Allies and Enemies: Exiles, Book 3

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Allies and Enemies: Exiles, Book 3 Page 30

by Amy J. Murphy


  The moment the blast doors rolled open, a metal limb plunged through the widening gap. It missed the torso of one of the Ironvale by inches as the man dove aside. With astonishing speed, the mech righted its aim and drove a spiked pincher through the meat of his calf.

  The man screamed in pain and surprise, his rifle flung out. He squeezed the trigger reflexively. Ballistics rounds pockmarked the wall a foot above Jon’s head even as he ducked and rolled aside. The soldier’s body disappeared inside the open door. His echoing screams turned into a garbled wet sound that ended with an unnerving crunch.

  “Shut it!” Dai bellowed.

  The tech ops specialist worked desperately at the controls, while the culler wedged its forelimbs through the gap in the doors. Another set of claws appeared in the space above and below. The creatures were working in concert to widen the gap. The doors bowed outward under their onslaught and popped free of their tracks. Shutting the door was no longer an option.

  A volley of ballistic-hybrid rounds, the result of concentrated fire from Ironvale positioned at the mouth, struck the center mech’s carapace. Its oblong dome cracked open in a sluice of greenish-black goo. The body shuddered then slumped across the threshold. This did nothing to thwart the advance of another pair of culler-mechs.

  They clawed and tore, digging huge gashes in the metal. Their talons searched for purchase on the frame, on each other, without regard for the damage to its comrade. It was like watching rabid spike hounds vying for cornered quarry.

  “Fall back!” Utaemon yelled.

  The captain was already moving for the landing platform, not even bothering to see who may have heard him. Jon caught up with him, gripping the back of his armor at the carry harness. He whirled on Jon with wide-eyed anger.

  “There are people in there! We have to help them,” Jon shouted.

  “We’re not going to take those things out like that, Veradin. Not at the cost of more men.”

  “I have an idea.” Jon did not wait for Utaemon to respond. He opened the channel to the landing craft. “How’s your aim, pilot?”

  Eighty-Three

  The explosion was of world-ending proportions. To Tyron, its epicenter seemed to lie in the next room, the domain of the attacking culler-mechs. It shook the floor, rattled teeth and bones and punished the eardrums. It dwarfed the earlier aerial bombardments, making them seem muted in comparison. Intense, sudden heat billowed out in a great invisible wave, baking the tiny hairs on her forearms, instantly evaporating the sweat from her skin.

  Then, just as suddenly, it was gone. The heat faded. The smell of cooked metal choked the air.

  The Heavies were frozen, likely just as stunned. Vin turned to her, the question etched into his face under the mote-filled beam of light. That had been ordnance of incredible yield. Nothing that they possessed, even if by some miracle Three and Seven had rallied others to come to their aid. But if not them, then who?

  The hammering at the walls had stopped. The racket of the culler-mechs fell silent.

  An arc of blue light popped and fizzled in the seam of the door. She tensed. Around her the Heavies did the same, their weapons sights falling on the growing shower of sparks as someone cut through on the other side. She scanned the semi-dark for Bix. The girl was herding the children back in the direction of the cage room.

  “Hold them off as long as you can,” Tyron called. “Give Bix and the others a chance to get free.”

  Vin’s jaw thrust forward in ugly determination. He seemed to chew his thoughts, then nodded, once. He was angry. Good. She could use that.

  She pounded Dex on the shoulder of his armor to get his attention. He looked like someone who had lived in constant expectation of violent death but somehow was dismayed at its timing. “Go with them. Cover their exit. Bix got out of here before. It’s up to her now.”

  He looked from Tyron to his brother and back. Vin finally tore his glance from the doorway and the ever-growing shower of sparks from the cutter. “You skew or somethin’? She said go.”

  Dex swallowed, seemed about to say something. His brother shoved him. “Go!”

  Tyron unshouldered the sniper rifle, sprawled out onto her stomach to make the lowest target possible. This was the best cover she was going to get.

