He roved in a circuitous route along the near side of the room for a full twenty seconds before groaning. Fuck it.
“I’m going to go check on Alex. I’ll be back…in a bit.” He ignored Delavasi as he passed him on his way out of the room.
Alex had turned left when she exited, but the hallway wound along the perimeter of the house and circled around to the front, so she could be anywhere.
He checked the kitchen, knocked on the door to the nearby bath, then went to the bedroom they had marginally claimed, but there was no trace of her. He went upstairs to the second floor balcony—it was as close as it came to roof access here. Nothing.
But perhaps she had gone outside. She would gravitate toward the combination of openness and solitude.
The warm, dry night air of Pandora greeted him at the doorway. It was a clear night, and the subtle, tasteful lighting used on the grounds meant the stars were allowed to shine clearly.
Yep, she would unquestionably be out here. But where? The estate stretched for hundreds of meters in every direction, and the elaborate landscaping created a series of winding, secluded spaces.
He considered pulsing her, but it seemed…rude somehow. And given advance warning she might tell him to leave her alone.
He set off to the right, through an auburn-tinged garden. A copper water fountain sculpture sat at the end of the garden, and parallel hedges created a defined path leading to it.
As he reached the fountain, the spraying water glinted gold from the ambient lights tucked into the hedges. It sparkled and—
—a blot of artificial darkness stole the reflected light.
Warnings screamed in his mind as nanobots began hyper-charging his muscles and sharpened his senses to full combat alert.
The scene plays out as a series of still frames, racing one to the next in a cascade of jagged, adrenaline-soaked leaps.
A form grasps me from behind. A blade slips along my neck. The attacker is left-handed.
Electricity shoots down my arms as the shield Delavasi provided fights against the energy. There’s a spark as it gives way—it’s an uncommon blade to break through so easily—then the harsh sting of power flaying skin.
I slam my head back into the attacker’s nose. With a sickening crunch bones crack.
The blade at my throat stutters. The grapple loosens.
I yank my own blade out of its sheathe and arc it upward as I spin. It grazes across the attacker’s forearm, but no more. The attacker is quick. Agile.
An uppercut connects beneath my chin with so much strength it feels like my neck snaps.
I’m stumbling, arms and legs in motion. Not paralyzed—my neck hadn’t snapped. Blood gushes from it though, brought on by the violent movement, and begins soaking into my shirt.
My Daemon is off my hip and in my hand as the attacker closes the distance—one shot, point-blank, center mass.
A shimmer ripples over the attacker’s shield. No penetration.
The attacker—a male—careens backward into the fountain from the force of the laser’s impact against his chest. Caramel skin and dark hair slicked back gleam in the suddenly garish light of the fountain. His skull impacts the spiraling center of the fountain, adding crimson to the palette.
I fire again.
The energy sears out of the shield into the water. Fizzing and hissing erupt as the water and the air fill with charged particles.
Again. The sharp odor of ozone is now strong enough to burn my nostrils.
The man uses the base of the fountain as leverage to propel himself forward. I’m hemmed in on both sides by the hedges and don’t dare turn away from him.
Too slow. The stone path meets my back, the attacker’s body my chest.
I block the hand holding the blade with a forearm and press the Daemon in my other hand to the man’s gut.
Fire.
Redirected energy washes over us both. Despite the zero range, there is no penetration. What kind of shield is this?
Another punch comes from the side to land at my ear. My vision swims, then jolts into too-crisp clarity as the ocular implant takes on more visual functions. A river of blood flows down my chest as the gash in my neck widens with the jerk from the blow.
I roll into the momentum of the punch and fling the man off me.
I need to be on my feet—now—and succeed in the act an instant before the attacker. A roundhouse kick to the man’s shoulder whirls him around.
Instantly I’m on him. I pin the blade hand against the man’s body and grab for the shield generator inside the waist of his pants.
Nothing. Nothing.
