When he found Harlow, it made him stop, the will sucked right out of him for a moment. His old friend’s body was secured to the wall with a kind of resin, the top half of his head gone, the interior empty. No, not empty — just not full of human brain. There was an insect there, and as Nate approached, his dead friend sat up, dragging toxic air into lungs that no longer cared. “You are here. To End. The conflict.”
Nate thought about that for a second. He thought about what he was talking to, and what they had done to his friend. What they might have done to Grace. It was too much to take in, but he knew Harlow was past any help from the nanites. He thought about talking to the thing piloting his friend’s corpse, then shrugged, pulled out his blaster, and kept squeezing the trigger until there was nothing left. An Ezeroc drone emerged from a hole in the roof, so he shot that too. A second drone followed the first, and he saw no reason to stop, expending plasma like it was going out of style.
After the glowing, smoldering Ezeroc parts stopped raining down, Nate listened over his suit’s mics. Nothing. No more lies. Nothing else coming. Nothing to disrespect the body of his friend. “Sorry, Harlow,” he said. “I promise you before this day is out, you’ll get the universe’s biggest Viking funeral.” Nate turned on his heel, heading back out of the asteroid and on to the sand outside. One set of footsteps.
For his Grace.
He trudged on, following them. He knew the air in his suit was sealed, but couldn’t help but taste the ash he’d left on the air behind him.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
KOHL HAD NEVER been the kind of person to stand around while other people had all the fun. This particular instance was no exception, except the cap had said, Kohl, make sure Hope is safe, and then he’d said, like he knew what Kohl was thinking, Kohl, don’t fuck this up.
Don’t fuck this up. Words to live by. The thing you’d want on your tombstone, regardless of whether you lived to a ripe old age. October Kohl had no particular illusions; you got a little older, a little slower, and some asshole will blow your brains out or set your body on fire with plasma, or maybe, if you’re lucky, you’ll get to die of a drug overdose. Until then, not fucking this up was a good plan.
Thing was, there was still that natural tension between making sure Hope was okay, and getting down on that planet. Those bugs had put one of their kids, or larvae, or whatever they were inside Kohl, and Grace had saved his ass. And then the cocksuckers had mind controlled him with one man in black, and that one stung a little more because it only took the scent of good coin and a little push and he was ready to sell Gracie out. Now he had a bracelet on his wrist and anger in his heart and he was fixing to do something with both those things. Like go kill a whole assload of bugs.
“Say,” he said. “Hope.”
She didn’t look up, expression distracted as she tapped away at the old console. “You’ve got Hope.”
“About that,” said Kohl. “I kind of figure this ship is more or less safe.”
That got her attention, eyes looking up at him, and she swiped away a couple strands of pink hair. “There is a whole alien planet below us, and a Republic fleet of mind-controlled humans just,” she pointed at the bridge windows, “out there.”
“But beside that,” said Kohl, “this ship is still safe. Nothing is here. Right?”
Hope’s eyes narrowed. “Right. Sensors are clean. What sensors there are. There’s nothing coming up except broken machinery and more broken machinery.”
“Cool,” said Kohl. “You got any tape?” He watched her process that one, the tension between her wanting to get back to whatever shit she’d been doing warring with a natural curiosity.
“Tape?”
“You know. Tape.”
“I think we could come up with some sealant from Engineering. Maybe something poly-based that would hold a pipe. That kind of thing. Not like, tape you’d use to wrap a Christmas present.”
“I ain’t wrapping a present,” said Kohl. “Not that kind.”
“Then we’ve got tape.”
“Cool.” He thought a while, watching her watching him. She was a good kid, and he felt like more of an asshole than usual right then, because of two things. The first of those things? He’d been an asshole to her, because he’d thought the Republic was right for stamping down on crime and making it harder for honest people like him to get by, but he’d been wrong about that, just like he’d been wrong about Gracie. He was still pretty sure he was right about the cap and El being basically good humans, but that didn’t matter none right now. The second thing was that he was planning to leave Hope alone on this starship. Sure, sure, El would be right next door, but if something bad happened — say, a boarding party — things might get rough. “How sure are you that these bracelets work?”
