by Larkin, Matt
“Huh. Yup, yup. I guess I’m more alien than these flowers.”
“You?”
She quirked a smile. “I’m a Cold-worlder. I might be human, but I’m not exactly the kind of human who first came from this place.”
“Neither am I.” Neither was practically anyone still alive. Norms were only one of the eleven Races.
Sweat streamed off her face and she mopped her brow with her arm. “Knight. You’re not the kind of person from anywhere.”
What the void did that mean? Was she referring to his unusual reflexes, or was that some kind of insult? He was never going to understand this woman.
Maybe it was a waste of time to try.
And yet, some misguided part of him truly wanted her, wanted all the crew on the Ark, he supposed, to like him. Why in the holy universe he should care about any of them, other than Rachel, was beyond him. Still, here he was, wondering what the Icie thought about him. He’d gone off rotation.
“Phoebe … Sorry, if I said the wrong things back on Ekron.”
She turned to face him, her eyebrows raised. “If you said the wrong things?” She stared at him, open-mouthed for a moment. “Angels above, you’re serious.” She folded her arms across her chest and stepped closer to him, looking him right in the eye. “Okay, then. Yes. You said the wrong thing. Repeatedly. In great variety and with such flair I almost admire your ability. In fact, I’ve rarely ever seen someone with that degree of skill at verbal missteps. I can only imagine your training in ninja school involved long hours of complex meditation on putting your foot in your mouth. Probably numerous positions to achieve the end result.”
He folded his arms, mimicking her. “Putting my foot … What does that even mean?”
“It means … It means …” She threw up her hands and started walking away. “It means this planet is too Angels-damned hot and we should just find the signal and get out of here. The heat may not bother you, but I’m dripping sweat.”
“You look good sweaty.”
She paused for one second, started to turn to him, then stopped and kept walking.
Knight watched her ass. She was pretty damn …
A man stepped out from behind a building. He jabbed Phoebe in the ribs with a long staff and she stumbled backward. She went for her pulse pistol. The man knocked it out of her hand with his staff.
Knight flung a throwing knife into the attacker’s face. More men and women streamed from around the buildings. Each had a fighting staff that extended with a twist.
He’d seen these things before. The Lazarus Group–the people who had found the Sefer on Gehenna—had fought with this kind of weapon. What the void were these people doing here? How had they found Eden, and why hadn’t Rachel detected them?
A man charged him, swinging his staff. Knight twisted out of the way and broke the attacker’s nose.
He jumped onto a ledge and ran along it, then leapt off, kicking another Lazarus grunt in the face. Knight landed in a crouch.
Two men had engaged Phoebe, but she was holding her own.
More charged him. They were everywhere. The signal must have been a plant. An ambush, probably designed to lure Rachel right into their grasp. They’d want the Ark back from her.
Instead they’d gotten him.
Poor bastards.
Knight flipped into the air and pulled knives from his thigh sheaths. He flung a pair of them. One took a man in the throat. The other hit a woman in the shoulder.
A redheaded woman swung her staff at his head. He ducked, stepped behind her, and landed a tight hook to her kidney. The woman dropped like a rock. Another man jabbed at him. They were working together, focusing on him.
They sent just enough men to distract Phoebe, while two dozen of the fools chased after him. Knight flipped over another one and kicked him in the back. Even with his speed, he was spending almost all his time dodging the numerous staff strikes.
They knew to focus on him.
They must have known who he was.
He caught one man in the ribs with a knife-hand strike and stepped behind him, keeping the doubled-over foe between him and the others.
“Jordan to Knight! We’ve been boarded! Knight. come in—”
Rachel. What the void? He tapped his comm. “Rach—”
A staff struck him on the side of the head. There was a moment of shock, blinding pain.
It was in his head. Pain was in the mind. That was all.
He was lying on the ground. Fight through it.
“Phoebe … Run! Go!”
He pushed himself up. Another staff took him in the ribs. Broken. His every breath hurt.
But he knew that pain, too. He’d been taught to keep fighting despite it.
He jabbed a knife into an attacker’s eye and bore the man down, then jerked his arm out, flinging the knife into another goon’s face.
Knight rose slowly, clutching his ribs. The world was spinning too quickly. His vision was blurry.
“Phoebe, they’re in danger!”
He could see her, hesitating on the edge of the ruins. Waiting for him.
“Go, damn you! Save them!”
She couldn’t help him. There were too many, too well prepared for this. He’d been a fool. He’d let himself get distracted. He’d been so worried about what she thought about him, about what any of them thought. And he’d let these fools sneak up on him. Small consolation the poor little shits got him instead of Rachel.
Knight grit his teeth. He crushed a man’s throat and broke another’s arm. He swept one’s feet. The motion made the ground spin, and Knight lost his balance, tumbling down.
A woman lunged with a staff. Knight tried to fend it off, keep it from his head. Instead the staff broke his arm. A lance of lightning shot along his forearm where he felt the bone crack. He roared, trying to get a hold on the pain.
Angels above, he missed his kyoketsu. And his sword.