My fingers brush over a hard bulge beneath the skin—the generator is embedded within the small of the man’s back. He’s a professional assassin, and not an ordinary one.
The attacker’s head thrusts toward me, missing my nose but finding my left eye.
I tighten my left-arm grip and draw my right arm back. Convey the power of every muscle of my body into my shoulder and arm.
My fist connects with the shield generator. There is the sensation and muffled sound of hardware cracking beneath skin. The force of the punch ricochets to knock us out of the grapple.
The attacker is stumbling then abruptly hurtling into me. The pinpoint tip of his blade penetrates my shield to slice into my side just under my ribs.
I sense the skin tear open but I don’t feel it. Too much adrenaline, too many natural and artificial chemicals flooding my veins.
No gun—I dropped it for the grapple. I slip away from the blade, ignoring the sickly, wet noise as it leaves my body, and shove my own blade up hard in the space between the man’s torso and arm.
It slides in the pliant skin of the armpit all the way to the hilt. The shield is gone.
I twist it sideways. It scrapes across the bones of his shoulder as blood pours out over my hand. The attacker’s non-dominant arm has been rendered useless.
I pull it out and pull myself away.
The man arcs the other arm wildly upward. He’s losing the precision of control. I lean away, but a hedge at my back prevents further retreat. I bow my chest in as the blade passes a centimeter away.
It catches my chin, sending droplets of vibrant red blood spraying through the air.
I grab the man’s wrist as the motion completes. His other arm hangs limply at his side. He has no way to block an attack. I plunge my blade into his gut—
—the attacker’s knee smashes into my hip, tearing open the stab wound.
In the microsecond before my neural cybernetics shut down the pain signals I reel from the shock. My blood-slicked hand loses its grip on the hilt, leaving it protruding out of the man’s midsection. My vision blurs once more, and the ocular implant stutters, struggling to recover in the face of such damage.
The man staggers into me, his blade swiping erratically at my chest. I catch the wrist before it reaches me, but I strain to hold it at bay as he pushes forward. I’m getting weaker. All the enhancements in the universe won’t be able to keep me standing for much longer.
My other hand finds the hilt of my blade and shoves it deeper into the attacker’s gut. Wrenches it upward.
The man’s eyes meet mine. Black pools of cold intensity flare in defiance. He’s already dead, but he doesn’t care. Blood obscures his features from the broken nose, but behind it he sneers at me. Renewed effort sends the tip of his blade to the cloth of my shirt.
I twist the hilt and watch the flash of agony cross his eyes. His blade slices open my shirt. The tip lurches along my skin, threatening to rip my chest open.
Get ready to duck.
What?
“Idi na khuy, ti svilochnaya peshka.”
The man jerks around at the new voice and unfamiliar insult. I let go of the hilt and fall back, trying to duck as requested—
Alex pulls the trigger on her Daemon. The man’s head explodes in bone and blood and brain matter.
I blink.
The body collapses to the grou
nd.
I blink again.
She’s at my side. I try to give her a smile because god knows she deserves one but my legs weaken beneath me. “I was going to win….”
“I know you were—woah.” Her arms are around my waist as my full weight sinks against her. My body knows the fight is over and begins to shut down. I can do nothing to prevent it.
She eases me to the ground. The back of my head meets stone, gentler than before.
“You’re hurt.”
Understatement of the century, baby. “Not…much.”
“Liar. What can I do?”
I shudder as all the pain held at bay during the fight crashes through me.
I blink. Perhaps I lose consciousness for a second.
I force my eyes open and try to get past the pain to catalogue my injuries. She’ll need to know. “I’m bleeding from my neck…a lot, I think. And my right side is torn up…there’ll be internal damage….”
Her face blurs in and out of focus. I feel her hands on my neck, yet she recedes from my vision. “Alex? I can’t….”
Help!
Miriam jumped, startled by the urgency of the pulse. Desperation bled out of the single, stark word. Alex?
Grab the med kit and come outside—garden beside the house with the fountain—HURRY!
