The Drowned Cities (Ship Breaker #2)(96)

Tool growled agreement. “The UPF is headless. I left no commanding officers.”

Another artillery round hammered into the building. Masonry fell from the ceiling.

“I got to get to my boys,” Ocho said suddenly. “They’re dead if they don’t got someone to tell them what to do.”

“Indeed,” Tool rumbled. Mahlia was surprised to see the half-man hold out a huge hand to Ocho. “Thank you,” he said.

Ocho looked at the half-man with an expression of shock on his face. For a second, Mahlia thought he was going to flinch away. But then he took the offered hand, his own smaller one disappearing in Tool’s grip.

The sergeant looked down at Mouse, then at Mahlia again. “I’m sorry I couldn’t save him,” he said. “I tried. If I’d known what they were going to—” He broke off, took a ragged breath. “Anyway, I’m sorry.” He turned and limped toward the door.

Mahlia watched the sergeant go. He was just a kid. They were all just kids. All of them waving guns and killing one another, while a bunch of men who claimed they were older and wiser pushed them around. Maggots like Lieutenant Sayle and Colonel Stern and General Sachs.

He was just some kid who’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time. A kid who turned out to be useful to men who didn’t give a damn about him, except to make sure he did what he was told. Just like Mouse.

“Hey!” she called to him. “Soldier boy!”

Ocho turned. “Yeah?”

An idea was forming in her mind. A gamble. A big one. It wasn’t the way she’d imagined it, but she thought it could work. She could make it work. She just needed to believe, and reach out to this soldier boy.

“You want to get out?” she asked. “Get out for good?”

She held her breath, praying that she wasn’t just some civvy to him. That he didn’t see her as a peacekeeper castoff or a traitor, any more than she saw him as a soldier. They were just two people, victims of something bigger than either of them. There weren’t any sides, and there weren’t any enemies.

She just needed to make him believe it, too.

“Out of here?” The sergeant smiled. “No way any of us is getting out. There’s nowhere to go, and no one to take us. Blockades all around. AOG gunning for the triple hash.” He touched his cheek. “There’s no way out, not for any of us.”

“Scavenge companies go in and out,” Mahlia said.

“We ain’t scavenge.”

“What if I know where we could get some?” she said. “Rich stuff. Can you get us to the blood buyers? Can you get us and some scavenge to the docks?”

“That treasure room of yours?” Ocho hesitated, then said, “I can’t leave my boys.”

Mahlia almost gave up on the idea. The thought of all of Ocho’s other troops scared the hell out of her. She swallowed. She was gambling, again. Gambling big.

“Can you lead them?” Mahlia asked. “Can you get them to follow you? To follow me? Can you give us protection?”

Tool looked at her with sudden surprise and respect as he figured out what she was planning. Another rumble of artillery rocked the building. Ocho looked up at the cracking ceiling, then at Mahlia.

“They’ll follow me,” he said. “If they’re still there, they’ll follow.”

Mahlia’s heart was beating faster. She was going to do it. For real. She was getting out. She hugged Mouse close, one last time, and let him go.

45

CHAOS REIGNED IN the palace. Artillery fire rained down. Soldiers milled in groups, unsure of what they were supposed to do.

A few Eagle Guards were still around, trying to organize, but it seemed that Tool had destroyed everyone who had witnessed what had happened in the command center. And now, under fire, people were scrambling, more concerned for their own skins than anyone else’s.

Ocho led them into the rotunda, leaning against Mahlia and limping. His soldiers straightened and started to raise their weapons when they saw the half-man and the girl, but he waved them down.

“Where’s the LT?” they all asked, staring.

“He’s replaced,” Ocho said.

“By who?” Stork asked.

“Me,” Ocho said. Then he pointed at Mahlia and Tool. “And them. We’re all together now.”

There was a long silence. Ocho held Stork’s gaze until the taller boy nodded acquiescence.

“Good.”

Ocho started outlining orders to the platoon, organizing them all. He sent some to gather ordnance while he had someone strap his leg better, and then he had them all moving, a gathered knot of protection with Mahlia and Tool at their center.

Mahlia watched in awe as his platoon marched them right through the heart of the UPF. Soldiers ran hither and thither, preparing for a final battle that they couldn’t win, but no one had time for an armed platoon that seemed to have orders. They made it outside, squinting in the bright sunlight. Down the length of the lake, Mahlia could see the mouth of the river and the sea. Her goal, beckoning.

Another artillery round came screaming down. The dome of the palace shattered, crumbling inward. Soldier boys screamed and scattered in all directions, but Ocho kept his command, ordering them all down the stairs for the water. Ahead, Mahlia saw blood buyers struggling to load scavenge into their zodiac rafts.