Havoc

1 Party Crashers

Laser fire spattered the rusty floor like neon rain.

“What the hell—” Dred bit out, but there was no time for questions.

In ten seconds, she was fighting for her life. Along with Jael, Tameron, and Martine, she had come to wait for the supply ship. They’d been alerted as usual by the flicker of power just before lights out, so they’d hauled ass to the neutral zone in Shantytown to wait for provisions. Instead of bots unloading crates and barrels, a full squadron of armed men stormed out. She dove for cover, shouting at her people to stay low.

Why didn’t I bring the Peacemaker? But she hadn’t expected things to blow up like this. Some surprises couldn’t be foreseen.

The smell of scorched metal filled the air as Shantytown prisoners ran amok amid the blasts. Most weren’t sane to begin with, and it had been over two months since any provisions arrived. If the population hadn’t been thinned so dramatically through the war with Priest and Grigor, Queensland would have already been on the verge of starvation, even with the hydroponics garden and the tetchy Kitchen-mate. Dred could only imagine how bad things were here, with no rules or safety, just the law of tooth and claw.

Bodies dropped all around, and Dred crawled toward the corridor behind her. A few Shanty-men made it past the nose of the ship and attacked the helmeted squadron with ragged yellow nails and rusted bits of wall panel. Against full armor, they did no damage, and the soldiers picked them off with close-range shots. Their dying screams echoed in her head even as the assault gave her the necessary time to regroup.

“Fall back!” she shouted.

Martine snarled, but she could doubtless see how poor the odds were and how the Shanty-men were dying in droves. Along with Tam, she slid around the corner just behind Dred, while Jael covered their retreat. He swore as a shot sizzled against his back, but it didn’t stop him. With a snap glance over one shoulder, she checked on him; anyone else would be on the ground in shock. His jaw clenched, but he ran through the pain, dodging lightning bolts bouncing off the walls behind them.

An inhuman-sounding voice crackled through the speakers on the helmet. “Let them go. We have plenty to clean up here first. We’ll get them eventually.”

That’s what I’m worried about.

Dred sprinted until they reached Queensland; she didn’t explain the rush to the sentries. Once she composed herself and discussed the situation with her advisors, she’d send Martine to update the rest of the men. Until then, they could wonder why there were no supplies. She beckoned Tam, Martine, and Jael to her quarters, where they were assured of privacy. She waited until the door closed behind them, then she secured the lock.

I learned something from the clusterfuck with Wills.

As the relatively new ruler of Queensland—it had been less than a turn since she killed Artan and took his turf—Dred had trusted Wills, a madman with a gift for prognostication, without realizing he owed his primary allegiance to Silence. Their alliance was over now, and she knew she hadn’t finished her business with Death’s Handmaiden. For the time being, revenge had to wait. Once retribution had been her primary purpose, and it was the reason she’d ended up in Perdition. Time had taught Dred to be more judicious with her drive to violence.

“Report. Start with Tam.” He was a slight man with brown skin and a cunning mind. From what little she knew of him, he had a knack for politics, skilled at seeing hidden snares and schemes, as well as planning his own. Since the disaster with Wills, she didn’t trust him fully, but that applied to pretty much everyone in her inner circle. She didn’t need to explain that she wanted to hear his observations.

The spymaster answered, “At least fifty got out of that transport. There was no room for anything else in the cargo area.”

Martine added, “They all had multiple weapons, and their armor was top-notch. I doubt there’s a weapon on board that could scratch it.”

She was a small, dark-skinned woman with teeth filed to points to demonstrate how dangerous it was to mess with her. Though Dred hadn’t always gotten along with her, in the past few months the other woman had proven her loyalty, at least as much as anyone did in a place like this. Martine was tough, smart, and honest. Like most, she’d hated Artan, and she took it personally when a raid took her men from her. At first she’d thought Dred was a coward for not pushing back immediately. Now she seemed to understand the need to evaluate resources and plan strikes accordingly.

I’m not claiming territory I can’t defend.

“Apart from the turrets and the Peacemaker,” Jael put in. “The uniforms had no logo, no emblems, no identifying details of any kind. That means this is black ops.”

Jael was a former merc who was sent to Perdition because he was too dangerous to be allowed his freedom and too valuable to kill, mostly because he wasn’t human. He was Bred, the result of an off-the-books experiment. She didn’t know how many tank-borns had survived, but Jael acted like he was alone in the universe. Maybe he used to be. Not anymore.

Possibly she didn’t mind his difference because she had her own burden to carry. The first time she left the colony where she was born, her head nearly exploded with unwanted stimuli, a mad wash of deviant longings and murderous impulses she couldn’t rightly call a gift. Things only got worse from there, and her story ended in blood, wound round with chains. There’s a reason he and I are here. Dred controlled her empathy now, but the weight of it hadn’t lessened over the turns.

Of all of her people, she relied on Jael most, probably because they felt the same, though she was far from comfortable with the development, and Dred was ready for him to turn on her, as people usually did, but it would hurt if she had to put him down; she didn’t usually let people get that close.

Tam continued, “They also moved as a unit and were clearly taking orders from the one who called them back.”

