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  “You sure about this?” he asked.

  Dred nodded. “I asked a few key questions. They’re both smart, the most technical-minded I could find on short notice.”

  “Then I can’t wait to watch them work.”

  “Is everyone ready to go?” Dred asked.

  “As we’ll ever be,” Vix murmured.

  Despite her scars, she radiated a peculiarly peaceful air. She didn’t seem like a woman who had done something so violent, so repugnant, that she ended up dumped in Perdition to keep her from repeating the offense. Zediah was harder for Jael to read; he maintained a perpetually opaque expression, and his vital signs seldom responded to normal stimuli. Either he was stoic beyond measure, or there was something . . . off about him.

  No surprise in a place like this.

  “Let’s do it,” Jael said.

  This run was likely to be dangerous. While turrets might cut through the merc armor, the ones who scrambled over the wall like the mongrels had done wouldn’t go down so easy, and they could probably take out the Peacemaker with collective effort. Then the personnel would be defenseless. We need better odds.

  And there was only one way to make that happen.

  “We set up in the main corridor leading to Queensland. There’s no guarantee the mercs will make their approach this way, but the chances are good.” She spoke as she ran, keeping the RC unit ahead of her.

  Since it was quiet, that meant the bot didn’t detect any life signs. Urgency pounded in his blood, an echo of his heartbeat. He’d already crushed a drone cam that the mercs had sent to spy on their territory. Dashing it against the wall had felt pretty fragging good, but it also meant he had to keep a sharp eye out for more. If Vost saw what they were planning, he’d warn his troops.

  And then it’s game over.

  Jael was conscious that their time was limited, and he had no idea how well Vix and Zediah could perform under pressure. Each of them carried a bundle of parts necessary for the plan to succeed, and he was watching the whole time they moved—for mongrels, assassins, and mercs. At last, Dred stopped, surveyed the hallway, and nodded.

  “Here. Zediah, hand me the cord.”

  With everyone working in concert, it became clear to him why Zediah and Vix had been included. They might not be on Ike’s level of cleverness, but they both had some engineering aptitude. What had been a rough sketch on a dirty wall came to life with their efforts. Jael did the heavy lifting, hoisting the thing, then he helped Dred hide the tripwire. Triggering would bring the trap down from the ceiling; primitive, but it might disorient the mercs long enough for their primary aim to succeed.

  “The ceiling won’t hold indefinitely,” Zediah said, replacing the last panel.

  They’d chosen this stretch intentionally, as some parts of the station had solid metal overhead instead of panels, but here, there was maintenance access, a space just wide enough for someone to crawl up to perform repairs. Which meant they’d wedged their trap above and run the line down the wall. If the mercs were paying attention, they’d spot it. Sweat beaded on his brow as he swung down, careful not to touch the wire.

  Vix beckoned from the T intersection; they needed to hole up in the bot-charging alcove. If the plan failed, they only needed to retreat and haul ass for Queensland. It would sting to come back empty-handed but better that than injured—at least as far as the others were concerned. He’d noticed after the last battle, however, that his injuries weren’t healing as fast as they used to. They still sealed, but it took twice as long, and the scar lingered before vanishing into seamless skin. He didn’t care to ponder what it meant.

  “Mary, I hope it’s not Mungo’s idiots who bring that down,” Vix whispered.

  Jael nodded, folding into a crouch. They wouldn’t be able to see the enemy from here, but with his hearing, he’d be able to tell when they were approaching. It was likely smell would give them away, too. Mungo’s mongrels reeked in a particular way, different from the necrotic rot that wafted from Silence’s killers. She never seemed to require them to bathe, and since they lived with dead things, the decomp stench had sunk into their skin. So mercs should smell clean and sharp by contrast, all durasteel and oiled weapons.

