Bao jogs back into the living area, wiping the blood from her hand on a throw blanket hanging on a chair. Bao opens the case on the floor behind the violin, smiling slightly at the musty smell that erupts when she opens a case older than humanity's space travel. Bao gently picks up the violin, and with both hands, tucks the instrument into the case with a gentleness and reverence bordering on worship. She quickly closes the lid and snaps the clasps, no longer worrying about being heard.
Bao slips back out into the hallway, and glides back up to the curved ceiling before the door even clicks closed. She hears the steady irregular rhythm of booted feet jogging gently towards the apartment. Shimmying as smoothly as a bow over the strings, Bao quickly heads around the gently curing sub hallway away from the main route from which she came, knowing the emergency aid coming from the core of the station will also attract onlookers. The violin case firmly strapped to her back feels like it weighs a ton, and yet the sharp corners pressing into her flesh prompt her to move faster.
The main passages extending from the core of the station are spaced 15 degrees apart, and Bao turns left into the next one before the emergency services workers even cleared the turn down the ring. Bao turns left again at the outer ring, still adhered to the ceiling. The display on her arm begins to vibrate, indicating that the station guards have been alerted to the silencing of the violin player, and thus to her presence.
"Chikushō" Bao hisses through her teeth as she drops from the ceiling, realizing that the time for stealth has passed, and she must make the airlock before the exits are sealed. Running at full speed, her footsteps strike an aggressive but muted drumbeat until she stops short at the airlock door, badge extended. The inner door slides open, just as the operator's face begins glowing red from his control terminal. He glances quickly, remembers the flash of the blade earlier, and wisely chooses not to stop the airlock cycle.
Bao grimaces as a searing pain cuts across the back of her left calf, right before she clears the inner airlock door. Laser bolt or projectile, she can't take the time to determine - she pulls a suit patch out of a zippered pocket on her abdomen and slaps it over the rend in her suit, just as the outer doors begin to open.
Bao leaps out into the vacuum, throwing her magnet rope dart again, and gliding in a graceful arc to the surface of the station, quickly makes her way back to her own ship, a slight limp making her rhythm uneven.
YOU ARE READING
Death Opera
Science FictionCooperating space stations, thousands of years post-earth, have come to use music as a drug - where the performers have become street dealers, and the troupe owners are the kingpins. A new source arises, and is stolen at a moment of weakness. The en...
