Daughter of Nox

Chapter Eleven

"Get her!"

Freya heard the words just as she tried backing away, but the shock of seeing so many guns slowed her reaction time. A tall, athletic looking waiter closest to her snatched Freya arm and tugged it towards her.

"Let me go!" Freya tried to say, just as the woman slapped a hand over her mouth. Freya tried to twist free of the woman's hands, but she wrenched Freya's wrist up in a way that sent electric pain all the way into her shoulder. Freya let out a muffled scream against the woman's iron grip and felt all her fight dissolve into the air.

"Don't hurt her!" someone said from behind them, and Freya felt hope balloon inside of her.

"You don't give me orders," the woman holding her growled beside Freya's ear.

"Tell Ella to back off, Rogue," the first woman said.

Freya heard a laugh from behind her. A woman's laugh, but there was no humor in it. The sound was sharp and hard, and Freya thought it made the air feel ten degrees colder.

"Why would I do that, Maya?" the woman said. "Ella looks like she's perfectly happy holding the little Founder right where she is."

Freya heard the big woman laugh darkly in her ear, and felt a shiver roll through her at the sound.

"Because you're going to ruin the entire mission," Maya said. "The point of our coming here is to take down MinNet, not to murder Founders."

Freya might have frowned if she hadn't been so terrified. MinNet was the sole method the Ministry had for communication and starship navigation between colonies. The MinNet coverage from the First Emissary's reception was sure to be broadcasting to every single node on the Ministry's communications network. If the Separatists got their hands on an active link from one of the newsfeeds at the reception, then they could upload malicious code into MinNet.

"I didn't come here to murder Founders either." Rogue made a pleased sound in her throat. "But that doesn't mean we can't kill just one Founder, does it?"

At this, the hand over Freya's mouth slid up an inch and pushed down hard on her nose. Freya bucked against the larger woman's grip, but her fingers might as well have been forged from iron.

"Stop!" Maya shouted. "Let her go!"

But the woman didn't let Freya go. If anything, she squeezed harder over Freya's face while she bent Freya's wrist at a sickening angle. Nausea stomach crawled up Freya's throat.

"Look at the girl, Rogue," Maya said in an edged voice. "She's barely a child."

"I was younger than her when I first picked up a gun," Rogue said contemptuously. "And my brother was about her age when they changed him into an Esque."

"Rogue, please." Maya sounded frantic now. "Just tell her to let the Founder go. This isn't our mission."

"Our mission," Freya heard Rogue say in a poisonous voice, "is to stop the atrocities of every Founder like this one. So long as Founders exist, they'll keep turning regular people into Esque. Into slaves, to serve their empire."

Freya wanted to scream, to tell these people that she didn't keep Esque. That she and Father were different from other Founders.

Except, Freya couldn't get air enough to say anything. Her limbs felt molten under her skin, the muscles beneath starved for oxygen. Black splotches flashed over Freya's vision.

"I said stop, Ella." The bright whine of a priming plasma rifle hummed in the air. "Now."

The hand over Freya's nose and mouth eased back for a slivered moment, and Freya yanked her face to one side. She gulped air, coughing and choking as she fought to heave the oxygen into her lungs. Her eyes watered and blurred her vision, but she could still make out the fiery glint in eyes of the woman with the dangerous end of a plasma gun pointed at her captor.

"Let the Founder go," the woman, Maya, said, and braced the stock of the rifle against her shoulder. Black eyes gleamed over the seam of her mask. She was small, and the rifle looked as though it might weigh as much as she did, but she had the air of someone who knew how to use it all the same. "Do it now, or I swear on all the stars I will turn your ugly face into a smoking hole."

The Separatist holding Freya loosened her grip on Freya's wrist, but didn't let go completely.

A second woman with the build like a seasoned soldier spoke from behind Maya. Freya recognized the voice as the other woman, Rogue. "What the slag are you doing?"

"Doing the right thing," Maya spat back, though she didn't pull her eyes from the big woman holding Freya. "The moment we begin justifying the murder of children is the moment we've become no better than the Ministry." Maya sighted down the rifle. "Now let the girl go."

Freya felt the pain in her wrist relent as her captor's grip loosened. Her other hand fell away from Freya's mouth.

"Now back away." Maya gave the barrel a quick flick to one side. "Slowly."

The woman followed the direction, though the tension in her movements made it clear to exactly how she felt about it.

Freya let out a trembling breath then said, "Thank you."

"Shut your mouth." The command was like a cracked whip. "Get on the ground."

"But–" Freya started, but cut short when the woman's eyes blazed with the same dark fury she'd seen in the woman's eyes that she'd seen a minute before.

"The only reason you're not a corpse right now is because I don't believe in murdering children." Maya took a step toward Freya. "But that doesn't mean I won't maim one."

Freya swallowed against the gulch in her throat, and nodded. "Alright," she said, though her tongue felt like sandpaper in her mouth. "Alright, just don't shoot."

Freya bent her knees and was about to do as Maya had ordered, when the bigger Separatist jerked toward the gun. She wrapped her hands around the barrel and jerked it forward and to the right, trying to break Maya's grip on it. The gun went off as she did, sending bright light and a sound like a thunder ricocheting around the the small space.

Heat bloomed against Freya's cheek as the bolt tore through the air a mere foot from her face. She stumbled, fell back, then spun on the ground before leaping onto her feet. Shouts rang out from behind her as the Separatists fought for control of the gun, but Freya didn't look back. She had eyes only for the black curtains separating the reception from the kitchen. There were Caretakers in the crowd–she'd seen them when she'd first come into the reception–and she needed one of them right now if she was to stop whatever these rebels were planning.

Freya nearly dove headfirst through the drapes, tearing and swimming through the fabric, and felt like she was coming up for air as the bright lights of the reception poured against her eyes. One step closer to safety, she thought, just as she nearly plowed into a waiter headed the into the kitchen. The woman jumped back with a startled cry and dropped the empty platter in her hands.

"Sorry," Freya said, moving to the left so as to pass the woman.

The waiter side-stepped in front of Freya and cut her off. Freya frowned, then moved to the right. The woman matched her movement a second time.

Freya started to protest, but her voice died in her throat as the woman grabbed the hem of her robe with one hand, hoisted it into the air, and reached underneath the fabric with the other. Surprise made a tight O shape of Freya's mouth, first at the woman's bizarre behavior, but then at the plasma rifle the woman tugged free from the strap on her bare calf, and jabbed toward Freya's face.