Page 65

T hrough the thickest of the smoke, we climb an access ladder to the control level and step over the first body.

It’s a rat-man, burned beyond recognition, his fur still smoking. I check his arms, relieved not to find Captain Match’s flamethrower. Then I check his chest.

No charred Orclas teeth. I sigh into my breather.

Noises filter through the smoke. Shouting. That gives me hope someone’s still alive. And still fighting.

I follow the noises, out of the small room where the rat crawled to die, backtracking over his claw marks in the soot on the floor.

Into a corridor where I have to step over more bodies.

Another rat and three men wearing black fatigues.

One of them has an armband with the Tyng logo on it, the hologram flickering.

I check them. For pulses and weapons, not in that order.

One of them has a belt of what look like small explosive charges.

I reassign them to my belt. The Ojos have shock sticks that have been fucked with to deliver a heavy charge.

Still not lethal, though. Or, at least, not lethal to me. I leave those. My weapons are better .

Exeter covers me. I point out the Tyng armband before I move on. Exeter nods. He knew what we were facing when we left Hemos. Although I’m not sure what the repercussions of killing Myhre will be yet, I’m not sorry I let Exeter and Payton stay. Saves a lot of explaining.

Around a corner and past two empty rooms that look like storage, we find the fighting.

Ojos in dark fatigues have cornered someone or someones in a storage room.

Two stacked desks barricade the doorway.

Whoever’s behind them – and it’s too much to hope it’s Kez – has dug in.

The Ojos are using their shocks sticks to try to zap through the barrier.

I take down the lead Ojos with a kukri through the head. Exeter drops the other two with shots to the thigh. One shot hits an artery; the Ojos paints the hall red while he screams. His comrade tries to help but just gets sprayed in the process.

When Mr. Arterial stops redecorating, I step up to the door and knock on the barricade. “It’s Snow. Where are Match and Acker?”

Three rat heads pop up above the barrier. “Mr. Snow!”

“Anyone think I wasn’t coming?” I drawl. “C’mon, time’s wasting.”

They quickly shift the barricade and file out into the hallway, stepping around the two dead Ojos and the one that’s collapsed against a wall, clutching his thigh and whimpering.

“We got separated and they pinned us down,” one of the rats tells me. “Captain Match was trying to get into the control room where they’re holding Acker.”

I tip my chin down the corridor. “That way?”

The rats nod.

“Any of you injured?”

“Pech is,” one of the rats says, looking at the third who has been silent.

Pech hunches his shoulders. “I’m okay. I can fight.”

“Stay here and guard our six,” I tell the injured rat. “Make sure that one doesn’t decide to become a martyr.” I hook my thumb at the still-breathing Ojos.

“Sir,” Pech protests.

I shake my head to shut him up. “I don’t have time to argue. Let’s go.”

I retrieve my kukri and head toward the control room.

Two more corridors and we find the same battle in reverse. A dozen rats cluster in the hallway around a set of double doors. Match and another rat with a flamethrower are working on burning their way through.

“Match!” I roar over the fire and milling bodies.

Match breaks off and steps back. “Snow?”

“Here,” I say, raising my good arm with its bloody kukri, in case he doesn’t recognize me with the breather on. The crowd parts and Match, his fur singed and smoking, strides toward me. We clasp forearms. “You incinerate the controls?”

He shakes his head. “Left them in case um came.”

“I’m here. Lemme at ‘em.”

The rats shuffle away from one wall, where there’s a blackened, cracked control panel.

I don’t believe in God. Helas. Any divine power. They abandoned me in the bowels of Tol Seng. But I’ll sacrifice at every altar on the planet for the rest of my days if my face still opens this fucking door.

I position myself in front of the scanner and pull off my breather, holding my breath. For good measure, I press my thumb against the bottom of the screen.

The screen scrolls. Voice authority?

Remembering who these fuckers have been impersonating, I say, “Halemano Hauser.”

The door opens.

Match and Exeter step through together. Match immediately lights up his flamethrower and screams fill the hallway along with fresh billows of black smoke .

I pull my breather back on and step into the control chamber.

There are too many bodies, too much motion, in too small a space.

The control room is long but narrow. The bank of windows overlooking the deck is five meters from the door.

The room’s broken into two tiers with consoles and seats closest to the windows, compressing all of us into an even narrower space.

Then I turn my head and see what got Match lighting his flamethrower.

Acker and Kez hang side-by-side at the far end of room, pinned to the wall’s high-end padding through their wrists. Acker’s muzzle is a mask of blood. His eye sockets are empty.

I roar and push my way toward them.

“Snow! Snow!” Exeter shouts as I behead an Ojos without taking my eyes off Kez’s hanging form.

