Suffrage (World Key Chronicles Book 1)

by Julian St Aubyn Green

  After the ship completed its scan, it was simply a matter of beating the Rebels to the prize. The prince anticipated that the king would use his ability once The Songstress identified the correct cavern and adroitly take the key for himself, but he didn’t suggest it. Ahmed wondered why.

  “Looks like we’ll be getting cold,” croaked Mister Delta.

  The prince jumped and then shivered, not only from the thought of descending into the snow and ice, but also from the voice of Delta. That ruined voice, full of odd wheezes and strange rasping, made the mysterious envoy sound utterly inhuman. The prince hated him. He’d witnessed every one of the prince’s failures.

  Straightening his red and gold jacket, Ahmed composed himself. Hidden under the mask, there was no way of knowing whether Delta was laughing at his discomfort. “You’re very quiet, Mister Delta. That will come in useful in the caves,” he responded, his surprise still coloring his tone, angry at yet another failing. “Yet, I’m not sure why you have been tasked with retrieving the key. The key should be in Royal hands.”

  The thin figure shrugged noncommittally.

  Ahmed diverted his gaze back to the multitude of snow-secured valleys that slid beneath the hull and returned to his bitter contemplations. His earlier notion of holding dominion over this version of reality and escaping his father’s judgmental oversight wasn’t bold enough. With the world keys present in this reality, that meant power—true power—was attainable for those strong enough to grasp it. He knew the legends. Just touching the key was enough to synchronize the power to the possessor. With the primary key in hand and his preexisting Gift of pyromancy, he would be stronger than any Monarch.

  But to go against the king; is it a risk worth taking?

  Jay had been too afraid to delve inside Snake’s mind. It was made worse by Sarge’s emotional state, which she couldn’t help but feel spreading its patterns of red rage on the surface of her mental shield. The tightly controlled rage felt like an explosion waiting to happen and fogged everything around her. Jay feared the worst as she gnawed on her fingernails. She’d given in to the temptation. Unable to think clearly, it had taken her twenty minutes to remember what she’d seen in the display before she’d sent the squealer to collect them. That sinkhole was what she’d been searching for. With her mom nearly here, they’d go for the key together.

  She was spitting bits of nail out every so often, watching them disappear over the edge past her boots, working methodically on every nail until she hit the quick. She’d just started on the pinkie nail of her left hand when she heard the scrape of boots on stone echoing up the cliff face.

  “Up here,” she called out, releasing her only charged hover to help guide them up. She couldn’t hide the trepidation in her voice. Despite her frantic, desperate seeking, there was still no sign of China and she feared the worst. She turned on a few of the light emitters, lighting up the ledge as the squealer buzzed into view like a hugely fat, happy beetle.

  Jay snagged it out of the air and stowed it away in a pocket as grunts and groans indicated tired bodies ascending the ropes.

  “Does Prince Ahmed intend to double cross me?” King Heinrich asked pointedly, leaning back into the ornate chair in his quarters.

  Delta was standing in the king’s chambers, fighting with himself. He’d sensed Juliet as she opened herself to the tsunami of emotional anguish around her in Rio, brushing her personality against his own mental shields. He’d felt his sister’s mind, his closest sister, after a decade of absence, just as Alpha said he would. Now he was set on a course that might mean he’d have to kill her.

  Delta cleared his throat to obfuscate his inattention. “He’s considering it, Sire, but he hasn’t made up his mind that I can tell. He’s … afraid. Of both you and of what will happen should he attempt to claim the key for himself. He recalled stories of the Monarch War from his father and older brothers: particularly that even Mahmoot would have been killed several times during the war if not for the intervention of yourself and King Mycroft.”

  “A strong man asleep is no better than a weak man asleep,” replied Heinrich. “One of Mycroft’s sayings, but it applies in this instance. The prince knows he’d have to kill all of us, and then take on the combined forces of this world by himself.”

  “Indeed Sire, it is as you say,” Delta responded.

