Heaven's Queen (34 page)

That threat got through. Hyrek went very still, his yellow eyes boring into mine. I stared back, letting my certainty shine through until, at last, Hyrek held up his hands.

“Good,” I said softly, reaching for my armor case, which was still safely tucked in the corner, right where Caldswell had left it. “Now don’t move and don’t draw attention or I’ll have Maat scramble your neurons.”

Maat can’t do that from so far away.

With Hyrek standing right there, I couldn’t very well tell her he didn’t know that, so I just gave her a “shut up” glare and moved into the corner. Crammed in a tiny room between Hyrek, the smashed medical equipment, and the ruined door was hardly the ideal condition for putting on a powered suit. My clothes sucked, too. The medical scrubs were too baggy to fit neatly under my armor, and the thought of all that dirt and slime touching the interior of my suit was almost more than I could bear. That said, I’d been dying to get back into my Lady since this shit began, and even with all these handicaps weighing me down, I had my whole suit on in just under twenty seconds.

I was locking Mia onto my back when a woman in an emergency med-vac uniform came charging through the broken door and smacked right into me. I barely felt the impact through my suit, but the woman went sprawling, and in the second I was distracted, Hyrek reached out and hit the panic button.

A siren kicked on right by my head, screeching so loud I almost went deaf before my computer canceled the noise. By the time my head cleared, the woman I’d knocked down was back on her feet and running the other direction, shouting for security. I glared after her for a second and then turned on Hyrek, shoving Sasha in his face. “You goddamn lizard.”

Caldswell’s doctor barely blinked an eye at the anti-armor pistol aimed right for the soft spot between his eyes. Instead, he gave me a triumphant look and placed his hand over the center of his chest in a gesture I remembered from my lizard-killing days. Among the xith’cal, it meant loyalty to the tribe, and though Hyrek had no tribe, I didn’t have to think too hard to guess who he was swearing to.

“Morris!”

I cringed. That was Caldswell, and he was close. Much closer than I liked.

Deviana
, Maat pleaded in my head. I couldn’t see her with my cameras on, but I could feel her hands reaching through my armor, tugging on my arm.
Deviana, we have to
go
.

I glared at Hyrek one last time as I holstered my gun. There was no point in threatening him anymore. Even if killing Hyrek could have stopped the alarm, we both knew I didn’t have the heart. “I’ll get you for that,” I promised, running out the door. Behind me, I heard a sound like cans being crushed in a grinder as Hyrek called his reply. I didn’t know what that meant since I didn’t speak lizard, but I chose to think it was
Good luck.

The medbay was on high alert when I came out. All the doctors had pressed themselves against the walls to stay out of the armored Paradoxian’s way, proving they were the smart ones. Unfortunately, I had no idea where to go next.

Hurry
, Maat whispered, flooding my brain with urgency.
Hurry!

I didn’t need her to tell me that. With a thought, I flipped my suit into combat mode, letting my computer take over as I picked a direction and started running, trusting my Lady to jump and bend and slide me around any obstacles. I spotted Caldswell the second I got into the hall, but what really concerned me was that I didn’t see Mabel, which meant she was probably a lot closer than I wanted her. So, since I couldn’t be sure, I turned and ran in the other direction.

Symbionts could outrun me no sweat on open ground, but in the chaos of the damaged battleship, I had the advantage. While the captain and Mabel had only their eyes, the combination of my 360-degree view and my density scanner fed my Lady all the information she needed to keep moving. And move we did. With Maat right beside me, the phantom’s disruptive aura didn’t so much as flicker my display. I raced around the corner, my suit moving so smoothly it felt like I was flying as I cleared the back of the medbay and charged into what looked like a central troop staging area.

This way
, Maat said, and then, before I had a chance to remind her I couldn’t see where she was pointing, a map shoved its way into my head, showing me the path across the battleship to the docking tube on the other side.

I had no idea where the end of that docking tube connected, but off the ship was good enough for me. I changed direction midstep, thinking through Maat’s map in a way my suit could understand. After that, the route appeared on my computer, and I didn’t even have to make choices. I just followed my suit, running faster and faster past confused soldiers and technicians until, at last, I reached a huge open staging bay with bold arrows painted on the floor, pointing the way toward a wide, plastic tunnel at the far end.

