What if we had a disguise? Would that work?
“Possibly. Do you have one?”
No, but I think I know where I can find one.
__________
“I haven’t been able to reach Sergeant Bartonelli,” Lizzy said as Fitz trotted onto the shuttle’s bridge and dropped into the command chair. “I’ve pinged her comm several times, but can’t get a location. Could she have turned it off?”
“Bart wouldn’t pull that kind of rookie stunt,” Jumper told Fitz.
“I agree. If she had to drop out of communication, there’s a damn good reason for it. And that worries me.” Fitz drummed her fingers on the console. “Try contacting Ari again.”
“Still no answer—on the residence line or her private comm link. They keep going to message.”
Jumper’s green eyes narrowed. “And I’m not able to contact Faydra either. We’re close enough to the palace that she should be able to feel me trying to reach her, but I’ve got zip, zilch, nothing.” The hair along his back stood on end. “And that worries the crap outta me, Boss Lady.”
Fitz nibbled her thumbnail. “Could she have moved Ari somewhere the Tzraka Destroyer would be unable to go, like Coronia Station?”
“Yeah, the bug couldn’t follow them there unless it sprouted rockets out of its butt.”
Lizzy dashed their hopes. “I’ve scanned the hangar and the imperial shuttle is still there, although your official flyer is missing. If they took the aircar, there hasn’t been enough time to make it out of communications range. It’s almost as if they stepped into a black hole and disappeared.”
“A black hole?” Fitz bolted upright in her seat. “Lizzy, get me a real time scan of the Citadel and surrounding area.”
A series of windows opened on the monitor, showing the former DIS headquarters from various surveillance cameras around the city. Fitz picked the view from an adjacent building, looking down on the rooftop landing area. Dwarfing the black SpecOps aircar parked in the shadow of its wing, an assault shuttle took up the bulk of the pad. The white paint job and royal seal marked it as belonging to the Praetorian Guard.
“So that’s where they went. Get us over there, Lizzy.” Fitz felt the change in vibrations through the deck plates as the ship accelerated.
“If that thing is tied to her telepathically, it won’t be able to locate her down there,” Lizzy said.
“But if it’s tracking her another way, one we don’t understand?” Fitz asked. “Then they could find themselves trapped at the bottom of a hole in the ground, with no way to call out and most of their weapons not functioning. My instructor in field operations used to be fond of saying, ‘You hide in a cave and it’ll become your grave.’”
“There is only the one entrance to the lower levels, and the Praetorians appear to have formed a cordon around the building,” Lizzy said.
“Yeah,” said Fitz. Why didn’t that make her feel better? “Contact that ship and have them patch me through to whoever’s running this operation.”
With the Praetorian ship blocking access to the landing pad, Lizzy hovered a dozen meters off the edge of the building. “They’re not acknowledging my hails, Colonel.”
The display showed two Praetorians guarding the door, each with a pulse rifle at the ready. Between them stood a man in Special Operations black.
“Who is that? Fitz asked. “I thought Kiernan took all the SpecOps people with him.”
“I believe that is Lieutenant Pike.”
“Pike? What’s he doing still here? At last, someone who’ll talk to us.”
The silence stretched on for several seconds, then the ship spoke. “The lieutenant is not answering. In fact, I don’t believe his augmentations are active. I by-passed his comm and tried to sync directly with his internal computer, but it is not functioning. I’m forced to conclude that he’s shut down his systems.”
“Or someone pulled his spike. Lizzy, give me a tight shot on him.”
One of Pike’s eyes was bruised and swollen shut. Dried blood crusted his upper lip and tangle ties bound his hands.
What the hell is going on here?
A guard exited the building and dashed to the ship. They had to be using runners to keep in contact with their personnel down inside the suppression field.
A few minutes later, the comm chimed and a young officer appeared on the monitor. “SpecOps ship, leave the area immediately. You are interfering with an Imperial Security operation.”
“This is Colonel FitzWarren. I’m here to assume command of the Emperor’s protection detail.”
