Chelen City: Chapter Twenty-One, Part One

 Notes: Sweet resolution...kind of. The start of it. Breathe, my darlins, it's all right.

Title: Chelen City: Chapter Twenty-One, Part One

***

Chapter Twenty-One, Part One

 

It could be worse. That was what Elanus kept telling himself as he laid Kieron down on the floor and immediately hooked him up to Lizzie’s autodoc. It started flashing all sorts of warning lights and spouting prescriptions and actions, all of which Elanus immediately approved.

It could be worse, he thought as he watched Regen flow down tubes into Kieron’s body, where the doc had quickly placed needles to ready him for emergency treatment. It could be worse, he thought as pure oxygen laced with a sedative to keep him asleep began pumping through the mask over Kieron’s face. Intubation would be even better, but the doc wasn’t advanced enough for that and Elanus didn’t want to try it when the risk of hurting Kieron was so high. They were close to real medical facilities—as long as Kieron could still breathe, he’d be all right for now.

It could be worse. Elanus knew that because he’d seen Kieron worse, seen him after radiation had all but liquified him, seen him with sloughing skin and a swollen brain and with massive organ failure that could barely be counteracted in time. This? By comparison, this was imminently survivable. Already some of his vitals were stabilizing, although the autodoc was still giving dire warnings. “Immediate advanced treatment required. Do not delay. Immediate advanced treatment required. Do not delay. Immediate—”

“Shut that off, Lizzie,” Elanus snapped, and she did so.

“Is Kee going to be okay?” she asked quietly into the ringing silence, only broken by the sound of Kieron’s lungs slowly sucking in the relentless oxygen.

“Yeah, honey, but we have to get back to Chelen City right now. You can fly us there, right?” Because Elanus wasn’t going to leave Kieron’s side. He might be unconscious now, but who knew what this idiot might get up to if Elanus wasn’t here to stop him? Blowing up the side of the Stellar Cabinet and hurtling himself into space, what the hell was he thinking?

He wasn’t thinking!

“What about the other person, Elanus?”

“What other person?” he asked distractedly as he adjusted the Regen lines so that they didn’t pull so much at Kieron’s limbs. A little red-tinged pool of the stuff was already gathering on the floor, but Elanus didn’t care about that. There was no such thing as waste when it came to keeping Kieron alive. Stars, his poor face…

“The one in the EV suit.”

Elanus’s head whipped around so hard his neck hurt. “What?”

“Numerous people were ejected into space during the implosion, but the only other one who survived is wearing an EV suit. They’re currently moving away from the station at a speed of two hundred and twenty-six kilometers per—”

“I get it, I get it.” Shit. If this was one of the assassins, they could keep sailing into nowhere as far as Elanus was concerned, but if it was Restaria… “Do you have a visual?”

“Yes, Elanus.” Lizzie projected an image of the person on her front screen. They were hurtling end over end, their EV suit trailing a thin line of gas—they wouldn’t be alive for long. “Zoom in.” Lizzie did so. “Focus and find a still of their face.” She complied once more, and—

Yep, that was Restaria. Xe appeared to be unconscious, which was probably a blessing for xir. It made Elanus want to grab xir and shake xir until xe woke up and told him exactly why the fuck this had happened, and what xe wanted him to do about it, because that much was clear. Kieron was nothing but a lure to xir, a magnificent lure with just the right skillset to buy xir some time.

Never mind. Let xir rot in space.

“Kieron?” Lizzie sounded tentative. “Should I go and get them? Only, their life signs are starting to decrease…”

Damn it to the stars and back. “Fine,” Elanus gritted out after a second. “Use the hook to reel xir in and pull xir into the cargo bay. Pressurize it so that xe can breathe and keep monitoring xir life signs, but unless Restaria is on the brink of death, I don’t want to so much as look at xir until Kieron is taken care of.”

Lizzie didn’t say anything else, just gave a satisfied hum and started away from the Stellar Cabinet. Elanus stared at the ruin in the side of Restaria’s quarters as they began to turn, shards and debris flickering past them, and contemplated how it would feel to get rid of the entire damn thing.

