Tikaya did not know how long she sat in the shadow of the tent, but shivers and a frozen nose finally convinced her she had to find a warmer berth. She put a hand down and started to rise. The crunch of boots stopped her. A tall figure with a rifle strode between the tents and into the darkness before her. She could not make out features but had an inkling. She remained still, cloaked by shadows.
A long moment passed with the figure scanning the dark canyon beyond the camp.
“ Tikaya?” he called.
She closed her eyes. Rias. No, Fleet Admiral Starcrest.
She did not want to- could not-talk to him. Not then.
He called twice more.
“ The bitch is gone.” Ottotark strode into view from another direction. He passed within a couple feet of her and stopped a few paces from Rias.
“ Ottotark,” Rias growled. “I ought to twist your head off your slagging neck and shove it up your ass.”
“ It’s not my fault you didn’t tell your girlfriend your name. Admiral.”
Rias had no answer for that, and even the darkness did not hide the slump to his shoulders. “Where is she?”
“ Off to the tunnels to join her friends and leave us hanged.”
Tikaya clenched her jaw. Damn these men. She did not want to deal with either one, but she could not let Rias believe she had run off. She opened her mouth to say something, but Ottotark spoke first.
“ You should thank me,” he said. “It’s pathetic the way you were hanging all over the bitch. And why? She slagged us in the war. If you want her, tie her down and screw her, but don’t-”
Rias threw down his rifle and charged. Between one eye blink and the next he covered the distance and crashed into Ottotark, taking him down so hard they flew backward.
Tikaya drew her knees in tight, too startled to speak. The attack may have surprised Ottotark, but he recovered and fought back like a cornered badger. Grunts and snarls accompanied the smack of fists striking flesh.
In the darkness, she lost track of who was who as the men thrashed and writhed on the ground. Clumps of snow flew, spattering her cheeks. Something cracked, and one of them-Rias? — yelped in pain.
Tikaya held her breath. Ottotark was younger, bigger, and without any morals as far as she could tell. She tried to tell herself that Rias-Starcrest-was no longer her concern, but her fingers clenched into a fist, and she silently rooted for him.
One man maneuvered on top and straddled the other. He punched down, and a head hammered the snow. The bottom man bucked and twisted, and a moment later the positions reversed.
“ Traitor,” Ottotark snarled.
Both men panted, breaths rasping. They switched positions again, legs tangling as each tried to pin the other.
Metal rang, a knife being pulled.
As furious as he was, Rias would not pull a blade. Tikaya knew he wouldn’t. She almost yelled a warning, but stopped herself. A distraction could prove fatal.
One man found the top again and raised an arm, the knife silhouetted against the night sky. The blade plunged down at the head of the other.
Movement halted. Ragged breaths assaulted the still air, and Tikaya could not tell whether they belonged to one man or two. The top person lurched to his feet and staggered back, a hand to his belly.
Her heart hammered in her ears, and she could not bring herself to call out. If it was Ottotark, who knew what he might do to her? If it was Rias, and he had just made good on his promise to kill the sergeant…
But, no, the supine man groaned. Weakly.
Tikaya could not identify him by the sound. She forced her limbs to unlock and she rolled to her knees. She crept to the fallen man’s side and hesitantly reached toward the face. Her glove bumped something hard.
The knife.
It wasn’t lodged in an eye after all. The attacker had sunk it to the hilt in the snow a hair from the other’s ear. That told her what the shadows did not: of the two, only Rias would have shown mercy.
She jerked her hand back as the man-Ottotark-groaned again. She lunged away from him and looked for Rias. He might be injured and need help. She spun slowly, searching the shadows, but he was gone.
Maybe he had gone to find a cot. She trotted into camp. The number of people awake had dwindled, and the fire burned low. She tore open the flap to the sleeping tent and crashed into someone coming out.
“ Tikaya,” Agarik blurted. “We’ve been looking all over for you.”
She grabbed his parka. “Is Rias with you? Have you seen him?”
“ Not since he went to check the perimeter.” He must have read her distress. “Why? What’s wrong?”
“ Ottotark told him I’d gone to the tunnels. I’m afraid he might have gone after me.” She explained the fight, all the while cursing herself for staying silent during the men’s confrontation. Why hadn’t she answered when he first called out? If he got in trouble because of her stung feelings…
“ He shouldn’t go in there alone,” Agarik said, tone terse, worried. “Come, we’ve got to tell the captain.”
Glad to have him leading the charge, Tikaya followed him into the command tent. Heat and faint light emanated from the portable stove in the center, and she could pick out shapes amongst the shadows. The meeting had dispersed, and only Bocrest and a couple lieutenants remained inside, all flat on cots. Tikaya stopped near the stove. Certain the captain would blame this on her, she did not want to be close enough for him to grab easily.
“ Sir?” Agarik asked.
Bocrest jerked awake, hand finding a pistol.
“ It’s Agarik, sir. The admiral’s missing.”
Bocrest growled and lurched to his feet. “Explain.” He must have had a suspicion, for his eyes skimmed the darkness and found Tikaya. He cursed. “No, you explain.”
