Perdition (The Dred Chronicles)

PRAISE FOR THE SIRANTHA JAX NOVELS

Endgame

“I strongly recommend this series to anyone who enjoys good sci-fi with strong female characters who are a little flawed and yet keep ticking out of sheer tenacity.”

—
Rabid Reader

“Infusing love and war together to make a pulse-pounding, heartbreaking read, the Sirantha Jax series . . . will remain on my keeper shelf for some time.”

—
Under the Covers Book Blog

“Fast-paced and filled with action, Ann Aguirre makes it clear that war is vicious, bloody, and gory as everyone, including the ethical heroine (and readers), feels they entered hell.”

—
Genre Go Round Reviews

Aftermath

“Highly satisfying . . .
Aftermath
has all of the heart, soul, adventure, and sense of wonder that you could ask for in a character-driven series like this.”

—
SF Site

“Chock-full of adventure . . . It’s tautly written with a surprise around every corner.”

—
All About Romance

“Aguirre’s writing is tight, and the characters have plenty of depth . . . [She] is quickly becoming one of my favorite writers, and
Aftermath
is a big reason why.”

—ScienceFiction.com

“Ann Aguirre is an amazing storyteller.”

—
Smexy Books

“Aguirre has created a fleshed-out futuristic world and, yes, a strong heroine to lead us through it.”

—Giraffe Days

“This is a great science fiction tale in a strong series . . . Anyone who visits the Ann Aguirre universe knows [it] is an entertaining, exciting realm.”

—Midwest Book Review

Killbox

“Fraught with action, farewells, and sorrow, fans of this series won’t be able to put
Killbox
down . . . Ms. Aguirre has left the reader hanging with a finish that guarantees the reader will be on pins and needles waiting for the next installment.”

—
Fresh Fiction

“Rife with huge, tender emotions, rough anguish that makes me cry, and moments, snatches of joy, that make all of that anguish worthwhile . . . This is the kind of story that makes the emotional roller coaster of reading so appealing.”

—
Lurv a la Mode

“Oh wow! I literally inhaled this book, and I could not put it down . . . An epic space opera . . . Five out of five stars!”

—
The Book Pushers

Doubleblind

“The world-building was not only tight but excellent. Ms. Aguirre weaves some amazing cultural, environmental, and physical details into the Ithtorian world that I found fascinating, and it is what made this book stand out for me.”

—
Impressions of a Reader

“One of my favorite aspects of this series is Jax. I love her as a heroine, and this book really allows Jax to shine.”

—
Smexy Books

“What marks this series as excellent is the complexity of character . . . Plus, there’s the fact that Ann Aguirre tells a good story, plain and simple . . .
Doubleblind
was a fantastic installment in the series, and, while being immensely satisfying, it still left me wanting more in the best possible way.”

—
Tempting Persephone

Wanderlust

“Fast-paced and thrilling,
Wanderlust
is pure adrenaline. Sirantha Jax is an unforgettable character, and I can’t wait to find out what happens to her next. The world Ann Aguirre has created is a roller-coaster ride to remember.”

—Christine Feehan, #1
New York Times
bestselling author “The details of communication, travel, politics, and power in a greedy, lively universe have been devised to the last degree but are presented effortlessly. Aguirre has the mastery and vision which come from critical expertise: She is unmistakably a true science fiction fan, writing in the genre she loves.”

—
The Independent
(London) “A thoroughly enjoyable blend of science fiction, romance, and action, with a little something for everyone, and a great deal of fun. It’s down and dirty, unafraid to show some attitude.”

—
SF Site

Grimspace

“A terrific first novel full of page-turning action, delightful characters, and a wry twist of humor. Romance may be in the air. Bullets, ugly beasties, and really nasty bad guys definitely are.”

—Mike Shepherd, national bestselling author “An irresistible blend of action and attitude. Sirantha Jax doesn’t just leap off the page—she storms out, kicking, cursing, and mouthing off. No wonder her pilot falls in love with her; readers will, too.”

—Sharon Shinn, national bestselling author “A tightly written, edge-of-your-seat read.”

—Linnea Sinclair, RITA Award–winning author

Also by Ann Aguirre

Sirantha Jax Series

GRIMSPACE

WANDERLUST

DOUBLEBLIND

KILLBOX

AFTERMATH

ENDGAME

The Dred Chronicles

PERDITION

Corine Solomon Series

BLUE DIABLO

HELL FIRE

SHADY LADY

DEVIL’S PUNCH

AGAVE KISS

Cowritten as A. A. Aguirre

BRONZE GODS

PERDITION

THE DRED CHRONICLES

ANN AGUIRRE

THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Group (USA)

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

USA | Canada | UK | Ireland | Australia | New Zealand | India | South Africa | China Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England For more information about the Penguin Group, visit penguin.com.

