Scud, I missed Jorgen. I found myself reaching out with my cytonic senses. Why hadn’t I been able to locate him again in my dreams? As always, when I tried to reach him intentionally, I found only that other presence. That familiar one that had been nearby, like a spirit watching over me. It was more distant now. And angry at me for some reason? Was it the delver I’d contacted? Or…something more personal?
I know it was foolish, but I couldn’t help feeling it was connected to my pin. And my father.
I excused myself as the others continued to comfort one another. Their genuine emotion made me feel sick. As I moved over to the bins where I could store the salvage I’d separated, I spotted something I’d missed earlier. Someone large sitting in the shadows near the closed hangar doors.
Peg. Captain of the Broadsiders. How had I missed her sitting back here? The thick-bodied alien looked particularly predatory in the shadows. And she was watching me. I didn’t need to see her eyes to know that.
Right, then. I took a deep breath and strode over. I hated feeling like people were watching me, thinking about me, but saying nothing. Better to confront them.
Of course, a similar attitude is what got me into my initial fistfight with Jorgen. So maybe I could take it a little more carefully this time?
“Captain?” I said as I reached her. “Is something wrong?”
“Wrong? Oh, I don’t know, Spin.” Peg laced her clawed fingers in front of herself. She had an almost reptilian appearance, though her skin was a thick hide instead of scales. “Words. You fit in well with the others. Adapting better to this than any other I’ve known. I hadn’t thought you were one to grow heknans. I thought you most certainly to only have muluns…”
“I still don’t know what that means, Captain. My pin refuses to translate the words. How do your people…grow…these things?”
“Sit,” she said, gesturing toward a folding chair.
I did as I was told.
“Your pin could be set to translate these idioms,” the captain explained. “But you obviously do not know how. It is irrelevant. My tree is distant now, and since I was forced into exile, I can barely feel it or the fruit it grows.”
“I’m…sorry?” I said.
“No need for yendolors,” the captain said, settling into her larger chair across from me, plainly built for one of her stature. She gestured with a clawed hand toward the members of Cutlass Flight. “They are good people, human. Better than you expected to find, yes?”
“Yes,” I admitted.
The captain’s voice grew softer. “I have watched you, Spin. I know you are a soldier, which is curious. The Superiority doesn’t often throw actual fighters in here. The government claims to hate the aggressive, but it has use for the useful, we might say. They grow so many venmals. You’d say it differently: that they have much hypocrisy.”
“I don’t disagree with that,” I said.
“I want you to go,” Peg said. “I don’t want you to bring trouble to these. Tonight, I will arrange for you to be unwatched. You may walk away so long as you take nothing with you that belongs to us.”
The words hit me like a brick to the face. She knew. Well, she suspected. And she understood that I was dangerous. Admittedly, I felt a little thrill. This enormous beast of a person found me intimidating?
“You’re wondering,” Peg said, “if this is a trap, to try to lure you to run so I can have proof you are untrustworthy. But we both already know you have grown too many kitchas for staying here. You have killed. Those here, most of them never have.”
“You’re pirates,” I said. “I saw your kind dogfighting others.”
Peg leaned forward. “I have killed, Spin. I have grown the kitcha. The fruit of the murderer. And I can recognize my kind. You will leave.”
I took a deep breath. This wasn’t what I’d been planning—but it didn’t look like I had time to wait for the sensor array to go down. M-Bot had said his transfer would take under a half hour. How long had it been?
“I will go,” I told Peg, “if you give me a ship.”
“That is not the offered deal.”
“It’s the one I’m offering,” I replied. “I have no specific quarrel with you and yours, Peg, but I have a duty to my people. I’m going to need one of your starfighters to accomplish that.”
We locked eyes. Scud, I knew in that moment what was going to happen next. I barely managed to throw myself to the side as she leaped for me.
Chapter 21
Can I point out how horribly unfair it was that I kept getting into fistfights with people who were literally three times as big as I was? Next time, I was going to pick a fight with a damn kitsen. Karma owed it to me.
My chair went skidding out behind me as I hit the ground and rolled, coming up in a crouch as Peg grabbed the air where I’d been sitting. Wishing I had Skullbreaker, I backed away toward the tool shelf. Unfortunately, Peg wasn’t about to let me search it for a weapon. She came rushing in, hands forward, claws out.
She didn’t shout, growl, or call to the others. This was, as she’d said, a contest between two killers. The other Broadsiders somehow didn’t count. I did.
Peg lunged for me, surprisingly quick, but I kept moving. I couldn’t afford to let her pull me into a grapple; if this came to wrestling, she’d quickly use her weight to immobilize me. Instead I dodged back and forth, keeping a low crouched stance. I reached back to my training and to skills I’d gained from my life as an outcast. You learned a lot when you were the smallest, weirdest kid in the neighborhood—the one with a parent who was the wrong kind of famous.
Peg effectively kept me from reaching the tool shelf—because by going for it, I’d have been forced to turn my back on her. Fortunately, she respected me enough not to turn away and go rummaging for a weapon herself. We rounded each other, and I let her think I was going to play the grappling game, while I actually searched for any other way out.
If I ran, she’d chase me down. I had to try to wound her or knock her out. I feinted, enticing her to lunge again, then I sidestepped in close and rammed my fist into her flank. That would have been a good square-on kidney punch had she been human.
Peg grunted, but didn’t seem severely hurt. I felt like I’d punched a sack of rocks—her muscles were tougher, bulkier, than those of any human I’d faced. Scud. I was not properly prepared for fighting aliens. Or anyone. I managed to dodge a grab for my hair. I’d let that grow way too long.
Well, she might not have had kidneys in the right place, but she did have knees. Joints had to be a weak spot, and I needed to end this quickly. So I allowed her to get close enough to grab hold of my coat. Then I twisted, fell to my knees, and rammed my elbow into her right knee. She flinched, so I hit her with my elbow again—which was screaming in pain already from the first blow. The hit worked though, sending Peg stumbling back. Directly into the tool shelf.
Metallic peals rang through the room as tools dropped free. I grabbed a wrench and—Peg still holding my jacket in a tight grip—I hit her again. Two-handed. Directly in the same knee.
She let out a howl and released me. I stepped away as she drooped forward and held her knee, grimacing. My own eyes were watering from the pain in my elbow, but I kept a tight hold of the wrench and glanced around the room.
Both Nuluba and Maksim had pulled guns on me. Great.
“I’ve defeated your leader!” I shouted at them, raising my wrench. “By virtue of trial by combat, I am taking over command of the Broadsiders!”