“You. Ember of no known second name!” an officer bellowed. The zigzag horns on his helmet signaled his status.
“Ohhh, fuck-fuck-fuck.” Swearing was needed. Real swearing. She should run.
Even as she spun, she was tearing open her pocket and discarding the DSU, letting it drop to the ground. She felt it bump at her calf. The grass was long enough to hide it.
Remember where that is.
Why else would they track her down? Had to be the DSU.
She’d have been identified from orbit, if they had a good scope. They would have.
Walking in the open should’ve been safe, here, of all planets. They’d chased her and Hoss across hyperspace, across the galaxy, to the least-findable planet in the universe.
This was not a coincidence.
Three of them caught her in seconds, their power armor lending them a speed she could never beat. They wrestled her to the ground, snaplocked her wrists, and hauled her away.
She screamed and bit until they muzzled her. Someone searched her and found the second DSU. Only...it wasn’t the empty one. A small difference, a series of red dots on the surface said she’d dropped the wrong one, the empty one.
Too late now. She had trapped it. There was that.
Someone unhooked her data specs from her hair.
They dragged her up the ramp and into the ship, tossed her into a seat.
The officer leaned across from the seat opposite her, the red eyes glowing, the red zigzag horns on his helmet sizzling.
“You will be quiet and still. Your display of your breasts is blasphemy enough. Your words disturb the blessed Serenity.” His voice rumbled with dark power, made her muscles creak on her bones, until she figured it. Psych stuff. Even their voices were shrouded by artifac-speak programs.
“Azzholes,” she burbled past the sound-deadening black muzzle. Strapped as she was to a seat beside the squad, glaring would have to do until they set her free. With her hands free, she could do stuff – stuff these cyber-armored brutes could not imagine. They hadn’t relieved her of her data knife.
They were ripe for viruses, and she was good at those. Dead good.
The ramp withdrew. The hatch shut. The ship launched almost immediately. It spun and rocketed upward so fast her eyeballs felt the drag.
A crescendoing screech then a series of thuds sent shudders through the ship along with the smell of burning metal. The ship lurched and changed direction, tumbling, rocking, seemingly out of control. Within seconds, they’d been shot down. The cybermonks would have defenses.
Ember gulped back nausea and squeezed shut her eyes. The implications of dying banged in as the ship tried to shake itself to pieces and her too. She could’ve done so much more with her life. So much more. Should’ve eaten more fine food, danced under a thousand more stars, and she shouldn’t have hurt Hoss. Tears threatened to fall. He was right.
I’m sorry.
Hitting the ground engulfed her in pain and blackness.
Chapter 15
Someone up there was pounding the crap out of the city of Verd. Hoss guessed it was an enemy of the cybermonks. He found a safe place to observe the sky.
And it was the Xatar, judging by the markings and types of ships. He couldn’t get hold of Ember at her room, on their internal link, or with the city comm system. Worrying, very.
He sprinted though the corridors looking for the location that was supposed to be where Baz Rutland was abiding, as of last night, then crashed into him at an intersection. For a second, despite the general disruption, the sounds of things cracking, crashing, collapsing, and exploding, the cyborg captain’s appearance made him pause.
He’d always seemed mildly deranged, but now? Baz was redder of eye, flightier? That might be a good description. Where they were exposed by his short-sleeved flight suit, his muscles were twitchy.
“You okay, man?”
“Sure.” Baz swiped a forearm across his face. “Sure. There’s an attack happening.”
As if the Armageddon noises weren’t a dead giveaway.
“The Leaf okay?”
“Don’t know.” He shook his head. “She should’ve taken off with the city under an attack. Safest thing to do. She’ll be back. Once it’s over.”
Hoss rolled his shoulders. “If.”
“Huh?”
“If it’s ever safe. The whole city is coming down around our ears.”
It was true. The cybermonks might’ve had drones and auto-defenses, maybe some great orbiting batteries, but this appeared to be overwhelming. He’d spotted so many Xatar squadrons zooming overhead he’d lost count.