While Agarik had listened to the story patiently, she had to suffer curses and hurled gear while reciting it for Bocrest. He managed to get dressed despite his preoccupation with throwing things and was stuffing his feet into his boots by the time she finished.
“ This is why women aren’t allowed in the military.” He cursed again, but shifted to efficiency after that.
By now, the lieutenants were awake and dressing, and he snarled orders at them. Less than five minutes later, the entire camp stood in formation outside. The last to show up, Ottotark limped to the head of one of the lines. Several men held lanterns, and the flickering light revealed bloody and swelling contusions on the sergeant’s face. A dark part of her wished he was dead, though Rias probably would hate himself if he killed someone out of sheer rage.
Bocrest stalked over to face Ottotark. “Did you draw the knife or did he?”
“ Sir?” Ottotark asked in a tone that sounded like he was trying to play dumb, or maybe buying himself time to think.
“ You heard me!”
Ottotark licked his lips. The marines in formation apparently knew better than to turn their heads and watch, but their eyes flicked toward the confrontation.
“ I did, sir,” Ottotark finally said.
“ I told you-I told everyone — to treat him like an officer. The punishment for drawing a weapon against an officer is death.”
“ Sir! He’s not an officer any more. He’s a traitor, you said so. The emperor-”
“ Isn’t here,” Bocrest said. “We’ll discuss punishment when the mission is over. For now, do your job and don’t talk to our guide or our translator. Is that understood?”
“ Yes, sir,” Ottotark said so softly Tikaya almost missed it. If only the captain had issued that order a few hours earlier.
The tracker strode out of the darkness, and Bocrest shifted his attention.
“ There are footprints at the tunnel entrance and it looks like someone walked in, at least a few steps. The floor is that hard black material, and there’s no way to track further.”
“ Slagging women,” Bocrest said before raising his voice. “Gather your gear, men. We’re going after him.”
The marines marched in step, and the echoes reverberated through the wide black tunnel. No dead skeletons had marked the entrance, no piles of rubble scattered the floor, nor did water drip eerily in the distance, but the place made Tikaya uneasy nonetheless.
It was too clean, too perfect. No cobwebs obscured the distance, no chips or scratches marred the dust-free floors, and no decoration adorned the walls. The cool dry air reminded her of the lava tubes meandering beneath her father’s plantation, but no familiar earthy smells accompanied it. No smells at all. The lanterns the marines carried went unused. A soft glow emanated from all around, illuminating the tunnel as clearly as the midday sun. She had visited several ancient catacombs, qanats, and subterranean cities, and she had studied dozens more. This sterile tunnel was like nothing in the archaeology books. Nothing in the world.
“ Who made this place?” someone muttered.
She walked behind Bocrest, second in a queue of thirty men. A handful of marines had stayed in the base camp while Agarik and a couple others scouted ahead.
“ Ancient people,” someone answered.
“ How?”
“ Magic.”
No telling tingle stirred the hairs on Tikaya’s neck. “I don’t think so.”
“ Magic,” another said, his tone brooking no argument. Others murmured assent. “Evil magic made this place, just like the rocket and the thing in Wolfhump.”
“ No talking,” Bocrest snapped over his shoulder, saving Tikaya from launching into a lecture that would doubtlessly not be well received.
Rias must have a lot more patience than she to have commanded such men all his life. It must have been lonely for him with so few peers. She shook the thoughts from her head. It was none of her concern. Even if she could forgive him for his lie of omission, Admiral Starcrest was nobody she could have a life with, not without betraying her people, her family, and everyone she loved. Especially those fallen during the war. She could want him found and safe, but she could not want him. Not any more.
She swallowed a lump and fished the journal out of her pocket. A challenge. Her mind needed a challenge, and she needed to learn as much as she could before her services were needed. If ever there was a place she could walk and study at the same time, it ought to be these flat, terrain-free tunnels. The worst thing that could happen is she would trip. An animal screeched in the distance.
Well, maybe not the worst thing.
Rias had mentioned strange predators in the tunnels. Predators that would probably find a single man an appealing target. Best not to dwell on that. Tikaya turned her attention back to the journal.
A mile or two passed with no side rooms or cross corridors forcing decisions. With her mind and her eyes locked on the pages, she failed to notice Bocrest stopping, and she crashed into his back. The journal slipped from her fingers as he spun and scowled.
“ Didn’t you see the sign?”
“ Sign?” Tikaya blinked and glanced about. They had come to a six-way intersection, where the scouts had stopped to wait. Large symbols in groupings of threes glowed a soft red above eye level at each corner. “Oh, yes, signs. I just read about those.”
Bocrest sighed noisily, while she picked up the journal.
“ Not those signs, the hand signal.” He demonstrated by raising his hand, fingers spread. “That means ‘squad halt,’ not ‘librarian run into the captain’s back.’ You need to pay attention in here.”
“ Do you want me to pay attention or do you want me to be able to translate the writing on the walls?” she asked.
