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None of that helped her.
She was, she decided, fucking doomed.
The mirror showed the wide double-doors opening. Two people were pushed in, followed by the oversized giant that had given her a good kicking earlier.
Cora studied the new arrivals as they were thrown to the ground, her new colleagues who'd joined her up river, forgetting their paddles.
One was handsome enough, if you liked that square jaw look in a man. His nose was a little out of joint — too many bar fights. His eyes scanned her in return and they held a glint of something. Federation perhaps, given his short hair and lack of ink, but a Fed wouldn't be here.
And certainly not with A Lunari...model? The girl was all curves, tits practically falling out of a waitress blouse that had been torn almost open, but she had the face that cosmo-modders spent thousands of creds trying and failing to get. Great cheekbones, red blowjob lips — she looked sort of familiar. Cora winced on the inside — she was a classic pin-up beauty, one that wouldn't fare well in this den of handsy groping lions.
"Caught these two hanging around outside. Don't look much like our waiting staff." The tall man laughed.
Hatchet growled, his eyes taking in the Lunari. "Good work, Tyce."
Tyce threw them both onto the carpet in the middle of the array of sofas, joining her as the centerpiece. Cora stretched out an arm to stop the pointy-eared girl from falling into her.
"Now who are you two, huh?" Hatchet wondered.
"They had these little blasters, not sure how they got in with them." Tyce tossed two weapons onto a dusty piano.
"Hmm," Hatchet stroked his chin. "Sexy Lunari, silent hero. I think I've seen this one."
A chorus of laughter echoed around. Hatchet leaned forward, face darkening. "Are you the reason that the crew I sent to Sheila's hasn't returned, perhaps?"
Fuck, she really hoped that Sheila wasn't in any danger — the woman had tried to help her, even if all she'd done was land her in even more shit. Cora crawled back an inch, letting the two in front of her take the attention. She was handcuffed, they were not. But her long fingers could just reach her elbow. Slowly, quietly, keeping her face blank, she started to unscrew her modded elbow.
"Fuck, boss, I don't know if I've ever seen such a ten." One of the giggling trolls quipped.
"Easy boys." Hatchet held out a hand. "First work, then play. I didn't realize that doin' the old samba with a Judge would bring out so many insects crawling out the woodwork."
Something must have shown on one of their faces, as Hatchet's lit up triumphantly. "So that is why you're here. Come to rescue Cora the cyberfreak, huh?"
Cora re-evaluated them, keeping her face still as she heard an audible squeak from her elbow. She knew she should have oiled her joints. Had they really come to help her? Were they from the Cipher? No, if he'd found out that Hatchet had betrayed him to work with the Judge, Hatchet would have been in much bigger trouble.
Her elbow unscrewed and she caught her forearm in her other hand as it dropped, holding it against her upper arm to stop her get-out-of-jail card from rolling out of her upper-arm socket, where she'd stored it. She needed to wait for the right moment. She edged closer to tall, dark and handsome, although he was looking rather pale.
The Lunari had enough, slamming her hands into the soft carpet impotently. "You can't hold us like this! When word gets back to our people, they'll be—"
Hatchet almost doubled over laughing. "Your people? Who are they? Premium Escorts Limited?"
Cora took advantage of the distraction to nudge the man with her foot. He glanced at her and then followed her eyes to where she moved her unattached forearm just enough for her weapon to peek out.
A plasma grenade, Fed issue. A short timer, big blow, fuck-you of a ball, a highly concentrated destabilized ionized plasma detonation. She'd kept it in her hollow-hole long enough — it was just a shame she couldn't be the one to throw it, given her handcuffs.
The man's eyes widened and he edged a little closer to her. Good. He wasn't a fool.
She let the grenade roll out onto his hand as he kept it behind his back, her heart jumping into her mouth as it almost slipped loose. His fingers flicked the switch and primed it with practiced ease.
This wasn't a plan.
This was a grenade.
But it would have to do.
"You don't who I am." The Lunari ranted. "I am the Alpha and the Ome—" Square-jaw threw the grenade straight at Hatchet. It whistled and hissed as it flew, gas leaking out of the unstable ball.
Cora stood, stock still, waiting to see him explode, but where Hatchet stood, she saw Naru Pelar. The brute would die. The rapist would die. The murderer would die. She'd watch him explode into little bits of flesh. And she would laugh.
