Inversion (Riven Worlds Book Two)

by G. S. Jennsen

  Also, why was she bleeding? She touched her cheek, and her fingertip came back dotted with a few specks of blood. She must have scraped it somewhere in the tunnels.

  In her peripheral vision, Alex strode quickly through the crowded cabin toward the cockpit. She spotted Marlee as she passed and crouched beside her. “What’s wrong? Are you all right?”

  “Oh, sure. I’m fine. Just hanging out down here dying of mortification.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She cast a mournful gaze around the corner of the half-wall toward the cockpit.

  “Oh, crap! I’m sorry. I should have warned you Morgan was on the ship.”

  “That would have been great.”

  “Sorry.” Alex patted her shoulder and stood to make her way into the cockpit. She leaned in to whisper something to Morgan, then promptly reversed course and wound her way back through the passengers and downstairs.

  Marlee needed to stand up and get back to work. Neither Grant nor Selene were familiar with the ship, and their charges would be anxious and unsettled. She had a responsibility—

  —a low rumble rippled through the cabin floor beneath Marlee. She bolted to her feet and lunged into the cockpit in time to see Caleb and Alex speeding off to the northwest on Caleb’s bike.

  She slammed both palms against the viewport. “You assholes!”

  Morgan held out her walkie-talkie device toward Marlee, and Caleb’s voice came through over the pervasive static. “Sorry, muffin. Next time, I promise. Look after everyone for us.”

  Morgan tucked the walkie-talkie away. “Muffin?”

  Marlee groaned and propped against the dash. “Do not even get me started. I mean, it was cute when I was five years old, but….”

  “But Caleb hasn’t noticed how you’re not five years old any longer?”

  Had Morgan noticed? Her pulse spiked. “He’s trying…except not today, apparently. Ugh, I hate them so much.”

  Morgan laughed dryly. “I doubt it, but I know how you feel. Maybe there wasn’t room on the bike for you?”

  “There was totally room on the bike for me.”

  “Yeah, there was.” The woman checked a reading on the virtual HUD, then toed her chair around toward Marlee. “Alex left me alone on the ship in the middle of a field for three days. Well, not three literal days, but without a doubt some interminable span of time.

  “But you know what? In less than an hour, we are going to get to unleash a storm of hellacious fireworks on this Rasu compound and blow their quantum block to smithereens. Join me up here in the cockpit, and you and I will have the best seats in the house for it.”

  Marlee smiled and casually eased herself into the second chair. “Now that’s a show I want to see.”

  68

  * * *

  NAMINO

  Namino One

  A warm, dry, soot-soaked wind tore at them as they sped toward the outskirts of the city, where plains fought to reclaim the land from civilization. Nika had dialed up the range on Caleb’s kamero filter to maximum for him, so hopefully it extended to envelop the bike in its cloaking field. If not, the Rasu were going to see them coming a kilometer away and respond accordingly.

  Caleb worked to draw comfort from Alex’s arms wrapped snugly around his waist, from the solidity of her chin resting on his shoulder and her chest pressed into his back. They’d been here many times before, racing across a planet headlong into danger, or at times racing away from it. He recalled the desperate drive across Cavare so long ago, when they were being hunted by assassins and he’d believed he’d lost her in more ways than one. He’d greatly underestimated her that night, but not since.

  It’s supposed to be you and me against the universe, come what may.

  And so it would be today.

  Akeso screamed in his mind for him to turn around, get on the Siyane and come home. To not execute this violence upon an enemy that Akeso struggled to comprehend. He filtered the cacophony out as best as he could, but the wall he’d rebuilt after those singular, extraordinary moments sharing one existence with Alex was proving to be weaker than before. He was exhausted from fighting this battle. From fighting against Akeso’s nature, and against his own. It would be over soon, but he couldn’t say what waited on the other side for him.

  What if he couldn’t come back from this?

