Deirdre thought for a moment, feeling guilt at the fact it took her so long to remember. “Stephen. Stephen Clarke.”
“Who cares? Then you left my building and my ship against my orders, and I have to send Light and my best man—”
“Roddy was and is the best man who ever worked for you,” Deirdre hissed.
“That moron?” Oswald sneered. “He stayed married to you for how many years while you paraded through enough men to build the space station?” Oswald shook his head. “His choice in spouses proves your statement false.”
It shouldn’t hurt to have this man insult her like that, but he was still her father. And his words were like a vicious slap across the face. But she straightened her back. “It doesn’t say much for his employer’s judgment, either, does it?”
“Oh, aren’t you a clever little witch!” If her words hurt him, he didn’t show it. “Light crashes my ship, and in the process kills my top team and aide. I can only assume Light is dead. No one had seen you or heard from you since you ran off to save lover boy’s worthless life, and so I had to assume that my devastatingly disappointing daughter must be dead.”
“I’m sure you cried enough tears to turn the ocean to a desert at the realization.”
He started pacing again. “And then I arrive here, in my moment of ultimate triumph, here to meet my closest allies and claim the lands of our new kingdoms, to inform my subjects of the roles they’ll play in the future world, molding the very terrain to my liking.” He stopped in front of her and stared directly into her eyes. “Instead, I hear amazing tales. Impossible tales. My friends are dead, all in their sleep on the same night… and after they’d enjoyed dinner with… my daughter. My daughter, who’d walked in here like she owned the place—as if I’d let you own anything of real worth—claiming to be my emissary, demanding privileges and audiences with people far above her pathetic stature.” He moved at her, faster than she thought possible, and seized her shoulders. His eyes burned with a deep fire. “Tell me, Deirdre. Tell me you had nothing to do with the deaths of my closest friends and allies.”
She stared back. “Tell me, Daddy. Tell me you didn’t fake Mom’s death in that train crash and let me believe her dead the past twenty years while she lived aboard the space station and directed the Ravager efforts in the East.”
Oswald stepped back, startled, and she thought, for just a second, that she saw true pain in his eyes.
She pushed on. “But it worked out okay, Daddy. See, those of us who’d already mourned her and processed her death decades ago didn’t feel quite as much pain in hearing she’d been crushed to death—for real this time—in an explosion aboard the space station. Did you really come here to claim your prize or to hide from your pain?”
Oswald said nothing, but she could see him reliving the moment in his mind, fighting to hide the pain her words triggered in him.
Instead of comforting him, she folded her arms and increased the intensity of her stare.
He finally broke eye contact and took a step back. “We needed her off the planet. The plan had hit a roadblock. The robot soldiers of the time weren’t working correctly. Their aim wouldn’t adjust for uneven terrain, and they ended up wasting ammunition shooting at targets that weren’t there. She was the only one who could push things in a new direction and get things back on the right timeline. But we were still too far from the actual launch—in any form—to just leave. I was too well known, you were the darling of the media eye. It had to be her, and only her.”
“So you let me suffer for decades so Mom could run off to work without the distraction of a child.”
“You had to suffer, Deirdre, in order to project the correct emotions in public. You were too young to fake mourning. By the time you were old enough to understand, your mother had ceased to be a factor in even your memories, and it no longer mattered. We just made sure she stayed hidden when you visited the space station.”
“It… didn’t matter?” Deirdre stared at him. “Did you ever bother to ask me if it mattered? I never had a chance to know my mother, to learn from her, to find out from her what it meant to be a woman. I had to learn it all from strangers, all of whom were motivated to manipulate me for their own advantage. Everything you claimed to hate about me—my love of fashion, my loose lifestyle as you called it—came about because that’s what I learned from those I had to associate with because she wasn’t there.” She locked eyes with him. “If Mom was around, Stephen Clarke never would’ve happened, I’d have left the planet with you and Roddy, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
“My friends would still be alive, then?
