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

by Christina Westcott

  Fitz grabbed the ladder, braced her foot and pulled, the alloy tubing twisting in her grip. One of the supporting brackets tore out of the wall and dropped down the shaft. She pulled off her pack, shoved it and the cat into the channel, then forced her way in after them. The front of her jacket caught on the twisted metal and tore, but she was inside. She attempted to bend the ladder back into shape, but was only partially successful. The lift car scraped by amid a squeal of metal and a shower of sparks.

  “You’re crushing me,” Jumper complained.

  “Better me than the elevator.”

  The car slowed, coasting to a stop directly in front of her. She waited, watching her inhead display count off the seconds. How long did it take to step aboard the car and punch in a destination? They were on the fourth level, the barracks floor. A trooper might be returning from his shift and leave the lift parked there. It could be morning before the car moved again.

  She licked her lips, tasting salty sweat as her old fear of tight spaces resurfaced. She stood on one of the brackets. It would be easy enough to smash it loose and scramble down but there was another bracket below it, then another. Breaking loose too many would destabilize the ladder, and it could tear loose under her weight and pitch them into the shaft. Then they would both go splat.

  A thump echoed up from the darkness, and the car began to slide downward. As the lift cleared her hiding spot, she shoved out the twisted ladder and stepped onto the top of the car, dragging Jumper’s backpack with her. She crouched as the car picked up speed. If it was going all the way down to the power station level, that could be a problem. At more than a hundred meters below Medical, it would be a long climb back up.

  The gods of fortune must favor the audacious. The car came to a stop at Medical , leaving her perch on the lift’s roof level with the third floor maintenance alcove’s hatch.

  Against standard regs, the hatch stood open. Discipline tended to be shoddy on these remote detachments. She tossed the backpack into the alcove and scrambled after it. Jumper stood and shook himself.

  “Will you quit throwing me around like that? I’m not a bag of kitty litter, you know.”

  “From now on you can walk,” Fitz retorted.

  A workbench cluttered with tools and scanners lined one wall of the alcove, a bank of monitors above it. She noticed a blinking red icon on one, warning of an obstruction in the lift car’s track on the fourth level—the bent ladder. A tech would investigate; he could already be on the way.

  “Let’s move. We’re about to get an unwanted complication.” She eased the door open. The hallway beyond was empty and dim with midshift’s reduced lighting. “Go around the lift and to the left. The door to the emergency stairwell is at the end of the corridor. We go through it and down to Medical. This time of night there shouldn’t be anyone up and about, but keep an eye out for a tech checking on that alarm. Quick, but quiet. Particularly when we slip past the surveillance office. I’m hoping they’ll still be busy chasing down that virus I slipped into their system.

  She checked both directions and stepped out. “We’re closer to Medical now. Try to contact Wolf again.”

  The quiet corridor erupted into a chaos of sound and strobing lights.

  “I didn’t do it. I didn’t do it,” Jumper protested as he scooted back into the alcove.

  “Damn, they must have taken my futzing with their surveillance system more seriously than I expected.” Fitz ducked back into the alcove, pulling the door closed.

  “Shouldn’t we make a run for it?”

  “No good. When the base goes on alert, security locks down access to both the stairs and the lift to limit movement between levels. We’d need an ident-card to use either now.”

  The lift thumped, whining as it started upward. Fitz waited until the car rumbled past and stuck her head out the hatch, scanning the darkness below.

  “Do we climb down to Medical?”

  “No, we’ve lost the element of surprise. Time for a diversion and a little brute force.” She dug out a high explosive and two thermite grenades. On second thought, she added a second HE. She searched through the tools and empty coffee cups on the workbench, found the tech’s roll of tape and strapped the devices together.

  “I’ll set these on a twenty second delay and drop them down the shaft. The lift door opens just outside the reactor control room. These should be able to punch right through it.”

  “What about the reactor? I’m not keen on glowing in the dark.”

