“Permission to take down the praetorian guard,” Les said, “but do not—I repeat, do not—kill Colonel Moreto. Take her alive, and we’ll let X deal with her.”
Magnolia cursed under her breath.
“Mags, that is a direct order,” Les said.
“Ughhh, fine.”
“Is there a way to announce what’s happened once we do have her?” Michael asked. “I’m worried the troops loyal to her will come to her aid. There’s a whole damn fleet of boats out here.”
“I’ll make sure they don’t,” Les said.
“All right, Captain, leave this to us,” Michael said.
She moved her finger to the trigger and waited for Michael to fire first. The bark came, and Magnolia squeezed off a burst.
All three bullets punched through a soldier’s red cape, dropping him. She fired another burst, killing the next soldier with head and neck shots.
The praetorian guards turned toward their position faster than she had hoped. She took down a guardsman before he could get off a shot.
A war cry rang out from the Barracudas, who also saw what was happening. Their shields lifted off the deck, and they stormed forward, slamming into the wall of shields around Moreto.
Magnolia spotted, at the back of the Barracudas, a man with a prosthetic leg. He raised a cane into the air, and she thought she heard him yell, “¡Por Rhino!”
She aimed carefully to avoid hitting any Barracudas. Carmela Moreto’s helmet was in her crosshairs again. The woman looked directly up at their position and raised a pistol at Michael, but before Magnolia could take the shot, a shield slammed the colonel, knocking her to the deck.
“Come on,” Michael said.
Magnolia followed him to a ladder that led to another platform below. By the time they got to the deck, Barracudas had surrounded the surviving praetorian guards. Several abandoned their weapons and raised their hands in surrender, but three stood fast with Carmela.
“Put your weapons down,” Michael ordered.
The soldiers either didn’t understand him or weren’t ready to quit. Magnolia flipped her face visor down and aimed her machine gun at them, then walked over to kick Carmela’s pistol away.
“Down!” Magnolia shouted. “Or I shoot you all!”
The man with the prosthetic leg translated as he limped over on his cane. A muscled young warrior with bandages on his tattooed flesh walked beside him, his two swords dripping blood.
After another flurry of shouting, the guardsmen finally put their weapons down. Twelve Barracudas surrounded them and took their swords.
“Thanks for the help,” said the man with the prosthetic leg.
“Who are you two?” Michael asked.
“I’m Mac, and this is Felipe,” he said, nodding to the muscled young man.
“We swore to fight for el rey Javier, and before Rhino died, I promised him we would protect the king. We recruited these warriors to help us stop Colonel Moreto from taking the throne.”
Carmela took her helmet off and snarled, then spat at them.
Mac just laughed. “She said she was just waiting to make sure King Xavier was okay before heading out to the Iron Reef.”
Magnolia spat right back at Carmela. “If I had a dick, I’d piss on you,” she said. “Mac, will you translate that, por favor?”
The older man laughed again, deep and hard. Magnolia liked him already.
“Sir, we’ve got Colonel Moreto in custody,” Michael said over the comms. “Whatever you’ve got planned, best do it fast before the rest of her friends try anything.”
“Copy that,” Les replied.
Magnolia kept her rifle aimed at Carmela’s face, itching to pull the trigger and erase that smirk. But unlike Ada, she would respect orders. Not that this was even close to that situation. No one would exile Magnolia for giving Carmela a third eye.
A whirring sounded, and all eyes turned to the sky. The first rays of sunrise glinted off the hull of Discovery. Les brought it down until it was directly over the warship.
Speakers on the airship blared for all the boats to hear. Timothy spoke first in Spanish, then repeated it in English.
“Lay down your weapons and return to your homes, by order of King Xavier,” he said. “Anyone who does not heed this order will be considered a traitor and will be executed by the king himself.”
Carmela sneered and said something.
“What’d she say?” Magnolia asked Mac.
“She said, ‘How can he do that with just one arm?’ ” Mac replied. “I’m not sure where she’s getting her information, but that can’t be true… can it?”
Magnolia bent closer to Carmela. The message replayed again, and when it stopped, boat motors coughed to life in the distance.
“You hear that?” Magnolia said. “That’s the sound of your amigos going bye-bye. Now you’re all mine.”
Mac interpreted, and Carmela bared her sharpened teeth.
“Get her up,” Magnolia said.
Felipe motioned for two Barracudas to yank the colonel to her feet. She squirmed in their grip, snarling.
Magnolia watched them haul her off to a boat below.
“Good work,” Michael said to Mac, extending a hand.
“It was our honor to uphold our oath to General Rhino and King Xavier,” Mac said.
“Come to the capitol tower so we can thank you properly,” Magnolia said.
“That would also be my honor,” Mac replied.
When the militia arrived, Magnolia climbed into the boat with Michael to head home. They loaded the renegade colonel with the help of Sergeant Wynn and his strike team of four soldiers. Magnolia took a seat, managing her anger on the ride and resisting the urge to kill Carmela.
The boat slapped across small waves as the sun rose above the horizon. An armored speedboat screamed across the water in the distance, sun glinting off its windows.
“Ah shit,” Wynn said. “This could be trouble.”
“That’s Colonel Forge’s personal war boat,” Mac said, rising up.
Heart thumping again, Magnolia unslung her rifle. The fight wasn’t over.
She looked down at Moreto, who wore that infuriating smirk once again. Wynn barked orders into the radio, and several militia boats sped away from the enclosed marina.
“What the hell is Forge thinking?” Magnolia said. The rooftop machine-gun nests and twenty-millimeter cannons were swinging around toward the war boat.
She spotted something else up there in the glow of the sun. Someone stood at the railing, looking down.
If Magnolia wasn’t mistaken, the person had only one arm, and a dog sat by his side.
“It can’t be,” Michael said.
Militia boats surrounded the war boat as it coasted to a stop. Three soldiers stood on the deck. One wore a black cape.
It was Colonel Forge, and he wasn’t holding a weapon; he was holding a box. He held it up at the capitol tower rooftop, where X stood looking down.
Wynn lowered the radio and said, “My people are saying it’s medicine—some nanotech gel or something.”
Magnolia couldn’t believe it. Forge was coming to offer the king the advanced healing technology they had run out of.
X remained at the railing.
“I can’t believe he’s out there,” Michael said.
“Why do you think the other Cazador boats fled?” said another militia soldier.
Magnolia and Michael looked out over the water and the departing boats returning to their rigs.
It wasn’t just the warning from the airship that had scattered the Cazadores.
The king had come outside to show everyone that he was still alive. Now Forge was bringing him something to help him heal.
Even Carmela stared up in apparent disbelief.
“How do you say ‘immortal’ in Spanish?” Magnolia asked. “Someone tell this bird lady that she’s about to see one.”