by Natalie Grey
Jorgensen was going to die.
“You have to go,” Jorgensen told him. “Go now, and you might survive. Kill who you have to kill. If I die and you die, then there’s no one who knows the truth. Go.”
“Same to you,” Talon said fiercely. The sounds were getting closer. He registered the uncertainty and the fear as he took three steps closer to Jorgensen and went past him, wrenched the door off its hinges. The sound was too loud, but they were made, anyway. Whoever was hunting the two of them, they knew they were here. “Up the stairs,” Talon said. “Go up three flights, try the doors, go into the first one that’s open. Bribe them with anything you have to hide you. I’ll hold off the pursuers.”
“You have to run,” Jorgensen said, uncomprehending.
“Oh, no,” Talon said. He was beginning to smile, and he could feel anger singing in his blood. Finally it wasn’t shadows and paranoia. Finally it was real. “No, I’m not going to run. Maybe they hope I will. Maybe they think they’ll get a clear shot at my back.” His smile had teeth now. “I hope they were counting on it.”
“But—”
“You should run.” For one thing, what was about to happen would haunt his nightmares if he didn’t. Whoever was doing this, they knew who they were going up against. They would try to stack the deck in their favor, and Talon would need to fight brutally—no honor, no elegance—if he intended to win.
And he did intend to win.
He turned back to the mouth of the alley as Jorgensen took several, shaking steps and began to run. His feet clattered up the stairs behind Talon.
Talon waited. The footsteps were creeping closer.
“You might as well come out,” he said finally. He could see a shadow that shouldn’t be there, and—
More than one. Two shadows, at least.
And they had already fucked up, because if they wanted him dead, they should have used a rocket launcher. They should never, never have let him know this was going to be a fight.
He had fought former Dragons before. When a Dragon retired, they usually went off to tend a garden on some remote world, and try to forget what they’d seen, but when a Dragon left young, they went bad. The ones who left were the ones who wanted to be the best, who couldn’t take the fact that they had to stay on their game all the time, constantly push themselves. They got jobs in mercenary groups—or started their own—where they would be the scariest person, the fastest, the smartest.
Every once in a while, Talon’s team ran into them in a dark alleyway, or in the corridors of a ship, and he saw their contempt for everything he was: for the rules, for the loyalty, for the principles. He saw how much they’d hated the commanders who told them to go back to the gym and keep working, go back to the ranges and keep training on their weapons.
And he won, and they died, because he was better. They died with a bullet from his gun in their forehead, or his knife in their gut, or his hands around their throat; the how of it didn’t matter, what mattered was the futile question that beat in his head for days afterward: why? Why had they forced it, why couldn’t they stay on a side where he didn’t have to kill them?
This time, he already knew, was going to be worse. He watched the two shadows come closer, and felt his heartbeat slow, at last, in acceptance.
He was going to kill them, whoever they were. He just didn’t want it to be—
They stepped into the light before he could finish the thought, the prayer. Light and dark, delicate and strong, and all of it made sense. The two of them, always thick as thieves. The times Talon had come out of his cabin and found Mars walking past.
“So,” he said conversationally. “How do you want to do this?”
Mars shook his head. On the other side of the alleyway, Camorra was watchful, still. She didn’t speak as her partner opened his mouth.
“You know you have to—”
Die would probably have been the last word, but Talon didn’t wait to find out. Mars was blown backward, visor down before Talon’s gun came up, dammit. He was blown back onto the ground—he’d be hearing ringing for days, taking a shot like that to his helmet—and Talon was running for cover as Camorra disappeared into the shadows of the structure.
It begins.
On the rooftop of the parking structure, Nyx sank into a crouch to watch things unfold.
She had brought a sniper rifle—who knew if her quarry would give her an opening?—but from the way things had kicked off, it was clear long-distance shots weren’t going to get this done.
No, this was the sort of fight you finished with blood on your hands—and you made sure your face was the last thing your enemy saw as they died.
Some people had to learn not to meddle.
Mallory snapped a gauntlet in place and craned her neck to get out a kink. When footsteps sounded behind her, she turned her head only enough to recognize Wraith’s silhouette.
“I told you I was going alone.”
“I know,” Wraith said quietly. “But this isn’t the sort of thing you do alone.”
Mallory looked at her and thought of arguing. She thought of mentioning her career. She thought of ordering the woman to stay. Wraith was the closest thing she had to a friend. There was no reason both of them should get caught up in this.
But she knew that nothing stood between a Dragon and their duty, and so she only nodded.
“Let’s go, then. If we’re going to do this, we might as well do it.”
23
There was a hierarchy in a fight: get to cover, then move, shoot, communicate.
Of course, that was when you had allies.
Talon spared a brief moment of regret for all of the advice he’d given Mars and Camorra over the months since they’d joined him. If he hadn’t, it would be easier to kill them now. There’d be less of a chance of them taking an opening to kill him.
Talon looked back to where Mars had been lying, and caught only the flicker of black moving behind a pillar on the other side of the alleyway. Was it Mars or Camorra? He couldn’t be sure.
