by M. D. Cooper
Petra sent a signal for the guard’s armor to free its grasp on the sum adjut’s shoulder, and the other woman stumbled as her legs took on her weight.
She glanced around the passage. “So…where are you?”
Petra sent Chimellia a position marker. “I’m here. Danielle is with me.”
The two guards moved back to their prior positions, at the mercy of their powered armor, and the door between them closed.
“Let’s get to the closest maglev,” Petra said. “We have to find the empress. Now switch back to the Link.”
“Bastard,” the sum adjut muttered aloud.
Petra didn’t respond, giving Chimellia time to reach out to her contact while they walked back through the passageway. She sent probes ranging ahead, ready for a group of Impera Protego to appear at any moment.
The other agent sent a mental laugh.
Several minutes later, they reached the maglev platform, and Chimellia still hadn’t spoken.
Petra nodded.
THE TABLE
STELLAR DATE: 10.08.8948 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Abandoned Military Medical Research Facility
REGION: Alexandria, Bosporus System, Scipio Empire
The maglev stopped somewhere deep in the bowels of Alexandria. Even without Link access, Diana could tell that they were many kilometers below the planet’s surface.
Tenna chuckled softly.
“I’m glad you find this amusing,” Shadow said as he rose. “In an hour, you’ll laugh only when I tell you.”
“Core,” Diana muttered. “Even at my worst, I don’t think I was ever that much of a controlling bitch.”
“I suspect there are some who disagree,” the man said as he gestured for her to stand.
The empress complied. “Well, they’d be wrong.”
Outside the maglev car, Diana found herself on what she could only describe as an ancient platform. A thick layer of dust covered everything—barring a path that ran to a nearby exit—and sections of ceiling had fallen in some places, exposing conduits and pipes.
“Lovely place you have here,” she commented. “I hope you put all your budget into the medical equipment.”
Shadow laughed and prodded her with a finger. “Follow the path. You’ll find out soon enough.”
“Not going to bring my guards along?”
“I’m pretty sure I can handle you alone,” the man said. “But don’t worry. I have some protection of my own.”
As he spoke, a pair of women stepped out of the shadows nearby. Their bodies were covered in a form-fitting, matte black covering, and their heads were encapsulated in black ovoids. No weapons were in their hands, but something about their posture told the empress that they didn’t need any.
“Excellent,” she muttered. “The bitch brigade.”
“Widows.”
“I can imagine. If I were their husbands, I would have suicided too.”
Shadow barked a laugh. “I’ll have to make sure we can keep your acerbic wit after I take a jackhammer to your brain. It’s quite amusing.”
Diana paused, feeling her skin suddenly begin to tingle, and she let out a groan.
“You can’t get me with a nano dose,” she said to Shadow. “My defenses are strong enough to protect against that. And they’re—”
The tingling became an itch, and then turned to searing pain. A second later, Diana’s entire body felt like it was on fire, and nearly all her mods went dead.
she replied a long two seconds later.
“You might want to get up,” Shadow said.
Diana had been so focused on wishing someone would put the fire in her skin out, she hadn’t even realized her cheek was against the ground.
It took three tries to get to her knees, and a long series of slow breaths before she even attempted to reach her feet. When she finally managed to stand, her legs were shaking so much that Shadow gestured for one of the Widows to come over and help her walk.
“Thought you were made of sterner stuff,” he said.
“So did I,” Diana whispered.
Her skin hurt so much, she could barely feel it when the woman in black slid an arm under her shoulders. It was hard to tell with her shuffling steps echoing through the room, but it sounded as though the Widow’s breath came in lisping gasps as she moved along.
Diana replied.
The empress felt the dark maglev platform begin to close in around herself, the exit they were walking toward suddenly appearing to be no more than a narrow sliver in the wall, though one that threatened to draw her in and devour her.
She gave a few feeble struggles, but the Widow’s grip was like iron, and she was propelled forward into that dark gash, then all but dragged through a dim passageway.
The walk seemed to go on forever, though she knew it c
ouldn’t have been that far, since she was still able to stand when they finally reached a well-lit room with a med table in the center.
A spider-like object hung over the table, and the nebulous fears of what was coming next coalesced into a terrifying reality. The device she was looking at would sink its claws into her skull, and reprogram her brain.
Diana renewed her struggles, but the Widow’s hand slid up over her shoulder and pinched her neck, the pain dropping the empress to her knees.
“Trust me,” Shadow said as the second woman in black helped pick her up and set her on the table. “The more you struggle, the more you’re going to wish you hadn’t.”
The moment her back hit the table, a grav field came on, pushing her down. It felt like a ton of weight had settled on her, squeezing the breath from her lungs.
“It can get worse than that,” Shadow warned. “Lay very, very still.”
The pressure eased, and Diana sucked in a shuddering breath as a dozen spindly arms lowered toward her head.
Diana was about to reply when the probes began to bore through her skull, and all she could do was scream.
WELL THEN
STELLAR DATE: 10.08.8948 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Imperial Palace
REGION: Alexandria, Bosporus System, Scipio Empire
“You know,” General Farah said as she approached Petra with a pair of soldiers trailing behind her. “Now that you have backup, you can actually use it.”
“I am using it,” Petra countered. “Besides, you knew I was OK, Harold sent the appropriate codes.”
The AI nodded in her armored frame. “Yes, but you didn’t have to hole up on the planet. We have perfectly good stasis-shielded starships up there.”
Petra folded her arms across her chest. “And how am I going to learn who tried to kill me from a starship in orbit?”
“Easy,” Farah replied. “You delegate.”
A strong urge to reach out and slap the general came over the ambassador, but she resisted. The AI likely didn’t know what it was like to have one’s own name dragged through the mud while simultaneously worrying about the safety of a loved one.
