New Praetorians 1 - Sienna McKnight

by R. K. Syrus

  What now?

  Any more thinking and she’ll be as dead as messiest urinator ever. Rasul has most certainly shuffled off his smelly mortal coil with the help of her hyper-accelerated tooth.

  That really, really happened.

  Their three-person world has turned inside out and become a two-person world. Ghazan stumbles back to the corner of the cell. He wipes at his eyes, smearing gore in a thick stripe.

  “You salope! You shot him—I kill you!”

  His rage is terror-fueled and bloodlust-driven, and it is incoherent. He grabs the closest thing, the boltless AK. Holding it like a club, he lunges. The clumsy attempt to crush her skull snaps her back into reality.

  She’s been here. She’s done this. A thousand times. In play, practice, and war. An enemy coming at her with lethal intent, well, that’s just like the feeling of her bare feet hitting the cold barracks floor after 4 a.m. reveille at boot camp.

  Sienna flips the switch. The stillness of a fight settles on her. She dodges the butt of the rifle coming wildly at her head with room to spare.

  Way obvious, dick.

  Her leg, the one she worked quietly and diligently to get feeling back into, kicks out. Its shin hits the attacker’s extended knee. Something snaps. Ghazan falls and howls. Coolly, she watches him crawl back to the bench, one leg gratifyingly twisted.

  Good. He won’t be trying to stand up and bash my head in again anytime soon.

  Ghazan’s hair hangs in sweaty streaks. Dripping glasses hang half off his face. In seconds he has gone from looking forward to directing an execution video, to being alone, disabled, and wracked with pain.

  He loses the last shreds of his wits. Ghazan forgets about his ideals. Vanished are the highfalutin arguments he had with professors in Paris. Gone are thoughts of how much he hates his parents.

  All this descendant of Pashtuni tribesmen can think about is ripping into his enemy with nail and tooth if he has to. Most importantly, he forgets about Round Head.

  Instead, Ghazan’s lust for the kill causes him to tunnel-vision focus on one thing: re-inserting the bolt carrier of the AK.

  His sole need is to perforate Sienna with as many 7.62mm holes as possible. Normally, reassembly would take about five seconds with steady hands. Ghazan’s hands are not steady. They twitch and shake. At first, he turns the bolt the wrong way round. Then he lets the rifle slip off his lap.

  Ghazan is in shock.

  It is one thing to kill prisoners while they are chained and on their knees. Captives aren’t supposed to shoot back with some kind of hidden weapon.

  Sienna can read Ghazan’s thoughts on his face as though he were shouting them.

  We aren’t supposed to get killed. He glances at the lump of former Chechen. This is so… unfair!

  Sienna pulls at her shackles. The rifle is problematic. At this range, even this idiot will eventually hit her. She looks to her hands. What just happened? What did I do?

  Her life depends on the right answer. Could it be some residue of charge from the broken RAPTEK? It is, was, only supposed to work on metal. Was there a filling in that tooth?

  No time.

  Only chance is to hope I can do it again. Just once more.

  She looks for something—a rock, a nail, anything. Sienna’s eyes search the small space in reach of her hands or feet. Nothing. Only dirt and filth. The bucket? No. Too big. Anything usable has to be about the size of a fléchette projectile.

  As if there’s any logic to this! She snarls. Her chains rattle and clank.

  Sienna glances up. Ghazan presses his back against the wall farthest from her. Does he know he’s wearing a facial of gray matter puree? The Pashtun has gathered enough sense to realize his worst nightmare is still chained up. And he has the gun. If only he can put the pieces in the right spots.

  Drool quivers down from his lips. He locks the rifle bolt home in the correct position for firing. Fingers fumble with the magazine, trying to slot it. There’s a unique backward and forward motion needed to load this model of AK. On the first try, Ghazan misses it. He barks an incoherent caveman grunt of frustration.

  Alarm builds inside her. Not panic, never panic. But close enough as the magazine finds its spot. The well-oiled bolt racks backward with a distinctive ca-check.