Had they brought anyone else? It was what he would have done: draw his enemy’s attention by outnumbering them, and then hit them while they were focused on the odds they thought they had. He ran through the diagnostics on his suit, listening for the vibrations of footsteps, looking for the distortion of heat nearby.
He didn’t dare call in help from the Ariane—who knew if the person manning the comms was on his side or not?
There was grief in his chest, hot and sharp, as he said goodbye to the world he thought he’d had. The team had been bought, or some of them had, and there wasn’t enough safety to risk explaining what was going on.
If they knew, they wouldn’t care and he would have lost valuable time. If they didn’t know, it was 50-50 that they’d kill him while he was trying to explain it to them.
He couldn’t take the chance, and right now he wondered if Soras had done that to him on purpose—made him go up against his team while wondering what they knew, wondering if he was killing people who were innocent, who’d been lied to about what he was doing. If someone had wanted to destroy him, that would be the way to do it.
He was giving the man too much credit. What Soras wanted was to destroy anyone who could take Ymir away. That was it, that was all.
The audio receptors on his suit picked up the faint vibrations of human voices: two distinct patterns coming from across the street. He couldn’t pick up what was being said, but then again, he didn’t need to.
They were trying to figure out what the fuck to do now.
Should’ve killed me when you had the chance. Talon’s lips moved silently, and he gave a bitter smile. Now there was open ground between him and them, fatal to cross, and they would have been ordered to kill him at any cost.
He knew the two of them, knew how they fought. Camorra was like quicksilver, sliding endlessly away from blows, clear by millimeters, and then picking the opportune moment to stand her ground and deliver bone-shattering blows. Mars f
ought cold … at the start, but he had a temper, and he didn’t like losing. Neither of them would want to come across the alleyway.
But they didn’t really have a choice, because once a battle was joined, what Talon had in abundance was patience— and the measure of a soldier was often in how well they could wait. No matter how many recruits laughed when he gave them that piece of advice, he kept offering it. If they were clever, Mars and Camorra would wait him out now. They’d call in air support. They’d wait for an opening.
A sudden burst of gunfire shot overhead, chipping at the concrete support struts, and Talon sank into a crouch with a shake of his head.
Did they really think he’d be startled out of hiding like a pheasant?
The voices were back, still indistinct, but he could hear them talking in a furious hiss.
And then Mars came across the alleyway with a roar. He charged, an inestimably stupid move except for the fact that it was so very stupid that Talon wasn’t expecting it. He was already turning as he passed Talon’s hiding place, gun up and firing.
Talon dove forward, under the line of fire and pushed himself forward into a sprint. How many hours had he spent tethered to a track, mastering the explosive energy of a start with the hundreds of pounds of extra weight added? The suit reinforced him, allowed him more speed—
But the suit was a toy, nothing more. Only a hack relied on gadgets.
Talon was moving faster now than Mars expected, and he took the other man over in a tumble of black armor, Mars’s gun clattering away. In the corner of Talon’s vision, there was a slip of bright green, the infrared of Camorra’s quicksilver approach. She was hidden again a moment later and he cursed. A rocket propelled grenade, sacrificing Mars, and she’d have the mission in the bag.
If she’d started selling people out, it was only a matter of time before she turned on her allies.
Mars rolled, trying to pin Talon into the grime under the parking structure, and Talon reached up almost casually to pull him close and land a blow on his visor that cracked it. Pixels of light flared and skittered across the front of it and Mars swore. With the suit misfiring, he was being treated to a light and sound show that would only distract him.
He was smart enough, at least, to know he needed to end it quickly. His knife came out, reinforced alloys that could cut through Talon’s suit if he brought the blade down with enough force…
And was blown back off Talon’s chest with the force of the gunshot. With his vision clouded, he hadn’t seen Talon’s sidearm come up to wedge under the chin of his helmet.
That was his teammate he’d just killed, a man he’d shared coffee with, who’d laid down cover fire for him in battle and joked about family and settling down, but there was no time to grieve him now. Talon was behind another column and scanning for Camorra.
“This is how it ends,” he called to her, his voice echoing against concrete. “It isn’t pretty, it isn’t honorable. You don’t get a fair fight, this isn’t a training round with rules, Camorra.”
“Are you sure I’m the one who needs to hear that?” Her voice was filled with hatred. “Mr. ‘a Dragon is always loyal,’ Mr. ‘Dragons serve justice.’ If you had any sense at all, you’d have seen what was happening.”
It was hard to argue with any of that.
“Not everyone who can fight like a Dragon wants to be chained to your ideals,” Camorra called.
Talon did not speak. His feet moved slowly and surely over the uneven ground. Leave no footprints, make no noise.
Camorra, damn her, wasn’t staying still. It would be unforgivably stupid for her to do so, but he was having a bad day and he would appreciate a bit of unforgivable stupidity in his opponents right about now. After all, when this was over, he was going to need to figure out who else on his crew had been bought.
He turned his head quickly toward the flash of movement in the corner of his vision, but she was already gone again. He was moving too quickly for her to get a clear shot, and she wasn’t going to stay still long enough for him to get one, either.
