CARLOTTA DIDN’T come.
As Helios watched my every movement, I prepped the ship, checked the systems, and did all the routine tasks I’d done hundreds of times before. The mundane activity was familiar and comforting, and as always, it soothed my nerves. Arrivals and departures forced me to rely on the navigation settings. I’d far rather use my eyesight, but with only one eye, those days were past. If we belonged to the Coalition of Planets, I’d be stripped of my pilot’s license and be demoted to navigation if I was caught relying on visual piloting. As of now, they hadn’t accepted our application because our leadership was in shambles and our future uncertain.
We’d received substantial assistance from the Somian and the Vash, but they were only two of many Coalition members and often outvoted by the others. So for now, my precarious seat in the pilot’s chair was safe. But I was sorely missing a copilot. Even if Markus had been a traitor, he’d never failed to get us smoothly in and out of every port we’d encountered over the years.
I’d train Helios to fly, but once we were home, it was unlikely he’d be traveling much. I’d seen enough there to know we were in trouble. There was far too much to do planetside.
Helios returned to pacing the ship. He’d moved his few belongings into my room, which made me grin at my own reflection in the display. We were still weeks from home and in AD space, we’d have time to—
Damn. He wasn’t mine. And the more we flirted and made love and tightened the bonds between us, the harder it would hurt to lose him, because one way or another, I would lose him.
I’d lose him to the people who needed him so desperately. His family. The council. They’d be having collective hysterical fits if they realized the two of us were lovers.
Again.
Our society didn’t look down on most relationships, whether same sex or multipartnered, but it wasn’t the same for the Daysprings. The royals had different rules. One of those rules was to procreate and now that the family was decimated, they’d look to Helios to marry and fill the royal nursery. Besides, Helios adored children. He’d been a loving father to Alex, a fond uncle, and delighted at the birth of my daughters. He’d want more children. He deserved the things that gave him joy.
I turned in my chair just as he stepped in the door. I rose and took the three steps it took to reach his side and stood before him, seeing the hint of worry on this face.
“Lio?”
“Carlotta’s not here.” He looked past me, his gaze full of worry. “I have a feeling she’s not the sort to be late.”
“You’re right,” I said. She wasn’t the sort to be late. There’d been no trap, though I’d been ready for one. We could depart as planned, assume she’d changed her mind. Or that she’d rejoined Tomas. In spite of her father’s treachery, she’d been born royal, with a rigid set of ethics regarding personal behavior. She’d said she’d join us. If she hadn’t lied, she was in trouble.
“I’ll go up-station and look for her.”
“Hang on, I’ll get my—”
I grabbed his arm. “You’ll stay here.” It was an order and I hated myself. His eyes went oddly flat, and then full of resentment. He lifted his chin pugnaciously, but I could see the slightly vague expression that fell over his face when the chip triggered his compliance. And then I saw anger.
“No.” The word came between gritted teeth. “No. I will not remain here.”
“You will,” I growled. “It is my wish.”
He stepped back, staggering slightly, and I felt sick. Sick enough to vomit. He was battling the compulsion, and fuck! I couldn’t have him going into some sort of crisis state when I might have to fight. But he wasn’t ready. He could easily get killed if there was trouble.
“You’ll go to our cabin, Lio. Lay down. Rest. I’ll be back soon.”
The sclera around his eyes began to redden, the veins shivering red over white. My heart stuttered to a halt, and I waited to see if he would bleed. He didn’t. In a moment, his eyes cleared and he turned, returning to our cabin. He didn’t speak. He didn’t look back.
I clenched my fist. Pressed it against the leather of my eye patch and ground down, gritting my teeth against the pain.
It was pain I deserved.
“I’m sorry, Helios. I can’t put you in danger.”
I waited for him to reply, but he didn’t. So I left the cockpit, walking steadily down the corridor, down the ramp to the aft exit, where a powerful magnetic pulse secured the ship to the narrow dock. I put one foot in front of the other, retracing the path we’d taken earlier.
Where to look? I didn’t know where her quarters were. But I could find out where Tomas was housed, and I was betting that for better or worse, that’s where I needed to look.
