Havoc (27 page)

37

A Cold and Creeping Doom

“This is Silence's work,” Dred snapped.

Jael offered no argument. “Most likely. Even I'm aware that Mungo isn't known for his planning capacity. So where's climate control from here?”

“Four decks down.”

“In the unused part of the station. Should we assemble a team?”

Dred shook her head. “It's too cold now. The others need to huddle and wrap up.”

“Ah, so my monstrous DNA comes in handy once more. You must think you got a bargain in me, queenie.”

“I don't think, I know.” But she didn't have the time to devote to more reassurances. “Hurry. If the ambient temp drops any more, hypothermia could set in.”

“I've heard it's a pleasant way to die.”

“Not in the mood, Jael.”

“I don't think we've been together long enough for you to say that, love.”

“It's not dictated by length of relationship, just by how much of a pain in the ass the man is being.”

“That explains a lot.”

She knew he was trying to lighten the mood, but this was a serious problem. Even battles at impossible odds could be won, but if the environment itself turned against them—well, she wouldn't entertain thoughts of failure. Dred quickened her pace, running past the sluggish sentries. And from what she'd seen running past, the same could be said of the rest of her people.
They won't be any good if we're attacked.
That was her worst fear—that this might be an unholy alliance between Mungo and Silence.

Her joints ached, as if every injury she'd ever taken had rebounded with a vengeance. She remembered how slowly her father had moved on chilly mornings, and the realization that the cold was slowing her reactions made Dred step it up even more. She threw caution aside as she raced to the shaft that led down to the control room. In days past, there would've been guards here, but all of the recent losses made it impossible to guard anything but the heart of Queensland itself.

Another instance of losing by attrition.

“Don't get yourself killed,” Jael called.

“Like I can die,” she shot back. “You saw to that.”

“Are you
blaming
me? And trust me, you're not invincible.”

“Shut up and follow me.” She put two hands on the sides of the ladder, braced her feet and the bottom, then just let herself slide.

The rough metal scraped the skin off her palms, but the descent was lightning fast. Blood slicked the path even more, so she was dripping red when she hit the designated deck. Jael was yelling something, but she ignored his words of caution. Her skin itched while it healed over, slow enough not to be visible to the naked eye, but five minutes later, as she closed on the control room, her skin was fresh and new. She swiped the sticky blood residue on her pants.

“You're insane,” he snarled, catching up to spin her around with a hand on her shoulder. “If you think I'm going to watch you get hurt—”

“Feel free to watch,” the Speaker said.

He emerged from the shadows with ten of Silence's trained, tongueless killers. Dred jerked away from Jael, incensed that she hadn't heard or smelled them. The usual reek of death was missing, which made her think they'd started bathing as camouflage. All eleven of them wore the white face paint that marked a hunting party, and the Speaker was smiling.

“I've been looking forward to reclaiming the honor you spat upon when you treated me like one of Mungo's mongrel dogs.”

“How do you plan on doing that, you ghost-face asshole?” Jael stepped up beside her.

“By holding the two of you here long enough to make sure that the rest of Queensland freezes to death, then delivering you to the Handmaiden for a slow, satisfying death.”

Dred laughed. “I don't like your chances.”

“We shall see.” As they charged, the Speaker blew two darts in quick succession.

“What the frag . . .” Her tongue felt stiff and numb, her limbs paralyzed.

“Happy news. We learned recently that rodents that infest the station have a gland that can be crushed to create a paralytic poison. Don't worry, I didn't use enough to kill you, though it
is
possible, per our early experiments.”

Dred toppled forward, her chains clanking on the floor. Jael hit behind her, though she heard him trying to curse through a choked throat.
If he hadn't healed me, he'd be able to shake this off in seconds. Let's hope we both recover fast enough to keep the rest of Queensland from dying of frostbite.

“The ambient temperature is not safe for human personnel. Decks twelve to twenty-four are now limited to automated workers.”

Thanks for the tip, VI.

“Ten minutes should do it, I think. Don't blink. Or you might miss the end of everything you've built.” The Speaker leaned down, his fetid breath wafting across Dred's cheek. “But the Handmaiden tried to show you the true path. There is no end but death.”

It was hell not being able to respond to his bullshit. If rage could help her burn the poison out of her system faster, then Dred should be set. Behind her, Jael made incomprehensible sounds of fury, almost like he was strangling on it.
Shit, is he all right?
But she couldn't turn to check, couldn't see anything but the yellow sclera belonging to the Speaker. When he shifted, she got to study the smeared white paint, his pores, and the prickles of whisker on his sharp chin.

