Havoc

  This truly is hell.

  When his men were nearly gone, Mungo broke and ran. She considered giving chase and decided that was exactly what he wanted. It might even be an ambush, though that could be giving the monster too much credit. Possibly he was all hunger and instinct at this point. Once the dying stopped, she checked the turrets, careful to keep her reaction from the rest of the men. Not much ammo left. I have to check on the other guns and see what we have in storage. The drafted Queenslanders bumped chests hard and slugged each other with roars she recognized from Grigor’s reign. Damn. I wish I knew whether I should quell that. But it’s not like it’s a song glorifying his territory.

  In the end, she let them celebrate before saying, “There’s something seriously wrong with Mungo’s crew.”

  One of them turned with a look of thinly veiled contempt. “Yeah, they eat people.”

  “Medically wrong,” she said icily.

  “I read you can get diseases from eating your own kind,” a guard put in.

  She turned to him with increased interest. “Really?”

  “Yeah, especially if there was something wrong with your dinner’s brain.”

  That might explain a lot about Mungo’s territory if they were all diseased and getting worse. It meant they weren’t a threat long term, but in the short term, their actions would be impossible to predict. She made a mental note to ask Tam about it; the spymaster seemed to be fairly well informed about a wide variety of subjects.

  Dred raised her voice. “Good work, all of you. Let’s get this blood mopped up.”

  With luck, the rest of the checkpoints had held as well.

  * * *

  TAM was already some distance from Queensland when the sirens went off. He hesitated, and Martine said, “We can’t turn back. They can drive off the attack without us, and if you’re serious about scouting the other territories, this might well be the best time.”

  She had a point. With Mungo’s forces committed to the run at Queensland, they’d be paying less attention to their own borders. “Then we’ll continue on.”

  In the old days, prior to the conflict with Priest and Grigor, he would’ve needed to be far more cautious, as there would’ve been other scouting patrols coming this way to spy on Queensland as well. Before, there would’ve been traps and cloak-and-dagger games as he made his way toward his goal. But this time, the corridors were eerily deserted, just scarred metal and old stains marking days long past. Nonetheless, he couldn’t stop checking behind them, as if the ghosts of enemies past might be stalking them.

  “You’ve never taken anyone with you before, huh?”

  That wasn’t why Tam was edgy, but it seemed best to let her think she had him figured out. Being attracted to Martine didn’t mean he wanted her to understand all his inner workings. “Is it so obvious?”

  “You keep looking around as if you expect someone to stop us. But don’t worry, I won’t hold you back.”

  She was light on her feet, quick as a shadow as she boosted up ahead of him into the ducts. Tam listened, but he heard only the battle near Queensland before he vaulted up behind her. He used this entrance enough that he’d swept the dust away with his knees. Martine was waiting for him up ahead, where the passage widened.

  “Which way, pet?”

  Tam raised a brow. “Let’s be clear, Martine. You don’t hold my papers. Even should we come to an arrangement down the line, those private moments don’t bleed over.”

  She stepped up to him, dark eyes fierce. Then she smiled and her filed teeth sent a frisson of anticipation through him. “If you’re with me, they will because you’ll never want anything else.”

  Damn. Maybe so.

  With some effort, he forced a cool expression before deliberately dismissing her confidence with a tilt of his head. He slipped past her, moving toward Mungo’s territory. Martine was quiet as they traveled. Tam didn’t need to warn her that even a whisper could carry a surprising distance, and she was light enough not to make any noise as she followed. He hadn’t gone this way in quite some time; for the last half turn, he had been watching Grigor and Priest.

  Hard to believe they’re no longer a threat.

  The alliance with Silence had certainly been a devil’s bargain. He’d calculated her treachery though he hadn’t counted on Wills. That mad bastard. In the end, the strategy paid out as he’d expected, and they’d defeated Grigor and Priest with the Handmaiden’s help. Now Queensland stood alone once more in midst of chaos and combat with a new threat burning like wildfire. I’ll reckon a way around it. I always do.

  But last time, it had cost Einar his life. Sheer inner steel made him square his shoulders and push forward, ignoring the pain and regret of that mistake. Tam slid down a level and paused. Though he hadn’t heard any fighting for a while, the sounds of a fresh battle reached him. He glanced over his shoulder and gestured to Martine that they’d take a look before continuing on. It was tricky to find a vantage, but he managed and peered through the vent. Down below, mercs squared off against the mongrel horde. He might’ve guessed it was Mungo’s men, as the whole area smelled disgusting: unwashed bodies, stale sweat, rancid meat grease, and scatological effluvia.

  The close quarters slowed the mercs, but they fired point-blank, mowing down man after man. Bodies were thick on the ground already. Martine crept up beside him before he could warn her that was a bad idea, and the panel groaned beneath their combined weight. Her dark gaze met his, wide with alarm, then the grille gave way, dropping them into the middle of the battle. He landed on top of a dead body and immediately rolled to the side and drew it up as a shield. Two mercs shot the corpse, so the smell of burning meat filled his nostrils. Martine fared better as she immediately dove away and went scrambling around the corner, with laser blasts slamming into the floor behind her.

