“What’s the right way supposed to be?”
“We knock—or, well, we do the equivalent of knocking. We buzz.” Ryze pressed a comm button.
A few seconds later, a voice answered.
“State your business.”
“I got a prisoner.”
“Your number?”
Alfis looked up at Ryze and mouthed C’mon.
Ryze momentarily forgot the number, was about to make one up, then realized it was printed on his uniform. “7303991. The prisoner’s is 3341. He’s a dangerous Atorga.”
“All right,” the voice said.
The door rumbled as it rose. Once it was up, they walked through, and there were two guards sitting at a circular console, monitoring the prisoners. More were patrolling the corridor with electrically-charged clubs.
One of the guards shoved his club through the bars, teeth gritted. “Shut up!” he barked.
The prisoner screamed and the guard laughed. No one batted an eye. This made Ryze’s stomach twist and his blood surge with rage. It took a lot of willpower not to grab one of those clubs and do the same to him, to see how the Dominion guard liked it, and maybe he would’ve had the block officer not stepped in his field of vision.
The block officer was another hybrid, the same kind as the one on the landing pad but male. Strands of wispy hair hung from beneath his hat. His shoulders looked permanently stooped. Wasn’t the type of guy fit for the military, let alone a high-ranking position. He must’ve snitched his way up the ladder, Ryze thought. Something about the hybrid’s face, too…the sneer or the beady eyes, made him seem like a major asshole, and as soon as the officer opened his mouth, that was all but confirmed.
“An Atorga. Ah, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen one of these furry bags of crud,” the officer said. NIS was etched on a name tag above his ranking stripes.
Alfis growled. He looked ready for an attack, and Ryze hoped that didn’t happen. Now wasn’t the time for that. There were too many armed guards in Section J whose attention was focused on them.
“I’ve killed a few of you in my time,” the officer named Nis continued. “Tough little bastards, aren’t they?” He looked at Ryze.
“Yup,” Ryze agreed half-heartedly. “Gave me grief the entire trip over here.”
“I bet he did.” Nis bent his long, gray-pink legs and squatted in front of Alfis. “Wish I could end another one of their pathetic lives. One less Atorga in the galaxy is fine by me.” He clicked his tongue and smiled. The smile was one of the most unsettling things Ryze had ever seen. “Don’t worry, my friend, we’re still going to have lots of fun. Lots of fun.” Another guard came up behind him and handed him a holopad. The hybrid went through it. “Prisoner 3341, hmm. I’m not seeing anything for that
Shit. Eradice said she’d programed Alfis’s transfer into the Dominion computer, but—
“Oh yes, here we go,” Nis said. “Alfis is the name, is it?”
Alfis didn’t answer, so Ryze did for him. “Yeah, that’s his name. Stupid name, isn’t it?” Sorry, bud, gotta sell this. I hope you understand.
“That it is,” Nis replied, “but they all have stupid names, don’t they?” He handed the clipboard back to the guard and came closer. A wave of stench washed over them with each step Nis took. Ryze held his breath and tried not to vomit. It wasn’t easy. “Come now, little Atorga. We’re going to—”
A communicator crackled. For a moment, Ryze thought it came from his own.
Nope.
“Message from Sergeant Deai: Please be advised—Two rebels have broken through our defenses. Both are human. Both are wearing the attire of Dominion guards. Their field numbers are 7303991 and 298419.”
Ryze raised his eyebrows. “Damn rebel scum.”
Nis looked at him warily.
“Well, I guess I’ll be on my way now, since you’ve got your high-risk prisoner—”
The hybrid raised a hand toward the men at the control console. One of them hit a button, and the door behind Ryze slammed closed.
“What’s going on?” he asked, still trying to play dumb.
“What did you say your number was, soldier?” Nis said.
“Uh—well, let me think. Oh, shit,” he mumbled, backing up slowly, his hands raised. “Now fellas, let’s not get irrational now. No need for any harm to come to anyone, right?”
“It’s on your uniform, friend,” Nis said, pointing.
“Double shit,” Ryze said.
