Of Angels and Angles, Part 3 of 4
Bodie froze.
"Stand up and turn around, very slowly. Keep your hands away from your body."
Jensen scooped up Bodie's kit bag, then stepped up behind him and plucked the holdout slugthrower from Bodie's holster. "The knife in your boot. Bend down, very slowly, and hand it to me--sheath and all. If I see that blade, I'll shoot you where you stand."
Bodie did as he was told, and Jensen tucked the sheathed knife into his belt.
"What are you going to do with us, Jensen?" Bodie asked, a bit too belligerent for someone held at gunpoint.
"You are going to meet with an unfortunate accident."
"Just tripped and fell out the airlock, huh?"
"That's about right. But first, I think I'll take your pretty bounty as my pretty bounty, and I think you'll get to watch what I do with him." He gestured to an exposed pipe that ran about three feet from the floor. "Now sit down and hold up your hands."
"Why bother? You're going to kill me anyway."
Jensen shifted his aim. "Because if you don't," he said, "I'll kill him."
Bodie sat and let Jensen tie his hands to the pipe. He waited for an opening, a chance when the 'beam gun might waver, but there was never a point where he could be sure that a reflexive shot wouldn't hit Doyle.
Jensen admired his handiwork, then stood up. "All right. Now everybody sit tight and prepare for take-off." He left, powering down the lights as a bonus. The engine room, lit only by the vague multi-coloured glow of various status lights, fell silent.
"I never did remember to pulse the hull," Bodie said guiltily. "He must have been tracking us ever since Charloss. Are you all right?"
"Head hurts," Doyle muttered. "Bastard shorted out a sensor panel...was waiting for me at the bottom of the ramp." He laughed bitterly. "At least I remembered the collar."
"Did he try to--" Bodie's voice caught. "He just hit you, right?"
"Yeah. Couple of times, when I said things he didn't like. He threatened me, but he...hasn't tried anything else."
Doyle's voice was tired, almost weak, and Bodie wondered just how hard Jensen had had hit him. His hands clenched into helpless fists, still tied to the pipe above him.
The thrusters hummed, and the Capri lifted off. They had time, then, but not much. Jensen wouldn't throw him out the airlock until they'd made a jump or two, at least.
Doyle usually left the tool-kit on the floor at the far end of the room. Bodie shifted and found that the rope had enough slack to slide along the length of pipe towards the tools. He didn't know what he was going to do once he got to the kit, but he was going to take things one step at a time.
A sharp edge on the pipe caught the back of his hand, and he felt blood sliding slowly down his arm. "Shit," he hissed.
Doyle started. "Bodie? Are you--?"
"I'm all right," he said. "Cut my hand on a sharp--" He laughed suddenly, the sound reverberating in the tight space. "I'm going to get us out of this, angelfish." And he wasn't even going to need the tool-kit. Bodie shifted his hands until the rough cord tying his hands was pressed against the sharp edge of the pipe. He worked the cord across the edge, feeling it fray slowly in his hands.
After at least three jumps and what felt like a minor eternity, the cord gave way, sending Bodie to the floor in an undignified heap. He clenched and unclenched his fists, forcing feeling back into his tingling hands. He felt around the floor until he bashed into the tool-kit and he dug out a tiny lamp. He switched it on, casting a dim blue glow across the engine room.
Doyle flinched at the sudden light, squinting across the room. "Your hand?"
"It's fine," Bodie said. "Felt worse in the dark." He scooped up a blade from the tool-kit and cut Doyle's bonds. "Listen, is Jensen alone?"
Doyle frowned. "I think so."
"Good. Look, Ray, I'm going out there, and I can't leave him to come after us again." Because if they left him alive, he would. And as for Kell... Well, they would just have to hope that Kell never found out what had happened to Jensen.
"I know," Doyle said softly.
"You stay here. I'm going after him."
"What? I'm not waiting here, I'm--" Doyle struggled to his feet, and Bodie gently pushed him back down.
"You can hardly stand, Ray. You stay here. If something goes wrong, you might be able to get the drop on Jenny yourself."
"But--"
"I will tie you up again if I have to."
Doyle sighed and sank back against the wall, and that alone was worrying. Doyle could have made half a dozen sarky comments to that line, but he didn't say anything at all.
