by M. R. Forbes
“I’ll be right back,” she said.
“Where you going?” Quark asked.
Hayley pointed. “There’s a little boy down there. He’s got a brain tumor.”
Quark laughed. “You always were a quick learner.”
She put her hand on his back as she headed to the stairs down, descending to the floor of the cavern. She put her visor back on, reaching out to the naniates around her. They came at her command, settling on her skin as she approached the boy.
“Excuse me,” she said to him.
He was sitting on the floor, looking at his hands. He looked up at her.
“Hi,” Hayley said. “I’m Hayley. Where’s your mommy?”
He stared at her, his qi shifting. He was afraid of her. She didn’t blame him. The visor was frightening to children.
“Get away from him!” a woman said, rushing over.
Hayley stood, turning to face her.
“Who the hell are you?” the woman asked. “Who told you to speak to my boy?”
“I’m sorry, miss,” Hayley said. “I’m a healer. I-”
“I don’t care who you are. Stay away from my son!”
“Miss, I’m a healer. Your son has-”
“Say, I heard there was some trouble in the capital earlier, and someone wearing a big headpiece was involved.”
“I don’t know about that,” Hayley said. “Your son has a brain-”
“I’m going to call the Enforcers on you if you don’t get away,” the woman said.
Hayley looked back at the boy. The dark purple of the tumor was clear. Why wouldn’t this woman let her explain herself? She was killing her child.
“I’m a healer from Koosa,” Hayley said. “A-”
“Witch doctor,” a new voice said behind her. A familiar female voice. “Gersa, relax.”
The woman, Gersa, seemed to calm immediately. Hayley turned around, finding herself face to face with a woman wearing a large, black cloak.
The woman from the Firehouse.
“We meet again,” she said.
“You know who I am?”
“I know what you are. The tattoos are a dead giveaway.” She smiled. “Although, I’ve never seen a Koosian witch doctor fight before. What do you want with Gersa’s boy?”
“He’s sick,” Hayley said. “He has a tumor in his brain.”
“How do you know that?”
“I can see it.”
“See it? Your visor is opaque. Or is it one of the nouveau chic bullshit meta things with a camera and a display on the inside?”
“The first one,” Hayley replied. “I don’t use my eyes to see.”
“I’m intrigued.”
“I’m in a hurry. I came down because I saw he was sick. Can you convince his mother to let me heal him?”
The woman nodded. “Give me a minute.”
She approached Gersa, whispering to her. The older woman’s qi changed from anger to fear to curiosity to concern to acceptance. She nodded her head at the cloaked woman’s words. Then she went to collect the boy, picking him up and carrying him back to Hayley.
“You can help him?” she asked.
“Yes,” Hayley replied.
“Will it hurt?”
“It won’t hurt him at all.”
Gersa looked at the other woman again, who nodded in support.
“Okay. What do I need to do?”
“Nothing,” Hayley said, reaching into a tightpack and removing another poultice. She only had a few left.
“What is that?” Gersa asked, looking at it.
“It’s an herbal and mineral binder,” Hayley replied. “It helps the Meijo repair the body.”
She put the poultice on the boy’s head, keeping it pressed there while she summoned the Meijo. Her tattoos started to glow, the naniates spreading to the poultice and through it to the flesh. They sank through it, into the body, all the way to the tumor in the brain. Then they attacked it, millions strong, until there was nothing left.
She pulled her hand away, wiping the poultice along the boy’s head. The purple was gone, his qi a happier blue-yellow.
“Well?” Gersa asked.
“He’s healed,” Hayley said.
“He’s the same.” She seemed disappointed.
“Let’s hope he stays that way.”
Gersa shrugged, taking her boy and walking away.
“That was a kind thing for you to do,” the woman said.
“It was necessary,” Hayley replied.
“And also kind. My name is Violent.”
“Your name is Violent?”
The woman laughed. “That isn’t what I said, but it’s what your translator heard. It’s a common problem for me, unfortunately. It will do.”
“How can I help you, Violent?”
“You can’t,” the woman replied. “But I can help you.”
“What do you mean?”
“The Nephilim are a stain on the soul of Kelvar. I know they’re looking for you. I saw you escape.”
“You got back here in a hurry.”
“I have a racer, too. Not as fancy as the one you stole, but serviceable. I knew you would come here. There isn’t anywhere else on the planet to go. I didn’t expect to find you healing children.”
“I’m a doctor.”
“Clearly.”
“Can you get to the point?”
“The Nephilim are everywhere on Kelvar, Doctor,” Violent said. Her eyes drifted upward, in the direction of the Plixians and their shop. “Including the Pit.”
Violent’s qi was red, intermingled with naniates in a much higher density than normal. Was she able to control them?
“The Plixians?” Hayley said. “That can’t be.”
She had watched their qi. There had been no sign of deception in it. It wasn’t infallible, and neither was she, but they would need to have known about her method of vision.
Wouldn’t they?
“I assure you,” Violent said. “It is. I have the transmission records to prove it, if you need to see them. But you probably don’t have time for that right now.”
