He spoke in a pure Iotic accent. “Who is it? Who is there?”
Gods. That deep, sensual voice alone could have women at his feet. Lowering my gun, I fumbled for the stylus around my neck. I came to my senses before I turned it on. Scorch would monitor this cell even better than her storerooms. I hadn’t expected she would keep Dayj for herself. It truly was insanity. She had to leave Raylicon; she could never pull this off here without the news leaking. But she couldn’t escape with Dayj now, not with every port under surveillance.
I went over and crouched next to him, speaking in a low voice. “I’m here to help.”
He snapped up his clenched fist while he protected his face with his other arm. I caught his wrist before he struck me, but his action told me a great deal about how Scorch treated him.
“I won’t hurt you,” I said. Up close, I could see him better. I should have been ready, but no holo could prepare anyone for the full impact of Dayjarind Majda. Even with his face ragged from exhaustion and fear, he was so beautiful, it was hard to believe he was real.
His voice rasped. “What do you want?”
“Your family sent me.” My mind spun with plans. His cell was small, little more than large hole created when mineral-laden water had dissolved the softer rock and left a shell of harder stone. As I scanned the area, my sensors located two holo-cams monitoring the cave.
One was pointed at me.
I spoke fast. “Your Highness, it won’t be long before I’m discovered, if I haven’t been already. We have to go. I’m going to shoot off your chains with my gun.”
He was looking at me in the dark, though he probably couldn’t see squat. “How do I know you won’t shoot me?”
“You have to trust me.” I wondered if his voice rasped so badly because he had been shouting for help. No one would hear him down here except Scorch and the few people she let enter her empire. Or maybe he had been screaming for other reasons.
Gritting my teeth, I aimed at a point on the chain between his wrist and the wall. Sweat gathered on my forehead. I didn’t want to risk hitting him, but if he had to haul around too much of that chain, it would slow us down.
“I’m firing,” I said. “Don’t move.” I held down the stud long enough to shoot two projectiles, their explosive power muffled by the damper. The first damaged the chain and the second cracked it in two. It took two more shots to break the second chain. Having a stranger fire so near him in the dark had to be disturbing, but Dayj didn’t flinch, not once. I had seen ISC officers with less composure than this terrified young man. I wondered if his family knew him at all.
“All right,” I said. “You’re free.”
The chains scraped as he moved his leg, dragging the links across the ground. “Thank you.”
I grimaced. “Don’t thank me yet. I don’t know if I can get us out of here alive.”
He felt around the wall next to him until he found a handhold. As he pulled himself up, his leg buckled and he fell against the stone.
I jumped to my feet and reached for him. “What happened to your leg?”
Dayj jerked away when my palm brushed his arm. “Nothing.”
“That wasn’t nothing.”
“It’s all right.” He took a shaky breath. “After one of the beatings, I couldn’t walk for a few days. But I don’t think it’s broken.”
Gods al-flaming-mighty. “Who beat you?”
“She calls herself Scorch.” His voice cracked. “She didn’t like it when I refused her.”
I wondered how Scorch’s nose would feel, breaking under my fist, smashed into a million little bone shards. “Can you walk?”
“I think so.” He took a lurching step, but he didn’t fall. “Not fast, I am afraid.”
“Here.” I touched his arm, offering support. He tensed, but this time he didn’t jerk away. So I slid my arm around his waist. He draped an arm over my shoulder and leaned on me while I helped him limp toward the doorway. Well, damn. The Majdas had better not kill me for touching him.
“Did Oxil bring you down here?” I asked as we pushed our way past the canvas.
“Yes.” He spoke bitterly. “I was so grateful to her for sneaking me out of the palace. Gods, I was a fool.”
“You aren’t a fool.” Lonely, yes, but if that made a person a fool, then half the human race was with him. I tried not to think of the past seven years since I had left Jak. “It isn’t your fault Oxil is scum.”
“I’m afraid I am a rather poor judge of people.” Dryly he said, “For all I know, Scorch could have sent you.”