Bodie kissed him quickly on the cheek and stood up.
"If you're not back in ten minutes..." Doyle threatened.
If Bodie wasn't back in ten minutes, it would be safe to say he wasn't going to be back at all. "I will be. Don't worry."
He heard Doyle try to call him back, but Bodie ignored him and slipped out of the engine room. He kept the tool-kit's tiny blade in his hand; it wouldn't do much against a 'beam gun, but it was better than hunting Jensen empty-handed. He wished Jensen hadn't taken his kit bag after he'd tied them up. There was another spare in the forward storage compartment, but Bodie swore that if they survived this mess he was going to start hiding the damned things all over the ship.
The cargo hold was empty, and so was the galley. He closed and locked each door as he passed, so that there was no way Jensen could sneak around behind him. He set an alarm on the galley door and continued up the corridor.
It was only three minutes into Bodie's allotted ten when he felt a whisper of air in a side passage and turned to find himself face-to-face with Jensen. The snub barrel of a 'beam gun prodded him in the ribs, and Jensen grinned over the rising whine of the gun--déjà vu.
'Beam guns didn't take long to charge; he had maybe two seconds before the shot. He swung with the blade and ducked back, knowing it wasn't going to be enough...
A 'beam bolt flashed, close enough that Bodie felt its heat against the side of his face. The shot caught Jensen in the throat, dropping him to the deckplates with a faint smell of singed flesh.
Bodie gaped at the body for a second, and then turned around to see Doyle leaning against the bulkhead, utterly expressionless, the 'beam gun Bodie had given him held rigid at his side. Bodie wondered absurdly where he'd been keeping it.
Doyle stared down at the body.
"I thought I told you to stay in the engine room," Bodie said tightly.
Doyle ignored him.
"Ray--"
He shook himself. "Quick jumps, you said. After we toss him out."
"Right." Bodie dragged Jensen's body back towards the airlock while Doyle stumbled up to the cockpit to plot their jumps.
The airlock cycled, and Bodie braced himself for the first jolt of the Leap Drive. Two jumps later, he finally let himself relax a bit. No pursuit.
And no Doyle, he discovered, in the cockpit. Bodie sent a charge through the hull--too late, but it wouldn't do to leave the tracker just sitting there--and he paused in the galley to put the kettle on before venturing back into the engine room. Still no Doyle.
He went back up the corridor and found that the door of the loo was open. Doyle was standing there, leaning heavily against the sink, wiping the blood away from his split lip.
Doyle glanced up and saw Bodie's reflection in the tiny mirror.
"There's tea," Bodie offered.
Doyle nodded and followed Bodie back down the corridor to the galley.
Bodie poured them each a cup of tea and watched Doyle carefully as he sat down. He didn't seem dizzy or off-balance, which was good, but the way he had sounded at first, weak and tired and hurting...
And he still looked weak and tired, but it was a different sort of hurting on his face now. Bodie wished like hell Doyle hadn't had to take that shot. "Why didn't you tell me you had the 'beam gun handy? You wouldn't have had to use it, if you'd told me."
Doyle took a sip of tea. "I was out of it, for a while there--I forgot that you'd given it to me, and by the time I remembered it, you were gone, and I couldn't call you back to get it."
"So you decided to bring it to me? Even though I said to stay put?"
Doyle sighed. "Yeah. I thought I could get to you before you found Jensen. But when I got out to the corridor and I saw you...I knew what I had to do." He reached for the kettle to pour himself another cup.
The spout clattered faintly against the rim of the cup, but Bodie knew that reaching out to help Doyle steady it would only end in anger and probably a shattered teacup.
"You're right, Ray. You did what you had to. If you hadn't--"
"You don't have to try and comfort me. It isn't the first time I've killed," he said flatly.
"I'm not trying to comfort you. I'm trying to thank you. Jenny had me dead to rights. If you hadn't shot him--or even if you'd shot to wound him--he would have killed me."
"I know that."
"And I know how difficult it is, for an Angeline."
"You have no idea, Bodie." Doyle's voice was sharp.
That silenced him for a minute. "You're right. I don't."
Doyle poured them each another cup of tea; his hand shook a little less this time. He added milk to Bodie's cup before handing it back to him. Bodie hadn't known that Doyle ever paid attention to how he took his tea.
