Edge of Redemption (A Star Too Far Book 3) (17 page)

“Hold you fire!” she cried. Did it hear? Did it know?

It leveled the barrel towards her. One of the hands tensed on a paddle trigger and hovered in place. She stared down the black pit of the barrel and watched the steam roll out. She licked her lips. Her arms were getting heavy. “Hold your fire!”

Around her the rolling fire of the autocannons mostly ceased. She looked away from the eyes of the giant and stared in horror. Bodies were lumped and scattered across the old and broken concrete. The giants had advanced but didn’t press any farther. Then she realized there was no fire coming from the edges. The militia had fled.

The Hun giant took a single plodding step closer and dropped the tip of the massive barrel onto the ground. Chips sprayed from the impact point and it stared down the length at Natyasha. Its eyes were wide, placid, simple.

A low armored car crept around the corner and stopped next to the giant. On the peak of the roof a blister turret scanned from side to side. A set of racking along the back was empty with wires trailing down. A door slid open from the side and Ambassador Myint stepped out.

The Ambassador wore a uniform with slashes of gray across the shoulders. He looked confident, but not arrogant, with a hint of boredom. “Do you surrender?”

The words hit her in the gut: no banter, no wordplay, but a single binary decision. She snapped her eyes from the Ambassador to the tank and one of the giants before settling them back on Myint. She couldn’t bring herself to say it.

“There are riot control drones out.” The Ambassador rocked back and sighed. “Now do you surrender?” He stepped closer and ran a hand onto the mailed glove of the Hun giant.

“Yes,” she whispered.

“What?” he shouted.

“Yes,” she said louder. “Winterthur surrenders.”

Ambassador Myint nodded slowly and patted the giant’s hand. “Come, Ms. Dousman, there’s much we need to discuss.”

The wind shifted and brought sounds of shrieks and screams. The wailing sirens of the riot control drones ebbed and flowed as the wind drifted.

Natyasha stumbled and caught herself. The drones? What of the drones? What of her people? “Ambassador? The drones? Recall them.”

Ambassador Myint turned crisply and stepped next to the armored car. “No. Not yet, there’s an education being earned right now.” He stepped inside of the car and leaned out. “Now come.”

Natyasha saw the beginning of an agreement she was sure she didn’t like. But the edges of the rationale were coming into sight. She couldn’t do much good dead, and her voice was more valuable speaking with the Ambassador than as a peasant prisoner. She straightened herself out and entered the darkness of the APC. The sounds of the drones sickened her. The thing that bothered her the most was that she could understand the reasoning in the violence.

“Also, Ms. Dousman, none of this Ambassador business. Governor is more fitting to my role,” Myint said, settling back into his seat.

Natyasha looked at the new Governor of Winterthur and wanted to be sick. The insult was like salt in a raw wound. She didn’t know how, or when, but one way or another Myint was going to pay. That was her new goal in life.

Emilie was sure the room was designed specifically for boredom and bureaucracy. Against one wall leaned a broken customs panel while the other held data slates with dead batteries. The table had a look of dull permanence, while the chairs squeaked and flexed with every movement.

The woman on the other side of the table had a face like a putty ball. It was as if her emotions were blended with a torch and set slowly into a caricature of reality. She looked neither happy, sad, or even concerned.

“Now, Emilie,” she said, “if you could explain to me once more.”

Emilie felt her nerves stretch tight. Four hours of this, even her hairs seemed bored. She knew the woman wasn’t the sort she could bribe. She had the manner of upper management, not some lowly clerk. “I was inspecting assets.”

“You own a monastery? That is a UC property, it’s a heritage site.”

“I own the contract to service the monastery. I don’t care who owns it,” Emilie said.

The woman nodded and looked down at her own ragged tablet. The backside was scratched and dull with a line of barcodes zinging along the top. She tapped the screen and her eyes snapped back and forth as she read something.

Emilie saw the shift, a tiny change in facial posture. She’d attended days of negotiation training that helped her identify just that sort of reaction. Trouble. She shifted in her chair and rested her hands onto her lap. “Could I get some filtered water? With ice, please?”

