by Ann Aguirre
The big man nodded. “I want to figure out how to get to the spare rounds for the turrets, but we can do that another time.”
“I found some in storage,” Wills said.
Dred shot him an appreciative glance, which she extended to include the whole group. “Great work, all of you. I’m a little surprised we’re still alive, but impressed as hell, too.”
“Damn right,” Einar said.
Since he’d done the programming, Wills commanded, “Enable lift access.”
R-17 beamed codes to the device, and the doors swung open. Inside, it was more capacious than it looked from the outside, providing room for industrial machinery. Good thing, too, or the pallet wouldn’t have fit. As it was, they stood in tight quarters, pressed up against the walls.
The maintenance unit showed no signs of following until Wills said, “Come with me, 17. Repairs are needed elsewhere.”
“Supervisor override required.”
“Damn, it looks like I missed some fail-safes in the code.”
“Probably to prevent the unit from being stolen,” Jael guessed.
“I just need a few minutes,” the soothsayer said.
Jael studied Dred to see what she made of the delay, but she wasn’t angry. The princess in chains merely leaned against the wall and watched Wills go to work. R-17 protested the intrusion to his inner workings, then the other man shut him down entirely. After the bot went limp, Wills finished the work-around swiftly, as he’d promised.
“Fire it up,” Dred instructed. “See how you did.”
This time, when Wills ordered the unit to accompany them, it beamed the deck 47 destination straight to the lift controls, and the thing lurched into motion. The movement made Jael queasy, reminding him of being stuck on the prison transport with so much foul and wretched humanity. He stumbled off the lift first, then turned to help Dred. Who didn’t need a hand, apparently. She pushed past him with an abstracted expression.
Probably wondering where we are. I’d like to know, too. And what needs killing here.
Once everyone else disembarked, Einar maneuvered the air pallet with help from Jael. It took up the whole corridor, which would make it impossible to fight. Furthermore, the thing was piled so high with salvage and parts that it obscured vision for anyone shorter than the big man. Since Einar was already guiding it from behind, it made sense for him to stay there.
“You push, I’ll pull. If it pleases her majesty, she can guard the rear.”
In order for anyone to get to the front of the pallet, they had to climb up and over. Come to think of it, the thing served as a functional portable barricade. Its bulk also meant Jael was responsible for killing anybody who interfered with the convoy.
“Do you know this area?” the big man asked Dred. “How far are we from our border?”
She shook her head, obviously frustrated. “I’ve never been in these halls. And look.” Dred indicated the floor.
From the undisturbed dust, Jael could tell nobody had been here in a long time. If R-17 had done any collecting on deck 47, enough time had passed for its tracks to settle. So getting back to Queensland might prove a problem even though they’d circumvented the ladders.
Wills tapped a finger on his chin, looking thoughtful. “Do you possess a copy of the station layout?” he asked the bot.
“Affirmative. Display on?”
“Yes.” As soon as Wills said the word, a beam came out of the droid’s head, projecting a 3-D holo model of the refinery.
Even at this scale, the place looked huge. Jael tried to pinpoint their location, but he had no luck. Navigation hadn’t been his specialty in any combat unit. He was always on the front line, soaking heavy fire so the rest of his team didn’t die behind him. Often they walked over his body and then vomited when they saw him stagger up despite horrific wounds, stumble after them with holes where no living creature should have them.
Wills frowned, then said, “Show our present location.”
A glowing light appeared on the model. Still not helpful, he thought, since we have no idea where Queensland is from here. And the bot doesn’t know our names for things.
“I can work this out,” Dred said, bending closer. “Where’s the central dormitory on deck 47?” Another dot appeared. Then she added, “Light a path as I go if you can, 17.”
She traced a route from there to the access point where they’d gone down the ladders, then the corridors. Since a white line sprang up where she indicated, Jael guessed the bot had some interesting capabilities. Next she pinpointed the salvage bay and charted the course up the lift to their current location. By the time she was done, Jael knew exactly where they needed to go. Unfortunately, it was past a pair of blast doors that didn’t open anymore.
