by C. G. Hatton
LC started walking, cradling the rifle in his arms, wanting to be anywhere but there.
Gunfire erupted up ahead. Hilyer was shouting, something about auto-sentries and needing a second to access the system. Two bulkhead panels blew out behind them. LC spun, bringing up the rifle and firing, Sienna and other grunts around him doing the same. Someone screamed at him to take out the pods. He didn’t let up, managing to send enough energy into the shield pods of the approaching aliens to just about cause enough disruption that their firepower started getting through, bellows and roars resounding through the corridors and pounding against his mind.
Someone yelled, “Fall back,” and he took a step backwards, bumping up against something that stabbed into his leg and slipping on the wet surface as he lost his footing.
Sienna grabbed his arm and hauled him upright, bustling him in front of her and pushing him down round a corner as a massive blast reverberated through the deck, shifting the wreckage and sending his stomach lurching as the bulkhead he was leaning against dropped out. He fell, tumbled, Sienna tumbling with him, both of them crashing up against a blast door that was twisted and groaning.
“Climb,” she yelled in his ear, gesturing towards a jagged conduit that was hissing steam.
He could feel Bhenykhn below them. More above. The alien warriors were swarming, too fast. They were going to get overrun.
He let the rifle drop to hang from its sling on his back and he climbed, trusting that she was right behind him, fingers cramping, gunfire whistling past his ears as grunts above them gave them cover.
His head was buzzing so badly, he almost missed Duncan’s curt, ‘We’re in. Olivia’s right here. We have drop ships incoming. Let’s get the hell out of here. LC, do you copy?’
He grabbed a hold of a beam and hauled himself up, leaning back over to help Sienna.
“They’re in,” he said, breathless. “Olivia’s alive.”
Sienna nodded as she climbed up. “Good. Go.”
He broke into a run, muscles burning, pumped by the artificial high from the krak, sliding on the slick deck surfaces, jumping over twisted struts and panels. They were holding but only just. He hadn’t seen Olivia since he’d split from Sten’s World that last time, after the poker game. When she’d squeezed his hand and told him not to get killed. And when they’d got word of the warrant out on him for her murder, he’d thought she was dead and he’d lost it. Completely. He couldn’t believe he was going to see her again.
They had guards posted on the massive blast doors of the citadel. Duncan and the others were inside, tending to the wounded, readying everyone to move out.
LC stopped just inside the doorway. Pen and Sean were standing with her, facing away from him. She was wearing combat fatigues, but she was unmistakable, black hair piled high, slender neck tapering down to pale shoulders. She looked tiny.
He stared, stomach doing backflips and a shard of ice stabbing deep as she turned.
It wasn’t her.
Chapter 15
The Man was quiet, impressed from everything Sebastian was picking up from his mind, impressed to hear that Nikolai’s protégé was finally living up to his potential.
“Oh, there is better to come,” he couldn’t resist saying. “It’s incredible how powerful an emotion anger is, how betrayal can fuel that inner furnace. But then you should know that, shouldn’t you? Considering what you did to us. You lied and deceived, and all for what? To force us to evolve, to push us to become better, stronger, to be able to take on your enemy? An enemy that you led here?”
“I…”
Sebastian cut him off with a laugh. “I know, I know. We’re not stupid. Nikolai worked out why you sent the Bhenykhn here. Because you thought the human race was powerful enough, downright stubborn and twisted enough, to be able to take them on. Well, here we are. So, how, in your infinite wisdom, are we doing?”
•
LC backed away, heart thumping. Someone yelled, something about incoming. He could feel the hive close by, feel the intensity of its scrutiny, battle fever high.
They weren’t going to make it out before they were overrun.
He turned, time slowing, to glance at Sienna, glancing back at Duncan, and looking at Sean.
She knew.
He could sense her dismay.
She’d lied to him.
Duncan was turning to Olivia, to this girl who looked so much like Olivia but wasn’t.