“Mercs,” Martine guessed. “Highly paid if equipment is a gauge of earning power.”

“Then what the frag are they doing here?” Dred demanded.

Jael wore a somber look. “Cleaning up.”

Tam nodded. “That’s my assessment as well. They’ve been sent to purge the facility.”

She huffed out a breath, trying not to show how rocked she was by that conclusion. Things had been the same inside Perdition for turns now. Dred had no idea what political machinations had resulted in this new crisis, but they had to handle it. The worst part was, even if Queensland wiped out the first extermination crew, the Conglomerate had the budget to send more—more men with heavier weapons and deadlier tech. There was no telling what protocols were in place, however, or how long it would take before funds were skimmed and allotted to this kind of black op. It gave her limited ability to predict how much time they had between strike teams.

“The force fields never came up,” Martine said, looking thoughtful. “It didn’t register at the time, but usually when a supply ship docks, they lock the whole place down.”

Tam paced a few steps—for him, quite a sign of agitation. “No need. They had the manpower to keep us from stealing the ship and taking off.”

Jael wheeled and slammed a fist into the wall above Dred’s bunk. The motion revealed the charred wreckage of his ruined shirt, nothing but smooth skin beneath. She understood how his lack of scars plagued him, a reminder that he wasn’t human and never would be. In front of the others, she didn’t move to his side. Didn’t touch him. But her gaze lingered, silently asking, What’s wrong?

“I’ve been sent on search-and-destroy missions. You go, burn everything down. Usually, it’s because the territory’s in dispute and someone else wants to take possession.”

“They don’t want to use this as a prison anymore?” Martine wondered aloud.

Dred shrugged. “It’s probably getting expensive. They thought we’d kill each other off in a few turns, solve the problem without the Conglomerate’s needing to dirty its hands by reinstating the death penalty.”

Martine bared her sharp teeth. “But we beat the odds, huh? Carved out a little empire in here, so they’re gonna take it back.”

“Sod that,” Jael snarled.

Dred shook her head. “We’ll fight. I don’t know how much good it’ll do, but we know Perdition better than they do. Any schematics they brought are turns out of date.”

“Equipment cannot compensate for cunning,” Tam added.

She wanted to believe he was right, but based on the demolition squad wreaking havoc in Shantytown, his words might be bravado more than fact. “We won’t go out easy. If they let down their guard, we might get a closer look at the ship, see if escape’s an option.”

Tam nodded. “We should keep our plans fluid, but there’s no question we must defend. It’s the only way to survive.”

“Best defense is a strong offense,” Jael said.

Dred raised a brow. “Did you see the heat they were packing?” She turned to Martine. “I need you to delegate five runners to carry word to all the sentries. Tam, circulate among the men and explain things. Ike can help, pull him from tinkering with the Peacemaker. This takes priority.”

“What about me?” Jael asked.

“You’re coming with me. I didn’t see any of Katur’s people in Shantytown, so he won’t know what’s happened. I’m hoping for some cooperation in exchange for the news.”

“Good thinking. They might not be numerous in the Warren, but they’re more trustworthy than Silence or Mungo’s people.”

She grimaced; that wasn’t saying much. “Let’s move.”

The meeting broke up when she deactivated the electronic lock. Dred spied Calypso coming her way and dodged the questions by aiming Tam in the woman’s direction; the spymaster could prevaricate with the best of them. With Jael at her heels, Dred raced back through the barricades toward the air ducts. It wouldn’t take long before word spread among the Queenslanders, and she was relying on Tam and Ike to keep order.

Jael pressed ahead to scout. He gestured for her to move past him, and she went like a shadow, up the metal rungs and into the ducts. Jael pulled the panel shut after them, so nobody wandering close to their territory could easily see where they’d gone. From there it was a straight shot to the slope that led to the maintenance shafts. It was a long climb, and Katur’s watchman met them at the bottom; he’d probably smelled them coming long ago.

“Why are you here?” The small humanoid had a deep voice with a hint of a growl, even when he spoke universal. Their native tongue had more guttural sounds, impossible for humans to reproduce.

“I request an audience with Katur,” she said politely. “You can keep our weapons.”

It was a small courtesy that cost them nothing. Jael was just as dangerous without a shiv, but Katur’s people didn’t know that. The sentry stripped them of their arms, then moved off, after admonishing them to wait. “If you stir, I’ll know.”

“So will everyone else,” she murmured. A wrinkled muzzle and a flash of teeth met what she hadn’t intended as a joke.

Then the guard continued until he disappeared from sight. Jael propped himself against the wall nearby, but she knew it was for a better vantage of the ladder they’d come down. He seldom relaxed all the way; the former merc slept less than anyone she’d ever known, and even when he did, he never seemed to be completely out. A whisper or a stray movement had him on his feet in a heartbeat, ready to fight. While she appreciated his wariness, he wasn’t a restful bed partner.

“It doesn’t make sense,” she muttered, more to herself than him.

“What?”

“If they’re tired of paying our upkeep, why not just blast the place?”

“They want to use the station for something else,” he said. “There’s no other reason to send in a cleaning crew.”

“They want to retrofit again. Clear out the undesirables.”

