Nix raised the weapon, aiming at the man’s abdomen.
“Tell her what she wants to know,” he said, “or I will shoot you. And this isn’t a stunner.”
“You’ve been keeping shameful company Ms. Vares,” the fat man said. “before this one muddies the floor, shoot him.”
Nix chuckled and tried not to look nervous. “There’s no way Ashla’s going to...” movement made him pause. Ashla was standing straight again. She lifted her stunner, slowly, her arm shaking.
“Ashla?” Nix said. “You’re not going to shoot me, right?”
Ashla’s eyes touched him and against the sleepy glaze Nix saw fear and pain. “Nix,” she whispered. “Help.”
“Stop it or I will shoot,” Nix said. His eyes crossed for a second as he realized the pistol was safe. He tapped the lever, loading the first round into the rail. The pistol charged up with an audible hum.
“If you were going to shoot me, little rat, you would have. Ms. Vares, I’m waiting.”
Ashla moaned but continued to raise her hand.
“Please,” Nix said, staring at the fat man. “Please don’t make me shoot you.”
“Ms. Vares, fire!”
“No!”
In that second Nix knew he had chosen the wrong weapon from Vance’s collection. Of all the items, even just all the pistols, he had to choose that one. Nix regretted it and promised that if he made it back to the Jessamine he would choose more wisely, if he chose at all.
All Nix heard was a click, a hum and a scream. A weapon that killed people should have made more noise. It should have roared like Luna’s main drives or crashed like a nearby thunderhead. He pulled the trigger. The click was the arming mechanism pushing the round into the electromagnetic rail. His pistol made a sub-sonic hum as it accelerated the round to something approaching the speed of sound. The scream came from the fat man.
The big jowly man stepped back as Nix’s bullet struck him in the abdomen. The man’s expression was filled with such shock and pain. Nix met his eyes without meaning to and started to cry.
The fat man clutched at the red stain radiating from his stomach, Nix watched as the red swallowed the yellows and whites and blues of his colorful robe, turning them all to different shades of crimson. The fat man fell over onto his back, eyes wide. He screamed again when he hit the floor. Nix wondered why the red wasn’t spreading into the floor and then wondered if the bullet didn’t penetrate all the way through, which meant, if he remembered his crime shows, it hit something important, like his stomach or pancreas.
Ashla shook her head. For a second it looked like she might fall too but Nix put a steadying hand on her and she stood straight. She looked around with confusion in her expression, then looked at the fallen scion. “No,” she said. She dropped her stunner and ran over to him. His eyes were squeezed shut and streaming with tears.
Ashla fell to her knees beside him. Nix stepped closer but felt his own legs going numb. His hands started shaking and he couldn’t breathe right.
“Hando!” Ashla called, grabbing the fat man’s collar and shaking him. His eyes popped open. “Hando! Where is my father?”
“Call a doctor,” Hando said, his words guttural.
“There’s no doctor for me to call,” Ashla said. “So, let your last act shine. Tell me where my father is.”
Hando cried some more. He seemed to utter something, a prayer, or an appeal to Ashla.
“Hando!” Ashla cried, shaking him again.
The scion’s eyes went wide, fear painting a twisted mask on his features. “Dead!” he shouted. “Dead.” His eyes glazed. His lips moved but there was little breath behind his word. “Dead.”
Ashla sobbed. “No!” she shook the dead man. “No! Where’s Cel then! Where’s Lita! Wake up you evil wretch and tell me!”
Nix pulled her away from the scion. She fought at first and then collapsed into his arms and cried on his shoulder. He cried with her. They stood there together in the hall, with bombs exploding outside and the distant cracking of gunfire drawing closer as they cried together, a pair of orphans in the middle of a battle.
“I’m so sorry,” Nix finally said when he could manage speech. “You’re going to be okay. Dothin will take good care of you. And you’re going to be okay. And I’m so, so sorry.”
Nix’s link chimed in his pocket. They both jumped. Nix looked in to Ashla’s eyes and Ashla met his gaze. The link chimed again. Nix pulled his link from his pocket and looked at it. He tapped the button and Dothin’s face popped up on the screen.