Her vision tunneled. Screams filtered out. A man's voice. A hand on her shoulder. The crack of gunfire.
Naru Pelar's face whitened, mouth opened in fear or fury.
And then she was thrown to the side, someone bolting into her, taking her down to the ground behind a sofa. Someone's blond hair tangled in her mouth. A concussive wave blew through them, the air hot, distorted. Her ears rang.
She blinked. Square-jaw breathed above her, face contorted in agony. A lump of flesh from his neck hung loosely, dripping blood onto her face.
He'd taken a bullet meant for her.
But why?
He wrestled her up, the Lunari helping him, eyes glistening. He was saying something but she didn't listen, looking about the fiery carnage.
Bodies lit up, limbs and flesh dotted about, a single arm lying on the sofa. But where Naru Pelar had sat, a seared head burned. Half a head. But not Naru Pelar's. Hatchet's.
The guards were stumbling to their feet. Tyce. And suddenly she understood where she was.
Her revenge was not had.
But she still lived.
***
"Nate, come on." Ana cried.
"Cora, we have to go!" Nate tried again to get the insensate girl's attention, gripping her arm tightly.
"Yes." Cora murmured, her eyes flickering different colors, little lines drawn onto her irises. Her enhancements, Nate realized. She had too many senses crying out for attention.
"For fuck's sake." He muttered. There was no time, the guards were reaching unsteadily for their weapons. Only one way out — luckily the grenade had broken it into glittering shards. He grabbed Ana and Cora and half-pushed half-jumped out of the window onto the dancefloor, gasping out a cry as the two girls landed on him, all elbows.
The crowd was still screaming, rushing out, stampeding over each other as they ran back to their ships. Ana pulled him to his feet, her hand reaching out to try and stem the flow of blood streaming from his neck, and only when he saw how covered her hands were did he realize how badly he'd been hit.
Their feet made the dance floor tiles light purple and blue, that same light shining through the hundreds of glass shards. And in their reflection, he saw trouble above.
Too large a crowd to get out.
No blasters to shoot back. They were going to have to hide.
"This way!" He ran for the bar and slid over the counter, knocking over discarded drinks.
"Here." Ana gave Cora back her detached forearm and watched in slight awe as Cora reattached it, her face still a little blank.
"Thanks."
"You hiding any more grenades by any chance?" Nate ducked as a burst of rifle fire shot overhead and grimaced as he was covered in the splurge of vodka that burst out from the bottles.
"Nope, but I got something." Cora grabbed a glass jar of peanuts and emptied it then started twisting her ring finger off. It was an uncomfortable sight. Her finger poured a smoky black powder into the jar, little granules of pure night black.
As the barrage of gunfire came closer, Cora closed the jar and tossed it over without even looking.
Something hissed and when Nate peered over, he was met with a thick black cloud, cutting off all light and sight.
Cora met his gaze. "Pangaloosian night powder — assassins use it to murder in the middle of crowds and get away clean."
"Is that what you are?" Ana asked, her eyes a little wild.
She shrugged. "Not if I have a choice." Nate wasn't sure what she was, but it was clear she'd been put through the wringer. Half of her body was metal and mods, wires and cables with no rhyme or reason, human feet connecting to robotic knees rising up to become flesh once more. One arm was almost entirely metal chrome. Her short bright pink hair wasn't long enough to cover her most startling feature; those metallic eyeballs, complete with irises and corneas but swarming with tiny blue lines and fractals.
She was the type of person they put on morning holoshows, where the interviewers leaned forward and spoke in low understanding tones, while their viewers watched in mild disgust, a futuristic freak show.
Cora watched his study of her and raised an eyebrow. "That powder's not going to last much longer and I'm all out of tricks, hero."
He frowned. He didn't have much in the way of ideas — he felt shaky, faint, disconnected.
"Nate, you're bleeding hard." Ana's touch on his chin refocused him. "We need to get you out of here."
Nate shook his head, pressing a light kiss to her hand. "It's fine. They're using bullets not blasters. They probably don't want to blow a hole in their ship, or kill off one of their clients." He touched his neck and wiped the red clean distastefully. Cora just watched, silent.
Another hail of bullets pierced the powder cloud and slammed into the bottles, sending another alcohol waterfall gushing down. Ana cried out as her legs were cut up by a dozen shards, all three of them pressing themselves into the counter as close as they could.