  “I still plan on livin’,” Vin muttered. His face was like etched stone under the uncertain flicker of the welding sparks. “Don’t know ’bout you, Tyron.”

  “Same here.”

  They drew up their weapons and waited.

  Eighty-Four

  The doors cracked open, spilling light from the other side. Hands, not the metal pincers of the culler-mechs, appeared at the seam. Tyron could hear grunts of exertion interlaced with commands in a mix of Common and Regimental as the newcomers wedged the doors open further.

  Beside her, Vin trained his rifle up. His finger tightened on the trigger.

  A head and shoulders appeared in the perfect center of the opening.

  “Identify yourself!” The voice shattered the waiting hush.

  Around her, she heard the shuffle of bodies breathing in shallow sips, the subtle metallic click of weapons checked and rechecked. The Heavies were waiting for her, she realized.

  She tapped Vin on the shoulder. He reluctantly turned away from the door. She gestured for him to lower the weapon. He didn’t. His voice lowered into a growl. “Ain’t goin’ down without a fight.”

  “Stand down. They could have destroyed this whole place. But they didn’t. Whoever they are.”

  Vin had a bloodlust that went well past his signature defiance. All Volunteers had it and had been bred for it, but in him, it was more pronounced, more likely to override any other type of training. There was a want, a need to destroy. This knowledge was familiar. Tyron was suddenly certain she had known another soldier like that, unwilling to cede to her command. She shook it off. It was useless here, dangerously distracting.

  Tyron pushed the muzzle of his weapon down, simultaneously triggering the vox link to the rest of the Heavies. “Hold fire.”

  “You skew?” Vin challenged, raising the weapon. He maneuvered to his knee. “Poisoncry mucks ain’t takin’ me whole.”

  “It’s not them. Think! Why would they fire on their own facility?”

  “Then who?”

  “I don’t know. But I think they just saved us.”

  Vin stared straight ahead.

  Tyron climbed to her feet and purposefully stepped in his line of fire.

  She approached the silhouette in the door. More lights popped on from that side, blinding. She raised her hand, shielding her eyes from the glare. “Name’s Tyron.”

  Behind her, Vin uttered a disgruntled curse. “Hold fire.”

  She took a tentative step to the door as she cradled the rifle, muzzle down. “There are other armed personnel as well as civilian children in here. We were attempting a rescue.”

  A face appeared at the gap. Under the cover of grime and the heavy helm, it was difficult to tell the sex until they spoke. A female. “Rescuing civvies from this hole? That takes some brick.”

  The face turned away as she relayed her discovery to those on the door’s other side. There was a muffled laugh. Then something changed on the other side, an added buzz of excitement. The doors slowly groaned open to a width that permitted the newcomer to turn sideways and squeeze through.

  The young woman was dressed as a soldier, but the uniform was unfamiliar. High on one arm was a green-colored band decorated with an emblem, a gauntleted fist. Ironvale Guild. Two more soldiers squeezed through, clutching their weapons and gear. The woman caught her stare. “You planning on using that, ma’am?”

  Tyron realized she meant the rifle. “Depends. Do I need to?”

  “I hope you don’t.”

  “Me too.” Tyron took another measuring look at the woman, then shouldered the rifle.

  The two others behind her relaxed their postures, their hands moving away from their sidearms.

  She extended h
er hand. “Tyron.”

  “Yeah. I heard,” the woman said, taking it tentatively. “Gunnery Sergeant Dai Hirano. Ironvale guildsworn. This may sound weird, but my commander really wants a word with you.”

  Eighty-Five

  “Clear, sir. Looks like survivors.”

  Jon heard the voice over his vox and echoed from the far end of the corridor. The squad had corralled him and Utaemon behind a wall of cargo crates to safeguard while the pilot took careful aim with the runner’s onboard targeting system.

  The smoke had barely abated. The metal wall was hot to the touch. Jon was up and moving.