  “Hmm, he’s not as stupid as he looks then,” Heinrich commented thoughtfully as he stood and paced around the room.

  At the king’s silence, Delta’s own thoughts returned to Juliet. It didn’t make a difference to Heinrich that the Rebel was his sister from the Facility or that she was Mycroft’s daughter. To the king, Juliet was just another Rebel. A terrorist with an agenda for disruption. The punishment of which was death or to become a Lifer. Considering she was Gifted, Delta couldn’t imagine she’d receive anything but death, and he didn’t want to accept that. At the first minor twinge of pain from his neural tech, he pushed the thoughts away.

  The king stopped pacing before looking at Delta and saying the code words that activated his neural inhibitors and stole his free will. “There is nothing for it. If the prince decides to attempt to steal the world key, you will neutralize him. You will collect the key using telekinesis if you can, to retain its ability to genetically sync. If you cannot collect the key psychically, you will take it physically. Deal with anyone who gets in your way.”

  Delta blinked as the commands settled into his neural programming. “The prince and his men are waiting for me. By your leave, King Heinrich.”

  Philippe watched the smaller craft through his scope. He recognized the transport craft that was seen in Rio. After the misty haze of the ship decloaking, the immense cargo door in the belly had opened to emit the transport and he checked his watch. Sacks had immediately keyed the code, indicating the ship had appeared in the sky above their position. Aircraft and missiles should be inbound on their location. Shit, where are the damned missiles already?

  “Leve, main ship or transport? I’ve got eyes on someone important on the bridge from this angle, not preauthorized,” Sacks said from his prone firing position. His tone was all business and as chilly as their surroundings.

  “How do you know he’s important?” countered Philippe.

  “Fancy clothes and he’s sitting in a chair like Captain James T. Kirk,” Sacks replied.

  Philippe took a look through his own scope and pondered for a brief second. Even though they’d lost half the squad from that bastard laying traps, there were enough snipers ringed around the ship that another sniper might have eyes on him.

  “Transport, but wait for the shot Sacks, that thing is moving fast.” If anyone could make the shot over this distance against a moving target, it was Sacks.

  As he took the role of spotter, Leve sang out distance and wind speed. His heart rate threatened to climb and he needed to remain steady. Much was resting on Fox Squad here. Through the scope, he saw a shimmer around the main vessel, like the whisper of warm air moving over ice, that indicated the shield was down as the transport moved towards the ground.

  “Shield down,” he reported tensely.

  Sacks tracked the transport. With an almost three-second delay, it was a monumental task to be confident enough to risk exposing their position to take the shot. Philippe just hoped that other members of the squad were targeting that strange main gun on the ship and the well-dressed man in blue with the icon on his chest.

  One one thousand, two one thousand. It was too quick. As he desperately wished for a missile to rip into the huge ship, the air around the ship moved strangely again, presumably as the shield restored. Fuming, he changed target and watched the transport race towards the ground, landing amidst a flurry of snow. Philippe didn’t blame Sacks for not taking the shot. The way that thing moved, he wouldn’t have been certain of his target either. He waited for the perfect shot. That was what snipers did. They waited. And when that time finally came, the lover’s caress of a trigger would send near-molten steel r
ocketing into the target’s brainpan faster than the speed of sound.

  Through the scope, he saw the transport doors open. A squad, easily visible in their distinctive red and gold body armor, peeled out and set up defensive positions in orderly formation using available cover. Out strode five more figures.

  Dressed like he was going to a courtly ball in flowing red robes, the brown-skinned asshole from Rio still sported that smirking grin and look of anticipation on his face that made Philippe want to remove it with a solid left hook. Next to him was someone new, dressed all in white and gold. The newcomer moved with the jerky, quick movements of a bird, their face covered by a mask. Flanking the two men were yet more of those robotic drones, armor shining in the weak sunlight.

  His finger twitched on the laser, sending out its signal to any and all inbound missiles. There was no telling what the missiles would accomplish now; likely far less than they wanted given the footage from the attack on New York. But there was a preauthorized target he could engage.

