Vigilantes (33 page)
Authors: Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Tags: #Science Fiction, #Detective and Mystery Fiction
The docking ring doors irised open, and actual air hit her. Real oxygen without the stupid smoky stuff, good enough to make her leap through the doors. Then she turned around and closed them.
She scanned the area, saw feet—not in boots—attached to motionless legs, attached to bleeding bodies, attached to people she knew, and she just shut it all off, because if she saw them as friends or co-workers or other human beings, she wouldn’t be able to run past them, wouldn’t be able to get to her ship, wouldn’t get the hell out of here.
She kept her shirt against her face, just in case, but her eyes were clearing. The air here looked like air, but it smelled like a latrine. Death—fast death, recent death. She’d used it for entertainment, watched it, read about it, stepped inside it virtually, but she’d never experienced it. Not really, not like this.
Her ship sat at the far end of this ring, the cheap area, where the ceiling of the base bent downward and would have brushed the top of some bigger ship, something that actually had speed and firepower and
worth
.
Then she mentally corrected herself: her ship had worth. It would get her out of this death trap. She would escape before one of those tall blond booted men found her. She would—
—she flew forward, landed on her belly, her elbow scraping against the metal walkway, air leaving her body. Her shirt went somewhere, her chin banged on the floor, and then the sound—a whoop-whamp, followed by a sustained series of crashes.
Something was collapsing, or maybe one of the explosions was near her, or she had no damn idea, she just knew she had to get out, get out, get out—
She pushed herself to her feet, her knees sore too, her pants torn, her stomach burning, but she didn’t look down because the feel of that burn matched the feel of her elbow, so she was probably scraped.
She didn’t even grab her shirt; she just ran the last meter to her ship, which had moved even with its mooring clamps—good God, something was shaking this place, something bad, something big.
Her ship was so small, it didn’t even have a boarding ramp. The door was pressed against the clamps, or it should have been, but there was a gap between the clamps and the ship and the walkway, and it was probably tearing something in the ship, but she didn’t want to think about that so she didn’t.
Instead, she slammed her palm against the door four times, the emergency enter code, which wasn’t a code at all, but was something she thought (back when she was young and stupid and new to access codes) no one would figure out.
What she hadn’t figured out was that no one wanted this cheap-ass ship, so no one tried to break into it. No one wanted to try, no one cared, except her, right now, as the door didn’t open and didn’t open and didn’t open—
—and then it did.
Her brain was slowing down time. She’d heard about this phenomenon, something happened chemically in the human brain, slowed perception, made it easier (quicker?) to make decisions—and there her stupid brain was again, thinking about the wrong things as she tried to survive.
Hell, that had helped her survive as a kid, this checking-out thing in the middle of an emergency, but it wasn’t going to help her now.
She scrambled inside her ship, felt it tilt, heard the hull groan. If she didn’t do something about those clamps, she wouldn’t have a ship.
She somehow remembered to slap the door’s closing mechanism before she sprinted to the cockpit. Her bruised knees made her legs wobbly or maybe the ship was tilting even more. The groaning in the hull was certainly increasing.
The cockpit door was open, the place was a mess, as always. She used to sleep in here on long runs, and she always meant to clean up the blankets and pillows and clothes, but never did.
Now she stood in the middle of it, and turned on the navigation board. She instructed the ship to decouple, then turned her links on—not all of them, just the private link that hooked her to the ship—and heard more groaning.
“Goddammit!” she screamed at the ship, slamming her hands on the board. “Decouple, decouple—get rid of the goddamn clamps!”
Inform space traffic control to open the exit through the rings,
the ship said in its prissiest voice.
Tears pricked her eyes. Crap. She’d be stuck here because of some goddamn rule that ship couldn’t take off if there was no exit. She’d die if there was another explosion.
“There’s no space traffic control here,” she said. “Space traffic control is dead. We have to get out. Everyone’s dead.”
Her voice wobbled just like the ship had as she realized what she had said.
