“Negative, cowboy. I estimate thirty-nine Draeu fatalities and twenty-one wounded.”
“Then the miners really can’t count.”
“Negative,” she says. “Sensors now indicate several dozen Draeu biorhymic signatures.”
Damn. A moment later we pull up to the concrete barrier. “New plan,” I tell them. “We’re bugging out. Now!”
Fuse takes one look at Vienne and runs to the back of the sled. “What’s happened to you, love? You look pale as a dungy worm.”
“Don’t…call…” Vienne’s head wobbles to the side. “Shoot…you…”
“She took shrapnel,” I say, and give up my seat. “Fuse, you drive. Jenkins, Ebi, get on this bucket!”
Fuse slides into the driver’s seat. “In the heel. That’s where they always get you, innit? You’d think the minds sharp enough to dream up bioadaptive cloth could figure out how to make a decent boot.”
“Shut up and drive!” I bellow.
Ebi helps Vienne into the jump seat, then joins me at the back of the sled. “Did you find Jean-Paul?”
“He’s wrapped in that tarp.” I have to fight the urge to give it a kick. “Check his pulse or something. Make sure his worthless hide is still intact.”
“Yes, chief.”
Jenkins vaults into the cargo bay, his arms thrown wide. “Oh, baby, it’s been too long. Come to papa.” He hugs the chain gun. “You’re so beautiful. And look at all this ammo. It’s like Christmas, and Jenkins’s been such a good boy. Yes, he has.”
“Re malaka,” I mumble, then shout, “Fuse, get us out of here!”
“What about Ockham?” Fuse asks, revving the engine.
“We lost him on the tundra,” I say. “He’s dead.”
Because Fuse is a better driver than either Vienne or me, we quickly reach the Zhao Zhou Bridge and the wide gorge it spans. A contingent of miners, led by Maeve, Spiner, and Áine, is waiting when we cross the long bridge.
Fuse kills the engine. Ebi hops down from the seat and draws her armalite. She takes position beside the sled while Jenkins aims the chain gun at the black hole of the tunnel.
Behind us, the sounds of the snowmobiles grow louder, then fade.
“C’mon, c’mon, you fine cannibals,” Jenkins mutters. “Baby’s itching to dance. C’mon, ain’t you wanting to dance?”
“What happened?” Áine says when she sees the blood on my hands. “You’ve got yourself hurt. I knew it! I knew you couldn’t ride off without coming back in pieces.”
“It’s not me. It’s Vienne,” I say, then brace for impact as Áine throws her arms wide.
And slams into Fuse. Lays a great sloppy kiss on him. “You’re safe! I’d got afraid that it was you’d been shot.”
Fuse, embarrassed, unclasps her arms from his neck. “Not now, lovey,” he says. “We’re on the job.”
“Step to, people! The Draeu are crawling up our ass!” I sweep Vienne up in my arms. Her head lolls to my shoulder, the touch of her forehead on my cheek colder than it should be, and her teeth are chattering. “She’s going into shock.” I say, turning to Maeve. “We need to keep her warm and get the bull—”
Maeve bunches up her face. “I’ve been pulling metal of one kind or another out of miners for twenty plus annos. I know shock when I see it. Spiner!”
Spiner opens his arms, motioning for me to hand her off. “We’ll take care of her, chief,” he says.
But I can’t let go. She’s so light in my arms, so fragile, even as her whole body shakes against me, and I find myself wishing that I could draw her inside my suit, let my armor wrap around her, to protect her the way that Mimi protects me. The Draeu are coming. My davos needs me. But how can I just give her away?
“Chief,” Mimi says. “Her vitals are distress—”
Yes, I know, a broch! I know. “Be careful,” I tell Spiner as I slide her into his arms.
“We’ll get her right,” Maeve says. She pats my arm and smiles sympathetically as they hurry Vienne away.
Brrppt! A burst from Jenkins’s chain gun gets my attention. “Heewack!” Whooping joyously, he sends bullets flying into the tunnel, where a Draeu advance party has emerged into the light.
