‘I can’t begin to tell you how offensive that is,’ Olli told her.
‘I know. I’m sorry. But they’re mostly . . . there’s always some Colonial girl, and she’s born to a hard life, with no food, on a hostile planet. She makes it to one of your military academies and has rivals and friends and . . . it’s like our life, but different. More different. She’s brave and has adventures and probably falls in love with a girl, or even a boy. Or both, and . . .’
The Scorpion groaned and lurched sideways. For a moment it seemed about to fall on Solace and crush her, but then it caught its balance.
‘I’m in,’ Olli said. Then there was a long silence as Solace contemplated all the killing implements she had just made available to the woman.
‘I still don’t like you,’ the specialist said tiredly. ‘Or your people. And if you think that finding out you all love reading goddamn school stories, about all those military academies we don’t have, makes me like you any better, then . . .’ She hacked out a sound that was part cough and part laugh. ‘That was the dumbest thing I ever heard – what you just said. You know that, right?’
Solace shrugged and stepped back from the Scorpion. ‘I am not a diplomat,’ she said with feeling. ‘I’m a soldier. I love the Parthenon. But that doesn’t mean I want everyone to be like us. The Sách vé faim, they’re stories that . . . celebrate difference. They’re all about teaching us to love the Colonies, despite everything. So the War Party won’t happen again. So we won’t be like that, whether Doctor Parsefer wanted it or not.’
Olli had bared her teeth in frustration, as she clearly needed help for the next stage. At Solace’s awkward look, she merely waved her truncated arms irritably. Solace picked her up, cradling her as best she could, and fumbled her into the Scorpion’s torn cockpit.
‘Ow. Bitch,’ Olli yelped. ‘Are you – crying?’ She had one eye on Solace, one on her board, where the displays were lighting up with unhappy colours. ‘You get real sad about these starve-y stories?’
‘I think my arm is broken,’ Solace said, truthfully enough. Although it wasn’t just that.
‘That so?’
‘My blockers aren’t keeping on top of the pain anymore.’
‘Blockers. Right,’ Olli said. ‘Forgot you were better than the rest of us for a moment there. Humblest apologies.’
Solace waited for her to say that was a joke, but apparently it wasn’t a joke. Things had perhaps reached a détente between them and maybe that was as much as she could hope for.
‘Where are your lot at?’ the specialist asked, taking a few careful steps in the Scorpion, working around its busted leg.
‘Kris and Trine are already on the Corday – that’s the Partheni ship.’ Solace had been trying to keep track of the coded transmissions. You and Kit should—’
‘Will be getting out of here on the Vulture,’ Olli told her. ‘You take your chances – with us, or with your people – but we are not losing the ship. And we’re keeping Idris, for that matter.’
‘Fine.’ And I’m not in a position to argue, between my injured arm and the frame I’ve just got you into. ‘You bring Kit.’
Olli led the way, the Hanni held with surprisingly gentleness in two of the Scorpion’s arms. The remaining limbs all worked together to send her lurching crabwise down the corridors of the Broken Harvest. They ran into a couple of Aklu’s people almost immediately, tough-looking men with guns. They took one look at Olli and the Scorpion and ran in the opposite direction. Distant shooting came from elsewhere on the ship.
‘You even know where to go?’ Solace asked the specialist.
‘Sonar pulse,’ Olli said shortly. ‘Bounces like a beauty down all these tunnels. Got a big room up ahead that isn’t where we were . . . Hope it’s a docking bay, hold, somewhere else with access to the outside.’ There were two bodies ahead, tumbled into one another at a conjunction of tunnels. The Scorpion stepped over them and Solace followed. The pain in her arm was only mounting, all that mechanic work having pushed the fracture past the point where she could ignore it. The injury ate into her combat readiness, chewing at the edges of her concentration.
Then Olli was moving downhill, at first scuttling, then galloping, and at last simply sliding because the corridor became a shaft. Solace was right on her metal heels, trying to slow herself because she could really do without a broken leg as well.