All the while, the collar embedded into the side of her neck tingled, a constant static that burned along her nervous system with a mild yet fiery intensity. It was incredibly uncomfortable, whatever was controlling her. She’d long suspected that the collar could be set to react to certain actions in a manner likely configurable by Sirrah, such as possessing settings to “disable” her should she get too aggressive, too far away, and other things like that. Whoever this guy was, he seemed to have taken control of it, and then had taken that control even further.
And now he was a dead man walking.
She had known her collar was based on the cruder tech used on some worlds, Urzra included, to control slaves. But if she’d known it was possible for its interface to actually direct feedback impulses into her nervous system like this, the Altairans would have had a much harder time getting it into her. As it was, she raved and railed internally, no more than a twitch of it making its clumsy way to her features. For a long few moments, maybe minutes, she forgot about Merlo, about why she was even here, as she went mentally blind with an all-consuming, murderous rage.
But then it suddenly changed. The anger, the sheer savage animosity, didn’t abate. Nowhere near it, in fact. But since blind fury obviously wasn’t getting her anywhere, it instead crystallized into something else, something even more dangerous. Even as her body walked forward, and that Hel-damned man in front of her chuckled enragingly to himself, she worked along with the rage, instead of letting it control her; letting it consume her completely could and would come later.
So, you think you’re hot shit, huh? Shutting out all of the outside stimuli and letting the fury and pain push her onward, she concentrated and directed her Kinetics inward, and step by step, began to shut off and redirect parts of her neural pathways with the discipline only she knew, letting a violent current carry her surging down the hidden river of her own body’s impulses.
She’d see who was laughing in a few minutes. No one controls my actions but me. Everyone who tries, dies. He had just skipped way up on her list as the next in line.
16.7 - Branwen
“Jori Stone is a slaver?”
Zimi nodded, a bit grimly. “All that an’ more, Cap’n. Looks like he makes his creds runnin’ military grade weapons an’ stuff both on an’ off the black market, but he’s got a good side job workin’ in human traffickin,’ too.” It wasn’t exactly difficult to hear the tones of disgust and even anger threading their way through Zimi’s words, a sentiment the Captain could echo. Violently, if the chance arose. The girl shook her head. “Mr. Leonard’s cracked the system now, an’ he keeps fetchin’ me more info… I’m afraid it ain’t gettin’ any prettier as we go, Cap’n.”
Branwen slowly became aware of her sword arm’s fist clenching painfully at her side. Trading humans, using them for such purposes, was not allowed on Fade. It happened occasionally, of course, but was highly discouraged by order of the Queens of the Realms themselves. Usually this discouragement took the form of a long, slow execution, time permitting, and was mostly enough to dissuade those few who did not inherently find it deeply, morally wrong.
Maybe Stone would happen to come home early.
“Cap’n?” Branwen shook herself back into the moment.
“Sorry, Zimi. What did you find?”
“She’s here, Cap’n.” Branwen leaned over, looking into the screen past Zimi’s shoulder. She wasn’t used to reading text that moved so quickly, and the color of the projected screen held hues that probably didn’t exist for most people, all of which made it hard for her to keep up. After a moment, though, Zimi reached out and stopped the scroll, pointing out and highlighting a certain area. Branwen felt for a moment as if she needed spectacles again, but it all slowly came into focus as she persisted in staring.
A section of highlighted dates and times indicated when exactly, just under a month ago, Jori Stone had come into possession of Kala Tiala. It also showed her auction date, only two days hence.
She realized she was clenching her fist around the hilt of her Skyblade now.
“Does it say where she is now?” One step at a time, she thought. They were here for Tiala, and now for anyone else that Branwen noticed along the way. Stone could come later. Their instincts on Tiala and the need for haste had been right, and now the hair on the back of her neck was up; something was amiss nearby, and her mundane senses hadn’t caught up to it yet.
“Not… exactly. Mr. Leonard’s havin’ trouble gettin’ specifics… He says he’s pretty busy elsewhere. An’ this computer weren’t never meant to hook up to any networks, no doubt on account of how full of nasty secrets it is.” Zimi looked up at Branwen. “But I betcha’ credits t’ cryin’ that she ain’t in the house.”