PERDITION

An Ace Book / published by arrangement with the author Copyright © 2013 by Ann Aguirre.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

Ace Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group.

ACE and the “A” design are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA).

For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Group (USA),

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

eBook ISBN: 978-1-10162517-0

PUBLISHING HISTORY

Ace mass-market edition / September 2013

Cover art by Scott M. Fischer.

Cover design by Lesley Worrell.

Interior text design by Kelly Lipovich.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

To those who know why the caged bird sings

Acknowledgments

The person who helped most with this book is Bree Bridges. I mention her a lot because she’s the first person I turn to when I have a plot problem or I can’t figure something out. She’s so smart that she can usually tell me in seconds where I went wrong or what would fix the book. So thanks, Bree. Thanks to Lauren Dane for always listening to me, no matter what I’m saying. And thanks to Donna Herren for always being willing to cackle maniacally with me. Thanks to Megan Hart for making me laugh and understanding . . . everything. Thanks to Viv Arend for all the love.

Next I thank Laura Bradford, who sells all my books and is a wonderful agent and friend. Anne Sowards has been a joy to work with, so I appreciate her as well. I can’t believe it’s been six years! Thanks also to the team at Penguin for creating such wonderful books.

Thanks to the Loop That Shall Not Be Named. You’re like the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants times five, except it’s a different
P
word. I cherish and appreciate your boldness and bravery, your humor, your innovation and creativity, and your indomitable spirits. Just knowing you all makes me better.

Much love to my family, who never complains, no matter how busy I am. You make it possible for me to live my dreams, and I adore you.

Finally, thank you to my readers. You humble and gladden me when you write, so keep in touch. I’m at [email protected].

1

The Dread Queen

Pain was a flower.

It began with crimson petals, threaded white, and ended with a black, black heart.
Like mine.
Since she’d taken Queensland half a turn ago, she had perfected the art of how much a captive could take before he broke. Some men ate agony like candy, while others were fragile as a bird’s bones.

Dred watched as her men carved lines into the intruder’s skin. “It doesn’t have to go down like this, Eli. Tell me why you’re really here. Then defect from Grigor, swear to me, and I’ll let you serve.”

That was bullshit. Since they were all liars, murderers, and thieves, it wasn’t as if she could trust Eli’s word should he give it. She might convince him of her sincerity, however, and learn something about her enemies’ intentions. The deception didn’t trouble her. For all she knew, this man’s mission was to stick a silent knife in her kidney.

“Never,” Eli gasped, red-tinged sweat dripping down his arms. “You don’t understand. Grigor will kill me. He’ll hunt me down.”

Fear wins over self-preservation.

“Not inside my territory,” Dred said.

She leapt down from the throne cobbled together from scrap metal and rusty chains. It was an affectation, but one that amused her. Between the braids, the tattoos, and the leather rumored to be human skin, men found it hard to meet her gaze. Eli was no exception; Tameron had sold her legend completely. Some of it was bullshit, of course.

“You can’t keep me safe,” he whispered. “Grigor has eyes everywhere.”

“That’s impressive cowardice.” When she got within kicking distance, Eli flinched and shielded his face. Dred laughed softly. “You think I can’t break your teeth through those arms?”

“I know you can,” he whispered.

“Good. Now tell me why you’re inside my border.”

“I was scavenging on Grigor’s orders. I didn’t know I’d crossed!”

Since there were checkpoints and sentries posted anywhere territories overlapped, that was impossible. The only way Eli could be here was if he’d intentionally come through the ducts or sought some other secret way through her security. And there was no innocent reason he’d have done that, especially not on Grigor’s orders.

“Keep lying to me, and you won’t last the hour.”

“Kill him,” Einar advised.

The man holding the prisoner’s right arm was a tall, muscular blond with hair that looked like he hacked it off with a rusty knife. Scars covered Einar from head to toe; his lip pulled sideways from a nasty slash to his face, and he was a missing an earlobe. Since he bathed, Einar was also one of the best catches in Perdition, their private name for the hellhole the Conglomerate had chosen to house its worst offenders.

Dred circled thoughtfully. Each time she gave the order, it got easier, like she lost a little more of her soul. She couldn’t have him learning her defensive strategies or finding her hidden weapons caches, then reporting to Grigor. Each time there was an incursion, she had to assume the worst and react accordingly. Things had been unsettled lately, and both Grigor and Priest were daring more, pressing harder from each side.

She jerked a nod at Einar. “Do it.”