“What?”
“Did you do it, Deirdre?”
“Do what?”
“Did you kill my friends, Deirdre?”
She looked at him. “You were building actual life size robot soldiers that would shoot people to death?”
“Best solution we had at the time.” His eyes lit up, as if he’d suddenly forgotten his question to her. “Isn’t it poetic, Deirdre? Do you know what a phoenix is? It’s a mythical creature that, as it aged and declined in health in vitality, would literally burn itself up until nothing was left but ashes. A new bird—young, healthy, and beautiful—would rise from those ashes. We originally thought we’d have to burn all those bodies, creating our own ashes we’d need to build upon. The Ravagers did that, and didn’t even make a mess.” He laughed.
Deirdre stepped forward and slapped him across the face.
Oswald’s head snapped to one side, then turned back to face her. She watched as the bruise appeared on his cheek. “You did do it, didn’t you? They got hold of you and turned you against me. They sent you to kill them. Didn’t they?”
“Who is ‘they?’”
“‘They’ don’t have a name. A resistance group opposed to our priorities and tactics, trying to stop the Ravagers, trying to prevent the inevitable rise of me and my friends to positions of true power in a new world filed with the best people.” He shook his head. “You really are a disappointment. You fell for their lies, you killed my friends, and the only thing that will change is that now we’ll go after them as well.”
She stepped forward. “That resistance you speak of? They, as you call them, didn’t convert me to anything. I converted myself. They, as you call them, just gave me a target.”
“Here? New Phoenix?” He laughed, then frowned. “It wasn’t them you came for, was it?”
“What?”
“They sent you to kill me. Didn’t they?”
She hesitated too long. “No.”
“You’re a nasty little liar, Deirdre. And there’s no reason to believe a word you say about anything any longer.” He moved to the door and knocked twice, stepping aside as the armed guards moved into the room. Oswald pointed at Deirdre. “Take her to my ship. Make sure it looks like she’s moving that way voluntarily.”
Deirdre thought to argue, at least until the rifles pointed at her. Then she decided cooperation was in her best interest.
They left the fortress, walked past the early terraforming work, and headed toward the group of flying ships in the distance. To those who didn’t know better, it would look like a simple reunion between father and daughter, guards walking along with them given the paranoia after the recent rash of deaths. No one would wonder where they were going or when they’d be back.
Nobody would ask what had happened to her when Oswald returned to this fortress, his kingdom, without her.
At least, that’s what she assumed. She turned and called out to him over her shoulder. “Why are we going to your ship?”
“Because I want you to pick a new color for it; I hear you’re supposed to be good at that sort of thing,” Oswald sneered. “We’re going back to the space station, you fool. I’ll lock you up there pending your trial.”
“Trial?” They walked up the ramp into Oswald’s newest ship. She wondered what happened to the other one, then remembered that Roddy had crashed it when he’
d been sent back to the surface to look for her. She wondered what Roddy would do if he was flying this ship, right now.
The ramp rose, sealing them in. She could feel the engines starting up, and a moment later the ship lifted off the ground, rising into the sky.
“What for? Treason. Four counts of murder. You’ll spend a lot of time in the Brig, thinking about your crimes, suffering there for years with all the other losers who live there.”
Deirdre smirked. “Rumor is that the Brig ain’t what it used to be, Daddy. You’re going to have to prove to the world that you’re able to order me put to death, because that tent you have up now won’t hold me or anyone else. We prisoners will roam the halls up there; maybe we’ll watch the crews recovering the bodies from space for proper burial.”
Oswald roared, his tone one of pure anger and hate. She wondered how he refrained from killing her with his bare hands right then; he certainly didn’t lack the passion for it at the moment.
“Get us in the air, right now!” Oswald roared.
Then he slumped into a chair, breathing heavily, and turned his eyes on her. “I can’t believe you said that.”
