The metal gate slid shut quickly. Had he hesitated, Jon would have been sliced in two.
“What did I just say?” She scolded through the bars. A hectic bout of pulling and pushing at the barricade revealed what she already feared. The thing would not budge. “I told you—”
His hand shot up. “Not another word!”
With a snarl, Sela kicked the gate. With growing desperation, she searched its edges. There was no release on her side.
Veradin examined the interior and turned back to her. “There’s no getting this open. I’ll have to take the passage the rest of the way.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“Get to the Cass, Ty. If you get there first, secure Erelah. Get out of here.”
Sela did not answer.
“That’s an order.”
“You can’t do that. You can’t give me orders anymore.”
“Ty. Look at me.” He waited for her to look at him. She stepped closer, curling her fingers through the mesh of the gate to fold against his hand.
“You know I’m right.” He held her gaze. “You can’t fight them all off.”
He was right. Of course, he was right. But it did not stop the hollow blossom of fear. To die here, like this, would mean nothing. There was a distant hope that they could still emerge from this intact.
She shut her eyes, releasing a low sigh. “Fine.”
Erelah should pray that he beats me back to the ship. Somehow, this was her fault. Had to be.
22
Phex was surprisingly fast for his stature and build. But then his speed was probably also motivated by an intense desire to evade capture.
She caught up with him nearing an access corridor. When he saw her, he launched into a wobbling sprint. The passage widened out into what appeared to be a storage facility for spent fuel casings. The walls were emblazoned with poison and rad warnings with, thankfully, no sign of the former contents.
If I one day grow a third arm, I’ll hunt down Phex and pummel him with that too.
He was mere strides ahead now. She could hear his winded breathing as he crossed the room to a door. As he threw it open, the brilliance of a marketplace corridor pierced the gloom. With it came the full-on bray of the warning klaxon, accompanied by frightened shouts of Merx’s fleeing residents.
Sela lunged, wrapping Phex in a tackle. She pulled him back inside and shut the door. The tavern keeper spun around, arms flailing. She pressed a boot into his pendulous yellow abdomen. He swung the sawed-off scatter gun in a ponderous arc, with no real force or ability to aim. Just as he pulled the trigger, she batted the muzzle aside. The round in the space was concussive.
“May I?” Sela snatched away the gun.
Phex grunted, still pinned beneath her foot.
“I’ll take that as a yes.” She twisted the weapon from his grip.
Sela spared a moment to shake her head. The ringing in her left ear drowned out all sound on that side. Through the vibration of the deck, she could still feel the panicked footfalls of the station dwellers in the corridors beyond.
She propped the barrel against his neck and dared him to move. With her free hand she rummaged his food-stained coat. In a hidden pocket was a tiny dat drive, no larger than a child’s finger. It was important enough for Phex to keep it on his disgusting person.
“Is this what I think it is?” She jammed the device into his face. “The nav charts on this?”
His mouth flopped wordlessly.
“Well?” She pressed the primer on the rifle.
He nodded, jowls wiggling. “Only copy. They confiscated the rest.”
“Too bad,” Sela mocked with a pout, and jammed the dat file into the pouch on her thigh.
“Breeder bitch,” he grumbled.
“Can’t trust us. Remember?” Sela straightened, her aim trained on Phex. “Bay four. Fastest way there.”
“This level. Second corridor past the market.”
“When did the Regime get here?”
“Half a sol,” he grunted, rolling from side to side in an attempt to get to his feet. “They sent Seekers to cull the map dealers.”
Something more than fear of being blown away by his own weapon paraded behind his beady-eyed gaze.
“Go on.” Sela prodded the end of the rifle into this thick belly, throwing him off balance again.
“Big payoff for whoever helped catch you.”
“From Ravstar?” she scoffed. “They don’t pay. They take what they want.”
“Not if they wants things quiet, see?” He licked his lips.
“Why do they want us?”