Bocrest folded his arms. “Yes.”
She snorted but pointed to each sign as she relayed them: “Biology labs, alchemy labs, physics, animal experiments, labs for something Lancecrest didn’t recognize, and living quarters.”
“ What is that?” A marine pointed to a calf-high scat pile in the middle of one of the corridors.
“ Sorry,” Tikaya said, “I don’t translate poo.”
“ Koffert.” Bocrest gestured for the tracker.
The man knelt to examine the pile. He rubbed some between his fingers and sniffed it. “Predator, unknown. Large. Passed this way less than an hour back.” He stood, wiping his hand on his trousers, and Tikaya made a note not to share meals with the man.
Bocrest faced the scouts. “Any sign of Starcrest?”
“ No, sir,” Agarik said. He met Tikaya’s eyes, and they shared a grimace.
Bocrest grunted and waved toward the symbols. “Komitopis, which way?”
“ Which way do I think Rias would go if he was wondering which way I would go?”
Agarik smiled faintly. Bocrest did not.
“ Alchemy?” she guessed.
“ Fine. Someone mark the wall.” Bocrest waved the scouts forward. “Go. You boys in the back, stay alert. Watch for monsters creeping up on our asses.”
As the squad headed the new direction, Tikaya cast a longing gaze at the corridor that led to the living quarters. If any personal affects remained after all this time, she could learn much about the people from studying them. After they found Rias, perhaps they could go back.
Soon, doors marked the passage, taller and wider than normal, and without knobs or latches. Symbols denoting laboratories adorned some while others remained plain.
Someone walking closer to the wall than the center of the tunnel triggered a door to slide upward of its own accord. The man cursed and lurched back into line. Tikaya glimpsed a landing overlooking what she guessed to be lab stations-all the furnishings were oversized by human standards. A hand on her back encouraged her to hustle forward and catch up with Bocrest.
“ Should we check some of these?” she asked.
“ I’m not exploring anything until we catch up with our lovelorn guide,” Bocrest said.
Up ahead, the scouts stopped before a closed door. Agarik and another knelt to check something on the floor while the third man stood guard. After a moment, Agarik jogged back to the group.
“ What is it?” Bocrest asked.
“ Blood.” Agarik glanced at Tikaya. “A lot of blood.”
Her hands tightened around the journal. If Rias was hurt-or worse-because he had charged in here to look for her, it would be her fault.
When they reached the spot, the size of the dark puddle only increased her dread.
“ Human blood,” the tracker said after a taste. “Plantigrade print over there, but definitely not human.”
He pointed to a second puddle halfway under the door. A bloody print more than twice the size of Tikaya’s foot lay beside it. Dots at the end of the toes suggested claws.
“ Bear?” Bocrest asked.
Tikaya, remembering Rias’s tale of the tunnels, said, “I doubt it.”
A man screamed somewhere beyond the door. Rias? She lunged for the door, triggering the opening mechanism, but Bocrest caught her before she crossed the threshold.
“ We’ll get him,” he said. “You wait here.”
He waved two fingers, and the scouts slipped in first, fanning out on a landing with their rifles raised, ready to fire. Tikaya shifted her weight from foot to foot and eyed a bow stave and quiver attached to a rucksack. The man carried a rifle and pistol too; surely, he could spare the weapon so she could-
“ Clear on the landing,” Agarik said.
“ Sergeant Karsus.” Bocrest nodded for the man to take over the lead.
Without words, and faster than Tikaya expected, the marines shucked their rucksacks and split into two teams. They filed down stairs on opposite ends of the landing and disappeared from her sight. Only Bocrest remained with Tikaya.
Ignoring his hiss of annoyance, she twisted free of his grip and stepped inside. The landing overlooked a cavernous room that stretched a hundred meters or more. Thick thirty-foot-high columns supported the unadorned black ceiling. Empty floor dominated the front third of the room, and she could only guess at the furnishings beyond. She decided to think of them as lab stations and storage cabinets, though even the lowest counter rose taller than the approaching marines. The height and arrangement blocked much of the floor view as the stations created a maze of sinuous yet symmetrical aisles, some wide, some surprisingly narrow. As with the tunnel, light from an indiscernible source illuminated everything.
A cry of agony echoed from the center, and she glimpsed a blur of black before it disappeared behind a row of twenty-foot-tall cabinets.
“ Sprites-licked idiot,” she cursed, whirling to look for a bow amongst the discarded gear. She was not sure whether she meant Rias or herself. If, after all he had lived through, he died to some random animal attack…
Tikaya spotted the bow stave she eyed earlier. The marine had left it in favor of the rifle. She stuffed the journal into her rucksack, then untied the bow with fingers too irritated to fumble with fear. She yanked the quiver free as well. Stringing the weapon was a struggle, and she prayed the draw wouldn’t be too heavy for her.
“ Let my men do their job, Komitopis.” Rifle crooked in his arms, Bocrest leaned on the wall by the door, which had slid shut again. His voice was more sympathetic than she had ever heard it, and he did not try to take the weapon from her, but he did add, “You’re staying with me,” in an implacable tone.
