by Ada Harper
* * *
She took Zahira with her. The route to the lift and down to Ameranthe’s detainment cells was short and silent. Ambrose balked at the front of the cell. It was nicer than you’d find in the Syn, clean new floors and fresh bedding, toilet even tucked behind a privacy screen. She waited, but the burly altus didn’t move. Olivia sighed and waggled the remote control for the lockbots installed on their spines. “Are you going to work with me here, Duke? Because I’m pretty sure this thing has a ‘shit your pants’ button that neither of us want pushed.”
“You can’t lock us in here.” His voice was wheezy, at the edge of a panic attack. “If the estate falls, we’ll be killed, or worse—”
“Oh, do shut up, brother,” Virgil hissed.
“Poor altus has probably never felt threatened in his life.” Olivia stared. Zahira stared. Even panicked, Ambrose realized it was in his best interest to step into the cell. Olivia activated the locks. She leaned forward and smiled. “Don’t worry, Ambrose. After all, you’ve got caricaes to protect you.”
As much fun as it would be to relish the horror that sank across his face, Olivia couldn’t take her eyes off his brother. She motioned Virgil to the next cell over. He stepped on the threshold, then paused.
Olivia sighed. “Really? You feel like monologuing now? Go ahead: tell me all about your failed evil plan.”
Dark eyes studied her. Again, too calm for someone defeated. “I made a miscalculation with you.”
“A common mistake. Don’t beat yourself up.”
“If I’d realized how much we had in common, I would have hired you myself.”
“Hard pass.” Olivia moved for the controls. “I’ve got nothing in common with you.”
“You know what it’s like to be denied a life by your birth,” Virgil said and Olivia’s hand stuttered on the lock.
“That’s why? You’re a wealthy senator, are you so greedy—”
“It should have been me.” Virgil raised his chin, daring her to disagree. The light painted thick shadows across his face. “I was smarter, more disciplined, more focused. I was better suited to inherit the title—other genta sons do—but my father is a vain man. He saw me as weak, wanted a proper altus like him to inherit, continue the family legacy.”
It’d been an act of sibling rebellion. Dozens were dead, a country at war, because of a man’s petty, covetous grudge against his brother. Olivia engaged the lock before letting her eyes slide to the other cell. Ambrose’s face was slack and confused. Olivia looked back. “Daddy loved him best and you decided the proper response was treason?”
“Why fight for a senate seat when I could have the throne? I’m not the only noble son oppressed by the system. Once I took the senate, I would have had the support of the people.” Virgil stepped forward. “I could offer you the same protection—better protection—than de Corvus would.”
The certainty burned so hot in his eyes that for a moment, just a moment, she thought he could do it. The wolf beside her gave a low growl. Olivia’s stomach roiled. “You’re right. We’re exactly alike.”
Virgil frowned. “What?”
“I used to not care about anything but me and my own problems. But I met an idiot with a wolf and ideals. It made me greedy, just like you.” Olivia found Zahira’s head, running one velvet ear between her fingers before she turned and headed for the lift. “Now? I don’t want just protection. I’m not stopping until I win everything.”
* * *
“I am filing an official complaint about this order.” Lyre’s voice was a crackle of static in his ear. Galen grimaced as the tech finally hotwired the transport to life. They could see the enemy rousing to life across the red sands. They’d finally spotted them. Good. That’d make things easier.
Galen focused back on the comms. “Frankly I’m a little shocked you remember how to follow orders.”
“Well.” Lyre’s voice tilted through the weak connection, as much emotion as she’d ever show. “Gotta save the throne if I want to see a duke brought up on charges.”
The slight anxiety in Lyre’s voice echoed his own. The feeling had built to a frantic alarm since they realized something was wrong. He glanced over his shoulder, toward the city blocks where Lyre would be pacing the other side of the sands. “Ameranthe doesn’t fall easily. Sabine will be waiting for you.”
And Olivia. Olivia had to be waiting.