How could anyone have thought it was her?
The realisation hit him like a blow to the back of the head. It hadn’t been a girl that looked like Olivia that had been killed. He saw it in her mind. It really was Olivia they’d murdered. And the girl who looked so much like her, who was as close as a twin sister, who’d stood in for her countless times at the Reo and laughed with her as they’d fooled people, had taken over her life, masquerading as her to lead the Wintran forces.
LC took another step back.
Olivia had been killed by Zang, to frame him. To get him out in the open. She was dead. Liv really was dead. Because of him.
Shouts and gunfire were echoing at the edge of his awareness. Someone touched his arm. He flinched away. The Bhenykhn were closing in, sensing their prey was trapped. And whoever she was, she was staring at him, something like sorrow in her eyes.
Sean took a tentative step forward. “LC…”
He didn’t respond. He turned to see Sienna in the doorway, her back to him, firing into the depths of the wreckage, shouting for backup. To his left and right, other troops were firing, ammo getting low. He could sense the Bhenykhn fighters and gunships buzzing over the crashed ship, troop carriers dropping more and more of them. They were cut off. Surrounded.
He felt the chill touch of a shaman caress his mind, icy tendrils winding down his spine, around his chest and into his heart.
It was right there. Inside the ship. Right outside the citadel.
He didn’t hesitate, moving up to the door to stand next to Sienna.
“Cover me,” he murmured.
She glanced at him, thinking he was insane. “Cover you to do what?”
He pulled a vial from his breast pocket, hoping like hell it was the right one. He held it low. Screw it. Screw everything. He pressed it against his wrist, burning heat pulsing into his vein, and let the vial tumble from his fingertips.
He mouthed, “Ready?”
“For what?” she hissed.
He breathed in slowly, exhaled and walked out.
The shaman was standing in the centre of the corridor, a dark silhouette against the failing emergency lights, staff in one hand, the other hand raised, bony finger beckoning.
He could feel the virus snatching at the insanity, pushing his system into overdrive, drawing up his last reserves of energy.
He faced it, planted his feet, balanced his weight and raised his eyes with a laugh. ‘I think this is screw you time.’
He felt it respond with an echoing ‘no’ rippling out as it realised what he was about to do.
He fired a massive blast at it, more than he’d ever conjured, straight through its defences and into its brain stem.
It fell.
He moved fast, dropping to his knees and skidding up to it, gunfire erupting all around him. He dived, rolled down low, reached and grabbed the staff.
Someone touched his shoulder. He flinched, shivering. He was flat on the floor, the deck, the bulkhead? Whatever it was, it was wet. Cold was seeping into his shoulders, his butt, the backs of his knees. His eyes were closed, sore beyond painful, throat dry, left hand burning. He didn’t know if he could move. He was struggling to catch his breath. He couldn’t sense the hive at all. Nothing. Brain fried.
Someone was shouting, vague, far away, something about a medevac.
“What happened? Is he okay?” he heard someone say. Olivia. Not Olivia. She even sounded like her. It made his heart ache. He wanted to drift off back into the darkness, but someone popped a shot into his neck that made his senses sit u
p even when he wanted to fade away.
Another voice was more harsh. “He just wiped out every alien on the colony. No, he’s not okay.”
Sienna. That was Sienna.
“Yeah, roger that MOV,” someone else said. “Felix is red. Repeat Felix Red. Request immediate medevac. Affirmative… Yep, roger that. We’ll be there.”
They had comms. They were speaking to the MOV, speaking to each other through the Sensons. Calm. Efficient. Like it was game over and time to go home.
Cold plastic pressed against his face, feeding him steady cool oxygen that made his chest hurt even more.
He wanted to melt into the deck. Disappear.
His arm was bare, a cold sting hitting the crook of his elbow.
He felt Duncan’s presence close by as a warm hand rested on his shoulder.
‘You’re okay,’ the big man thought.