Dred wheeled and booted a dent into the nearest wall, then spat a virulent curse. Just when he thought she might lose it, the princess in chains pulled herself together, took a breath, and looked to them for solutions. “Think the laser could cut us a path?”
Wills shrugged. “Not sure how much juice the power source has left. Wired into the Peacemaker, it had a self-charging system, but it’s been out of the circuit for a while now.”
Einar looked tired and pissed. “Can’t hurt to try.”
“The Shredder might do it,” Jael suggested. “It would mean blowing through a lot of ammo, though.”
She snarled a few more choice epithets, but she didn’t flinch from making a choice. “Laser first. If it sputters or can’t cut through, then we’ll try the Shredder. Damned if I’m leaving this stuff and backtracking after we went to so much trouble to retrieve it.”
“Is there anything to cut through a blast door in the salvage bay?” Wills asked R-17.
The bot searched its databases, then answered, “There is a grade two mining drill, but it requires repairs in order to be functional.”
“How big is it?” Einar demanded.
Good question. If it’s a huge piece of equipment, it won’t fit in the lift anyway.
“Five meters by four,” the bot replied.
“That’s not a whole lot bigger than the pallet,” Wills said.
“That’s plan B.” Dred gestured. “Get moving, all of you. We’re marching all the way to those damned blast doors.”
“R-17 might be helpful up front,” Wills put in. “He can scan for movement.”
Jael doubted there would be any living creatures, except maybe the rodents, but it would be good to know if they were about to run into another Peacemaker. “Do you detect any other droids active on this deck?” he asked the bot.
“Unknown. I am not configured for long-range surveys. Please refer to my counterpart, the RS-99, complete with upgraded sensors and scanning capacity.”
Ah well. Worth a try.
Jael scrambled over the piles of gear on the pallet, nearly overbalancing, but it was so close to the wall that he caught himself easily, then leapt down in front. “Send him up.”
What the hell. Maybe it’ll draw fire away from me if we run into trouble. Einar lifted the bot bodily and handed him over. Once on the ground, R-17 whirred into motion, checking the area for broken components. Since Wills hadn’t told him not to, Jael let that go. They might end up with additional useful parts.
It wasn’t far, and they encountered no trouble. The fragging doors are the problem. Jael stopped, giving himself room to maneuver, then turned to call, “Hand me the laser.”
Dred brought it to him personally, graceful even as she clambered across the pallet. Between her chains and the weapon, she was overloaded, but she gave no sign of it. Her shoulders were square, eyes fierce with determination. Without asking for help, she jumped down beside him.
“Hell of a day, huh? And it’s about to get louder.”
“Damn right,” he said, realizing he sounded an awful lot like Einar.
“You ready to make some noise?” she asked.
“Count on it,” he said, taking the laser.
Dammit, he might even like this
woman.
That never ended well.
19
And the Walls Come Tumbling Down
Jael looked natural with a weapon in hand; to Dred’s mind, he handled the laser expertly. She backed up a few steps at his insistence, and he fired. That first shot slagged partway through the door, leaving another layer of durasteel between them and Queensland. He rotated the power pack, bounced it, while whispering to the gun in a coaxing tone.
“You think that’ll help?” she asked, amused.
“Can’t hurt. Treat a weapon like a lady, and she won’t let you down.”
“Is that your experience with women, too?”
“Most women aren’t ladies,” he said.
“Would you want them to be?”
“Not in the slightest.”
He threw a cocky wink over his shoulder, and for the first time in half a turn, Dred experienced a flicker of pure chemical attraction. She didn’t enjoy it, but on another level, it was good this place hadn’t broken her. Perdition had hardened her, but it hadn’t succeeded in destroying every human impulse. That was reassuring. His jiggering received no response from the laser, however. Dead is dead, apparently. Unless it’s Jael.