“I learned tact and decorum from you, Daddy. Mom probably would have done a better job, but, well, you know…”
“Shut up,” he said, his voice lacking any energy. “I ought to just kill you right now.”
“You won’t.”
“You think I won’t? You think I can’t?”
Deirdre shrugged.
He stood, and his eyes blazed with anger once again. “Watch me.”
He stalked toward her, predator advancing on his prey. Deirdre stood her ground, taunting him with her lack of fear. Her eyes asked the question, asked if Oswald Silver, killer of millions, could strike down his own offspring.
He got within a step of her and pulled his arm straight back, balling his hand into a fist, and hurled his hand forward.
The punch never landed.
The massive hand snared Oswald’s forearm, and the sudden stoppage nearly dislocated the puncher’s shoulder. Oswald yelped in pain; Deirdre didn’t know if it was the sudden stoppage of the punch or the force of the grip. Or both.
She turned to look at her savior. He stood there, decked out in a pilot’s uniform, his bulk dwarfing the other people in the room, eyes blazing at Oswald Silver. “Didn’t anyone ever teach you not to hit women, Silver?”
Deirdre stared at him. “Roddy?”
He favored her with a quick glance. “When they told me who they sent here, I was sure you’d double cross them. I came as quickly as I could.” He paused. “Maybe you still want to reunite with him. But… it seems… like you’ve changed. For the better.”
Her heart skipped a beat. But she knew there was nothing there, not from him at least. “Why are you here?”
Roddy pointed at Oswald’s pain-wracked face. “Him.”
“But he already has a pilot.”
Roddy gave her a look, and then she understood. “Oh. Right.”
The guards caught on as well, and raised their rifles, aiming in Roddy’s direction. “Let Mr. Silver go, pilot. Or we’ll shoot.”
“I think I’ll decline.”
Silver laughed. “You were a decent pilot, Light. But Delaney told me you weren’t much of a soldier. You’re outnumbered five to one and unarmed. Do you really think you’ll survive this encounter? You’re dead the instant we hit the space station.”
Roddy smiled and there was a venom there that Deirdre hadn’t seen before. “Space station, Silver? Remind me: who’s flying this ship?”
Oswald’s sneer faded. A bit. “I can get a new pilot.”
“I think you’re forgetting something else. Perhaps you should ask your backup pilot to tell us the ship’s current altitude.”
Oswald’s eyes widened as Roddy’s intended message got through. He looked at the guards. “Kill him! Now!”
The guards lowered their weapons and set them down at Roddy’s feet.
“What are you doing?” Oswald screamed. “Do you not understand what the words kill and him, spoken in that order, actually mean?”
The guards charged at Roddy, hurling punches and kicks at the big man.
Oswald spread his hands, baffled.
Roddy laughed as he blocked a punch and a leg kick, then hurled an elbow backward into the forehead of one of the guards, who collapsed to the deck. “These men are loyal to you, Oswald. I respect them, even if I think their employer is a despicable old man who smells funny.”
“I do not smell!”
“I’m not really interested in killing any of them, but they want to prove themselves to you.” Roddy ducked under punches coming from opposite directions, leading to the two guards punching each other in the face. “So we’re having some fun. Hand-to-hand combat. Once we’re done with this, I’ll send them away and then… I’ll deal with you.”
Oswald stared.
Then he charged into the fray, throwing punches and kicks at his former employee with reckless abandon.
The cabin soon filled with the scent of sweat from the combatants. Deirdre winced at each blow that connected against Roddy, and, to her surprise, those that Roddy landed against her father.
Showing surprising strength, Oswald picked up one of the immobile guards. The man, who’d not been able to get back up due to a dislocated ankle he suffered while trying to kick Roddy, looked surprised at the man’s strength.
He looked more surprised when Oswald threw him at Roddy.
Oswald followed his projectile, looking to take advantage of the flying human projectile to launch a surprise attack on Roddy. He ran into the pair of guards who were still on their feet and pushed them all forward toward Roddy at once.