He wasn’t but he didn’t argue. He wanted to ask what had happened but at the same time he didn’t care.
‘You blacked out,’ Duncan thought anyway.
He was reading worse in the minds around him. They all thought he’d croaked it. No pulse. Holy shit.
‘Yeah. You collapsed in a heap. We’re assuming you did what Sebastian and NG used to do. Every one of them, every fighter, every troop carrier. As far as we can tell, every ship they had in orbit. We have recovery teams incoming, along with a load of Wintran militia. We’re getting everyone out of here.’ The hand squeezed. ‘You did well, bud. Just hold on.’
‘It’s not Olivia,’ he thought, not intending to broadcast it, the thought rumbling around his head like thunder, clutching at that cold thread winding around his heart.
He felt Duncan tense.
‘I know,’ the big man thought.
‘You knew?’
‘Not until you just walked in and saw her. Bud…’
‘Zang killed her.’ He tried to get up but someone had a hand on his chest.
‘LC, buddy, listen to me,’ Duncan sent. ‘This isn’t the time. Don’t say anything to anyone. Don’t think anything. Don’t do anything. We just got our asses handed to us. You got us out of it. Let’s get out of here, then I promise you, we’ll figure out what to do.’
‘Someone set us up. They knew we were coming.’ He shivered. ‘I want to find Zang.’ He’d never felt anything so fiercely in his entire life.
‘We will.’
He pulled the oxygen mask off his face and let it drop. ‘And NG.’
By the time the medevac team arrived, he was sitting up and insisting he was fine. Still too hot and splitting headache but good to walk. They didn’t believe him, insisted on checking him over, and said he wasn’t going anywhere until his heart rate had stabilised.
The lead medic pushed a bottle of water into his hand and told him to sit tight as they went to check on other wounded.
LC leaned back against the bulkhead and just breathed, holding the cold bottle against his forehead. He had an IV line in his arm, just glucose but the virus was taking it, and working steadily away to fix him up somewhat.
The others were talking, coordinating orders, preparing to evacuate and seeing what could be salvaged.
Not Olivia was staring at him, even as Sean and Hal Duncan were talking to her. He could see, devastatingly clear, in her thoughts that she’d talked to them and she knew he knew she was a fake.
He watched as she nodded, agreeing with something, and touching Hal Duncan on the arm. Even her mannerisms were the same, the way she was standing, the way she moved. He couldn’t help staring back.
She said something and moved away from them, leaving them to it to wander over to him and stopping, hesitant, as if she wasn’t sure what reception she was going to get. She didn’t know what to say and he wasn’t going to make it easy for her. She didn’t even know what to call him and he stared at her, almost daring her to call him Tigger the way Olivia always had.
She didn’t. She said, “LC…?”
It was hard but he replied with a quiet, “I don’t even know your name.”
She smiled and his heart broke in two.
She sat next to him, aching with sorrow, relief, regret, hugging her knees tight and looking at him intently. It was strange to be so close to her when it wasn’t her. It was not Olivia.
“Sean didn’t tell you, did she?”
He bit his lip, swallowing against a lump in his throat.
She moved closer. “I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want to deceive anyone anymore. But the way it all happened, with Olivia’s father and the coalition, the committee… it just happened. We didn’t have much choice. And once I was there, we couldn’t tell anyone…”
He could feel her looking at him, curious to be this close to him.
“We didn’t figure in the mind-reading.” She tried to smile but it turned into a frown. “I understand if you’re angry.”
Angry didn’t come close. He took a sip of water rather than say anything.
She was thinking about the way Olivia used to talk about him, how her eyes would sparkle every time she’d been with him, how he was her big secret. She was thinking how much she missed her. That was painful to be near.
“It was never me,” she said quietly.
He stared at the bottle in his hand, wiping at a drip of condensation with his thumb. His nail was chipped, the dirt so ingrained he’d stopped scrubbing it out.
