King Killer Page 7

  “Alright,” I said. “I have a plan, but we need to talk with Madalena. We aren’t going to be able to do any of our three objectives without her help. Get it?”

  My friends nodded, and I reached up to my transponder so that I could communicate with the Prime Valkyrie.

  Chapter 4

  “Madalena, we are in a safe spot. How are things on Persephone?”

  There was silence, and my stomach started to knot. Zea was standing up from the couch so that she could go use the twin’s terminal and she froze with her long leg draped over the armrest.

  “Madalena?” I asked after another ten seconds of silence.

  “We are under fire,” the Prime Valkyrie replied calmly, and I could hear the sounds of bullets in the distance. “They sent thirty-two, we have killed all but four.” There was another spray of what sounded like pulse-rifle fire, and then I heard a distant scream. “The last four are eliminated.”

  “Good,” I said as my stomach began to unknot. The beautiful women on the couch let out a collective sigh, and then Zea slid off the armrest and moved over to the terminal at the back of the room.

  “We are trying to come up with a plan and need your input,” I said into the transponder.

  “I will help, of course, but can I come meet you?” Madalena’s voice was still emotionless, but I knew her heart contained unbridled passion and love for me.

  “Perhaps,” I said. “There are roughly eight-hundred Black Heart mercenaries on Queen’s Hat. They want to capture Persephone, Eve, and me. They have taken over a few of the police stations, and most of the citizens in Queen’s Hat don’t know what is going on. Juliette is probably in a cell here in her station. I want to rescue her, take out all these Black Heart mercenaries, and ensure Persephone is not taken from us.”

  “Persephone is secure,” Madalena said. “You do not need to worry about her.”

  “She is secure because you and your warriors are there. That is why I am hesitant to pull you from the position.” I glanced over to Zea and saw her plug her skull into the terminal.

  “I can come to you alone,” Madalena countered. “The rest of your crew here can defend Persephone.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “Zea is hacking into Queen’s Hat right now. She is going to try and break into the station’s systems.”

  “I’m already in,” Zea said. “It was easier than I thought.”

  “Fuck yeah!” Paula shouted. “I knew you could do it, Zea.”

  “Awww, thanks.” The hacker smiled at the engineer, and then she looked at me. “What do you want me to try first?”

  “We need to get eyes inside of Juliette’s station,” I said. “We also need to get visuals on the streets in District B so we can track the mercenaries. Lastly, we have to get Persephone out of her dock in harbor E and try to move her into Harbor B so she is closer to us.”

  “Uhh. That’s a lot of shit,” Zea said with a frown.

  “Good thing you are the best hacker alive.” I winked at her.

  “Yeah. Good thing.” Zea laughed. “Let me get on it. I think it will be easier to get into the street systems first, then the police station. I’ll have to do some crazy shit in the harbor’s systems to get Persephone authorized to move.”

  “What do you need us to do?” Paula asked as she gestured to Kasta and Eve. The dark-haired woman sat on the couch between the twins, and I felt my mouth water while my eyes roamed over their skin-tight suits. I suddenly imagined peeling the outfits off the three of them and running my tongue over their bodies. Damn, what was wrong with me? This was not the time to get horny. We had shit to do.

  “Can you control any of the drones on Persephone from here? How about when she is docked in Harbor B?”

  “I can use the Elaka Nota spider drones from here,” Kasta said as she tapped her temple. “I set up the interface. I can’t use the knights, Arthur or Kay, because I haven’t added the control visors to my interface. However, if someone could bring us the controls, we could use them from here.”

  “We have two of the spider drones, can you control both of them?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Kasta said after a bit of hesitation, “but maintaining two of them across that distance along with my scouts will be hard. I think one would be better.”

  “You can’t just drive one of those spider drones from District E to District B,” Paula said. “It’s obviously a military robot, and people would freak out.”

  “Or they will think it is part of Queen Hat’s security arsenal,” Kasta said with a shrug. “People might not care.”

