Tears streamed freely down his face as he nodded gingerly. A mixture of contempt and guilt coiled in my stomach, sickening me. To see a grown man reduced to this sniveling and helpless pile—alas, I had use for him. I tore the weapon out of his mouth, then laid my hand to his forehead and shoved him backward.
“You had no need to lie for him,” I said coldly. “No need to be his mouthpiece. All you had to do was stay silent, Gladdic. To say nothing rather than lie… Oh, but then I suppose you wouldn’t have been given your ship back. Was this a gift from the Emperor?”
At his silence, I roared, “ANSWER ME!”
Gladdic bowed his head. “Yes,” he whispered.
“Ah.” I nodded and looked around the command nexus. “So the Atlas was more valuable than your integrity. Well, it’s a fine ship, to be sure. Do you know what I mean to do with it? I am taking it. Where is that bust of Cygna? That was to be my wedding present. It’s rightfully mine as well.”
His tears had stopped, leaving his eyes wide and dry. He remembered well that bust Tyrus had used to beat his father to death, the one Tyrus had cruelly forced him to display. I’d ordered him to give it to me—as a mercy, so he would no longer need to look upon it. Now it told him everything.
“It… it is you. How is it possible?”
“Because you sent me to the Partisans!” I roared at him. “You did, Gladdic! You injected me with oxygen pellets and contacted Neveni to seize my tomb before it burned up in a star. It was you. You don’t remember because Tyrus dosed you with Scorpion’s Breath afterward so you’d forget your near-execution and play a better propagandist for him. You are the reason for my survival! Yet now you play propagandist for the man who tried to murder me!”
He grew deathly pale. “I saved you?”
He seemed horror-struck. He didn’t realize Tyrus already knew. He likely was thinking of what Tyrus would do to him if he ever learned the truth.
I could use that.
“Yes,” I said with malevolent relish. “You. You saved me. And you are going to help me once again. Because I mean to kill Tyrus.”
“Oh please, no. Please leave me out of this,” he whispered. “I’ve only just crept back into his good graces. Nemesis, please—”
I stepped forward and cuffed him. It was a light blow, but it still knocked him back against the wall. I seized his collar and wrenched him off the ground, slamming him into the wall so hard I heard him wheeze.
“What do you fear, that Tyrus will kill you? Believe me: he won’t get the chance if you refuse me. You’ll figure out a way to help me destroy him, or I swear on all the stars, I’ll give you good reason to be afraid.”
18
ANGUISH AND I boarded the Atlas and set Gladdic’s crew to salvaging engine parts from the Phoenix to replace what had been destroyed by the chaotic gale. Then we used the Atlas’s blasting lasers to shear the Phoenix into shreds. Sooner or later, Tyrus would learn that we’d stolen that vessel. Let him find another dead end when he tracked it down.
Once we’d taken the Atlas into the enveloping darkness of hyperspace, I began scouring the vessel’s databases for our next target.
We needed resources, and I found a dozen sites of interest: major armories, hidden arsenals, vaults of imperial riches.
We hadn’t bothered to lock up Gladdic. He was our prisoner all the same, trapped on this ship with a small contingent of servants who would not risk themselves to help him. Nor would Gladdic dare ask them for help—I had explained that he would be held accountable for any acts of sabotage they committed. As for the man himself, physical bravery was not among his notable qualities.
One might have expected him to keep to his quarters, but Gladdic had never been circumspect. He came into the conference chamber now, wearing another absurd headdress—this one a holographic image of a galaxy swirling about his temple. He was eager, he said, to be helpful. Fear had total power over him.
He told me about each of the targets I’d selected, offering whatever important or insignificant details he could dredge up.
Nothing truly lit my interest until we reached one of the lesser targets.
I’d found it in the Atlas’s flight logs. This ship had been among a coterie that accompanied the Alexandria to an obscure location: an asteroid within the Jubilee Belt.
