Heaven's Queen (40 page)

I didn’t bother trying to stop them. My goal was to reach Maat, not slaughter the station, however appealing that might sound while the battle rage was singing through me. But I had a job to do, and anyway, the panic only confirmed my suspicions that most of these people weren’t real symbionts but technicians forced into fighting, and bloodthirsty as I can be, I’d never liked hurting civilians.

Elsie had burned out by this point anyway. I broke off her blackened edge and pulled her back into her sheath on my wrist, walking toward Rupert as I did. He was still standing with his foot on the downed symbiont’s chest. There was blood on his claws and splattered across his upper body, making his blank, scale-masked face look truly monstrous in the bright white lab lights. This should have been a reminder of what Rupert really was, but as I looked him over, all I felt was a primal, possessive pride. That was
my
man standing victorious over his defeated enemies, and I couldn’t have been happier if I’d beaten them all myself.

Rupert must not have been able to see through my visor, though, because when he saw me staring, he dropped his head. “I’m sorry,” he said, scraping the blood off his cheek with a scaly claw. “That was … I didn’t want you to see—”

I hopped over the table, landing neatly beside him. The second my feet were on the ground, I hugged him. It was very brief, just a squeeze, but when I stepped back, I could practically feel the confusion radiating off his body.

“Very Paradoxian, remember?” I said with a smirk, running my hand over the smooth scales on his back before I let him go. “You were marvelous.” I kicked one of the downed symbionts with the toe of my boot. “That’ll teach ’em to mess with us.”

When Rupert didn’t answer, I knew he was staring dumbfounded at me. Normally I would have reveled in my ability to throw him so completely off balance, but I had no time to enjoy it right now. I was already jogging over to help Brenton.

Despite his physical problems, Brenton had defeated the symbionts who’d been trying to corner him, but the fight had taken its toll. He was leaning against the wall, his brittle, brown-black scales rattling with every wheezing breath. He accepted my arm without comment, letting me haul him up. “Where now, Mr. Guide?” I asked when I got him back on his feet.

“Through there,” he whispered, nodding at the heavily reinforced door at the opposite end of the room.

I frowned. That door was going to be a problem, especially if there were more symbionts on the other side, which I was sure there must be. Martin would never leave Maat without a final guard.

“That door is the only way into Maat’s prison,” Rupert said, stepping up beside us. “Devi, if you go down, it’s all for nothing, so Brenton and I—”

“No way,” I snapped, glaring. “They were going after you with disrupters, but I got charge throwers. The Eyes must still want me alive or that symbiont would have ripped off my head instead of just shocking me. The fact that they want me alive is a weapon we can use, so if anyone does anything, it’s going to be me.”

I heard Rupert take a breath to argue, but before he could, a loud, mechanical hum filled the air. When I glanced up reflexively to find the source, I was nearly blinded as a pair of huge targeting floodlights flashed on from the far wall. My suit adjusted to the brightness automatically, though not fast enough to save my eyes. I was still blinking away spots when the room filled with a harsh, jangling rattle, like something metal was spinning up very fast. It was a sound I recognized, but it was so out of place here that I couldn’t put a name to it until Rupert grabbed my arm.

The next thing I knew, I was on the ground, pinned under Rupert’s weight as the heavy door at the end of the lab slid open to reveal two enormous, automated, anti-armor chain guns. They’d already spun up, the noise I’d heard earlier, and the second the door was out of their way, they opened fire, shredding everything in their path.

I gasped in surprise, covering my head, not that it would do any good. The bullets that thing was firing were the size of my hand. They’d punch right through my arm into my head if they hit. I was scrambling to think of something they wouldn’t punch through when Rupert grabbed my arm.

“Door!” he yelled, yanking me up.

I jumped to my feet and bolted for the door the symbionts had fled through, the one our carnage had knocked off its track, turning the corner into a short hallway that dead-ended at another heavy door, the final compartment of the kill box we’d avoided by taking the pipe. Brenton was already here, crouched down behind the final kill box wall, which, since it had been built to keep even symbionts in, was sufficient for keeping bullets
out
, even huge ones. Thankfully, the turrets here had already been yanked down, probably by the fleeing symbionts, so we were able to hole up without fear.

