Eye of the Abyss Page 24

  Meia stood up and wiped her cheek with the back of her hand. It came away glowing and mottled in her infra-red sight, and she realized the creeping tickle she felt seeping down her face and neck was blood. Down the corridor she could see the ionized streams fired by Iapetus’ particle accelerators had burned off most of the Praetor’s clothing and some of it was still on fire. Though his pale flesh looked like melted candle-wax, Praetor Modulus stood tall while reloading his gauss pistol.

  Fucking Abyssians, she thought before kneeling down to have a look at Fukui’s wound. She peeled the other woman’s hand away from her shoulder and winced.

  “You okay?” She asked rhetorically as she fetched the nanomed tube from her belt. She pressed it to her companion’s shoulder.

  “Kuso! That hurts!” Fukui’s tail twitched on the floor. “I think it’s just a flesh wound. I should be okay. My implant says it missed the bone.”

  “Good,” she responded. The nanomeds would be getting to work as soon as Fukui’s body heat warmed them enough to activate. Military nano’s were designed to patch holes first, then force cell division and growth to regenerate tissue. They were useful for avoiding death, but they tended to leave ugly scars in their wake. She hoped Fukui wouldn’t mind. She could always get plastic surgery later, but Meia had a hunch that wouldn’t be on the table for the captain. Military folk like her tended to wear scars with pride.

  Praetor Modulus was still aiming his pistol at them, but stopped firing. She knew Abyssians didn’t give up, so there must have been another reason. Maybe he was thinking of a way to short out Iapetus’ aegis. She didn’t want to hang around to find out.

  “Can you move?” she asked.

  The captain nodded and started struggling up to her feet.

  “Lieutenant, I can see radio bursts coming from the Abyssian. They appear to be strong enough, and of the right frequency, to penetrate the fastcrete and stone around us. Analysis: 85% chance he is communicating with his ship,” Iapetus said.

  A chill ran down her spine. His ship had weapons that could breech the meters of fastcrete and stone above them with ease.

  “We have to go, now,” she said, helping Fukui up the rest of the way. She started moving before the captain was ready and half-dragged her for the first couple of steps. “We need to get out of here, Iapetus.”

  “Understood.” He shifted to quadruped mode. “Lieutenant, I will have to drop the aegis field to execute this maneuver. Additional data: I am detecting a deep-radar scan.”

  “Do it! Move!” she shouted, pumping her legs as hard as she could. She felt her boots slip several times on the dusty floor, but kept her balance as she charged forward with Captain Fukui at her side.

  Iapetus’ metallic footfalls pounded up behind her. She knew the moment he dropped the aegis field because the Praetor resumed firing on them. She felt a second bullet pass by her head, drawing a line of pain across her temple. She ducked after the fact, dreading the next shot. Iapetus came up bounding along beside her. She grabbed the handle between his shoulder blades and threw herself up on his back, but as her thighs touched his armored bands, the tunnel exploded around them.

  Two and a half meters tall, the G-2020 “Centaur” security drone had four legs, a long, horizontal torso, and a large gun turret with a pair of rotating, three-barreled rail-guns in the front that gave it the vague shape its nickname implied. Cylus and Lina stood beside it in the street without their hoods or guns since Modulus hadn’t seen fit to return them. Lina had a long chef’s knife and a hammer tucked into her survey belt from the house’s kitchen. They were a poor replacement for a gauss pistol, but Cylus figured it was better than nothing. He was unarmed, which despite their situation, suited him. If coming to this hell-hole of a moon taught him anything, it was that the warrior life wasn’t for him.

  “We’re going to ride it?” he asked eying the machine’s dusty sensor dome nestled between its guns.

  The tight curls of her blond hair bounced below her ears when she nodded. “Unless you’d rather walk. It bothers me that this is the only one that responded to my signal. There should have been ten, but the colony security network is reporting the rest lost or destroyed.”

  “It must have been horrible.” His eyes strayed to the lampposts around them. It was strange, but the sight of the dangling bodies didn’t startle him anymore. They still made his stomach twitch, but not as badly as they did yesterday. Maybe it was true what they said; you could get used to anything.