She took a small device out of her pocket, flipping it open. It was a camera view of the approach to the Pit from the direction of Kelvar City. A number of trucks were making the journey across the flats. Military vehicles.
White and the other Goreshin were running ahead of them, setting the pace as they bounded in long strides.
“Shit,” Hayley said. To that and to the Plixians. If Violent was telling the truth, it would explain why nobody had warned them about this place.
“Shit, indeed,” Violent said. “Follow me if you want to get out of here.”
“How do I know I can trust you?”
“Right now? You have to take my word. Once we’re out of here? I’ll take you to your ship.”
What? “Our ship is gone.”
“No. It isn’t. It was damaged and crashed, but it’s still out there.”
“Survivors?”
“I don’t know. We can find out together, or you can stand there and grill me about current events.”
Hayley wanted to ask her how she knew about the ship, but didn’t. They were out of time.
“The Plixians were supposed to get us guns.”
“Here?” Violent said, laughing. “The Nephilim don’t let us have guns.”
“But the Plixians had…” Her voice trailed off.
Shit.
“Colonel,” she said into her com. “We’ve got trouble. The Nephilim are inbound, and the Plixians are fragging frauds. Do you copy? They’re with the Nephilim. Colonel?”
“Affirmative,” Quark said, his voice as cold as Hayley had ever heard it.
Then she was running, away from Violent toward the steps. She started up them, taking them two at a time. She nearly froze in place when the woman sprang from the floor of the cavern, jumping three floors up and landing in front of the Plixian shop.
Hayley bounced up the steps, joining her at the same instant
a pair of gunshots sounded inside.
Quark.
She entered the shop recklessly, looking for the Plixians. Lo’xan and Pi’xan were on the ground, their qi fading. Quark had one of their guns awkwardly gripped in his hands, the business end pointed at Xi’xan’s head.
“I don’t appreciate being lied to,” Quark said.
“The flame of Lucifer will never die,” the Plixian replied. Then the bug spat at Quark, a line of acidic phlegm that almost hit his face.
“No,” Quark said, firing the weapon point-blank into the Plixian’s head. “But you will.”
He turned toward Hayley, his gaze stopping on Violent. “Who the frag is this, now?”
“An ally,” Hayley said.
She hoped.
21
“What happened up here?” Hayley asked, still surprised by the Plixian’s attack.
“They tried pulling their guns on us again,” Tibor said.
Hayley noticed now that Lo’xan’s thorax was nearly severed, ripped almost in half by a pair of large claws.
“We have the answers we were looking for,” Quark said. “Some of them, anyway. There are no Shardkeepers here. Only Nephilim. Could be they were lying about the Quasar, too.”
“I’m afraid not,” Violent said. “Your ship crashed on the planet.”
“How do you know that?” Quark asked.
“We have access to Planetary Control. We saw the ship enter the area. It was fired upon immediately. It crash landed out on the Western Flats.”
“Survivors?” Quark said, as hopeful as Hayley had been.
“I don’t know,” Violent replied.
“Still better than the earlier news. Who’s ‘we?’”
“The Resistance. The Nephilim came four years ago. They killed and bought their way into power. Killed, mostly. At first, nobody realized the shift had occurred. The government was the same. The services were the same. Nothing had changed. Until they started taking from the population, individuals that were never seen again. Until ships began to arrive that didn’t look like any ships we had seen before. Until the monsters came.” She pointed angrily at Tibor. “He’s one of them.”
“He was,” Hayley said. “He’s with us now.”
“They can’t be trusted.”
“This one can.”
“How do you know?”
“The same way I know I can trust you.”
Violent eyed Tibor, still angry. “We have to go. I have a racer. Follow me.”
“Round two?” Quark said, smiling.
He shifted the Plixian gun in his grip. It was made for two long fingers and a thick thumb, not a human hand. He had found a way to make it work.
Violent checked her display. The Nephilim convoy was right on top of it, the soldiers pouring out. White was already gone, inside the Pit somewhere.
“Where’s the feed located?” Quark asked.
“The main entrance to the Pit. If you listen, you can hear the primary lift.”
Hayley paused. She could hear the soft rumble, and when she put her hand on the rock beside her, she could feel the vibration.
“How long do we have?” Quark said.
“A few minutes,” Violent replied. “There’s only one wrinkle.”
“What’s that?”
“The feed is coming from the front of my car.”
Quark laughed, putting his arm around the woman’s slight shoulders. “Darlin’, if that’s all you’re worried about, you can relax. We do this sort of shit all the time, don’t we, Witchy?”
Hayley couldn’t help but smile, even in the face of the threat. It was good to see Quark get some of his fight back with the news the Quasar had crashed instead of being left as no more than space junk.
Even so, there were no guarantees. The ship could be a smoldering, slagged wreck. It was good to have hope, but they both needed to keep it in check.
“How well do you know these tunnels?” Quark asked.
“I’ve lived here my entire life,” Violent replied.
“You lead, we follow. Anything tries to kill us; we’ll kill them first.”
Violent nodded, and then started running south along the scaffolding.
“Let’s go, Riders!” Quark shouted, racing off after her. Hayley and Tibor joined them, all four sprinting in a line across the concourse.
