Doomsday girl, p.1
Doomsday Girl, page 1
Doomsday Girl
Last Stand
Book Nine
Blaze Ward
Knotted Road Press
Contents
Scene One
Scene Two
Scene Three
Scene Four
Scene Five
Scene Six
Scene Seven
Scene Eight
Scene Nine
Scene Ten
Scene Eleven
Scene Twelve
Scene Thirteen
Scene Fourteen
Scene Fifteen
Scene Sixteen
Scene Seventeen
Scene Eighteen
Scene Nineteen
Scene Twenty
Scene Twenty-One
Scene Twenty-Two
Scene Twenty-Three
Scene Twenty-Four
Scene Twenty-Five
Scene Twenty-Six
Scene Twenty-Seven
Scene Twenty-Eight
Scene Twenty-Nine
Read More
About the Author
Also by Blaze Ward
About Knotted Road Press
Scene One
Brianna McLaren. As good a name as any. And a nice place she could hide. The face in the mirror was even one she mostly recognized.
She wasn’t sure if she could ever go back to being Nataliya Horowitz. Those men had found a way to get her listed as a fugitive from imperial justice, in spite of her merely being an escaped slave and programmed assassin they’d been building to kill Lorastir officials.
Folks angry that a jumped-up emperor that had stripped them of their lands and titles when he conquered Zaddinul and replaced them with folks friendly to Lorastir.
She studied the face in the mirror and wondered who she was today.
Nataliya was still there, if she looked hard enough, but that opened the door to all the pain and memories of the things those men had done to her. Surgery to adjust the bones in her face. Surgery to adjust her mind.
Today, as with many days, she wasn’t sure how many others there were inside here with her. Assassins. Bimbos. Artists. Scared little girls.
It was bad.
Her sister Presley had experimented with things. Calmed certain parts. Almost quieted the voices.
Not enough. And the two of them were on the run, so many light-centuries from the homes they had known. The lives they had lived.
Living publicly as man and wife because the bounties on their heads listed sisters.
It had kept them safe this long.
Some mornings were hard.
Still, they had made it this far.
Brianna finished drying her hair and tying it back to keep it out of her eyes. It had grown long enough that she had considered cutting it short. Way short, though not as short as Constanz kept his.
Something new.
She had dressed in browns today, after the shower. Pleated skirt to her ankles with two layers of ruffles and petticoats underneath, both of them loose enough to allow her to move if she needed to, but hiding her silhouette so no one could see how muscular her legs were.
Sensible boots with a low walking heel. White dress shirt under a jacket much lighter than the skirt. Creamed coffee to hot chocolate. She left the neck unbuttoned, but not deep enough to show anything off.
There was nobody she needed to distract. At least beyond herself.
One last look, telling her ghosts to behave, and Brianna emerged from the bathroom, heading quickly to her room to hang her towel and robe, then headed forward on the ship for coffee. Something smelled lovely, so maybe Auntie Maru had baked sweet rolls this morning.
Others were up and eating. She’d had the last shower because today had been a day to stare at herself in the mirror and try to remember who she was.
Who she’d been.
How they’d gotten here.
Tessa nodded as Brianna grabbed some coffee from the pot and a cinnamon roll still steaming a little, dripping with cream cheese frosting. She made herself tear off a small bite, rather than cram the entire thing into her mouth at once.
It was a close thing.
“How are you feeling this morning?” Tessa asked, possibly seeing something in Brianna’s eyes as she sat across the table.
Brianna had Laney on her left and Fin on her right. Wyatt ignored them and shoveled oatmeal. Auntie sat at the head of the table and daintily picked off pieces of her own cinnamon roll, eating them with almost pornographic delight.
“It’s bad,” Brianna replied quietly.
She could be honest with these people. They had sheltered her and her sister from terrible storms so far.
Constanz perked up, seated opposite Maru and also enjoying a roll, though with a knife and fork. Brianna waved a hand to forestall anything.
“No worse than many days,” she said. “I didn’t sleep well. I think it’s the excitement of spending some time in port and seeing the city.”
They’d landed on Glaford yesterday, late in the local day. The planet was sophisticated enough to have a proper starport on the edge of the capital city of Padun. Tessa was hauling boxes of something, both legitimate cargo and a few crates that had been stashed inside bulkheads where they wouldn’t be found, save by a concentrated search.
“You be careful out there,” Tessa reminded her, sounding like her and Constanz’s mother, though memories of what the woman actually looked like were thin and faded.
Brianna still wasn’t sure if she should let go of Nataliya forever, living as Brianna. On the one hand, it would be safer.
On the other, did she really want to forget all the good things she’d known growing up?
“I will be,” Brianna nodded. “Armed and dangerous, as always.”
That seemed to mollify Tessa. Padun wasn’t known to be a dangerous place. Like Bernadette, Glaford was close to the Hanrigan Gulf that connected the Hawkswold Sector back to the Core Region where humanity had been born.
