by Ann Aguirre
Nobody’s come to check. He must be the only guard.
Soon, that theory proved to be correct as he navigated the rest of the turns until he reached the best place to spy on the Great Bear. The stench was remarkable.
Angry voices echoed from below, making it difficult to sort specific words from the clamor. Eventually, Grigor boomed out, “Shut up, all of you.”
His men weren’t fool enough to argue, so they quieted. “We can’t afford to wait,” the man with the deep voice said.
“True,” the Great Bear agreed. “With Priest gone and Abaddon fallen, we must take Queensland. If we give the bitch a chance to treat her wounded and strengthen her defenses, it will cost us.”
“He who hesitates is lost,” another man said. “If she’s allowed to conclude the arrangement with Silence, we’ll be annihilated and used in the Handmaiden’s mad rituals.”
“That sounds like cowardice,” Grigor snarled. “We fight for glory, not from fear.”
It bespoke wisdom and caution to Tam, but by the thumps and screams, the speaker received a beating anyway. Apparently it didn’t pay to offer the Great Bear honesty. The punishment continued for a while, then the discussion resumed.
“How long before the weapons are ready?” Grigor demanded.
“Two days,” the deep voice answered.
“Then that’s when we strike.”
Tam listened a little longer, but it was clear he wouldn’t learn anything more pertinent, as they showed signs of arguing strategy for hours. If he delayed here too long, he risked someone’s coming to relieve the dead sentry and sounding the alarm. Time to go. He had news to carry and work to do, before they surprised the Great Bear in the worst possible way.
* * *
ONCE Dred located her inner circle, she called an emergency meeting, but finding everyone took some time. Tam had disappeared, Ike was working on the Peacemaker unit, and Wills was obsessed with the maintenance bot. Only Jael and Einar were easy to locate, as they were talking in the hall—about what, she had no idea.
Not my concern, she told herself, though she hoped Jael wasn’t bragging. If he is, Einar will make him eat his fist.
Dred found Tam returning from outside their territory boundaries, so she tapped a foot, waiting for his report. She remembered what Ike had said, and, for the first time, she wondered if she’d given the spymaster too much autonomy. Those thoughts fled when she heard his report.
“Two days. We have to work fast.”
Tam nodded. “I’ll round up the others.”
“The meeting with the Speaker went better than I expected,” Tam admitted, once everyone was assembled in Dred’s quarters.
They weren’t quite words of praise, yet Dred still knew a moment of sheer satisfaction. Since Tam had found her shaking, covered in blood in Artan’s quarters, none of their conversations ever ended with his acknowledging she might know better than he did. Yet he didn’t chide her over the stand she’d taken with the Speaker.
A good thing, too. He might’ve invented the Dread Queen, but I am her now, and I won’t be manipulated, even by the man who made me.
The others seemed to be waiting for some conflict, but Tam only murmured, “I have some ideas on how to improve Silence’s scheme.”
Then he outlined them while Jael, Einar, and Ike listened.
She nodded in approval. “Genius. How soon can we be ready to move?”
“As soon as I get with Wills and check some schematics he downloaded from the maintenance bot.”
R-17 had proven unexpectedly useful. He had tidbits of information not readily available about the station, information about hidden resources, and byways that had been sealed off. But with sufficient effort, they might be able to reclaim said passages for exclusive use by Queensland. That would give her so much leverage.
“Yes, we don’t want to warn them that we’re coming.”
“You don’t have to do this personally,” Einar said. “I’m sure Tam and I could take some men, get the job done.”
Unsure if she could explain, Dred tried nonetheless. “No, I need to be there. It’s more meaningful, more insulting, if I lead the team. The Great Bear thinks women are weak, and—”
“I get it,” Jael said. “It’s a personal challenge and an articulation of your abilities.”
She nodded. “Exactly.”
Tam added, “We also need you present in order to claim full satisfaction of the compact with Silence. Death is all about the details.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” the big man said, visibly crestfallen.
