Queen of Spades: Reckoning: Queen of Spades, #3

By E. J. Dawson

A narrow escape from the love of Ayla's past, Ragnar, leaves her and her crew in hiding, and desperate for answers. The prison that Ragnar built for Ayla isn't a physical one, its inside her head, and if she doesn't get rid of it she's going to die. But when the solution lies behind Ragnar's armada, on a distant water planet, there's only one chance of getting there; trusting Leith's ex, Rawiya.

The beautiful and clever diplomat betrayed Leith once before, but if Ayla is going to slip under Ragnar's armada, she'll need to help Rawiya overthrow a tyrant.

Leith's home world Gallus is under the yoke of the Skarlatos leader, Torin. When Torin demands water resources from Aquacore, the company Ragnar uses to control the galaxy, Rawiya will do anything to make peace. Even trust Leith again.

But Ayla doesn't. She'll keep her secrets, as will Leith, Kabe, Casey and Sylas, but playing a game of politics may end up leading to a war they can't fight.

Stuck between Torin's lust for power, and Ragnar's forces flying overhead, Ayla's fast running out of options that will keep them all alive if they stay, but if they run away then she'll die.

• Language: English
• Publisher: E. J. Dawson
• Release date: Apr 17, 2021
• ISBN: 9780648222477

Book preview

Prologue

In the darkened desert night air, a chilly wind whipped her ragged clothes. It pulled at them with imploring hands, begging her to go no further. Not unlike the man by her side. Sidelong glances and sweat of his brow betrayed his nerves in the cool breeze. During the day, the desert drove wind edged with hellfire, but the night’s shroud was a soothing balm on the skin.

To Ayla, it was a weapon. Come.

Her single word made the guide hesitate as she strolled down the sand dune to the ruined town’s walls. She did not wait. Her pace was slow and deliberate as her senses stretched out into the vastness of the stone city, seeking life within. With a veil across her face, no one saw her smile.

There was a rush of sand, squeaking steps loud as he tumbled after her.

Queen, he hissed, grabbing her arm to tug her around. We shouldn’t be here. The guards—

Her arm lashed out, and a knife blade extended from its wrist sheath to flick out beside his face.

Say my name again and I’ll cut out your tongue. There was no anger in her voice, nothing but the quiet, controlled killer who wanted silence.

He held both hands aloft, near succumbing to his knees as he trembled before her.

My apologies, I did not mean to. Please let me aid you. Near weeping with terror, his murmured platitudes drew only disgust. She withdrew the knife, turning back to her target.

Stop whining and show me the way. If not for his knowledge of every nook and cranny of this abysmal city she’d have ended his life in their trek across the mountains. Thankfully, her escape would be via a chopper at dawn. There would be no one to witness her departure but those who came to fetch her . . .

Upon the nearby buildings, hints of amber flared, a sign of smoking soldiers on the city’s defenses. Not that they would slow her at all. On soft steps she slunk to its side, wary but unafraid.

Down by the darkened walls, starlight gently touched the white facade, illuminating streaks of warfare. Black marks made of more than shadow climbed beside her silhouette as she scurried to an opening of rubble. Hints of smoke on the wind condensed before her, more than the aftermath of battle, the waft of cooking food a subtle undercurrent to the hungry mouths within.

A city in ruins, hiding an army.

But not for long.

Dodging more than one lackluster patrol guard, they slipped inside the city’s streets. Her guide pointed at the building belonging to the leaders of the insurgents.

There. He gestured to a squat building, arm flapping in anxiety. I showed you the mountain pass. I did not need to come to the city. May I go?

Not quite. Ayla latched onto his arm and dragged him into the building’s side access, wondering how to get inside as she studied the boarded-up windows. A hatchway to the cellar held a dim outline. A light within, faint, but enough.

She squeezed her guide’s arm. Thank you for showing me the way.

His eyes widened, white clear in starlight. Please, don’t do that to me again, don’t take days from my life. I swear I told you everything for my family’s safety!

Ayla pulled down the scarf that crossed her face so he could see her grin. You did, but you’ve yet to serve all your usefulness.

She held his gaze in hers a moment longer, watched the terror fill his face, before she sunk the blade into his stomach. He gargled a scream, strangled by breathlessness but louder than she’d anticipated. He opened his mouth, inhaling to cry out. She shoved him against the wall, her palm muffling his screams, as her blade dug into his belly.

Blood saturated their clothes, dripped on the wooden slats, coated her hands.

