Ann Aguirre: Havoc

As usual, I’m starting with Laura Bradford, my agent, partner, and friend.

Next I offer a hat tip to Anne Sowards for following me into dark places and never doubting that I’ll write us out again. Thank you for making my books better. In addition, kudos to the team at Penguin for producing such beautiful books. Thanks also to my copy editors, Bob and Sara Schwager, who do such a fantastic job polishing my prose.

Over the years, I’ve been blessed with tremendous colleagues and amazing friendships. There’s no space to articulate how much these individuals have contributed, so I’ll name them in lieu of eloquence: Lauren Dane, Tessa Dare, Bree Bridges, Donna J. Herren, Vivian Arend, Megan Hart, Kate Elliott, Myke Cole, Leigh Bardugo, Courtney Milan, Robin LaFevers, Rae Carson, Lish McBride, and Yasmine Galenorn. You’ve all taught me something or led by example, possibly talked me down from a bad place or inspired me to keep going. So thank you all for being brilliant.

Thanks to my family for putting up with me. I’m trying to spend more time with you, and I hope that’s a good thing. I appreciate how you listen to my ideas and give me new ones.

To my beta readers, Karen Alderman and Majda Colak, there are no words to express my affection and gratitude. Through many projects, your excitement and enthusiasm fuel mine. I hope you know how much your support means to me, but the number of books I write—with you both cheering me on—should tell you everything.

Thanks also to my wondrous proofreader Fedora Chen. She always makes me look good, no matter how challenging the task.

Finally, all my love to you, readers, who make it possible for me to live my dream. Thank you so much for the letters and cards. I cherish them all.

Laser fire spattered the rusty floor like neon rain.

“What the hell—” Dred bit out, but there was no time for questions.

In ten seconds, she was fighting for her life. Along with Jael, Tameron, and Martine, she had come to wait for the supply ship. They’d been alerted as usual by the flicker of power just before lights out, so they’d hauled ass to the neutral zone in Shantytown to wait for provisions. Instead of bots unloading crates and barrels, a full squadron of armed men stormed out. She dove for cover, shouting at her people to stay low.

Why didn’t I bring the Peacemaker? But she hadn’t expected things to blow up like this. Some surprises couldn’t be foreseen.

The smell of scorched metal filled the air as Shantytown prisoners ran amok amid the blasts. Most weren’t sane to begin with, and it had been over two months since any provisions arrived. If the population hadn’t been thinned so dramatically through the war with Priest and Grigor, Queensland would have already been on the verge of starvation, even with the hydroponics garden and the tetchy Kitchen-mate. Dred could only imagine how bad things were here, with no rules or safety, just the law of tooth and claw.

Bodies dropped all around, and Dred crawled toward the corridor behind her. A few Shanty-men made it past the nose of the ship and attacked the helmeted squadron with ragged yellow nails and rusted bits of wall panel. Against full armor, they did no damage, and the soldiers picked them off with close-range shots. Their dying screams echoed in her head even as the assault gave her the necessary time to regroup.

“Fall back!” she shouted.

Martine snarled, but she could doubtless see how poor the odds were and how the Shanty-men were dying in droves. Along with Tam, she slid around the corner just behind Dred, while Jael covered their retreat. He swore as a shot sizzled against his back, but it didn’t stop him. With a snap glance over one shoulder, she checked on him; anyone else would be on the ground in shock. His jaw clenched, but he ran through the pain, dodging lightning bolts bouncing off the walls behind them.

An inhuman-sounding voice crackled through the speakers on the helmet. “Let them go. We have plenty to clean up here first. We’ll get them eventually.”

That’s what I’m worried about.

Dred sprinted until they reached Queensland; she didn’t explain the rush to the sentries. Once she composed herself and discussed the situation with her advisors, she’d send Martine to update the rest of the men. Until then, they could wonder why there were no supplies. She beckoned Tam, Martine, and Jael to her quarters, where they were assured of privacy. She waited until the door closed behind them, then she secured the lock.

I learned something from the clusterfuck with Wills.

As the relatively new ruler of Queensland—it had been less than a turn since she killed Artan and took his turf—Dred had trusted Wills, a madman with a gift for prognostication, without realizing he owed his primary allegiance to Silence. Their alliance was over now, and she knew she hadn’t finished her business with Death’s Handmaiden. For the time being, revenge had to wait. Once retribution had been her primary purpose, and it was the reason she’d ended up in Perdition. Time had taught Dred to be more judicious with her drive to violence.

“Report. Start with Tam.” He was a slight man with brown skin and a cunning mind. From what little she knew of him, he had a knack for politics, skilled at seeing hidden snares and schemes, as well as planning his own. Since the disaster with Wills, she didn’t trust him fully, but that applied to pretty much everyone in her inner circle. She didn’t need to explain that she wanted to hear his observations.

The spymaster answered, “At least fifty got out of that transport. There was no room for anything else in the cargo area.”

Martine added, “They all had multiple weapons, and their armor was top-notch. I doubt there’s a weapon on board that could scratch it.”

She was a small, dark-skinned woman with teeth filed to points to demonstrate how dangerous it was to mess with her. Though Dred hadn’t always gotten along with her, in the past few months the other woman had proven her loyalty, at least as much as anyone did in a place like this. Martine was tough, smart, and honest. Like most, she’d hated Artan, and she took it personally when a raid took her men from her. At first she’d thought Dred was a coward for not pushing back immediately. Now she seemed to understand the need to evaluate resources and plan strikes accordingly.

I’m not claiming territory I can’t defend.

“Apart from the turrets and the Peacemaker,” Jael put in. “The uniforms had no logo, no emblems, no identifying details of any kind. That means this is black ops.”

Jael was a former merc who was sent to Perdition because he was too dangerous to be allowed his freedom and too valuable to kill, mostly because he wasn’t human. He was Bred, the result of an off-the-books experiment. She didn’t know how many tank-borns had survived, but Jael acted like he was alone in the universe. Maybe he used to be. Not anymore.

Possibly she didn’t mind his difference because she had her own burden to carry. The first time she left the colony where she was born, her head nearly exploded with unwanted stimuli, a mad wash of deviant longings and murderous impulses she couldn’t rightly call a gift. Things only got worse from there, and her story ended in blood, wound round with chains. There’s a reason he and I are here. Dred controlled her empathy now, but the weight of it hadn’t lessened over the turns.