She brought up the household schematics.
Right below their room ran a dormant water pipe. Since the fountains weren’t running, the water pressure ought to be high. She didn’t have a lot of time to figure out other options. Resa memorized the locations of the other staff and broke for the office. In the hall outside it, she bounced up to the ceiling and entered the room from above. Something seemed off about these x-classes. Not all obeyed the same assignment; one, she saw, focused on Taier, while the other four focused on Aris. No matter. She would succeed over all of them. They were only x-classes.
Aris stepped apart from Taier and made his stand. “I’m not so friendless as I seem.”
They focused on him.
She let her dress drop from her hands. Beads tinkled lightly on the wind, and the shadow cast down.
All five x-class soldiers looked up. Four pointed their guns.
She let go of the plaster and crossed her arms, falling sideways. Their guns trained on her and fired. Shatter pistol shots burned through the dress, releasing a flurry of beads and feathers, and blackening her skin to char. Hot needles pierced her bones, one ulcer after another. She landed on the floor.
They shot.
She rolled.
Their shots burned through the floor and hit the pipe.
Water erupted upwards, blasting in all directions. A wall of liquid spewed up, separating them. She rolled to her feet and faced the enemy through the water.
Poyo stumbled backward and slammed into the wall, hit it, and dropped into a curl. The water blasted Aris and Taier. Aris dumped onto the ground. Taier managed to hold his feet, sheltering his face.
She started to move toward the enemies.
Her robot assumed control of her body.
Her body stopped and her weight rested on her heels. She stood in the front of the water wall like a post. Her mind fought her robot.
Why are you saving them? They are unimportant for finding the rogue.
Her fingers twitched. She screamed for her robot to let her go.
It held on, iron-tight.
Sweat beaded up on her body as her processors fought for control. Five x-classes would slaughter the humans. She had to do something. She had to fight now!
A hot blast burned through the water wall and hit Taier in the gut.
No.
He crumpled.
No. No. No.
Aris crawled forward. He rolled Taier over onto dry tile. The young man choked and groaned in agony.
A memory dredged up, black and unstoppable, paralyzing her as badly as her robot. A memory of something she desperately did not want to remember. A memory of another man on the ground clutching a laser wound.
The x-classes moved through the water, emerging with weapons out and an inhuman dedication on their faces. They had no choice but to do the assignment. They leveled weapons on Aris and Taier.
Her robot released her abruptly.
She grabbed the corner of the desk, ripped it from the floor, and smashed all five x-classes with it.
The electrified table broke, falling into the water and shooting forth killing electricity. Hot fire burned her red feathers to ash. The x-classes danced and jittered. She watched the path of the growing puddle and jerked the table away when it edged the humans. Three androids dropped like stones; the other two jerked free and crawled, smoking, from the wreckage. Their shatter pistols melted, like their clothes. She ended each one coldly, robotically.
The memory burned cold, like menthol, in her guts. Once more, her robot had bested her control.
When it came to the end, would she watch Aris be killed the same way?
They dragged Taier out into the hallway. The household staff scrambled around them to shut off the water and deal with the disaster.
Resa kept the others back and watched over them while Poyo crumpled over Taier, crying helplessly, and Aris operated their emergency medkit. Adrenaline shook through him. He was fucking glad for his robot, and fucking glad for this medkit, and seriously pissed he hadn’t better skills to use it. What had he been doing for the last decade? Nothing useful, if the blood and char oozing from his cockeyed operation of the medkit was to be believed.
The security head finally lapsed into an uncomfortable sleep, and Aris strapped the device to his injured gut where it could finish its work without his clumsy intervention.
First thing, he was going to take classes in real life. Piloting, driving, first aid, and operating a goddamned firearm.
First thing, as soon as he got out of this alive.
“He’s going to live,” he told his cousin, breaking through the man’s snot-nosed shock. “Poyo! He’s going to recover. You need to get him somewhere safe from your father.”
Poyo sniffed and unfolded. “Where is that, then?”
“It depends.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the smoldering piles of electronics. “Where aren’t your father’s imported killer androids?”
Poyo stared dully at the robots. He wiped his forehead, bloodied from where he’d slammed it against the back wall, and then looked at Resa. Standing to the side, out of the way, silent and unmarked. Her feathers had been burned off; she had shaken off the charcoal and now wore yet another flight suit that concealed her deliciously unblemished form.
His gaze narrowed. “I assume you’re one of them?”
“She’s the most elite one,” Aris said, and even he heard the timbre of possessive pride, “and she’s only programmed to kill me.”
“Well, so long as she’s only here to kill you.” He sniffed again at the other robots. “What do we need to do? Evacuate?”
“They’re hidden in the populace. We need to get them to reveal themselves. Contact your father.”
Poyo shook his head.
“They’re going to attack more than Taier.”
“Why?” he demanded.
“Because they’ll kill whoever has the gene. Maybe ten percent have it. Maybe all of us. Maybe just me.”
“They won’t attack until they know who has the gene,” Resa said. “And they’ve placed their FTL satellite to have real-time control.”
Poyo stared into space. Then he winced and started to stand. “My father placed a satellite last night.”