“Oh, thank heaven,” Dothin said. “Niko, where are you?”
Nix attempted a smile. “Hi Dothin. Um, Meritine Palace?” He didn’t mean it as a question, but he lilted his last syllable upward like one.
“Are you safe? What are you doing there? How did you get out of the life pod? Is Ashla with you?”
“Too many questions at once,” Nix said. “I’m safe. I will explain later and yes, Ashla’s right here. No luck in finding her...anyone.”
His heart sagged at the last words and Ashla’s face turned downward.
“I have good news and bad news on that front,” Dothin said. “The bad news is that her father and Lita Tarquin is dead.”
Ashla made a breathless wail and turned away from Nix, her shoulders shaking.
“How do you know?” Nix asked.
“Gan tapped into local comm records. What he found was pretty conclusive. I’m so sorry.” Dothin looked away from the camera for a minute, his eyes sad. Then he looked back. “The good news is that Cel Numbar, well, Gan has word that she’s alive and being kept in a prison cell down in the sublevels below the palace, right next to the girl. He’s on his way there to get them both.”
Ashla grabbed the link from Nix’s hand. Her face was still wet and her eyes bloodshot but her expression and voice were solid.
“Wait, Dothin, there’s no prison cells in the sublevels.”
“Apparently they built some. I don’t have a lot of details, but I know Gan is closing in. He’ll find Cel. And he’ll bring her back.”
If anyone else was in charge of that operation, Nix might have guessed Dothin’s words were wishful thinking. Nix knew Gan could do it and would.
He put a hand on Ashla’s shoulder. “He’s right, Ashla. Gan will save her.”
“I don’t know,” Ashla said. “I want to go down there and find her myself.”
“Well, we—” Nix started, but was interrupted by the rapid-fire crackle of energy weapons. It was far closer than it used to be. “That sounded close.”
“What did?” Dothin said, his voice strained. “Niko, what’s—”
“I think the fight is coming our way,” Nix said. “We have to get back to the ship. Talk to you then, Dothin.”
Nix grabbed the link out of Ashla’s hand and ended the call, throwing the link back into his pocket.
“Come on,” he said, grabbing Ashla’s hand and pulling her the first few steps until she was running of her own volition.
Something exploded, a grenade maybe, and the sound was so loud it got Nix’s ears ringing. It came from right behind them, right around the corner.
“Come on,” Nix said again, sprinting faster. Up ahead, Nix could hear deep voices booming, then more shots. The wood panelled wall flashed, and Nix stopped in his tracks.
“Are they friends?” Ashla asked, “Or the other guys?”
Nix shrugged. More shots cracked. Holes appeared in the paneling on the walls, blackened and burning.
“We have to hide,” Nix whispered. “Wait for them to blow past us.”
Ashla pointed and ran. She led him through a door, which she opened carefully and slowly. The corridor behind the door was thinner and, while fancy for his tastes, not at the same level as the rest of the palace. Mint green painted walls with a white ceiling adorned with gold trim. Nix shut the door behind them as quietly as he could, but there wasn’t a lock.
As soon as the door shut the shouts grew nearer before t
hey were drowned out by encroaching fire. Ashla grabbed Nix’s shoulder and pulled. He turned and followed her down the corridor and then into another doorway. He closed the door behind him and turned to find himself in some kind of lounge. The windows here weren’t quite as large as the ones in Nix’s former hiding spot, but the sky was pale blue, dotted with clouds, filling the room with plenty of light. Ashla stepped over to a corner of the room behind a few chairs and sat down with her back to the wall.
Nix walked up to the window and looked out into the town below. He counted a dozen columns of black smoke rising to diffuse in the early morning air. Even from this distance many of the buildings down there were wrecked, with rooves caved in and walls fallen. There were no more big booms, but Nix could see the occasional crackle of small arms fire down there, and he remembered celebrating his first Unification Day.
Unification Day commemorated the drafting of the first Constitution of Antarus, whereby the collective governments of Eltar, it’s chillier neighbor Lingas, the Vorean Consortium and any other little independent political bodies became one government ruling the entire Antarii star system. Nix didn’t know anything about it until he met Dothin, until the old man who had adopted him started his formal education. Nix had lived through fifteen Unification Days. He had watched the parades from a distance. He had seen from afar the blessing rites done on the station by roving bands of Scions wearing bright robes and burning sweet-smelling incense.