  Alex adjusted her hold on him and let her lips brush feather-light across his neck. As if she’d heard his question and given her reply. No matter how far you fall, I’ll bring you back.

  He made the only choice he could—the choice to believe it. But first—

  —in the heart of the city, a thunderous crash roiled across the land to shake the ground beneath the bike. He skidded to a stop, and they both turned around in time to see Namino Tower collapse in upon itself. Clouds of hot debris rushed out in every direction to bury downtown in a sea of soot and shattered glass.

  “My god.”

  He swallowed past the daggers lining his throat. “Our mission’s all the more important now. We need to focus on it.”

  He floored the bike as a small Rasu vessel flew overhead without noticing them. It banked around to land inside the compound, and he breathed a sigh of relief that their plans weren’t blown before they’d begun.

  The walkie-talkie squawked static intermixed with Nika’s voice. “We’re in position at the northwest entrance. On your mark.”

  The transmission was too muffled to say for certain, but he thought he detected an undercurrent of rage in the woman’s voice. “Fifteen seconds.”

  He brought the bike to a stop a hundred meters from one of the entrances cut into the outer barrier and tried to force levity into his voice. “One rocket launcher, please.”

  Alex unlatched the device from where they’d strapped it over the rear wheel, then hefted it up and passed it to him. “I don’t get to shoot it?”

  “I want the pleasure.” He rested the tube on his shoulder and sighted down on the outer ring. He had no way to interface with the Asterion-designed targeting system, but accuracy wasn’t really a factor here. He merely needed to draw lots of attention to the southeast section of the compound.

  His finger pressed the trigger, and the rocket flew out of the casing. With such a short distance to travel, the rocket almost made it to the outer barrier before the defense lasers destroyed it.

  He tossed the empty casing to the ground and floored the bike, sending it fishtailing to the east as they vacated the spot where Rasu were soon to be converging. He sped halfway around the compound, then finally slowed to a stop near another one of the cut-out entrances. Once Alex climbed off, he laid the bike on the ground, hoping it would still be here and in one piece when they returned. “Are you ready?”

  “Always.” Alex stepped close enough for him to see her; he grabbed her hand tight. “Stay close to me.”

  She removed the Rectifier from its makeshift holster with her other hand. No time to waste now. They sprinted toward the entrance.

  Storm clouds churned across the ruined Namino One skyline. Rain was a rarity in this region of Namino, but perhaps the city wanted to express its displeasure with its new overlords. The clouds concealed many of the hovering ships, but they didn’t drop so low as to obscure the spire at the center of the Rasu compound. Their destination.

  Once exiting the tunnel network, Nika and Joaquim worked their way across the final two kilometers to their target. With it being just the two of them plus the fact that they’d worked together on missions for years, they moved as a single unit, silent and swift.

  Nika tuned out the relentless destruction and the too-frequent corpses they crossed during their journey, because she had no other option. If she succeeded today, it would bring an end to all of it.

  She’d filtered out most of the k-band ever since arriving, for in a crowded space such as the bunker, the strings were so widespread she could hardly see anything else. But once she’d reached the surface, she’d experimented with removing the filter, only to h
ave her heart break at the realization of how few of the strings undulated through the city. There were people alive here, hiding in the ruins or below ground…but not many.

  If she succeeded today, the dead would be avenged.

  Joaquim held up a hand, and they halted at the last cover they were likely to find, the tattered remains of what had been a sports park. Beyond it waited the walled barricade of the Rasu compound.

  “Are you set?”

  She nodded firmly. “I am. Remember, this is an infiltration mission. I need to get to the room beneath that energy vortex. Unnoticed, if at all possible. Alex and Caleb are going to draw lots of attention away from us, but from here on out we have to value stealth over speed.”

  “You are not talking to a rookie here. I’ll get you up that spire.”

  “And then we’ll both get back out alive.”