The docks were oddly silent. Most of the ships were locked down for the night cycle. I heard little more than the sound of my own footsteps, and—
And something. Maybe someone, silent and stealthy, hiding out of my sight. I heard nothing and saw nothing, but I tasted their presence on my tongue—along my skin.
I looked behind me, and all was clear. With my back to the wall, I called the lift, but it was far, far at the top of the station. Impatiently, I pushed away from the wall and circled around to the large freight elevator. It was coming down, express.
And then that something that makes me turn my head just as an attacker comes at my blind side kicked in. Instinct. I threw myself backward, hitting the curved wall as the door of the passenger elevator burst open and a mass of bodies spilled out the door. Metal clanged on metal, curses echoed through the open corridor, and I saw a flash of red in the midst of a tangle of bodies.
The red was not blood.
Well… some of it was blood. But mostly it was Carlotta in her red suit, with the side seam ripped open to her hip, the jacket gaping, a jet-black knife tucked into a sheath under a bra strap. She had a blade in one hand, a wicked-looking baton in the other. I leapt into the fray, turning my blind side to the wall and working at the edge of the human knot, throwing swings, clasping my large knife in my left hand, striking upward with the blunt end of the pommel. A crack to the jaw made a scraggly ruffian hit the floor hard, up into the diaphragm sent another to the floor, curled up and gasping for breath.
I took care not to kill because I didn’t know their intentions.
Carlotta was a fury of movement, kicking, spinning, and slamming unfortunates into the metal walls of the freight docks. She caught my eye and nodded, and I spun to the right, taking down another attacker with a single blow from my fist.
None were professionals. None stood a chance against us, even in a large group. When they were all down, we watched cautiously, catching our breath and letting the adrenaline settle. Other than her torn clothing, Carlotta seemed barely ruffled.
I frowned.
She frowned back.
“Were these Tomas’s people?” I watched one crawl to his knees. With a booted foot, Carlotta pushed him back to the ground.
“Maybe.” She stepped toward me and I bent down, grabbing one unconscious form and tossing him into the open elevator. The door slid closed, then bounced back open as it caught his leg. She grabbed one by the strap of his cover-all and dragged him onto the lift.
She straightened as I pulled in another. “I can’t believe he’d hire such incompetent fools.” With one foot, she pushed in a protruding foot and programmed the lift to express to the penthouse level. By the time they reached that level, the men would be recovering consciousness. “Not one got in a serious blow. They came onto the lift at different floors. I wasn’t suspicious until the third came on. Then they jumped me.”
She brushed at her suit. “Damn. I left my travel case in the lift.” She sighed, and I knew the feeling. I unloaded more and more property with every journey, every hunt. Though this time, I was bringing home riches.
“Is there anything you can’t do without?” I started walking, and she smoothly moved to my right. She was covering my blind side.
“No, I actually sent my larger case down earlier. It’ll be at the freight drop near the Aida.” Our steps were muffled on the dock, and then rang out as we stepped off the heavy, rubberized carpeting onto the metal walkways.
Behind us, I heard the freight elevator arrive. We looked at each other, then spun back toward the lifts.
They came through the doors smoothly, quietly.
“I guess maybe the others were a diversion,” she said.
The walkway was a bad place to make a stand. A smooth, curved wall rose to one side, rails to the other. There was barely space to stand shoulder to shoulder. I heard the smooth sound of steel on steel and glanced down to see Carlotta palming a slender, wicked blade in her right hand. She held a small energy blaster in her left hand.
I drew the short broadsword I’d worn snugly sheathed at my side.
“To the ship or forward?” she asked.
We might be able to outrun them. I counted six well-armed men in similar uniforms. Black bodysuits, slender blades, protection at chest and belly, throat and joints. That would slow them down. We could run.
One tall male stepped up, a long blaster cradled in his arms.
“Fuck,” Carlotta gasped as the rail to her left sparked and melted.
No running. Well, not backward, anyway. We moved as one. I plowed into the front line of the formation, slamming the weapon from the fighter’s hand while Carlotta swung her blade, taking someone’s arm, blasting into the tightly formed group.