“I know who you are, ma’am,” the pilot replied, “but I have been informed that you are no longer in command of this unit, and all orders in the future will come directly from Captain Weiland.”
Weiland. Why didn’t that surprise her?
“There has been no change in the command structure of Imperial Security, and any orders you’ve received from Captain Weiland are illegal. I suggest you stand down and return to your barracks.”
“I can’t do that, ma’am.” The woman swallowed nervously before she could continue. “If you do not leave this area immediately, my orders are to fire on you.”
“She just activated her pulse cannon,” Lizzy said, and her fire control board flickered to green as she took all her weapon systems hot.
__________
Back bent and leaning on a cane, Wolf hobbled along the sidewalk toward the empty electronics shop, rain pattering on the hood and shoulders of his raincoat.
“Next time you secure a disguise, perhaps it could be from someone who bathes more often.” Wolf muttered, under his breath. “I suspect Jan’s augies will be able to smell us coming.”
Look at it this way, no one will want to get close enough to see through our cover.
Cypher had intended to snatch the coat off one of the derelicts, but Wolf insisted on paying for it. He didn’t have any money, no credit chips, nothing but lethal weapons and the platinum bonding ring he once again wore, and nothing could convince him to part with that. Eventually he decided on a set of collar pins he found at the bottom of his belt pouch. While they wouldn’t bring as much as the gold and ruby ones he wore on his dress uniform, a Triumvir’s rank insignia should be worth at least the price of a couple bottles of cheap booze.
Wolf shuffled past the store, halting at the foot of the stairs and leaning against the railing like a spavined wino trying to catch his breath. The camera watched his charade from overhead, but before his presence aroused suspicion, he exploded into action, shedding the coat and leaping up, propelled by enhanced muscles. He wrapped the raincoat around the camera, blinding it. In a blur of hyperkinetic speed, he sprinted to the top of the stairs, the rusted metal groaning under foot.
The two ready icons of the breaching charges flashed on his inhead toolbar. He slapped one explosive against the door’s lock, and twitched away as he activated it with a thought-click. The blast was small, only a muffled whomp, but the shaped charge propelled pieces of shrapnel into the space beyond. Wolf kicked the door open and charged in, but found the room empty.
To the left. Down the hallway and up the stairs.
As they slid to a stop at the entrance to the warehouse, Wolf reached into his belt pouch for the second charge.
I’ve got this. Cypher punched in the number sequence, and Wolf pushed through the door.
The darkness shifted restlessly, and chittered. Night vision revealed vague shapes that sent a prickle of fear cascading across Wolf’s thoughts. A memory surfaced from his past. He’d led a team aboard a hive ship, attempting to free a group of prisoners. That was early in the war, before they learned the bugs never left anyone alive to be rescued. The warehouse felt like that slice of hell—hot, humid, and reeking of a burnt-cockroach smell that he could taste in the back of his throat.
A dart whizzed past and glanced off the railing. One of those bloody damn needlers. An augie blurred up the stairs toward him, fired again, and the rounds clattered against Wo
lf’s armor like hailstones. Combat systems sprang to life on his inhead, flashing warnings and targeting information. He sprinted toward the shooter at HK, but the second before they collided he grabbed the handrail, ramming both feet into the augie’s face as he vaulted over and dropped to the warehouse floor.
At his inhead’s warning, he rolled to the left as a Tzraka blade smashed down, splintering the plastcrete. The bug lunged forward, snapping its mandibles centimeters from his helmet’s faceplate. He reached for his sword, remembered he’d given it to Fitz, then recalled he had her vibro-blade. He ignited it, slashing down on the bug’s arm. The v-blade cut through chitin and muscle with a wet buzz.
Wolf threw himself forward and rolled beneath the screeching bug. The creature scurried backward, trying to protect its vulnerable underside. It clawed at him with its second set of arms, attempting to drag him out so it could hack at him with its remaining blade. He pulled the slug thrower, jammed it into the bug’s thorax, and fired three shots. A cold ichor splashed on him. As the bug collapsed, he scrambled away and rose, but bug slime smeared his visor, distorting his vision. He ripped off the helmet and tossed it away.
