The mockery left Viktor’s face, and his expression turned serious. “I’m afraid that won’t be happening,” he said. “My Revenants are just doing their jobs, and I need them for a little while longer. What you still haven’t grasped is that I now have control of this planet, and all its resources. I control Lehen, I control Laugarren — and I control the Ring. And whilst my flesh-and-blood body may not be here to appreciate it, rest assured that I am taking full advantage.”
A pair of roller doors on the far side of the room began to rise, and Kyra knew a moment of uncertainty. Fleeing was the obvious tactic, but that didn’t sit right with her. Viktor had orchestrated all this because he wanted her to suffer; he’d love nothing more than to watch her run screaming from whatever it was back there.
And as the doors rolled up, she didn’t have to guess any more…
And it all became horribly clear.
The doors led to some kind of storage area… and it was filled with Viktor.
Dozens, maybe hundreds of the robots moved forward, marching into the room with a perfectly synchronised swagger. He’s building an army! Ships and guns he can get anywhere, but manpower takes time. It needs recruiting, training, feeding, paying, burying…
“Ah, I see you’re starting to cotton on,” the face on the screen gloated. “It took me so many years, and every shred of wealth I could steal to perfect this design. You’ve no idea how many scientists I had to torture to death to crack all the problems. But now I have it; the pattern after which all others are made. And your Ring lets me churn out fifty-five an hour! So you see, I do need that Master Key, if I’m to fire up the whole thing and really get this party cranking. Now, would you be a doll, Kyra, and hand it over?”
She was already backing away, keeping her eyes on the robots while she headed for the exit. “I don’t have it,” she said, not caring whether or not he believed her. “I never did.”
“Ah.” Viktor’s face fell, and the muscles around his eyes started twitching. It was so freakishly lifelike that for a moment she forgot that this was probably just an image of him generated by the memory engram. There was something else in there that didn’t add up, but she couldn’t spare the headspace to think about it.
“In that case, my dear, I’m afraid it really is goodbye. If it’s any consolation, you’ve fought me harder, and for longer, than any other opponent I have ever faced.” He grinned at her. “What am I on about? You killed me! Well done, Kyra.” Gloved hands came into shot, clapping silently. “Now let me return the favour.”
The whole ship quivered, as if in anticipation of the bloodshed to come.
And as one, the mass of robots charged.
Kyra ran.
There really was no choice in the matter.
Most of the robots held no weapons; a few clutched swords, as though Viktor had been keeping them on standby to see how many she’d fight before she started to get wise. The lack of guns was her saving grace; if even a tenth of the robots had been carrying rifles, she’d have been burned to a cinder in milliseconds.
Instead, she made it back through the door she’d entered by and out into the corridor. Robots awaited her, inevitably; she sliced through them like tinfoil, sprinting past before their components had hit the deck.
Tris! she sent a frantic message. Where the hell are you? Please tell me you’ve found my niece!
She’d felt a brief touch from him before the battle, but hadn’t been able to risk splitting her focus.
Kyra! he came back. So glad you’re okay! We’ve got the girl, but she’s hurt pretty bad. What’s our way out?
Hanger bay at the back of the ship, she supplied, looking over her shoulder at the column of Viktors chasing her. I need you back there asap. Can you make it?
His mind shied away from a direct answer. We’ll try.
She cursed inwardly. What’s wrong? His thoughts had a guilty tinge to them. What did you do?
I did what you would have done, he replied.
Just the thought of that made her blood run cold. Oh shit. You didn’t.
Um… I might have. Sorry.
Goddamnit!
She tuned him out and redoubled her efforts. It was a straight shot back to the hangar, but the doors were no longer cooperating; she was forced to hack them open, which was slowing her down considerably. All she had going for her was the relatively narrow corridor; only two or three abreast could chase her like this, and she stopped every now and then to slice the leading ranks apart.
Was it doing any good? It was hard to say. For all she knew, the damaged robots would be repaired in a couple of hours, and Viktor would send them out in a swarm to kill everything in their path.
