Setting her jaw, Kira held out her arm, hand clenched in a fist. If they could cut through the suit, perhaps they could force it to retreat.
“Do it,” she said.
Pop.
A spark and a small puff of vapor erupted from the wall as a pin-sized hole appeared in the metal plating. She frowned. The suit had already adapted to the laser’s frequency.
With hardly any pause:
Pop.
More pain. “Dammit!” She grabbed her arm and pressed it against her stomach, lips pulled tight against her teeth.
“Don’t fucking move, Navárez.”
She gave herself several breaths and then resumed position.
Three more spikes drove through her skin in quick succession. Her whole arm was on fire. Carr must have figured out how to shift the laser’s frequency in a way to bypass the suit’s defenses. Elated, Kira opened her mouth to say something to him—
Pop.
Kira flinched. She couldn’t help it. Okay, Carr had had his fun. Time to stop. She started to draw her arm back, but the second S-PAC spun around and grabbed her wrist with its manipulator.
“Hey!”
Pop.
Another blackened crater appeared on her forearm. Kira snarled and tugged against the robot. It refused to budge.
“Stop it!” she shouted at the doctor. “That’s enough!”
He glanced at her and then returned to studying something on a monitor below the edge of the mirror-window.
Pop.
A new crater appeared in the same spot as the last one, which was already filling in. The blast drilled even farther into her arm, burning through skin and muscle.
“Stop!” she shouted, but Carr didn’t respond.
Pop.
A third crater overlapping. Panicked, Kira grabbed the S-PAC holding her and yanked, throwing all her weight backwards. It shouldn’t have made any difference—the machines were large and well-built—but the joint behind the S-PAC’s manipulator snapped, and the manipulator broke free with a spray of hydraulic fluid.
Surprised, Kira stared for a moment. Then she pried the manipulator off her wrist, and it fell to the floor with a solid bang.
Carr stood watching with a frozen expression.
“We’re done here,” said Kira.
CHAPTER VI. SHOUTS & ECHOES
1.
Dr. Carr stared down at her with cold disapproval. “Resume position, Navárez.”
Kira gave him the finger and walked over to the wall beneath the mirror-window, where he couldn’t see, and sat. As always, the spotlight followed her.
Again, Carr spoke: “Goddammit, this isn’t a game.”
She lifted her finger over her head. “I’m not working with you if you won’t listen when I say stop.”
“We don’t have time for this, Navárez. Resume position.”
“Want me to break the other S-PAC? Because I will.”
“Last warning. If you don’t—”
“Fuck off.”
Kira could almost hear the doctor fuming in the pause that followed. Then a square of reflected light appeared on the wall opposite her as the mirror-window clouded over.
She released the breath she’d been holding.
Stellar security be damned. The UMC couldn’t do whatever they wanted with her! It was her body, not theirs. And yet—as Carr had shown—she was at their mercy.
Kira rubbed her forearm, still in shock. She hated feeling so helpless.
After a moment, she stood and nudged the crumpled S-PAC with her foot. The xeno must have augmented her strength, same as an exoskeleton or a soldier’s battle armor. It was the only explanation for how she could have torn apart the machine.
As for the burns on her arm, only a faint ache remained to remind her of their existence. It occurred to Kira that the xeno had done everything it could to protect her throughout the tests. Lasers, acids, flames, and more—the parasite had deflected nearly everything Carr had thrown at her.
For the first time, she felt a sense of … not gratitude, but perhaps, appreciation. Whatever the suit might be, and as much as she hated it for causing the deaths of Alan and her other teammates, it was useful. In its own way, it was displaying more care for her than the UMC.
It wasn’t long before the hologram popped into existence. Kira saw the same grey room with the same grey desk, and standing at attention before it, Major Tschetter in her grey uniform. A colorless woman in a colorless room.
Before the major could speak, Kira said, “I want a lawyer.”
“The League hasn’t charged you with a criminal offense. Until such time as it does, you don’t need a lawyer.”
“Maybe not, but I want one anyway.”
The woman stared at her the way Kira imagined she would stare at a fleck of dirt on her otherwise immaculate shoes. She was from Sol, Kira felt sure of it. “Listen to me, Navárez. You’re wasting minutes that might mean the difference in lives. Maybe no one else is infected. Maybe only one other person is infected. Maybe all of us are. The point is, we have no way to tell. So stop stalling and get back to work.”
Kira made a dismissive noise. “You’re not going to figure out anything about the xeno in the next few hours, and you know it.”
Tschetter pressed her palms against the table, fingers stretched wide like talons. “I know nothing of the sort. Now be reasonable and cooperate with Doctor Carr.”
“No.”
The major tapped her fingernails against the desk. Once, twice, three times, and then no more. “Noncompliance with the Stellar Security Act is a crime, Navárez.”
“Yeah? What are you going to do, throw me in jail?”
If possible, Tschetter’s gaze grew even sharper. “You don’t want to go down this path.”
“Uh-huh.” Kira crossed her arms. “I’m a member of the League, and I have corporate citizenship through the Lapsang Trading Corporation. I have certain rights. You want to keep studying the xeno? Great, then I want some form of computer access, and I want to talk with a company rep. Send a flash back to Sixty-One Cygni. Now.”
“We can’t do that, and you know it.”
“Tough. That’s my price. And if I tell Carr to back off, then he backs off. Otherwise, you can all go jump out an airlock for all I care.”
A silence, and then Tschetter’s lips twitched and the hologram vanished.
Kira released her breath in a gust, spun around, and started to pace. Had she gone too far? She didn’t think so. Now it was up to the captain to decide whether to grant her requests.… Henriksen, that was his name. She hoped he was more fair-minded than Tschetter. A captain ought to be.
“How the hell did I end up here?” she muttered.
The ship’s hum was her only answer.
2.
Not five minutes later, the two-way mirror cleared. To Kira’s dismay, Carr was the only person standing in the observation bay. He eyed her with a sour expression.
Kira stared back, defiant.
The doctor pressed a button, and the hated spotlight reappeared. “Alright, Navárez. Enough of this. We—”
Kira turned her back on him. “Go away.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“Well I’m not going to help you until I get what I asked for. Simple as that.”
A sound made her turn. The doctor had planted both fists on the console in front of him. “Get back into position, Navárez, or else—”
“Or else what?” She snorted.
Carr’s scowl deepened, his eyes two gleaming dots buried above his fleshy cheeks. “Fine,” he snapped.