Sela sprang at the nearest trooper, bringing the blade up. It sliced into his torso within the narrow gap of the trooper’s armor. Field armor was meant to protect against plasma rounds and blunt impact of concussion devices, but not the slender threat of a blade in close quarters.
She dragged his body in front of her like a shield. The guard at Tristic’s side fired, but the rounds struck the trooper’s lifeless body. She claimed his rifle and brought it up, ready to fire on Tristic.
But the Defensor had vanished.
Valen lay in a heap on the deck with the two downed troopers.
“Damn it all.” She knelt over him.
He rolled slowly over with a groan. Then she saw the wound in his flank. Bad. It was not from a plasma weapon. He had been stabbed. Carefully, Sela slit the webbing of his restraints.
“Ugly bitch had a blade,” he hissed. Sela lifted his shirt from the wound on his side. A renewed stream of blood came with it. Quickly she pressed her hands over the site. Blood seeped between her fingers.
“How bad?” He tried to twist and move her hand.
“Be still.”
She glanced around at the three dead or dying troopers.
“Here. Hold pressure.” She took Valen’s immense hand and clamped it over the wound.
The downed trooper closest to her had tactical pouches with his gear. She began to rummage for a medikit.
“That thing was a lot stronger than she looks.” Valen grimaced. “Fast too.”
“Why are they doing this, Valen?” she asked, hoping to distract him.
She searched a second pouch. Her fingers met the smooth plastic of a cellseal packet. Her heart leapt. The universe had finally decided to throw her a favor.
“I don’t know, boss. That ugly bitch asked a lot of questions about you and the cap’n. She’s desperate to find someone called Erelah Veradin.”
Sela unraveled the dressing, prepping it. “Desperate?”
Her earlier impression of this as a rogue op had been correct then.
Desperate could be good. It meant they were in possession of a valuable asset. But it also meant that serious hurt would be headed their way, with the considerable resources of Ravstar driving the search for Erelah.
Valen nodded, grimacing. “Who is she?”
“Erelah?” Sela ripped a larger whole in his shirt to get at the wound. “The captain’s sister.”
“Tristic asked skew things too. Like if I knew of any Humans.”
“Humans?” Sela gestured for him to move his hand.
“Weird, right? Makes no sense.”
“None of this is making sense. What about the others back on the Storm King?” She doubted Tristic could threaten an entire company of soldiers in secret. But still…
“No idea.” Valen shook his head. “Trinculo sent a team to secure the bay. I held position as long as I could to cover your exit. They used a stunner. Next thing I know I’m looking at the inside of the stockade. Never saw or talked to anyone else.”
“It’s okay, Sergeant.”
“Trinculo never once came to ask me a question.”
“He didn’t interrogate you?” She paused in her work.
“No. It’s like he pretended Veradin’s escape never happened.” He gave a weak shrug.
“Because Tristic needs it to be quiet,” Sela said, recalling Phex’s explanation. She realized the hybrid might not have power in all corners of the Regime, but she did seem to have enough to influence one of the strictest Information Officers Sela had ever encountered. So much for the captain’s theory of an incorruptible Trinculo.
This was all skew. This wasn’t supposed to happen like this. I was going to stay behind and face the consequences. Not Valen or anyone else.
Sela paused, holding the dressing open with both hands, ready. She met his gaze. He nodded. Moving quickly, she pressed the cellseal against his wound. There was a muted hiss and a waft of burning flesh as the chemicals cauterized the damage. Instead of calling out, Valen pounded a fist against the deck.
The chems in the dressing would react with the heme, forming a seal and jumpstarting the healing process. If the wound wasn’t too bad. Sela squelched the rest of that thought.
“That tickles!” Valen grunted through clenched teeth. “You couldn’t find the kind that burns?”
Despite their desperation and the thoroughly screwed circumstances, she chuckled and thumped his shoulder.
“Shut up, Sergeant. Or I’ll throw another one on your junk.”
They needed to find Veradin and get to the Cass.
Sela rose and made her way to the doorway. The fleeing panicked crowds had thinned. They had headed for the bays, she imagined. It would be good cover. But their progress would be slow, impaired by the sergeant’s injury.
When she made it back to Valen, he lay on his side, elbow planted into the deck. She helped him to stand.
“Can you run?”
“I’m not up to racing, boss.” He gave a mock-plaintive whine.
But he looked away quickly, covering. Valen was hurting. It was written in the way he leaned heavily against the wall.
“Next time.”
Sela returned to scavenging the troopers. She claimed another medistat pouch and strung the trooper’s rifle over her shoulder. A shatter grenade bandolier joined it. All of their supplies were new issue, she noted with a tinge of jealously. The gear her teams were issued was usually half a decade old, or more.
“So, his sister at least pretty?” he asked, allowing her to loop his massive arm around her shoulder.
“Pretty insane,” she muttered, reclaiming the A6. “Let’s get out of here, Sergeant.”