  Clever girl. Save yourself.

  Blade in hand, Tam slashed the hamstring of the nearest mongrel. The wound gushed blood as the leg gave way. Two mercs shot, and his victim jerked, dying. Thanks for that. But now the mercs were sizing him up, trying to decide if he posed a greater threat. In the end, they went for numbers, but Mungo’s men had a description of the Dread Queen’s spymaster, and they didn’t care how many of them died as long as they took him with them. Laser fire painted his vision red, a strobe effect that reminded him of a bar he’d trolled, before everything changed. Before Tarnus.

  Before I set things right.

  He mistimed a movement in the wash of memory, and the bastard he was using as cover was too heavy for him to haul for long. A blade sliced into him from behind, a solid strike. Another few centimeters, and I’m gone. The pain crippled him. For a few seconds, he didn’t see how he was getting out of this. And then Martine popped back around the corner, her blade sailing in a beautiful arc and slammed into a mongrel’s forehead. The bastard toppled, giving Tam the opening to throw himself forward. A laser burst slammed into his calf as he scrambled toward Martine.

  “You should’ve left me,” he panted, as she hauled him forward.

  The mercs took a few steps toward them, but the surviving mongrels seized that opportunity to renew their attack, so the mercs swung away and engaged. Two mongrels launched themselves at a single merc and dragged him to the ground, but his mates unloaded. The rifles went full auto behind them. Martine yanked him along despite his wounded leg and the blood gushing from his back.

  “Not happening,” she said cheerfully. “I owe you, was my fault we ended up like that. And if I get how these things work, we were on the verge of an understanding, yeah?”

  He choked out a gasp of a laugh. “It would be my pleasure.”

  * * *

  VOST strode through the command center, inspecting the facilities. The station was shot to shit, not worth the time it took to clean it out, but the payday had been too much for him to refuse. Resistance has been heavier than we were led to expect,
too. But that was nearly always the case with bureaucratic assholes; they drew up mission parameters without regard for real-world conditions. They drew up charts, graphs, and budgets, then expected a miracle from their hired grunts.

  He deployed the drone cams to keep track of the patrols. He watched a bizarre three-way battle, and he saw two of the combatants break free and bolt. The fact that they dropped from above told him that they weren’t run-of-the-mill convicts; they had the brains to try and avoid his patrols, but something told him that wasn’t their main motivation. Vost noted their faces as best he could and watched the fight for a few seconds before ascertaining that his men were wiping out the savages armed with blades and spears. A few of the prisoners seemed to be trying to attack with their damned teeth, useless against heavy armor.

  Which means they’re completely insane.

  Shaking his head, he checked on the mainframe/handheld connection. This room had antiquated equipment, but he plugged in his own gear, interfacing where necessary to update the ’ware. Before he finished the job, his second-in-command, Casto, strode up. He was a tall man with mud brown hair and deep-set eyes. Not even his mother would call him attractive, but he was dogged and persistent, and he didn’t break in battle, no matter how many assholes were coming at him. Vost admired those nerves of steel though he also wondered if the man was slightly brain-damaged. Fear was a normal response, one a soldier had to learn to overcome, hut Casto didn’t seem to experience it. However, he also had a strong sense of self-preservation, and he didn’t take stupid risks. That was part of why Vost had chosen him as his second. He wasn’t likely to risk the men in some misguided desire to be a hero. No, Casto was too selfish for that. Given the option, the man would always choose to live and fight another day.

  The lieutenant wore a frown and a thoughtful expression. While the former looked natural on him, the latter did not. “I’m not sure dividing the men so soon was the best idea. These assholes are more aggressive and more organized than they said.”

  Vost nodded. Well enough, he remembered the meeting with the Conglomerate drone in his expensive suit and his smooth Rejuvenex face. “They’ve probably devolved into an animal state by now. It won’t be a normal black op. It’ll be easier, I imagine. Just like shooting a bunch of rabid dogs.” Then he’d made an offer so astronomical that Vost hadn’t asked any more questions; he’d simply rallied his men the next day.

  But he couldn’t reveal misgivings this early in the engagement. “We’ll clear this place. It’ll just take a little longer than we thought.”

  Casto lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. “If you say so. Then, shall I take the rest and see how many I can kill?”

  Inspiration struck. This initiative would counter the unwelcome surprise that the job might take weeks instead of days. “Sometimes I think you’re smarter than you look, Casto. I’ve already got the morons mowing each other down. Now I need to motivate our guys.”

  “What?” Casto was young to be second-in-command of a highly paid merc outfit, and subtlety wasn’t his forte.

  But Vost wasn’t talking to him anymore. He put on his helmet and activated the internal communication system. “Attention, all units. I hope you’re keeping track of your kills. Use the helmet cam to document and the one with the highest body count will receive a 25 percent bonus on top of his usual cut.”

  An excited, collective “Yes, sir” came back to him, then he cut the comm connection, not wanting to distract the men hunting with wondering if he was listening in. Sometimes he did, of course, but they never knew about it. And he’d go on patrol next time personally, once all the equipment was set up. He couldn’t lead these men if he wasn’t as good at killing as they were. Better in some cases.