When he took too long to answer, she prodded him again with the muzzle. He squealed.
“Not you. They were looking for someone named Veradin. And it ain’t in my conjuring as to the why.” Phex snorted, clearly amused.
“Something funny?”
“You’re just byproduct, pet.”
“But they’re Kindred.”
“You say that like it makes a difference. It don’t none. Not to the likes of her.”
“Her? Who’s that?”
Phex said nothing. His eyes rolled up, looking over her shoulder.
Sela realized her mistake too late. Her hearing, temporarily deafened by the sawed-off’s blast on one side, had not detected an approach. Whirling, she caught the brunt of the trooper’s rifle in her injured shoulder. Her grip on the sawed-off failed.
She charged, hoping to push the trooper back and make room in the small space to slip past. His armor would have made hand-to-hand foolish on her part, but he could not move as quickly under its burdensome weight. Her best chance was to make space and slip by.
But that was not how things happened.
Just as she reached for the A6, staggering pain raced down both hamstrings. A second trooper got her with a stunner. She staggered forward to meet the stock of the first trooper’s weapon under her chin. The A6 clattered to the deck. Orbs of light dazzled her vision as she crashed down beside Phex. An armored knee landed squarely between her shoulder blades and the air rushed from her lungs in a wounded bellow. A hand on the back of her head rammed her cheekbone into the deck. She watched as a boot stepped into her field of vision. Sela stared at its glossy surface. Straining, she turned her gaze up to its owner, then regretted it.
Over her loomed a misshapen freak of pallid, scaled skin dressed as a Defensor. Metallic stitching at the high collar depicted the Ravstar emblem. Although its face was partially obscured by the heavy hood, Sela caught enough details to help her realize what she was looking at. A Sceeloid half-breed.
“Commander Tyron. How terribly disappointing you are in the flesh,” it said.
---
The Defensor’s hand tightened around her throat. Sela heard and felt something pop. A zinging sensation ran along her shoulders and into her fingers. She clawed at the closing fist. With incredible strength, the half-breed lifted Sela up and thrust her back against the wall.
She found herself unable to tear her gaze from the Defensor’s. Despite the strange mongrel appearance, the eyes on this thing were the worst. They were purely Eugenes and the perfect shade of dark brown.
“Erelah Veradin.” The voice had an odd metallic edge.
“Never… heard of … her.”
The fist squeezed in response. Beyond the pain, Sela realized with relief: the captain was most likely still free. It emboldened her.
“I know she accompanied you to this station. Where is she?”
“No idea.” She grunted. Her lungs were burning wings trapped in her chest.
“She is here. I can feel her. Very close.” The Defensor’s eyelids fluttered. Its cruel mouth curved into something like a smile.
“You’d make a cute couple.”
Sela’s comment seemed to bring her back from some little mental trip.
“Erelah utilized a stryker to depart my facility. Where is it?”
“Up his ass.” She flicked her gaze at the tense bundle of nerves
standing at the half-breed’s elbow, a slender, pinch-faced man. “I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if you look.”
The freak’s grip tightened. Dots swirled before Sela’s eyes. She could barely hear its voice over the blood roaring in her ears.
“Give her to me. You and your captain may go free. The warrants against you will be rescinded. You can even return to being a soldier, Tyron. Is that that not what you want? You need not lose your rank over this. You were mortally wounded when Veradin dragged you onto the vessel. The Information Officer’s testimony confirms it. Certainly, you would have not made a deliberate choice to go with him. Why should you suffer for Veradin’s lapse?”
I suffer.
Her thoughts swam like her vision. This freak knew so much.
“You can have it all back. You have my word. In return, I want Erelah Veradin.”
The Defensor’s grip slackened, and cooling oxygen raced into Sela’s scorched throat.
“You say you can do all these things. That you have all this power. Why not just take this whole station, find her yourself?” she croaked.