“As a fashion accessory or for stopping the alien death bugs from reading and controlling your mind?”
“The second one,” he said, but not without thought. Jewelry wasn’t a thing he was in to.
“I’m ninety percent sure.”
“Just ninety?”
“I never go a whole hundred until I’ve got a little more data. A hundred is a scary place.”
“For an Engineer.”
“For an Engineer,” she agreed. “The world’s not that black and white. Not without data.”
“It kinda is,” said Kohl. “See, here’s the thing. Nate told me not to fuck this up. But our friends are down on that rock. One of them isn’t right in the head, and the other isn’t right in the heart. You get me?”
“I get you.” She blinked at him. “What are you thinking of?”
“Saving the day,” he said. “It’s what I do.”
She snorted, then shook her head. “I guess it might be.”
“What I want to do is go down there and kick ass.” He pointed an armored hand at the deck, under which was a lot of hard black, and under that, an alien death planet. “I can’t do that up here. The problem is, I’m sure that staying here would in point of fact be fucking it up, and going down there wouldn’t.”
“The cap told you to stay, didn’t he?” said Hope.
“He did.” Kohl felt a little uncomfortable about admitting it, because he should have thought of minding Hope by his own damn self, and not needed Nate to tell him what was right and wrong.
“And what do you think you’re doing here?”
“Staying. Helping.”
“And do you think by staying, and by ‘staying’ I mean interrupting me, you are helping me?” said Hope.
“When you put it like that,” said Kohl, “not as such.”
“Then why are you still here?” said Hope.
• • •
Getting to the planet was an easy problem to solve. Getting grenades and other methods of extreme destruction were also easy, because the Ark Royal was, at the core, a warship, and it wanted to wage war. Getting the tape? Now, that proved a little trickier, because most of it was fucked. Twenty years was a long time to expect any kind of human-made sticky stuff to still be sticky and, having been exposed to a hard vacuum for much of that time, be of any use. But the polymers in the roll of tape he found still seemed strong enough, even if it wouldn’t stick for shit, so it’d have to do. He held a roll of dull gray tape in his hands and thought, This is it, Kohl, you’ve found a roll of flat rope.
He attached the role of tape to his belt. Making his way back through the bridge towards the escape pods, he saw Hope looking at the roll of tape. He figured she was trying to work out what he wanted it for, but asking would mean she couldn’t work it out, so she didn’t ask. He cleared his throat. “You want to know what the tape is for?”
“No,” she said, a little too fast. “Yes. No. Definitely not.” She shook her head. “I know what it’s for.”
“What’s that?” said Kohl.
“Stuff,” said Hope, her voice a little anxious. “Sticking stuff to other stuff.”
“Close enough,” said Kohl, walking towards the escape pods. Time to ge
t to work lifting more heavy things. In this case, the particular load he was looking to lift was the dead souls of a hundred or more insects, if they had souls, and if they didn’t, killing them would be good practice anyway.
“Kohl,” said Hope, as he was about to leave the bridge.
He turned. “Yeah, Hope?”
“Don’t die.”
“Wasn’t planning on it.”
“It’s not what you plan for that trips you up,” said Hope.
Kohl patted the tape. “Don’t you worry, Hope Baedeker. I’m already two steps ahead.” He saw her face curl into mild horror at the thought of him planning, and he laughed. “Hope?”
“Kohl.”
“You’re a fucken good Engineer, and I don’t mind admitting that. Thanks for not being a dick about me being an asshole.”
“You’re welcome,” she said. “Anytime. Or … let’s not do that again.”
“You got it,” he said. He turned away and lumbered down the short path to the remaining escape pod. He hauled out the corpse collection from inside, human and Ezeroc both, then stepped in. It would be hard to clamp himself in with his armor, but that didn’t worry him. He reached a hand to the big red door lever, yanking it down with the armor’s assisted strength. The pod clanked, the door slamming shut, and Kohl braced his arms against the top, feet against the bottom.
