Born of Silence (79 page)

He wasn’t with the Sentella. Her heart sank as she saw the burgundy battlesuit with foreign markings she couldn’t identify.

Unable to fight him, she prayed this was an ally and not another enemy out to do more damage to her and Ture.

Bleeding profusely from several wounds, he froze the instant he caught sight of her. Then he spoke in a language she didn’t recognize.

Although… there was something vaguely familiar about it.

Where have I heard it before?

More blasts ricocheted in the hallway behind him.

In one smooth, impressive move, the soldier hit the floor, slid on his knees and spun around to shoot the three League guards who ran in behind him. He rolled over and came to a stop by her side.

“Zarya?”

Tears filled her eyes as she recognized that deep voice. “Maris?”

He nodded. “Can you walk?”

Before she could respond, the room was invaded by even more League soldiers.

Darling heard the mayday from Maris, but he couldn’t get to the room where they had Maris pinned down. There were League soldiers everywhere now. All of them shooting.

Were they cloning the bastards in a back room somewhere?

Instead of their numbers decreasing, they seemed to be multiplying by the heartbeat. Like some mythic beast. Kill one and two emerged to take his place.

“Mari?” he called, needing to know his friend hadn’t gone down.

No answer.

Darling checked for Maris’s vitals on his bio scanner.

There weren’t any. Nothing at all was registering. His heart stopped beating as cold panic consumed him. And his anger went to a place so fierce and foul that it screwed up his vision even more than the jerking did.

Letting out his battle cry, he charged the soldiers who had him cut off from Maris. All Darling could think about was getting to Mari before it was too late.

He flipped one assassin who came at him over his back and stabbed him through the throat. Turning, he took down another and then shot a third and a fourth.

As Darling came around the corner, he dropped a bead on the next target who was in the room where Maris had gone.

Then he froze in place.

No.

It couldn’t be.

Blinking, he tried to make sense of what he saw. To understand something that couldn’t be. Maris was in the room with a woman in his arms. A woman who wasn’t supposed to be here…

“Zarya?” Darling breathed as his knees went weak.

Maris nodded.

“Darling?” The sound of her voice brought tears to his eyes.

Still, he couldn’t fathom what he saw. Not until Maris handed her off to him. The warmth of her skin…

Her scent…

She was alive.

It wasn’t a dream. It was real and she was here. With him. Not dead. Not missing…

Alive.

Her face was badly bruised and her features pale, but it didn’t
matter to him. She’d never looked more beautiful than she did right now.

Tears fell down his cheeks as he clutched her tight.

“I knew you’d come for me,” she breathed, laying her hand against his helmet. “I knew it.”

“She never once lost faith in you.”

Darling looked past her to see the man Maris was now helping to stand upright. Like Zarya, he was filthy and bruised from repeated beatings.

The man licked his chapped lips before he spoke again. “I told her it wasn’t feasible. That you’d never find us, but she was right. She said you’d promised her that you would bust hell itself open to get to her. And that you never lied.” His legs buckled.

Maris caught him before he fell, then swept him up in his arms. “Don’t worry. I’ll get you to the medics as soon as I can,” Maris assured him.

Darling started to remove his helmet so that he could kiss her, but Zarya stopped him.

“They can’t know who you are, sweetie,” she whispered. “It would be an act of war for the Caronese governor to attack a League facility.”

She was right about that.

Still, with her in his arms, alive and breathing, nothing else mattered. Nothing at all. Everything around him faded until it was just the two of them.

He was so centered on absorbing every part of her that he forgot where he was, and what he was doing.

Something brought home an instant later when she reached down and grabbed his blaster, then shot over his shoulder. He turned to see a League soldier who’d had a clear shot at him. But for her, he’d have probably died just then.

Maris growled deep in his throat before he pulled back into the room. “They’re coming in fast and furious.” He set the man in his arms down.

Darling hated letting Zarya go, especially since he had her again. But he had no choice. Not if they were to make it out of here.

And he had no intention of dying today.

He set her on her feet, then swung around. “Let them bring it. You ready, Mari?”

“You know I hate fighting. But I think a little payback for my battlesuit might actually make me feel better for once.”

“I know it’ll do great things for me.” Darling pulled a fully charged blaster off his holster and exchanged it for the one she’d shot. “Stay behind us.”

Maris handed one to the man. “Do you know how to shoot?”

“Not straight… in more ways than one. But if I aim at their feet I can hopefully wound them until one of you finishes them off. And that way if I really miss, I won’t kill an ally. You’ll just limp a little.”

Maris laughed. “Thanks for the consideration. I’m Maris, by the way, and I should probably warn you that it didn’t go well for the last guy who wounded me.”

“I’m Ture.”

Darling tapped his link to call the others. “Hauk? You still evaccing civs?”

“Yeah. You pinned?”

“No. We’re coming out of the last cell. I just didn’t want you to shoot us by mistake. I know how caught up you get in a fight.”

Hauk hissed. “Why are you bitching about that again? I only shot once and it was an accident caused by your premature exploding problem. Had you not startled me while I was changing our charges, it wouldn’t have happened.”

“Anyway,” Darling said, ignoring his outburst, “there are four of us. Don’t fire.” He turned then to see Zarya’s face before he plowed into the thick of the hallway battle.

Zarya paused as she watched Maris and Darling open a hole for them through the thick enemy fire. Fearless and skilled, they moved in total synchrony.

While she’d known Darling was exceptional, she now realized why Maris got so offended whenever she questioned his abilities. He was an incredible fighter in his own right. No wonder he was decorated.