"Ray," he said quietly.
Doyle looked up.
"The last person you killed for was your brother. I'm grateful, and...honoured, I guess, that you'd do the same for me. My own avenging angel," Bodie added, with a lopsided smile.
Doyle looked away. Bodie reached out and tipped his chin up, his thumb tracing Doyle's swollen lip. "That's twice now you've saved my life," he murmured, more seriously now. "Maybe I do need a Keeper, after all."
Doyle half-smiled at the joke; that was progress.
Bodie sat back before touching Doyle could tempt him to push things farther. Now was definitely not the time. "How's your head?"
"Better than it was," Doyle said, which didn't mean good.
"We should set down somewhere and get you checked out. You weren't really focused when I found you back there."
Doyle shook his head, then winced, apparently regretting the sudden motion. "No. Any tests they do will include blood, and they'll get an ID, and then we'll be in worse trouble. You'd have to really register me as Bound to keep the Angeline away from us, then."
"And you don't want that. I don't want that," Bodie said. "But if you're no better tomorrow, I'm setting us down, and you can argue all you want. I'd rather have you tracked than dead."
Doyle chuckled. "Thanks."
"But I have to say--you made a hell of a sight, tied up like that."
"Well, I'm glad one of us was enjoying it."
Bodie grinned. "Trust me, angelfish. I could make it so we'd both enjoy it--very much."
***
Bodie let Doyle sleep for a while, although he made a point of checking up on him every hour or so. After the third time, Doyle had flung a pillow at him and said he wasn't dying, thanks, but that Bodie might if he didn't leave him alone.
Bodie left him alone after that. He called up various channels on his handheld, scouring the lists to see if there was a job nearby. Something safe, something easy. Maybe even something legal, for a change.
He found what he was looking for in a shipping job a few systems away. It had been posted only an hour ago, and everything appeared to check out. To top it off, the delivery site was a single jump from Pellia, where he'd been planning to settle down for a week or two, anyway.
Doyle seemed all right when he woke; there was a lovely bruise shading the side of his face, but it didn't look as though Jensen had done him any lasting damage.
Still, whenever Bodie caught sight of the purple mark, he couldn't help but feel a savage satisfaction that Jensen wouldn't ever get another chance to touch him.
"Did we settle on a course?" Doyle said. When he'd gone to sleep, they had still been making random jumps to throw off any possible pursuit.
"Yeah, I found us a shipping job. Perfectly legal, this time--nothing to bother your curly head about."
"How long?"
"One day to the loading site, six days to delivery. And after this, we'll have enough money to go to ground for a while. I promised you an ocean view once, didn't I? And it might be a good thing to keep our heads down until we're sure Kell isn't going to make a fuss over Jensen."
"Sounds good to me," Doyle said. He spent a good deal of the trip scrubbing the airlock chamber, making sure that there would be nothing to connect them to Jensen. Bodie busied himself making room in the cargo hold, testing the lifts that would help them get the heavy shipping containers loaded and unloaded. They would have the trip done in a week, and then they could relax.
He had a good feeling about this job.
***
They put down in the early morning, local time. Bodie considered waiting until a more appropriate hour to meet with their client, but he decided against it. There was no point in waiting, after all. The quicker the cargo was delivered, the happier everyone would be.
Doyle seemed to have come to the same conclusion; Bodie saw that he'd already put on the collar, though he didn't look happy about it. All the more reason to get off-planet quickly, so that Doyle could put it away again.
He let down the ramp, and they stepped off the Capri into the quiet docking bay. Something about the silence seemed to ring in his ears.
They were halfway across the dock when Bodie realised what was wrong.
The spaceport was deserted. It wasn't the quiet of an off-hours shift, or a slow time of year--someone had paid to make sure that the spaceport would be empty when they docked.
Any good feelings he'd had about the job vanished instantly. "I don't like this," Bodie said tightly.
Doyle set his jaw and pulled the 'beam gun from his jacket pocket. Bodie stared at him; Doyle gave him a wry look and flipped the switch to charge the gun.
"Just keep walking. Maybe the ambush isn't meant for us," Bodie said, not even half believing it.
"Sure," Doyle replied, sounding just as unconvinced. "Maybe."
