Chapter Four

People weren’t supposed to know the truth about the Empress. There was novelty in the Empress as a person, but there was power in the Empress as a symbol. People like Tessa and Deilani were never even supposed to meet her, let alone have a peek behind the curtain, however brief.

One could never know for certain, but a part of Tessa worried that if the Empress hadn’t taken a personal interest in the sole survivor of the group of trainees that had rescued her from Sterling Station, that she too might have simply died young or disappeared under mysterious circumstances.

If something had happened to Tessa straightaway after everything that happened, that might have attracted notice. Out here, Deilani had no such protection. And unlike Tessa, Deilani was not part of a recognized bloodline; her family couldn’t ask questions the same way that Tessa’s could. Whatever made Deilani potentially valuable to the Goldens also made her inconvenient to the Imperium. A quiet death was considerably easier and more economical than a rescue. That wasn’t what bothered Tessa.

What bothered her was the possibility that this wasn’t about economy. The possibility that an Evagardian in power preferred Deilani dead. And that was the only plausible explanation. If the Imperium had wanted Deilani back alive, none of this would’ve been happening.

They didn’t want her, and Tessa was struggling to accept it. These were the sorts of things that New Unity had talked about when Tessa had been growing up, and at the time, she’d found them laughable.

The last time Tessa had gone up against someone with Acolyte training, she’d been effortlessly beaten and Ensign Nils had been killed. And that had only been an Acolyte in training. Taking down the real thing in a fair fight was impossible, but even if running had been an option, Tessa wouldn’t have done it. This wasn’t just anger; it was something closer to what she’d felt when Fatima stabbed her aboard the Julian.

Teeth grinding, she threw the scattergun to the deck and blacked out her helmet’s visor just in time. That protected her from the flash, and the helmet’s seal saved her from the real weapon: more nanomachines from the Acolyte. It was a sort of stun grenade that they could use, even though there were no grenades involved. The nanomachines would reflect light and cause some kind of histamine response. Tessa had seen them do it on Sterling Station, and it had been devastatingly effective against unprepared targets.

The Acolyte vaulted over the nearest exam table and grabbed her. She used his momentum to take him to the ground and threw him with Judo, but he was back on his feet and after her again before she could even pick herself up. He rammed her into the table with twice the power that a man his size should’ve had. The nanomachines were cheating. There was no other way to look at it.

He grabbed her head from behind, but rather than the snap of her spine, he got the bang of a gunshot.

He could stop a gun from firing, but only if it occurred to him to do it. He couldn’t stop what he didn’t know about. Tessa grimaced and faltered. To hide the pistol from his sight, she’d pressed it to her own side, where the armor was rubberized for movement.

She whipped around and slammed the pistol into the stunned man’s head, sending him tumbling to the ground, looking shocked at the blood on his scrubs and the hole in his belly.

Tessa shot him three times in the chest, then twice in the head.

Only then did she let out a hiss of pain. She had put a bullet through her own flank, although the concussion from that blow a second ago was more of an issue. On the spectrum of flesh wounds, this one wasn’t great under the circumstances.

Breathing hard, she turned her back on the dead Acolyte and jammed the gun back into the holster on her thigh, staggering to the medical cabinet. Did she have time for this? No. Could she afford to ignore the wound? Doubtful. She injected a painkiller and slathered sealant gel on the entry and exit punctures to her armor.

She had come to this place all but certain that, even if unofficially, she had been acting as an agent of Evagard. She’d believed that Imperial Security, even if they weren’t overtly supporting the mission, agreed with her being here.

It was the opposite. She was thwarting an Evagardian operation at least partially at the behest of a Golden spy. She wasn’t acting as an agent of the Imperium’s will or even a renegade, as she had been after Baykara City. She was an enemy asset. This was a first.

The medical bay had several doors, and Tessa staggered straight to the isolation unit. Quarantine protocols weren’t in effect, so the space was functionally just a secure apartment with a small room equipped with decontamination measures as a buffer.

The inner door had a small window. Deilani was lying on a single bed, holding a tablet-style reader. Her feet were crossed at the ankles. The space was soundproof; she hadn’t heard a thing.  

Tessa opened the inner door and Deilani sat up with a frown, cocking her head. One look at her pupils made it clear that she wasn’t sober. It wouldn’t be anything spicy in her system; just some recreational sedative or a muscle relaxant to keep her pliable. These people had to appreciate that an Evagardian naval officer would be a considerable handful if she were suitably inclined, so they were making a point to ensure that Deilani was comfortable. They must have come up with a hell of a story to explain why they weren’t letting her call anyone. Or maybe the drugs were just that good.

She looked all right. Tessa saw no sign of injury or mistreatment. Deilani was tall and slim. Her regulation haircut needed a trim, but otherwise, she looked the same as she ever had.

Tessa stepped inside.

Deilani peered at her curiously.

“Aren’t you a little short for that rig?” she asked, eying the armor.

Tessa collapsed her helmet and beckoned. “We’re leaving. Let’s go.”

Deilani blinked several times. “Salmagard?”

“Get up.”

Frowning, Deilani rose, putting her tablet aside as Tessa approached.

“Stay behind me,” Tessa ordered. A part of her had hoped that Deilani might be fit to fight. That would’ve effectively doubled their chances of getting out alive. Deilani might not have spent as much time in combat training as Tessa, but she should still have been more than a match for some Galactic PMCs on guard duty for a low-rent extortion racket.

Not like this, though.

“You cut your hair. And you’re hurt,” Deilani noted, and the fact that she hadn’t noticed that first told the whole story of how high she had to be. The sudden look of concern on her face was rather moving.

Tessa sank her fist into Deilani’s solar plexus. She caught the taller woman’s falling body on her shoulder and stood upright with a grunt. Carrying Deilani out was not ideal. Neither was taking the time to explain what was going on. Which was worse? It didn’t matter now; the choice was made.

It felt like there was a scalding hot metal vice clamped to her left side. Tessa set her jaw and hauled the stunned Deilani into the decontamination room. Protective yellow suits hung on hooks, ready to go. They were sealed and they had their own air supply, but no temperature control. Tessa didn’t know exactly how hot it was outside; these would only do for a short time. Wrestling Deilani’s gangly form into a suit wasn’t easy. The lieutenant wasn’t fully unconscious from the hit, but she still wasn’t very helpful. Once the suit was sealed, Tessa heaved her up again and carried her into the medical bay.

She’d barely cleared the threshold before the door opened and the first guard came through. There was wariness on his face, and he had his weapon at low ready. The body on the floor and Tessa’s borrowed armor gave her the split second she needed to pull her pistol with her free hand and drop him with a shot to the head.

Deilani said something, but it was muffled by her suit as the guard collapsed and Tessa grunted in pain, stepping over him into the corridor with the pistol raised. She fired two shots at the pair of guards turning into the junction, forcing them to cover.

They were between her and the shuttle. Two guards were down. There couldn’t be fewer than eight, and for all Tessa knew, there might’ve been twenty or thirty. Advancing into enemy fire wounded, carrying dead weight, armed with only a handgun—that wasn’t going to work.