Vicious Circle

by Elle E. Ire

  “He’s dead.” I showed no remorse. The method sickened me, but I hadn’t actually killed him. It was Vargas’s shot that punctured the bulkhead on the Regiment 1.

  “You slice his throat too?” Yesenia’s face reddened with anger. Her tone dropped to an angry growl, and the grip on Kila’s shoulder tightened until Kila squeaked with pain. The Guild trained assassins to remain detached and dispassionate. With me, she’d made it personal.

  Emotions caused mistakes. Maybe I could use her feelings against her. I shrugged in response to her inquiry. Kila stared at me but said nothing.

  “You fucking bitch!” Yesenia let loose a single blast from her pistol. I ducked farther behind the open ramp as the beam burned a black line across the gray concrete at my side. I smelled the acrid stench of melted stone and tar. Yesenia coughed, and the distraction seemed to sober her. I watched the flush fade from her cheeks. She took a ragged breath. “Unlike you, I did my research. I’ve been tapping into the local comm chatter for the last several days. The T’rals are fanatical religious pacifists. Jaren T’ral is their Chosen and a harbinger of doom for all nonbelievers, if you follow all that shit—something you didn’t figure out until later.” She straightened with pride. “I’m betting she wants him dead to save the universe or some crap like that. And then the Core of Sardonen”—she twisted the title into a taunt—“broke another contract.” She circled the ramp, pushing Kila ahead of her, but I mirrored her steps, always keeping the metal barrier in the way of her line of fire.

  “You can’t break a contract forged on false accusations,” I reminded her. “She gave me the same lie about rape. That lie voided the agreement.” Kila looked away from me, staring at her feet.

  Yesenia ignored my words. “Made sense you’d come here. You’d have to, to get off-world.”

  Throughout the confrontation, I wondered what Jaren was thinking or, worse, what he might be up to. Seeing his beloved sister in Yesenia’s clutches had to be driving him mad. It didn’t do much for my sanity, either. Worse, I couldn’t see a way out of this, short of self-sacrifice. Yesenia intended to drag me to Sardonen for public Guild execution. To save Kila, I’d let her, and the shock of awareness formed a pit of ice in my stomach.

  I really loved her. Enough to die for her.

  “You wouldn’t have killed him, anyway, just like you won’t endanger her.” Yesenia pressed the barrel of her gun deep enough into Kila’s spine it forced her back to bow inward. My fist clenched at my side. “It’s a good thing the Guild got rid of you. You were too soft to do the difficult jobs.”

  “Too soft to kill children, you mean.” My voice carried despite the softness.

  Yesenia’s eyes widened as if she’d had a sudden thought. “Oh, I almost forgot to tell you. You’ve been pardoned! That’s right. The masters looked into your final assignment. They admitted Micah’s mistake, deemed everything afterward as self-defense. The majority ruled to cancel the contract on you. You’re even welcome to return, if you like.”

  My thoughts whirled. I could regain my status. If I forgot about Jaren, about Kila, I could go home without risk of retribution.

  Too bad forgetting about Kila would be impossible.

  It had to be a trick, telling me what I most wanted to hear. Otherwise, why would we be engaged in this conflict? I darted back, taking a chance on the quick break in cover to move behind one of the Protector’s landing struts. This placed me closer to the edge of the concrete circle, closer to the tall grass.

  I risked a glance over my shoulder. Not close enough. I’d have to cross a space of three meters to lose myself in the thick growth of plant life. A rustling came from the grasses, and I knew Jaren had shifted his position to right behind me, though I couldn’t spot him in the darkness.

  “If I’m forgiven, why are you trying to kill me? Why was Alek?”

  “You killed Alek before the decision was made.” Yesenia’s eyes flashed with hatred. “And I haven’t forgiven you!” She fired another random shot, this one boring into the grasses and setting some alight.

  The rustling behind me intensified as Jaren scrambled to avoid the blast and the smoldering plants. If I didn’t end this soon, someone I cared about was going to die.

  “I don’t give a fuck how the majority ruled. You killed Micah!”

