of one thousand sesterce will be deducted from—”
“I won the bet, didn’t I?”
“Correct. Pilot Zhi Zero owes you ten thousand sesterce. You owe the House a one-thousand-sesterce fee. Since your account is not currently adequate, your organization’s credit will be—”
“And how long will it take to get the money from Zhi?”
“Unknown. Her credit is with the First Bank of Rigel Prime, and communication lag—”
Kas’s jaw fell open. She blinked at the bot, which was still going on about long-distance fees.
“Rigel Prime,” Kas interrupted, through gritted teeth, “was blown into gravel by Emperor Reaps-A-Dark- Harvest.” Her voice dropped to a hiss. “Four. Thousand. Years. Ago.”
“Communications may pose some difficulty,” the bot said blithely, “but the cryptographic signature and proof of transmission on the credit instrument—”
She fucking faked it. Of course she had. Zhi hadn’t looked like she had ten thousand sesterce to spare, either. Oh, fucking Throne. Losing a thousand sesterce of the Scholarium’s money might be better than losing ten thousand, but only in the same sense that being thrown in a furnace is better than being thrown into the sun.
“All right,” Kas said, very slowly. “I would like to cancel the bet. I can do that, can’t I, since I won it? I don’t need her money. We can call the whole thing off.”
She waited, heart in her throat, while the bot whirred and clicked to itself. Finally, with great reluctance, it said, “House rules state that wagers can be canceled—”
“Then do it!”
“—with the explicit agreement of both parties.”
“She lost the bet!” Kas exploded. “Of course she’ll want to cancel it!”
“House rules state—”
Kas hurled the little thing against the warglass window as hard as she could, and took off running.
* * *
“Zhi!” Solomon’s voice, breaking through the fog of pain. “Zhi, are you all right?”
“All right” did not, in any way, describe how Zhi felt. But she forced her eyes open and ripped the leads from her jacks, letting poor Speedy’s blaring-red status display and clanging alarms vanish. That left her lying on her wrecked chair, staring up through where the front of the cockpit had been at the gray, flickering sky. She popped the restraints and unbuckled herself, groaning, and tested her limbs.
Nothing broken. Except slagging everything obviously. Any hopes she had for the rest of her life were in pieces along with her warbot. We were so slagging close.
“Zhi!” Solomon’s bespectacled face appeared over the side of the broken cockpit.
“I ’ent dead,” Zhi said. “Just a little bruised, yeah?”
“You have to move!” Solomon said. “Custis wasn’t kidding. There are House guards coming.”
Oh, slagging corpse-rats. Zhi scrambled to her feet, standing on the now-horizontal chair. From there she could reach one of the torn struts. The sharp edges dug into her hands, but she levered herself up until she could hook her legs over the edge of the huge wound in Speedy’s skin, and from there a bit of acrobatic contortion got her standing on his stomach beside Solomon.
The DreadCarl was nearby, struggling to kneel with one damaged leg. I managed that much, yeah? As she watched, it finally settled down, and the cockpit opened. Custis scrambled out, descending the ladder in his mecha’s back. More worrying, the House flack was heading their way from across the arena, with a couple of armed and armored guards in tow.
“Come on,” Zhi said. She jumped off the mech to the monocrete, absorbing the fall with a crouch, then turned around and caught Solomon when he jumped after her. The nearest edge of the arena was only a couple of dozen meters away, and she knew the area well—there was a service elevator that still worked. Best bet, yeah? She winced at the thought of wagers. So slagging close.
“Zhi!” Custis, a little wobbly on his feet but improving with every stride, started across the ’crete toward her. “Just stay put, would you? Don’t make this harder than it has to be.”
“Slag off with a blender!” Zhi shouted back at him.
She tugged Solomon to follow her, but he pulled free of her grip and shook his head.
“I’ll slow them down as much as I can,” he said. “I’ll be fine, they don’t care about me.” When she hesitated, he gave her a push. “Go, Zhi, unless you want to spend the rest of your life as a slave of the House!”
Slag and slime. Zhi looked at the rapidly approaching troopers, ducked her head, and started running.
“Hey!” Custis shouted. “Throne curse it, Zhi—let go of me!” He’d started running as well, but Solomon