Dragon's Promise

by Natalie Grey

  “I think not,” Mala said. She raised her chin, aware of her heart pounding furiously in her chest, and held up her hand to show the comm link in her palm. “You see, this has all been streaming live to the senate.”

  There was a long pause as the mercenaries looked at one another uncertainly. The Dragons, Mala thought, did not seem to waver in the slightest, but she couldn’t take her gaze from the woman in front of her.

  “You bitch,” the senator said quietly. “You’re going to die for this.” She gestured to one of the mercenaries, and Mala looked over to meet his eyes.

  He shook his head and raised his gun, steeling himself to it, but he had hesitated a moment too long. Loki shoved Mala down to the ground and a bullet knocked the mercenary off his feet. The mess hall exploded into gunfire, Dragons calling to one another as someone dragged Mala behind the shelter of a table. She could hear people screaming, the senator’s voice noticeably absent from the yelling all around her.

  Mala was not sure how long she huddled there, but it seemed to be over in a flash. Her ears were ringing, Dragons holding their position behind tables. She looked around herself warily.

  “There’ll be more of them!” someone called, and Nyx appeared, hauleing Mala to her feet. She was covered in blood, something Mala did not have any desire to ask about.

  “Come on, we have to—” The woman broke off, her face going grey.

  Mala was new to all of this, but even she knew the feeling of a gun pressing against her back.

  “One move, Dragon.” The senator’s voice was rough—with pain, Mala thought, though she dared not crane her head to look. “One move, and she dies.”

  45

  Nyx didn’t hesitate. Her gun was moving before she had time to think about it, and the senator was blown backward with red blooming on her shoulder. Mala screamed, and Nyx shoved her sideways.

  “Take them down!” Her voice was a roar, the command not so much necessary for the Dragons as for the mercenaries they faced. More of them were pouring through both doors, fresh to the fight and enraged at the sight of the bodies on the floor—but frightened, as well, by the force they faced.

  “Boss!” Loki slammed sideways into a knot of three, his knife flashing and a gun going off in the chaos. Two of them went down with a cry and he slammed his fist in the third’s helmet.

  “What?” Nyx took down a mercenary who was climbing up the side wall to the sniper’s vantage point.

  “I took her down!” Loki called back.

  “What?”

  “I said I shot her—thought the chest!”

  “That’s good.”

  “Before she got Mala! She’s—oh, shit. Your left!”

  Nyx turned in time to see the mercenary bearing down on her. She stepped into the tackle, gritting her teeth at the reverberation through her body, and drove him backwards far enough to throw her foot up and push him across the room with a kick. “Loki! Loki, talk to me. What’s—”

  Then she saw what had elicited the oath. Mala was battling the senator, her thin frame moving quickly under the suit. She’d been a scrappy kid, good with her fists and her feet, and she knew how to throw a solid elbow strike.

  Against an opponent with two gunshot wounds to the torso, that should have been enough—but the senator was still on her feet. Her hair straggled out of its bun and her suit was ripped, bloody and charred around the entry wounds. She snarled as she scrabbled at Mala’s face. Her body might be fading, but whatever implants she had put into herself were taking over.

  “Mala!”

  Mercenaries were pouring through the door behind them, pausing as they saw their leader locked in combat too close for their guns to be of any use. The senator shouted something at them, furious. She was battling her way toward the far door, and Mala was clearly determined not to let her get there.

  But Mala couldn’t win this. Whatever enhancements the senator had, she was clearly almost indestructible. Nyx swung her head desperately, taking out three of the mercenaries as they took up position to shoot at the Dragons, and then turned to run toward Mala.

  “Mala! Get out of the way!”

  The door to the inner part of the station was beginning to close, and the senator was driving Mala toward it. Nyx knew what this was now: an insurance policy, the only thing the senator had that would keep the Ariane from shooting down her escape ship.

  “I’m not letting her get away!” Mala directed a punch at the other woman’s face, and cried out as the counterstrike caught her in the throat.