Wow. Contemplating an act that would undoubtedly lead to civil war wasn’t exactly what he thought he’d find himself doing today, but some days were like that. Elanus turned away from those thoughts; that was for later. For now, all he wanted to do was take care of Kieron.

“You’re terrible,” he whispered, holding onto Kieron’s one relatively-good hand with both of his. “The worst fiancé ever, I can’t believe I want to marry you so bad. Are you going to do this every year? Find some new way to vaporize yourself? Because I have to tell you, babe, I don’t know if my heart is going to be able to take that. Let’s make this the last time, okay?” He heard Lizzie’s hook deploy, was vaguely aware of the process of bringing Restaria into the ship, and nodded to acknowledge Lizzie’s confirmation that xir life signs were stabilizing.

Good. Good for xir. Restaria was going to need to be stable in order to withstand the firestorm that Elanus was about to rain down on xir.

“We’ll be home soon, Kee,” Lizzie said, her voice a croon. It made the floor rumble comfortingly, a gentle vibration to let her really feel her father’s weight. “Don’t worry. We’ll take care of you.”

“Are you okay, Lizzie?” Elanus asked, still not looking away from Kieron.

“I am now.”

Yeah. Me too.

Chelen City: Interlude 6: Kieron

 Notes: SO! Please be aware this is a chapter with lots of violence and lots of pain. I'm mean to Kieron in this chapter, but you know me! Trust that I'll make it better in the end :)

Title: Chelen City: Interlude 6: Kieron

***

Interlude 6: Kieron

 

By the time the first person dropped down out of the ventilation in the bedroom, Kieron was more than ready for them. He was done with waiting, done with this sick, stupid game, done with everything except keeping himself—and, reluctantly, Restaria—alive long enough for Elanus to get to them.

No communication? No problem.

Assassins closing in? Survivable.

Having to face disappointing his family with his death? Kieron would do absolutely anything to prevent that, up to and including pushing Restaria in front of a bullet. Xe hadn’t done anything to lay a claim on Kieron’s faithfulness other than ensure he had the means of protecting them. Luckily for xir, xe also knew to stay out of the fucking way.

A quick baton strike to the legs as the assassin fell out of the vent broke the one on the right and ruined their landing, at which point Kieron followed up with the knife up and under the skinsuit of armor they were wearing and into their throat. He stirred the blade, the bet he could do when he couldn’t cut laterally to finish the kill, then left the bastard on the ground to choke to death on their own blood. One trembling hand reached for a blinking device on their belt—ha, not today, motherfucker. Kieron brought the knife down in a hard chopping motion and was pleased to find out that the armor around the wrists wasn’t nearly as good as the stuff protecting the throat.

He took off the other hand too, just in case. It killed off the fucker faster, but Kieron needed to move on by that point anyhow. He’d left Restaria with the darts, and from the sound of things in the living room they’d been useful already.

Kieron slid along the wet, freezing floor to where he’d left the politician behind a couch, crouching down to minimize the chances that he’d fall. This was one of those times when being shorter than a Ganian came in handy—two of them were on the floor, flailing as they tried to get up. A third was still, one of the darts sticking out of their eye socket.

Nice targeting. That ought to numb up their brains nicely. As for the others…

Kieron skidded forward, smashing one hard in the helmet with the baton. It had a tip that could penetrate the best armor if it hit it in just the right way, and Kieron was damn good at angles. He broke the faceplate right off, and the assassin turned over and stared up at him with big, fearful eyes.

“Wait!” she cried out—a woman, huh. “Please, just let me—” He hit her between those big, gleaming eyes and sent bone shards up and into her brain.

Nope. No listening. No explanations. No chances to make things right. One assassin might be someone you could negotiate with, but a whole pack of them working in concert? That was a problem that could only be extinguished with extreme prejudice.

The person beside her pulled a gun and, after a little fumbling, got it aimed at Kieron, who had just enough time to hoist the body of the person he’d just killed up between them so her armor could absorb the shots instead. They hit again and again, until the armor was perforated and chunks of body were coming out the hole, and yet the guy didn’t stop.

