The Rush's Edge Read online

  He owed Hal for saving his life several times after that, but that first time… that had been rough on both of them. Upon waking, he’d heard stories about how Hal had stayed by his side; he had sat in the same chair by the medbed for over thirty-six hours, until he saw that Ty was going to make it. Hal hadn’t even gotten his own wounds treated; he’d refused to move until the doctors noticed the pooling blood and made him accept medical treatment, though only upon threat of expulsion from the medbay.

  Hal interrupted Ty’s thoughts. “I dreamed they came and told me you died,” he said, looking down at his hands.

  “I’ve had the same type of dreams,” Tyce admitted.

  “It fucking sucks,” Hal murmured.

  “It does, Hal,” Ty said, getting up to rummage through a cabinet. He came back with two mugs and a bottle of Celian whiskey.

  “I thought it was real when I woke up. I- I stood at your door a minute, trying to decide if you were really in there or not.”

  Ty shook his head slowly. “You can always come get me, Hal.” He poured them both a couple of generous measures.

  Hal drank it down like water. “I know, but I didn’t want to wake you up for something stupid.”

  “It’s not. It’s not stupid. As I said, I have the same type of dreams.” Ty shrugged. He was unwilling to describe them, but losing his best friend was his greatest fear as well. He supposed it went back to losing his brother, Caleb. His younger brother had been a lot like Hal; an irrepressible thrill-seeker who’d died at the age of fifteen.

  Once vats left the service, they rarely lived long, and Hal liked to get into trouble more than was good for him. The Edge was a dangerous place for him, but where else did vats have to go? They weren’t ever welcomed on the Inside; they were seen as unnatural and therefore less than human. Ty thought the natural-borns just didn’t want to be reminded of the second-class citizens they’d created to fight their wars for them.

  They sat for a while, in a companionable silence, one built over long hours together in the ACAS and the years after. Ty couldn’t have pinpointed the moment that Hal went from subordinate officer to the type of family that was stronger than blood, but it had happened. He would take a bolt for his friend and knew Hal would do the same for him.

  Hal started scrubbing his face as he yawned, and Tyce could tell he was winding back down. “Think you can sleep now?”

  Hal nodded. “Probably.” He got up to leave. “Ty. Thanks. I know I’m a pain in the ass.”

  “Yeah, but you’re our pain in the ass. Beryl and I couldn’t get on without you. Hit the rack, OK?” He grabbed up their cups and the half-full bottle and turned to stow it all away.

  “You got it, Cap.” Hal said, and padded away to his room.

  Tyce, this is your 0630 wake up call.

  Tyce groaned in reply.

  Does that mean that you would like me to set an alarm for ten minutes? Runa asked.

  “Mmm, yeah.”

  Tyce rolled over, burying his face in the pillow as his mind began to wake up and his thoughts turned to Hal. He was adjusting well to having Vivi on board and things had been relatively quiet so far. Hal had even gone with her each time she’d left the ship to go out on the station… obviously watching over her until she found her feet.

  The salvage permits were the pressing matter for today. He’d have to get moving only to hurry up and wait around at LanTech’s offices, probably all day. They hadn’t gotten the exact details out of Fortenot yet, but at the very least he could start getting the paperwork moving and save a bit of time. In this game, that small advantage could make the difference between being first at a salvage site and arriving to see hated rivals getting the glory.

  A five-minute chime sounded. Runa was dependable, but she was little more than a fancy computer program that did what Ty told her to. The government had put in extra safeguards over a hundred years ago to prevent computers from ever becoming self-aware, after contact with the Mudar had led to deadly skirmishes in the zone beyond the Border. Anything considered artificial intelligence had been out-and-out banned. Computers doing independent thinking scared the shit out of everyone, government and citizens alike.

  Tyce didn’t know how he felt about it. Vivi seemed to think that the danger was overrated. They made their living from salvaged AI tech, but it was difficult not to feel uneasy about taking things from the species that almost made the human race obsolete.

