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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Alex White
Read between
September 17 - September 22, 2018
One in five million people: those were the odds of being born without magic—arcana dystocia.
In the ancient past, it’d been considered imprudent to have a fire on a space station. In the cloying fumes of burning meat, she wished fire was still banned.
By some miracle, he returned his focus to her, locking eyes for one more second. “I hope you get a refund,” he croaked. Nilah stood, a dead Fixer at her feet, with no clues about an escape route and in a city full of police that would probably shoot her the second they saw her. Her mind reeled for things to say, but she could only form one question. “What?”
Boots eased Nilah’s limp body onto the sidewalk. Nilah looked aggressively satisfied, like she’d been hunting a nap, wrestled that nap to the ground, and torn out its throat.
“All PGRF mechanists are top-flight, and I’m the galactic points leader by a good stretch. I think you understand what that means.” Boots scoffed. “Can you run a race car on all that hot air?”
“It’s just a statement of fact. Hardly offensive.” “What I do and don’t find offensive isn’t your call, kid.
“All great weapons have names.” “Great weapons don’t sniff people.” “Mine do.”
You know the problem with prisoners?” She shook her head. “They should really be called ‘prisonees,’ don’t you think?”
She cursed as the throttle smashed her against the back of her seat. Young Boots had tuned the inertial dampers to sport mode so she could feel the maneuvers. Old Boots didn’t appreciate that.
Here was an honest-to-goodness space battle, and she was screwing with the settings panel.
Out of nowhere, Ranger bounded up and leapt onto Boots’s maneuvering thrusters, riding her like a horse. Boots winced as the armor’s claws raked across the hull, digging in. “What was that about scratching the paint?” “Shut up. It’s my ship and this is awesome.”
I think it’s cute you’re still calling yourself a fighter pilot.” “I literally just blew someone up in a space battle. I’m an ace now.”
Nilah ached for some decent conversation, but she could settle for Boots.
“No one called you pampered.” “But you think it.” “You’re like some kind of exotic animal. Can you even eat food if it costs less than a thousand argents?”
Nilah took the bottle and unstoppered it before holding it to her nose: fuel and milled steel, notes of rubber. On the one hand, nothing consumable by humans should have such a smell. On the other, it was the scent of a racetrack.
She chanted the martial arts forms to herself, just as she did her racing lines: Accretion’s pull to nebula’s birth, then rising rocket. Disrupted orbit, cold star. Singularity to finish.
I love these.
I figured you’d be happier with me dead.” “Oh, I might. But I should also point out that your presence reduces the chance I’ll be shot first.
Calling Cordell “Captain” was the only part of ship life that alarmed her. On the one hand, his rank on her tongue was an old, familiar dish, cooked at home by those she loved. On the other hand, most of those people were dead.
She didn’t know much about how the galactic press selected their news items, but half of a planet’s population living under a cancerous haze seemed at least a little important.
She shook her head. “Why are the cute ones always so dumb?”
Orna fired two bright orange spells from her slinger and millions of argents’ worth of automotives burst into flames. “Damn it!” shouted Nilah, unable to help herself. “That was a Devlin ST!” “And now it’s not,” said Orna. “Let’s go.”
As the cargo bay ramp closed, Nilah added, “And may I please have some gravity? I miss it.”
“We’re going to need a bigger ship to loot this place,” said Boots.
If they’re trying this hard to kill us, that means they’re afraid of us, and by god, I will make sure they should be.
“Well that’s cheery.” “A painless death is more than most humans can hope to get,” said Kin.
She held her helmet to her face and whispered into her microphone, “For a computer, you sure do care a lot.” “I care about you in all the ways a human finds significant, Lizzie,” came his voice, tinny and small through her earpiece.
“Stay behind me then.” “Is that the best place for a poor marksman?” She watched the gears turn in the quartermaster’s head. “Take point.”
“I knew your ass was going to make it,” Cordell croaked from somewhere in the room. “Unkillable.” “Rather be dead than wake to your ugly mug.”
His words drained the blood from her face as surely as if he’d opened a vein.
“But you made a difference this time.” “I don’t want to be a hero, Nilah. I want my country back.”
“Please. If you murder people as well as you drive, I’ve got nothing to fear.”
“You’re going to get killed.” She looked across at him, stars in her eyes. “But what a grand way to die.”
Also, there was that murky hot tub, because someone left a moonshine peach in the skimmer.
😂
