Heaven's Queen (45 page)

From the way he was gasping, I knew Caldswell had hit a lung with that shot. He was pale, too, even paler than he’d been back on Kessel, and my fear that Rupert was dying before my eyes was even greater than my rage over the damage to my suit, which I would never have thought possible a few days ago.

My feelings must have been clear on my face, because Caldswell sighed and shifted Maat under his arm. “Relax,” he said, nudging Rupert with his clawed foot. “Charkov was always one of our best regenerators. He won’t die from this. You, however, are another matter.”

I tossed my head at his threat, struggling uselessly against Mabel’s hold to get in his face so I could yell at him properly. “Do you even know what you’re doing?” I cried. “We’re on the
same side
, you moron! The lelgis have been using us! Goddamn you,
let me go
!”

Caldswell answered my hysterics with a pitying look. “You think I don’t know that?”

His calm voice shocked me out of my fury. “What?”

“We knew the lelgis were using us from the beginning,” he explained, his voice frustratingly calm, like he was talking to a child. “But it didn’t matter, because we were using them, too. That’s what negotiation is, Morris. Using and being used in return. We had to stop the phantoms, they had a way, and up until recently, they kept their part of the bargain to the letter.” His eyes narrowed. “You were the one who messed things up.”

“Me?” I roared, twisting in Mabel’s grip. She kneed my injured leg in response, and the wave of pain that followed was almost enough to black me out. I didn’t go under, though. I wasn’t going to give these bastards an inch if it killed me.

“I was the only damn person with the guts to try anything new!” I shouted at Caldswell. “You said you hated the system of using up the daughters more than anyone, and you have the gall to stand there and blame me for trying to take it down?”

“Did you know how much I wanted to believe you?” Caldswell shouted back. He was losing his temper, too, his lips pulling back in a snarl. “Your virus was the first real hope I’ve had for a change in seven decades. That’s why I fought so hard to try and meet you halfway. You want change? I was ready to bend over backwards to make this bullshit work. The
only
thing I couldn’t give you was her.” He tightened his arm around Maat’s body. “But that wasn’t good enough. You had to run off half cocked after god knows what, and now you’ve left me no choice.”

“That’s not how it is!” I cried, my anger giving way to the furious, desperate need to make him understand. “We
can
have everything. We can end this suffering. All of it, for everyone. Just
let us go
.”

“No,” Caldswell said. “Shut up for once and listen, Morris. This isn’t something we can afford to mess up. It may well be that you’re right. That if I let you do as you like and kill Maat in hyperspace, all our problems will vanish and the whole universe lives happily ever after. But as much as I’d like that to be true, I can’t risk it, because Maat is the
one thing
we can’t afford to lose. We’ve tried everything we know to reproduce the circumstances that created her, but the daughters are the best we could ever manage, and even they’re just shadows.”

He looked down at Maat in despair. “She’s irreplaceable,” he said softly. “If you kill her, and the phantoms don’t leave, or worse, if more come in, it’s over. Without her, we can’t close the door again and we can’t make more daughters. The ones we have now will go mad like they always do, only we’ll no longer be able to replace them.”

He turned back to me. “Don’t you get it? Without Maat, we have
nothing
. I don’t care what you promised. I cannot allow you to gamble away our only defense against the phantoms and our only bargaining chip with the lelgis. There are simply no odds good enough or payoff large enough to justify that risk, and I will not play dice with the lives of all mankind just to satisfy your damned Paradoxian honor!”

I looked away. When he put it like that, my mission did sound unforgivably reckless. But though I knew he had good reason to doubt, I couldn’t, because every time the thought tried to cross my mind, all I could see was the emperor phantom lighting up the dark, dying as it begged me to open the door and let them go home.

“I know I’m right,” I said at last, pouring every ounce of my conviction into the words as I lifted my eyes to his. “This isn’t a gamble, Captain. It’s a leap of faith. You can’t change anything without risk. If you cling to safety, if you refuse to jump, all you’ll ever have is the hell you’ve got. So please, sir, I’m begging you, take a chance.”