Ayla stood back, letting his corpse fall hard on the door to the cellar. She secreted the blade away and cried out to mimic grief. Thudding echoed below, the partial opening of the doors causing the guide’s body to flop within. A startled yell brought more pattering feet, hushed murmurs as the doors flung open.

A man with a gun rose from the pit. Ayla fell to her knees before him, raising her hands soaked in blood.

"They killed him! She wept crocodile tears at the guard, speaking the local language without flaws. They are coming, the enemy is coming!"

A hand wrapped about her arm to hustle her within their fortress. "Who is it? How many? Are they close?"

She shook her head, continuing her display of grief, until they dragged her through narrow corridors of the cellar to a single room filled with ammunition and weapons. In a corner sat a man with white threaded through his beard, dark eyes focused on her. Surrounded by a ring of recently roused men from their tousled clothes and wary hands upon weapons, only the general appeared at ease from his relaxed frame behind the desk.

She collapsed before him, clutching her blood-soaked robes.

"Stop crying. You are safe here." His moderate tone denoted the lack of fear so prevalent in the grim lines of the other’s faces.

Ayla sniffed back tears, staring at his face, gathering what she needed. "Are you the general?"

He inclined his head, leaning forward to gaze into her face. "I am. How many do they send?"

Ayla stopped shaking, tears forgotten, lines of anguish on her face melting into apathy as she moved closer to the general. One.

Waves shot outwards, a tsunami of power released with the precision of an arrow. Ayla’s control over her gift reached out to every source of life, found the threads, and with a sharp pull, snuffed them out with a mere exertion of her will. About the city, the only sounds were the rustle of cloth and the thuds as bodies fell unmarked to the floor. Food burned, cigarettes fell to ashes, the city became soundless.

Ayla stood unafraid, alone, and left with no regrets.

Chapter One

There was silence, but it wasn’t peaceful.

A twitch, a single jerk, a flaring spark.

Inhale, exhale.

Thud.

A sound broke the cycle. Echoes spilt out, ripples through water, subsiding into the inky depths of oblivion. Without walls, through the bars of a cage made of agony, the beast within stirred from its slumber.

Thud.

A pulse, memory bringing back anticipation. The rising awareness sent a skittering sensation over skin. Hands curled into fists, remembering claws, the desire to rend and tear flesh. Hatred was a hell of a motivator.

Thud.

Rage. An awakening. The drum beat of a rhythm old as death itself, a counterpart, tempo, a step in an intricate dance played over and over throughout time. A place no one else could touch, none but her.

Thud.

It wasn’t alone. On the edge of perception a tinny noise dissipated, returned and faded, a highlight of the song that didn’t belong. A ringing that forced her to stretch out, seek its source. Loud, raucous, driving the yearning to be free of the prison. Thousands of pinpricks of pain restored feeling, the raw fire in her veins dragging back from the edge of an abyss. She’d been here before, but every fiber of her being leaned away, frantic to escape its pit. She stretched for the surface of her thoughts, delirious in her desperation. She would not fall.

Vengeance opened her eyes to chaos.

The first blink brought light. Flickers from smashed controls, fires filling the air with smoke and causing shadows to dance with malevolent intent. One stood taller than the others. A giant among the darkness, fist raised. An arm came smashing down.

It landed, ponderous as continents crashing together. But a ripple charged back, striking in revenge. A spatter across the light, crimson spilt, arcing to splash over the glaring lights. A kick followed, the powerful thrust lashing out.

It sent the other figure reeling back, crashing into neon lights. A fist appeared out of the shadowed light, unstoppable as time, edged in a dark blue glow, tremendous as the approach of a comet as it fell into moon glow.

One shrouded in blue, the other burned silver, they struck one another, faster than whips. Their strikes left an after wave of hovering starlight from its passage. They grew, filling up the twilight of her vision, brighter than suns, again and again, until there was nothing but the hammered blows of retribution.

She stared at the figures, struggling to make sense of the ruins about her. Lying on her side, scent of burning electrical and laser fire tickling her nose, tasting copper tang of blood in her mouth, and the intermittent lancing pain through her skull. With a strength made of more than bone or muscle, she curled one hand to her chest, slipped it underneath her, and tried to rise. One hand ached with the echo of broken bones.

The cool metal beneath her palm soothed. She absorbed its comfort. The centering sensation on her feverish skin brought her other hand beneath her, and forgetting the distant figures and its repetitive motion, she lay both hands on the floor and pushed.

Ayla rose.

In the nightmare, struggling to stay against the wall, she could do nothing but watch as the fireworks of the fight fizzled out.