  “Mala, you have to let her go or she’s going to take you with her!” She was closing the distance, swinging wide. “Get out of the way!”

  Mala threw herself sideways as Nyx’s tackle took the senator out at the hips. They went tumbling away, the strength of the implants battering against Nyx’s armor.

  “You think you can kill me?” the senator spat at her. Blood stained her teeth, and her fingers crept up around Nyx’s throat. “I can’t die.”

  The hit that took her out came from behind, knocking her sideways, and Nyx looked up to see Mala holding a chair, her breath heaving into her lungs. She stared wide-eyed at the form on the floor as three more Dragons dived onto the flailing body to hold it still. Nyx pushed herself up, body screaming, and leaned close to the senator with a smile.

  “Then you can rot in jail forever,” she said sweetly. As they hauled the woman upright, closing cuffs around her wrists and jabbing a dose of a tranquilizer into her neck, Nyx leaned against the back wall with a sigh of relief. “Well, that was more exciting than I hoped.”

  “Uh, boss?” It was Tersi’s voice. “How fast can you get out of there? Because—you know what, never mind that. Just get the hell out of there and into the airlock, and do it now.”

  “Roger.” Nyx was up and moving a second later, wincing at the pain in her muscles as she grabbed Mala’s hand. “What’s going on?”

  “She set something right when the confrontation started and I just figured out what it was.”

  “Self-destruct?”

  “That’s the one.” Tersi’s voice was tight. “How far are you?”

  “Can’t talk now.” Nyx hauled Mala around a corner, listening to the other woman’s breath heave into her lungs. She had not come this far to die in a self-destruct blast. The senator must have decided that if she won, she could shut the damned thing off—and if she lost, it didn’t much matter. Of all the stupid, self-centered— “This way!” She waved the Dragons after her as she pounded down a side corridor. They didn’t have time to go down the garbage chute again, but they hardly had time for this route, either. “Tersi, how much time do we have!”

  “Just run.” His voice echoed in her ears, and hers alone. “Just … just run.”

  “Dammit.” Mala was sobbing with fear, and Nyx felt tears of fury in her own eyes. It was not going to end this way. It shouldn’t end this way.

  But if you gambled enough times….

  They skidded around a corner to find a closed door, and Nyx didn’t bother with subtlety. The senator’s palm was slammed up against the keypad the next second, and they hauled her unconscious body along as the doors slid open. They were close to the airlock now, and Nyx could hear Dragons swearing as the sedative wore off.

  The decision was made in an instant. Nyx shoved Mala ahead and yelled for Loki to get her out. As she called for the rest of the Dragons to keep going, she hauled the senator out of their arms. Her strikes were neither subtle nor gentle. What was left was no longer Maryam Samuels, but a metal cage in the shape of a human, fighting with the last basic instincts of a dying mind. Nyx pounded her fists into the casing at the base of the skull.

  “I will not let you kill my team.” Her voice was a hiss. “You’re gone. Give up.”

  The cyborg hissed at her, its strikes weakening.

  “Boss, get out of there!”

  But what was left of the senator was fast, and deadly, and absolutely determined to kill the rest of them. Nyx wrenched it side
ways and slammed it into one of the walls.

  “I’ll go down with you!” Her shout echoed in her own helmet. “Do you understand me? I’ll die here with you. They’re gone. You’re not going to get to them.”

  “Boss, there’s less than a minute!” Tersi’s voice was a yell and there was screaming on the comm, Mala’s voice pleading for Nyx to get out:

  “You still have time, please—please—”

  Nyx summoned the last of her strength for a tackle, fist lashing out with every moment of training and ounce of force her implants could give her. As the body shot backward, twitching with the last of its dying energy, Nyx turned and ran, pushing her aching muscles as fast as they would go, listening to the sound of her own ragged breathing in her ears.

  “Where are you?” Tersi’s voice was suddenly businesslike.

  “Last hallway.”