  “This is far from over, Veradin.” Utaemon grabbed his elbow. “I don’t care who your sister is, or what protection Imperator Hirano has extended to you. No one threatens me.”

  Jon glared down at the man. “Consider this my resignation, Captain.”

  He pulled from his grip and strode into the oven-like heat. Behind him, he heard Utaemon’s indignant sputter. No doubt the man would make good on whatever threats he fell short of uttering. Anything less would be disappointing.

  Dai stood in the remains of the shattered doorway. He locked eyes with the woman that stood beside her. He swallowed, unsure of his voice. He must have made a gesture, said something, as Dai performed another bow and departed.

  Sela. Not her ghost. But her. And not her.

  She was changed from when he’d last seen her. Her hair had grown out darker than he remembered, sticking out in jagged spikes. A waxy pink scar spread from her left temple into her scalp. She was far too thin, her battered coat no match for the weather of this place. But the biggest change was in her eyes, how she looked at him.

  The blankness he saw there made his heart go tight.

  “Ty?” He stepped closer.

  She shifted, angling her body at him as if she were deciding whether he was a threat.

  “It’s you, isn’t it? Veradin…right? ” Her chin dipped as she looked him up and down in assessment. She glanced at the skin of his exposed arm, the inkwork there. Their mark. “Bix told me about you.”

  A game, some trick. Had to be. He drew in breath, ready to chuckle. It died before reaching his throat.

  This was no joke. Sela never joked. Not in the accepted sense of the word.

  She doesn’t know me.

  A huge invisible fist wedged itself into his gut, stayed there.

  “They told me you were Kindred. But you’re with these guildsmen.” The way she said the word, guildsmen, like a judgment had been made. One that found them lacking.

  “Kind of a long story,” he heard himself say.

  “What do you want?” she asked, her voice flat. Her eyes narrowed with suspicion.

  “What’s wrong? What’s happened, Ty?”

  “You keep calling me that.” It came out part question, part accusation.

  “Because I’ve always called you that.” The urge to touch her was overpowering. If he could just take her hand, or even stand closer, she’d see. The universe would snap back into place. One look at her nervous stance, ready to bolt, and he knew that for the fantasy it was. “Even before we were…us.”

  “Us?” There was a brief flash of surprise, realization. “You mean…But you’re Kindred. And I’m just—”

  “My wife.”

  She released a scoff, incredulous. Yet her eyes traveled back to the inkwork on his arm.

  He strode closer, moves more careful. There was something fractious about her as if at any moment she would bolt down the corridor to disappear into the jagged world forever.

  “This mark.” He pushed up her sleeve even as she tried to twist away. He gripped her elbow, pressing his forearm alongside hers. The mark on her forearm aligned with his—two halves completing the whole. “This is us. We did this, the night before you left.”

  “Don’t.” She twisted from his grip, pushing her sleeve back into place. Her face churned. A hitch entered her voice. “Please.”

  He searched her face again. She seemed a fraudulent approximation of the woman he loved, recreated by a secondhand account. She placed a trembling hand to the scar at her temple. “My memory is impaired, sir.”

  He winced at the title, an angry barb and reminder of everything wrong from before. The fist wedged more deeply, pushing on his lungs. He held his hands up, surrendering to what, he did not know. “I’m sorry.”

  A frown creased her forehead. “I have to leave. They’re waiting for me.”

  “They?”

  “They’re not Volunteers, not really. But they were the best I could do.”

  He nodded as if what she had just said made perfect sense.

  “Are you going to make me stay?” she asked. It was a challenge and a backhanded invitation to conflict. He’d stepped out of one reality and into another. A man from some tale where he’d had his deepest desire answered but found the Fates had meant it as a cruel joke. He was a stranger in his own life.

  “No.” His jaw worked the word; he wanted to grab her, hold her in place. But he knew that would end badly, and not just with the violence he knew she could serve. This Sela would never trust him if he did that.

  She paused, chin turned over her shoulder. “We’re out near the Skids. There’s an old Cassandra there. Come and find me.”

