Condemned (Death Planet Book 1) (21 page)

As the drone approached, Guy grabbed the keyring. The motors slowed as he lifted the metal ring away from the arm, and it no longer had to lift the weight. He sent the drone to the door of the Brain's cell to check no-one was nearby, then crept toward it and slid the key into the lock.

“H
ands up, or I'll shoot,” Andy said, as he waved his revolver toward Daniel. The portcullis rattled behind him, barely half a metre down from the roof, as two more Guards grabbed the lever. They pulled until their faces went red, but it was stuck.

“If I put my hands up,” Daniel said, “the bomb will go off. If you shoot, you'll hit the bomb, and it will still go off.”

“I'm far enough away.”

Daniel took another step toward him. The closer he could get, the less chance of being shot. “You really think so?”

Andy cocked the revolver's hammer. “I'll take that chance.”

What a mess. If he died now, he might take a few Guards with him, and cause a distraction that would allow Guy to get his men into Kingston without being noticed, but he’d just be a footnote in the history of the Revolution.

“Fix that fucking portcullis,” Pig-Face yelled. The Guards pushed and pulled on the lever, but the portcullis just rattled in the archway. Guy said he’d try to offer some help, that might be part of what he meant.

Sweat dripped down Daniel's face as he took another step toward Andy, then another. He stared down the dark barrel of the revolver, as it wobbled in Andy's grip. Guards on the walls above them looked down, then crept away into the darkness. Only a few remained anywhere near the bomb.

The keg jerked. The shaft of an arrow now protruded from the side nearest the wall, and the head from the other. A tiny stream of grey powder dripped slowly toward the ground from the holes. Daniel slapped his hand over one hole.

“What the fuck?” Andy yelled.

One of the bowmen on the wall pulled another bow from his quiver. “I'm protecting the King.”

“If that fucker blows up, I'm dead too.”

“Tough shit,” the bowman said, and raised his bow.

Andy swung the revolver. The hammer clicked down, and powder hissed. The bowman dodged as the gun boomed, but blood exploded from his back as the bullet smacked into him. The arrow fired from his bow, arching across the courtyard. Pig-Face dodged back as it smacked into the tower wall beside his head, then clattered to the ground.

This was Daniel's chance. While Andy was distracted, he ran as fast as he could with the weight of the keg hanging from the straps on his shoulders. He gasped and sweated as he stomped toward the tower.

Then he stopped.

Metal thunked on stone inside the tower.

“What bullshit is interrupting my cock?” a voice boomed.

Steam whistled, and metal clanked, as the King stomped out beneath the portcullis, into the courtyard. The exoskeleton hissed as he slowed, and ankle joints creaked as he stopped.

This was it. What Daniel had come for. His destiny, from the day he landed on Hades. The only thing that would give the few months since his arrest some meaning. He and Erica had marched to the Kremlin with the protesters to demand freedom. Now he could give these people their freedom.

“What's up with this little shit?” the King said.

“He's got a bomb,” Andy said.

“What the fuck has he got a bomb for?”

“I think he wants to kill you.”

Pistons slid in and out in the sides of the exoskeleton as the King's head turned toward Daniel. “Why? What did I ever do to him?”

“It's not what you've done to me,” Daniel yelled. “It's what you've done to the people of this city. This world.”

“I've saved them from barbarism, and given them something to be proud of. I've shown those commissar bastards back home that we can build something they don’t own.” The King turned toward the nearest drone, and gave it the finger.

“You made them slaves, and toys to entertain you, just like the people who sent us here did to us.”

The King's laughter echoed from the walls. “Boy, it's natural for the strong to control the weak.”

Daniel's finger twitched on the trigger. Just a centimetre of movement, release a few kilograms of force, and the bomb would explode. He'd be torn apart, his flesh and blood would be splattered across the castle walls. If the explosion didn't kill the King, the bomb would throw nails all around him, and one of them would.

“Not any more. The Revolution is here.”

The King laughed. “Revolution? What revolution? All I see is one little social justice warrior with shit for brains, too scared to fight me, so he'll blow himself up like a cowardly little girl. Don't you have any balls under those pants?”