I have never begged for anything in my life, but I did it now. If Mabel hadn’t had me pinned against her, I would have been on my knees, because this was more important than my pride, more important than anything. And for a second, I saw the doubt in Caldswell’s eyes. He looked down at Maat, then back at me, then back to Maat like he was arguing with himself, and I held my breath.
Please
, I begged the Sainted King.
Please please please.

In the end, though, my prayers came to nothing. “I can’t,” Caldswell said softly, looking at me with pity. “For what it’s worth, Morris, I believe you, but it’s not enough. I can’t risk everything on a story you got from a phantom.”

“Then take me back into custody.” The surrender was like ash in my mouth, but I figured if I could just draw things out a little bit more, maybe I could make him see. But Caldswell was already shaking his head.

“I’m afraid that bridge is burned,” he said, raising the arm he wasn’t using to hold Maat to point the disrupter’s barrel straight at my head.

“I’m sorry about this, Morris,” he said as Mabel forced me to my knees. “For all the hell you raised, you were the best merc I ever had. I’d even thought about inviting you to be an Eye if you could ever learn to follow orders. But after two escapes, there’s no way I can risk taking you as a prisoner again, virus or no. You’re just too much of a liability. I’m sure you understand.”

I did, but that didn’t mean I was going to make it easy for them. I fought the whole way, ignoring the pain and the blood running down my leg, forcing Mable to push for every inch. In the end, she hit me so hard I saw stars and moved while I was stunned, scooting around so that she was standing off to the side, holding me in place with one iron-strong hand on my shoulder as Caldswell pressed the barrel of the disrupter pistol against my forehead.

Funny enough, when the metal cylinder bit into my skin, its hard edge still uncomfortably warm from the shot that had downed Rupert, all I could think was that this was the same pose I’d seen back in the snowy bunker on Io5. This time, though, there was no illusion, and unlike Rupert, I knew Caldswell wouldn’t hesitate before pulling the trigger.

“For what it’s worth, you have my word your body will be returned to Paradox for a proper burial once the scientists are done,” he said, shifting to King’s Tongue for the final blessing. “King’s rest be on you, Devi Morris.”

I kept my eyes open, staring my death in the face, determined to make him watch as he shot me. It was petty revenge to be sure, but I was ready to take what I could get. But as Caldswell’s finger moved on the trigger, bright light broke over the fighter bay like a sunrise.

It was so sudden and blinding, I thought the shot had gone off prematurely, but when my vision cleared, I saw that the light was a
hand
. Maat’s bony, glowing hand was gripping the barrel of Caldswell’s disrupter pistol so hard the metal dented. Maat’s physical body was still tucked under Caldswell’s arm, but Maat, the real Maat, was standing practically on top of me with light pouring off her like a star going supernova. And though I was the only one who could see her like this, everyone winced when her voice boomed through the dusty bay.

“She is mine.”

The words went off like a cannon blast, a throbbing mix of sound and metal pressure. I wasn’t sure how she did it, whether it was her physical proximity or the drugs wearing off or something else entirely. Whatever it was, though, Maat’s voice cut through the air like a phantom’s scream, and as it echoed through the enormous dock, every light in the place went out.

Silence fell like a stone as the station’s engines died. For one long second, I don’t think anyone so much as breathed, and then Maat reached out, placing her glowing hand flat on Caldswell’s chest. “She is Maat’s freedom,” Maat said, her voice ringing. “And Maat is not alone!”

As she spoke, a wave of force so strong it made my ears pop rose up around her. I could actually see the plasmex moving as it coiled like a fist, and then that fist slammed into Caldswell, punching him into a wall of crates twenty feet away. The whole station rocked as he landed, and a new sound took over, a deep, shaking roar that made my mind go blank. That was all the warning we got before the emperor phantoms descended.

I never did know for sure how many there were. All I knew was that they were enormous, bigger than the phantom who’d spoken to me, bigger than the one I’d seen floating among the broken rocks that had been the aeon colony of Unity, bigger than anything I’d ever seen. They were so huge I didn’t actually know how I was seeing all of them, but I did.

It was like I was looking with two sets of eyes. With one, I saw the dark fighter bay and Caldswell rolling to his feet, shouting at Mabel to keep hold of me. With the other, I saw the phantoms writhing together like a serpent pit the size of a planet, their combined light so bright I thought I’d burn. But Maat was brightest of all. She was crouching over her own body where Caldswell had dropped it when she’d sent him flying, staring at me with eyes so wide I could see the tears she hadn’t yet shed.