Places like Lorastir, who had conquered Altenfeld, then Zaddinul. Inleah remained a neutral independent, while Ergrove, who held so much of the Periphery, had a large enough fleet to keep Lorastir from attempting to unite all of mankind under a single banner.
As much as half of Padun’s population had been born in the Core, reputedly. Sophisticated and urbane, when so much of the rest of Hawkswold was a more frontier place.
It would be nice to walk the streets of a modern city again. Last Stand was wonderful, but so many of their adventures took them to places where the roads might be gravel, at best. If there were even roads in the first place.
Brianna needed some time to rest.
Scene Two
Constanz had mostly recovered from being ill with the aptly named Red Cough. The serum had taken hold before too much damage had been done to his lungs, and the crew of Last Stand had made sure that he ate well and didn’t stress himself over much of anything.
And there would be, however unfortunately, legends told of Doc McLaren and his heroic struggle to save the lives of so many sailors at Atwick. He could not escape them.
But he had sworn an oath.
Padun was almost like being in one of the smaller suburbs of Chaulte on Falorea, the Lorastir imperial capital city. It lacked the verve of the urban core but had many of the accoutrements. A civilized place, after so long hiding in some of the worst parts of Hawkswold.
Of course, that hiding had gotten them as far as Last Stand and Tessa Sladek, so Constanz didn’t begrudge the grit and grime he and his sister/wife had struggled through. They had a home now.
Still, roads were paved with actual asphalt, marked with granite curbs cut and placed to square off concrete sidewalks. Shops had glass windows displaying goods. Cafés spilled out into the glorious, late morning sun. People dressed in modern fashions with color, when so many of the places they had visited of late had been subject to brown.
Whole worlds of browns, for the most part, except for those folks pushing all the way down into black for the supposed intimidation factor associated. Wyatt Nakada did, but most others merely looked like impostors by comparison.
Constanz walked with Brianna on his arm and a parasol collapsed like an umbrella or a cane. It might be necessary later, as he’d never really been one for hats, even when he’d been a girl.
They even went so far as to dine at one of those sidewalk cafés for lunch, just inside the open portal where the breeze was lovely and the sun shaded just right. Fresh greens for a salad and a croissant with slices of turkey and cheese.
It was nearly like being home. Constanz found himself smiling. It was almost painful, having been away for so long. Across the table, Brianna was much the same, but he had known that merely being in a city like this would be a good tonic for the troubles that ailed her.
He was as much a psychotherapist as medical doctor in treating her.
As they finished, a familiar face walked by, being led deeper into the restaurant. It took him a moment to place the fellow. Captain Porter Zechiel, of the cargo vessel Bai Hu.
He had been at Atwick. Had been one of the ones who had fallen ill with the Red Cough, though he’d recovered before he’d started hacking up blood. All of his crew had recovered as well.
Constanz put down his napkin and nodded to Brianna.
“A moment, my dear?” he said, sliding his chair back and rising. “I wish to greet someone. He was at Atwick.”
She nodded, still nibbling. He had sent her off with Tessa, rather than have her risk catching the disease that had nearl
Constanz made his way to where Captain Zechiel was seated with two others. Not crew members, as they were dressed too nicely. Possibly lawyers with a fashion sense. Or bankers without.
The man looked up and did a double take, smiling as Constanz stepped closer.
“Doc!” he called.
“Captain,” Constanz nodded to the man.
“Doc McLaren saved my life at the moot,” Zechiel introduced him to the others. “And a lot of other folks.”
Constanz blushed but accepted handshakes and congratulations from the two men.
“What brings you to Glaford, Doc?” Zechiel asked.
“Last Stand is on a cargo run,” he replied. “I decided to come into town and have lunch with my wife.”
Always, the fiction of a married couple on a grand promenade of the Periphery, rather than the truth about outlaw sisters.
Constanz turned back to where Brianna was seated. Then paused. A man was standing at their table. Older. Somewhat heavyset. He seemed to be speaking to her, but something was wrong.
Brianna had frozen utterly stiff. She rose woodenly, like a puppet with strings tangled.
“Hey!” Constanz called angrily. “What are you doing?”
“Doc, get down!” Zechiel exclaimed.
Before Constanz fully understood what was happening, the stranger drew a pistol and opened fire.
Constanz had been tackled by Captain Zechiel, so the bullet missed him. He still thought he’d felt the wind of its passage.
When he looked up, Brianna and the stranger were gone.
Scene Three
Brianna glanced up as a shadow stepped from bright light outside to the dimness of the café. Automatically, she tracked it as male. Past middle age, but still in reasonable shape. He came to rest immediately next to her and stared. Rudely.
Brianna contained a growl and turned to look at the man.
“Yes?” she asked testily. “May I help you with something?”
