“Five kilos,” he said.
“You have thirty-two kilograms between all three of your ships,” Eve corrected, and the man’s face paled.
“Who--” he started to say, but the dark-haired woman interrupted him.
“Who hired you to kidnap us?” she asked.
“You might as well just kill me,” the man sighed, and I saw his eyes stray to his rifle. His large pistol was still on his hip, but I doubted that either of his injured arms would be strong or fast enough to pull it.
“Hmmm,” Eve said, and then she turned to me. “He met with a woman who gave him the job. She paid him thirty thousand kilograms to come here and then another thirty to deliver you and me alive. If they bring Persephone, it would be an extra thirty, but he planned on keeping her.”
“How the fuck do you know that?” the man’s mouth hung open.
“What does this woman look like?” I asked as I tried to recall any female enemies I had. It was probably someone hired to hire someone else to do the job.
“His left eye is cybernetic,” Eve said as she pointed at Warren. “He took a video recording of the meeting.”
“I’ll give you the recording, and the thirty thousand kilos of rhodium if you’ll let me go.”
“He’s planning on betraying us as soon as we let him go. He still thinks he can capture us.”
“No! I’m true to my word,” Warren said. “I’m the leader of the Black Hearts, and we--”
“Your brother is the real power behind the organization,” Eve corrected.
“Fucking bitch!” He spat, but Eve stepped to the side, and the glob of phlegm missed her.
My boot didn’t miss though. It slammed into his face, broke something there, and threw him back three meters and into the wall.
“Where is the data stored?” I asked, but the man wasn’t moving.
“You killed him,” Eve said with a half smile.
“Ahh, shit,” I growled. “Sorry.”
“I doubt there was much more.” Eve shrugged. “The video of the woman is stored in his left eye.”
“I will get it,” Madalena said as she pulled a knife from her belt and walked toward the man’s corpse.
“Uhh, I hate to remind you all about this, but those fuckers are about to blow the door.” Zea’s voice sounded urgent. “Also, I’m hoping we can get that thirty thousand. Momma needs a new computer and maybe a purse.”
A loud explosion sounded in the distance, and the walls of the jail vibrated.
“Butttttttttt, I’ll settle for us all getting back to Persephone safe,” Zea said. “They are coming through the door. They’ll blow the last one in a few minutes.”
“I just docked, and I’m opening the hatch so the drones can exit!” Nikki’s voice was more than welcome, but I feared she was too late.
“Kasta and I are coming!” Paula shouted.
“Let’s get these cops out of their cells,” I said to Eve, and I walked over to the cell that held Juliette. The keypad on the outside had three buttons for each of the walls, and I flipped them off at the same time.
My friend sat on her knees in the corner of the cell. There was a sack over her head, and her hands were cuffed behind her back. I pulled the sack off and saw that she had another blindfold on, as well as a gag and earphones. I pulled off her ear covers, untied the gag from her, and then pulled off her eye mask.
“Well, shit,” Juliette said as soon as she saw me. Her right eye was swollen shut, and blood ran down her chin from a cut on her lip, but she managed a wide smile. “What the hell took you so long?”
Chapter 7
“We’ve got a shitload of mercenaries at the door, and we just killed their leader,” I explained as I helped her stand. The sight of her black eye and split lip made my breath come out in ragged gasps as the tiger began to rage, but I’d already kicked the face in of the man who had hurt her.
“Okay, but why’d you take so long to rescue me?” she asked again.
“Are you serious?” Zea asked through our transponder.
“Ha! Blondie!” Juliette laughed. “Glad I can still piss you off.”
“Do you know where the keys to these cuffffsssss arrrrre?” I asked Juliette as I turned her around so I could look at her wrists.
“Warren left them up in one of the offices,” Eve said. “I’ll open the other cells.
“Hey, Eve!” Juliette yelled over her shoulder.
“Hi, Juliette,” Eve said. “I am glad you are okay.”
“Me, too.”
“I’ll get these,” I said as I reached down to Juliette’s handcuffs. I grabbed one of the rings with each hand and then pulled them apart while a growl of effort escaped my mouth. The metal links in the middle bent slowly, and then they snapped open.
