Shades of Allegiance

by Sandy Williams

  “No.” He strode past Emmit, then pulled open the transport’s sliding door.

  “Then what are you doing?”

  “What you want.” What she wants.

  Chace lowered the gun. His mouth twitched like he wanted to say something, and his brow furrowed. He glanced to his right for a few seconds, then focused on him again, probably trying to decide if he should let Rykus go or if he should shoot him just to make sure he never came back.

  Rykus tossed a duffel into the transport.

  “Ash is going after Hauch,” Chace finally said.

  He turned his head a fraction, listening.

  “Scius’s men dumped Denn’s body on the front steps,” Chace continued. “He stuffed Hauch’s comm-cuff into his mouth with a message to come see him. She knows it’s a trap. She’s going anyway.”

  “That sounds like Ash,” he said. He stared at the transport’s interior. Every piece of his soul wanted to turn around. Every piece wanted to rush off to help her.

  He grabbed the bar above the opening and pulled himself into the driver’s seat.

  “Scius won’t kill her,” Chace said. “He’ll hurt her. He’ll break her. He’ll turn her into something unrecognizable.”

  She knows what she’s walking into. He almost said the words, almost programmed in the route that would take him to the warehouse.

  “Chace,” Emmit said. “He’s supposed to leave. Ash wants—”

  “I know what Ash wants.” Chace cut him off.

  So. Ash had enlisted both men to get him to the capsule. She probably had other backup plans too. She was thorough.

  “She’s making a mistake,” Chace said. “She needs our help.”

  Thorough but blind. She’d relied on Chace to do what she wanted because she couldn’t see that he cared about her more than he cared about his plans.

  Chace’s gaze bored into the side of his head. He kept his focus on the console. Ash wouldn’t change. The loyalty training wouldn’t let her. She’d continue to put herself into harm’s way while pushing him away from it. She might not get herself killed on this op, maybe not on the next one or the one after that, but it would come.

  And it would hurt whether he was there to watch it or not.

  He rested his head against the seat back’s ripped fabric and closed his eyes. It felt like he was on a ship with its enviro failing. The ending was inevitable. All that was left was a sacrifice that would determine who went down with him, and who was saved.

  He counted his breaths. One. Two. With the third breath, he partitioned his emotions, shoving the fear, the doubts, the turmoil into a dark corner and allowing only a calm, focused determination to escape.

  “How much lead time does she have?”

  Ash’s past waited around one last corner. Her steps slowed before she reached it, dragging in the thin layer of street muck. She wanted to be with Rykus. She wanted to take that 220 to the capsule and leave this planet behind, because every minute she spent there, Glory chipped away a tiny piece of the person she’d become. Once she turned that corner, once she came face-to-face with Scius, it would start to chip away large chunks of her soul. She’d be the cold, heartless dreg that hurt and killed and abandoned without regrets or hesitation.

  She forced her tense shoulders to loosen, made sure her jaw was relaxed. She couldn’t turn around now, couldn’t doubt this move or change her mind. Scius’s dregs watched from broken windows and skinny, dank alleyways. They wouldn’t let her leave. And though she might be an anomaly, she wasn’t crazy enough to believe she could take out the seven or more dregs who had weapons trained on her back, especially when her weapon had been the cost of admission to this part of Brightwater Province.

  She pushed off her longcoat’s hood, removing any doubt as to who she was, then she stepped into the cloud-draped moonlight.

  Scius’s compound stabbed into the night sky.

  A rush of apprehension almost made her stumble. It grabbed her chest and squeezed, making it more difficult for her heart to pump blood through her veins. The building had once been a plain, boxy industrial warehouse until Scius’s dregs lugged in pieces of decommissioned ships and scrap metal. They’d hammered and welded it to the walls, creating a terrorizing facade full of dark, sharp edges.

  Scius had added more decorations since she’d last been there, more razored protrusions and eaves. Rumor had it, he loved to shove his enemies into those cutting walls.

  Twenty meters separated her from the front doorway. Two dregs appeared from the buildings to her left and right. Both carried Kersiva rifles and wore their hoods up, masking their faces.

