Aberrant

Chapter 48

"Six Earth-standard hours." Her voice whispered out of the Fire Witch's coms system. Her eyes tracked frantically back and forth—reading an unseen script. "You have exactly six Earth-standard hours to deliver—" She shot a wild look sideways at someone or something off-screen. "What do you want with—?"

A shriek. Soh's. Jinx's heart all but stopped.

The image on the HUD went black. More screams sounded—muffled.

Then silence.

Fear closed Jinx's throat.

Another agonising few seconds of silence.

Then movement. A dishevelled blonde head reappeared.

Jinx's breath rushed out of her. Soh looked 'out of it'—in shock. Fresh blood trickled from her nose.

"Six Earth-standard hours," she repeated, her voice now without intonation, her eyes dark hollows, unfocused. "You have exactly six Earth-standard hours to deliver Jinsin Koel to Gosos in Awa 138's system. Fail to comply and I die. Deviate from a single task parameter and I die. Instructions regarding Jinsin Koel's extraction from her current location are attached with this message."

Jinx stared at the HUD as the vid clip ended. Denial froze her in place. Then a sense of powerless rage poured through her. "Those crawling motherfuckers have to die."

Tras turned in his seat. The chill in his gaze matched the temperature of her blood. "What do the Xykeree want with you? And since when do roaches hire or fucking blackmail humans to hunt for them?"

"I don't know." Clenching her jaw, Jinx forced back panic and chaotic mental replays of the vid message. "But it has to be linked to the Bullhead I inspected on Tirus 7. Maybe the roaches think I saw something, and they don't want me helping the military investigate."

"Dead is quiet, Koel. The bastards could've sent Syrus to end you, not extract you. Why grab Soh? Why involve me? Someone else could've played fucking taxi driver."

The possibility that struck her made her head go light. "They want me alive. Compliant." She fought off more visions of darkness—Soh's frightened face. "But why? I'm no one important."

Tras curled a scarred lip. "You sure about that, pu'ta? This isn't the first time someone's been red hot to acquire your tight little arse."

Jinx stared at him, Mort Schmicky's loser face flashing to mind. "The abduction contract on Tirus... Shit. A dumbarse amateur tried to bag me. Said the instructions were to take me to the port's roof."

"Top deck." Tras flashed teeth. "Where the fucking roaches were docked."

"But why?" Jinx pushed back in her seat, frustration clawing through her. "I don't know anything. I barely remember anything more than boarding that barge." But it had to be linked to the aliens' plans to counter the Rha Si. The roaches were testing anti-psionic drugs, adding to their arsenal of chem warfare.

They'd dosed her with something.

The blood drained from Jinx's flesh. Were they targeting normal humans as well? Had she been an experiment? God, did they want her back to check the frigging results? Oh. Shit. On Tirus, Kaplan had found a tracking program on her wrist com that could only have been installed that day. What if the roaches had always planned to grab her, had only let Rolli haul her off their ship to get landing clearance? But then her location-masking app had thwarted that plan—and forced the bastards to offer the local lowlifes a finder's fee.

Jinx took a deliberate breath, but couldn't stop the spin of her thoughts. What had the roaches done to her that was so critical to them and their plans to harvest Coalition Space? She didn't feel any different. Just that slight sense of disconnection, and confusion due to memory loss.

"You won't have to wait long to get answers," Tras broke into her thoughts. "Gosos is a planetoid on the edge of this system. ETA forty-five minutes."

Jinx's stomach contracted then withered. Tras planned to make the meet. He'd follow every one of the roaches' instructions, even if it meant handing her over to be tortured, experimented on, or frigging digested. Like Reihnald Syrus, she meant nothing to the coldblooded son of a bitch.

But Soh did.

Jinx felt her fury die. Queasiness hit next as a red icon flashed on the HUD: the aft airlock being voided. A demonstration of how the roaches honoured their deals—something Tras was too smart to miss. And the reason Dorf, Tras' most loyal mutt, was the only member of the Fire Witch's usual crew on board. Tras knew this was most likely a one-way trip. For everyone.

Jinx glanced back to the darkened vid screen, her heartbeat a thud in her skull. Complying with the roaches' demands would be as good as suicide. But there was no way in hell she could desert Soh either. That vid clip...

She shook off the recall, a sense of defeat sinking into her bones—solidifying into resolve. If she went through with this, what would she actually lose? A few months of nightmares and blackouts? She'd never had a future to sacrifice, let alone fight for.

Kaplan flashed to mind: their night together; his grim expression as he left her that morning. She shut her eyes against the image. He'd be okay—or at least better without her. He'd said he didn't want to watch her self-destruct. Well, this way he wouldn't have to.

She'd end this as she'd always planned to.

Alone.

Or the next best thing: in the company of arseholes who didn't give a shit.

She snapped open her eyes—didn't flinch from Tras' glacial stare. "What? You waiting for me to raise some objection or something? We do the goddamn swap. Get Soh."

"Koel—"

"I love her too, you lowlife son of a bitch."

Tras glowered then pushed out of his seat. "Always planned to get rid of you, pu'ta. Guess it's time to cross that off the job list." With a flick, a metal blade was in his hand. He cut her bindings and met her questioning look with a bright, cold smile. "The roaches didn't specify how they wanted their goods packaged. I think, CI, it's time you got a proper look at what's under the Witch's deck plates."

Jinx found her feet, forced up a smile to match the weapons trader's. "If it's illegal and deadly, I need to know about it."