She sighted the last door and chopped through it, ducking beneath the abused lintel and running out into the hangar bay. The hover car was still there, praise the gods, but a violent twitch from the barge sent her staggering sideways. What the hell? Tris? Get your ass down here!
Ah… Tris can’t come to the phone right now, he sent back to her.
She entered the code to open the vehicle’s hatch, cursing that she had to stow one sword to do it. Did you, or did you not, blow up the ship while we’re still on it?
That’s a complicated question. He paused to concentrate on something else for a moment — he was in combat, she realised. But maybe.
Dammit Tris, you had one job!
I had two jobs, he protested. And I did them both, thank-you very much. It’s not my fault we got ambushed by a horde of robots.
She could tell he’d been saving that, and she had to give him credit for not freaking out on her. You too, huh? There’s a lot of that going around. She turned to face the door, as the first of Viktor’s toys came barging through it. She let fly with her swords, eviscerating them one at a time, then two at a time. But she couldn’t do damage quickly enough; some had the arm-upgrades that could block her blades, and every machine had to be completely dismantled before they stopped coming at her.
Come with me to Esper, Tris’s terrible imitation of her sounded in her head, meet my lovely family…
She backed up, putting distance between herself and the door, which had now risen to allow the robots out in greater numbers.
A deafening crash from behind startled her, and she risked a glance. A sizeable chunk of the hangar roof lay on the deck, and she turned her gaze upwards to see Tris and Alek dropping down through a hole far above, both clinging to the grav-belts around their waists.
What kept you? she asked, as the deck gave another twitch beneath her.
Did I not mention the robots?
Tris touched down hard enough to make her wince, but still managed to save Alek from a similar fate. Then he was at her side, his rifle spitting laser beams into the endless stream of Viktors.
“These ones have faces!” He sounded surprised.
“Yours didn’t?”
“You know, I never stopped to look.”
A distant boom drew her gaze upwards — just in time to answer her next question.
A hundred feet above her, Lukas dived through the hole in slow-motion. He twisted as he fell, somehow managing to keep the girl on his shoulder, and blazed away with his rifle one-handed. Shots rained down on him from above, scattering off his forcefield in a series of brilliant flashes. He ignored them all, keeping up a steady stream of fire that turned the edges of the hole white hot. Several shadows fell across it, and were flung back before they could drop through.
He landed with a crunch, absorbing the impact with his knees, never once letting up on the torrent of fire.
Kyra found she couldn’t look away, as his free hand came up to adjust the princess’s position. Then his powerpack ran dry, and he groped around on his belt for a fresh one.
She caught his gaze. “In case I forget to tell you later,” she said, “you are one hell of a babysitter.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
A deep, rolling boom issued from the depths of the barge, and Kyra decided that it was time to go. They
were seconds from being overrun, and none of their attackers registered on her Gift-sense; it was only a matter of time before she missed something vital. Tris was splitting his fire between the distant hole above them and the more plentiful targets in front; Alek had already retreated inside the car. The vehicle’s armoured hull could soak up plenty of punishment, but even that had its limits.
“Get in,” she yelled to Tris, and began to fall back. There was a danger to being this close to Lukas; any one of the shots that came sizzling into his shield could easily rebound right through the middle of her. She tried not to think about that as she kept busy with her swords, lopping off arms and the weapons they carried rather than doing more critical damage. Her boots hit the ramp, and she turned to sprint up it. Lukas would be last in, but the Aegis would protect him; by now he must have worked up a serious appetite. She had more important things to worry about, however. She was the only one who could fly this thing.
Flinging herself into the pilot’s seat, she yanked at her restraints with one hand while the other danced across the controls. The engines roared to life; she sent a silent prayer to Sydon that Viktor hadn’t bothered to sabotage the thing. When she goosed the control stems, the car leapt like a scalded cat. Yes! And now to add injury to insult…
She flicked the weapons to hot, and opened up the submenus. Antipersonnel turrets popped up all over the vehicle, their status flashing green across the board. Issi… holy shit, girl! Remind me to say thank-you.