  She strolled on.

  The giant metal door ground open, revealing a narrow beam of bright light in the twisted, black and gray architecture. The slash widened to shoulder width, then a bit more. By the time Ash reached the compound’s threshold, three men could have entered shoulder to shoulder.

  Thanks to her booster, her vision adjusted to the light almost instantly. Still, it took her time to comprehend the objects hanging to either side of the huge entrance hall. The room used to be lined with sculptures and metalworks, testaments to Scius’s wealth, strength, and stability. And arrogance, always arrogance. He flaunted it like he was some lord on a planet not mired by poverty.

  He’d removed the sinister art to showcase something else: his cruelty. Cages hung from the ceiling, and inside them, living skeletons watched her pass.

  One caged human cocked his head. Oily, tangled hair half obscured his face. Bony shoulders turned with Ash as if his neck had lost mobility. The block of equipment beneath him, some ancient generator or metal-covered console, was layered with so much piss and shit that it had become surrounded by a puddle of orange rust.

  The emaciated man leaned closer to the bars.

  Ash’s lungs turned to bruidium.

  She knew him.

  His name was Tucks. He’d been a sub-boss in Bedlam. He’d controlled a small area, but his dregs had been ruthlessly loyal. Ash had convinced him to support her, to pledge his dregs to her, and when things had gone to hell, she’d vanished. She hadn’t had time to fully cover a trail that led directly back to his people.

  Of course Scius had found Tucks. Scius had found all of them.

  She recognized more faces, more withered souls. Tal from Camptown, rocking his cage mindlessly against another defunct piece of equipment. Ridge from the Black, chewing on his nail-less fingers. Fauki. Jo. Persall. God, she’d thought they’d be dead. This… this was why she’d wanted to avoid Scius. She didn’t want to see the fate she’d condemned these people to.

  If she hadn’t injected a booster, she wouldn’t have had the strength to stay upright, to keep her emotions from showing, to move toward the man waiting at the opposite end of the room. Scius stood with a pleasant expression and his hands clasped casually behind his back.

  Two dregs flanked him. She didn’t recognize the one to his left. To his right stood Hillis, a man more bloodthirsty than Scius. More unhinged too. He didn’t have enough cunning or intelligence to claim even a small corner of a precinct as his own, but when a boss wanted to terrify the shit out of someone, they sicced Hillis on them.

  He knew her. She would have to watch him. The other three minions she’d never had direct contact with. They wouldn’t know her capabilities.

  She locked her gaze on Scius, but her peripheral vision tuned to the last cage hanging to his right. A heavily muscled soldier filled that space, barely fitting within the metal bars. He wasn’t starved and scrawny yet. He wasn’t broken. He was, however, furious.

  Ash deserved that. She deserved every glare and cutting remark Hauch had ever thrown her way.

  Scius unclasped his hands and held them out wide. “Welcome home, Ash. We’ve missed you.”

  She casually scanned the cages to her left. “This is going a bit far, don’t you think? Lose your mind while I was gone?”

  “Oh, you know how it is. People make bad choices. Bad things happen. Apparentl
y, I didn’t make the consequences of betrayal clear back when you were here. I think I’ve remedied that.” He looked at Vidonia, the barely breathing skeleton hanging across from Hauch. “Haven’t fared well, have they?” He returned his attention to her and let his gaze travel down, then back up. “You have though. Ravishing.”

  “Ravishing and busy,” Ash said, nonchalant. “You wanted to talk. I’m here. What do you want?”

  Scius smiled. He clasped his hands behind his back again, then began to orbit her like a warship scanning for a vulnerability. He’d always excelled at finding weaknesses. He’d strike, stabbing the knife in and turning. He did it all with an easy, pleasant expression on his too-handsome face. The barely there wrinkles at the corners of his eyes didn’t make him any less attractive. They made him look more human, which was an illusion. He was a monster wearing a Devout’s face. Evil. Cruel. She’d known it when she worked in his organization, and every scheme, she’d grown a little more like him, a little more twisted. Until she’d met Mira.

