by M. R. Forbes
His face changed again. Curiosity. His left eye lowered as if he had a tic.
“Queenie, this is Lucifer,” Bastion said. “I’m tailing two Outworlders who were acting a little funny. They’re coming your way.”
“It isn’t two,” Airi said. “I’m tracking three more. They look like they’re networked.”
“Are you calling for backup?” Abbey asked.
The Trover looked at her. “What? Do I look like I need backup to handle you?”
“No. I’m wondering, though. How do you keep order in a place like this? You’ve got lots of weapons for sale right outside.”
“Is that a threat? Mamma and I don’t like threats.”
There was a bit of commotion coming from behind them.
“Queenie, I’m counting twelve at least,” Pik said.
“More than that,” Gant said. “They’re coming from outside. What the frag?”
“Shit,” Abbey said. “Will Mamma see me?”
He smiled and stepped aside. “It’s your lucky day.” The door behind him slid open. “She’s been hoping someone would show up with some intel on Kett.”
Abbey took a step toward the door.
All hell broke loose behind her.
42
Shots echoed through the space as Abbey dropped to the ground, rolling over to find the targets that had painted her. They were closing in from all sides, shooting through anyone who got in their way, an assortment of individuals in a variety of dress that seemed to be producing weapons from every nook and cranny on their bodies.
Ill had just enough time to scream before a hundred rounds tore into him, digging deep into his flesh, some of them going completely through. His body wavered for a moment before toppling.
“Cut those assholes down,” Abbey said, bunching herself and pushing off, the softsuit sending her bouncing toward the open door. Bullets hit the walls around her, somehow managing to miss as she slammed into the back of the lift.
“On it,” Airi said.
“This is more like it,” Pik said.
Abbey rolled over, pulling the laser pistol from her thigh. The first of the targets cleared the masses, and she squeezed off a pair of rounds, the laser quickly burning through his eye and into his skull. He was still falling as the lift doors slid closed and she started to rise.
She could hear the fighting intensify, even though she couldn’t see it. She pulled herself to her feet, quickly checking herself to ensure she wasn’t hit. She noticed a bullet hole in her coat, and she pushed it aside, revealing the softsuit beneath. It too had a hole, a stain of blood around it.
“Damn it,” Abbey cursed. She wasn’t hurting. She hadn’t even felt the round hit her. She dug her finger into the hole, surprised when she couldn’t find any torn skin and didn’t feel any pain. What the hell?
The lift stopped. The doors opened. A pair of guards trained a pair of guns on her head.
“Drop the weapon,” one of them said.
She did.
“I need to talk to Mamma,” Abbey said.
“Mamma needs to talk to you.”
The Rudin was at the back of the room, looking out through the one-way transparency to the space below. She didn’t turn to look at Abbey. “Let her over.”
The guards moved aside. Abbey made her way to the window. She looked out, checking on the fighting below. She found Pik first. He had one of the Outworlders in his grip, and she watched as he crushed the Terran, snapping his spine and tossing him away, ducking as bullets flew over his head. They smacked into the transparency right in front of her without leaving a mark.
She found Gant and Airi next, paired up and defending against a few more of the assholes, trading fire from behind an overturned table. Bastion was nearby, hunkered down and staying low while the munitions crossed overhead.
Where was Benhil?
“Do you bring this kind of chaos everywhere you go?” Mamma asked, still not looking at her. Abbey could hear her beak cracking beneath the translation.
“It seems like it lately,” Abbey replied. “You don’t seem concerned.”
“I’m very concerned.” That was the only thing she said about it. “Tell me what you know about Sylvan Kett.”
“I need intel,” Abbey said. “Two ships. The Fire and the Brimstone. Someone took them.”
“His name is Ursan Gall. He’s an Outworld mercenary.”
“Which means he’s working for someone.”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
Mamma didn’t answer. Abbey knew the game.
