by M. R. Forbes
“Queenie, here,” Trin said, rushing to one of the docking clamps.
Of course, the airlock hatch was locked and sealed, but it was hardly a problem. Abbey pulled at it with the Gift, needing only a few seconds to lift it away from its moorings. She dropped the heavy door to the side and jumped down into the airlock, putting her hand against the next hatch and pushing. The second hatch buckled inward, groaning and finally releasing before thunking onto the floor.
Abbey dropped into the Fire with Trinity right behind her. She quickly scanned the corridor. Two rotting corpses sat nearby, crushed by the force of the original impact. Abbey wrinkled her nose and looked away. There was nothing pretty about war.
“Which way?” she asked.
“Follow me,” Trinity said.
She directed Abbey down the corridor toward the tubes. The backup generator had made them operational again, and Abbey tapped the control pad, calling one to them.
It arrived within seconds. They climbed in.
“Which deck?”
“Four,” Trinity said. “Villeneuve's research lab is there.”
Abbey directed the tube to Deck Four.
It stopped on Six, the power to it going off.
“Damn it,” Abbey said.
“They cut the power.”
“I know. Do you mind?”
Trin grabbed the tube hatch and pulled, forcing it open. They climbed out.
“Emergency stairs are that way,” Abbey said.
The Fire was larger than the Brimstone, but its layout wasn’t that much different.
“They’ll be covering the stairs.”
“I know. Sucks to be them.”
42
Abbey had to remind herself not to overuse the Gift as they reached the emergency stairwell. A squad of soldiers had taken root there, taking cover beneath a hastily planted barricade and pointing a heavy pulse laser their way. They opened fire as Abbey rounded the corner, forcing her to duck back behind the wall, a burning hole in her calf that closed over as she watched.
“Frag that hurt,” she said.
“We can’t afford to linger here,” Trin said. “I’ll take care of them. The armor has a refractive coating that makes it highly impervious to lasers.”
“No. You’re my secret weapon, and I need you to stay that way. I’ve got this.”
Without the Gift.
She leaned her head out, tracking the targets before they started shooting again. Her TCU collected the data, giving her a layout of their positions on her HUD even after she pulled back to safety. She handed her rifle over to Trinity and then withdrew her Uin from her tightpacks.
“Cover me, but try to stay out of sight.”
“As you wish.”
Abbey took a few breaths, and then turned the corner and charged.
The gunner behind the pulse laser shifted his aim and opened fire, the invisible blasts caught by the optics in her cowl and converted into something she could see. They zapped the air around her as she bounced into the wall, ricocheted off it, hit the floor, ran a few steps, bounced up and off the opposite wall and then slid along the ground until she was right under the barricade. The soldiers popped up to get an angle on her as she reached it, and that was when Trinity began shooting, single rounds that dropped them one by one.
Abbey popped to her feet, vaulting the barricade to reach the three remaining soldiers hiding behind it. The first tried to shoot her and lost his hand to her Uin before finding himself with a deep cut in his neck. The next flailed at her with a combat knife. She batted it aside before cutting him, too. The last one almost got his rifle to the back of her head, but dropped when Trin closed the gap from behind and put a bullet in his brain.
“Clear,” Abbey said, not slowing as she pushed into the stairwell.
Trinity was right behind her as they started the descent, quickly dropping the two decks to Four. They spilled out into the corridor. The area was clear, save for additional bodies of those who had died in the crash.
“This way,” Trinity said.
She took the lead, running down the corridor almost too fast for Abbey to keep up without resorting to the Gift. They traveled deep into the center of the Fire, finally stopping when they reached a pair of twin doors that had been torn away from their original anchors.
“It’s here,” Trin said.
She was facing away from the room, and even though she had no true face, it was clear to Abbey that Trinity didn’t want to go in, and didn’t even want to look at it.
“What does the Serum look like?” Abbey asked.
“Blood,” Trinity replied. “It’s like the Gift, only not.”
Abbey wasn’t sure what that meant, especially in relation to the naniates. It didn’t matter. As soon as she had taken it, she would stop changing. She would be able to use the Gift like any of the Nephilim did, except to restore order instead of creating chaos.
She entered the room. The walls were dented and torn, the furniture bashed and broken. It was obvious Trinity hadn’t left peacefully. Had she done this when she had woken in a mechanical body? Or had this happened when she found out Thraven had abandoned her? She was surprised anything could be intact in the destruction, especially containers holding liquid.
She reached a pile of rubbish. A terminal, desk, and shelving that had all been torn from the walls and thrown together. She did use the Gift then, reaching out and spreading it all apart. She glanced over at Trinity’s back when she found Villeneuve beneath it all, his small head crushed. She reminded herself this had all happened before Trinity touched the Light. Somehow the interaction had removed the stain of corruption Thraven and the Gift had left. She still didn’t understand it. She still wasn’t sure she could completely trust it. It would be easy for the former Evolent to trick her. To tell her she had changed and wait for her guard to be down.
To what end? Trinity had her dead to rights before. She could have killed her and didn’t. If it was a trick, it was an elaborate one whose purpose she wasn’t able to discern.
