Limitless Evolution As a Snake

I sent Horass’s threat to Tollan before answering it, because sneaking away to protect everyone by keeping them ignorant had started to sound like an excellent way to make a bad situation worse.

Bridget stayed beside me while we closed the watched route between the apartment and the club. Tasmin redirected staff through the public corridor, Vela kept the aquatic entrance clear and the patrol checked the camera position shown in the feed.

I called Lyra and Cherry myself, telling them I was safe for the moment and that the next part might get ugly. Lyra wanted the actual plan, Cherry wanted a return call afterwards and neither thanked me for the opportunity to worry from a different city.

”I’m not promising it will be easy, but I’m telling you where I’ll be and who knows. You’ll hear from me as soon as I can speak without somebody trying to interrupt with a rocket.”

[System: That’s nearly reassuring, mate, although perhaps leave the rockets until after you’ve explained the medical support.]

I’d rather they knew the truth than found out I described a gunboat as a difficult customer.

Horass wanted the evidence returned and the patrol complaints withdrawn. I told him the records were already in official custody, which meant meeting me wouldn’t put the originals inside biting distance or give him a simple way to destroy them.

He suggested we discuss what I could still offer, then sent a location near the apartment route. I refused that one and proposed the empty freight basin Tollan had already started clearing, where nobody would have to sleep through the consequences.

Horass accepted after checking the approach, proving that agreeing to meet didn’t mean agreeing to walk blindly into whatever I prepared. I knew he would inspect the space, so I asked Sera to show me its real equipment rather than pretending a hidden trap could do all the thinking.

We reached the basin an hour after the threat, long past Nuh-Uh’s eight-minute cooldown and many hours after Multitude’s last use. Bio-Recall had also been ready since the lodging rescue, but Horass still hadn’t shown the alterations it required.

I checked the loading cradle first, a heavy frame used to lift freight modules between boats and the dry maintenance deck. Its support arms locked through steel pins, with red emergency levers on both sides so a trapped worker could release the nearest arm without crossing the load.

The cutting frame sat beyond it, used for breaking down damaged metal modules. Sera showed me its dead section and the separate power isolation before pointing out the gunboat-sized clearance beside the deck.

A coolant line ran under the deck edge towards the maintenance tanks, and the outer mooring winch had a manual separation control beside its post. I traced each route with my body so I would know what could fit where without hoping panic improved my measurements.

[System: Good preparation, champ, but remember the tree bastard can read a room too. Don’t build a plan that needs him to politely ignore the bloody machinery.]

I’m hoping to stay alive long enough to notice which part he ruins first.

I made Sera point out which handles released a load and which only stopped its powered movement, then tested the unloaded catches while she watched. Confusing those two things during a fight would leave me hanging from the wrong lever with a very educational view of my own mistake, and I had already supplied the harbour with enough free entertainment.

The patrol held the public entrances, while Mara kept her rescue pod outside the direct firing lane. Bridget stayed with the medical crew at the protected end of the basin after making it very clear that the choice was hers and not an order I’d dressed up as concern.

I told her I understood, then pressed my face into her hand because I wasn’t sure how much of my confidence she’d believed. She told me to bring the rest of myself back with it, which gave me something simple enough to remember.

I tested the call from behind the thickest support before settling into position, because a rescue plan was less useful if the first wall I hid behind also cut everyone off.

Horass arrived on the gunboat with a powered clamp machine carried on its rear deck. The machine had been used for seizing freight, and its broad jaws made the plan to treat me like another valuable parcel fairly obvious.

He stepped onto the dry maintenance platform, looked at the loading cradle and changed his gunboat’s position before speaking. That small correction took one of my easiest routes away without a threat or a show of temper.

”A sensible meeting place,” he said. ”The First War of the Bent Spoon was lost by officers who failed to account for industrial lifting equipment.”

”I’d ask who won, but I’m worried the answer comes with a reading list.”

He told me the surviving records were incomplete, then noticed a scrap of grey insulation caught on the rail and said it reminded him of a koala’s ear. Old Mate made a sound inside my head that belonged in neither a business meeting nor a comfortable zoo.

[System: If he starts asking whether I prefer eucalyptus or being hugged, mate, I’m lodging a bloody complaint with whatever department handles creepy trees.]

I laughed despite myself, and Horass watched the reaction with sudden interest. I explained that I had a friend who’d find the comparison insulting, leaving out where that friend lived and how much beer he had apparently brought with him.

The brief humour ended when Horass asked for the recorder. I told him it was already with Tollan, then asked whether he intended to stop threatening the club now that the evidence couldn’t be reached through me.

He lifted a launcher towards the thick cover panel beside my safest route. I moved before he fired, but the blast still threw broken plating across the deck and left the passage open to his crew’s line of sight.

Horass lowered the weapon and adjusted his stance while I landed behind the next support with my heart trying to leave my body. He had just destroyed the first part of my escape plan without needing to ask where it was.