We fought silently, grimly, with bodies and blades, kicking, striking, and slicing. I swung to my right, always to my right, blindly striking at unseen foes, grunting with satisfaction as metal bit flesh. Three were down, then four. Five. I’d lost number six, and turned right again in time to see Carlotta bring her blade up under the belly armor of the tall man, dragging him down, kicking him to jerk the knife free.
Again, we stood surrounded by bodies, but this time we were in the company of the dead. Carlotta’s neat braid was tattered; the red of blood darkened the red of her suit. I saw a clean slash on her shoulder, a bruise on her jaw. I felt the burn of a deep cut just above my hip. An energy burn seared my thigh.
Adrenaline beat through me, muting the pain.
I heard the soft bell of the elevator. It had returned.
“Oh, for fiery fucking hell.” Carlotta stepped back toward me, handing me her energy pistol, and then drew another long blade from a hidden sheath under her jacket. “This just keeps getting better and better.”
HE’D LEFT me behind.
Griffin had ordered me to my cabin and left me behind.
Fury struck me in the gut, and my gut struck back, twisting in pain. Pressure rose in my head, warping my eyesight. In a flash, lassitude rolled over me in a soothing wave. I breathed deeply, imagining myself at the edge of the ocean outside the Royal Palace, the soft light of the moon illuminating the foaming edge of the water as it caressed my feet.
But now, that water was toxic, that city gone, and my heart again burned with anger.
He’d left me behind.
I lay on my back in the bunk, battling the fucking hardware in my brain. Every time I resisted its pull, I paid in pain. So I stopped resisting. I accepted its limits and counted the seconds, and then the minutes.
When I counted fifteen minutes, I was able to rise and stand. I inhaled, tasting the metallic, recycled oxygen, exhaling more than I dragged in. Finally, I’d calmed enough to take a step, and then another, until I left our room and walked back to the small gym. I looked around, seeing my reflection at all sides. I saw Pasha, a weak slave. I saw the slave who’d gamed the artificial restraints and survived. I saw Helios, who had a future. I walked to the wall where weapons were displayed and reached, gently lifting down the curved, golden kilij. I watched my reflection as I swung the blade, feeling its weight and balance.
“Griffin said to stay behind,” I told the reflection. “But he hasn’t returned. Thus, Griffin is in need of my help.” I nodded, seeing all the reflected images nod as well. “If Griffin is in trouble, he cannot change the order he gave. He cannot call for help.” That seemed logical enough.
I checked the reaction of my body to that statement. “Therefore, I must go help Griffin.” I started for the door, coming up short as the chip reacted, slowing me before I could leave. I breathed again, tamping down my agitation. I looked into the gray eyes of the Helios closest to me.
“Griffin needs me.” I turned to the next refection. “He isn’t here to rescind his command.” The big bastard.
“Thus, I must serve him by seeking him out and saving him.”
Wrong.
I bit my lip, seeking the right words to convince that tiny, conditioned center of my brain. I took a step toward the door, feeling my limbs grow heavy. I staggered, leaning against the mirror. I looked in gray eyes. “If he dies, it will be my fault.”
The weariness lifted slightly.
“If he is dead, I cannot serve him.”
Oh, the chip liked that. I straightened, still gazing at my reflection. “It is my duty to serve Griffin.”
I was so going to kill him when this whole thing was over. I tightened my grip on the kilij and left the gym, through the winding corridors, and out into the dock, sealing the Aida behind me. I took cautious steps, walking slowly through the docks, my limbs weak and heavy, muttering the litany as I walked.
“It is my duty to serve Griffin. If he dies, it will be my fault.” I rolled my eyes at the idiocy of the mantra. Damned if I’d walk through the halls of the station dragging a sword and mumbling like a madman.
I straightened, pulling back my shoulders, dropping my chin slightly. I glanced around watchfully, shivering at the sensation that I wasn’t alone. There were probably cameras, but I couldn’t do anything about those. I could focus only on setting one foot in front of the other. More than once, I stopped, looking back over my shoulder, the urge to return to the Aida almost more powerful than I could bear. There was a tickle at my nose. I touched, my fingers coming away smeared with blood.