The guards surrounded him. Rather than hitting the wall, he bumped into the barrel chest of a man two feet taller than him. Ryze looked up and over his shoulder. Another hybrid, but of which species he had no clue. Long fangs jutted out from the bottom row of his teeth and pressed against his upper lip. Oven mitt hands seized the rifle draped over his shoulder and the flayzer beneath his coat as if he had x-ray vision, snapping the straps and nearly pulling Ryze down.
He counted eight enemies, including Nis.
The section leader spoke into his communicator. “I’ve got one here in Section J. Number 7303991.”
“Copy,” a voice answered.
“Guys, guys,” Ryze said, “you might want to think about this. Okay?”
“Oh,” Nis said, “I’ve thought about it. And there’s nothing I like more than spilling a rebel’s blood. It’s even better than spilling an Atorga’s.”
“We only want one prisoner, and then we’ll be on our way,” Ryze pushed on. “No one needs to get hurt. Okay? The Celestial Dominion wouldn’t die for you, why should you die for it?”
“We aren’t going to die. No one is,” Nis said, “but you.”
“Oh, is that so?” Alfis asked. A sound like a sword unsheathing echoed off of the walls. Alfis cried out in fury, shedding his binds as he thrust his nails into the hybrid’s thigh. The claws easily cut through armor, skin, and bone.
Nis screeched, a mixture of a squeal and a near-human scream, as he dropped to the floor.
Alfis stabbed his other hand upward. One finger went into Nis’s jugular, through the windpipe, cutting off the scream.
Nis clapped a hand to the wound, gasping for breath, mouthing words that had no sound.
“Like killing Atorgas, huh?” Alfis shouted. “How you like that?!”
Nis made no reply, because Nis was dead.
It all happened so fast that none of the guards knew what to do. Unfortunately for them, Ryze did.
He ripped his flayzer away from the big guard and shot. The beam took the large guard in the chest. He toppled over like a fallen tree.
Ryze grabbed the other weapon from the dead guard and tossed it to Alfis, who caught it deftly.
The sound of the beamblast snapped the others from their state of shock. Ryze dove to the right, using the large guard’s body as cover. Beams pummeled the corpse.
Alfis pressed his back against the console. He held the big rifle in both hands. Nis’s blood stained the front of his clothes.
“Go get the girl, Star Boy! I’ll cover for you,” Alfis said. Before Ryze could reply, the Atorga rolled out into the open and pulled the trigger, letting off a burst of shots. With a sweeping motion, he took out three of the guards’ legs, and their bodies crumpled to the floor. “Go! Go!”
Three more guards were left standing and each was focused on the homicidal Atorga, who’d already taken out four of their comrades on his own, including their leader.
That little bastard is crazy, Ryze thought as he crawled out from behind the cover of the large hybrid. Slouching, he reached the console and took a quick look at the screen. All the controls were written in Bochastin, a language Ryze didn’t know the first thing about. He thought about hitting random buttons, but this was the Dominion. The chances one of those buttons might let loose a poison gas or a burst of flames into the prisoners’ cells was pretty great, and though he was one who often took chances, he didn’t want to when it came to Wylow.
A beam slashed by his head. One of the guards had spotted him. He shouted in Boch
astin, “Gei fuis leber!” and the other two decided it best to join in on the fun and shoot in Ryze’s direction.
“Alfis?!”
“On it! Go! Go!”
More crackling blasts whipped through the air. Ryze peeked over the console. No one was currently focusing on him, and it was only a matter of time before the Dominion sent reinforcements. Had Nis not notified them of his and Alfis’s arrival over the comm, they might’ve gotten out of there with minimal resistance, but that wasn’t the case.
The other people behind their bars—about a dozen high-risk inmates—whooped and cheered him on. Aliens of every species. More begged for their release. Ignoring those pleas hurt Ryze more than he cared to admit.
Not now, he thought, I can’t do it now, but I will get you all out of here. I promise. We’ll free you and the rest of the galaxy from the God-King’s binds.
He reached the end of the corridor, and there was Wylow’s cell. It had no bars, just an iron door with a slot in the middle he reckoned was for trays of food and paper mail, old-school stuff like that.
