Dragon Rising

by Ilsa J. Bick

  Fusilli spoke for the first time. “I’m not a Drac. I was in the Brotherhood.”

  “So what happened?”

  “Like I told Dasha: The Fury left. Most of them, anyway, or maybe just the good ones. The ones leftover were vintage Dracs.”

  “And?”

  “And I didn’t like the way a sergeant was treating someone.”

  “Record says you were insubordinate, and when things”—he made quotation marks with his fingers—”escalated, you popped your sergeant.”

  “That’s about right.”

  “Ah-hunh.” Yamada cocked his head the way dogs do when trying to make sense of something. “You interested in what I found out?”

  “Not really. I already know what happened.”

  “Ah-hunh,” Yamada said again. “Well, here’s what I found out. Apparently, this sergeant and another guy were coming on to a couple of the local women. But you didn’t think it was so funny. You broke things up, got those women out, and then things got hot. Next thing you know, BAM! You shoot your sergeant. What, he was having fun with your sister?”

  “I don’t have a sister,” Fusilli said. “Rapists and bullies just happen to be low down on my list.”

  “So how come you’re still alive? How come they let you go?”

  “They couldn’t catch me.”

  “You that slick, Shak?”

  “I’m that lucky.”

  “I’d think you’d hightail it as far away from the Dracs as possible.”

  “Maybe I’m also stupid. Or stubborn. I’ve been accused of both.”

  “Uh-huh.” Yamada tossed a quick look at Dasha, who responded with a slight shrug. Yamada turned to Fusilli. “So what do you want, Shak? Hunh? You want to fight the good fight? You want to play soldier boy?”

  Fusilli stared at Yamada for a few moments before replying. “If I’d wanted to play soldier, I’d have asked around for Eriksson.”

  “So you want to kill you some Dracs, Shak?”

  “As many as I can get my hands on. After I left Proserpina, I stopped off at Al Na’ir to check up on my brother and his kids, his wife.”

  “I thought you said you were an only child.”

  “No, I said I didn’t have a sister.”

  “True,” Yamada said, and the way he said it, Fusilli knew Yamada was listening for inconsistencies, little details that might trip Fusilli up. “And?”

  “My brother’s family was in Phoenix Dome.” He paused to let that sink in. “Next time I get my hands on a Drac, I want him cuffed, and I want him to see it coming. I want to see his eyes. And I want to do that a couple hundred times.”

  Yamada’s lips split in a lazy grin. “Well then, Shak, today’s your lucky day.”

  That seemed to be a cue. There was a general shuffling, and then the audience parted like a human sea—and Fusilli’s stomach bottomed out.

  The lieutenant’s uniform was torn and bloodied. Her brown hair was matted with filth. She had brown eyes, an angry gash on her right cheek. She was a tiny woman, barely a meter and a half. Her plasticuffed hands were thin, the wrists like twigs. Her ankles were cuffed. She couldn’t run. She smelled of fear.

  And Fusilli knew her.

  Oh, dear God . . .

  Nancy Compton: a nurse attached to command headquarters back on Proserpina. He didn’t know if Compton would recognize him. She’d been relatively new, and he’d been away from Proserpina for the better part of the last year. If she recognized him, she would not know about his mission. She probably didn’t know he was on Biham. Compton’s liquid brown eyes skipped from Yamada and Dasha to Fusilli. He couldn’t breathe. He kept his face absolutely still. She stared at him for a second longer. He couldn’t tell whether this was because she did realize who he was or because she was trying to place him. Then her eyes returned to Yamada.

  Wordlessly, Dasha pulled a semiauto pistol done in a black matte finish from its holster. She checked the safety, then held it by the muzzle, offering the weapon to Fusilli.

  Yamada was smiling again. “Okay, Shak. It’s showtime.”

  Fusilli didn’t move. Couldn’t.

  Yamada said, “Know how to use one of those, Shak?”

  Fusilli said nothing.

  Yamada said, “First, I thought laser, except all you do is cook the bastard. A Drac, there oughtta be blood. Brains splattered all over the place.”

  Fusilli was silent.

  “Your big chance, Shak. You want the whites of her eyes, go for it.”