That couldn’t be good.
The answer here wasn’t to fight through the pain, to crash like a bull into the conditioning and Griffin’s command. I needed to trick the chip, to fulfill Griffin’s command another way.
He’d told me to go back to the cabin and rest. Well, I’d done that. I’d rested. He told me to stay behind. It had been his wish. Not his command.
I felt a smile pulling at my lips. I gave a small laugh.
“You didn’t command me, Griffin. And I know you felt like shit forcing me to stay behind. Because you hate ordering me around.” I laughed out loud and continued forward. I wasn’t fully up to speed, but I could walk, I could see, and I didn’t seem to be leaking blood from any other orifices. I looked up, blinked at the blurry images of signs on the walls. Signs directing the traveler to specific berths, to engineering, to check-in and administration. Signs pointing the way to the closest bank of elevators.
I headed that direction, my eyes watering from strain and fatigue. I heard the clanging of machinery, or perhaps freight being offloaded. I heard muted shouts of workers and… Carlotta?
Shit!
I broke into a run, feeling weights in my legs and hammering in my head. Down the corridor, I spotted a scene of chaos, bodies scattered about, blood splattered on the walls, and a knot of people engaged in battle. Stray energy shots scarred the walls, and metal scraped and clanged, sparking as blades struck the walls.
“Griffin!” I shouted, sprinting forward, all discomfort fleeing my limbs. He was under attack! I drove my way into the crowd, slashing, stabbing—kicking and punching. I saw his eye widen as I left a bloody line across the throat of a fighter to his right… his blind side. Without thought, I positioned myself to that side, covering him as the attackers fought with greater fury.
“Leave one alive—” Carlotta snapped, and I pulled my blade from the abdomen of a short, muscular human male. Too late.
“Not my job,” I growled, parrying a knife blade that came snaking toward my face. “You’re the bodyguard.”
She cursed and spun into a kick, taking down another human. One she could keep alive if she so wished.
“They’re gonna have station guards down here soon,” she replied. “Finish up.”
Griffin grunted a nonverbal reply, and I turned slightly, my heart freezing at the sight of blood. He’d taken more than one strike—blood ran freely down his dark trousers, dripping from the leather of his boots. My distraction cost me, and I felt a sharp kiss of pain, a sensation I recognized yet had no memory of. A long red streak opened along my right arm and it went numb, so I switched hands, remotely bemused to realize I was proficient with both hands.
I lunged at a large female fighter, humanoid but far taller and broader than even Griffin. An Amwere? She tried to sweep me off my feet and I jumped, kicking low, knocking her to her knees. She fell hard and cursed, her wicked long blade slipping from her hand. I landed, ducked a blow with my left, and swung the attack onto the woman, sending them both skidding across the floor.
My heart raced and my skin prickled with sweat. For the first time in my memory, I fought. I embraced the violence and the blood. As long as Griffin was at my side, I fought without tiring. I struck at my enemy with just enough fear in my heart to keep me sharp and alive. I wasn’t a priest or a king or a father or a lover—I was a warrior.
Using the tip of my kilij, I sprung the woman’s fallen blade up into the air, catching it with only a trace of clumsiness in my injured hand, and I swung around, ready to fight, ready to attack. I spun again, seeking my enemy, until Griffin loomed in front of me, blocking my way.
“It’s over,” he shouted. At least it sounded as though he was shouting in the sudden silence. I spun, looking at the bodies on the floor around us. Bodies everywhere. Some dead, others writhing and groaning. “It’s over, Lio. We need to report the attack. We need to get you back to the ship.”
I looked at my right hand. It was numb, and I watched in shock as the blade slipped from my fingers.
My bloody fingers. A massive wound on my arm bled profusely, dripping to the floor. Carlotta was at my side, tightly pressing a pad of white bandaging to my arm. As it soaked through, she tossed it away. “Griffin, I’ll need more packing.” I saw Griffin running to a brightly colored box on the wall, pulling it down and tearing off the lid. He dug out more of the white fabric and pressed it to the wound as Carlotta wrapped it tightly.
