Queen

by Timothy Zahn

  “Do you want us to delay them?” Moile asked from behind her.

  “Not now,” Nicole called back, pushing herself as hard as she could. They were still way too close to the Shipmasters, and she didn’t know what they would do if they rounded the corner in pursuit to find a webbed and helpless Ponng lying at their feet.

  The next cross-corridor was about twenty feet ahead. If she and the Ponngs could get around the corner and out of sight before Trake and the others could reach the intersection they’d just left, she might be able to give them the slip. Or at least get out of spider gun range for another few seconds.

  They were three steps away from safety when a spider round shot past her left shoulder and splattered itself on the wall right at the corner.

  Reflexively, Nicole dodged to the right. A second round arrowed past, this one passing the cross-corridor and exploding into black goo, again on the far-left corner.

  Even using an unfamiliar weapon, Trake should be better with the spider gun than to unload two clean misses. Warning shots, then. Apparently, he didn’t want her and the Ponngs turning left toward the heat duct and a possible escape back to Q4.

  But he also didn’t just want to bring her down like a lion killing its prey. First, he wanted to play with her a little.

  Nicole had seen that cruel streak in him many times. Usually it worked exactly the way he wanted, giving him the fun of turning his victim into jelly before he ended the game. Having to watch Trake toy with people this way had been one of the things she’d hated the most about life in his gang. Being the one who was being toyed with was a hundred times worse.

  But in this case, making it look like she was dancing to his strings would buy her some time.

  And with luck, a little extra time would be all she needed.

  “Go right!” she snapped, angling away from the spider gun tendrils dangling on her left and dodging to the right into the cross-corridor.

  Once again, they were out of sight. But that breathing space wouldn’t last for long. The next main corridor was about sixty feet away, and their pursuers were likely to get around the corner behind her before she and the Ponngs could reach it.

  Still, she doubted Trake was tired of the game yet. It would be another corridor, probably a second, possibly a third, before he decided he’d piled enough panic down her throat. Then, a single shot to her legs to bring her down, a leisurely stroll to where she was lying helpless, and he could deliver her to Fievj and Nevvis and claim whatever promise they’d made to him.

  What he would say when he found out they’d almost certainly lied to him would be highly interesting. On the other hand, there wouldn’t be much satisfaction in it for Nicole if she was already their prisoner.

  They were nearly to the corridor when another spider shot splattered against the leftmost corner. Trake was still playing games, and on top of that had apparently decided to herd them in a big circle back to where the Shipmasters were waiting. Probably hoping he could drop her right at their feet. That would be just like him.

  At the last junction she’d played along. Time to shake things up a little. “Start to angle right,” she muttered behind her to the Ponngs. “But be ready to go left.”

  A second gooey mass slapped into the wall to her left, followed by a third. Either the Shipmasters had plenty of rounds for the spider guns, or else Trake simply didn’t care if he wasted ammo. Knowing Trake, probably the latter. Nicole drifted toward the right, as if she were again letting herself be pushed in the direction he wanted her to go—

  And then, at the last second, she pushed off the soft flooring and angled left into the corridor. If Trake were fast enough, and his spider gun was still pointed this direction, the chase could very well end sooner than either of them wanted.

  It didn’t, but it was a near thing. Trake fired one final shot, the round slashing through the air close enough behind Nicole’s head that she could feel the burst of wind as it passed. Trake’s startled curse and the impact of the round against the wall came simultaneously—

  And then Nicole was safely out of sight in the corridor, the Ponngs right behind her.

  Though not quite as safely. Teika yelped something untranslatable as the edge of that last shot caught just the top of his head. But as Nicole braked to a halt and started back toward him he did a sort of corkscrew twist of his head and shoulders and wrenched himself clear.

  “You all right?” Nicole asked as Moile grabbed his arm and pulled him the rest of the way around the corner.

  “I’m unharmed,” Teika said.

  “Good,” Nicole said. But the bright red spot on his head where some of the green, moss-like hair had been torn away—along with the pale liquid oozing from the wound—were in stark contradiction to his assurances. She needed to wrap this thing up as fast as she could and get him back to the hive for medical treatment.