Until one grew greater than the other.

Dread, fear, and terror as the fight flared brought a cry from her lips. Swallowing against the rising nausea and struggling for memory, she stumbled when her legs wouldn’t follow her command. She staggered, hitting the wall, sliding to the floor.

The sudden sound of her falling stilled the distant figure. She pushed her back against the wall, dreading what she’d see, fearing the weakness in her body entangled with the hellish reality.

Through the smoke, a broad-shouldered man stood, his face a mask of darkness in the flashing lights. He took a step towards her, and then another. When the starlight glow flared once more over his skin, his face came into view.

Dark eyes, bottomless as space. Amber dark skin wreathed in silver lines glowing bright with the nanotechnology inside him. Wide shoulders heaved with his breaths. Sweat dotted his skin, clothes ripped, blood drenching the tatters. His gaze met hers, and she didn’t flinch at the feral smile that stretched across his face.

Leith came to kneel before her. Welcome back.

Ayla stretched out one hand for him, a sob tangled in her throat made of rage and desire. He didn’t hesitate, sweeping her up into his arms, lifting her from the floor and her woes, carrying her from the nightmare of the past.

His lips fell against her mouth and she returned home. Familiar and new, longing and lust, she kissed him like the first time, like the last time. Pushed her lips against his and thrust her body against his in an effort to touch as much of him as she could. He didn’t shy back, tongue stroking hers, hands tight on her waist to hold her in place, squeezing hard enough to hurt. She didn’t care. He released her only to draw her into his arms in an embrace made of more than words or regrets.

I thought I lost you, he whispered into her hair.

Ayla strained to find her voice, hoarse and sore as she spoke. You damn near did.

He squeezed her tighter. Close enough, she could hear the comm unit in his ear.

"Leith, Sylas says we’ve got about another ten minutes before we won’t make it out of here. Kabe’s voice carried a worry made of more than fear, though an edge of humor crept in. Though who’s going to tell Casey she can’t keep beating people to death with their own cybernetic arms, I don’t know."

Ayla drew back to stare up at Leith. You came back for me? All of you?

Of course. His grin didn’t fade. Think we wouldn’t leap at the chance for Casey and I to return the favor?

She’d rescued Leith in the past after he was taken and tortured by a criminal gang. Ayla and the droid Casey took on an entire enemy ship to save him. It had been risky, but this was different. This time, her past lover, who’d locked her frozen in time for three millennia, had come to return her to her prison.

Where is Ragnar? Ayla let go of Leith’s arms, fighting to stand on her own. When her legs wouldn’t let her, Leith’s arm snared about her waist to hold her upright.

Caught him trying to get your nanites to accept his override. Leith’s lips curled in a snarl. Dumb fuck didn’t see me coming because of the tunnels Sylas had installed. They aren’t on the schematics.

The foggy recollection of Sylas’s remote base from a repurposed mining facility came back. Ayla stared around the battered remains of a small planetary vessel. The one meant to hide the trace of her own nanites from Ragnar’s search pattern so she could meet with the others. Except Ragnar had guessed Sylas’s plans and intercepted her.

He’d tried to take her, and his near success was a raw edge. She swallowed against a rising bile in horror, instead staring about the vessel. What, and you and Ragnar duked it out, or did you take a sledgehammer to this thing?

Leith grimaced. Fighting him was like when you were fighting Casey after he possessed her. He didn’t care if he got hurt. He just wanted me dead.

Ayla looked him up and down. Oh?

This blood isn’t all mine.

Ayla searched the shadows for the blonde-haired Adonis that had destroyed her life. Leith squeezed her arms, holding her close before easing his grip.

If you weren’t the woman I know you are, I’d tell you not to look.

Ayla glanced up at him, eyes narrowing. What did you do?

Leith’s hands tightened on her as he glared at the far end of the ship. I beat him to death.

There was no emotion in his words. The hollow echo of his voice didn’t touch on regret, but the chill within contained a wrath that promised he would do it again given the chance.

Ayla swallowed, enamored of the fierce protection in his face, wanting nothing more than to sink into him, have him carry her away.

But under the surface she sensed the need for him to lash out, that his quest for vengeance hadn’t faded. After all Ragnar had done to them, to her, she didn’t blame him.

When he didn’t move, she slipped from his grip, using the ship walls to assist her still tingling legs to the distant console. Her own fight with Ragnar left her bruised and battered, despite the high tech nanites running through her. But if Ragnar hadn’t reprogrammed them, she should be healed soon enough. The thought she could keep fighting back made her take another step. She wanted to see his corpse.

