Lex scowled. “Is the legend true? That with the Grail in their possession, the Unari armies will not die? That they’ll rise again to defeat Honor, Pendragon, Tor, and Earth?”
“We can’t let them…” Marisa looked at Rion, her heart breaking. Had her brother caused this galaxy-wide disaster? Had the twin she loved found the Grail inadvertently for the Unari?
A muscle ticked in Rion’s jaw. “It’s up to us to stop the Unari on Honor.”
“And to stop them from building, we have to destroy the Tyrannizer,” she said.
Rion nodded. “One way or another, we have to find and destroy that machine.”
Lex and his men had mostly stayed in the background and out of the conversation. But Darian suddenly tensed, drew his weapon, and hit the dirt, taking Lex to the ground with him.
“By the Goddess,” Darian swore. “Floaters.”
“Pull back,” Lex ordered. “Pull back now.”
Seizing the enemy without fighting takes skill.
—SUN TZU
22
Rion had never seen so many floaters. About as wide as a man, the dull black spheres with glowing green eyes swooped toward them with an ominous hum.
Rion grabbed Marisa by the arm and yanked her to the dirt. “Get down.”
“What are they?” She flattened her body but watched the sky.
“Floaters. Telemetric remote-controlled transport units monitored by Unari weapons specialists.” Lex motioned them back toward the tunnel.
Rion retreated, but a floater placed itself between him and the tunnel. Lex shot it. Rion tried to take another step, but another floater took the other’s place.
The men closed in, standing back to back with Marisa in the middle. Rion shot the next one. Marisa looked over his shoulder. “You can’t shoot fast enough.”
Each time a floater obstructed their retreat, Lex, Rion, or Darian shot it, but each blast wasted precious seconds they didn’t have as they waited for the exploding shards to clear before they could retreat once again.
“They don’t shoot back?” Marisa asked.
Lex shot one in the sky and it burst into flames. “If their stunner hits you, the blast paralyzes your muscles.”
Darian added, “After the floaters capture their victims, the Unari starve them until they’re so weak they dragonshape to eat. Then they feed the dragons only enough to perform slave labor.”
Marisa hunkered behind Rion, her voice hard. “We can’t let them take us.”
Rion agreed. But they would run out of blaster ammo long before the Unari ran out of floaters. “Is there another way out of here besides that tunnel?” Rion asked Lex. He advanced a half step toward the tunnel, looking past the stored equipment to his right and left, but he saw only open land to their sides and the giant hellish building behind them.
“The tunnel’s our only way out,” Lex confirmed.
They couldn’t go forward. They couldn’t go back. They couldn’t hide.
With floaters surrounding them and more hovering and ready to descend, the rebel group was running out of options. The floaters would capture them within moments.
Marisa gazed longingly at the tunnel. “Can’t we just run for it?”
“They’re too fast. But we have no other choice.” Lex fired at another floater. A beam bounced off the floater and the air sizzled. The floater spun and wobbled. “We have to try for the tunnel. Everybody, let’s go.”
Every time they damaged a floater, three more swooped down—until the floaters had almost formed a solid wall to block their retreat.
Rion kept hold of Marisa and sidled toward the tunnel. “Try to make the entrance.”
They were in trouble, outnumbered, their escape tunnel blocked by a wall of floaters. The rebels tried to shoot their way through. But even if every charge they fired took out a floater, they wouldn’t win. The sky was dark with floaters—enough to block out the sun.
Fire.
Fall back.
Fire again.
As a group, they developed a rhythm. Two men shot, the others pulled back. But the floaters were herding them together. Soon the objects would pin them—but still the rebels fired.
The floaters took massive losses. But robotically controlled machines felt no pain, had no fear.
“Lay down your weapons,” a mechanical voice ordered.
“Not on your life,” Marisa muttered and fired over Rion’s shoulder.
When a floater targeted Darian with a yellow light, Rion fired and the machine fell from the sky, taking two other spheres with it, and all three machines shattered. Shards of metal rained down—a few pieces taking out more floaters. The chain reaction had annihilated ten spheres, but one of the shards hit Mendle.