Nate took one of those shards and held it above the counter as the sound of the fire seemed to come closer. The reflection showed the black powder dissipating a little, though it was still too thick for them to approach with confidence. Nate could see shadowy figures in the cloud, their silhouettes unmistakable.
"Isabelle?" Nate murmured.
"Huge disco ball roughly above them according to previous memory analysis."
He bit his lip. "I don't have a gun."
"Well," Isabelle sniffed. "All I am is a glorified chandelier spotter, so who needs me?"
Nate felt his jaw drop, even as Cora looked at him oddly. "Really, Isabelle?"
"I'm just saying. I'm the most advanced AI in the galaxy and you use me to spot the most obvious environmental traps."
He took a deep breath. Women.
"I heard that." She said.
"Alright, alright. I'm sorry. If you can give me a battle report to follow, I'd appreciate it, okay?"
He felt her grin. "Well, since you'd be helpless without me, it's coming right up."
His mind whirled as he was suddenly transported into a different world, seeing a thousand battle tactics simulated in a second, too fast to see and all discarded. The sides of the club were foggy, a white void that showed the edges of Isabelle's simulation.
"Analysis complete, first step simulated, necessary adaptations taken into account. If you follow my voice, I'm confident you have a higher than fifty percent chance of surviving."
Something bounced in front of them, clinking off a cocktail glass and landing between his legs. A grenade! Nate threw it back hurriedly and clutched both of the girls down as it exploded, shaking the whole ship. Someone yelled in the powder-cloud.
"The grenade was not visible to be taken into account." Isabelle said sheepishly.
"I've always hated clubs." Nate muttered. "Let's go already. Girls, stay here, keep your head down. I need you two to make a distraction while I go clear us a way out."
"But what sort of—" Ana started.
"Don't worry. How about it, girl, you ever made a molotov before? Real old-school shit."
Nate left the two to it, following Isabelle's path as her voice echoed in his head. "First, turn right and slide over the counter."
He jumped over the far end of the boxed counter, trying to keep low.
"He's out from the bar, split up! Find him!" Someone yelled.
So much for stealth.
"Don't worry, we want them to split up. Push through the red curtains and you'll see the audio-tech wiring that leads to the DJ's booth." She said confidently.
"How can you know that?" Nate asked even as he followed her instructions.
"Wires taped to the floor using black tape, too difficult to see in this light. But I can."
He found himself at a little balcony overlooking the dance floor, a booth with no DJ. On the floor, grunts stepped forward shakily into the powder while they spread out through the club. The grenade and the loss of their colleagues had made them cautious.
"Turn the music up, high as it goes." Nate turned the dial and winced as the booming sound shook the whole club, watching as the grunts in front of him tried and failed to scream with each other. Suddenly, the din dampened.
"Reduced your auditory input." Isabelle told him. "Keep your head down and keep moving through the backstage." Nate headed back and followed the trail of cables that Isabelle helpfully lit up for him in his vision. Amplifiers and a whole unused set of instruments for a band sat backstage, along with dozens of dusty black boxes for stage equipment.
He darted between them and found himself at another booth, this was a little more hidden.
"Lighting technician." Isabelle explained. "Turn off the lights."
Nate had no idea what he was looking at but he could pull the switches down, and as he did, the club went dark.
It was a unique sensation to be able to see the panic and the anger at the attack on their senses, but to be so numb to it.
"I know, aren't I amazing?" Isabelle preened.
"Time to turn the tables?"
"There's a turntable DJ pun in there somewhere." Isabelle mused. "But let's go! Secondary battle analysis, coming right up. I really just need you to stand still for now though. Well, crouch still."
He did as she asked. "Alright, missing guy from last visual intake from the DJ booth and his previous body language indicates he headed back instead of—oh, he's about to come up just behind you! Don't worry, he's small. Aggressive neck pressure recommended."
Nate shook his head at the sudden barrage of information, hiding himself in the rolls of the red velvet curtain. Sure enough, a gun barrel pushed through and then a small, scowling man, hair tied back in an ugly ponytail. Nate did as Isabelle recommended and pulled his arms tight around his neck. The man's struggles meant he had to tighten even harder.
"Guh!" The man's neck suddenly snapped.
"Whoops."
"I'm going to say he had it coming." He could almost imagine Isabelle twisting her fingers nervously in his head. "No time to waste, get moving. Out and down, into the service staff corridors."
