But Veil didn’t try to attack. Instead, the cyborg woman stared at her desperately.
“You’ve damaged my backup power cells,” Veil said. Her voice distorted, as if her vocal generators were close to failure. “I have only a few minutes to live without them. Quickly, hook me up to your power source.”
Rhea didn’t move.
“Quickly, you bitch!” Veil said.
Rhea merely blinked nonchalantly.
Her greatest enemy stared at her in astonishment. “You’re not going to help me…” Before Rhea could answer, she laughed. The distortion in her voice made it sound hideous. “Killing me won’t stop them from hunting you. The hit has already been ordered. I am just one bounty hunter. I have other hunters who work for me, true, but there are hundreds of independents out there.”
“Who ordered the hit on me?” Rhea said.
“Don’t you know?” Veil said. “Surely you must suspect.”
“I have my list,” Rhea agreed. “And it’s a short one.”
Veil smiled sickeningly. “The bounty on your head was posted by the leader of the free world. President of the United Settlements, and esteemed member of the Earth’s High Council. Khrusos.” She coughed, and a mixture of oil and blood spurted from her lips and oozed across her cheeks. “Give me your power supply, and I will help you.”
“Help me, how?” Rhea asked.
“Connect me to your power supply…” Veil insisted.
Rhea shook her head. “Not until you clarify.”
Veil hesitated. Then: “Proceed deeper into the cave. Within, you’ll find my gift to you. A little something you can use to repay Khrusos.”
“What?” Rhea asked.
Veil coughed again, spewing more oil and blood. Her sickening smile deepened, revealing teeth bloodstained with the effluence. “I’m not entirely sure… I’ve never been inside. No Earthling… has. But you…”
Veil’s mouth stopped moving and her eyes glazed over.
Rhea felt a moment of panic.
Not yet! I still have more questions!
She quickly opened up her own chest panel and removed the power transference cord. She plugged it into a corresponding port in Veil’s side. Nothing happened.
“Come on!” She slammed a fist into Veil’s lacerated chest. Still nothing.
Horatio came up behind her. “It’s too late.”
Rhea slouched in defeat. She knew Horatio was right. Still, for the disappointment she felt, she also experienced relief, sheer and utter. It was over now. Veil would never hunt her again. Unfortunately, there would be other hunters…
Rhea sat up straight and removed the power cord. She closed her chest panel and gazed at the cyborg. “I almost feel sorry for her.”
“This is what you wanted, isn’t it?” Will said, appearing on her other side.
“It is,” Rhea said. “But killing someone seems like such a crude solution to a problem.”
“In this case, it was the only solution,” Will stated.
“Was it?” Rhea asked. “It sounded like she was ready to reconcile there, at the end.”
Will snorted. “Yeah, right. As soon as you plugged her in, she would have cut off your head and dug out your power cells to take as her own.”
“Maybe,” Rhea said. “Still, I would’ve liked to have wrung a little bit more out of her.”
“She told you what you already suspected about Khrusos,” Will said.
Rhea exhaled at the name. Khrusos. The man who had set the bounty on her head. The President of the United Settlements. “Yes, she did. But I still don’t know why she called me ‘Dagger.’”
Will frowned. “Did she? I don’t remember that.”
“It was indirect” Rhea clarified. “She said she was soon going to be known as the ‘Defeater of the Dagger.’”
Will inclined his head. “Oh, yeah.”
She glanced at the others, who loomed behind him. “How are the men?”
“They’re all here,” Will answered. “Miles took a hit to the arm, but we’ve patched him up.”
She glanced at Miles and saw the white bandage he wore over his bicep. “You okay?”
He nodded. “Just a flesh wound.”
Rhea gazed toward the far side of the cavern, and the tunnel that awaited, leading away into the darkness.
“You’re not really considering proceeding deeper into the cave, are you?” Will asked. “We got what we came for…”
“Yeah, this ‘gift’ Veil left you is probably a bomb,” Brinks said. “Ticking away at this very moment. Wouldn’t surprise me if, in a couple of minutes, the entire cave system went boom.”
Rhea considered that. “No, I don’t think so.” She remembered Veil’s last words.
I’ve never been inside. No Earthling has.
No Earthling.
She stood. “We go deeper.”
18
Rhea collected the X2-59 equivalent, her severed hand, and the other Ban’Shar knuckle. She gave them to Will for safekeeping, who slid them into his backpack.
Rhea and the Wardenites didn’t encounter any Black Hands lurking immediately inside the next tunnel. The minions of Veil had slunk back to whatever dark holes they’d come from. Then again, perhaps the Black Hands were waiting to attack around the next bend.
Jairlin was in the lead with his group, as before. Rhea had authorized the use of their headlamps, as LIDAR was just as betraying, if not more so. Not that the lamps added much color to the scene: the walls were still a dark gray.
“So how far do you intend on exploring?” Brinks asked. “We could be in here for hours. And we risk another encounter with the Black Hands.”
“If we don’t find anything in the next hour, we turn back,” Rhea promised. Will was right: she had gotten what she had come for. And while Veil’s minions might be docile for the time being, hiding as they were somewhere deeper in the cave, they would no doubt fight back if cornered.
As she continued, she began to notice colors in the tunnel walls, courtesy of the headlamps of her companions.
She wanted to get a better look but, seeing as she didn’t wear a lamp of her own, she turned toward Will: “Point your headlamp at this wall, please.”
He complied, illuminating a wall whose layers of strata were different colors: there were reds, blues, purples…
“I’m detecting a more diverse quantity of metals in these walls,” Horatio said.
Rhea glanced at the robot. “Diverse?”
“Yes,” Horatio answered. The robot’s palm was resting on the
