Edge of Conquest (The Restoration Armada Book 1)

by Hugo Huesca

  Delagarza grabbed the transmitter from Cronos. It was heavy, but Dione’s low gravity made up for it. He could run with it if he had to.

  “Our resistance would do well to ensure this man gets away,” Kayoko said, gesturing at Delagarza. “Come with us. We’ll fight our way out together.”

  Delagarza flashed her his most charming smile, ignoring the tiny pang of guilt that stabbed his chest. “No offense, Nanny, but you’re kind of a bullet magnet right now.”

  Cronos looked at Delagarza like he had shot Kayoko himself. Kayoko merely snorted.

  “Don’t worry, Cronos. Everyone serves the Edge in their own ways. Let’s strive to draw all the bullets away from Hirsen’s path. His time will come, too, as it came for us.”

  Delagarza left with the transmitter, the chip, and her laughter drilling at his ears.

  Taiga fought and fell. Delagarza passed a flaming tank, its structure caved into itself by an invisible projectile. Small, distant explosions sent waves raking his bones and made him fear for the dome’s air supply.

  He rushed, head low, along tight streets with ash raining around him, the low gravity making it look as if gray soot slowly danced through a transparent liquid.

  Keep to the shadows, Hirsen advised, and try not to look like a target.

  “I know!” Delagarza shouted. A squad of rebels, a couple of which still had neon Mohawk hair, passed by him, ignoring him, headed toward the explosions with their weapons at the ready.

  They went Delagarza’s opposite direction, which he took as a good omen. Maybe he still had time.

  He saw the first amphibian squad halfway through to the private lifts out of Taiga.

  A glint of metal behind the busted windows of a nightclub. A hint of a heavy footstep crushing glass. Delagarza ducked and went to ground behind a couple trash bags and peeked out, adrenaline coursing through his body.

  They have heat vision, Hirsen warned.

  Delagarza cursed and turned off his reg-suit before Hirsen had time to suggest it.

  Cold seeped into his body faster than he could’ve expected, Dione’s true overlord draining the heat out of him like a vampire feasting on a jugular.

  They can still see you, Hirsen told him, if they look close enough.

  But he would look different from all the other signatures around. Perhaps they’d mistake him for the dead or dying, or maybe they’d pass him by. He remained very still and watched.

  One of the rebellion’s tanks appeared down the street, its threads raking a cloud of dust as it went. Back at the nightclub, an insect-like helmet, antennas, red visor, hard angles, and black matte armor insinuated itself against the glass. Arms just like the helmet inched out of the window, carrying a rifle more at home in a tank’s hull than in a man’s arm.

  The infiltrator waited for the tank to draw closer, closer, until it passed right in front of the nightclub. Delagarza’s teeth chattered despite his best efforts. His fingertips felt clumsy and distant. The rifle roared, a string of continuous, muffled explosions that came too close together, like the revving of a chainsaw with oryza for fuel.

  The tank’s flank was bent by dozens of holes about the size of Delagarza’s fist, if not bigger. The tank kept going straight for a second, then simply slid left, away from the nightclub, and smashed the front of a high-end Italian restaurant two hundred meters away from Delagarza. Flames licked at the tank’s threads.

  “Fucking hell,” Delagarza muttered.

  Don’t move, Hirsen said. Wait until they confirm the kill.

  In Delagarza’s opinion, the kill was already confirmed as fuck, but neither the agent nor the infiltrator shared his evaluation. The rifle stopped firing, disappeared back into the window’s darkness, and came back not two seconds later. It fired again, that revving sound filling the street.

  Delagarza brought his hands under his underarms, desperate to keep the fragile fingers away from the bite of the cold.

  When the rifle stopped firing, this time it didn’t come up again.

  Hold on for a minute, Hirsen said.

  “I’m dying here,” Delagarza said through gritted teeth. His eyes wouldn’t leave that tank. What would the inside look like? Whoever had been in there, had they had any time to figure out what was happening?

  Thirty seconds later, he turned his reg-suit’s power back on, and sighed in relief as the warm orange light bathed his face and the internal pumps distributed artificial heat around his body.

  He kept going. He reached the lifts just in time to see the battle’s aftermath.