  “Target sighted,” chimed Sacks with a hint of glee. “Hello, you brown-skinned asshole. I’ve got something special for you.”

  Philippe checked the range finder: 2,100 meters, a decently long shot, but nothing to write home about for someone of Sacks’s skill. “Wait. Target the drone’s chest at the arm join if you can. If the explosion is big enough, you might take out the whole group,” he whispered.

  “Roger,” Sacks replied succinctly. The AP round had to penetrate that chest armor. They didn’t know for certain if it would, however they would have to take that chance based on the amount of damage the robots ignored in New York. Then, if they were right, it would hit the drone’s power core and explode.

  Philippe gritted his teeth as time seemed to slow. He took another look through the scope as the target reached the end of the transport’s exit ramp. Next to him, he heard Sacks take a deep breath and exhale slowly before his finger lightly depressed the trigger. Philippe had just enough time for a quick, “Please work,” before he saw the impact right beneath where the arm joined the shoulder.

  The drone to the immediate left of the prince shuddered and collapsed a bare second before exploding. He lost his view as the robot went up like an Afghani roadside bomb. Shrapnel, fire, and smoke concealed the remaining figures in a billowing hemisphere of destruction.

  Delta flinched as his precognition warned him of danger. He dropped to one knee, preparing a shield. As the drone nearby crumpled he knew it would explode, and that the prince would deal with it. He watched the prince smile as the explosion washed towards them, skimming his thoughts intently.

  ‡Hah! Flame. I have tasted all its forms and yet some ignorant fool thinks to use it against me.‡ It was a mere flick of his power to cause the fast-moving flame to divert around himself and his men. ‡What a shame Delta is so close. This would be the perfect excuse to remove him. Oh well, at least the countess isn’t here inhabiting her little tin man anymore. With any luck that mangy bitch just suffered an aneurysm.‡

  Shrapnel whistled in every direction. What came near Delta and the others was atomized by the prince’s Gift. Though the heavy armor of the Royal guards protected them, the prince’s command of flame incinerated all but the largest chunks of decimated drone.

  In the moment that the prince was distracted by the flame, Delta used his telekinesis. Dozens of pieces of shrapnel simply stopped and fell to the ground.

  Hmm, not exactly a death threat. It hadn’t escaped his notice; telepathy was his strongest ability after all. But now he knew the prince meant to dispose of him inside the cave. Now that his intent to double-cross King Heinrich and claim the world key was confirmed, Delta’s instructions were clear. As the Elites and the prince ran forward beneath a protective shield of flame and smoke, he readied himself. Heinrich had insisted that he obtain the world key at any cost.

  He extended his Gift carefully, trying to sense the Rebels inside the cave, before hesitating and pulling his power back. If his sister Juliet was inside she might feel it. A small part of him, one he long thought quiet inside him, rose, and he brutally forced it down before it pained him. He was going to finish the mission given to him, even if it meant her death too. Alpha was right. I’ll get to see her again one last time.

  “Thalia! Maximum shields, maneuver The Songstress to protect the transport from enemy fire. Give me a wireframe map of the surrounding landscape and calculate firing trajectories to pinpoint locations. Remaining gun crews, target those locations. Patch me through to the comms room doctor.”

  “Sire, they appear to be pointing energy weapons at us. I’m detecting weak laser energy in repeating patterns on our shield.”

  “Strength?” Heinrich asked urgently.

  “Negligible, Sire. Similar to what we encountered in Ilya’s Isles. Each one is penetrating the kinetic field, but the energy barely registers. I don’t understand.”

  “It’s not a weapon. It’s a marking signal. Likely for more of those damned missiles,” Heinrich surmised. “Crew, brace for multiple impacts. Cannonade crews, scan for incoming targets. Establish anti-aircraft pattern perimeter,” Heinrich ordered as his chair console lights indicated he was connected to the comms room.

  “How is the countess?” he snapped at Doctor Cross through the audio link.

