Haywire (34 page)

That wasn’t the answer he’d been looking for, but when she raised her arms and rolled off the side of the ship, he didn’t have time to say anything else, so he followed suit, no longer caring whether he lived or died. He only wanted the insanity to end.

As he tumbled off the ship and looked ahead of him, Artemis fell toward Mars. Her arms were outstretched, and from them were sprung long, thin gliding wings. Shawn stretched his own arms out and imagined the same thing. When the nanites coursed down his arms and did as instructed, he wasn’t surprised. As the wings hardened he felt the thin atmosphere catch and guide him.

Following the Titan down was no easy task, but he kept his attention focused on her like a laser, and as they dropped into the Labyrinth he was glad the light from above still shined off her armor. The lower they got, the darker it became. Without thinking about it his vision changed to a topographical scan of the canyon. Several kilometers ahead of them he detected a large metal airlock. Artemis was making a beeline right for it.

“
Our destination’s de-dead ahead,” she said. “See it?”

“
A few seconds ago, yeah.”

“
That’s good. That’s very good. Now, try no-ot to botch the landing, all right?”

The ground came up quicker than he imagined it could. In front of him, Artemis tucked her arms, retracted her wings, and hit the ground in a roll. She was on her feet when he neared the same spot. But, instead of slamming into the ground the way she had, he flared his wings out to their furthest extreme and swept them forward in a motion that stole all of his forward momentum and sent dark red dust billowing into the air. When his feet touched down, it was with the grace of an angel.

“
That’s impressive,” Artemis said, genuine admiration in her voice. “Think of that on the way down?”

He shook his head and leaned forward, putting his hands on his knees. After taking a moment to collect himself, he said, “No. It… just came to me. I really didn’t want to smack into the dirt.”

The Titan looked at him, gave him a shallow nod, and then waved toward the airlock that was close by. MAINTENANCE HATCH D-03 was stenciled on it. When she was beside it, Artemis put her hand on the control panel. A second later the red lights on the panel turned green, and the airlock cycled open.

“
From here sub-level five is actually two-o-o floors up,” she said as they passed through the opening. A minute later they were through the inner airlock and standing in an empty, barely lit locker room. An odd assortment of maintenance uniforms and street clothes were hanging from hooks. Knowing they couldn’t walk through Bellona in their armor, they spared several minutes to piece together outfits that would let them slip through the city without any unwanted attention.

To his astonishment, Artemis retracted her armor until all he could see of it were bracelets around her wrists and ankles, along with a line of metal down her spine, all of which pulsed with a dark sickness. Other than that, she was naked, and he couldn’t help but stare. She probably wasn’t aware. Decades of military living had more than likely hammered any decorum out of her. It wasn’t proper that he looked, either, but even a guilty thought about what Ilona would say didn’t stop him.

She was beautiful. Her brown skin covered muscles that would have shamed many men, yet on her it looked entirely feminine. Her hips had just the right amount of curve, and the way they tapered around to her bottom made Shawn’s heart pound in his chest. When she turned he saw her right breast. It was small, but it was taut and had a slight bit of sway in it. She was gorgeous.

But as his eyes focused on her, he saw her scars. They were subtle, and were it not for his enhanced sight they would have been invisible in the dim light, but he saw them. Lines crisscrossed her body like a map, each one a wound she’d had to endure, a wound her special body had healed so she could carry on the fight. But there were so many wounds… so many lines. He wondered how much they had hurt, how they had occurred. She was strong, he knew, and her armor was even stronger, so for her to have been wounded like that so many times, she must have faced terrible enemies. For a century she had fought, and bled, and carried on. How that was possible, he didn’t know. He hoped he never did.

“
Do you like what you see?” she asked, her voice flat. She didn’t sound angry at being watched, nor aroused. “Or are my-y-y scars horrifying?”

“
You’re beautiful,” he replied, not knowing what his answer would be until the words came out. “You’re stronger than I could ever hope to be.”

She pulled a pair of extra large overalls out of a locker, looked them up and down, and then stepped into them. “I ma-made peace with my scars a long time ago. We all did.”