“Ah. There is the keen intellect of a survivor.” The Defensor smiled briefly.
Ravstar must have beaten the Cassandra to Merx. It had been much more than a good guess, or carefully honed strategy. Their intel had been enough to spur this half-breed and her team to arrive here in person. There was something very wrong, despite the Defensor’s deliberate tone. Something deeper. She wanted things quiet, according to Phex—wherever the duplicitous little slug had scampered.
If this thing truly had the backing of First, the station would be an orbiting cinder. Only four EEs had pursued them into Phex’s private lounge. And only two remained with the Defensor. To Sela it felt like far too few boots on the ground to take a facility of this size. It seemed reckless, desperate.
“First doesn’t know you’re here,” Sela said. “This is a rogue op. Who are you?”
The freak canted her head in an unnatural manner, looking like a raptor sizing up a meal.
“I can see why Trinculo considered you a danger, Tyron. It’s a pity to waste such a brain on a lowly breeder like you. Perhaps Veradin likes the sense of power he has over you… his clever and loyal breeder pet.”
Erelah’s words were coming out of the face of this monstrosity.
“You’re not fit to speak his name.”
But she had sensed Sela pause.
“Oh? And what do you know about your worshiped captain, pet?”
Her oddly Eugenes eyes studied her, somehow able to read the very pattern of blood flowing through Sela’s body. A strange prickling sensation flowed down the back of her neck like a rush of heat.
“If you knew the truth about him… about his sister… would you be so swift to defend him?”
“Like I’m going to believe a word out of your ugly head.”
“Defensor Tristic… ma’am. There is a problem.” The thin man interrupted. One hand pressed against his head, listening to the ear piece of his vox device.
The hand on her throat slackened more. Sela made her move, drawing both feet up, countering the grip. She launched, pushing off from the wall. Just then, her captor side-stepped, releasing her throat.
Sela misjudged the distance to the floor and her knees folded. She levered up on hands and knees, gulping in air. A trooper was instantly upon her, planting the muzzle of his rifle against her temple. She was more than content to stay there and breathe at the moment. She needed to think.
The thin man pressed closed to his master. His voice was frantic and hushed. “Ma’am, we cannot possibly maintain our location and continue the search.” Tristic. So that was this bitch’s name.
“Maynard, it is not a question of insufficient resources, but of insufficiency in your leadership.” Tristic snarled.
“We have only cleared half of the docking bays.” He replied. “If the renegade ship has a masked ident, as you’ve described, my men will need to conduct a visual search of each docking tier.”
“Erelah is here.” The hybrid’s voice became a meaty growl. “Even now I share Sight with her despite her resistance.”
With this she swayed slightly on her feet. A gloved hand moved to her temple. Her voice was slower, thicker when she spoke again. “Continue the search for their ship. She is still there.”
“I need more men. If you recall the Questic —”
With a savage growl, Tristic turned on Maynard. In one quick motion, she shoved the officer bodily toward the corridor, where he fell sprawling. He climbed to his feet, cringing as if in preparation for another attack.
Tristic loomed over him. But her voice was calm and glossy once more, as if the attack had never happened. “Maynard, you will accomplish what I have asked.”
The freak’s head was turned. She had dismissed Sela for the moment.
There. The sawed-off lay forgotten near the wall. The A6 was a glinting impossibility too far to reach. The two troopers were more interested in watching the hybrid threaten Maynard. Sela dove at the weapon and drew aim on Tristic’s back.
The blast roared. The impact struck the space between the uneven lines of Tristic’s shoulder blades. She pitched forward slightly as if she had just been jostled in a busy corridor, nothing more.
Body armor. The crazy bitch had on body armor.
Wide-eyed, she stared. A trooper ripped the weapon from her and she was hauled to her feet. Her arms were braced painfully behind her back.
Tristic turned with an amused expression pulling across that cyanotic crag of a mouth. She applauded slowly.