Behind him, the sounds of crackling gunfire advanced down the corridor.
He looked over the door’s controls. Again, they were in Bochastin. “Damn it, damn it!” He pressed a button. Nothing happened. He pressed another. Nothing.
He took a step back. “Screw it,” he said, aiming his flayzer at the small control screen. He put about six bolts into it, each one whining off the steel.
The screen finally shattered on the seventh shot, fizzling and turning black.
The door to Wylow’s cell rose.
Twenty-Six
Ryze stood in the corridor, surprised. He truly didn’t expect that to work, but here he was, looking into the dark cell. Wylow’s cell.
“Wylow?” he called.
No answer.
“EAT SHIT!” Alfis screamed from behind him, followed by more beamblasts. “DIE! DIE! DIE!”
So much for minimal bloodshed, Ryze thought absently. He took a step forward into the cell, trying to get a better look. It didn’t matter much. The darkness was nearly complete, devouring the light spilling in from the outside.
“Wylow—?”
A rush of footsteps. A piercing battle-cry.
Ryze tried moving out of the way, but couldn’t as a slender figure jumped atop of him and throttled his neck with chains. Together, the two fell to the floor.
Ryze looked into the eyes of death. For a moment, he didn’t think it was her, she looked so unwell. Her clavicles jutted from beneath her skin, skin that was once a caramel color and now looked like paling wood. Her eyes were sunken in, cheeks, too. Her coiled locks had lost all their buoyancy and now lay flat against her skull. Whatever they had been doing to her wasn’t polite, that was for sure.
Still, she looked beautiful.
All fine and dandy, pal, his mind said, but you won’t be able to enjoy that beauty if she chokes you out.
“Wy-low,” he wheezed, slapping at her hands. “It’s—it’s—me!”
“Ryze?” The pressure lessened. “Am I hallucinating?”
Ryze rubbed the spot on his neck where the binds had bitten. The skin was already chafed and tender to the touch. “Yeah—it’s me.”
She reached out. He winced, thinking she was going to use her queensguard moves on him again. “Ryze Starlo,” she said, “I’ve never been happier to see a bounty hunter in my life!”
Despite the beamblasts echoing behind them and the yells of the prisoners, despite all the pandemonium, Wylow leaned in and kissed him. His muscles stiffened at first—not to mention his heart felt like it was going to explode—but he kissed her back. It only lasted a short few seconds, but they were the best seconds Ryze had ever lived through.
They parted, Ryze standing and helping Wylow do the same. He shot her binds with his flayzer.
“Where’s Queen Jade?” Wylow asked.
“She’s okay, but she’s not here. She’s out completing her mission.”
“By herself?”
Ryze shook his head. “No, she’s with a Linq—”
“A Linq? But they’re all—”
“Extinct. Yeah, not really. Same goes for the Gelerrises,” Ryze said. “It’s a long story and I’d be glad to tell it to you once we get the hell out of this place, but right now, Alfis probably needs our help.” Ryze pointed over his shoulder.
“Alfis?”
“Yeah, a little Atorga. Super badass, though. He’s holding off the guards as we speak.”
She grabbed Ryze’s blasgun. “Well, what are we waiting for?” she said as she took off down the corridor.
He watched in awe. I definitely might be in love, Ryze thought before he followed.
When they got back to the control room, Alfis was no longer fighting. He stood atop a pile of bodies, some of them slashed and bleeding, others with scorching holes in their torsos and heads. He looked like a hero on the cover of some science-fiction book.
“How we doing ammo-wise?” Ryze asked.
“Not bad, could be better. Most of the guards had handguns. My rifle’s almost out. Yours, Star Boy?”
Ryze ignored the nickname and checked the n-pack. “Less than twenty percent.”
“Enough to put down about three of these hybrid bastards,” Alfis said.
“Yeah…whatever happened to minimal bloodshed?”
Alfis shrugged again. “Look at that guy.” He pointed to one of the guards. “He ain’t bleeding too much. And that hybrid asshole…I poked him one good, lethal and to the point, but he barely had the chance to bleed out before his spine was severed. Sure, he bled a little. Eh, who cares?”