Branwen gave a slow nod as she considered the matter, hand still resting on her sword hilt. “Which means there is probably much more to this place behind that back wall.”
Zimi tugged the data stick from Stone’s computer and shut it off. “Where Merlo and 286 went.”
“Where there are likely far more guards.” Suddenly, it clicked to her what was wrong, the hair on the back of her neck now sharply at attention. For several long moments now, it had been relatively quiet. No Kinetic impacts, only a few reports of projectile weapons discharging in what seemed like an almost orderly fashion.
Merlo is in trouble. She knew it with sudden, grim certainty, in that manner which she’d learned to doubt only at her own peril, and often, grief. “Come, but stay behind me.” Branwen dashed off, Zimi obediently close on her heels. The Captain cared little now about ducking stray guards, but saw none as she rushed through the hallways, the emptiness a dangerous herald all of its own. As she ran, she drew her blade preemptively, the familiar metal crackling with its edge of barely audible, highly visible, vividly lethal plasma. Then she reached behind her and drew an axe as well, the contoured steel grip falling comfortably into her palm, shaking hands with one of the oldest of friends.
It was time to work, and she could only hope she wasn’t already too late.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Blood From a Stone
Branwen
The steady pounding of Branwen’s war-boots chased her down the wood-paneled hallway; loud, rhythmic, and deliberate. Behind her, Zimi had long given up stealth to chase desperately after her, though the relatively tiny sound her footfalls made was lost in the sound of Branwen’s. The medic was able to keep up with her though, so Branwen did not slow.
The lack of guard response to the amount of noise she must have been making was an expected, although worrisome, fact. No more Kinetic blasts boomed through the thick underground air of the compound, and Branwen had no time to fret about why or let her imagination conjure fears for her. Instead it was one boot in front of the other, and she thanked the Fade for having given her the foresight to memorize the winding layout of Jori Stone’s extravagant home.
Ahead of the Captain loomed a door, a barrier paneled in more expensive, imported wood. She didn’t slow. That door was keeping her from her friend, and her instincts screamed to hurry. She slammed into the wooden surface, barely as tall as she was, tucking her shoulder in and bracing for impact just as she came into contact with it. It splintered with a crackling sound at the handle and around the latch, though it stole her momentum without fully giving way like she’d hoped.
She was used to wearing armor for maneuvers like this; energy shielding might be a replacement for most of the physical protection of armor, but it added little weight to help her double as a battering ram. A swift kick fixed the rest of the door’s resistance, sending a resounding crack of impact echoing through the adjoining rooms. The Captain rushed to the nearby window, which, if her memory still served her, should show her a view of behind the manor home.
Action and conflict caught her attention, and she went still, surveying the scene. Knowledge first, action second, unless action cannot be delayed. The high stone wall in the compound’s rear had once held a wrought-metal gate i
n its center that now lay bent and unhinged on the ground, long ruptured and broken by the fight it had tried futilely to contain.
Branwen spotted one, two, then a third and fourth body laying on the ground, each either moving only vaguely or not moving at all. But none of them were Merlo’s. She watched as another mercenary ran out of the gate, and followed his trajectory to finally spot her pilot off to her far right, wounded and harried by a ring of armed guards with clear glasteel shields. Her back almost up against the stone wall of the manor, her advanced suit torn and bloodied, her face desperate and resolute at the same time.
In a crystal clear calm, Branwen took one final look at the scenario, then raised the heavy window in front of her. No one outside paid her any mind, their attention all on the conflict at hand. Branwen was peripherally aware of Zimi coming up to her side, but the girl was silent. “Stay here. Hide.” She knew the young woman had no desire to enter a melee, and Branwen held no doubts that she would heed her command.
Taking a preparatory breath, Branwen opened the window as wide as it would go, judged her trajectory, and hurled one of her hand axes out of the window as hard as she could. Then she lept out herself and followed it.
