The Queen's Advantage

by Jessie Mihalik

  “You could do a spoken announcement,” Myra said. “It won’t be as powerful, but I’m with Junior—you can’t leave the med chamber yet. You nearly died.”

  “Save your statement for after I leave medical,” I said. “It will be more powerful if I’m not in here influencing you, or pretending to be you, or whatever else the rumors say I’m doing.”

  “You should’ve already left Koan,” Valentin said. “It’s not safe for you here, and I can’t protect you while I’m trapped in this damned thing.”

  There were lots of ears listening, so I said, “You’re not safe when I’m here. I can disappear into the city until the heat dies down and everyone else can work on killing the rumors and proving you’re alive and well.”

  I linked Valentin while the others argued over what I should do. When he accepted, I said, I know where Adams is. I’d debated keeping the secret, but I couldn’t ask him to be more open with information and not do the same.

  Do not go after him alone. Please wait until I can go with you.

  I’m taking Imogen and a squad of Myra’s finest. With the rumors spreading, I’m afraid he’s either going to leave or plan another attack. Time is of the essence.

  Tell me where he is and I’ll send two platoons.

  Will they get there before someone leaks the information and he moves?

  Valentin remained stubbornly silent. I knew he was trying to find a reason to prevent me from being the one to go, but we both knew I was the best person for this particular job.

  Wear combat armor. I know Sakimoto didn’t win any points with her stunt before, but I believe she is loyal. She can get you the armor and go with you. Her squad is one of the best trained in all of Koan.

  I disliked combat armor, but even I could see the advantage of blending in with the other soldiers and being able to move about while invisible. Do you think her squad is loyal? And can you ask her to come without letting Oskar know?

  He hesitated a beat too long. It might be best if they don’t know who you are. I will arrange it—without Oskar’s input. I know you can take care of yourself, but please, please, please be careful.

  I will be. You focus on healing so you can get out of there when I return with Adams’s head.

  When Imogen and I casually strolled out of medical, we caught the guards by surprise. Luka slammed the door behind us and locked it, so retreat was not an option. I smiled and tossed a wave at the guards’ incredulous faces, then turned and sprinted for the hidden exit. Valentin had made me memorize the route and he had locked down access to just us, so if we could make it to the first door, we’d be in the clear.

  He should’ve been in the middle of ordering the guards to stand down and then making his public statement, but I didn’t wait to see if it would take. We slammed into the exit tunnel and the door locked behind us. We exited the palace and disappeared into Koan, taking a convoluted route to our rendezvous point with Sergeant Major Natalie Sakimoto.

  I mourned the supplies I’d had to leave behind in my suite, but I’d given Myra and Valentin a detailed list to give to Natalie. She would either show up with what I’d asked for or with a squad of Commander Adams’s soldiers. I hoped for the former and planned for the latter. We only had Imogen’s two guns between us, but we’d make it work.

  We should’ve been well ahead of Natalie, but we circled the building where we were meeting her twice before entering. The storehouse was big and deserted. Inside, crates were stacked high, but the front quarter of the building had a decent amount of clear space where we could gear up.

  Imogen climbed the nearest aisle and found a good place to cover me. I moved so I had protection at my back and was hidden from the door. We settled down to wait.

  Noon came and went, and still, Natalie did not arrive. Valentin and I had agreed to limit communication to emergencies and this didn’t qualify—yet. I checked the news. Rumors were still flying fast and furious, but now people were speculating about where I had gone, if I had somehow brainwashed the emperor, and if I was planning to try to take the Kos Empire for myself.

  It would be funny if it wasn’t so serious.

  A little after one, someone tapped on the door in the agreed upon sequence. That just meant I wouldn’t shoot first. The door opened and Natalie Sakimoto came through, pushing a cargo sled. The door closed immediately behind her, but that didn’t mean a couple of troopers in armor hadn’t snuck through with her. I wished I had thermal imaging equipment.

  “Samara?” she called.