Battleships like this one were too big to dock at most stations, so they made do with collapsible plastic tubes that could be extended to lock into a docking bay, forming an enclosed path from ship to station. Unsurprisingly, the docking tube for this ship was big enough to drive a tank down. There actually were a few tanks lashed down in the bay around me, ready for deployment, but I didn’t have time to give them more than a passing glance before I launched myself at the exit.

The tunnel was guarded by a wide, heavy exterior door, but they must have been pretty secure in their connection, because it had been locked open when the ship’s power shut down. There was also clearly supposed to be a shield in place, but it was down at the moment, and I was able to enter the tunnel no problem. As soon as I was inside, the door’s exterior locking panel flickered to life, and I flipped up my visor to see Maat working on it, her fingers flexing inside the machinery just as the door slammed closed. Maat pulled her hand back and made a fist, then slammed it down again, destroying the lock in a shower of sparks.

There
, she said, snarling at the closed door.
Rot in your prison.

The cold hate in her voice made me shiver, but I didn’t have time to be squeamish. Even though we’d made it out and broken the door so he couldn’t follow, I didn’t let myself believe for a second that we were safe from Caldswell. He’d be beating his way to us any second, which meant we needed to get a move on. First, though, I intended to find out where we were moving
to
.

We were now on the opposite side of the battleship from the fighter bay where the phantom had spoken to me, but I could still see the fight. Counting the ship we’d just left and the one behind it that the lelgis had opened fire on before the emperor phantom’s counter-attack, there were four Republic battleships in total. Four battleships were normally considered a hell of a lot of firepower, enough to squash any rebelling colony, but next to the lelgis it wasn’t even a blip.

The docking tube was clear all the way around, made of self-formed collapsible plastic with battery lights. There were no wires, no ribs, nothing at all to block my view of the lelgis fleet that had closed in around us like a fist. The emperor phantoms were there as well, three of them now, but even they looked small and helpless in the face of so many ships. Thousands of ships, and behind them, the huge shadow of the queen was still lurking, visible only in the flashes of blue fire and the stars she blotted out.

Deviana?

I took a deep breath and turned to Maat only to find she’d moved ahead of me in the tunnel, her ghostly bare feet moving over the hardened flat plastic floor without even a whisper. The cloud of phantoms around her had only gotten thicker, but the tiny bugs weren’t looking at her. They were looking at me, their tentacles waving, and for a moment, I almost thought I could hear their small voices in my mind, begging me to hurry.

“Where am I going?” I asked.

Maat raised her dark eyebrows and pointed down the tunnel.

With Armageddon going on outside, I supposed I could be forgiven for missing the space station. Honestly, though, even if the lelgis fleet hadn’t been bearing down on me, I would have had a hard time spotting it, because the station at the end of the docking tunnel was painted matte black. There were no identifiers on its surface, no numbers, not even guide lights to mark its edges, though that could have been due to power loss. Still, I would have bet my suit that the station wouldn’t have been lit up, phantoms or no. Everything about it spoke of hiding and secrecy, even its old-fashioned diamond construction with four pointed arms radiating from a central generator core like rays on a star, which made it look like an evil Terran base straight out of a classic Paradoxian war movie. Cinematics aside, the cross star shape was actually very fitting when I realized at last what I was looking at.

“Dark Star Station,” I muttered, glaring down the tunnel. The fortress they’d built to hold Maat, the heart of everything that had gone so wrong. It was smaller than I’d expected, and very plain, which was really a shame since nine to ten odds said it was going to be my grave. I’d hoped to smash up something really impressive, but I guessed this made more sense. Whoever heard of a beautiful secret government base?

“Come on,” I said, starting down the tunnel. “Let’s get this over with.”

Why?

Her question made me skip a step, forcing my suit to catch me as I whipped around to face her. “Excuse me?”

