Excerpt from "Throwing Fire"
For the SFR Brigade October showcase, I thought I'd give everyone a sneak peek at Throwing Fire, the sequel to Snowburn, which I'll be publishing in the spring. Enjoy!
Kez lands us in Tiv thirty-five minutes later. After we’ve circled ‘round and ‘round the motives for everyone and their fucking clone to want to kill her. And gotten no closer to identifying anyone other than Jaxon.
I let her handle the landing. With the ground berths still closed in the aftermath of our skimmer crash, we dock at the tether, two klicks away from the city. Tether landings are not overly technical. And it’s good practice for Kez, who still struggles a little with landings. She does a fine job with this one.
Once we’re hooked into our berth, I flip the display over to a local feed. Pick up our messages. The first one is from Acker, asking us to plex him as soon as we land.
I stare at the message for a moment. Innocuous black Uni characters against the viewie’s background of sky and clouds. But they feel ominous. Why the change of plans? He and Tee were supposed to meet us. I expected them to be waiting at the tether, not plexing us.
With a sigh, I tap the interface to return the call.
Acker’s face immediately appears in the pane. “My friend, forgive me, but I have a pointy problem.”
My neck and shoulders unknot. Hearing that he’s got a problem he can’t deal with on his own should make me tense. Instead, I relax. Pointy problems I can deal with. Betrayal from the only man I’ve liked well enough to call brother in a decade? That would fucking sting. “Whaddo you need?” I ask.
“You, and Lightfoot, if you will come. I need you in the Deeps. I know your questions for Java are urgent, but this is a problem that will not wait.”
I nod. Maybe this is a ruse. Maybe it’s a trap. But my gut says Acker’s in trouble. And you never say no to a brother in trouble. “On the way,” I tell him.
“I will meet you at the tether exit. The streets are not safe for either of us. I will bring you in another way.”
“See you in ten.”
Kez, attuned to me in every way, is already tapping commands into the ship interface. Plexing our change of plans back to base, reconfiguring the ship for an extended stay at the tether, and paying the berthing fee. While she does, I climb out of my chair and head towards the Infinity’s storage holds. There are five of them, but the smallest hold’s my destination. At the moment, it looks like just another empty hold - gridded floor, empty mag-brackets set into the plain walls - and that’s all anyone would see on a scan. But when I give the ship a series of commands, panels in the ceiling fold back on themselves. They drop slowly toward the floor in a double accordion. When the panels reach the floor, they lock into racks and rotate, revealing my own personal armory. I take a pair of bags off the bottom rack and load them up with everything I’ve got. Body armor. Pulse grenades. P.B.Ex. White phos smoke grenades. E.M.P. bombs. Two portable surveillance scanners. A handful of tinglers. And a shitload of knives, most of which I’ve made myself. A pair of katanas don’t go in the bags. They go across my back in a leather harness that lets me draw them over my shoulders. Any tether security guard stupid enough to question me gets to meet one, up close and personal.
Kez joins me while I’m still loading up. She helps me clear the racks and shoulders one of the bags after I seal it closed. “Do you think it’s the Ojos?”
“That’d be my guess.” But I’m reserving judgment until I’m face to face with Acker. Could be a trap, in which case the Ojos are the least of his fucking worries.
She takes my hand and together we walk back through the cargo holds and exit through the ship’s proboscis, a flexible plaz tube that connects the ship with the tether’s funnel. Exiting through the proboscis circumvents the passenger debarkation lounge, and that layer of tether security. I got no illusions we’ll get out of the port without bumping into some sort of security, but it’ll be crew security, which is often more relaxed than security for the geese.
When we reach the airlock at the bottom of the proboscis, we find it locked, red lights blinking around the circular portal. Looks like the funnel grav-lift is busy. Probably pressed into service moving cargo down the tether, since the ground berths are still closed. We wait side-by-side and I slant a glance at Kez. Still wearing her leather pants and steel-toed boots. Baby blues shadowed and set deep in their rings of khol. Arms wrapped from wrists to elbow in genSkin and the shiny threads that I know are her weapon of choice. Carrying half my arsenal over her shoulder. “What kinda message you sendin’ now, kitten?”
“Stop fucking hunting me.” Kez adjusts the bag. “What kind of message are you sending? Between that-” She nods at my Biosteel vest, which is pretty clearly body armor. “-and your swords.”
I shrug. “Don’t want the rats to think I’ve gone soft.”
“Yeah.” She snorts. “You’re good.”
“Until we see what’s what, kitten, you don’t turn your back on any of them.”
Kez’s grin quickly tightens into a frown. “But Acker said-”
“I heard, and I believe him. That’s why we’re goin’. But a hundred CeeBees is still a big number.”
And that number is a big incentive.
Kez squares her shoulders and looks down at her boots. She’s silent for a moment and I let her think. Listen to the howl of the wind, the creak of the huge tether just beyond the airlock, and the faint drip of water somewhere, which I hope is off the tether rather than something dripping in our ship.
“Snow,” she begins, and I nod at her, acknowledging her careful use of my pseudonym. We’re alone at the moment, on our own ship. But the lift could arrive any moment, and someone could be scanning us. The proboscis isn’t as heavily shielded as the rest of the ship, and Kez knows that. “Is this how it’s been for you? Suspecting everyone?”
“Pretty much.”
“What’d you think that first time I walked up to you? Did you think I wanted . . . what did you think?”
I grin so wide, it hurts my cheek muscles. “Thought I wanted to fuck you.”
She snorts. “Other than that.”
“Yeah, kitten, I was suspicious.”
“You didn’t show it.” She looks down, scuffs her boot on the proboscis’s soft polymousse flooring. “I just wanted to know you.”
“I got that.” That’s why she’s my one-in-a-billion.
“Maybe Acker’s the same way.”
“He’s shit outta luck if he is.”
She looks up at me quizzically. “Why? Have you changed your mind about him?”
“No, I never wanted to fuck him.”
Kez laughs. At that moment, the airlock control blinks green. I give it a tap and the airlock slides open with a soft swush to counterpoint Kez’s laughter.