“Assuming we make it across this little hell. I should be dragging you with me, your Grace.” Lyre made a dismissive noise. “You’re sure you can handle this?”
“Please. I have the easy job.” Galen checked his sight one more time, then signaled the tech to start the engine. The enemy’s scout drones were making another pass, probably to investigate why they’d finally shown themselves on the outskirts of the no-man’s-land. Next to him, Pascha readied the aetheric grenade in his hand. There weren’t many altus soldiers in the company larger than Galen, but Pascha easily managed it. Wild and hairy despite Imperial regulations, more bear than doglord. He gave a goading grin and Galen smiled despite himself. “All we have to do is make some noise.”
He clicked off the comm. The grenade’s arc was perfect, cresting just over the nose of the drone before exploding in a shudder of white heat. They were moving before the debris hit the red sand. They’d spent the night scavenging the remains of the city to salvage a handful of vehicles that still had the minimum number of operational parts. Four motley trucks surged onto the sand and spread out as gunners on the back lobbed chaff devices to hide their numbers.
It needed to look like a last, desperate charge. It certainly felt like one. It was a critical error, strategically. Making a move across the open sands made them targets in a barrel for the insurgents waiting on the other side. But if Galen’s gamble was right, the enemy would move in cautiously, wanting the coup of capturing the Red Wolf. With luck, they wouldn’t realize the paltry number of injured soldiers with him until Lyre had the rest across the opposite side.
A light craft surged over the dune from the west a second before a volley churned the sand into a cloud in front of him. The enemy had recovered from the surprise. The truck swerved and barely managed to stay upright as a wheel blew out from under them. Everyone but the driver was thrown, and Galen rolled as he hit the sand. It wasn’t as soft as it looked, and Galen tried to not think too hard about the sharp bits of glass, metal, and bone that bit into his skin.
They were on them before there was time to recover the vehicle. A bolt sizzled past his cheek and Galen scrambled with Pascha to the shred of cover they had as the firefight started.
“That was fast!” Half of Pascha’s red beard was singed, adding to his maniacal grin. “Think we got their attention.”
“Perhaps more than we hoped for.” Galen grimaced as a drone shredded the sand dune above them with gunfire. “Are we...?”
“Square ’n’ center.” Pascha paused to lob another grenade. It was doing little to discourage the tank churning toward their location. It was having trouble navigating the bog of sand and debris. “Two minutes.”
“We may not have that.” The tank squared off their path to the west. They were being hemmed in. There was no way back across the sands now for any of them.
At least, not on the surface.
A shriek of metal sounded like salvation. Sand shifted a couple yards away as a sewer cover struggled up through the debris. Galen breathed a sigh of relief and signaled the retreat. He and Pascha laid down covering fire as the nearby scouts scuttled into the sewer. The bombs had obliterated anything on the surface, and the underground was an uneven maze of collapsed tunnels, but Imperial infrastructure had not let them down. The deep maintenance tunnels wouldn’t run outside the city, but it would let them withdraw back to the city center before the enemy could follow.
Galen concentrated on expending the small amount of ammo they had remaining to give
his scouts enough time to withdraw. He glanced behind them to see where the drone had gone, so the bolt meant for his head seared past his ear. It ended with a pained grunt and a splash of new gunfire.
Pascha held his hand over the wound blackening his upper arm, his face a white mask of pain. He reached for the rifle he’d dropped, calloused hands shaky on the barrel. “G’on! I got this, Captain.”
The tank was clear now. Galen could smell the heat as it spun up its guns. The insurgents seemed less picky about capturing him in one piece now. Just as well. The real hope rested on Lyre making her way across the sands.
Galen shook his head. He lobbed his last grenade toward the tank and didn’t wait for it to harmlessly bounce off its armor before looping Pascha’s arm over his shoulder and hauling him toward the hole in the sand. Pascha made a groan of refusal but got his feet under him when Galen stumbled. He had a moment of worry that the sewer entrance wasn’t made for bearlike soldiers before Pascha wedged his huge frame down the ladder.