  Fusilli willed his face to stone, but his mind was frantic, desperately riffling through various options, searching for something to get him off the hook—and, just as importantly, get him away from Compton. But he couldn’t think of anything. He’d been condemned by his own words, his cover story. No way out, not after that little speech.

  A small voice he recognized, belatedly, as conscience: Every second she’s alive is another second she might betray you.

  They were leaving him no choice. He couldn’t refuse.

  Better her than you, better her.

  Expressionless, he took the gun from Yamada. The gun was heavier than he expected, and the grip was stippled and blocky. Turning aside, he pointed the muzzle toward the ground and ejected the magazine, checked the nine-round clip. Then he pressed the magazine back into the grip with the butt of his hand—not tough-guy fast but smoothly until the magazine clicked. Jacked the slide and chambered the first round.

  Fusilli faced Compton. They were perhaps two meters apart. She was shivering. Her knees buckled, and she would’ve collapsed if the two guards hadn’t gripped her forearms. Her eyes rolled like an animal’s. A tiny moan dribbled from her mouth when Fusilli thumbed off the safety.

  “Pointblank, Shak,” Yamada said. “Right between the eyes.”

  Fusilli closed to within arm’s reach, and as he did so, the two guards drew their weapons—aimed at his head. The warning was clear.

  He pressed the muzzle against the nude space between Compton’s eyebrows. He eased back on the trigger, balancing the trigger pull on the pad of his right index finger, knowing the first pull would be the longest and require the most pressure. So he had time . . . for what? He didn’t know.

  Either her or me. They’re making me. I don’t have a choice, I . . .

  “Wait!” Yamada shouted. “Hold up there, Shak!”

  Fusilli flinched. Not enough to take up the rest of the pressure, just a jerk of the head and arm. Compton sagged a little and let out a small sound that was not quite a sob. The guards each broke at the elbow, aiming their weapons at the sky. The watchful crowd said nothing.

  Fusilli turned as Yamada strode up. “Give me the gun,” Yamada said.

  Something unknotted in Fusilli’s chest. A test. He’ll keep her alive, a hostage, but that still doesn’t help if she knows me, if she talks . . .

  Yamada’s voice knifed into his thoughts. “You’re pretty pissed off about Al Na’ir, right? Well, a guy’s that mad, he wants to kill with his bare hands.”

  No. Fusilli’s blood iced. Oh, no, no, don’t make me do this. . . .

  Yamada’s eyes were bright, like black coins. “A bullet’s not hands-on, and you look like a real hands-on guy, Shak. So here’s what I think. I think you should strangle the bitch.”

  Dasha spoke for the first time. “Tony, I—”

  “Shut up, Dasha.” Yamada didn’t even turn around. His gaze pierced Fusilli like a dagger. “Whaddaya say, Shak?”

  He didn’t answer because he knew it wouldn’t matter. Somehow—he didn’t know when it happened—Compton was secured to a tree, and now he stood before her, the eyes of the others on his back. Compton was crying and moaning: “Nopleasepleasenonononono . . .”

  One of us has to die, or we’ll both die. No choice, it’s her or me.

  “Go on, Shak.” Yamada again, close by, right alongside, whispering as intimately as if they were best friends, or perhaps lovers. “Do her, man.”

  Then Compton said one word: “No.” But there
was no terror. It was the voice . . . of astonishment. Of wonder. It was the voice of Death—because Fusilli saw in her eyes that she had recognized him at last.

  “No,” she said, “no, you can’t do this, Fu—”

  He caught her throat with both hands, choking off those last treacherous syllables—and then he squeezed with all his might, sweating, grunting like an animal. Because strangling the life out of someone is hard work and takes a very long time and is much more horrible than anyone can possibly imagine.

  No one else spoke. No one moved. Compton struggled, soundless, in a losing battle for her life. Near the end, when her face was black with blood, he felt a sudden give when he broke something in her throat, and she quivered in her death throes.

  By then, he was weeping.