“Stalwart to the last, Tyron. Your defection is such a loss.”
“Thanks,” Sela muttered, spitting blood onto the deck. One of the EE troopers pinioned her arms behind her and restraints bit into her wrists. She was forced back against the wall and felt the restraints fastened to something solid and unmovable.
Tristic peered into her face. Her poison blue tongue darted along the top edge of her needle-like teeth.
“I understand that you have recently become enlightened as to teachings of the Fates. Allow me to further your studies. I offer you a new choice on your Path this day, Commander.”
Sela blinked. How? How could she know about the priest on Tasemar? She had never even told Veradin all of it.
“I shall offer you something that your worshiped captain never did: A choice. I will ask you to make a simple choice. But to do it, you must be honest.”
Tristic leaned against her in an intimating whisper. “And, Tyron, to be fair, I can tell if someone is lying.”
She drew her chin up and fixed her gaze at the wall.
“Eleven souls, including yourself, that Veradin so heroically rescued from Tasemar even when he had been ordered to abandon you. And impressively, only one casualty. Worthy soldiers whose lives rested in your very hands.”
Sela rolled her eyes. She really did enjoy the sound of her own voice.
“Once more, as a demonstration of irony the Fates so tediously enjoy, one of your team finds himself in a similar place at this moment. You face another choice: Who shall live this day? You? Or your loyal sergeant?”
“What?”
“The question is quite simple.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Do you care to test my resolve?” Tristic canted her head. Poorly feigned sympathy in her voice. “You don’t believe me. Understandable. After all, we’ve only just met.”
Sela swallowed, staring blankly. How far did the Defensor’s reach extend?
“Here. Let me make this easier for you.”
Tristic waved a hand over her shoulder. One of the troopers disappeared. There was jostling somewhere in the corridor beyond. A large figure, a heavy cloth bag over his head, was corralled into the room. His thickly-muscled arms were bound behind him. It took two troopers to control this captive.
“I believe introductions are not necessary.”
Tristic traipsed past, lifting the prisoner’s hood.
“Now.” Tristic sighed. “I see I have made my point.”
A grim smile moved across Valen’s face.
In response, Sela felt a lunatic grin forming on her mouth.
“Commander.”
“Sergeant.”
Sela kept her eyes front, her arms sore in their restraining hold. The reassuring weight of her blade pressed against her forearm. The fools had not bothered to search her yet. There was still an edge, a small crack, the possibility of a way out.
“I ask again, Tyron. What Path do you choose? The truth? Or the life of your sergeant?”
Oh. That’s right. Tristic was still talking.
Sela looked down at the decking. A familiar red-hot tide of fury filled her. It was not something to be tamed at a time like this. No counting or breathing. Its acrid power gnawed at her, insisting that she rend and tear.
“This…will end badly for you, half-breed,” she said.
While Tristic chuckled Sela pulled forward; it distracted from her true intent of trying to get the blade further down into her sleeve. Finally, it eased into her palm and she began to saw at the restraints. The plasti-web was stubborn, but she felt purchase of the knife’s teeth on it. The angle was odd. Her left shoulder was a knot of agony.
“My new girlfriend.” Valen canted his head toward Tristic. “When I get loose I’m going to skin her—”
A rifle butt connected with Valen’s sternum.
“Valen!” Sela strained forward, overreacting. It made it easier to slice the restraints. The sound of her shout covered the “pop” as the straps gave way. Still she kept her hands clasped behind her. Relief uncoiled the muscles in her arms.
Sela started chuckling.
Her sergeant nodded imperceptibly. The smile on his face grew. A low rumbling laugh grew in his throat.
“I will kill you, Tristic,” she said.
“No. Allow me,” Valen snarled.
With hands still bound before him, Valen lunged at the Defensor. He towered over Tristic’s slouched, imperfect frame, obliterating Sela’s view. Everything sped up after that.
Allies and Enemies: Fallen Page 18