I’m on the way.
She spun to Richard, who sat talking to Director Delavasi at a table in the corner. “Get the med kit from the supply closet and follow me. Something’s happened.”
Richard frowned but stood. “What?”
Already running for the door, she shouted over her shoulder. “I don’t know!”
If Alexis was hurt, when she had only just returned and they had only just begun again…her heart clenched into a leaden fist in her chest, but decades of military discipline prevented her from panicking to the point of distraction.
She heard the pounding of footsteps behind her as Richard and the Director rushed to catch up. The garden was to the right. Down the path, around the curve—not enough light—the hedges opened up and a fountain, jarred crooked and sputtering water messily into the air, came into view.
She processed the scene as it existed between her and the broken fountain. Her brain cataloged the details and assigned them priority:
—A male in black clothing sprawled upon the ground, his abdomen ripped open and his body missing most of its head. Lowest priority and also the Director’s problem.
—Two Daemons strewn on the stone flooring of the garden. Low priority, but they should be secured in case there were more attackers nearby.
—Blood splattered in uneven patterns across every surface. Priority undetermined as it depended on who it belonged to. Some portion certainly originated from the missing head.
—Her daughter on her knees, huddled over another prone body. Caleb’s body. Highest priority, for so many reasons.
Alexis jerked up as Miriam rushed forward. Her eyes were wide orbs, pupils dilated to consume her irises save for tiny rings of iridescent silver. “Help me, please. I can’t stop the bleeding.”
Miriam forced her scrutiny downward from the terror-filled eyes to Caleb’s neck, where Alexis held her rolled-up pullover with both hands. This left her daughter in only a tank, exposing the viscous layer of blood coating her hands and forearms and continuing upward in vicious streaks to decorate her shoulders and face. Miriam pushed away a rush of alarm. Rudimentary logic said most of it could not be Alexis’ blood.
She dropped to the ground. “Keep the pressure on anyway. Richard, we need the med kit. Alexis, I need to know what his injuries are.” She realized she’d slipped up on the name again, but she’d worry about calling her daughter ‘Alex’ when there wasn’t blood on the ground.
“Um, he’s bleeding heavily from his neck, low, near the collarbone. And…he said he had a wound in his side…the right side I think…and that there would be internal injuries from it.” She sucked in a breath as if the act itself caused her distress. “He’s got bruises and cuts everywhere, but I don’t know if there are other serious injuries. He—he passed out before he could tell me.”
Miriam sensed Richard hovering behind her. “I need the coagulant and a Size 3 Grade IV medwrap.”
“Got it.”
She reached out and let him place the items in her hand then looked at Alexis. “Scoot back a little so I can get closer. When I say, remove your shirt from his neck.”
Alexis slid along the ground until she was beyond Caleb’s head and reaching over his face to keep the pressure in place.
Miriam crawled forward and unsealed the coagulant. “Okay, now.”
As soon as Alexis withdrew the pullover new blood immediately began flowing out. To her semi-trained eyes it appeared the carotid artery had been nicked, but not completely opened. If it had been torn open he would be dead.
She poured the majority of the coagulant deep into the tear, then coated the opening with the rest of it and quickly covered it with the medwrap. The coagulant would seep through the open flesh until it found the artery then surround it and plug the artery wall, but it took twenty or thirty seconds to complete the process.
Alexis was staring down at Caleb’s closed eyes; her face looked as blanched as his did. She drew her daughter’s attention to her. “Alexis? Hold the medwrap in place. I’m going to see about the wound in his side now.”
She nodded mutely, and Miriam called on her ingrained discipline once more to leave her daughter’s side and move to the other side of the prone form.
She peeled the blood-soaked shirt away from the skin and choked off a gasp at what it revealed. A gouge twelve centimeters in length had opened into a ragged hole five centimeters in diameter. Blood seeped—with less force than at the neck—to the ground beneath them, creating rivulets which picked a path through the gaps in the stones.
