trained under Topknot, he’d gone out of his way to take out his frustrations on her.
“Ell-osde’ pauk!” Noguchi snarled at him, the yautja equivalent of “fuck you.” She’d heard it often enough.
Shorty let out a stream of derisive language. She caught only part of it, pyode amedha, “soft meat,” a slur for human, and a negative yautja sound for female. She wasn’t particularly insulted until she heard her own words echoed back at her.
“—lei-k’ hey, dammit, ka’tun-de!”
He laughed, then, an imitation of human laughter, a braying mockery. Yautja didn’t laugh like that; like the mimicry, it was meant to offend.
There wasn’t time to dwell on it. Topknot had already stepped into the gaping black mouth of the hive and one of the other Blooded was motioning the trainees “inside, covering, only a few dozen bugs still attempting to get close to them. Noguchi shoved past the laughing Hunter, forcing her anger aside as the thick stench of rotting animal flesh washed over her from the darkness. Nests were dangerous, and being pissed at Shorty would take up too much of her awareness.
Doesn’t matter. Let him laugh. He didn’t know how much better at the Hunt she was than he, and with any luck, she’d soon find opportunity to demonstrate—
—and even as she thought it, she saw a glistening string of liquid drip down from above, a long and sticky drop that spooled past her, almost invisible in the thick shadows. Topknot and most of the others were several meters in front of her, edging into deeper shadow—
—and as she leapt to one side, raising her burner, the drone dropped from above, landing in a crouch only a few meters away, but not facing her. It was silent and quick, its body blending into the dusky light, and Shorty didn’t see it until it reached for him.
Noguchi allowed herself a second of total satisfaction as the drone snatched at Shorty’s arm, its claws landing heavily on his burner, blocking him from defense. An experienced Hunter might still have a
chance, there were the wrist blades, but Shorty was basically fucked.
What goes around . . .
She was in position, but she waited a beat longer until she was absolutely sure that he understood how badly he’d screwed up. She wished she had more time to savor it, but the revenge, however sweet, was still secondary to survival inside the hive. She took a deep breath, and then she did the worst thing she could possibly do to Shorty.
The blast from her weapon caught the bug in its abdomen, its snaking green guts blown off into the dark. Even with the alien screams from outside, Noguchi could hear the gangly body clatter to the floor, and the silent appraisal from the Hunters behind her was a palatable thing. No way they’d missed what had happened.
The mask hid her grin, and there was no point in laughing. If there was any greater dishonor in Clan etiquette, she’d never heard of it. Not only had he been denied an honorable death, his peers and betters had just seen him have his fighting done for him—and by an alien, no less, one even smaller than he.
Shorty stood perfectly still, head tilted down at the drone body. One of the other young males started to laugh, a clattering, trilling sound that always made her think of a bird with a broken windpipe trying to sing. He was quickly joined by the others.
Not so much fun being laughed at, is it?
Noguchi shot a look at the assembled Hunters in time to see Topknot signal “enough” and growl a command to Shorty. She only recognized the sound of his name, but knew what Topknot had asked even before Shorty walked stiffly toward the Leader; he’d been assigned to be in the middle of the hive line, protected front and back.
He wouldn’t laugh at her anymore, but it would be wisest not to let her guard down until Shorty was Blooded and gone. She almost felt bad for him, but re-
minded herself that if he wasn’t such an asshole, she would have let him die; he deserved the dishonor, for being such a goddamn bully.
Topknot signaled for them to proceed, Noguchi taking her position second to last—Shorty’s place. When someone screwed up in battle, the other yautja generally congratulated each other on getting a better spot, a growling, shoving version of a high five—but no one would look at her, and as they started down the entry tunnel, the temperature and humidity rising with each uneven step, Noguchi felt as isolated and ignored as usual.
Doesn’t matter, I don’t need their approval to Hunt and if I wanted friends, 1 would have left Ryushi with the colonists, gone back to Earth.
Where she’d never had any friends.
Before they’d gone ten meters, all of her defenses were securely back in place. The queen was close, and the thrill of knowing she’d be facing a queen mother again, even as part of a team, would go a long way to compensate for the loneliness of the past year. The drones were as stupid and mindless as ants, but the egg-layer, the queen . . .
An opponent worthy of respect, cunning and resourceful—and one she felt more of a connection to than any of the yautja she’d encountered, with the exception of the one they’d called Dachande, Broken Tusk. The one who’d died after Blooding her, after the massacre on Ryushi. The one who’d led her to believe that the yautja were a race capable of appreciating any skilled Hunter, no matter what species—
Behind her, Scar clattered an angry warning for her to move faster and kicked at the back of her leg. It would have hurt if she hadn’t stepped quickly forward at the sound of his voice. As unpopular as Shorty was, he was yautja—and even after such a monumental fuckup, he was still more popular than she.
So much for appreciation. Noguchi clenched her jaw and reminded herself that the queen was close.
2
Ellis was strapped in and asleep, and Jess obviously wasn’t in the mood to talk; he stared sullenly at the vidscreen from the copilot seat, at the passing black of space as he’d done for the last four hours. Not a word, and although Lara wouldn’t have minded a little conversation, she didn’t want to invade his privacy. Privacy on the small shuttle meant closing your eyes when someone needed to pee, a difficult enough activity in zero grav; if Jess wanted to be alone with his thoughts, she could at least give him that.
Not much point in making small talk anyway . . .
Lara closed her tired, grainy eyes for a moment, amazed that the thought of their upcoming deaths hadn’t lost any of its punch. They’d lived with it for almost three days, and it still made her stomach knot each time she thought of it, even after the nightmare of 949. She’d been prepared, then, with other lives depending on her actions. Now, though . . . she didn’t want to die, and she particularly didn’t want to die from asphyxiation in a cramped, cold shuttle in the depths of space. Even with the patch job on the filters.
they only had another fifteen, twenty hours of breathe time. And though DS 949 hadn’t been as DS as most, the shuttle’s bare-bones navigation system was strictly self-contained, no hookups, not even a list of planets or ‘toids in the quadrant; it had been designed as a go-between, ship to shore, not for deep-space transport— which meant, simply, that if there was anywhere to go, they weren’t going to find it.
She opened her eyes, looking again at the trail of glowing green numbers on the small console screen. They’d been headed .82 since bailing from the terminal, only because she thought she remembered a survey office somewhere in the low eights; it was a long shot, but it wasn’t like they had any alternatives. If they were on the Nemesis, they’d have been picked up by now; their old ship had been wired for serious range—
—and it was blown to shit along with Pop, the station, and about a million alien bugs. Why not wish for something you can have, like freeze-dried bean curd? Or a nap?
Sleep sounded good. She’d caught a few hours earlier, but it had been more like falling unconscious than real sleep. Ellis had been knocked out for most of their trip, which was just as well; the Max interface had done a number on him, and not just physically. The kid had saved their lives, for what it was worth, but it had cost him.
Lara glanced at Jess and tried to remember the last time he’d slept. Just after the escape, she thought. The loss of Teape and Candyman had been bad for him, worse than for her or Ellis; both men had died badly, and under his command. She’d tried telling him that it was Pop’s fault, Pop and the Company’s greedy indifference to the Max teams, but Jess seemed determined to take it on himself.