“On the ground, this is still a Hand operation,” Petra began, then paused and drew a deep breath. “Sorry. It’s hard when you’re this close to it. I’m glad you’re here to bring in the big guns when the time comes.”
The general regarded Petra with serious eyes, then glanced at Chimellia, Mains, and Danielle. “So what’s your plan?”
“Well, Chimellia has a contact called Shadow—”
Farah snorted. “Seems overly dramatic.”
“Tell me about it. Either way, he’s requested that she come to him, and gave her a location of some old abandoned facility deep under the city.”
“So a trap,” Farah said.
“Yeah, he has to know she’s working with someone. Probably suspects it’s me and hopes to draw me in.”
“OK,” the general nodded. “So if they expect you, we have to bottle them up. Get all the ways in and out covered, and then hit them hard.”
Chimellia stepped forward, shaking her head. “We don’t have time for that. If they have Diana, they’re not going to just sit on her. They’re going to use her for…whatever.”
“Plus, if we take the time to fully surround the facility, we’ll alert them,” Petra said. “No. We need to get there fast and hit hard.”
General Farah glanced at Chimellia and gave a slow nod. “OK, so what did you have in mind?”
Petra turned and smiled at the sum adjut. “We give Shadow what he wants.”
* * * * *
In the end, Petra was surprised that Chimellia went along with the plan so readily. A part of her had always believed that the woman cared far more for her position than the empress, but she was happy to be proven wrong.
Ten minutes later, the maglev car came to a stop at an abandoned station that hadn’t seen anything more than darkness and rats for decades…maybe centuries. The planet’s databanks listed it as an ancient military medical research facility, though there were no remaining records about what had been researched there.
Chimellia wasted no time walking out onto the platform, and Petra followed behind in stealth, taking care to step in the other woman’s footprints so as not to give away her presence.
“Shadow?” the sum adjut called out. “Where are you, already? Why are we meeting down here?”
For a minute, the platform remained shrouded in silence, and Petra began to worry that they’d been played. Fear crept into her mind, the small voice in her head whispering that they’d never find Diana in time.
Petra pursed her lips.
“And what are you?” Chimellia asked the Widow.
“This way,” the black-coated woman hissed and beckoned for the sum adjut to follow.
Petra stayed back several paces, keenly aware that where there was one Widow, there were usually more. Luckily, the dust everywhere reduced their options for movement, and twice, she spotted small puffs of particulates that signaled the presence of at least two more of the assassins.
Petra carefully dropped a passel of nano, which contained a message, on a bench as she walked past. Going up against a BOGA goon like Shadow was one thing, but General Farah needed to know if there were Widows here. The assassins would inflict a heavy toll on her forces…if not utterly crush them.
They followed the Widow through the corridor for five minutes, and Petra was certain that at least one more of the things was behind them. Her finger kept itching, ready to grab her pistol and blow a hole in the clone assassins, but she kept her cool, knowing that there was no move to make until she had eyes on Diana.
The Widow stopped in front of a sealed door and touched an access panel next to it. There was a brief pause, and the door slid open, bright light flooding the passage.
“In,” the Widow hissed, and Petra carefully moved forward to follow right on Chimellia’s heels.
What she saw inside nearly made her gasp, though had she, it would have been masked by the sum adjut’s own cry.
“Shadow! What the—”
On a table in the center of the room lay Empress Diana, eyes wide and bulging, a wordless scream on her lips. A dozen probes were sunk into her head, blood and bits of metal mixed in with her dark hair at the insertion points.
“What does it look like,” the man standing over Diana said. “I’m extracting her AI so I can reprogram her mind.”
“You work for me,” Chimellia said as she took a step forward. “And I protect the empress!”
Petra could feel the pain in the sum adjut’s voice, and though she wished the woman had stuck to the script, she didn’t doubt the emotion.
“You were a means to an end,” Shadow said. “I never worked for you. Surely you must realize that now.”
Chimellia took another step forward, but the Widow who had escorted her placed a h
and on her shoulder.
“Look,” she said, trying to shake free of the assassin’s grasp. “Take the AI out, whatever, just don’t hurt Diana. I can manage her, keep her in line. You work for Orion, right? We can toe the line.”
Shadow shook his head. “Begging is so unbecoming, Sum Adjut. It saddens me to see you so weakened.”
“I can make a deal, one you won’t want to refuse.”
“Oh?” Shadow cocked an eyebrow. “What do you have that I want?”
“The Transcend’s ambassador!” Chimellia shouted, and spun and flung a fistful of dirt at Petra.
The dust and soot hit Petra in the chest, puffing out in a cloud across her body. Without a second’s hesitation, she moved behind the Widow, lightwand held to the clone’s throat.
“OK, you stealthed bitches, show yourselves, or your sister gets it,” the Hand director hissed.
Two more Widows appeared, one near Shadow, and one by the door.
“I don’t know what you think is going to happen now, but you’re not getting out of here.” Shadow’s lips twisted into a grin.
“Do you really think you can do what Garza couldn’t?” Petra asked. “You don’t stand a chance.”
The man shrugged. “Well, you don’t have Sera and Tanis around to save your precious lover this time. And I have Widows.”
“About that,” Petra said, and a second later, a weapon fired, hitting the Widow next to the door.
A second shot streaked across the room, toward the Widow near Shadow. The shot grazed the assassin’s arm, and she dove behind a counter.
Petra wasted no time drawing her lightwand back and severing the head of the Widow she stood behind before lunging toward Shadow.
More shots slashed across the room, and she knew Mains and Danielle were fighting the Widows—two more of which had appeared. Indecision struck Petra, her focus divided between saving Diana and stopping Shadow.