“That’s sexist.”

The King laughed again.

Sweat dripped into Daniel's eyes from his long hair, and his finger shook as he tried to make it release the trigger. He'd been holding it back for so long, the metal had dug into his flesh.

He couldn't hold it forever. He had to release it, sooner or later. It would be so simple, just one twitch of a muscle, then everything would be over so fast, he wouldn't even know what happened.

Boom. Splat. Blood, brains, bones, flesh splattered across the courtyard. What could be a less painful death than that?

There was just one problem.

He didn't want to die.

D
aniel stared at the King. Think of the blonde in the whorehouse, those pretty blue eyes staring into his, dulled by drugs to keep her docile. The girl in the pit, screaming as the men tore her clothes from her body. The girl scowling at him on the wheel, like he was just another asshole who wanted to own her. All the men and women bought and sold in the slave market.

It was all this bastard’s fault.

Just release the trigger, and it would all be over.

Sweat rolled down his body. His knees grew weak under the weight of the bomb. His heart thudded. His finger twitched on the trigger. It had seemed so heroic in the shed. People cheering their new-found rights, dancing on the King's corpse, calling Daniel a hero, building statues, rebuilding this world the way it should have been in the first place.

But he wouldn't be there to see it.

He'd be a red mess on the wall that some poor sod had to mop up. Blood, brains, guts, and bone fragments smeared across the rough, grey stone of the castle. A mess that had once been human, with dreams and goals of its own.

“So what are you waiting for, boy? Your Mommy to tell you what to do?” the King yelled, then laughed.

Daniel shook. What was he waiting for? It was what he came for. For the Revolution. To free them all from tyranny.

Drones buzzed around Daniel. Whatever he did, they were going to see it back home. They weren't going to miss a show like this. He’d go viral as soon as the first voyeur found the feed. He could finally tell them how he felt.

He turned toward the nearest drone, and stared into the dark dots of the cameras on the front. In a few months, the whole world would see this. But what should he say?

Just speak from the heart. What you really feel.

“I am Daniel Volkov. I am a political prisoner, Condemned for my opinions, not for a crime. You bastards sent me to die. Die I will, but my death with show that we can create a better world here than the one that exiled us here.”

That was about it. But he still had one more thing to say, to one special person.

“Erica,” he said, and his voice cracked. “I...”

The King laughed, and slapped metal hands on metal thighs. “Erica... is that your bitch... or your mother?”

Screw him. “I do this for the Revolution.”

“Not much of a revolution, with just you.”

Fuck it.

Daniel stepped forward. “I do this because I'm sick of you, and all the fucking assholes who won't take me seriously.”

The King's smirk faded, and he glanced toward the nearest Guard. “Shoot the little shit.”

“He’ll explode.”

The steam engine hissed as the King reached out, his fingers open wide. They grabbed the Guard’s head, and the Guard yelled and wriggled as the King lifted him from the ground with his mechanically-enhanced arm.

He grabbed the pistol from the Guard’s belt. The Guard yelled louder as the King’s hand squeezed tighter. He reached up and grabbed the fingers, trying to pull them away.

The Guard’s skull gave way with a loud crack. Blood and goo oozed out between the King’s fingers. He tossed the Guard aside, and the body smacked into the wall. Then he swung the gun toward Daniel, trying to aim it with metal fingers much larger than it was designed for.

The barrel swung toward Daniel’s face. Andy backed under the portcullis, then crept slowly into the dim hallway beyond. The other Guards turned to watch Daniel and the King.

Daniel ducked as the King pulled the trigger, the hammer cracked down, and the gun boomed. The bullet passed wide, above his head. One of the Guards on the wall screamed, then fell forward, tumbling to the ground.

The King tossed the empty gun at Daniel, who dodged aside. The King’s metal legs creaked and whirred as he backed toward the tower gate.

A familiar face stared at Daniel from the gate. The blue and red-haired girl he'd tried to save. Except, this time, she wasn't wearing a jumpsuit, she was wearing scraps of cloth so thin that she might as well not have bothered. Her fat breasts swung as she stepped out of the gate on her high heels, and everything else showed right through the dress.

