Heaven's Queen (36 page)

With my visor down, I couldn’t see the phantom’s light, and the inside of the prison was surprisingly dark. Even darker than the hallways, where a few battery-operated emergency lights still barely glowed, giving my night vision something to work with. In here, though, I didn’t have squat, but since I didn’t want to raise my visor if I could avoid it and I’d already made enough noise to wake the dead cutting my way in, I took the easy solution and turned on my suit’s floodlights, filling the room with light.

There wasn’t much to fill. Unlike the rest of the station, Rupert hadn’t been to the brig before, so I didn’t actually have a clear picture of the area until I saw it for myself. The door opened into a narrow hall lined with glass-fronted cells, though only two looked to be currently occupied. When I saw who by, I nearly cracked up.

“Well, well,” I said, putting my hands on my hips. “Fancy running into you folks.”

In the cell next to me, the girl who’d been shielding her eyes against the sudden light dropped her hands with a jerk, and my grin widened as Nova’s pale face came into view. “Deviana?”

Her startled voice roused the other prisoner, who’d looked like he’d been trying to pull himself into a ball of feathers before he raised his head. “You have got to be
kidding
me.”

“Hello, Nova,” I said, trying not to laugh. “Hello, Basil.”

“What are you doing here?” Nova said, pale eyes wide. “Is the captain here, too?”

“What’s going on outside?” Basil spoke over her, hopping to the front of his cell with a flap to tap his beak against the thick glass. “What were those explosions? Are we under attack?”

We were, but I didn’t think it would be helpful to let them know the details right now. “The captain’s not here,” I said, walking up to Nova’s cell. The glass was bulletproof and shatterproof, but it didn’t look nearly as bad as the box the xith’cal had put me in. Elsie should be able to slice it with a little leverage. “But it’s a long story and I’m short on time. Stand back and I’ll get you out.”

Nova and Basil exchanged a look. “I don’t want to project ingratitude for your generous offer, Deviana,” Nova said. “But I don’t think a prison break is a good idea right now.”

I gave her a funny look. Prison breaks were always a good idea in my book, but Basil was nodding furiously. “You’re in huge trouble, monkey,” he said, eying me up and down. “I don’t know what’s going on exactly, but you’re bad news.”

“Worse than being locked up?”

Seeing Basil fluff his feathers in a huff was as nostalgic as it was annoying. “The captain said we were here for our protection, and I believe him,” he snipped. “If we go with you, we’ll be accomplices to your criminal activities.”

I rolled my eyes and turned back to Nova, who gave me a plaintive look. “We appreciate your efforts,” she said. “But while Basil and I would like to assist you along your trajectory, unless you need a jump calculated or light plasmex services, we would probably be more of a hindrance than a help. So thank you for the offer, but we’ll remain in this space for the current present, if that’s all right.”

Personally, I would have taken the out anyway, but then, I wasn’t Nova. She was a civilian with no combat experience or armor. That prison wall probably looked more like a shield than a blockade to her.

“Suit yourself,” I said with a shrug. “But maybe you can help me anyway. Did you see Rupert come through here?”

Nova nodded rapidly. “Oh yes, they brought him in a while ago. He’s at the end of the hall.” She pointed down the line of glass-fronted cells toward the back of the prison my lights hadn’t reached yet.

I took a deep breath to keep my hopes in check. “How did he look? Did you see what they’re using to hold him?”

It didn’t seem possible, but Nova’s paper-white skin went even paler under the glare of my floodlights. “I couldn’t say for sure,” she whispered, her voice almost too low for me to hear through the thick glass. “I’ve never seen anything like that, but it looked very bad.” She bit her lip. “What did he do?”

Sided with me
, I thought with a scowl. “Nothing,” I told her. “One last question. Do you know what deck the hyperdrive-capable ships are being stored on?” Because Rupert remembered this place having functional two docks, but only one was kept operational at a time for security reasons, and I didn’t want to waste precious minutes going to the wrong one. “Like, did you see any when Caldswell brought you in?”

“The dock we put in at had several hyperdrive-capable ships,” Basil chirped, his big yellow bird eyes shining like lamps in my light. “But they were all on lockdown. You’ll never get in.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I said, starting down the hall. “Was it the top dock or the bottom?”