She succeeded in looping the string over the limb of the bow. “I’m not going to-”
“ I’m not going to lose you as well as Starcrest. We need someone to read this grimbal shit.”
Noise in the corridor made them spin toward the door. Tikaya nocked an arrow while Bocrest raised his rifle. In the lab behind them, the men stalked in silence, and she had no trouble hearing the fast, heavy footfalls outside as they grew louder-closer.
Bocrest cursed, probably regretting that he had sent all his men below. The footfalls thundered to a stop outside the door. Tikaya drew the arrow, ignoring the strain between the backs of her shoulders. At least her shoulder no longer vexed her.
The door slid open. She held her breath.
The tunnel was empty.
The tip of her arrow wavered as her muscles quivered from the effort of holding the draw. She glanced at Bocrest, a question on her lips.
Then a head popped around the jamb and disappeared again. It happened so quickly she doubted her sight. Then a familiar voice spoke with wry humor.
“ Can I come in?”
“ Rias!” she blurted, even as Bocrest shouted, “Curse you, Starcrest.”
Rias slid out from behind the wall. “I hope that’s a yes.”
They lowered their weapons as he joined them on the landing. First Tikaya noticed a garish black eye and fingermarks bruising his neck, then saw the sweat bathing his face, saturating his hair, and dripping from his chin. His chest, framed by the straps of his rucksack, rose and fell with rapid, deep breaths. He wore all his weapons too-in addition to the rifle he carried, pistol, cutlass, and knife challenged the ammo pouches and powder tins for room on his belt. He must have been back to camp since the fight.
“ I can’t believe you left without me,” Rias said, eyes darting as he took in the lab.
“ But I saw you with Ottotark,” Tikaya said. “He said-I thought you went in the tunnels looking for me.”
Rias dragged a sleeve across his brow, not quite hiding a grimace of shame. “No, I didn’t believe him. I just had to… I almost lost it with him. I needed to get away, to think.”
Tikaya sagged against the railing with relief.
Disgust curled Bocrest’s lip throughout their exchange, and he finally jabbed his rifle toward the lab below. “If you were behind us, who in the empire are my men trying to rescue down there?”
“ I don’t know.” Rias glanced at Tikaya. “Maybe someone we can question if we recover him alive?”
Bocrest raised his voice for the benefit of the men below. “Starcrest accounted for. Continue with retrieval operation.”
“ Treat them like grimbals,” Rias called. “It takes a cut to the neck or shot to the eye to kill. And, above all else, do not break anything in here.”
The last command seemed strange when a man’s life was at stake, but the grimness in Rias’s mandate kept Tikaya from questioning it.
A shot fired, and a roar came from the center of the lab. Something crashed against a cabinet, and Rias winced. “Not good. Wish I’d had time to do a briefing.”
He glared at Bocrest who in turn glared at Tikaya.
“ This is your childish sergeant’s fault,” she said, “not mine.”
“ Why couldn’t the cryptomancer have been a man?” Bocrest glowered at Rias. “Though after all that time on Krychek, you probably wouldn’t have cared.”
Rias raised an eyebrow. “I am armed, you realize.”
Another roar answered the first, and Bocrest’s head snapped back toward the lab. “There’s a second?”
“ Back corner.” Rias headed for the stairs. “Who’s coming with me?”
“ You’re not going anywhere,” Bocrest said.
“ I’ve fought these before. Better me than them. But I could use backup.” He offered Tikaya a tentative smile.
More gunfire and a spatter of curses sounded in the lab, but she stared at him for a long moment. “You want me? After last night?”
“ Nothing’s changed for me,” he said with a sad smile. “Besides, you’re a better shot with that bow than my other option.”
Bocrest sniffed. “I am armed, you realize.”
But Rias was already heading down the stairs. “Third team advancing along the south wall,” he called.
A strangled groan of pain whispered through the aisles. Before she could think better of it, Tikaya slung the quiver across her back and followed Rias. She could figure out her feelings later.
They descended floating steps too deeply spaced for human comfort. Bow at half-draw, she trailed him across the open area toward a narrow gap along the south wall. As they approached, claustrophobia tightened her chest. The backs of cabinets and lab stations loomed in the same black as the wall, with the counters well above Tikaya’s head. She and Rias would have to walk single file.
Sweat dampened her grip and slithered down her spine. She had been ready to throw herself into the fray for Rias’s sake. Going on a monster hunt for uncertain stakes was another matter. Why had she followed him down the stairs? Surely he would have been better off with Bocrest. Despite her trepidation, she kept following. It should not matter, especially now, what Rias thought, but she could not bring herself to complain or back out.
He pressed himself against the wall and gestured for her to go ahead. “Since I can fire over your shoulder, you can lead.”
Just when she thought it couldn’t get bleaker.
“ You know,” Tikaya said, struggling for nonchalance as she slid past, “some men protect the women they care about by keeping them away from danger.”
