Havoc

44 Garden of Evil

Jael shot the Queenslander chasing Dred.

The common area swarmed with men. At this moment, Jael missed Einar. The big man could clear some space with a few, casual swings. Without him, the battle was tighter and more chaotic. Most of their best fighters had gone down in other sorties, so at least he wasn’t squared off against pure talent. These were desperate men with nothing to lose. Or so they thought.

The situation can always get worse.

He flashed to days on Nicu Tertius, thigh deep in mud and walking on the corpses of his comrades as their bodies built a bridge the survivors used to scramble to higher ground. To this day, he couldn’t stand in the rain with soft ground under his feet without imagining that the earth was churning with the bones of the dead. With effort, he fixed his vision on the melee all around him. The distraction cost him a slice across his ribs, another invisible scar.

“We can’t let them wear us down,” Jael said, parrying a lunge and breaking the arm of the man who tried it.

Tam said, “I agree. If our numbers get too low, Silence will kill us all in our sleep.”

Fortunately, their side had the better weapons and armor. Dred was wearing one of the suits at the moment; Tam and Martine had the others. Vaulting onto the throne, the Dread Queen brought up her pistol and took aim as a mad-eyed Queenslander charged. The laser blast caught him in the chest, sizzled, and stopped him. His body tripped a couple of his fellows.

“There’s only one way to end this quick,” he said. “You have to do it.”

Nodding, Dred pressed the button on the remote and deployed the Peacemaker. He’d never imagined she’d use it on her own people. Their unit had solid plating and two different heavy weapons, one on each arm: laser gun and Shredder. It limped these days, and the repair work they’d cobbled together after Ike’s death left it half-assed effective, but it would be enough to strike fear in the hearts of the traitors.

The mech lumbered in, warning the dissidents in indifferent, electronic tones. “You are guilty of civil disobedience. This scene will be pacified. To avoid bodily harm, desist and vacate the area.” It paused a few seconds to let that sink in, then added, “Countdown commencing.”

“If you’re with us, get clear,” Dred shouted. “I don’t want any of my people harmed.”

Her men stopped fighting at once and ran for the exits in all directions while she jumped down and took shelter behind the shield provided by the scrap-metal throne. Jael ran with her, though he could probably survive the attack. No point in wasting his healing power, though; it made more sense to marshal his strength. When the mech reached zero, it sprayed the room with a relentless ballistic onslaught. The rounds were old-fashioned but effective, especially against unarmored targets.

Dred tapped his shoulder. “Find Martine. Get to the hydroponics garden and don’t let anyone inside. You two defend it, I’ll hold down the fort here.”

They wouldn’t last long without the fresh food growing in the garden, so he took off right away, dodging the barrage the Peacemaker unloaded in his direction. By this point, the common room was almost clear apart from one man trying to crawl away in a smear of blood. Bullets sprayed the floor as Jael ran, pinging in sparks off the metal flooring. He dove for the hallway, came up in a roll, and sprang away.

“Martine,” he yelled.

“Over here!”

The men who’d fled from the common room had her cornered in a storeroom. Son of a bitch. Martine crouched behind stacks of supplies; the fact that she had a laser pistol kept them from rushing. Jael breathed in the lightning cordite zing from her weapon and the char of flesh. Two bodies on the ground. Eleven left. Here we go, lucky thirteen.

She shot one in the head at point-blank range. His flesh sizzled and burned, puckering into a black sore in which his mouth was a soft pink hole. The man screamed and clawed at his melting eyes, giving Jael the chance to break his neck. Blood fountained from his nose and hit her faceplate in a messy gush. Martine swiped a gloved hand across her helmet as Jael backed up for a running start and launched himself into the mix.

He swept the legs out from under one and immediately dropped on him, jabbing an elbow into his neck. As the enemy wheezed for breath, Jael rolled forward and snapped his arm. The pain incapacitated him, and Martine finished him with a shot to the chest. He couldn’t see her expression, but she gleefully opened fire around him. The men couldn’t get past him to touch her, and he let her use his body as a blockade. Jael took out two more in quick succession, leaving the others to scatter. Martine shot another one in the back as he was running away.

“Glad you could join me,” she said, hurdling the crates she’d used as cover.

“Dred wants us posted outside the garden.”

“Makes sense.”

She cocked her head, probably listening to the distant rat-a-tat-tat of the Peacemaker. It fired intermittently, likely clearing the common room as enemies ventured in to check on its ammo status. Dred didn’t need to worry as long as it was functioning properly. With time and laser rifles, the mercs had taken out Mungo’s units, but the Queensland rioters weren’t so well equipped.

“Let’s go,” he said.

From the click of her boots, Martine was with him. The fighting had already reached the hallway leading to the garden. There were bodies everywhere, and until they attacked, Jael had no way to be sure which side they were on. Ahead, ten Queenslanders scuffled, slashing at each other with jagged blades.

“Coming through,” Martine shouted.

He wouldn’t have given warning, but a few of the men—too few—acknowledged her words with a jerk of their chins. “We have to help them.”

Seven others whirled to face the woman, who whipped out her laser pistol. “You want some? Come on then, bitches.”

She fired two quick shots, dropping opponents on either side of the scrum. From the light on her battery pack, she didn’t have too many more shots, but the traitors didn’t know that. The men who had been defending took the chance to stab a few more, neat kidney shots that would leave their targets dead in minutes. Now the odds were downright favorable.

Jael launched a kick at the nearest traitor, snapping his knee back, and when the man dropped, he finished with a blow to the temple. He had the strength to fight efficiently, and he used it. That kill flowed right into the next; he broke that asshole’s neck cleanly. There was one man left, and one of the defenders cut his throat in a wet slice. His blood jetted onto the wall, slowing as he toppled and died. The wet rasps of breath ceased.