“There is no up or down in space,” Nova reminded me. “But it was the one closest to the observation deck.”

Top, then. “Thanks,” I said, pushing up my visor so she could see my smile. “You’re the best, Nova.”

She blushed scarlet in the floodlight before I turned it away.

“Deviana!”

I looked back at my name to see Nova pressed against the glass. “Be careful,” she said softly.

I smiled wide. “Careful as I’m able,” I promised.

Basil made a sound that was part squawk, part snort, and completely disbelieving. I didn’t feel the need to dignify it with a response as I picked up the pace, following the hallway toward the back of the brig.

I’d noted before that the brig wasn’t large, and it wasn’t. The cells were shallow and the hallway was narrow, barely wide enough for my armor to fit comfortably. But while the prison wasn’t wide or spacious, it
was
surprisingly long. By the time I’d left the lower security area with glass-fronted cells and reached the much more serious rooms at the back, I couldn’t even see Nova or Basil anymore.

The cells here were smaller and completely closed in, no glass fronts, though I could see from the vents on the walls that the doors were meant to be covered in shields, all of which were down thanks to the power outage Maat was still holding strong for me. With my visor up and my lights on, though, I could see just fine. The phantoms were thick as tar here, opening up only to let me through. Maat, however, was nowhere to be seen. I was pretty sure that meant they’d finally drugged her into oblivion, which meant I needed to get a move on before the power came back on and I ended up being the prisoner who’d broken herself into jail.

Unfortunately, every cell I checked was empty. By the tenth one, I was starting to get really worried. What if Caldswell was wrong? What if they’d just killed Rupert once they got him back here? What if I was too late? But before I could get too worked up, the hallway came to an abrupt end, and I found myself face-to-face with a final pair of cells.

They were both squeezed in at the end of the hall, which didn’t make much sense to me. Considering the already claustrophobic width, there was no way either cell could be bigger than a closet. Both doorways had the usual discolorations that showed there was supposed to be a shield over them, but unlike the ones I’d passed on my way back, these cells didn’t have actual doors. Instead, they were blocked off from the hallway by thin metal mesh not much thicker than a bug net with yellow caution tape and rubber rollers on the sides.

My eyebrows shot up. Apparently, this netting was supposed to be electrified.
Very
electrified if the grounding wires were anything to go by. With the power off, though, the fancy electric mesh was nothing but a very expensive metal curtain, and I shoved it aside without a second thought to see if I’d found Rupert at last.

When I shone my light in, however, I still wasn’t sure, mostly because I couldn’t make sense of what I saw. I’d been right about the size of the cell; it
was
little bigger than a closet, barely wide enough for my armor and maybe two feet deep. And in this tiny space was a man, though he was so bound up I wasn’t actually sure about that last bit. His body had been wrapped like a corpse in heavy plastic weave straps, the crazy tough kind they used to secure exterior starship cargo, and his feet were anchored to the floor with an inert plasma weight so large I didn’t think I could lift it with my suit. But worse than all of this by miles was the mask that engulfed his head.

Aside from the incident in the mines, I’d never thought of myself as claustrophobic, but seeing that horrible, faceless, smooth metal prison wrapped all the way around the prisoner’s skull almost gave me a panic attack. It also looked horribly familiar, like I’d seen it before in memories I didn’t want to remember. Or maybe Rupert didn’t want to remember them? It was getting hard to tell. Wherever I’d seen this mask before, though, it hadn’t been good, and I didn’t like the look of it now either. There was something unspeakably wrong about the way it covered his entire head with no openings at all, not even air vents, just metal clamped down so hard it cut into the skin of his neck.

And that was where I got my clue. Though the heavy straps covered him everywhere else, a strip of the man’s neck right below the helmet was bare, showing enough skin for me to make out the pale color I knew so well. It was Rupert, I’d found him, and I had to get him out of that thing right this second.

“Rupert,” I called, ducking under the supposed-to-be-electrified mesh to stand as far inside the cell as I could get. “Rupert!”

He didn’t stir at the noise of my entrance or his name, and I cursed. They must have drugged him. I hadn’t planned on that. But symbionts recovered quickly from everything. Maybe I just had to get him out?

