Chapter 10: Striking Sparks | page 2

“Oi, what y’ doin’ there?” asked someone behind Duaal.

Duaal jumped up and whirled to see a woman in oil-spotted orange coveralls frowning at him. Her skin was dark and lined from the sun, dark hair braided into a long tail. She flinched nervously, eyeing Duaal. He straightened and gave her his brightest, sweetest smile.

“Is this your ship?” he asked.

“Na, ‘s not mine,” the woman said, shaking her head. Her accent was distinctly Hyzaari, but much, much thicker than Duaal’s. “I jus’ work on it. Fuelin’, y’ see?”

She jabbed a thumb over her shoulder to a tall pylon extended out toward the Riptide and the flashing red that indicated it was in use. Perhaps Duaal’s smile was working. Her posture lost some of its defensive rigidity.

“Th’ cap’n is in th’ city takin’ care o’ some bus’ness. Maybe I kin be helpin’ y’?” she said hopefully.

“Maybe you can,” Duaal answered. “She’s big. Must take a lot of fuel. Been filling for a while now?”

The woman nodded. “Ya, for ‘bout an hour now,” she confirmed.

“Has there been any fighting? A man running from that ship?” Duaal pointed at the Blue Phoenix.

“O ya, two o’ them. A man wi’ a metal arm. Imagine a man like tha’ these days! It looked broken. Sparkin’, y’ see? An’ an older man chasin’ him. Had a bird or somethin’ on his arm. Must be one o’ those Prians. They were tradin’ fire, so I ducked behind th’ station there. I didn’ want t’ get m’self burned,” the woman said. She gestured at a small control station at the base of the pylon. “Th’ old man yelled for a while, then went back t’ his ship.”

“Did you see which way the other man went, the one with the cybernetics?” Duaal asked eagerly. He was getting closer!

“I think he was headin’ off that way,” she said, pointing north.

“He’d been shot,” Duaal told her, indicating the blood on the nose of the ship where Coldhand might have steadied himself. “Did you see where he was bleeding from?”

The technician shook her head as she answered. “Na, I didn’ see. He was bleedin’ pretty bad, but I couldn’ tell y’ where it was comin’ from.”

Duaal thanked her. He could find out for himself how badly Coldhand was wounded when he finally cornered the hunter. More importantly, Duaal knew which way Coldhand was going! Duaal made his way north, weaving between the landed ships in search of his quarry. The landing pads formed a large crescent on the west side of Gharib, running in a long curve north and south on the edge the city. The Blue Phoenix was to the south, so Coldhand had fled further up into the pads, not into the city. So close to the city, most were filled with passenger ships rather than the cargo vessels that made berth further out. The majority were small starships that carried no more than ten or twenty. Stray was hardly a vacationing port.

As evening crept over the city, shops and bars turned on bright holographic signs and neon lights, illuminating the dusty horizon like a discarded Waytide decoration. Duaal made his way up the main landing road. Vehicles on their NI fields rumbled along beside him. Duaal flipped up his collar against the rising wind. Stray’s sun was half hidden behind the curved horizon, sinking Gharib into deep russet shadows. It was starting to get cold.