I swore colorfully at the suggestion, then remembered who I was with and shut up. “Sorry.”
He actually laughed. It was soft and hoarse, but still a laugh. “I have heard much worse in the past few days.”
Having heard Scorch’s vivid vocabulary, I could imagine. It amazed me that he could retain a sense of humor in all this.
We made our way uphill toward the storeroom, slowed down by my gravity problems and his injured leg. I thought of the dust in his gift box. His father said he had kept it for years. “When did Oxil first bring you here?”
He glanced at me. “Four years ago.”
“Did you meet Scorch then?”
“No. Not until I wanted to go offworld.” He continued doggedly with his labored steps. “Apparently she saw me, though, the first time I came down here.”
Four years. That fit the date on the news broadcast about the Assembly that Scorch had watched. No wonder she had worn such an odd expression, an intensity that bordered on hatred. The delegates in that Assembly procession had included Roca Skolia, Dayj’s intended. Scorch must have loathed the woman who could claim Dayj. I thought of his words: She didn’t like it when I refused her. Assault took many forms and ways existed for Scorch to make him do what she wanted regardless of how he felt.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “About everything.”
He spoke in a low voice. “I just wanted to see the ocean. A real ocean.”
“You will someday.”
“Perhaps.” He didn’t sound like he believed it any more than I did.
The canvas door of a storeroom came into view, but it didn’t look like the right one. Max, I thought. Have you mapped out this area?
Yes. The doorway you want is ten meters up the path.
Thanks. We kept going, and I recognized the next canvas as the “door” of the room with the gun crates. We drew alongside the entrance—
A light appeared ahead.
Blast it! I pushed Dayj behind a stalagmite and nudged him at the canvas. Going into the storeroom wouldn’t free him; even if he could have climbed to the hole in the ceiling, he didn’t know how to navigate the maze up there. But with all the bizarre rock formations and crates in the cave, he had plenty of places to hide.
Dayj slipped past the canvas. When he was gone, I switched off the damper.
A voice became audible. “—don’t see anyone here. They may have moved on.”
I edged forward in a crouch behind the stalagmites that lined the path. Peering between two of the rock formations, I saw one of Scorch’s rizz-punks on the path ahead, talking into her comm. She reminded me of the drifter Scorch had killed in the desert. Scorch probably intended to murder everyone who knew she had kidnapped a Majda prince. These people were fools if they believed otherwise. It could explain why she had so few human guards here; the less people who knew, the better. For the same reason, she’d have to erase any records her security systems kept of Dayj.
I considered the rizz-punk. My gauntlet darts shot a powerful sedative, but they weren’t as accurate at long distances as the pulse gun.
Max, I thought. If I fire a dart from here, what is the probability I’ll knock out that punker?
I’d say about thirty percent, he answered. If you move closer, the odds improve, but you won’t have any cover.
I grimaced. I had reached the last stalagmite where I could hide. Any further, and I’d be in the open where she could see me.
She’d blast me to smithereens. If I shot from here and didn’t knock her out, she’d know my location. Then I was dead.
Thirty percent. I had a one in three chance of hitting her. The odds were too damn small.
Sometimes I hated this job.
I fired my pulse gun.
She never knew. The shots ripped through her torso, tearing her apart as they sent shock waves through her body. She collapsed, twisting as she fell, and smashed her light when the remains of her body hit the ground. The tunnel went dark—
A laser flared from behind me, its brilliant light stabbing the darkness. The shot pulverized a stalagmite only centimeters from where I crouched. I dropped and rolled as a second shot exploded a stalactite above me. I barely escaped the spear of rock that crashed to the ground. Shards flew everywhere and one stabbed my arm.
Whoever fired at me was to my left, where Dayj and I had been walking only moments ago. The storeroom where Dayj was hiding was also to my left, its entrance between me and the shooter. Darkness shrouded the path, which would hide me if the shooter didn’t have IR vision.
A familiar voice grated. “Know you’re here, Bhaaj.”
