But he still wanted to curl up in a ball on the floor and die, and she wasn’t here to shame him into standing up and moving on.
His chin dropped to his chest. “Leave me alone.”
“Dammit, Eren—”
“I don’t know, okay? I’ll think about it, but I can’t do that when you’re standing there judging me.”
“I’m not judging you.”
He squeezed his eyes shut, sapped of the strength to engage any further. After a few seconds, he was rewarded with the sound of Drae ascending the ladder to grant him his solitude.
The insistent alert of a priority message jolted Eren from a deep, mercifully dreamless sleep. He clawed back for the darkness, desperate to remain in its silent, shrouded embrace…
…but no such luck. With a groan he stretched out on the floor and rubbed at his face. He’d finished the roast beef sandwich before succumbing to oblivion once more, and his headache had now lessened considerably. The scabs on his arms itched ferociously. Not because spiders skittered beneath them, thankfully, but they’d benefit from some medicated wraps to keep his fingernails off of them.
The alert flashed again. Right, the message. In his few hours of lucidity, he’d scrupulously ignored the deluge of messages waiting on him, for he didn’t have the fortitude to bear the outpouring of well-meaning but empty and pointless condolences.
But someone believed this message was worth his immediate attention. He checked the sender…Mia Requelme? A nice and crafty lady, but not exactly one of his main chums. Interest piqued, he opened the message.
A loud thud echoed from below. Before Drae could properly launch himself out of the cockpit chair, a second one followed it.
He leapt across the three meters to the ladder and slid down into the cargo hold, arriving in time to see Eren’s fist hit the wall, leaving behind four streaks of blood from busted knuckles. “What’s wrong?”
Eren grabbed for his hair as if to tear at it, only to come up empty. “Jhountar’s planning to turn Torval over to the Anaden leadership in exchange for a temporary cease-fire. Zeus be fucking damned!”
“How the hells do you know that?”
“A little birdie whispered it in my ear. What does it matter how I know? The intel’s solid. It’s happening.”
“Machim warships have been wiping the floor with the Savrakaths for the last week. I’m not surprised if Jhountar’s searching for a way to make it stop.”
“And I hope the Machims finish the job on Savrak, but Torval needs to suffer every last minute until they do.” He stormed around the small, confined area, narrowly skirting the force field. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
Drae spoke carefully. On the one hand, it was a relief to see Eren spewing spitfire again. On the other hand, this level of rage couldn’t be much healthier than wallowing in despair. “I’m sure it’s been a most unpleasant stay on Savrak for Torval. The Savrakaths are not gentle with their prisoners.”
“Damn straight it’s been unpleasant. But it’s not enough…” he sagged against the wall behind him and covered his face with his hands “…it’s not enough of a price. Not for what he did.”
“Maybe it has to be.”
Eren peered at him from behind balled fists. “Fine. I’ll reconnect to the regenesis server, on one condition.”
“Name it.”
“You help me crash the prisoner exchange. Help me blow up Torval, Jhountar and what I bet will be a good chunk of the Savrakath military leadership.”
Leave it to Eren to go straight from suicide to explosions. “What makes you think Jhountar will personally show up for the exchange?”
“Because he’ll want the promise of the cease-fire to be delivered directly to his snarling face. Because even in defeat, he’s a proud, arrogant son of a bitch.”
Drae conceded the point. “Granted. And how do you plan to blow them up?”
“The supplies I gathered before I liberated Torval from Detention included a couple of ‘just in case’ items. Go check the supply cabinet upstairs.”
“I will, but why don’t you simply tell me first? What manner of Hades did you bring on board this ship?”
“A small stash of antimatter belts I kept stored away from our old anarch days. The Savrakaths want to play around with antimatter? They can die by it.”
64
* * *
CINT VESSEL 23A-X
Savrak Stellar System
I am deeply sorry, Eren, but I cannot.
You can’t spare ninety seconds for one I-promise-is-the-last favor?
There is no need for it to be one last favor. But at present, I am actively involved in assisting the Asterions in retaking their planet of Namino from the Rasu. I am most pleased to learn you continue to draw breath among us, but no, I cannot spare ninety seconds.
Eren dragged a hand down his face. Fine. He’d relied on Mesme’s ability to instantly put him wherever he wanted to be too much, anyway. He’d do it the hard way.
I understand. Good luck with the Rasu.
He studied Drae, who was cleaning up the mess Eren had made of the med kit while trying to bandage his wounds. His friend had only freed him from his force-field prison once he’d relented and officially reconnected to Concord’s regenesis server. Even given the venomous rage he felt toward Torval, the decision had not been an easy one. He also strongly suspected that on Eren’s reconnection, Director Navick had implemented a regular, remote cache backup of the data the connection transmitted, in order to prevent him from deleting his backup a second time.
If he severed the link again, they’d simply wake up a slightly stale version of him. He was supposed to be in charge of his own existence…but his friends weren’t going to let him die.
“I imagine the Savradin defenses have taken a beating from the Machim attacks?”
“I expect so.”
“How close to the meeting site do you think we’ll be able to sneak unnoticed?”