They rounded a stack of metal shipping containers and found four people standing in the open doorway of the docking bay. And if there were four visible, there were probably at least as many hidden among the equipment on the far side of the dock.
Bodie frowned at the four waiting for them. There was an Angeline among them, a vaguely familiar face...
Her wing shifted faintly as she reached down.
"Bodie--" Doyle twisted and shoved Bodie down behind the stack of crates just as the first 'beam shots soared past them.
"Thanks," Bodie said breathlessly, drawing his slugthrower. He peered around the edge of the stack and pulled away just ahead of the 'beam shots. "Kell must have found out about Jensen."
"How?"
"Who knows? But it can't be anything else."
Doyle leaned out and fired a few 'beam blasts to keep their attackers busy. "What now?"
"I'm thinking."
A 'beam blast whined past Bodie's ear, and he winced.
"Think faster," Doyle said.
The stack of shipping containers was only about four feet high, and Bodie could already feel the metal warming against his back. Eventually the 'beams were going to melt through, or set the contents of the bins on fire, or their attackers would get tired of waiting and rush them. At any rate, they weren't going to last long.
"One of these days a job is going to go right," he said.
"Not this time." Doyle took a deep breath. "I can hold them off for a few minutes. Get back to the ship."
"Without you?"
"I was the one who shot Kell." Doyle ducked back as a spray of fire cut a rain of hot metal splinters from their makeshift shelter.
"Only because I didn't get to him first!" Bodie twisted out from cover and fired two shots towards their attackers. Someone shouted, and he hoped that he'd taken at least one out of the fight. "All right, I think it's time for a tactical retreat. Follow me, keep close and as low as you can, all right?"
Doyle nodded grimly.
Bodie jumped up from behind cover, spraying fire across the landing bay before turning to run. Doyle was up behind him, his 'beam fire falling just short of the attackers' cover spot--but close enough that they still ducked away. Soft-hearted bastard, but it worked.
They were almost to the ship, and Bodie thought they really might have a chance if they could get inside. Then Doyle swore and cried out.
Bodie spun around and saw him drop to one knee, the 'beam gun falling from nerveless fingers. His left hand clutched at the top of his right shoulder, where blood was seeping through the dark fabric of his shirt. Someone in Kell's ambush was using a slugthrower, and they'd hit his partner.
Bodie swore viciously and sent a scattering of cover fire at their attackers before racing back to Doyle. He grabbed Doyle's uninjured arm and pulled him backwards, prepared to drag him all the way up the ramp if he couldn't carry him.
But carrying him wasn't a problem. "You don't weigh anything!" he exclaimed, scooping Doyle up in his arms and ducking back into the ship.
"It's the hollow bones, I expect," Doyle mumbled.
Shots pinged off the hull, but the ramp rose quickly, preventing the attackers from advancing on them.
Doyle shifted in his arms. "You can put me down now. I'm all right."
Bodie set him back on his feet, where he wavered alarmingly before standing up straight. "You sure about that?"
"Yeah, I've just never been shot before."
Bodie pushed aside the torn fabric of Doyle's shirt and prodded the broken skin beneath, eliciting a vicious curse from Doyle. "Technically, angelfish, you still haven't been. It's a crease--a deep one, but not a through-shot. Just grazed you. A few inches over, though, and..." He rested his fingertips against the base of Doyle's throat, just below the bounty collar. He could feel the pulse pounding there, adrenaline still racing through them both. "We got lucky."
"Yeah." Doyle swallowed hard and leaned against the wall, looking paler than usual.
"At least your shirt's dark--won't show the stain."
"Small favours." He started off towards his bunk, steadily enough.
Bodie made to follow him, reaching into one of the storage cupboards. "If you get your shirt off, I'll bring the kit round and give you a hand once we lift off."
Doyle turned back. "No, I can take care of it."
"It'll be easier with another set of hands."
"I said, I can take care of it," he repeated sharply.
"Bloody hell, Doyle, I've seen your fucking wings before."
Doyle's face was tight with pain and anger. "I don't care about that. I don't need your help."
"Fine." Bodie thrust the first-aid kit against Doyle's chest with a bit more force than was strictly necessary. "Have fun."