He jerked back with a hiss of pain, then rolled and shot another floater out of the sky. Lex blasted another of the machines that blocked the tunnel, but two more took its place.
Marisa held up a hand and Lex threw her an extra weapon. She fired alongside Rion, muttering fiercely, “You’re just metal. Tin cans.” She swiveled and fired again. “Nothing we can’t handle.”
Rion had never seen her like this. Fierce. Focused. Fighting. And her aim wasn’t bad, either.
Rion would fight until his last breath. But he pulled the trigger and his weapon failed to fire. Out of ammo, he swung the blaster like a bat, taking out his anger and frustration on the machines. He dented one but caused little real damage.
“Aim for the sensors. The eyes,” Lex shouted.
Darian and Marisa kept shooting. Lex, Mendle, and Rion were reduced to batting practice. Rion glanced over his shoulder. They’d actually gained quite a bit of ground. “Come on. Ten more feet, people. Ten more feet and we’ll make the tunnel.”
It might as well have been ten miles.
Marisa shouted, “I’m out of power.”
“Me, too,” Darian added.
Everyone was now kicking and striking the floaters. They smashed sensors, dented the hulls, shattered many of the spheres to bits. And still more came to replace those that had fallen.
“Lay down your weapons,” the floaters ordered again, their mechanical voices eerily without emotion.
Dozens of black orbs hemmed in their group. They were going to beat the rebels by smothering them into submission. Marisa fought to Rion’s left. Lex to his right. Darian and Mendle had his back.
The floaters kept squeezing them, until Rion couldn’t lift his arm for lack of room. Suddenly the sounds of battle ended. The spheres had surrounded them. The floaters had encased them in a metal prison made up of floaters.
“Now what?” Marisa asked, sounding brave and slipping her hand into Rion’s.
“Now we wait for the Unari to figure out what to do with us,” Mendle spat. “It can take hours.”
“Or days,” Darian agreed.
Marisa gasped. “Are you saying they’ll just leave us standing here, trapped by the floaters until—”
“Until someone in authority feels like dealing with us,” Lex answered.
“If we have that long, maybe we can dig our way out,” Rion suggested.
“What exactly are we supposed to dig with?” Marisa asked.
“Our toes.”
“Sorry, I can’t feel my toes. My legs have gone numb. In fact, if they move away, I’m going to fall,” Marisa warned him.
He would have liked to tell her he would catch her. But Rion didn’t make promises he couldn’t keep.
He tried to clench and unclench his fingers. But there was no room. He could barely draw in enough air to breathe. “We haven’t been pinned long enough for them to cut off our circulation.”
Disarmed and pinned wasn’t enough. No, the Unari had to make sure they couldn’t move, too? They were thorough bastards. Rion needed a plan to escape. To save Marisa.
But how could he make a plan when his thoughts were slowing? By the Goddess, these floaters weren’t just paralyzing his muscles, but his mind. And that was his last bleak thought.
&nbs
p; All warfare is based on cunning, guile, and subterfuge.
—LADY OF THE LAKE
23
Oh, yuck,” Marisa muttered, trying to see through eyelids crusty with grit. The last thing she remembered was Rion, the floaters, and slowly going unconscious. If she could open her eyes, she might figure out what had happened. From the stench, she guessed she’d fallen into a sewage pit. Her mouth tasted as if she hadn’t brushed her teeth in a year. Worse, every muscle in her body ached, not like the flu, more like she’d bruised every bone in a car wreck.
But there were no cars on Honor.
With a groan, she forced open her eyes, then wished she hadn’t. She was lying on hard rock—wet, cold rock. No wonder her teeth were chattering. Confused, she gazed up to a blue sky overhead. Not a rain cloud or a floater in sight.
Dully, she turned her aching neck. And her stomach turned inside out. The floater must have dumped her here. She was one of hundreds of prisoners—men, women, and children—all lying at the bottom of… where the hell was she?