“I was with the Fifth on Gradin,” she said. “I’m a Breaker.”
“What did you find?”
Abbey didn’t respond.
“Ursan Gall works for an individual named Thraven. He’s a very dangerous individual.”
“He’s an Outworlder?”
“He is in the Outworlds. He isn’t an Outworlder. Though I suppose that depends on your definition.”
Abbey watched as one of the cleaning bots she had seen earlier approached one of the targets from behind. Its fingers came together, creating a point, before lunging forward and into the man’s back. She found another bot further away. It had produced a gun from somewhere and was shooting at the enemy. It sparked and hissed and sent up a plume of smoke as a round of fire from the rear of the space destroyed it.
“Queenie, where are you?” Bastion said. “We’re not having the best time down here.”
“I’m with Mamma. You need to hold the line. All of you.”
“Roger,” Gant said.
“Mamma,” one of her guards said. “We need to get you out of here. Eln is reporting a problem in the tunnels, and an unmarked ship just showed up in orbit. It isn’t responding to hails from Planetary Control.”
“Who are you that he wants you so badly?” Mamma said, finally turning a large eye to her.
“I’m nobody,” Abbey replied. “Just someone stuck in something they don’t understand.”
A pair of tentacles snapped out from Mamma, quickly wrapping themselves around her wrists and pulling tight.
“What do you know?” Mamma screamed, the snap of her beak so loud it hurt her ears.
“Not enough. That’s why I came to you.”
“About Kett. What do you know? Gradin? Hurry.”
“I picked up a mainframe there. It was Republic, marked special ops. It had been erased before I grabbed it.”
“Not erased, stupid girl,” Mamma said. “Too valuable to erase.”
“You know what was on it?”
“I know it belonged to Kett. You said you’re a Breaker?”
“Yes. I tried to retrieve the data, but I got arrested before I was able to finish.”
Her beak clattered together in laughter. “They took you.” Another tentacle reached up, finding the false skin on her neck and pulling it away, revealing the brand beneath. “Hell.”
The facility shook as a large explosion rocked it.
“Queenie,” Bastion said, worried.
“Mamma, we have to go,” the guard said.
“You don’t know what you’ve gotten yourself into, girl. You should have stayed in Hell. You would have been-” She stopped talking, her eye falling on the hole in Abbey’s softsuit. A fourth tentacle reached up and poked it. It immediately shot up to her face. “Oh.”
“The ships,” Abbey said. “I need to know where Ursan Gall took them.”
“To Thraven,” Mamma said.
“Where?”
“I don’t know everything.”
The facility shook again. Abbey turned her head to look down on the fighting. There was blood everywhere. Bodies everywhere. Broken pieces of beaten bots everywhere. Soldiers were moving in, in black lightsuits like the ones the guards on Hell had been wearing. The Rejects had closed ranks, part of the remaining opposition.
“Tell me what you do know, and make it fast. My team is down there. They’re buying you time to escape. You fragging owe me.”
; “Thraven’s been at the edge of the Outworlds for years. Nobody knows exactly where he came from. Some say unexplored space. He’s been recruiting, building a military.”
“And the Republic doesn’t know about this?”
“I’ve heard that he has influence in the Republic as well. That his hand reaches everywhere. Like Hell.”
“You know about Hell? Does the title High Honorant mean anything to you?”
“Thraven calls himself a Gloritant.”
“So the theft of the Fire and Brimstone is related to the bullshit on Hell.” She paused. “The way you reacted to my wound. You know what they did to me, don’t you?”
“Not exactly. I’ve heard they’ve been taking people and making them harder to kill. Now I know it is true.”
“How?”
“I told you, I don’t know everything.”
“Where did you get the intel from? I need a name. A location. Something.”
“You aren’t going to make it out of here alive.”
“Don’t tell me what I will and won’t do. Give me a fragging name.”
“I can’t divulge my sources. My business will be ruined.”