***
Bodie didn't bother to warn Doyle when they lifted off. Kell's people had stopped shooting, and luckily they didn't seem to be interested in pursuit. He set the Leap Drive on a course without caring much where it took them, and he glared out at the unsettling black of the microjumps for a while. When the shifting stars began to give him a headache, he checked the network and found that a bounty had been issued on the Capri and its occupants--alive, or with confirmation of death. The price was not small, and Bodie was perversely flattered.
Eventually he heard quiet footsteps mounting the few stairs into the cockpit.
Doyle hesitated in the doorway. "Bodie, can you give me a hand?"
"Two weren't quite enough, eh?" he said viciously.
He sighed. "I'm sorry."
Bodie's irritation faded. "Don't worry about it. Just wish you didn't have to play the stubborn bastard all the time." He swivelled around in the chair to find that Doyle had changed his shirt. "What do you need?"
"I took care of the graze, but there's blood on the wings, and my arm's gone too stiff to reach it. Will you--?"
"Yeah, of course." Bodie checked their course one last time and followed Doyle back down the corridor.
Doyle stopped in front of the door to his cabin, but Bodie beckoned him forward. "My bed's bigger. You can lie flat while I take care of the blood--you look like you can barely stand as it is."
Doyle rolled his eyes, but he nodded agreement, retrieving the first-aid kit from the table before following Bodie to his cabin. The ebbing adrenaline had left them both faintly shaky, and Bodie didn't have the pain and frustration of a graze to further diminish his energy.
Bodie called up the lights to a soft golden glow, not too bright or too harsh. He took the kit from Doyle. "A bruised face and a shoulder wound," Bodie said sadly. "People are going to think I'm mistreating you."
Doyle offered a weak laugh. He unbuttoned his shirt and eased it off his shoulders, seeming far less self-conscious than Bodie would have expected. There was a neat white bandage over the graze, and Bodie was relieved to see that it wasn't bleeding through.
Doyle turned away, his wings still folded and trapped by the harness. "Why did you come back for me?" he asked.
"Well, there's a hitch in the Leap Drive needs fixing..."
"Bodie."
"The hell kind of a question is that, anyway? Why wouldn't I have come back for you?"
Doyle smiled. "Thank you." He slid the harness off and let his wings stretch. Bodie was still awed by the sight, and thought he might always be. There was blood on the feathers of the right wing, below the spot where the bullet had grazed Doyle's shoulder.
Doyle settled onto the bed, lying on his stomach.
"Are you sure you don't mind my touching them?"
He shifted his shoulders, wincing into the pillow when his right arm pulled at the bandage. "No. After all of this, you must know that I..." He sighed. "It's all right."
Bodie knelt to one side of Doyle's hips and wetted a soft cloth. Hesitantly, he reached out and wiped the cloth along one bloodied pinion.
There was a flutter, and Bodie reached out instinctively with his other hand to steady the trembling wing, letting his palm glide gently over the curve of it. "Shh," he murmured, not sure which of them he was trying to calm.
It didn't take long; the wings themselves were undamaged and the blood was still damp and easily cleaned. They were as beautiful up close as they had been from across the room, pure white and graceful, the lowest feathers brushing the curve of Doyle's hip.
Bodie let his hand wander to the other wing, tracing its outline with the tip of one finger. The wings fluttered again; he wondered if it tickled.
He set the cloth aside and continued his explorations, slowly and gently, always waiting for Doyle to pull away, to tell him that enough was enough, his wings were surely clean by now. But the wings kept fluttering, and Bodie was nearly sure now that it was a sign of enjoyment. He raised both hands and sent his palms skating across the upper curves of the wings, his hands sliding down their length.
Doyle gasped and shivered, his hips pumping against the mattress once, twice before his whole body tightened and he gave a soft groan.
Bodie pulled back, amazed at what he'd accomplished with such a simple touch. He struggled to find his voice again. "Hell, Doyle, I didn't realise."
He sighed. "I'm sorry," he murmured. "Shouldn't have..."
Bodie rested his palm over Doyle's spine, fitting perfectly on the warm skin between the wings. "Nothing to be sorry about, angelfish. Go to sleep."
Bodie lay down beside him, letting his hand fall to the small of Doyle's back. Not holding him, not quite, but enough to remind Doyle that Bodie was there, and that he wasn't going anywhere, at least not until Doyle fell asleep.