  “Unconscious, Your Majesty. She’s bleeding; she may have a small aneurysm from the rapid disconnect. We’re running scans now,” the physician reported quickly.

  “Keep me updated,” he ordered as the first missiles streaked into view through the cloud cover and slammed against the shield.

  Heinrich grinned viciously as the missile salvo splattered harmlessly against the ship’s kinetic shields, striking from numerous directions. They say it’s madness to keep repeating mistakes and expect a different outcome. This battle will be ours as well, he thought in satisfaction.

  “Nice shot, Sacks.”

  The transport was damaged, but the flames moved unnaturally fast, whizzing around in concentric circles. It was one of those moments that made Philippe question the physics in view, but he was nonetheless glad they weren’t anywhere close enough to feel the difference in temperature.

  “Did we get the smarmy bastard?” Sacks asked, scanning for another target while chambering another round.

  “Negative,” Philippe replied, watching the swirling sphere of rapidly spinning flame head for the entrance of the cave a short distance up the ridge. Additional echoes of the staccato reports from Fox Platoon’s long guns sounded across the valleys. With their presence known, it was time to do as much damage as possible.

  The transport ship came under fire as the hail of missiles filled the air with flame and noise. One of the drones, heavily damaged from the explosion and struggling weakly, lay supine on the transport’s lowered ramp.

  “Sacks! The drone on the ramp!”

  “Got him.” The gun kicked a second time as Philippe watched before exulting when the shot connected with the drone’s torso.

  He resisted the urge to fist-bump the sky. The armor piercing round hit home in the midst of the transport lifting away from the ground. The ship rose vertically before engaging horizontal movement.

  As other rounds impacted against the pilot’s position to little effect, the second drone detonated with much of the energy and shrapnel directed up the open ramp and into the vessel. The transport faltered in mid-air and started to lose altitude, smoke belching out of a jagged hole in its side.

  More explosions sounded in the air, attracting Philippe’s attention. Missiles streaked in from every point on the compass and slammed in a concentrated barrage against the main ship. Too late, he thought regretfully. He watched as the ordnance detonated futilely, well before physically impacting the target. The ship opened fire, filling the air in all directions with a deadly barrage of black and silver lightning.

  The aft cannon spun, settling its lidless gaze on a nearby hilltop. Philippe watched, mouth agape, as the massive orb of man-made lightning s
treaked across the sky towards one of the sniper positions. It ripped through the air with a scream like an avenging angel. There was no way to avoid something that size.

  It took all of his training not to yell as the globe expanded, enveloping the top of the ridge where he knew that one team of Fox Platoon was positioned. The resulting implosion sheared off the top of the mountain before the subsequent explosion flattened every pine tree within a hundred meters. They’ve calculated the position of the snipers, or they are reading the laser paint. Shit, we have to move.

  “Second position. Now!” he ordered, leaping to his feet and grabbing the laser mount. Sacks was up fast, tucking away the bipod feet of the Tac-50 as he ran.

  Philippe hoped the rest of the platoon was moving as well as he and Sacks burst from the cover of the snowdrift and sprinted down the backside of the nearest hill to gain cover. Their ghillie suits flapped in the air around them like ragged superhero capes as they bounded down the ridge. They needed to reposition. But right now, they needed a large geographical feature in between themselves and the death-spewing disco ball in order to hide.

  Snake felt the ground shudder. “What was that?” He didn’t really want to know. He turned the face of the instrument towards him. Her battery was a full one percent higher, and he hadn’t plucked a single note. He openly gaped at the dial reading. There wasn’t enough audible, ambient noise to explain the increase. The last time he witnessed such a sharp gain was among the crowds at Samba Rio. He glanced about the quiet caves and sepulchral chambers and tunnels. It didn’t make sense. His eyes lit upon Jay as her gaze went unfocused: a telltale sign of using her Gift.

  “Oh no. It’s the Royals; they’re here,” she cried.

  Looking back at the tunnels behind them in alarm, a tinge of fear and confusion crept onto her features.