  In the end, the boots gave them away before he could smell them. The clomp was distinctive, unlike any footwear crafted inside. A guy in Queensland made boots out of rodent skin, but they were light and soft, no noise at all. Dred touched his arm, asking the question with her eyes. It was insanity how well she read him; he hadn’t realized he had shown any sign, but she’d picked up . . . something. In answer, he nodded. The marching cadence came closer, until the others could hear it as well.

  He leaned close to Dred, his voice little more than a breath in her ear. “Definitely them. Be ready to move.”

  “Quiet so far. No mooks sighted.” As the merc made the report, he must’ve tripped the line. Cursing filled the air, and there was a huge clatter.

  “Go, go, go!” Dred shouted.

  They charged at top speed into a group of ten mercs entangled in the webbing and pinned down by the junk that had dropped on them. But they were slicing at the cords with utility knives. It wouldn’t be long before they were on their feet. Jael snapped a kick at an armored hand; it was strong enough to bounce the rifle away. Vix grabbed it and sprinted back toward Queensland. Another merc brought up his weapon and opened fire. The rest followed suit, and Zediah ran.

  Jael shoved Dred toward the others. “Get out of here.”

  Using his preternatural speed, he bounded between them, causing confusion. A couple of mercs actually shot each other while aiming at him, leaving scorch marks on their chest plates. He swiftly calculated the odds of stealing another weapon and decided he’d probably die instead. So he bounded after Dred. He took a hit in the back, and the merc who’d shot him exclaimed a startled curse.

  “What the frag? Who runs away from a full shot?”

  But he didn’t wait around to hear what the rest of the unit would say. The others were well ahead of him, so he didn’t see them, but halfway to Queensland, he spotted another drone cam. It tried to hover up out of his reach, doubtless in response to Vost’s orders, but Jael used a wall to launch and snagged the thing in the air. He pushed his face up against it with an awful smile, and said, “I’m coming for you.”

  Then he dashed it against the wall until it was nothing but pieces on the ground. He pulled the screen and the processor out of the wreckage in case Ike could use them for something else. To his surprise, the burn on his back hurt like a bitch. Normally, it’d be gone by now, but he could feel the seared skin, throbbing with each thump of his heart. He rolled his shoulder blades, but that didn’t help.

  Get a move on. The mercs won’t be far behind.

  The turrets sat up at his approach, but since he was wearing a magnetic bracelet, they lost interest immediately. It hurt scrambling over the wall, but Dred was waiting on the other side. Vix was parading around the common with the laser rifle. Since it was the first modern weapon they’d seen in turns, Queensland roared with triumph. The men threw Vix up on their shoulders, and she rode the crowd like a pro while Zediah gazed on with flat eyes.

  Something about that kid gives me the creeps.

  Dred vaulted onto the seat of the scrap-metal throne and signaled to Vix, who thumped on a man’s shoulders until he delivered her—and the rifle—to the Dread Queen. The other woman slid down, evidently sensing that her moment had passed. Dred turned the gun over in her hands; Jael came up to stand at her shoulder with a military posture, inspecting it along with her. Automatic sighting, improved heat flow, larger battery pack to expand firing capacity. The rifle was a definite improvement from what had been on the market when he was a merc, forty turns or so ago now.

  “We weren’t sure how effective our weapons would be against their armor, but this is top-of-the-line,” Dred called out. “And this is on
ly the first of many victories. Now we just need to pick them off.”

  It would obviously be a lot tougher than that, but with those words, she put heart back into worried men. As she lifted the rifle, they raised their arms, and shouted, “Dread Queen, Dread Queen!”

  That ought to hold them for a little while. But he knew better than anyone how fast human beings could turn.

  7

  Adapt or Die

  As the celebration continued, Dred dragged Jael to her quarters. He might think she didn’t pay attention to the details, but it was obvious from the way he moved that he wasn’t all right. Once inside, she was surprised to find that Tam and Martine had relocated. Hopefully that means he’s a little better. But more likely, the spymaster had felt uncomfortable lounging in her private space. He had very regimented notions about what was proper, as if she really were royalty. That opened the door to all sorts of questions.