He hated seeing her cover herself up. A body like that deserved to be chiseled into stone. “I’m sorry.”

As she pulled up a pair of boots barely big enough to cover her feet, she looked up at him and said, “Don’t feel sorry for me. I am who I am.”

“
Then can I ask you something?” he asked, the question hiding behind his lips one that had lurked in the darkness ever since she’d told them her story beneath the museum.

Artemis sighed and turned toward him. “Go ahead.”

“
What’s your name?” he asked. He nearly gasped as it came out. After hours of holding it in he was glad to set it free. “I mean your real name, what your parents gave you.”

“
I . . .” Artemis glanced away and chewed on her lower lip. She stared at the floor for half a minute, her skin blending into the shadows, before finally looking back up. “I haven’t tho-thought about my real name in a long time. It’s... Rachel.” She laughed softly, her mouth forming the word like it was something foreign and strange. “Wow, I nearly forgot how to say it. Sergeant Rachel Carres. That... that so-o-ounds like it belongs to someone else. Hell, I guess it does. I might have been Rachel once, but that’s not who I am-am anymore.”

“
Why?” he asked, the word said barely above a whisper.

“
Because in order to do what I did,” she replied, her glowing eyes staring deeply into him, “in order to do what we all di-did, to fight so hard and for so long, we had to become more than we’d been before. Not just physically, which we already were, but in our heads too. O-o-one of the guys in my unit started calling himself Thor, it stuck, and the rest of us followed suit. After that we were all gods and angels, flying through the heavens in a holy war. I know how it sounds, but... sometimes you have to make yourself believe something in order for it to become true. After awhile we believed we were the gods we’d named ourselves after. We thought we were in-invincible, all powerful. Maybe... Maybe that’s why we never saw the killing blow coming.”

Shawn would have been lying to himself if he said he didn’t understand what she meant. He’d only been a Titan for less than a day, but he already felt like he could take on the universe himself. He’d fallen from space, hit the surface of Mars, and lived to tell the tale. How would he feel and what would he think after decades of hammering his enemies into dust? He wasn’t sure, but self-appointed godhood wasn’t unbelievable.

Artemis shook her head and sighed, then said, “Enough of this memory lane bullshit. We’ve got a lo-long way to go yet. Come on, let’s get it done.”

Taking that as his cue, Shawn opened two lockers and found a pair of loose pants and a jacket that would cover his physique. His muscles had grown over the past several hours, adding mass that would have taken years in the gym to match, and he barely recognized himself when he found a mirror to check himself out in. He was definitely taller, probably four or five centimeters taller, and his upper body was seemingly carved from stone. Ilona wouldn’t mind it one bit.

A deep pang hit his heart at the thought of his girlfriend, not to mention a bit of guilt after ogling Artemis’s naked body, so he shoved her face from his mind with every bit of will he had. Now wasn’t the time for it.

“
If the map I downloaded from Hygeia is correct,” Artemis said, “Horkos Square is half a kilometer n-north of here. You ready?”

He nodded, but it was a lie. He wasn’t even close to being ready.

When the dreadnaught breached the patrolled space around Puerto de la Sombra, Smitty was on duty at his radio. The massive ship didn’t broadcast the usual clearance code, and when he hailed them all he got was silence, even when the hails became threats. Per his operational procedures, he sent two of their patrol craft – which constituted half of their forces since the rest were with Captain Laroux for the Hygeia raid – to go out and destroy the interloper. The pirate ships were fast, well armed, and commanded by seasoned killers, but none of that mattered when the dreadnaught opened its guns and rained death on them in a horrific display of power.

“
Oh shit,” Smitty said to himself, all alone in the control room. “That can’t . . .” He pushed forward and sent a message to the ships on the far side of the asteroid to come around and try to finish what their brethren hadn’t even had a chance to start.

The second flight swept around the asteroid, guns blazing and engines glowing white hot. To their credit, they lasted three seconds longer than their recently slaughtered fellow pirates had.