Shaking my head at the irony of using a kill box for cover, I crouched down between my two symbionts, glaring at the rain of bullets pecking a hole in the wall on the opposite side of the sundered blast door not three feet in front of me. “Who the hell uses guns like that inside? Does Martin
want
to slag his station?”

“At this point, I don’t think he cares,” Brenton said, panting. “Those guns were put in as a last-stand defense.”

“More like suicide,” I grumbled, nodding at the rapidly disintegrating metal wall. “He’s going to puncture the hull and kill us all.”

“I don’t think he’d mind that,” Rupert said quietly. “And I don’t think he’s worrying about keeping you alive anymore, either.”

Couldn’t argue with that. The guns in the other room were chewing up everything, including the symbionts we’d knocked out. The two men we’d thrown at the door were such a bloody mess I had to look away, which is saying something when you’ve seen as much blood as I have. “He’s killing everyone,” I whispered. “His own people.”

“Of course,” Brenton said. “He’s an Eye.”

I snorted. Brenton was one to talk about sacrificing his men. But that was an old argument, and now was not the time. The tiny hall we’d holed up in had no vents or openings, no escape other than the doors at either end, which weren’t escapes at all. If we busted the door behind us and retreated, we’d still be trapped inside the kill box, maybe even in a bit where the
kill
part still worked. But if we tried to go forward, we’d get shot. Either way, we’d be dead.

“He can’t keep this up forever,” I said, taking the chance to reload Sasha. “Those guns have to run out some—”

I was cut off by sudden, deafening silence as the hail of bullets stopped. I held my breath, listening, but I didn’t hear the click of a new belt being fed in. They weren’t reloading. The guns hadn’t spun down on their own, though, which meant something had stopped them. I was about to peek out and see what when I heard the distinct sound of symbiont claws crunching over spent shells.

“You can stop delaying the inevitable, Miss Morris.”

I threw my head back with a silent curse. I’d only heard it once before, but that little exchange had been memorable enough for me to forever recognize Commander Martin’s dry, genteel voice. It seemed the old bastard had come out to finish the job himself.

“There’s no point in being stubborn,” he called. “You’re dead no matter what. But if you remove your armor and weapons and surrender now with no more fuss, I won’t kill Charkov.”

I heard Rupert suck in an angry breath, but I put up my hand. “Aren’t you supposed to tempt me with my life, too?” I yelled.

“Unfortunately, your death is a foregone conclusion,” Martin said. “After your actions today, your risk-to-reward ratio has proven far too dangerous for my blood. But I am a fair man, Miss Morris, and so I’m giving you a choice: come out now, save your lover, and die a hero, or I kill all of you. You have thirty seconds to decide.”

I took a step back, bumping into the blast-rated wall. As my back hit the reinforced plates, the awful feeling of being trapped,
really
trapped, curdled in my gut. Fear followed right behind, but not because I was going to die. I’d long accustomed myself to that. No, I was afraid because, with Maat knocked out, I wasn’t sure I could give her the virus like I’d promised. Even if I gave in to my anger at Martin and blacked my whole body right now, she wasn’t aware enough to grab it, which meant I wasn’t just going to
die
, I was going to
fail
. I’d put everyone in danger, Rupert in danger, for
nothing
.

But while these awful thoughts were busy spinning through my head, Brenton and Rupert were moving. They weren’t even looking at the guns in the hallway. Instead, they were huddled beside the blown off door with their heads together, talking in rapid whispers. This was odd, because not five minutes ago I would have sworn they hated each other. They must have put their differences aside, though, because when Brenton gave what looked to me like an order, Rupert just nodded and returned to my side.

“Stick close to us,” he whispered. “Go for the gun on the left. I’ll get the right. Brenton will take Martin.”

I blinked. He couldn’t be serious. Even if we could miraculously make it to the other side of the room under fire, Martin was a full symbiont who hadn’t lifted a claw yet. Brenton was a nasty customer, but he was in a bad way. If it came to a fight, he wouldn’t have a chance.

“Ten seconds, Miss Morris,” Martin called from the other room.