  The metallic sound echoes pitilessly between bare walls.

  Sienna feels something scrape against her left shackle. Her class ring. Under the blasted remnants of her gloves. They haven’t stolen it.

  But how can my ring work? The RAPTEK had no effect on it. That’s why I didn’t take it off.

  In a bizarre flash, she recalls picking the ring’s design in her senior year at West Point. Bryan suggested the more ladylike casting. She wanted something substantial, just in case she had to punch someone. The men’s style was also cheaper and even less expensive when Ennis gave her a chunky tourmaline stone to have set in it. It was a memento of all the good times they had since they met during the Battle of Beast March.

  Sienna looks at it. The shiny band is crusted with blood and mud. Her captors had either not seen it or had each been waiting for a chance to steal it for themselves.

  However she’s kept it, the trick now is getting it off before Ghazan starts shooting.

  Sienna can just barely put her hand to her mouth. She prizes the ring off with her teeth, the front ones which the late Chechen so thoughtfully left intact. With effort and loss of skin, it comes off. She spits it into her right palm just like the tooth.

  The charging bolt of the AK slams forward.

  A rifle bullet is in the chamber behind the slant-tongued muzzle. Eight millimeters wide, it is a suddenly huge pit aiming at her chest. She’s not looking at the Pashtun or his weapon. Sienna concentrates on her hand and the object in it.

  “USMA” is inscribed on the side… there’s something else—her class motto. She helped translate it with a Latin dictionary. The side of the ring is too crusted with crud to read.

  What is it? What a stupid thing to forget… to think of now.

  Sienna stares at the ring. And then it isn’t in her palm anymore. For a measureless instant, it floats up between her fingers.

  Oh yeah.

  Et factus est vera lucis tenebra

  “In darkness…”

  The heavy-cast West Point class ring makes a snapping sound as it bridges the distance between her hand and Ghazan. He’s crouched over his weapon, bracing for the satisfying kick of the AK’s recoil.

  “In darkness become a true light.”

  Made invisible by sheer speed, the small band impacts the side of Ghazan’s head.

  Maybe he feels a kick, if so it’s definitely not satisfying. Ghazan is killed instantly. More gore matter sloshes against the wall. The dead man’s fingers convulse, mashing on the trigger. The rifle is set to automatic. It rattles off half a dozen rounds.

  Luckily, the AK’s muzzle no longer points at her. When the weapon goes off, it is stuck in Rasul’s posterior. The sound gets muffled. Loud enough in the enclosed space. It might not have been heard up on the street, especially if everyone is crowded around Artuk and Khalid and that big bag of money.

  Fat as the Chechen’s body is, the metal-jacketed bullets rip through his guts and bounce off the floor and the walls. Sienna ducks. Shrapnel of metal, stone, and bone ricochet.

  The deadly jackhammer stops.

  She is unhurt. No shouting comes from the street. The buttock-suppressed noise didn’t carry. She has another problem. The commotion must have been heard in the hallway. Round Head.

  Outside the door, keys rattle.

  26

  Smoke from the cheap ammo just fired off has hardly risen to the ceiling when her third guard enters. He must be the slowest thinking of the three. Ghazan and Rasul were glad to keep him outside. It meant more loot for them, the two now very dead guys.
Sienna does not get a good look; she pretends to be unconscious. Her hands, empty and bound, hang listlessly in full view of the newcomer.

  She can almost hear Round Head’s simple thoughts.

  Both guards dead. They look shot. Uh oh.

  Prisoner unconscious, maybe dead. Can’t tell yet. She is still tied up, well and truly tied. And unarmed. Okay.

  What could have happened? Will I be blamed? Maybe they shot each other arguing over loot. Why would Ghazan shoot that Chechen man in the ass? What a disgusting way to kill someone. I should have stayed. They were trying to cheat me! But, hold on a second, then I’d probably be shot, too. And I’m not. So in that case… in that case, all the loot can be mine. Good for me.

  Sienna has new confidence. Once with a tooth was a fluke. A second time with her ring is a trend. Three times will get her free!