  “You can go ahead and transfer that into my account,” Casto said with a cocky grin. Then he whipped a quick salute and spun in tight posture to find his squad.

  “And then there was one,” Vost muttered.

  He hated this part of an op, but since he was the best with the gear—and the mission would suffer from lack of reliable intel—he completed the installation and made sure all tech was shaking hands and playing nice. He whizzed through activating the drone cams and sent them out to map the facility. A few early missteps before they found the tech lab had shown him that the schematics he’d been given were hopelessly outdated. The cons had been inventive in making the station their own; there were traps and hidden defenses all over the place, and if it hadn’t been for the damned expensive armor, he would’ve already been a man down just in setting up the command outpost.

  One by one, his screens lit up with preliminary footage from his bots. They showed about what he expected, then he sent out a warning to Bravo team. “There’s mooks on the move, twenty of them. No weapons that can penetrate your armor. Continue as you are, and you’ll be on them in approximately 150 meters.”

  “Copy that,” Bravo leader came back. “I can taste those extra credits already.”

  He watched as the unit engaged, and the battle was clean, surgical, even. Whoops rang over the comm as the last fell, then the men moved on. He watched as more images came in and wondered why he felt unsettled. Probably because that Conglomerate asshole made this job sound too good to be true.

  Things that seemed that way usually were.

  6

  Best-Laid Plans

  Mungo’s crew wasn’t quite to the west barricades yet. They came in, lurching drunkenly toward the wall, activating the turrets. From his vantage on the other side, Jael watched as the guns mowed them down, but there were enough bodies that they used the death of their mates to push forward. The wall of junk teetered as the brutes scrambled toward the other side, bullets drilling them from the back. Jael was taking a risk by defending close up; his men stood to the rear, waiting for him to kill the enemy or for the cannibals to leave the turret’s range. One mongrel managed to ram his head through the gap, and Jael was waiting with a blade. He shanked the brute in the neck and left his corpse to block the way.

  From behind, another of the brute’s cohorts shoved until the body fell and he took his place. The screams of the dying men echoed until Jael’s ears rang with them. The pressure eased as the rounds slammed into the enemy trying to breach their defenses. Jael killed a couple more who made it to the top and yanked them through so he could keep fighting, but the last one died on the floor in a spray of ammunition. The turrets fell silent.

  He risked another look, and the hall was clear. Must’ve been more of them on the other side. In the corridor, there were fourteen bodies blown full of holes in various poses, starting from the beginning of the sensor activation all the way to the wall. Then they were piled high enough that he couldn’t see for sure how many there were. Nothing for it but to climb over, haul the corpses, and start rebuilding the barricade.

  “How many dead over there?” Dred asked, striding up.

  Her checkpoint must’ve held. In here, good news was rare enough that he’d take this as a victory. But he was damned tired of the stench of blood and bodily functions, weary of the endless carnage. Before, it was only a job. Now he wanted out with a ferocity that made the recycled air taste coppery and thin, too tainted for breathing.

  Jael lifted a shoulder. “We’ll have to take inventory as we deal with the bodies.”

  “The barricades helped, at least.” What she didn’t say was how fast Mungo’s men crawled over them . . . and how determined they were. Nothing deterred them. “I’ve got Grigor’s louts tidying up on the north side. I’ll send them over here when they finish.”

  “I’ll get the work started,” Jael said.

  They had been hauling corpses for a while when Martine stumbled back toward the checkpoint. Jael saw her coming, dropped the dead mongrel he was carrying, and powered down the turrets. Tam was pale and sweaty, his jaw clenched with the effort of moving on an injured leg.

  “A little help?” she shoute
d.

  Jael ran toward them and lifted the other man without asking for permission. “I’ll take you to Dred’s quarters, and we’ll see how bad it is.”

  Dred nodded. “Bunk there until you feel better, no arguments. It’s the cleanest place in Queensland.”

  “Thanks,” the man said hoarsely.

  An hour later, it was clear Tam wouldn’t be going on recon missions anytime soon. We didn’t count on this. There was no telling how long the spymaster would be out of commission. He was resting at the moment, with Martine looking after him, but his injuries meant they couldn’t include him in any plans for a while. Since his skill set was hard to replace, it put them in a hell of a bind.

  Dred met him in the hallway. “We’ll bed down in the barracks tonight.”

  “Understood.”

  He didn’t sleep well, mostly because he wasn’t used to being surrounded by other people. Though the room was sparsely populated, there were too many lungs pushing air in and out, too many hearts thumping away. He felt like shit when he rolled out of the bunk, and he definitely missed the private shower. The public facilities had a dank, yeasty smell.

  “I think I’ve come up with a workable solution,” Dred said after breakfast.

  She filled him in. After he learned what she had in mind, Jael wondered if Vix and Zediah could really sub in for Tam and Martine. He’d never done field work with them, never seen them do anything at all outside the garden. Yet Queensland needed every advantage it could muster, and timing was critical.