  The lifts were on fire, their structure folded around itself like a car crash. Bodies littered the surrounding surface, spread in a semi-circle, young men and women Lotti’s age. Hell, maybe she was somewhere in there.

  She’s smarter than that, Hirsen said, a survivor just like us. Worry about my hide, Samuel. Remember the stairs that lead to the tunnels?

  “Yes,” Delagarza said, walking among the corpses, the survivor of some silent apocalypse. Whoever killed them, they had kept going, diving into Taiga, hunting for Kayoko and the rebellion’s higher-ups. Thank Reiner for small favors.

  Hirsen laughed bitterly and explained that wasn’t true. The tunnels were sure to be watched. Knowing the enforcers, all exits had been covered by security personnel and enforcers while the amphibian infiltrators did the heavy killing themselves.

  Maybe it’s Major Strauze himself, holed up in there, safely tucked away from all those pesky bullets, waiting until Vortex’s infiltrators take Taiga for him. Then he’d stroll up and take the credit.

  “Well,” said Delagarza as he scurried to the stairs, eyes peeling left and right, scouting for movement. “I hope you fight as good as you talk, agent Hirsen.”

  The first couple security officers never saw him coming. Delagarza took them down near the tunnel’s entrance, a two-man patrol too busy with their smuggled vodka flask to watch their surroundings. Said surroundings came crashing on them in the form of a pipe tube, rusty and heavy, which collapsed the first officer’s skull and came up for a second strike at the other jaw before he had time to scream in surprise.

  As they both stumbled to the floor, Delagarza and his pipe confirmed the kills. He stood panting above the crumpled forms as blood coalesced in a puddle around his boots and wondered why he felt nothing at all.

  Selective empathy, said Hirsen, Newgen’s greatest advance in genetic engineering. Makes for a highly effective killer, works much better than just turning empathy off altogether.

  “I’m starting to hate that Newgen you keep babbling about,” Delagarza said as he patted the corpses down.

  That’s what tipped you over the line? Man, you haven’t heard the half of it.

  Their rifles were DNA-locked, so there was no use in stealing them. He found an ugly pistol with a leaping tiger painted on the grip. Nine bullet clip, no extra ammo. He also found a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. Those he welcomed more than the gun.

  The tunnels were too big for the enforcers to secure altogether, but that didn’t mean they hadn’t tried. Delagarza avoided several patrols by dodging into dead-ends and taking cover behind pipes and machinery. No one expected rebels at this side of the tunnels, not after the carnage outside.

  Listening to the radio talk of nearby enforcers, Delagarza found out Kayoko’s leadership, her included, had found themselves in the receiving end of a smart-mortar strike. Infiltrators were currently sifting through the wreckage, matching the mangled corpses’ DNA signature with the records in Vortex and Alwinter’s databases.

  The rebel leaders hadn’t had time to fire a single shot.

  And yet, Delagarza felt nothing. He wondered if that was the selective empathy at work, or if he was just that much of an asshole.

  He reached the most dangerous part of his escape, the maintenance corridor that connected the old sewers with Alwinter’s functional recycling system. Rusty scaffolding was the only surface between Delagarza and the rabid river of waste below him. If he fell, not on
ly would it be a disgusting experience, but also a lethal one. Hypothermia and shock would kill him in seconds.

  Delagarza kept his eyes peeled for more patrols, but he was savoring his escape already. No enforcers or security here, no one wanted to sift through the smell.

  Perhaps he’d have time to see Charleton one more time before leaving Alwinter. Their goodbye, before Delagarza had set to meet Kayoko, had been unsatisfactory for both of them. A simple holo letter at the side of her bed, telling her he was sorry, but it would be better if she pretended he had never existed. It would be safer for her.

  A part of him grieved for the life he’d leave behind. The morning hustle with Cooke, roaming the streets for ‘ware contracts, the afternoons working late with Charleton, the nights filled with smoke and the greasy smell of fast food.

  Hell, he’d even miss Alwinter’s cold.

  Maybe I’ll have time to visit, after all this is over, he told himself. Hirsen didn’t answer. Instead, the agent sent a red flash of alarm across Delagarza’s nervous system.

  Delagarza was deluding himself. But, worst of all, he wasn’t paying as much attention as he should have.