  Right now, though, what he needed most was to get to the next corridor before Trake and his thugs caught up and pinned him to the wall or floor for good. “Come on,” she said, grabbing Teika’s other arm and hurrying both him and Moile along. Her back tingled as they approached the corner, waiting for the slap against her skin that would end her lonely act of rebellion forever—

  They were just rounding the corner when a spider round slapped into Moile’s back, knocking him two feet forward past Nicole. He flailed briefly for balance, lost his fight, and pitched forward onto the deck.

  “Moile!” Nicole snapped, again braking hard and spinning around.

  “Go!” he snapped back, shoving his sword along the floor toward Teika as best he could with his upper arm pinioned to the flooring.

  Before Nicole could protest, she was yanked nearly off her feet as Teika grabbed her arm and pulled her away from the corner. “Come,” he said sharply, scooping up the sword with his other hand. “We must go.”

  Nicole knew that. But it didn’t make it any easier. “Moile—”

  “Go!” Moile cut her off.

  Clenching her teeth, Nicole turned and sprinted down the corridor, swapping grips with Teika so that she, and not the injured Ponng, would be doing all the pulling. Unless she’d gotten turned around, the door she was looking for should be only a few feet away …

  There. She skidded to a halt and popped open the hidden stairway door.

  But instead of heading in, she turned and crossed the corridor to an electrical room. She got the door open and shoved Teika inside, following him in and pulling the door closed behind them.

  Just in time. As she pressed her ear to the door, she heard the unmistakable sound of muffled voices and the not-quite-muffled sound of Trake swearing. “The freaking hell? Where’d the freaking bitch go?”

  “Here,” Bungie’s voice came faintly. “Hold it, Trake—right here.”

  Nicole tensed, her hands forming into useless fists. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Teika bring his two swords up a little to point at the door …

  “I’ll be freaking damned,” Trake said. “What the hell is this?”

  “It’s a stairway,” Bungie said. “It goes—”

  “I know it’s a freaking stairway, you freaking idiot,” Trake snapped. “Which freaking way did she go?”

  “Probably up,” Bungie said. “She likes to go up. Figures whoever’s chasing her will get too tired to keep going.”

  “Yeah, like that’s freaking gonna happen,” Trake growled. “Come on.”

  There was a muffled sound of footsteps and voices. The stairway door closed.

  “Now?” Teika murmured.

  “Almost,” Nicole whispered back, counting out the seconds. Bungie had said to go up, and that was what it had sounded like. But if Trake was still running true to form …

  She reached her mental countdown. “Now.” Leaning her full weight on the door, she popped the latch and charged out.

  The thug Trake had left as a guard outside the stairway door had just enough time to drop his mouth open—and not nearly enough time to bring up his spider gun—a
s Nicole and Teika slammed bodily into him.

  Nicole had hoped that, if Trake had left a sentry, her hopefully unexpected appearance and the sheer energy of their attack would take him out of the fight. Unfortunately, he was bigger than she was and shrugged off the impact with a single grunt. Half a second later, Nicole was sent sprawling as a jerking sweep of his arm sent her tumbling away into the center of the corridor. She rolled half over, trying to make it back to her feet before he could get his spider gun up—

  And watched the thug stagger in turn as Teika slapped the flat of his sword hard against the side of the man’s head. His knees buckled, and for a second Nicole hoped he might go down.

  But even as she scrambled back to her feet his knees steadied, and he shook his head a couple of times to clear it. His eyes came back into focus, locking onto Nicole, his slightly unsteady hand once again bringing his spider gun up toward her.

  There was only one chance. Grabbing the end of his weapon, praying that his muscles still weren’t fully recovered from Teika’s attack, she shoved on the gun, twisting his wrist inward to point back at himself. Before he could do more than gape in surprise, her fumbling finger found the trigger and squeezed it.