  “Straight to the airlock?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then hang tight, boss. Things are about to get interesting.”

  With a roar, the airlock doors opened and yanked Nyx out into the endless night in the rush of escaping air. She reached, stretching her arms out for the shuttle she had seen as the doors opened, and someone caught her arm to yank her inside as the shuttle banked away. Esu accelerated, and the shuttle door came down on the blast as the station exploded. On the floor of the shuttle, Nyx heaved for breath.

  “Pressure stabilized,” announced a far-too-cheerful computer voice, and Mala yanked her helmet off to puke on the floor of the shuttle.

  “Oh, God. You all actually … you all actually do those sorts of things.”

  “You okay?” Nyx pushed herself up, voice ragged.

  Mala took a moment to answer, her breath heaving. When she looked up, her blue eyes were the fiercest Nyx had ever seen.

  “Never. Scare me. Like that. Again.” And then she was in Nyx’s arms, starting to cry as Nyx held her close.

  “We’re all right. We’re all right.” Nyx stroked her hair. “We’re all right. She’s gone.”

  46

  “Here’s the last of the bags,” Aryn said, a bit breathlessly. She dropped them on the metal grating inside the airlock and gave a little sigh. “Do you know, I really think I missed the ship. I’m going to like being back here.”

  “Easy for you to say.” Talon hefted a few of the bags and looked down at her before heading towards the living quarters. “You get to have Tera around.”

  “Oh, come on.” Aryn flexed her fingers and picked up the last one, following him down the hallway. “You’re going to be glad to get back to your ship, I know you are. Your crew, your work.”

  “That … well, yes. I am.”

  “You found them all?”

  He stopped and turned to find her watching him. He waited.

  “The Dragons you’re going to kill,” Aryn said precisely. She didn’t mince words, this one. “Did you figure out who they all are?”

  “Do you really want to know?”

  “Yes. I’m going to be flying Tera to wherever she needs to go. I don’t want to play this like not knowing makes me blameless.”

  Talon raised his eyebrows. “All right, then. Yes. We found them. Cade figured it out, actually.”

  Aryn looked over her shoulder to where Cade and Tera could be heard outside the ship. “Oh,” she said quietly.

  “It’s not going to be easy to live with him,” Talon warned her. “He’s going to do things that you might not want to know about. Even if he doesn’t tell you the details.”

  Aryn looked down at the floor for a moment. “I know.”

  “Are you okay with it?”

  “I don’t know. Yes. I’ll make my peace with it.” She put the bag down and massaged her hand absentmindedly. “It’s like Ellian, I guess. I know it has to happen. It happens. I just have to accept the bit in the middle.”

  “That’s a good way to look at it.”

  She gave him a little half smile. There was a pause. Tera’s voice drifted, indistinct, and then there was the distinctive bellow of Mase’s laughter. The Dragon crews were just packing up—Alina and Mase setting off for their targets, Wraith returning to Seneca briefly.

  “What’s happening with Nyx?” Aryn asked. “I just remembered.”

  “I don’t know.” Talon took a deep breath. “She hasn’t told me yet. It wasn’t going to be an easy decision. I should have asked her if she wanted to take over for me while I was gone, or before putting her up for the promotion, but I was worried she’d say no.” He saw Aryn’s curious look. “I don’t want to lose her. Damned fine XO. But it’s time.”

  She nodded. Then she came to give him a hug.

  “You’re good to people,” she said when she pulled away. “Tera. Nyx. Cade. He’d have died if not for you.”

  “I wasn’t ever going to let him freeze to death.”

  “Not that.” She looked over her shoulder toward the sound of Cade’s voice. “Now. He is what he is. He’d been fighting it since he left the Dragons, but he needed….” She shrugged. “You know what he needed. And I couldn’t help him see that. I don’t understand it well enough.”

  Talon looped an arm around her shoulders and stooped to get the bags.

  “Come on.” He looked down at her with a smile. “Let’s get you back in time for that exam. You have a ship to fly.”