Smitty’s bowels quivered at the site of such sudden and merciless destruction, but when the dreadnaught turned its enormous bow toward Puerto de la Sombra and launched wave after wave of pods, his stomach betrayed him, filling his shorts with a sticky warmth. A rank odor wafted up from beneath him, making his eyes water. It was all he could do to roll his chair over to the tactical station and activate the automated cannons that dotted from the asteroid like whiskers.

Small explosions bloomed along the dreadnaught’s hull, but the ship didn’t shudder or slow. Several pods were also hit, their metal shells ripped apart by cannon fire, but the beings within them continued their approach, their speed and bearing barely altered. Smitty was so overcome with horror that he could only sit in mute wonder at the security displays.

The pods that made it through the cannon screen landed against the asteroid, and dust blasted away as cutting lasers bored through the rock. Seconds later the pods were joined by those who’d had their pods blown away, and they used their very hands to claw and dig into the asteroid, their arms a blur of motion. The speed with which they entered the pirate base was terrifying. Meanwhile the dreadnaught unleashed its weapons, making short work of the defense cannons, and then blasted the asteroid’s surface seemingly just for fun, no rhyme or reason to what it fired on. Even some of the pods fell prey to it.

Seconds later decompression alarms sounded and thuds reverberated through the asteroid as metal hatches slammed closed. Smitty hoped that would be the end of it, that the intruders would take what little they could from the areas they burrowed into and then leave. When the security cameras filled his eyes with images of hatches being torn apart, that hope was dashed. On screen after screen giant armored warriors tore through the base, demolishing everything in their path. Hatches, armed pirates who’d been stuck with guard duty, and automated turrets were all ripped to shreds as the intruders rampaged from room to room.

After a few minutes the sound of crazed howls filtered through the hatch that separated the control room from the rest of the base. It was indistinct at first, just a strange warble, but quickly it turned to thunder that rocked Smitty’s ears and sent his heart fluttering into his throat. He pulled out his pistol and held it in front of him, but his hands shook so fiercely he could barely keep it in his grip, much less pointed at the door.

Suddenly metal claws burst through the hatch, and the steel doorway split as the body behind it rent its way through like a demon child ripping itself from the womb. Smitty screamed until his throat tore, and his finger pulled the trigger of his gun like he was scratching an itch that wouldn’t go away, but none of it meant anything. The metal-shrouded monster at the door burst through and swatted him like he was an insect. When his body hit the far wall, a loud crack split the air, and he felt nothing as he flopped to the floor like a ragdoll.

Unable to move or speak, he watched as more armored lunatics entered the room. Some tore at the displays with a manic glee, while others laid their gauntlets against the computers and swayed as if listening to music. After a few seconds one of them said, “Wait! It’s-it’s-it’s here! Liiiiiiiiiiiiisten!” The others paused, hunched over, their chests heaving like bellows.

A voice spoke from the control room speakers a second later. “To do what you’re planning, Artemis, we have to go to Mars. That’s our best bet.”

As Smitty lay on the floor, he recognized the words. They’d come from Doctor Alicia Campbell, and Captain Laroux had cackled when he’d heard them. Now the armored giants in the control room cackled too, but there was no joy in their voices, and the only desire he could sense was for blood and death. It was a terrible sound, and he didn’t want to hear it anymore.

When a clawed hand tore into his chest and ripped his beating heart out, his wish was granted.

The nethers of Bellona were nothing like Meridian, the capital of Mars and the city Shawn called home. In all the ways Meridian was bright and open and airy, the nethers were not. The buildings were little more than decaying hovels, their meager height limited by the patchwork ceiling that marked the beginning of the level above it. Throngs of homeless littered the streets like bits of forgotten trash, while the lucky ones huddled around fire pits to keep warm. The scent of unwashed bodies, spoiled food, and he didn’t want to know what else wafted beneath Shawn’s nose, and it was all he could do to not bring up his helmet and block it out. The clash of fist fights and arguments seemed to pour from every darkened alley. He’d heard stories about the nethers, but the reality was even worse.