Chain Reaction

by Zoë Archer

“You have a value of exactly nothing,” Nils snarled.

  “And this device is only scrap.” She turned her blasters on the disruptor. Plasma fire flared. Moments later, all that remained was a smoldering heap of twisted metal. Even the most skilled engineer would find nothing of use, and consign the lot of it to the recycling mechanism.

  Dazed as he was, with blood running in a bright stream down his face, Marek managed to rattle out a laugh. “Underestimation is a dangerous game, Calder. I underestimated you, but you’ve fallen victim to the same peril.”

  “The hells are you talking about?” Nils pressed the muzzle of the shotgun into Marek’s throat.

  Marek choked out another laugh. “The plans have been already been uploaded to PRAXIS. Within a solar week, there won’t be any more 8th Wing.”

  Celene cursed, but he was thoughtful. “No,” he said after a moment. “I know you, Marek. You wouldn’t risk broadcasting the plans, possibly giving away your position to other interested parties. That’s why you had PRAXIS come here directly.”

  The traitor’s face paled, but he continued glare defiantly.

  “Which means the plans are physical. It was an actual handoff.” She glanced at Nils. “We can still stop PRAXIS.”

  “Beautifully deduced,” Marek sneered. “But it doesn’t matter. You’re too late. If my timing is accurate, I believe the PRAXIS officer will be taking off…” The compound shook with the sound of the clipper’s thrusters. “…Now.”

  Both Celene and Nils cursed. She glanced down at Marek. “You hold him. I’ll go after PRAXIS.”

  “How will you do that? Flap your arms?” Marek snorted. “My assumption is that you stowed your ship somewhere distant. And you can’t fly my ship. I installed similar technology to the Black Wraith. The only one who can fly my ship is me.”

  Nils dug the shotgun muzzle harder into Marek’s throat, causing the traitor to gag. “Then get up and start flying.”

  But hatred burned like a fever in Marek’s eyes, even when his life was threatened. “I’m dead anyway. If I were you, I wouldn’t trust me not to send the ship crashing into the planet’s surface.”

  He suddenly remembered something. “I have the remote for the holographic projector in my pack,” he said to Celene. “Use it to buy some time. But you’ll have to do it from outside. These walls are likely lined with ferrium, which will disrupt the remote’s signal.”

  She found the remote, then hurried to the door. Before she left, she sent Nils one last look, laden with meaning. Then she slipped out the doorway, and he heard the echo of her boots ringing as she ran down the corridor.

  Another wet laugh tumbled from Marek, drawing Nils’s attention back.

  “My, Calder, you are simply brimming with surprises today. Going on an actual mission, some rather competent hand-to-hand combat and now fucking Stainless Jur? I’ve often wondered what it would be like to fuck a legend. Tell me, is her pussy as cold as eisium? Or is she hot as triple fission? Burn your cock right off. But it’s worth it, correct?”

  He was being baited, yet he couldn’t shut off the primitive part of him that boiled in rage. No one should talk about Celene like that.

  He hauled Marek up and slammed his fist into Marek’s face. The traitor grunted, blood squirting from his nose. Marek stumbled backward against a cluttered workbench. He found a small device buried in a heap of components, and pressed a button. Shrill noise filled the chamber, digging into Nils’s head, racking him with excruciating pain.

  Marek seemed unaffected by the sound. With surprising agility for one so bulky, the traitor scrambled toward the hatch in the in chamber’s farthest wall. Nils fired the shotgun, blasting into equipment, his aim erratic from the pain. The hatch slid open, and Marek disappeared through it.

  Nils used the butt of the shotgun to crush the device Marek had triggered. The shrill sound abruptly stopped. Straightening, he took off in pursuit. He had to capture the traitor, and prayed that Celene could stop PRAXIS in time. Failure meant disaster.

  Celene sped through the maze of corridors, cursing Marek’s decision to structure this building like a labyrinth. But her sense of direction kept her on the right path, and she soon found herself outside. The two robot sentries appeared to have destroyed each other.

  Looking up, she saw the PRAXIS clipper rising higher. Within moments it would reach enough altitude to hit full speed and flee with the disruptor plans.

  Absolutely cannot happen.