  “Sure.” He shot her a rare smile and checked his weapons—

  —a Rasu beam from high above painted the sky violet, and a deafening roar exploded behind them. She spun around, only to gasp in horror as the apex of Namino Tower melted beneath the Rasu’s unrelenting weapon. Structural beams were shorn away, and floor after floor crashed through those beneath them until nothing remained of the tower but a great advancing storm of debris.

  A primal anger rose up in her chest, and her skin flushed hot. “DAF Command, now Namino Tower? They must believe they’ve stolen everything useful from us.”

  Joaquim shook his head in disgust. “What do you think they’ll do now?”

  She thought back to the Kat-created simex of the Rasu invading a primitive world. “Flatten every structure that still stands and kill everyone who remains.”

  “Then we need to hurry. Let’s do this.”

  She followed him around the perimeter of the sports park toward the northwest side of the compound. Rasu transports and bipedals beat a busy path to and from the location, stealing away treasures and trash from the residents of Namino One. They gave the units a wide berth, but otherwise they had to count on the kamero filters to keep them hidden.

  Still, it took time to pick their way across a span of open plains and reach the outer barrier. She cupped her hand over the walkie-talkie and whispered into it. “We’re in position at the northwest entrance. On your mark.”

  Caleb’s response came quickly. “Fifteen seconds.”

  She pocketed the walkie-talkie. The barrier wall was too high to see over, but the commotion, when it came, should be evident.

  She counted down the seconds in her head—six laser beams erupted to converge on a point past the opposite side of the compound. A booming explosion roared beyond their sight, and all the nearby Rasu went scrambling toward the source of the blast. Perfect.

  The way now clear, she and Joaquim slipped through the cut-out entrance in the barrier and inside. The spire towered above the center of the compound, but a hundred meters and three active rings still stood between them and their goal.

  She stayed close enough to Joaquim to see his faint outline, though they each wore trackers that showed up on the walkie-talkie screen, just in case they got separated.

  He pointed toward a gap in the first ring, and they crept along the Rasu metal comprising it until the opening lay directly ahead.

  Rasu Compound

  When they were steps from the compound, Alex fired the Rectifier at a point thirty meters to the left, near where the rocket had almost impacted. A ten-meter section of the barrier dissolved. It was an impressive weapon.

  Rasu flocked to the gaping hole that had just appeared, and Caleb and Alex slipped inside the entrance.

  A full-scale industrial processing facility greeted them. He needed a target…a tall stack of shorn metal sat off to their right. It was Asterion metal, not Rasu, so he fired on it with his Daemon, cutting long slices through it until the metal tumbled into a jagged pile on the ground.

  “Move.” They jogged twenty meters to the left and flattened against a long storage module. Bipedal Rasu now scurried in every direction while drone models buzzed overhead, all hunting for the source of the attacks. On the other side of the compound, something tore the roof off a wide section of the middle interior ring.

  He pressed the walkie-talkie button and whispered into it. “Status?”

  “Halfway to the tower. Keep the hits coming.”

  He zeroed in on a conveyor moving large crates of items from the outer ring to the middle one. He reached out beside him and found Alex’s arm, lifted it, and pointed the Rectifier at the track. “There.”

  “Nice choice.” She fired, and a section of the conveyor track—and the outer ring—vaporized. When they got home, he was going to insist on the production of some oversized versions of that gun. And a personal one for himself.

  “Move again.”

  They hugged the outer ring to try to avoid the stampede of Rasu heading for the damaged track, and ran smack into three Rasu racing in from outside.

  He dropped the Daemon and drew both archine blades, adjusting his grip on them even as he lunged in front of Alex and sliced in opposite directions. A Rasu arm flew through the air as a torso slid to the ground. A metal fist connected with his shoulder; every bone in his body shuddered and threatened to crack, but he spun into the blow and severed the arm from its body. His pulse pounded in his ears until all he could hear was the rush of blood through his veins.

