Aberrant

Chapter 10

Kaplan dragged the last body bag from the gambling lounge, past two tattooed bouncers. Tugging down the hood of his newly acquired overshirt, he squinted through his headache and assessed the underground corridor.

The neon-lit doorways of pleasure houses and pawn-shops bled light, turning bared flesh strange colours. People swigged liquor, shot up drugs, and made deals. A haze of lust, fear, and malice choked the corridor.

Sweat crept down Kaplan's back as he pulled his haul forward. Sketski, his pilot, wasn't particularly heavy, but the effort to focus took its toll. So many minds. Fragmented thoughts hit like shrapnel. He could only catch those closest to him.

His stride faltered.

Someone wanted to kick "the dead body"—Sketski.

Snatching a moment of control, Kaplan zeroed in on the source: an idiot kid with pink hair. He redirected the moron's impulse, causing the kid to kick a friend as the other youth bent to retrieve his psychedelic alcopop from the floor. A fight started. Liquor bottles scattered. Knives got pulled.

Blades of a different sort sliced into Kaplan's brain. Wavering on his feet, he pushed open the door to the stairwell and pulled his polywrapped crewmate out of sight.

His two earlier hauls were waiting. Fero stood guard just inside the door, the black, nomad-style headscarf he favoured when off-duty obscuring his blond hair and feral features. One of the long, thermally protective coats the locals liked to wear covered his battle suit. Shio, the teams' youngest member, stood on the stairs, pistol in hand. Purple body paint now striped her crew cut, and dark ink outlined her eyes, highlighting the Earth East-Asian Japanese ancestry her genes had chosen to outwardly express. She'd also acquired a green jacket covered in chains and metal studs, making her seem more teen trash-pop star than soldier. The source of the ensign's new look pumped up one of the two discarded body bags by the wall. Kaplan caught the hum of an unconscious mind.

Crouching next to the bag at his feet, he moved to release Sketski.

The barrel of a pistol parted the seal first. Then a bandaged, sandy blond head. The pilot pushed out of the bag, sucking in air like a man half drowned. "Goddamn it, Kap." Bloodshot blue eyes blinked. "I know your kind are backward when it comes to being social, but even you must know there are better ways to leave a bar." The man groaned and righted himself. "Wrapped up in something hot and exotic comes to mind."

"You're in no state to be thinking about extracurricular activities, interspecies or otherwise." Kaplan rose to his feet, assessing the man. The pilot was in pain but functional. He'd been lucky. A thruster on his LD pod had malfunctioned. He'd hit the dirt hard. His battle suit and tech-heavy pilot's helmet had saved him.

Kaplan tuned out the man's discomfort, but couldn't dull his own. Taking up a position on the opposite side of the door from Fero, where he could see the stairs, he tilted his head back, propping himself against the wall.

His team didn't need to know his nose threatened to bleed. Except for his cousin Sun, the team's other psi-specialist, they didn't have clearance to discuss his health issues—any Rha Si issues. And they needed to focus on their jobs, find out what was happening with the Xykeree and the local situation.

The crowd around him had already given him valuable intel. Tirus 7's port was in crisis. A sandstorm had caused delays, and the communication issues plaguing the planet were making things worse. As were the Xykeree. The Bullhead was taking up multiple docking slots, and wasn't going anywhere until repairs were complete. If that wasn't bad enough, corrupt port staff were making the most of the mess. The black-market price for docking priority had gone up dramatically over the last hour.