Heaven's Queen (17 page)

The doors led out into a covered loading zone full of merchant cruisers, small atmospheric cargo ships undoubtedly used to ferry goods from the smuggler hideouts in the mountains down to market. Our airfield was supposed to be straight through the next set of doors that led outside, and the second we were out, I knew it must still be here. There were no signs or markers, of course, but the huge, snow-free stacks of shipping containers were a dead giveaway. Also, the road leading up from the base of the dug-out factory back to ground level was amazingly well maintained for a supposedly abandoned back alley. Grinning triumphantly at Rupert through my grimy visor, I picked up the pace, jogging up the road until I reached the crest of the hill.

The wind hit me like a wall as soon as I left the shelter of the dug-in ramp. My suit adjusted at once, protecting me far better than my coat ever could, but I still couldn’t help shivering as the blowing snow engulfed me. According to my map, I should have been right at the edge of the airfield, but now that I was up here, all I saw was trash.

The ramp had led us straight to the town dump. There were plenty of spaceship hulls in the scrap metal heaps that filled the little valley between the mountains, but they were hollowed out skeletons picked clean of all salvageable parts. Definitely not spaceworthy, even by smuggler standards. But when I turned to tell Rupert we had the wrong place, he was already jogging ahead.

“This isn’t it,” I said when I caught up. “Let’s get back inside before my disguise is ruined.” Now that night was falling, the snow was starting to come down in earnest. Up here in the open with no protection against the wind, the fat, wet flakes were hitting my suit hard enough to make holes in the heavy layer of oily dirt.

“Actually, I think your information is spot-on,” Rupert said, pointing ahead. “Ever see a dump with a jump gate relay tower?”

I looked where he pointed, and my mouth fell open. Now that Rupert had drawn my attention to it, the scrap pile at the center of the junkyard
did
look strangely regular, exactly like a relay tower someone had welded over with scrap metal to hide. It was the right height, too, and my hopes began to pick up again. A few feet later, I was doubly glad Rupert hadn’t let me turn back, because as we cleared the top of the first trash rise, the airfield came into view.

I should have known. Like everything else on this planet, the airfield was dug down for protection against the wind. But despite the piled trash that ringed it on all sides, hiding it from view, the airfield itself was orderly and filled with ships, mostly atmospheric craft, but there was a whole line of small starships with clearly visible hyperdrives, and I broke into a grin.

“There’s our ride,” I said, hopping up onto the edge of the trash pile. “Come on. Let’s blow this—”

A boom cut me off. The sound was warped by the wind, bouncing off the trash until I couldn’t tell where it was coming from. Because of this, I didn’t even recognize it as a disrupter pistol shot until Rupert fell, toppling forward into the now-bloody snow at my feet.

I
caught him before he hit the ground.

Moving faster than I ever had in my life, I snatched Rupert up and dashed under the rusted out hull of a freighter, the only cover I could see. This turned out to be a lucky break. The old freighter was about as large as the
Fool
had been, and it was picked clean down to the struts, leaving only a hollow metal shell. Better still, it was half buried at an angle with its nose sticking up, creating a sort of crooked metal tent with the empty hole where the bridge window had been as the only one way in.

I couldn’t have asked for a better fort given the circumstances, and I said a prayer to the king as I ran Rupert to the far end, setting him down under the metal cage that had once held the navigation array, the only part of our shelter that wasn’t covered in dirty snow. “Where’d they get you?”

“Back,” Rupert panted through gritted teeth.

I leaned him forward at once, but I already knew what I’d find. Sure enough, Rupert’s back was a burned, bloody mess under the smoking tatters of his coat. It was even worse than when Rashid had shot him in the forest, because this time Rupert hadn’t had his scales to protect him. I cursed at the damage and dropped my armor case, which I’d somehow managed not to lose, in the dirt beside me. I was about to open it and get out my coat to tie over the wound when Rupert grabbed my wrist.

“I’ll heal,” he said, his voice tight. “You’re their target. Go on, I’ll catch up.”

“Hell no,” I said, yanking my wrist out of his grip. “I’m not leaving you.”