A few seconds later, he straightened, leaving her to gaze at the scuffs at the base of the wall. Her chains were tantalizingly close, but she couldn't move.
You'll pay.
Yet there was only the sickening impotence of dead limbs, nothing she could use to enforce her will. The Speaker leaned over her, and for a few seconds, she thought he meant to assert dominance in a particular way. But instead he only trailed grimy fingers down her cheek.
It's a mercy I can't feel this.
Jael managed to make an animal noise in his throat, and she wanted to warn him not to reveal his weak spot.

Me.

“Lucky for you that the Handmaiden gelds her favorites. It was a hellish ordeal, but in the end, I'm grateful for the blessing. It frees my mind for higher pursuits.”

Death instead of sex.

She'd never known revulsion could crawl inside a person, but it slithered through her innards like a nest of snakes, tangling in her lower stomach, until she was afraid she'd be sick. When the Speaker turned toward Jael, she understood the sound he'd made earlier. Whatever the Speaker chose to do, it would be worse if she had to witness it.
Better to take the wounds and suffer the pain.
It was a surprising realization but one she couldn't deny.

“I think I'll start the pain for my mistress, bring you to her with the sweet scent of blood on your skin.” The skull-faced devil produced a blade.

The feeling came back to her fingers first, but she didn't give any sign. The Speaker drew a line across Jael's palm, and red sprang up, trickling between his fingers.
He can't feel it right now, and it'll heal.
But the time was ticking away for the rest of her people. Worry chewed its way through her stomach and started on her spine.

It must be freezing in Queensland. There must be
something
I can do.

In fact, there was.

But I can't take the chance.
If she unleashed her murderous broadcast, the enemy would tear each other limb from limb, but the effect might not wear off Jael before the poison did.
If he goes after me—no, I can't. I can't risk it. So come on, body, shake it off. Can't move too soon. Have to be sure I can fight.

Mustering all patience, she waited. Her heart ticked away the seconds, and gradually, the feeling started to come back, much sooner than the jackass could've expected. With a grunt, Dred struck, yanking the Speaker's ankle, and he fell backward. The rest of the killers were on her, so she rolled, snagging her chains.
If they all have poison, I'm fragged.
But the low-ranking ones only had shivs, better for her to keep them away as she scrambled back on the floor. She staggered to her feet, whirling her chains in a clumsy circle. Jael was there, teetering but up. He slammed a kick into the Speaker's stomach to keep the asshole from sticking them with another dart.

“Impossible,” the Speaker wheezed.

“I'll fight,” she said to Jael. “You get to the control room and fix the temperature.”

To her relief, he didn't argue. Jael took a few steps back, and, with a running start, launched into an awkward flip over the rest of Silence's assassins. A few turned as if they'd follow him, but Dred got their attention with a slash of her chains. Two went down beneath the force of the blow, and she kicked out twice, snapping bones with each strike.
Eight left.

Movement seemed to help loosen up her seized muscles and joints, so she jogged in place, twirling her chains before. The silent killers encircled her. Rage blinded her, so she lost track of what she was doing to whom, and when her head cleared, the Speaker was gone, and his ten men were dead at her feet. She bore multiple cuts and bruises, all over her body, but she had no memory of receiving them. Dred took a step and was surprised to discover her hamstring had been cut.
Mother Mary, what's wrong with me?
Jael rushed out of the control room, and he was fast enough to catch her before she hit the ground.

“What happened?” he asked.

“I won? I think.”

“The bodies on the ground point to yes. But . . . you don't remember the fight?”

Reluctantly, she shook her head.

Jael wore a troubled look. “Has that ever happened before?”

“Not even remotely. Does it happen to you?”

“No. But I wonder if your Psi ability is reacting somehow with my gift.”

“Turning me into a berserker from the old vids?” Dred pushed out a sigh. “Why not? I could use another idiosyncrasy.”

“Did you get the Speaker?” Jael seemed to understand that she didn't want to discuss her . . . episode, and she could've kissed him.

“He took off.”

“Cowardly sack of shit. I regulated the climate control, and I'm going to lock the door. Can you hang there for a minute?”

Blood trickled down the back of her calf, so Dred leaned against the wall. “I'll be fine. Just need a minute.”

