“I think we can help each other,” he said.
Motion over her shoulder caught his eye and he turned his head to see a familiar artificial, Premier Keltan’s pinhole-eyed manservant, standing in the doorway.
“Ben?”
The artificial made a stern face. The pinholes of his irises vanished as his eyeballs went from pure white to pure black.
“Praetor Graves, you have returned. Welcome back.”
What the hell? Prospero said.
A deep, sickly feeling crawled its way up from his stomach.
Meia spun around and seemed to take in the dead bodies in the hallway for the first time.
“What the hell happened? Are we under attack?”
“No,” Ben said. “We are not under attack. I am merely eliminating the witnesses.”
A chill ran down Nero’s spine.
“Three objectives remain.” Ben started into the room.
Nero and Meia took a step back.
“Ben, what are you talking about?” she asked.
Nero, the thing that tore those men apart had at least the power of an Abyssian. I advise shooting first and asking questions later.
“Where’s Keltan?”
“I could answer your questions, Praetor, but there is no time. I must finish my task before Doctor Rega releases Siren.”
“What?” Meia paled.
“Now, please be polite and die quickly. I have a timetable to maintain.” Ben stopped moving and his whole body seemed to tense and relax in rapid succession.
Nero?
“Fuck it.” He pushed aside his confusion and pulled the carbine off his back.
“So far, so good,” Kae said. Cygni sat down behind him in the cockpit. To her right Sorina Khepria manned a terminal with a determined look on her angular face. Rune was strapped into the co-pilot’s seat staring straight ahead with wide eyes.
Through the forward window she could see the lights of the city rising around them with the Interstellar Bazaar streaming blue-white light up into the sky. She was home at last, but felt nothing but trepidation. The last time she was here the Praetor shot her out of the sky and she woke up in an Orgnan slaver pod. Her heart beat harder, and the image of Biren being smashed beneath the boot heel of Praetor-Prime Augusta flashed in her mind.
They were here to stop Daedalus and would, no doubt, be encountering the Praetor-Prime again. Every cyberweb drama she saw told her she should be feeling empowered, but she was scared. She wasn’t afraid for herself, though she didn’t want to die, but she was scared that she would have to kill again. The thought made her nauseated and set an ache deep inside her for a kalkoa cube.
Kae banked the ship, coming around the outer edge of the city atoll where the spaceport lay before them like a string of glittering jewels floating on the ocean.
“This is my first time here.” Rune turned to her. “Maybe after this mission is done you can take me out for ice cream? Dad, they’ve got good ice cream here, right?”
“Yeah, best in the galaxy.” Kae patted his son on the shoulder.
“Do you like pistachio?”
“Yeah, a bit. Cherry’s my favorite, though, next to ruk.” She smiled.
“What’s ruk?” Rune asked.
“It’s a Nyangari flavor. I was introduced to it when I was dating Shkur.” She sighed. That was another person she lost in this mess. At least he was far away from it now; she couldn’t take it if another person she cared about died.
“The Nyangari, they’re on the Cygnus side of the Spur,” Rune said as though reciting a cyberweb entry. Maybe he was. “Ever been to Nyangar?”
She shook her head. “No, but I learned the language.”
“With engrams?”
“No. I did it the old fashioned way.”
“Why?” He looked puzzled. “Downloading engrams is faster.”
“It is, but I just sort of picked it up while I was dating one.”
“How did that work?” The boy’s face contorted as he regarded her statement.
“Rune, don’t be rude.” Kae glanced back at her with a curious look.
She shrugged at them and, thankfully, both Kae and Rune turned around.
Shifting in her seat, her eyes returned to the window. She could see the flashing lights on the landing pads stretching out into the ink-black water of the Western Sea. In a few moments they would be on the ground.
“Okay people, look sharp. We’re coming in.” Kae brought the ship over one of the pads and dropped it down like a falling feather. The ship shuddered as it settled onto its landing gear, sending a sympathetic vibration through her body. Its engines coughed, waves fanned out into the sea beyond, then powered off.