As the hatch slammed shut behind Lukas she hauled on the stems, backing off to give herself some breathing room. Then she flicked over to firing control and opened up with everything she had.
A spray of bullets cut into the first row of attackers, plowing through their armour. The heavy shells caused instant chaos, flinging the machines back in tangled heaps. Their tough metal bodies would probably survive, but at least the solid ammo carried a lot of momentum. She didn’t want to think about how Tris and Lukas had fared, armed mostly with laser weapons.
The impacts on the hull grew louder, and she realised it wasn’t just small-arms fire; some of the attackers from above had dropped down, slamming into the hover car at close to terminal velocity. These living missiles were a much greater threat — especially if any of them remained intact enough to start tearing pieces off the hull.
Then the entire hangar shook in response to something happening elsewhere in the ship, and she suddenly remembered that even suicidal robots weren’t her biggest problem.
She yanked on the control stems, slewing the car around to point at the exit, and opened the throttle. Sorry Viktor! You’re on your own… all five hundred of you.
Jinking from side to side, she sped across the enormous chamber, gaining a bit of height for good measure. A check of the outside feeds showed a human-shaped figure latched on to the roof armour, and what looked like a torso clinging to a missile pylon. That one’s easy to solve. I doubt Viktor was going to open the doors for us, anyway. Sighting down the length of the hangar, she targeted the vast slabs of steel that separated her from the outside world. She double-checked her choice of missile before squeezing the firing stud — and watched the legless robot go spinning away, as the micro-missile streaked from its pylon. A second later, an immense fireball blossomed against the doors, and Kyra sent a second missile just to be on the safe side. Then she glanced back at the rear feeds, and her breath caught in shock.
The part of the hangar where the car had been parked was gone. A tsunami of white-hot plasma filled the space behind them, consuming everything as it expanded. Her jaw fell open, but reflexes kicked in, throwing every ounce of available power to the engine.
The bay doors loomed large in front of them, but the blinding incandescence behind was catching up. It was going to be close…
And then she saw what her missiles had done.
This barge was primarily a weapons platform; it stood to reason that it would be built to take a thrashing. Two micro-missiles would have made a mess of any building, or turned a pair of starfighters into scrap. But all they’d managed to do here was break off a tiny corner of one door, barely as big as the car itself…
“Hope you kids are strapped in,” she yelled, “this is going to be tight!” Toggling the controls to attitude jets, she gave a burst on the left hand side, tilting them over. The gap she was aiming for was roughly triangular, with cracks webbing out from each point.
Shit! It’s too small! She squeezed her eyes shut in anticipation of impact—
But with a screech like a trash compactor, the hover car shot through into open air. Kyra gasped, flooding her lungs with smoke-tinged air. Greenery dominated the view through the canopy; trees rose majestically all around them, and she angled the nose up to rise above them. She glanced at the external feeds, to find only the rearmost one still working — all the other cameras were gone. Likewise the missile pylons; the top turret was missing too, leaving them mostly unarmed.
But alive, she reminded herself, at least for now!
Even their robot passenger had been evicted, along with the hull-plate he’d been clinging to.
And behind them, the barge was consumed in a titanic explosion. The hover car lurched and rocked as the shockwave hit them. Kyra kept a firm grip on the controls, adjusting their thrust to compensate with a practiced hand. Tongues of flame and burning metal reached out for them, but fell short as she streaked out above the trees.
Safe… she sagged over her console, then mopped the sweat from her brow with a blood-stained sleeve. Eh? Where did that come from? The gash on her shoulder started throbbing as soon as she remembered it. Damn! That’s gonna leave a mark. It occurred to her that she still had no idea how the others had fared — not to mention the unconscious girl they’d dragged out of there. She turned to peer back into the crew compartment, letting the car choose its own path for a moment. “Are we good?” she asked. “How’s my niece?”