Rias raised an eyebrow. “Sounds stifling.”
“ Perhaps so.”
“ Military officers like to challenge people to encourage growth.”
“ I’ve been six feet tall since I was thirteen; growth hasn’t been my goal for a while.”
“ You could grow a bit more before you got too big for Turgonian tastes.”
She smiled a bit at the double meanings, her mind distracted from her fear. As on the ship, his steadiness calmed her. She could worry about whether it should or not later. In the meantime, she wiped her palms dry, and padded forward, bow ready.
As they traveled deeper into the lab, new higher pitched growls grew audible. They came from somewhere near the back wall. The second creature. Tikaya hoped some of the marines were moving that way too.
They eased closer. Twenty meters, fifteen, ten. Around the corner, claws clacked, teeth snapped, lips smacked, and a tearing sound ripped the air. Tikaya hesitated, certain she did not want to see the source of those noises-or what it was eating. Rias’s hand rested on her shoulder briefly. She nodded to herself and peered around the corner.
Fifteen meters away, in a wide aisle, a huge bipedal creature crouched over a ravaged human corpse. The beast lacked fur, and powerful muscles rippled beneath oily black skin that gleamed under the light. The only thing soft were full breasts that swayed as it tore at flesh.
Tikaya slipped out and raised her bow.
The creature snorted. The head that came up appeared simian except for the long fangs flecked with blood and tissue. The arms and hands, too, were disturbingly human, though claws flashed at the ends of those fingers. The creature reared on its hind legs, powerful thigh muscles bunching. It sprang and sprinted toward them.
A rifle fired over her head, the report deafening. Tikaya expected it and did not flinch. Rias’s shot grazed the creature’s jaw. She loosed her arrow at the neck. It sunk in, and the beast cried out, its scream eerily human. But neither shot slowed its advance.
Rias’s pistol fired, hammering the creature between its breasts. Tikaya had time for one more shot and aimed for an eye, but the beast was closing fast. Her arrow skimmed its temple instead.
Tikaya flattened herself against the wall, hoping she could dodge if those claws flashed. She thought the beast’s momentum would carry it past her, but it halted with amazing athleticism.
It whirled on her, claws raised. Rank breath washed over her. She ducked even as Rias yanked her out of reach. She almost lost the bow as he charged past, cutlass raised. She recovered and stepped back to nock another arrow. Rias ducked a swipe and darted in, but the muscled torso deflected his blade like armor. He nicked a vein, drawing blood. Claws gashed his arm before he could leap out of reach. Its speed was mesmerizing, but she forced herself to focus.
With the creature sparring with Rias, she could wait for a chance at a critical target. There. She fired, and the arrow plunged into its eye.
The beast staggered into a counter, gashing its own face as it clawed at the arrow. It stumbled, then pitched backward. Still.
Tikaya leaned a hand against the wall for support and let her bow droop. “Next time we attack a twelve-foot-tall monster, we probably don’t need to worry about me seeing over your head.”
“ Conceded.” Rias rotated his arm to check the slashes below his shoulder, but dismissed them. “One down. Let’s see if the other is still alive.”
A rifle cracked in the center of the lab.
“ I’m guessing so,” Tikaya said.
Rias jogged along the wall toward a cross-aisle where he could cut over. He paused when he reached the half-eaten man. It was wearing the black uniform of a Turgonian marine. Though the neck had been torn out, the chest smashed and ravaged, the face remained mostly intact.
“ That’s not one of ours, is it?” Tikaya asked.
“ No.”
“ Somebody from the fort?”
Multiple rifles fired.
“ Later,” Rias said, already disappearing around a corner.
A bestial screech reverberated through the lab, and men shouted orders. Tikaya raced after Rias, careening around the corner to face another melee. A second creature, larger and more muscled than the first, fought in the center. This one was male.
Marines attacked from both ends of the aisle, cutlasses and daggers struggling to pierce the resilient skin. The creature whirled, slashing forward, then back, its wild actions enraged, and Tikaya wondered if it knew its mate had fallen. Blood streamed from its sleek flesh, but it batted men away without faltering. As tall as the Turgonians were, they had little chance of reaching the neck or head with their blades.
Rias charged into the fray. Tikaya drew the bow, waiting to glimpse an eye, but the beast chose that moment to escape. It sloughed off its attackers and charged her direction. Her heart lurched. She loosed her arrow, but she lunged to the side too soon, and her shot only struck muscle.
She glanced at the cabinets on either side of her. There was no time to climb out of reach. She smashed herself to the side again, hoping this creature would run past. Though, even if it did, all it would have to do was rake her on the way past and-
Steel zipped through the air from the aisle behind her. A knife lodged in the creature’s eye.
It tripped and tumbled, skidding past her. The prone form crashed into a cabinet, jolting it. The door flung open, and trays of bones spilled out. Human bones, tagged and marked with colored dots. Smaller ones, fragile with age, shattered.
Tikaya found Rias’s eyes, thinking of his admonition not to break anything. Chest heaving, he stood amongst the other marines. He shook his head slowly.
