A Hero for the Empire: The Dragon's Bidding, Book 1

by Christina Westcott

  The augie blurred toward her, snapping to a stop almost immediately. Fitz flinched backward. Razor giggled, the sound incongruously childish coming from his massive frame. “Well, it seems our little girl here’s had her teeth pulled.” He turned to Hiruko. “The merc must have yanked her spike. No way she wouldn’t react to that kind of threat without going HK.”

  “Who’d blame him,” said Hiruko. “I can’t say as I was real happy allowing a fully augmented bitch to get close to my favorite body parts. Maybe Youngblood’s not as stupid as I thought.”

  Fitz eased toward Hiruko, disguising the movement as nervous shifting away from the augie. Razor would have to come over the bed to get at her. She hoped that would slow him down enough to give her time to grab the smaller man, then she’d proceed to kick his favorite body parts to between his ears.

  Hiruko held the gun on her, but she didn’t think he intended to kill her, at least not right away. If he’d wanted her dead, he’d have shot her immediately and not gone through the song and dance of questioning her. If she’d misjudged him and he did shoot, it would be a cleaner death than what she feared the augie had in mind for her. She’d heard rumors of political dissidents found raped and murdered, so mutilated it appeared something of immense strength had done it.

  She sprang for the smaller man. The augie leaped the bed, only a blur of movement. She batted Hiruko’s gun away, seizing him by the collar. Pulling him forward, she let momentum drive her knee up with greater force. Before she could connect, a sharp wrench on the back of her head dragged her away. Her knee only grazed soft flesh. Razor lifted her by the hair, held her up kicking and screaming obscenities. She wrapped her hands around his wrists, taking some of the strain off her head. That gave her leverage to drive her feet toward her attacker’s face. She connected with his jaw, rocking his head back. He shook her, and she thought her scalp would rip off. Tears of pain matted her eyelashes. She lashed out with a foot again. He grabbed it, lifted her above his head and slammed her to the floor.

  The impact left her gasping. Only the ceramic plating on her bones kept her from multiple breaks or fractures. Razor straddled her, his weight across her hips immobilizing her. He seized her hands, wrenching her shoulders as he pinned them over her head. He leaned in, his breath smelling of beer and garlic, and slavered his tongue up the side of her face. She whipped her head around, but her teeth snapped on empty air as he jerked back, giggling. Fitz unloaded on him with every curse, obscenity and invective her years in the military had taught her, then invented a few new ones.

  “Hold her head,” Hiruko ordered.

  The augie grabbed her chin and twisted it to the side. Fitz felt the touch of cold metal on her throat, a sharp sting, then a creeping coldness spread from the injection site.

  Drugs. It could be any one of the veritas class of interrogation drugs the intelligence service had developed for quick and dirty use in the field. They were fast acting, if somewhat short in duration, and were quickly flushed out of the body, leaving no residue detectable on examination. Or at autopsy.

  The icy numbness spread across her chest, flowing into her shoulders, deadening the pain there. She twitched her fingers and found their movement sluggish. As the cold swept into them, they ceased responding to her commands. She lost feeling in her legs, her feet and finally her toes as the drug took her. Its icy tendrils slid into her mind, and she fled from it, searching for a safe haven in the depths of her brain. Turning to face oblivion, she realized the creeping cold had stopped. Her thoughts were still hers, but they were trapped in a prison of frozen flesh.

  Cut off from other stimuli, she focused on the hiss of her breathing, the thump of her heart. The space between each beat lengthened until she found herself hanging on to each sound, certain it would be the last. Waiting and waiting until another sounded. Had the drug suppressed the body’s functions or was it time distortion?

  Her eyes were locked unblinking onto the gargoyle face of the augie. He leaned closer, grinning at her and the motion seemed to take an hour. His words were distorted, attenuated. “I think she’s ready.”

  Definitely time distortion.

  A hand twisted her face to the side, and Hiruko lifted one eyelid, then the other, and nodded. She found herself staring at his knees, but that was better than Razor’s ugly visage. Just closing her eyes would feel wonderful, but even that simple act was denied her.