One of the roach bots zipped up to them and his comm buzzed to life. Incoming holo-message with a big CM logo onscreen. Hopefully it really was them. He thumb-tapped to pop up the big screen, broadcasting it so Baz could see and hear.
The three cybermonks wobbled to life in front of a small garden across the way.
“Greetings.” He nodded at them. “News? Can we get off-planet? Where is Ember?”
“You cannot.” Stryng shook his braided head. “Your companion, Ember, has been abducted by a squad of Xatar. Though shot down, their ship crashed in the high-rise jungle. We thought you might wish to rescue her, considering your job description?”
“Fuck, yes. Direct me. Provide a ride if you can. Hours away by foot, I assume?”
“Indeed. Days. By flight it will be less. We will direct you to a small but fast scram ship. No armaments but it will outrun many Xatar ships.”
“Many?” He grunted. Better than none. “Show me.”
Baz spoke up, stepped closer to the holo. “I’m coming too. How many soldiers can you spare us?”
“None.” Erroar smiled toothily. “However our predictions say you two will be enough.”
Predictions? Using side-eye, he watched Baz. Why was he coming? Smitten by her? Being heroic for some other reason? “This could be a death mission, spacejunker.”
Baz ignored him. “You said crash. Have you seen survivors emerge? How many Xatar were on board?”
“Our images show survivors departed the site. Ember was one. We counted fifteen Xatar but our imaging device was in orbit and has been destroyed.”
“Huh. Fifteen?”
That was a lot versus two. “You up to this, Baz?”
“Do we get weapons?” Baz stayed facing the cybermonks, as if he, Hoss, were nothing.
He bit back a growl. “I am weapon enough.”
Now Baz turned, his mouth crooked. “Me too. I’ll fuck up half. You get the rest.”
A cybermonk tried to speak but Hoss talked through his words. “We will see who kills more.”
“We have extra weapons for you!” Stryng said, loudly. “They may be old however. We don’t use them here, much.”
It didn’t matter to him. He grinned at Baz, who narrowed his eyes and smiled back. “I will take these weapons. We both will. Hopefully they will shoot the right people.”
Something was happening here, had happened, and he wasn’t sure what, but as long as they could rescue Ember he was okay with playing ‘I’m the biggest man’ with Baz. Maybe the surgery had left Baz confused.
“You ever get the predictions wrong?” he asked the monks.
“Sometimes.”
Hoss wasn’t sure which one had said that. Didn’t seem to matter.
But of course. This explained how the Xatar had accomplished a surprise attack. The cybermonks hadn’t seen it coming.
Another enormous explosion rocked the building and pieces cracked from the wall and fell, shattering on the floor.
“Hey, monks, is there going to be a city left to come back to?”
“We do not know.”
He decided it was best to set off on a friendlier tone with Baz. “Hey. Cyborg man. Is this a good day for rescuing princesses?”
Baz looked puzzled, but after a few seconds his mouth twisted in amusement. “It is. It is a very good day for rescuing princesses.”
“Excellent
.” Hoss held out his hand. Hesitantly, Baz took it then shook.
* * * * *
The scram ship was a bit rusty and had seen better times, as in a few hundred years ago. The weapons ditto. Nevertheless Hoss armed himself with a nice selection, slung a bandolier of ripper grenades over his shoulder, along with an automatic sledge gun. Those’d knock over a dinosaur from Old-Earth, though most humanoids would get concussion using one. He’d be fine. The other guys, not so much.
The Xatar had good armor, though. Reactive power armor and more, much more. This was going to be close.
First they had to find them. And they had to avoid injuring Ember.
It took a few hours to zero in on the crash site. The Xatar ship had plowed into the middle of the sky-high forest. Lots of green trees down below. Enough room to hide a million rampaging Xatar. They hadn’t even asked what sort of predators roamed in this area.