“And make the place turn a profit, if I had to guess. They might go back to refining minerals. Could also be an emergency station or a research facility for something too dangerous, unethical, or risky to be approved dirtside.”

“The laws are smokier out here,” she said slowly.

“Precisely, love. Whatever they want to use the place for, I guarantee it’s not shiny or clean. Or the squad they sent would be sporting the Conglomerate logo.”

“That doesn’t make me feel any better.”

“It wasn’t supposed to.” He offered a smile with razored edges and dark echoes. “They’re in full assault gear. Nothing short of heavy weapons will penetrate. It’s equivalent to durasteel but lighter and more flexible.”

“Durasteel like the blast doors.”

We have homemade blades and spears.

“Unfortunately, yes.”

Before she could respond, Katur’s guard returned. “He will see you. Briefly.”

“Thank you for the courtesy.” Tam had hammered it into her head that she had to treat each petty despot in here like a foreign dignitary even if she thought it was bullshit.

Dred had to admit, though, that Katur was the least insane of the lot, possibly including herself. But most of his people had been tossed in Perdition not for capital crimes, but for being nonhumans during a time unwelcoming to immigrants. So they had a better, saner group to build with, and their leader was the best of them.

Katur waited in a small room that still smelled faintly of machine oil. Once, this sublevel had been used for maintenance. These days, it was home to the aliens on board, but he kept strangers away from the rest of his people. Dred respected that caution. His mate, Keelah, was nowhere to be seen. The alien leader was short by human standards, with brindled brown fur and amber eyes, and he wore a shrewd expression as he studied them.

She recalled enough of Tam’s lessons to say, “I greet you in peace.”

“Likewise.” Katur didn’t ask about her errand.

“I’ll make this quick since I need to get back to Queensland. The supply ship that just docked brought only soldiers. They’re here to wipe us out.”

Katur regarded her for two beats. “Why do you tell me this?”

“So you can make plans and aren’t surprised by the heavily armed invaders above.”

“Information is valuable. It seems unlikely that you’ve come out of kindness.” His quiet tone said that humans rarely did anything from that motivation.

Sadly, Dred’s experience dovetailed with Katur’s. “I don’t expect anything as formal as an alliance, but it might make things easier if we both rescinded our kill-on-sight policy—with regard to the other’s personnel. It’s about to get violent up in here.”

“As opposed to the peace and prosperity we have enjoyed until now.” The gentle irony in Katur’s voice prodded a smile out of Dred.

“You make a good point.”

Katur went on, “There’s no question how you’ll recognize my people, should they pass through your territory. But all humans look alike to us.”

Jael smothered a chuckle, and she nudged him with an elbow. “You just enjoy saying that. Regardless of how we look, we don’t smell like Silence’s or Mungo’s crew. We bathe occasionally in Queensland.”

“Very well. The safety of your soldiers depends on their hygiene, then.” That seemed to amuse Katur.

“I’ll let them know,” she said dryly.

“If you’ll pardon me, I need to send scouts to verify what you’ve told me.” The alien didn’t reveal fear if he felt any. Maybe Perdition had burned it out of him.

“Thanks for your time.”

“Thank you for the forewarning.”

Dred dipped a shallow bow in response and followed the guard back to the ladder where they’d dropped down. As she climbed, she strained for the sound of laser fire but came up with only the normal groaning and banging of the ducts. Other machinery nearby made it tough to hear anything, so she wouldn’t know if there was fighting on the deck above. Mentally, she mapped what she knew of the station.

They’ll cross into Mungo’s turf first. With any luck, his men will engage. She had no clear intel on what kind of offensive or defensive capabilities Munya could bring to bear, but they were numerous enough to slow the mercs down. She hoped. Silence’s people worked best in the dark, but they would find it impossible to take out their targets through so much armor. Death’s Handmaiden would have to find a workaround.

That will buy us some time.

In her mind’s eye, she saw laser fire threshing the Shanty-men like wheat while the soldiers stood untouched in the armor. It reminded her of period vids she’d watched as a kid, about the dark time before humans were “civilized” and they stopped wiping out primitive people from Class P worlds with advanced weaponry. Even as a child, she’d known it was wrong, but she never considered how those people must’ve felt: how fear and futility came on, so powerful as to shatter the spirit. At what point do you buckle and say, no more? This, I cannot fight. In the vids, the doomed, noble tribe fought to the last man, then the wheels of progress rolled over him, and the credits began.

Dred didn’t equate the plight of those inside Perdition with Class P sufferings, of course. Nobody here was innocent. But it was human nature to survive.

Once she swung out of the hole in the wall and down onto the ground, she glanced up at Jael. “What can we do to upgrade our defenses quickly?”

“You want my help, love?”

Though she might find it hard to speak the words with anyone else around, she said, “I need it. You’re the only one with any tactical experience. The rest of us are just criminals.”

His blue gaze locked with hers. “You’re not just anything. But yeah, I’ve a few notions. I could use Ike’s help and a crack at the parts we got as victory spoils.”

“Whatever you need,” she said grimly. “I have the feeling hell just got worse. And that shouldn’t even be possible.”