Empress of a Thousand Skies(61)
He waited for his eyes to adjust to the dark, straining to see past the generator. Kara shifted; a strand of light filtering in through the grate highlighted her eyes and lips, and cast a shadow over everything else. Her irises looked different, lighter. He’d never spent this much time with someone without some sort of memory trade, or a cube-to-cube transfer, so he could see and feel a piece of her life, and she could do the same.
He wanted to know something about her, anything, before this crazy suicide mission took hold. But every question he thought to ask, every way he thought to say it—it all sounded dumb in his head. He settled for: “Are you ready?”
When she nodded, Aly motioned for her and Pavel to follow. As soon as they were out, they made their way around the generator and down a labyrinth of alleyways, between machines the size of a small craft and conveyor belts the whole length of a football field. It was so tight they had to run single file. When they turned the corner he stopped so quickly he nearly went sprawling. There was an NX droid ahead of them, probably just outside of Pavel’s detection diameter.
They ducked into the corner. Aly’s brain was a blur of calculations and contingencies: the angle of its vision, how to move in and out of its blind spot as quietly as possible. A cold surge of terror worked its way through his body, like a block of ice was forming around him.
The droid kept coming. Aly pressed himself against the wall, like he could disappear into it. God, they were going to die. He’d willingly walked into a UniForce-occupied refinery and thought he could walk out with a neuroscientist and a girl on his arm. Chalk this up under worst idea ever.
As if Kara could read his mind, she grabbed his hand and squeezed so hard he felt her nails dig into his skin. Aly’s blood felt carbonated. It ran through his body and gave him a fizzy feeling—urgent, like his muscles would pop and spring.
Closer . . . closer . . .
“Hey!” Someone hailed the droid from the far end of the hall. He had a crisp capital accent. “You’ve new orders to patrol the south perimeter.”
The droid turned immediately and walked out the other way, following the man. Aly dared a glance and saw the man disappear around the corner. He was wearing khaki—the color of the Tasinn uniform.
“Holy taejis,” Kara said, and melted down onto the floor, exhaling.
Aly let out a deep breath. Kara started to laugh quietly—the nervous kind—and he did too. It was like exhaling all the tension stored up in his muscles, in the folds of his brain, and it felt deliriously good.
Too good, probably. Because no one noticed when a UniForce soldier turned the corner and stood right in the center, his jaw slack.
“You.” He was looking straight at Aly with wide-set eyes that wrapped halfway around his head.
Aly could hardly believe it.
“Jeth?” The microscopic scales on his gray skin, shoulders as big as barn doors, gills that flared on either side of his neck when he laughed. “It’s you!” He took a step toward him.
“Don’t come any closer!” Jeth pulled his stunner out and aimed it at Aly, his huge eyes narrowing to slits and his skin turning a shade of crimson. Aly took a step back as Jeth panned it between him and Kara and then at Pavel, then back again. “Don’t you choirtoing move, Alyosha.”
“Are you serious?” Jeth, Vin, and Aly had come up together in boot camp. They’d been inseparable. Three stars in the same constellation, Jeth’s mom had called them.
“Shut up. And you,” he said to Pavel, who rolled alongside them, “you try anything and I’ll run an EMP that will fry you beyond recognition. Now turn around,” he said, and motioned for Aly to put his hands behind his back.
“You are serious,” Aly said as Jeth snapped cuffs on Aly’s wrists. He had tiny suction cups on his twelve fingertips, and they popped when they separated from the metal cuff. “You choirtoi.”
“Shut up and start walking.” Jeth cuffed Kara, too, and shoved Aly to get him to start moving.
“What happened to the safe house?” Kara asked, as Jeth frog-marched them down the hall. “What happened to everyone?”
Jeth didn’t answer. He shoved them into what looked like an old office, with a holo projector so old you could call it vintage and sell it in the city. He turned and kicked the door closed behind him with his enormous boot. Jeth was a head shorter than Aly but three times as strong. “Of all the luck . . .” He shook his head, raked a hand over his bald head. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Aly looked at Kara. She nodded. “We came to find her mom,” Aly said. “We thought she’d be here.”
Jeth shook his head. “There were fifty squatters when we came,” he said. “But the camp was cleared out days ago.”
“Where?” Kara asked, and Jeth snorted through his gills.
“Think I’m going to tell you?”
“Don’t be a dick,” Aly said. “She didn’t do anything.”
“Well, where have my manners gone?” He bowed his head to Kara with a whole lot of flourish. “Begging your pardon, and your girlfriend’s, except I don’t give two taejis.” Aly wished his hands were free so he could clock his old friend right in his stupid snout.
“If you’ve already cleared the place, what are you still doing here?” Aly asked.