The woman’s eyes snapped up and she blinked quickly. “I, uh, one moment, we’re almost done.”

Emilie smiled just politely enough to show she cared, but not enough to be friendly. She’d posed a simple question, a non-offensive query to see what the woman’s mindset was. The reaction made her heart rate rise. Whatever the woman was reading was outside of her norm. “Of course.”

The woman dropped her chin lower and looked down at the tablet. Her eyes darted up to the door and back down again. Up once more and back down. A thin bead of perspiration rolled down a waxy crease.

Emilie tensed and did her best not to show it. She could tell that the woman had received a message and was waiting for someone. Someone who was going to come in behind her.

She turned slightly in her chair and uncrossed her legs. She edged one toe against the table and braced herself. Her heartbeat climbed higher while the room felt warmer. She locked her eyes onto the woman and waited for the moment. The moment when someone would come in for her.

The woman looked up once more and placed her hands onto the table as if to stand. Her face was bare of anything, but a hint of fear was poking through.

The door slammed open and two men pushed inside. Each wore a dull gray uniform, neither looked like a customs officer, but more like a professional rental cop. One of the men was unarmed while the other held a stubby baton.

The waxy faced woman slid back her chair. “Now, Ms. Rose, if you would please relax.”

The lead man placed both hands onto Emilie’s shoulders while the other stood to the side with the baton in his hand.

Emilie saw the bulge in the jackets of both men. Pistols, probably—rough additive types, or maybe confiscated Core stocks. Didn’t much matter, she thought, they’d both shoot.

Then the rumble of gunfire sounded in the distance. They all turned and looked, heads craned slightly as they took in the sound. It was a rapid tut-tut-tut followed by the higher pitched crack of gunfire. The sound was oddly distant as it echoed down the hallways.

The waxed faced woman stood quickly. The chair skittered back and she shrieked when it hit the wall. “What is it? What is it?”

Emilie felt the grip loosen and she stood quickly standing next to the line of broken data slates. She felt the urge to get out, to move, to escape. Her eyes scanned the two men and decided the one with the baton was the threat.

“Just hit her and lock the lady up!” the unarmed man said.

The man with the baton took one step and hefted the baton.

Emilie spun to the side and jabbed two fingers into the man’s neck. She slammed her heel into the side of his knee and he screamed. She didn’t wait for the man to fall before stepping forward and smashing her palm into the face of the unarmed man.

“Oh my god!” the woman behind her yelled. “Help! Help!”

The baton tumbled to the floor with a clatter that followed the slump of both men. The first writhed on the floor with one hand on his throat and the other on his leg. The unarmed man was sprawled out and silent. A trickle of blood rolled down each of his cheeks.

Emilie knelt down and ripped the gun out from the first man’s holster. He tried to grab her hand but she shoved him back with the barrel. The pistol felt rough in her hand, not like an authentic weapon, but a cheap counterfeit replicated in some backroom additive cell. Shit, she thought, what now?

The woman whimpered and stumbled against the wall. Her hands raised up and tears streamed down her cheeks. Emilie grabbed a handful of charging cables and tied the woman to the chair. She kept an eye on the men but neither one looked to be in any shape to do anything. The first man mewed and squirmed.

Gunfire snapped her out of the moment and she moved closer to the door. The sound grew louder. She peaked out and scanned down the hallways. It was empty, everyone seemed to have disappeared, the only thing that made it seem alive was the smell of java. She took one glance back at the whimpering woman and set off, away from the gunfire.

The first hallway opened up into a wide reception area, the type where planetary travelers normally arrive. Lanes and stalls were bracketed by high booths with glass windows. The area was empty. She passed through quietly at a brisk walk.

A bright green sign marked the exit followed by another boring hallway lined with photos and industrial facts about Winterthur. Pictures of the vapor distilleries shone in the sunlight. She smirked a bit at the thought of the corrosion crusted towers that lined the sea shore. Hardly a tourist attraction. More gunfire echoed down the hall, reminding her to hurry the hell up.

She was determined to get out, to get somewhere that she wasn’t bottled in and tucked up. Right now she was at the mercy of whoever was shooting. However it worked out in space, she had a feeling that Mustafa came out on top. She swore to herself and felt even more alone.