His sixteenth Unification Day happened weeks after Dothin had adopted him, the time Dothin always called their “honeymoon phase,” because it was the exact opposite. Nix was running away almost every night and being brought back home by station authorities either drunk or high or both. Recalling that time of Nix’s life now felt like watching someone else’s sordid biography.
Dothin, as he had done for years now, rented a few tables in Habitat Four’s massive park. The only space on the station more open than that park was the central transit hub. Dothin invited his old buddies from the docks, many of whom had adult kids of their own now working receiving, and he splurged on steaks, whole chickens, pork chops and all the fixings, plus two large coolers full of drinks—red for adult beverages, blue for sodas and juices for the kids—and brought in a few grills to cook it all in. He had horseshoes and balls and frisbees to play with in the faux sunlight of the park.
Nix had only agreed to go because Pattie was going, and he was already developing a crush on her. Of course, he was too shy to sit next to her. So, he sat and ate among strangers, ate food he would have killed for a month or two earlier. He was still skinny, sick from the cadenziite virus and strung up and the dosage of the orphan candy he was on at the time had him popping pills almost every half hour. After the second time he’d tried sneaking a beer out of the red cooler, Pattie came and sat down next to him. In retrospect she was probably trying to keep an eye on him while Dothin stepped away for a minute, but she didn’t act like a chaperone. She talked with him, asked him questions and replied in ways that showed she was listening. She didn’t come down hard on him for trying to grab a beer or using foul language.
And then Dothin came back with a bucket full of firecrackers for the kids. For the first time, Nix abandoned his pride and started rifling through the fireworks. He’d never seen them up close before and after setting off his first bottle rocket he had an inkling of what he had missed.
The crackle and pulsing glow of gunfire down in the town triggered that memory for him and he thought maybe what was going on down there was just kids setting off fireworks.
Nix sat down against the wall next to Ashla. The gunfire continued nearby too. Ashla opened her hand and Nix took it. They waited in silence as the battle raged beyond the shut door of the lounge. Every time a weapon fired it felt closer, but it never got to the hallway outside. It never came in through the door.
Nix woke before realizing he had fallen asleep. He woke from a dream where he was eating steaks and throwing frisbees and lighting firecrackers with Pattie and Dothin, but Ashla was there too. And the park they were in had a real sky, like the one he could see outside the window.
There was no more fire. No more explosions. Not even shouting. He looked and saw Ashla had fallen asleep to. Their fingers still touched though her hand was slack.
His link chimed, and Nix jumped. If any combatants were still nearby, they would hear it. He pulled the link out of his pocket and answered the call. Dothin’s face popped onto his screen. He looked tired and there was a streak of dried blood across his left cheek.
“Niko,” he said, sighing. “Are you and Ashla okay?”
Nix nodded. “Yeah,” he whispered. “We’re hiding in what looks like a servant’s lounge.”
“Well you can stop hiding,” Dothin said. He smiled but the expression couldn’t hide exhaustion or sadness. “The battle is over. DM Anatheret ordered a ceasefire. Which, I guess, means we won.”
Nix smiled. “That’s great. Is everyone okay?”
He braced for the word that someone had died. Captain Kol, or Vance or Gan.”
“So far,” Dothin said. “Haven’t heard from Gan yet, though, so cross your fingers. The palace proper is safe, so you can come back to the Jessamine, but if you do come straight here brace yourself.”
Nix nodded. “Bodies?”
“Yeah,” Dothin said. “We’re looking at fifty casualties for both sides—that’s killed or wounded—and twelve of the guys who jumped off the Jessamine are dead. I say ‘guys,’ but a few of them were women. It’s not pretty.”
“Ashla’s sleeping,” Nix said. “I was too until you called. I think all the excitement and anticipation...you know.”
“Yeah,” Dothin said. “Take your time. Just don’t leave the palace yet.”
“Copy that,” Nix said. “See you soon.”