“That’s the Clandestine Repository,” Gladdic said. “But we can’t go there.”
And that caught my attention.
“Why? What is it?”
“It’s like a central bank, you could say.”
A bank. “Wealth?” I said sharply.
“And information. All the greater Grandiloquy families have vaults there. They store family records. The Divine Emp—the Emperor used to visit often.”
I leaned forward. “When?”
“Not for years,” said Gladdic. “I… I guess he wished to peruse the histories. Family records, mostly. Surveillance footage or senatorial holographics from early in the Empire.”
All I could think of was the pitiful weapons bay of the Atlas. Like most every vessel, Gladdic’s ship carried basic blasting lasers and a handful of sophisticated missiles, but only the smallest number and not nearly sufficient for a proper attack against a juggernaut like the Alexandria, much less the fleet of thousands of security drones Tyrus could deploy at will now. With a store of wealth, we could provision ourselves for a proper onslaught.
And if we funded our actions against this Empire with wealth stolen from the great Grandiloquy families, all the better. Let them feel the vulnerability of having their most secured vaults plundered.
“That’s where we’ll start,” I said.
“No,” said Gladdic sharply. “Trust me, it’s too difficult to raid.”
“Is it?” I said. “If only the Grandiloquy and their most trusted servants know of this place, they’ve likely grown complacent—too assured of its security.”
“Only the Emperor can grant access.”
I smiled. “That’s why we have you, Gladdic. You’ve crawled into his good graces. You’ll want to see your vault.”
“It doesn’t work that way.” Agitated, Gladdic began to pace. “Even if the Atlas were allowed to dock with the Repository, they’d bring the Aton vault to me—and then they’d make sure we left. We can’t just dock and walk inside.”
“We won’t walk,” I said calmly. “We’ll dock and then shoot our way in.”
“But…” He saw the look on my face and visibly wilted. “I suppose I have no chance of talking you out of it.”
“None whatsoever.” I grabbed a mobile computer console and plopped it before him, along with a stylus. “Now draw.”
“Draw…?”
“Everything you remember about the layout. The defenses. Everything.”
* * *
Gladdic’s memory was patchy at best, his drawing skills little better than a child’s. But he gave me a fair idea of what lay ahead. The Atlas shot out of hyperspace into the Jubilee Belt, where the Clandestine Repository was located, and our long-range sensors confirmed at once the scant details that Gladdic had provided.
An enormous asteroid with indications of activity beneath its surface. Kilometers of solid iron walls guarding it…
A single exterior bay.
“I told you,” Gladdic repeated as Anguish and I looked over the bleak tactical situation. “There’s just one entrance, and a thousand armed personnel within, minimum. You can’t penetrate it with machines; the walls are lined with power dampeners. Even if you force your way in through the bay, they’ll know exactly where you are. They can seal off the exterior chambers and vent you to space.”
I stared at the distant asteroid belt, thinking. If there were power dampeners seeded into the walls, then the defenders of the Repository must have no automated machines for their own defense. Since I had none for offense, that was an advantage in my favor.
“We should leave before we’re detected,” said Gladdic.
“Quiet.” A manipulation of the sensor
s and I had the scan of the interior. The greatest defense of the Repository was the shape of its structure: a single exterior bay, leading to a long chain of rooms, one after another, the innermost of them containing the vaults. The place was built to be defensible, for there was only that single way in, and no other. To travel through, one would face the entirety of the defensive force, with no possibility of avoiding them.
My eyes traced across the schematics over and over and then fixed on the very interior most of those chambers. They gave way to narrow waste tubules and energy ducts.
Those could be used as an entrance. If someone dared.
“They expect us to invade here,” I said to Anguish, pointing to the bay. “They count on sealing the exterior chambers and venting any invaders back into space. So you won’t leave the Atlas. You’ll raise the ship’s shields to protect you from impact, and then fire straight through these chambers—impacting the Repository from inside it. They’ll concentrate their defensive forces on you. In the meantime, I come at them from the other direction.”