“No, pl—” The giant snapped the prisoner’s neck before he finished begging for his life.

“I suspect he was a spy,” Tameron said. “You couldn’t let him live.”

Tam was a slight, dark-skinned male, younger than Dred, but it was impossible to say how much. She didn’t ask people how old they were, where they were from, or what they’d done to get tossed in here. None of that mattered inside Perdition. It only mattered how hard you’d fight to stay alive. He was also invaluable in keeping her regime on track; he supplied insights about her enemies and quiet information about the mood in Queensland, which was what the men called her territory.

The prison ship was the brainchild of some bright-eyed Conglomerate drone.
Take one of the old deep-space asteroid refinery ships and retrofit it for incarceration. We clean out overcrowded prisoners, and we can focus on those offenders who have a legitimate chance at rehabilitation.
Back when they first commissioned the prison ship, she’d heard the rationale on the bounce, like everyone else. Turns later, they had a floating city full of criminals, its orbit fixed in the middle of nowhere.

Never dreamed I’d end up here. But then, who does?

“Send the body for processing,” she told Einar.

With a nod, the giant hoisted the corpse to his shoulder and headed for the chute where they deposited all organic waste. It would be processed and converted into fertilizer for use in the hydroponics gardens, which didn’t work as well as they were supposed to. Half the lights had burned out, and it wasn’t like they could requisition new ones. Occasionally, supplies came in with a load of prisoners and a unit of new Peacemakers. None of the fish ever went after a one-ton machine armed with laser cannons, disruptors, and shredders, fortified with heavy armor. Plus, it was impossible to get to the docking bay. Every emergency door on Perdition went into lockdown, and energy fields came up when a ship arrived, sealing off the area completely. Only after the ship departed did the fail-safe kick off, leaving the fish to make their own way and avoid agitating the droids.

Usually that meant joining with whatever territory you found yourself in. Sometimes, when numbers got low, due to violent death or illness, sectors sent recruiters to wait outside the first set of emergency doors. Though Perdition had four would-be kings, it only had two queens, and Dred was the only one they called so. The other female leader, Silence, didn’t seem to be looking to build an empire; she just enjoyed the art of death. Dred had been around enough to know that Silence had a gift because the other woman did it so quietly, so cleanly, you’d almost fail to note she’d garroted clean through your throat. She didn’t often mess with Silence, who killed for pleasure, not defense, not to keep people out of her territory. And there was no predicting the behavior of someone like that.

She felt cold eyes on her. Spinning, she saw Lecass watching with a small group of his followers. He had been part of Artan’s regime, but so far, he hadn’t made a move. The man’s inaction troubled her as much as a challenge would. Deliberately, Lecass stared until she gave him her back, a calculated insult. One of these days, he would tire of the quiet drama and step things up. Dred would be ready.

Up until half a turn ago, Artan ran Queensland, though it was called Artania, then. He had been a raving narcissist with periodic fits of utter egomania, and from what Dred had been able to tell, he’d suffered from delusions of grandeur, which complemented his persecution complex. Consequently, his favorites didn’t usually last more than a few months.
Until me.
She didn’t know if that spoke well of her survival instincts or if it branded her a masochist.

Tam turned as the lights flickered. “That means a ship’s coming in.”

Because the machinery was so old, it stressed the circuits. The ship couldn’t efficiently light the whole vessel as well as go into lockdown. It had been a while since she’d headed toward the docking area to assess the new fish. She wasn’t greedy for bodies, like Grigor and Priest were. Grigor fed on fear, sometimes literally, she thought, and Priest brainwashed his recruits into thinking he was the living incarnation of some god. They worshipped him over in Abaddon, which was what he called his section of Perdition.

She cocked her head, knowing it was a scary look. “Want to go see what the universe has thrown away today?”

Tam nodded. “We lost a few guys in the skirmish with Grigor.”

Most of their daily conflicts occurred with Grigor or Priest, the two greatest threats to Queensland. Grigor had been here longest, and he was constantly pressing to see what new areas he could claim. Dred had the bad luck to be his neighbor. With Priest on one side and Grigor on the other, she was fighting constantly to maintain her territory.

Sometimes, however, Mungo came out in search of blood; and you had to fight hard against his people. They were the hungriest in the ship. He was a short, red-haired man with a bushy beard, pale blue eyes, and rosy cheeks. By his appearance, one could be forgiven for guessing he was harmless . . . right before he ripped out your throat with his bare hands and tried to eat your face. She’d heard that Mungo liked children best . . . for all kinds of things, and those preferences had gotten him thrown into Perdition early on.

They prey on weakness. Uncertainty.