So Kieron stopped him by throwing the body on top of him. The assassin tried to push her aside, but Kieron followed up by breaking every bone in his left foot with the baton. He screamed, high-pitched and tinny through the helmet, then shrieked when Kieron used the baton to make strategic holes in the thigh and abdomen of his suit. One, two, three…stab stab stab. In and stir, always stir. Stabs inconvenience, slices stop. It didn’t feel good to murder the man, but in all honesty there was something satisfying about it. It had been a very, very long time since Kieron had had to deal with someone in such a hands-on way, and he couldn’t say he minded it under the circumstances.

“Four more coming in fast,” Restaria called out from behind the couch. Xir implant was cut off from scanning the overall building, but xe had built extra failsafes into ensuring xe could use it in xir own quarters. “One of them is moving in a manner that makes me think they’re carrying something large.”

Large…what could it be? Maybe a gas bottle of some kind, something to poison them or put them to sleep. Then again, circumstances had already shown that they were willing to do serious structural damage, if the blinking device on the first killer’s belt really was the microgrenade it looked like.

Shit. Kieron hoped Elanus got here soon. If these people were willing to blow up this part of the Cabinet, then there wasn’t going to be a good way to stop them. He and Restaria were confined—they wouldn’t get far trying to go out the way the bathroom person had come in.

Actually…Kieron darted back to the bathroom to grab a few things off the body, then came to hunker down next to Restaria.

Xe made a face when xe saw what he was carrying with him. “Whatever do you plan on doing with that?”

“It depends on what they’re attacking with,” Kieron said. “If they’re trying to gas us out, then it’s a projectile meant for them. If they’re trying to blow us up, then it’s a counter-strike.” He glanced out the window behind them—nothing yet. Come soon, come soon… “Close up your EV suit just in case.”

Restaria gave him a glare. “You think there’s the slightest hope I’d live long enough to see another day if I survived space and you didn’t? Elanus would have my head.” Xe became apologetic quickly enough, though. “I’m…sorry I didn’t think to secure a suit for you. That was short-sighted on my part.”

“It was,” Kieron agreed. “I could have gotten us out of this fucking mess a lot sooner if both of us could spacewalk.”

“They’d just come after us out there.”

He sighed. “You know who else can come after us out there? Elanus. You know who’s not going to risk firing on the Stellar Cabinet when he might his us instead of an enemy? Also Elanus.” An EV suit would have been great, but…to be fair, Kieron hadn’t thought to bring one along either. Not that he was as much to blame as the piece of work sitting next to him, but—

“All you have to do is give us the vice president!” a voice called out from the corridor ahead of them. The doors had been opened by the first two, and these ones were being cautious in turn. “We’ve got no interest in anyone else here.”

“Would have been nice if you’d led with that instead of leading with a weapon,” Kieron called back. “Bombs don’t discriminate when it comes to going off.”

“Our apologies.” The man didn’t sound particularly apologetic, to Kieron’s mind. “We promise, we’re not going to do you any damage unless you force the issue. Just step away from the vice-president and let us finish our contract.”

“Or what, you’ll gas me unconscious?” There was a moment of silence. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. Mkay. The answer is no, but—”

“You fucker! You killed Emily!” One of the four broke away through the door, a long, curving blade visible in their hand. “Come out and fight me!” he screamed, ripping his helmet off and throwing it aside. “Fight me like a fucking man!”

“Get back out here!” the original speaker snapped, but this guy was too far gone.

“Darts,” Kieron whispered to Restaria, but xe shook xir head. Out…damn it. And if they used the explosive device now, they’d open themselves up to a greater attack via the gas later. “Fuck. Fine.” He pointed at the stuff he’d brought from the bathroom. “Throw that when I say so, you got it?”

“I—yes, fine, but—”

Kieron leapt over the edge of the couch before xe could finish, baton whirling into full extension. It wasn’t a sword, but he didn’t need it to be. He just needed to get the right hit on this guy.

Easier said than done. The man was a shitty assassin but a damn good swordsman, and the baton was made of a malleable metal except at the very tip. It wasn’t going to last long against direct blows.