  Lina gave him a sympathetic look, then squatted down and made a cup with her hands. “Use me to step up and swing your leg onto its back. They’re not made for riding, but we might have to run fast.”

  He nodded, stepping up into her hands. “What about you?”

  “I can run faster than you can even on the ‘2020.” She gave him a wink as he got settled atop of the war machine. It was broader than the lean riding beasts called “equys” native to Anilon, but other than some leg-discomfort he felt at home.

  “You can run faster than this thing?” His eyes widened.

  She nodded. “In short bursts. Come on.”

  She headed down the street with the G-2020 walking at her side. In contrast to the equys, the machine barely moved beneath him as it kept pace. It was a good thing too, since the wide spread of his legs meant he had to keep his weight back and his hips tucked least he imperil his groin on the machine’s armored back. The danger couldn’t keep his eyes from straying to Lina’s curves, though. Hugged by the same second-skin style e-suit he was, every centimeter of her shape was exposed to his gaze. Modern genetic engineering gave everyone the body they wanted, and most opted for a lean look, but Lina’s form was solid-looking with broad shoulders, bold curves, and full hips. She looked like a Roman goddess, and Cylus couldn’t help but stare at the way her body flexed beneath her suit.

  The longer he stared the more he thought about how smart and caring she was. He couldn’t remember the last time someone put his interests ahead of their own until Pasqualina came along. She was the one who figured out who Captain Solus was. He wouldn’t be here on this moon, discovering what Zalor was hiding without her, and he wouldn’t be any closer to avenging his parents. He never would have guessed, when she came walking up to him in the Barony, how in love he would be with her.

  “This is the building,” he said as they came up on the one-story, rectangular structure. It had the same unpolished, grainy texture of the other printed structures in the colony and had a bottle etched on its only door.

  Lina looked over her shoulder at him with her sky-blue eyes. “The Praetor went in here?”

  “Is it a bar?”

  She turned to the door. “I think so. I doubt he was coming here for a drin—”

  An ear-splitting whistle interrupted her. Before he could react the street erupted behind them, and he felt himself shoved forward into the robot’s turret. The impact knocked the air from his lungs and sent him tumbling over the sensor dome. Black smoke enveloped him as millions of grains of sand and dust stung his body like a swarm of angry insects. It felt like every piece of exposed skin was being rubbed with sandpaper and slow-roasted over an open fire. He could do nothing but screw his eyes shut against the onslaught and pray to the Matre, or Gaia, or whatever divine being would listen to deliver him from the burning air.

  “Are you all right?” Lina messaged him when the blast died down.

  He took three long, gasping breaths in the dirty air before responding. I’m okay, but I feel like shit.

  She knelt beside him in the haze, poking him around his head and along his ribs with stiff fingers. He frowned at her, feeling his sore face protest in a symphony of pinpricks.

  “No broken bones. You seem to be okay,” she sent.

  “I can’t hear anything,” he tried to say through the ringing in his ears. Lina pointed at her head and shrugged. I can’t hear anything.

  “Neither can I. The explosion…” she trailed off, looking back through the haze.

&n
bsp; What the hell was that? He struggled up to a seated position with his legs splayed out before him in the dirt. The ‘2020 was over on its side, slowly rising back to its feet using its powerful legs. Through the dust-laden air beyond it he saw a large crater where the street used to be. Every building from their position to the crater’s edge was either broken or reduced to rubble.

  “I’m guessing, but I think it was an orbital strike,” Lina transmitted after a pause.

  Orbital strike? Cylus coughed into his hand, spraying it with speckles of blood. The sight alarmed him and he stared at it, unable to look away as the dirt on his palm slowly absorbed them.

  “If I had to guess, I’d say that was the Praetor’s ship shooting at something underground.” She looked behind them at the bar. The door was blown off its hinges, and smoke streamed out from the gaping doorway. “There’s a tunnel. Get back to the ship.”

  It sounds like you’re not coming with me. He coughed again. Something hurt inside his lungs, it scared him but the prospect of being alone frightened him more.

  “I’ll meet you there. Take the ‘2020 with you. I’m going to get Captain Fukui,” she said.