Galen didn’t have time to find his footing. He tossed a shot over his shoulder and dived in head first as the sand exploded around him.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The air had begun to vibrate by the time Olivia stepped off the lift again. The shield was under strain. The sounds were distant, but every time it weathered a heavy impact, her molars ached and her ears popped. She hurried back to the residence, which buzzed with fearful activity. Sabine’s makeshift war council was underway, staffed by Alais, Maris, and, ridiculously, Olivia herself. CHARIS had a map of the estate projected upon a blank wall, and an assortment of colored markers highlighted what Olivia assumed were plans for fallback points and barricades. It didn’t explain the stiff air of confrontation between Sabine and the women, however.
“I won’t have my last act as empress be a willful bloodbath,” Sabine was saying as Olivia took her place near the map. Alais looked tired, slouching into the body armor they’d taken off dead mercenaries.
“With all respect, your highness, it’s likely to be that either way.”
“The caricaes are civilians, as such they shouldn’t be—”
“We aren’t hiding in the closet and waiting for the Syn to pluck us like ripe fruit,” Maris interjected. She’d apparently burned through her cigar supply, because she held a well-gnawed stylus in her hand, wielded like a weapon itself. “We can at least try to protect ourselves.”
Sabine’s hands fluttered. Olivia caught an aborted movement toward her eyepatch and deduced the injury was bothering the empress more than she let on. “Of course, I won’t try to stop experienced combatants like Olivia—”
“I’m not the only one who can fight,” Olivia said.
Sabine grimaced. “This is not a gentlelady’s target practice—”
“You can fight with more than guns.”
The air rumbled again, sending a faint sheen of plaster dust on their heads. Three sets of eyes turned toward her. Maris was the only one who looked encouraging. Olivia bit her lip. “You’ve got this all wrong. Galen said you’re not the tactician.”
Sabine’s eyes narrowed. “Galen isn’t here.”
Olivia’s heart ached. “But I am. This isn’t your kind of fight, it’s mine. Outnumbered, outpowered, outmaneuvered. You have to stop thinking about this like a battle and start thinking about it like a bar fight.”
“How?” Alais asked.
Olivia chewed on her lip, staring at the map as her mind raced to keep ahead of her nerves. Alais’s assessment wasn’t wrong. If the shield fell and the estate was breached, there was little hope of resisting. At that point, they’d either be captured or killed. People would die, but if even a fraction could evade and make it past the perimeter, at least Virgil’s treachery wouldn’t go unreported.
“We use everything we have. We fight dirty, we...” What they needed to do was make the breach as chaotic as possible for the Syn. So unexpected, so unorthodox that common suppression tactics wouldn’t work. Sabine would want to make some grand last stand no doubt, but if the rest of the caricaes could...
Olivia’s head snapped up. “Traps.”
Alais’s brow arched. “Traps?”
“Traps. Every Imperial child is taught how to tie a snare. Galen told me that.” She looked to Maris for confirmation. Olivia stole her stylus and spun back to the map. She drew quick slashes over the dense sections of the estate, staff corridors and hallways. “We have some time. We have some supplies. Put every available hand to use. We layer snares all along here, here, here. Cut the lights, use our stun and smoke grenades, place shooters...” She hesitated, but Alais jumped in.
“Here and here.”
“Right. If an initial effort is defeated in the entrance hall, they’ll be less wary as they move in.” Olivia tried not to think how that “initial effort” would probably be the deaths of everyone at the table. “They won’t be expecting resistance after they’ve already won.”
“It won’t be enough.” Sabine shook her head. “It’s pointless if—”
“The point of a snare isn’t to stop something indefinitely. Just to delay it.” Olivia repeated Galen’s words. She stopped, having to breathe around the shard of grief in her chest until it went away. She’d wasted so much of their time together on suspicion and doubt, and he’d still given her everything. She wanted the chance to tell him that. The least she could do is use his words to save some of his people. “We cause enough chaos and we have a very slim chance of getting someone out of here alive. You’re the Spider Queen, so build some fucking webs.”