Kieron managed to punch a few holes in the guy’s armor with the baton, but he took several cuts from the sword, one bad enough to let him know he wasn’t going to be able to use his left arm for much. Blood poured from the wound, and the man stared at him with a fierce, crazed look on his face. “I’ll take you apart piece by piece,” he snarled.

“Get him over by the door, Fell!”

“Fuck off! I’m going to—”

Kieron dropped the baton, pulled his knife, and threw it all in one smooth motion. The blade turned end-over-end and managed to hit the guy right in the mouth. Unfortunately, it hit with the hilt of the blade, rather than the point, but it was enough to make the fucker choke. He darted forward, jerked it out—pulling several broken teeth along with it, and then reversed the blade and drove it straight up through the man’s soft palate and into his brain.

Stir. Stir. Stir.

“Gas now, gas now!” the original speaker shouted. Kieron could run at them, but he didn’t know how the others were armed, and he was losing a lot of blood quickly. He needed to end this before they were too late. He glanced back at the window with a sense of resignation, and saw…

A speck of light heading toward them. Just a speck now, but he would know that light anywhere.

Lizzie!

He grabbed the baton again, then skidded back around the edge of the couch. “Throw it,” he croaked, and Restaria did so. Xe connected the severed hand to the detonator on the grenade at the last second, and as it flew the beeping sound increased, then—

BAM! Lightsoundheatpain as the couch disintegrated, as the two of them were thrown against the glass, as the fire from the grenade boiled out into the hallway and made the three surviving assassins scream. That heat hit him hard, sucking the air from his lungs and searing the tender skin of his face. Kieron closed his eyelids, but it wasn’t enough. He couldn’t see. He couldn’t see but he knew Lizzie was coming, and Elanus was coming, and they had to go to them if they were going to survive.

Using all the strength he had left, Kieron slammed the baton back into the glass. He hit again, and again, and the glass cracked and cracked and then it shattered, it shattered and they were sucked out into space where it was cold, no hot, no—

And then space caught him tumbling, and warm arms brought him home.

Chelen City: Chapter Twenty, Part Two

 Notes: And we're off, into spaaaaaace! Time to send up the cavalry and see if Kieron actually needs them. ;)

Title: Chelen City: Chapter Twenty, Part Two

***

Chapter Twenty, Part Two

 

There were some good things about knowing that someone was trying to assassinate the vice president of Gania. Firstly, absolutely no one in a position of power, up to and including President Moreno, was going to interfere with anything happening on the Stellar Cabinet. They couldn’t afford to be traced; bad enough that the Cabinet’s ability to communicate with the planet was being blocked by someone in Chelen City—someone who Elanus had set Catie to tracking down.

Assassination was an accepted form of social maneuvering, yes, but assassinating a politician you disagreed with? That was just crass, and a surefire way to provoke chaos. The people who ran Gania didn’t want chaos—that interfered with profits. They were pouring everything they could into this attempt, but if it failed they would go into face-saving mode quickly.

Secondly, and as a direct result of the first point, Lizzie’s stealth skin was in all likelihood going to be more than enough to get the two of them into the Cabinet’s orbit. All the extra sensors and alarms and security measures that Elanus would normally have worried about, none of them were going to apply. The Stellar Cabinet had been left blind and dumb, rendered helpless so that a very high profile target could be removed. Whoever had the power to set this up, they wanted to make sure Restaria died. That meant no stumbling blocks in the way of their killers.

They should have engineered an accident on the Cabinet itself. That’s what Elanus would have done—caused a computer malfunction or a system overload that led to some sort of grand tragedy. He could understand why whoever was behind this hadn’t gone that route, though—they wanted Restaria dead, but they didn’t want to have to sacrifice their incredibly expensive space hotel to get xir that way. So instead, they’d taken the traditional route, with human assassins. And Restaria had countered with…

Kieron.

How did xe know he’d be capable of defending xir long enough for me to get there? It was a big risk for someone who didn’t know Kieron the way Elanus did. Restaria had to be getting inside information on him from someone.

His mind went to Ms. Farraday, Kieron’s therapist, first. But she’d been the one to alert them about the problem…she could have stayed silent a little longer, or send a written message, not actually called. So then who…ah. Ah. Fuck.