  Micah. It all centered around Micah. I hadn’t noticed a particular friendship between the two of them. The only times I ever witnessed them spending time together were during practices, group meals… and when he took her off for his private counseling sessions. He’d escort her into the tunnels. When they returned, she seemed calmer, more composed. Eventually, I thought he might convince her to stop the drinking and the drugs. Maybe he hadn’t been the one doing the convincing.

  “He cared about me, listened to me, tried to help me.” Yesenia’s gun arm shook. “You think he broke off with you because he became Guild Leader?”

  I closed my eyes. It might all be lies, but I didn’t want to hear this.

  “He broke off with you to be with me! And he was, up until the night you killed him!”

  Something broke inside me. It hurt, but not as much as I feared it would. Too much time had passed. What I’d felt for Micah had faded to be replaced by bitterness toward him and feelings for another. And now I didn’t need to experience guilt about those feelings. I saw Yesenia in an entirely new light. I gave her a look filled with pity. “I didn’t kill him. He killed himself to both save face and not have to publicly execute me,” I said softly. “To give me a chance to escape.” And I desperately wanted to believe doing so meant he’d loved me, at least a little bit, even then.

  She never had him. Not really. He had me. Then he had the Guild. He used her.

  “Liar!” Yesenia screamed and fired again. The beam ricocheted off the landing gear and scored the underside of the Protector. A panel blew open, and sparks flew from the circuitry within. I heard the sizzling as wires flared and fried. Another blast created a flaming streak through the grasses, lighting that strip of field. Seedpods popped, and the smell of cooked vegetation filled the air. At least now I understood the ripper as her weapon of choice. She’d gone rogue, stolen the ship. And she didn’t give a damn how much pain she caused me… or anyone else.

  Yesenia lost it, unable to hit me, firing wildly and in random directions, then alternating pointing the weapon at Kila’s back and head. The gunfire drew attention from some of the other ships’ crews, and I saw ground lights springing on and pilots coming down their ramps to stare at us across the spaces between the landing disks. Some ducked back inside their ships. On the far side of the field, a platoon of uniformed men and women broke into a jog toward us.

  Kila squeaked a terrified cry as the crazed woman wrenched her from side to side, oblivious to the activity beyond our personal struggle. “Step out or I’ll kill her,” Yesenia shouted. “You want her death on your head?”

  I didn’t. And watching her eyes, I believed her. She had her pistol in contact with Kila’s temple. If she fired now, it would blow out her brains.

  I shifted to step from behind the landing strut. The rest of the universe could fuck itself. I wasn’t letting Kila die. Kila sobbed, and it tore at my heart.

  “Cor!” Jaren’s fierce whisper came from the grass, halting my motion. “Cor, shoot her!”

  I looked for an opening, something I’d missed, but saw none. Kila’s body blocked my aim. “There’s no shot,” I hissed, hoping he could hear me. “No choice.”

  “Just shoot!”

  Then I understood.

  Every doubt, every uncertainty I’d ever faced about my skills resurfaced in that moment. If I missed my target, even by centimeters, all our efforts would have been for nothing. I’d never forgive myself. Jaren would never forgive me.

  And Kila would be dead.

  “I have faith. Kila has faith.”

  I couldn’t do it, couldn’t cause her this pain, couldn’t take this chance. The squad of soldiers jogged closer. Some had their weap
ons raised.

  I had to.

  I shifted my aim, watched Kila’s eyes widen, saw her body tense as she braced herself. I caught her reassuring smile and nod, but it didn’t help. In the split second before I pulled the trigger, I think Yesenia realized my intention. She opened her mouth to protest.

  I fired.

  The beam pierced Kila’s shoulder, passed clean through, and hit Yesenia in the same spot. The older woman shrieked and fell, the gun slipping from her grasp. Kila made no sound, but crumpled in a heap, curling into the fetal position.

  I couldn’t move. My legs trembled, then buckled, and I came down hard on the pavement. The rough surface tore my pants at the knees and the skin beneath. I crawled to Kila on all fours, ignoring Yesenia, who writhed and moaned. Visions of Micah overlay my view of Kila. I swam between memory and reality.