A plan was slow in coming together. She walked through the empty corridor and tried to piece it together. She checked for a signal on her implanted tablet and saw nothing.

She came to a wide set of smoked glass doors. Daylight peaked from beneath in a slender band of white. She tucked the pistol into her jacket, and pushed through.

Outside the air was thick with the mist of the day. The smell of rain was on the wind along with another smell, gunpowder. The acrid tang tickled her nose. She stepped out quietly onto the well worn concrete and looked left and right. A man with a rifle sprinted past almost knocking her over. She stepped back and saw another person running. No one seemed particularly interested in her.

“Shit,” she whispered. The sound of gunfire was louder outside. Much louder. She jogged cautiously in the direction the men had run.

A horrible ripping boom blared through the air. She threw her hands over her head and crouched down. Her insides tightened and the shock almost made her cry out. The sound of gunfire had toned down with only the tut-tut echoing on.

She ran past the dull concrete wall and caught glimpses of others running. A wider avenue opened up before her and she approached cautiously. She peeked around the corner and snapped back.

Two men sprinted past without even looking at her. One didn’t have a weapon and the other held onto his rifle only by the strap. She peeked again for a better look and caught her breath. A gargantuan creature in heavy armor plodded into view with a massive autocannon hanging in front of it. Plumes of flame burst out from the barrel as it fired. Bodies littered the ground around it.

A high pitched whine came from everywhere. The crunching stopped and another enormous blast shattered through the air.

Emilie didn’t know what it was, but she knew enough to get the hell away from it. She glanced once more at the giant and saw it shooting away from her. She sprinted out the gates and was finally into the streets. A line of men huddled against the wall, clutching weapons.

“Get over here!” a man in a beat up construction helmet yelled.

Emilie ran over and knelt next to the man. She was afraid that she’d be found out—the pistol felt like a betraying lump against her waist. “What’s happening?”

The man shook his head. “Hun came down with damned giants, like walking tanks. You work in Customs?”

Emilie nodded and lied, “Yeah, I was inside,”

The man nodded. “Get out of here, we’re going to try to hit ‘em once more.”

The ripping roar sounded once again and everyone hunched down. “The fuck is that noise?”

She looked down the line of men huddled against the wall and knew they weren’t professionals. She’d spent enough time with the UC military to see that these were just locals with guns. She stood on shaky legs and braced herself against the wall.

A flash of silver dropped faster than a hawk and rebounded off the wall smashing into a man next to her. He rolled and screamed as the thing lashed out with razor like arms. Men stood and raised weapons as the man rolled on the ground.

“What is it?” a man with a shotgun yelled as he thrust his barrel at it.

Emilie stumbled back against a soldier and felt him move aside. She reached in and pulled the pistol out of her waist. It seemed heavy, blocky, artificial in her hands.

The man stopped moving and the drone stopped, suddenly still. A dimly glowing sensor bank on the back rippled and sang. It was like a silver beetle with arms made of razor steel. It hunched like a cricket.

“Shoot!” the man in the construction helmet shouted.

Gunfire erupted and blasted the creature sideways into the wall where it shuddered and popped. A dim hiss of smoke rolled off the body and it collapsed into a pile of metal.

“Fuck, man!”

“What the hell is it?” a man with stringy yellow hair asked.

Shrieks and screams echoed through the air. Farther down another one of the things descended upon the troops.

“Get up! Hit the wall, get ready to shoot. Everyone keep an eye on out,” the man in the construction hat bellowed down the line.

Emilie felt nothing but fear. Her eyes scanned up and sideways trying to see the next drone. Flashes of silver in the sky told of more, and the fear grew deeper. She’d seen them before, a branch of research had a whole shipment. Razor drones, to be used to assault ground troops or as a weapon of terror.

The blond man peered into the mist. “What are they? The fuck did they come from?”

“Razor drones,” Emilie said.

“Who are you, lady?” the man in the construction helmet asked as he stared at her pistol.

Emilie looked from side to side. “I’m Emilie Rose, my father was Klaus Rosenstein.”