Ayla held her hand up to block the bright flashes still emanating from the smashed navigation console where broken robed figure lay.

Or what was left of it.

An expensive suit in ribbons. Pale skin peaked beneath, marred with the torn pink flesh of destruction. Muscles bulged hideously from brutal blows. Blood dripped from the body down the electronics to pool on the floor. Trails of long blonde hair slipped over the controls, spattered with gore.

There was no face.

Leith hadn’t left one.

Ayla swallowed her revulsion, nausea coupled with whatever Ragnar drugged her with when he thought he had won. Those dark moments when she’d used her gift to end him . . .

Ayla failed. For all her grand plans to be sure she’d die before he could take her again, she’d hadn’t killed him. Hadn’t got her revenge for what he’d done. A rude awakening in a cryotube three thousand years after the start of Earth’s twenty-first century left her reeling in confusion. She remembered who she was, but only recently how she’d ended up frozen in time. Ragnar thought she was a danger to humankind. Her gift of knowing when everyone would die became heightened by the gift of life. She could see inside anyone and change the date they were due to die. Forward or back. On a clone of a man who had no date, she’d almost died to give Ragnar his own semblance of life, just so she could kill him. But the barrier on her brain he’d installed to stop her using her gift almost killed her. And if she couldn’t end him by ending herself, she had to come up with another plan. Or next time Leith might not rescue her in time.

She shuddered, drawing away from Ragnar’s corpse. Her back hit Leith’s solid chest, where he’d come up behind her. She didn’t turn away from the remains.

How long was I out?

Minutes. You wouldn’t stay sedated, and he cared more about that than taking off, thinking his troops were on their way. They ran into Razor.

Ayla’s brow furrowed. Sylas’s AI? The one that controls the base?

It also has access to four repurposed diggers armed with laser fire turrets and great spikes for legs. They looked like spiders crawling all over the base, shooting down the troop carriers. Kind of reminds me of the octopus contraptions he picked us up in.

The first time they’d run into Sylas, an ex-nanite engineer for Ragnar, he’d almost drowned them to cover their tracks and bring them to his hidden apartment. Sylas took years to see what Ragnar did was wrong, when he installed the nanites into Ayla’s comatose body. He held trepidation as to the megalomaniac’s agenda. Paranoid and an exceptional hacker, the man had more than one trick up his sleeve. But he was no competition for the head of a universal corporation that supplied water and air to every planet inhabited by people.

Ragnar’s gift to a dying Earth was to whisk away civilization from its own foolishness. He thought he was their savior. Managed it all through his company Aquacore, claiming the lofty goal of perpetuating humanity’s existence.

She didn’t know which of them was more than the monster. Not after he’d frozen her, stole her ability to bear children, filled her with nanotechnology to survive the ages trapped in a cryogenic tube. All because she could see inside someone and know when they would die or kill them on the spot. Ragnar didn’t want to stop death, he wanted to control it.

Ayla leaned against Leith, glad he’d come for her again, even if he hadn’t meant to the first time he’d freed her from Ragnar’s imprisonment. But while he’d saved her from being captured, he’d killed one of many clones. The real Ragnar was still out there, hunting her.

His hands tightened on her shoulders. We need to leave.

How are we getting out of here if their fleet is waiting for us?

Leith took her hand to lead her from the craft. Sylas and Casey took down the recon unit here to check on Ragnar. They think everything is fine and you’re in captivity. From what we can gather there was only the one clone here, and Kabe is giving them instructions like he’s speaking for Ragnar.

Sylas’s plan to buy the others time and cover up Ayla’s escape was a long drop in a pod through old mining tunnels through the center of the moon. Ragnar’s forces tracking her nanites through Sylas’s base would focus on an armed room almost inaccessible without blowing up the base itself. It should have allowed the others to get away and meet Ayla on the far side of the moon, except Ragnar had seen through Sylas’s strategy.

He’d almost captured her. If Leith hadn’t come back, she’d never wake, forever trapped in dreams of dark water she couldn’t escape...

Ayla’s hand tightened in Leith’s.

She had to find Ragnar himself, not a clone, but not while she was powerless without her gift, or with Ragnar’s army over their heads.

Leith led her outside the craft and to the doors to the planet’s surface.

We need to go outside. He picked up two silver strips with a bobble on the end of each one. We can breathe outside for a few minutes with these, it’ll help with the low oxygen, but we have to run to the ship out there. If we move it too slowly they may think something is wrong and we don’t want them to suspect anything.