Sabine considered the map and Olivia traded a silent look with Maris and Alais. The agreement they came to was obvious. Sabine might be intent on dying on her throne, but the Empire needed an empress more than it needed Ameranthe. The Empire couldn’t tolerate a power vacuum right now. Even if they defeated the insurrection, without a head of state the country would fall into civil war that could destabilize the region. Olivia would hog-tie the woman and carry her out of the firefight like a sack of flour if she had to. Sabine turned back to them, face resolved.
“Make your preparations then. Maris, I trust you can organize the caricaes for Olivia’s plans. Alais, our job is to give them as much lead as possible. I want a plan for the throne room.” Sabine paused, adding softly, “Volunteers only.”
* * *
The next hours shuddered by to the thundering drum of the shield’s slow death. Each boom felt final, but somehow Primya found a way to divert power to shore up for the next. The shocks in the air increased in intensity, and Olivia’s molars ached as she worked. Maris had marshaled most of the caricaes into a lethal line of production worthy of any guerrilla force. Olivia nearly couldn’t keep up, just getting one set of traps in place before being called to another hall to organize the next.
Any time she was able to catch a breath she walked the survivors through the plan. Hold position until the Syn passed the throne room. Snare the first wave, disorient the rest, fall back to the next position and repeat until the chaos presented an opening to run. She drilled it until some of the fear eased, but Olivia knew it wouldn’t be enough. Even if they knew how to shoot a pistol, none of the caricaes had seen real combat or pointed a barrel at someone and pulled a trigger. Some would freeze the first time facing a blaster. Others would panic and die for a stupid mistake. There was no time to prepare civilians for formal combat, let alone the chaotic free-for-all that this was likely to be.
But Olivia could try. She moved from group to group, easing fears and correcting aims. Like Zahira, Kieran had become her quiet shadow, serious eyes absorbing every word and action. She tried to keep him out of her line of sight, avoid the pain of anticipated loss. She wanted the boy to survive. He deserved to survive. They all did.
If only the world operated on what one deserved. Olivia stopped on her way through the reception hall and something tinkled by her foot. A shard of b
lue sat by her toe, shaken loose from the mosaic by the thudding bombs. Olivia crouched down and gently slid it back into the mosaic, into the eye of that strange white bear she’d noticed her first day. How many days ago? Had it only been a day since Galen left? She rubbed her face.
The bear’s blue eye jumped back out of the mosaic. The air seized around her, drowning out her thoughts with a shuddering boom. Lights flickered then fell. A stuttering swell in the air told her the shield was still up, barely. Olivia sprinted through the dim hall.
The light was decent here, and sunlight painted dust through the colored glass near the ceiling. Barricades of crates dotted the throne room like mushrooms. She heard Alais’s shouted orders before she could locate her. She stood near the front of the barricades, trying to make order of the handful of fighters they had. It was more than they had the right to anticipate, really. Olivia caught sight of Kieran nervously selecting and checking his weapon, along with Valka and her antique gun. She hadn’t been able to talk them out of volunteering, nor Sabine out of allowing them. The last shot pushed the room into a pulse of nervous energy.
“What now?” Olivia shouted over the din. Alais frowned briefly before tossing Olivia a spare bulb of pulse ammo for her rifle. She’d had to leave her Whisper-issued sniper rifle when she’d fled the Syndicate, but they’d found a long-range firearm that would do. Going into a fight with a strange gun was the least of her concerns right now.
“That last one nearly did it.” Alais motioned her to fall back. “Primya diverted all remaining power to the shield. I hope your tricks are in place because she says another hit like that will do us in.”
“As ready as we’ll get.” She eyed the hastily constructed barricades. “Those aren’t going to hold up to more than a couple pulse shots.”
Alais’s lips thinned. “I know.” Her gaze slid to Olivia, then away. “You should know. If we survive this, I’m canceling our engagement.”