  And she was gone.

  Eighty-Six

  “And you just walked out?” Bix asked.

  Tyron let the girl’s question hang and kept her attention on the task at hand: removing the scorched ductwork from the remains of the common passage of the wasted Cassandra. Apparently, someone had rigged incendiary devices to the command loft, leaving behind a charred hull. Tyron had found the remains of a damaged detonator affixed to the underside of the main sys-nav console. The ship would never fly again. But it served well as a means of shelter for their ever-expanding group.

  She realized that this was grot work, something she should set the Heavy Gravs to do. With the Ironvale patrols becoming a regular fixture in the city, there was less work for them (or less they were able to get away with doing, to be honest). The idleness and boredom it fostered in them did not bode well.

  Vin, unsurprisingly, had been the most vocal against the new order being imposed. What discipline she’d managed to inspire in the Heavy Gravity Boys had dimmed. In a short matter of days, they’d resumed some of their prior ways of life, the smash and grabs. There’d been run-ins with the patrols. So far, none of them too damaging.

  Only a handful of the Heavies remained loyal to her. Unsurprisingly Dex was among them. Sela suspected it was simply so he could fawn over Bix, who seemed more annoyed than flattered by this development.

  “It is complicated.” Tyron pulled out the last of the blackened insulation. The heat of the fire had turned it into glass in some spots. Not something she trusted the youngest of the children around. Some of them seemed determined to put everything they found in their mouths. It was remarkable they’d survived this far with such faulty instincts.

  Bix scooped the debris into the bin. “You try havin’ a snog with him?” She turned an impish grin up at Tyron. “You seemed to like doing that…you know…before you got your brainbox scrambled. Maybe that’d make you remember.”

  Tyron felt the blood rush to her face and ears. “Veradin is an officer…a Kindred officer.”

  “From what I recollect seein’ that didn’t seem to stave him much.”

  She ignored the bait, realizing that Bix was toying with her.

  If it really was him and he was in that kind of relationship with her, he’d have sought her out by now. She’d expected him to show up the next day—perhaps even that night. Frequently, she found herself looking up at the mid-ship hatch. Three days now.

  It was plenty of time for the doubt to grow. The questions to solidify. She’d spent the sleepless nights staring at the inkwork on her forearm, listening to the sounds of the children sleeping around her in the echo of the Cassandra’s cargo hold. It seemed strange to know the story of it now. Of all
the things she imagined it meant, it wasn’t what Veradin had told her. He’d looked so hurt when he realized she did not remember him.

  It could be the reason he stayed away.

  Perhaps he did not seek her out because he’d been injured. Or worse.

  It was something she told herself if just to gauge her own reaction, looking for some signal that he did indeed mean more to her. Certainly, there must exist a part of herself from Before that would feel the damage in that thought.

  “I like what you’ve done to the place.” His voice. Veradin.

  She caught a quick flash of Bix’s victorious grin before turning.

  The Ironvale uniform was gone in favor of civilian attire. A heavy-looking day kit was strung over one shoulder.

  Bix nudged her. She realized she’d been staring.

  “You found us.” Tyron swallowed.

  He noticed her inspection. Allowed the bag to slip to the deck. “Had a misunderstanding with my CO. I find myself in need of new job…and accommodations.”

  “Plenty of room here,” Bix piped out cheerily.

  Tyron fixed her with a glare that did nothing to deter the girl’s amusement.

  Veradin caught this. His mouth stretched in a lopsided grin that seemed perfectly at home on his face.

  “Bix,” said Tyron. “Go empty the bin.”

  “It ain’t but half-full,” Bix railed. “There’s more—”

  “Go. Empty. The bin.”

  She took her time gathering it up. All the while Jon and Tyron stared in awkward silence. Bix presented her with one parting smirk before dragging the bin off noisily along the deck.

  She did not wait for him to talk and plunged ahead. “You said it was a long story. Tell me.”

  Eighty-Seven

 

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