“Reflect,” he said in a mild voice. It still seemed to ring her skull like a church bell. “Continue. Shock. Efficient. Impinge.”
Brianna lost the ability to speak. To even think. Somewhere, deep inside, she retreated to a small closet as her body stopped being hers to control.
“Rise,” the man ordered.
Her body complied. Her mind was a field of static and white noise, occasionally interrupted by sharp spikes of pain, as though tiny pixies armed with needles were running over her body and stabbing her randomly.
She heard a gunshot, but it held no more interest to her than the noontime sun or the glass of iced tea she had been drinking.
“Follow,” he ordered.
She did. Out into the street, where a ground vehicle had pulled to the curb, rear door open. The man got into the vehicle. She followed, sitting immediately next to him as the man reached across her body and pulled the door closed.
He smelled old. Musty, in the way of men who don’t bathe daily and instead mask themselves with artificial colognes. Dressed in a manner that her brain automatically cataloged as Zaddinul fashion. Darker and more conservative than Lorastir. Three-piece suit in a gray so dark as to be almost black, over a blue dress shirt.
Thinning hair, graying as well. Lean like a predator. Hungry, angry eyes.
She would have said or done something, but she could not move. Could not resist his orders.
What had he done to her?
Then the image finally broke through. The memory, suppressed with so many others, though this one had clawed its way out of whatever mental grave she had consigned it to.
There had been a beard before. And much longer hair, like a gray mane in the style of Zaddinul noblemen, though many wore wigs to cover up baldness.
Brianna compared the man seated next to her to Rikell Apkov.
Yes.
This was one of the men who had broken her mind.
Scene Four
Constanz raced to the front of the space, but Brianna was gone. Simply vanished into thin air, like a puff of smoke. Captain Zechiel was standing next to him, fists clenching and unclenching.
Constanz understood the rage. He felt it as well.
“What the hell just happened, Doc?” he asked.
Constanz contained himself and stood a bit more upright, turning to the taller man with as calm a face as circumstances currently allowed.
“You will not speak of it,” he ordered the heavier, older man in a voice that would brook no counter.
Zechiel flinched as though Constanz had slapped him across the jaw. He blinked several times. Opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again.
“How can I help, Doc?” he asked simply.
“Someone has had the temerity to apparently kidnap my wife,” Constanz informed him. Always, the masquerade maintained. “I need to get back to my ship immediately and recruit help.”
“Shouldn’t you call the police?” Zechiel asked, broaching the topic carefully, like Constanz had turned into a rabid badger in the last ten seconds.
Not necessarily a wrong assumption.
“This is Hawkswold,” Constanz replied. As if that said it all. And it might. “I will handle this my own way.”
The last thing he needed was the police asking questions. Checking identity cards. Learning too much. Plus, someone kidnapping a woman off the street likely had paid appropriate bribes to whoever needed to be bought off.
It wasn’t like the police or the government were likely to help the common people.
Not when the nobles controlled things.
Constanz considered an ancient quote about how mankind would not be free until the last king had been strangled with the entrails of the last priest. He wasn’t sure about the latter, but dead certain about the former.
Living on Falorea hadn’t left a good taste in his mouth.
He turned as the waitress and manager approached, questions unasked in their eyes. The bullet had embedded in a wall, rather than a person, or he’d be busy saving a life right now.
Before Constanz could react, Zechiel pulled a wad of bills from his pocket.
“I’ll cover his bill and any damages,” the captain said fiercely. “Doc, you go do what you need to do.”
Constanz blinked, but supposed that he had made a good impression on a number of folks in this region of space.
He turned and began to walk immediately, pulling his comm from his pocket.
“Last Stand, this is Constanz,” he said. “I need everyone to return to the ship immediately.”
Scene Five
Tessa was standing at the back hatch of her ship, lever-action rifle in hand and loaded, when Constanz appeared from the back door of a taxi. Wyatt was nearby with Doomripper, ready to crossfire anyone giving the McLarens any trouble at all.
The others had returned already.
Constanz was alone. Brianna didn’t emerge.
Tessa went cold.
The taxi got paid off and departed up the drive between ships as Constanz approached. She could smell the anger radiating off the man, stepping back and to the side as he approached.
“Wyatt!” she yelled.
The big gunman emerged from nearby at a dead run, rifle across his body like this was a combat assault. From the look on Constanz’s face, it might yet be today.
The doctor had paused in the cargo bay. Wyatt closed up the ship when he entered.
Everyone was here but Brianna.
Tessa waited.
“We were at lunch,” Constanz said in a voice like he was writing a police report. “I got up to speak with Captain Porter Zechiel of the freighter Bai Hu. I turned back a moment later and saw a man standing next to Brianna. Something was wrong. I yelled. Captain Zechiel tackled me to get me out of the way. The stranger fired a single shot that didn’t hit anyone. When I got to the door, he and my wife were gone.”