It was the roomiest escape pod he’d ever used, but that was because there was supposed to be a bunch of other assholes in here with him. The kick of the pod launching caused him to holler, and whoop, as his stomach lurched. He lived for this shit.
• • •
“Fucking sand,” he said, to no one in particular. There wasn’t anyone around here. He had the cap’s position marked ahead courtesy of the battle net, and so he set off after him. The air here looked like it’d be poisonous at a high level, and he patted his tape to make sure he still had it. Nice and secure. Perfect.
The armor wasn’t liking the sand, because it was big and heavy, but at least it did all the hard work for him, whining, the joints clanking as he made his way across the surface of whatever the Ezeroc called this place. Probably something like home or sand, as he couldn’t think of them being original thinkers. No, more of an apex predator. None of these assholes walked around with a set of headphones listening to music. They ate other people, and sometimes made you try and kill your friends.
He placed a foot down into the sand, it sinking just like the seventy earlier steps he’d taken, but this time it didn’t come back up when he tried to step again. Something had latched on to it, and that was a thing he hadn’t expected to happen on a sea made of sand. He could feel something scraping against the outside of his armor. A lesser man might have screamed, or tried to run, or wondered what to do, but Kohl said, “About fucking time.” He pawed through the sand until his armored hands found chitin, grabbed, and pulled. He was rewarded with a shower of gore and wet sand as he pulled an Ezeroc claw up. “You fuckers can go underground too?”
The sand underneath him boiled, and he backed away as an Ezeroc drone surfaced, sand pouring away from its carapace. Its mandibles clattered at him, and it waved the stump of the broken claw in the air.
“That’s right,” said Kohl, lifting a leg and almost falling over as a result. He steadied his balance. “Hard to bite through armor, innit?” He unslung his plasma cannon, the automount putting the nice, heavy, comfortable grip in his hands.
The Ezeroc charged.
He pulled the trigger. Plasma spat out, tearing the Ezeroc to pieces, hunks of shell and meat cascading to the sand. Bits of the insect were tossed away to roll, smoking, down the side of a small dune.
The dune shifted. Sand poured free. That’s not a dune. That’s … well, shit. It was an Ezeroc crab, a big one, its movements causing the sand around Kohl’s feet to shake, dragging him a little lower. Well, that would explain why they didn’t see a lot of surface activity from space. The fuckers were all sleeping under the sand. He wondered if Nate had met a grisly fate, but no, his blip was still heading off in the same direction. No sir, Nate was fine. Kohl looked at his feet, surrounded by the big chunky metal of his armor, and thought, Well, hell, I guess they like big men around here.
There was some old holo he’d seen about worms — Goddamn worms — that lived under sand. Attracted to tremors or some shit. Didn’t make a lot of sense, and when he’d been told it was based on a book, he’d given up. No one had time to read books. What was he, an Engineer? But he wondered about that idea now, and stopped moving. Maybe if he held himself still the Ezeroc would walk the fuck on by.
The big crab turned around a couple of times, still shedding sand, shaking itself like he’d imagine a huge dog, if it was shaped like a crab, might do. An eyestalk looked in his direction, and it started towards him. This told Kohl a couple of interesting … what would Hope call ‘em? Data points. That’s it. Data points.
First, it hadn’t been able to see him with its mind, or his mind, or however that worked. Go Team Bracelet! The bracelet was king. He’d need to give Hope a high five and buy her a beer or something.
Second, this thing didn’t give two shits about him not moving. He’d gone woke the damn thing up, and here it was, looking for breakfast.
Third, it had eyes.
Kohl pointed the plasma cannon at the eyestalk and squeezed the trigger. The weapon roared, or tried to — hard to roar in half an atmosphere, if it wasn’t for his hands on the thing transferring vibration he was sure it would sound feeble — spitting white fire at the crab. The plasma shower hammered against it, causing even the huge thing to shudder with the impacts, and the mandibles around its mouth clattered open and closed in what Kohl hoped was distress. He let up his fusillade to check progress, and noted that things had trended in a positive direction.
