by Natalie Grey
Loki gave a shrug. “If they all buy me top-shelf liquor, it’s not a big deal. If you think I’m going to flirt for rail drinks, though….”
There was a round of laughter as they came out into the street.
A very empty street, that suddenly had fifteen well-armed men in it.
“Evening.” One of them gave an unpleasant look at Loki. “You might have distracted the boss, but you didn’t distract us. So, why don’t we all have a little chat, Mister….”
“Behind you,” Talon said.
“Mister … what?” The mercenary team looked at them.
Loki tried not to give a snort.
“He means,” Sphinx said, pulling her skirt up and yanking her gun out, “that you should really look behind you before you try to corner people.”
The man had only managed to turn half the way around before a shot took him in the forehead and he fell heavily to the pavement.
“Good evening,” Jester’s voice said out of the darkness.
16
There was a moment of stunned silence while the mercs looked at their leader, lying on the pavement. Tersi marked the way they were spread, head turning, and caught sight of Sphinx working her feet carefully side to side. He frowned, and then realized what she was going for as the heels slid off and, with a shiver, the sole of the shoe flattened.
The Alliance labs really did do good work. Now that he looked, he could see a hem where her skirt would tear away and leave her able to move freely.
Presumably, while he did his best not to look at her bare legs. He caught her eyes and she smiled at him. He could still hear her low voice as she’d brushed past him on the way out: don’t worry, I’ll wear it later tonight, too.
As far as Tersi was concerned, that meant that these mercs were standing between him and a very good night. Poor bastards.
Unfortunately, they were still too dumb to realize what they were dealing with. Fourteen heads swiveled back and one of them smiled coldly.
“That was a mistake, muffin. Now we get to kill you.”
“I guess this concludes the talking portion of the evening,” Talon murmured.
Tersi was still laughing as he pulled the side of his suit jacket up, yanked the pistol out of its holster, and shot the dude in the face. It was only a split second later that four others fell, and a quick glance—he did, after all, write the team’s performance reviews—showed that it had been Jim, Sphinx, Loki, and Talon who had shot.
They had a saying in the Dragons: the difference between a professional and an amateur was that the professional started the fight. Talon had done well to pick up that kid, even if he did look infuriatingly good with Sphinx.
The remaining ten mercs had the good sense to scatter toward the edges of the alley, but unfortunately for them, the dragons had had the same idea. Gomer and Jim peeled off to Tersi’s left, Jim giving a whoop as he tackled one of the men onto the ground, and Jester and Vampire appearing out of the darkness on the other side.
“Loki, Sphinx, left. Tersi, you’re with me.” Talon’s voice was pitched over the sound of gunfire, and Tersi followed him down the center of the alley, leaving the chaos of the fight behind them. It was 3 against 5 for both sets of Dragons, but he didn’t have a doubt in the world that they would have it wrapped up in short order with only minor scratches to show for it.
Still…. He turned as he ran, whipping his suit coat off and throwing it toward Sphinx. The cloth sewn into the lining didn’t just confuse security systems, it functioned as pretty respectable bullet-proofing—something her dress simply didn’t cover enough skin to do. She grinned as she caught it, and whirled around to lash out at one of the men with her elbow, immediately back to business.
He was falling in love. Tersi turned, still moving, and fell in with Talon again, who shot him a wicked grin.
“You know, don’t you?” Son of a bitch. They thought they’d been so careful.
Talon started laughing as he whipped his arms down for a moment to release the knives held along his forearms. They slid out to flip in his fingers. “Everyone knows, man.”
“You could have said you knew,” Tersi muttered. “You covering, or am I?” They were coming up on the mouth of the alley, and he knew that Talon had brought them here to head off the second wave of mercs.
“There are ten coming from both directions,” Nyx’s voice said in their ears. “I’d take the ones on the right first, actually.”
“I’ll cover.” Talon dropped behind Tersi for a moment, and headed for the right side of the alley. “Just think, the sooner you get through them, the sooner we get back to the ship and you and Sphinx get some alone time.”
Tersi launched himself out into the middle of the group, hearing Nyx’s laughter as they went down in a heap. “Oh, I know,” he called over to Talon as he picked one up and landed a series of punches down the man’s front. The man went down in a heap and Tersi grabbed his gun as he fell, shooting two of the ones still on their feet before taking out the one on the ground.
At his side, a man launched himself up, only to spin and fall as Talon’s shot caught him in the shoulder. Tersi’s foot came down with crushing force on the man’s chest piece, and Talon’s warning shout kept him down as four shots took out the other two on that side.
Another shout, Sphinx’s voice, and she and Gomer came out of nowhere to launch themselves into the fray, feet and fists lashing out until all that was left was silence and the four of them standing panting in the middle of the road.
“Guys.” It was Jim’s voice. “You’re gonna want to see this.”
Tersi turned along with the rest, and his jaw dropped.
“Son of a….” Sphinx muttered.
Tersi had sparred with Loki a few times, and he’d counted himself lucky to get out with all his bones unbroken. Only now, however, did he realize just how lucky he’d been. Either Loki had been holding back, or he’d learned to tap into something deeper than what sparring brought out in him.