17.1 - Merlo
Well, this isn’t good. The calm, errant thought belied Merlo’s desperation as she struggled determinedly to stay alive. Her left arm hung useless at her side, greatly hindering her acrobatic fighting style as the shreds of nanoweave suit wrapping her arm worked tirelessly to seal over her wound and begin repairs to it in earnest. She’d taken a dozen other injuries, small wounds breaching her suit’s armor and shielding before embedding into her vulnerable flesh, all highlighted by a flashing self-image on the HUD on the visor screen at the corner of her eye.
She was bruised and battered, and still the shots kept incoming, the shotgun blasts in particular blurring her vision to uselessness as her shielding densified to deflect the multiple pellets. It had been fun at first, but now Merlo was overwhelmed and she felt the first trickles of fear. Lancer training was typically dependant on fighting with others of your unit at your side, and so hadn’t really equipped her for being so greatly outnumbered and alone. With her mobility impaired by her injuries, it was all she could do to just cover up and present as small a target as possible, and hope that the technological superiority of her Arlesian body armor and shields would keep her alive long enough to form some kind of plan.
She heard the shouts and waning cries before her mind could fully register them, her visibility hampered by the defiant attempts of her shields and what her visor’s HUD informed her was a mild concussion. But when the cloudy static of her electron shielding cleared, Merlo’s eyes refocused to find one of her six attackers on his knees and toppling forward, one of her Captain’s gleaming axes buried deep in the back of his skull.
Another mercenary had fared no better, his life ending as Branwen locked an arm around his throat from behind and ran him through the vitals with her crackling, energy-edged blade. The plasma-lined steel had sliced right through the front and back of his chest armor, punching through where his heart had once been intact. The Captain now used his dying body as a human shield, the additional buffer of his armor and shielding adding to the difficulty of landing a solid shot on her.
As Merlo watched with dazed amazement, her Captain kicked the dying man off her blade and squarely into a compact Urzran woman circling her and brandishing a pistol. The gun went off ineffectually as the body struck, but Branwen was already moving, spinning to the side and evading the line of sight of another mercenary before he could fire. As she completed the spin, her blade swept down in a glistening arc, and where it met the outstretched arm of that mercenary, her sword smoothly removed his limb to the sound of a horrified scream of shock. Branwen immediately put a boot to the inside of his knee and the pommel of her sword into the open face of his helmet, both movements accompanied by uncomfortable sound of crunching bone.
That foe fell, but one of Merlo’s closer combatants turned, maneuvering her clear shield to the side between Merlo and Branwen and lining up a clean shot with a heavy pistol clutched in her other hand. The Captain ducked out of the way as a close range shotgun blast from one of the others scattered off of her shielding, and Merlo doubted that the Captain’s shield was of high enough quality to repel another direct shot immediately after. She wasn’t about to find out, either. The female mercenary in front of her was looking away, perhaps right to dismiss Merlo as the lesser threat for the moment, but Merlo would show them the price of ignoring her.
She threw herself forward, launching around the clear, handheld barrier with as much dexterity as she could manage and slapping the hand of her working arm down onto the lightly armored bicep of the mercenary’s shield arm. Instantly upon making contact with the open port in Merlo’s palm, the high voltage electric charge it contained lanced out, the enemy’s armor proving ineffectual against the surging current of electricity.
The mercenary’s hand clenched reflexively and Merlo winced as the woman’s heavy pistol fired off a single, potent shot, but the spasms caused by the connected current had already thrown her aim harmlessly wide and Branwen remained uninjured. The woman’s legs locked up and she fell flat on her face, and Merlo just held on, almost going along for the ride with her due to her own weakened body. But she held fast and kept the circuit established until her HUD let her know that her opponent should be unconscious.
That left two more mercenaries, as far as Merlo could tell, and those two didn’t look too keen on the sudden turn the fight had taken. As she watched, however, the Captain rushed forward, covering a couple of meters in a single smooth lunge and sinking her sizzling blade into the chest of one of the two remaining, while simultaneously hurling an axe end over end with the other hand. The primitive weapon made for a more effective attack than Merlo would have ever imagined; the Captain could hurl one of those deadly sharp axes hard enough to split medium body armor, but not so fast as to trigger the defensive measures of energy shielding.
