Ann Aguirre: Havoc

“Now you’re talking.” He barely managed to choke back some bullshit about the fight not being over until the last man’s down. What the hell’s wrong with you? If he didn’t know better, he’d call it a brain infection.

“Supply run,” she said, as if she’d been thinking while he studied her face. “We left things hidden in Grigor’s and Priest’s territories, thinking there was no rush on the hauling. But we might well need it now.”

Jael nodded. “I’ll assemble the others. Who do you want to take with us?”

She thought for a few seconds. “Tam and Martine.”

“Not Ike?”

“He needs to stay and keep order. The men respect him.”

That sounded like a good plan, so Jael let go of her and stepped back. “Then what’re we waiting for, queenie? Rally the troops.”

Once Dred gave all the orders, she went to find Ike to make a special request. “Is it all right if we borrow RC-17?” That was a boxy maintenance bot Ike had reprogrammed to do recon and help them bypass certain ship defenses. The droid’s sensors might come in handy if the situation got dicey.

In answer, the old man turned the unit’s remote over to Dred. “Be careful out there.”

“Make sure this place is in one piece when I get back.” She tapped the command button, and the unit circled her feet in response.

Ike rubbed his whiskered chin, wearing a wry expression. “Given what’s going on, I make no promises.”

She smiled as he intended and stripped off her chains. The skin of her forearms bore pebbled imprints from the metal; she shook her arms once, twice, getting used to the new lightness, then she bent to unwind them from her boots. It had been so long since she’d done so that she was surprised to see that the thin leather had faded in a pattern that matched the dents on her arms. Dred rubbed her fingers over her inner wrist, tracing the thorn-tree tattoo that wound up past her elbow. It was a delicate design, all black ink and pale skin—the only one she’d had done before she was sent to Perdition. The ancient symbolism had spoken to her, even then. According to the oldest tales, the thorn tree represented strife and challenges—with the promise of strength for those who overcame the odds.

“Thanks, Ike.”

The old man stared at the circling bot for a few seconds, then glanced back up at her. “Two men were on the road together when they met a monster in the wilderness. One of them shoved the other down and scrambled up a tree. The second man lay there, terrified, and the beast came up to snuffle over him while the traveler held his breath and played dead. Surprisingly, that worked, and the monster went away, uninterested in carrion. When the other man dropped out of the tree, his former comrade killed him. Do you have any idea why?”

“Because he’d proven he’d turn at the first sign of trouble, and it was the wise man who knew to strike first.” Dred couldn’t remember where, but she’d heard some version of that parable before. “Is there some reason you’re telling me this now?”

“Don’t lean on anyone too hard,” Ike said quietly.

“Is this about Tam again? Or Jael?”

“It’s about no one in particular . . . and every man in the place.”

“Not you,” she said.

Tiredly, the old man shook his head. “Under the right weight, I’ll buckle.”

“Noted. Thank you for the story.”

She signaled to Tam, Jael, and Martine, who were waiting near the center of the common room, and they joined her at a jog. The halls were eerily silent beyond the new barricades. Dred tilted her head, listening, and she didn’t hear the usual scrabble of claws from the oversized rats that lived in the bowels of the station. She’d heard that the aliens hunted them for food, but they were tricky to catch and big enough to take on a normal-sized humanoid when they attacked as a pack. More than anything else, their complete absence reinforced how serious the situation was. If the rodents had gone to ground, the mercs must be shooting up the place.

As if she shared Dred’s concern, Martine muttered, “Wish we knew where those fucking mercs are.”

“You’re not alone.” Tam slipped to the front of the group and headed off to scout.

“I’ll go with you,” Dred said.

Since she’d discarded her chains, she should be able to keep up, and Dred needed to keep her finger on the pulse of what went on in Perdition. While Jael shot her a look she found impossible to interpret, Tam only nodded. Soon they left the others behind, a deep sort of silence between them, born of shared trials and tragedies. Before Einar’s death, she might’ve hesitated to call Tam a friend, but he was definitely more than an advisor.

The spymaster boosted into the ducts with her close behind and set a silent course to the nearest major intersection. Dred didn’t hear the tromp of heavy boots that would indicate mercs but the smell —there was no nearby grille panel for visual confirmation, yet Dred was sure a large group of Mungo’s men were moving nearby. Tam signaled a few things and she recalled enough from working with soldiers of fortune to understand he was indicating forty men, heading west. Away from Queensland.

Interesting.

She flashed her hands four times to confirm the number, and he nodded. Not a threat we need to worry about today, at least. Dred lifted her chin to indicate she got it, then Tam continued deeper into enemy territory. As they passed a duct panel, she glimpsed Silence’s killers clad in black, moving like ghosts below. All of them had their garrotes out, which meant they planned to do some killing.

“They’re headed for the Warren,” Tam whispered.

Too bad for Katur and company, but Silence’s choice of first strike gave Dred some room to maneuver. She experienced a pang of regret at reacting that way, but survival didn’t offer the liberty of altruistic gestures. In here, it’s us or them. Maybe, if she played her hand close to the vest, Queensland wouldn’t be annihilated by the mercs. It was also possible that Katur would play a long game of cat and mouse, forcing Silence to a frustrated retreat. Nobody knew the bowels of the ship like the aliens.

“Nothing that will hinder us much,” she said softly. “Let’s go back to the others.”

“Agreed.” In private, he didn’t use the faintly ironic “my queen” that he favored in front of other Queenslanders.

The return journey went much faster, now that they knew what to expect. Martine and Jael seemed edgy, though that might’ve been because their location had been more exposed. Jael paced forward three steps when he spotted Dred. She shook her head slightly; whatever he had to say could wait. Seeming oblivious to undertone, though doubtless that was only the impression he wished to give, Tam made a brief report of what they’d found.

Martine was frowning. “Can we circle around?”

Tam nodded. “It’ll take longer, but yes. This way.”

Farther on, Dred heard the distant echo of combat, but Tam veered away. Good call; she preferred not to waste time and resources on internal conflict when the mercs posed the greatest threat. If the other factions weren’t completely psychotic, they’d see that themselves.

Both Jael and Martine were light on their feet. This time, if they were forced to fight, she’d opt for knives. Better if they weren’t, however, at least until they had the cache.

The walls were gunmetal gray, etched with scars and encrusted with turns of grime. There hadn’t been a sanitation staff since long before convicts took over the place. Ike had told her that drones like RC-17 were responsible for the cleaning, and some spots, the bots just couldn’t reach. Turns of neglect had made it worse. Bulbs had burned out and not been replaced, so there were patches of shadow, loose wires dangling from broken ceiling hatches.