  A window opened in his vision showing the feed and controls of the armored centaur-robot.

  Won’t you need it? He asked.

  It won’t do any good where I’m going. Take care of yourself, Cy. I’ll see you soon. She blew him a kiss and headed for the smoldering doorway.

  Meia blinked her eyes open and found herself staring down a tunnel into darkness ahead. It puzzled her to be on the floor when the last thing she remembered was getting up on Iapetus’ back. It took her a moment to realize the asshole Abyssian must have hit the tunnel with an orbital strike. Her body throbbed with a deep ache, but she made herself roll over and look for her companions despite the nausea squeezing her gut.

  Debris filled the corridor from floor to ceiling behind her. Before it, crumpled against the tunnel wall, Captain Fukui lay in a loose ball. Her tail twitched on the dust-encrusted ground behind her. Iapetus knelt over her body in biped form with a nanomed injector in one hand.

  “Is she alive?” Meia croaked out, letting her head fall to the ground. She felt a strange vibration within the fastcrete of the tunnel floor.

  “Affirmative.” He pressed the injector to the captain’s throat.

  She sighed, fighting the urge to close her eyes and take a nap. She was dizzy, and combined with the nausea, all she wanted to do was sleep. She knew she couldn’t. The Praetor was still active, and might hit them with another orbital strike as soon as he realized they were alive.

  Come to think of it, she thought, we should be dead. If he’d hit us the force of it wouldn’t be survivable. He must have missed. She looked around her again, remembering that the ground above them was heavy with magnetic ore that shielded them against scans. That meant the Praetor had to guess where to fire based on sight alone, which was probably why they survived—well, that and Iapetus’ speed.

  She blinked. He was at her side now. She had no memory of seeing him move between her and Fukui.

  “What?” she whispered.

  “My scan indicates you are concussed.” He pressed the nanomed injector to the side of her neck. She felt some pressure and a slight sting as the nanos passed through her pores. “This will help, Lieutenant.”

  “Thanks.” She took a deep breath. “I feel some kind of vibration in the ground. It’s getting stronger.”

  “Confirmed. My sensors have been tracking it. It only reached the level of human detectability in the last two-point-two minutes.”

  “What do you make of it?” she asked.

  “The source appears to be beyond the rubble obstruction at a thirty-degree angle.” He pointed towards the collapsed portion of the tunnel.

  She waited until her nausea began to fade before attempting to sit up. Iapetus helped her, then moved back over to Captain Fukui. He moved somewhat strangely, but she couldn’t figure out why.

  “What is your status?” he asked the captain when she stirred.

  Meia couldn’t suppress a chuckle at that, but her humor faded when the first ray of light appeared streaming down from the top of the rubble. At first she was puzzled, since she knew they would still be in Calemni’s eclipse, but then the rumble she was feeling through the ground became a shaking, and a sizzling din filled her ears. She saw the rocks and fastcrete debris vibrate and shoot up into the air in the stream of light and realized what was going on.

  “The Praetor’s clearing the rubble with his ship’s optical tractor beam,” she said. “We have to go.”

  Captain Fukui’s groan was audible over the sound of shifting rocks and dirt. Meia tried to scramble up to her feet, but a wave of dizziness put her back on the ground. She gave the nanomed ten seconds, then tried again. This time she managed not to fall, and headed over. She winced when she saw that the explosion had torn one of Fukui’s ears off. Her left eye was swollen shut and looked like it had fluid oozing out of it.

  “She will continue to function,” Iapetus said. From behind him Meia could see his right hip was dented and several of the armored bands around it were shifted such that they had spaces between them where the gray, synthetic muscle beneath was exposed.

  “Status report.”

  “Moderate damage to my armor and a 23-percent loss of motion in my right pelvic servomechanism. The actuator efficiency in that system is down 30-percent. Three-hours 39-minutes of battery charge remains at the current rate of energy expenditure. Ordinance is—”

  “That’s enough,” she shouted over the noise of the rocks.

  They wouldn’t be able to run once the Praetor got the corridor clear. She could see stars through the widening gap above them. The rate at which the tractor beam cleared the debris increased as she watched. She drew the growler from its holster. Iapetus rose to his feet.

