Page 134 of Throwing Fire

“We stay together as we search the ship,” I tell him. His breathing’s like mine: steady. Good conditioning. “Watch each other’s six. We don’t get separated.”

“Copy,” he says. “I don’t see any movement.”

“Me, neither. If they’ve disappeared, we head to the Deeps. Regroup with the rats.”

“Copy,” Exeter acknowledges.

It settles me to have a plan. Running up the ramp that cut off the last sight of my kitten doesn’t distract me. The ghost ship doesn’t unnerve me as we cross the deck, moving wraith-fast and silent between the huge containers of water. They haven’t unloaded. There aren’t even any bots shifting the water containers out of their cradles. No activity at all.

The ship’s shaped like a slipper, with a long rear tongue custom-built for Tyng’s cargo, and a raised U of a bridge overlooking the deck. As I move between the water containers, I look up at the bridge’s bank of windows. They’re polarized but sometimes my cat’s eye can see through polarization if I get the angle right.

Now I see movement. Lots of movement. And swirling, black smoke.

I tap Exeter’s arm. “You got a breather?”

He nods.

“Put it on,” I tell him as I pull an amoeba breather out of my pack. “Fire or something in the bridge.”

He nods and holsters his gun while he retrieves a breather from a pocket on his thigh. He doesn’t ask me how I know. I appreciate his quiet competence.

Quietly, competently, he follows as I avoid the main entrance to the bridge and circle around to a service door. Everything that’s happened hasn’t changed my clearance and the door pops open after a quick face scan.

Smoke billows out into the sunshine.

Exeter nods when I check in with him silently and follows me into the small service lift.

The smoke is thick when the lift doors open and we step out into a narrow corridor. I’m grateful for the breather. By the map that’s building in my head, I’d guess this accessway runs along the underside of the bridge. It should provide access up into the control spaces at multiple points and down into the mechanical areas of the ship at each end.

I sight along the corridor until I can gauge that the smoke is thickest to my left. I beckon Exeter after me with two fingers as I jog toward the source of the smoke.

Where there’s smoke, there’s fire, and all that.

CHAPTER 43

Through the thickest of the smoke, we climb an access ladder to the control level and step over the first body.

It’s a rat-man, burned beyond recognition, his fur still smoking. I check his arms, relieved not to find Captain Match’s flamethrower. Then I check his chest.

No charred Orclas teeth. I sigh into my breather.

Noises filter through the smoke. Shouting. That gives me hope someone’s still alive. And still fighting.

I follow the noises, out of the small room where the rat crawled to die, backtracking over his claw marks in the soot on the floor. Into a corridor where I have to step over more bodies. Another rat and three men wearing black fatigues. One of them has an armband with the Tyng logo on it, the hologram flickering.

I check them. For pulses and weapons, not in that order. One of them has a belt of what look like small explosive charges. I reassign them to my belt. The Ojos have shock sticks that have been fucked with to deliver a heavy charge. Still not lethal, though. Or, at least, not lethal to me. I leave those. My weapons are better.

Exeter covers me. I point out the Tyng armband before I move on. Exeter nods. He knew what we were facing when we left Hemos. Although I’m not sure what the repercussions of killing Myhre will be yet, I’m not sorry I let Exeter and Payton stay. Saves a lot of explaining.

Around a corner and past two empty rooms that look like storage, we find the fighting. Ojos in dark fatigues have cornered someone or someones in a storage room. Two stacked desks barricade the doorway. Whoever’s behind them – and it’s too much to hope it’s Kez – has dug in. The Ojos are using their shocks sticks to try to zap through the barrier.

I take down the lead Ojos with a kukri through the head. Exeter drops the other two with shots to the thigh. One shot hits an artery; the Ojos paints the hall red while he screams. His comrade tries to help but just gets sprayed in the process.

When Mr. Arterial stops redecorating, I step up to the door and knock on the barricade. “It’s Snow. Where are Match and Acker?”

Three rat heads pop up above the barrier. “Mr. Snow!”

“Anyone think I wasn’t coming?” I drawl. “C’mon, time’s wasting.”