Now Tersi understood why Talon had nicknamed the kid Loki. On the mats inside the Ariane, he was pure grace and speed. Here, in the dark, he was pure chaos. What was happening wasn’t pretty and there was, Tersi was sure, no way in hell to teach it, but when the dust settled, there were ten bodies on the ground and Loki standing alone in the middle.
“New team rule,” Talon said quietly. “No one piss off Loki.”
“Agreed,” came all fourteen voices over the comms.
Loki was smiling tentatively. “Was that good?”
“Yeah, kid.” Nyx sounded like she was smiling. “Yeah, that was pretty damned good. Hope you’re still up for some cardio, though, there are about forty police cars headed your way.”
“Run,” Talon said succinctly, and the Dragons scattered into the night.
“Goddammit.” Christian stared around himself at the bodies on the ground.
“I’ll have you know it was your date who did a good chunk of this.” At his side, Killian Brooker was white with fury. “You might have told me what we were up against. If you had, anyone could have told you we needed more than 40 men.”
Christian looked over at him. “Why? What was this?”
Killian looked for a moment like he very much wanted to kill the man. He leaned in and snarled the words. “Those were Dragons.”
“The Dragons are moving weapons to Ymir?”
“I don’t fucking care what they’re doing!” The mercenary’s shout echoed off the walls of the alley. His hand was gripping Christian’s arm with bruising force, “I don’t give a damn. What I care about is the fact that there are 35 bodies here and if we’d known what we were up against, some of them might still be alive!”
Christian felt ice in his veins. Dragons. The people moving the weapons were Dragons, and he….
“So we’ll use more next time.” He looked up at Brooker and felt only contempt for the emotion he saw in the man’s face. “What? Don’t tell me you didn’t realize combat was dangerous.”
&
nbsp; “I realize that the best way to set up a fight is to stack the odds—” Brooker began.
Christian yanked his arm out of the other man’s grip. “I don’t think you understand why you were hired. If you want a nice, easy life, go work at a desk. You’re mercenaries. You’re trained to fight people who are trying to kill you.”
“Dragons are something else entirely.”
“I don’t give a damn.” Christian looked around him. “Every man here failed. That’s why they’re dead. Next time, we’re not going to fail. So get your head out of your ass and tell me what you need to take them out, and don't bother me with the funeral arrangements.”
Brooker was white with fury, but he knew better than to kill a client, and Christian felt a thrill of satisfaction as the man swallowed and stepped back.
“Anything else?” His voice was ugly, and it twisted when he saw the expectant expression on Christian’s face. “Sir.”
“You know,” Christian said silkily. “There is one more thing. The one who took down so many of your men. You’re free to do anything you like to him when you catch him—provided you then deliver him to me alive.”
17
Two hours before curfew, and Samara took her time picking over rations in the black market that had sprung up around the barracks. The Kell mercenaries liked to sell some of their more varied and abundant rations for exorbitant prices—only some of which were money.
Samara looked away from where a smiling guard was whispering a request in the ear of a citizen. She had seen the same thing hundreds of times, often without any sort of bargain offered. The Warlord’s pets had free rein to do whatever they liked to the citizens.
Normally she forced herself to look away and forget, but she knew today, if she saw it, she was liable to do something stupid. She’d been keyed up all day, only pretending to be calm, and now she was waiting for her opening.
She looked up as she heard the loudspeakers telling everyone to get out of the way. Over the course of the day, people would be arrested for petty little disobediences—as often as not, there wasn’t even a crime listed—and held in the little jails around the district. In the late afternoon, they would be moved to the holding cells in the barracks. Right now they were being moved, stumbling along the road with their faces blank and terrified.
Samara waited until the shopkeepers were scrambling to get their merchandise out of view—the market was technically banned—and then, in the chaos, as the guards made a show of pretending to look things over and keep the peace, she ducked into the center of the knot of prisoners.
One or two of them gave her shocked looks, but they huddled around her to form a protective wall. She was crazy, their looks said, but they weren’t going to rat her out to the guards.
It was a few minutes before the guards declared that the shops were all in order, and Samara saw more than a few of them collecting their own earnings in the process. They were hardly going to shut down the shops they themselves supplied. She ground her teeth and told herself that when this was all over, she would make sure every single one of them paid for what they had done.
The prisoners were yanked into motion again, and despite her plans, despite knowing she had to do this—she had to get Stefan back—Samara felt the bottom of her stomach drop out as the heavy barracks doors swung open….
And shut behind them with a terrifying finality.
“What do you mean, he hasn’t talked?” India stared at the young guard, her braided hair pinned neatly to her head, and looked over her uniform. No dirt, no water … no blood. “What have you been doing, throwing him a tea party?”
“Ma’am—” The guard’s voice trailed off in a squeak at the look on India’s face.
“Were you trained in interrogation?”
“I … no, ma’am.”
“So, what exactly were you doing to our guest?” India stood up and made her way around the desk, straightening her uniform. The girl stood petrified.