  27

  Dieron

  Former Prefecture X, Republic of the Sphere

  5 September 3136

  Commanding General Tina Magnusson-Talbot stood with her arms akimbo, an unlit cigarette clamped between her teeth. She was trying to quit, and the DropShip pilot fussed about her smoking on board. She was a big-boned woman with nicotine stains on her fingers and a whiskey burr in her voice, and she usually didn’t take any crap from anyone, let alone a pilot. But she settled for chewing nicotine-spiked gum. Stuff tasted like a dog’s butt.

  They were coming in from the east and were low enough for the northern mountains to have resolved into snow-capped peaks. Any other time, she might’ve enjoyed the view. But she was too keyed up.

  Talbot wasn’t a superstitious woman and didn’t believe in anything she couldn’t see or touch. So no matter what the scuttlebutt was about that Tormark biting the proverbial dust, Talbot wasn’t buying that the Dracs weren’t gunning for Dieron. A heck of a lot of people, with just about as much brass but not the balls, figured the Dracs were gonna lie low for a long time, regroup and all that crap. She didn’t believe it. So Dieron was going to be ready, come hell or high water.

  She flipped gum with her tongue, cracked the wad against a row of rear fillings. Crack-crack-crack-crack! Like pistol shots.

  The DropShip skimmed a ridge, and then her stomach bottomed out as the ridge fell away to a gorge edged with rock and scrub pine. A silver ribbon of river cut through the center, but she could see at once that the flow was reduced, and the once-submerged land was now inhabited by meandering trails of people movers and artillery vehicles radiating like spokes from the central hub of a bulbous DropShip.

  “Look at that,” she said. “Six months in the making, that base. Hell of a turnaround time, but look at it.”

  Her aide, Coleman, said, “It’s a nice base.”

  “You don’t sound very enthusiastic, Coleman. Something stuck in your craw?”

  “Well . . . You really think they’ll come, General?”

  “Count on it. No stopping the Dracs this time, no matter how much The Republic throws their way. Hell, if I was a Drac? I’d come on like gangbusters. Why? You’d rather they didn’t?”

  “I like it when people aren’t shooting at me.”

  “Can’t disagree with you.” She squinted up at Coleman as if through a veil of cigarette smoke. “What’s on your mind, son?”

  “Well, all this build-up for a base that’s as indefensible as a dome . . . I don’t get it.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “How do I mean, Ma’am?” Coleman looked a little stunned. “The base is in a valley. We’re sitting ducks, General.”

  “No, son, not ducks,” she said, and then decided, hell with it. Pilot could open a window or something. She fished out her lighter, flicked it to life. Didn’t spit out the gum, figuring a double whammy might be kind of interesting. She touched the flame to her smoke, sucked greedily, and inhaled a lungful that instantly went to her head in a blissfully pure nicotine buzz.

  “Not ducks,” she repeated, snapping off the lighter. She cracked gum. “Bait.”

  28

  Armitage, Ancha

  Dieron Military District, Draconis Combine

  15 September 3136

  There was a cop’s butt parked on every available stool in the diner, but they snagged the last vacant table, tucked in a far corner. An overweight blonde with hair from a bottle arrived with two heavy white porcelain mugs and a pot of fresh-brewed coffee. Thereon ordered cherry pie; Loveland chose lemon chess. He watched as the waitress chunked out a wedge and then laid his plate on the table without it making a sound. Prolonging the moment, Loveland inhaled, smelled lemon and buttermilk and sugar, then forked off a bite into his mouth. The tartness made him moan.

  Thereon just ate. He was a man who understood that food was fuel, and that was it.

  Loveland was on his second piece of chess pie when he said, “So what do you think?”

  Thereon’s smoke-gray eyes fixed him over the rim of his coffee mug. “I think Petrie bagged us a cold hit that matches the hit on our Jane Doe. I think we got some kind of armor lubricant is what I think.”

  “Yeah, but those are facts,” Loveland said, his mouth full of pie. “And what the hell sense does body armor make?”

  Thereon shrugged as he pulled out his noteputer. “It doesn’t have to make sense. It’s a finding awaiting an explanation. We know our unsub is methodical. He plans. We now know for sure that he’s got surgical experience because he had to strip Petrie’s hands without making a mistake, and the arterial supply to Petrie’s skin was both cauterized and knotted. Throwing a surgeon’s knot with suture isn’t easy.”