What? Aris stood. “My father didn’t authorize any satellites.”
“He placed it as soon as your father died.” Poyo activated the medkit as a stretcher. It wrapped around Taier’s midsection and extended under head and feet, lifting him light as a balloon. “I didn’t care. Sorry.”
So, the Faction could attack anytime.
Aris had always imagined his father behind the strategic maps, placing the defensive fleet, defending the planetoid from attackers. Not his uncle, who was apparently collaborating with the Faction in every possible way.
“Our defensive fleet?” he asked. “Are they still upstairs?”
Poyo shook his head tiredly. He didn’t know.
Probably they had no defensive fleet. Probably the Third Brigade had drawn around the vulnerable planetoid while his uncle sent the fleet elsewhere, opening their populace to attack. Probably as soon as they got into place, the lasers would begin, driving the populace into the standing army of android soldiers, filtering through them like a sieve.
Sure, they didn’t know what the gene was. For now.
He was the only one supposed to be at risk. He was supposed to have drawn the zero class, gotten killed (and secretly rescued) by the lady rogue, and then the lady rogue would drop his restore point, misleading the Faction.
The zero class wasn’t supposed to be a sweet, innocent, sexy woman trapped in a soft, squeezable, metal shell. She wasn’t supposed to open his heart and tantalize his desires. She wasn’t supposed to save his life over and over, drawing out the full force of the Robotics Faction and aiming it like a laser on his planetoid.
The Faction supposedly didn’t attack because they didn’t know who carried the gene - or even which gene it was. But the androids had had e
nough time to review the genetic data of all his countrymen. As soon as they knew which gene it was, they would also know who to kill.
Did he want to bet the lives of all his family on their not finding out?
Then, he needed to summon the Antiata fleet. The only one who could get a message directly to the Antiatas was the lady rogue. And he knew how to reach her.
She was directly below his feet.
“Your father wanted you to be governor. Congratulations. I’m promoting you.” Aris clapped Poyo on his thin shoulder. “You give him the good news via an all-planet emergency broadcast.”
They secured Taier in the most sheltered room, and Poyo made the announcement while his household scrambled to un-moor the great dome from its anchors.
“As your new governor,” he coughed and looked off-screen at Aris, who lifted his chin with encouragement, “my first act is to tell you that Governor Emeritus Aris was correct. We are under attack. We must evacuate now. However, their agents are already among us. Beware of the following robots…”
The x-classes she had identified flashed up on the screen, pulsed instantly out to every household terminal.
“These robots look human,” he continued, now shifting to Resa, “but they are vulnerable to fire, crushing damage, and electrical attack. Aim for the eyes.”
The Robotics Faction, assuming they were overhead already, might attack before they could finish the transmission. In which case, the flaming wreckage of the dome falling to the sand would be all the warning the rest would receive to run for safety deep in the historic mining tunnels.
A secure screen pinged.
Poyo’s father, a slender man with a beard shaped like a blade, snarled at his son. “I took the liberty of intercepting your message and destroying it before you ruin your career as your cousin ruined his.”
Poyo whitened. His knuckles gripped the broadcaster and trembled, fit to throw it through the secure screen.
Aris swore. “Send out that message before more people get hurt!”
The man’s white brows rose. “Aris, I thought you’d be enjoying a long vacation with your father.”
“How could you betray your family?”
His uncle regarded him like a sad, deranged teen. “You are the one driving us to ruin with your ridiculous claims and spending habits. How much will it cost us to switch from cheap Faction technology over to components we develop ourselves? Tell him, my son.”
Poyo’s mouth frothed and he choked on his spit. “I am no son of yours.”
His father laughed. “You disinherit me? Fine, you’ve accomplished my wish and gotten Aris to release the seat to you. I’ll hold it until my real son is resurrected and able to hold it.”
“He’ll rule over nothing if you don’t let this message go out,” Aris argued. “Summon our defensive force and call the Antiata fleet.”
“Hmm, no, I don’t think I’ll do that.”
“These robots are programmed to kill! You must—”
“Only five or ten percent of the population,” his uncle waved his hand. “They’re very interested in targeting the smallest possible number of permanent, un-resurrectable deaths.”
Shock rippled through Aris. Poyo whitened further, swallowing not in surprise but in brutal determination. Aris couldn’t believe anyone could actually feel so callous. “They are your family.”
“More importantly, the property damage will be minimal.” His uncle yawned. He had other “stars” to rule. The planetoid Aris loved meant nothing. “In another few years, your legacy will be the last of your line to govern, and this little hiccup will purify our line for a thousand years.”
“Father.” Poyo nearly spat the word. “That is the last time I will call you that. I will not die today. I will dedicate my life to getting you back for this. Justice for the family you are damning today, justice for us, and justice for Taier.”
His father raised a single brow, highly unimpressed with his slobbish son. “I’ll try not to let it keep me up tonight. Good-bye, son. Notice that I don’t care how many times I call you by that name.”
Someone called for his uncle, arresting his hand just before he disconnected. He looked over his shoulder and spoke. “An Undovan war cruiser is in the skies overhead? A Treatymaker class? What—”
He winked out.