  “I need cover.”

  “Acknowledged.” He got down on one knee. She knelt behind him, and pressing her body against his armor, braced her weapon in the gap between his shoulder-turret and head.

  The light levels rose as the tractor beam finished its work, then cut out plunging them back into darkness. Meia’s eyes adjusted in less than a millisecond. She prepared to fire, but what she saw froze her in place.

  The Praetor was engaged in hand to hand combat, fighting a woman with tight, blond curls wearing a Mitsugawa e-suit. They traded blows in a blur, stumbling when one landed and diving right back into the fray. The woman had blood streaming out of her nostrils, and her right eye was swollen, but the fact that the Praetor’s blows didn’t liquefy her bones amazed Meia. The sight of the battle made her want to leap in and fight, but she knew that the woman must have had some kind of modifications to keep up with the Praetor. She would likely just get herself killed if she tried to help.

  “Lieutenant, orders?” Iapetus requested.

  She got to her feet and stepped back. She may not be able to assist, but he could. “Aid the woman, but don’t chance hitting her.”

  “Acknowledged.” He rose and limped forward. The turrets on his shoulders tracked the Praetor as he approached the melee.

  Meia squatted beside Captain Fukui. The whole side of her face with the torn ear and the damaged eye was swollen, but she could see the edges of it starting to heal as the nanomeds did their thing. She took one more moment to make sure the captain was going to be okay, then turned her attention back to the battle.

  The Praetor threw a hooking punch, which the woman ducked with inhuman reflexes, and followed up with a knee meant to smash her face in. He grazed her chin, throwing her off-balance but not so much that she couldn’t respond with a double fist to the Praetor’s torso. Modulus stumbled back and dropped to one knee as a glowing hot-spot smoldered on his ankle. His head turned toward Iapetus, who continued to approach while firing the HEL at the Praetor’s ankle. The boot around it caught fire, and a second hot-spot appeared at the Praetor’s knee.

  The mystery woman lunged forwa
rd, drawing a hammer and a long knife from her belt. She plunged the knife into the Praetor’s neck. The blade went in about three centimeters and snapped off in her hand, then she smashed his temple with the hammer hard enough to break its handle and leave a deep dent in his skull. The woman tried to leap back, but Modulus was too quick. His hand shot forward and plunged into her abdomen. She let out a sound that was half-gasp, half-croak and crumpled to the floor.

  Iapetus reached him and brought his banded fists down on the Praetor’s shoulders so hard that Meia heard the impact from twenty-meters away. Modulus’ arms went limp, but Iapetus didn’t stop. His fists rose and fell in rapid succession. Each blow bent Modulus’ shoulders downward by a few more degrees until the width of his torso was half of what it was moments before. Meia saw the hot spot of Iapetus’ HEL laser appear on Modulus’ forehead. In a moment, the thing would be dead.

  “Wait,” the woman said from where she lay crumpled on the ground. She gasped for air, then spoke again. “I want his memory core.”

  Meia cocked an eyebrow up; it was a smart idea. “Iapetus, do what she says.”

  “Acknowledged.” The hot spot vanished and reappeared at the Praetor’s neck. Synthetic flesh smoldered and parted like cut dough, then he grabbed the Abyssian’s head and wrenched it free of its polymer spine with a snap. With the Praetor’s head separated from his body, Iapetus set about cutting the skull open with a shoulder turret.

  Meia felt a hand on her arm. She looked down to see Fukui staring up at her with her right eye.

  “The woman on the floor is the Heiress.”

  She looked over at the blond woman. “Heiress?”

  Fukui nodded and winced. “That’s Heiress Olivaar. Baron Keltan must be nearby. We have to help them.”

  “We are,” she responded and looked at the blond woman again. She’d never heard of an heiress who could take a Praetor before, but she supposed there was a first time for everything.

  “Lina!” Cylus rose from the dusty landing platform beside the Fukurō-maru. She was being half-carried by some kind of armored robot with guns on its shoulders, and the hand she pressed to her lower stomach was covered in dark blood. His eyes widened with alarm and he activated the targeting system on the G-2020 standing beside him. Its guns twitched with a loud clacking noise.