He thought he heard a whisper of movement, something not so much in his suit’s diagnostics as the subtle vibration in his own bones, but a quick glance behind him showed nothing.
And there it was again—as much instinct as anything, the sense that there were other people here, that he wasn’t alone.
Finish it now.
“So did he tell you why I’m supposed to die?” Talon called.
“You know why.” Contempt laced her tone. “All he said was, he wanted you to know the truth before you died.”
“And did he tell you what truth that was?”
“Of course. We knew when we went through selection.”
Jesus, he’d gotten to them early. He’d have to, of course. Getting to someone who was already on a team would be nigh impossible.
There was a sound from behind him and he turned to see Camorra, her gun already pointed.
She just made the mistake of wanting him to see her before she shot, though, which was why his knife was leaving his fingers, flipping end over end, before she had a chance to pull the trigger.
Never put your visor up, Talon was about to say, when three shots in rapid succession sent Camorra over sideways, his knife clattering harmlessly off her helmet, and Nyx dropped through an opening in the concrete ceiling. Her steps were quick and light as she walked over to the woman lying in the dust, dazed in pain. Three shots were too much for a suit to absorb without significant damage, and blood would be pooling under the armor.
It took a few moments to shake off hits like that. In a battle, Camorra’s team would be covering for her while she hauled herself back to cover.
But she’d chosen not to have a team, and so she was still lying on the ground with her wind knocked out of her as Nyx walked over and shot her without ceremony.
She turned to look at Talon.
“I’d have gotten her, you know,” Talon said.
“You don’t have to,” Nyx pointed out. “And if you’d missed, you wouldn’t have had time to shoot again.”
“If I’d missed?” Talon gave her a Look. “Excuse you.”
Her lips were twitching, as were his, and he felt the rush of adrenaline beginning to dissipate. They needed to joke right now, what with two of their teammates lying dead on the ground, and Nyx was staring sadly down at Camorra when Talon laid the muzzle of his gun against her neck.
Tell me why I should trust you. He didn’t say it, because he knew he didn’t have to. Please, not Nyx, he added in a silent prayer.
Her hands tightened on the grip of her weapon, an instinctive response that he saw her tamp down. She turned her head slowly to look at him. “If I ever sell you out,” she said evenly, “it will be because you turned on us. Because you had gone so wrong that I didn’t trust you to do the right thing anymore, or take care of the team, and I knew you wouldn’t listen to me if I spoke up. And if you ever start to go that wrong, boss, you’d better believe I’m gonna quit first, and you’d better believe Tersi’s gonna be with me while we give you an earful as to why we’re leaving.” There was a rueful smile on her face, but it faded. “Talon. Who is he? Who bought them?”
She was telling the truth. He knew her, and he understood now that the reason he hadn’t seen her as he left, was that she was waiting to follow the ones who would follow him. Nyx had known, from his speech, exactly what he feared.
“You know,” she joked, “when you said I’d be keeping the team in line….”
Talon holstered his weapon with a laugh. He had to laugh, or he was going to go mad. “They weren’t my team,” he said.
“True enough. Talon….”
“It’s Soras,” Talon said quietly. “He’s the Warlord of Ymir.”
If he’d had any doubts about her loyalty, they were gone as he watched her process this piece of information. She looked away, put a gauntleted hand up as if to cover her mouth—though she, being more disciplined than Camorra, had not put her visor up
—and then, when her head jerked back to him, he knew she’d realized the worst part.
“Yes,” he said simply, because there was no way to say it that softened the blow. “All of the targets we hit on Ymir, if you want my bet. When we couldn’t figure out how the Warlord had inspired so much loyalty….”
Her eyes closed for a long moment, fingers clenching around the gun, and he understood her futile desire to put an entire magazine into something, anything.
And then her head whipped around at the same time Talon’s did, and both of them were behind cover, with their guns raised.
“Whoever the fuck you are,” Nyx said coldly into the morning air, “you picked the wrong day to do this.”
“Oh, really?” The voice that came back was bored, and a figure in black came to lean against one of the pillars. Mallory shrugged her rifle off her shoulder and kicked it away from her. “What was I supposed to do? You left one of your team on Seneca, they needed a ride.”
Talon blinked. He looked over at Nyx, and she motioned him back, coming out with her gun still raised.
“Also,” Mallory said conversationally to her, “I was told to kill your boss, and I have no idea who else got the order, and if any of them actually intend to do it.”
Nyx betrayed not the slightest flicker of surprise. “There’s at least three of you then. Python called, and so did Mase.” She looked at Mallory. “Seems like all three of you decided to torpedo your careers.”
Mallory smiled. “Let them take my command if they want. I’ll know I did the right thing.” She gave an annoyed look into the shadows. “I was intending for Wraith to take over when they canned me, but someone was all insistent on coming along. So we’re probably both on the shit list now.”
Wraith’s voice came back eerily, echoing around the structure. “How was I to know if they’d sent backup? You could be walking into a trap.”
Talon laughed. “XOs, Mallory. Can’t trust ‘em to stay put and save their own skins.”
