The Dying Light (36 page)

“This isn’t going to be subtle,” she said to Disisto. “If you have any suggestions on how to minimize possible loss of life, tell me now.”

The security chief warred with himself for a moment, then said: “The closer you get to the middle, the safer it will be. But stay out of the exact center. That would be dangerous.”

When she realized he wasn’t going to provide any more detail, Roche concentrated on finding an appropriate place. She had no way of knowing what they would be going into; she wanted somewhere away from a bulkhead with an enclosed space above it. All she could do was look for the latter in about the right place and hope for the former.

She found a storage hold that looked about right, and with the help of one of the drones began laying charges in the floor. The charges weren’t as precise as she would’ve liked, and their entrance would be all too dramatic, but it was the best she could think of under the circumstances.

When she was ready, she cleared the room. The Box closed the door behind her.

“Five seconds,” she said. “The drones go first, then we all follow. I’ll go last. And remember this,” she added to Disisto and Mavalhin: “One, the longer we’re here, the more likely it is we’ll be trapped; and two, I’m holding a gun to your backs, and I have no intention of allowing you to slow us down.”

There wasn’t time for either captive to acknowledge her: the charges went off with a force that made even her suit lose its balance. The door came off its tracks, and by the time she was upright again the drones were already pulling it free. On the other side, most of the floor of the room had dropped away in a ragged circular slab, tilted where a wall cut a chord across it from underneath. Smoke and dust filled the air. The drones half-dropped, half-slid down the slab and fired at something she couldn’t see. Roche heard someone call out, but they were abruptly cut short. Somewhere close by, another siren began to wail.

Haid followed the drones. Roche shoved her reluctant captives ahead of her, then followed herself.

She landed on a pile of rubble in the middle of a giant open-space area. Wrecked consoles and desks lay scattered for tens of meters around them; fire burned in carpet that had once been grass-green. Oddly placed panels broke the space into discretely semidetached segments. From behind one such panel, someone was offering resistance and calling for help. The drones ignored that one voice for the moment, concentrating instead on picking out cameras and other security placements throughout the place, disabling them with single, precise shots.

As Roche took her bearings, a door opened in a distant wall and a squad of security guards ran in.

She dropped to one knee and fired. The squad ducked for cover, turning over furniture and scrambling for the nearest panels. Return fire crackled back at her, whining as it ricocheted off her armor. The drones and Haid backed her up from behind the cover of the slab they had ducked behind.

“Which way?” shouted Haid.

Roche glanced around her. The wall through which the guards had entered was curved, as was the wall behind the slab, suggesting that the space was circular, enclosing them. The guards had been on the outer wall, so what they were protecting was farther in.

The inner wall was not far away, near enough for a quick dash. There was a door within sight.

“There!” she shouted, pointing.

“What if it doesn’t open?” Haid called back.

She used the suit’s sensors to zoom closer for a better view. The door was almost flush to the wall, and there didn’t seem to be any way to open it.

“It’ll have to,” she said. “Cover me.”

She shouldered her rifle and darted across the gap.

She had barely reached halfway across when the door opened from the other side, revealing Shak’ni and Haden B’shan. Both Kesh officers were dressed in full battle uniform and holding ceremonial—though clearly functional—weapons.

She didn’t know who was more startled, the Kesh or her. All three lifted their weapons simultaneously, but Shak’ni got in the first shot, catching Roche in the thigh. Her suit shrieked but absorbed the blow.

Her stomach twisted in panic. Kesh weapons were a higher gauge than the ones her suit was designed to withstand. A handful of shots were all it would take—maybe as few as three. But that might be all she needed...

She called up the menu on her rifle as a second shot from Shak’ni hit her in the visor. She blinked but managed to select the options she required. B’shan went for her knees, and made her stagger. She aimed the rifle and fired just as Shak’ni caught her a third time, in the chest, knocking her backwards and off her feet.

Aimed up and between the two Kesh warriors, the percussion charge struck the ceiling just inside the door and exploded violently, tearing another hole in the already damaged ceiling. Half of the door went with it, along with B’shan and Shak’ni.

Roche rolled out of the shock wave and was on her feet before anyone else had recovered. Her ears rang and the suit seemed a little stiff, but she was otherwise unharmed. The two Kesh stirred weakly some distance from what remained of the door. Haid and the others were already moving.

More guards appeared off to the left, hugging the curve of the wall.

“Okay, Disisto!” she shouted as she pushed him ahead of her into the ruined doorway. “
Now
you can talk to them!”

“Very funny, Roche!” he called back over his shoulder.

She fired another percussion charge into the floor behind them, hoping its partial collapse would delay pursuit for a moment or two. She could already hear Shak’ni bellowing for assistance.

“I’m serious, Disisto,” she said. “I need you to stay here and tell them what I want. This is your one and only chance to mediate. But I suggest you think fast about what you’re going to say, because Shak’ni won’t be in the mood for listening.”

Disisto looked sick with worry, but Roche didn’t have time to concern herself with that at the moment. Haid had already gone through the inner door with Mavalhin and one of the drones, leaving her to follow. The most she could do was leave him a drone for support.

“Box, do your best to keep him alive, will you?” She patted Disisto roughly on the shoulder. “Good luck,” she said, meaning it, then ducked through the doorway after the others.

There was a palm-lock on the far side, which the Box made short work of, shutting the door on the sounds of the weapons from outside. Roche heard Disisto offer a wry “Thanks” before the door slammed shut.