That didn’t mean there was no purpose.
She fought the idea. Was it the Gift trying to assert control again? If there was anything she shouldn’t trust, maybe that was it?
She went to the shelving she had uncovered, pulling open the drawers. One of them held a series of vials. She lifted one of the vials out. It was printed on in Lrug. She had enough familiarity with the written language to decipher it. Trinity Sample Ten. The others were marked similarly. She opened the drawer beneath it. More vials.
“Queenie, there are units approaching,” Trinity said. “I can feel the vibration of their boots on the floor.”
“I’m coming,” Abbey replied.
She lifted the vials out. Generator Sample Four. Blood from the engines. Villeneuve had used it to bring his cyborg to life. It still wasn’t what she wanted.
Reports sounded as Trinity backed into the room, still refusing to look.
“No more time, Queenie,” she said. “We’re going to get boxed in down here if we dally.”
Abbey opened the last drawer. More blood in two larger vials. She lifted the first. Font Sample One. Font sample? Interesting. She took it and stuck it in a tightpack. She lifted the other. Neutralizer Sample One. Neutralizer? That sounded good.
She reached for the seal to snap it off.
A flash of white light blinded her.
She lowered her head, blinking a few times. What the hell? The light faded a moment later. She reached for the seal again.
Again, a flash of bright light stopped her.
She growled softly. Damn it. “Why not?” she said out loud. “I don’t understand.”
“Understand what?” Trin said.
“The Light doesn’t want me to drink the Serum.”
“Can we figure it out later?”
“Yeah.” She shoved it into a tightpack. “Let’s move.”
“Where to?”
Abbey considered. She knew the dropships had to be a trap. Th
ey were too damn obvious. Quark had to know her goal was to get off the planet. Which meant anywhere there was a ship to take her there was just as likely to be set up for an ambush. Wherever they went, they were going to be in for a fight. She was okay with that. Still, there was no reason not to be prepared.
“Hold up,” she said. “Keep me covered.”
“What are you doing?” Trinity asked. “They’re almost here.”
Abbey turned back to the bent terminal, resting on the floor. She knelt down beside it, turning it on. It was still functional. She stuck an extender to it, moving her fingers to activate the terminal in her cowl.
“Hopefully getting onto the Fire’s network,” she said.
The first of the soldiers reached the room, getting a few shots off before Trinity rushed him, grabbing him by the neck and breaking it with a single, overpowering squeeze. She grabbed his rifle, pulling it so hard it broke the shoulder strap. Then she threw him out into the hallway, shouldering the weapon and trailing behind. Heavy gunfire echoed in the corridor, mixed with single, measured pops from Trinity’s weapon. Rounds pinged off the battle armor, searching for a weak spot and failing to find one. Meanwhile, Thraven’s soldiers continued to die.
Abbey ignored it, focusing on the terminal. It was already logged in, and she paused as her display filled with the completed schematics for the Fire’s naniate-fueled power generators. She couldn’t make out most of it, but she knew someone who probably could. They needed to hurry, but it was data they couldn’t afford to leave behind. She transferred it quickly to her SoC before working on connecting to the ship’s intranet.
The security on the terminal was easy to break, though the gunfire had calmed to almost nothing by the time she did. She quickly navigated to the sensor systems, getting access to the cameras in the hangar. A quick look through each verified her suspicion. Soldiers in mismatched uniforms were organized throughout. Quark’s mercenaries. They were holding weapons she didn’t recognize. Non-standard rifles. Did they fire poison bullets? She was going to assume they did.
She transferred the network access commands and routines to her demonsuit, giving her a mobile connection to the services. It wouldn’t have been this easy if standard security protocols had been in place, but the condition of the Fire had made the enemy sloppy.
Abbey disconnected and rushed to the hallway. Trinity was standing over a soldier, pulling her blades from his chest. The armor was scuffed from bullets and stained with blood. A dozen soldiers lay scattered on both sides of her, all of them dead.
“They’re waiting to ambush us in the hangar,” Abbey said. “But I have an idea. Do you know how to fly a Shrike?”
“Absolutely,” Trinity replied.
“Good. Then let’s get our asses off this rock.”
43
They made it close to the hangar before Abbey put her hand on Trinity’s shoulder, bringing her to a stop. Trinity turned her head, looking at the hand as though surprised that anyone would be willing to touch her.
“There’s a maintenance access shaft that runs above the hangar,” Abbey said, transferring the schematic through their linked TCUs. “I want you to go in that way.”
“Secret weapon?” Trinity said.
“Exactly. One of them.”
“What’s the other?”
“It’s a secret,” Abbey said, smiling. “I’m going to walk in the front door. I expect Quark will be waiting for me there, ready to put as much poison into me as he can.”
“A reasonable expectation.”
“I’m going to let him hit me.”
“What?”
“It’s a risk, but I want him off-guard. When he comes in for the kill, that’s when you make your move.”
“How do you know how much you can absorb?”
“I don’t know if you saw. I took a few hits out in the woods. I have a general idea. And I have this if things get too bad.” She patted the tightpack on her thigh.
“What is that?”
“Blood from Thraven’s Font. If I can’t take the Serum yet, I assume it will make me stronger?”