“Damn,” the redhead said as she spun around to look at her arms. She still had the cuffs on each wrist, but the chain wasn’t joining them together anymore. “That’s really damn hot. I’ll have to use two or three when I handcuff you to the bedposts tonight.”
“Uhhh. Are you really going to--” Zea started to say, but Juliette interrupted her.
“Kitty Boy deserves a reward,” Juliette said.
“We have to get ouuuut of here first,” I growled as I pulled my shotgun around off the strap on my back. “Search the bodies for a weapon.”
“I’d prefer your big gun,” Juliette smirked at me.
“Oh, my fucking-- can you just--” Zea started to say, but I interrupted.
“Get a weapon.”
“Yes, sir,” Juliette said, and then she turned to look at Madalena. Then she looked at me, then back to Madalena, and then me. “Who’s the babe with the bloody knife and the eyeball?”
“I am Madalena Vaish, Queen of the Vaish Blood Overlord Clan. Prime Valkyrie of the Nordar people, and wife of Adam.” Madalena’s armor had dripped away from her face while I was taking care of Juliette, and the brunette’s eyes stared at Juliette with a distinct lack of warmth.
“I missed everything but ‘Madalena’ and ‘wife of Adam,’” Juliette said as she raised an eyebrow at me.
“Get a gun,” I replied. “We have fuckers to kiiiiiill.”
“I understand that.” Juliette sidestepped Madalena and ran over to Warren’s bloody body.
I have freed the rest of the police officers.
Eve’s voice came through my head, and I looked out of Juliette’s cell to see some of the men stripping the mercenaries for weapons.
“Zea, how are we looking outside this door?” I asked as I stepped into the hallway.
“They are planting explosives on it,” she replied. “They don’t know that you’ve freed everyone, but they have to know you’ve killed Warren.”
“Their orders are to return with Adam and me,” Eve said. “They believe they have enough men to complete the mission still since there are more coming from across Queen’s Hat.”
“Juliette, did you hear that?” I asked the redhead.
“Yep,” she said as she strapped Warren’s belt around her narrow waist. The big black revolver looked sexy on her hip, and then she barked for everyone to stand at attention.
“Grab a gun, get in the cells, and aim at that door. If you don’t have a gun, stand in the back, if you do, stand near the front. When the door blows, shoot. Get it?”
The gathered officers nodded at her commands, but most of them were still staring at me with surprise.
“Yeah, he’s a fucking walking tiger. You assholes need to worry about the door, or you are going to have to worry about my boot up your ass!” Juliette screamed, and the cops all turned to follow her orders.
“They are moving away from the door!” Zea warned, and we all retreated back into the side cells so we wouldn’t get hit with an explosive blast.
The door blew, and Zea shouted something through our transponders that I couldn’t hear over the sound of gunfire. A moment later, I understood what she had tried to warn us about when a pair of grenades bounced through the open door.
The cops in front dove back as far away as they could, but before the explosions could activate, the two metal spheres were flung back out the door and bounced back into the hallway where the mercenaries were taking cover.
The twin explosions sounded at almost the same time and a blast of flame, shrapnel, and dust blew through the adjacent hallway. Smoke filled the jail area where we were, and Juliette’s cops let out a collective sigh of relief.
“How did they bounce back?” one of the men near the front asked.
“Who the fuck knows, but they did, and I’m glad,” a woman on the other side of the cells shouted in return.
“On me!” Juliette yelled as she sprinted to the door. Eve, Madalena, and I followed the policewoman, and the cops who grabbed weapons came behind us.
Juliette leaned around the blown door with her revolver out, but she nodded back at me, and I sprung out around her. The pair of grenades had dented the metal sidewalls of the hallway, and most of the armored mercenaries were in bloody pieces. I saw one of the men struggling to get to his feet. Blood leaked out of his helmet and the joints of his armor, and I debated capturing him so that Eve could try to dig for more info. Juliette had other ideas though, and a bullet from her revolver smashed through the eye socket of his helmet.