India waited.
“I, um.” The girl looked down at her feet and seemed to give a little prayer. She laced her hands behind her back. “I told him that—”
“Look at me when you’re talking to me.”
The girl’s head jerked up. “I told him that it was clear he was part of the resistance, and that if he were to be charged with that, his family’s life would be forfeit.”
India sighed. The girl’s instincts weren’t wrong, but she lacked finesse.
And breaking someone’s spirit required, above all, finesse.
“Come with me.” She noted the name on the girl’s uniform. “Bismarck. What’s your first name?”
“Sara.” The girl looked over. She was walking half a step behind India, very properly.
Perhaps this district wasn’t entirely a lost cause.
The guards at the holding cells noted India’s name and uniform and stood aside without being ordered. She liked that. Clearly, someone had told them not to do anything stupid. Was it too much to hope that the someone in question had been Captain Eddis?
Probably.
The man they had caught was in the very last cell. He could hear the other prisoners, but he was far from them, held apart. India wondered if that had been good instincts again on the part of Bismarck, or just lucky coincidence.
India squatted down and peered at the man through the bars. Sandy hair fell into his eyes, and he had the lean body of someone who worked too hard and ate too little. He was leaning against the back wall, bruises blooming all over his torso. They’d been made haphazardly, by someone who plainly knew that torture involved hurting people, but who’d had no plan beyond that.
Good Lord, these people were incompetent.
“Stefan.” India made her voice sweet. She smiled when his head jerked up. “Do you know who I am?”
He stared at her, plainly wanting to answer out of politeness, and holding himself back when he remembered who and what she was. He looked down again.
Which meant he was almost certainly part of the resistance. If not yet, then he would be soon. Anyone with sense would be groveling right now. This man was clearly disobedient by nature.
“I’m Sergeant Quince,” India told him. “I have been tasked, personally, by the Warlord himself, with ridding Io District of the resistance.”
He did not look up, but his body went tense.
“Yes,” India said simply. “Which means you and I are allies now, Stefan.”
Now he did look up, as if he thought she were crazy—and then, when her smile did not slip, as if he knew the shape of what was coming.
“I very much want you to tell me everything about your fellow soldiers in the resistance,” India said, her voice still sweet and soft. “And you want to live, don’t you, Stefan? You want your family to live—your little brother, your father, your mother, that sweet cousin of yours.”
The look in his eyes changed. It was cold and deep, as ugly as anything she had ever seen. It promised death.
“You’re in a cell, Stefan,” India told him. “You can’t reach me. You can’t save them with a gun. But you could save them so much more easily than that. Just a few words, not even an hour of your time, Stefan, and they could be safe forever.” She might even keep that promise, when all was said and done. She might send that family to the capital, and see if an easy life might tempt away a few more spies and defectors. Let the word get out.
It was a thought.
“It would be so easy, Stefan. So easy to save them. Because you’ve condemned them, you know. Your choices are the reason they’ll have to die.” He was crying. How pathetic. “Stefan, you and I aren’t so very different. We were both born here on Ymir.”
He looked up at her, and he snarled. His lip curled, and he made a growling sound, like an animal. India’s contempt must have been plain in her face, but he didn’t back down.
“We are nothing alike. I want justice. I want peace. You want—”
“Justice, and peace.” India smiled. “What has th
e Warlord truly taken from you, Stefan? Had you been born here without his guardianship, you would have been a miner, in any case. Instead of quotas from the Warlord, you would have had the quotas handed to you by the mine owners. Instead of rations bought at the commissary, you would have bought them from … who? Does it matter? Do you think you would have lived a life of luxury on this little backwater planet?”
He said nothing.
“The Warlord took nothing from you,” India told him. “Only from others like himself. And you want to tear apart the districts with violence and revolution, while I? I simply want things to be quiet. Peaceful.”
“You cannot cage people and expect them to be happy with scraps,” Stefan told her. “If we were free to leave, if we could expect more from life—” He broke off when an arc of light leapt across the cell from India’s taser and shocked him into a scream.
“Wrong,” India said quietly. “When you say the wrong things, it will hurt and you will only condemn your family to death. When you say the right things, your family will be spared, and there will be no more pain. So, let me ask again—”
“Excuse me. Sergeant Quince?” The voice was new.
India gave a sigh and looked up at the ceiling for a moment before turning her head. “Yes? Who are you?”
“Eddis, ma’am.” The new officer bobbed her head. Close-cropped brown hair lay over a remarkably clean face, and she even wore her gloves. It would be impressive … if she hadn’t interrupted an interrogation that was going well.
“Captain Eddis is—”
“Oh, I’m just a Petty Officer. My name’s Emily.” The woman smiled, blushed, and then swallowed at the look on India’s face. “Captain Eddis is my uncle. I’m not looking for any special treatment, ma’am—”
“Good.” India stood up. “Because you will get none from me. Results are what get my approval, do you understand?”
“Yes, ma’am.” The girl looked eager to please. “My uncle says he’d like to see you, ma’am.”