  “Meaning our guy could be a surgeon. Or a lab tech. A surgical nurse. Even a forensic pathologist.” Loveland stared moodily at his unfinished pie then slid the plate away with his thumb. He’d lost his appetite. “Man, I don’t want to think about that.”

  “We’re going to have to because not only is this guy smart, he’s changed, a lot. The common denominator for the women on Towne was location. Now, since that Proserpina killing last February, they’ve all been prostitutes, all dark-skinned, most of them tall.” He waggled his noteputer. “Do me a favor. Beginning with the Proserpina killing, when he went strictly to darker women, chart out the murders in sequence. Eliminate Towne; eliminate the outliers on Devil’s Rock and Irian.”

  “Okay.” Loveland fished out his noteputer, thumbed it to life and tapped in data. “What am I looking for?”

  “With this many dots, there’s got to be a connection. Up to now, we’ve looked at the victims. But maybe it’s something about the sequence we’re not seeing.”

  Loveland watched as his computer icon told him how hard the computer was working and he’d just have to hold his horses. “Like what?”

  “If I knew, I’d tell you. But I was thinking about what that old lady said. That guy in the wheelchair not having a face. Remember that?”

  “What? You think our guy stripped off the face like he did Petrie’s hands?”

  “No, I don’t think that’s it. What I want to know is why he took that person but left the wheelchair. This is a guy who only takes what he needs.”

  “So you’re saying maybe he needed this guy.”

  “But not his wheelchair. He left that for us. He knew we’d eventually find Petrie. What if Wheelchair Guy was dead? Dead weight’s heavy, but we already know our unsub is big because Petrie was big. He lifted weights; he was in shape. And that lubricant, it’s for armor, right? So what if Edwina Jeffries couldn’t see a face because it was behind a visor or helmet?”

  Loveland opened his mouth to reply, but his noteputer dinged. “Okay, all I got here is a bunch of dots. What am I supposed to be seeing?”

  “Have your noteputer connect the dots sequentially.”

  Loveland’s brows knit. “Why?”

  “Just a hunch. Try it.”

  “Okay.” Loveland shrugged, poked buttons, watched as his noteputer drew a straight line from Towne to Murchison to Halstead Station, and then another line that began at Proserpina and swooped like a scythe, cutting through David, Galatea and back to Murchison, then a
rcing through Galatea III . . . “What am I supposed to be seeing?”

  “What does the figure look like?”

  “Well, it’s a line, then an arc, then . . .” His voice died. “Holy shit.”

  “Yeah.” Thereon’s voice was flat. “You see it?”

  “It’s a K. A cursive, goddamned, capital K.” Loveland uncapped a pen, snatched up a napkin and quickly scratched out an elongated capital K in black ink. “The murders follow the sequence of strokes required to make a K.”

  “K—for Kappa.”

  “No,” Loveland said, “not just Kappa. Who’s been to all these planets? Who uses armor, battlearmor?” He didn’t wait for Thereon to answer. “That’s a K for Katana: Katana Tormark and the Fury. Because what about her is the same as our murder victims?”

  “My God.” Thereon stared. “Skin color. Tormark’s skin color is . . . was roughly the same as every single victim’s since Proserpina. And Petrie . . .”

  “Told his wife he was going to Halstead Station where Tormark’s people are headquartered,” Loveland said. “Jesus Christ, Thereon. Kappa, our unsub . . . he’s one of them.”

  29

  Kendall Mountains, Biham

  17 September 3136

  “You think this is such a good idea?” Yamada asked. He pinched a cigarette in his right hand. A gray tube of ash drooped like the wilted stem of a flower. “Kind of fast, you ask me.”

  “He’s been here for three weeks, Tony,” Dasha said. She sat on a camp stool, perched on the other side of a metal desk painted a dingy institutional gray. “His story’s checked out. He’s drilled with my squad. He’s excellent on the firing range. You can tell he’s had training. I think tonight’s a very good time for him to get his feet wet.” When Yamada didn’t respond, she added, “For Christ’s sake, he strangled a Drac with his bare hands. What more do you want?”