“And accelerate the madness.”
“No pain no gain?”
“I like you, Abigail Cage. More than I expected I would.”
“Same here. I’m glad we’re not trying to kill one another anymore.”
Trinity reached out and put her hand on Abbey’s shoulder. Abbey did the same. She looked into the other woman’s blank faceplate.
“I won’t let you die,” Trinity said.
“I appreciate that. Ping me when you’re in position.”
“Roger.”
They split up, with Trinity moving off to the location Abbey had passed her. Abbey turned and re-entered the emergency stairwell, headed toward the main hangar entrance, a pair of twin doors one deck down.
The area remained clear as she crossed the corridors, the lack of activity an overly clear signal that Quark was expecting her. She confirmed it when she spotted a small sensor placed on the corner of the hallway, a secondary camera tracking her movements in the area. She stopped right in front of it, flipping her finger at it before continuing. She had no idea if Quark knew the Terran gesture, but it amused her all the same.
She was a few dozen meters from the hangar when she paused again, reconnecting to the network and the camera feed on the inside.
The soldiers were gone.
What?
She switched to other cameras. There was no sign of any of the mercenaries that had been there before. Had they bugged out? Or did Quark have something else in mind?
She confirmed that the Shrike was still there, waiting for her. Quark had probably loaded it with explosives, too. But did he think she would just hop in and try to escape without searching it? Did he know enough about her to know she could disable them if she wanted to?
“Trin, we have a problem,” Abbey said.
“What is it?” Trin replied.
“Either the ambush got called off, or they fragged with the feeds and looped them back on a view of a clear hangar. I don’t know which. If the hangar is clear, it means there’s a trap somewhere else.”
“He couldn’t have adjusted his units that quickly. It has to be a false feed. I suggest we keep going with the current plan. If we have to adjust on the fly, we will.”
“Roger,” Abbey said.
She disconnected from the network and covered the distance to the hangar doors. She hesitated there for a moment, still unsure. She was walking into the middle of it on purpose, and despite her plan to let Quark poison her again, she wasn’t exactly looking forward to it.
Frag it all.
She reached out with the Gift, throwing the doors aside. Before she could even get a look at the interior, something grabbed her and pulled her in.
She was thrown through the air, arms held at her sides until she landed in the center of the space, looking directly up at the shaft where Trinity was waiting. She expected the bullets to come then, but they didn’t. She lashed out with the Gift, breaking free of the invisible hold and rolling to her feet.
“Abigail Cage.”
Abbey’s eyes fell on the only person in the room. A lean man in a blacksuit with a dark cape over it. She could sense the Gift on him. Why hadn’t she known he was here before?
“Evolent or Venerant?” she asked.
“Venerant Koy,” the man replied. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
“Where’s Quark?”
“You know his name?”
“He told it to me right before I almost killed him. I came to finish the job.”
“That isn’t why you came. You were looking for something here. You found it upstairs. I haven’t had much time to explore the ship yet. I’ve been busy chasing after you. What were you searching for?”
“Why would I tell you?”
“You’re strong, I know. Stronger than many. You may be able to stand toe-to-toe with any Evolent alive. But I’m not an Evolent.”
His Gift
reached out for her again. She pushed back against it, feeling the pressure. She held him back for a few seconds, forcing him to increase his efforts enough that his brow wrinkled and he grunted with his final push. It overwhelmed her, knocking her Gift aside and wrapping her up in a paralyzing hold.
“Much stronger than I expected,” Koy said. “You fed on Elivee, did you?”
“I’ll be feeding on you next,” Abbey said, not sure how he knew that. She tried to move her arms, but they were pinned. So were her legs. She had known about Quark. She hadn’t known Thraven sent two Venerants to catch her.
“According to Quark, you were pretty weak when he saw you last. Oh, your automatic defenses did a number on his soldiers, but Vee wouldn’t have succumbed to that. She was impulsive and reckless, but she wasn’t stupid.”
He began walking toward her, getting closer.
“I heard you cut Gloritant Thraven.” He smiled. “Incredibly impressive. Even so, I don’t believe you could have killed Elivee in your condition as it was described to me. Even with the Shard on your side.”
“You know about the Shard?” Abbey asked.
“Rumors and myths and legends,” Koy said. “Apparently there is some bit of truth to them. Apparently, it doesn’t matter.”
He reached under his cape, drawing a weapon from his belt. A knife. It was glistening, coated in something.
“Quark gave me this knife. There’s a radioactive isotope suspended in the compound that does a number on the body. It distracts the Gift, forces it to focus on saving the host. You’ve tasted it already, I know.” He put the knife to her throat. “Tell me, Abigail. Who killed Elivee?”
“I did,” Abbey replied.
He slid the knife across her neck. She could feel the poison begin to work immediately, the Gift attacking it as it tried to kill her.
“No, you didn’t,” Koy said. “I’m quite sure of it.”
“I’m alone here, you idiot,” Abbey said. “Left behind. Who else could have done it?”
“That’s what I’m asking you. What did you find in the Seraphim complex, besides the infected? What were you looking for on the Fire? I want answers.”
