The reply was partly stifled by the bag. “—depends. Are you trying to hack it, or am I?”
Kreon didn’t bother to answer. “Once I make this contact, our options are limited. These Ingumend will have their own agenda. It is entirely possible that they will order the termination of these prisoners.”
“We have to try,” Tris pleaded. “They won’t just want to kill them. Not if there’s a chance…”
Kreon focussed his attention on the wrist-holo, and stabbed an icon. The device pinged, then pinged, then pinged again.
Your call is in a queue. Please wait for our next available operator.
The next ping turned into a squeal of static, and a gruff voice came on the line. “Hello? Who is this?”
Kreon raised an eyebrow at Tris. “This is Lord Anakreon of the Lantian delegation. We have located the targets. Forty-seven survive, however all are currently incapacitated. They can be extracted, but we require assistance.”
“You need help?” A chain of explosions drowned out the contact’s next words. “—pinned down! They’re all over us. That tower can see us no matter where we hide! —troops are trying to surround us. We’re holding them off, but the tower is too strong! We’ve got nothing that can touch it.” The speaker paused, and another explosion roared through the comm. “Get down!” he yelled at someone else, “Tell them to fall back!”
“Are you able to enter the prison complex?” Kreon asked, taking advantage of the lull in conversation.
A burst of static cut off what was undoubtably a swear-word. “Are you crazy? Do you hear what I’m saying? This assault is over. We’ll be lucky if we last the next ten minutes. Tell Gerian we tried our best.”
And the call cut off.
Kreon exchanged a look with Kyra, then extended it to include Tris.
“So much for our exit,” Tris said.
“Indeed. It would appear that the situation outside is more drastic than we anticipated.”
“They’re getting creamed,” Kyra agreed. “While we’re sitting in here debating whether or not to commit mass murder. I mean, I’m all for the easy way out, but this is a lot of people.”
“I cannot kill them out of hand,” Kreon admitted. He looked up and down the cell block. “If we could move them as far as the landing bay… Wayfinder has sufficient capacity. There must be transports of some kind stored in the vicinity. Loader?”
“No,” Tris said, a sudden certainty settling upon him. “The tower. We take that out, those people out there have got a chance. Maybe then they can make it in here to take care of their friends.”
Kreon stared him full in the face, as though analysing the resolve behind his words. “You are suggesting we mount an offensive against the most secure area of this facility?”
“The people up there,” Tris jabbed a finger towards the ceiling, “ are the people that did that, back there.”
Kreon considered for a moment. “That is a strong possibility.”
“Well, can we do it? Can we win?”
The Warden’s mouth twisted up in a half-smile. “Three-hundred years in active duty, Tristan. I have yet to lose.”
“Alright then! Let’s do it!”
Kreon cast a glance back down the cell block, where Kyra was crouching close to the unconscious prisoners. “Kyra?”
“Meh.” Kyra stood, cracking her knuckles. “I came here to save some good guys and kill some bad guys. Looks like the good guys are pretty fucked, so I’m up for some carnage.”
The plan was simple.
The central tower could only be reached via the Security Bridge — a single moveable corridor, designed to stop hordes of rioting prisoners from flooding the control centre. Tris pictured it like a lift car the size of a train carriage rotating around the central structure, long enough to reach across the vast gulf of empty air separating the prison population from their tormentors. Currently it was seventeen levels below them, bridging the far side of the shaft, but Loader assured them that ALI had summoned it. The best part was, they didn’t have to fight their way past a blockade of guards to reach it — the Transgressions department had its own access point.
Of course it does! In case one of those sick bastards wakes up in the middle of the night with the urge to torture someone.
“However, I must warn you,” Loader continued, “all movements of the bridge are logged. ALI has no power over the humans monitoring it.”
Kreon and Kyra exchanged a meaningful look.
“Meaning they’ll be waiting for us on the other side,” she pointed out.
