Angela Knight - Unbound

The woman’s lips moved again, but the only sound she made was a low wheeze.

Where the fuck is Dr. Chogan? Dona wondered as her eyes flicked over the room again. Maybe I should just pick her up and Jump back to the Outpost. Comp, would she survive a temporal warp in her current condition?

Negative, the neurocomp replied. Given her wounds, an unprotected Jump would probably cause systemic organ failure and brain death. It would be better to wait for Dr. Chogan to bring a regeneration tube .

Frowning, Dona watched the woman’s bloody lips move. Her single open eye looked desperate. Leaning closer, Dona told her comp to amplify audio. “What did you say?”

The words emerged in a painful, wheezing hiss of superhuman effort. “He’s . . . still . . . here!”

Dona spun, bringing her shard pistol up as a figure in red and black temporal armor melted into view like a ghost. I knew it. Botfucker was hiding behind a sensor shield. She fired before he finished his big reveal.

A spray of needle-sharp tritium shards hissed across the room to hit the killer’s chest. Instead of carving him into hash, the metal fléchettes bounced off the suit’s armored scales in a chorus of musical pings.

She knew that red and black armor. A Xeran. Figures. Jolting aside, Dona barely avoided the spray he fired back at her. The bastards did a major upgrade of their tech a month ago. Their armor’s probably better than ours. Ducking, she listened to another round of fléchettes hiss overhead.

It was a diversion. The Xeran charged in a blur of red and black and muscle. The impact of his powerful body knocked her breathless as they reeled backward, hit the bed, and tumbled across the victim’s bound and helpless body. Lolai wheezed in pain. Crashing to the floor, the two cyborgs rolled, each fighting to aim a shard pistol somewhere vital.

“Bastard!” Dona snarled into the Xeran’s black faceplate as she managed to jam the muzzle of her weapon against the underside of his jaw. The armor’s scales were thinnest there to avoid interfering with turning the head. He grabbed her gun hand and twisted, trying to break her wrist.

Fuckit, I’ll go for a head shot . Ignoring the fragile fingers threatening to snap in his crushing grip, she twisted her wrist until the weapon scraped over his faceplate. Backup! Dona snapped to her neurocomp. Dammit, get me some backup!

Requesting backup . . . Chief Dyami says the agents downstairs are also under attack. He will have to fight his way free before he can assist .

The comp was right. Shard fire hissed and whined downstairs, along with the thump of colliding armored bodies. A familiar Vardonese war cry rang out over the shouts, followed by a deafening crash. The Xerans responded with a chorus of curses. They sounded pained.

Chief Dyami really didn’t like people who murdered unarmed tourists.

That’s why you don’t piss off time cops. Dona peeled her lips off her teeth in something that definitely wasn’t a smile. Especially me . Despite the Xeran’s attempts to force the weapon away, she braced the shard pistol’s muzzle against his visor.

But before she could pull the trigger, her foe’s polarized plastium faceplate went transparent, revealing a twisted smirk she knew all too well. “Hello, baby. Miss me?”

Ivar Terje.

Dona stared at him for one suspended instant of disbelief that promptly dissolved into howling rage. “You bot-buggering traitor !” She slammed her left fist into his throat, aiming for the larynx, meaning to crush it right through his armor. Ivan merely gagged, but she felt his savage grip loosen. Just a fraction, but that was all she needed.

Dona wrenched free to slam the pistol into his faceplate. She wanted to beat his head in, but breaking his visor made a fine intermediate step. “You almost killed me, you son of a bitch. You ruined my life, my reputation, my career. They thought I was a traitor because of you!” Another furious swing sent more cracks radiating across the reinforced plastium, but the visor still protected her hated enemy’s face.

The third blow had every last superhuman erg of Dona’s cyborg strength behind it. Her ex-lover’s faceplate finally shattered into jagged, glittering fragments. “I can’t believe I was ever stupid enough to love you!” She aimed the pistol between his eyes, her finger tightening on the trigger . . .

Ivar slapped the muzzle away from his face. The blow looked casual, but it sent her heavy pistol sailing across the room as her arm went numb from hand to shoulder. Now there was a data point she could have done without. Oh, seven hells, he’s been playing with me. He’s easily three, four times as strong as I am. Maybe more.

That must have been some tech upgrade.

“You’re worse than a traitor. You’re a fucking fool. ” Thrusting one booted foot against her belly, Ivar kicked her airborne. She sailed over the bed and crashed down into the midst of the washstand, pottery exploding, wood splintering into tinder from the impact of her armored body. Her helmeted head hit hard enough to dent the wooden floor. She tasted blood.

The battleborg rolled to his feet with a grace that was astonishing in a man so massive. “Every lie I told you, you believed. Love you? Why in all the hells would I love you ?” The contemptuous jerk of his head made light flash off something inside the dark confines of his shattered helmet.

She squinted. A pair of objects glinted bright and sharp among the disordered, sweat-darkened tufts of his red hair. Something that looked almost like . . .

. . . A priest’s horns.

Xeran religious orders marked rank by the size, number, and length of their surgical horn implants. He’s a Xeran priest now ? They accepted him into their priesthood? A traitor? Dona rose from the wreckage of the washstand, though her back howled in bruised protest. Sinking into a crouch, she drew a knife from her boot. The blade chimed, a pure, high note that somehow sounded menacing. Well, not for long, you treasonous son of a bot.

Temporal Enforcement’s techs had improved the quantum weapons they’d invented six months before. The originals had been battle axes even Dona could barely swing, but the new blades were far lighter. And just as capable of cutting through heavy combat armor.

Another deep male roar sounded downstairs. For a split second, Dona felt comforted. Somewhere the chief’s kicking ass. Just like I’m about to. Tech or no tech.

Her quantum dagger hummed a higher note as she circled Ivar, boots crunching through broken crockery. “You’ve had this coming for a long, long time, you son of a bitch.”

“No, you’re the one who’s about to get a taste of what you’ve had coming.” He bared his teeth. They flashed at her from the darkness of his broken helmet. “So, are you still fucking Dyami?” Misinterpreting her shocked expression for surprise, he curled a lip. “Did you really think I didn’t know you were betraying me with that sanctimonious Warlord prick?”

“I never . . .” she began, before she realized she didn’t owe him explanations anymore.

“Don’t waste the oxygen.” Ivar lunged, crossing the distance between them in a blur of battleborg speed. “I always knew you rutted with him, you little bitch-whore.” His fist flew at her face.

Dona twisted, avoiding the blow by millimeters as she drove the quantum blade at his armored belly. He knocked her wrist away, and she went with it, spinning aside before his backhanded blow could hit her head. “I never betrayed you, Ivar,” she gritted, knowing she was wasting her breath. “You were the one who spat on everything you ever claimed to believe in. Me. Chief Dyami. Your Enforcer’s oath.”