  A second Rasu towered over him, one arm melting and morphing into a sledgehammer. He crouched and ducked beneath its legs, then brought both blades up at the center and wrenched them upward. He stood between the two halves as they fell away, then pivoted as the third Rasu barreled toward him. He feinted to the left and sliced up diagonally through the construct’s torso. The intact arm swung around on him, and he lunged forward to take out both legs.

  The sound of new movement behind him overrode the discordant symphony of his pulse, and he spun around, both blades raised—and jerked his arms to a stop with the blades less than ten centimeters from each side of Alex’s neck.

  Her eyes were wide and bright, her chest heaving from exertion…and he’d almost killed her.

  Another explosion rocked the far side of the compound, and Nika and Joaquim took advantage of the commotion to dash forward then creep through the gap to the other side of the ring.

  Between here and the base of the spire, equipment, storage containers and disassembly rigs were packed into every available space. Nika couldn’t help but wonder what they were doing with all these raw materials…but there was nothing and no one for her to rescue here. The people who’d been taken alive were transported to one or more of the ships in orbit, then probably to a new research lab. Beyond her reach, for now.

  Transforming Rasu—growing weaponized limbs and small engines to speed their pace—rushed past them toward the increasingly raucous noises originating from across the compound, and she spared a thought to worry about Alex and Caleb’s safety. They weren’t Asterions, but they were risking their lives to save Asterion ones.

  But she’d of necessity learned to trust in the abilities of her people while leading NOIR, and this was no different.

  The newest commotion created a temporary lull in activity around them, and they darted through the center ring into the heart of the compound. The innermost ring stretched tall and imposing in front of them. It served as the wide base for the spire, so once they entered it, they would be trapped inside a living Rasu structure until the end.

  The Rasu’s bounty from pillaging Namino One now crowded around them so tightly they had to search for small gaps and weave agonizingly slowly toward the inner ring, then skate along it until they found an entrance. Then they had to wait for half a dozen Rasu drones to speed out of the entrance on their way to take out the mysterious attackers who were disrupting operations. As soon as the drones departed, she and Joaquim darted inside—straight into a bipedal Rasu meaning to leave.

  Joaquim had sliced it into four pieces in the time it took her to blink, then shot eac
h of the pieces with a concentrated fire of electricity from his Glaser, which should overload whatever counted for circuitry and prevent them from reforming for a minute or so. Now time was a factor, and every second counted.

  She activated the walkie-talkie. “We’re headed up the spire. Two more minutes.”

  “Acknowledged.”

  The base of the spire was surprisingly devoid of materials and equipment; it appeared to serve no purpose other than to provide access to the critical machinery higher up. In the center of the room stood two parallel vertical poles. She and Joaquim went up to them, nodded to each other, and grasped hold of them.

  The poles instantly moved upward, carrying her and Joaquim with them. They must be used to ferry items of heavier weight up into the spire. She watched Joaquim as they rode upward, and he watched her. They needed to stay silent, but they didn’t need words. He’d been her friend since finding her lost and broken in a rain-soaked alley almost six years ago. Since then, they’d performed these kinds of miracles together hundreds of times. He’d grown and changed, and so had she. But this, here? This they knew.

  Clanging sounds began to echo down from above them. Machinery put to purposeful use—and possibly transforming into weapons designed to kill them? She peered up, and a brief scan identified three concentrations of Rasu signatures. Two on the left, one on the right. Joaquim pointed to her, then to the right.

  A moment later they cleared the floor. Perhaps expecting Rasu visitors rather than intruders, the units in what seemed to be a control room were slow to respond. Slow enough that she had time to extend the dual blades built into her forearms—for this unique body, archine blades. She drove herself into the unit on the right, blades leading, ripped apart its torso and kicked the lower half of its body toward the corner.

  In less than a second it had started reforming. She grabbed an archine grenade from her belt and lobbed it into the center of the roiling mass of metal.