  She hit the remote for the holographic projector. She hoped it worked.

  She gaped as what appeared to be two Black Wraith ships broke through the cloud cover. They didn’t look like projections at all. Her vision was excellent. Yet even she couldn’t tell the difference between the real PRAXIS ship and the unreal Wraiths. Nils had also explained that the projections carried enough energy signature to confuse most ships’ sensors—for a short amount of time. But even a few minutes would be enough.

  The Wraiths headed straight for the PRAXIS clipper. Thinking that it was being pursued, the clipper broke into evasive maneuvers. The Wraiths kept herding the clipper closer to the planet’s surface, preventing the enemy ship from breaking toward open space.

  She had to act now, while PRAXIS was distracted. She activated the homing signal for the Phantom, and set it to autopilot. Somewhere, deep in the jungle, the small ship came to life, and would be heading for her location. Hopefully, it would arrive in time.

  An engine’s distant thrum caught her attention. She exhaled in relief when she caught sight of the Phantom on the horizon. Flying at top speed, it could cover a whole day’s trek in a matter of seconds. The ship circled the compound once, then descended onto the landing pad. She ran for the Phantom.

  Once inside, she flung herself into the cockpit. Feeling the controls in her hands brought a sense of calm. Hand-to-hand combat presented little difficulty, but here was where she belonged. It wasn’t her Wraith, but if it had wings, she felt at home. She took off at once.

  And just in time. The PRAXIS ship fired on one of the projected Wraiths. The hit went straight through the image. Which meant that the deception had been detected. Thinking there was no real threat, the clipper spun away, heading toward deeper space.

  “Aren’t you going to ask me to dance?” She pushed the Phantom into pursuit, right on PRAXIS’s tail. As she rocketed up, she caught sight of two small figures emerging onto the compound’s perimeter wall. A chill ran through her when she realized that they must be Nils and Marek. The traitor had gotten free somehow, and now Nils tailed him. They came together, struggling. Her fear ratcheted higher to see that they were on the part of the compound that rose above the churning ocean. If the fall didn’t kill them, the seething water or vicious creatures that lived within it surely would.

  An awful decision. Did she bring the Phantom around to help Nils? Or continue her pursuit of PRAXIS?

  Gods take her to the Ten Hells. She had a duty to perform. If PRAXIS escaped with the plans for the disruptor, then thousands, possibly millions of lives could be lost.

  “I’m sorry, Nils,” she whispered, keeping the Phantom in its ascent. Her eyes burned, but she ignored them, and the pain that had nothing to do with the injuries she had sustained. She had been wounded before, yet no plasma blast could ever hurt as much as leaving him behind.

  Nils pursued Marek through a series of narrow metal tunnels. He had to bend over nearly double to fit in them, making speed difficult, but Marek wasn’t being careful. The traitor charged through the tunnels loudly, the sound of his boots loud and easy to follow. Holding the shotgun, Nils kept up his chase.

  The tunnels snaked around, until Nils found himself spat out onto the perimeter wall. The bright daylight momentarily blinded him after the darkness of the tunnels. Marek had deactivated the plasma wire, and he now sped away from Nils, though his gait remained unsteady after the beating Nils had dispensed.

  Nils sped after him. He forced himself not to look to his right. The compound was situated atop a
high cliff that plunged into the sea. If he were to lose his balance, he’d fall of hundreds of meters. And if he did manage to survive that tumble, jagged rocks speared up from the sea, canceling out any possibility of a water landing. Heights didn’t bother him, but these heights proved to be the exception.

  Stay focused on Marek. Bring that bastard down.

  Sound overhead momentarily distracted him. Celene’s Phantom hunted the PRAXIS clipper.

  Nils had the advantage of longer legs and no head injuries, and he shot at Marek as he ran. The traitor managed to dodge the plasma fire. He bent low and pulled something from a notch in the wall. Nils ducked as blasts raced past him. Marek must have stashed weapons around the compound. This was his emergency escape route.

  Nils shot once more, and Marek staggered. Taking advantage of the stumble, Nils shortened the distance between them. But as he drew nearer, Marek fired again, hitting him in the hand. Nils’s grip loosened, and the shotgun fell from his hold. Without watching, he knew that the shotgun plummeted toward the water. It would look miniscule as it plunged down into the churning sea.