  “You’re here,” he said, “because you want him.” He gestured toward Hauch.

  She allowed herself to look directly at the soldier. Hauch looked back, fury and fire in his eyes. The cage caused him to hunch over. Not too far because his legs were folded up against his chest. It was a backbreaking position that would take a civilian hours to work the knots and kinks from their muscles. Hauch was tough though. He’d move when she needed him, pain be damned.

  “I’m here because you sent a message,” she said, turning back to Scius. She kept her voice casual, her hands loose at her sides.

  Unaffected.

  Calm.

  Completely cool.

  It sickened her to think about what she might have become if Mira hadn’t capsuled to Glory. She would have been malicious and depraved. Repugnant. She’d rather snap than return to the life she’d almost lived.

  “Denn,” Scius said, strolling toward the cage across from Hauch. “I almost sent someone else. Perhaps if I had, you’d take this more seriously. It is serious, you know. All of Glory saw you jump the causeway. They’ve figured out who you are. They will connect you to the Rancor.”

  That had been his pet project. Instead of workers taking the ship apart at the break yards, they’d been putting it back together. Upgrading it. Arming it. It had been a magnificent little vessel. Scius had been unreasonably proud of it. Probably had something to do with the parts he’d stolen out from under the noses of the oligarchs.

  Scius gave the cage in front of him a little shove, rocking it and the man inside.

  “If you don’t want to get to the point,” Ash said, “I will. I’m not staying. I came to Glory for a specific purpose. Stay out of my way, and I’ll continue to stay out of yours.”

  Scius turned from the cage. “No, no, no, Ash. You don’t get to return from the dead only to disappear again. You have schemes to atone for, and you will atone. Over and over again. That’s why you are here.”

  He stalked toward her. Most dregs would have retreated. They would have dropped their gazes toward the floor. They would have broken out into a sweat or stammered apologies or pissed their pants knowing they were at the mercy of a merciless man.

  Ash cocked her hip and smiled. Hello, old dance.

  He stepped closer. His voice softened and lowered to the tone of a lover whispering sweet nothings. “Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you.”

  Her smile turned extrasweet. “You’ll find out.”

  He stared at her mouth. Ash might have misjudged his obsession with his ship five years ago, but she absolutely wasn’t misjudging his need to degrade his enemies. He wouldn’t kill her while she was strong. If she had pride, if she had courage, she would die with defiance. He couldn’t allow that. He needed to break her first.

  His gaze returned to her eyes. He lifted his hand, a signal to his men. Hillis left, exiting through the doorway behind Scius.

  Ash didn’t let the churn of her stomach affect her expression.

  “I knew it was you,” Scius said. “The moment I received word the Rancor’s engines were warming up two weeks ahead of schedule, I put a bounty on your pretty head. Then I talked to dreg after dreg, every single one you ever associated with. They told me about Bedlam. They told me about Mira.”

  His eyes practically twinkled at her name. Scius controlled access to the clinics and medics of Brightwater. Piss him off, and the next time you were hurt or sick, no one would give you even a small bandage or placebo.

  Mira, of course, wouldn’t turn anyone away, and when Scius found out someone was circumventing his orders, he’d sent Ash to discover who.

  Ash had promptly framed another dreg, then she made sure no one else on Scius’s shit list made it to Mira.

  Still watching her, Scius reached to the voice-link hooked over his right ear.

  She resisted the urge to glance at the time on her cuff. Chace should have Rykus on the 220 now. Was someone reporting its ascent to Scius?

  Or were they reporting something else?

  His expression gave nothing away.

  The door in the back of the chamber reopened, and Hillis returned with Mira over his shoulder.

  Ash recognized her by the tangled brown hair and the now dirty clothing she’d borrowed from the Seekers. She didn’t try to lift her head, and Ash couldn’t see her face. Her arms swung loosely until the dreg stopped a few meters away and dropped her to the ground.

  Mira didn’t move. Her open eyes didn’t blink. Ash watched closely, waiting for her chest to rise. To fall.

  It never did.

  It took everything in Ash not to break, not to launch herself at Scius or Hillis or let the scream in her head escape.