I grab the omnoculars. Like before, the Draeu are screaming and leaping around, jumping on one another’s backs, growling and raging like they’re in the last stages of rabies. I can almost smell their feral stink from here.
“And some things never change,” I say. “Jenkins, hold your fire. You’re wasting ammo.”
Fuse leans over to me. “So Ockham’s carked it?”
Vienne’s accusation rings in my ears. How could you do that to him? “That’s what I said.”
“Heads up, chief!” Jenkins barks. “Looks like the beasties brought the heavy stuff.”
Jenkins points to the tunnel on the other side of the bridge. In the cover of darkness, the Draeu have gathered silently, showing restraint that’s definitely not barbaric. They march out in three lines. The first line drops to the ground. The second line kneels behind them. The third line stands, and they all aim their weapons at us.
“Ha!” Jenkins snorts. “Like them plasma dots can make it halfway across the bridge.”
“Is that her?” Fuse asks as he points toward the slim, dark-haired figure striding from the tunnel, a mortar launcher on her hip.
“One and the same,” I say.
Then I watch frozen in awe as she hops onto the back of kneeling Draeu. Then vaults to the shoulders of the tallest Draeu.
Raises the launcher.
Fires.
“Move!” I yell.
We sprint away from the sled. Jenkins, reluctant to leave his chain gun, is the last to go. His boots hit dirt as the shell strikes the bow.
The explosion flips the sled. It catapults. Slams against the stone walls. Slides down with an earsplitting squeal, coming to a rest on its side. Fuel begins to leak out, and the stink of it fills the air.
“My gun!” Jenkins starts toward the wreckage.
“Wait!”
But Jenkins doesn’t listen. He runs to the sled, and with fuel pooling under his boots, begins throwing boxes of ammo aside, trying to reach the latches holding the gun to the sled.
“She’s about to fire another mortar, Jenks!” Fuse shouts.
“Take cover!” I gesture for them to get behind a rock formation. “Jenkins! Hit the deck!”
Foosh!
The mortar leaves a stream of bluish exhaust at it roars toward the sled and Jenkins, who is working on the fourth and final latch.
“It’s all bent up, I—” he says.
“Incoming!”
“Outgoing!” Jenkins yells.
He forgets the latch. But not the gun.
With the shell bearing down on him, he rips the chain gun from its last latch, then dives across the slick stone floor. His momentum and a burst of accidental fire push him ten meters from the sled as the shell lands.
A spark lights the fuel, and as it burns, the air swells in an ever-expanding series of pockets that move so quickly and violently that it breaks the sound barrier. The explosion throws the sled twenty meters into the air, a twirling, whirling twisted metal mass that seems to hang like a kite for a few seconds, and then falls with a woofing sound into the Zhao Zhou gorge.
“Gah!” Jenkins cries out, and I think it’s just a reflex reaction to being so close to death.
Then I do a double take. The explosion has also ignited the trail that Jenkins left in his wake. Fire rips toward him at lightning speed. Flames hit his boots. Ignite the soles.
“Gah!”
He stomps his feet. Tiny fireballs fly out around him like he’s dancing on fireworks. The flames race around to the back of his symbiarmor and flare out on his buttocks, whereupon he starts jumping around and smacking himself on the rear end, alternating hands when they get too hot.
Mimi starts laughing.
“Is he in danger?” I ask.
“Only to himself.” She cackles. “The su
it is fireproof, you know.”
“Stop dancing!” Fuse says. “It’ll burn out, you great barking fop.”
“It’s hot!”
“Jenks always says he has a hot butt,” Fuse says, laughing. “Now he has proof.”
“This is not the time for humor!” Ebi fumes as she fires a few rounds toward the queen, who ignores the gunfire as if it can’t hurt her. “We are being attacked!”
“Au contraire, mon ami,” Fuse says. “Things are always funnier when you’re under fire.”
I’m about to tell Jenkins to roll around to put out the flames, but they die out before I can. Jenkins is smoldering, inside and out, his gloves blackened with soot and his face red with rage.
“Fragging rooter cannibals!” He hoists the chain gun, aims in the general direction of the Draeu, and opens fire. The bullets bounce impotently along the Zhao Zhou Bridge. A useless waste of ammunition. But a good show for the Draeu. Let them see that we’re not going to lie down for them.