Surely nothing big would be in the trees?
Baz circled the place and heat sensors found the trail of warriors further to the south.
“They’re climbing out,” Baz murmured, tapping the screen. “But partway down inside it still. Scans show this forest isn’t just forest. It’s growing atop a city, an ancient one. When the cybermonks arrived, this planet was barren of intelligent creatures.”
“So whatever built this city, it’s thoroughly dead apart from the forest.”
“Yup,” Baz agreed. “Or whatever else likes living in forests.
“The Xatar’ll be looking to rendezvous with one of their ships, organize a landing. Maybe once they get clear of the trees. There’s one solid rock here where I can land.” Hoss pointed. “We do that. We climb down and ambush them. You know, I count only ten Xatar, so something happened to a few. Maybe they fell?”
“Doubt that. Maybe Ember ended a few of them.”
Could be. He nodded. He’d always thought the girl had balls.
Baz chuckled.
“I’m serious. You haven’t seen her when she’s in a mood.” He straightened in his seat, unravelling a few muscle kinks. “Get us in there. I hope your cyborg ass is ready to go full cyborg?”
“Half. Half cyborg is enough.”
“Hah!” Hoss buckled himself into the copilot seat a little firmer.
Ten Xatar was better than fifteen, but they might’ve bitten off more than they could chew. This was his job, though, and he was doing it even if it killed him.
Of course, as well as job, it was Ember.
Mostly, that was why. If they’d hurt her he’d do more than kill them. He’d pull out their entrails and knit them to the trees. If Xatar had entrails. Inside that armor was a humanoid, so they should. Headshots killed them and gut shots. They bled. He’d forgotten the rest of the Xatar lecture.
A growl bubbled up from way down low in his chest.
Baz steered the scram ship in on a shallow glide, skimming the trees. The tree tips swayed and flocks of birds burst forth, scattering into the sky like black confetti.
Chapter 16
Ember stepped across the toppled tree, keeping her boots in line, until she remembered that was bad for balance and widened her stance. The Xatars who’d gone first had cleared the log, partly, and it was wide enough to take a big man lying down, but the drop to either side was horrendous.
The bump on her forehead ached, thumping in, reminding her of the crash.
She had no idea where they were, except that it was nowhere near the city of Verd. The Xatar couldn’t seem to contact their fellow zealots.
Step, step, avoid the stub of a branch. Already her tights had several holes torn in them. Thank the gods her boot soles had great non-slip capabilities. Keep going. Don’t look down, or up, because the sky was fucking kilometers above, through the irregular opening between two overgrown skyscrapers. The sun could barely wriggle its way down here. Intermittently, the Xatar used their helmet lights.
She glanced down. Crap. Huuuge amounts of crap. Such a long way. Trees, branches, glimpses of decayed building, floating specks and leaves toyed with by some giddy breeze, then darkness at the bottom.
Falling would be fatal, painful, and might involve being skewered by either a tree bit or a piece of old metal. There’d be germs. She was sure the pain and death would be the worst part, but the fall might also leave her writhing on a spear of rusted, mossy steel to slowly expire over days. The Xatar wanted her alive, but would they risk themselves to rescue her if she were stuck somewhere screaming?
The whole montage of agonizing death had played out before her eyes as she looked over the edge.
She swayed, gulped.
The Xatar captain grabbed her elbow to steady her then grunted at her to keep going.
She did, trying not to hurry. The gap between her and the Xatar warrior before her had lengthened.
The Xatar twitched; his left leg shook then stuck out sideways.
Ember smirked.
A bit of her programming had chosen to kick in. Power armor could be a bitch if you got spray-virused by a death-dealing princess.
The Xatar behind her commanded the twitcher to stop playing around.
“Can’t! Sir! My armor is –” Then he lurched, toppled, and fell over the side screaming. The thuds as he hit things below made her wince. Ouch.
A morsel of fear wormed into her heart. That had rather obviously been an armor glitch.
