A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe by Alex White

Author:Alex White
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Orbit
Published: 2018-06-25T16:00:00+00:00

When Nilah and Orna reached Malik’s hallway, they found no blood or gore, but a pile of clean bodies outside his door. The men and women there had dropped like sacks of bricks, weapons strewn across the floor, and there wasn’t a single spell’s scorch mark to be found. Whatever had killed these soldiers had been swift and surgical.

Then Nilah heard one of them snore.

Upon closer inspection, each and every soldier was merely unconscious, their chests rising and falling with slow, peaceful breaths. Nilah, Orna, and Ranger stepped over the slumbering killers, gingerly approaching Malik’s open doorway.

“Malik,” hissed Nilah when they got close enough. “Don’t shoot us.”

The doctor came striding out of his room, dressed and clean, as though he’d just been preparing to depart for an evening on the town. He adjusted his cuffs and inspected the trio, his eyes lingering overlong on Ranger’s bloody carapace.

“Good,” he said, his face impassive, “you’ve arrived.”

“What did you do to them?” asked Nilah, her voice a whisper.

“What’s it look like?” said Orna. “He’s a sleep mage.”

“It’s true,” he said. “Undisturbed, they won’t wake for a few hours. The alarms provide a constant noise pattern, so they’ll sleep through them.”

Nilah watched in astonishment as one of the soldiers snuggled up to another, nuzzling into the crook of his neck.

Malik shrugged. “I thought it was best not to kill anyone, given the political ramifications. I see you’ve taken a different approach.”

Ranger unholstered his large-caliber slinger and took aim at a sleeper’s head.

The fury in Orna’s eyes could’ve melted steel. “Didier is dead. These men tried to slaughter us. Maybe a little killing makes a lot of sense.”

“I know. The captain called me before he called you,” said Malik. “Save your ammunition. There’ll be plenty of people to shoot between us and our escape.”

“A nap is getting off too lightly,” she growled.

“I agree, but we’re better than them. Let’s get to the gardens and call for pickup.”

Orna nodded at Ranger, who put the slinger back. “We can’t. Palace airspace is too hot, but Nilah has a plan that takes us to the garage.”

“Interesting. Lead on,” he replied.

The grand galleries and sprawling corridors of Duke Thiollier’s palace offered dozens of hiding places for aggressors, and swift death awaited the band of fugitives around every corner. With Malik’s help, however, they were able to remain largely undetected. If a guard stood in their way, Malik would draw his murmuring purple glyph and hurl the spell into the sentry, who would collapse under the weight of his own exhaustion.

Outside the garage, however, they encountered a patrol of six men, all armed and alert. Nilah recognized the pink glow emanating from the tips of their rifle barrels: expensive homing fléchettes. It took her a moment to realize that those darts would be coated in a deadly neurotoxin.

Nilah’s two companions exchanged a series of complex hand signals, and Nilah stopped them. “I don’t know your bloody gestures,” she whispered. “What’s my part in this?”

“Nothing,” said Orna. “Hang back, and we’ll handle it.

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