Then Bodie could slip off and have a shower. A very, very cold shower.
He fell asleep first.
When Bodie woke in the morning, the other half of the bed was cool. But when he got up to straighten the sheets, he found one long, white feather caught up in the folds of the bedspread. He set it on the bedside table, not quite willing to throw it away.
He showered and dressed, then decided it was time to brave the galley.
Doyle was already sitting at the table with breakfast in front of him.
"Morning," Bodie said too brightly, stepping inside. "How's your shoulder?"
"Not bad. There's tea, if you want any."
Maybe that would be it, then. They could both quite easily pretend that nothing else had happened last night.
Bodie made it halfway to the kettle before Doyle spoke again.
"I'm sorry about yesterday," he said very quietly.
"You don't have to apologise for being shot," Bodie said, his voice light.
"That's not what I mean, and you know it."
"Yeah, I know," he said sharply. "And I told you last night there was nothing to be sorry for. If anything, I ought to apologise. I didn't know what I was doing to you..."
"You couldn't have known. I should have stopped you. Or at least reciprocated," he said, looking up with a wry grin.
Bodie blinked. "Only I haven't got any wings to play with, have I?"
"I'm sure I could have worked something out."
Bodie reached for a teacup, wondering if the offer was still open. There was a dull thunk from aft, and suddenly he wasn't walking anymore.
Free-fall.
Bodie swore as the teacup bounced off his cheek. "Gravity generator's gone."
"Oh, is it?" Doyle snapped.
Bodie turned and found him clinging to a light fixture on the galley wall, pale and shaky. Even from across the room (and upside down, with respect to the floor), he could see Doyle's wings struggling against the harness he wore, helpless. Of course--if it felt like falling, every instinct would be screaming for him to free his wings.
"Relax," Bodie said. "You'll mess up your shoulder again." He pushed off the wall and drifted towards Doyle. "It's probably just a short somewhere on the generator coil. I'll switch off the Leap Drive so we can work on it without getting electrocuted."
"Right," Doyle said tightly.
"You think you can let go of the wall long enough to give me a hand?"
Doyle let go and clenched his fists, obviously wanting nothing more than to reach for his handhold again.
"Are you going to be sick?" Bodie asked, caught between concern for Doyle and revulsion over the idea of free-floating vomit.
"No, it's--it just feels like falling."
"You'll get used to it, Icarus. Or we'll get it fixed, and then you won't have to. Come on." He turned a somersault in the air; Doyle made a face at him.
"Bloody show-off," he muttered, but he slowly followed Bodie back to the engine room. He didn't seem to like the idea of pushing off and floating; he was more or less crawling down the hall, grasping at doorways and cupboards and anything else he could find to anchor himself.
Doyle eventually relaxed well enough to help Bodie with the generator, even though his wings never stopped shifting nervously beneath the harness. The tools had an irritating tendency to drift away when released, but in less than an hour they managed to fix the shorted wires.
It was going to take a while for the generator to struggle back to full power, so Bodie amused himself in the fractional gravity by spinning around and bouncing off the walls of the hull. The Capri's generator might be slow to recover, but when he'd first shipped out from home he'd hired onto a boat where the generator had worked about half the time. He'd learned how to cope with low and zero gravity rather quickly.
He twisted in the air and collided with Doyle, reaching out to steady them both. He was close, so close, and Bodie couldn't help but lean in and press his lips to Doyle's. Doyle's mouth opened against his, and Bodie's arm settled around Doyle's waist. They drifted slowly towards the deck, pressed together for the space of a few rapid heartbeats.
Then Doyle's eyes flashed open. He shoved back, and they flew apart, action and reaction exaggerated by low gravity. The generator hummed, and they were pulled gently back down to the deckplates as gravity reasserted itself.
Bodie reached for him again. "Ray?"
"No. I can't."
Bodie let his eyes stray down Doyle's body. "Sure looks like you can."
He shook his head. "Don't, Bodie. I said I can't." He started down the corridor, but as he went to pass Bodie, Bodie reached out an arm to bar his way.
"Fine, then," he snapped. "How much?"
"What?"
"How much for a night with an Angeline? Is it more if I want to fuck you, less if I want to drop down on my knees and suck you till you scream? What if I just want to touch your wings again, make you come over and over like that? How much then?"
