Behind Sierra, across the food court, two men in dark coats joined up with the hard-faced woman. Then a third man appeared. He had a gray and black mustache-goatee combo, dark hair, and a commanding aura. His piercing black eyes turned and looked straight at Davin. The moment was unmistakable. They recognized each other. The Abramist grinned, a thin curl of the lips that said, That’s right, I caught up to you.
Instantly, Davin saw two futures unfurl like scrolls in his mind’s eye. In one: war and destruction and fabulous wealth from thousands of new wreckages to scavenge, not to mention the ransom money for Sierra. Wine, women, and song on a hundred worlds. A happy crew. Strange lounging on a beach somewhere with her lesbian bitches. Jabron in a different VIP room every night. Jai . . . probably going back to university. Davin starting his own metalworks company on Agora. All for the price of Sierra’s life.
In the other future, Davin saw the war avoided, the galaxy at peace. Probably being forgotten. Going back to the grind. More breathing in the air of a dank spacesuit in desperate need of a wash. More prying apart the rare wrecked freighter. More haggling for better prices. More living off cheap kelpmeal and soybeans, meal after meal after meal. But Sierra would live, and the galaxy would be a better place.
For the first time in his life, Davin felt like he had the chance to change the fate of the galaxy, for good or for evil. For the first time, he felt—really felt—like good and evil applied to him. The weight of it bore down on him like a superplanet’s gravity. His breaths came short. His blood rushed hot. Sweat condensed on his forehead.
Sierra’s eyes narrowed. “Davin? What’s wrong?”
“Heads up, boss,” Jabron buzzed in Davin’s earpiece. “Looks like them.”
The Abramists moved closer. Four of them. More closed in from other angles—six, eight, ten. All fit, military types with faces far too serious for Rothbard Heights Mall, faces that didn’t fear death, wouldn’t flinch at killing, staring straight at them. Not hiding anymore.
Time slowed. Davin heard his heartbeat hammering over the racket of the food court. The Abramists approached with swift strides and tenacious confidence, pride swelling in their faces as they approached—the pride of a feral animal having cornered its prey.
A heavy truth hit Davin and sunk in. Sierra would die because of him. She would bleed and scream and breathe her last because he had delivered her into the hands of her executioners. That same thing would happen on a massive scale around the galaxy, but at the moment, he didn’t care about that. He cared about the innocent girl sitting in front of him. Her big, pure eyes searched him, on the verge of connecting the dots.
“I’m sorry, guys,” Davin said. “Conscience is a bitch.”
Davin grabbed Sierra’s hand and yanked her up from the table, rushing toward a hole in the closing circle of Abramists. Sierra tried to rip her hand away, but Davin gripped it hard.
“Davin, what are you doing?”
“Follow my lead,” he commanded.
The Abramists moved faster, collapsing the circle around them as they fled.
“Boss, the hell you doing?” Jabron boomed in Davin’s ear. “It’s them! Jimmy Powers just confirmed it!”
“I know it’s them, dammit,” Davin replied. “She can’t go with them.”
“It’s who?” Sierra asked from behind.
The dark-haired Abramist leader called from across the food court. “Sierra!”
Sierra stopped and jerked around, immediately recognizing the man. “Oh, God. Oh my God.”
“It’s time to come home,” the Abramist said.
Davin felt a heavy hand fall on his shoulder. His eyes followed the arm to a thick-necked thug with a chiseled jaw. A breath later, the dominoes started to fall. Davin ducked away from the Abramist, twisted his hand around, and shoved him into his outstretched foot, knocking him over a young couple’s table—straight through their food. The couple recoiled, yelling. People turned in their seats and stared. Davin tightened his grip on Sierra and ran. The Abramists sprang into full-on chase.
“Strange, Jai, get back to the ship!” Davin yelled. “Bron, cover us.”
“Shit, Cap!” Strange chimed in. “What’s your deal?”
“They were gonna kill her!” Davin exclaimed as he broke into a sprint. “That’s my fucking deal!”
People leaped out of the way as Davin weaved around tables and stands and advertisement barriers. Behind, the Abramists shoved their way through the crowd, forming a long line, steamrolling anyone in their path. They gained ground fast.