The darkness in front of him boiled with movement. No time to speculate if all the bugs’ body fluids carried the Tzraka virus. If it did, he could only hope his armor protected him or he was a dead man, but he’d be just as dead if he couldn’t stop the mass of creatures scuttling toward him.
I don’t think that nasty little knife will be much use against this hoard.
Wolf dug into his belt pack and came up with a handful of thermite grenades. “No, but these will work fine.” He popped the caps and activated them all with a single slap of his hand, casting them in an arc before the wave of advancing monsters, like a farmer sowing a lethal crop.
A wall of flame blossomed, turning the leading edge of bugs into screeching torches. Panicked, they turned and ran blindly, colliding with their hive mates and spreading fiery death. Wooden shelves, old and rotten, flashed into flames. The insulation caught and fire climbed up the walls.
He sprinted across the burning warehouse to the cage, but found it empty.
“Bloody hell, the damn thing’s gone. I’ll warn Fitz.” No need to hide his transmissions now. He activated his comm. “Fitz…”
A force like a kinetic round crashed into the side of his head, driving him to his hands and knees. The pistol fell from his bug-slimed hand as pain and darkness claimed him.
__________
Cypher struggled to rise, but another blow across his shoulders forced him back to the floor. Blood flowed into his eyes. His inhead when dark, flickered, and began to reboot. A red light blinked on the toolbar. Important systems came back, like threat assessment. It warned of a man standing over him, swinging a length of pipe toward the back of his head with the speed of an augie. Cypher rolled and threw his hands up to catch the descending blow, but his movements felt slow and clumsy. The pipe smashed through his fingers and hit his ribs. It didn’t break his reinforced bones, but the pain stopped his breath.
Rough hands dragged him to his feet and twisted his arms up behind his back. He would have screamed if he’d had the breath. Instead he only whimpered.
Wolf? He reached out to the presence who shared his mind, but found nothing. Blackness. Emptiness. As if he’d never been there.
Had that blow to the head knocked him out? Killed him? Was he now just a computer program running in a dead body?
His heart hammered. No, this body was still alive, but he was alone in it. All the survival knowledge and fighting ability he needed to stay alive had gone with Wolf. He’d thought those amazing skills would remain his, but he was wrong. He was a composite, a mosaic of talents stitched together by Tritico’s cyber-techs, and the facet of that personality he needed the most now had disappeared.
“Who do we have here?” Ian Chorickus faced him, the flames making his florid complexion even redder, giving his face a demonic mien. The augie tossed down the length of pipe and stalked up to Cypher, taking his jaw in a vice-like grip and twisting his head to stare into his eyes. He laughed.
“I can tell you sure ain’t Youngblood. You look like you’re so scared you’re about to piss yourself, boy. Maybe I killed him when I smashed his skull, but I doubt it. No matter. You’ll both be dead soon enough. I told you I was going to enjoy putting you down when Tritico didn’t need you anymore. With that bug assassin on the trail of that imperial bitch, you ain’t worth shit to us now.” Chorickus pulled a large combat knife and dragged the tip along Cypher’s cheek. “What say we find out how long a Lazzinair can live when you start chopping off body parts?”
“Don’t be a jerk, Chorickus,” the augie pinning Cypher’s arms said. “This place is about to come down around our ears. Just kill him and have done with it.”
Punctuating his words, an explosion rattled the warehouse, raining burning debris and bug parts down around them.
“Maybe you’re right.” Chorickus walked to the carcass of the bug Wolf had shot, pulled on a set of gloves and picked up the severed blade, gripping it by the still oozing wrist. He returned, leveling the tip at Cypher’s left eye.
“Shit, man, be careful with that thing,” the other augie said.
The point filled Cypher’s field of vision, and his mind replayed the image of Costos screaming and convulsing as the poison ate through his body. He shoved back against his captor, but the augie’s grip felt as unyielding as a granite outcropping.
Drop.
Cypher went limp, knees folding up. His sudden shift of weight pulled the augie forward and down, just as Chorickus drove the blade toward him. The edge slipped past Cypher’s head and opened a small gash on the other augie’s scalp—but that was enough.