Roddy ducked the human projectile, but couldn’t dodge all of them. He took a step back, tripped over the man already on the ground, and lost his balance. The entire mass of humanity crashed into the wall closest to the ramp used to enter and exit the ship.
One of them bumped the lever used to lower the ramp. With the weight sitting on the closed ramped, the panel dropped down suddenly rather than in a controlled manner.
The two guards Oswald pushed into Roddy rolled over the top of the big man, startled by the sudden shift of the formerly horizontal floor. Before they knew what was happening, before they could react, they’d rolled to the end of the ramp and off, screaming as they tumbled into the open air, falling toward the mouth of the giant canyon below.
Oswald had time to react. He grabbed at the man he’d thrown, who was closest to the main part of the ship, and tried to use the man’s body to pull himself up. But it did nothing but dislodge the man with the shattered ankle. The disabled guard started sliding and rolling down the ramp, with Oswald trying to climb over the falling projectile. Silver finally got enough traction with his feet to push himself up and over the injured guard.
That man joined his colleagues a moment later, unable to stop the momentum that sent him tumbling over the edge. His screams seemed to fade faster than the others.
Oswald’s eyes were wide in terror, as if finally realizing his own mortality. He’d gotten a minor bit of traction on the ramp. But the sweat from those who’d already fallen left the surface slick, and despite his efforts to maintain his position, despite every effort to crawl back up the ramp to safety, Oswald found himself losing the battle.
He locked eyes with Deirdre.
Before she knew what she was doing, Deirdre raced to the ramp, avoiding the slick spots, and crawled down in a controlled fashion toward her desperate father. She didn’t know if she could get there in time; he seemed to be sliding toward the edge faster than she could perform her controlled crawl. But she kept trying, kept reaching until, with an extraordinary effort, she managed to seize his forearm.
Oswald’s boots slipped off the edge, and suddenly she was trying keep herself planted while holding the entirety of her father’s weight.
Gravity began its inevitable victory. Oswald’s body began the ine
xorable slide over the edge, and Deirdre, who’d put all her energy into maintaining that lifesaving grip on his forearm, started sliding as well. She tried to switch positions, rolling to her back, slamming the flat, traction-filled parts of her boots on the platform, trying to pull her father up over her head.
But he kept sliding. And she did as well.
She saw the side cable, the one used to pull the end of the ramp up toward the main body of the ship. She rolled again, bringing her free hand into range, and grabbed the cable.
Oswald fell entirely off the ramp.
The sudden weight shift spun her around, pulling her feet and torso over the edge along with the arm still attached to her father. The motion took her across the sharp corner of the ramp’s edge, and she felt a searing pain in her back as the point ripped a gash through skin and muscle.
She knew the end had—
The powerful hand gripped her arm, and in a moment of shock, she released her grip on the ramp cable, dangling in the air, swaying in the wind, her back on fire, her strength seeping away.
She looked up. Roddy had braced himself against the cable wrapping both legs around it, while his free hand clasped the cable with the same firm grip that held Deirdre and Oswald aloft.
There was a determination in his eyes, a look that said he wouldn’t let her die. “Let him go, Deirdre.” He shouted the words, but they still sounded faint when they reached her ears, drowned out by the winds whipping by. “I can’t save both of you.”
“I’m not holding him,” she shouted back, unsure if she could generate enough volume to be heard. “He’s holding on to me.”
“Then I’ll have to save both of you.” But she could see it in his face; even with all his strength, Roddy couldn’t haul both of them back up onto the ramp. And even then, there was no guarantee that they could walk back up the ramp to safety.
“You can’t, Roddy!” Her words, shouted though they were, carried with them a plea. “He’s too dangerous.”
“I’ll pull you both up and chuck him off once you’re safe. You’ve changed, Deirdre. For the better. You deserve a chance.”
Ravagers [05.00] Eradicate Page 26