Maat folded her arms over her medical gown.
I got you out of the ship to get away from Brian. But we’re safe now, so why wait? I’m here. You’re here.
She held out her hand, her fingers glimmering as the phantoms scurried over her palm to get away from me.
Give me what you promised
, she demanded.
Give me my death.

“I can’t yet,” I said, glaring at her. “If I kill you here, every daughter dies.”

Maat doesn’t care
, Maat said, her eyes glittering dangerously.
Maat never asked for daughters.

“They didn’t ask for you, either,” I snapped. “But they’re yours now, and I won’t kill them if I don’t have to.”

I’d actually been thinking about this in the back of my head ever since my talk with Dr. Starchild. Caldswell’s story about doing my testing on a Republic deep hyperspace ship had given me an idea, and facing Maat now gave me the final push I needed to put it all together. I just had to pray she was sane enough to understand.

“I have a plan,” I said calmly. “In order to let the phantoms go home and keep my promise to you, I need to kill you. But if I infect you with the virus now, it will spread to all your daughters.”

So?
Maat said, shrugging.
They’re part of me now. If I want to die, that’s what they want, too.
She glared at me.
Do it.

“No,” I said firmly. Seeing Ren die as she wept over her father’s body was what had started me down this path in the first place. As wrong as I knew Maat had been done, I’d be damned if I let her kill the poor girls who’d been just as abused simply because she was impatient. But Maat clearly didn’t see it that way.

No
, her voice ripped through my mind, sending the phantoms fleeing as her body began to tremble with rage.
You can’t do this to me. Not now. Not when I’m so close.
She stepped forward.
I will kill you if you betray me!

Her presence plunged into my mind as she spoke, reaching for the virus. But Maat had always said my plasmex was tiny, impossible to find. This was clearly true, or she would have grabbed it already. So, though the invasion of her hands in my head galled me, I kept my temper, refusing to give her so much as a taste of what she sought.

“I’m not going to betray you,” I said calmly. “I swear to the Sacred King that I will set you free, you and the phantoms, just not here.”

Then where?
Maat’s eyes gleamed madly as she threw her arm up, pointing at the beautiful glowing shapes of the emperor phantoms as they faced off against the lelgis.
They are fighting and dying for you, and you would make them wait longer? They cannot hold the lelgis forever. When they fall, it is over. The queens will tear you apart and all will be lost.

I took a deep breath. She had a point, but I’d made up my mind and I would not back down. I’d never been anything if not ambitious, and with only one shot to get it right, I was going to ace it, all of it, or die trying. “If that’s the case, then you’d better quiet down and listen,” I told her, putting my hands on my hips. “This is my virus, which means my rules. I’m going to get you everything you want, so do you want to shut up and find out how, or do you want to keep fighting over it?”

Maybe it doesn’t matter
, Maat snarled, glaring daggers at me.
You claim to be in charge, but Deviana’s temper is worse than Brian’s. It’s only a matter of time before you slip up.

“Don’t count on that,” I snapped. “I’m not the same woman I was. I learn and I survive, and if you think I’m going to forget myself and just hand you this virus, you’re in for a rude surprise. Now are you ready to hear the plan or not?”

Maat narrowed her eyes, and for one tense moment I could actually see her fighting it out with herself, her lips moving in a silent argument. Whichever side was arguing for me must have won, because a second later she motioned for me to go ahead.

“Good,” I said. “But first, let’s get something straight. Is it true you can’t talk to your daughters in hyperspace?”

Maat nodded.
Even Maat can’t go outside the universe.

I grinned. Bingo. “Here’s the plan, then,” I said. “I’m going to break you out of that station, steal a ship, and jump into hyperspace, separating you from your daughters. Once we’re out there, you clean the virus out of me. I’ll get to live, and you’ll get your death just like you want,
without
taking the daughters with you. With you gone, the door will be open and the phantoms can go home. It’s win-win all around.”

My words came faster and faster as I spoke, my heartbeat speeding up in time. Out loud, my plan sounded even better. I was so close, so
close
to pulling it all off, to getting everything I wanted and living to tell about it. But Maat didn’t look convinced.