Straight stone walls climbed skyward around a large open area. Water sluiced down one wall, and the prisoners smarter than she was had had enough sense not to sleep in the runoff.
She shoved to a sitting position, tried to ignore the ice pick stabbing her brain. “Rion?”
“Who are you looking for?” the woman beside her asked, her voice strong.
Surely that robust voice couldn’t come from such an emaciated person? The rail-thin woman’s collarbones stuck out through the top of her torn shirt. Marisa guessed her age anywhere between twenty and forty. The woman had tied the ripped ends of her shirt together for modesty’s sake. Caked in dirt, her hair so slimy the color was undetectable, her nails ragged and torn, she still angled her head to show off a graceful neck. Once her cheekbones would have been beautiful; now the sharp ridges were merely a counterpoint to the dark circles under her eyes, the hollows of her cheeks, and her bruised jaw.
“I’m Marisa.”
The woman nodded. “Colleen.”
“I was looking for Rion, the man I was with before—”
“You got caught by the floaters?” Colleen guessed.
“Yeah.”
“If you have the energy to look, he’s probably here. Somewhere.” She gestured a bit apathetically. “It’s not like anyone is going anywhere.”
“Thanks.”
Marisa glanced around. Although she ached down to the marrow of her bones, she still had some strength, if only she could kick her aching muscles into gear. A closer look at the mass of lethargic people around her was enough to shoot her to her feet. Most of them weren’t moving. From their gray skin, she guessed either they were very ill… or they were no longer breathing.
The wind swirled, and she sucked in a relatively stench-free breath of air. But it was only a tiny reprieve. These people hadn’t bathed in days, maybe months. There was no fresh water to drink or bathe in, and in place of a bathroom, there was a trench.
Marisa moved to her right, taking care not to step on anyone. “I need to look for my friend.”
“You’re better off if you don’t,” Colleen warned. “It’s hard to watch the ones you love die. And everyone here either starves or dragonshapes and becomes a slave.”
“I understand.” Marisa didn’t doubt the truth of Colleen’s words. But she had to find Rion. Which meant tamping down the panic that threatened to well up her throat every time she breathed in the stench. Or heard a child moan. Or saw the flies that buzzed around the dead or almost dead.
At first she called out Rion’s name as she walked, but she drew too much attention to herself. So she kept a sharp eye out for clothing that wasn’t covered in gray grime.
For hours.
For miles.
It was as if the Unari had taken every person in Chivalri and stuck them in this hole. Most of the people stared at her with vacant, listless eyes. There was hardly any talking. Just exhausted whispers. And black despair.
She walked for the rest of the day, until it grew so dark that she couldn’t see well enough to go on without stepping on people. Sliding to the ground, she consoled herself that at least she was dry. But she had yet to come to the far end of the pit. Even worse, she’d walked in only one direction. For all she knew, she should have been walking the other way.
Searching for anyone in this morass of humanity was futile. She should have listened to Colleen. And yet, if Rion was able, she knew he’d be looking for her.
Lips dry and cracked, Marisa yearned for water. Although her stomach rumbled for food, hunger wasn’t her major problem. Between the stench and her surroundings, she’d lost her appetite. She should have been grateful. The Unari wouldn’t give her food until she dragonshaped, and then they’d force her to work in horrible pain. She understood why it was easier to starve.
“When do we get water?” she asked a woman to her left. Eyes glazed, the woman turned away as if she hadn’t heard.
An older man behind her coughed, his hacking dry and weak. Someone by her feet rolled over and began to snore. In a sea of people, Marisa had never felt so alone.
She had no idea where she was—not really. Was this some giant prison? Or a giant grave?
She might survive without food for weeks, but she couldn’t go more than a few days without water. Her throat was so dry it hurt to swallow. She tried not to think about her chapped lips, or how dry her eyeballs felt. In fact, she wished she could just sleep and not think about tomorrow.
Get a grip.
She still had her strength. She’d been here less than a day. Rion and the rebels had to be here somewhere. She would find them. She didn’t know how, but tomorrow she would keep looking.