Scorch. Shit! She had every possible augmentation: sight, hearing, muscles, skeleton, nodes.
Max, can you locate her? I asked. Blood was dripping down my arm.
I can give you an estimate, he thought. Ten meters down the path.
Too close. If I moved, the noise would give away my location. I peered through the rocks, but I couldn’t see anyone. Nor could I hear breathing. She was shrouded. If she stood in front of a stalagmite, her holosuit would project images of a stalagmite; if she was by a wall, her suit would show a wall. Conduits in the material would also cool the suit, masking the heat of her body.
Moving with care, I pulled off the stylus hanging around my neck. Max, can you link to the chip that operates this light?
Yes.
When I tell you, turn it on. I sighted on the guard I had shot—and hurled the stylus. GO!
Light flared as the stylus flew through the air. A laser shot hit the stylus dead on, and I fired toward the source of the beam, spraying the area with the last of my second ammo cartridge. The cavern echoed as the projectiles shattered stalactites.
Darkness and silence descended.
Did I get her?
You hit a lot of rocks, Max thought.
I know that. Did I get Scorch?
I estimate the probability is between eleven and seventy-three percent.
Well that’s definitive.
Sorry. It is the best I can do.
I stayed crouched behind an outcropping. That Scorch hadn’t returned fire could mean many things: I had hit her, she couldn’t find me, she had a strategy I hadn’t guessed, or she was recharging the carbine. The longer this went on, the better for her, because I needed ammunition. I didn’t think she had fired enough to exhaust the carbine’s power, but that assumed she started with a full charge.
Footsteps came from my right, on the path where I had shot the guard. Not good. I looked to see Oxil edge around the curtain of rock, a pulse rifle gripped in her hands. With Scorch in the opposite direction, I was penned now on both sides.
Max, I thought. This is not good.
Throw your gun. It will draw their fire. It is of no use to you without ammunition.
I have another cartridge. But they’ll hear me when I reload. If I moved fast enough, I might get Oxil before she killed me, but it would leave me an easy target for Scorch, if she was still alive.
You need a diversion, Max thought. Throw your boot.
They’ll hear me take it off. I paused, thinking. I can get my gauntlet off faster with less noise.
Without your gauntlets, you lose your connection to me.
I have two of them. I slid my right hand over my left gauntlet. Retract the bio-threads from my left socket.
Retracted. Max’s thought took on a tinny quality.
I thumbed the release and my gauntlet split open. No sound had yet betrayed me. Steeling myself, I ripped off the gauntlet and hurled it at Oxil while I scrambled to the left.
She fired, hammering the rocks with bullets. In the same instant, a laser shot bored into the cranny I had just vacated. Hell and damnation! Scorch was alive and on to my tricks. I got rid of my spent cartridge, all the time scuttling behind the stalagmites. As soon as I reloaded, I fired at Oxil, but she had dodged out of sight and my shot just cracked the rocky cones that blocked her former hiding place.
Laser fire flared from Scorch’s direction and melted a stalagmite only a meter away. I edged back, hoping to throw off Scorch’s estimate of my position, and stopped, my pulse racing.
Nothing.
I peered through two rock columns. Where did Oxil go? I asked Max.
I believe she has hidden behind the rock formations directly across the path.
A ragged fence of rocky pyramids bordered the other side of the walkway. Oxil could be anywhere back there. Are you linked to the beetle I sent after Scorch earlier today?
I lost contact when it reached the caverns.
We’re here now, too. See if you can find it.
Searching.
Well?
I can’t find it.
It might be in—
Found it.
Good. Bring it here.
Max paused for what felt like forever, though it was only seconds. I’m having trouble connecting to its controls. It needs to be closer. When it is, I can link your optics to its cameras so that you can see with its eyes.
Good idea. That would let me see real-time through the bot’s eyes, rather than having the view digitized and sent to my spinal node, with the associated delays.
Do it, I thought. But be careful. If it gets too close to Scorch or Oxil, they’ll detect it.