I ignore him. My kitten is crucified on the fucking wall ten meters from me. Whatever bodies there are between me and she, I’m going through them.

I kick a rat out of my way and cut down three more Ojos before Erin, grinning bloodily, shoves a shock stick into my shoulder. My body armor takes the worst of it, but she would get my good shoulder.

My arm goes numb. My blade clatters to the floor.

She spits blood in my face before she pulls her arm back to hit me with the stick again.

I draw with my injured hand, feeling bone grind on broken bone, and ram a kukri through her gut.

Her designer uni might look good, but it doesn’t deflect my blade.

I leave her spitted, sagging to her knees, her eyes and mouth wide with shock. I kick her onto her back and snarl as I pass, “Don’t bleed out until I get a chance to hang you.”

Match has fried whoever was blocking the road to Kez and Acker. I step over the black, smoking lumps, step up to my kitten. They’ve stretched her high on the wall; our heads are even. She’s covered in blood and soot. I can’t tell where and how she’s injured except for her arms.

I press our chests together gently to take the weight off her arms. Cup her chin with my broken, throbbing hand. I pull off my breather, give her the comfort of skin-on-skin as I lift her head and nuzzle gently along her jaw.

“I’m here, kitten,” I breathe into her ear. My words catching on a cough from the smoke. My nose fills with the reek of burnt hair. I swallow back a hard gip. “I came. Tell me you held on for me.”

A hiss of breath. The tiniest movement against my cheek. “I ... held on.”

The rush of relief is so vast, so profound, all I can do for a long moment is breathe against her. When I pull my ass together, I fit the breather over her face.

“Deep breaths, kitten. As deep as you can,” I whisper to her. Watch as she takes a few deep breaths to make sure the mask has a good seal. “I’ll come back and kill everyone who hurt you, but we’re getting the fuck out of here now.”

“Acker,” she hisses. “Erin shot him. Defending me. Take ... him first.”

“No, kitten. The rats’ll take care of him. You’re mine. You first.”

Before I can take her off the wall, I have to pull out the knives through her wrists. Before I pull out the knives, I have to get up close and personal with the wounds to make sure she won’t bleed out when I remove the knives.

She wrapped her forearms with genSkin and monofilament before we left the Deeps. My smart kitten. The genSkin has sealed the wounds. Some of the monofilament has been driven into her flesh, but I don’t need to touch it to take out the knives. I’ll let Doc Gray work his magic on her once we’re safe.

I ease the first knife out, catch her arm before it flops, and lay it gently over my shoulder. Feeling is finally returning to my good hand, which makes the removal of the second knife easier. I pull Kez tightly to my chest as she slumps away from the wall.

“I have you, kitten. I have you.”

“Hand?” She blinks up at me. She’s in shock. Her cheeks are pale and waxy. Her eyes glazed. There’s blood spattered across her face, streaked down her neck. Either hers before the genSkin sealed the wounds or Acker’s. Or both.

“Fuck my hand,” I tell her as I figure out the angles and swing her up into my arms. Settle her head on my good shoulder, her legs cradled in my bad arm.

Even with the sling, that hurts. Definitely getting another lecture from Doc Gray.

“Doc Gray can cut it off and make me a new one. I might even opt for a flamethrower model.”

Match, who is performing the same knife-removal operation on Acker less than a meter to my left, grunts. Tears cut runnels through the soot on his face, down to the pink newskin. My own face feels wet; I probably look the same. I lift my chin at him. He nods at me.

“I’m taking Kez to my ship. Kill everyone.”

Match doesn’t blink. “Come to the Deeps when um done.”

“We will,” I promise. “Do you want a Tyng med team for Acker?”

Match shakes his head. “We heal our own.”

I turn away from the wall and find a silent crescent of rats behind us. Six, black-uniformed Ojos kneel at their feet. One holds Erin by the throat. My kukri’s still sticking out of her stomach, quivering with each breath.

I turn my head until I find Exeter. He’s standing near the windows, holding his gun on Erin.

“Get the rope outta my pack,” I tell him.

He nods, holsters his gun, and roots around in my bag until he comes up with the rope.

“Make sure that’s around her neck when she breathes her last,” I say. “I promised Payton justice.”

Exeter nods and loops the rope around Erin’s neck, tightening the noose until she chokes.

“Snow.” Payton’s soft voice crackles in my ear. “Bring Kez home. I’ve got your doctor on the way to Tyng Tower. You’ve done enough. Come home.”

“On my way,” I tell her. To Exeter, I say, “Let’s go. They’re waiting for us at Tyng Tower.”

“Copy that.”

He falls in behind me as I carry my kitten to safety.