Drae closed up the med kit and stored it in the cabinet. “With full stealth? Maybe inside half a kilometer. But Jhountar will be bringing a brigade of soldiers to ensure the Machims don’t try any shenanigans.”
“It’s okay. I don’t intend to approach from the ground. We’re going to bomb the meeting from the sky—and I’m the bomb.”
Drae sighed. “I appreciate your flair for the dramatic, and I’m glad to learn it’s survived your hypnol poisoning. But there’s no need for you to go through the hassle of regenesis this time. We can drop the antimatter belts from half a kilometer above the meeting and have time to escape the blast.”
Eren forced a confident smile, pulling the correct muscles into a barely remembered pattern and holding them there. “This is where you’re wrong—there is absolutely a need for me to go through the hassle of regenesis.” He reached up and ran a palm over the stubble covering his scalp. “If I am going to continue living in this world, I have got to get my hair back.”
Drae stared at him incredulously, then burst out laughing. “You know, that may be the first true thing you’ve said to me since this ordeal began. All right, fair enough. But if we’re seriously planning to do this, why don’t we go all-in? Let me crash the ship into the platform.”
“Nah. You said it yourself. You just went through regenesis a few weeks ago, and you don’t want to hop on that particular treadmill, trust me. No, as soon as I’ve cleared the airlock, you high-tail it out of there so you don’t get disintegrated.”
The effort of interacting as if the world were somehow normal was exhausting, but Eren drew on an empty well to add a touch of gratitude and sincerity to his voice. “Thank you for your help. Let’s see this done, then I’ll meet you at HQ in a few days, sumptuous tresses rightfully restored.”
SAVRAK
Eren peered out the open airlock. Ahead of them, a long, low building came into view. Apparently the Machim warships had leveled every military base on the planet, forcing the Savrakaths to conscript a random facility to effect the prisoner handoff.
A Machim frigate sat on the wide concrete strip that surrounded the facility, and a series of tiny, dark dots moved around between the two. No one there was worth saving, and it was a damn shame that some, including the worst of them, would wake up in a regenesis lab none the worse for wear. But not all of them. Jhountar was a scourge he was happy to eliminate from the face of the universe, and many of the Savrakath’s lieutenants were even more unhinged than the man at the top. He believed eliminating them would save lives. Some kind of lives, somewhere.
Drae glanced back at him from the cockpit chair. “Get ready to jump in ten seconds.”
Eren zoomed his vision in until he could make out a man in restraints being shoved toward the transport. Torval. Target acquired, he grabbed the end of the antimatter belt with two fingers and yanked. The antimatter slabs fell away from the belt to dangle from a thin ribbon, and the clock started running. When the buffer material dissolved, the antimatter would come into contact with matter—him—and obliterate everything for almost a kilometer in all directions.
“Five seconds. Last chance to give up on this stupid plan.”
“I never have done the smart thing.” Eren grasped the ribbon of deadly material tightly in both hands and took a deep breath.
“Now.”
He extended a leg and stepped out of the airlock. The wind whipped him into a vicious spin as he tumbled away from the ship. He surrendered to it, because it didn’t much matter how he landed, or even where he landed so long as it was within a few hundred meters of those gathered.
As the concrete rushed up toward him, his pulse raced in longing for the brief but sweet oblivion awaiting him. The last of the buffer material on the slabs crumbled away.
He could almost see the whites of Torval elasson-Machim’s tortured eyes when the explosion devoured them both.
65
* * *
SAVRAK
The walls of Malcolm’s cell shook with such vehemence that jagged cracks opened up to spread across the floor and ceiling. A fine mist of debris rained down on him, and the force field sputtered and died.
He’d bet good money that the structure the Savrakaths had chained him up in, wherever it was and whatever other purposes it served, was being bombed from above. So the war had taken a real and bloody turn.
He hadn’t seen a guard in several hours, and Torval had been gone for many hours longer. Maybe the Anaden finally goaded his torturers into killing him, thus freeing him from this captivity.
Malcolm, on the other hand, was going to have to free himself. A little ahead of schedule, as his shoulder was healing more slowly than he’d have liked—but by the sound and fury of it, now was the time. The force field remained dead, and the wide opening at the far end of his cell beckoned him to his freedom.
He peered at the wall above him to see jagged cracks splintering out in a cobweb shape from where his wrist restraint was attached to a large metal brace. As lucky breaks went, it would have to do. He sucked in air, steeled himself and tugged hard.
Fresh dust wafted down to coat his skin as the cracks widened. He tugged again. More dust fell, but the brace held.
He twisted around as far as he was able and locked his left foot at the wall. Then he shoved against the wall using his leg while he yanked his arm down and away.
Just when he was convinced his wrist was fracturing in the unforgiving grasp of the manacle, the brace tumbled out of the wall to land on the floor beside him. His shoulders sagged in relief, but there was no time for rest. Guards would realize the prison was breached and descend upon it in force any minute now.
He crawled along the wall to where his leg restraint was attached. The damage to this stretch of the wall wasn’t as severe, but hairline cracks ran out from the restraint brace, so structural weakness had been introduced. He grabbed the chain with his good hand, braced both feet on the wall and pulled.