  The scent of singed flesh rose up. He sucked in a breath, pain radiating up into his arm and through his body.

  Yet he wasn’t entirely without weapons. His hand might be injured, but he could still form a fist, and his brain worked perfectly.

  He edged closer, then launched himself at Marek. They both went rolling across the top of the wall. Using his elbow, Nils rammed into Marek’s wrist, again and again, until the blaster Marek carried fell from his hand.

  Fear, anger and pain seemed to turn Marek from a stocky, pallid engineer into a maddened beast. He lashed out at Nils as they grappled, his thickset body filled with unnatural strength. Somehow, Marek dug his fingers into Nils’s shoulder. Nils’s arm suddenly went numb, and he couldn’t move it. Marek seized his advantage, and pined Nils down, pressing his forearm into Nils’s throat. Though Nils struggled, rage energized Marek, making it almost impossible to dislodge him. The world grew gray at the edges.

  “Fucking NerdWorks golden boy,” snarled Marek. Spittle gathered in the corners of his mouth, and his eyes bulged. “Kissing the 8th Wing’s ass. Being their little tame geelcat. I’m not dancing at their command. Everything is for me. Only me.”

  Nils bucked, throwing his knee into Marek’s back. Momentarily caught off guard, Marek’s hold on Nils’s neck lessened. Regaining the use of his arm, Nils shoved Marek back, then lodged his boot against the traitor’s chest. Taking hold of Marek’s arms, Nils threw him overhead.

  Nils rolled to his feet and up in time to see Marek go sprawling on the top of the wall. Momentum carried the heavier man, and he tumbled toward the edge. His fingers scrabbled to hold on, barely managing to catch himself. But he was too heavy, and while his fingers held, his body slid off. Marek dangled above the churning sea, legs flailing, mouth contorted in a scream.

  Calmly, he walked over to where Marek hung. He stared down at the traitor, watching as if from a great distance while Marek sweated and yelled, only a slip away from falling to his death.

  “Help me!” Marek shouted.

  “Why?” Nils asked evenly. He made sure to keep enough distance so that Marek could not grab his legs.

  “Because…” Marek struggled to think as his fingers began to slip. He whimpered. “Because you’re 8th Wing!”

  “Precisely. And because I am 8th Wing, I’m going to enjoy watching you fall.”

  “No! Help!” Marek’s grip loosened. And the traitor fell.

  The fall wasn’t a straight one, and Marek went bouncing against the side of the cliff several times with enough force to knock free debris. They went tumbling down with him, and both the traitor and the rubble smashed onto the sharp rocks at the base of the cliff. What remained of Marek then tumbled into the sea.

  Sudden dizziness swirled through Nils’s head. He took a step back from the edge. And then another. Drew air deep into his lungs. He had done it. Watched as Marek fell to his death.

  He had done it for the 8th Wing, for himself and for Celene. She’d never find herself helpless again.

  He stared down at his hands as if seeing them for the first time, realizing that he had finally become a soldier.

  Hoping for a glimpse of her, he turned his gaze toward the sky.

  Celene sped after the PRAXIS clipper, holding fast to its tail as they both shot out of the planet’s atmosphere. The clipper’s rear guns went into action, and she wove from side to side, dodging the gunfire. She fired back, but the enemy pilot was skilled and eluded her shots.

  She made sure not to get on the enemy’s outside, allowing him to turn. PRAXIS clippers could get a lot of speed, and the faster they went, the sharper their turns could be. She couldn’t allow the clipper to turn and get behind her, making her the target rather than the hunter.

  Problem was, the Phantom didn’t have the speed and maneuverability of a clipper. She clenched her teeth in frustration, wanting her Wraith but knowing she wasn’t going to get it.

  With a sharp turn, the clipper sped around her, until it was on her tail. Exactly where she didn’t want it to be.

  “Son of a vihond,” she spat.

  It didn’t matter how good she was at the controls. She was fettered by the mechanical limitations of her ship. She skittered from side to side, trying to keep the enemy from targeting directly. If the clipper locked onto her, she was finished.

