Tinker's Justice (32 page)

“I found Kezudkan.”

“Where’s that daruu bastard been hiding?” Greuder asked with a mouthful of bacon.

“He found daruu in Veydrus. They’ve got a world-ripper. All I’ve got to do is watch the machine, wait for him to show up, and …” Cadmus patted the holstered coil gun at his hip.

“So you haven’t actually
seen
him?”

Cadmus shrugged. “I see his footprints all over this. It’s the same model we built in his original workshop. Anyone building one fresh from the books would have made it differently. This had to be his work.”

“How do you know he’ll show up at it? Maybe he sold it. Maybe he has a dozen or so, like we do now, and only comes once a month.”

“You trying to sour these eggs?” Cadmus asked with a glare. “I’ll wait as long as I have to, but I don’t expect that to be long. You’re welcome to come watch. I wouldn’t mind a steady set of hands by the controls if I need to go through.”

“What about Kaia?” Greuder asked. “She’s the best technician we’ve got.”

Cadmus lifted a palm. “I’ll ask her if you’re not up for it. But we’ve been friends since before Kaia was even born. Figured you’ve earned it. Not like I expect this to be a multi-axis mid-air chase. The blasted daruu can barely walk.”

Greuder bobbed his head, considering. “All right then. Right as soon as I clear up the dishes.”

Half an hour later, Greuder entered the main chamber of the lunar headquarters. Cadmus had already dialed in the coordinates and begun his vigil, watching as a familiar young daruu sat fidgeting at the controls of an idle world-ripper.

“This the daruu machine?” Greuder asked.

Cadmus scowled in reply and pointed to the daruu sitting at the controls.

“It was polite, that’s all,” Greuder said. “Forgive me if I’ve picked up the habit of asking easy questions to pop the cork on a conversation. I used to have a hundred customers a day or more at the bakery. Here I’ve just got you lot.”

“That daruu there is Kezudkan’s nephew,” Cadmus replied. It had taken viewing the lad from a few angles before Cadmus was able to recall where he had seen the daruu: it was Gederon. He was the only one in the room, and kept checking a pocketclock every few minutes. He was waiting for someone. Cadmus had a good guess as to who it might be.

“So what now? We just wait?”

“We just wait,” Cadmus replied.

However, waiting was more painful than Cadmus remembered it being. His foot tapped of its own accord, and his leg bounced beneath the console. Time passed more slowly than his pocketclock claimed; he was tempted to take the device apart and check its innards for slipped gears or a defective spring. Every fiber of him wanted to be moving, to be doing something. Normally he would have blamed his anxiety on having drunk too much coffee, but he knew better. It was the youth serum.

A fifty-three year old Cadmus—in mind and body—had puttered away for years in servitude he could have escaped at any time. He had stayed to finish the world-ripper and then to steal it. With a body as fit and vigorous as he’d had in thirty years, there were too many impulses to ignore. He had energy to work all day, but also enough that he could not sit idle. Contingency plans began to form in his head, plans that didn’t involve a wait of indeterminate length.

“I bet you that nephew of his knows where Kezudkan is,” Cadmus said, staring at the daruu lad in the viewframe. It was a strange parallel seeing Gederon checking his pocketclock as often as he was. Were they waiting for the same thing?

“You’re thinking of grabbing the technician?” Greuder asked.

Cadmus shrugged. “Just speculating.”

A moment passed in silence. Greuder’s patience seemed better intact than his own. The baker had been judicious with his own supply of the serum. A few of the older rebels had held onto theirs for later, waiting to see how the others reacted, but Greuder had chosen moderation.

“But if I wasn’t speculating …”

“I’ll work the controls,” Greuder replied. “You’re not some hot-headed Veydran boy. I trust you know what you’re doing.”

“Thanks.”

Cadmus was up and ready at the viewframe, coil gun drawn and ammunition checked—all before Greuder settled himself into his seat at the console. His heart was working double-time; his mind at half-crew. At the last moment, he remembered his runed armor, but decided that he could handle a single daruu without the help. After all, an unarmed daruu was no threat beyond arm’s reach, and with a coil gun in hand, keeping one beyond arm’s reach was fool’s play.

“Ready when you are,” Greuder announced, reaching up for the switch.

“Now or never,” Cadmus replied.

The world-hole opened, and the fidgeting Gederon spun in his chair, showing remarkable agility for a daruu. Cadmus hopped through and leveled the coil gun at his head. The world-hole closed.

Gederon held up his hands. “Please don’t—”

“One more word out of you and I will,” Cadmus snapped. “You answer what I ask, nothing more. You understand?”

Gederon nodded vigorously. “Yes.”

“Do you know who I am?” Cadmus asked.

Gederon shook his head. “You c-c-can’t be … Erefan. He’s … d-d-dead.”

“I’m surprised you even recognize me,” Cadmus admitted. Of course, it had been many years since Gederon had visited Kezudkan’s estate, and he looked a similar number of years younger now. He gestured with the coil gun toward the chamber’s only door. “Who you waiting for? Your uncle?”