His support against Tam earlier had meant a lot to her. She touched his arm and smiled. The small gesture lit him up like a laser beam; and when she turned, Jael’s mouth was a flat, white line. She thought she understood why.
“You’ll be on the squad,” she assured him.
“I’m so pleased, queenie.” He hadn’t called her that in such a tone for quite a while.
So he’s not worried about being left out. Though it seemed unlikely, maybe she’d pissed him off by touching Einar. She wouldn’t have guessed that Jael was the territorial type, but . . . Maybe he’s jealous? They hadn’t talked about what sex meant between them, if it was a one-time stress release, never to be repeated, or something more. But currently she had more pressing concerns, like keeping Queensland from being annihilated and her men decimated and enslaved.
So she made a peace offering as a stopgap measure, until they had time to talk. “I’ve put you on the roster for the garden, by the way. You have a shift later today.”
His gaze softened. “Thanks. I’d prefer that to patrolling if you can spare me.”
“Not a problem.” She turned to the other two men. “If possible, I’d like to set out first thing tomorrow. Is that possible?”
“Anything’s possible,” Tam answered. “Some things aren’t probable.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Don’t do that.”
The spymaster permitted himself a faint smile. “Yes, I think I can have everything in order by then.”
I can’t wait.
Tam was right; it was a brilliant plan, conceived by an evil genius. Dred shivered to think of going up against Silence in earnest. Maybe it won’t come to that. A faint hope—the Handmaiden likely wouldn’t rest until she owned the whole prison, until Entropy had swallowed everything else. That was the nature of death. What Grigor did for conquest, Silence did in the name of reverence and glorification. In the end, the results were about the same.
The rest of the day passed in preparation for the mission. That night, Jael didn’t ask for a reprise, so Tam and Einar took their places in her quarters, as usual. In the morning, she was ready early and waiting at the checkpoint before any of the men arrived. They came one by one, and Dred took some satisfaction in that as Einar arrived last.
“You took too long with your hair, big man. You’re late to the party.”
“Worth waiting for, though.” Einar ran his fingers through said locks.
“Definitely,” she agreed.
The big man’s axe was slung over his shoulder. Given their objective, she hoped he wouldn’t need it. With Priest out of the way, travel was easier. Still, it was best to be safe, which was why she wore her chains. They moved with caution; Dred expected to see Grigor’s soldiers out in force, but Tam had mapped a good route, using remote corridors. That made the path circuitous, exactly what they needed. This plan depended on secrecy.
Tam fell into step with her. “I owe you an apology.”
That surprised her. “Do you?”
“Yes. I’ve been treating you as if you haven’t grown into your role. In the beginning, you were . . .” He hesitated. “Less than prepared.”
“I was a mess,” she said wryly. “You and Einar kept me together.”
The spymaster shook his head. “You bore up, grace under pressure. From this point on, you have my word. I’ll behave as an advisor, not your handler.”
“You say that as i
f you have some experience with both,” she noted.
He ignored that remark, as he did most personal matters. “Moving on. There may be defensive measures here. If Grigor has a brain, there will be.”
“Guards?” If so, that could be a problem. If the men went missing, somebody would come to investigate and discover their handiwork soon enough to prevent the emergency she was trying to instigate.
“I don’t know, but I’ll scout before the rest of you get there.” So saying, Tam set off ahead. His footsteps were near silent against the metal floor, overwritten by the ambient noises of the ship. Dred had gotten used to the low hum, so she didn’t notice it except when she was listening hard. Like now.
She checked over one shoulder, seeing nothing amiss in the guttering lights or the pocked walls. A cascade of wires tumbled from a missing wall panel, and a number had been cut or stripped. Jael’s right. The ship can’t go on indefinitely like this. Which meant the Conglomerate had authorized a slow execution. Realizations like that made everything seem futile.
“How does it look?” she asked when Tam returned.
By her calculations, they were more than halfway to the target.
So far, so good.
