There Before the Chaos

by K. B. Wagers

  “We’ll debrief once we get out of here. Let’s focus on that first.”

  Zin hit the door at the end of the hallway and nodded at Indula, who’d dropped to a crouch beside him. They slipped through; the alarms were still blaring and one more breached door didn’t make any difference, but I still held my breath as Iza followed them and we waited a beat before Emmory started moving.

  “Clear, no sign of Riddhi yet.” Zin’s voice was as cool as the night air that hit me when we came through the door.

  “We’re around the corner,” she replied.

  “Gita, hold this.” I passed Kisah’s gun over and unwound the sari, dropping it into a pile in the street. “Someone help Alba wrap some of that around her feet.”

  “Hail.” Hao was already following my plan and passed over a knife, which I used to cut through the middle of my underskirt.

  Gita had also figured out what I was doing and cut two narrow strips off my sari, tying first one and then the other around my ankles to bind my newly made pants. “You good, Majesty?”

  “Better, yes.” I noted the blood dripping to the pavement. “You’re hurt.”

  “I’m fine, Majesty.”

  Before I could press her, a second explosion rocked the ground beneath our feet. Riddhi, Muna, and Sahli came sprinting around the corner.

  “Ekam Tresk, this is Shuttle 1145 from the Hailimi, Lieutenant Omei speaking. Can you give me a lock on your location?”

  “Roger that, Shuttle 1145. Did you catch that latest explosion?”

  “Got a visual on it now, Ekam,” Lieutenant Omei replied. “Looks like something in the Galactic Relations Department building went boom. Since you’re talking to me, I’m assuming you’re not inside.”

  “Correct, sending you our location now. There are hostiles, we will be on the move.”

  “We’ve got a squad of Marines aboard, sir, just tell us where to point them.”

  The shuttle flew overhead as we bolted from the side street and raced toward its landing site. It touched down, the door sliding open and Marines spilling out into the night. Relief flooded through me as we sprinted down the street toward the shuttle.

  “Down!” Gita shouted, tackling me as the distinctive whomp of a railgun firing echoed through the night a microsecond before the shuttle exploded in a massive fireball.

  The blast flung flaming debris and shrapnel through the air. As I hit the ground I saw a chunk of the shuttle slice a Marine in half.

  “Vandi’s hit!”

  “Muna!” My Guard had been thrown several meters by the explosion. I rolled out from under Gita, scrambling on my hands and feet over to the young Guard.

  “Perimeter. Now.” Emmory snapped the order into the night air. “Ekam Tresk to the Hailimi or any Indranan ships out there, Shuttle 1145 has been destroyed. Repeat, Shuttle 1145 has been destroyed. We are under fire from unknown force, heavy weaponry present. Request all possible assistance stat.”

  “No, no,” I whispered, spying the spike of molten metal that had impaled Muna on the left side of her chest. Blood bubbled around the wound, heated by the red-hot metal, and the smell of cooked flesh slammed into me with the same force as the railgun projectile that had just destroyed the shuttle. I grabbed Muna’s hand. She choked, her fingers tightening around mine, and then died.

  Somewhere in the dark part of my soul, a jagged tally appeared. One more person lost because of me.

  “Targets at two and three,” Indula called out, opening fire.

  “Targets at four and six.”

  “Do not let them get around us.”

  “Hail, we’ve got to go.”

  “I know.”

  Whispering a benediction that was useless compared to the gun I pulled from Muna’s other hand, I followed Emmory to the dubious safety of a parked aircar. The others joined us, along with the five surviving members of the Marine squad.

  “Sergeant Nidha Sathi, Ekam.” The woman wiped blood off her dark face with the back of her hand. “Captain’s dead.”

  Indula and Iza continued to fire, covering Zin as he scrambled through the downed Marines and the wreckage gathering what weapons he could.

  “The embassy is four streets down and six north. Embassy is reporting they are under attack by an unknown number of hostiles. Unable to get to us.”

  “They’ve got AK-334s and at least one shoulder-held railgun,” Hao said, unloading two of the guns he had slung across his back and passing them to Riddhi and Sahil. “I’m guessing that’s what the first two explosions were also from. My guess is it’s an older-model Solarian Navy SCN 775.”

