Spectator

Chapter Eighteen: Then

"Well now we're both wasting time," Jae said lazily as he looked down the barrel of Kadent's blaster. "Looks like we'll have to come to some sort of agreement, or we're all going to perish on this very uncomfortable ladder."

Kadent glared at him, her muscles taut as she held herself on the ladder with one arm. "You're the one -"

"I'm not sure how many points we're going to lose by firing at each other, but I'm willing to find out. Are you?" Jae's eyes gleamed, his grin like a fox's. "Or are you going to follow orders and shush?"

Kadent didn't seem like she wanted to move, not until Augus overtook her on the rungs, murmuring something in her ear and putting his hand over hers to push the phaser back down. He got a scowl, but she did obey, which was an interesting turn. Jae put his own phaser away with alacrity, speaking warmly as if there had never been trouble.

"Well, now that we have that out of the way, Augus, want to lend me a hand?"

Kali wasn't really sure how she had gotten up the ladder. It felt like an endless, tumbling blur, only stabilising when she was finally put down on solid metal plating. Whatever corridor they were on hadn't been blown to pieces.

"Almost there," Jae said encouragingly. "See, I told you you could make it up the ladder. You were just being difficult."

Kali tried to laugh, but the relentless squeezing around her ribs made it unbearable.

"Fifteen, twelve," Augus said, and it took Kali a minute to realise she was probably counting down her points. It wasn't a very high number, and her vision had started to bubble by the time that Jae enthusiastically propped her against a wall.

"Ow."

"Shush," he told her. There was the rapid beeping of some machine. "Oh lucky you. There's still some left."

Her head cleared up the quickest, until she could easily regard the still bright and clean corridor around them, and the med station she was hooked to.

"That's right," Jae said. "Big sigh. You made it."

"Save some for the rest of us," Kadent said irritably, standing nearby with her arms crossed in front of her chest.

"Maybe if I hear a 'please'," Jae replied in a voice of syrupy sweetness.

"Where were you guys stationed?" Kali asked, before it could become another fight. Kadent made a face at her, reluctant to answer; Augus spoke instead, in a voice incongruously soft and quiet next to his large body.

"We were stationed at the smaller, manned cannons. Mine didn't last long. I went to find Kadent, and she found me first." He smiled at her. She didn't return it, but the scowl seemed to lift at least a little.

"Are we out of weapons then?" Kali hoped her voice didn't betray her concern. Sitting ducks with a ticking clock was not what she hoped for.

"The main cannon is still working," Augus said. "It took out one of the larger enemy ships that was doing the most damage, but there's still two more. Last I saw, it was spooling up for another shot. If it still has the energy."

"Let's hope," Jae said cheerfully. "Alright, your turn."

Kali could at least walk on her own by the time they departed the medical station, which was a plus. Jae had been nice enough to basically drag her through the halls, but it was less damaging to her pride to stand on her own feet. Jae didn't seem like the type to think she owed him, but she still wasn't in the habit of depending on others too much. On Mars the bureaucracy was a delicate balance of politics and power and money and technology, who owned the most, who owed the most, a constant grapple beyond the designated officials who were all owned by someone or another. Marisians liked to think they were more advanced than the Terrans they left behind, but the truth was the opposite; they were just as greedy and desperate, they just happened to live in glinting, gilded cities. Kali didn't know enough about Jae to trust him completely, because despite all the games played on this station, the real world divides would always be present in one way or another.