The spymaster seemed elated. “No guards that I saw. No security immediately visible.”
Immediately, she wondered why. “Would he not have identified this as a viable target?”
“It’s possible he hasn’t,” Tam allowed. “Some men consider only the frontal assault. They lack the subtlety to envision the other ways the enemy can hurt them.”
Dred called to the others, “Let’s get this done quickly, in and out.”
As she approached the ladder, she said, “There’s a reason we need four people to make this work. Each of us must toggle the reset levers at the same time, then Tam will race to complete the programming.”
Which will include bad code for Grigor’s recyclers.
Dred climbed down as fast as the shaft allowed, then moved aside to make room for the others. She’d never been down to the recycling and sanitation chambers before. It was hotter down here, vents puffing steam into the room, so it felt damp on her skin. Much of the equipment was rusted, barely functional. Nobody had salvaged these rooms or stripped components; either they hadn’t thought of it, or it was much too difficult to reach with Priest’s fanatics butchering people in the corridors above.
But not anymore.
The computer that controlled the allotment of water was down here, protected by a number of fail-safes. Tam had a work-around for all of them, starting with the initial reset. She spotted the reset levers in each corner of the large room, impossible for less than four people to decide to work on the system. When it was a mining refinery, there had been that many people working down here easily, and a reset wouldn’t have been undertaken lightly.
“Get to your corners. I’ll count it down.” Dred jogged to the northeast side of the room. “Everyone in position? On one.” She checked and saw Tam, Einar, and Jael with hands on the power switches. “Five. Four. Three. Two. One!”
In sync, they clicked the levers down, and the computer powered down. This would result in a minor hiccup in the power above; hopefully, the others would think it was a docking supply ship and head to Shantytown, or they’d blame it on Perdition’s aging systems. Tam called out the count to thirty, then they powered the machine back on. As it ran through diagnostics, the spymaster sprinted for the console. He flipped the input pad out of the wall and went to work, fingers flying against the keys. Chains of code skimmed down the screen, errors flashing, then Tam swore, trying again.
“How we doing?” Einar asked.
Dred counted in her head, fifteen seconds left. Tam had no brain cells to spare for questions since he was racing the clock. If he didn’t get the commands accepted by the time the computer completed the restart, system defaults would kick in. Five seconds. The screen flashed red again, and the spymaster spat something so filthy that the big man looked impressed. Just when she thought they’d be locked out, the screen gleamed blue, and new words appeared: NEW PROGRAM ACCEPTED. She cheered along with everyone else, then loped over to congratulate Tam on his amazing work.
“I couldn’t cut off their water entirely,” Tam said. “So I programmed the system to apportion rations suitable for a much smaller population. And I turned off their filters, so when they use it—”
“It doesn’t get recycled. Comes back dirty.” That was clever and revolting, she thought.
“They’ll be sick as dogs before long,” Jael predicted.
Dred pushed out a relieved breath. “That’s the point. Grigor just has so many men . . . we have to weaken them before we take them on.”
“Hyena tactics,” he said.
She raised a brow. “You disapprove?”
“I support doing whatever’s necessary to win. But will it occur to them to check the system?”
Tam nodded. “Yes, they’ll come looking eventually. And Dred has a plan for dealing with them.”
She grinned at that. It was rare that she could honestly take credit for the ideas that created havoc for their enemies. But this was her brainchild, and she intended to make the most of it. “I think it will work.”
“Definitely,” Tam agreed. “Even if her plan fails, and they identify the problem, then reset the system, I doubt any of Grigor’s men have the skill to change my command parameters.”
“He tends to recruit brawn, not brain,” Einar agreed.
Dred asked the big man, “Then how did you end up in Queensland?”
“The Great Bear took one look at Einar and kept walking. I suspect he was afraid the big man wouldn’t be content to follow his orders.” Tam beckoned as he headed for the door.
She laughed. “He doesn’t follow any he doesn’t like. As long as you can work around that, it’s fine.”