Everyone
. Everyone she had worked with, her friends, her co-workers, the people she drank with, laughed with, everyone—
We cannot leave if the exit isn’t open
, the ship said slowly and even more prissily, if that were possible.
“Then ram it,” she said.
That will destroy us,
the ship said, so damn calmly. Like it had no idea they were about to be destroyed anyway.
Takara ran her fingers over the board, looking for—she couldn’t remember. This thing was supposed to have weapons, but she’d never used them, didn’t know exactly what they were. She’d bought this stupid ship for a song six years ago, and the weapons were only mentioned in passing.
She couldn’t find anything, so she gambled.
“Blow a damn hole through the closed exit,” she said, not knowing if she could do that, if the ship even allowed that. Weren’t there supposed to be failsafes so that no one could blow a hole through something on this base?
That will leave us with only one remaining laser shot,
the ship said.
“I don’t give a good goddamn!” she screamed. “Fire!”
And it did. Or something happened. Because the ship heated, and rocked and she heard a bang like nothing she’d ever heard before, and the sound of things falling on the ship.
“Get us out of here!” she shouted.
And the ship went upwards, fast, faster than ever.
So fast she could hear the engines screaming—
Which meant she didn’t have to.
The thrilling adventure continues with the seventh book in the Anniversary Day Saga,
Starbase Human,
available now from your favorite bookseller.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
USA Today
bestselling author Kristine Kathryn Rusch writes in almost every genre. Generally, she uses her real name (Rusch) for most of her writing. Under that name, she publishes bestselling science fiction and fantasy, award-winning mysteries, acclaimed mainstream fiction, controversial nonfiction, and the occasional romance. Her novels have made bestseller lists around the world and her short fiction has appeared in eighteen best of the year collections. She has won more than twenty-five awards for her fiction, including the Hugo, Le Prix Imaginales, the
Asimov’s
Readers Choice award, and the
Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine
Readers Choice Award.
Publications from
The Chicago Tribune
to
Booklist
have included her Kris Nelscott mystery novels in their top-ten-best mystery novels of the year. The Nelscott books have received nominations for almost every award in the mystery field, including the best novel Edgar Award, and the Shamus Award.
She writes goofy romance novels as award-winner Kristine Grayson, romantic suspense as Kristine Dexter, and futuristic sf as Kris DeLake.
Her popular weekly blog on the changes in publishing has become an industry must-read.
She also edits. Beginning with work at the innovative publishing company, Pulphouse, followed by her award-winning tenure at
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
, she took fifteen years off before returning to editing with the original anthology series
Fiction River
, published by WMG Publishing. She acts as series editor with her husband, writer Dean Wesley Smith, and edits at least two anthologies in the series per year on her own.
To keep up with everything she does, go to kriswrites.com. To track her many pen names and series, see their individual websites (krisnelscott.com, kristinegrayson.com, krisdelake.com, retrievalartist.com, divingintothewreck.com). She lives and occasionally sleeps in Oregon.
Look for These Other Titles from
Kristine Kathryn Rusch
THE RETRIEVAL ARTIST SERIES:
The Disappeared
Extremes
Consequences
Buried Deep
Paloma
Recovery Man
The Recovery Man’s Bargain
(Novella)
Duplicate Effort
The Possession of Paavo Deshin
(Novella)
The Anniversary Day Saga:
Anniversary Day
Blowback
A Murder of Clones
Search & Recovery
The Peyti Crisis
Vigilantes
Starbase Human
Masterminds
Other Stories:
The Retrieval Artist
(A Short Novel)
“The Impossibles” (A Retrieval Artist Universe Short Story)
Sign up for the WMG Publishing
newsletter
to receive updates about new releases, bonus content and more at
wmgpublishing.com
Copyright Information
Vigilantes
Book Six of the Anniversary Day Saga
Copyright © 2015 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Published by WMG Publishing, Inc.
Cover and Layout copyright © 2015 by WMG Publishing
Cover design by Allyson Longueira/WMG Publishing
Cover art copyright © Eugenesergeev/Dreamstime
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
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