  Fitz recalled her boast to Youngblood earlier this evening. Now would be the perfect time to activate her self-destruct and take these two with her. Unfortunately, that required an authorization code from her internal computer, which didn’t function when her spike was out. A design flaw that had gone unreported, probably because no one had lived to bring it to the attention of the cyber-techs.

  She long ago accepted the fact that she’d never make the twenty-five years of an augie’s service. Dying on her feet, in the field, on a mission was a better fate than spending her last days in a drooling body confined to some Imperial care facility. She always envisioned she’d die heroically completing some critical operation, but those were only frivolous dreams the recruiters used to con stupid teenagers into signing their lives over to Special Operations. Instead she was going to betray Kiernan and their cause in a drug-induced stupor. Then they’d put her down like a sick animal. And, damn it, there was Youngblood. He had nothing to do with this. She’d dragged him into it, and she was going to get him killed. She hoped he was as good as he seemed to think he was and could blow these two dirt bags into the middle of next week when they came after him. A slow simmering heat filled her, pushing back against the drug’s frigid grip.

  “Now, darlin’, why don’t you tell me why Kiernan sent you here?” Hiruko’s words sounded sluggish and distorted.

  “…talk to Youngblood…”

  At first Fitz couldn’t understand who was speaking, then she recognized her own voice, albeit thick and slurred. Some splinter of her consciousness answered the question under the control of the drug. She ordered her jaw to clinch, her tongue and lips to still.

  “Why do you need to talk to Youngblood?” Hiruko sounded impatient.

  “Ask him…to help…me…”

  Shut up, she screamed at herself in the quiet of her mind.

  “Help you with what?”

  No, no, NO. But she heard herself answer. “…find Ransahov.”

  “He knows where she is?”

  Please, no. A tear flowed out of her eye and rolled down the side of her face. “Yes.”

  “Where?” Hiruko shouted.

  “Baldark.”

  “Once you find her, what do you plan on doing with her?”

  Nothing. Forget I ever saw her. “Take her…meet…Kiernan.”

  “And what does our dear Triumvir have in mind for that bitch?”

  “Overthrow…Ashcraft.” No. Please no. I’m so sorry, Maks. I’ve killed us all. Her fingers spasmed into claws.

  “She’s coming out of it,” warned Razor.

  “No matter. We’ve got what we wanted. Kill her. Now.

  “Can I have a few minutes to enjoy it?”

  “We don’t have time for that. The only way we can get close enough to take out those guards upstairs is pushing the food cart.” He checked his chrono. “And I’m supposed to be delivering their dinner right now, so kill her and get it over with.”

  Razor leaned over her, twisting her face around to meet his. “I’d planned on having such fun with you, girlie. Too bad. I have to rush upstairs and kill that pretty boyfriend of yours. Maybe I’ll get a few minutes to play with him before I take his head. I do like blonds.”

  He crushed his mouth down on Fitz’s, forcing his tongue between her lips. She concentrated all her efforts on making her teeth maul that defiling flesh. He jerked back, laughing at her feeble attempt. He reached behind his back and pulled out a thin length of steel.

  Fitz�
��s ribcage and sternum were armored to protect both her computers and vital organs. He’d slide the blade under her ribs, through her heart, then a quick twist to the left to sever the power leads to her computers—the preferred maneuver to dispatch an augie.

  A red rage filled her mind. She wanted to claw his eyes out, to sink her teeth into his face. She could only watch in sick helplessness as the knife plunged in a glittering arc toward her side.

  Chapter Seven

  The quiet of the watch room felt ominous to Wolf, like the stillness before one of Rainbow’s infamous thunderstorms. Too quiet. Even with the reduced staff of the midshift, the room usually buzzed with subdued conversation, punctuated with an occasional laugh, the clink of coffee cups and music. That’s what was missing. He didn’t want Mr. Stripes and his friend warned off by any change in routine, but the electro-pop the staff usually listened to wouldn’t suit his mood tonight. He wanted something old and dark. Something First World, perhaps. A Mahler symphony.

  At the first deep, pounding notes, Wolf leaned back in his chair and studied the screens before him. One monitor displayed the feed from the security camera on the first floor. A few moments earlier, Stripes had entered the elevator pushing a cart. His companion had a face that would frighten a gorilla, and his squat build proclaimed hired muscle.