Then silence.

Only then did she really take the time to look around.

She was in a corridor that curved away uninterrupted in either direction. There seemed to be no one about, and no doors. There was no sign of the others through the lingering smoke and dust, and for a moment she felt panic.

MORGAN, IS THAT YOU? There was no point hiding transmissions anymore.

HEAD TO YOUR LEFT. I THINK WE’VE FOUND WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR.

The corridor led her to an antechamber barely large enough for the four of them. Two consoles faced away from the way she’d come in, next to a door that looked solid enough to stop a hydraulic ram. Each of the consoles monitored two cells, making four in all.

Haid was fiddling at one of the consoles, while the drone gave the Box access to the other. Mavalhin kept carefully out of the way.

“We seem to have three immobilized prisoners,” said Haid. “One was brought here within the last few hours.”

“That would make sense,” said Roche, “especially if they thought we were coming. It would be easier to defend one area rather than two.”

“So I thought. But the security is tight here. I can’t tell which cell is which. And I can’t get this damned door open, either.”

“Box?”

The AI’s voice issued from the drone’s speakers: “There is a second entry point which must be accessed simultaneously.”

Roche looked around her, then back the way she had come. “What was to the right of the entrance?”

“Another room like this one,” Haid said. “Do you want me to—?”

“No, I’ll go. Just tell me what I need to do when I get there.”

She headed off along the corridor, past the door leading back to where she had left Disisto. Curious, she quickly switched over to the drone’s senses to check what was happening.

The image was poor and breaking up, and the drone itself seemed to be lying on the ground with its head to one side. But Roche was able to make out Shak’ni, along with the dirty black mark marring the harsh perfection of the field officer’s combat armor. He was holding Disisto by the throat with one hand; the other hand held a rifle to the security chief’s head. Disisto’s eyes were closed and he was talking furiously. Roche couldn’t make out what he was saying, however, as the drone was transmitting visual data only.

B’shan stepped out of the background and said something to Shak’ni. The field officer threw Disisto to the floor, then lowered his rifle and fired at the drone. The transmission abruptly ceased.

The sound of gunfire followed her as she raced to the other control room.

It was a mirror image of the one she had just left.

she said.

said the Box. She did so. Type: “Driftglass.” You should be seeing a countdown now.>

She waited for the numbers to scroll down from ten, pressing the button impatiently the precise moment the display reached zero. A warning Klaxon sounded and the door opened with a grinding sound. She grabbed her rifle and approached cautiously.

All she saw was another corridor, curving away to her left.

she said to Haid.

Two doors appeared, one each to her left and right. They were both closed.

Both doors hissed open. Each was comprised of two panels: the outer panel slid aside; the inner one rose up into the ceiling. There was no way to look into one cell without exposing herself to the other. Roche mentally tossed a coin and stepped forward.

The cell on her right was empty, little more than a four-meter-square space. In its center was a stainless-steel bed uncomfortably reminiscent of an autopsy slab. She snap-turned and aimed her gun into the second cell.

It too was empty.

That left two cells, but there were still three prisoners.

She remembered that Galine Four security knew where
she
was, not the others.

MORGAN, Haid interrupted. THEY HAVE MAII!

She jumped to the other drone’s senses.

She saw the young Surin reave strapped to one of the steel “beds.” A Kesh guard stood beside her, a pistol pressed firmly to her forehead. The girl seemed oblivious to what was going on around her.

Roche hissed through her teeth. If they hurt her—

“Give up, Roche!” called a voice. “You’re surrounded!”

She didn’t grace the speaker with a reply. The drone turned its head. There were more guards in the room. All held their guns on Haid, the drone, and Mavalhin. If she ordered Haid to attack, he would probably win—but not in time to save Maii.

There had to be another way...

Roche was about to ask the Box what it was readying her
for,
when another voice spoke softly into her mind.

? Is that you?>

Maii’s voice was little more than a whisper, and through the drone’s eyes she looked completely unconscious. But as Roche stared at her, she saw the index finger on the girl’s left hand move. She was pointing!

Roche tried to extrapolate the layout of the room, given what the others had looked like. Maii was pointing out the door. Out the door and to the cell opposite—presumably to where the other two prisoners were held.

“You have five seconds, Roche,” called the Kesh guard. “Then she dies. Five.”

she said.

“Four.”

The sound of footsteps in the control room she had just left echoed up the corridor.

The door slammed shut.

YES.

“Three.”

She inched as far as she dared around the corridor and clutched her rifle to her chest.

“Two.”

The lights went out. Her suit and implants switched automatically to infrared. Then the floor fell out from underneath her—and
kept
falling.

She clutched for balance, but her suit had already adjusted. The Box must have hit the artificial gravity generators somehow. When some sense of weight returned, it was at half- strength—enough to enable her to run around the corner and to the second cell.

The door was shut; she fired the rifle at it. Gunshots came likewise from the cell containing Maii, followed by the sound of someone hissing in pain. She couldn’t afford to be distracted. All she could do was hope that Maii hadn’t been hurt.

The cell door juddered open a crack, and she used the suit’s strength to lever it the rest of the way. Inside—

She hesitated for a split second.

—inside were two bodies. One belonged to Cane. He was naked and encased entirely in a slab of what looked like clear amber which was in turn bolted to a mobile platform. Wires and tubes were threaded through the transparent material, but there was clearly no way he could talk or move. Metal straps around the amber block further ensured his imprisonment.