“
Please
,” she cried, the word stabbing into my head even as the sound rattled my ears. “Please, Devi!”

She didn’t need to ask. I was already straining to get to her, but I couldn’t. Despite all the chaos, Mabel was following orders and holding me down, and though the emperor phantoms were everywhere now, they couldn’t get close enough to knock her off without entering the three-foot dead zone phantoms always maintained around me.

“No!” I screamed, clawing at her arms. I couldn’t be stopped now, not after all this, not by something so stupid. I fought tooth and nail, clawing and biting and screaming. But the more I struggled, the tighter Mabel held me, her claws digging into my shoulders so hard she broke the skin through my shirt.

I knew it hurt, but I didn’t feel it. I was beyond pain. All I cared about was getting to Maat and finishing what I’d started, which was why I didn’t see Rupert until he was on top of me.

He must have moved all at once, because when I’d seen him a second ago, he’d been on his back. Now he was in Mabel’s face, his claws buried in the side she’d left open trying to keep me in line. I felt her body tense as the blow went through her, and then Rupert’s arms slipped around my waist and tore me free.

That hurt enough that the pain got through, but it was quickly overwhelmed by a glorious rush of love and victory as Rupert turned and started for Maat. Behind me, I heard Mabel cry out as the phantoms grabbed her at last, but I didn’t have time to look. I was too busy trying not to touch Rupert’s barely mended chest as he reached down through the spectral Maat he couldn’t see to scoop up the unconscious body he could. Once he grabbed her, he didn’t even slow down to get a good grip. He just kept running, shooting like a bullet toward the bomber at the bay’s far end.

Now that we were closer, I could see the ship’s rear bomb bay door was already open and waiting, an oversight of some forgotten officer a decade ago. There wasn’t a ramp, but the ship wasn’t that much bigger than Rupert’s little stealther. Even injured and burdened with Maat and myself, Rupert could make the five-foot jump into the back of the ship no problem. We just had to get there.

I was egging him on when a furious roar caught my attention. I looked back just in time to see Caldswell slice his way free, his claws cutting through the bright tendrils the phantom had been forced to physically manifest in order to hold him. His body was bright with the phantom’s slick, freezing blood, painting him like a glowing target as he turned to charge after us, bellowing at the top of his lungs.

“Charkov!”

In a fair race, Rupert could have beat Caldswell. He was younger, and his legs were longer. But this wasn’t a fair race, and with his injuries and the two of us weighing him down, Caldswell was catching up fast, sprinting through the phantoms’ glowing bodies before they could make themselves physical enough to trip him. But though the captain was gaining, our head start gave us the edge, and we reached the bomber well ahead of him.

Rupert tossed Maat up first, sliding her onto the rusted metal floor of the bomber’s empty bay. The Maat only I could see was already inside. The old engine creaked to life as soon as she came in touching range, her power canceling the phantom’s nullification field as she hurried toward the front of the ship, sliding through the cockpit chairs like a ghost.

I was still watching her when Rupert shoved me inside, tossing me unceremoniously just inside the door. I scrambled onto my knees at once, turning to help pull Rupert into the ship. But as I came around to face him, I saw Caldswell’s arm fly up, leveling the disrupter pistol directly at my head.

Time slowed to a crawl. Caldswell had been running the whole time Rupert had been loading us in. He was now less than five feet from the bomber, almost in arm’s reach. He was so close that I could see the decision in his eyes and the strain in his hand as he squeezed the trigger, and my heart stuttered to a stop.

At this distance, there was no way Caldswell could miss. Crouching on the bomber’s bay floor, I was at eye level with Rupert, and I could see the trajectory of the shot clearly. It would blast through Rupert’s head and into mine, killing us both. But though I could see the danger, understand it, practically feel the heat of the shot cutting through my head, I couldn’t move fast enough. All I could do was meet Rupert’s eyes for a final good-bye, a thank you, everything. He was already staring at me when I looked over, his blue eyes warm and determined as they bored into mine.