This was it. They were here.
She felt ill.
From the ground the city looked huge, intimidating, and terribly familiar. Somewhere out there Baroness Cronus, Daedalus, and the Praetor waited.
Fuck, what am I doing here? She unstrapped herself and followed the others through the common room. Their own Praetor, Athame, joined them as they climbed down through the ladder between the seats. Kae dropped the landing ramp with a snap and hiss that reminded her of popping open a soda ball.
The familiar stench of sea air overpowered the ozone-heavy atmosphere of the ship. She wondered if Boa and Ila were still alive. She dared hope the same for Sanul, but knew it wasn’t likely. What the baroness and the Praetor would have done with him and the rest of her friends raiding the tower was too terrible to contemplate.
She was half-way down the ramp when Kae and Athame, already on the tarmac, motioned for them to stop. Both of them were dressed in the oil-stained jumpsuits of spacer’s clothing. The idea was to appear as normal as possible and avoid suspicion, but the worried look on Kae’s face made Cygni wonder if that was going to be possible.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Trouble, stand by,” Athame responded.
A low humming sound filled the air.
“What is that?” she asked.
“The ship has just been magnetized to the pad,” Athame stated.
“Shit.” Rune turned around and ran up the ramp to a utility box bolted to the wall.
“Wait,” Kae snapped at him.
Cygni took another few steps down the ramp and ducked so that she could see under the lip of the ship’s cockpit. Three individuals were approaching them. The two flanking beings wore CSA uniforms and had their hands on their guns. The one in the middle was all too familiar to her.
“Praetor-Prime Augusta,” she whispered, trembling at the sight of the one who cost her so much. It took the utmost restraint not to shift her armacorium to armor mode. Instead, she activated its disguise function. Silver liquid enveloped her head and formed features with pale skin, blue eyes, and blond hair. Her palms were slick with sweat, and the urge to run wracked her body. Her heart felt like it was going to explode. If she got recognized, this would be over before it began.
The Praetor stopped moving two-meters from where Kae and Athame stood.
“Praetor-Prime Athame Algol,” the Praetor said with her silver eyes fixed on their target. “Daedalus has missed you.”
“You expected us,” Athame responded.
“Anticipated. If this is a surprise you, then you have spent too long among the biologicals. Daedalus has predicted every outcome. You are too late. Premier Keltan is with Allatu’s host. The countdown has begun.”
“The odds are in your favor, but the matter is not yet concluded,” Athame responded.
Praetor Prime Augusta held her gaze a moment longer, then turned it on the rest of them. “Kaeden Faen, Sorina Khepria—”
“I will not allow you to terminate them,” Athame stated.
“—and unidentified human, you are under arrest by authority of Daedalus, the Supreme Commander and Protector of the Confederation of Sovereign Systems.” Augusta turned her gaze back. “The boy is to be taken to Revenant Tower. Any interference will be met with force. Where is Cygni Lau Aragón?�
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“They do not know who he is,” Athame said back.
What? Cygni looked up at Rune. Who is he?
“Irrelevant. You are to return to Deep Hydra immediately. Will you go without incident?”
“No.”
“No?”
The two artificial women stared at each other. If she didn’t know any better, Cygni would say Praetor-Prime Augusta was shocked.
“What are you doing?” Augusta asked.
“Multitasking,” Athame responded.
“Rune, now,” Kae said.
She heard the kid open the box behind her. The Praetor snatched her gun out of its holster and aimed at Kaeden in a blur of motion. Both CSA agents pulled their weapons.
“Fuck!” Kae dove to the side and the crackle of super-sonic bullets broke through the air.
The agents’ eyes glazed over, and they opened fire at point blank range, pumping Praetor-Prime Augusta’s body full of bullets from head to waist. The Praetor stumbled back with gray silocar flying into the air.
Athame planted a kick square in the center of Augusta’s chest and sent the Praetor flying back. She followed, pulling a pair of pistols from the mimetic flesh of her thighs and opened fire as she continued to advance.