  “Are you alone?”

  She immediately turned my way despite the bad acoustics in here. She had some sort of hearing augment. “I’m alone. Sorry I’m late. The palace is in chaos and it was difficult to get some of the things on your list. Some were impossible. I brought what I could.”

  “Did anyone follow you?”

  “No.”

  I eased out of cover. No one took a pot shot at me, so maybe my day was looking up. “What did you get?”

  “I brought you a combat rifle and an electroshock pistol, but I couldn’t get a sniper rifle without a lot of explanation. Also, I brought combat armor for you and your bodyguard. I brought breaching charges and stun grenades, but no explosive grenades. My squad is going to meet us here in an hour for what they think is a training exercise. Are there really Quint soldiers in Koan? They’re not Rogue rebels?”

  “Kos could wipe the Rogue Coalition out of existence without breaking a sweat. Rogue rebels attacking the emperor makes zero sense. But I have to admit, Quint pinning it on us was a stroke of genius. Rumors don’t need to make sense to grab attention if enough people start repeating them.”

  “Where is your bodyguard?”

  “She’s watching to ensure you don’t try to kill me.”

  Natalie glanced around at the tall stacks of crates. “That’s smart.”

  “I try,” I said drily. “Once I’m suited up, I’ll bring her out.”

  There was no elegant way to get into the stretchy base layer that went under the combat armor, so I didn’t even try. I shimmied and hopped my way into it while Natalie did the same with hers. Once I had the armor on and a combat rifle in hand, I called Imogen down. She climbed down from her perch while I kept an eye on our surroundings.

  Once we were all in armor, Natalie reviewed the features, including, most importantly, how to activate the active camouflage that would render us invisible. She had shown us before we went to the folly, but repetition made it more likely that we would remember under duress.

  “Can you shut down net connections while soldiers are in the suits?” I asked.

  “No, but I can monitor when connections are being made. Why?”

  “Someone is betraying Valentin and they have many eyes and ears. I want to know if anyone connects out.”

  “You think one of my soldiers is a traitor?” There was a dangerous edge to her voice.

  “No, I don’t, or we wouldn’t be having this conversation. But I want everyone on lockdown, and if someone starts making connections, I want to know.”

  She nodded once.

  “When Adams attacked Arx, his soldiers were in Kos combat armor. None of the surveillance I’ve seen so far indicates that they brought it with them, but you should know that it’s a possibility.”

  Natalie cursed under her breath. “I will ensure that our armor only shows our squad as friendlies. There shouldn’t be any other legitimate Kos soldiers in the building, so we’ll have to take the risk.”

  We went over the plan three times before she was happy with it. Either Valentin or Myra had gotten the building’s blueprint, and we discussed the various points of entry. She didn’t love breaking into an unknown building, but time wasn’t on our side.

  I had considered trying to lure Adams to me, but there were too many unknowns. A straightforward surprise attack would be our best bet. I hoped to catch Adams in an afternoon lull. Finlay had kept me posted, and no one had left the building. They were hunkered down, either because ever
yone was looking for the supposed rebels, or because they were planning something new.

  Or they were waiting for me to show up so they could murder me. I supposed we would find out soon enough.

  When Natalie’s team arrived, she told them to disconnect from the net before she explained the mission. Her squad had been with her a long time and didn’t bat an eye at the somewhat unusual request. They shot my closed visor a few glances, but no one asked about me or Imogen.

  Natalie broke her squad into four two-person teams. We would hit the building from all four sides. It meant we had to be careful about the field of fire, but it gave Adams’s squad less opportunity to escape. Our goal was to capture rather than kill whenever possible.

  Plan set, the squad closed their visors. My visor’s built-in display outlined everyone in the squad in faint green. Thanks to the transponders, the armor recognized our squad members. In addition to the green, Natalie also had gold around her form because she was the commander.