“Now you sound like me.” Jael went to work on the keypad beside the door to the control room. “The security's shit, but I can rewire it so the hacking solution is counterintuitive, and if they try to get in again, they'll set off station alarms.”

“That would give us a heads-up, at least. Thanks.”

Once he finished, Jael wrapped an arm around Dred's shoulders. She leaned on him until the blood dried on her leg, and she stopped feeling the injury. Curious, she bent to examine it. “Already sealed.”

There was still a deep red scab where the knife had sliced through, but the tissue beneath had already knitted together. Her limp disappeared as they approached Queensland. The air was already a bit warmer though she could still see her breath when she exhaled. The rungs of the ladder were cold as she climbed back to the heart of the zone.

As she reached the right deck, she cocked her head. “Do you hear . . . combat?”

Jael nodded. “Fucking Silence—”

“And her two-pronged attacks. It's not as much fun when we're the target. Judging by the smell, we've got Mungo's monsters all over the place, too.”

38

Chaotic Crush

Queensland was in chaos.

Fifteen meters from the checkpoint, Jael spotted the first of Mungo's cretins, only five of them, hardly any opposition. They didn't turn as he and Dred approached. He was good and pissed at the incursion, but when he came up to the group, he saw what occupied their attention. They'd killed one of the sentries and were busy sawing him into shareable pieces. One cannibal had an arm; another was working on separating thigh from hip. Jael had seen some horrific shit in his time, but this—

“No fragging way,” he bit out.

He launched at them and opened two throats in a rapid sweep of his blade. Those two dropped, leaving the other three to charge him with deep-throated growls. Like Silence's crew, this lot didn't talk much either, at least not that he'd heard, but these things were more like animals than humans. It was like they'd forgotten their words along with all sense of moral compass.
Not that I'm a saint, but shit, I never
ate
anyone.

Dred laid one open with a slice of her chains. The links whipped past Jael and glanced off his arm, but the pain didn't stop him from breaking another's neck. Blood spattered from the last one's mouth; he and Dred took the brute together, leaving only the chunky meat and bone remnants of their victim.

No time to deal with the dead. Have to save Queensland first.

“I'm afraid we're the only ones left,” she whispered. “You, me, and the monsters.”

The promise burst out of him like a river too long dammed. “Doesn't matter, love. I'll keep them from you, even if it
is
just you and me rattling around this place. The only way they touch you is if my head's on a pike, and somebody's eaten my heart.”

“Smooth talker. But . . . you're not as tough as you used to be.”

“Better men than Mungo have tried.”

She smiled. “Thanks for the pep talk. Let's go kick some ass.”

It was a cesspool of a station; Perdition always hovered on the brink of disaster, with shit being stolen, people shanking each other in the dark, transports exploding, and mercs arriving to execute all the meat bags incarcerated within. Jael wouldn't change a minute of it, so long as he got to fight at her side.

They hit hostiles almost as soon as they rounded the corner, a barrage of shots coming in hard and hot. Jael dove for cover. Through his enhanced senses, he identified merc armor, but these guys didn't seem to be shooting to kill.
More like they're just adding to the confusion.
He could respect Vost for capitalizing on Silence and Mungo's joint assault, if it wasn't so damned inconvenient. The VI was crackling with some old propaganda announcement, the first time he'd heard that, some shit about the Monsanto Corporation.

“Is this new?” he asked Dred.

She nodded. “Someone's been in the mainframe.”

“How do you know?” Jael asked, ducking low to move along the wall toward the common room. He thought the shots were coming from around the corner, but he couldn't be sure. His hearing was scrambled with all the competing noises.

Battles all over the fragging place. I don't like it.

“Stands to reason. And I'd bet money that it was Vost.”

Jael sniffed. He smelled a number of things, including Mungo's mongrels, along with burning wires, hot metal, carbon and cordite, sweaty prisoners, and melting durasteel. The air was a melting pot of interesting stink, most of which meant they had a long fight on their hands. It wouldn't be an easy run to save Queensland, but he hadn't expected it to be, either.

“Huh.” Dred vaulted over a pile of junk. Head down, she went in a graceful run and slid under a slash of laser fire.

Dammit.
He hated when she did that; only skin and bone stood between her and a splatter fest. But she was fearless. If they needed to push, she ran for it, and it was up to him to keep up. Jael sprang after her and pressed on.

“They got past us,” he heard a merc say. “Orders, boss?”

Vost answered, “Let them go. We'll get to a safe distance and watch the festivities.”