  “I would have said it was a Karsikov,” I replied and he shrugged.

  “Sergeant Sathi, take two of your Marines on point,” Emmory ordered. “The other two I want running cover behind us. Majesty, I want you in the middle at all times. Zin, stay by her side.”

  “Got it,” Zin said, his face hard in the flickering light of the fire.

  “Iza, Indula, we’re moving. You’re on our six.”

  “Roger,” they echoed back, alternating between shooting and moving until they’d followed us up the street toward the embassy.

  We made it the four streets down.

  “Fuck.” Gita’s hissing curse preceded her stumbling into me by a fraction of a second and I turned too late to catch her before she went down on a knee. Blood spattered the ground. I dropped to her side, listening to Emmory snap orders as the others scanned the street around us.

  “Med kit!” One of the Marines fished hers out and passed it to me.

  “Let me see.” Hao knelt, kit already out, and I ignored my shaking hands as I took her knife and sliced down the side of her shirt, exposing the deep wound in her side. “Shrapnel?”

  “No. Damn it,” Gita muttered. “It was that squirrelly little shit at the party. I didn’t think he got me that bad.”

  I took supplies as Hao handed them to me, patching Gita quickly, then passing the kit back to the Marine who’d handed it over. She took it with a nod, but the grim look on her face told me as much as the screaming alarms from my smati. My Dve was losing blood fast.

  “Before you spout some noble bullshit about leaving you behind, get on your fucking feet,” Hao said, sliding an arm around Gita’s back and hauling her upright. “No one is staying behind as long as they have a pulse.”

  “Let me take her, Hao,” I said, handing Kisah back her gun and swapping the other to my right hand. “You need your hands free.”

  He nodded sharply. I slid under Gita’s right arm, wrapping my left around her waist, and we started moving again.

  Halfway to the embassy Emmory shouted the warning as mercs hit us from an alley. Zin stepped in front of me, blocking the man who barreled out of the dark, and I saw the flash of silver in the streetlight just before the merc buried his knife in Zin’s chest.

  43

  Zin!” I let Gita go, brought my gun up, and shot the man in the head.

  Zin dropped back, falling to a knee. I tried to shoot the next attacker, but my gun was empty. I chucked it at his face as he started to bring his own up, following right behind the gun and tackling him. The impact drove the air from both our lungs, but I’d had time to brace myself for the hit and recovered before he did. However, my first punch bruised my hand on his body armor and I heard him chuckle. I swung my fist up, connecting with his nose. The crunch of cartilage interrupted his amusement, but before I could grab for his gun a boot slammed into my ribs, knocking me to the side.

  My assailant didn’t have time for a second kick. He fell back, a hole the size of my fist in the back of his head and I looked over at where Gita was calmly picking off targets from Zin’s side. Alba was bent over him, her hands covered in blood.

  I ripped the pouch emblazoned with a red cross off the dead merc’s leg and scrambled back over to Zin.

  His eyes were open, hands pressed to the area around the knife. “Let me see,” I said, touching his hand and linking with his smati.

  “Miss
ed the heart,” he replied. “Not by much, though.”

  “Missed the lung, too,” I said, my smile laced with panic. “Look at you, lucky guy.”

  “Majesty, down!”

  I didn’t argue with Gita’s order, and Alba followed me. We dropped against Zin’s side as she fired a shot, killing the man whose nose I’d broken.

  “Clear, ma’am.”

  I rose up, digging into the merc’s med pouch with shaking hands and muttering a desperate prayer that they’d have what I was looking for. They did and I ignored the tears leaking from my eyes as I pulled out the hemostatic gauze.

  “Alba, press down on his shoulders with all your weight. You ready?” I asked Zin, jamming the old-fashioned syringe filled with pain meds into his arm.

  He nodded, pressing one hand down on the side of the knife and locking the other into my makeshift pant leg. I closed my hand around the knife handle, shutting out the sounds of the fight still raging around us, focusing all my attention on the blade. My smati showed me how dangerously close it was to his heart. If I pulled it out too fast or moved it wrong I was going to kill not only him but Emmory, too.