  Got to find something. I should wear more jewelry, like Snakelips. That was my one and only ring. Slow as this guy is, I don’t think I can con him into unlocking my chains.

  A spent cartridge ejected by the wildly firing AK sits just out of reach. Sienna tries to attract it using the loading motion. The same one she used to pull Sidewinder’s knife away from Anis’s neck.

  The brass shell does not move.

  That would have been too convenient. Maybe this ghost remnant ability of the destroyed RAPTEK can only repel things. Whatever. It only has to work one more time.

  Just please look away, you dumb little…

  Round Head bends down over the Chechen’s exploded, hairy butt crack to check the body for valuables before getting help. Hard times in North Khorasan. Soundlessly, Sienna’s foot flicks out and kicks the empty shell into the air. Her left hand catches and palms warm brass with hardly a sound. Round Head looks in her direction.

  He reaches for… not his pistol. His walkie. He’s going to call for help.

  Can’t let that happen.

  The slow-thinking man clicks on the grimy transceiver button to activate the microphone. He clears his throat. Someone answers. The reception is crappy: “What—shhrk—is it? Who is this?”

  The guard can only reply with a gurgling sound, his neck having been punctured by a hyper-accelerated brass shell casing.

  “Stop playing around,” the radio squawks. “If I find out who this is, you will be in for plenty of hurt! No signals. You know the rule!”

  Sienna watches Round Head sink to the floor and bleed out. His uncomprehending eyes are open. They lock on hers as he dies.

  Around his belt is a ring of keys. One of them must fit the locks on her wrists. Way out of reach. She considers shooting the shackles. Too much risk of blowing her hand off. She has no idea how finely she can aim or control this, whatever it is, or how many “shots” she has until the RAPTEK realizes it’s scattered over the desert in a thousand pieces. Well, not all of it.

  The railgun worked through the fiber cables. They’re melted into my arms…

  Maybe this energy is like static electricity. That can affect plastic, even make socks stick together in the dryer. She looks at the splattered room and the three dead bodies.

  Some socks. Some dryer.

  Her chains clink against poured concrete bases. The whole place is falling down, and the one thing they don’t skimp on is prisoner accessories. She has an idea. Gathering a length of chain, she shields her face, then sends it crashing into the cement stay. The sudden pull nearly breaks her wrist, but the chain starts to warp.

  Again. Again.

  Whump. WHUMP!

  The warping opens a break; the break releases the next link.

  Free. One hand at least.

  She still can’t reach the keys. The other chain is easier. It’s a rough tool, but powerful. Nearly silent, totally deadly. Just the thing for a jail-break.

  She grabs keys off the far-staring guard’s belt. Round Head was probably some local mook trying to earn enough to keep his family in goat’s milk. Here, in this place, you are either with the local carnivores or you and your kin are fair game. She covers his face with a decrepit piece of tarp.

  The two others, the world is well shed of. She searches for anything of use. In between, she drinks warm but clean water, sparing some to wash the class ring and irrigate her swollen eye. Though at this point, developing pink eye and enduring T-Rex’s inappropriate comments are probably unavoidable. Welcome jibes from her people. Back home.

  From a stairway at the end of the corridor past the other cells, a bolt gets thrown. She glances down the narrow row of steel doors. Fight here in this dead-end space or evade? She darts out, quietly opens the latch on the next cell, and ducks in.

  And she freezes.

  27

  Two pairs of downcast eyes stare at her feet. They are eyes that blend into the gloom of an even darker chamber than the one she’s just escaped. In them she sees the hurt of an abused animal resigned to once again receiving the lash. Sienna raises her finger to her lips in the internationally recognized sign to please stay very quiet. The haggard, half-seen faces could be made of wax. They remain as still.

  This cell is about one-third the size of the luxury suite next door. Sienna posts herself against the door. On the other side, movement. Footsteps clomp down stairs at the end of the hall. They come closer. Artuk and Khalid must have made a deal. Or one is double crossing the other. Either way, those guys need to get ready for a surprise.