“ Everyone back to the entrance,” he said.
Before following the men, Tikaya tossed a glance toward the back wall. Someone had thrown that knife, yet no marines filed in from that direction.
A clunk echoed through the lab.
“ Hurry,” Rias urged.
He led a sprint to the stairs where Bocrest twitched an eyebrow at Tikaya and said, “Nice shot.”
She did not answer. It had not been her attack that brought the second creature down.
“ Let’s go,” Rias said. “In the hall. We don’t want to be here when the cubes arrive.”
“ Cubes?” Bocrest asked.
Tikaya thought of the square vials from the rocket, but surely he could not mean those.
“ No time to explain.” Rias pushed past and into the corridor. Leaving the lab without exploring it seemed an abandoned opportunity, but Tikaya did not question him, not when such grimness haunted his face.
Before they took three steps down the tunnel, a door ahead of them slid open. A black one-foot-wide cube floated out at chest level. Tiny red and yellow lights flashed on its top, and a one-inch hole glowed red on its front. A few symbols ran along the sides, and she leaned forward, squinting.
“ Back,” Rias said. “Back into the lab.”
“ What does it-” Tikaya started, but the glowing hole brightened and a red beam lanced out. Rias yanked her to the side, and it caught the edge of her sleeve. The beam burned a hole through the material.
She half ran and was half dragged back into the lab. Marines crowded the landing, but Rias shoved his way to a panel on the wall. He waved his hand over a pale square. The door slid down from the top of the jamb.
Tikaya stared at smoke wafting from the hole in her sleeve and swallowed.
A beeping started, soft but audible throughout the lab. It came from the walls, the ceiling, everywhere.
“ Two more of those cubes coming from below,” Bocrest said.
“ If I can get close enough to read what’s on the sides, maybe I can figure out how to stop them,” Tikaya said.
“ If you get that close, you’ll be dead,” Rias said.
“ There’re two more in the back.” Agarik pointed. “Shooting, burning, er, incinerating the dead creatures.”
“ Yes.” Rias rummaged in his pack. “They do that to everything. And everyone. Also, I don’t know how to lock the doors. The one outside will be in soon.”
Tikaya bent to examine runes lighting the wall by the door. She recognized one that had indicated “up” on the rocket. When she pressed the symbol it indented, but nothing happened. She found she could rotate it. A soft thunk came from within the wall. “I think that may have-”
“ We’ve got to split up, or we’ll be surrounded,” Bocrest said.
“ Actually, I want them all in one spot.” Rias had opened his rucksack and knelt, mixing a liquid and something else into a bottle. Caustic fumes stung Tikaya’s eyes.
A red beam from below splashed against the wall on the landing. It adjusted, lowering, and marines ducked out of the way.
“ Forget that,” Bocrest said. “Karsus, get these men under cover, and shoot at anything that moves.”
“ Bocrest!” Rias barked.
The squads were already running off, Bocrest included this time, leaving only Tikaya and Rias on the landing. Below, a pair of cubes, which had been floating languidly toward the stairs, split and increased speed. One chased after each group of men. Before one of the squads reached cover, a beam shot out, taking the last man in the back.
He screamed. Tikaya gripped the railing, unable to take her eyes from the scene.
The rear two men from the squad shot and rifle balls clanged off metal. At the least, the force should have propelled the cube backward, but it never moved. The beam continued, piercing the marine’s body and coming out the other side as it incinerating flesh, muscle, and organs. Even when he dropped to the ground and curled into a ball, it stayed with him. It cauterized as it burned an ever-widening hole in his torso. The marine stopped moving, eyes glazed in death. The cube’s beam kept breaking down the body, even burning blood away.
Tikaya, thunderstruck by the ghastly scene, almost did not notice Rias racing down the stairs with nothing but a jar of orange liquid in his hands. At first, the automaton ignored him, busy finishing its incineration of the dead man. Rias kept sprinting, one hand gripping the jar, one on the lid. The cube abandoned its task and rotated toward him.
“ No!” Tikaya grabbed her bow, though she did not know what good she could do if rifles had not damaged the device.
Rias flung some of the liquid on the cube, then ducked under it as the beam shot. It sizzled past, missing him. It struck the stair railing, but the beam did not affect the black metal. The viscous liquid on the cube smoked red. Pungent fumes gagged the air as it oozed down the sides.
That did not stop the automaton from rotating toward Rias, its ominous red hole glowing. Before its deadly side disappeared from sight, Tikaya fired, aiming for the orifice shooting those beams. Her shot flew true, and the shaft lodged inside. But the red glow flared and a beam incinerated the arrow.
Rias found cover behind a column.
A hiss sounded behind Tikaya.
“ Look out!” Rias yelled.
She whirled. The door she had tried to lock opened, revealing two cubes on the threshold. Their holes glowed.
Tikaya leaped over the railing. The floor came quickly, and she landed with an ankle-jarring jolt. Two beams zipped over her head. Off-balance, she skittered into the shadows beneath the landing.