For a second, Rupert looked amazingly touched, but then his face broke into a pained grimace. “You have to get out of here,” he said. “I’ll—”

A loud bang cut him off as something landed on the old hull above us. Something far too heavy to be only human. Two more bangs sounded a second later, and the rusty ship began to groan.

“Company,” I whispered, reaching into Rupert’s bag to grab his disrupter pistol. Rupert watched me, scowling as he tried to push himself up. I scowled back and motioned sharply for him to stay put. He must have been really hurting, because he sagged in defeat almost immediately. Smiling, I lowered his gun and crept silently across the icy ground to the edge of our little shelter.

Though there was only one opening big enough to fit a person, the old hull was pitted with rusted out cracks where the wind howled through. I positioned myself right next to one of these and ducked low, disrupter pistol ready in my hand as I listened. The wind was too loud to make out voices, but I could feel the metal vibrating as they moved on top of it. I moved with them, repositioning myself until I was standing by the wall of the hull closest to their perch, and then I stuck out my foot.

My suit had six cameras in total: four on my head to achieve my 360-degree view, one looking straight down, and one that looked up at myself, located on the top of my right boot. The purpose of this last camera was ostensibly to let me see things above and behind me as well as give me a full view of my suit for damage checks, but I’d quickly learned it could also be used to look around corners and up walls, which was what I did now.

Quiet as a mouse, I slid the toe of my boot through one of the rusted out spots where the hull met the ground. As my camera cleared the metal, I got a shot straight up the hull’s curved side. An inch later, I spotted the men who were standing on top of it.

There were three of them, standing in a tight cluster on top of what had once been the ship’s forward gun. All three of them were wearing plain, black suits like Rupert’s under their heavy winter gear, which made me roll my eyes. Considering the Eye’s lifestyle, you’d think their dress code would be a little more practical. But even though it looked like I was being hunted by a trio of stuffy businessmen, they were all clearly symbionts, and they were watching the hole we’d used to duck under the hull like wolves eying a rabbit den. Since I was on the opposite side of the hull, this meant that my camera was looking up at their backs, and that gave me a great idea.

I marked each man on my targeting system and then pulled my boot back in. Stepping away from the wall, I slung Mia off my back, holding her one handed with Rupert’s disrupter in my other. I took a second to get a feel for the unusual configuration before I hit Mia’s charge, sending her whistling to life. The distinctive sound meant I’d have to move fast, a dangerous thing when your enemies were faster, but I was confident. Even if they heard me coming, they wouldn’t suspect this.

When Mia hit her highest octave, I leveled my plasma shotgun at the old freighter’s rusted wall and jumped forward, pulling the trigger at the same time. My plasma shotgun fired in a blaze of white light, the plasma shot hitting the hull only a fraction of a second before I did. The metal was still melting when I crashed into it, but Mia had done her job well, and I busted through the old starship hull like it was wet cardboard. As I broke through, I dropped Mia on the ground so I could focus everything on the disrupter pistol, watching my rear camera for the moment when my targets appeared.

Under normal circumstances I wouldn’t have cut it so close. The disrupter pistol was so old my suit didn’t know what to make of it, which meant my targeting computer was lagging dangerously behind. With symbiont speed, though, I didn’t have a choice.

I’d been out for less than a second—the echo of Mia’s shot was still bouncing across the dump—but the symbionts on top of the hull were already turning. I threw back my arm at the same time, using my suit’s rear camera and years of experience to aim the disrupter pistol, but I didn’t shoot yet. I couldn’t afford to mess this up, not with two shots and no computer, so I waited, holding my breath until my enemy spun completely around. The moment their surprised faces came into view, I pulled the trigger.

The first time I fired a disrupter pistol, the burn had seared my palm. This time, with my suit to protect me, all I felt was a pleasant warmth as the shot went off without a whisper of recoil. Since the energy-based shot moved at the speed of light, I didn’t even see it fly. From my point of view, all I did was pull the trigger and the symbiont in the middle of the trio fell backward, downed by a perfect shot to the head.

Considering the angle and how fast I’d had to line that sucker up, the fact that I’d hit a target that small on a quick draw with no computer-assisted targeting while shooting
backward
was nothing short of a career best. I didn’t have time to be cocky, though. The boom of the shot had barely sounded before both the remaining Eyes jumped me.