Another staff cracked him across the face.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT
Am I certain about the Angels? No. The point is, I am willing to ask the questions. And that is all I want for humanity—that they be willing to start investigating the truth. That they not blindly believe whatever they are told, simply because they have faith in the speaker. We trust our elders, and they trust their elders, and so forth, back through the ages. But if we do not examine the truth for ourselves, draw our own conclusions, this is blind faith.
God only knew what was wrong with Rachel. He’d hoped the residual fear on Eden would flush out as soon as they left. She’d be fine. She had to be.
David ushered her down another hallway, into the lab Leah had turned into the med bay. For that matter, David had no idea where Leah was, either. He prayed she lived, but she hadn’t answered any attempt to contact her. For the moment, he was going to assume the lass was captured, but alive. If these QI buggers had hurt her, he’d fry them.
Rachel kept mumbling about people crawling inside her, invaders. She’d gotten too damn attached to this Ark, that was it. He’d seen it coming and had done nothing. Which made him twice the fool for it.
He grabbed her face between his hands. “Listen to me, lass. Can you hear me?”
She nodded, her eyes clear for a moment.
“Good lass. Now we have to take the bridge, right? From there you can use the command chair and maybe we can drive the buggers off.”
She nodded again, then brushed her hair from her face. “I think … I think … They can’t use the chair because the Ark is bonded to me. They’re … I can feel them trying to find a way to hack in. To gain control of me.” She shook herself. “Of the Ark, I mean.”
For a second, David wondered if severing the Ark’s connection to Rachel wouldn’t be best for all concerned. Seeing her like this, losing herself, was like being eaten alive. Like watching a part of himself rotting and knowing no way to stop the process.
He held her face tighter, then kissed her forehead. “Please, Rach. I need you to focus for me,
all right? Can you tell me another way to get to the bridge?”
She blinked, then threw her arms around his neck. “Don’t let them take the Ark, Mac!”
Oh, shite.
He wasn’t sure he could stop QI by himself, but he supposed he had to try. “All right, lass. All right. There has to be a commander here running the show. If we can take him down it might give us a chance to regain control.”
Rachel nodded. “There’s the lift. They probably don’t know about it.”
“Good.” He pressed a MAG into her hands. Normally he’d never even consider arming a civilian, much less one in such a state. But that gun might be the only thing that would keep her alive. He couldn’t well leave her here. For all he knew, QI would kill her to sever her connection to the Ark. “Are you with me, Rach? Can you use this?”
She nodded again, and stood straighter.
Angels preserve them. The smart thing to do here was surrender, but he had no way of knowing if they’d spare Rachel if he did that. And he wouldn’t let them harm her. He’d die to protect her if he had to.
“You stay behind me,” he said. “Just guide me toward the lift.”
She put a hand on his shoulder and did as he asked, nudging him forward. Bloody thing was nigh invisible, it merged so seamlessly with the floor. Rachel cupped her hands, and the lift disc detached from the floor and began to carry them upward.
The Ark jolted.
Rachel screamed and fell to her knees.
In an instant he knelt beside her, hand on her back. “What happened, lass?”
“They’re shooting at me!”
“Who is?”
“I … I … Jericho Corp. Jericho cruisers are firing on us and the QI ship.”
She could feel what was happening outside the ship. She wasn’t even in the bloody chair and she could feel what the ship sensed. David had no idea what to do about that.
And Jericho? Had QI brought the whole bloody Conglomerate with them? Did everyone know where to find Eden, now? What had they unleashed by coming here?
The ship jerked again and Rachel recoiled, almost stumbling off the lift. David grabbed her and pulled her into his arms.
“I can’t raise the kinetic shields without the chair.” She was damn near sobbing.
“It’s all right—”
“No! They’re shooting at me! Missiles and MAG rounds and they’re sending boarding pods. Tiny, tiny ants crawling on me, trying to get inside! They’re everywhere—”
David shook her by the shoulders as the lift settled into place. “Look at me, Rach! Look into my eyes. It will be all right.” He was not going to lose her to this. He couldn’t say where he’d gone wrong. They never should have uncovered this Ark. Maybe the Redeemers had been right all along. Maybe mankind was not meant for such things. “This attack gives me the distraction I need to take the bridge, right? We’ll take the bridge, then you can raise the shields.”
Her breaths came so fast he feared she’d hyperventilate. But she nodded, clutching her MAG in a death grip.
Bloody void.
He rose, activated his helmet, then peeked around the corner. A pair of QI guards watched the bridge door. They spotted him instantly and unleashed a torrent of MAG rounds. His suit would absorb the impact of such rounds, but eventually they’d wear through it, especially if the kinetic shields gave out.
David rolled around the corner and came up firing. A pulse took one QI officer in the chest, scorching his armor. He fell, even as David shot the next man.
“Rachel!”
She scurried down the hall behind him.
Now or never.
He buzzed the bridge door and rushed through, gun out. Almost immediately MAG rounds clanked off his armor. The HUD in his helmet displayed his shielding gauge, nearly bled dry. He ran forward, elbowing one QI guard while firing a burst of pulses into the commander. The unfortunate man flew backward through the air and impacted the bridge screen—or the wall that could become a screen when Rachel wanted.