  Even with the pain meds, it had to hurt, but Zin somehow managed to stay still as a stone as I slowly pulled the knife from his chest. His cry cut through the night as I finished, dropping the knife to the ground next to us. I slapped the gauze on, leaning on it with all my weight as the blood-clotting agents did their work.

  If Zin’s luck held, his Tracker augmentation was already hard at work on the internal injury.

  “Sorry,” I murmured, leaning in and pressing a kiss to his forehead.

  “Don’t be.”

  Emmory appeared, touching a hand to the side of Zin’s face. I spotted his trembling fingers and reached out to squeeze his other arm.

  “He’s stable, but we’re going to need Fasé or medical treatment as soon as possible.”

  “All clear on front,” Sergeant Sathi called.

  “All clear on left.” That was from Kisah. “We are injury-free.”

  “All clear on back,” Iza said. “Indula was an idiot and tried to stop a shot with his hand.”

  “I’m fine. Don’t let her try to cut it off.”

  “Focus, people.” Emmory’s order was sharp. “We are still surrounded by hostiles, and the empress isn’t safe until we get her behind the walls of the embassy.”

  “You’re clear on the right, too.” Johar’s voice rose above the din. “Don’t shoot me.”

  I looked up in time to see Johar and Dailun emerge from the shadows. She was dragging a mercenary by the throat, the man’s hands desperately scrabbling at her arm, which was cutting off his air. “Emmory, you want this one alive?”

  Johar was dressed in black from head to toe, blood streaming from her nose. An ugly black eye decorated the left side of her face. Dailun had a scarf covering his hair and exchanged a quick hug with Hao.

  “Yes.” Emmory practically snarled the word, getting to his feet and grabbing the man. Hao joined him, standing guard for my Ekam as Emmory slammed the merc into the wall of the nearest building.

  “Jo.” I reached a hand up to her and she smiled, taking it as she crouched.

  “This is a shit-show. When I heard the shuttle blow I came out to give you a hand. Fasé and Stasia are safe in the embassy with the others. Embassy is under attack, but they’re holding the line. It’s going to take something massive to get through them.”

  “It’s Jamison, isn’t it?”

  “I think so, plus half a dozen smaller outfits,” she confirmed. “Are they making a play for you or for Hao, though? It would explain why the Shen were so insouciant at the negotiations.”

  I shook my head. “He seemed equally surprised by the attack; I saw him take out one of the shooters and then run with Mia.”

  Johar spit on the street behind her. “I haven’t seen Jamison’s ugly face yet, but you know how he is.”

  “He won’t be here. When has he ever gotten his hands dirty?”

  Johar rolled her eyes, then leaned past me to grip Gita’s offered hand. “You look like shit, girl.”

  “Knife in side, I think the bleeding’s stopped, though,” Gita lied. We’d gotten the outside wound to stop leaking, but I knew she was bleeding internally. The wound was bad enough that her augmented systems couldn’t keep up.

  The sound of aircraft overhead distracted me, and I looked up.

  “Solies finally got their shit together. They are not happy,” Johar muttered. “I think the president got shot in the attack on the party. No word if he was killed. They’re all in a fucking tizzy over it.” She shrugged a shoulder, then looked over at Emmory as he returned. “We moving?”

  “Solarians finally scrambled air support,” he replied. “They should be able to draw away some of the fire on the embassy. Ground troops are incoming. According to our friend, there’s at best two dozen of their men at the embassy.” He jerked a thumb at the merc who was slumped over by the building.

  “Let’s get moving, then,” I said. “Emmory, you take Zin. Johar can take Gita.” I held my hand out to Hao and he put his AK-334 in it without question. I checked it, tucking the two magazines Hao passed me into my choli.

  “Sergeant Sathi!”

  “Yes, Your Majesty?”

  “We’re moving out.” I ignored the Look I was getting from Emmory and the quick kiss he pressed to his husband’s mouth as he helped Zin to his feet. “Continue on point; Hao, go with him. Be advised there are likely hostiles between us and the embassy, but see if you can let the embassy know we’re on our way.”