  His vision went out to blank when the gloved hand hit him in the back of his head. The transmitter fell and slid through the scaffolding, out of sight. Delagarza lost balance, but managed to recover by pure instinct. He stumbled and tried to spin. A boot came down behind his knee, swept him down. The scaffolding groaned and creaked under the impact. A punch hit Delagarza square in the mouth, he hit the back of his head against the metallic plates.

  He went for his gun. The boot came down on his hand, kicked the gun away, off the scaffolding. Pain exploded across Delagarza’s hand, transformed into a scream when it reached his throat. That same boot pressed against his chest, pinning him to the floor, like a butterfly pinned to a showcase.

  “Well, well,” said a woman’s voice, shrill, like fingernails raking against a chalkboard. “What do we have here? A rat trying to leave its sinking ship? Can’t have that.”

  “Krieger,” Delagarza muttered. He blinked, hard, to clean his eyes and focus his vision. Krieger stood above him, not unlike he had stood over the two men he had killed. She wore the enforcers’ uniform, the gun she had used to shoot Delagarza holstered on her underarm, far away from his reach.

  “You know, it’s the second time your name’s came up today. Fucking hell, I knew you were still kicking around, that somehow you lived after I tried to crush you. But this is overdoing it, don’t you think? You’re a one-night-stand that refuses to take the hint.”

  Delagarza grabbed weakly at the boot with his healthy hand, trying to ease on the pressure that was crushing his ribs. Krieger smiled and pressed harder.

  “What are you doing here? I knew you liked to play the Taiga’s bad boy, but you’ve got to be insane to stay around the rebellion these days.”

  “Unf.”

  She scowled and eased her step. Air rushed into Delagarza’s battered lungs. “Seriously. Strauze showed me your loyalty test responses. You passed, no ties to the EIF, nor these people. You’re a cockroach, surviving the day to day and little else. What the hell, man, did the blood loss give you brain damage?”

  Careful, said Hirsen, you’re still alive because she’s curious.

  “Your loyalty test isn’t as good as you think. I lied to it.”

  What are you doing? Hirsen demanded.

  “You can’t trick nanobots, idiot.”

  “I’m an agent, Krieger. I tricked your nanobots, and I tricked your boss.” He laughed painfully, like a madman, the way Kayoko had laughed when presented with her death. He could understand her now.

  “You’re making fun of me,” Krieger said. But she doubted, didn’t strike at him. “What an idiot. Vortex’s arrival almost cost us our jobs, you know? Erickson wouldn’t understand why we kept Taiga alive for so long. He refuses to believe Isabella Reiner is dead, even now. Claims the DNA records don’t match.”

  Delagarza, stop talking, Hirsen said.

  “That’s right, Krieger. Isabella’s alive. And when Clarke gets here, your boss Erickson will bomb Alwinter to hell so the EIF doesn’t get her back. We are all going to die, asshole, so why should I care if I die a few hours earlier? Go ahead, I’m having an old regular day.”

  Krieger’s hand hovered above her gun. Hirsen sent waves of adrenaline along his body, urging him to stay alive, to say something. But Delagarza couldn’t help but feel a strange trepidation at the prospect of finally getting to rest.

  Isn’t that what would happen to him, even if he got past Krieger? The gun. Or the agent. Both ended the same for him. Floating in the dark, forever.

  Maybe not a single one of the decisions he had made had been his own. But maybe he could choose how he checked out of the game. He was tired.

  Tired of Hirsen, tired of Alwinter’s cold, tired of knowing he wasn’t real.

  Hirsen rushed to the surface of his brain, wrestling Delagarza’s for control of his body. The agent tried to do what he’d refused to do before. Delagarza swatted him back down, his will a steel wall, impenetrable. He was in control of his body, the majority holder of his mind’s shares. He was his own person, and he intended to go that way. With dignity. He heard Hirsen’s frustration as the agent stumbled down into his own subconscious.

  Fuck you, Delagarza told him, fuck your rebellion, fuck your secrets. I’m out, gentleman.

  “Know what,” said Krieger, “I think I know what’s going on. Your friend convinced you to join the rebellion, didn’t he? The guy who saved your life when I left you bleeding in the street.”