No movement; not so much as a fraction of give. He needed something to—
The walls, ceiling and floor shuddered again from a renewed strike, or possibly renewed collapse above, and he quickly breathed in and pulled again. This time the brace broke loose and went skidding across the floor.
He was free. But this was only step one.
He pushed himself up to his feet, then swayed unsteadily and grabbed for the wall behind him for support. He hadn’t walked under his own power since being captured weeks earlier. Now, though, he must do more than walk.
He let his equilibrium settle and tested out his weight on each leg while he hunted around for anything he could fashion into a weapon, and belatedly realized one was attached to his wrist.
He gathered the chain up in his hands and swung the brace around a few times, getting a feel for its heft. It would substitute for a flail in a pinch.
Unfortunately, he’d also be dragging his leg manacle along behind him like some kind of ghost of Christmas past, at least until he located some way to unlock or smash it. He wouldn’t be able to move quietly or swiftly, when he really needed to do both. He settled for winding the chain around his ankle several times before securing the latch inside it. There. That got it off the floor.
Now for a proper escape. Based on the reverberations, the explosions had all impacted high above this level, and he didn’t dare count on being fortunate enough for his cell to be on the first floor of a tall building. Most likely he was located deep underground.
As soon as he stepped out of the cell, a high-pitched hissing sound began permeating the hallway. A pipe running along the wall had cracked, venting steam into the air. Hyper-heated water. In the dim light he couldn’t make out many details, but it resembled the drainage system in place at the Okshakin…which meant two things: he was definitely underground, and this level was going to flood any second now.
He had no map and no helpful scans or schematics to point him toward an exit or merely a path toward higher ground. The guards had always appeared from the left, though, so he turned left and began walking as fast as his chain-bound leg permitted.
The staccato triple-thud of heavy Savrakath footsteps echoed from an intersection ahead. Malcolm pressed against the wall and readied the chain.
A guard had barely cleared the intersection when the sharp corner of the metal brace met him full in the face, knocking him to the ground and sending blood gushing from his nose. Malcolm leapt on top of him and drove the brace corner into the guard’s throat with more strength than he’d believed he still possessed, then dragged it sideways. Blood bubbled out in a thin line behind it. The Savrakath jerked beneath him, long snout opening and closing in a weak attempt to find air.
The ceiling shook again—no time to dally. Malcolm stood and left the injured, but not quite dead, guard behind. The guard had come from somewhere…the right turn at the intersection. He retraced the guard’s steps and hurried forward.
He passed what looked to be additional cells. Though the hallways weren’t quite so labyrinthine as those comprising the Okshakin, this was without a doubt a prison.
Scalding water poured out of a ruptured pipe running the length of the hallway, and he skirted around the steam. What could have caused the water to boil? What kind of attack was this? If chemical or nuclear weapons were in play, he might find himself screwed upon reaching the surface. But Concord didn’t utilize such toxic weaponry in ground combat.
The increasing volume of hissing steam made it harder for him to hear movement, and he ran smack into another guard at the next intersection. Before the guard was able to react, however, Malcolm had grabbed him by the shirt and shoved him beneath an escaping stream of boiling water. The Savrakath howled in agony, and Malcolm slammed him into the wall then took off running. His out-of-practice muscles screamed in protest and the chain around his ankle banged and jostled, but all complied with his demands.
Abruptly he reached a dead end, with branches to the left and the right. He didn’t have time to hesitate, so he took the left hallway.
Fifty meters later he ran into a
more distressing dead end: a solid wall of rubble. Hulking chunks of concrete had fallen from above to form a landslide, blocking his progress. Dammit!
He peered up, struggling to make out details in the dark until he remembered the enhanced night vision routine they’d used on the Okshakin mission. Malnutrition and lethargy were making him stupid; with a curse directed at himself he switched to the routine. The debris and remaining walls took on an eerie, almost sickly fluorescent glow, but they also gained definition.
The rubble originated from higher up, possibly several floors above. It had torn through the ceiling, and where it sloped, he caught a glimpse of open space above. Not sky, but perhaps a path to reach it.
He secured the chain closer around his wrist so the brace wouldn’t snag, and started climbing.
ASTERION DOMINION
66
* * *
MIRAI
Omoikane Initiative
Dashiel watched Nika pace in a furious circle, hands at her mouth, her gaze focused three kiloparsecs away. She had been metaphorically distant since the initial attack, but now, with her consciousness split between here and Namino, the gap had become much more literal. The room buzzed with frenetic commotion as everyone rushed to prepare for the imminent gambit on Namino, but she moved in and through the activity like an apparition—a ghostly specter half-existing across multiple locations and dimensions.
He received a notification of twenty additional fighters leaving the assembly line, and he forwarded the update to Palmer on the off chance the commander could locate twenty more pilots in the next few hours. The adiaK-clad ships (his chosen moniker for the new metal fusion) might well turn out to be the greatest and most significant invention of his long career, but that judgment likely would not be rendered today. This fight was arriving too soon for the new ships to be properly measured and found fit or wanting. He’d grouse about it, but the universe rarely waited for perfection to be achieved before having its way.
Inversion (Riven Worlds Book Two) Page 37