  “These mercenaries will know for sure, and they’ll figure out what we are up to,” Paula argued.

  “I agree with Paula,” I said. “If Zea can hack their systems and get Persephone to dock in Harbor B, we can use the drones much easier.”

  “I can come to you and bring the controls for the two knight drones,” Madalena suggested. “I can also bring your weapons.”

  “The security guard will see you enter with weapons,” Paula said.

  “They just saw a battle between the Black Hearts and us,” Madalena said.

  “Yeah,” Zea interrupted from her spot at the terminal. “There is a station wide alert now. I’m actually seeing some hackers from Black Heart trying to squelch the alarm so the other stations don’t know anything is going on. This is actually really damn good for us.”

  “How is it good?” I asked as we all turned toward Zea.

  “Looks like their hackers are focused on this. Do we want the other security stations to know what is going on? I could just let them squash it, but while they are doing that, I can sneak in. They might not notice, and I might even be able to plant a virus that kicks them out.”

  “Yeah,” I said after I weighed the options for a few moments. “Do that. Then we’ll have the only eyes in the system.”

  “Maybe,” the hacker replied. “They’ll try to get back in, I’ll encrypt all the codes, but it will just be a matter of time. I’m juggling four tasks right now. It’s a good thing I’m so damn awesome at this.”

  “Yeah, you are,” I said. She was facing away from me, but I saw her lips curve up into a happy smile.

  “We have strayed from my earlier suggestion,” Madalena said. “I can bring your weapons and the drone controls for the knights.”

  “Let me get you approved to dock in Harbor B, then your trip will be shorter,” Zea called out.

  “How long will that take?” the Prime Valkyrie asked. “Earlier you said it would be the hardest task.”

  “Yeah, and I need to do the other stuff first.”

  “What if you cannot do it?” Madalena asked. “We would have wasted time.”

  “Ummm. I can hack the harbor, but if I couldn’t hack the harbor, it would mean that having the drone controls won’t matter because it will take forever for Arthur and Kay to get here from District E. So you need to wait for me to hack the harbor so you can move Persephone.” Zea’s voice sounded a bit annoyed.

  “We don’t need to wait that long,” I said. “Madalena, how is the security door leading out of the tube? Is it closed?”

  “No, we blew it open.”

  “Alright. I don’t want to leave Persephone defenseless, but we are going to need an extra gun here. I want you to come, bring the controls for the knights and weapons that you can conceal, Zea, do you have eyes on the street yet? How about inside the station?”

  “Yes, and not yet,” the hacker said.

  “Can you check out Harbor E and let us know what Madalena is going to run into?”

  “Uhhh, yeah,” Zea said, and I was a bit surprised she didn’t sound annoyed by my request. Her fingers danced across the keys of the control terminal for half a minute, and then she grunted.

  “Most of the harbor looks evacuated, but I see a group of twelve Black Heart assholes heading in Persephone’s direction. They are coming from the end of the harbor, so Madalena won’t be able to get to us unless she goes through them.”

  “
That will not be a problem,” the Prime Valkyrie said.

  “They are about two hundred meters to your left as you exit from Persephone’s dock,” Zea said. “Let me know when you are ready to go, and I’ll flip my attention back to you so I can help. I’m going to go back to hacking into Juliette’s system.”

  “Thank you for your assistance, but I do not need any more help,” Madalena said. “Return to your task. Adam, I will be with you shortly.” I heard my transponder beep, and Zea turned around to face me.

  “What a bitch! I was trying to help her!” the hacker growled.

  “I know,” I said. “It’s okay, just try to get into Juliette’s system. We need to know what we are up against there.”

  “Yeah. Fine.” Zea grunted and turned back to her terminal screen.

  “Kasta,” I said as I turned to the android. “How does it look outside?”

  “They are searching the streets,” she said, “but they don’t know where we are. The new batch of drones are approaching, but it looks like their flight path is avoiding the space above our building.”

  “That’s really bad,” Paula said.