“What other direction?”
I tapped the diagram, indicating the waste tubules.
“Those are too narrow,” he said.
“The primary waste vent should be large enough for one person. For me,” I clarified.
“Unacceptable,” he said tersely. “You’ve no idea what you’re facing.”
“There’s only one way to find out.” I shrugged. The plan was not optimal, but it was all we had. “They’re not prepared for a dual assault.”
There’d been so many times I’d felt helpless. I could do nothing while Tyrus murdered the Excess on the Halcyon, while Pasus forced the Venalox on Tyrus, while Donia suffocated in my arms.
But at long last, a path had opened before me, bright and clear and vivid—a path to redeeming my former failures. For in that Repository were secrets, technologies, and stars knew what else.
This could be the first real step toward victory.
19
ANGUISH DEVOTED HIMSELF to helping me with grim resignation rather than enthusiasm. There was one launching system the Atlas could deploy undetected by those in the Repository: the funereal launcher within its heliosphere. I would travel crammed inside a coffin.
While Anguish programmed the trajectory of the launching chute, I injected oxygen pellets into my blood. There were breathing gills on the Atlas, but I couldn’t trust them to survive the impact. I could only hold my breath during strenuous exertion for twelve minutes. The oxygen pellets would buy me time beyond that—but I could not guess how long.
There was no space in the coffin for weaponry, only a med bot that Anguish carefully packed inside a small impact capsule. “That does it,” he said, stepping back.
As I studied the cramped box, unease snaked through me, and my chest tightened. I would have felt better with even a small energy weapon, but we couldn’t risk the g-forces leading to a power discharge while I was trapped in a small space with it.
There was no choice but to rely on myself alone.
I swept past Anguish and leaped into the coffin. He strapped me in, then gazed down at me, his pinched brow betraying his agitation. “Nemesis… if something goes wrong—”
“We are Diabolics,” I said. “We can pull this off.”
A muscle twitched in his jaw. Then he leaned down to kiss my forehead. “You can do it,” he said gruffly. “You will.” Then, with one swift move, he slammed shut the lid of the coffin.
Pitch darkness surrounded me. Nerves writhed in my stomach, pointless, stupid. There was no going back now. No need to panic. All I needed to do at this moment was wait.
The darkness heaved as Anguish loaded the coffin into the launching tube. The coffin rumbled toward the exit slot. Time slowed, seconds stretching unbearably.
I distracted myself by reciting what I knew: the Atlas was even now veering toward the Repository. Gladdic would be able to get us no farther than the dock, but we needed to go no farther. By the time Anguish began battering his way in, I would be climbing out of the waste tube to assault the Repository from the interior…
… if the plan worked.
If it did not, I was already in my tomb.
Stop it.
I turned my hands palms out, to trace my fingers over the cold crystalline glass of this enclosure. It was not designed to withstand an impact. When it lodged into the waste vent, it would shatter, almost certainly breaking or dislocating my limbs. Our chances of success depended on the med bot tucked beside me, and its ability to heal the damage done to me.
What if it didn’t work?
The frantic thought sliced through my mind, vivid as a blast of lightning cutting through dark clouds.
What if I’d miscalculated? What if this plan was a mistake? What if—
My ears ruptured with the explosion of sound blasting the tube about me, propelling me out of the Atlas.
All I could do now was await my fate.
* * *
Impact.
Agony.
The crystalline coffin shattered, shards slicing my skin as they flew away. A tearing, ripping, blinding light engulfed me. My limbs were dislocated, the bones within them separating and my organs being battered. My supersonic helmet protected my skull but could not protect my neck from whiplash; my own blood choked my lungs. I was dying. Or maybe I was already dead.…
From a great distance came the ludicrous thought: the Diabolic Nemesis, smashed apart by her own idiotic ideas!
I heard the wheeze of my own broken laugh and became aware that the impact capsule had popped open. The med bot was already at work on me.
