Ann Aguirre: Havoc

Still, if I can slow them down, that gives us more time to get ready.

“If you can spare me, I’ll gather some of the big guys to haul junk.”

Jael nodded. “We want them forced into proximity with the turrets as long as possible. We should build the barricades on this side. If they try to push past or climb them, the turrets will spin and catch them in the back.”

“And pound them all the way down the corridor, until the first bend,” Ike noted.

“That’s the best we can do. Go. I can work and keep watch.” He was fast enough to make it feasible.

When he wrapped up, Ike still wasn’t back, so he moved on, installing the same security measures near each checkpoint. The sentries watched him, but they didn’t try to interfere. His status as the Dread Queen’s champion was secure, even more so with Einar gone. Crazy as it sounded, he missed the big man. Mercs in his unit had died before, but Jael had never minded. To him, people were a fungible resource, one easily interchanged for another. Until Perdition.

As he reached the third guard post, electronic feedback echoed from a sound system he hadn’t even known was still functional. Doubtless it dated from back when Monsanto ran this place. The speakers popped as someone’s helmet voice-software package synced with the ancient equipment.

“This is Commander Vost. I am now in charge of this facility. I’ve been granted authority to issue pardons to a select few, those who make themselves . . . useful. I’ve already seen that my schematics are outdated, based on certain renovations you’ve undertaken. If you want a Conglomerate pardon, the path is simple, and I have room on my ship. Help me clean this place up and be among the last five convicts standing.”

“Mother Mary,” he breathed.

It was an evil genius of a plan. Set the convicts to eliminate each other. When they whittled the number down to five, the mercs would mop them up. Jael wasn’t gullible enough to fall for the promise of safe passage and a pardon, but he’d bet that a vast number of maniacs were. Hell, most of these guys liked killing. They were good at it. This was just an excuse to turn on each other.

Footsteps, along with the clink of Dred’s chains, alerted him to her presence before she spoke. She wore metal links wrapped around her forearms, protection from enemy strikes and a potential weapon rolled into one. “It’s going to be a bloodbath.”

“Can you keep your people from turning on each other?”

“Don’t know,” she said tiredly. “The promise of freedom is . . . diabolical.”

“I like my plan better. We kill the mercs and steal their ship.”

“There’s a lot of death between those points.”

“Not ours.”

She cautioned, “We don’t know if it’ll be possible with all of the mercs dead. We’ll need launch codes most likely, and I doubt Vost will keep them on a handheld in his pocket for our convenience.”

“Maybe Tam can hack the system.”

“Maybe.” But she didn’t sound too hopeful.

“Hand me that line.” No point in wasting time. The other zones might’ve already devolved into a frenzy of violence, but he didn’t hear any chaos in Queensland.

Yet.

She did as he bade her, a good assistant. Dred folded down beside him, her knees jutting like the wings of a large and flightless bird. It was odd for him to think of her like that because she was so much predatory grace, wrapped in skin and bone, but she was also awkward angles and the tired slope of a spine that had no more steel in it. Briefly, he touched her shoulder because comfort was a foreign country to him. Then he got on with the business of mining their hallways.

“This next?” She proved she knew a little about bombs when she anticipated the part.

He nodded and installed it. With her help, the cache went together much faster than the others. Just before they left, Ike arrived with a team of muscle, all bearing junk that wouldn’t be missed. It wasn’t heavy enough to keep the mercs from shoving it down, but the onslaught from the turrets would soften them up before they did.

“Is the promise of pardons true?” a big Queenslander whispered to another.

The short one snorted. “You think that asshole’ll stand by his word? When did anyone ever keep a promise to you?”

“You got a point.”

Jael felt like a crisis had been averted. It was one thing to build barriers to keep the enemy out, another to find an adversary nearby, intending to cut his throat while he slept. A lifetime of expecting a dagger in the back had taught him to strike quick and hard, but Queensland would turn into a charnel house if that happened here. He’d be lucky to cut his way out and find a safe place to ride out the dying.

He set to work alongside the others, fitting debris in place like puzzle pieces. Too much heavy stuff on top, and the pile toppled. Soon, they blocked the passage, which made him feel trapped and claustrophobic, an uncomfortable flashback to his time in the Bug prison on Ithiss-Tor, when his whole world was bounded by an eight-by-eight hole in the wall. Perdition was big enough that he hadn’t started to terror sweat yet, but now that they were closing Queensland off from the rest of the facility, the boundaries were shrinking. But he couldn’t focus on weakness when there was more work to be done. Hours later, the territory was defended as well as he could manage, given limited supplies and time. The lights in this last corridor were malfunctioning, flickering, so that it gave the dirty hallway a derelict air. It was easy to imagine this place totally empty and himself as a ghost haunting it.

That’d be my luck, huh? I die, and I still can’t get out of here.

Jael was careful not to reveal his uncertainty to Dred. She might have less use for him if she realized how much of a bubbling mess his brain was. Darkness and echoes and half-strangled memories from his time in the tank—and sometimes a voice in his head whispered that he was , in fact, a monster, so he might as well stop fighting it. Grim determination was sometimes all that kept him moving forward, along with the resolve to prove his creators wrong. I won’t come to nothing. I won’t die in here.

Dred came to check the fortifications as he turned back toward the common area. She paced around, inspecting the work, and he pulled her in for a kiss. To his surprise, she didn’t stop him. He fell into her like a river of cool, clean water. Her mouth was soft and smooth, a panacea for the chains rattling in his head. Ironic, when she wore them around wrist and ankle. The metal felt cold and hard against his back when she put her arms around him.

“Don’t do that in front of the men,” she said quietly.

“You ashamed of me, love?”

“No. But it’s not their business, and I don’t want them wanking to it later.”

“Hadn’t thought of that. My prior incarceration didn’t lend itself to such dilemmas.” In the Bug prison, he had been the only humanoid, and while he ought to be used to being the only one of his kind, he never got used to the inhuman chatter echoing through the caves. “So what’s the next phase of our strategy?”

He half expected her to pull away, but instead she put a hand over his heart. Nobody had ever done that before, as if she drew comfort from feeling the steady, reassuring beat. He almost made a joke about the thing being impossible to stop, but the sober look in her eyes kept him from it. Jael never imagined that he’d care whether somebody else felt like shit.

But he did.

She breathed out. “Not a fragging clue. Holing up feels like a delaying tactic at best, like we’re just hiding and waiting to die. I’m not going out like that, so I need to work something out.”