Davin yanked Sierra sideways into a jewelry store covered in glass and chrome and white stone. The Abramist leader snapped out a handgun from an inner jacket pocket and fired. Davin and Sierra ducked as glass shattered, bullets split stone walls, women screamed, and the store manager yelled. The entire mall erupted in a mad chaos. Crouched bodies rushed in every direction, and a shrill roar masked the sounds of Davin and Sierra’s pursuers.
Up ahead, the skittish crowd had cleared away to the outer edges of the corridors. In the middle stood two military-shaped figures, a man and a woman who looked equally impassible. They held handguns with both hands, rigid arms pointing straight down. Davin reached around his back and whipped out his own weapon. The Abramists reacted with unnatural speed, ducking away as Davin fired, busting out the lights of a display barrier.
Sierra hid inside an empty stand while Davin exchanged potshots the other direction. Glass splintered and scattered over the tile. The Abramists’ bullets blasted disturbingly large holes in the display cases, forcing Davin to shrink further into the stand. They were using fragmenting rounds, designed to split apart on impact and tear off as much flesh as possible. These bastards meant business.
Davin popped a mini flashbang from his jacket pocket, primed it, and tossed it over his head. An explosive sound like a giant balloon bursting went off at the same time as an eye-burning camera flash. Davin stood and fired at the few staggering Abramists in the open, dropping them instantly. Had the others seen the flashbang and taken cover that fast? Damn.
More shots from ahead and behind ripped holes in the stand. It was beginning to look like a piece of metallic swiss cheese. Product boxes and electronic devices spread over the ground in pieces. Davin leaned to the side and took potshots every few seconds, either around the side of the display case or through holes already torn in them. He heard the Abramists moving closer. They must’ve been using whisper-tech, or else they had the training and experience to not need communication. Either way: damn.
“Bron, a little help here,” Davin said into his nexband.
Hunkered down in the corner, Sierra stared at Davin with a mixture of fear and betrayal.
“Don’t look at me like that!” Davin shouted between gunshots. “I didn’t go through with it!”
“But you were going to!” she shouted back after another exchange of fire. “Did you know it was them?”
Davin really didn’t want to deal with this right now. The Abramists were closing in. At any second a quarter of his bodyweight could be blown off.
“I didn’t know.”
“Did you suspect?”
“I—the thought might’ve crossed my mind.” Davin ejected his empty clip and shoved in the new one with practiced hands. Sizable openings in the display cases gave him a rough picture of where to shoot.
“How much were they going to pay you?” Sierra demanded in the next brief silence.
“Geez, princess, let it go!” Davin exclaimed. “I changed my mind!”
Sierra clenched her teeth and slid toward him through glass and debris. “For the millionth time—” She thrust her hand into his jacket pocket and produced another mini flashbang. “I am not—” Her thumb found the primer button. “A damn—” With surprising force, she threw it over the display counter and cried, “PRINCESS!”
For a second after the bang, Davin sat with his jaw loose in astonishment. Where had this version of Sierra Falco been hiding? He pushed himself up and wheeled around, firing at e
very muffled grunt and possible cover spot in the corridor.
At the same time, Jabron rolled out from behind a planter down the corridor and popped off a succession of rapid, well-aimed shots. More grunts preceded bodies crumpling or crawling away. Jabron went back and slaughtered the crawlers. But the dark-haired Abramist leader showed up behind him, charging and firing just as Jabron ducked back behind cover. Jabron leaped at the Abramist and knocked away his gun. They grabbed each other and struggled for Jabron’s weapon.
On the other side of the stand, the other two Abramists rushed forward, guns blasting, pinning Davin and Sierra down, shredding the tattered remains of the display cases. Davin fired back, but the Abramists kept zigzagging. He could never tell where the rat bastards were. One second they were twenty feet from the stand. Then fifteen. Then ten.