“Shit—” The man staggered, then fell, thrashing, and suddenly Cypher’s hands were free. He bolted, running without direction or goal, just away from the fire, away from death.
A weight bulled into him, pulling him down. Chorickus twisted him around and straddled his chest, pounding his face repeatedly. Blood filled Cypher’s mouth. A wordless chorus howled inside his skull. He tried to fight back, to protect himself, but his augmented blows had little effect against Chorickus’ rage. The augie clamped his hands around his neck and squeezed. Cypher struggled to pry the fingers from his throat. Their augmented strengths matched, but a berserker insanity gave Chorickus the advantage. Sweat slicked his face, glistening in the firelight, and his eyes dilated to empty black orbs.
The red icon on the toolbar of Cypher’s inhead blinked at him, nagged him to remember. Other warnings overrode it, flashing across his display: heart rate and blood pressure dangerously high, oxygen levels plummeting. Lacking air, vital systems would begin to shut down quickly. He doubted even this body could survive that. Or would the symbiont protect its host by putting him into a coma before that happened? Either way, if he couldn’t break free and escape the warehouse, he was a dead man. An augie—even a nearly immortal one—wouldn’t survive immolation.
As his body sank toward oblivion his mind remained clear, analyzing the situation with the detachment of a computer program, because that’s all he was: software, running on a piece of advanced imperial technology embedded in his chest, comprised the sum total of his life and existence. Long after this physical shell ceased to function, that program would still be running, trapping him in a dead and rotting corpse.
He tried to scream, but couldn’t draw air into his lungs past Chorickus’ crushing grip. His vision narrowed and began to darken.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Fitz’s voice cracked through the tension like a whip. “Stand down, both of you. Lizzy, safety your weapons. Now.” She overrode the computer’s complaints, then turned to the Praetorian. “And you, Lieutenant, back off. I don’t think Captain Weiland’s orders extended to blowing up half of Striefbourne City.”
Lizzy announced, “She’s taken her pulse cannon to stand-by, not off, but I bet I can still beat her to the draw.”
“Lizzy, withdraw to about half a kilometer away and put us in a holding pattern, but keep that landing pad on the monitor. I want to know the second the captain comes out, then we can discuss this like two reasonable adults.”
“You’re assuming, of course, that the spittle-whisker is capable of acting like an adult.” Jumper’s nose wrinkled as if he’d smelled a wet dog.
The ship didn’t respond to Fitz’s order.
“Lizzy, I could shut down your computer and fly this shuttle manually.”
Several more seconds passed before the ship complied and began to ease backward. Fitz pulled up a satellite image and zoomed in on the slender spire of a building in the wooded park behind the Citadel. She studied the image, misty and indistinct through the clouds and drizzle, and tapped the screen. “What’s this?”
“I believe that’s the corporate headquarters for Thorsson Colcheck Interstellar Shipping. Why?”
“Extend your pattern out a bit so that we’re passing just behind that building.”
“What altitude?”
“This is fine. I think you can manage to fly in between the buildings. I want a closer look. And keep moving; I don’t want the Praetorians to get the impression we’re interested in it.”
“Some of the denizens of those apartments might not appreciate a warship blasting by their windows at the break of dawn.”
“Too bad. If they want to complain, they’ll have to get in an ever-lengthening line.”
“What about Lieutenant Pike? I thought all your people had been reassigned to accompany Kiernan and the Fleet. Why would he disobey an order and stay behind?” Lizzy asked.
“That’s easy.” Jumper said. “Bartonelli.”
Fitz remembered the ship couldn’t hear the cat’s telepathy. “He must have been trying to protect Sergeant Bartonelli, but if there’s one person who doesn’t need protecting, it’s her.” Fitz shook her head. “If it’s data you’re looking for, he’s the best, but that boy has the combat instincts of a cup of hot chocolate. I can’t imagine what possessed him to become an augie. Still he might make a good one—if he lives long enough.”
Cypher (The Dragon's Bidding Book 2) Page 27