He froze at the sight. What was she doing there? Drones turned away from the action, and buzzed around her, recording her body from toes to head.

The King turned toward her, his metal boots stomping on the ground. A few more steps and he'd be inside.

W
ith a loud thunk, the portcullis lever fell. The portcullis jerked in the roof of the tower archway. The chains rattled as it began to move, sliding down the archway. Princess glanced up at it, as it fell toward her. Then jumped out of the way.

Into the courtyard.

The King’s metal feet scrabbled for grip beside her as he slid to a stop at the portcullis. It shook as he smacked his metal hand against it. Then his shoulder. “Open this fucking thing.”

Pig-Face pushed the handle. It rattled, but stayed in place, down instead of up. “We didn't close it.”

“Well, you can fucking open it.”

Pig-Face sweated as he grabbed the lever, and pushed on it. The other Guards joined him, trying to pull the lever up. It rattled, but remained stuck.

“The fall must have knocked the elevation weights out of alignment. I always said the Brain’s design was more trouble than it was worth. Keep it simple, I said...”

“Then fucking fix it, or I’ll be feeding my daughters your balls before the night is over.”

Pig-Face ran along the hallway to a spiral staircase in the wall, and his feet clunked on the stone as he raced up them.

Princess glanced at the King, then at Daniel. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“I’m...” Daniel began. The first time he had seen her naked, stripped in the mud by men who wanted to abuse and sell her, he had been repelled by the sight. But this was something else. He shouldn't be thinking of girls when he had more important things to do. But his cock had a mind of its own.

“I’m here to save you.”

“I didn't ask anyone to save me. So fuck off.”

What was she doing there with the King? Had the slavers sold her to him? Had he brainwashed her? He stared into her eyes. Had he drugged her? She stared right back, and pouted.

She couldn't want to stay with the King, could she?

“Not just you. I'm saving everyone.”

“What do you mean?”

The King coughed. “He wants to kill me, my dear. He has a bomb, and plans to blow me up.”

She looked toward the King. “Who are you?”

The King’s waist creaked as he turned to her. “Who the fuck do you think I am, you stupid bitch? I’m the fucking King of fucking Kingston, ruler of the fucking Borderlands, from the fucking mountains to the fucking sea.”

Then he crouched by the archway. He grunted as he forced his long metal fingers beneath the metal rail that formed the bottom of the portcullis. Steam hissed from his back as his legs and arms strained, trying to lift it. The portcullis rattled as it rose barely a centimetre from the ground, then it jammed. The King's skin beneath his helmet turned almost as red as his eyes as he strained to lift it higher. It still wouldn't move.

He let it drop.

Princess glared at Daniel. Then she stepped between him and the King.

“Get away,” Daniel said.

She took a step closer to him. “You don't really want to hurt me, do you? I mean, I never really meant that thing about handing you over to those slaver assholes. Not really.”

The King's laughter boomed over the whirring and hissing of his exoskeleton as he stood, stared at the two Guards left on the battlements, and slapped his sides.

His yell echoed back from the walls. “There’s not one man here with the balls to die for his King. Only a girl.”

Just a few seconds left. Daniel only had to do what he came to do. But how could he kill the girl? She might be a bit of an asshole, and she might have tried to hand him over to the slavers to save her own hide, but this wasn’t her fault. The stress of living in this patriarchal nightmare had driven her crazy.

Princess stepped forward again. Her breasts swung under the thin dress as she wobbled on the tall, spiky heels. He'd seen the pink, red-tipped globes several times before, but his eyes still followed the slow, pendulous movement. She watched his face, then pulled open the front of the dress.

“Do you want to play with them?”

He never had. No girl back home had ever let him touch her body. They liked him when he joined their protests, but just wanted to be friends afterwards. If he blew himself up, he'd never get to hold a pair of those in his hands.

Then again, if he didn't blow himself up, he never would, either. He'd be dead before tomorrow night, either way.

She wiggled her chest. “Come on. I don't mind.”

The portcullis rattled as the Guards on the far side hit the lever with a sledgehammer. It shook, but remained closed.