  The gun kicked back against her hand as it spat out a black glob. The round slammed into the thug’s chest and shoulder, and he staggered a second time as it burst into the familiar black tentacles. Most of them wrapped around his arms and torso, but a couple splashed backward into the door behind him, pinning him in place.

  Unfortunately, one of the threads also splashed forward toward his bent wrist and the spider gun still gripped in his hand. Nicole barely got her own hand out of the way before the tendril effectively glued the gun to him.

  “Damn,” she bit out. She’d hoped to neutralize Trake’s spotter; she’d hoped just as hard that she could get his spider gun away from him.

  With one of Jeff’s eyedropper bottles of neutralizing liquid she might have been able to free the gun without freeing its owner. But Jeff wasn’t here, and neither were his bottles. Even if they had been, Trake had undoubtedly heard the sound of Nicole and Teika slamming the thug into the door. She had to get out of here before the rest of the gang made it back down the stairs.

  Teika had lifted his sword for another shot at knocking the thug unconscious. “Come on,” Nicole said, touching his arm and turning back toward the cross-corridor they’d turned off of a minute ago. She glanced both directions, confirmed that no Shipmasters or Wisps were in sight. She sent a single, helpless look at Moile as he lay pinned to the floor, then turned to the right, heading as fast as she could toward the central heat-transfer duct three corridors away.

  She and Teika had passed the first corridor and were midway to the second when a spider round from behind them slammed into Teika’s back, wrapping its tendrils around him and throwing him forward. “Go!” he shouted, the word changing to a strangled gasp as the impact with the deck knocked the breath out of him.

  Nicole had already veered sharply to her left, a reflexive movement that saved her as a second shot whizzed past her shoulder and arced to the deck far ahead. She started to veer right, veered left instead, and had the satisfaction of watching another round shoot past instead of connecting.

  But she couldn’t keep this up forever, especially not if Trake gave up his attempts to take her down personally and ordered the other four to also open fire. The centerline corridor was just ahead now, with the Wisps she’d left there a short ways to her left. If she could just get to them before Trake nailed her …

  She was three steps from that final corner when her luck ran out.

  It was the first time she’d actually been hit by one of the spider shots, and she gasped at the sheer bludgeoning strength of the impact as it sent a sharp stab of agony through the skin and muscle just below the shoulder blade. But watching the Ponngs succumb to Trake’s attack had given her at least partial warning of the weapon’s effects, and even as the tendrils wrapped around her she fought to keep her feet under her. One tendril stretched down and latched itself to her left thigh, but it remained mostly loose and didn’t interfere with her running. Another round hit her right shoulder, this one expending most of its energy and tendrils straight ahead or bouncing back against her chest. She reached the corner, and with a burst of speed dodged to her left into the centerline corridor.

  And immediately stumbled into a fast but uncontrolled drunkard’s stagger as her lack of proper arm assistance threw her completely off balance.

  She managed to get the rest of the way across the corridor without falling, but she was going way too fast to stop. At the last second she managed to spin halfway around so she could at least slam into the wall back-first. The pain of the impact elicited another gasp. As she blinked away the sudden light-headedness she saw Trake and the others trot triumphantly around the corner, Trake with his spider gun still pointed at her. She tried to drop to the floor to make herself less of a target, but discovered she was now glued to the wall. Trake’s smarmy smile widened.

  And with their full attention on her—

  She filled her lungs. “Wisps!” she shouted. “Grab them!”

  Trake swore, his leer of victory vanishing as he belatedly focused on the line of fifteen Wisps that Nicole had brought over from Q4. Wisps that had been lined up along the wall out of his sight but were now spreading out to fill the whole corridor as they glided toward him and his thugs. “Get them!” he yelped, his voice on the edge of panic as he jerked up his spider gun and opened fire on the creatures coming at him. The air was suddenly filled with projectiles, and the nearest Wisps jerked and wobbled as their torsos, arms, and folded wings erupted in black wrappings. Trake continued to swear, his initial surprise changing to anger and then malicious glee as he saw the helplessness of the Wisps to withstand his attack.