23
Having grown from a class seven fuel outpost, Merx was impressive in size for a ghost station. During Sela’s first assignments with Commerce Enforcement, she had seen similar structures. They were always cobbled together, but the enterprising occupants here had added pressurized levels that were shielded from rads and capable of supporting hab. As a consequence, Sela found there was no predictable layout to the newer sections. But if Phex’s directions were to be believed, the bay was near.
The bustling marketplace she and Veradin had first encountered was now a deserted shambles. The former patrons and proprietors had apparently dropped their belongings and fled at the sight of what they had perceived as a Regime raid.
In the aftermath, excited specus pheasants warbled in their tiny cages. A gelcid calf bleated listlessly at them from where it was chained to a post. Unattended fires for cooking had been left to burn in the food stalls. The smell of overcooked meat mingled with tendrils of black smoke. If there were atmo scrubbers or fire suppression in this obviously added-on area, Sela would have been surprised. She doubted safety was a key issue with Phex and his fellow leaders of this little scum market.
“How far, boss?” Valen asked.
“Should be the second corridor. Through the market.”
Valen moved at a shambling pace as she helped him along the passage. His heavy arm was thrown about her shoulders. The bleeding from his wound saturated the side of the hateful single suit, plastering it to her skin. She thought of Tasemar, maneuvering Atilio into the temple. Then, it had been Valen doing the helping.
“Hold up,” he panted as leaned against the support pole of a canopy. Wordlessly, he unfastened the clasp on the calf’s collar. The animal shook its furry head and looked up at them uncertainly.
“Go on.” Valen made a swatting gesture.
The animal scampered away with a clatter of tiny hooves.
She muttered. “Always with the animals.”
“The ladies love it.” He gave her a haggard wink.
During a particularly brutal posting on an agri-colony, Valen had rescued a spike hound pup, risking his own life in the process. She had reamed him out for that one. But eventually she came to realize it was part of who he was. He was a dutiful solider, but not blind to innocent suffering. A crester would have considered him flawed
. But his compassion didn’t make him weak. Somehow it made Valen stronger in her eyes.
She slipped his arm back over her shoulders and tried to take on more of his weight. His movements had become slower and slower in such a small amount of time. Although it seemed like forever ago, the corridor where they had encountered Tristic and his men was not that far behind.
Another hundred meters and they reached the access to the bay where she hoped the Cassandra was still berthed.
“Great,” she spat.
An enormous armored door sealed the passage. This, from its form and shape, was original to the structure and remarkably, still functional. Unluckily, they were on the wrong side of it.
“I was starting to worry this was too easy.” Her sergeant muttered as he collapsed against the door. He slid down its side and came to rest on the floor, leaving a bloody smear on the putty colored surface.
“You can go around,” Valen said.
“We,” Sela corrected.
She prodded at the door’s control interface. It still had power, but someone had tampered with it. A spray of wires extruded from the box.
She knew the reality. Valen was not going around. He had already lost too much blood. The cellseal wasn’t keeping up with it. She had bought him time; that was about it. Just as Valen had for that stupid calf.
“How do you know the cap’n is still there, boss?”
“He’s still there. He’s stubborn. And stupid.”
“And in love with you,” Valen added quietly.
“Can it.” She groused, examining the remaining circuits for the door interface.
It had been shorted. She selected two wire ends and touched them together experimentally. The door jarred to life, rolling up on unseen hinges. Valen maneuvered away from the frame and came to stand at her side.
The door’s motion ground to a halt just above ankle height with the earsplitting screech of metal on metal.
Damn it all.
Crouching low, she looked under the door. She caught a quick view of a ruined corridor beyond, littered with debris. The moment she released the two wires, the door rolled shut.
Arms fire echoed somewhere behind them. Definitely organized and high caliber. The sounds were drawing closer. There was no time left.
Sela reconnected the circuit and the door rolled up once again, stopping at the same height. Something at the other side had to be jamming its upward progress. She could most likely squeeze under on her stomach, but Valen was bulkier. Maybe she could pull him through. But that didn’t solve the main problem. With the connecting nodes gone, someone had to physically hold the circuits together to keep the door open. The moment the connection was severed, the door would snap shut.
“Just leave me, boss.”
“What? No.”
She frowned at the circuits. Perhaps with time, they could figure it out.
“You can make it,” Valen urged. “Slip to the other side. See if there’s a way to keep the door open on that side.”
“That’s a big if.”
There was another volley of weapons fire from much closer. He leaned against her. “I can stay here, hold the door up. You slip through.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“Who said anything about leaving me? You’re going to come rescue my sweet ass.”
“No.” Half laugh. Half sob.
Shouts echoed from the far end of the market place. She recognized it as the barking of orders in Regimental Standard.
Once more she reconnected the leads. The door rolled up and gave another clanging screech as it froze. There was nothing promising to wedge it open. Doors like this were meant to come down in a hurry, and often with great force.
“Sela,” Valen said. “Time to go.”
He placed his giant hands over hers, taking over the circuits.
Another volley of shouts rose from the far end of the market.
“Valen. You are my only friend,” she said haltingly.
“Don’t go soft on me, boss,” he said with a grim smile.
He leaned into the doorframe wearily.
