Tyche's Flight (Tyche's Journey Book 1) by Parry Richard

Author:Parry, Richard [Parry, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Mondegreen
Published: 2017-11-12T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

They had a little time.

Kohl: in sickbay. Not a full medbay like the Gladiator had. Just a small room, a few medical supplies, most of them past their use-by dates. A low-end scanner Nate had scammed from someone was telling them what they already knew. Kohl might be dying, or he might be recovering. He'd lost blood. He’d been poisoned. There were several unidentified stimulants in his blood. He was unconscious. Stupid machine, thought Hope.

El: on the flight deck, arguing with Penn. That was a thing she wouldn’t have got to do in the actual military. They were arguing about who would fly the ship, and where it would get flown to. About how fast and far they would push it. About whether taking off was even a good idea, what with the sky full of burning rocks — the bugs were still shelling the planet — and a hostile alien spacecraft orbiting the planet.

Penn: also on the flight deck, but full of bad ideas and desperation. The man had been sweating, moving too fast from foot to foot, like he had a powerful need to use the head, but didn’t know where it was. He kept talking about the mission and acceptable collateral damage, like he was telling a story that would help them sleep at night. He had hard eyes.

Nate: asleep. Out like a baby in a coma, cabin door open, arm draping over the edge of his crash couch. Still in his clothes. Twitching while he slept, whimpering, dreams that were too bad for real rest but too soft to wake from. His dreams might have been about freedom. All their dreams might have been.

Grace: missing. Not in her cabin. Not in the ready room, eating, having a coffee, or something stronger. Not in Engineering, and not next to Kohl in the sickbay. She wasn’t on the flight deck, supporting El, or supporting Penn. She wasn’t in Nate’s cabin, although that was a crazy thought, but Hope had had to check anyway.

And, finally, Hope. Here, in Grace’s cabin, holding the hilt of Grace’s broken sword. It had been thrown into the recycler, where Hope had found it. Hope drew the blade, ten centimeters of steel glinting from the scabbard before a jagged stump covered in alien slime told the full story. She’d come to find Grace, to say would you like it fixed, or..? because Grace looked tired, just as tired as Hope was, and she looked like she’d had a bad day.

Hope didn’t have many friends. She couldn’t. But she had plenty of stims, and she could always sleep later. This friend, she’d try and look after.

• • •

Since no one else was watching Kohl, Hope tried it for a while. She wasn’t a Guild Healer, although it was all mechanics at some level. Hope had read a little on how the body worked, and then went down the Engineer path because machines didn’t leak so much. She didn’t know people like she knew drives

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