Wings of Retribution (78 page)

Dallas glanced at Ragnar, who was already pulling the bodies from the hall, and then at Ki’lan.  She leaned closer, peering up at the guy who had punched her.  “
Stuart?”

The Warrior grinned.

Dallas kicked him in the shin.  “You bastard!  You
hit
me!”

“Dallas, damn!  It was to keep up appearances!  Calm down!”  The big Warrior hobbled backwards, away from her.

“You didn’t have to be such a
jerk,”
Dallas cried, kicking him again.

“Feel free to shock the monkey,” Ragnar said from the floor.  He was kneeling with a wet rag, wiping up the blood.

“Dallas, I had to say it.  This guy I took over is an asshole.  They would’ve known something was wrong.”

“You called me a pussy,” she muttered.

“Dallas,” Stuart said, leaning close and touching her arms.  “I’m sorry I scared you.”

Mollified, Dallas snuggled a bit closer, leaning into his big, warm chest.  “Thanks for rescuing me.  I thought I was sharkbait.”  Then, when Stuart just stood there like a board in front of her, Dallas slapped his bicep and said, “
Kiss
me, stupid.  You just rescued your damsel in distress.”

From the floor, Ragnar groaned.  “Oh please.”

But almost tentatively, Stuart wrapped his arms around her and, as she leaned up eagerly to meet his lips, he gave her a tiny peck on the cheek.   

For a long, stunned moment, Dallas could only stare up at him in dismay.  Stuart started fidgeting under the intensity of her scrutiny.  “You call that a
kiss
?” she finally blurted.

Stuart had the good sense to blush.  “I, uh…”  He cleared his throat, looking down at her.  “Dallas, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask—”

“You know, you guys could
help
me with this,” Ragnar growled, holding up a bloody rag.

Something he wanted to ask her?  Dallas frowned up at Stuart, then glanced at the shifter, who was busily cleaning up the mess.  Figuring he was just a complainer who had things perfectly under control, she looked back up at Stuart.  “What do you want to ask?”

But the
suzait
cleared his throat again and pulled away.  “Never mind.  Sorry.  We’ve gotta get moving.”  Much too quickly, he went to help Ragnar mop up blood.

“Now we get Tommy,” Ragnar said, tossing the rag inside with the bodies and shutting the door.  “And get the hell off this rock.”

Colonel Howlen sat in his chair, staring at the door to his room.  It was locked, two Warriors posted on the other side.  He could hear them talking, laughing.  Two of them were playing dice, the painted fishbones rattling against the stone floor to cheers and curses.

Tommy’s fingers clenched the blue vial in his hand, white-knuckled.

They were killing Dallas.  Probably right now, as he sat there, dinner still warm in his belly, free to go to sleep whenever he wanted.  They were killing her and there was nothing he could do about it.

Juno had won.  She’d finally gotten him.  By bringing Dallas back for medical attention, he’d signed his own psychological death warrant.  Now he was
hers
, and both of them knew it.  Dallas’s death would just be the start.  Then the good doctor would bring him the corpse, show him the video, pick that little chink in his armor open ever wider until it was a gaping, festering wound.

Guilt and hopelessness were crushing him on the inside.  He was finding it hurt to breathe.  They had revived Dallas just so they could kill her properly.  The whole world was a damned game to this woman.

A game that he had just lost.

Tommy should have fled.  Maybe he would have gotten to another system fast enough to save her.  Even if he hadn’t she would have died quietly, not as a spectacle.

Howlen popped the cap from the vial and immediately winced as the room was filled with a powerful fishy stink. 
They must dilute the stuff somehow,
he thought.  Otherwise only a madman could manage to swallow it.

Howlen put the lid back on and set the vial on the table in front of him, studying it.  After all his years monitoring the drug trade on T-9, he had only heard of this stuff a couple times in passing.  From what he had gathered on his shuttle runs, ‘floater wash’ was another word for what the criminal underworld called ‘Xenith.’  It was whispered that the high it created was unlike any other—some even called it a spiritual experience, a nectar of the gods that allowed the users could communicate with the dead—and that the rich would pay outrageous sums just for a few drops.  He had no doubts that Juno had used it to finance her massive fleet.  From the whispers he’d heard in the loading bays, probably a single drop would be enough to get utterly wasted.

Tommy watched it, considering.