As the sun set and darkness settled in, she found a spot to lie down for the night. A small child curled against Marisa. Since the sun had set, the night air was chilly, and sharing body heat made sense, even with a stranger. Besides, she sensed no malevolence in any of these people. No one had the energy for anything but survival.
Despite her exhaustion, she couldn’t sleep. The ground was dry, but it was hard and cold. Sand worked its way under her tunic, into her hair and socks. As an irritant, it was the perfect medium, rough, tiny, and hard. And sand clung to sweaty skin, rubbing patches of flesh raw.
Tomorrow she would have to shake the sand out of her footwear, clothing, and hair. Giving herself something positive to accomplish made her feel better. Sand removal might be a small thing, but… she fell asleep thinking about sand.
Marisa opened her eyes. Day two. No Rion. No food. No water. Her tongue had swollen inside her mouth. Her lips were cracked, perhaps bleeding. Exhaustion cycled through her brain, turning off her emotions, her normal curiosity, her energy.
Around her, people stirred. Slowly. The old man kept coughing, the dry hacks terrible to hear. The woman who’d ignored her yesterday had yet to move. The kid who’d snuggled at her back had disappeared.
The first stirring of a breeze had her tipping up her head. She spied a round, dull black ball descending from the sky. Was she already hallucinating? No, it was a floater.
The sphere seemed to be aiming directly for her. Around her, people scooted, backed, and rolled away. Now was not the time to be brave. Marisa backed into the crowd to blend.
But the damn thing followed her.
Coincidence?
Maybe. But she changed her direction, then randomly darted in another. When she glanced up, the floater was still overhead. No way could she outrun it. Or fight it with nothing but her bare hands.
Marisa did the only logical thing she could. She folded her arms over her chest, faced the orb, and waited. “What do you want, you overgrown tin can?”
“It wants you,” someone in the crowd muttered.
“What for?” she asked, not really expecting an answer.
“The floaters eat people.”
That didn’t sound good.
“They like fresh meat.”
She’d gotten a whiff of
her own stink. She was no longer fresh.
“The newbies always give in to the hunger.”
She was swaying on her feet, her legs practically Jell-O. So much for her plan to shake out the sand, to keep looking for Rion.
If she’d had the room, she might have worked up the strength to run. But the crowd ringed her as if she was the only entertainment they’d had that year. Her heart pounded and her adrenaline surged. Perhaps she could kick out one of the machine’s six eyes.
The floater hovered about a foot off the ground. She wouldn’t wait until it grew teeth. She threw a swift kick at the eye. And was pleased to hear it shatter. The crowd didn’t make a sound. The floater didn’t stun her. It merely turned a new eye in her direction.
One eye down, five more to go. She lashed out with another kick. Again she smashed it. Four to go. Again the sphere turned.
Kick. Kick. Kick.
Only one to go. “You aren’t very smart, are you?” she muttered, taking out the last eye. The floater just hovered, about a foot off the ground. Any moment she expected it to shoot a paralysis beam at her.
Instead, the orb cracked open. She stepped back. The floater had a circular door. Compared to the brightness outside, the interior was shadowed and dark. She couldn’t see much at all.
“Get inside, Marisa Roarke.”
The tin can knew her name. First and last. She damn well hadn’t told anyone here her last name. Come to think of it, she hadn’t told Lex’s group her last name, either.
“Climb inside,” the floater repeated.
Marisa shook her head.
“Climb inside climb inside climb inside climb inside—”
“No way am I climbing into you. Not unless you take me to Rion.”
“If that is your order, I will take you to Rion.”
Marisa blinked. Was she hearing things? Hallucinating? “You will take me to Rion?”
“Climb inside climb inside climb inside climb inside.”
It had to be a trick. But she already knew the floater wasn’t very smart. Perhaps it received orders electronically? If one of those eyes she’d kicked had severed the sphere from its Unari handler, perhaps it was waiting for new orders.
Rion Page 19