"Bodie," Doyle said, his voice shaking as though the sound were being wrenched from him. "It wouldn't--I would never..."
"You wouldn't? Awfully choosy, aren't you?"
Doyle's fists clenched, and his eyes narrowed as he drew himself away. His shoulders shifted again beneath the fabric of his shirt, as though some reflex made him want to extend his wings. Fight or flight--and flight was so very easy for an Angeline.
"I wouldn't want money from you," he said tightly. "And that's why I can't." He pushed past Bodie and stalked stiffly down the corridor to vanish into his cabin.
Bodie stared after him. I wouldn't want money from you. Because Doyle wanted him. It would be more than a business transaction for him, more than an exchange of cash for services. It would mean attachments, and that was a luxury that a fugitive Angeline couldn't afford.
Or so he thought.
Bodie didn't see Doyle again until evening. He was just lifting a hand to knock at the door of Doyle's room, to find some way to apologise, when the door itself slid aside.
Doyle blinked to find him waiting. "I was just going to find you," he said. He pressed a coil of leather into Bodie's hands. "I won't need this anymore. When we set down, I'll find another ship."
Bodie's heart sank. "Ray, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that. I won't touch you again, I swear."
He shook his head. "That isn't why I'm going. I've been here too long as it is; it's not safe for either of us if I stay."
"It's not safe for you to be alone, either! You've got two bloody bounties out on you now--how long do you think you're going to last?"
"I'm not going to be responsible for you getting hurt. I won't let that happen to someone I care about. Not again."
"And it all comes back to you, doesn't it? What you feel responsible for. How do you think I'm going to feel if you go off on your own and get killed, or get captured and have your wings cut off?"
Doyle's jaw tightened, but he stood firm. "I'm leaving, Bodie, and you can't fucking stop me." He pressed the panel, and the door slid closed between them.
Bodie lingered by the cabin door, wondering what he could say that would convince Doyle not to go. In the end he walked away without a word and settled into the cockpit.
The Leap Drive came to life, and Bodie watched the stars disappear, counting the slow seconds of the microjump before the Capri jolted and the stars returned, new stars in new places--
And new ships. An alarm warbled out of the Capri's navigation system, warning him that their next jump would be impossible due to the bodies in the ship's path.
Bodie looked out at small armada ranged before them, from one-man fighters to carriers larger than the Capri herself.
Doyle, drawn by the alarms, scrambled into the cockpit. "Kell," he muttered. "How did he trace us?"
"Our signal must have leaked our destination."
"And they got here before us? That's a hell of a risk, plotting a course like that."
"Yeah, scraping up on black holes and skirting binaries all the way. Probably lost half a dozen ships in the process."
"Too bad they didn't lose more," Doyle said with unaccustomed harshness.
"Watch it, mate, the Earthbound's starting to rub off on you." He had quite a bit more to say on the subject of rubbing off, but this was clearly not the time. He unbuckled his crash belt. "You said you could fly, right? Now's your chance to show off."
"Where are you going?"
"The weapons bubble up top. See if you can give us some evasive manoeuvres, yeah?"
"Whatever you say, Captain." Doyle slid into Bodie's seat and buckled the belt.
"All you have to do is get us past the ships, then give the Leap Drive enough time to calculate an escape vector. They'll be all out of formation by then, and they shouldn't be able to follow."
"Shouldn't," Doyle echoed.
"Yeah." Bodie reached out and gripped Doyle's uninjured shoulder tightly for a second. "Fair skies, angelfish," he said, too lightly, and vanished down the corridor.
***
Doyle had never been happier to know the Capri as well as he did. He knew the thrusters would handle the strain he put on them, that the hydraulics weren't going to cut out on him. He wove the ship between their attackers while Bodie picked them off one at a time, fighters and cargo cruisers alike.
The assault shuttle seemed to rear up out of nowhere, full in their sights and bristling with weaponry. Doyle sent the Capri spiralling to one side in a move that the repaired gravity generator couldn't quite compensate for; he blinked away the dizziness in time to see a 'beam salvo miss them by a few feet. Bodie was pouring fire at the assault shuttle, stitching patterns onto the hull to cause a breach, to damage weapons emplacements, anything to buy them a few moments to get past the ship.