  Vivi had done a good job so far. She was the youngest of his crew, but he would choose skill over age most days. Although she’d been with them nearly a month, she had begun to prove her worth to the crew almost immediately.

  He’d watched her reassemble a complex piece of technology in half the time it would have taken Lucas. She’d already rewired the Loshad and improved Runa’s response time by eighty percent. He didn’t even want to ask what safety protocols and self-awareness inhibitors she’d had to disengage to cause that to happen; he just knew he’d be thankful for the edge it gave him when the ship needed it.

  He heard the ten-minute chime sound from Runa and knew he’d been lying there too long. He got up, hit the shower, then pulled on a black tee, tactical cargos, and boots, much like the fatigue uniform of the ACAS. Like Beryl always said, you can take the man out of the military…

  By 0700, he had reached the galley. He was making coffee when Hal came in, scrubbing at his face as he sat at the table.

  “Morning,” Tyce said.

  “Mmm,” grunted Hal. “Mornings can kiss my ass.”

  Tyce smirked at Hal’s usual grumblings. The first cup of coffee went to Hal, then he poured his own. As always, Hal added lots of sugar – his vat metabolism would burn it off quickly – but Ty drank his black.

  “What’s your plan for today?” Tyce asked. “You can come with me to LanTech, if you want?”

  “Yeah, because I’m great at waiting around for something to happen,” Hal deadpanned, before glancing down at his handheld, then tossing it impatiently to the side.

  “I get it,” Tyce nodded. “Too bad, though – you’d probably make it a hell of a lot more interesting. Let me know if we hear from Astin.”

  “Will do, Cap. Working on the water purifiers today. Backup system’s got a glitch and the filters need cleaning. Might see if Veevs is up for some sparring practice later too,” Hal said.

  Hal had been training her to fight, supposedly just in case they were in a situation that required it. Ty had a sneaking suspicion that Hal’s worries about Vivi went deeper than just casual crew training, however. He obviously wanted her to be able to defend herself because of the shape she’d been in when they’d brought her on and also because the Edge could be a dangerous place. He’d certainly never taken the time to train any of their other teckers in self-defense, though. It seemed more and more likely that Vivi was going to work out as a member of the crew.

  “OK, I’ll leave you to it, then. Just remember that Beryl said to watch the cut on your lip.” It was typically this way; Halvor was the muscle that kept the ship running, and Tyce handled the business side with LanTech and some of their more illicit contacts. Ty didn’t mind it; he had a lighter touch with most of their informants. “Take it easy on Vivi in training and keep an eye on her. She pushes herself too hard and she’s gonna get hurt that way.”

  Hal glanced up before turning back to his handheld. “Don’t worry,” he said with a smile. “I got both eyes on her, Cap.”

  FIVE

  Hal punched the heavy boxing bag, feeling the rough canvas scratch at his knuckles as his fist smacked its surface. He imagined tension rolling through his body and coming out with each punch he landed. Ty had explained about threat levels that he’d learned in officer training: “green” was no threat at all, “yellow” meant a heightened state of awareness, “orange” meant danger was imminent, “red” meant you were in the shit, and “black” was when you lost control of yourself. Hal had realized immediately that he never operated below a yellow at any time, and that thi
ngs could go red or black very quickly. Ty said it was that way for most vats, but if Hal stayed aware of the levels, he could stay low on the scale, and think more clearly. But knowing didn’t make it easier.

  That was the reason for the sparring. The more energy Hal could work out physically, the better chance he would have of controlling those colorful moments, when the rush took him over completely. Before meeting Ty, he hadn’t had much self-control at all and was always in trouble, but thankfully now, he hardly ever hit black.

  Tyce understood him – Hal had liked his captain from the first time they’d met. He’d been fighting another vat, right after getting transferred into Ty’s outfit. It was typical for the new guy to get challenged and he was damn well going to make sure it only happened once. He expected a week or two in the brig, after being dressed down of course (possibly a flogging if that appealed to the new CO), but Ty had done neither. He had let them fight it out – Hal taking the reigning champion apart – and then said, “Report to my office.” Hal had followed Tyce, while the other guy’s friends dragged him off to the med bay.