They jumped down the steps, following Violent to the ground. She started toward the southern tunnel, but then broke to the left at the last moment, heading east. They entered a corridor leading deeper into the system.
Hayley couldn’t help but feel nervous as they made their way further into the mines. Maybe Violent knew the caverns well, but she still had no real proof the woman was on their side. She had access to the naniates, that much was obvious from the jump she had made. It wasn’t the Nephilim’s Gift, though. She could see that much in the silvery-blue color of their energy.
They wound through the passages, leaving the settled area of the mines behind, delving deeper into less-perfectly hewn rock tunnels deep below the surface.
“Where the frag are we going?” Quark said at last.
“Please trust me,” Violent replied, almost at the same second they reached the end of the line.
A dead end.
A tunnel that hadn’t been completed.
Quark’s qi faded to red, and he reached out to grab the woman, getting his hand on her shoulder.
Her qi flared with silver-blue, and she grabbed his arm and threw him back and into the wall.
He aimed the Plixian pistol at her.
“Wait!” Hayley said, stepping between them. There was no anger in Violent’s qi. No malice. “Colonel, I get it.”
“Get what?”
She reached up, scraping her hand on the top of the tunnel. “The tunnels are too small for the Goreshin. Even Tibor can’t change form in here.”
Quark shook his head. “Frag me. I should have realized.”
“They’re going to send their other soldiers after us,” Violent said.
“And then we’re going to take them out,” Quark replied. “I like the way you think.”
“How are you so strong?” Tibor asked.
“I don’t know,” Violent replied. “I wasn’t always. It happened around the time the Nephilim arrived.”
“It’s the naniates,” Hayley said. “I can see their energy within you, and around you. They respond to your subconscious need for strength and stamina. You’re lucky.”
“I wouldn’t call being filled with those little fraggers lucky,” Quark said. “They’re nothing but trouble.”
“Naniates?” Violent asked. “I don’t understand.”
“It’s a long story,” Hayley said. She could hear the soldiers in the tunnels. Boots advancing on their position. “The Nephilim are coming. It sounds like standard grunts.”
“Could be Servants,” Quark said.
“Servants?” Violent said.
“Another long story,” Quark replied. “Take their heads, just to be sure.”
Violent made a disgusted face. Had this freedom fighter ever actually taken a life before?
“Witchy, let’s move,” Quark said, moving back out of the tunnel. “And do something about the lights.”
Hayley smiled grabbing her Uin from its tightpack. She flicked her wrist to unfold it and then began smacking it into the lights strung to the top of the tunnel, casting them in pitch black.
As long as there was energy, she could still see. So could Quark, with his mechanical eyes.
“Colonel?” Violent whispered.
“Stay low, stay silent,” Quark said. “We’ll get you in a minute.”
Hayley looked back at her and Tibor. The Goreshin had some amount of vision, because he moved next to Violent, putting his hand on her shoulder and pushing her gently toward the ground.
“Witchy, you got this?” Quark said.
“Yes, sir,” Hayley replied.
She moved ahead, walking confidently until she reached the fi
rst turn in the tunnel, taking out each of the lights as she did. She stopped and listened. Then she backed up a dozen meters, hiding in the blackness.
She waited.
The footsteps increased in volume. She counted twenty soldiers. Four squads. In the open, they might have been in trouble. In the darkness?
The soldiers rounded the corner. They were dressed in blacksuit and carrying high-powered rifles. They paused when they saw the lights were dead.
“Commander, access tunnel Delta is having electrical issues,” she heard one of the soldiers say into their com. “The lights are dead.”
Hayley moved to the corner, pressing herself behind a crag in the tunnel. The soldiers flipped on their torches. Their leader motioned them forward.
She remained in place, pressed into the shadows while the soldiers started to pass her by. She studied their qi. They weren’t Servants. Just regular soldiers. Probably paid Outworlders.
She would rather kill Servants, but what could you do?
She took a deep breath.
Then she attacked.
22
The only hint the soldiers had of Hayley’s presence among them was the reflection of their torches off the metal of her Uin as it flickered and flashed, darting from one soldier to the next.
They shouted out in surprise; the nearest Nephilim cut down before they ever saw what hit them, a sharp blade through their necks that caused fatal damage. Four bodies had fallen to the cavern floor before the forward squads started turning to see what was happening, and the rear squads were able to adjust and try to aim.
But they couldn’t shoot. Not in such close quarters. Not with friendlies all around them. They struggled to shift to knives and nerve sticks, close-quarter melee weapons they still didn’t have much room to use.
Hayley grabbed at their torches with her free hand, at the same time she swept across them, Uin cutting easily through their blacksuits. It was less padded than her lightsuit; cheaply made and mass produced garbage that proved what the Nephilim thought of their soldiers. Expendable. Always expendable.
And she was expending them, kicking their lights away and leaving them with limited vision. One of the soldiers tried to grab her. She slapped his hand away, ducked under his secondary grab, and slashed the Uin up and through his chest. His injured body blocked the soldier behind him, while Hayley slipped around the side, finding an opening in the pitch black and slashing that one too.