Ayla took the piece, copying Leith to settle the contraption across her nose, the ends in each nostril. How are we going to fly away from them?

Leith grinned. We’re going to pretend we’re one of them.

Ayla coughed. You must be joking.

Leith opened a panel by the exit and took two coats out. The frozen wastes of the planet and the howling winds might kill them even with their superior nanites.

The best way out of here is to pretend to be part of Ragnar’s fleet. If we try to leave in a non-Aquacore vessel, they’ll shoot it down. We can’t stay on the planet, they’ll be scanning the planet for any sign of life or nanites, including yours. So, we’ll get off using one of their ships and separate later. Ragnar is dead, but they still have his orders. Leith’s words grew quiet, and Ayla didn’t need him to speak of his fears.

Okay, ready to run when you are. Ayla wasn’t lying, but she couldn’t shake the numb feeling in her legs, still responding to her will. There was a sluggishness that wouldn’t fade. She didn’t want to dwell on what Ragnar might have done to her nanites to ensure she succumbed to him. But if anyone could fix her, it would be Kabe and Sylas. They had to get back to the others.

Leith stood by the door. Ready?

Yes.

He hit the panel and, taking her hand in his, dragged her out into the snowstorm. Ayla flared her nanites, willing them to respond as Leith began to run. Her skin glowed gold, a counterpart to his silver as they streaked across the frozen landscape. With her much smaller stature she needed to work harder to keep up with him, but it wasn’t just the weight of the drugs the nanites were fighting off. The wind pulled her. The freezing blades of the gale cut through her clothes, numbing her already listless legs.

Leith’s hand tightened on her arm. He wouldn’t leave her behind.

She renewed her grip on him, and with all the desperation to escape Ragnar’s net encircling them, she drove herself to run. To stay on her feet, to do whatever it took to escape.

Through the blinding ice, dodging jagged rock formations, hand in hand, they fled across the moon’s surface into the darkness. Leith drove their direction, for without it she would have become lost, died out here of lack of oxygen and the bitter cold.

Seconds turned to eons before the dim glow of a ship’s lights flared out of the darkness. Ayla wasn’t sure of its source until the bulk of the craft came into view.

At the bottom of the cargo bay stood a figure.

Dressed in a silver thermo suit tight to her curves, hair a neon blue halo in the lights, blue robotic eyes that scanned the landscape would have been terrifying to behold to anyone else.

Ayla let go of Leith’s hand to run at the droid and crashed into her, an embrace made of bruises and relief as she hit the metal frame and flung her arms around Casey.

Damn, Leith, Casey said, if I thought she was happy to see me, what kind of reception did you get? Is that why you took so long? You guys didn’t waste time to tie Ragnar up and then get to the f—

Okay, I know Leith suggested it once, but that’s not what we were doing. Ayla loosened her hold on Casey, far enough back to stare up at the droid, as she lowered her voice. Ragnar has the same if not better nanites than me, remember?

Casey gazed over Leith’s blood tattered clothes. Yeah, but you won, right?

Smeared his face all over the console. Leith’s jaw tightened. A flare deep within his eyes made Ayla shiver, but not in fear.

Casey whistled. Forget flowers, the corpses of your enemies is the best gesture of love.

Let’s get inside, Leith said. We need to get out of here.

Ayla turned, but Casey didn’t let go. They walked arm and arm up the cargo bay into the hanger. The doors shut and blissful warmth returned before the lights flickered on.

Blood smeared the floor and walls. A horror film stage, guns and corpses lay about the grilled floor, lights underneath soft pink with the smear of human plasma. More weapons lay stacked in a corner, but there were burn marks against the walls from laser fire.

Casey didn’t have a mark on her. Sorry, I wasn’t finished throwing out the trash.

Ayla squeezed her, passing the carnage for the far door. Where are Kabe and Sylas?

Casey let her go. If you want to hug them too, they’re on the bridge. Kabe’s keeping another platoon from coming out here, while Sylas tries to work out how to get us away from the fleet.

Ayla stopped, hands clenched, and eyes closed.

Any thoughts about destroying the fleet vanished with the ultimate failure. She’d have no hope of killing them all so the others could get away. Even without checking with Kabe, she sensed her mind wouldn’t take the strain. The barrier Ragnar installed over her brain to inhibit her gift would fry her before she could touch another soul again. She had to destroy the barrier if they were to have a fighting chance against their mortal enemy.

Leith’s palm settled on her back between her shoulder blades, but rather than lean on him, she headed for the bridge.

Through narrow corridors full of dents and scrapes from the fight,