“You came just in time,” a man said. “They were on their way to the garden.”

“There will be more,” Martine predicted.

Jael nodded. “We have orders to hold this ground. Want to help out?”

“Why not? It pisses me off when they fuck with my dinner,” a big guy muttered.

“This way, then.”

He rounded the corner and came up on a scene that chilled him. Vix and Zediah were defending outside the doors, while the enemy shouted, “Take the garden. If we control the food, we own Queensland.”

At this point, Jael had no idea if this was about the merc pardons or if it was a coup within a riot, fueled by silent Lecass supporters. Fifteen more men surrounded them, and while his five could thin them out, it wouldn’t be fast enough. Still, he ran toward the mob as Zediah took a blade in the gut, opening him up like a fish. Still, the kid didn’t drop; he was defending Vix with a shaky blade. They stabbed him two more times before he went down, then they sliced her from throat to thigh. She felt for Zediah with a blood-smeared hand, and his fingers twined with hers in one last convulsive movement.

In a few more steps, these bastards would have possession of the hydroponics bay. With an enraged snarl, he threw himself at the lot of them. Jael took multiple stabs and slashes, but he ignored the pain as he had learned from a lifetime of doing just that. He didn’t a need a weapon to end them. Their bones popped and cracked in the rush of his fury. Separated from him, Martine fired with caution; she didn’t know about his regenerative abilities. The other Queenslanders waded in to mop up the ones who were still twitching when he moved on.

Jael was barely breathing hard when the last one fell. His shirt already had so much blood on it that the others couldn’t tell how much belonged to him. Martine narrowed her eyes, but the superficial wounds had already closed. The deeper ones would take longer, but none were serious enough to bother him.

She plucked at the rent fabric on his shoulder. “I guess you got lucky, huh?”

He flashed a smile even as his gaze settled on Vix and Zediah, their hands intertwined even in death. “Always do. It’s other people that need to watch out around me.”

Yep. Lucky as hell. Now he didn’t have to worry about what Zediah knew. Or keeping secrets from Dred.

“Is that a threat?” she asked softly.

“No, just a shitty reality.”

She nodded. “Poor bastards. If only we’d been a little faster.”

While their deaths solved a personal problem for Jael, Zediah and Vix had known the most about running the hydroponics garden. Ike might’ve known a bit about it, but he was gone, too. That left Jael, who’d spent fewer than ten hours tending the plants before the pair went full psycho on him. If the garden stops producing, we’ll run out of food. After that, there was only Mungo’s solution—cannibalizing the populace either directly or indirectly. But that was a distant concern, not something to worry about while they were still putting out fires and tallying the dead.

“How long are we supposed to hold here?” Martine asked.

“Until Dred or Tam comes to advise us of the all clear.”

She nodded. “I wouldn’t trust anyone else.”

It was hours before the Peacemaker fell permanently silent. During that time, they drove off two more runs at the garden and killed even more rebels. The body count had to be astronomical by this point. Jael piled the enemies away from Vix and Zediah; it was the least he could do, given that he hadn’t really tried to save them.

At last, Dred strode down the blood-streaked hall toward them. Her chains were crusted dark brown, her face smudged with soot and weariness. But resolve shone from undimmed eyes. “It’s over. You two can stand down.”

The RC unit beeped and circled in her wake, and a light went off in Jael’s head. Dammit, I completely forgot. Belatedly, he told her what they’d learned from Ike’s bot. With the constant chaos and attacks coming from all sides, it had been impossible to spare the men to track them down, then Jael had forgotten about it. The unit was standing by, ready to lead them to his cache the minute things settled down.

On hearing the good news, she actually smiled. It seemed like ages since he’d seen that expression on her face and felt like she wasn’t faking the look for the good of the zone.

Martine went off to check on Tam, leaving them alone.

“You all right?” Dred asked, checking him for wounds.

And it broke something in him, that despite the purple shadows beneath her eyes that he knew indicated she wasn’t sleeping well, she’d still ask after his mental health. He didn’t think she remembered how to do anything except solve other people’s problems. The Dread Queen was sucking the life out of her, bit by bit, and it killed him to see it happen.

I have to get her out of here. That can’t be another of my quick-patter bullshit promises. This one, I have to keep.

“Yeah. But you’re not.”

To his surprise, she didn’t deny it. In the guttering light from the tetchy fluorescent, her face was pale and soft, faintly shadowed, so that he could only see the glint of her eyes, but not the color. Her hair fell in a dark swath against her cheek, moon and night. The poetry of that contrast compelled him to lift a hand to her cheek.

She leaned infinitesimally into the touch. “You sure about that?”

“I don’t think Tam and crew have noticed. But you can’t fool me.”

“I’m going through the motions,” she said at length. “Saying the right words. Making the moves that might keep us alive, but I’m so fragging tired.”

Her words struck him like a barrage of rifle shots, burning through his emotional shields. Jael felt her exhaustion as if it radiated from his own body. That was how deep she’d burrowed inside him. The emotion resonated, kindling an ache as though she tapped a thousand crystals, all singing the same mournful tune. Distance showed in the slope of her cheek, the delicate shadow of her lashes. Such fine details to notice; he cataloged such minutiae about everyone, every day, and it only mattered when it was Dred.

“It’s bullshit how much weight you carry, love.” His voice contained more gravel than he’d expected, and he cleared his throat.

She shrugged. “I’ll do what I must. And it helps to have you here. I can’t talk like this with anyone else.”

“I’d want to kill him if you did.”

“That’s us, ever spinning through a cycle of love and death.” Her mordant expression yielded to surprise when Jael kissed her. “What was that for?”

“You’ll figure it out. Let’s catch up with the others.”