  “And you have a team to run.” She smiled. “This is going to be weird.”

  “Agreed.”

  Nyx sat in the shuttle bay, elbows resting on her knees.

  Halting steps told her who was coming—though if she hadn’t known to listen for the faint hitch in his step, she wouldn’t have known it was Tersi. He was close to recovered now. She looked over at him as he came to sit next to her on the floor of the open shuttle.

  He just sat and waited for her to speak.

  “No whiskey?” she said finally.

  “This is too serious for whiskey.” He looked over at her. “Never thought I’d say that, but it’s true.”

  Nyx felt something uncomfortably like a sob well up in her chest. She looked away, clenching her hands.

  “I’m taking the command,” she said finally.

  Tersi said nothing, but she saw his shoulders settle slightly.

  “I’m sorry,” Nyx said.

  “Don’t be. Honestly, boss—yeah, I’m calling you that, get used to it. Don’t be sorry. You deserve this.” He shrugged. “And you must really want it.”

  “Why do you say so?” Nyx looked over at him. She wanted to sniffle.

  “Because I know how much we mean to you,” Tersi said without preamble. “I know you would never leave this team unless it was for something you needed to do.”

  She was going to cry. She was actually going to cry. She couldn’t believe it.

  “So if that’s what you’ve been trying to work up the courage to tell us—that you’re leaving? We knew. And we know it’s not because you want to be rid of us. Okay?”

  “You’re a good friend.” Nyx wiped at her eyes. “God, what am I going to do without you?”

  “Get a big head,” Tersi said at once. “You and Talon, both of you, too damned cocky.”

  Nyx laughed and sniffled.”I hate crying.”

  “So don’t.” Tersi threw a glare her way. “Because if you don’t stop, I’m going to cry, and you might be leaving, but I have to stay here—and they will never let me live it down.”

  Nyx laughed. “You’ve never cried in your life.”

  “I’m an Irishman. We cry.”

  “About what, bogs? And come on. Your name’s Reinholt.”

  “The Irish get around, what can I say?” He grinned and sighed. “I’m gonna miss you, Alvarez. Who’re we going to have for an XO now?”

  “Aegis,” Nyx recommended.

  Tersi snorted, as she had known he would—and then he slowed down and thought about it, as she had known he would. “That’s actually not a bad idea. Have you talked to Talon about that?”

  “No. I haven’t to
ld him I’m leaving yet.”

  “You remember he put you up for a promotion, right?” Tersi elbowed her in the side. “He’s not going to be angry you took it, it’s not like this was a test. The Major doesn’t play that way.”

  “That’s true.” Nyx considered.

  “Which team are you going to?”

  “They haven’t said yet. I assume they still have to … evaluate the mission or something….” She waved a hand, and then stopped dead. “Oh, God, but what if I fail?”

  “You’re not going to fail.”

  “I ballsed a lot of it up.”

  “You think most commanders do great on their first mission? Now, most of them don’t sleep with members of smuggling rings, but it’s not like everyone’s doing a banner mission.”

  Nyx groaned and dropped her face into her hands.

  “You got this,” Tersi told her. He used her shoulder to push himself up. “I’m getting old. I’m going to hobble off to the kitchen. Should take me an hour or so. If I miss dinner, tell them to leave some for me.”

  Nyx laughed as she watched him go, and then she sighed. Her eyes were fixed on the wall, but her gaze was somewhere far beyond that. She hadn’t wanted to say goodbye, and that was the choice Talon had mentioned. It was a choice she’d been making for the better part of a year, without even realizing it.

  On her first missions with Talon’s crew, she hadn’t been ready. On the Blood Moon, making a call between 7,000 lives and millions—no, she hadn’t been ready.

  She was ready now.

  “I can do this,” she said, to no one in particular, and she pushed herself up and made her way down the corridors, toward the smell of very bad noodles.

  Epilogue

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” Mala paused, a stack of shirts in her hand.