Some of the easiest ways to die were by drug overdose.  Millions of Utopis each year expired in this manner, and Howlen had never seen a more peaceful expression than the drool-encrusted face of a tanga-weeder who had sucked in a bit of the leaf with his smoke.  Even sleep did not rival the peace of a drug-induced death.  The Trader said it put its users into a state of ecstasy, where the user was one with his world.  That’s what he wanted.  A happy, painless death.  Maybe a little euphoria before the stuff overpowered him.

Tommy looked away.  Unlike Athenais, he did not intend to allow this mentally-disturbed clown to have her satisfaction.  He was not going to die in a glorified fishbowl, food for a genetically enhanced shark.  And he was definitely not going to drown strapped to an anchor in cold black water ten miles under the sea.  He would rather crawl out his window and dive into the rocks below.

But why go through
that
mental agony when he had a much easier route, right here in front of him?

Howlen’s eyes once more slid back to the blue vial.  Was one vial enough to kill him?  What
was
the normal dose size?  Did he even need to down the whole thing?

Thinking about swallowing the vile stuff made Howlen’s stomach flutter.  Maybe the rocks would be easier.  After all, if he vomited it up, he would have to go that route anyway.  Might as well get it over with.

And yet, why not try it?  He’d rather not have his last moments be a few brief seconds of terror, followed by a brief instant of obliterating pain.  He wanted peace.  He wanted this whole, huge disaster to go away, before Juno grew bored with her blood-red shark pool and came looking for him with a video chip.

Howlen reached out for the vial again.  He lifted it up and popped off the cap.  The overpowering reek of fish penetrated the room, but he ignored it.

He thought of his family, slaughtered by the
suzait
on Jonin.  Would they meet him on the other side? 
Was
there another side?

There was one way to find out.

Howlen tipped the vial back and swallowed it all.  He forced it down, then held the tingling liquid in his stomach despite his reflexive desire to expel it.

Almost immediately, a warm sensation of peace overwhelmed him, just as he hoped it would.  His arms and legs began to feel heavy and numb, so he dropped the empty vial and curled up against his chair, closing his eyes, surrendering to the bliss.

Suddenly, though, an arc of blinding white light snapped through his brain, jolting him.  It happened again, and his legs and arms twitched in response.  The light came more rapidly, throwing him violently from the chair in a series of powerful convulsions.

No…this is all wrong,
Tommy thought as his body slammed into furniture, breaking the table and tossing the chair against the wall, where it shattered.  He felt his eyes curl up into the top of his head, his fingers squeezed into tight fists as his arms and legs thrashed the floor.  Lighting was striking him everywhere, electrifying his brain, coursing through his core.

Outside, one of the dice players shouted at him to keep it down.

This isn’t the way it was supposed to be,
Tommy thought as the agonizing streaks tore through his body, leaving him foaming at the mouth, his body uncontrollable. 
I was supposed to go to sleep.

Athenais shifted in the seat beside Juno, watching the platform before them with interest.  The water in the enormous tank rippled as the shark swam around and around, sometimes cutting through the surface with its dorsal fin.

“Well, that’s interesting,” Athenais said, after an hour passed with nothing but an empty tank.  “What kind of shark
is
that, anyway?  Looks kinda like a great white.  Maybe if it swims around a few more times, I’ll be able to get a better look.”  She leaned closer, thoughtful.  “Nope, not that time.  Nope.  Nope.  Still can’t quite get it.  Nope.”

Juno, whose mood had deteriorated throughout the entire episode, barked at her to shut up or be thrown into the tank as an appetizer.

Because Athenais already had an arm growing out of her shoulder socket, she decided to sit back and inspect the back of her eyelids for light-leaks.  “Let me know when something interesting happens,” she said.

Another twenty minutes later, Juno perked up when a Warrior came running across the platform, his hair matted with blood.  He stopped beside Juno’s private booth, pushing the guards aside to whisper into her ear.

“
Turned
on you?!” Juno snarled, jumping to her feet.  “You imbecile!  It was one of
them
!”  Juno shoved him away from her in disgust, into the arms of her personal guards.  With an imperious finger pointed in condemnation at the bloodied guard, she shouted, “For his failure, it is My Will that you throw
that
one in the tank, instead.”

The Warrior’s eyes widened and he began to plead for his life, but Juno was already up and storming from the room.  Above, the entire arena was alive with curious whispers.

Juno halted at the exit to the booth and turned back, her face furious.  The bloody Warrior stopped sobbing a moment, hope etched upon his wretched face, but her attention was directed at Athenais’s guards, not him.  “Bring her!” she snapped, “I’m not letting that bitch out of my sight again.”  Then she kicked the door to the booth open and exited the arena.  In the hall outside, she heard the sound of a garbage-can go sailing into a wall.