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“These are real Ascomanni. Far Ink,” she says. “What else could they be?”

“Could we talk about this later?”

She nods and jams a finger on the map. “Pilot ready room. Ten down.”

I go first down the chute. Gu

nfire and explosions echo as we descend between levels. Or ascend. I’m not sure which way’s up in space. Is there even an up? The more I think about it, the more disoriented I get. The Pandora is a floating city. With districts, maybe a dozen fire departments. How many others will be rushing to the hangars?

There’s no time to think about it.

We blur past little worlds of slaughter. Julii soldiers kneeling and firing out of a communications room. A scalped Silver sitting very still at a doorway holding his intestines as shadows make grunting sounds inside. Two Golds in business apparel being hacked to death by blood-covered maniacs. The maniacs won’t stop laughing. They’re massacring a ship, and they act like they’re at a fucking party.

I pinch my legs on the ladder to slow above the ready room. I come to an easy stop. Volga bowls into me from above, kicking my face and sending me sprawling. “Sorry. Weird gravity.”

The ready room is quiet. Lockers opened, gear missing. Pilots must have been fast to the hangars. “How did he know you?” I snap at Volga as she peers back up the chute, wondering if we were followed.

“I don’t know,” she says, looking back with wide eyes.

Not so calm now, eh? Her monster knew her.

“How the bloodyhell did he know your name? Why does he want you?”

She shakes her head, at a loss. I leave her, whatever she’s hiding will have to wait. I’m not going to die like those soldiers. I head to the pilot chute to take it down to the hangars. Volga stops me.

Her eyebrows crawl upward. “What?” I ask.

“I dropped…something.” She acts with incredible conviction as if she’s searching the ground for something. Her path takes her to a metal EVA suit locker. Volga steps back and then lunges forward to kick it. The metal crumples inward. I hear a grunt and a familiar gunshot. The top of the locker divides. Light bends in the room. A half meter of bulkhead parts like butter pushed apart by two fingers.

Volga kicks the door until it falls off its hinges and crumples into the person hiding inside. Volga shoves her hand in and wrenches out a translucent ghost. The translucence ripples over Volga’s arm until the arm itself disappears. Volga grabs something with her other arm and the ghost materializes, revealing Fig dangling from her throat at the end of Volga’s outstretched arm.

“Figment!” Volga growls. “We meet again!”

“Ogre. Broke…my…ribs…” Fig tries to bring her gun up, but Volga grabs it and tears it from her hands, almost taking her fingers with it. It drops to the floor. I reach for it.

“Don’t! Coded for her.” I pull my hand back, and use a towel from the broken locker to wrap it up.

“You left us to die!” Volga slams Fig against the wall hard enough to dent it. “You shot at Ephraim at the Adonis Casino!” She slams her again. “You stole the Crown of Cortada! You stuck a needle in my chest!”

“And mine,” I add.

“And Lyria too!” Volga slams her the hardest for that one. “I’ll pop you like a zit. Justice for both of us.”

Fig clenches her jaw. Something pops. She spits it at Volga. Volga twitches to the side. A stream of green spit slashes across the floor and melts through it. Volga laughs. “I know your tricks, Fig! No calibrated acid this time.”

Apparently, she doesn’t know all of Fig’s tricks. The white lines on Fig’s skin throb. Volga starts to convulse. Her hair stands on end. Miraculously, she holds on. Then Fig presses down on her middle finger’s nail with her thumb and a long needle jumps out from her middle knuckle. I press my own pistol straight against Fig’s head just before she plunges the needle into Volga’s shoulder.

Maybe it’s the soldier gore on my face. Maybe it’s my race’s habit for bad tempers. Maybe it’s the muzzle digging into her skull, but Figment freezes. “Soft head, hard bullet. Bad combination, bitch.” I twist the muzzle. “Drop it.”

“I…can’t,” is all she manages with Volga squeezing her neck. Her face purples. “Fused…onto…metacarpal.”

“Drop the hand then, ya dumb slant. And stop…whatever you’re doing to Volga.”

Fig’s hand drops to her side, and whatever her skin was doing stops. Volga whimpers a little in pain, then snaps the needle off with a grunt.

“What was that?” she asks, relaxing her hand on Fig’s throat.

“Nerve agent.”