  But combat piloting wasn’t always about the capabilities of one’s ship. Half of the battle was fought in the mind. She needed to be smarter, not faster. Once, when she had been bored during a long leave, she had read a text on a digitablet about ancient fighting techniques using long metal weapons called swords. Opponents weren’t always evenly matched, so it was up to the weaker opponent to outthink her adversary.

  Insight came to her at once, and she smiled grimly as she set her plan into motion. “Let’s see if you’re as stupid as you are ugly,” she muttered.

  She feinted to the right, a classic twist and roll straight from any pilot’s basic training. Such a maneuver would leave her completely open, an easy target to be taken down with a single countermaneuver and blast from the clipper’s plasma cannons.

  And, like a greedy bastard, the PRAXIS clipper took the bait. It sped after her.

  Only she didn’t actually perform the twist and roll. She pulled back on the throttle, going into a lateral hold.

  The clipper roared past her. Directly into her targeting system.

  She opened fire.

  The PRAXIS ship blew apart in a cascade of debris and energy. And with it went the plans for the disruptor. Now reduced to atoms and lost to the infinite reaches of space.

  Yet she didn’t allow herself a moment to savor her victory. She brought the Phantom around and sped back toward the planet. Back to Nils.

  If he was still alive, she hoped he could forgive her. And if he wasn’t alive, she would never forgive herself.

  Chapter Twelve

  Celene’s grip tightened on the controls as she neared the planet. She entered the planetary atmosphere and approached the coast where the compound was situated. Details came into focus as she flew lower—the individual treetops, the peaks of waves pounding against the shore. And there, the compound, with its walled perimeter. Her gaze moved quickly along the top of the wall, scanning for signs of Nils. Nothing.

  Her heart contracted sharply. She’d suffered losses of comrades in the past, seen some of her squad mates die right off her own wing, and mourned. The memories and absences never truly dissipated, remaining a low, constant ache. Yet it was a tolerable ache, more readily borne by the fact that this was war, and war meant death and loss.

  But if Nils had fallen… She knew she would survive. As a husk, empty of everything inside.

  She brought the Phantom around and lowered down to the landing pad. As the ship touched the ground, she saw a figure running toward her.

  Her throat closed, and her pulse stuttered. The figure wore
an 8th Wing uniform, and sped toward her with a long-legged stride. Nils.

  Fumbling with the buckle of her safety belt, she struggled to rise. The moment the buckle came undone, she slammed from the cockpit and out of the ship.

  Nils collided with her. She barely had time to notice how bruised and dirty he was, the fatigue sharpening his features. All she saw was his face, the long lines of his body, and then they were embracing. Her arms wrapped around him, and he held her just as tightly, cradling her head with one hand, stroking the length of her body with the other as if to confirm that she was real.

  One of them shook. Or maybe they both did. She didn’t know. She did know that relief poured through her so hot and furious she felt almost ill with it.

  Eventually they managed to separate. Only a few inches. Grime streaked Nils’s face and she gently rubbed at it, then decided to leave it be. He looked like a fighter, the furthest thing from a NerdWorks recluse who never left the safety of Engineering, and emotion tore through her.

  For a moment, they simply stared at one another, until the savage tenderness in his gaze made her look away. In the heat of battle, she had turned her back on him, and it felt like an open wound.

  “Marek?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “There isn’t going to be a court-martial.”

  “Was it good and painful?”

  A dark pleasure lit his eyes. “Extremely.”

  8th Wing regulations demanded the lengthy justice process, but for once, she was happy to subvert it. If his disruptor had made it into PRAXIS’s hands, Marek would have wiped out the 8th Wing in a slow, ugly death. She wanted him to suffer. That might go against principles, yet she didn’t care. Let Marek hurt, then rot. He deserved it, and worse.

  “PRAXIS?” Nils asked. “The disruptor plans?”

  “Cosmic dust.”

  A grin spread across his mouth. “Never expected anything less.” His gaze heated, and he lowered his head for a kiss.

  Much as she wanted that kiss, she pulled away. He stared at her with a puzzled frown as she paced away to the edge of the landing pad. Strange, she’d once faced seven PRAXIS ships without a molecule of real fear, but what she had to tell Nils made her heart pound and her mouth go dry.