“When you were with Olivia,” she said, “it was never me. I promise you. She would never have done that to you. You were hers. Please believe me. I stood in for her whenever she wanted to be someone different, especially when she was with you. You were her release from who she was.”
“I didn’t know who she was,” he said faintly.
Not Olivia took his hand and squeezed. “That was the point.”
She looked and sounded so much like her, it hurt.
“Not that it matters much now,” she said. She let go, withdrawing, feeling bad, like she was out of order to have said anything to him. She made to stand up but paused.
“I’m going after Zang,” she said, voice cold. She waved her hand around in a vague gesture. “All this…? Everything I’ve done since Sean got me out of Sten’s when they killed Olivia, keeping me safe, persuading me to go back, to pretend to be her to take control when they killed her father… It’s so I can find Zang. And I’m going to kill him.”
She didn’t wait for a response, standing and walking away. He watched as she joined the others, taking up the pretence again, as easily as putting on a mask. Sienna brushed past her and knelt at his side, dropping his helmet and belt into his lap.
“You want to walk out of here, you wear full kit,” she said. “I don’t care how bad you feel.” She leaned close. “And I’m serious, you die again, I’ll kick your ass into tomorrow.”
Getting out of the crashed ship was weirdly surreal. They kept him in the centre of a close-knit cordon, Sienna sticking close, hurrying him down and through the wreckage of the massive deep spacer, past dead crew and hulking alien bodies that were already decomposing. Sean kept her distance, staying with the girl who was not Olivia, as if she didn’t want to face being anywhere near him. That was fine by him.
They used the elevator shafts when they could, walking along them like train tracks, and moved steadily taking the easiest route out. Even so, it didn’t take long before he was seriously starting to regret turning down the offer of an evac, cold sweat sticking his shirt to his skin beneath the heavy jacket she’d insisted he put back on, and a tremble in his limbs that was making any kind of climb, up or down, stupidly hard effort.
His leg muscles were on fire, and clambering over crushed and mangled ship sections pretty much did him in. He slipped half way, sprawled and ended up resting on his elbows, face down against the wet surface.
Sienna slid in next to him on one side, Hal Duncan on the other, and they waited there for a second while he caught his breath, chest shuddering. Sienna unsnagged the belt from his waist and slung that over h
er shoulder, along with the rifle she was already carrying for him.
“I’m good,” he muttered. He wasn’t and he wanted a hit of krakn.
He rolled onto his back and looked Sienna in the eye.
“No,” she said, knowing what he was thinking without having to read his mind. Christ knows what she’d be capable of if she ever ended up with the virus. She grabbed his jacket and hauled him to his feet. “We’ve got out of worse. And you’ve had too much already. You wanted to walk.”
Duncan slapped him on the back and pushed an open flask into his hand. It was just moonshine. They let him drink then Duncan took it back, took a swig for himself, and pushed him forward.
“Did you get anything on NG?” the big man asked, casually, as if he was asking if he’d seen the latest news feeds.
“No.” LC loosened off the jacket, trying to cool down, even though the water still dripping onto them was ice cold and the air becoming more chill as they progressed. “I didn’t have a chance. But they knew we were here.” He was struggling to get his breath. He looked up. “They knew we were coming.”
He overheard Duncan relay that to Sean and felt a pang of something cold when she replied. He didn’t want to speak to her, glad the big marine was taking control and glad Sienna was there to keep him moving forward. He’d lost track of Hilyer and it was only the thought of his soft, cool bunk in medical on the Man’s ship that was making him put one foot in front of the other. He tried to convince himself that he’d had extractions that were worse, definitely worse, much worse, and he’d survived those.
They finally broke out of the wreckage, emerging into a rain-drenched street in the centre of Miranda’s capital city, strewn with rubble, debris still falling, dense smoke mingling with the low cloud overhead. Off key sirens were wailing, the noise of medevac vessels and drop ship engines grinding deep in amongst the shouts and screams.