  “What do you mean?” I asked. “Do they know we are here?”

  “I will guess that they are avoiding the building because they think there was some sort of private security on the roof, which is true. However, the longer they search and don’t find us, the closer they are to guessing we are hiding in here.”

  “Agreed,” said Kasta, but then she smiled. “I can let them fly over without shooting them down, that will probably confuse them. Might buy us more time.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Let me know if they try to fly over, then we can make the decision.”

  “Got it,” Kasta said.

  “I’m in Juliette’s security station’s systems!” Eve called out in a sing-song voice. “You all can see the camera’s on the screen here.”

  Eve, Paula, Kasta, and I stood from the couches and walked over to where Zea worked. There wasn’t a lot of screen space on the terminal, so we all had to crowd around behind Zea. The proximity to the women allowed me to inhale their scents, and I swallowed a few times to keep my composure. I was really aroused, and the animal in my stomach was demanding that I fuck all four of them immediately.

  “Here is the view from outside,” Zea said as a camera showed four men in black armor guarding the front door.

  “In the lobby,” she said, and the screen showed the familiar front room of Juliette’s station. There were three men behind the desk, and a fourth standing by the back room.

  “I’ll jump to the cells,” Zea said, and then we saw an image of the hallway Eve had once painted red with Nebula Gammon agent blood. The cells were filled with men and women wearing the familiar black police uniforms. Each cell must have held twenty or so officers, and four would have been a tight fit.

  “Shit, don’t these people have family?” Paula asked. “I’m surprised Black Heart was able to keep this so quiet.”

  “What would anyone do? Go to the station and say ‘Hey, where is my husband?’ The men at the front would turn them away. I’m sure there are a bunch of people talking about it, but they have to feel powerless.” Zea shook her head.

  “I do not see Juliette,” Eve said.

  “Me either,” Zea said. “Let me try a few more cameras.”

  The hacker shifted the view a few more times, and Kasta said ‘no’ a half a second after the image came up. Finally, on the fifth image, Kasta said she saw the redhead cop on the left side of the screen, and Zea panned the camera to the left.

  “You sure that is her?” Zea asked after the camera centered on a figure kneeling at the last cell. The figure had her hands cuffed behind her head and black cloth sack over her head.

  “I recognize the shape of her legs and hips,” the android said.

  “You are good at identifying,” I said to Kasta.

  “Yep,” Kasta said as her eyes focused on Juliette’s kneeling form. “That has to be uncomfortable. Zea, where is that camera located?”

  “It’s on the bottom level of the three jail levels,” Zea said as she moved her fingers across the screen. A map formed, and the station suddenly seemed much larger than I had previously believed.

  “How many Black Hearts are in the station?” I asked.

  “I have no idea,” Zea said. “A bunch.”

  “Can you flash through all the surveillance cameras quickly?” Kasta asked. “I can count the unique faces I see. Will take me a fifth of a second for each one.”

  “Uhhh, really?” the hacker asked.

  “Yep.” Kasta smiled, and then Zea tapped her fingers on the controls for a few dozen seconds.

  “Here we go,” the hacker said, and then displays from the station rapidly began to play on the screen. It took about twenty seconds to go through, and we all looked at Kasta when the images stopped shifting.

  “Fifty-seven,” she said. “Give or take three who looked similar.”

  “That’s a lot of assholes,” Zea moaned and turned to me. “Even if Madalena gets your guns, can you really take out all of them? Can you do it quickly? There are more on the street, and you might get stuck in there when the alarm goes out.”

  “Can you kill the alarms?” I asked.

  “Kitty Boy, you are thinking crazy thoughts,” Zea groaned.

  “I’m asking because you said their hackers are trying to stop the alarms in the station. Can you kill their systems?”

  “They might have transponders on closed circuits,” she said with a shrug. “I’d need one. Then one of the wonder twins would have to break it open for me and get its firmware up so I could fuck with the code.”