  Imogen was outlined in green and purple, indicating a noncombat specialist. I couldn’t see my own color, but I should’ve also been outlined in green and purple. Natalie had explained that the purple was to help the squad keep track of us separately from the rest of the team. That way they would know to protect us and wouldn’t be trying to send us hand signals we didn’t understand.

  Everyone else—including other Kos soldiers—would lack an outline.

  Natalie gave the order to activate our camouflage. One by one, soldiers disappeared, but the faint outlines remained, hanging in seemingly empty air. When we activated thermal imaging, the empty air was replaced by red blobs of body heat from the invisible soldiers, outlined in green, gold, and purple. Now we could see enemy soldiers even if they had the same active camouflage tech.

  We took a nondescript transport that dropped us off around the corner from the target building. The three teams hitting the far sides of the building left to get into position. One team stayed with us, bringing our total to five. We were going to hit the largest entrance. I was stacked next to last in line despite my protests.

  Natalie counted down, and then I heard the breaching charges echo from the other doors before our own door blew open. If my information was bad, I’d just committed ten people to death.

  The building was set up like a typical mercenary headquarters: office in front, bunks in the middle, and an open area in the back for storage and gearing up. Adams had been in the open area with crates of gear in the expanded photo Finlay had sent me.

  My team hit the door that opened directly to the storage area. The space was large with a high ceiling and smooth plascrete floors. Windows high on the walls let in plenty of light. Towers of dusty crates made for poor visibility, but also gave us a little bit of cover.

  Natalie led with quick steps. I scanned the tops of the crates while the soldiers in front of me swept the ground level. When a red blob appeared high on our left—sans green outline that marked them as a friendly—I shot instinctively. The electroshock pistol shorted out the combat armor’s camouflage, and an enemy soldier popped into view.

  Unfortunately, it also stunned the soldier inside the armor and they toppled off the crate. “Heads up!”

  The warning was unnecessary because the soldiers in front of me had already turned and followed my shots to their target. They moved aside, and the falling soldier hit the ground with a sickening splat. There was no time for regret.

  “Son of a bitch,” Natalie growled. “They’re in our combat armor. I repeat, enemy combatants are confirmed in Kos combat armor. Mind the transponder signals.”

  We kept moving.

  One of the other teams stunned two soldiers in the bunks and had them restrained. I was working on the assumption that we were dealing with around a dozen soldiers, plus Commander Adams. More than that and secrecy became questionable. Fewer and he wouldn’t have been able to attack as often as he had. Four had died in the previous attacks, and now three more were down. Five could be left, which wasn’t an insignificant number in close quarters like this.

  We came to the end of the line of crates we’d been following. Natalie poked her head around the corner and pulled back with a curse as a plasma pulse slammed into the crate next to her. “Four invisible protecting one visible with an apparent hostage.” She turned to me. “Why wasn’t I warned this was a potential hostage situation?”

  “I didn’t know.” But I had a bad feeling about who the potential hostage might be.

  “Come out and drop your weapons or I’ll blow his head off!” Commander Adams demanded.

  “And give up your only bargaining chip? I doubt it,” I called back before Natalie could respond.

  I moved up next to her and peeked around the corner. Sure enough, Adams stood in a circle of camouflaged soldiers. He wore combat armor but had the visor open. He moved slightly and I got a good look at his hostage. My breath caught. The man in his grip looked strikingly like Valentin. Same dark hair, same good looks, but this man lacked Valentin’s musculature. Nikolas.

  Nikolas looked scared. Was he actually being held as a hostage, or was he working with Adams, and this was their fallback escape plan? I couldn’t tell, which meant I didn’t know if Adams was serious about his threat to kill him. It didn’t really matter because none of the other Kos soldiers knew that Nikolas had potentially betrayed Valentin, so I would have to negotiate for Nikolas’s release or be branded a traitor myself.

  “Ah, the Scoundrel Queen,” Adams greeted. He must’ve recognized my voice. “We meet again. I should’ve known you’d be here. Have you come to kill Valentin’s heir?”