If I’d had any lingering doubts these men were symbionts, that jump would have done them in. They leaped off the hull like the fifteen-foot drop was nothing, angling to come down right on my head. But I must have gotten spoiled from my time with Rupert, because while the two men were faster than any human should be, they still weren’t as fast as I expected, and I dove out of the way with time to spare. We all came up at the same time, the symbionts recovering from their landing as I rolled to my feet, my disrupter pistol already up and aimed square at the taller Eye’s head.

I was fully prepared to take the shot right then, but the symbiont threw his hands up in surrender. That surprised me enough to make me pause. His partner also looked shocked, his eyes darting to the taller man for a signal, but the other symbiont wasn’t looking at him at all. Instead, he lowered his raised arms just enough to pull off his snow goggles and hat, revealing a thick head of dark blond hair and a handsome, young face set with a kind smile.

“Please don’t shoot,” he said. “You’re Devi Morris, right?”

He was speaking King’s Tongue like a good old boy from the Summerlands, warm and friendly as could be. A few months ago, that alone would have been enough to make me smile back, but I’d been around far too many Eyes at this point to buy it now.

“Depends on who’s asking,” I said, sticking to Universal to show him just how much I was not playing along. “Tell your buddy hands up.”

Even though they had to know there was no way I could get both of them with the one shot I had left, the other symbiont put up his hands as soon as I asked, and the taller Eye, who looked every inch the big, handsome farm boy his accent suggested, gave me an apologetic look so sincere I wondered how long he’d practiced it. “I’m real sorry about this misunderstanding, ma’am,” he said, his drawling voice deep and contrite. “We’re not here to hurt you.”

“Really?” I said, tightening my finger on the trigger. “Then why don’t you just let us go?”

“I’m afraid we can’t do that,” the Eye said. “The man you’re with is very dangerous. Rupert Charkov has been deemed extremely unstable, unfit for civilian interaction. We were sent here for your protection. Please, all we want is to get you somewhere safe.”

I opened my mouth to tell him what a load of bull that was, but before I could get a word out, something screamed to our left. Neither the Eyes nor I were amateur enough to turn and look, but I swung a camera over to the hole I’d blasted in the hull, desperate to know if that horrible sound had come from Rupert. The shadows inside were so deep I couldn’t make out a thing. A second later, though, it didn’t matter, because a man flew out of the hole I’d made and slammed headfirst into the Eye I hadn’t been talking to.

The thrown man must have weighed a ton, because he took out the other symbiont like a wrecking ball. I didn’t dare take my attention off the smooth-talking Eye I’d been dealing with, so I didn’t see where they landed, but my computer reported they’d crashed into a pile of trash some thirty feet away. The fake farm boy had stayed locked on me through the whole exchange as well, which was both good and bad for him. Good, because he’d given me no opportunity to run, bad because with his full attention on me, he didn’t see what was coming up behind him until Rupert’s arm closed around his throat.

Rupert wrenched the symbiont backward, taking him off his feet. “Devi! Behind you!”

I glanced at my cameras just in time to see the man Rupert had thrown into the trash heap roll off the symbiont he’d bowled over and launch at me. At that point, instinct took over. I didn’t even make a conscious decision to attack. I simply turned and fired, pegging the charging symbiont in the head with the disrupter a second before he crashed into me.

I knew as soon as it went off that my shot had killed him, but death didn’t stop his momentum. The symbiont crashed into me anyway, knocking me back into the hull. Without Mia’s heat to soften the way, we didn’t go through the metal this time, but we made a hell of a dent. Even with my stabilizers, the impact hit me so hard my vision went dark, but it didn’t matter, because my Lady had me.

I have never loved my suit as much as I did right then. I was still reeling when the Lady Gray rolled me over, kicking the symbiont off me and flipping me back to my feet. I landed perfectly right in front of Rupert, back in the fight after only a few seconds down. Unfortunately, it was a few seconds too many, because my disrupter pistol was now out of shots, and the smooth-talking farm boy knew it.