Focus. Despite the blood the danger here would definitely be internal injuries. “Richard, I need…some bio-bonding gel, a nano-repair weave—two of them if possible—and another medwrap. Bigger, Size 5 I think, and Grade IV as well—unless there’s a Grade V.”
“Right.” He crouched at her side and dug through the med kit. She squinted up to briefly meet his gaze, allowing him to see her concern.
He handed her the first item then glanced behind him. “He’s going to be okay, Alex.”
She didn’t check to see her daughter’s reaction, instead concentrating on the wound and allowing her training to take control. Every second counted. The flesh was torn and in some places shredded, but repairing it would come later.
She carefully inserted the nano-repair weaves inside the wound, working to ensure they spread over the largest possible area. Next she emptied the container of bio-bonding gel into the opening, secured the oversized medwrap to the adjoining skin…and let out a long breath. “Richard, can you hold this until the seal forms? I need to check for other injuries.”
His hands replaced hers, and she maneuvered to run her hands along Caleb’s body, starting at the chest. It continued to rise and fall, if shallowly and fitfully; his pasty skin became ghostly white in the effuse light. She felt two broken ribs and bound them so they wouldn’t inflict additional damage when he was moved. Her hands roved down his legs, but they felt intact.
She stood and moved up to his head. A cut on his chin received a tiny strip of sealant. There were multiple bruises on his upper body, including a nasty one above his left cheekbone, but they could wait.
Finally she allowed herself to turn back to Alexis. Blood had soaked into the tips of her hair, tangling it into knots as it fell across her shoulders.
She reached over and tucked the nearest strands behind her daughter’s ear. Alexis’ eyes darted to her, bright and desperate.
“Are you hurt?”
Her head shook violently. “No. I just showed up and shot the fucker in the face.”
She laughed in spite of the direness of the situation. “Of course you did. Listen, I’ve done all I can for him. We should get h
im inside.” She climbed to her feet. “Richard, Director Delavasi?”
Delavasi was crouched beside the headless corpse, but stood at her inquiry. “I alerted estate security. They’ve got three dead guards along the perimeter, which is presumably how this degenerate got in. They’ve locked down everything and swept the guest house, so it’s clear. Also, there’s a physician on staff who will be here in fifteen minutes. In the meantime, a guard should show up with a cot any second now, at which point we can move him safely.”
“Thank you for taking charge of this, Director.”
The man grimaced and massaged his neck. “It’s my job, though frankly I’m getting a little sick of standing around at blood-soaked crime scenes staring at one of my agents on the ground. Richard, any chance you could convince the Admiral to call me ‘Graham’?”
“Doubtful. It took her five years to start calling me ‘Richard.’”
The guard arrived then, and everyone again sprang into motion. They unfolded the cot beside Caleb, and Miriam had to coax Alexis away so they could move him onto it.
She stumbled backward as she stood. Miriam reached out to place a steadying hand on her arm. “Are you sure you’re not hurt?”
Her nod was haphazard. Tears streamed down her cheeks, carving jagged streaks through the splotches of blood decorating them. She fixated on the men as they lifted each end of the cot up and began carrying it and its passenger toward the house. “How did you know how to do all that?”
“Advanced field training, with mandatory refresher courses every five years for the last forty-five. Haven’t had to use it in a while.”
“Mom….”
Without stopping to think about the fact that she had no idea how to provide comfort to another, she wrapped her arms around her daughter and silently drew her into her arms.
14
EARTH
BERLIN
* * *
KENNEDY PINCHED THE BRIDGE of her nose before raising her chin to meet the Space Materiels Complex Director’s dour, unpleasant leer. “Sir, this is the third time you’ve said it can’t be done. I respect this as your opinion, but saying it again won’t get me to leave. So it would be more pleasant for all of us if you ceased with the complaints. You’re going to keep working on the problem until someone far smarter than you tells you how it can be done. Then you’re going to do it.”
Aurora Rising: The Complete Collection Page 100