  “Yes, ma’am. You heard the empress, move it.”

  We met scattered resistance the last few streets to the embassy. I’d switched off the screaming alarms of my smati. The difficulty I was having drawing a full breath was all the information I needed to tell me at least one rib had been broken from the merc’s kick.

  Sergeant Sathi’s team knocked in the back door of a building with a decent vantage point several doors down and across the street from the embassy, startling the five mercs who’d taken up position inside. I shot the sixth one as he charged in from another room, and the Marines made quick work of the others.

  The Marines immediately lined up in the windows the mercenaries had vacated and began firing on the merc forces in front of the embassy. It didn’t take long for Jamison’s men to figure out we were there, with deadly results.

  “Incoming!” Sergeant Sathi screamed on the heels of that terrifying whomp of the railgun firing.

  I turned, tackling Gita and Alba. The blast slammed into the floor above us, and the building came down around us. Throwing an arm over my own head and burying my face in Johar’s back, I rode out the dropping rubble, pain spiking through my right leg as something heavy slammed into it.

  “Hail!” Emmory’s shouted call over the com link was louder than necessary but I didn’t shout back.

  “I’m still alive.” I coughed, covering my face with my sleeve as I waved the dust from the air. “Johar, Alba, and Gita are with me. We’re still alive.”

  “Good. Everyone else call out.”

  “This is Sergeant Sathi. Corporal Uy is dead, sir.” I was surprised by the burst of relief at Nidha’s familiar voice on the com link. “So are Patch and Hoole. I’m banged up, no major injuries, Private Srayh is out cold but her vitals are steady.”

  “Hail, can you get out of the building?” That was from Hao on our private channel.

  “Give me a minute.” I tapped Johar’s shoulder and she looked up from Gita with a worried frown then stood.

  “She’s lost a lot of blood, Hail,” she said, keeping her voice low. “We have to get her to Fasé.”

  “I know. Help me see if we have an exit.” I gestured upward. The building had partially collapsed and there were no exterior windows in the room we’d ended up in, but I could see light above and with Johar’s help I scrambled up to the second floor.

  There was no way out; the stairs had col
lapsed in on themselves and the back of the house had filled in any space that might have opened up in their absence. I muttered a curse.

  “Emmory, Hao, we can’t get out of here, at least not back down to you. Recommend you make it to the embassy for reinforcements and come back for us?” I couldn’t stop the laugh. “I think we’re actually relatively safe here for the moment.”

  “Majesty—” Emmory started, but I cut him off.

  “I know you don’t like it, Ekam,” I said. “But I am as safe as possible for the situation. Gita needs medical attention, and so does Zin.” A rumble shook the ground and I braced myself against the wall as a fireball erupted into the night sky. “I think the Solies have finally gotten these assholes to turn tail and run. I’ll keep looking for a way out of here, but I want you to move now. That’s an order, Ekam, if you’re going to make me do it.”

  “All right, we’re moving. If you find some way to get up and over to this side, the door out the back is clear. But do not move until I come back.”

  “If it looks like the building is going to come down on our heads, I’m moving,” I replied, unable to stop from grinning.

  Emmory exhaled over the com. “We’ll be back in a few, Majesty. I promise.”

  “I know you will.” I climbed back down and sat down heavily at Gita’s side. “How bad are you?”

  “Turned off the alarms.” Her voice was slurred. “Not sure. Probably an hour, maybe more. Less if I have to keep running. Nothing a Farian and a blood transfusion can’t fix.”

  “Stay awake for me at least,” I said. “I don’t want to have to carry your ass across the street.”

  “Make Hao do it, serve him right for breaking my heart.”

  I was reasonably sure my Dve wasn’t aware of what she was saying. Johar’s chuckle was edged with worry, and the look she shared with me proved she was sharing my fear.

  If we didn’t get Gita help soon, she was going to die.

  “We’re coming up on the embassy. It looks like the mercs pulled back when the Solies flew in,” Emmory said over the com link. “Majesty—”

  The building shook, raining debris down on our heads. Johar grabbed for Alba while I lunged to cover Gita—for a terrifying moment I was sure the entire building was coming down on our heads.