Pain receded from my burning chest and arms. Relief spread in a tide of fire down my waist, my hips and legs. My vision dimmed, the light subsiding into darkness. The rancid stench of sewage stung in my nose.
I had survived the impact.
Breathing hard, I tried to keep still while the healing process sent searing lashes of pain through me. Think. By now, the Repository’s defensive systems would have erected a force field to seal the breach. With luck, the staff would attribute it to a minor asteroid impact.
A jostling rocked the world around me. That would be the Atlas docking—or so I hoped. Soon Anguish would begin to open fire, to engage the defenders and draw them away from my position.
I had to move now. Slip in behind them, be in position for the opening assault.
I clenched my fingers, which tingled from the rapid repair of my nerve endings. My grip strengthened. I flexed my feet and felt them respond.
I rolled over in the pitch darkness.
The med bot wouldn’t survive the sewage, so I left it behind. It had done its job well, for I felt no pain whatsoever as I stood and shoved my way forward through the waste tube. No doubt my adrenaline helped—I sped through the viscous weight of the sewage, barely registering its resistance. The tube began to slant downward, and the foul stuff climbed to my chest, then my armpits.
At last I reached a low point in the tube where the passageway descended fully into the muck. I drew in a deep lungful of air and thrust myself forward. I swam—pumping my legs and arms hard, until they burned, until my lungs grew hot and panicked for oxygen, and only my will kept me from inhaling.
Red panic bubbled through me. How much farther must I swim? I could not safely turn back now. Only the oxygen pellets in my bloodstream kept me alive, and as I battled forward, I knew they must be rapidly expiring. Escape could be meters ahead or kilometers. It would have been better to die in the coffin. I would drown in waste.
No choice. I grappled with hands along walls, until I reached one that dead-ended.
I kicked up to the surface, gasping frantically as I found scant inches of clean air. With my head craned back so my neck burned from the effort, I breathed, deep lungfuls of stinking soiled air, as I groped overhead for a break in the tube. I swept my hands out wider and wider, desperate now.
A break in the tubing made me gasp with relief. I extended myself to
my full height and braced my hands on either side of the overhead pipe; then with a roar I leaped upward. The thick sucking weight of the sewage pulled me back down. Bracing myself again, I leaped once more—and this time managed to catch myself, spread-eagled, my feet and hands planted on opposite sides of the overhead tube.
My limbs trembled from the force of the pressure required to keep me suspended. But I could not afford to pause. With another grunt, I climbed.
The tube narrowed steadily, so that I began to fear being trapped here. No choice but to find out. I kept clawing upward, until the smooth surface of the tube suddenly yielded to something rougher. Giddy relief flooded me. A maintenance hatch! With all the leverage I could muster, I slammed it open and shoved myself through.
I hit the ground at the feet of a startled young mechanic and slammed my fist into his face.
As he fell, he was already gagging at the smell. I hauled him up by the collar and clamped my hand over his mouth to cut off his noises. He vomited against it. I lifted it away so he would not choke while I hissed at him, “How many in the next rooms? Quietly.”
He looked at me and screamed, “INTRUDER!”
Fine. I enjoyed surprises.
I seized his head and rammed it against the wall. A door slid open, and the men who’d responded to the cry lifted their pulse rifles. I hurled the unconscious guard at the nearest of them. They averted their weapons to avoiding hitting their colleague. I lowered my head and charged into them, knocking them backward.
I ripped away one of their rifles and shot two rapidly.
The last shrieked as his colleagues fell.
I aimed the pulse rifle between his eyes. “How many guards ahead, and what is the layout of the chamber? Talk or die.”
20
I HAD THE GUARD speak into his transmitter and issue his colleagues a firm warning: “Throw down your weapons and surrender, or you will die today.”
Then I knocked him unconscious.
My route through the Repository led me past a door with a great sigil etched upon it.
The Nemesis Page 13
