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M uch to Kez’s disgust, I have Payton call a skimmer to take us back to the Infinity .

I say it’s because she nearly fainted, but that ain’t the real reason. We’ve taken too many chances while we’ve been on the Clouds. I want Kez back inside the protections I’ve built. Safe. Where I can defend her.

That means walling her up, away from the freedom she loves, which hurts, and she lets me know it on the ride back.

“I see you sulkin’,” I tell her. She’s sitting next to me on the skimmer’s wide bench, but she’s turned slightly, looking out the window as the blocky warehouses of Tiv zip by. Giving me the cold shoulder.

“I know what you’re thinking,” she says.

“Tell me an’ we can fight about it and then we can fuck to make up.”

That gets me a small laugh.

“I won’t do it,” she says. “You told me to get on with my life. Not to think about the price on my head. What’s the difference if I let them take away my life or if I let you do it? ”

“I’m doin’ it outta looove,” I answer, trying to keep it light.

“Snow—” She turns to look at me, fire in her eyes.

There’s a split-second where I realize it’s a reflection. Another where I throw myself across her, even though I know it’s too late. Then there’s noise and pain and the sickening sense of falling.

“He’s alive,” someone says. Sounds like the voice is echoing up from deep underground.

“Helas, what happened?—?”

“C.P. are on the way.”

That jerks me awake. Civil Patrol catch me and I’m back in slam. Where I can’t protect Kez. I shake myself hard and force myself open my eyes.

At first, I don’t see anything. Just a red haze. Then my eyes focus. I’m lying against a plaz barrier fence. It spits and showers sparks that nip at my face, but the blast has knocked out the worst of its bite, which is a lucky break ‘cause it would have fried me otherwise.

Through the curtain of sparks, I see a dozen cits peering at me.

The fence is keeping them back, which is also a lucky break, because strangers touching me don’t end well.

My training tends to kick in. It’s kicking in now, helping me block out the whip-sharp pain flaring across my back, the deep grinding in my right shoulder which says that something in there is fucked again, the prickly numbness spreading down my right leg.

The red-black haze hasn’t cleared completely from my vision, which probably means something is wrong with my eyes.

And there’s a steady thrumming in my ears.

Damage to my cochlea or maybe a head injury.

Now is not the time to find out. Now’s the time to move.

Find Kez and get the fuck out of here, before C.P. arrive and really rain on my parade.

I start to roll over. Blackness eats the edges of my vision and cold sweat pops out of every pore.

I feel my stomach clench a second before my breakfast forces its way up my throat.

A hot convulsion and I spew all that good protein across the scorched ground.

The mess backs the gawkers up a couple more paces.

I wipe my mouth on my shoulder, since my right arm ain’t working and I’m holding myself up with my left.

My shoulder’s covered with soot, spattered with blood.

I must look a treat. Then I realize the thrumming has cut out.

Everything’s gone quiet. Fuck, I’ve gone deaf. Maybe I should have stayed still.

“Goddamn it, I told you people to keep back!”

That’s Kez’s voice, and my relief that I haven’t gone deaf is only slightly less than my relief at hearing her voice.

She pushes through the crowd and kneels next to me.

“Ge’ back, kitten.” My voice sounds slurred even to my damaged ears.

“It’s okay,” she says soothingly. Her face swims into focus through the haze.

She’s spattered and smeared with blood, grimed with soot, but her eyes are steady on mine.

“The fence is out. I got my float-board from the Infinity . I know you’re hurting but we really need to go.

” Her soothing tone belies the urgency she must be feeling.

She knows what happens if C.P. gets here before we disappear.

“Righ’ with you.” I roll off something that cuts painfully into my side.

A piece of the skimmer’s seat. I push it away.

Kez maneuvers her float-board next to me.

I hump my way onto it. Nothing graceful about it.

Each movement is a titanic effort. When I finally get onto the board, I cling to its slightly roughened surface.

My right arm isn’t good for much, but I get a good grip with my left.

The float-board vibrates hard enough to rattle my teeth when Kez taps it.

Neg cells whir, blowing warm air over my arm.

The board rises. I hook my left leg over it.

My right leg’s dead; glad I didn’t try to walk.

My foot drags, boot scraping the ground, as Kez guides the board away from the onlookers, several of whom protest at having their show cut short .