Gunfire echoed elsewhere in the lab. She sensed rather than heard the cubes floating down the stairs.
“ Over here.” Rias beckoned with an arm. “Zigzag your path.”
With a wary glance at the cubes coming down-they were only a few steps from the bottom-Tikaya raced across the open space toward Rias.
“ Zag!” he barked.
She angled left. A beam splashed the floor inches from her feet. After a few more steps, she veered right.
Something crashed behind her, but she did not slow to look. She skidded behind Rias’s column, nearly jabbing him in the face with her bow.
He gripped her shoulder and started to speak, but an agonized scream echoed from the back corner.
“ Curse Bocrest for not listening,” Rias growled. He pointed at the cube he had doused with the goop. It lay on the ground, part of its exterior burned away to expose silvery innards. “It’s working. I made it in the vehicle garage in Wolfhump. I wasn’t sure it’d be the same as-”
“ Those two are coming,” Tikaya said.
“ Right, yes. We have to get some of this on them, too, but I don’t have a chance unless they’re distracted.”
“ You want me to do that?”
“ Not ideally,” Rias said.
The cubes floated closer, no urgency to their movement, but an eerie inexorableness marked their flight.
“ This way.” Rias led Tikaya down the aisle to find cover behind the next column.
“ I thought you wanted to challenge me,” she said.
“ You saw how lethal one can be, and we’ve got two to deal with. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
More likely killed, Tikaya thought. She smiled bleakly. “If not me, who else?”
“ I’ll do it,” an emotionless unfamiliar voice said from behind them.
A young man-he could not have been more than seventeen or eighteen-stood there, wearing fitted black clothing and soft black boots. Several sizes of daggers adorned his belt, and a set of throwing knives was strapped to his right arm. He carried nothing else.
“ Go,” Rias said, hefting his jar.
If the boy’s appearance surprised him half as much as it did Tikaya, he did not show it. She lifted a hand, intending to protest sending someone so young on a suicide mission, but the youth had already jogged from concealment.
Two beams lanced toward his chest, but he anticipated the attack and dove, rolling beneath the cubes. They rotated to target him. This time he jumped to avoid the shots. Next, the mechanical assailants teamed up, showing a disquieting ability to work together. They tried to surround him, but the youth proved too quick. He darted away, keeping both cubes to one side of him.
“ If I get killed,” Rias said to Tikaya, “get the jar and finish them. It’s an acid, so don’t let any of the liquid touch your skin.”
Before she could say how little she thought of his get-killed option, he left. Tikaya nocked an arrow. The bow might not do damage, but perhaps it would help distract the cubes. Though the boy was doing a good job of that on his own. He dodged, darted, jumped, and rolled with the fluid ease of a well-trained natural athlete. Who was this ally who had shown up just in time to help? Even when a beam washed the floor inches from him, his face held no expression, though the intensity of his dark eyes promised nothing would break his focus.
Rias neared the closest cube, keeping its backside toward him. Tikaya fired at it. The arrow clanged off, and the cracked head clattered to the floor. Despite the distractions, the cube somehow sensed Rias’ approach. It rotated toward him.
He flung some of the liquid and dodged just before the beam struck. Red smoke fumes plagued the air. The second cube remained focused on the youth who led it around columns and over lab stations. Rias zigzagged back to a column adjacent to Tikaya’s with the tagged cube shooting after him. Smoke drifted from its surface, and the corrosive liquid burned through the casing.
“ What is that stuff?” Tikaya asked, shifting to keep the column between her and the cube as it approached.
“ A variation on royal water,” Rias said. “The black metal is particularly susceptible to it. We were trapped in a room with all sorts of chemicals, and I tried several things last time. I couldn’t read any of the labels, and I’m lucky I didn’t kill myself. It took too long, though. A lot of men died before I figured it out.”
The smoke thickened, inflicting the air with an acrid tang. It was nothing like the scent of burning wood or coal or anything else Tikaya had ever smelled. Before the cube reached them, it ground to a halt, then plummeted to the floor, innards exposed.
“ Next.” Rias headed toward the gunfire and shouts in the rear of the huge lab. “We lost ten men to these things last time. We have to hurry.”
“ Shouldn’t we get the one attacking the boy first?” Tikaya asked.
“ He’s the last one who needs to be rescued.”
They ran through the aisles toward the chaos. When they passed the spot where they had killed the creatures, there was no sign of the remains, not even a blood stain on the floor. The corpse of the marine was gone too.
Rias picked an aisle parallel to the gunfire and shouts of Bocrest’s squad. He jumped, caught the edge of a counter, and pulled himself to the top of a lab station. He knelt, his jar poised to pour when the mechanical assailant came into range.
Tikaya thought to wait on the floor, but the youth came into their aisle from the other end. His cube sailed in a few seconds later. Tikaya tossed her bow up, then climbed to Rias’s side, hoping to avoid the path of fire.
“ Admiral,” the youth said as he ran past.