David spun and shot another guard.
MAG rounds rushed around the room. Rachel had emptied a full burst into another guard. QI armor was good, but not as good as a Sentinel suit. The woman Rachel shot collapsed. One of the supersonic rounds had pierced her suit. Probably sent her organs into hydrostatic shock.
David slapped magnetic restraints on the man he’d elbowed.
Rachel slipped into the chair. A moment later she reached into the air and flexed her hand, and the lighting changed. “I’ve sealed the bridge.”
It was a start.
But they still had to find Leah.
And Knight and Phoebe were still down on that planet.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE
Asherah has abandoned any faith in the old ways, and they are called villains by the Sentinels. They are called khapiru by the Redeemers. Children and grown men shiver at the thought of Asherans at their doorstep. I begin to wonder how much of this is justified.
Only a single light lit the room, and it stung Knight’s eyes the moment he opened them. He was strapped to a table, fixed at an incline against the wall, holding him not quite vertical. A band held his head in place. Others held his wrists and his legs.
A chill brushed over him, and he realized his coat and shirt had been removed. By the lack of pain in his ribs or arm or head, he guessed they’d healed those wounds. Actually, he did have a headache, but not the kind he should have after a blow to the head like that.
“Phoebe?”
A man in a gray lab coat stalked over to him, then shined a light directly into his eyes. Checking his pupils for brain damage?
Knight grimaced. “If you let me go right now, I won’t kill you.”
The man didn’t respond. Instead he walked over to a table or desk, just out of view. The room’s light was focused on his body, meaning the rest of it was in near darkness. The scientist returned and injected something into Knight’s neck.
“What the fuck? Where am I?”
“Your questions will be answered. In time.”
A sharp burning began at the site of the injection and spread through his veins. Every beat of his heart sent a torturous fire pounding through him. Knight grit his teeth, repeating his mantra. Pain is in the mind. Pain is in the mind.
They’d poisoned him.
Why bring him here just to poison him?
It stood to reason they didn’t plan to kill him with the poison. So the poison was intended merely to cause pain. They were torturing him. Which meant he knew something they wanted—or they thought he did.
Rachel.
It always came back to Rachel. They were trying to use him to get to her. Which was about as likely to happen as a sun freezing over.
“I’m going to kill every last one of you,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady against the pain burning in his chest. “You know that, right? I’m going to put a knife through your eye.”
His chest seized up and he couldn’t breathe. The light around him blurred. Until all he could see was white, hot light engulfing him. His eyes burned.
He saw himself as a young boy, when they first brought him to his cell. Gibborim in training were given a cube to sleep in. Three meters on a side, with a small drain in the floor for waste. A woman shoved him into the room, and he fell, scraping his knees.
How old was he? Three, maybe.
“This is your world now, Ezekiel,” the woman, Sarah Radison, said. “This will be your world until you can kill a man with your bare hands. Then your world will grow a bit larger.”
And it had. The first time he’d killed a man, they’d given him a cell four meters on a side. This one had a mat for sleeping on.
Someone squeezed the back of his neck, pressed a cold metal instrument against his wrist.
“His body is fighting off the virus. His immune system has adapted in remarkable time.”
Knight couldn’t see the speakers. His vision was too blurred.
“Test his responses to electrical sti
muli. If he really is … Well, he should be able to handle a great deal of pain without passing out.”
There were shapes in the room with him. A pair of men, maybe a third. His tongue was thick. “Enjoy this while you can, bitches,” he mumbled.
An electric jolt shot through him and his body convulsed. Another followed, and another. Every nerve in his body was on fire. It was like getting hit with a shock grenade. Repeatedly. He tried to scream, but his throat just seized.
Ten years later, Radison had become Alpha. The leader of the Gibborim. Knight was thirteen and he’d just assassinated an overweight businessman. He never knew what the man had done to deserve it. Maybe he’d spoken out against the Shadow Council. Maybe he’d just been a convenient target for Sarah to test her rising star.
Either way, when Sarah led him to his cell, she had a young, naked girl waiting for him.
“Serve well, and you get rewarded, Ezekiel,” Sarah said. “Anything you want can be yours. As long as you are ours. Now take her, and be a man.”
Knight had fumbled, hardly knowing what to do, until Sarah had given him explicit instructions. The girl had lain there, pliant, saying nothing while he’d had his first sexual experience. Sarah had watched the whole encounter, and it all left Knight feeling strange inside.
For his body, though, it had been the most amazing feeling he could have imagined.
And only later, after the girl and Sarah had gone, had he wondered if she had been so willing because Sarah had compelled her. For years after, the thought had come back to him when he was alone in that cell. The wonder if Sarah had threatened the girl into obedience, or just paid her. He hoped it was the latter.
A thousand murders might stain his hand—he had lost count—but for all his sins, he hoped he could say he had never raped a girl. He had killed mothers and fathers, sons and daughters. He had burned buildings, stolen, lied and cheated. And here he was, trembling over a girl from fifteen years ago.
“I’m going to kill you all,” he mumbled again into the darkness.