That war-axe in particular flew straight towards the face of the only remaining female mercenary, and the hardened woman threw up an arm at the last moment to shield her vulnerable face. The hungry metal of the weapon bit eagerly into the blocking limb instead, embedding itself deep, and Merlo took that moment to shuffle closer as the woman lowered her arm and stared at the stuck weapon in shock. Already feeling a resurgence of energy due to the hope heralded by Branwen’s arrival and the subsequent reprieve from assault, Merlo tensed her powerful muscles and threw her legs over her head, landing a sidelong roundhouse kick as her dense body’s weight spun freely in Urzra’s relatively low gravity.
To Merlo’s surprise, she managed to both land the kick accurately with stunning force and still land solidly on her feet afterward. The mercenary absorbed the full impact of being blindsided by the powerful kick, and the force spun her heavily to the ground in a heap. As she caught her balance and put a steadying hand to her injured arm, Merlo saw the final mercenary of the six that had been harrying her now on the ground, hands up in a universal gesture of surrender. Branwen’s sabre slipped threateningly under the armor of his chest plating as the Captain stood, fierce and tall, over him.
Beyond her, highlighted helpfully on her visor, she saw another mercenary she hadn’t been aware of before, as he carefully braced himself and aimed a combat shotgun at the back of Branwen’s head from nearly point blank range, the business end of the weapon well inside the protective envelope of the Captain’s shielding.
17.2 - Prisoner 286
286 was a Prisoner in her own mind. She could have, imprisoned as she was, watched the scenery slowly roll by as the estate’s yard gave way to the steel supports and rock walls of a wide tunnel running deeper into the cavern. If she’d been paying any attention, she would have noticed the armory they strolled past, the guards arming and rushing past her toward the fight she’d been forced to leave behind, and perhaps she would have even wondered what Jori Stone had back
here that was so important, so secretive.
But she wasn’t really paying attention to any of that. Prisoner 286 was busy escaping.
That uncomfortable, almost electric tingle rushed out and along her nerves, prickling up and down her spinal cord from its origin at the implant in her neck. She used the sensation as a guiding light, ignoring everything else as she chased it down, feeling her way through her own body and along her own nerves, and stamping it vengefully out. If she had to dig these impulses out nerve by nerve, cell by cell, she would be free again. And then, he would be dead.
Ahead, her collar’s hacker continued to take careful steps backward, continuing into the shadows leading deeper, onward into some larger area where the walls seemed to open up. He fiddled with the data feeds running across the implants in his arm that he used to make the Prisoner take one steady step after another. Oh, just wait. I’m gonna break out, and when I do, I’m going to erase you from existence.
He didn’t look up the first time she failed to follow his “instructions.” The meat on her thigh twitched and tried to respond to him, but she squashed the spasm and her leg remained still. The mercenary technician narrowed his gaze perplexedly, staring down at the implanted datapad in concentration, and 286 took another shuddering step against her will, then slowly one more. The further he tightened his control of her, the more she dug in to resist him. He glanced up repeatedly from his work as his consternation grew, fear trickling into his eyes. She tried to let herself take a convincing step any time he was looking up, since she didn’t want to scare him off just yet, but it was hard to time it right while still fighting her own neural system for control.
If he was really so smart, he’d shoot me now. Not like that would stop her, either. 286 had other goals, important plans, things to do that were far more significant than some merc-tech with one bright idea and no functional survival instinct. It was like he didn’t even know who she was! He was starting to get the idea, though; as she continued wrenching control of herself away from him, she watched the beads of sweat start running down his face with increasing frequency as her slow, steady walk from earlier disintegrated into the rough shuffling of a zombie, then stopped altogether as she pushed back against the intrusive impulses and stubbornly, cheerily, refused to move.
Destiny Abounds (Starlight Saga Book 1) Page 35