Tikaya blinked, almost as shocked at the calmness of the boy’s voice as the fact that he knew who Rias was. Rias leaned over, prepared to pour his concoction on the cube following the young man. It seemed to detect the trap, for it slowed several paces back. Its glowing orifice rotated up, toward Rias and Tikaya.
“ Rust,” he muttered and prepared to jump.
“ Wait.” Tikaya jabbed the tip of an arrow into his jar, nocked it, and fired. The dripping missile spun into the red hole. A flash later, a beam incinerated the arrow. The cube floated closer.
“ Double rust,” Tikaya said.
“ It was a good idea,” Rias said.
They crouched to jump down into the aisle behind, but the cube slowed, then halted. Smoke wafted from the beam hole. The cube sputtered and thunked to the ground.
“ It was a good idea.” Rias clapped Tikaya on the shoulder and gave her an appreciative smile that warmed her soul, despite the dire situation.
Enemy of the islands, she reminded herself. She was not supposed to be pleased by his compliments anymore.
“ Think you can hit that target again to help these men?” Rias pointed to the marines scrambling in the other aisle. They were so busy dodging beams of a cube in their midst they had lost their usual cohesiveness. Every man was busy trying to stay alive. “Make it quick, though,” Rias added. “The acid will eat away your arrowheads.”
Tikaya waited until the orifice faced her before dipping into his jar. Her shot flew true and made short work of the remaining cubes.
The relieved party met in the open area before the stairs. Tikaya picked up one of the mostly intact cubes so she could work on translating the writing.
Bocrest counted heads and scowled at the loss of two men and injuries of several others. He glowered at Rias. “Why didn’t you tell me you had something to battle them with?”
“ You didn’t give me a chance,” Rias said.
“ We had to act quickly, and you were digging around in your gear. If you want to override my orders, you need to give me a reason for doing so. Fast. You don’t have the right to make decisions and keep the reasons to your…” Bocrest gaped as the youth stepped out of the shadows to join them.
He was smaller than many of the big marines, standing only an inch taller than Tikaya, but, after seeing his grace in evading the beams, she doubted he lost many fights.
His dark-eyed gaze pinned Bocrest. “Admiral Starcrest is giving orders?”
He had short blond hair, a color unusual for a Turgonian, but he did have the olive skin, and he sounded like a native speaker. From the dialect, Tikaya guessed he came from one of the satrapies around the capital. When her gaze fell on the throwing knives on his forearm, she realized he was the one who had killed the creature chasing her earlier. Where had he come from?
“ I…uhm…” Bocrest noticed his men watching him-they seemed as confused by the young man’s appearance as Tikaya-and straightened, lifting his chin. “Given his helpfulness thus far on the mission, and his familiarity with these tunnels, I deemed it wise to listen to him. I am aware of the emperor’s wishes for him, and they will be complied with in the end.”
“ I see,” the young man said, voice cool.
Bocrest shifted uncomfortably under that steady gaze. His men murmured to each other, surprised at their blustery captain’s deference.
“ What are you all looking at?” Bocrest barked. “Let’s get the wounded patched up and set up a camp. And for the emperor’s sake, someone figure out where in this blasted maze a man is supposed to piss and drop cannon balls.”
The marines scurried off to do his bidding. The youth produced a small sealed envelope and handed it to Bocrest, who accepted it and walked away to read the message.
Tikaya edged closer to Rias. “I’m perplexed. Who is this boy?”
“ That is Sicarius, the emperor’s personal assassin.”
Rias’s voice was low, for her only, but the young man looked at them, as if aware of their discussion.
“ Is he as young as he looks?” Tikaya asked even as she wondered why he was there. Why had he not traveled with Bocrest from the beginning if he meant to help the captain accomplish his mission? Her eyes widened. Could he be the one responsible for the tortured men?
“ I believe he was fifteen when I met him two years ago,” Rias said. “He smashed my face into the deck and held a knife to my throat.”
Tikaya stared at Rias. “Did he catch you by surprise?”
“ No. As I recall, I was trying to catch him by surprise.”
“ Why? What happened?” She frowned, wondering why the emperor would send his assassin to harass his star fleet admiral. Something to do with Rias’s reasons for ending up in exile? She tried to read his eyes.
He opened his mouth, but he shut it again and shook his head. “No, I fear you’d suspect my motives if I told you the story.”
“ Suspect your…” She scowled at him. Now what was he hiding? “I suspect your motives in not telling me.”
He closed his eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“ Why are you so elusive about these things?” Her throat tightened. Now that she knew who he was and that she could have no future with him, his choice to keep things from her should not hurt, but it did. “Afraid to share imperial secrets with the enemy?”
She clutched the cube to her chest and stalked toward the lab stations, intending to find some nook where she could be alone to study the language.
“ Tikaya…” Rias said.
“ Stuff an apple core up it, Admiral Starcrest.”
She caught the boy assassin watching, and almost snapped at him too, but the dark impassive gaze stole the heat from her ire and left her chilled. She stalked by without comment.
Several marines sniggered behind her back. Cheeks flushed, Tikaya slipped into the aisles, glad for the concealment.