  “It’s too heavily shielded to be damaged. When the control room goes offline, the safety protocols will automatically scram the reactor and shut down power. That’s what I’m hoping for. It’ll take maybe fifteen seconds for the emergency generators to kick in and all the security systems to reboot. If I’m outside the stairwell door when the power goes down, I think I can make it to the next level and through the door into Medical before the lockdown is reinstated.”

  Fitz set the delay on one of the thermite grenades, leaned into the shaft and dropped the explosives.

  “Wait. It’s Faydra. She says Ari has a problem…”

  “Tell her to handle it herself. We’re kind of busy right now. Go. Go. Go.”

  Before Fitz could palm the release, the door slid open, revealing a tech with a mug of coffee in one hand. The cat streaked out between his legs. The man rubbed his eyes, yawning, not aware of Fitz until she planted a boot in his midsection and smashed him against the far wall. The cup flew out of his hand, coffee spinning out in a dark fountain. She followed up with a chop to the back of his head and raced after Jumper.

  Her foot slipped in a puddle, and she fell but surged back to her feet. As she rounded the lift and started down the corridor, the cat streaked past the surveillance office. They’d sacrificed quick and quiet for just plain old quick.

  An armed man stepped out of the open door, staring after Jumper. Alerted by the sound of footsteps, he spun toward her, bringing the pistol up.

  The floor bucked beneath her feet. A giant hand seemed to pick up the base and shake it. She fell. Ceiling panels and bits of broken light covers rained down on her.

  Perhaps she hadn’t needed that second HE grenade after all.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Wolf slapped the dead guard’s weapon into Von Drager’s hand. “Do you know how to use this?”

  “I’m a doctor. I don’t kill people.”

  Wolf arched an eyebrow. “At least not with a pistol. Well, you’re about to get a crash course. This is a flechette gun. You point it, pull the trigger. You’re bound to hit something.”

  He pushed Von Drager through Medical, past the dead guard and to the lift. The ready light on its control panel pulsed red.

  “Bloody hell, the base is in lockdown. We won’t get out that way. Try the stairs.”

  At the exit, another warning light blinked. Wolf’s mind went into overdrive, searching for another route. With his augs, he could rip open the lift doors and scramble up the shaft, but not dragging another person. And there was no way the doctor could manage the climb on his own.

  Von Drager hyperventilated. “I’ve got an ident-card…that should get us through…the lock down.” He fumbled under his lab coat, attempting to extract the lanyard around his neck. The flechette gun slipped out of his hand and clattered to the floor.

  Wolf hissed as he stooped to retrieve it, thankful the jar hadn’t set the weapon off, spraying them with a cloud of lethal darts. Von Drager’s fingers shook so hard he couldn’t fit the card into the slot.

  “Breathe. Slow and easy, Doctor.” Wolf snatched the ID, swiped it. The lock flipped to green. He shoved the pistol and card at Von Drager. “Don’t lose those.” Wolf took the stairs at a run, dragging the stumbling man behind him.

  Von Drager wailed each time he slipped and cracked his shin against a stair tread. His breath came in harsh gasps. To Wolf’s
augmented hearing, the other’s heartbeat hammered, accelerating with each staggering step. The symbiont would keep him from having a heart attack—he hoped. It might make them young and healthy, heal their wounds, but it apparently hadn’t done much to keep the doctor fit.

  “What level is this escape route on?” Wolf asked.

  “Second.”

  “Good, only two more. Even you can make that.”

  At the next landing, the doctor collapsed, his breathing ragged as a blown speeder engine. No amount of cajoling could get him moving again. Wolf tossed him over his shoulder and continued staggering upward.

  Below them thunder rumbled. The stairs swayed, rattling and creaking. Wolf’s feet went out from under him. They hit the treads hard, sliding down several steps. The lights went out as the shock wave hit. The force of it picked Wolf up and tossed him against the railing. A baluster caught him in the middle of the back, sending a spike of pain up his spine. Beneath one leg, he felt emptiness. Only the handrail had kept him from plummeting down the shaft.