  The two men in the hallway are not frantic. They do not fear imminent attack or know she’s missing. They pad forward with intent, eager to do something. Only inches away from them, she controls her breathing and checks her surroundings.

  The locks on all the jailhouse doors are flat circular mechanisms, similar to ones in hospitals and mental institutions. They might have been stolen from an NGO’s charity construction site and ended up being used for a much different purpose than the donors intended. The good thing about them is, unless the men outside pull on each of the dozen doors, there is no way to see if a particular one is locked or not. Sienna grabs the inner handle and braces a still-throbbing foot on the wall just in case. It won’t move a millimeter. She won’t let it.

  “Her cell is here,” says an old raspy voice in the local dialect. Artuk. His tone reminds her of a wizened antiques dealer about to make the deal of a lifetime. “We have put her in the most secure part of our newest prison.”

  “It’s usually better if you shoot them first,” Khalid says. “But in the chest mind you, Master Artuk. The mudarris will want a clean trophy.”

  There’s only one trophy outsiders could want here, and Sienna is bound and determined to keep it on her shoulders.

  Artuk. The name, spoken aloud, reverberates in Sienna’s mind along with images and stories hissed into the wind by the rasping tongues of sand wraiths. She shakes off the mild touch of creep. The last few hours have had more than their share of strangeness. She glances at the couple. They huddle at the back of the cell.

  Out in the hall, the village elder takes umbrage. “Please, young man, give me some respect. I can read the note you gave me as well as anyone. Since before you were born I’ve been cutting off heads. If there is one thing we know how to do here, it’s that!”

  Footsteps pass right by. She could kill these two and take their weapons. But both men’s factions will be waiting up above for them to come out. What happens next is way better than any distraction she could have improvised. Their idle debate over decapitation techniques stops when they see no guard outside the cell. The door of her former accommodation creaks open, unlocked. A wild scuffling comes from the hallway as they search. For what? A hole in the ceiling? Then, a satisfying wail of agony sounds down the corridor.

  “AAARRRGGGHHH! She was right in there.”

  “Go! Get going, old one!” Khalid’s voice betrays both anger and terror. “She must be trying to get out of the village. Find her, or the mudarris’s d
isappointment will sting all of us. Everyone.”

  That’ll set the enemy in all directions. She turns. They didn’t make a sound. They could have betrayed her, maybe bargained for their own release. She could not have stopped them while keeping a grip on the door.

  Daylight comes via a small aperture near the ceiling. The sun’s rays filter in through trash blown against bars. She can see the two more clearly. It is a man and a woman. They look twenty years older than what Sienna guesses is their actual age. The man’s arm is bent backward at an odd angle. His forearm points about thirty degrees in the wrong direction. If he’s lucky, it’s only snapped cleanly at the elbow. That’s something she can help with and save the future use of his arm.

  No one on the street heard the shooting. It’s unlikely they’ll be overheard talking quietly.

  “You will soon be free,” Sienna whispers encouragingly. “Let me set that arm and we’ll find the best way to go out from here.”

  The woman swats Sienna’s hand away. “Are you insane? Do not touch him.”

  Her hostility stops Sienna cold.

  “How can you fix anything?” The woman explains like she’s talking to a dull child. “They will come back. They’ll just do it again, and to me as well!”

  “I understand, uh, you must be in shock.” Sienna assesses exfil options. She can’t leave them here. Maybe they have friends in the hills. “We’ve got to move—”

  “You speak with an accent that is perfect.” Impatience joins irritation on the woman’s weathered face. She studies Sienna’s skin and features. “Are your ancestors from this land?”

  Sienna pauses. Hamida. Khorasan. The land. It knows its own daughter. She shakes her head.

  “No. My parents are American.”

  We don’t have time. Sienna holds up her hand and listens at the door. If Artuk and Khalid find no sign of her outside, they might come back and make a more detailed search of the cells. This is no place for a fight. Not here. Not now. Behind hostile lines, escape, and evasion is SOP.