’s forearm, nearly disconnecting her hand. The shot weakened her hold enough that Cara was able to wrench her arm free.
Without hesitating, she sprinted for the door to the stairwell. In her peripheral vision, the two TSF vessels tracked her from the edge of the building. The whir of their point defense cannons winding up filled her ears.
“Stop!” Lyssa shouted.
Cara reached the door and yanked it open. She turned to see Lyssa cradling her crushed arm. Her expression was fear, not anger, and it tore Cara’s heart.
But she couldn’t stop. She wasn’t going anywhere with the TSF, and Lyssa had obviously aligned herself with SolGov.
The problem was that she wasn’t going to outrun two gunships. All they had to do was follow her down the building until she hit the water, and the skiff wasn’t going to outrun anything.
Cara cursed herself. She should have known Lyssa would guess where she was headed and simply wait to find her here. She might have been hoping she could manipulate Cara’s emotions, get her to give up and return to the fold.
It had been stupid to bring the case here in the first place, a mistake that had cost her four years of her life. But once she committed to something, she had to see it through. That was one of her dad’s traits that she couldn’t shake.
There were two wooden bridges between adjacent buildings at around fifteen meters above the level of the river. If she abandoned the skiff, she could try crossing over to another structure. That plan meant that she ran the risk of coming across squatters in the other buildings.
The roar of engines outside the building followed her down as the two craft buzzed up and down like hornets. They could decimate the building at any time.
Cara looked down the center of the stairwell, where green water filled the bottom. She supposed she could jump if she had to, and face whatever gator might be waiting in the murky water.
She passed the entry to the old apartment and paused, one hand on the rusted stair railing. She remembered the poetry book in her pack and pulled it out. She studied the wrapping for a second.
Can’t hurt to have options, if he even answers.
Cara tore the wrapper off. A security token request tickled her Link connection, and she allowed the handshake.
<Felix,> she said. <Are you there?>
<Cara!> came the excited response. <You called.>
<Look, I don’t have a lot of time to explain, but I need some help.>
<Help, you say? From me? Why would you need that?> Felix sounded genuinely surprised.
<The Weapon Born tracked me to Summerville.>
<Where I broke you out of prison? Why would you go back there?>
Cara gritted her teeth. <I had something I had to do. Now I’m trapped here. Can you help me?>
<Maybe. If you use the magic word.>
<Is that some kind of code?>
<The magic word? It’s just please.>
<You’re kidding me. Fine, please, can you help me?>
<Of course, Cara. It’s why I came here in the first place.>
Abruptly, the sound of scraping metal and crackling wood erupted from inside the apartment. It sounded like one of the beds was being crushed under a great weight. Cara froze, expecting a section of the outside wall to fall away and reveal one of the TSF attack craft.
Instead, the blunt head of a drone appeared in the bedroom doorway at the end of the hallway. The head looked to either side, then the drone walked into the hall. It was one of the panther-shaped ship-killers, standing nearly two meters at the shoulder. Its claws tore the swollen flooring as it walked toward Cara, head slung low as if tracking her.
Cara stumbled backward, turning to run.
<Wait!> Felix said. <It’s me.>
Cara paused, hand on the railing. <You’ve been following me, too?>
<Yes,> Felix admitted sheepishly. <I was going to intervene on the roof, but you took matters into your own hands.>
<Apparently I’m pretty terrible at moving unnoticed,> Cara said.
<You are a famous person.>
<Not that famous.>
<Famous with the right people,> Felix said.
<If you say so. I’ll be honest right now, you’re terrifying.>
<You like this? It’s vintage Heartbridge. If one of those TSF ground-busters comes with leaping range, I can tear through it like a knife through cloth. It’s a bunch of fun. But this one has some added features, since it was designed for executive protection and extraction. Too bad they didn’t have one of these around when Camaris stormed their headquarters.>
Felix walked out of the hallway to the small living room and sat back on his haunches. As Cara watched, the mech straightened, craning its neck upward. With a series of small transitions, the machine elongated into a rocket shape, its rib cage opening to reveal a harness and cradle just big enough for a single person.
<Did you just turn into a missile?> Cara asked.
<With you as the payload. You ready to get out of here?>
<Where are we going?>
<I’ll tell you when we get there.>
Cara stopped. <I’m not going anywhere until you give me an answer.>
<A place called Baikanur,> Felix said. <It’s by the Aral Sea. Eight hundred years ago, it was the world’s largest spaceport.>
<What is it now?>
<A ghost city full of scavengers and criminals.>
<And why do we want to go there?> she asked
<We’re going to use one of their rockets to get to Luna.>
<There are a thousand easier ways to get to Luna,> Cara said. <Can’t this thing get there?>
<It wasn’t designed to get out of a gravity well. It doesn’t have the fuel capacity. And you’re right, there are easier ways to get there, but we’re going to be accomplishing a couple objectives at Baikanur, the most important of which is political.>
Cara groaned. <As soon as you say politics, I hear stupidity.>
<You’re not wrong. I want to get you to Luna, and I also want to make a statement, and we’re going to do that in Baikanur.>
<You’re getting two things. What do I get out of this?>
<Like I said back in the prison. You do as I ask, and you’ll come out of this with a ship.>
<And like I said back then, what makes you think I want a ship?>
<Oh, come on,> Felix said. <You want a ship.>
<What is it you want me to do on Luna?> Cara said, changing the subject.
<Something suited to your particular skills.>
<Oh really? What?>
<You’re going to start a revolution.>
Cara crossed her arms. <I might as well stay here and take my chances with the TSF.>
<What if I told you Camaris was active on Luna, stirring up dissent with the Anderson Collective refugees there? You want revenge on her, right? This will get you th
at.>
<Who told you that?> Cara demanded.
Whoever Felix was, he knew more about her than possibly anyone outside of Lyssa. There were others, her three aunts, Fugia, Petral, and Fran, but none of them would ever have used that kind of information to manipulate her.
My mother? Brit hadn’t tried to contact her since Tim’s death, and Cara had all but decided she was lost or dead.
The problem was that Felix wasn’t wrong. She would love the opportunity to thwart or destroy Camaris, the Psion AI who had murdered her father, but she wasn’t about to sign on to some half-baked plan on the vague promise of a ship.
<It will be fun,> Felix said.
<Well that clinches it,> Cara said dryly. <What a great negotiator you are. I don’t even know who you are.>
<I can’t tell you that. What I can say is that I’m someone with your best interests at heart, Cara Sykes. You might not trust me now, but you will before all this is done.>
<That’s not foreboding.>
Behind her, the roar of an engine shook the swollen walls. Mold and dirt fell from higher up the stairwell, forcing Cara into the apartment’s doorway. The ship-killer mech sat in the living room, its body open like a sarcophagus.
<What were you going to do if I hadn’t called you?> Cara asked.
<Keep following you and wait for an opportunity for contact. I had a bet going with myself about you and Lyssa.>
<What was that?>
<Get in and I’ll tell you.>
<You pressure me and the answer is no.>
<No pressure,> Felix said. <I’m not the one with a TSF ground squad deploying at her location. Maybe you could fight their ground forces and take control of their support craft. Wait, you burned a hole in your available weapons.>
Cara couldn’t help cracking a smile at the joke. Whoever Felix was, he had a quick wit. Tim had been quick-witted. It was something she had truly come to appreciate about him as he’d grown older.
If only he hadn’t joined the Mars 1 Guard….
She decided. She would take this ticket out, and then deal with the consequences on the other end when she had more time. She didn’t see a chance to fight her way out of the current situation.