Victory´s Price by Alexander Freed
Author:Alexander Freed [Freed, Alexander]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Novela, Ciencia ficción, Fantástico
Publisher: ePubLibre
Published: 2021-02-01T16:00:00+00:00
II
Yrica Quell listened to the click of the air circulation switching on and felt the resulting breeze on her bruised skin. The hair follicles on her forearms rippled like blown grass and tugged at dried blood. She smelled grease and fried circuits, and tried to appreciate the peace of it all as she leaned into the cushions of the U-wingâs crew seat.
Then Chass na Chadic screamed at an access panel and slammed a hydrospanner against the bulkhead. The brief peace was vanquished.
âYou wonât get in there without a torch,â Quell murmured. âNot if the releases are fused.â
âI know that,â Chadic growled.
Quell shrugged and looked from the Theelin to Kairos, who stood in the cockpit doorway. Her body faced the cabin but her head craned to peer out the cockpit viewport. It was an awkward pose, unlike anything Quell normally associated with the womanâsheâd always lurked like a statue in shadow, immobile and foreboding. Now she seemed distracted by the stars.
Chadic, too, seemed different. Not just physically, though the crest of her hair was centimeters shorter and flatter than Quell remembered, as if sheâd sliced it with a hand plane; but where sheâd always been volatile, now she seemed to oscillate between furious and withdrawn, with nothing in between. She was less than the person Quell remembered.
Chadic stared at the bulkhead awhile. Quell waited for her to do the sensible thing, then said it herself: âIf weâre going to escape you need to stabilize the power flow. You donât have the equipment to overhaul the hyperdrive or the navicomputer, so youâre going to have to run a diagnostic to be sureââ
âDonât patronize me!â Chadic said, and threw the hydrospanner toward Quell. It smacked into the seat centimeters from Quellâs shoulder and fell to the floor. âYou want to be in charge, you shouldâve stayed with Shadow Wing.â
Quell stretched her foot to kick the hydrospanner across the deck toward Chadic. I wasnât in charge, she thought. Not by the end, when they planned to kill me. Saying so wouldâve only baited Chadic, so she stayed silent.
âDid I know any of them?â Chadic asked. âYour pals down there?â
âKnow them?â
âYeah. Was one of them Char, or Blink, or something?â
âNo,â Quell said. âYou didnât know them.â
âKind of a bunch of morons anyway. Couldnât shoot straight, couldnât fight. Couldnât protect you.â
Quell knew better than to reply. She answered anyway. âNot every pilot knows how to use a blaster. Some of them werenât evenââ
ââteenagers? I noticed. One of them looked younger than Wyl and twice as skinnyââ
ââsome of them werenât pilots,â she finished, sucking breath between her teeth. âThey were engineers. Whatâdid you see what happened to the kid?â
To Rikton.
Chadic showed her teeth in a sneer. âDonât know. You shouldâve kept a better watch.â
Quell squeezed her eyes shut and tried not to think of them. She couldnât talk to Chadic about itâcouldnât afford to ask whether Rikton and Mirro and Brebtin and Raida were alive or dead. Couldnât think about whether anyone had rescued Kandende, or if
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