Another pause. The bot is here. I’m linking your vision.
My view of the cavern blurred. The scene refocused, still dim and red, but seen from higher up. I was a beetle flying near the jagged ceiling. Across the path from my hiding place below, a brighter patch of red glowed behind two stalagmites.
Take me lower, I thought.
That will increase the chance that Oxil will detect you.
I’ll risk it. Circle back over those last few meters.
The beetle drifted down in a spiral, and the splotch of red resolved into Oxil crouched behind the pyramids of stone.
Hah! Got her.
Got how? You can’t shoot her through those stalagmites.
Yeah, but I know her location. I hoped Scorch wasn’t trying to spy on me with her own bots, if she had any. Take the beetle up the path.
Moving.
I floated under the ceiling through an inverted landscape of small stone icicles. Scorch had shrouded herself well; nothing showed below except for the eerie rock formations.
A splintering crash came from the storeroom.
I snapped open my real eyes and whipped up my gun.
Bhaaj, don’t shoot! Max thought. Dayj is in there.
Oxil jumped to her feet and fired her pulse rifle at the storeroom. In that same instant, a laser shot came from Scorch’s direction and seared the canvas door, setting it aflame. I was already firing at Oxil, knowing exactly where to aim. With the canvas in flames, light filled the cavern. Oxil stared at me as my shots tore through her body, her face lit by the crackling fire. Then she collapsed behind the stalagmites.
“Bhaaj!” a man shouted. “JUMP!”
What the bloody hell? I threw myself backward and slammed into a column. In that instant, a laser shot stabbed across my hiding place, barely missing me. Even as I returned Scorch’s fire, I looked the other way, up the path, where the yell had come from. I knew that voice. Jak had arrived.
He was shrouded, but in the lurid firelight from the burning canvas, the outline of his body showed. He had a weapon, either a pulse rifle or a laser carbine. I spun to look in the other direction and finally located Scorch, a human-shaped ripple against the stalagm
ites.
Jak had his gun pointed straight at Scorch and—
Scorch had her carbine pointed straight at me.
“You shoot me, Jak,” Scorch called, “and I shoot her.”
‘You’ll be dead before you fire,” Jak said.
“I’m faster,” she told him. “You got no biomech.”
“I got biomech,” Jak told her.
“Lying,” Scorch said.
I knew Scorch well enough to recognize that she wasn’t sure. If she thought she could move faster than Jak, I’d already be dead. Both Scorch and I had augmented speed, but she had her gun aimed and mine was down at my side. She only had to press the firing stud. I’d be dead before I got off a shot. Unfortunately I knew another truth. Jak was bluffing. He hated the thought of tech-mech inside his body. He had no biomech.
The burning canvas fell to the ground, its flames dying, the light dimming. It left the entrance to the cave open, but at first I wasn’t sure if what I saw there was real or a shadow. Then the shadow solidified into a man.
Dayj.
He stood framed in the entrance between two stalagmites with the canvas burning into ashes at his feet. Gods almighty, he had a neural tangler clenched in his hand. The splintering we heard must have been him cracking open one of the crates. I had come closer to breaking them than I realized.
“Dayj.” Scorch stood a few steps away from him, her outline fading as the fire died. “You can’t shoot. You don’t know how to use a tangler.” She had an odd tone, as if she were talking to a child.
I hated her tone, but she was right. A tangler targeted the neural system. It took experience to prime the gun, determine the dose, and decide where to shoot.
“You don’t think I know how?” Dayj rasped, his Iotic accent a jarring contrast to the lurid scene, with dying flames and glittering rocks. “I watched, Scorch. I listened to you tell that drifter how to kill Captain Krestone, and I watched you get ready to kill your hired assassin.”
Shit. Did Dayj realize he had just signed his death warrant? He had told her, in front of witnesses, that he could testify against her. She had to kill him. Letting him live would go against every tenet she lived by—but from what I had seen, she had lost all rationality over the prince.
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