Bonds of Brass (The Bloodright Trilogy #1) - Emily Skrutskie Page 0,43
it means.
“I don’t like this,” I murmur.
“Agreed,” Gal says.
“We’re in over our heads.”
“Yep.”
“I think she likes the ship.”
“Eh.”
I have to agree with that assessment. Though Adela’s smiling through her inspection of the Beamer’s hull, it isn’t necessarily a good smile. It’s a butcher’s smile, and it promises things I’m finding remarkably difficult to stomach. My mind spins with visions of chop shops, sparks flying as circular saws shriek. I didn’t mean to get so attached to this ship—didn’t even think it was possible. But the Ruttin’ Hell has been shelter and safety since we flung ourselves out into the unknown. It may handle like a brick taped to a cat, but it outran a dreadnought, and when we sell it, we’ll be striking out into a foreign territory with nothing but what we carry on our backs.
Adela ducks around the wing, finally throwing a glance our way. “Interior?” she asks, rapping her knuckles against the rear.
Gal pushes off the fence and crosses the lot to open the cargo ramp for her. I don’t want to watch her greedy eyes take in the space that’s been our refuge, but I also wouldn’t dare leave the Umber heir alone with her. I follow Gal across the lot, wincing when the hazy layer of cloud shifts and sunlight beams down on the back of my neck. The afternoon heat is nowhere near as oppressive as yesterday, but any bit of sun changes that fast.
By the time I duck into the Beamer’s cool, dark interior, Adela’s already scrambling up the cargo-bay ladder, making a beeline for the cockpit. She ignores the crew bunks, the head, and the kitchenette—she only has eyes for the ship’s controls. I glance into our room as I pass it, the lump in my throat growing at the sight of two slept-in beds.
“Console outfit looks standard,” Adela calls from the cockpit. She’s planted herself in the pilot’s chair already, and something in me bristles territorially. “Nothing’s obviously missing. Few enhancements here and there, but that’s what you’d expect when a ship’s…Well, you know.”
Neither of us confirm what she’s fishing for, but neither of us has to. The ship’s stolen military property from another empire. If we let her use that fact to negotiate, we’ll get slaughtered.
“Let’s see how she flies. Hold on, kiddos.”
Gal dives for the copilot’s chair, and I wrap my hands around the headrest as Adela spins up the engines with a casual flick of her wrist. The rotary thrusters roar, bumping the ship a few feet off the ground, and we wheel in the air, the vacant lot shrinking beneath us. “We never agreed to a test drive,” Gal mutters, but Adela only cackles in reply.
I grip the headrest tighter, my legs braced for the worst. We gain altitude at a miserable rate, complaints echoing from all sides as the Ruttin’ Hell puts up its best fight against its pilot. Adela flies like a drunkard at first glance, but there’s a method to her madness that an experienced eye can pick out. She’s a minimalist with the thrusters, giving them only what she needs to keep us off the ground, and rather than sticking to a straightforward vector, she curves along the paths she means to take.
In short, she’s flying the Beamer right into its weaknesses, and the ship shows it. I flinch as the rear of the craft groans and the rotary thrusters sputter. Gal glances back at me as we arc out over Isla’s northern suburbs. He looks mildly nauseated. The way Adela’s flying is a negotiation in and of itself, and there’s no countering it.
We’re losing. By how much depends on how quickly we fold. I give him a short nod.
“Seven K,” he says over the scream of the struggling engines.
Mercifully, Adela levels off on a steady vector and flips on the autopilot. “Come again?” she asks, even though it’s clear she heard him the first time.
“We’ll take the initial offer. Seven K for the Beamer, no questions asked.”
Adela grins with her butcher’s smile, and I have to tear my gaze away.