The Best of World SF by Lavie Tidhar (children's ebooks free online .txt) 📕

Find and report.

The light would disappear as the ribbons twisted in on themselves and made a tight ball, smaller than her fist. Colourless and silent, it would burst through the doors, up and out of the cellar.

Come, Sister.

She began to jog, blood rushing through her veins, her body pumping adrenaline.

Some minutes later, the ground vibrated beneath her feet and the hair on her arms stood on end. Sister kept pace with her until she came to a clearing large enough to land, then descended and de-cloaked, waiting.

Suit, she tapped.

There was a hiss as a storage compartment behind the cockpit opened. She reached in and drew out her old armour, silver-grey, just like her ship. Her fingers touched the mended area low on the left side, in the crease between the chest plate and the leggings. She closed her eyes, remembering the white-hot pain of being pinned, red washing over her vision as Sister’s alarm systems cascaded into full auto-repair shutdown, the chilly certainty of death as the cockpit failed to seal around the branch that impaled her, and blood-tinged water rose rapidly to her chest.

Remembering him, bending into the cockpit, hair plastered to his head from the water he swam through to reach her crashed ship, long brown fingers, callused and scarred, reaching down to help her.

She stripped off her clothes and put on her armour, her lips a tight line, her nostrils flared. The drone returned as she activated her faceplate. It floated down onto her wrist and wrapped itself along her forearm. She started the Kinnec to see what it had seen. Sister’s displays crowded her periphery vision, but she focused on the tracking and reconnaissance stream.

He was alive, his tracker a pulsing marker in a complex schematic the drone had uploaded. Her chest heaved with a quick breath, and she got into the cockpit as she scanned the rest of the feed.

It took a quarter of an hour at top speed before she saw her first sign of the slaver’s passage – a smoking village, a burned landing circle – and she raced past with only a cursory look. Sister lost contact with his tracker just as the hub on her arm began to vibrate. Her throat grew tight as she reduced speed and swung north, dropping down close to the treetops.

He’s fine. He has to be. She landed on the mountain slope behind the settlement, near the treeline and out of sight of the slaver ship. She kept the Kinnec up in her vision and half ran, half slid down the slope to the field below.

Six armed catchers stood guard around the loading bay doors, leaning on their weapons, or standing with them slung over their limbs. She ignored the bright blossoms of weapons’ fire in the town on her right, leaving Sister to catalogue all hostiles as she strode toward the entrance ramp. When they saw her, she stopped and retracted her hood, waiting as two of them turned their weapons on her.

‘Who the fuck are you?’ scrolled across her vision. Good. The translator knew their language. There was no time to waste.

She thought her answer and the Kinnec translated it into speech that rumbled against her flesh as it projected it out of the suit’s speakers. The words flashed in the bottom of her vision. ^I’ve come for my husband.^ The guards looked at each other. One of those standing on the ramp threw his head back, laughing. The rest looked blank. Perhaps she had used the wrong language. She checked her settings, but they were error free.

^I wish to speak with your captain,^ she tried again.

‘No one cares what you want, least of all the captain.’ The Kinnec dropped a blinking triangular denoter over the speaker, the slaver who had laughed. ‘But cargo is always welcome. She’s not armed. Looks healthy enough. Take her in.’

She didn’t struggle as they came alongside her and grabbed her arms. They marched her up the ramp into the bay, mag-boots shaking the metal floor. She stopped as soon as they were out of sight of the entrance ramp, pulling against their hold. One of them tripped and landed against the metal bulkhead. The denoter appeared above the slaver and curses scrolled across her vision before the one that was upright struck her across her face. ‘Keep moving. You’re almost past your prime, not worth much if they can’t fix you. The captain’s welcome to take you out of my wages if you give us any trouble.’

She licked the bit of flesh her teeth had cut out of the inside of her mouth. Copper and salt stung her tongue as she tapped her wrist.

Two ribbons unsnapped from her arm and whipped themselves around the slavers’ necks. They tightened lovingly, thin bands of translucence. The slavers stood straight and still under the drone’s control, eyes unblinking. Pacified.

^Take me to the captain.^

They turned down a T-junction, and she followed. This was a Consortium slaver. Their slave berths were controlled from the bridge, the cargo secured by the captain’s command only. Crew and cargo could form no alliances, and problems could be dealt with as easily as jettisoning a berth. The crew members the drone controlled incapacitated the two guards outside the bridge, so the captain and first mate were alone when she entered the bridge. The first mate turned from conversation with the captain as the door irised open, words giving way to silence and a frown.

Drone. Sentry. The slavers behind her turned toward the empty corridor, standing guard over their unconscious brethren.

She stepped forward, her heart sinking as she took in the captain. There will be no bargaining with this one. Still, she had to try. It was only fair.

^I will offer you one chance,^ her suit intoned. ^Open your cargo hold, give me my husband, and you and your crew can go in peace.^

The first mate stared at her with narrowed eyes. The captain’s head tilted a little in her direction.

‘Who let you in here?’ the denoter blinked