  Cooke. Something in her gleeful expression raised alarms in Delagarza’s mind. “What about him?” he asked.

  “That’s the one. My security officers pinged him today, didn’t I tell you? Your name’s tied to his profile, so I got the message the instant they threw him into a van,” Krieger said. “He got in the face of two of my officers this morning when they knocked at his office—your office, I guess—and demanded their protection pay. Your Cooke, what a green guy. Didn’t understand how Alwinter works. Refused to pay.”

  “Krieger…” Delagarza grunted, his voice dripping with venom. Krieger snorted and stepped on his chest again to remind him who was in control.

  “He almost got lucky. My officers were just going to throw him in jail. But I already got an earful from Erickson himself for leaving loose ends around. I had him shot, Delagarza, his back against a wall. Asking for mercy. Speaking nonsense about his rights. See? I do take my job seriously.”

  Delagarza always had a knack for reading people. Krieger’s eyes glinted with glee. She enjoyed this, torturing defenseless people. And she was telling the truth.

  Cooke had died because of Delagarza. Sure, Hirsen brought the EIF to Dione, put the enforcers on high alert, manipulated Delagarza into helping him.

  But Hirsen didn’t choose to sleep with Krieger. Didn’t choose to bring a sociopath to his life just because he was cold and lonely that night, head too far into his own ass to think that sometimes, a man’s mistakes can spill to the people he cares about.

  How’s that for selective empathy.

  Krieger took her gun out of her holster. “Now that we’re talking loose ends, I should do something about that bitch of yours after I kill you. So I can tell Erickson and Strauze the Delagarza chapter is closed in my file. Hell, maybe I’ll get Strauze’s job after this is over. I’m doing a better job than he has.”

  She aimed the gun. Delagarza retreated into his mind.

  A fountain, red and black fish swimming in canals connected to the main body. Koi, they were called. A sunset in the distance set over a beach with golden sand, people swimming in the sea.

  There was a banner by the reception, with the name of the hotel in golden lettering.

  Quail Hotel. A chain belonging to Newgen Psychodynamics Hospitality. For all your prolonged stays. We offer permanent housing.

  Hirsen, you there? Delagarza thought. No answ
er. I’m tired, man. This spy shit isn’t for me.

  It’s because you care too much, said Hirsen. He sat next to him. Makes you vulnerable.

  And you don’t care at all? Is that how you are, just another Krieger?

  I’m worse than her, Hirsen said. She’s a trained animal. Textbook sociopath. Predictable. Me? I get to choose. Cooke, Charleton, that pain you’re feeling now, I can make it go away with a snap of my fingers if it slows me down.

  The hotel was warm in a way the reg-suit and the life support of Alwinter couldn’t replicate. This air was fresh, new, it hadn’t been in anyone’s lungs before his. He smelled seaweed. Kayoko’s tea.

  He touched the surface of the fountain’s water. It was fresh.

  I found you an escape plan, Delagarza said.

  You did?

  Delagarza told him. Hirsen’s eyes widened, then he smirked. I like it.

  I’m glad.

  To be honest, Hirsen went on, I’m surprised I didn’t think of that myself.

  Delagarza wasn’t. Hirsen thought they were the same person, that the Quail meditation had worked perfectly. But Delagarza recalled how Hirsen himself had told Delagarza the Quail allowed Hirsen to retake his mind at any time.

  But Hirsen had tried, back then, and failed.

  Delagarza saw the agent’s confident smile, completely unaware that he couldn’t read Delagarza’s thoughts anymore.

  Do me a favor, Hirsen. Live a long fucking life, will you?

  That’s the plan.

  That’s my regular. Live long enough to be unhappy, Hirsen. See if you dare play with Quail Hotel again.

  Delagarza stood and walked away from Hirsen and the fountain. To the sea.

  Krieger aimed his gun at Samuel Delagarza’s forehead. This time, she’d do it properly. She hadn’t cared that the roach survived, but she cared after her career suffered because of him.

  Captain Fucking Erickson, coming here, to her planet, with his stupid rules and regulations. She and Strauze had had such a good run, so far, being atop the food chain.

  Maybe, once Vortex got what it wanted, it’d leave, and the enforcers would be back on top where they belonged.