  I wouldn’t mind getting my hands on Nikolas, but for an inquisition, not a murder. Not unless he’d betrayed his brother, but even then, I’d let the courts sort it out, or I would destabilize Valentin’s throne.

  I peeked again. I could hit the two front soldiers before they got shots off, but I couldn’t hit all four and Adams. And Adams was no fool—there wasn’t a clear shot at him without taking out his guard.

  “Help me!” Nikolas shouted. Adams shook him into silence.

  “Adams, you’re surrounded. How do you think this is going to go?”

  “You’re going to let me leave and I’m not going to bring the building down on our heads. When we’re good and far away, I’ll let this one go.”

  Natalie swore under her breath again. “Marlow, Guerra, find the explosives,” she murmured. “Stay out of sight.”

  “No can do, I’m afraid,” I replied to Adams. “Surrender and tell us who you’re working with and I’ll plead for clemency for you.”

  His laugh was not nice. “I’ve seen your brand of clemency. I think I’ll pass.” He raised his voice so that all of the Kos soldiers could hear him. “I have the emperor’s brother and heir, Nikolas Kos. If anyone moves, he’ll be the first to die. The Quint Confederacy will offer asylum and pay a million credits to whoever brings me Samara Rani’s corpse right now.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Imogen put herself between me and the rest of the Kos soldiers. With the way the past few days had gone, it wasn’t a bad call. I tensed and waited to see if anyone would take the bait.

  “You better hope you can spend those credits in the afterlife because that’s where I’ll put you if you try it,” Natalie said quietly. “Queen Rani is an ally of Emperor Kos.”

  “Unless she killed him,” a female voice muttered. I only heard it through the helmet speakers, so it must be someone on another team.

  “Congratulations, squad. You have Lee to thank for your extra physical training this month.”

  The other soldiers groaned. “Dammit, Lee, when will you learn to keep your mouth shut?” another woman grumbled. “Maybe we should give you to this Quint asshole.”

  “Enough,” Natalie said. “What is the status of the explosives?”

  “The building is rigged to blow,” a male voice responded. “He’s not bluffing. We haven’t found the control yet.”

  “I will
also accept a trade of the queen for Nikolas,” Adams announced.

  “Don’t do it,” Imogen said.

  I rolled my eyes. I might’ve risked myself on occasion, but only when the odds were in my favor. Taking this bet would be stupid in the extreme, especially because I wasn’t convinced that Nikolas actually was a hostage and not just a convenient escape plan.

  “Any Quint soldier that helps subdue Adams will receive clemency from the emperor,” I called. “Adams doesn’t care about you. He’s going to blow you all up.”

  “My soldiers aren’t cowardly traitors,” Adams taunted.

  I bit my tongue against the retort I wanted to make about Nikolas. I didn’t need to air the emperor’s dirty laundry in front of his people.

  “I need those explosives gone,” I told Natalie quietly. “It’s possible the stun rounds will disable the trigger, but it’s not a sure thing. You should pull your people back.”

  “You can’t put Nikolas at risk,” Natalie said. “He’s the heir to the Kos Empire.”

  “He might be the emperor,” Lee mumbled just loud enough for the transmitter to pick up. Clearly she hadn’t believed that Valentin’s public statement from the med chamber was real. I prayed he would have a quick recovery, so he could be seen in public, or my time in Koan was going to be very short.

  “Why don’t you tell me who’s been feeding you information?” I called to Adams. “So I know whom to target next.”

  “Stop stalling. We’re going to leave and you’re going to let us, or Nikolas Kos dies. Or maybe that’s what you want? Trying to take out Valentin’s competition?”

  “Don’t let that crazy foreign bitch get me killed!” Nikolas shouted.

  That didn’t exactly sound like someone who would welcome rescue in any form. He’d nearly convinced me that he truly was a hostage, but now I began to doubt it again. Valentin was a hell of an actor; why wouldn’t his brother be as well?