Chapter 36 - Two Kings, One Crown of Ashes
"They're in the lower drive shaft corridor!" a voice barked through the catwalks. "Corridor 4-B! Seal the bulkheads!"
Daniel stood up, his face hardening into granite. He picked up his rifle, checking the remaining magazine. Eleven rounds.
He looked at the narrow ventilation shaft near the ceiling of the transformer room. It was barely wide enough for a three-year-old child to crawl through, but it led upward toward the communication decks.
"Lily, I need you to be braver than you've ever been," Daniel said, lifting her toward the vent opening. He pulled the steel grate off with a wrenching screech of tearing bolts. "Crawl inside. Do not make a sound. Do not come out until you hear my voice, or until someone with a badge and a gun that isn't black comes for you. Do you hear me?"
"Daddy, don't leave me!" she whimpered, clinging to the edge of the vent.
"I'm not leaving you, baby. I'm going to finish this," he said softly. He kissed her forehead, then pushed her gently into the darkness of the shaft and slammed the heavy grate back into place.
He turned toward the corridor.
Three operatives rounded the corner, their assault rifles raised.
Daniel didn't wait for them to acquire their targets. He charged forward, firing two rounds into the chest plate of the lead soldier, closing the distance in three massive strides. He slammed the dying man into the second operative, driving both of them against the churning drive shaft below the railing. With a brutal sweep of his leg, he sent the third soldier over the edge, plunging forty feet into the spinning machinery below.
He picked up a dropped tactical radio from the floor and pressed the transmission button.
"Prime," Daniel said into the mic, his voice dropping to a gravelly, lethal whisper.
Static crackled on the channel, followed by Daniel Prime’s cold, mocking laughter.
*"Still breathing, Seven? You are a resilient piece of hardware. I’ll give Claire credit for that. Her biological engineering was exquisite."*
"I’m coming for you," 7 said.
*"You don't even know where I am, prototype. And even if you did, what are you going to do? You are a reflection in a mirror. You are a shadow. The moment you kill me, the neural tether between us severs. Your synthetic brain was keyed to my biometric signature. If my heart stops, your neural mesh burns out within three minutes. Did Claire forget to tell you that?"*
Daniel paused. The radio was silent, save for the hum of the ship’s engines.
"She didn't forget," Daniel replied, a grim smile touching the corners of his bloody lips. "She just knew that three minutes would be more than enough time to watch you die."
He crushed the radio beneath his heel.
He looked at the ship's schematics stenciled on the emergency bulkhead. The primary operations bridge was located on Deck One, directly above the central command nexus. But to get there, he wouldn't use the stairs.
He grabbed an emergency fire ax from the wall rack, smashed the glass casing of the central fuel supply line for the auxiliary generators, and pulled out his flare gun.
May you like
If he was going to take the devil down, he was going to turn his kingdom into ash first.
***