When the belt is empty and Jenkins’s rage is out of ammo, the queen comes forward out of the darkness, striding ahead of the Draeu. She’s confident, I’ll give her that much.
Then she rips the mask from her face and tosses it aside, and the porcelain shatters on the stone. She lifts her chin proudly. Her face is as beautiful as the mask.
I feel myself gasp. That face. Vittujen kevät ja kyrpien takatalvi! I know it.
“Jacob Durango,” the queen calls out. “The queen of the Draeu would parlay with you.”
“She knows your name?” Ebi raises an eyebrow.
Fuse looks shocked. “Oy, chief. Your first name is Jacob?”
“What did you think it was?” I ask.
“Durango.”
“And my last name?”
Fuse scratches his head. “Er, Durango?”
“Durango Durango.” I tap my head like I’m thinking. “Interesting name.”
“Eh,” Jenkins shrugs. “I once knew a Regulator named Peter Peter.”
“What happened to him?”
“Chigoes digested him.”
“Thanks for that pleasant image.” Standing, I remove the armalite from my back. “Ebi, she’ll be in range of your sniper rifle once we meet. Keep an eye on her. If anything goes wrong, drop her where she stands.”
“With pleasure, chief.” Ebi checks the safety on her weapon.
“Jenkins,” I say as Jenkins joins us, wisps of smoke still rising off his buttocks, “not a single shot from that chain gun. I don’t want to be sawn in half because of your itchy trigger finger.”
“It’s not itchy. Just toasty.”
“Jenkins,” I scold him.
“Yes, chief. I promise not to accidentally kill you just so I can cark out the farging rooters who lit my ass on fire.”
“Good man.” I hand my weapons to Fuse. “Watch these for me, no?”
Fuse accepts them, but says, “You’re going out there unarmed? Either you’re the bravest son of a dunny rat I’ve ever laid orbs on, or the stupidest.”
“She asked for parlay. You go unarmed. It’s our way.”
Fuse blocks my path. “The way of Regulators, sure, but the way of the Draeu is to eat first and grunt questions later.”
“She’s not a Draeu,” I say as I step around him and start for the bridge. “It’s worse than that.”
“Maybe she’s just a pretty Draeu or something?” Fuse calls after me. “The only pretty Draeu. How do you know that she won’t kill you?”
“Because,” I say without looking back. “I went to battle school with her. She’s a Regulator, too.”
CHAPTER 30
Hell’s Cross, Outpost Fisher Four
ANNOS MARTIS 238. 4. 0. 00:00
The face of the queen has hardened since we graduated battle school. Her hair is longer, too. Of course. Cadets keep their hair shorn close to the scalp, male and female alike, and the first thing graduates do is stop cutting it. Cadets. That’s how I remember her.
Younger. Gentler.
Human.
“Cowboy,” Mimi starts to say.
“Let me handle this, Mimi. Off-line mode, please.”
“But—”
“Off-line mode.”
There’s no noise when Mimi goes off-line, but I know when it happens. Like I know when someone’s watching me and then isn’t.
The queen carries herself like royalty. Shoulders square and level. Chin held just so. A quick flick that sends her curly tresses behind her shoulders. When we’re a meter apart, I call her by the name I knew: “Eceni.”
“No one has call me that since—”
“Since you decided you liked the taste of human flesh? Or since you joined a band of murderers?”
She laughs. It sounds different, too. Deeper. Meaner. “I meant to say, since the end of battle school. Of course, you went by a different name then, too. Didn’t you, Jacob?”
“That’s irrelevant.”
“Do the rusters think so? I suspect they would find your real name to be very relevant.”
“I am not my father.”
“Obviously not. Else you’d have committed ritual suicide in the New Eden square alongside his other Regulators. Instead, you let them chop off half your little pinkie finger. Ouch. I bet that smarts. Sort of like pulling off a hangnail.”
Unlike the Draeu, who stink of body odor and rotted cheese, Eceni smells like fruit. Strawberries. My god, that means she bathes. Washes her long black hair. Tries to keep her humanity while living among a pack of savages. But how can you stay human when you live among predators?