The hatch they were facing made a clunk, then glowed green. Doors that a moment ago would have opened onto fresh air now slid back to reveal a windowless steel corridor.
“What’s to keep them blowing this thing up with us inside it?” Tris asked. “Or tipping it up and dumping us out?”
“ALI is in control of the Security Bridge’s functions,” Loader offered.
“I trust her completely,” Kyra said. She nudged Tris. “You first.”
Ignoring them both Kreon strode through the doorway, grav-staff clutched firmly in one hand.
Easy for him, Tris thought, he can fly!
But there was nothing else for it. This was his idea, not that anyone else had been particularly forthcoming. He shook himself all over, and stepped into the corridor.
Kyra followed, and the door slid shut behind them. With a clunk and a lurch, they were off; the ride was smooth enough that Tris could almost forget they were in a tin can dangling over a mile-deep hole in the ground.
“Not scared of heights are ya?” Kyra needled him, as they jogged towards the far end of the corridor.
“No,” he lied. It had been one of his biggest phobias growing up; he’d started parkour in an effort to cure himself, and had eventually managed to feel quite at home on the rooftops of suburban Bristol.
That is so not this.
“Good!” Kyra shot him a wicked grin. “Because we really don’t want to be inside this thing when that door opens.” She unslung one of her rifles and tossed it to Kreon, then uncoiled the swords from her waist. “This place needs better ventilation,” she said — and with three quick strokes, she cut a man-sized opening in the metal wall. Wind rushed in, buffeting them, as Kyra turned back to Tris. “Don’t be making no small holes now! You don’t want to crawl head-first out of this.” And replacing her swords, she stepped through the opening.
Tris stared after her, horrified. “I’m… I’m going out there?”
“Of course not!” Kreon told him. “You’re going out the other side.”
“What? Why?”
“The glaive will allow you to effect an entry directly through the tower walls. You really should take that pendant off, it makes co-ordinating our strategy considerably more difficult.”
A chime from Kreon’s backpack reminded them of Loader’s presence. “Bridge arriving in ten seconds,” the talos reported.
“Shit!” Tris reached back for the glaive, extending its handle for a two-handed grip. The toughened steel walls offered no resistance to his blade as he quickly sliced a doorway. The rectangular piece of metal tore free as he finished, pinwheeling off into the void. Wind hit him, a veritable tornado. “You coming?” he asked Kreon.
“Don’t be ridiculous!” the Warden admonished him. “Hanging off the sides of flying bridges is a young man’s game.”
Tris poked his head out and studied the outside. Luckily it was covered in mechanical gubbins, rather than being smooth like the inside. Taking a grip on some unknown piece of hardware he took a deep breath — and swung himself out into emptiness.
Clinging to the wall as the wind whipped by him, he watched the armoured skin of the tower slide past. The bridge was still moving upwards, and rotating around the tower; gritting his teeth, Tris edged towards it. The distance was less than a metre, but it was the most terrifying metre he’d ever crossed. He was within kissing distance when the bridge’s motion slowed, and some instinct warned him t
o hang on tight. A second later, a violent judder announced their arrival.
Go time!
He wished he’d had chance to remove the psychic-blocking pendant. He could only guess at what Kyra was up to on the far side of the bridge. She was plenty capable of cutting her way in, but beyond that…?
Just then, a coarse shout echoed through of the hole he’d cut in the bridge. It was as good a signal as any. Bracing himself in the angle between the bridge and the tower, he pulled the glaive free. The cuts weren’t neat, but they were quick — and as another sheet of metal plunged in the abyss, a torrent of blaster fire erupted behind him.
Kreon? Shit!
He swung himself through the new opening in the tower’s skin and landed in a crouch — right behind a guard in full body armour. An entire squad was arrayed in front of him, their weapons blazing through the doors to the bridge. Kreon must have retreated back down the corridor, as the lead guards were advancing inside, still firing.
Tris had wondered what Kyra’s plan was — now he knew.
