Dragon: Bridge & Sword: The Final War (Bridge & Sword Series Book 9)

by JC Andrijeski

  “To preserve,” she hissed at him, showing her anger openly for the first time. “To preserve this, Illustrious Brother! Not to rip it apart, brick by brick! Not to wipe out the last of those ancient energies of our people! Those constructs were imported lovingly from the Pamir itself! Or do you really care so little for our history that you can stand by and watch this happen with nothing more than a few rancid crocodile tears… my very, very young brother?”

  Revik clicked at her, sharper that time.

  “What do you think he would have done if you had remained allies?” he said drily.

  “Not this! He promised me. We had deals in place. That alliance was mutually beneficial for decades. It would be still, if your damned wife hadn’t––”

  He cut her off.

  “The means matter, sister,” he said, giving her a warning look. “Not only the ends. The ends are corrupted when those means are so foul.”

  “Don’t you fucking preach to me, you little shit! Barely off your mother’s teat, and you presume to lecture me about being a protector of our people!”

  Revik turned on her that time. Stopping in his tracks, he swiveled on his heel, arms folded as he looked down at her, an eyebrow raised.

  She glared up at him, her hands balled into fists at her side.

  Looking at her, Revik found his anger cooling.

  Something about the very realness of the emotion seething off of her light––or perhaps the simple fact of feeling real emotion off any seer––made it difficult for him to hold onto genuine anger.

  “Many have lost much, sister,” he told her quietly. “Not only you.”

  Staring up at him, she shocked him for real, perhaps for the first time in the years he had known her.

  She burst into tears.

  31

  SECOND OP

  I CROUCHED BEHIND a cement wall less than a hundred yards from the entrance to an underground bunker, in the pitch black and freezing cold of night.

  We’d been pushed back more hours than I liked.

  I could feel it starting now, though. I could feel things going on in faint pulses out of the main construct of the structure below.

  Some of those pulses made me nervous.

  I was tired, too… and sore. I’d barely had a chance to clean up.

  Cleaning up in this case meant having a med tech bandage the burn on my leg while she lectured me about the million things I shouldn’t be doing today that I knew I’d have to do regardless. Then I’d scrounged up some new pants.

  When I met back up with Jem, he added a number of new pieces to my wardrobe, including most of a human military uniform.

  At least Jem hadn’t started lecturing me.

  Weirdly, I found his presence to be the only one I could really tolerate right then, maybe in part because he wasn’t treating me like some kind of broken doll.

  I now stood hunched outside the smallest entrance to the complex we could find on the modified plans, feeling more or less like myself again. Situated at the far west-end of the complex, the back door entry had no road or land vehicle access at all; it could only be reached by hiking in on foot. It was also the highest up, so the furthest from the main living and work areas in use by the government, according to both Talei and Brooks.

  Dalejem alone crouched beside me, against the wall by the same OBE-protected fence.

  Currently, he was muttering under his breath in a language I didn’t know.

  “Do you mind?” I whispered, glancing back at him. When he met my gaze I rolled my eyes. “Does the term ‘clandestine op’ still confuse you, brother, after all your years of infiltration?”

  I saw him frown subtly at me, even in the dark.

  Granted, we had a little bit of a moon, but not enough of one for me to see much.

  Both of our breaths expelled steam from the cold air.

  “I could be yodeling right now, Esteemed Sister,” he informed me in his regular voice. “They wouldn’t hear us.”

  I frowned, but had to concede his point.

  There was definitely something going on down there in that security station. I only hoped it came from the projection our side set up, and not from them realizing it was a projection right before they hit the general alarm and started shooting at anything that moved.

  I also hoped our side remembered to get the fucking OBE down.

  Preferably within the next few minutes.

  “So what’s with the muttering?” I said, maybe to distract myself from worrying. “Are you cataloguing my sins, brother?”

  “I was praying for your immortal light,” he retorted.

  Snorting a laugh in spite of myself, I shook my head.

  Just then, the floodlights clicked on, washing out the whole segment of dirt and rocks and scrub oak visible beyond the gate to our right. Dalejem and I remained in shadow behind the cement wall. We both made our lights corpse-still as we heard a confused shout of unfamiliar voices, most of them speaking English, but also some in Prexci.

  “It’s a trick!” one of the Prexci voices said.

  The male’s voice had the stamp of authority. Anger infused his words.

  “There’s no one out here. It’s a goddamned projection… we’ve got a fucking mole. Check those new seers who came up here. The transfers. Check that bitch with the red eyes first.”

  Frowning, I glanced at Dalejem.

  Seeing him frown back, I rose to my feet.

  “Bridge!” he hissed. “The OBE!”

  Igniting the telekinesis, I reached up with my light.

  It didn’t take much. I’d mapped the whole system out already while we’d crouched there, so I knew exactly which transformers held the main current for the gates and which were just limited relays. Flexing the telekinesis the minimum amount, I crushed the nearest of those that fit the former category with my aleimi.

  Before my vision cleared, it exploded overhead in a shower of sparks.

  It was loud.

  Louder than I expected, truthfully.