Cygni stood, open-mouthed. The CSA was against Daedalus? How was that possible?
“Cygni!” Rune shouted. She turned around and he tossed her one of the guns hidden inside the utility case.
She caught it, but froze when she realized what it was.
“Help dad!” he shouted at her, pulling another weapon.
She turned and looked down.
Kae lay on the tarmac gripping his shoulder where the Praetor’s bullet passed through. Waves of cold fear seized her muscles. Goddess, blood was streaming from between his fingers; so much blood…
He looked up at her with his face drawn taut by the pain, then looked past her.
“Rune! No!”
She turned as if in a dream and saw the boy with a gun in his hand, rushing forward to where Athame and the Praetor battled.
Whatever held her let go at the sight. She moved without thinking, rushing forward and snatching Rune up in her arms. She spun around, preventing him from drawing a line of fire on the battle, and activated her armacorium’s armor mode.
“I want to help! Let me go!” he shouted.
“No! Get him out of here,” Kae shouted back. “Leave me and get out before she wins!”
Cygni glanced over her shoulder at the firefight. Both CSA agents were already down, bleeding from multiple gunshot wounds. Athame and Augusta were locked arm in arm, wrestling to get their guns pointed at each other’s heads while defending against the same. The spire of the space port central building towered over them, and from its base security officers ran forward to join the battle.
She decided to take Kae’s advice. She couldn’t fly the Katozi Slynn. The ocean was dark and cold, but perhaps a quick swim to shore wouldn’t be so bad. Rune might cool off in the process and act more reasonably too. She took one step toward the edge of the platform, but hesitated. Something wasn’t right about those security guards.
She turned around and looked again. They were running, but the tens of beings in uniform, most of them Volgoth, were scattering in all directions—fleeing something behind them instead of running to something ahead.
PLIA.
[Online,] came the response. It almost surprised her. She hadn’t thought to use her on-board assistant in weeks.
Zoom in.
The star port appeared to leap up to her, then sharpened into focus. Her cybernetic eyes adjusted for the glare of the port lights, and she saw it.
A white cloud was filling the star port’s many windows. Everywhere she looked it billowed and pulsed within the building. Several vents had the thick gas billowing out across the tarmac like puffy, cotton waterfalls. She zoomed out, then back in on the scattering security guards. Their geode-like eyes were wide and watery. Foam poured form between their oily-crystal teeth. Cygni blinked, returning her sight to normal, wondering what the hell it was she was looking at—
“Oh fuck,” Kae said, seeing it too now that the cloud was coming out from every opening in the star port terminal and spreading across the black ground. He wrenched himself up to a sitting position and winced at the pain. Blood poured down his arm, soaking his jumpsuit as it did.
“It’s Siren! We’ve got to get out of here!”
“Siren?” She almost dropped Rune as fear shook her to the core. The cannisters, she realized. They never did find them all.
“Yes, it’s motherfucking Siren!” Kae struggled up to his feet. He swayed and dropped to his knees.
She turned to the ship, ready to run up its ramp.
“No! It’s magnetized, remember? Shit.” Kae looked around. “We’ll have to swim for it! Void-damned idiot, put Rune down already!”
She blinked and looked at the boy. He frowned at her and she lowered him to the ground.
“That’s better.” He brushed himself off.
They both watched the cloud continue forward, enveloping the security guards and moving closer to the battling Praetors.
“Athame! Look out!” Cygni shouted.
Behind her Kae was on shaky legs, reaching for Rune. She was aware that he grabbed the kid by the shoulder and was leading him back toward the icy sea, but she couldn’t take her eyes off the fight and the pulsing white cloud of deadly nanomachines heading for them.
Athame seemed to notice the cloud at the last minute. She twisted and shoved Augusta back. The Praetor turned and fired several bullets into Athame’s body, sending splashes of mimetic psuedoflesh flying through the air. She stumbled back. The Praetor took aim, pointing her barrel directly between her eyes where the bullet would penetrate and breach her brain core, and the cloud touched her.