“Look around, you stupid squid. Your business is already ruined. I don’t know Thraven, but you said he’s building a military. He also just stole two of the most powerful starships in the universe. What does that say to you? Even if you rebuild, it isn’t going to do much good without any customers.”
Mamma stared at her a moment. “Drune,” she said at last. “There’s a Skink there named Yolem. He sold me the information about Thraven.” She let Abbey go, pulling back her tentacles. “You brought this on us. You brought them here. He wants you. The mainframe. He wants you to finish decrypting it.”
“Why?”
“Kett knows the truth. That’s why the Republic turned on him.”
“How do I find Kett?”
“Nobody finds Kett. We’re done. I’m leaving.”
“You have another way out?”
“My way out, girl. You find your own way. I told you that you’re going to die.”
Abbey glanced out again. More of Thraven’s soldiers were arriving, shooting anything that moved. She couldn’t allow herself to believe she had caused this mess, but she couldn’t deny it either. Why had Thraven come here, now? Because she was here or because he had guessed someone would find their way to Mamma to ask about the ships? He didn’t seem like someone who wanted to be found. Not yet, anyway.
“Gant,” Abbey said.
“Queenie?”
“I need you to get the others up here.”
“How?”
“There’s a lift by the dead Trover.”
“Looks locked.”
“Come on, Gant.”
“Fine. On it.”
The two guards put their guns to her head again.
“You aren’t coming with me,” Mamma said. “You brought this destruction. This death. You’ve ruined me. You’re a demon. You belong back in Hell.” She turned away, heading for a secret door that opened at the side of the room. “Kill her.”
43
The guard on her left put his gun closer to her head, touching the barrel to it. Abbey surprised herself with her calm. She decided she wasn’t going to die. Not today.
He began to squeeze the trigger. She could feel the motion beneath her skin, acute and almost painful, as though it was warning her of the impending shot. She snapped her head forward as the bullet fired, the heat of the muzzle flash burning the back of her neck. The bullet itself missed, the slug hitting the armored transparency and scuffing it before it fell to the ground.
She swung her arm back, catching the guard in the face, the power of her blow enhanced by the softsuit. His nose crumbled beneath the force, and he fell backward.
She was already shifting again, dropping low and spinning, bringing her leg around and into the other guard’s ankles, knocking him over. She rolled on top of him as he hit the ground, punching him hard in the side of the head and putting him out, too.
She picked up the guard’s gun, firing it into the wall beside Mamma Oissi.
“Wait up,” she said.
Mamma rotated on her tentacles, half of them reaching up toward her robe. Abbey fired, hitting one of the tentacles, which exploded in bits of fatty flesh. Mamma shrieked, the other three appendages producing three separate guns. “Stupid girl.”
Abbey bounced from her position, evading the Rudin’s attack, rotating herself in the air and pushing off the nearby wall. Mamma tried to track her, rounds whizzing past, one of them clipping her shoulder and sending a momentary flare of pain from the spot. She landed, ducking down, firing again, hitting Mamma’s robe, which absorbed the attack.
The lift doors slid aside, the rest of the Rejects piling out into the room. They were sweaty, dirty, and in Pik’s case slightly bloody, but otherwise still in one piece.
“Queenie,” Gant said. “We’re-”
He saw Mamma turning one of the weapons toward him. He reacted like a gunslinger, the laser pistol he had bought coming up to his hip, the tight beam visible as it pierced her eye. A moment later, she vanished beneath a storm of fire from all of the Rejects.
“What the frag is going on out there?” Benhil said. “It’s like fragging Armageddon.”
“It might be worse than that,” Abbey said, quickly checking her shoulder. Once more, there was the hint of damage, but no damage to be found.
“Mamma Oissi, I presume?” Gant said, waving his gun at the dead Rudin.
“She used to be,” Abbey replied.
Something thunked into the transparency to their right, sticking to it. Abbey recognized the ordnance instantly.