Poyo ripped his hands in fury. “Someday, what he has done here will be known, and I will destroy him.”
“It will be easier than you think.” Resa pointed at the broadcaster in his hands. “You recorded the whole thing.”
They all stared at the broadcaster in shock. The recording light blinked. Even though they couldn’t transmit out because his uncle controlled the satellites, and the Robotics Faction apparently controlled him, they could record and save the transmission.
“As soon as you get control of the satellites again, you can make the transmission,” she said.
“How do we do that?” Poyo asked. “He’s controlling it from off-planet.”
Aris’s matching emotion shunted towards a different determination. “I know someone who can override any satellites. You lead the evacuation.” He turned to Resa. “We’re going down.”
She seemed strangely unemotional.
An instant later, the sky exploded.
Chapter Fourteen
A white flash temporarily overwhelmed the visual sensors. The men shielded their eyes. Resa’s flipped to low radiance and read the information printed beneath. It receded, but the camera was irrevocably tinted.
“Look at the sky!” someone cried.
It took them too long to understand. The night sky turned white because the space elevators had been destroyed. The atmosphere bubble burned, releasing nanobots into the pierced membrane. The sky itself was on fire.
Poyo stared, thunderstruck and horrified. “What about the pressure shields?”
“Second through fourteenth levels are breached; fifteenth through forty-seventh are holding,” his second replied, reading a status that had not been overtaken by the Faction. “We need to get everyone inside a sealed dome now.”
“And we need to stop those lasers.” Aris coughed, rubbing his throat. “You know more of your father’s plans than we do. Will he have left any reserves from our defensive fleet behind?”
“On maneuvers, I assume,” Poyo said. Aris looked at him. He held up his hands. “I read treaties. I don’t keep up with the military.”
“Now you’re governor; now you do.”
“Governor.” His second handed him a broadcast recorder. The moment they could wrench the satellites back, their people needed to hear from their sovereign. “Speak to your people. Give them hope and strength.”
Poyo took the strange box, holding it in numb hands as it confirmed his identity and then waited for the recording. Silence dropped over the small command room. He looked small and lost.
Aris shifted forward.
Resa wrapped her hand around his forearm. Yes, time was of the essence, but the popular governor-emeritus had to let go of his office, or else the new governor couldn’t emerge triumphant. Aris glanced down at her hand, relaxed, and put his own over hers, wrapping her in warmth. He understood.
Poyo’s doubt passed. Before the faces of so many trusting him—his household staff, his people, his duty—Poyo’s jaw hardened. He lifted the box. “We are attacked from the skies. We flee to the tunnels and fight to the last.”
He shut off the recording and handed it to his second. Short, efficient, true. A hint of a smile crossed Aris’s lips, and Resa knew he was glad to have let it go.
“Governor,” his second-in-command returned, “we should evacuate ourselves.”
“First, send out the grounds crews. Sound whatever local alarms you can; make sure no one goes outside of a foot’s race to a safe room.” Poyo called his security. “Try to reach whoever’s still alive at Darvin’s.”
Another camera, this one in the twilight district, flashed to white and disappeared. They all swore.
&
nbsp; The second came to Poyo again. “Governors, we really must evacuate.”
Poyo looked to Aris.
“You evacuate.” Grimness colored Aris’s features. He reached his hand out to Resa, took it, and squeezed. “We’re going to draw them off.”
Yes. As it should be. She accepted his squeeze with all of the uncertainty of her fragile being. Hot awareness flushed through her. She was standing against the Robotics Faction.
If only she could get rid of her robot, she’d be free.
Poyo studied him skeptically. “You’re going to die.”
“I’ve known about this threat from the beginning.” Aris thumped his chest. “I’m not afraid to face it.”
The ground shuddered, and a high-pitched whine squealed through the sudden roar. The second-in-command grabbed Poyo. “Governors! Now!”
“What do you need?” Poyo shouted at Aris as they moved through the layers of the house, led by the second-in-command. The ground trembled again, under their feet.
“I need the fastest way down to the mines,” Aris shouted back.
Poyo paused at a corridor and turned away from his second. “This way.”
His second protested. “Governor!”
“Lead the others and sound what alarms you can. Seal the inner and outer layers of the dome and prepare for disconnection. If I am not back before a catastrophic breach, raise the family crest and descend to the tunnels.”
“The first to descend will draw fire!”
Poyo straightened, shoulders back, every inch a man. “Then we will draw fire away from the rest of our family.”
His second-in-command turned white and stiffened. “Understood.”
Poyo turned away, leading Aris and Resa down the corridors, past the teams running to activate the emergency decoupling sirens, on the house and the street, as many as they could reach, manually.
They reached the bottom platform, where the dome connected to the anchor column tethering it—and the entire Morning district—to the planetoid’s surface. Furious winds lashed the column, buffeting an ancient shuttle. The column creaked and groaned.
Poyo stood at the door to their destiny. “The mines are a few miles from the anchor. The shuttle no longer flies, but we have attached it to the column. It will ferry you down to the surface.”
Liberation's Vow (Robotics Faction #3) Page 19