She had little of either left in her. Whether her decisions were right hardly signified. Nothing mattered in this hole. The smart ones gave up and died; maybe they found the afterlife the priests and holy women had promised, shortly after her arrest. At first, during the trial, she had missionaries in her cell every day, trying to save her soul, trying to sell her on Mary’s grace, but after everything she’d seen, everything she’d done, she couldn’t believe.

Could. Not.

The awful cast of her ability had burned anything like faith out of her. Over the years, she’d learned to block it out—to read darker emotions only of her own volition. Otherwise, she lived with a barrage of other people’s violence drumming in her skull. That was probably why she’d snapped. Maybe her sentence would’ve been lighter, at a different facility, if she could have brought herself to whisper those words of remorse the judge so badly wanted to hear.

But she couldn’t. Because she wasn’t sorry for a single murderer she’d put down. From the tone of her trial, it was clear they thought she was insane—and it would’ve only made her case worse if she’d admitted to being an unregistered Psi, using illegal gifts to hunt down psychopaths. Though Dred had heard that less than 3 percent of humanity possessed talents like her own, Psi Corp required all Psi-positives to be delivered to the nearest training facility, where the company oversaw their upbringing. As a kid, Dred hadn’t realized she had any particular ability, and when she left home, the die was cast.

Besides, what that ancient Old Terran philosopher had written so many turns ago was true, after all.
He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.
She had become what she despised most . . . and she
belonged
here.

I am the Dread Queen.

“Come,” she called to Einar, who caught up to them at a jog.

“How long until docking?” he asked.

“Half an hour,” Tam guessed. “When everything goes dark, we’ll know they’re here.”

She scanned the dingy, rusted-metal corridor walls. “Let’s see how far we can get.”

During docking, recruiters didn’t interfere with each other, even if they crossed borders. This one time, it was allowed, because otherwise it would be impossible for any group to augment its numbers, save the one in closest proximity. On this side, that would be Priest. He cared only for adding worshippers, but it often took longer for convicts to succumb to his brand of brainwashing. It wasn’t the sort of thing that made for a quick pitch. Still, she didn’t linger in Priest’s territory. Since they moved fast, they reached the second set of doors before the lights went down, and the barricades came up, along with the energy fields that would fry anyone who tried to cross. A few distant screams told her that some convicts had a timing problem.

Uneasily, they shared the space with Silence’s people, unusual, because the quiet killer didn’t often take an interest. But it had been a while for her, too. Silence must have advisors who let her know that if she killed too many of her own people out of sport, then she wouldn’t have the numbers to drive off anyone intent on taking her territory. There were six in all . . . and Dred’s was among the largest, with space on all decks. The lifts didn’t work, but she had shaft access, which meant her people could sneak around the ship unseen. Tam was particularly good at it.

The neutral zone lay just past the docking bay, a shantytown inside the prison ship, where fish often huddled until they realized it was worse there than when they affiliated. Townships had rules, at least, enforced by the leader’s people. The neutral zone had only one—take what you can. It was impossible to sleep there without being robbed, raped, or shanked, sometimes all in the same night. And so she’d tell anyone she deemed worthy of a second look.

That was the extent of Dred’s pitch:
Come with me, and you may not die.
There was no reason to be more persuasive. The smart ones listened.

In the dark, it was eerie, with only the red glow from the nearby shock field and the crackle of electricity. Silence’s people didn’t talk, even among themselves, and their behavior made for an uneasy truce. Tam kept a hand on his shiv, eyeing them with wary attention. On her other side, Einar played the role of gentle giant, but he wasn’t gentle. Nobody inside Perdition was. If they’d been sent up on a wrongful conviction, then they learned to fight, or they died.

Einar had been inside longer than Dred, and she’d been here for five turns before she got tired of etching hash marks into a sheet of metal to mark the days. Forever wasn’t a number anyway. It just was. At her best guess, she had thirty turns beneath her belt, give or take. She’d been killing for three years before she got caught. Before she got cocky. At the height of her career, she’d thought they’d never figure it out.

Ah, hubris.

At last, the vigil ended. The lights came back up, and the security measures died, which meant it was safe to proceed. Pushing to her feet, Dred signaled her two men and jogged past the two sets of security doors, through Shantytown, and toward the reception area, where fish always milled around, as if expecting to be greeted by guards, someone to tell them where to go, what to do, how to get food and water. Poor, stupid fish.

This crop looked particularly sad. A few of them were crying, faces wedged between their knees. They all wore prison-issue gray, numbers and chips in the backs of their necks. Most of them had been shorn and deloused though a few looked as though they had been dragged from the darkest hole in the system, then set on fire. The weak and wounded wouldn’t last long; she ignored them.