Dragonfly by Erica Hayes Page B

have to catch us first.
    “This way.” Dragonfly nudged me, and we ducked behind a row of cylindrical plastic cooling tanks, their wet white surface stretching up through a gap in the ceiling to the next level. He gestured with his pistol over my head, to where narrow access steps molded into the tank’s side. “Up.”
    I’d kind of figured that, but I didn’t say anything. He was supposed to be rescuing me, after all. I didn’t like the idea of disarming. Nikita might be running this escape, but the goons with guns wouldn’t know that. But I needed two hands. I snapped the jay back onto its clip around my thigh and swung myself up onto the first rung, my sweaty hands slipping on slick plastic.
    On the next level, footsteps clanked, and that yelling voice still hadn’t shut up.
    “Back,” snapped Dragonfly, twisting the heat up on his pistol, and I ducked just in time.
    He seared a small round hole into the ceiling, and the four-inch-thick ultraplastic vaporized, the hole widening until it grew large enough to climb through. The brown polymer smell wrinkled my nose, but I didn’t waste any time. I sprang and gripped the hole’s warm edge, folding first one leg and then the other through. Times like this, I was thankful for all those hours in the combat gym. Especially as I could feel his gaze glued to my ass, enjoying the view.
    Soft green neon greeted me. Aerated oblivion crystals stung fruity in my nose, making my head ache. Sinuous music coiled, the bass thudding under laughter, clinking glass and bubbling smokewater. Still on my knees, I peered into an array of soft white couches, well-dressed bodies sprawled across them, languid in pairs or threes. Glass shisha pipes lay uncoiled on the shiny floor, their dangerous sweet smoke drifting. Next to us, a guy and a girl were already at it clumsily in a corner, spit shining on her neck, her painted eyes glazed. We’d come up in a dropout den, and no one had noticed.
    I rose cautiously, and clunked my head on the underside of a long table. Dragonfly climbed up beside me and tucked his pistol away under his jacket.
    To my surprise, he grinned. “Wonder what we could be up to down here?”
    Before I could make a sharp retort, he grabbed my hand and dragged me to my feet. A few dopers blinked curiously at us, and I puffed hair from my face, wishing I wasn’t sweating so much.
    Dragonfly flung his arm around my shoulder and planted a kiss on my cheek, his lips lingering. “Well, my dear, shall we go on back to the ship and freshen up?”
    Was he going out of his way to provoke me? If that hand went anywhere, he’d be sorry. I slid my arm around his narrow waist and gave him an infatuated smile, slurring my voice to sound spaced out. “What a good idea.”
    We wove our way through the bar and out onto the main terrace, where soft red carpet lined the floor under bright green pot plants, and massive oblong viewing windows looked out over the mighty blue Irkutsk nebulas. Behind us in the den, voices raised, furniture crashed, glass broke. The goons had found our escape route.
    Dragonfly leaned his head on mine, his arm still draped around my neck. His lean body pressed against me, and he smelled of warmth, excitement, healthy sweat. “Shall we get on with it, my love?” He dropped his voice to a murmur. “You’d better still have my chip, hellcat.”
    The thrill of danger still heated my blood, and his closeness wasn’t helping. I needed to pull away, to keep my distance, but I just smiled for the audience as we strode past the awe-inspiring view toward the spaceport ring, trying not to look in a hurry.
    As we stepped under the square-cornered archway into the massive curved metal tube of the epsilon docking ring, the bright white icelights in the ceiling faded to red.
    “That’s alert phase,” I whispered. It was after midnight local, but if any docking crew remained, they’d be armed. “Any plan?”
    “Yes. Don’t alert anyone. Slot five, quick.”
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