  Jaren burst from his ground cover, rushing to us while keeping low. His efforts to maintain anonymity failed. I heard shouts from the approaching forces, and someone used a vocal enhancer to order us to stay where we were. Another fired a warning shot that hit the ground a meter from where I knelt.

  It jolted me from my disorientation and shock. “Take her!” I ordered Jaren, waving a hand to the Protector’s ramp.

  Jaren scooped his sister into his arms. I tried to block out Kila’s cry of pain and the subsequent gasping sobs. They disappeared into the shuttle.

  Gritting my teeth, I stood and seized Yesenia under both arms, paying no heed to her protests or screams. More ripper bolts landed all around me as I dragged her off the concrete circle and left her in the tall grass, out of range of the soon-to-fire engines. We didn’t have time to heal her, and I wasn’t risking taking her onboard. But she didn’t deserve to be fried in a starship’s ignition flare. Her wound gaped, covering my hand with blood, but the arriving soldiers could treat it, if they didn’t kill her first.

  Yesenia’s hoarse curses followed me all the way up the ramp and into the shuttle.

  The ephem raged against Kila’s innards, ripping and tearing at flesh and muscle, nerves and bone. It stretched the injury, piercing the lung, flooding it with blood. It fought to undo each collection of cells Jaren healed, wearing upon the Chosen’s strength, testing the young lord’s stamina and straining it to its limits. If the assassins would not do the job, perhaps killing Kila would convince Jaren to break with religious faith and end his own life, eternal damnation, well, be damned.

  Jaren would not be defeated. He focused his talents, clotting the bleeding, closing the sundered skin, willing the heart to continue pumping, though it stuttered several times. His power drove back each of the ephem’s onslaughts, and when Jaren lost ground, he gave of himself, risking his own health to assure his sister’s.

  The ephem poured every bit of its energy into a final assault, relishing Kila’s weakening screams of torment. It had him. It had Jaren T’ral. It didn’t need the Chosen to kill himself with a gun or blade. It would drain him of all his essence, here and now, and leave him a lifeless husk on the shuttle’s deck plates.

  The ephem sensed it as the Chosen reached for more power, finding it in the body of Cor Sandros and drawing it into himself. He took only what he needed—not enough to incapacitate the assassin, as that would result in all their deaths. But he gained a sufficient amount to save his sister.

  Through Kila’s eyes, the diminished ephem watched Jaren collapse against the bulkhead, sinking onto the cot attached to the wall while his sister’s breathing evened and her heart rate strengthened. The wound closed in a nasty scar that would remain for some time as a reminder of how close she’d come to death, but for now, death was cheated.

  Chapter 19

  I SLAMMED my palm against the ramp retrieval system, not waiting for it to seal in place behind me. Jaren had Kila in the rear sleeping compartment, and the door stood open. I heard his soothing tones, though I couldn’t make out the words. Kila’s screams rubbed my emotions as raw as her vocal cords. I wanted to go to her, be with her, but I had other duties to perform or none of us would escape. Exhaustion pulled at me, muscles aching with the strain of continued use and tension.

  I shook it off, thrust it aside, boxed it into a sealed corner of my tired mind as I’d done on many assignments for the Guild. I could collapse later when the job was done, when we were all safe.

  “Make sure you’re strapped in!” I called, hoping they heard me. I charged to the cockpit.

  At the entry, I hesitated, then pressed the secured lock panel and held my breath. If the Guild had reinstated me, then my ID should be on file. If Yesenia lied, knockout gas would flow from the overhead ventilation system. I knew where the breather mask storage was, but losing consciousness would become the least of my problems. If I triggered the security system, I could grab Yesenia and force her to use her own hand for access, but I’d have to fight my way through the approaching military contingents. An agonizing moment passed while the computer compared my palm print to its records. The air hissed out of me as the hatch slid aside.

  I threw myself into the pilot’s seat. The first switch I flipped brought up the retinal scanner, and I stared into its red light until it satisfied itself I deserved access. The board lit up in greens and reds. The shuttle rocked, and the hull clanged with ripper bolt impacts.