I reached out to do just that, hooking my hand under the closest of his straps so I could slice him free, but the moment I touched him, Rupert lurched forward, swinging on his tiny bit of slack to slam me into the wall.

“Oof,” I grunted, stepping back. He’d hit me hard enough to knock my wind out even in my suit—no small feat considering his limited range of movement. But rather than being mad at him for body slamming me, pride filled my chest. He might be soft spoken, but my love was a fighter, and apparently not drugged at all. He’d pulled back quick as a switchblade when the blow was done, pressing himself flat against the back wall, no doubt waiting for me to make another move.

“It’s me, Rupert,” I called, but though my voice was offensively loud in the small cell, Rupert didn’t even flinch … and that was when I realized he couldn’t hear me. The mask must be a sensory-deprivation device. He probably couldn’t make out a thing. I grimaced, a prison indeed, and I was more determined than ever to free him. If the mask was that horrid to look at, I couldn’t imagine what it must be like to
wear
.

I reached for him again, gently this time, my fingers landing lightly on his chest, letting him feel it was me since I had no other way of telling him. He tensed when I touched him, but he didn’t try to slam me into the wall again. I smiled and squeezed my fingers against his chest in a way I hoped he’d recognize as friendly. Then, after a quick look around to make sure I wasn’t about to be unspeakably stupid, I snatched my hands back and pulled off my helmet.

Face bare, I leaned in and pressed my lips softly against his chest. He went stone still at the touch, but it wasn’t until I’d moved up to press a soft kiss against the thin strip of skin at his neck that Rupert slumped into me.

“I’ve got you,” I said into his skin. “I’m going to get that helmet off.”

I have no idea if he understood me, but when I pulled away he started to twist, ducking his head toward me while turning it sideways like he was trying to show me the back of his neck. On the second turn, I saw it. There was a latch at his nape that held the helmet together. I memorized the target and put my own helmet back on. Next, I wedged in beside him and grabbed his shoulders, gently pushing him as far down as the straps allowed. When I had him where I wanted him, I gave him a firm squeeze followed by an even firmer push, which I hoped he would interpret as
don’t move
.

He must have, because when I released him, he didn’t move a muscle. When I was sure he’d stay that way, I ejected Elsie, firing her thermite above his head. Then, when the initial flare was over and the blade was burning evenly, I lined up my targeting and slid her into the helmet’s latch, carefully slicing the thing in two.

I did it as fast as I could, but the burning hot thermite was still near Rupert’s skin for an uncomfortably long time. Even so, he didn’t flinch, his body still as bedrock even after I lifted the blade away. I snuffed the thermite and pulled Elsie back, finishing the break with my hands.

Even with Elsie’s crack, it was tough work. The mask was crazy hard, and I didn’t want to hurt Rupert by accident, so it took me nearly a minute of careful prying before the thing finally split. When it went, though, it went all at once, falling off Rupert’s head in two neat halves, leaving him gasping.

I gasped, too, reaching down in dismay. “They cut your hair!”

Okay, so that wasn’t the best reaction I could have had, but I was just so shocked. Rupert’s lovely, long black hair was gone, shorn off in a tight buzz cut, probably so they could fit the mask. The short black stubble made him look younger and thinner, vulnerable, and even though I knew nothing could hurt Rupert for long, that didn’t stop me from throwing my arms around him and squeezing him tight as I could.

He grunted when I grabbed him, but he didn’t fight me. Not that he could, bound up like he was, which reminded me. “Let’s get you out,” I said, letting him go to grab the closest strap.

Rupert shook his head, glaring at me through the brightness of my suit’s floodlights. “Get out of here. You shouldn’t have come.”

“No,” I said fiercely, glaring back. “I’m not leaving you here.”

“They’ll catch you,” he pleaded.

I ignored him, popping Elsie again to slice through his restraints, though I didn’t bother with the thermite this time. The woven plastic was hell to rip, but it sliced just fine. Elsie’s cold edge was more than enough.

When I didn’t answer, Rupert’s expression turned frantic. “Devi,
please
. Please go. I don’t—”

“You were the one who said you wanted to help.”