Mirror Space - Marianne de Pierres [100]
Thales nodded quickly to cover his error. ‘Yes.’
Macken persisted. ‘Which one?’
Thales racked his memory for the name of Aleta’s group. ‘Ardour.’
Immediately he knew he’d made an even bigger mistake.
‘Ah, no wonder that big bitch brought you along.’ Macken’s face reddened, sending shivers of alarm shooting through Thales’s stomach. He wanted to run out into the corridor but knew he’d never get past the mercenary.
‘Planning to sell you to some to rich OLOSS type, is she? Mebbe she’s smarter than she looks.’ He took a step forward. ‘Think I might be tasting a little bit for free first though. Whores is whores in my mind - and I don’t pay for them, no matter how ejicated.’
He took another step.
Thales lurched to one side and tried to duck around. He got his hand to the door before Macken dragged him back. The brawny man threw him up against the wall.
Thales struggled, but Macken flattened against him, crushing him with his superior weight.
Thales screamed for help.
Macken smacked him across the side of the mouth and punched him in the soft part of his back.
Thales crumpled to the floor.
Macken wrenched Thales’s pants down to his knees and partly lifted him to his feet. ‘You don’t act like any whore I’ve ever had. So let’s have a little taste of what makes you special.’ He rolled Thales over and threw him forward over the comm-desk.
Thales tried to twist away from him but Macken struck him again; an open-handed smack across the side of the jaw, connecting with the same spot Fariss had hit earlier.
The bruising accentuated the pain, and a sick feeling climbed the back of his throat. He curled further forward and felt the hardness of Fariss’s weapon press into his thigh.
Kill him. The desire overwhelmed every other thought and sensation.
He slipped shaking fingers into his pocket.
As Macken attempted to penetrate him in a brutal first thrust, Thales found the trigger slot. He fumbled the pistol free of his pocket and turned the nozzle backwards, so that it pointed between his legs.
It discharged into Macken’s groin, sending the mercenary flopping back onto the floor.
Thales remained frozen by what he’d done, even when the warning sirens began to blare and the door opened abruptly.
Fariss burst into the cabin, bearing her blunt, stubby rifle. She assessed the situation in a single breath. Bending down, she wrapped her hands around Macken’s thick neck and jerked it sharply to make sure he was dead. Then she stepped over his still form and pulled Thales’s pants up.
‘We have to get to the cans,’ was all she said. ‘Hurry.’
Thales clung to her in the vibration shelter. He couldn’t help it. The steady pressure of her arm around him as he pressed his face into her chest was the only thing that stopped him from screaming or sobbing.
The catcalls and smutty comments from the soldiers packed alongside them on the benches were blank noise. His consciousness centred on Fariss, and the slight vibration and movement of her chest as she breathed and spoke - countering them with her own remarks.
When the res-shift was over, she didn’t lead him back to their cabin but took the crowded lift down to the ship’s hold. They wove between rows of containers until she found a small, plax-partitioned cubicle.
Through the daze of shock, he watched her enter and speak earnestly to an ‘esque dressed in standard work overalls. The ‘esque nodded as Fariss handed him something.
She left the cubicle and came back to him. Her eyes showed him a kind of impatient sympathy She grabbed his shoulders. ‘We’ll be docked in a few hours. You have to stay out of sight until then. Understand?’
Thales tried. The words made sense but he couldn’t react to them.
She shook him gently. ‘Macken was slime, but there’ll be fallout. They’ll come looking. I’ll say I shot him because he was chasing my booty. I’ll say you got scared and disappeared. So much will be goin’ on now we’re here; they won’t have time to search for you.