Havoc (Dred Chronicles 2)

That’d be my luck, huh? I die, and I still can’t get out of here.

Jael was careful not to reveal his uncertainty to Dred. She might have less use for him if she realized how much of a bubbling mess his brain was. Darkness and echoes and half-strangled memories from his time in the tank—and sometimes a voice in his head whispered that he was, in fact, a monster, so he might as well stop fighting it. Grim determination was sometimes all that kept him moving forward, along with the resolve to prove his creators wrong. I won’t come to nothing. I won’t die in here.

Dred came to check the fortifications as he turned back toward the common area. She paced around, inspecting the work, and he pulled her in for a kiss. To his surprise, she didn’t stop him. He fell into her like a river of cool, clean water. Her mouth was soft and smooth, a panacea for the chains rattling in his head. Ironic, when she wore them around wrist and ankle. The metal felt cold and hard against his back when she put her arms around him.

“Don’t do that in front of the men,” she said quietly.

“You ashamed of me, love?”

“No. But it’s not their business, and I don’t want them wanking to it later.”

“Hadn’t thought of that. My prior incarceration didn’t lend itself to such dilemmas.” In the Bug prison, he had been the only humanoid, and while he ought to be used to being the only one of his kind, he never got used to the inhuman chatter echoing through the caves. “So what’s the next phase of our strategy?”

He half expected her to pull away, but instead she put a hand over his heart. Nobody had ever done that before, as if she drew comfort from feeling the steady, reassuring beat. He almost made a joke about the thing being impossible to stop, but the sober look in her eyes kept him from it. Jael never imagined that he’d care whether somebody else felt like shit.

But he did.

She breathed out. “Not a fragging clue. Holing up feels like a delaying tactic at best, like we’re just hiding and waiting to die. I’m not going out like that, so I need to work something out.”

“Now you’re talking.” He barely managed to choke back some bullshit about the fight not being over until the last man’s down. What the hell’s wrong with you? If he didn’t know better, he’d call it a brain infection.

“Supply run,” she said, as if she’d been thinking while he studied her face. “We left things hidden in Grigor’s and Priest’s territories, thinking there was no rush on the hauling. But we might well need it now.”

Jael nodded. “I’ll assemble the others. Who do you want to take with us?”

She thought for a few seconds. “Tam and Martine.”

“Not Ike?”

“He needs to stay and keep order. The men respect him.”

That sounded like a good plan, so Jael let go of her and stepped back. “Then what’re we waiting for, queenie? Rally the troops.”

3

Blood for Blood

Once Dred gave all the orders, she went to find Ike to make a special request. “Is it all right if we borrow RC-17?” That was a boxy maintenance bot Ike had reprogrammed to do recon and help them bypass certain ship defenses. The droid’s sensors might come in handy if the situation got dicey.

In answer, the old man turned the unit’s remote over to Dred. “Be careful out there.”

“Make sure this place is in one piece when I get back.” She tapped the command button, and the unit circled her feet in response.

Ike rubbed his whiskered chin, wearing a wry expression. “Given what’s going on, I make no promises.”

She smiled as he intended and stripped off her chains. The skin of her forearms bore pebbled imprints from the metal; she shook her arms once, twice, getting used to the new lightness, then she bent to unwind them from her boots. It had been so long since she’d done so that she was surprised to see that the thin leather had faded in a pattern that matched the dents on her arms. Dred rubbed her fingers over her inner wrist, tracing the thorn-tree tattoo that wound up past her elbow. It was a delicate design, all black ink and pale skin—the only one she’d had done before she was sent to Perdition. The ancient symbolism had spoken to her, even then. According to the oldest tales, the thorn tree represented strife and challenges—with the promise of strength for those who overcame the odds.

“Thanks, Ike.”

The old man stared at the circling bot for a few seconds, then glanced back up at her. “Two men were on the road together when they met a monster in the wilderness. One of them shoved the other down and scrambled up a tree. The second man lay there, terrified, and the beast came up to snuffle over him while the traveler held his breath and played dead. Surprisingly, that worked, and the monster went away, uninterested in carrion. When the other man dropped out of the tree, his former comrade killed him. Do you have any idea why?”

“Because he’d proven he’d turn at the first sign of trouble, and it was the wise man who knew to strike first.” Dred couldn’t remember where, but she’d heard some version of that parable before. “Is there some reason you’re telling me this now?”

“Don’t lean on anyone too hard,” Ike said quietly.

“Is this about Tam again? Or Jael?”

“It’s about no one in particular . . . and every man in the place.”

“Not you,” she said.

Tiredly, the old man shook his head. “Under the right weight, I’ll buckle.”

“Noted. Thank you for the story.”

She signaled to Tam, Jael, and Martine, who were waiting near the center of the common room, and they joined her at a jog. The halls were eerily silent beyond the new barricades. Dred tilted her head, listening, and she didn’t hear the usual scrabble of claws from the oversized rats that lived in the bowels of the station. She’d heard that the aliens hunted them for food, but they were tricky to catch and big enough to take on a normal-sized humanoid when they attacked as a pack. More than anything else, their complete absence reinforced how serious the situation was. If the rodents had gone to ground, the mercs must be shooting up the place.

As if she shared Dred’s concern, Martine muttered, “Wish we knew where those f**king mercs are.”

“You’re not alone.” Tam slipped to the front of the group and headed off to scout.

“I’ll go with you,” Dred said.

Since she’d discarded her chains, she should be able to keep up, and Dred needed to keep her finger on the pulse of what went on in Perdition. While Jael shot her a look she found impossible to interpret, Tam only nodded. Soon they left the others behind, a deep sort of silence between them, born of shared trials and tragedies. Before Einar’s death, she might’ve hesitated to call Tam a friend, but he was definitely more than an advisor.