  It made a sound like a shotgun report, echoing like I’d set the damned thing off inside a sewer pipe. The entire fence shimmered.

  Then, like mist dissolved by sun, the organic field evaporated off the gate.

  “That OBE?” I said to Jem, quirking an eyebrow at him.

  He cursed in Prexci, leaping to his feet even as I stepped to the very edge of the floodlights and promptly began firing. I did it as much to get them looking in our direction as anything, using the telekinesis to disable guns that swung our way, cracking one in half when I ignited the fusion cell inside the core.

  The seer holding it cried out, throwing it away from his body as it burned his hands.

  I moved to the next one and that seer yelled out, too, dropping the gun as he shrieked in fear.

  “Manipulator!” he cried out. “It’s the Sword!”

  Rolling my eyes, I snorted, glancing at Jem.

  “That’s sexist,” I said to him. “Don’t you think that’s sexist? I mean, I outrank him.”

  “Eyes on the fucking hotspots, your majesty,” Jem grunted, squeezing off another shot from where he held the rifle pressed against his shoulder.

  Returning my eyes to my own sights, I shot a human running for the security room, hitting him in the leg then using the telekinesis to knock him out when he started screaming. Extending my light, I scanned for others inside.

  Thank the gods. The shots panicked them. They’d emptied the place out.

  As it was, I had to hope like hell that Chan, Mara and Declan managed to isolate this station’s feeds and breach sirens from the rest of the system––better than they’d managed that fake projection. If they hadn’t, this might be a really short breach attempt.

  “Alyson!” Dalejem snapped.

  He was firing from next to me once more.

  I didn’t give him a glance that time but felt where his mind pointed, blowing out the floodlights with my aleimi before I stepped fully into where the light had been. He was still firi
ng at the line of seers and humans I could see standing there when I raised my own rifle once more, hitting another two guards in the shoulder and the thigh, trying my best to avoid major arteries.

  My light dipped a bit from the exertion, but not much.

  Truthfully “stop” was still a lot harder for me than “go” when it came to the telekinesis.

  Even so, I had to conserve my light. The telekinesis was pretty much our only real backup-backup plan if things got too dicey inside.

  I continued to use my light where it made sense, mainly for knocking humans out rather than shooting them, knowing I might not have that option once we got inside the construct for real. There were practical reasons for that; we only had so many bullets.

  There were other reasons, too, not all of them practical, per se.

  I really don’t like killing people.

  “This is not subtle, Esteemed Bridge,” Dalejem growled from beside me, stepping around bodies as he followed me to the organic door of the security station. “It might have been better if I’d yodeled earlier.”

  I let out a short laugh, shooting a human in the knee, then knocking him out with my light when I felt him trying to get through his jammed headset from the ground. Dalejem shot a different guard in the back as he ran for the security station.

  Once he had, things got quiet.

  Well, quieter anyway. No one was shooting at us anymore.

  I walked past the first line of bodies, wincing as I felt my light meet the main construct of the underground structure––then reacting again as I was enveloped by that same construct. Already crouching behind my denser shield, I glanced at Dalejem, but only after I’d walked most of the way to the security station.

  Without waiting, I entered, knowing he would follow. Checking the corners and running a quick scan, I tilted my rifle up.

  “Clear,” I said. Glancing at Jem, I preempted the lecture I saw forming behind his eyes. “The projection tactic was blown. I had to move fast.”

  Seeing that same projection that Mara and Declan created playing on the monitors, I frowned. It showed up via the program as reconstructions of Barrier images of an invasion force in full combat gear heading up the mountain, including paratroopers. It was supposed to get them to open the OBE and send a group down to investigate.

  That, combined with the re-routed security protocols to Declan’s team should have given us an easier way inside.

  I reached down and hit the keys to erase it before someone tried to access this station from outside and came up here to check it out. Glancing over the rest of the monitors, I made sure the general alarm hadn’t sounded.

  It hadn’t. The screens showed nothing but green.

  Exhaling in relief, I looked at Dalejem again.

  “Help me find the file,” I told him. “We gotta move. Someone will notice this.”

  Looking out the observation window to the bodies spread around outside in front of the gate, some of them breathing and some not, Dalejem snorted.

  “You think?” he said.

  Ignoring him, I clicked through a few more commands on the console. “Can you find the message Dec is supposed to have left? Mara said you were good at that kind of thing. It’s why I brought you for this part.”

  Dalejem exhaled in a sigh. Moving me out of the way, he clicked through commands faster than I had been. I felt his light slide into the organic console itself.

  “Careful,” I muttered.

  He didn’t give me so much as a glance.

  Even so, I felt the disparaging look his light exuded.

  I didn’t take my eyes off his hands or his light, watching him manipulate the aleimi of the organic machine with a skill and subtly that startled me. Within a few seconds I was completely immersed in what he was doing.

  I was also more than impressed by then. Truthfully, I was a bit awed.

  If I was seeing what I thought I was seeing, Dalejem was better than “good” with organics. I’d never seen any seer do what I watched him do in that handful of seconds.

  Well, apart from Garensche.