  From somewhere nearby, Von Drager whimpered. An object hit the landing below them with a metallic clatter, bouncing and clanging further down the shaft, until it receded into the distance.

  “I-I’m sorry, Youngblood. I dropped the gun.”

  “You still have the bloody ident-card?”

  “Yes, around my neck.”

  “Don’t lose that. Now let’s go.”

  Night-glo paint limned the edges of the treads, meant to provide a few minutes of illumination until the power returned. To Wolf’s night vision, it appeared as bright as a moonlit night on Rainbow.

  “What just happened?” asked Von Drager.

  “My guess is that someone blew up the power control room.”

  “But the reactor…”

  “Won’t explode. Don’t worry.”

  “Who would do that?”

  “I have a pretty good idea.”

  “Your lady friend?”

  Wolf nodded, then remembered the other couldn’t see him in the dark. “Knowing her, I’d say that was a safe bet.”

  But that left him with a huge problem. Fitz was already on the base and would bring it down around Tritico’s ears trying to locate him. She was in over her very capable head, and he had to find her before she got herself killed. Von Drager held the key to getting off the planet, but there was no way this inept twit could get himself out of here without Wolf’s help. How the bloody hell was he supposed to accomplish both of those at the same time?

  “Climb faster, Doctor.”

  Debris rained down on Fitz. She surged to her feet, jinking to the right. The gunman would expect her to continue running past him, so she came at him from the other side.

  In the total blackness, her night vision was worthless, but she could see the soldier on infrared. He aimed his pistol toward the spot he’d last seen her. The flash of the energy bolt lit the hallway in a stark chiaroscuro, revealing the shock on his face as he saw her bearing down on him. She drove her elbow into the side of his head, twisting the weapon out of his hand as he fell. The action had hardly taken a second, but it was a second she didn’t have. She vaulted his falling body, stuffing his pistol in her belt as she raced for the door.

  She hit the release, charged through with Jumper on her heels. Footsteps rang on the metal treads. She froze, cataloging the sounds. One, maybe two people, at least a level above her and moving up the stairs. Not her problem. She followed the cat down to the next landing. Too slow. At this rate, she wouldn’t make it to the door before the emergency power came back on. She hurdled over the railing, dropping the last four meters. Pain lanced through her knees as they took up the shock. She staggered up and slammed the door to Medical open as the backup power came on. If she let the door close, she wouldn’t be able to reopen it. She looked for something to jam it, but came up empty. Her universal key would have to do.

  She stepped back, drove an augmented kick into the locking mechanism, bowing the metal door and jamming it in its track. The actuator droned as it tried to close the warped door. She bent it further, leaving the way open.

  As she entered Medical, the body inside the entrance almost tripped her. She bent to roll him over. Still warm but the wound to the heart and the hole between his eyes confirmed he was dead. Whatever had happened here was recent, very recent.

  “Jumper, any sign of Wolf?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You take the left side; I’ll check over here. If you see anything, call me.”

  Fitz poked her head into a series of offices and exam rooms. All empty. Her comm crackled to life.

  “Commander…” Ransahov began.

  “Stay the hell off the comm.” Fitz broke the connection.

  A wave of inarticulate rage exploded through her thoughts. At first, she thought it was Ransahov screaming back at her, but then she recognized Jumper’s primal fury. No words, just purest feline, killing anger.

  The cat stood staring into a room, a ridge of fur upright along the length of his spine. As she got closer, Fitz heard his low growl. A spread of flechettes sprouted from the wall and the door jam. She eased around the cat into an abattoir.

  It was the operating suite she’d seen on the surveillance monitor, but now broken glass lay scattered over the counters. Gore splattered the cabinets and pooled on the floor. An open stasis case and several intact bags of blood lay strewn in the incarnadine muddle.

  “Blood. Wolf’s blood.” Jumper hissed, his lips pulling back to expose white fangs.