The man in question called, “Einar, toss me the Shredder. I’m taking this door down even if I have to use your head as a battering ram.”
Dred waited to see how that suggestion would be received. To her astonishment, the big man climbed on top of the air pallet and chucked the rifle. “Yeah, well, if you can lift my ass, I’ll let you.”
Jael laughed; it seemed their camaraderie was permanent. “Let’s try something else first. Take cover. Some of these shots may not chew clean through.”
In a metal corridor, that was sound advice. If a fragging door killed one of them, the rest would never live it down. She hauled herself onto the air pallet and hunkered down behind a pile of scrap metal. Then she checked behind her to make sure the other two had done the same.
“All set,” Einar shouted.
The gun went full auto, and sparks flew, popping all over the hallway. Shots ricocheted until she felt sure crouching was the best idea ever. Rounds struck the panels where she was hiding and cut a peephole, so she could see how Jael was doing. He bled from several new wounds but the flow was sluggish, courtesy of freakishly fast coagulation. As for the hole, she could see light on the other side, but it wasn’t big enough for a person to pass through. Yet.
Soon he ran out of ammo, though. With a muted curse, Jael dropped the Shredder. “It’s safe.”
The R-17 unit whirred forward to inspect the damage and lights flashed on what would be the bot’s face if it were human. “The wall is damaged. It must be repaired.”
“Frag, no,” Jael protested. “It took all our firepower to accomplish this much—and it’s not enough.”
Wills came past Dred with clumsy urgency to stop the bot from deploying its hardware on the charred wall. From the bone-reader’s expression, he had an idea. She hoped it was a good one, as they were fresh out of resources.
“This isn’t a wall,” Wills told the bot. “This is a door. And it’s the door that’s not working. Initiate stuck-door protocol.”
The bot scanned the surface, then agreed, “Blast doors are fused. Solution may result in damage to organics. Please stand clear.”
“Is this thing packing explosives?” Dred asked.
Wills shrugged. “I’d step back, just in case.”
But instead of applying a putty charge, a thin wand extended from R-17’s front chassis and a red beam carved between the doors but was too weak to open the way on its own, given that the durasteel had been soldered from both sides.
“Repair failed. Analysis: Desired result impossible within current parameters. Recommended solution: Dispatch complete technical team from Repair and Salvage Operations.”
“If only,” Dred muttered.
They didn’t have a repair team to summon, but maybe Jael was on the right track when he mentioned a battering ram. She added, “The two of you managed to pull apart a Peacemaker unit. Until you did it, I’d have said it was impossible, too.”
Einar caught on right away. “You want us to tag team the door, using the blast hole as a handle?”
Wills said, “It’s possible you could bring enough pressure to bear to pull it apart . . . and if you create a gap, R-17 can run the minilaser again. It’s not meant for heavy cutting, but it might be able to weaken the seal enough for you to break it.”
“Best idea we’ve got,” Jael said. “Let’s do it.”
The two took up positions on either side, braced to begin as soon as Wills gave the order to the bot. Dred counted it down, then the show started. Muscles straining, they hauled until their shoulders popped. Each man grunted and swore, pushing beyond human capacity, and still they didn’t stop as the bot deployed the laser. The red line skimmed upward; and Dred was positive the door gave, just a little.
“One more time,” she suggested.
“One hernia coming up,” the big man mumbled. “Why the hell not?”
Jael didn’t reply, just set his feet and nodded with a bring-it-on light in his blue eyes. Wills checked the power readings on R-17, then said, “If it doesn’t work, we have to go back down for more gear. The bot’s almost out of juice.”
Dred inclined her head. “Noted. Now let’s get this done.”
It went off like clockwork between the crimson glow of the laser to the twin, straining biceps and thighs of the men to the left and right of the weld point. When the door gave, it sounded like the whole ship giving way. They were pulling so hard that both Jael and Einar fell, slamming hard into the corridor walls on either side. For a second, she wanted to go help Jael to his feet, but she froze the impulse and contented herself with an arched brow.
