Moonsteed. Manda Benson
the neural implant in the center of the forehead. Reaching her other hand to the implant on her own forehead, she tuned herself to the horse’s signal.
A torrent of pure agony assailed her. She fell on one knee with a sudden intake of breath, and fought to see through the pain to run diagnostics. Right lung: punctured. Ribs: broken. Blood loss... The damage was too severe. She had only one thing left to offer this horse: mercy.
She pulled the gun from her belt and put her finger to the trigger. Gasping and doubled over from the icy spasms that convulsed through the horse, she got to her feet and pointed the gun at the implant in its head.
The gun discharged with a snap and the horse’s neck fell limp. Electricity crackled briefly through the cybernetic armor. The horse’s signal went out and the pain stopped. Verity dropped the gun and stood bent forward with her hands on her knees, a horrible, guilty relief overwhelming her. She closed her eyes and her breath came out as a whimpering sob. That fool of a spy. Why had he not stopped when she had warned him? Now both he and the horse–an innocent who had not asked for this–were dead because of his choice. What could it be he had taken that was worth that? She’d have to find his head and take that back. Farron could still retrieve whatever information he needed, provided she hurried.
“Don’t move.” The voice came from behind her. “Stand up and turn around slowly.”
Verity opened her eyes. Her hunched-over shadow stood out against a trembling cone of light from a source behind. She looked over her shoulder. John Aaron stood there, her katana in his hand and pointed at her. Frozen blood coated its blade. Beyond him her horse still stood, and his horse a little farther back along the path. She had disconnected from hers when she’d connected to the injured animal. She couldn’t sense it or use it now.
She remembered all the times she’d noticed him staring at her. He must have been assigned here around the same time as her, although she’d never met him properly before. What was he doing? She couldn’t recall ever having had dealings with him before, only those cold looks from a distance. Could it be something she’d done that had affected John Aaron in some way she’d not realized? Verity knew Sergeant Black didn’t like her, but that was because of what had gone on in the base and when their paths had crossed before she’d been transferred here. With this man, no such history existed.
She straightened slowly and turned to face him, trying to keep her voice steady. “I’m your sergeant. That’s my sword. Is there a problem?”
“You’re the problem, that’s what.” His eyes burned with righteous passion behind his visor. “You and those scientists who think they’re gods. I wasn’t alive to stop the four that came before you, but I’ve stopped him.” He gave a brief jerk toward the path behind with his head. “And I can stop you, and after you, I’ll stop however many more it takes. Destiny has decided that your life ends here and now, Zeta.”
Verity forced saliva into her suddenly dry mouth. It wasn’t something she’d done. It was something she was. How had he found out? She put the question aside for now and thought quickly through what her training had given her. He was some sort of extremist, a denier of science, an idealist. He had not killed her when he had the opportunity, when she stood with her back to him to deal with the horse. Even now, rather than shooting her with his gun, he was possessed with the irony of killing Verity with her own katana. He was an idiot who valued ideas before practicality. He didn’t have the training the Magnolia Order had given her. Words would unnerve him. Tactics could unhinge him.
“That sword’s main strength is in one’s opponent not seeing it until it’s too late.” Her voice quavered when she spoke. Did he hear her fear?
Aaron’s eyes narrowed. “Lofty words for one so young.”
“I am the child of Caleb. I trained in Torrmede. I’m Pilgrennon’s blood and Blake’s direct descendant.” If she could remain calm while intimidating or angering him, it would make things easier for her. An irrational mind does not fight rationally.
“Jananin Blake was the Antichrist! Lucifer’s daughter! And Torrmede is on another world!” He raised the sword and Verity brought up her arm, blocking the blade with the bracer protecting her forearm as it came down. She twisted toward him, using the motion of her shoulders to launch a punch into his chin, dislodging his helmet and exposing his throat. He reeled back and Verity sensed a tremor through the ground, a shadow over her. His horse reared, hoofs kicking out for her. She grabbed his armor at the collar and spun on her heel, interposing his body between herself and the horse. It swerved too late, and its hoof struck him in the chest with a crack of ribs. Verity hurled him to the ground, landing with her knee on his diaphragm. She drew her wakizashi from under her right arm and pressed its edge against his neck. Her thumb dug into the tendons of his wrist as she fumbled at the fastening of his gauntlet until he cried out and dropped the katana.
She punched him in the jaw so his helmet fell off and she could see his shameful face. Tears welled in his eyes and his skin was a bloodless white. Vapor left his nostrils in short, rapid breaths. Verity put her thumb to the neural shunt in his forehead, disconnecting him from his horse.
Verity’s knees trembled as she got up from him. She took a deep breath and said, “Iaido means ‘the way of drawing the sword,’ not ‘the way of parading about waving a sword.’ Now put your hands together!”
“If I don’t succeed here today, someone else will finish the job for me.” John Aaron snarled, but he lifted his hands weakly and clasped them, fingers interlocked. Verity picked up her katana and tried to wipe it on her cloak, but the blood had frozen to the blade. She re-sheathed it, making a mental note that she needed to take it out and clean it before the stain had time to thaw. There was a climbing rope in the gear bag behind her saddle, so she used it to tie Aaron’s hands together.
Verity picked up her helmet and searched for the spy’s head, sighting it some distance away, hair splayed out on the ground. She ran to it in great leaping strides. The cheek had frozen to the ice and left a graze on the skin when she pulled it up. Already the eyes had become glazed and vacant, lids drooping. He would have lost consciousness probably seconds after his head hit the ice. For how long could a brain be subjected to ischaemia before permanent damage started to occur? She remembered learning something like that in Torrmede. It seemed a long time gone. Verity put the question to the base’s ANT, through its radio mast somewhere behind the ice spire. It retrieved the data from its banks almost immediately: four minutes maximum, assuming optimum reperfusion.
Arrays of Neuro Technology could get information for her, or run probability calculations, but they couldn’t make decisions. She would have to choose what was best. Killing him had not been an ideal contingency, but running through what had happened again as she strode back to John Aaron, she still saw no alternative. She’d told him to stop, twice. He’d reached for a weapon. It had been her or him.
Aaron whimpered like a six-year-old when she grabbed him by the neck of his cloak and ripped through the fabric of it with her wakizashi. Turning to a stand of ice spikes, she raised her knee to her chest and brought her heel down hard into the heart of the formation, smashing it. She gathered the shards into the cloak, placed the head in the center, and folded the cloth around it to form an ice pack. Incorrect freezing damaged cells, but she hoped the ice would only chill the brain, with bone and skin insulating it.
Her horse stood with its right front hoof lifted slightly. Aaron’s horse was uninjured and would be faster. Verity synced herself to it. She put the cloak with the man’s head in it in the bag behind the saddle. Now she had a problem. Leading the injured horse back with John Aaron on it would slow her. She needed to get the spy’s head back to the base as fast as possible. Leaving the horse here in a sweat where it would freeze to death would be irresponsible, and she couldn’t abandon Aaron to the same fate, even if his actions made him a criminal.
“Stand up and come over here!” Verity moved to the injured horse and reached across to take hold of its bridle.
Aaron’s mouth distorted with pain as he struggled to his feet, a tear dribbling from his eye and freezing as it tracked down his face.
He