Kez keeps one hand on the board, the other on my shoulder as we cross a no-man’s land of gravel and brown grass, then weave around a battered looking scissor-ship.

I realize where we are. The fence was the perimeter fence for the spaceport.

Kez must have worked fast to get the float-board from our ship before C.P.

or port security showed up. She’s not wasting any time now, either, breaking into a jog as we angle between a pair of Dragonfly-class hoppers.

She’s limping, pain etching black lines into her soot-streaked face, by the time we reach the Infinity .

“In you go,” she says encouragingly, steering the float board into the ship.

My boot drags and bumps up the ramp, but I barely notice. “Not much use t’you,” I mutter.

“I can fly,” Kez says, and I can tell it’s an effort, but she’s tough, my kitten, and she doesn’t lie. There’s no false bravado to Kez. If she says she can fly, she can fly.

I can barely manage to roll off the float board and haul myself into the co-pilot’s chair, so it’s a good thing she doesn’t need me for much.

While she’s stowing the board and closing up the ship, I transfer the co-pilot controls to my armrest panels and start prepping the ship.

First check isn’t the power, or the flight plan.

It’s security. I run through the entire sequence.

All the codes are in the green. No one has tried to fuck with my ship at least.

Kez bends over me and checks my flight harness. Then peels two blue derms off a strip and sticks them on my neck. She drops the rest of the strip into my lap.

“Those will help. I hate to do this to you, Hale, but you’ve got to stay awake until we get to Hemos.

Your right pupil is blown. You’ve got a concussion.

I can’t let you sleep.” She grins at me, through the soot and blood-smears, through the pain and worry.

Kisses my temple very gently. “I told you we should have bought the auto-doc accessory.”

“Stop gloatin’. Ge’ a move on. ”

“Yes, sir.” She gives me a mock salute and climbs into her chair. “We’re buying that unit as soon as we get back.”

“Outta your share,” I retort. If she’s feeling good enough to give me lip, she’s not that hurt. I wish I could say the same. The derms are taking the edge off the pain, but the intensity of it, and the way everything keeps greying at the edges, tells me that I’m seriously fucked up.

Kez fires up the main viewer, and red warnings blaze across it. I scan them blearily. Hear Kez curse under her breath.

“Our departure clearance has been revoked,” she says.

“Call Myhre,” I tell her. “Pull strings.”

“You sure?” she asks. We’ve been careful not to do anything high-profile and having Myhre use Tyng clout to get us out of the spaceport in the middle of a security lock-down is definitely high profile. But we’re sitting ducks here, with a hole in the security fence and C.P. on the way.

“Yeah.”

Kez taps away on the console until a pane opens on the front viewer and Myhre’s face appears. She’s sitting in a curtain of data: codes, warnings, faces, popping up all around her. Her dark eyes, lit with blue reflections, flick from Kez to me.

“Can you make it to Hemos?” she asks without preamble. Trust Myhre to keep calm an’ carry on.

“Yes,” Kez answers. “They’ve revoked our clearance. We need to get out of Tiv. Right now.”

“One moment, please,” Myhre says coolly.

A face superimposes itself over hers for a second, lips moving.

Then the red codes flashing around her start blinking green.

Myhre’s face rises to the front of the data stream again.

“You’re clear. Nock Port. Berth ME2761. I’ll have a med team waiting for you. Keep this channel open.”

“No,” I slur. “No signal.” I don’t want anyone who doesn’t already know which ship we’re on to track a signal from Tyng Tower. And I want to be able to talk to Kez without Myhre listening in.

Myhre blows out a frustrated breath. “Snow—” she begins .

“ Infinity out,” Kez says, putting an end to the argument. Myhre’s image winks out and the viewer fills with the hard edges and sun-glare of the spaceport, bordered by blinking codes turning from red to green, one after another.

Kez does a vertical lift off the moment the last of the departure codes blinks green.

I close my eyes against the g-force, which I feel even through the Infinity’s damper.

There are tiny flares and sparks in the darkness behind my eyes.

Hope those aren’t neurons dying or something.

I know I have a head injury. I’ve got no idea how bad it is, though.

“Hale,” Kez says, and I hear a warning note in her voice. “Open your eyes.”