I clenched my teeth as I looked at Rupert, and then I made a field decision. The second I nodded, Rupert walked to the mangled door and heaved it up, setting it in front of him. Before I could figure out why, Rupert rushed into the room, using the battered door as a shield. I followed a few steps behind with Brenton, throwing myself entirely into whatever we were doing, even though I still wasn’t quite sure what it was.

Once we were through the door, I understood what Rupert and Brenton had been planning. At the other end of the bullet-riddled lab, a fully changed symbiont was standing between the two deployed chain guns. If I hadn’t heard him speaking earlier, I wouldn’t have guessed the muscular man was Martin. But though his scaled mask covered his graying beard and false, grandfatherly face, nothing could hide the surprise and fear in his body as he stumbled backward, hitting the switch in his hands.

The huge, belt-fed chain guns spun up at Martin’s command, but their motors were no match for symbiont speed. The door in Rupert’s hands ate the first shot, the bullet nearly breaking through. The second would have made it for sure, but it never got the chance. By the time the second shot fired, Rupert was already on top of the guns.

He brought the door down like a hammer, slamming it into the motor of the right turret. I heard the thing squeal as its metal casing broke, but I was too busy with my own gun to pay attention. As we’d agreed, I took the gun on the left, jumping on top of it before its targeting system could get a lock on me. I popped Elsie as I flew, and though my thermite blade was dark, she was still sharp enough to punch through the turret’s control board. The hard circuitry cracked like a plate, and the gun sputtered to a stop, the chain spinning off its gears.

I grinned, yanking my blade out as I turned to see if Rupert needed help, but I should have known better. While I’d been stabbing circuit boards, he’d ripped his gun completely out of the floor. He hurled it as I watched, launching it into the far wall. It landed with a crash I felt through my stabilizers, and I sagged with relief. All this back-and-forth between hope and despair was starting to take its toll. But while we’d eliminated the guns, the battle wasn’t done yet.

Brenton and Martin were on the floor in front of Maat’s door, brawling like schoolboys. As I’d feared, Martin’s healthy symbiont had a definite edge on Brenton’s sickly one, but what I’d failed to take into account was the difference in skill. Forever ago, when I’d watched Brenton fight Rupert in the
Fool
’s lounge, the difference had been a razor’s edge. Here it was more like miles.

Despite his superior strength and claws, Martin was on the bottom on his back, and he couldn’t seem to get up. Any time he managed to get something free to take a shot, Brenton would just readjust and attack from another direction, methodically pounding the commander into the floor. Martin must have gotten some hits in at some point because Brenton was bleeding freely from his stomach, his brittle scales chipped in several places, but he didn’t seem to feel it. If anything, he seemed to be getting stronger, driving his fists into the commander over and over until the floor began to dent beneath them.

The Brenton I knew was normally a calm, rational fighter, but right now he was drowning in blind fury, tearing into Martin like an animal even though he’d clearly already won. And while it was disturbing to watch, I didn’t dare try to stop him. I’d been fighting the Eyes for just a few months, but Brenton had been waging a personal war on them for years in his quest to save Maat, and Martin was now feeling the result of all that pent-up anger. I wouldn’t have risked getting in the way of that to save someone I liked. Like hell was I risking it for Martin.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Brenton stopped swinging. Martin had stopped moving a while ago, but it took Brenton a few tries to actually ease off the man. For a long moment, there was no sound except his labored breathing, and then the tension cracked as Brenton began to chuckle.

“Bastard always was a damn paper pusher,” he said, slinging the blood off his claws. “A bureaucrat who took the symbiont because it was part of the job. Never learned to use it, never bothered to learn anything about the real work of being an Eye. I’ll hate the man to my dying day, but Caldswell was twice the commander Martin was.”

I wasn’t sure Caldswell would take that as a compliment. “Let’s go,” I said softly, offering Brenton my hand. “We’ve got a princess to save.”

“Maat never was a princess,” Brenton grunted, nearly pulling me over when he grabbed my hand and hauled himself up. “She was just a little girl.”

“They all were,” Rupert said bitterly, tapping the panel by the reinforced door Martin’s body was still blocking. A second later, the lock turned green, and the door opened with a hiss, revealing a pure white room.