“Hey, this hunk of metal shoots pretty damn good,” Juliette said as I turned to her. The barrel was smoking like a forest fire, and she smiled down at it with appreciation.
“Let’s find more fuckers to kill,” I said as I took point position and moved down toward the stairwell.
“You’ve got a group up top,” Zea said. “Uhhh. They have grenades and shit. Maybe you should just stay there.
“I thought they were trying to capture Adam and Eve?” Paula asked through the transponder.
“I’m just saying what I see!” Zea groaned. “I don’t know how these fuckers think.”
“Where are the drones?” I whispered into the transponder as I reached the next blown door. This was right at the base of the stairwell, and I could hear the mercenaries up top moving around.
“We are out of the harbor,” Kasta said. “First drone should be at your location in ninety seconds.”
“You taking the spider drone?” I asked, and I motioned for Madalena to come stand next to me.
“I’m taking Kay and the spider drone,” Kasta said. “I can pilot them both here and then I’ll give Zea the knight while I work the spider.”
“I’m taking the other knight,” Paula said. “They just move slower than the spider.”
“Got it,” I whispered to them as I motioned for Juliette and the rest of the cops to step back down the corridor away from the stairwell.
“Uhhh. Adam?” Zea asked.
“What?” I hissed as quietly as I could as Madalena, Eve, and I crept toward the bottom of the stairwell.
“Did you forget that I said there were grenades? You know, the explosive shit with the shrapnel and the fire and the dying?”
“Can you throw back another setttt of grenades?” I whispered to Eve.
“Yes, but they are debating using gas grenades, even if I throw them up, the area will fill with fumes. We no longer have doors to close, so we’ll breathe it.”
“Shit,” I said. “We can’t waaaaait for the drones.”
“No,” Eve replied with a frown, but I felt Madalena’s excitement. She just wanted to blast up there on her purple wings and slaughter all of them.
The monster in my soul loved that plan.
“Howwwww many?” I wanted to know what we were up against before I planned on an assault up the stairs.
“I count eighteen,” Zea said.
“Yes.” Eve nodded.
“Don’t be dumb,” Zea said. “Just wait. You are at the bottom of the stairs, they can just hose you.”
“They are getting ready to drop the grenades,” Eve said, and I turned to Madalena.
The Prime Valkyrie nodded as the metal began to drip and spread across her face. As soon as her banshee helmet was in place, I let out a sharp growl, and we both sprinted the rest of the way down the hallway.
Madalena’s thrusters gave her a bit of a lead, but that was fine. I didn’t have a helmet on, and a shot from above would end me. As soon as she reached the stairwell, she jumped up through the center, and a stream of bullets came raining down on her.
One of the shooters from the top of the stairwell hit me in the shoulder as I sprinted behind Madalena, but the bullet didn’t punch through my armor. Another bullet hit me in the upper back as I reached the first set of stairs, and the force of it almost knocked me to my knees. I figured it must have been a shotgun slug because of the kinetic energy, but it didn’t feel as if it penetrated my armor.
Men screamed up above, and I sprinted up the levels while I tried to count the seconds Madalena’s rifle fired. By the time I reached the top floor, the eighteen mercenaries were dead, and Madalena was leaning out around the corner so she could keep her rifle focused on the main hallway.
“Wow,” Zea said, and I guessed she was talking about Madalena’s exhibition of battle prowess. “I’m uhhh. Well. Shit. Okay. There are two more groups in the station. One that just entered the lobby and one in the main cross hallway as you try to get out. They are planning on pinching you in there. The group on the right, in the adjacent hallway, has set up some barriers for cover.”
“There are also more mercenaries heading toward the station from the train,” Kasta said.
“Howwww many?” I growled.
“Hmmm,” Kasta said, and then I heard the terrifying whirl of the spider drone’s gatling gun. A fraction of a moment later our transponders echoed a chorus of bullets, and I had a flashback of the time Eve and I escaped from Elaka Nota’s building.
“There are now zero mercenaries heading toward the station from the train,” Kasta snorted.