“Security’s coming. I told the command station to review the security footage. We’ll have to hole up for a few hours till they clear us.” Griffin wadded more padding and Carlotta took it, swabbing various cuts and abrasions on his body.
“You’re hurt worse than I am,” I said, using my left arm to take the box. I looked around us, growing queasy. We were on a bloody deck, surrounded by at least a dozen bodies. One or two survivors had crawled away and were now leaning against the blood-spattered walls. The large woman I suspected was an Amwere struggled to her feet, staggering toward an access door.
“Stop her!” Griffin shouted, his voice hoarse and raw. Carlotta sprung after her, but the door slammed. She wrenched at the handle, but it was latched from the inside.
“Shit.” She returned to us, moving with a slight limp. Her clothing was bloody and tattered, and she was peppered with cuts and abrasions. Her hair was bedraggled, the braid coming undone. She’d switched from heels to flat boots, and they were spattered with gore. She changed directions and walked to the open door of the passenger lift.
“Look, Griffin, found my luggage!” He chuckled and I looked at him in surprise. He was laughing, right there in the aftermath of a battle. He then winced, obviously in pain.
“Do we need first aid? A doctor?” I saw a raw-looking burn on Griffin’s shoulder, a slash on his hip. His pants were soaked with dark blood. Now that the initial fight was over, I was jittery. My hands shook and my legs were weak. My mind whirled, unable to settle on a clear path of thought. My thoughts scrambled, remembering the fight, the falling bodies, the sensation of hot blood on my face, a horse between my legs, and the overwhelming fear of pain, capture, and death. Old memories slammed into me with the force of a missile and I bent down, my ass against the wall, my fists on my knees. I panted, shoving those memories into the past, and stood up, rocked by the fight, and what preceded it.
My skin went hot with fury, and immediately the chip compensated, flooding my brain with whatever chemical effectively neutered me, making me sleepy and complacent.
But I had blood on my hands and the dead at my feet. I shoved the fatigue away and forced my fury back into hot, blazing life. My eyes burned at the internal defiance. Something warm trickled from my right ear. I wiped it away.
I glared at Griffin. His skin went pale.
“You sent me to my room—as though I were a child!”
He swallowed hard, lifting his chin slightly in defiance. He wasn’t going to back down. When Griffin did something he believed was right, it was right, with no possible compromise.
“Do not ever do that again,” I said, my voice low and shaking with anger. “Ever!”
In the distance, I heard the claxon of an alarm, footsteps pounding in unison, the hum of med units being wheeled in.
We were in trouble, and unwillingly, I broke eye contact. I saw Carlotta intercept the commander of the security unit, hands out to her sides, her sidearms sheathed. She spoke quietly and urgently, and in moments, the officers lowered their weapons, allowing med units in to attend to the wounded and dead.
“Well dang. You folks made a mess here!” A cleanup team had arrived, standing back, waiting for the bodies to be cleared. Bewildered, I looked around at the man. He stood, fists on his hips, a chilling smile on his face. His eyes were obscured behind safety goggles, and a black hat concealed his hair. His blond brows arched sharply upward. He wore heavy gloves and pulled a haz-mask over his face. He then started bagging weapons and body parts. With a gloved hand, he scooped up the rubbish from my field dressing, shoved it into a black envelope, and tossed it into a large red can, along with other biological waste. Body parts went into a blue container, weapons into yellow. He hummed as he worked, and in his wake, shining silver sweepers cleared the floor. The scent of disinfectant stung my nose.
This man loved his job a little too much. I shuddered. Seeing my discomfort, he grinned. He reminded me of the merc on the shuttle from Warlan. Had we been followed?
Carlotta finished with the commander, the bodies were bagged, the wounded lifted onto gurneys and whisked away. She joined us, her body sagging with fatigue, her sharp eyes belying the message her body sent.
“Let’s get to your ship. I think this is a very good time for us to leave.”