Dothin smiled and then disappeared. Ashla gave a quiet grunt and whispered something unintelligible in her sleep. Nix put his link down, lay his head back against the wall, closed his eyes and dreamed of fireworks with Ashla.
Chapter Fifty-Three:
From the Rising of the Sun
Cel saw the MP too late. The bolt ripped into her shoulder. Pain supernovaed across her left side. She gritted her teeth against the cry, tried to get behind cover, but her legs buckled, and she staggered to the floorplates, as more shots blasted towards her.
She heard Soma yell, “Stay here!” From the corner of her eye she saw him sprint out into the junction room, his eyes searching for combatants down the new corridor.
Cel growled, rolled on the floorplates and pushed to her hands and knees. She launched herself to the far side of the room, behind cover from anyone coming from the other tunnel, and tried firing her repeater with the use of one hand as she did. Particle bolts whizzed past her. Some collided with the floorplates inches from her feet as she ran for cover. She collapsed again next to the wall and then pushed herself back to her feet.
Soma stopped at the opposite edge of the corridor, and moved the stock of his repeater to his left shoulder. He peeked once, drawing some of the fire off of Cel. Cel’s left shoulder burned when she lifted her repeater with both hands. She ignored the pain the best she could and then peek fired a few shots. The corridor was dark for several meters and after that it was lit. The men firing at her and Soma were silhouetted against the pale glow of the light strips behind them.
But then, Cel realized, she and Soma were just as exposed. The junction room was well lit which meant there would be lots of illumination back-lighting their heads, making them great targets.
Cel turned and shot at the light strips. They sparked and shattered and fell like snow onto the floor.
“What are you doing?” Soma asked.
“Making us a tougher target,” Cel said. The room fell into deeper gloom with every shot she took. Then she turned back towards the enemy and started taking peek shots again.
The room became a bigger version of her little black box. The lights were dim, and the walls echoed
cacophonous insanity at her. She fought the sensation that the walls were closing in on her. She fought the fear.
Cel popped out again, firing at a moving, round shape backlit in the tunnel. She heard a distant scream and the shape collapsed into the darkness. The MPs hadn’t figured out the lighting trick yet, or they worried the whole place would be too dark to fight in.
One MP ignited a flashlight slung under his repeater and shined it at her. Cel spun behind cover in time to dodge the shots now careening into the digging machine behind her. Soma popped out and shot the man with the light. The cone of light spun, stopped and illuminated another MP out of cover and Cel landed a three-shot burst into his chest and he collapsed to the floor. She turned and took a quick shot at another exposed head and her weapon buzzed at her. Cel hopped behind cover again and gritted her teeth against fresh agony as she used her bad arm to pull the spent energy cell from her repeater and then slap a new one in and toggle the switch to charge the capacitor.
She was doing okay, though. Two full magazines left and then she had three clips for her pistol.
Cel took a quick peak at Soma and Remnant. Soma was being smart, taking the shots he needed to and not the ones he didn’t. Conserving ammo, even with three full magazines in his belt. He was a good fighter to have at her side. Remnant on the other hand, wasn’t fighting.
Cel hadn’t even considered giving the girl a weapon. In the hands of an untrained shooter in the middle of a stressful combat encounter, a gun was as dangerous to friends as it was foes. On second thought, Cel realized the girl probably wouldn’t have taken it even if Cel or Soma had offered one. Remnant stood against the far wall of the junction, well out of the line of fire. She held her hand out towards Cel and was saying something Cel couldn’t parse. The firefight was too loud to hear much of anything but even so Cel guessed the girl was more than mouthing the words.
It was a prayer of some kind. Remnant was praying. Had Cel not had her prior encounter with Remnant in her black box, Cel might have sneered or chuckled or tossed scorn, or even ignored her. But Cel had been hurt from the shock-sticks of the MPs who had frustrated her escape attempt, and sick from the untreated infections caused thereby. And in a matter of seconds Remnant had healed her. She hadn’t bandaged wounds, she had made them disappear. The infections died in an instant and the fever broke like it was never there. And if Cel had to bet on it she would bet a lot that Remnant had even reversed the effects of her malnutrition and dehydration.
Remnant Page 55