Lukas was still cradling the girl in his arms. With the car now stable, he lowered her to the deck and knelt over her. “Got a medi-kit?”
“Here,” Alek said, unbuckling his restraints and opening a locker beneath his seat. He pulled out a large white case and slid it over to Lukas.
Kyra turned back to the controls, and spent a few moments figuring out which direction they were headed. The endless woods rolled by beneath them, and at least for now, there seemed to be no sign of pursuit.
Is that it? Is Viktor gone? She hardly dared to ask that question, even in the privacy of her own mind. Seeing him again had shaken her deeply — she could see that now, with the benefit of hindsight. There was just something about him… he’d loomed over her life for so long, like a spectre that refused to die. She’d heard rumours long ago that he had somehow survived, and she’d spent decades dodging bounty hunters. Viktor had seemed invincible back then, whether he was real or not; endless money and resources had been spent hunting her, and she’d been left with no choice but to flee as far away as possible. She’d tried so hard to disappear, to tidy up her loose ends, to leave no trace as she ventured ever further from Esper. She’d never tried taking the fight back to him, even as her abilities grew. When she’d ended up as a mercenary herself, the irony wasn’t lost on her — but even when she’d risen to become the second-in-command of Sharki’s group, she hadn’t asked them to track down Viktor. She’d thought that part of her life was finally over — and she couldn’t face anyone else dying on her behalf.
Coming back here was dredging up memories that she’d rather leave buried. Names and faces of those she’d lost. Of those that had been killed whilst trying to help her. Of those she’d killed herself.
But she was back, for better or worse.
And so was Viktor.
And we just destroyed him… didn’t we?
She had a queasy feeling in the pit of her stomach.
Lukas finished his assessment. “She’s been placed into an induced coma, as far as I can tell. Probably to make her easier to keep.”
Bile rose in the back of Kyra’s throat, and her fists clenched on the control stems. First Tarri, and now Jenna. How can I be this bad at protecting my family? Gods, what if I lose them both?
Lukas, meanwhile, had gone to work on Tris. “Okay… some superficial burns… lacerations… a fractured collar bone…”
Tris let out a yelp.
“And two broken ribs? When did that happen?”
Tris let out a shuddering breath. “It’s been a rough day. A rough few days, actually.”
“I keep telling you, mate, you’re too skinny! If you’re going to survive a job like this, you need some meat on you.” There was a hiss, as Lukas injected him with something, and Tris gave a contented sigh.
“I’m strong… I can handle it,” he said, his words slurring.
“Yeah, mate. You did good today. Here’s your forcefield back.”
“You keepsss ittt…” Tris said, and started snoring.
Kyra glanced back to see Lukas sinking down onto the deck. Weariness was etched in every line of his face, every laboured movement. He stretched out next to the princess, pillowed his head on his hands, and a few seconds later he was asleep, too.
But Alek’s eyes were fixed on his daughter, and his expression showed the most pain of all.
* * *
Ordinarily, it wouldn’t have been a long trip back to Issi’s secret hideout. But Kyra took a wide, circuitous route, still aware of how little they knew about their enemies here. Were the Laugarrens spying on them from orbit? Was Viktor? So many things had changed here since she was a girl, and almost all of it for the worse. More than anything she wondered about her family. She’d missed so much — Alek and Vinni marrying, the birth of their two children… their entire reign over Esper. Presumably they’d rebuilt the royal city, following the damage it had sustained in the battle to oust Viktor’s forces, and an almost insane amount of energy had gone into rebuilding Laugarren. What had happened to the people she’d christened Ring-dwellers? Had they really just retreated into the undercity? There were never many of them, not really enough to warrant an entire city of their own… not after they’d finished giving their lives in her cause, anyway. Could she contact them somehow? Enlist their aid? Because as far as she knew, there was still a heavily-armed bunch of mercenaries in control of her city.
Embers of Esper: A Sci Fi Adventure (Warden's Legacy Book 1) Page 23