  “We can do it if you get one for us,” Paula said.

  “Madalena,” I said into the transponder. “Have you left Persephone yet?”

  “I just walked out of the docking tube,” she replied.

  “Can you bring us one of the Black Heart transponders?” I asked.

  “Yes. I will. Anything else?” She actually sounded a bit relieved.

  “Do you need directions?” I asked as I turned to Kasta and Paula.

  “No. I can feel you.”

  “We’ll open the door when you get here,” Kasta said.

  “Be careful,” Eve added.

  “Thank you for your concern.” Madalena’s voice had gone flat again, and I heard my transponder beep.

  “I bet she’s gonna be like an ice cube in bed,” Kasta snickered.

  “Oh, stop it,” Zea sighed, but then she chuckled.

  “Is it hot in here?” I asked, and the women turned to me.

  “I can check the temperature, but we normally keep it at twenty-three degrees Celsius. Want me to lower it?” Paula moved over toward the other side of the room, and my eyes locked onto her tight ass as she walked. She turned around to look at me, and I know she saw me checking her out.

  “Uhhh. Yeah, if you could,” I said as I ran my gloves over my face. “You have any water? That might help me relax.”

  “Sure,” Paula said as she met my eyes, she stared at me for a few moments and then pivoted to walk into the kitchen. When she turned to go, I couldn’t keep my eyes off her butt again. Suddenly, I felt Eve’s hand on my armored shoulder and I twisted toward her.

  You are in a mood today, Adam. Should we include Kasta and Paula in our next lovemaking session?

  The vampire raised an eyebrow, but she also had a tiny smirk on her lips, so I knew she was teasing me.

  “Zea, how is it looking for the harbor?” I asked to get my mind away from sex.

  “Lots of security,” she said. “Will take me some time to crack it, and then more time to get the docking info setup so that it looks like Persephone has clearance to move to Harbor B.”

  “The drones from Black Hat are performing sweeps over the district,” Kasta said. “Looks like they are going to pass over us. Should I let them?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Okay, some of them look like
they have advanced surveillance equipment. Our roof and walls are lined with dense metal, so they shouldn’t be able to see our heat signatures, but we probably shouldn’t talk until they are clear.” Kasta pointed to the ceiling as she spoke, and the rest of us nodded.

  Paula brought me a glass of ice water and then gestured to Eve and Zea, my two lovers shook their heads and we all sat back down on the couches. Previously, Eve and the twins had sat opposite me on the other couch, but Paula now sat down next to me, and our armor pressed together. I tried to ignore her presence, but Eve was right; I was in some sort of mood.

  Maybe the tiger was starting to take over?

  The thought wasn’t comforting, but I didn’t have time to worry about it right now. Instead, I sipped on the water while trying to ignore the scent of the surrounding women.

  “We are good,” Kasta said after another few minutes passed.

  “I’m not making a ton of progress into the harbor security. Might take me another ten or fifteen minutes.” Zea stretched her arms up into the air and let out an exasperated sigh.

  “Madalena, are you okay?” I asked into the transponder.

  “Yes, my lord,” she replied.

  “What is your location?” I asked.

  “I dealt with the mercenaries in the harbor, and the group guarding the train, now I am on the train and approaching you.”

  “Great,” I said, and then I felt a sensation of pleasure. The emotion was strange; like a memory of a pleasure, and it felt as if it was coming toward me from one direction. It had to come from the Prime Valkyrie, but up until this time, I only felt her emotions when she was standing within a few meters of me.

  Your connection grows stronger, my love. This is what I worry about. You will not be able to turn her away. I wonder if there is some way to reverse the bond of submission, but Madalena does not know of it.

  I frowned at Eve, but she held my gaze.

  I know how much you love me. Do not be upset with yourself. We are lucky in so many ways and blessed by the stars to have found each other. At this moment, I do not care for the woman, but I will give her a chance, and accept her as part of you. I want my heart filled with love and not jealousy or loathing for someone who feels for you as I do.