First, the crab was listing to one side. He couldn’t see an obvious reason other than maybe he’d hit it hard enough in the head to knock some stupid out of it. You didn’t try and eat October Kohl for lunch, and it was a useful thing for all creatures of the universe to learn, wise up to, and get on board with. Second, it no longer had eyestalks, those having been turned into stray molecules, whisked away on the wind. Third, and the coolest data point of all, it was trying to walk towards him, but in the wrong direction.
He watched it go for a second or two, then unclipped a mine from his belt. He primed it, then gave it an underarm toss at the Ezeroc. The mine spun through the air, hitting the side of the Ezeroc’s shell, and the micro drills on the device bored into the chitin, locking it home. The Ezeroc paused, as if sensing something amiss, then the mine detonated, blowing a huge hole in it. It yawed, then collapsed to the ground.
The day was getting better already. Much, much better. Kohl grinned, and set out after Nate.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
THE CAVE WAS silent, dark, and looked empty from the outside. No movement. Nate didn’t hold much truck with dark caves, especially on an alien world where the only life here wanted to eat him, but his girl was in there, and he was damned if they would have her.
And if they already had her? He’d work that through if he needed to. But he was sure of one thing: whatever happened, he and Grace would do it together.
As far as devil insect caves went, he could see why they chose it. It had a wide mouth, worn smooth over countless years by the passing of many chitinous feet. There were no corpses here, no bones of another species, just a smooth, dark entrance, yawning like a giant’s mouth against the sand around it. Grace’s footsteps went inside, and he followed them.
She was waiting inside, in a clear, wide area. He was reminded of a boxing ring, except this wasn’t a sport, there wasn’t a referee, and he hated boxing. Fencing had been more his speed, back before he’d lost his good left hand and the leg that gave him balance enough to dance or fight as the mood took him. Grace was standing tall, her black Tyche ship suit around her, helmet sealed. He could make out the horrible cut around her head, and he wanted to run
to her, to hold her.
She was holding a sword, and that slowed him down some.
Behind Grace was a tunnel extending down into the dark. “This the hive?” he said.
She blinked at him, but slower than a human might. Like she needed to do it, but couldn’t remember how. “It’s where my Queen lives. The oldest of them all.” A wistful smile pulled at her lips. “She is pleased you brought the rest of our … our … our … the human’s military with you. She can end it all here.”
“Eh,” said Nate. He wanted them to be back in his cabin. Nate wanted them to be in a spacer bar. He wanted them to be anywhere but here. He wanted them to have not done this terrible thing to her. “I promised Harlow a Viking funeral. Do you know what that is?”
A frown creased her brow. “I … remember. For Reiko.”
“Sure,” said Nate.
“Reiko is food.”
Fuck. “Not so much,” said Nate. “Please, Grace. Come home.”
A smile spread its way across her face. “Nathan, no. You’ve come here to fight me? You know you can’t win.”
“I know,” he agreed. “But I haven’t come here to fight you.” He unslung his sword, the black blade singing as it tasted alien air.
“You are drawing your sword. That looks like fighting.”
Nate could feel the bracelet growing warm against his wrist. He gave her a grin, then tapped his head with his free hand. “C’mon. You know that won’t work.”
“You need skin on the sword. How are you doing this?”
“You know that thing where you tell your opponent your whole plan?” said Nate. “I’m not doing that.”
“No,” said Grace. “You’ll die.” And she ran at him.
A few things went through Nate’s mind. The foremost was that he was deeply, truly fucked, because Grace Gushiken was a master of the blade. She had spent her entire life running from those who wanted to jail her, or to experiment on her, and in that life, she had learned to protect herself. In his prime, he might have been a match. Now? Not so much. A couple weeks of her running drills with him to fight with his sword in his off hand weren’t enough to match a lifetime’s worth of honed skill. Here was a true kensai, and she wanted him dead.
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