  He was still snarling happily when the two drones came swooping in from behind him, their whine masked by Trake’s swearing and the sound of the thugs’ own fire.

  Bungie and Trake were the first to get hit by the drones’ paralyzing cords: Trake, because Jeff had probably picked him out as the group’s leader; Bungie, because Levi at the second drone’s controls, really, really hated him.

  The remaining three thugs belatedly caught sight of their attackers as the drones’ momentum took them past the group before they swung back for their second pass. Two of the men likewise fell to the cords before they could do anything to fight back. The last thug spun around, trying frantically to hit one of the flyers with a shot as it overcorrected and continued on toward Jeff and Levi.

  He got off two rounds, missing with both of them, before freezing in mid-aim as one of the Wisps came up behind him and wrapped its arms around him.

  A moment later, Jeff was at Nicole’s side, his eyedropper bottle ready. “Are you all right?” he asked as he carefully squeezed a drop of the liquid onto the center of the black goo wrapped around her chest.

  “I’m fine,” Nicole assured him, watching in fascination as the goo began to burn away from the drop in all directions, disintegrating like tissue paper that had had a lighted match dropped on it. “Moile and Teika both got shot, too.”

  “I know—we spotted them down the cross-corridor as we passed.” Jeff looked over his shoulder as Levi and Miron joined the group, scooping up the spider guns now scattered across the deck and handing them out to some of the other six green-jumpsuited men who’d come up behind them. “Shipmasters?”

  “Five corridors to portside and one forward,” Nicole said. “At least, that’s where I left them. Oh, and one of Trake’s men is webbed up around the corner a couple of corridors in, too, near where Moile got hit. Afraid his gun got webbed up with him.”

  “No problem,” Jeff grunted. “We’ll make sure to knock him out before we get it. Iosif? You get all that?”

  “Yeah,” Iosif said, coming up beside him. “What do you want us to do?”

  “Head up the corridor, check on the Ponngs, and make sure the Shipmasters
aren’t headed this way,” Jeff said. “If you have to shoot, remember that that armor of theirs is damn slippery—not sure this stuff will even stick. Aim at their helmets or legs, try to get the goo to wrap around and stick to itself. As soon as Nicole’s able to move, we’ll join you and I’ll unweb the Ponngs.”

  “Don’t dawdle,” Iosif warned. He turned, pointed down the cross-corridor in silent command, and he and his men headed out.

  “You got all of the green team to come along?” Nicole asked.

  “I didn’t,” Jeff said. “Iosif did. Natural leader, and they trust him.” He eyed the disintegrating goo another moment, then put the eyedropper back into its bottle. “I guess a single drop does do the trick. Kahkitah might have mentioned that it’s not exactly instantaneous.” He scowled at the goo, then gestured behind him. “Levi?”

  “Here,” Levi said, coming up to them, his drone floating along in front of him. “Ready for me to do recon?”

  “New plan,” Jeff said. “Bench the drone and stay with Nicole until she’s free.”

  “What about my recon pass down the centerline?” Levi objected, hefting the drone control for emphasis.

  “Canceled,” Jeff said, pointing at the drone and then at the deck. “This stuff takes longer than I expected, I need to get started on the Ponngs, and we can’t leave Nicole alone.”

  “Since when is she alone?” Levi asked, nodding at the Wisps as he nevertheless lowered the drone to the floor. “What about them?”

  “They don’t move all that fast,” Jeff reminded him. “Not exactly great guards. On top of that, we don’t know how fast Bungie and his buddies will recover. They may need another zap or two to keep them quiet.”

  “That’s okay,” Nicole said. “Wisps? Please pick up the men on the floor and hold them until Jeff or I tell you to let them go.”

  The five nearest Wisps stepped out of the line still stretched across the corridor and glided forward, two of them limping a bit with the spider goo interfering with their waists and hips. They leaned over, picked up Trake and Bungie and the others, then straightened up, the thugs frozen stiff in their arms. “Now you can both go,” Nicole said to Jeff and Levi.