Down the corridor, a strange humming sound picked up, getting closer, coming toward them. Davin trained his gun at the display counter, breath clenched in his chest, waiting for the Abramists to appear. Seconds went by. Where were they? Davin’s arms quivered as the oxygen in his blood dwindled. He heard more gunshots, but the stand wasn’t being hit. Then a barrage of metallic snaps responded, echoing in the cavernous space. Through a hole in the display paneling, Davin saw a swarm of frisbee-sized security drones zipping around in the air, flinging zapper rounds at the Abramists, who had their backs turned.
Davin snatched Sierra by the arm and pulled her out of the chewed-up stand. The Abramists were too busy dealing with the security drones to notice them. This was their chance.
One of the bots whirred toward Davin and Sierra as they fled, clacking stunner rounds every few seconds. A round cracked against the tile and ricocheted into his calf. Davin yelped, his leg electrified and deadened, then fired at the drone until a lucky shot landed, exploding the contraption in midair.
Sierra took Davin’s arm and helped him hobble. He winced with each step. Another security drone got past the Abramists and zoomed toward them. Sierra seized Davin’s handgun and fired upward. She flinched, and her arm kicked back with every shot. The gun clicked empty. Without a beat, Sierra shoved Davin to the floor and stood over him with hands shielding her face. The drone clacked off a round, and Sierra let out a shriek before she collapsed, shuddering like she was having a seizure.
The drone hovered over Davin, its black sensor eye trained on him. He took in a sharp breath, frozen in place, helpless.
A gunshot rang from behind him. The drone recoiled from the hit and spun out of control, falling into the color-shifting fountain. Jabron ran up to them, blood running from one corner of his mouth.
“The leader?” Davin asked.
“Got away,” Jabron replied in a gruff voice. He stooped and picked up Sierra’s unconscious body in his burly arms. “Get your ass up. Let’s go.”
Davin grabbed his handgun and thrust himself to his feet with a grunt, following Jabron.
The Swan Warrior
Chapter Forty-Three
Sagittarius Arm, on the planet Upraad . . .
Guarin used the hand of his bad arm to hold his shirt out like a basket while he plucked purple berries with the other. Spiky-leafed vines climbed up the plastic trellis toward the slanted glass roof of the greenhouse. Pale orange sunlight streamed in through the metal framework.
Just outside the side windows the strong river surged, reminding him constantly of that painful underwater struggle to be free of his armor. And also of Guerlain’s lifeless form, a solitary moment in time that passed by so quickly yet clung to him like a cancer. He paused from berry picking, teeth grinding. Stinging pain flared in his shoulder as a colossal weight crushed him on the inside. Days ago, and yet like only seconds.
The familiar cracking, crumbling feeling in his chest returned, but Guarin banished it. He hardened himself and returned to picking. He had wiled away enough hours weeping for Guerlain. She deserved every second of grief and a thousand times more, but Guarin couldn’t give it now. The grief would cripple him if he let it take a foothold. For now, Guarin needed to live, to heal, to think. He would have his revenge against the Upraadi bitch who had killed his mate, and against the Eaglespawn who aided her. No matter how long it took, no matter what he had to do, he would restore justice to the name of Guerlain of Swan.
Guarin returned to the shaded corner where he slumped against the glass and ate. Bitter juice ran across his tongue with each bite. The berries weren’t ripe yet, but close enough for nourishment.
A deep whir vibrated the air from above, starting light and faint and building up. Probably another commoner shuttle—one of the handful that had survived the fight against Radovan. But something was different about this one. Guarin paused, listened. It gave off a heavy growl, even and pure in its power, not like the groaning sputter of commoner engines. Guarin craned his neck and searched the caramel sky. A foreign ship flew somewhere in that cloudy expanse—descending, by the sound of it.
Finally, it emerged, a rough gray, dual-winged spaceplane. Four gargantuan, tilt-adjusted turbine engines aimed diagonally, bringing the unmarked vessel smoothly downward. Guarin pushed himself up, letting the berries fall from his shirt, eyes affixed to the newcomer. This was no Sagittarian-built ship. Sagittarian lords marked every vessel, and no shipyard, to Guarin’s knowledge, even built spaceplanes like this. It had to be Carinian. Not Space Force—they marked their vessels, too. But Carinian, undoubtedly.