  I had no idea Dalejem was that good with the machines.

  I’d definitely have to remember that.

  Seeing a flashing part of the queue, I felt a vague whisper of Declan’s presence and reached for it––only to have my hand slapped down by Dalejem.

  “Do you mind?” he growled, giving me a hard look.

  His eyes returned to the console, his light once more submerged in the organics’ light and concentrating on what he’d been doing. Hitting through a few more sequences, he touched the queue marker Declan left only then.

  “Secondary security protocol,” he muttered, hitting through the code the team had agreed upon in advance. “Probably wouldn’t set off the alarm, but we can’t risk it.”

  “The password is ‘lizard-face-lady’?” I said, amused. “Really?”

  Dalejem grunted. “I wanted ‘the Bridge is a pain in my ass’ but I got voted down.”

  He hit a last key, then used his fingers in a sweeping motion to pull the data onto the monitor, releasing the packet with a smooth flick of his fingers.

  The screen reconfigured at once.

  Both Dalejem and I bent down, squinting at the three-dimensional map that appeared there, rotating slowly just out from the main screen. Flashing letters and numbers showed us different rooms. Colors coded the overall sections of the compound.

  Individual persons showed up as white lights.

  Each had been tagged, presumably by their aleimi or by trackers where our team couldn’t get an actual imprint. Right now, that meant Brooks, five of the remaining cabinet members, all four of our operatives inside, and––

  I pointed. “There.”

  “Got it.”

  I felt him take a snapshot with his light. I’d already done the same.

  Then both of us were out the door.

  32

  COVER STORY

  CHAN AND THE others must have found some way to clear most of the corridors between the small security station and the main compound.

  We met no one between that outpost and the edges of the second-level construct.

  When we penetrated that higher security area of the construct, I had both Dalejem and I wrapped in a much denser shield.

  I could feel light signatures up ahead though.

  A lot of them.

  “Where the fuck did you learn how to do that?” Dalejem grumbled at me.

  “What?” I looked at him, frowning.

  “That shield,” he said. “I’ve never felt anything like it. Not even from brother Balidor. How the hell did you learn to do that at your age?”

  I rolled my eyes.

  Even so, my frown deepened at the implied insult.

  “I’m the fucking Bridge, man,” I told him, my voice holding a faint bite despite the humor. “And enough with the ‘kid’ cracks, okay? Revik didn’t have to put up with that shit. I shouldn’t have to, either. Especially since I outrank him… which everyone seems to keep forgetting today for some reason.”

  Dalejem shook his head, clicking.

  I felt him about to argue with something I’d said, but I held up a hand, silencing him.

  “Guns down,” I whispered. “We’re coming up on someone. I don’t think they’ve ID’d us. We should just try to pass through.”

  Closing his mouth, Dalejem immediately shifted his light.

  Slinging my rifle over my shoulder, I glanced over as I felt him adopt a casual stride, slinging his own gun behind him and swinging his arms, his light exuding boredom.

  Well done, I thought.

  When I glanced up, I caught him staring at my face.

  “You’re enjoying this,” he said, his eyes incredulous. “Un-fucking-believable.”

  I shrugged, not changing expression.

  “Beats backgammon,” I said.

  He looked like he wanted to say more, but just then, voices echoed down the hall in front of us. Laughter, from what sounded l
ike at least four or five humans, since they were all speaking rapidly in English with American accents.

  We turned the corner, still walking casually, our faces set in nonchalance as we aimed our feet for the mess hall. As soon as we got close enough, I glanced inside the opening to the wider room, which had no door.

  Florescent lights flickered from a low ceiling. Most of the white metal tables were empty, although a cluster of backs faced us on the far end where a group huddled under a monitor, passing around what might have been a joint, or maybe just a cigarette, since those were increasingly rare these days, too.

  Nearer to us, two muscular males in tank-top undershirts that looked military issue, fatigues and dog tags hung over a table where four more humans sat, two male and two female. They were playing cards.

  Those closer humans glanced up as we passed, but barely spared us a glance.

  I got more of a once-over than Dalejem did, which maybe wasn’t surprising since it was mostly male humans looking. The biggest of the group gave me an appreciative smile after letting his eyes linger on my legs, ass and chest.

  “You new here, lovely?” he called as we kept walking.

  “Not that new, cowboy,” I snorted, rolling my eyes.

  Three of them laughed, and now I had two other males watching me too, their eyes faintly predatory as they looked me over.

  “You look awful nice in those pants, captain,” the first one drawled, adjusting his belt meaningfully as he stared at me.

  I flipped him off, earning another laugh from the group.

  I glanced at Dalejem, rolling my eyes, human style. I used my California accent more obviously when I added, “Fucking Seals, man. All ego, no dick.”

  That earned me a hoot from the men, presumably in part because I recognized their branch even without their uniforms. Dalejem and I didn’t stop walking, so the calls grew further in the distance after we turned another corner in the underground maze.

  Once we were well out of sight and earshot, I felt a pulse of irritation off Dalejem, right before he touched my arm.

  “That was… not inconspicuous,” he muttered.