  “Shirt off,” she snapped.

  “This is so sudden. I feel like we should cement our emotional bond first. Or perhaps you should offer a bride price for me?”

  He was so ridiculous that she had to smile. Jael was the only one who could dig beneath the impenetrable mask she showed the rest of Queensland. She tapped her foot. “You were wounded back there. Let me see.”

  “Fine. But only because you said please so sweetly.”

  He pulled off the ragged shirt and showed her his back. She sucked in a sharp breath at the black, puckered skin in the center of his back. Mentally, she tabulated how long it had been since he had been shot. “Shouldn’t it look . . . better than this by now?”

  “I can’t see, can I, love?” It was a blithe, slick reply.

  As she inspected the wound, the mass of it shrunk infinitesimally. “It’s healing, but . . . not like you normally do.”

  “I had noticed,” he said dryly. “There’s still plenty of pain.”

  That troubled her. He’d just about emptied his veins in saving her life; though normally a primitive transfusion wouldn’t work, Jael had unusual healing abilities, acquired as part of his Bred heritage. Since then, neither of their bodies had been quite the same.

  “This might seem like an odd question, but . . . what you did for me, have you ever done that for anyone else?”

  He laughed. “I don’t put out for just anyone, love.”

  “Don’t flirt with me. This is serious.”

  “From my perspective, it just means I’m a few steps closer to normal.”

  “Normal people die in here,” she said softly.

  “Would that trouble you?”

  A fist clamped around her heart. She didn’t want to feel things, let alone admit them. So Dred squared her expression and offered him the same coin. “Obviously, it would. Where would I be without my secret weapon?”

  To her relief, he didn’t show disappointment in the pragmatic response. “Shoved down the chute, I reckon.”

  “You got that right. We’re going to try an experiment.”

  “Does this mean you’re taking your top off, too?”

  “Not at the moment.” Dred got out a slim blade that she kept in her boot and drew a line down her arm before he could stop her.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  Blood welled up from the thin cut; it wasn’t deep, so he was definitely overreacting. She said nothing. Instead, she counted in her head until the skin sealed, then she wiped away the red with her fingertips and offered him the blade. “Your turn.”

  “No offense, queenie, but this isn’t my sort of thing. If this is what you want, you’d be better off with Tam.”

  “Did you want me to do it?” she asked softly.

  His blue gaze burned into hers. “Be gentle with me.”

  “I’ll do my best.” She sliced with the same delicacy she’d employed before, then she counted off, watching his forearm the whole time. It was slow enough that she couldn’t see the incremental improvements. When the wound closed, she shut her eyes.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Not sure what it means,” she said, meeting his gaze, “but our healing rates are the same. I compared the seconds.”

  He actually took a step back. “I thought the side effects would fade.”

  “They don’t seem to be,” she said.

  “You think by . . . saving you, I also gave away half of my ability?”

  “Possibly. And I don’t think I can give it back.”

  “I wouldn’t let you bleed out for me anyway, love. You probably wouldn’t fall into a coma. You’d just die.”

  “That’s one exit strategy.” Her voice was low.

  “I didn’t fight so hard for you to give up now. It’s better there are two of us anyway. We can do impossible things together.”

  “Is that how you see this playing out?”

  “I write my own ticket, always have. People don’t tell me how things end. I prefer to determine it for myself.” He shrugged back into his shirt. “And if it takes a day or two instead of hours to wipe this burn away, I can live with it.”

  “I wish you didn’t have to.” She wanted to wrap her arms around him and dig her hands into his pale hair.

  But she squelched those instincts even as his emotions seeped into her consciousness. Before her arrest, she’d only picked up darker impulses, nothing clean or bright, but incarceration had given her time to perfect and expand on what genetics had bestowed. Dred wasn’t trying to read him, but he was feeling something so strong, some memory, that it filled her head like a tsunami of blue. So much regret and sorrow, so much pain. It wasn’t like guilt, but lonelier. If she let herself, she could drown in it. Jael was like the dark water at the bottom of the deepest cave, where light had never shone. The other prisoners didn’t know she was Psi, and that was just as well. They’d riot in a heartbeat if they thought she was messing with their minds.