Never in her life did Cygni think she would see a Praetor gaping in surprise, but she saw it then.
Augusta’s finger never pulled the trigger. Her eyes grew wide as electric arcs seared away her lids. Lightning crawled up and down her body, igniting her black clothing and hair as she stood, statue still, with a horrific look on her face.
The bullet holes closed as Athame retreated, walking backward and watching the other Praetor’s fate.
“Run!” Cygni cried, but the Praetor continued to back up instead, even stopping for a moment as though lost in thought.
“Cygni, come on. I don’t think I can make it without your help.” Kae tugged her backward with his good hand. “Make sure Rune makes it.”
“We’re all going to make it.” She shrugged out of his grasp. “All of us. Athame! Come on!”
She watched in horror as Athame stopped moving. The cloud was still crawling across the tarmac, only meters away from her now. She held up her hand and watched her uniform shift into solid, marble-smooth flesh. Then, as the cloud got within arm’s length, she reached forward and touched it.
“No!” Cygni cried, waiting to see the electric arcs and the fire that destroyed the Praetor Prime.
Nothing happened.
Athame turned and ran, putting distance between her and the cloud so fast that she seemed to appear at Cygni’s side in the blink of an eye.
“I had to test something,” she stated in answer to the unasked question. “My mimetic flesh is able to assume a density such that the Siren nanoparticles are unable to penetrate. Daedalus’ own DSA-100 models will be able to do the same. Zalor Revenant’s betrayal will not neutralize them.”
Cygni looked at the cloud. It was still coming. “Shall we get out of here and discuss this later?”
“Affirmative.” Athame looked Kae over. “I will take him. Rune, can you swim?”
The kid nodded. “Yeah, of course. Ameluan taught me.”
“City records indicate there is a sewer outlet forty-three meters along course 42.1370 from our current position and zee-minus five meters below the surface.”
“What?” Cygni realized she meant them to swim under
water into a sewer. She almost objected, but one look at the Siren cloud and she nodded instead.
“I will make sure they survive, Cygni Lau Aragón. Go.”
She nodded, turned toward the inky black of the night-time sea, and dove into its icy embrace.
“Fuck fuck fuck,” Meia chanted, swinging her Growler back and forth through the air as she tried to track the battle between Nero and whatever in the fuck Ben was. Both men moved with preternatural speed amidst the overturned chairs and shattered glass tables, but Cylus’ manservant was much faster. He already snapped Nero’s carbine in two and was pummeling him with both halves.
Iapetus, standing on her left, had the same problem. His turrets hummed, swiveling back and forth as he tried to track their target without Nero getting in the way. It wasn’t working, and even though Nero was giving almost as good as he got, almost wasn’t going to be good enough. He was bleeding from at least three places on his face where the improvised clubs split the skin, and she could tell he was favoring his left leg after the drumming Ben gave it.
“How the hell is Ben this fast?” she shouted in frustration, searching the room for something, anything that could help.
She came up empty, but as she scrolled through the capabilities of her armacorium in her UI she did have an idea. It was a shitty, awful idea, but it was the only one she could come up with.
Iapetus, be ready, she sent, and charged up her armacorium with as much static electricity as it could handle.
She took a step forward toward the fight. Nero thrust his fist forward for the hundredth time, hitting only air as Ben twisted out of the way and brought one of his make-shift clubs down on Nero’s arm hard enough to bend the carbine’s barrel. Nero snarled and threw a kick at Ben’s knee which connected, but allowed Ben to bend it, trapping his foot between the artificial’s calf and thigh. Ben raised half of the carbine up in one hand, jagged edge facing down toward Nero’s neck.
Meia knew this was probably going to hurt, but it was either do this or be the crazed artificial’s next victim.
She threw herself forward, thrusting her silver-encased hand just fast enough to contact Nero’s shoulder a split-second before the carbine. Her brain barely had time to process what happened.
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