Gederon nodded, but said nothing.

“When’s he coming?”

“I don’t—”

“You keep looking at that pocketclock of yours. I think you do.”

Gederon’s breathing quickened until Cadmus feared the daruu might pass out. He wasn’t even sure that was possible for daruu; he had never heard of one succumbing to something so innocuous. “He’s late. He should be here already.”

Stalling. He knows something.
“Where is he now? Where was he going to be before he came to you?”

Gederon shrugged and shook his head at once.

“Listen to me. I need to talk to your uncle. It’s not going to be a pleasant conversation, since he made a rather unsporting attempt to kill me, but it doesn’t need to involve you. If you can’t get me to him in the next few minutes, I might just have to leave him a message.
You
would be that message, left in the wreckage of this machine. You following my tracks here?”

Gederon swallowed. “Yes.”

“And you’re going to take me to Kezudkan?”

“What are you going to do to him?”

Cadmus sneered. “Not a question you’re in any position to be asking. But for starters, I want answers out of him. The only choice you need to worry about is dying right here, or taking your chances.”

Gederon raised his hands and stood away from the console.

“Good lad,” Cadmus said. He waved the coil gun toward the door. “Now, let’s go find that uncle of yours.”

A blast of lightning left Danilaesis’s fingers before the first of the Iron Guard piled through the transport gate. The technician’s flesh sizzled, freezing a shocked expression on his face as he died. Something within the machine sizzled as well, emitting a gout of smoke with a foul, metallic odor. Just to be safe, Danilaesis slashed
Sleeping Dragon
through the side of the target finder, just in case anyone was able to repair the damage done to the controls. It would be just like those tinkers to take two broken machines and salvage a whole one from the remains.

“Fan out,” Danilaesis ordered. “If it moves, kill it. If it hums, break it. If it shoots, duck.” Elaborate tactics were for grand wars fought across rolling landscapes or at the base of city walls. This was to be an avalanche, an unstoppable offensive that struck with little warning and no means to fight back.

Though he had eagerly led the initial charge, Danilaesis followed now. His shielding spell had been cast such that it was better suited to fast, physical attacks like the shots from those coil guns, rather than a general defense. Still, he would rather someone else take the shots than test those defenses. They poured through the ship: twenty Iron Guard, doughty and mighty, sturdy enough that one shot was unlikely to kill them; twenty Kadrin soldiers, mean and bloodthirsty and chosen for just those reasons, but ultimately expendable; and one warlock, intent on ending the life of everyone aboard.

The Korrish rebels were outmatched. Unprepared for the sudden attack, they fell to spears and axes as they scrambled for safety. Here and there, a pocket of resistance formed, but as soon as his troops called out the locations of these, Danilaesis made short work of them. The metal armor some of the rebels wore was well protected against physical attacks, but drew lightning like a spire. Time and again, the same trick worked. It wasn’t that he could even blame them. The only ones who realized their mistake died before they could warn anyone else of the folly of trying to fend off a sorcerer’s lightning with steel.

As he made his way through the ship, he would stop at particular locations, places he knew he would need to visit before he was finished with the
Jennai
. There must have been a thousand people aboard the
Jennai
, and with just forty warriors along, it would take forever to kill so many. As
Sleeping Dragon
hacked through the first of the
Jennai’s
levitation runes, the ship lurched. It wasn’t enough to bring the ship down, or even put it in serious jeopardy, but the weight of the huge vessel settled differently, the metal creaking in protest. And he was just beginning.

It sounded like a riot had broken out aboard the
Jennai
. There was no question that they were under attack of some kind, but it wasn’t until Rynn saw an axe-wielding daruu that she knew what had happened: Kezudkan had found them, and now they were under attack via world-ripper. It had taken three shots from her coil gun—plus a fourth that had glanced off the daruu’s shield—before the invader stopped advancing on her. A fifth and sixth ended the writhing on the ground. Rynn had never killed a daruu before, and was surprised that their blood wasn’t actually muddy. In fact, they barely bled at all, though what they did bleed was as red as human blood.

K’k’rt kept up with her pace. For a creature with such short legs, she had expected him to be slower. Then again, dogs have short legs, and she couldn’t think of outrunning those, at least not without upgrading her tinker’s legs. Rebels swarmed in every direction throughout the ship, some advancing toward the battle, others away from it. Many who lacked a clear plan just ran without direction, keeping their heads down. Rynn shouted orders in passing, but in the chaos, she was barely heard and rarely obeyed. Ambushes weren’t the time for rallying the troops; they were times for an army’s training to kick into gear. Soldiers should be reacting, not panicking, and certainly not conceding the battlefield to their foes. There were non-combatants, and no soldier ought to place his life above those. Rynn managed to think of this as she herself fled the battle, heading for her quarters.

Along the way, they encountered a group of four human invaders, dressed alike in chain with loose red shirts thrown over. Rynn had worried that they would get within spear’s reach before she could put shots into each of them, but K’k’rt muttered something and the four froze in place. Even after a coil gun shot through the chest, none of them toppled to the ground before she and K’k’rt left the area.