Page 21 of Defiant

A square box appeared in the corner of my helmet’s visor. A red dot indicated I was at the perimeter, and a blinking dot in the center highlighted our target. It didn’t have any of the internal features of the floor, but it was helpful in getting me where I needed to go.

There were some locked doors in the way, but that was why the Saints had made destructors. As soon as we knocked out the first, though, return fire came blasting from the darkness—forcing us back and to the sides.

“Sadie, Kimmalyn,” I said, “we’re pinned down. You have our locations?”

“Sure do,” Sadie said.

“Kindly make us a path.”

Kimmalyn cut another hole in the wall and Sadie filled it with destructor fire, pointed inward. Ship weapons were of an entirely different category than the handheld ones we had, and in moments the shots wound down and we were able to pick through the remnants of the wall and continue forward. Muzzle flashlights lit the remaining pieces of our enemies, something that—as a starfighter pilot—I didn’t often have to confront.

They prop up an evil dictatorship,I reminded myself.This is part of the same force that murdered my father.

I knew the weakness in that reasoning, but it was enough to keep me focused as—after a brief shootout with the last remaining enemy squad—we reached the location of Hesho’s blinking light. I found the box, well locked and disguised as a storage container among many other similar ones. When I popped it open, I found a terrified blue-and-green slug inside.

Doomslug fluted, and the other one stretched out a little, sniffing toward the air.

“That’s right,” I said, scooping her up. “We’re friends.”

Doomslug fluted again, then—brilliantly—awareness returned to me. Doomslug and the rescued slug vanished.

“Wolf,” I said, “inhibitor field is down. This is your mission now.”

“Excellent,” she said. “Data storage is on floor thirty-six. Cuna doesn’t know where; she took an elevator up, and says she got a little turned around.”

I nodded, not correcting Wolf on the use of “she” for a dione. Together the marines had a quick conference, then one placed some explosives on the floor. We took cover, and they blasted it open.

I hyperjumped down, then waited as the marines rappelled through the hole. While they worked, I reached out with my senses.

There are six enemies approaching,I sent to Wolf, implanting the words in her mind.

She jumped, then looked at me and nodded.

They’ve stopped,I sent, pointing through the darkness—lit by some fires on the ceiling—toward a hallway.Down this hall. Probably setting up an ambush.

She tossed a grenade at the wall, bouncing it toward the people farther down. We went in after the explosion, eliminating the soldiers with callous precision, muzzles flaring and destructors lighting the smoke. I blocked the thoughts and emotions of the dying from my mind.

It didn’t take much effort to locate the data storage. We simply moved in a search pattern until we found a metal door, reinforced and protected, with a lot of people on the other side. I picked up some of their emotions. Nervousness. Waiting for help. Scientists. Yeah, this was the place.

Some twenty people working inside,I sent to Wolf.No way to tell how many are civilians. You willing to do this in a way that keeps us from firing on anyone we don’t need to?

She looked to me, then nodded.

Take a deep breath,I sent her.Have your slug ready to get you out if this goes wrong.

Then I hyperjumped the two of us into the room, near one of the minds I could feel—but back behind the rest of them. We immediately raised guns, ignoring the scientists and technicians. Each of us fired twice, drilling through the skulls of the soldiers waiting by the doors, their backs to us.

Scud, I’d never felt so sick to fire a weapon. Was this what I’d signed up for? Fighting the Krell, an unknowable evil force, felt so far removed from what we were doing here. Now…nowwewere the unknowable force. I was the thing that terrorized these people, possessing powers and abilities they didn’t understand.

We gathered the scientists at the rear of the room, their hands up and trembling. Wolf watched them while I opened the door from the inside, letting the rest of the team in. A few seconds later, Rig and a crew of technicians appeared in the room, sent by Jorgen—he didn’t have much hyperjumping ability, but could persuade the slugs mind-to-mind to do it, if he knew where to tell them to go.

Rig’s team quickly began working on the data storages, grabbing a copy of basically every sensitive and secret piece of information the Superiority owned. All the things that M-Bot and I had wanted to discover on Starsight, but had been locked out of.

As Rig worked on the data, I patrolled the front of the room, near the engineers’ stations. On several of the screens, a familiar varvax stood in front of an official seal. Winzik had a deep green carapace, bipedal and hulking, like a suit of armor to protect the far more fragile crablike being who rode inside. I could see him through the helmet’s faceplate, floating in a liquid solution.

I gestured to one of Rig’s engineers, and the woman helpfully hit a few buttons, rewinding the message and playing it from the beginning. I kept my cytonic senses alert for anyone approaching, then leaned down and let my translator pin feed me Winzik’s words.

“My goodly people of the Superiority’s multitudinous worlds.I am Provisional High General Winzik, as many of you know. It is my burden and regret that I have been forced into the position of temporary commander of the Superiority during this time of grave danger.

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