“I’m right here,” Einar said in an aggrieved tone. He hefted his axe, following Tam out into the corridor.
Dred hurried after them. “Mission accomplished.”
Jael was the last to leave, and she wondered at his scrutiny of the console. Before she could quicken her step to catch up to the other two, he put a hand on her arm. “How do you know he changed the programming in the way he claims?”
First Ike, now Jael.
She pitched her voice low. “I don’t. But things have been a lot better for Tam since I removed Artan from power. People listen to him, and they treat him like he’s important, these days. Why would he jeopardize that, particularly in such a visible way? I mean, if we end up with a shortage or people get sick from drinking tainted water, I’ll know exactly who to blame, and Einar will cut his head off.”
“You make a compelling argument.” The flickering lights rendered his expression diabolical, slanting sparks across his skin.
She met his gaze. “Something’s bothering you about all this.”
“Yes. I just can’t put my finger on what. Silence has all these brilliant schemes, and she’s just handing them to you. Doesn’t that trouble you?”
“Yes,” she admitted. “I suspect there’s a knife hidden behind her back, but I have to play along until the game ends and hope I can dodge her final gambit.”
“Hope’s a bitch. Better to be prepared.”
Dred completely agreed.
36
Guerilla Warfare
Jael wasn’t sure if he was supposed to be pleased by this assignment. Two days ago, when Dred said she had a plan, Jael hadn’t realized he would be executing it. Maybe it was a little flattering, but mostly, it was boring as hell, hunkered down in a side corridor near the recycling center with Einar and thirteen other Queenslanders, along with water bottles and packets of paste.
He’d been a little jealous at seeing her touch Einar, but she was sensitive to it, at least. This sharing business really wouldn’t work if she was a bitch who got off on pitting her men against each other. Normally, he’d run at top speed in the other direction, faced with the prospect
of sharing a woman, but Perdition had a way of eating into your resolve, making you willing to accept things you wouldn’t otherwise.
Which is why I’ve got to get out of here.
He cocked his head, listening, then whispered to the big man, “We’ve got a group of four, incoming. Don’t scare them off with your stench.”
Einar growled back, “I smell like angels at sunrise.”
“Dead ones,” a small man cracked.
The rest of them snickered and nudged each other. These guys were about like the mercs he’d served with, not a psychotic break among them. Other territories were full of face-eating maniacs, so far as he’d seen, so he reckoned the reading she’d given him helped weed out the worst of the new fish.
Someone was asking, “How does he know how man—” when another inmate silenced him by clamping a hand over his mouth.
Jael settled to wait. As their footsteps drew closer, he leaned out to get the first glimpse of the incoming patrol. Einar wasn’t kidding when he said Grigor went for brawn. These four men all stood taller than two meters, each as broad through chest and shoulders as the big man. Most had scars but few so colorful as the ones Einar possessed. Jael signaled to his team, but at least half of them looked totally blank regarding the hand signals. Fortunately, Einar understood, and he was confident the two of them could take these four, no matter how big they were, so long as the rest of his squad didn’t actively get in their way.
A deep voice said, “I thought I saw something move.”
“You’re imagining things.”
“Might’ve been a rodent,” another said.
“I hate those fraggin’ things. They—”
But he didn’t get to finish his thought because Jael was on him. He went with a knife hand to the throat, followed by a clean takedown. Once he had the soldier on the ground, he rammed an elbow in his face. The blood from his smashed nose would disorient him. He took a couple of wild swings—and they were strong hits—but he’d been hurt much worse for much longer. He shook them off and finished the piker with a half-closed fist to the temple.
Einar had the sense not to swing his axe. Instead, he had a jagged blade in his hand, punching it rapidly into the smaller man’s sternum. The two closest Queenslanders laid into the remaining men and took them out; they were messy deaths, full of mob killing, with shoving and stomping and shivs slashing wildly. The corridor was a bloody smear by the time Grigor’s soldiers stopped moving.
