“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.”
45
Sympathy for the Devil
There are so few of us left.
Eight hours later, Dred glanced around at the smoldering wreckage left over from the riots, char marks on floor and walls. The survivors were piling corpses to be sent down the chute with numb efficiency, supervised by Martine and Calypso, who came out of the last battle with a gash in her side, but she was strong, and it should heal.
Dred and Jael had parted ways to oversee repairs, partly because they needed him elsewhere and partly because she couldn’t lean on him too much. The Queenslanders left needed her to be strong. At last count, Mungo’s men had been exterminated completely; she had a less-comprehensive idea of how many of Silence’s assassins had survived the slaughter. That would probably come back to haunt them, but she lacked the energy to care at the moment.
Jael found her a few minutes later as she went to work with the rest of the cleaning crew. She hadn’t slept in days, and she wouldn’t until Queensland was back in order. A new set of mercs might arrive anytime, and she knew they didn’t have the manpower to repeat this defense of the station. Next time, they wipe us out. That awareness rendered the victory bittersweet. He pulled her away from the others and drew her to him. The kindness of the gesture almost brought her to her knees. People didn’t console the Dread Queen.