Well, those problems could wait to be solved until Kieron was safe again. Which would be really fucking soon, if Elanus had anything to say about it. “Bring the engines up slowly,” he reminded Lizzie as the bay doors swung open. “No more than twenty-five percent per minute, or we’ll burn too fast and it’ll take longer to break atmosphere.”

“Yes, Elanus.”

“Thank you. Catie, is the dummy flight plan logged?”

“Yes, Daddeeee,” she said. “You’re going to do maaaaintenance on a satelliiiiite.”

“And you provided me with the perfect cover, you smart girl.” She really had knocked some of those satellites for a loop. The malfunctions were wreaking havoc in certain sectors, and Elanus had promised to take care of the ones close to his own hardware.

And he would. Just…not right now.

“We need to go,” Lizzie said fretfully. “I left a message for Xilinn and Pol, they won’t worry.”

“They can check in with Catie if they do,” Elanus said. “All right, let’s go.” He sat back in the pilot’s seat and watched his girl rev up, skating near the line he’d laid for her but not quite going over it. They lifted off and slid out into the night with barely a trail left behind, and then it was up and through the layers of clouds and activating passwords and keycodes to get them through the layers of red tape involved in breaking atmosphere from outside a formal space dock, and then finally…

Elanus felt the weight of the world momentarily drift off his shoulders as they entered space. For a second all he saw was black, with distant stars too far away to worry or trifle with, and it was a beautiful thing. Then reality reasserted itself as Lizzie turned to get on course with the Stellar Cabinet, which was currently several hundred thousand kilometers away.

“Watch the approach,” Elanus murmured. “We don’t want to disrupt your skin. Did you leave the decoy in place?”

“Yes, Elanus.”

“Good girl.” The decoy was a small device that took up more space virtually than physically, which would mock their presence in the sky where he’d confirmed they’d be for up to four hours. “Catie, what are the scans of the Cabinet showing? Any change in life signs?”

“No, Daddeeee. There are changes in temperature, though.”

“Talk to me.”

“The cabin where Kieron and Vice President Sanclaaaaare are locaaaated is getting very, very cold.”

Ah. Someone’s hacked the environmental controls. “How cold?”

“As much as ten degrees below freeeeeeeezing.”

“Kee will be cold,” Lizzie said, and her power indicators surged as she sped up.

“Not so fast,” Elanus warned her. “We can’t afford to give our approach away.”

“Kee needs us.”

Elanus bit back a sigh of frustration. “He needs us to be whole and stealthy and ready to help, not fighting off drones deployed to take out intruders because we couldn’t keep ourselves under the radar, baby. Please, I’m begging you, tone it back. I’m doing everything in my power to make sure we don’t risk Kieron, all right? He’s tough. He can handle himself a little longer.”

There was a moment of silence, and then Lizzie applied thrust in the opposite direction and slowed them back down to a moderate pace. “I apologize,” she murmured.

“It’s all right. I know you mean well.” She was a good girl, and Elanus was going to make sure Kieron knew all about it when they got him back. “What’s our ETA?”

“Seven minutes and two seconds.”

“Catie, can you send us a visual of the imaging you’ve got of Restaria’s cabin?”

“Yes, Daddeeee.” She sounded a little puzzled. “It’s verrrrry strange, but I think somehow the cabin has sprung a leak.”

“A…leak?”

“Yes, Daddeeeee. There’s water pouring all over the floor. Its source is inside the cabin, though, in a dedicaaaaated bathroom. It isn’t coming from outsider interfeeeeerence.”

“Then Kieron is the one behind it.” And given how fucking cold it must have gotten during the winter season at Hadrian’s Colony, Elanus was pretty sure he knew why. “I need that visual, sweetheart.”

“Here, Daddeeeee.” A colorful expanse popped up on Lizzie’s viewscreen, and it only took Elanus a few seconds to pick out Kieron and Restaria.

Yep. He was the one adding water to the situation.

Oh, the people coming after him didn’t even know how screwed they were yet.

Hang in there for us, babe. We’re close.