Sela reached out, squeezed his shoulder. Her feet were fixed to the deck. They both knew how this would end, but neither of them was willing to say it. His hand cradled the back of her head. He leaned forward and gently rested his forehead against hers.
As much as she truly felt attached to her captain, there was an unevenness there that could not be classified as friendship. For all her gruesomeness, Tristic was right. She worshiped Veradin. But Valen was her equal.
“Go, Sela.”
“I can’t.”
“You have to. You have to finish this.”
Frozen into place, she looked up at him. My Valen.
There was movement in the smoky air among the stalls of the marketplace. She turned to look. The EE troopers had found them.
“I’m sorry,” Valen said.
Frowning at his strange tone, she turned just in time for his fist to collide with her jaw. A white-hot jolt of pain snapped her teeth together and thundered down her neck. Sela folded. Roughly Valen shoved her to the deck. Stunned, she gasped up at him. But his attention was on the rigged console wires.
The metal door at her back opened and she rolled under it, unable to stop her slide down the sloping floor. Halfway through, she could go no further. Stuck!
“Your gear,” he hissed.
She looked down. The bandolier of grenades around her body was wedged. He jerked the belt from around her, pulling it back to his side of the door.
“Valen, stop! Don’t!” The effort racked her neck and jaw with pain.
From the door’s other side, Sela reached back through. Valen squeezed her hand once and then forced her clear. The door immediately crashed down. When she opened her fist, she saw what he had pressed into her hand: his ident tags.
Realization flooded her. He had taken the bandolier of shatter grenades.
“No!” She sprang to her feet. “Valen!”
Frantically, she searched for the interface on this side of the bulkhead. There was nothing. The imagined piece of shrapnel that barred the door on its track did not exist. She saw only the smooth planes of the door meeting its frame. It was a secure lock, the type that may have existed on the exterior of the original station, and now, as a consequence of the cobbled-on building technique, it had become an interior door.
A muted staccato of raised voices shouted commands from the other side of the door. Then came the answering bark of an explosion.
“Valen!”
She pressed her forehead to the metal and shut her eyes.
Gone. He was gone.
24
Around her, the station continued its decline into chaos. Sela was aware of the rumble of the deck beneath her knees and the shouts of the other occupants as they thundered past in their bid for escape or shelter.
The automated voice of the station calmly narrated its own death:
“Alert. Containment breach detected. Levels four through nine. Alert.”
She did not know how long she remained in place.
In honesty, she did not care.
And then she felt a hand on her back, forcing her to turn.
Veradin. He shouted down at her, struggling to be heard over the sounds of the ghost station’s imminent demise. Overhead the automated voice gave evac instructions to EEVs that in all likelihood no longer existed.
He tugged her to her feet.
“Ty! Let’s go!”
She looked up into his reddened face. The cords standing out in his neck. The fear and worry etched there. Stupidly, she could only stare.
He pulled and she took plodding steps to go with him. He was leading her to a docking bay. More shouting. She tumbled in a vicious current of noise, jostled by panicked figures.
Veradin looked over his shoulder at her. She watched his mouth move. The words fell over her ears, disconnected from all meaning.
Sela blinked at him.
He stopped, hand
out in a sudden furious arc. A stinging pain along her jaw, the same side where Valen’s strike had landed. And the world popped back into place with glaring clarity.
“—have to move, soldier! Now!”
She jerked her arm from his grip and took in her surroundings. The crush of bodies had clotted around them. This was the intersection that led to the docking bay where the Cassandra was berthed.
But no one was moving.
Over the crowd of heads and shoulders, Sela saw why. The bulkhead doors in this section were set to shut on a diagonal track. However, they were wedged open with a makeshift barricade of furniture and pieces of the station itself. There was room for a bipedal being to squeeze through, but none dared.
She watched as a thick-bodied Trelgin was jostled forward by the crowd. He stumbled into the open hatchway. As he floundered to his feet, a plasma round from the corridor beyond disintegrated his head into charred ruin.
Two brutish looking Onari armed with ancient-looking A2 plasma rifles took this as an invitation to return fire. They lunged into the open, firing in the direction of the rounds that took out the Trelgin. The A2s were formidable weapons, capable of burning through most standard field armor, but in the unskilled hands of these two they were virtually useless. The Onari’s efforts were uncoordinated and sloppy. Sela doubted they had hit anything worthwhile.
An answering volley of rounds struck the wall above the heads of the two would-be champions and they cowered further behind their barricade.
“Alert. Alert. Catastrophic breach imminent. Evacuate now. Alert. Alert.”
“This just gets better and better,” Sela muttered, pushing her way forward. The closer she came to the line of fire, the less resistance she encountered from the crowd. No one, it seemed was eager to end up like the Trelgin.
Ducking low, she approached the far right side of the barricade, keeping the bulk of its wall between her body and the corridor. She sensed Jon mimic her movements.
“What are you doing? Stay back,” she hissed.
“You say that like you expect me to listen.”
Sela shot him a glance. Another volley of plasma rounds struck the wall a foot above their heads. In response they flattened against the deck behind the barricade.
Allies and Enemies: Fallen Page 19