  He said somberly, “Ah, but wishing’s for innocents, love. People like us, we don’t get the shiny.”

  A thump on the door interrupted whatever she might’ve said. “The Speaker is here. He’s demanding an audience.”

  “What the hell does Silence want?” Dred snapped.

  But she strode out the door and stormed to the common room, where the revels had fallen silent. Damned Death’s Handmaiden, always thinking she could have whatever she demanded. After her failed power play, Dred hadn’t expected to hear anything from her for a while, but the Speaker stood waiting for his meeting with perfect composure. She wanted to stab him, but their problems were already big enough without going to open war with Silence.

  Now’s not the time.

  “What is it?” she demanded, omitting all courtesies.

  “You’ve fortified Queensland. The Handmaiden will be reassured to hear that you fare well.”

  “I’m not in the mood for games. Say what you came to say or I kill you, shove your body down the chute, and tell the next messenger you must’ve died on the way back.”

  “She would never believe you.”

  Dred smiled and took a step forward. “But you’ll still be dead. Talk.”

  “Very well, if you must be so brutish. You’re turning into Artan.”

  That was the last insult that should’ve passed his lips. The former leader of this territory made Grigor look refined. He’d raped for pleasure and murdered for sport, taken prisoners as slaves and pets, and his idea of entertainment always ended in blood sport and torture. I’m not like him. I protect my people as best I can. Dred slammed a fist into the Speaker’s stomach, then kicked his feet out from under him.

  Once he was on the ground and understood just how precarious his existence was, she set her fingers gently on his throat. “You look better from this angle, Speaker.”

  “And your head will roll for this offense,” he snarled. “To think I came to offer you the most sacred of ho
nors.”

  “What’s that?” She was smirking.

  “The Handmaiden wishes to renew your alliance. In her infinite wisdom, she has foreseen that the only way we can withstand this invasion is to fight the interlopers together.”

  “Why does she want to survive it?” Jael asked lazily. “Isn’t she all about death?”

  The Speaker tried to roll out from beneath Dred, but she increased the pressure on his throat, digging in with her nails, sharp enough to bring up crimson crescents on his sour-smelling, pasty skin. “On her terms. In her time. She is Death’s mistress, not a victim to be murdered by a mob of ignorant brutes.”

  Silence really is bugshit insane. After trying to kill me, after putting a mole in my inner circle, she thinks she can crook a finger, and I’ll come running?

  “It’s a tempting offer,” she said. “Let me think about it.”

  Jael made a noise, but she quieted him with a subtle gesture. She helped the Speaker to his feet, making sure her expression gave nothing away. Around her, other Queenslanders were watching, hardly seeming to breathe. Nobody shouted advice or warnings. She counted to ten, letting the tension build.

  Eventually, Dred said, “I’ve come to a decision. Silence—and the rest of you—can fuck all the way off. I will not help you. In any fashion. If you show up near my territory again, I will kill you. Failing that, I hope the mercs burn everything down in that grisly slaughterhouse you call home.”

  Whoops rang out from the rest of the men, and she beckoned to Cook, who was the closest thing she had to visually intimidating muscle since Einar died. “If you don’t mind, would you take out the trash?”

  The chef grinned, threw his chopping knife at the opposite wall, and advanced on the Speaker, who backed up. He doubtless had a garrote on his person and maybe a poison knife, but Cook was too big to be taken like that, especially coming at a target head-on. The rest of Queensland stopped the Speaker’s retreat and Cook yanked him up bodily and dragged him like a haunch of meat, so the emissary’s head thumped against the floor. With a jerk of his head, the chef summoned more men, probably to help him toss the Speaker over the barricades. When he returned, someone scurried to retrieve his knife.