Flinging himself forward he raised the glaive overhead, extending it in the same motion. His first blow split the closest guard’s back armour as though it wasn’t there, slicing the man in half from shoulder to hip. Leaping over the body as it fell Tris struck left and right, the deadly blade carving through everything it touched. A second man fell, missing an arm; the backswing decapitated the next in line. Tris spun to keep the momentum, diverting it into a horizontal slice across the chest of a guard who was turning towards him. Still spinning Tris brought the glaive around like a scythe, its lethal edge slashing at three targets in quick succession, driving them back. But the guards closest to the centre of the pack were turning now, recognising this threat from an unexpected quarter. The two closest swung their weapons to bear, muzzles still white hot from firing into the Security Bridge. Staring down two rifle barrels, Tris instinctively squeezed the glaive to lengthen it. Now seeing everything in slow-motion, he brought the elongated staff up horizontally beneath both weapons, connecting hard and deflecting their shots into the ceiling. He dropped to one knee, spinning the glaive above his head like a rotor blade, slashing both assailants across their chests in one move.
A third guard was behind them as they fell. He leapt back just in time, managing not to get tangled, and levelled a potent-looking handgun at Tris. There was nothing Tris could do. The distance was too great; the glaive was on the backswing, moving away from this new target. For a split second, he stared death in the face, as the guard snarled back at him and pulled the trigger.
A bolt of incandescent energy blazed past, coming so close to his ear Tris felt his skin sizzle.
The reason for the miss became apparent a second later; Kyra’s blade protruded from the man’s chest, having run him through from behind in the same instant he fired. The sword vanished and he crashed to the deck, dead long before he hit it.
“Good— good timing,” Tris gasped, suddenly struggling for breath. “Thank-you.”
“Aww, you’re welcome,” Kyra purred. “You owe me a foot massage.”
The sound of gunfire had stopped; Kreon clanked his way through the doorway, rifle in hand, trench coat smouldering. The Aegis must have protected him, but it looked like a couple of shots had got through. The Warden’s mood was dour as he stomped and crunched his way towards them.
“Took your time,” was his only comment.
Tristan’s gaze was drawn inexorably down to the carpet of bodies. Triumph warred with disgust inside him.
“Feel better?” Kyra asked him.
“No. Not really,” he admitted.
“Ah well. Plenty more where they came from.”
He opened his mouth to explain that wasn’t what he’d meant; that this senseless massacre didn’t make up for the other one. But he shut it instead. Kyra must have seen more of this kind of action that he could imagine. Whatever moral code she’d arrived at to justify her actions, he wasn’t going to change it by whining.
Kreon’s wrist holo flickered to life and he poked a finger at it to zoom in. “We are here,” he stated, pointing at the place where the central hub extended out of the shaft to become a tower. “Seventeen levels below the control room. There are stairwells in multiple locations, but none take us the entire way. In addition, we must pass through a number of security checkpoints, all of which will now be under lockdown protocols.”
Kyra looked grim; it suddenly occurred to Tris that perhaps he should have studied the tactical situation before convincing them all to go on a suicide mission.
“A more favourable alternative,” Kreon continued, “is to avail ourselves of the route you already pioneered. We leave the tower through the opening you cut, and ascend the seventeen floors by climbing its outer skin.”
Tris gaped. Even the thought of going back out there made his stomach churn. The memory of that savage wind buffeting him, of the sweat-sheen causing his fingers to slip on the smooth metal, of the mile of absolute nothingness below…
Kyra shrugged. “The climb,” she said. “I’m not one to duck out on a fight, but seventeen levels of fortified guard posts might be pushing it. Even for us.”
“Indeed.”
Tris threw a nervous glance back at the hole he’d cut in the tower’s wall. He could already imagine the turbulence out there. Seventeen floors? It was madness. “Can’t we use the Security Bridge?”
Loader’s dull monotone issued from Kreon’s backpack. “The Security Bridge goes no higher than the surface,” the talos explained, “but the command staff have access to a private elevator. It opens directly in front of us.”