  I scanned the controls, experiencing a few seconds of panic while I drew a blank on how to initiate liftoff. I hadn’t flown the Protector in years, and then only a handful of times. Most flight training was done in simulators. Then Micah’s training came back to me and I sighed. Devoted or not, stubborn bastard or not, he continued to save me even after his death.

  Skipping preflight protocols, I fired up the repulsors and channeled power to the main engines so they would warm while we left the atmosphere.

  The shuttle shimmied as it rose. Radio signals poured in, some from the control center—a low, flat-roofed building on the far side of the landing field. The gunfight they could ignore, but I was launching without clearance or authorization. Other messages from the surrounding vessels threatened to shoot us down if we tried to take off. That was a bluff. If they wanted us, they wouldn’t destroy us.

  The hull pinged again as more ripper fire connected with the metal. They could, however, disable us. Shields were meant for use in space, not in atmosphere or on a planet’s surface. Activating them would repel with violent force anyone and anything within a hundred meters.

  I switched them on anyway.

  Through the forward viewport, I watched as the unseen energy flung bodies backward, weapons, helmets, and other pieces of equipment flying free and scattering the ground where they fell. The small transport ship on the next pad rocked, then rolled on its side and over, landing struts reaching for the sky like the legs of a dead insect.

  I retracted our own landing gear and opened a channel to control. “Get everything out of the way,” I ordered, cutting off the tirade from the Lissex operator. “If you want the Chosen to survive, you’ll clear us a path.” Maybe that announcement did us more harm than good, but anyone who saw us board knew whom I was carrying already. I could only hope the frazzled male voice on the other end was a Believer or at least sympathetic to them. A flick of my finger closed the connection. The red light over comms ceased to flash.

  The Protector lifted unsteadily, rocking from side to side instead of rising straight up. At first I blamed my novice flying skills. Then an alarm wailed, and another red light blinked in a steady pattern.

  Nothing in my life was ever easy.

  I ran a diagnostic of the ship’s systems. One of the four repulsors had failed. External scans located an open panel beneath the ship, the same panel Yesenia had blown out in her wild shooting spree. We could still lift, but it wouldn’t be pretty.

  I activated internal comms. “Better brace yourselves. It’s gonna be rough.” I winced, thinking of how each jolt and shift would aggravate Kila’s injuries.

  As gradually as I could, I increased power, and Lissex dropped away beneat
h us. Flares of light below suggested other ships prepping for pursuit, but we had a good head start.

  The Protector burst from the upper atmosphere, and I shut down the repulsors and lit the primaries. The sudden thrust from the more powerful engines pressed me against my seat. I thought I detected a wail from the rear compartment, but it had to be my sympathetic, overactive imagination. The cockpit door should have blocked any sound emanating from the sleeping area.

  I ran a quick scan of the ships in orbit, surprised by the number of them. A dozen or so vessels circled Lissex, some equipped with powerful laser cannons and bristling with missile launch tubes. A few were engaged in combat with each other, ships sent by warring worlds who wanted to secure Jaren’s abilities for their own use. Others moved to intercept our course, probably alerted by scouting parties on the surface. But for the most part, our path was clear, and I silently thanked the flight controller in his little office on Wayfarer’s Wharf.

  Smaller size meant fewer weapons and weaker shields, though the Guild put the best available technology on the Protector. It also meant greater maneuverability, and I dodged the few vessels crossing our trajectory, my hands blurring over the controls while I compensated. The blasts that hit home rocked us, but the shields held and we suffered no damage. I checked the diagnostic computer. They were targeting to disable us, not destroy. They still wanted Jaren.

  I reached to bring up astrogation charts on the screen embedded in the console. Anyone who brought up the Protector’s registry could make a good guess at our destination. We had to outrun our pursuers to Sardonen, ditch the shuttle, and lose ourselves in the desert wasteland. After plotting the most direct route, I activated the Weiss-space drives. The viewscreen before me became almost blinding as the whiteness of the alternate dimension enveloped our little shuttle and hid us from eyes and scanners alike.