Defy the Worlds (Defy the Stars #2)(51)
She has the same short haircut she did before, the same wary expression. This is hardly a joyous reunion. But she lowers her blaster rifle, which in the current situation counts as a good sign.
“This is Abel,” she calls to her fellow Remedy fighters. “The mech I told you about, who broke me out of prison.” After another moment’s hesitation she adds, “He’s a friend.”
Abel is not sure he would’ve described her as a friend; he is even less sure whether he’s willing to apply that term to anyone who freely takes part in terrorist activities.
Under the circumstances, however, he must take what allies he can find.
“What are you doing here?” she asks. “How in the worlds did you find us?”
“I was following Burton Mansfield, who is holding Noemi captive,” Abel replies. “I believe they are both on board.” Impossible to tell whether they survived the crash—but he refuses to speculate further. Not until he has more data. He won’t give up on Noemi one moment before he has to.
Riko nods slowly. “Mansfield’s on the manifest, yeah, but Noemi? How did he manage to take her hostage? Hadn’t she gone back to Genesis?”
“It’s what humans would refer to as ‘a long story.’” Abel risks getting to his feet. The Remedy members closest to them tense and clutch their weapons tighter, but nobody aims at him. They appear to have trust in Riko’s judgment. So he adds, “All I ask is for a chance to look for her.”
“Fair enough,” Riko says. “In return, we could use a little help.”
“Whatever I can do.”
Whether Abel likes it or not, for now, he’s on Remedy’s side.
The extravagance of this ship struck Abel as wasteful, even cruel, as soon as he saw its golden exterior. However, he had failed to account for the danger presented by that gaudiness until he encountered the interior, and had to follow Riko and her party across endless rooms and hallways littered with the remnants of chandeliers, champagne flutes, and stained glass.
“Think of how many people could’ve been fed for the cost of that thing,” says Riko as she nudges one of the larger crystal prisms aside with her booted foot. “Four dozen? A hundred? And how many chandeliers are there on this ship?”
“I haven’t seen enough of the layout to come up with an informed estimate.” Abel remains within half a meter of Riko, partly because she is his guide, but also because the other members of Remedy are far less sure of him than she is. They’ve hung back approximately three and a half meters, following at a careful distance, muttering among themselves. He doesn’t object. On a crashed ship, on an isolated world, it would be tactically unwise to needlessly antagonize terrorists.
Riko Watanabe is such a terrorist. He has known that since her connection to the Orchid Festival bombing. Yet this information refuses to fully process when she gives him a small, uncertain smile; the expression makes it clear how young she really is, no more than twenty-one or -two.
“We’ve got to introduce you to Captain Fouda,” she says. “Explain to him exactly what you can do. With your abilities, you might be able to help us get some of this ship back in operating order. I mean, I know it’s never going to fly again, but at least we could get it running as some kind of shelter.”
Given the extremity of the crash, Abel doubts this. “While landing, I observed a large structure some kilometers distant. The most rational conclusion is that this was the shelter built to house the first settlers here. Your group should send a team there to investigate. It would undoubtedly provide better long-term shelter than the wreckage of this ship.”
“Of course they had homes waiting for them already. These bastards would never come here to settle the land through hard work like any other colonists.” Riko clutches the blaster rifle she holds a little closer. Abel’s very glad not to be standing in its crosshairs. “The Columbian Corporation’s fancy-pants passengers are too good to dig ditches, or winter in ready-huts. No, they have to be surrounded by luxury at all times, taking a luxury ship to keep them comfortable until everything’s set up to their satisfaction. It’s ridiculous!” She nods toward an ornate mural on one wall, an upside-down portrait of the falcon god Horus.
Her irascible mood seems likely to cause complications. Abel keeps his tone even. “You’re entirely correct that the use of resources for this ship was wasteful. But the Osiris has been destroyed. We should move on.”
Riko stops midstep. The orange emergency lighting catches the spikes in her short black hair and the thoughtful expression on her face. “I know you’re right, but it’s hard,” she finally says. “I’ve been fighting this kind of evil since I turned ten. Moving on—that’s never been an option before now. It’s always been about tearing something down. Never about building something up.”
“New worlds offer new possibilities.” Abel continues making his way through the Osiris corridors, and as he’d anticipated, Riko stays with him.
By this point on his visit to a new vessel, he’s usually mentally constructed a rudimentary layout of his surroundings. Form follows function, and the fundamental structures within any station or ship usually conform to basic templates. The Osiris, however, is different. Its corridors wind and bend in illogical ways, more like the tangled streets of an ancient city than anything designed. Even though maps of the ship are posted at every stairwell and lift, they won’t illuminate without main power, which means they’re as useless as the nonfunctioning lifts and the stairs that seem to dangle from the ceilings. They walk through a spa with saunas and hot tubs hanging down uselessly, a ballroom with ridged acoustic tile that would’ve caught sound from beneath efficiently but is tricky to walk on, and finally a banquet hall with long opalescent tables dangling from the ceiling.