“You two all right?”
“I just need to cram my intestines back up inside,” Einar said. “No problem at all.”
“Did you really pop something? Shit.” Sometimes that required surgical intervention. He could die—and what a way to go out, slow and ugly. If it came to it, she wouldn’t let him suffer.
But to her relief, the big man smiled and shook his head. “Just screwing with you.”
Dred pushed out a slow breath and glared. “Asshole. You did good work, both of you.”
Never truer words. The doors stood open enough for the men to get inside and push them back. Since they were meant to retract into the walls, it was easy once the double-welded seam popped. When Jael turned back toward her, she noticed the red smeared all over his hands.
“What happened?”
He shrugged as if the sight of his own blood was nothing new. “I opened my palms on the burn hole I was using as a handle. It’ll close up by tomorrow.”
That doesn’t mean you aren’t hurting right now, you ass.
But she couldn’t be soft with anyone, even if, contrarily, he made her want to be because he was stoic to the point of insanity. She’d thought more than once that he wasn’t human, but after this run, she needed to know exactly what she’d welcomed into her territory. They were all monsters and outcasts, but sometimes the shading mattered. More information was critical. But she pretended to accept his words at face value. The conversation she intended to have with him wouldn’t occur in front of an audience, even part of her inner circle like Wills and Einar.
“Wrap it up. Queensland is doubtless full of bastards who have already given us up for dead and are taking wagers on who will replace me.”
“Tam,” Einar answered at once.
That gave her a twinge. “I offered, but he passed. Said the territory was mine.”
“Heavy is the head that wears the crown,” Wills said.
The big man corrected, “‘Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.’ It’s from an ancient play.”
Wills nodded in apparent appreciation. “Yes, that’s the line.”
She mock-scowled as the bone-reader shifted the air pallet from stationary to mobile mode.
“Either way, there isn’t one. If I have to sit on that ass-ugly chair, I ought to get a scrap-metal tiara to go along with it.”
Jael aimed a warm look her way, one that had doubtless melted hearts all across the galaxy. “I’ll make you one, queenie.”
“Then my life would be complete,” she said dryly.
Such a handsome warrior was trouble on two legs, and, unfortunately, he knew exactly how attractive and charming he could be. Jael wore the attitude like armor, but Dred wondered just what lay beneath his determinedly bright exterior. He had no issue showing his physical peculiarities, but his emotions were completely armored. In a place like this, it was best not to show your underbelly to anyone . . . but she was still curious.
“Enough chatter,” she added. “Moving out.”
At Einar’s insistence, she climbed on the pallet. Her extra weight didn’t slow the thing, which hovered so that Jael and the big man moved it along as they walked. She felt conspicuous up top, but so close to the Queensland border, such showmanship should be safe. When they turned a final corner before the checkpoint, she was perched atop their looted gear like a pirate queen. Recognizing her obligation, she lifted her arm in triumph, propped a booted foot on an ammo case, and let out a triumphant howl.
Dred recognized the men on duty. All four of them responded with victory cries of their own. They shifted the barricades, so the pallet could slide by, then replaced them, taking up fierce and ready postures behind the raid caravan. She’d prefer to hop down now, but it would be better for morale if she returned in theatrical fashion.
Mary, I’ve been listening to Tam too much.
By the time they reached the hall, their procession swelled to a huge mob, chanting, “Dread Queen! Dread Queen! Long may she reign!”
It was absurd, but she gave them the spirit to fight. But Dred wished it wasn’t necessary and that it didn’t require so much bullshit. She wasn’t a dread anything, just a tired woman with a twisted and peculiar ability, who had let it drive her mad.
They cheered her for a full five minutes before Tam opened a path through the mob. “I was getting worried,” he said in low tones. “Things got interesting while you were gone as well. I’ll fill you in shortly. And I have some inquiries . . .”