  Mel had said the break yards were crawling with Scius’s people. Ash shouldn’t have left. She should have realized Mira would be there, should have found her, taken her to safety.

  A roar built in her chest, a raging mass of energy that damaged and bruised her heart. Mira had been the first person she’d ever trusted, the first person who had cared for Ash, who had forgiven Ash for all the schemes she’d run and the lives she’d screwed with. Mira had saved her life and thousands of others. Mira didn’t deserve this.

  Scius circled to her side, leaned close to her ear, and said, “I ran out of cages.”

  Sweat dampened her hairline. She felt hollow, vulnerable, like she’d just awakened from the mental hell of loyalty training, only her fail-safe wasn’t there to ground her. She needed a tether. Something to hold her in place. Something to hold her together.

  Ash’s gaze slipped past Hauch. She was going to fail again. Hauch would die. Chace would die. Scius would make her watch as he hurt and killed Emmit and Bian and every one of the Devout.

  Scius stepped just out of reach, but it felt like he already had his hand on her throat. Squeezing. Choking. She would lose everyone.

  No. Not everyone.

  Rykus wouldn’t die. Chace would get him off-planet. He might already be gone.

  She fought against her fears, her demons, used her memory of Rykus to glue her pieces back together. She remembered him on Caruth, his dominating presence barking drills and orders, and once, the day before Drop Day, holding her in the shower when she’d returned injured from a weekend leave.

  She remembered being in his embrace on the Obsidian after a seizure, remembered his relief on Ephron when he’d learned she wasn’t a traitor, and she remembered every time they’d made love.

  She wouldn’t lose those memories.

  She raised her chin to meet Scius’s gaze.

  His smile. The mockery. The cruel belittling. She’d seen it thousands of times. It was something that chipped away at a person’s composure, kindling fire beneath an explosive device. It caused dreg after dreg to lose control of their emotions. It always resulted in losing control over their lives.

  She wouldn’t lose control. She would destroy this son of a bitch.

  “You’ve made a mistake,” she said.

  “H
ave I? Or have you?” Unconcerned, he strolled toward Hauch’s cage.

  She tracked his movements, opened up her senses to the locations of every one of his dregs. She needed to get him close again. And she needed to keep him between her and Hillis. The demented man with his broken teeth and crooked nose salivated, eager to make her bleed.

  “How did you think this was going to go?” Scius purred, turning his back to Hauch. “You thought you would waltz into my world and get what you wanted?”

  “No,” she said. “I thought I’d waltz in here and trade the causeway for nonintervention.”

  Scius’s smile didn’t waver, but all mirth vanished from his eyes. His feet rooted to the ground. The clang of Tal’s cage hitting the metal block and the faint moans and mumbles of the other imprisoned dregs grew loud in the silence. Scius didn’t want to bite. He didn’t want to give her the slightest tendril of power.

  But he couldn’t not ask.

  “The causeway?”

  “It’s mine, Scius.”

  The smile didn’t look like a smile anymore. It was a baring of teeth, a silent threat that said he wanted to rip her to shreds.

  He glanced at Hillis. Nodded.

  Hillis removed his comm-cuff from his wrist, straightened it, and swiped his fingers across its surface.

  “Let Hauch go,” Ash said.

  Scius’s mouth flattened. “Care for him now, do you?”

  “Walk away. If you’re lucky, I won’t waste my time tracking you down.”

  “You have no fucking power here!” Scius bellowed, spittle flying, face turning red in a way Ash was well-accustomed to. Scius was not a man who liked any hint of threat to his power.

  “I would have left you alone,” she said. “You should have done the same.”

  He drew his weapon, aimed at her head and stormed toward her. He stopped one step too soon.

  Calmly she said, “If you kill me, if you harm Hauch, you’ll trigger the Cascade. Ownership of the causeway will pass from one enemy to the next. You will be the boss of nothing.”

  “Hillis!” he barked.

  Hillis had enough mental faculty to swallow. Scius tended to kill messengers. That would be helpful now. It would also be helpful if Scius took one step closer.