The thick-fuselaged plane slowed its descent as it disappeared over a bend in the cliff on Guarin’s side of the river. In that direction lay the palace. It must have been landing at the palace’s main platform.
Guarin grabbed his breather mask and ran through the vine-clad trellises toward the airlock.
* * *
Guarin’s shoulders and forearms ached after a half hour of climbing up the cliff face. It would’ve only taken him a few minutes if not for his damn wound, flickering bursts of pain when he tried to use that arm. He had to climb with one arm outstretched and the other curled at his side, grasping the rock as minimally as possible. His entire chest and arm throbbed by the time he reached the height of the platform, but the scene provided enough distraction to ignore the pain.
The vessel loomed on the landing platform, a great, gray mass—more a ship than a plane. Its sturdy, outstretched wings hung over the edge of the sizable platform, casting fearsome shadows across the cliff. Its beastly engines, now sitting vertically, approached the end of their cool down. The people walking off the back ramp looked like young children under the plane’s mass, save their nanoflex jackets and assault rifles. Clear, plastic masks clung to their faces.
Armed commoners strode out from the carved entrance to the palace to meet the newcomers. Meaty men in mechanical exos and black breathers, carrying crude firearms, flanked a wiry fellow holding a long-barreled handgun and walking with a limp. Abelard. A girl accompanied him, carrying her own long-barreled gun in both hands. Guarin only saw her from the back, but she struck him as vaguely familiar.
They were too far off to hear. Guarin needed to get closer.
* * *
The two armed companies left a ten-meter gap between each other. One of the newcomers stepped forward, weaponless and shorter than the others, bearing a perpetual half-grin. He glanced around the river valley and spread his hands with gleeful self-confidence.
“Congratulations!” he announced. His accent was unmistakable, even through the plastic breather mask. “News of your victory has reached every corner of the galaxy.”
“Or at least whatever corner of Carina you come from,” Abelard replied.
The Carinian laughed rambunctiously. “I’m glad we got that out of the way. I’ve never been much of a bullshitter.”
Abelard spun the cylinder of his revolver, unamused. “Talk fast, Carinian. Who are you? What do you want with us?”
“You can call me Victor,” the Carinian said. “It’s my real name. No other personal information is necessary. I’m here to make you an offer.”
The lithe woman stepped closer to Abelard. Her face betrayed nobility, but she wore commoner garments and carried herself as one of them.
“Start with what you want from us,” she demanded.
Familiar voice.
Victor held out a hand. “Whoa there, Miss. I don’t know who you are, but I came here to deal with Abelard.”
“I’m the only surviving heir of Radovan the Gracious,” she uttered with confidence. “By Sagittarian law, I rule this planet.”
Something cracked in Guarin’s soul. The pieces came together like a blazer in its sheath. The girl—Seraphina. Radovan’s heiress. Yes, it was her. He only remembered a face before, but now he recognized her voice, too. It was the frontier bitch who killed Guerlain. Hot, stinging tears welled in Guarin’s eyes, but not of sadness. Of rage. Burning magma filled his heart, made him tremble at the thought of vengeance. So close. So close.
Patience.
“It’s my understanding that your kind don’t rule this system anymore,” Victor said.
“That’s right,” Abelard replied. “No man is above another on Upraad anymore. But she’s with me, and I bear the burden of leading the free people of Upraad.”
Victor’s grin widened. “Burden, eh?” He laughed. “Alright, then. I guess any way you slice it, I’m talking to the right person.”
“I don’t mean to be unwelcoming, Victor,” Abelard said, “but this is a fragile time for Upraad, and I can see you haven’t come to offer an olive branch, so skip to the real reason why you’re here.”
“Actually, I have come to offer an olive branch, of sorts.”
“Explain.”
“I’m well aware this is a fragile time for your people, and we’ve come to let you know that you’re not without friends—or at least, not without benefactors.”
“Why would Carina want to be our benefactor?”
Victor bristled. “Not Carina. We aren’t from the Carinian government. We may be Carinians ourselves, but we were sent by . . . someone else. Someone who wants the best for Upraad’s new, uh, administration.”
Sacred Planet: Book One of the Dominion Series Page 24