Maybe too obvious.
“Hmmm.” The officer behind her sounded unhappy.
Poor diddums. She widened her eyes, rolled her lower lip outward. Maybe he needed a hug?
Once they’d stepped out of the crashed landing ship, the Xatar had freed her from everything. It was obviously impossible to negotiate the maze of trees and buildings while restrained.
That was when she’d had to sort out her courage. Was she brave enough to do something and not just think it?
It’d taken her an hour to work up to sneaking the data knife from the zipped skirt pocket. Dormant, it looked like a mostly brown palms-length piece of fan art. It had her fave anime star emblazoned all over it in tiny stickers. The Xatar had found it and sneered then stuck it into her pocket.
With another hour and tons of internal cursing and excruciating mind-fiddling with a preformed virus, she’d succeeded in crafting a crude piece of code that should mess up their armor. It should also transfer via any communication they made that used their comm devices.
Given a window when a flock of ships had roamed overhead blasting flaming pieces off each other and distracting the Xatar, she’d fired up the knife on low and pressed it to the back armor of a rubbernecking Xatar
For those seconds her heart had gone into overdrive. She’d tucked away the knife, her hand trembling.
But...he’d not noticed the quiet sizzle and the light had been concealed by her body.
Success. The Xatar were humanoids, but she didn’t feel a single iota of remorse. Die, assholes.
So far six had fallen and the dicks hadn’t worked out why. Not looking gleeful was the most difficult part. Would this, could this, virus take out all of them?
The log led to a large window in the structure ahead. If there’d been glass or framing it’d rotted away long before this time. Mold, moss, and a few small plants, grew happily on the walls both inside and outside. The internal walls were intact and small doorways led deeper. Something slithered across the debris-strewn floor and vanished into a hole.
Ember shivered and at the same moment the officer clapped his gloved hand onto her shoulder. Small flying creatures erupted from a crevice in the floor, battering her face with wings as they shot past, weaving between her and the Xatar. Their screeches deafened.
Gone.
She spat, feeling grimy, even though nothing had landed in her mouth.
“This one has somehow poisoned our armor! What did you do, girl?”
“Fuck!” she whispered, hand to her heart. Lots of small fucks too. Swearing got easier with practice. “I did nothing?”
Oh she’d made
that a question. Bad move. He was already suspicious.
The other men turned to look at her, moving in and grumbling.
The officer spun her to face him.
“Fix it you blasphemer with your dirty exposed breasts and filthy mouth. You swear, you kill my men. I know it is you!” His pointing finger shook. “Fix it. Or the next accident I will cut off a finger of yours, then another, another.” He snarled.
She drew back. Confronted by so many angry males in black scary armor, who had no qualms about killing, it was clear she’d have to comply. Stupid not to. But to admit to the wrongdoing would be bad too.
“I will look at the programming. Okay? I’m really good at this. You might have all picked up a virus?”
Then Ember realized she’d have to show them the data knife. Show how it worked. She sighed, bit her lip. No other option was possible.
One by one she checked each of them, pleased in a way that five out of the remaining nine had the virus she’d made. She should have been smart and topped them up with a worse, cataclysmic virus, one she’d been honing for years, but having the officer standing over her with a weapon melted her courage.
She fixed. Cleaned their programs.
On the last warrior her inner freak made an appearance.
You’re smart and can do something subtle they will never notice. What if they really fall? Which had happened. And so, what if something goes mildly wrong, after that fall?
She could slow them down and when a man only has milliseconds to react...BAM. Dead.
He’d threatened to cut off her fingers.
What if. Ember worked on the last man’s array of processing units and pretended she found something complex.
It could spread through the comms again...
She liked her fingers though.
A subtle mischief that would take its toll if they walked long enough.
After a while, she stood and shrugged, spoke to the officer, “Done.”
“Good. I see you use this thing to do it?”
Steel (Dark Monster Fantasy Book 2) Page 8