  The second screen showed the view down the hallway toward the lift doors. A red light blinked on the console warning the weapons behind those bland walls were in hot standby. He elected to sit at the position furthest from the entrance so he wouldn’t be noticed until after he sprung his trap. Once his guests stepped into the watch room, he’d activate the corridor’s automatic defense grid. Designed to repel intruders, it was equally effective at keeping people in. Even the augie’s hyperkinetic speed wouldn’t get him back to the lift alive.

  On the desk, the tools he expected to need for tonight’s work were laid out within easy reach. The slug thrower was at his right hand, the Acton on his left. Between the two, he’d placed a breather pack, just in case the assassins planned on taking out the guards with a gas grenade.

  He had quietly dismissed the midshift staff when they came on duty. Only Bartonelli argued with him. She knew he was up to something and was determined to not let him face it alone. Eventually, he had to pull rank and order her away, although he surmised she’d gone no further than the first level break room. She’d be back up here the instant the action started.

  Jumper shook his head as he strolled into the watch room. “Damn, Boss, that was one hell of a dream.”

  “I told you to stay out of here. Now go back to our quarters and wait there.”

  The cat ignored him and leapt onto the desk. “So much anger and fear. All I wanted to do was kill something. I hate those kind of dreams.”

  “Perhaps if you didn’t eat my cookies before you went to sleep, you wouldn’t have bad dreams. Now, if you don’t want to get involved in some real anger and killing, I suggest you get out of here.” Wolf glanced at the monitor. The pair should be arriving on this floor now, but there was no sign of them. Had something gone wrong? Perhaps a tiny detail out of place had scared them off?

  Jumper yawned and stretched with his front paws extended and butt in the air. He froze, ears flattening against his skull. A scream of feral rage burst out of his mouth. At the same instant, the mental equivalent of that howl slammed into Wolf’s mind. The pain of the emotions knifing through his skull rocked him back in his chair, almost sending him over backward.

  “THEY’RE HURTING KIMBER. THEY’LL KILL HER.” The cat hurdled from the desk, scattering readers, cups and weapons. Wolf lunged forward to catch the slug thrower before it went over the edge.

  Jumper streaked across the watch room and down the hallway. Wolf charged after him. He had to get to the lift before Jumper did. If the door opened on the two killers, the cat wouldn’t have a chance.

  “I’ll kill him. KILL HIM.”

  The miasma of rage trailing in the cat’s wake nearly blinded Wolf, stinging his eyes and flooding them with tears of an anger that wasn’t his own. He had to restrain his emotions; had to be cold, in control. Going into a firefight angry—even second-hand angry—was an amateur’s mistake. And likely a fatal one.

  When the cat reached the lift, he stood on his hind feet, pounding on the control panel with a front paw. Claws screeched against the plastic.

  The lift chimed, the car arriving.

  No time for anything fancy, Wolf dropped into a shooter’s crouch and drew a bead on the opening doors at chest height.

  The lift was empty.

  They leaped through the door together. Wolf sagged against the back wall, forcibly slowing his breathing. “Bloody hell, Jumper. Dial it down, will you? I can’t think with you screaming in my head.”

  “Kill him, kill…kill…” The litany retreated to a mumbled drone in a back corner of Wolf’s mind.

  Why attack FitzWarren? He’d missed something, but what? He grumbled a biting string of invectives at himself as he realized his error. As the Triumvir’s Shadow, she had a prominent position, and the chance of one or both of the assassins recognizing her was high. And he’d compounded the problem by taking her spike, leaving her unable to defend herself.

  The lift car slowed as it neared its destination. Wolf palmed the light switch, plunging the chamber into darkness. He pressed his back against the panel beside the door and instructed Jumper to do the same. Ignoring the order, the cat charged out the opening as soon as he could force his bulk through.

  Wolf snaked his head and weapon around the door’s edge then quickly back. The corridors were empty. He eased out and checked the hallways stretching to his left and right. At each end a red emergency lamp burned. Straight ahead, the way to FitzWarren’s room, was in total darkness.