Kreon glanced up, eying the double doors set into the corridor’s back wall. “You’re suggesting we stand here and wait for a lift?”
“I am recommending that you take a deep breath,” Loader replied.
Tris looked at Kyra; she arched her eyebrows at him, then drew a long, slow breath.
With a sudden hiss, jets of white gas sprayed from ceiling nozzles, flooding the corridor in seconds. Tris managed a huge lungful of air, but with an acrid tang that made his throat itch.
“The fire suppression system will conceal our whereabouts for several minutes. The elevator car is arriving… the doors are opening… now.”
Tris glanced around blindly, but Kreon pushed past him, making a direct line forward. Chest heaving, Tris followed as Kyra tagged along behind him. A handful of footsteps brought them into the lift car. The urge to breathe out was unbearable; it couldn’t have been more than a few seconds, but they’d been stressful seconds and his lungs were fit to burst. Doors swished shut behind them and the fog immediately began to clear.
“ALI confirms that the air in the car is now breathable,” Loader reported.
Tris exhaled explosively, gasping for breath. Kreon and Kyra both seemed composed, as though running through clouds of poison-gas were part of their daily routine.
“I… inhaled some… will I… be okay?” Tris coughed.
Kyra smiled sweetly at him. “Yes dear. Your lungs would have melted by now.”
“Kyra,” Kreon snapped, “don’t play with the boy. We need his head in the game.”
“I’m fine,” Tris said, straightening up. He took a few steadying breaths, rolled his shoulders, and reached back for the rifle dangling on its sling. “I’m fine,” he repeated, squaring up to the lift doors. “Let’s do this.”
“Lift car arriving,” Loader reported, his volume knob turned down to whisper.
“They should not be aware of us,” Kreon reminded them, readying his own rifle. “Armed targets first. Keep moving.”
Then the lift car doors slid open — and Enneas was stood before them, a confused look on his face.
Tristan’s mouth fell open. “Enneas? What—?”
But Enneas reacted faster. He drew his blaster and fired point-blank. Time slowed to a crawl as Tris looked down, watching his chest armour flare and melt. Then the force of the blast hit him like a battering ram and he was t
umbling through the air, falling backwards to land heavily against the far wall.
“NO!” Kyra’s scream seemed to come from far away, her face distorted like he was looking at it from underwater. She threw herself down beside him, hands going to the warm, bubbly patch in his chest. He opened his mouth to tell her he was okay, but no sound came out.
Kreon must have shut the door, because suddenly the light changed and everything went very quiet. “Is he alive?” The Wardens’ voice seemed to come from a long way away.
Warm fingers prodded Tris’ neck. “He’s breathing.”
“I fear we may have lost the element of surprise.”
“Surprise?” Kyra roared, leaping to her feet and yanking her swords from her waist. “I’ll give ‘em a fucking surprise!”
Tris wanted to tell her not to worry, that he was fine — but all that came out of his mouth was a trickle of warmth. She glanced down at him, her face a mask of pain and rage — and that was the last thing he saw before darkness took him.
19
Kyra locked eyes with Kreon. She’d seen that expression too many times recently.
Even by Warden’s standards, he went through apprentices at an alarming rate.
Damn him! And damn him twice for picking Tris.
She never got attached, never; and this was the reason why. Those elevator doors would open again any second, and Kyra knew two things; that she was going to kill the first person she saw — and the next one if she got the chance — and that she was probably going to die straight after that.
Still. At least she’d die as she’d always hoped; fighting to make a difference, blood-spattered Arranozapar in her hands.
And they didn’t know what she could do with these blades…
A savage rage welled up inside her.
Might get quite a few of ‘em.
The doors slid open and Kyra was through them in an instant. She gave no thought to Kreon; the old Warden was in the fight of his life, and she knew he’d give a good accounting.
Warden's Fury Page 22