“Is that why you wanted a parlay?” I catch myself hiding the mutilated hand behind my back. Forget that, I think and make a fist with it. “To rehash old news?”
“I don’t, you know? Like the taste of flesh. I’m no cannibal.”
“You just enjoy the company of killers.”
She taps her teeth with a painted fingernail. “You have the same taste. How many medals of valor did your sweet Vienne own? One for every soldier she’s killed, no? What does a girl do with over a thousand medals? Keep them in her dowry chest for her future husband?”
Future husband stings in a way that I hadn’t expected. “Regulators kill for a reason,” I say, almost snarling, “and only because we have no other choice.”
“Of course, you do. That’s what the Tenets say, and we must only do what the Tenets tell us. The Draeu have rules, too, Jacob. They’re just more simple and easier to remember.”
“What rules would that be?”
“Eat, drink, and take whatever you want.” She chews the tip of her fingernail, the same way she did when we were in battle school. “And what I want is treasure.”
“Then you came a long way for nothing. These folk don’t have enough water to drink, much less some treasure.”
“Reckon I’ll have to kill them all to find out.” She runs a hand down my arm. “Your symbiarmor’s looking a little worse for wear. Too bad. You always looked so sharp in a uniform. And not so bad out of it, either.”
She winks. It makes me want to chunder. But she moves closer. Lays a delicate hand on my shoulder. “Know why I stopped wearing symbiarmor, Jake? It makes you lazy. You start thinking that nobody can hurt you, and you stop paying attention to the details.”
“Like what?”
“Like the fact that I just stuck a shiv into your gut.”
I look down. A blade sticks out of my armor.
“Didn’t even feel it, did you, mon cher? You won’t feel it the next time, either, except it will be in the base of your skull, where your symbiarmor can’t protect you.”
I pull out the shiv. Toss it over the side of the bridge into the gorge. “You sicken me.”
“What is it, Jake?” she whispers into my ear. Her breath is warm and moist against my face. “Can’t believe I’m the girl you loved? Is it so hard to believe that people change? Look at you. Once upon a time you were the privileged son of a CorpCom CEO with the makings of a great general. N
ow you’re leading a dalit davos protecting a group of rusters who would strip your body for coin if they had half the chance.”
I shrug. “It’s true.”
“Glad to see that you’ve come around. Now about that treasure—”
“It’s true,” I say. Take her by the shoulders. Push her away. “That you’re not the girl I knew. She was a damned good soldier and a human being.”
“I’m still a damned good soldier, Jacob.” She smiles. Skips around me. “I married after you dumped me, you know. A CorpCom golden boy with a pretty face and a thick bank account. Guess where he is now.”
I stare straight ahead. “No thanks.”
“I fed him to the Draeu. It was easier than divorce.” She presses her back against mine and giggles. “You know, I have friends. Powerful friends who can do almost anything. Anything like free a sick old man from the gulag.”
“Impossible.”
“Everything is possible, Jake. You of all people should know that. After all, you’re above average intelligence.” She twirls around me, the hem of her dress rising about her knees. She moves like water, her dress like growing rings. “Far above, from what I read.”
“What have you read?” I steel myself against her. She’s sparring with me, just the same as if we were fighting with knives.
“Just a little information in some old files I found. Isn’t it kind of creepy having another person in your brain? Sure there’s room in that big head of yours?” She leans into my chest and brushes my lips with hers. “Get me the treasure, Jacob Stringfellow, or I’ll feed you to the Draeu after I bring this mine down around the rusters’ heads.”
I flex my jaw. Turn my lips into a thin, hard line. Push her gently to my side. “I think that’s an empty threat.”
“Try explaining that to the rusters, Jake.” She taps me on the nose, then turns heel. “They know all about the Draeu and empty threats.” As she walks away, her skirt sways with the rhythm of her hips. I watch until she’s halfway across the bridge.
“Awake up, Mimi,” I say. “Record her biorhythm signature.”
Precisely thirteen point six seconds later, I feel Mimi’s presence. “Done, cowboy.”
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