She and Ture stayed behind them with her giving cover fire as Maris and Darling led them down the hall, then up the stairs. The stench of burning wires turned her stomach. But it was much better than the stale air of her cell.

They’d barely reached the upstairs landing when the entire building went dark. Darling and Maris fell back to cover her and Ture.

“They’ve reestablished their connection,” Syn warned them through their headsets. “We need to tel-ass, folks, or we’re going to lose our posteriors.”

Darling swapped out his charges before they ran out of juice. “We’re on our way.”

As they rounded a corner, a group of assassins opened fire. Darling shielded her while Maris covered Ture. Making sure to keep himself between her and the volley, Darling returned their attack. “I could really use the tricom right now.”

“Sorry. It was broken when I was taken.”

“Figures.” Darling cleared the assassins, then nodded to Maris.

They started moving again.

Slowly, they made their way down the hall until they met up with Nemesis who was helping a large group of prisoners get to safety.

Zarya’s panic welled up inside her as she remembered what had happened the last time Nemesis had been in a room with her.

He’d tossed her to Jayne.

“Is everyone out?” Darling asked the legendary killer.

Nemesis nodded. “The last group is coming down behind you.”

Zarya gaped in disbelief. Even with the distortion added to disguise his voice, she recognized Nykyrian’s syntax and tone.

Now there was a billion credits worth of knowledge. His was the most guarded identity of any Sentella member.

Now she understood why.

Just as her group joined theirs and she saw some of the people who’d been kidnapped with her, the walls around them flickered.

Kyr’s face flashed, then enlarged to the size of the walls that worked as a transmission monitor.

Talk about creepy. She felt like she’d stumbled into a horror story.

And Kyr was furious over the attack. “Do you know who I am?”

Nykyrian snorted derisively. “We know. We just don’t give a shit.”

Curling his lip, Kyr raked him with a repugnant glare. “You have breached the sanctity of one of our prisons. Have you any idea the sentence you’ve brought down on your heads?”

Now it was Darling’s turn to scoff. “Add it to the other twelve dozen death sentences we carry.”

A tic started in Kyr’s jaw. “I don’t think you truly understand the magnitude of what you’re doing. Return my prisoners to their cells or—”

“Fuck. You,” Darling snarled, punctuating each word.

Kyr’s nostrils flared while he did an amazing job of keeping his temper under control. “Those prisoners do not belong to you. They are League property. You have absolutely no right to them.”

Before anyone realized what he was doing, Darling snatched his helmet off and threw it to the ground so hard, it bounced three feet high.

Kyr held the same shocked expression Zarya was pretty sure they all held. Every gerent and Resistance worker around her was rendered speechless and spellbound by Kere’s real identity.

Fearless, Darling went straight up to the wall on the right and leveled a killing glare at Kyr. “The hell you say. They are
my
people, not yours. You sent your army into
my
territory and took not just my citizens, but
my
consort. How dare
you
!”

Kyr gave Zarya a look that said she hadn’t bathed in a month or more. “She’s
not
your consort.”

Darling shook his head in denial. “She wears my ring and was officially bound to me when we were children—something sanctified and approved by
your
predecessor.”

Zarya gasped at his unexpected disclosure. Was any of that true? She was desperate to know, but didn’t dare interrupt them.

“By all laws,” Darling continued, “she is my consort. And five minutes after I get her home, she will officially be my wife.”

Kyr arched a daring brow. “So you’re declaring war on us, then.”

Zarya inwardly cringed as she realized what Darling had done.

For her.

The moment he’d yanked his helmet off and allowed Kyr to know Kere’s identity, he’d legally declared war on the League.

Now, there was no going back.

But Darling was nothing, if not a brilliant politician. “Interesting concept. I would say that
you
declared it on us when you marched your army into our empire and destroyed our property, then kidnapped our citizens. And now we’re answering it. No one seizes my people. I don’t care who you
think
you are.”

“We were invited in by your own council who wanted you removed from power.”

“Were you?” Darling asked with a hint of laughter in his voice. “That’s not what I heard. In fact, I have the entire CDS who will swear they never asked for you to intervene. That you took it upon yourself to attack us.”

“Do you really think they’ll back you over me?”

Darling grinned evilly. “Since they declared me emperor, yeah, I do.”

“You have no idea what you’re unleashing right now, verikon.”

Zarya wasn’t sure what that word meant, or the language it belonged to, but from Darling’s reaction, it was obvious he knew it well.

“And neither do you, ciratile. You
ever
try this shit again with me and mine, and I will rape and plunder the village, and burn the motherfucker to the ground…” He looked around at the bodies on the floor. “And as you’ve seen here today, there ain’t nothing you bitches can do to stop me. Talk is cheap. Pain is free. And I’m peddling the shit out of it. So you come on and get some.”

Kyr laughed as if he relished the thought. “War it is. Good luck,
Emperor
.” He sneered that title. “No one will
ever
support you in this. You’re about to find out what happens to nations that fight alone.”

Nykyrian jerked his helmet off and moved to stand beside Darling. “You would be wrong there, Zemen. Not only does he have the full backing of Nemesis and the Sentella, he has that of my people. From
both
sides. Human
and
Andarion.”

“And you can add mine to it, too,” Caillen said as he exposed his face. “The Exeterians fear nothing, and I’m pretty sure the Qillaqs will back us, too. After all, they love a good fight. The bigger, the bloodier, the better.”