I yanked Nev’s head up again, craning his neck at what had to be an excruciating angle, and nearly spat in his face. “You were going to kidnap one of us?”
Robbery was one thing. Messing with the last of my family, my crew, was another. Arjan seemed to be thinking the same thing. His eyes were dangerous in a way I rarely saw them, one hand clenched at his side, the other around the handle of one of the knives he always wore. I hoped nothing else appeared in his or Telu’s eyes. Her stare was already as ferocious as a blast from a mass driver. I couldn’t see Eton’s face, since he was bent over Nev, but Nev groaned again, longer this time. I couldn’t blame Eton. The thought of Nev hurting Arjan, or any of my crew, made my fist tighten in his hair and panic and fury flare in my chest.
Only Basra was still silent, still observing, still unfeeling. Until he glanced at Arjan and back at Nev, and then his gaze seemed to calculate how much he could get for Nev’s internal organs.
“You’re off this ship,” I breathed, trying to steady myself. The first hints of blackness were surfacing in the corners of my eyes. “I’m handing you over first thing. Telu, comm what’s-his-name, the latest enforcement officer. Make him actually earn his paycheck for once.”
“No—!” Nev tried to say, until Eton’s elbow cut him off. Besides, it was too late. I could already hear Telu speaking into the comm, reporting an attempted hijacking by one of our crew.
But then Eton surprised me by leaning farther over and snarling in Nev’s ear, “I agree with you…no law but ours. How about I just kill you?”
Eton’s expression still wasn’t visible, but I could hear it in his voice: murderous rage. He meant it.
Nev’s strained words hitched out of his throat before I could say anything. “I really didn’t want to have to do this.”
And then he rammed his head back into Eton’s face. It was enough to free his arms, which he used to shove his body off the ground. Torso and legs twisting, Nev then threw the much bigger man off him—and into Arjan, who lost his balance and crashed into Basra, both of them going down in a heap. Nev leapt to his feet.
I spun to face him, but Eton had already rolled up into a ready crouch, blood pouring from his nose. He grinned, teeth red, and launched himself like a plasma rocket at the younger man.
The fight was brutal and ferocious, moving too fast for anyone else to step in, though both Arjan and I hovered, looking for an opening—until Telu, who’d slipped around from the captain’s chair, seized my arm and hauled me back against the wall next to Basra. Basra already seemed to know this was a fight in which he could have no impact, since he hadn’t even tried to get involved.
Which probably meant Arjan shouldn’t try, either. Fear caught in my chest as he moved closer. “Careful,” I warned him.
Although, really, there wasn’t much he could do. Like most kids growing up on Alaxak, Arjan had learned to fight, even though he had no formal training. But this…this was more than a fight. This was something else entirely.
A violent dance. A bloody ceremony, practiced to perfection.
Telu had wisely taken Nev’s bag with her when she’d come around from the console, in case he decided to go for some sort of weapon hidden in it. But Nev hadn’t even glanced at the bag once. He didn’t need a weapon.
He was one.
He and Eton circled each other, stepping around the obstacles on the bridge without even glancing at them, until they met in an explosion. Their bodies collided off one another with eerie grace, like objects in zero gravity, only to return to orbit around each other. The lone debris they left behind was spatters of blood.
It was so breathtaking I even shot a glance at the glowing readout on one of the control panels—the gravity drive was definitely still functioning, though they didn’t seem to be bound by it.
Nev moved his body like Arjan maneuvered the skiff. Like I piloted the Kaitan. It occurred to me numbly that he more than knew how to fight in the way of one who’d been trained to do something since birth. He knew how to fight like he knew how to breathe. He fought better than anyone I’d ever seen.
Maybe even better than Eton.
He ducked and dove around Eton, and as fast as Eton was, it was clear Nev was faster. One of his elbows connected with the bigger man’s cheek. Eton only paused to spit out a mouthful of blood—and maybe a tooth—before driving a knee into Nev’s side. But it only glanced off him, because Nev was already twisting, sweeping out his leg as he did, and nearly wiping Eton’s out from under him. That stumble cost Eton, because he couldn’t turn in time to fend off the fists that slammed in rapid succession into the small of his back, in the soft spot just beneath the ribs—where he’d been trying to knee Nev a moment before. By the time he turned, Nev was already gone, his fists, elbows, knees, and feet all flying from a different direction.
Nev had a bleeding gash in his brow from a blow that had narrowly missed his eye, but Eton’s nose and cheek were a wreck. Bruises bloomed across his bare chest and back. I couldn’t see the bruises under Nev’s jacket, and there were no doubt a few, but…
They were both going for maximum pain, for incapacitation, and while I could barely believe it, it soon became obvious that Nev was going to be the one to bring Eton down.
I had to be ready for him when he did. The darkness encroached farther into my vision.
“Eton,” I said, my voice too calm for true calm, “stop while you still can.”
He glanced at me, saw my eyes, and only went in for another swing.
“Eton!” I shouted, but he wasn’t stopping.
And then I saw what he was doing. He wasn’t an idiot. He knew he was losing, and quickly. His twists and pivots began to take the fight farther away from me. At first I thought, in a burst of anger, that he was still trying to protect me…until I saw where he was headed.
He was protecting all of us.
The inevitable moment came: one of Nev’s fists dropped him. Nev, because he was a fair fighter in spite of everything, didn’t kick him when he was down. He instead let Eton haul himself away. Watching Eton crawl, like a broken thing, leaving drops of blood along the bridge floor, nearly made me throw myself at Nev in fury.
Instead, as soon as Eton was clear, I smashed the button for the airlock. A set of doors slid out from opposite walls and closed Nev into what was now a separate room. An antechamber. A red light above a second door—a docking hatch in the hull of the ship—began to flash. Nev looked up at the flashing light, and then at me through the windows in the barrier now separating us.
“That’s right,” I said. “One push of a button, and you’re out in space with the rest of the trash.”
“Qole,” he said, his voice piped through a comm speaker. “Don’t.”
“You do not get to call me Qole,” I spat. “And why the hell shouldn’t I?”
“Because, whoever you think I am, whatever you think I’m doing, you’re wrong.”