“Asshole,” he and Dred said at the same time.

Despite himself, Jael grinned. “I could get used to sharing certain things with you.”

“Just some, not all?”

He didn't answer; it wasn't the time. But on the whole, as long as she let him watch her six, he had no complaints. They fought through a host of cannibals before coming up on Cook decimating the enemy. He didn't turn when they reached the battle. He just kept fighting, his chopping knife a blinding silver arc. By the look of him, he had hard-core battle experience, though he seldom showed it. None of his assistants seemed to have made it; Cook alone was holding this part of the zone.

“You all right?” Dred asked him.

The chef nodded. “It's worse farther in.”

Taking that as an indication of numbers, Jael glanced at her. She beckoned with a jerk of her chin, and he readied his weapons. Past the tumbled barricades, the common room was a wreck of a place, with broken chairs and tables, and it was full of crazy, man-eating loons.

Whatever Mungo was trying to accomplish, he couldn't be permitted to succeed. Jael didn't think the nutter had a master plan, actually. He operated on the
kill, kill, kill
managerial style, just as Silence brainwashed her people and cut out their tongues.

No wonder Dred didn't try to talk me into joining up.

“Mother Mary,” Dred breathed.

“Where are the others?”

“No fragging clue.”

Jael hoped they were holed up somewhere, waiting for the right time to strike. The cannibals didn't give him a chance to say as much, however. They rushed in a mob, no finesse or battle tactics whatsoever. There had to be twenty of them in here, and they all looked hungry. A few gnashed their red teeth as if at the promise of the grisly feast to come.

“I don't think so,” Dred said.

She slammed her chain away from her body, nailing the closest monster in the face. The blow broke his nose and knocked out some teeth. Since he needed those for chewing human flesh, the enemy let out a scream of pained rage. Around him, the others responded, pressing closer until Jael had them all snapping and grabbing at him. It was hard to fight in close quarters, so he opened things up by wrenching free and flipping backward. Dred covered his movement with another lash of her chains, and two of the prisoners went down. She stomped on their faces even as another one sank its teeth into her arm.

Funny, “it,” not him or her. They don't even look human anymore.

Some of them had film across their eyes, open sores oozing pus, and others were losing their hair, like their grotesque habits had imprinted on their flesh. He shuddered and rushed back into the fight, before they surrounded Dred. Their grasping nails dug into her arms, gouges that healed before his eyes.

She's stronger, I think. Good. She needs to be.

Jael dropped another one as Tam and Martine burst into the room. Calypso was close behind, along with some of Katur's aliens. Relief surged through him; he was happier than he expected to see the others.
What the hell's wrong with you? Do you
like
these misfits?
But the cannibals didn't turn. Like animals, once they focused on their prey, they didn't think about the odds of winning. These things were wholly driven by hunger and impulse.

“How does it look elsewhere?”

“There's fighting everywhere,” Tam answered.

“Help us with these, and we'll get to work clearing the place.” Dred sounded confident, exactly what her people needed to hear.

“My pleasure,” Calypso said.

The mistress of the circle was a dervish of death, bare-handed, and she snapped two necks by the time Jael took down his next one.
It's because of the poison,
he told himself. In truth, it was a pleasure to watch the woman fight. He doubted there was anyone who could counter her rapid-fire strikes and sweeps. For her height, she was incredibly agile, one moment before, the next behind, and she ended her next brief fight by strangling one of the brutes with her bare hands.

Strong, too. Good to know.

Martine and Tam fought as a unit. Since they were both small, they assisted each other and took out targets with brutal efficiency. Reassured, Jael went back to killing, and soon Mungo's mongrels lay dead on the floor, along with the rest of the rubbish. Dred held out her hand briefly; nobody else would've noticed that it was shaking. To cover, she curled her fingers into a fist and propped it on her hip.

“We saw Mungo's men coming in. Is Silence here, too?”

Martine nodded. “They're ambushing us left and right. Strangled two men right in front of Tam and me and took off.”

Dred muttered a curse. “You won't get them to face you straight up, so make sure you have someone to watch your back. They'll probably strike in dark hallways while we're fighting Mungo's people.” She sighed. “It'll be tough as hell to clear them all out.”

If it's possible at all.
Everyone wore an expression that suggested they shared his skepticism regarding the impossibility of this task.

But nobody spoke his or her doubts aloud. Like Jael, they'd follow Dred until the end.