  When he’d gone in, Ty had seated himself behind his desk. He remained there, for long moments, just observing Hal and saying nothing. Hal could still feel how the blood stung as it trickled down from a cut on his eyebrow into his eye, but he refused to break his stance to wipe at it.

  “I understand you’re my new sergeant,” Ty said.

  Great, Hal had thought. It’ll be a demotion. “Sir, yes sir,” he had replied, keeping his eyes fixed on a point behind the captain’s right shoulder. He remained as still as he could manage while a rush thrummed through his veins.

  Tyce looked down at his terminal pad and tapped. “Don’t think I don’t understand why that had to be done, Sergeant Cullen. I do. However, I expect you to try and find better ways to solve your problems.”

  “Sir?” Hal was so stunned, that he met Tyce’s eyes.

  “You heard me. Someone with scores like your own,” Ty had turned his pad so that Hal could see his own file on screen, “should have no trouble thinking of alternative solutions to conflict, when possible. I’ll expect you to be able to talk about your ideas the next time we see each other. For now, you’re dismissed, sergeant.”

  And just like that, Hal found himself standing outside in the hallway, unsure of what had just happened. He grinned, thinking about it now. It was the first moment he’d ever felt like he could trust one of his COs. And the first moment he wanted to be something better than just a vat who liked to fight.

  He paused for a drink of water from his bottle. After he’d finished up the work on the water purifiers midafternoon, he’d gone to look for Vivi, but she was still engaged on the ship’s main terminal at the time. She’d been jacked in, hands moving in the air as she virtually adjusted the shipboard computer. He didn’t want to bother her, so he’d gone to the cargo bay alone to work out, telling himself that a nat like her would have better things to do anyway.

  He lost track of how long he had been there, listening to music as loud as his earphonics would go and bouncing back and forth as he pummeled the bag. A touch on his shoulder shattered his concentration, and his hyped reflexes swung out quickly as he turned. Thankfully, he was also fast enough to pull back his punch before it landed.

  “Woah!” Vivi threw up a forearm in defense as she ducked. She stumbled back a few steps, looking at him with fear in her eyes.

  Hal let out a sigh as he dropped his fist and yanked out his earpieces. “Shit.”

  She looked pale for a minute, and he reached out slowly to steady her, remembering the black eye she’d had when they’d first taken her on the Loshad, but she flinched away from his touch on her arm. He noticed and held up his open hands. “I’m sorry. You good, Veevs?” He’d made up the nickname for her from the start, and she didn’t seem to mind it.

  “Yeah. Sorry. I guess I startled you.” The young woman pulled a small smile, and he realized from her wide eyes that he had really scared her. Her hands still shook a little as she brushed the hair from her face.

  He smiled in a way that he hoped was reassuring. “It’s only my reflexes. Just lemme see you first next time, ’kay?”

  Her eyes are such a pure shade of green, he thought. They glimmered like spring-gems in sunlight. He could remember the first time he’d seen one of the crystals, in the classroom of one of the vat training facilities on Chamn-Alpha. It had been during a geology seminar when they were given samples of rocks from different planets to identify. At the end of class, Hal stole the green crystal from the geology kit and was never caught. It was the only personal possession he still had from that time.

  She was blushing a little as she held his gaze. “What?” she asked softly.

  He shook his head. Keep your mind right, he told himself. She’s a nat, and the last thing she’d be interested in would be a vat. “I came to find you earlier,” he said. “To see if you wanted to spar. I promised to teach you a few things, remember? You were still working on the main computer, though, so…” Hal shrugged, like it was no big deal.

  “Oh. Sorry. Hey, I think I might have the drive fixed now. But what I really came to tell you was that Runa said we got a message from Astin Fortenot. It’s about that tip he’s got for you guys. He’s gonna be at the Syzygy for a while and said you could meet him there. This is that guy you and Tyce tried to meet last night, right?”