Nate reached for the man's weapon. "Don't bother, it's DNA locked."
"Fuck."
"Move already."
Nate pushed into the corridors, pitch black but he didn't feel it, not with Isabelle lighting everything up for him. He wished he had a gun though.
"Left, right, left." Isabelle dictated. Nate found himself behind another guard, ordered to protect the kitchen entrance, presumably because there was another exit there. "This man is on a medical database for a hyper-extended knee. If you push the back of it hard, you should snap it."
Nate did so, sending the man to the floor, screeching in agony. One more stomp took him clean out.
"Couldn't I have just made him pass out?" Nate felt guilty. The man was almost certainly a crime thug, but that looked nasty.
"Last time you tried that, you snapped a man's neck. I'm not a monster." Isabelle's all-too-innocent voice pronounced.
"Very funny." Nate grumbled.
"Alright, into the club now but keep to the walls. We want to go left and start climbing up to the VIP tables."
Out and up — somebody had finally managed to turn the music off. Ana and Cora were launching fire-bottles over the counter and had stymied their grunts' push forward.
Nate climbed high, over toppled glasses and abandoned women's heels. "Down, get down!" Isabelle told urgently.
He dove into one of the table booths, pressing his face against the cold leather. His neck protested, a fresh wave of pain rippling through.
With the music gone, Isabelle had turned his ears up and so he could hear the set of footsteps.
"This one is a twin, according to the facial recognition matching an old school photo." She told him. "In this line of work, his brother's probably around somewhere and I bet they have a twin-thought brain mod."
Nate just held his breath. She was probably right — he'd once had a twin pair under his command and with their thought-mod, they were a right pain in the ass to manage with, constantly trying to trick him and get out of duties.
The man passed without incident and he slowly exhaled. His heart was pumping too hard, especially since he still felt his neck dripping blood.
"You can move now." Isabelle whispered even though she was speaking inside his mind. "Move around to the other end of the VIP."
But on the other side of it, a big man faced him directly — there'd be no sneaking up this time.
"Isabelle?"
"As you walked into the bar, you moved your head towards the DJ booth, and you saw this guy standing behind the DJ and he downed an entire bottle of whiskey as he bounced to the rhythm. Well, you didn't see it. Your eyes saw it, you didn't see it. I did, you're welcome."
Nate looked at him again disbelievingly. He was stood still, leaning back against a support pillar that went all the way up to the ship roof. He didn't look drunk but the light was too bad to see his eyes.
Nate walked straight to him. "Hey, pal."
"Whazzat?" The man said blearily. Nate sucker-punched him in the face and he toppled like a falling tree.
"Good call—" Nate froze up as someone turned a corner from below and looked up the stairs, straight at him.
"You fucking asshole, you killed Hatchet!" The guy came charging up at him, swinging a punch so fast that Nate didn't even see it coming. It rocked him back, sending him stumbling over the fallen drunk guy.
"Fuck."
"Amateur boxing champion." Isabelle said helpfully.
"Yeah," Nate spit out some blood. "I believe you." He grabbed his chin as the guy approached. He was seeing three of the guy, which made things difficult, his whole brain fuzzy.
"Hold on, I'll watch his fights quickly. Stay alive!" She giggled. Was she enjoying this?
Nate blocked the first punch, took the next one in the stomach and the third to the side of the head. That sent him barreling onto a table, head pressed against some sticky wet spot.
"Isabelle!" He said, more shrilly like that he'd like. Nate started throwing bottles at the guy, beer, vodka, ale, but the man kept coming, unfazed.
"Can we talk about this?" Nate pleaded.
The man snorted, pumping his fists together. "We can talk when you're dead."
"You, uh, can't talk when you're dead." Nate scratched the back of his head.
"Oh, you're a funny guy, huh? Let's see how funny—"
Time slowed as suddenly Nate was watching a boxing fight play in extreme speed, Isabelle's voice in his head. "Media analysis from boxing's top pundits suggests that Kantil Olgev suffers from a weak chin and has a bad habit of dropping his guard when he punches with the second of his one-two combo. Cut inside to his left." Nate watched Olgev get dropped to the floor by some unknown challenger and then the fight disappeared and he was left with only Olgev's ugly busted up face.
One punch. It grazed Nate's chin.