“Lovely,” Ryze said, examining the bodies closer. “I guess you’re right.”
“I always am. Besides, that son of a bitch had it coming.”
“Gentlemen, please,” Wylow said. “Let’s stick to the subject.”
“Man, she’s Blue Junior, ain’t she?” Alfis said.
“Shut it, Fluffy,” Ryze barked.
Behind them, the prisoners shouted from their cells. Some in Common and most in languages Ryze had only heard but didn’t understand. Regardless, he would’ve bet a fair amount of frags they were all yelling for the same thing: getting out.
Wylow gathered the weapons. She set them on the console. There were a dozen handguns in all. Three rifles. Not as much ammunition as they needed but enough.
“So we fight,” Alfis said, satisfied. “Great. The more Dominion trash I get to cut up, the better.”
“We do fight,” Wylow said, “but not by ourselves.”
“We can’t release them,” he said, “without wasting a bunch of energy from our guns. I tried messing with the console, but it’s in a language I don’t understand. We’ll have to shoot ‘em free.”
Wylow smirked. “Has our absence from one another caused you to forget everything about me, Ryze?”
“Oh…yeah, the tech skills. Fixing Ty’s elevator and whatnot. I did forget about that. Please, be my guest.” He motioned toward the console.
“Gladly.”
“Better hurry up!” Alfis shouted. “Those assholes are right outside the door.” He shot his blasgun at the control panel. It exploded in a puff of black smoke and white sparks. “That’ll hold ‘em off for a while.”
Ryze looked around. “Got to be another exit in here. I mean, isn’t it against fire code for there to only be one exit?”
Alfis frowned. “This is the Dominion we’re talkin’ about, Starlo. They ain’t exactly big on rules.”
Ryze continued scanning the room. “Anything. Hell, maybe I can blast the wall away and we’ll find a garbage chute or something.”
“Wouldn’t try it,” Wylow said. “These walls will just deflect the beam back at your face.” She looked up mischievously from the console. “Besides, don’t you have any faith in me?” She raised her finger, making a show of pressing a button on the terminal screen.
With a loud, echoing buzz, every cell in the corridor opened, and th
e rebellion’s newest army emerged.
Ryze counted a dozen. Two humanoids, a Thrathan, three Roviks, a Sirni, a Poranin, two Fejuos, and two Ypsians.
They all gathered around the console. The Sirni broke the circle and hugged Wylow, chirping in its native tongue, wings flapping on every syllable. Ryze wasn’t fluent in the alien’s language, but apparently Wylow was. She patted the Sirni on the back and said in Common, “You’re welcome, you’re very welcome.”
One of the humanoids, a woman with a single arm, said, “So I take it we’re fighting our way out of here?”
“Only way,” Ryze answered.
“Uh, guys?” Alfis said. He hiked a thumb over his shoulder at the door. A laser was currently cutting its way through the metal, making a pretty easy job of it, too. It would be about two minutes before the guards broke in.
“Yep.” Ryze shed the Dominion uniform, tapping into his armor’s controls. The tamped-down parts—shoulders, chest and back pieces, and most of the legs—expanded. Even without the helmet, Ryze felt better, especially if he had to take a laser bolt or three during the firefight. “Everyone arm yourselves,” he said as he and Wylow began passing the blasguns down the line. The rebels all took one, except for the Poranin.
From the alien’s elephantine trunk, it said, “I need no weapon. I fight with these,” nodding to its club-like fists.
“Better take a weapon, pal,” Alfis said. “These suckers are brutal.”
“As am I,” answered the Poranin.
“Suit yourself, buddy,” Alfis said. “Your funeral.” He hopped on the console. “You all ready?”
The rebels shouted their assent.
Alfis pointed to Wylow. “Raise that door!”
Wylow, at the terminal, worked her magic while Ryze and the others prepared for a charge.
Minimal bloodshed? he thought with a chuckle.
“All right. Three…two…one!” Wylow shouted, and the door whooshed up.
All around them, the world crackled with blaster fire. Smoke fogged the air and the bright beams cut through it like lightning cutting through storm clouds.
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