Doyle saw the next weapons bank drawing a bead on them and sent the ship spinning away again, but the gunners had learned from their last mistakes. The Capri bucked viciously, warning lights flaring red all through the cabin. Doyle glanced at the readout. Dorsal hull breach.
"Bodie!" Doyle pushed the engines to full-speed, no longer caring about evasive manoeuvres, and raced back down the corridor. The ship shuddered again, knocking him into a wall hard enough to jar his shoulder again. He felt a trickle of blood slide down his back and ignored it. He could deal with it later, assuming there was a later. He climbed the short ladder up to the weapons bubble and slapped the access panel.
Air shrieked past him as the hatch came open, tugging at his clothes and his hair. Atmosphere was venting out through the cracks that had appeared on the transparent bubble. Any moment the bubble would shatter completely, and they'd be whisked out to die miserably in the vacuum.
Bodie was slumped over the console unmoving.
Doyle pulled him up, reaching down to unbuckle the crash belt, and was startled to see the amount of blood dripping down the side of Bodie's face. Scalp wound, concussion, lack of oxygen. Doyle wasn't even sure he was breathing. And what was wrong with the bloody crash belt?
The hatch had closed behind him. The scream of escaping air was beginning to fade, and Doyle had to fight against a sudden darkening of vision. Not much air left in the bubble, he had to get Bodie out...
Finally the crash belt came free, and Bodie tumbled into his arms. Doyle pounded on the access panel and the hatch slid open again, bringing a blessed rush of air with it. He got Bodie down the ladder and hit the control panel again, closing the hatch and keeping the rest of the ship's air from being sucked into space.
He dropped back to the deckplates, not bothering with the rungs of the ladder, and knelt beside Bodie. "Bodie? Bodie!"
He shuddered and gasped, and Doyle felt relief begin to temper the terror washing through him. Bodie's eyes flashed open and locked on Doyle's for an instant before falling closed in unconsciousness.
Doyle paused long enough to catch his breath. They were still alive--that was something, at least. And he couldn't feel any more 'beams hitting the hull, but that didn't mean they were safe.
He roused himself again and managed to get Bodie down the corridor and into his cabin. He cleaned the cut near Bodie's temple; it wasn't as bad as it had looked, but it was still bleeding sluggishly, and there was no telling what other injuries Bodie might have. They needed to find a medical centre, and fast.
He didn't want to leave Bodie, but the ship wasn't going to pilot itself. He left the door of the cabin open--in case he woke, in case he called out, in case...anything--and went back to the cockpit.
The viewscreen showed nothing but stars in front of them. Doyle sighed with relief. He would never know how they had lived long enough to make a jump, but he wasn't going to question it. Not now.
But their escape was just about the only good news. Nearly every light on the control panel was amber or red. Doyle almost laughed to see it--hydraulics, thrusters, even the just-repaired gravity generator, all damaged or stressed to the breaking point. The Leap Drive still worked, and they had air to breathe, but there wasn't much else that could be counted on.
He sat back down in the pilot's chair and called up a chart of their position. There was nothing at all within half-a-dozen jumps. Even if the Capri, as battered as she was, could handle a trip that long, he didn't know if Bodie could.
The corner of the screen blinked, alerting Doyle to the existence of one suppressed system nearby. Surely if Bodie had set the navigator to hide the system, he had a reason for it. Doyle called it up anyway.
The system was a single jump away. It boasted advanced medical facilities, plenty of spaceports, and a sanctuary system that would keep Kell's people off Bodie's back while he recovered.
And Doyle knew exactly why Bodie had hidden it. He also knew that they didn't have any other choice.
Doyle pulled up the navigator and set a course for home.
He didn't have to wait very long. As soon as the ship dropped out of Leap, they were hailed by a spaceport controller.
"Freighter, please identify your crew and state your reason for entering Angeline space."
Doyle flipped the communicator switch without hesitation. "Freighter Capri, captained by William Bodie. This is Raymond Doyle, and I want to speak to the Magistrates."
The controller sounded somewhat taken aback. "And what is the reason for this demand?"
Doyle braced himself. "Tell them I want to discuss terms of surrender."
Part 1 -- Part 2 -- Part 3 -- Part 4