  “Yeah.” Hal reached around her to grab his towel. “Ty’s gone to get things started at LanTech, so I’ll go check it out – see what he has to say.” Hal wiped his face, then grabbed his water bottle.

  She was still standing there when he turned back around, shifting from foot to foot before she spoke. “Hey. What if I come with you? That is, if you want some company,” she offered.

  Hal weighed how risky it would be for her to go along. The lower levels of Omicron weren’t exactly the safest places on the station, but she’d be with him the whole time. “OK,” he finally replied. “Be ready in ten.”

  SIX

  Hal had obviously been down to the club levels of Omicron Station before; he was greeted by a few scantily-clad women working the level. He returned their embraces, knowing most of them by name.

  Vivi raised an eyebrow as they continued walking toward the Syzygy.

  “What?” he asked, shrugging. “So, I know people.”

  “I see that,” she smirked.

  “Everybody’s gotta make a living,” he said, shrugging again.

  Turning a corner, they saw a man sitting back against a bulkhead with his feet splayed out. It was obvious from the slack, blissed-out look on his thin, angular face that he was high on something.

  “Hey,” Hal said to Vivi. “Give me a minute.”

  She watched nervously, as he knelt beside the man and spoke in a low voice. Eventually the addict lifted his head, looking at Hal.

  “Where’d you serve?” Hal asked.

  She couldn’t help but take a step nearer, but she still couldn’t make out the addict’s answer. Hal nodded, however.

  “What ’bout you?” She heard the thick mumble of the user’s voice reply this time as the man made an effort to communicate.

  “I fought on Bel-Prime. Patrolled the Border, too,” Hal said.

  She caught the glimpse of a tattoo similar to Hal’s on the inside of the addict’s wrist. Hal dug into his pocket, then placed something in the man’s hand. “Try and get something to eat with it, yeah?”

  The man nodded and tucked the scrilla away. Hal clapped him gently on the arm and rejoined Vivi, who didn’t know what to say.

  “C’mon,” he said.

  As they moved away, Vivi asked, “Do you think he’ll use that to buy food?”

  Hal shrugged. “I don’t know. He’s a null addict in pretty bad shape.”

  “How do you know it’s null?” she asked.

  “Vats are suckers for null,” Hal murmured. “Helps them take the edge off at first, then… they can’t leave it alone.”

&
nbsp; “Why give him scrilla then?” she asked.

  “At least he’ll know someone cared a little and tried to help him before he died. Besides, that could be me sitting there. I mean, if not for Ty.”

  His caring gesture seemed to be completely at odds with the bar brawler side of him she’d seen last night. He was a mass of contradictions. He obviously had a heart, though, and she felt drawn to that in a way she couldn’t explain.

  On reaching the club, they moved inside with the crowd. The place was full, but there was no band – just a DJ playing hypnohaze music. Vivi could sense Hal’s tension in the way he held himself as they entered. He stood still for a moment, a frown on his features as he scanned the room. Hal drew Vivi near, taking her hand. “Come on and stay close.”

  They made their way to a booth on the far side of the room where a man sat drinking. As they drew near, he looked up and Hal gave a nod. Vivi was walking slightly behind him to the right.

  Hal called out as they approached, “What the hells do you want now?” and scowled.

  Vivi got a good look at the guy in front of them. He was dressed in black, his hair shaved on the sides and cut so short it stood up in points on the top of his head. He looked just like another clubgoer, she thought, then noticed the interface node visible behind his right ear. He stood up quickly, going eye to eye with Hal. Vivi started to worry that Hal was going to get diverted from their meeting.

  “You got a problem?” the man asked belligerently.

  “That depends on you, nat,” Hal said, staring him down.

  The two men glared at each other for a moment more, then both started grinning. They shook hands and ended by smacking each other on the back. Vivi realized it was some sort of joke between them, and she relaxed.

  “What’s up with you?” Hal asked.

  “Same old shit, man,” the other replied with an easy smile.