Breakout by Ann Aguirre Read Free Book Online Page B

give anything to protect, anything at all? Life’s blood, honor, soul, whatever you had. Can you even imagine what that’s like?”
    Once the answer would’ve been no, unquestionably. Nothing ever mattered more than freedom, saving his own skin. Didn’t matter what he had to sacrifice or who he had to trample, as long as he cut free in the end. Some of the faces still haunted him, true, but even demons could have bad dreams. Yet his gaze cut across to the corner of the room he’d claimed with Dred. He was itching to go check on her, antsy with fear over Vost’s “worse than expected.”
    â€œYeah,” he said softly. “I can.”
    The merc commander seemed surprised for a few seconds, then he nodded. “That’s why you can be sure I won’t turn on you. There’s no way I can build this ship on my own.”
    He relaxed a little as he set down the part they needed for the RC unit. “You want this?”
    Vost nodded. “I might as well try to get the bot working.”
    RC-17 looked like hell, and Jael had his doubts that anybody could bring it back from being fried. Yet Vost was clearly good with machines; that would prove helpful once they finished the scavenging portion of the process. The merc commander removed the old pack and slotted in the new battery. So far, nothing. Jael didn’t realize he’d balled his hands into fists until the bot flickered and whirred. His knuckles hurt a little as his fingers unfurled.
    â€œLooking good,” Vost said.
    17 spun in a circle, and Jael caught it with his foot. “Not so fast.”
    He knelt and checked the memory core. Two wires were burned out, probably impacting the connectivity. “Do we have any—” But Vost was already there, swapping them out.
    â€œShould we wake everyone else up?” he asked.
    The other man shook his head. “Better to find out if it’s good news or bad first.”
    He ran through the interface to look at what survived the shooting. Jael didn’t relax until he saw five coordinates programmed in the unit’s memory. He patted the small metal unit.
You’re salvation in a can, mate. Five caches. Five chances for Ike to rescue us from beyond the grave.
Jael bumped hands with Vost in celebration before he realized he was supposed to hate him.
    Ah, whatever. Enemy of my enemy, right?
One thing he was sure of: The merc leader would never team up with Silence.
    â€œHow much longer is the watch?” he asked.
    Vost checked his handheld. “Couple more hours. Once we start the next cycle, we’ll decide which location to check out first.”
    â€œTam can probably tell us roughly where each is located. That’ll help us plan, in terms of keeping out of Silence’s way while we move.”
    â€œDepending on what it is and how heavy, retrieval might be dangerous,” Vost said.
    Jael smirked. “Breathing is dangerous.”
    â€œTrue. The oxygen levels are low, and station life support doesn’t have long before the system’s completely shot, and we all die anyway.”
    From the other man’s expression, Jael could not fragging tell if he was serious. “You’re a laugh riot, you know that?”
    â€œSo I’ve been told.” Again, deadpan.
    â€œBacktracking here, how bad do you think the transport will be?”
    Vost thought for a second. “Depends on how big the items are . . . but if Silence hits while we’re moving hover dollies down to the docking bay, we’re screwed. I don’t know if we can lock this stuff down, and if she destroys our salvage—”
    â€œThen we’re done,” Jael said quietly.
    â€œNo point in speculating, though. We’ll find out soon enough.”
    Vost fell silent, and before Jael could speak, a small gray thing slid out from between the machinery. His heart kicked into high gear, then he recognized it as the alien that went off