  He ghosted along the wall, weapon at the ready. The lights in her door’s access panel reflected from a metallic shape in the hallway. The food cart. He smelled neubeast steak, coffee and cheese casserole.

  “…kill…kill…” Jumper scratched at the panel, claws digging furrows in the wall coverings. A red light indicated the door was locked from the inside.

  Wolf punched in an override, but got no response. First the perimeter fence and now the interior locks. Someone was futzing with his security system and that really pissed him off. He accessed the central computer, whispering over his comm link, “Override lock. N317. Youngblood, W.A. Authorization: Fledermaus.”

  The light on the door flickered green. He slammed his elbow on the release. The flare of brightness from inside stung his eyes, but he adjusted quickly, taking in the tableau inside the room.

  Stripes was near the door and starting to turn, a small pistol in his hand. The ugly gorilla pinned FitzWarren to the floor near the bed, a heavily muscled arm driving a sliver of steel toward her chest. Wolf turned his weapon on the goon, even as the tattooed man targeted him. Jumper streaked across the room like a furry guided missile, blocking his shot.

  Stripes fired.

  Fitz’s mind boiled with blood lust. She needed to savage the ugly face before her, feel his skin torn beneath her claws. Her lips skinned back, baring her teeth, and she snapped at him. She wanted to kill him. Kill. Kill.

  “Kill.”

  A dark shape hurtled overhead and struck the augie’s face, rocking the man backward. The knife twisted, cutting a shallow furrow up the outside of her ribcage and plunging through her bicep. Fitz screamed as the pain jolted her mind free of the cat’s killing fury.

  Jumper clung to Razor’s face, a howling, slashing, biting ball of black rage. Paws smacked against flesh and claws snapped, tearing through skin. The cat’s hind feet pumped, shredding the man’s throat and chest. The augie squealed like a slaughtered animal.

  Razor got his hands around the writhing body and ripped it from his face. He flung the cat. At the same time Fitz heard Jumper’s body thud against the wall
, the savagery in her mind vanished, leaving her thoughts cold and empty.

  The augie’s face was a red ruin. One ear was half torn off, his cheek slashed open to the bone, and the end of his nose had been chewed away.

  Fitz tensed at the buzz of Jeferi’s small pistol, waiting for the bolt’s impact. When it didn’t come, she twisted her head around to see what he fired at.

  Youngblood stood in the door.

  Hiruko fired again and the mercenary twisted to the side, dodging or hit—she couldn’t tell which. Razor surged up and vaulted her, his legs blurring as he accelerated. The slug thrower sounded like an explosion inside her head. The augie stumbled, but momentum carried him into Youngblood, and both men crashed to the floor in a jumble of flying punches, kicks and grunts.

  Fitz rolled onto her side, trying to sit up, and almost blacked out from the pain that shot through her shoulder when she moved her left arm. Only then did she realize the knife still pierced through the muscle.

  Hiruko fired into the struggle, not caring who he hit. Youngblood jerked the augie around to take the shot. The big man’s body rolled off him with the boneless sprawl of death, pinning the mercenary’s arm and weapon beneath it. Hiruko stepped in to shoot again.

  Fitz wrenched the knife from her arm, setting her teeth against the scream rising in her throat. Flipping it, she grabbed the blade, still slick with her blood, and hurled it. The throw was clumsy, but it struck Hiruko in the thigh, imbedding up to the hilt.

  The assassin screamed. His shot went wide, charring the wall, as he turned toward his new attacker and squeezed off a quick round. It missed, burning across the carpet and scattering chunks of melted fiber across her arm. Hiruko scrambled for the door in a lurching stagger but Youngblood had freed his arm from beneath the dead augie’s body and lunged for the fleeing man, managing only to trip him. Fitz heard a metallic crash, the shattering of glass and crockery, then stumbling footsteps disappearing down the hall.

  A preternatural silence descended on the room. The smell of death mingling with coffee made Fitz’s stomach heave. Rage smoldered in the blue depths of Youngblood’s eyes. Anger and a deeper, rawer emotion. He scuttled across the floor toward her on his hands and knees.