  The air in Fitz’s lungs turned to ice. A body lay on the operating table, draped with a red spattered blanket. A pale hand hung from beneath the covering. Icy prickles danced across Fitz’s cheeks as the blood drained from her face. Her chest ached with the need to breathe, but she couldn’t pull air past the glacier in her throat. She lifted the edge of the blanket to expose the face, feeling a detachment—as if this was happening to someone else and she’d only dreamed this gore painted room.

  “It’s not him.” The words exploded out of her as she saw the unfamiliar face. “What the hell happened here?”

  She scanned the rooms. The destruction. The precise head shot. She began to laugh, sounding only a few steps from hysteria. This cluster-chuft had Wolf’s fingerprints all over it. Jumper eyed her strangely as she tried to get her giggles under control.

  “He escaped. Wolf did this when he escaped. Damn ungrateful man. I go through hell to get to him and he doesn’t even wait around for me to save him.” Fitz wiped moisture from the corner of her eye.

  “He must have set off that alarm we heard, so he couldn’t have gotten far. But how did he get past us?” She remembered the footsteps echoing down the stairwell. “Damn. The stairs. We just missed him. Let’s go.”

  Fitz ducked as she caught a flash of black uniform from the outer office. A laser blast sizzled through the spot she’d just vacated. She pulled the pistol, fired back, launching into hyperkinetic speed. The mixture of adrenaline and neurotransmitters that her pharmacopeia pumped into her system made the world flicker in slow motion. The first guard was still falling as she turned her weapon on the second man.

  Janos Tritico stood between them, momentarily dumbstruck, then the creepy smile warped his features. His hand reached casually into his pocket, the movement slowed by her hyper-awareness. He pulled the module he’d used before, pointed it, pressed the button. Shock banished his smile. He pressed it again. Fitz had time to see his expression turn to abject horror before she slammed into him. She took him down in an explosion of broken furniture and scattered equipment. Her knee drove into his solar plexus. With one hand clinched around his throat, she jammed her pistol into the side of his head.

  She leaned in, her face so close their noses almost touched. “How about it, Tritico? If I blow an immortal’s head off, will he grow a new one? And in your case, will it be p
rettier?”

  His arm jerked up. She saw the gleam of light on the blade in his hand. She caught his wrist, snapped it. He screamed as the dagger dropped.

  “It’s not as much fun when someone else is doing the torturing, is it?” she said.

  Jumper pushed his snarling visage between them. “Burn him. It’s the only way to be rid of him. Cram one of those thermite grenades down his throat and turn him into overdone barbeque.”

  “Should I take the cat’s advice, Tritico?”

  “You don’t have the balls to murder a man in cold blood—physically or metaphorically.” He laughed at his joke. “Hiruko was right about you. You’re too nice.” He made the word sound like an obscenity. “Just like Kiernan and Ransahov, you’ve bought into all that crap about honor and duty and doing the Dragon’s Bidding. That makes you weak. And the weak are prey when the predators come out to hunt.”

  “In that case, you’re a damn poor predator. Ari Ransahov is still alive. Just thought you’d like to ponder that fact while you burn.” Fitz smashed the pistol into the side of his head and rose, stuffing the weapon in her belt.

  She pulled out a thermite grenade, held it on the palm of her hand. It would be so easy. Flip up the cap and set the delay to give her enough time to get clear. She could stuff it down the back of his shirt. He wouldn’t be able to dig it out in those few seconds.

  Her fingers refused to move.

  Tritico leaned up on one elbow, the cuts on the side of his face closing. His smile scraped a knife along Fitz’s nerves. “You can’t do it, can you?”

  A sob closed her throat. She ordered, demanded that her thumb flip up the cap on the grenade. If ever a man needed burning alive, it was Tritico, but she couldn’t do it, couldn’t force her rebellious fingers to obey her. Sweat trickled down the side of her face.

  Tritico struggled to rise.

  Tears mingled with the sweat running down her face. “You’re right, I can’t do it.” She pocketed the grenade. “But I can blow the fuck out of you.”