“Thanks,” I said. “Eve, can you come up? Bring Juliette and one other who is her best shot.”
“I will,” Eve replied.
“I can remove the rest of the mercenaries from this building, you do not need Eve or Juliette,” Madalena whispered to me through her helmet.
“I’mmm sure you could,” I said but my eyes focused on her shoulder armor and I raised a finger to point at the blood trickling down from a seam there.
“One of them was using armor piercing rounds,” she explained. “I am fine.”
“We’ll wait for everyone else,” I said. I didn’t feel any pain coming from her, but the sight of her injury reminded me that neither of us were immortal. I’d just ordered her to charge headfirst into eighteen mercenaries. Madalena could have been killed.
I didn’t want to lose her.
“You and I can kill the rest,” she said calmly. “I can feel your hunger for their blood, and your hunger for me. Let us deal with them together.”
She was right, I wanted to charge down the hallway and kill the mercenaries who tried to capture Eve and me. I wanted to destroy the group who had beaten Juliette and threatened my other friends. I wanted to crush every single last one of them slowly so that I could commit their screams to my memory.
The blood dripping down Madalena’s shoulder drew my attention though, and I managed to curb my lust for violence until Eve, Juliette, and a bearded man with a rifle made it up the stairs.
“Madalena and I will push forward,” I explained. “There is a group to the right and a group at the end by the main lobby. Eve, I need you to--”
My words were cut off by a distant sound of chaingun fire. It sounded far away, but the bullets lasted for ten agonizing seconds.
“Kasta?” I asked as soon as the sound had stopped.
“Their aerial drones were bugging me,” she answered. “They aren’t anymore. This thing is a blast!”
“Careful. We don’t want to hurt any civilians.” Juliette leaned into my armor so the android could hear her clearly.
“Relax, I’m shooting into the air.”
“Bullets come down!” Julie
tte yelled.
“Oh no,” Kasta said with a chuckle. “These rounds are super spicy. They are going to smack into the bulkhead of the station, lose all their energy, and then rain down. It won’t hurt anyone.”
“That’s worse! You can’t shoot at the bulkhead! We’ll lose pressure!”
“Oh. I suppose that would be bad,” Kasta mused. “For you all, I’d be fine since I don’t need air.”
“Kasta!” Paula shouted through the transponders.
“I’m joking! I’ll watch where I shoot. Speaking of that, I’m able to fire into the station’s lobby right now.”
“Wait, don’t--” Juliette started to say, but I heard the familiar whine of the spider drone’s massive gun.
“Get down!” I shouted as I pushed Eve and Juliette to the floor. Juliette wasn’t armored, so I tried to shield her body and Eve’s exposed head with my much larger form.
Madalena dove to the ground next to me and the bearded man sprinted back down the stairs. A sound like a chainsaw cutting through rebar filled my ears, and I saw Juliette’s mouth open to scream as the hallway filled with dust.
“Okay! I think I got them all,” Kasta said after the guns fired for half a dozen seconds. “Let me check the cameras.”
“Did you just shoot into my station?” Juliette asked with disbelief.
“Yep! I killed them all.” Kasta sounded incredibly pleased with herself.
“You just fired a chaingun into my station,” Juliette looked down the hallway, and I turned to follow her eyes. Hundreds, or maybe even thousands of bullet holes filled the walls and ceiling of the corridor. There was practically more empty space than there was a wall.
“No need to thank me,” Kasta said. “I’m here to help. Oh! More mercenaries are coming here. Whoops! They are turning to run. I’m gonna go give them a bullet spanking.”
“She just fired a chaingun into my station,” Juliette repeated, and a light fixture fell from the ruined ceiling and shattered into pieces when it smacked into the tile floor.
“We are alive though,” Eve said as she laid her hand on Juliette’s arm.
“Juliette, get your men up here. There are still morrrre of these mercenaries in Queen’s Hat. We neeeeeed to find them, kill them, and then take their shippppssss.” My words were mostly growls now, but Juliette seemed to understand what I wanted.
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