“Get down.”
She fell onto her stomach as the munition exploded, blowing out the transparency in thousands of small shards. She was up again in an instant, turning toward the broken shield as the first of the lightsuits began bouncing up to it.
She opened fire, knocking two of them to the ground as they arrived. “Let’s go,” she said, pointing toward the secret passage Mamma had opened.
A few more of the enemy soldiers bounced to the space, quickly knocked back by the combined firepower of the Rejects. They moved into the hallway together, Abbey waving them past as she lingered near the door. She shot one more of the soldiers before hitting a control pad there, closing the hatch and hopefully hiding them once more.
The Rejects ran along the hidden passage. They traveled a few hundred meters, spilling out into a separate shuttle passage, where a lone shuttle was waiting, another pair of guards waiting with it.
“Don’t,” Bastion said as they emerged. Five guns were trained on the guards, and they responded by putting up their hands. “Thank you for your cooperation.”
They boarded the shuttle. Bastion found the controls, turning the craft on and getting it moving. They burst away, forward a few seconds before looping back and accelerating. The ride was short; no more than thirty seconds. It stopped in a much smaller station that fed out to a ramp.
“Where are we?” Benhil asked.
The ceiling above them shook, chunks of dirt spilling in a cloud of dust.
“Under the city?” Airi guessed. “I only see one way out.”
“They’re attacking the city?” Bastion said. “Damn. What the frag did I get myself into?”
“It’s better than Hell,” Pik said.
“Come on,” Abbey said. It wasn’t like they had a choice in direction.
They ran up the ramp to the round hatch at the end. It slid open, revealing a war zone behind it. Small, dark ships zoomed overhead, firing plasma cannons and projectile weapons, strafing the area as they passed. There was a large, rounded ship nearby, already on fire, sending plumes of smoke into the air.
“Spaceport,” Gant said. “Nice.”
“Ruby,” Abbey said, hoping the Faust had slipped the attention of the invading force.
“Queenie,” she replied. “The planet is under attack
.”
“I’m aware. What’s your situation?”
“They are ignoring the unregistered ships in orbit and attacking planetary defense. Shrikes, but not like any I have in my database.”
“Can you tell if the Imp is in one piece?”
“One moment. Checking. Yes. I’m able to reach its communications equipment.”
“Great. We’re on our way. Be ready to get the Faust away from here.”
“Yes, Queenie.”
“Queenie, you do realize the Imp is on the other side of the spaceport?” Bastion said.
Abbey looked up. There were at least a dozen Shrikes hovering near the spaceport, circling and strafing. Would they attack if they saw them running?
A plasma bolt whipped past them, making up her mind for her. She followed the path back to the shooter, another soldier in a black lightsuit. He was hit with a laser a moment later, falling to the ground and not moving.
“I like this gun,” Gant said. “A little underpowered, maybe, but I can fix that.”
“I thought Gant don’t use guns,” Bastion said.
“Most of us,” Gant replied. “It’s hard to find one with the right grip, and Queenie can tell you how expensive. But I was a Republic soldier too, or has that fact slipped your tiny little brain?”
“Come on,” Abbey said, defusing their next round of insults.
She bounced ahead, using the softsuit to take long strides forward. She crouched as she came down, scanning the area before bouncing again. She made it nearly three hundred meters before spotting an incoming Shrike.
“Cover,” she said, ducking beneath an already battered ship. The Shrike dove in, firing rounds of plasma across the area that hissed as they hit the ground.
Abbey waited for the others to catch up before moving out from the cover, keeping her gun ready and her eyes sharp. The air was hot from all of the fires. It reminded her of Hell.
“Three o’clock,” Bastion announced, a stream of fire launching from his pistol.
Abbey shifted her weapon, finding a squad of soldiers moving in. They fired back, their bullets all aimed at her. If Mamma Oissi had thought Thraven wanted her alive, she was wrong. Maybe dead wrong.
