Coop Bevin did not wait for the crowd to get any closer.

  Bevin swung the heavy barrel up and fired a short burst. Not into the ceiling. Not as a warning. Straight into the middle.

  The plasma hit like a sledgehammer. Ten of the rioters dropped at once. A few still twitched, tried to crawl, but the air already stank of scorched metal and cooked flesh.

  Back off, Bevin barked, and inside his helmet his voice came out like it was being blasted through a pipe.

  They came anyway.

  There were too many of them. Screaming, swearing, shoving forward. One waved a homemade flail, another just charged like an animal with nothing behind the eyes.

  Wilt Norcutt turned to Jacka.

  Jacka. Put down as many as you can. Now.

  Jacka froze for a heartbeat, like she was waiting to be told she was allowed. Then something cracked in her throat. Her shoulders hiked; her skin bubbled and swelled. A blink later she was not a girl anymore, but something that only vaguely belonged in a human shape. Scales. A stretched muzzle. Teeth bared. Hands ending in claws.

  She roared and launched herself.

  Low to the ground, fast as a dog.

  She slammed into the front line and started tearing. There was no grace to it. Just slaughter. She ripped throats open, snapped necks, drove claws into faces. Someone managed to fire. The bullets sparked and skipped off her scales. Someone screamed and choked on it.

  Hold the passage, the female inquisitor shouted.

  Stanford Minton was shaking, but he held himself together. He stared at his colony the way you would stare at a fire that had found oxygen and decided to live.

  Mr. Minton, the female inquisitor said, tight and sharp, where would you hide right now? Quickly.

  Stanford swallowed hard.

  There is a tunnel. My great grandfather built it. Back when this place was a prison, not a colony.

  Do your people know about it? Goodman asked.

  No. Only me.

  Then we move, Norcutt said. Bevin, cover us.

  Bevin shot him a look heavy enough to dent steel. The colony warden nodded like he had just passed an exam he had not studied for.

  They ran.

  The corridor was chaos. Prisoners yelling to the left, doors slamming and metal shrieking to the right. Somewhere glass was breaking. Somewhere a light blew out. Jacka still had the mob pinned, but Goodman could feel it in her bones. Jacka was slipping too far into the beast. If the tether snapped, Jacka would belong to no one. Then she would start cutting whoever was nearest.

  Stanford dragged them into the main office. The same one where, that morning, respectable men had sat in clean chairs and explained they had been busy.

  He rushed the wall and stomped on a tile.

  Nothing.

  Then a click.

  A panel slid aside, revealing a narrow descent.

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Move, Minton hissed, and went first, like he was diving into a burrow he had kept secret for years.

  Norcutt nodded at Lothar von Finsterherz.

  Lothar. Put up a barrier. Wrap the whole way. Keep it moving, but carefully. Do not rush.

  Finsterherz looked at her like he did not have anything left to spend.

  What for?

  No time, Wilt snapped. You will understand. Next lesson. Do it, lord dragon.

  That tone always grated on him. There was no room to argue.

  Finsterherz shut his eyes. Brought his hands together and clapped three times, quick and hard. Not ceremonial. More like testing a line.

  Something inside him jerked, like a hook had caught behind his ribs.

  The field flowed out unseen. Narrow at first, then spreading like a film across the walls, the floor, the ceiling. The tunnel came alive under his skin, as if the stone had become an extension of him.

  Two minutes later, Lothar opened his eyes. His face was wet.

  They are waiting for us, he rasped. At the far end. All the wardens. And some of the inmates too. Armed.

  A pause followed, as if his own words did not fit in his mouth.

  And Bevin is with them.

  The colony warden stopped on the stairs.

  They are all... No. They cannot be.

  Goodman let out a quiet breath.

  So that is how it is.

  Stanford went pale.

  They all betrayed me.

  Tomos gave a humorless little smile.

  Guess the money was not enough. Greed eats idiots from the inside.

  We cannot go back, Lothar said. There are people behind us too. They are coming this way.

  They are tightening the ring, Goodman said.

  She looked up, toward where Jacka had been, and felt only emptiness. Like a rope had been cut.

  Outside, a sharp crack. Then a heavy slam. Then, suddenly, less noise.

  Goodman closed her hands into fists.

  They took losses too, she said. Jacka dropped a lot of them. But Bevin put her down.

  Terry snapped his head up.

  What did you say?

  My link with her broke, Norcutt said, flat as steel. She was a useful tool. Hard to keep under control.

  Tomos spat to the side.

  The tool did its job.

  The colony warden stood there like someone watching his life get broken piece by piece.

  So what now? he whispered. They are ahead. There are people behind us. Where do we go?

  Goodman looked at Wilt.

  Lady Inquisitor. What is the call?

  Wilt did not answer right away. She stared down the tunnel, feeling it through Lothar’s barrier. Hearing footfalls at both ends. Feeling the squeeze.

  Then she looked at Minton.

  Minton. Do you have explosives?

  He twitched a shoulder.

  Yes.

  Detonator?

  Yes.

  Tomos snorted.

  Of course he does. Lunatic.

  Wilt held out her hand.

  Give it to me.

  Stanford’s mouth twisted into a crooked smirk.

  Sadly, my lady, I will give you everything but my heart. You are not my type.

  Wilt raised an eyebrow.

  Not the moment, Minton.

  The detonator triggers when my heart stops, he said, and for the first time that day he did not look like a boss or a warden, just a man who had survived by distrusting everyone. I am not stupid. I am paranoid. That is what kept me alive.

  Tomos shook his head.

  Psycho.

  Terry exhaled through his teeth.

  So if they kill you, boom.

  Yes, Minton said. And I wanted it to be beautiful.

  Wilt nodded, like she had just made peace with a choice.

  Then we fight.

  She glanced at Terry and Tomos.

  Everyone armed?

  I am, Terry said, lifting his pistol.

  I always am, Tomos muttered.

  Wilt turned to Lothar.

  You and I get the worst of it.

  The lord dragon did not answer. His throat was burning again. The field held, but it pressed inward, like it was trying to crush him from the inside out.

  Wilt slipped a hand into her coat pocket and took out two small vials. Clear liquid, almost no scent.

  Terry recognized it immediately.

  What is that?

  It boosts the link to the Nest, Wilt said. The dragon’s strength goes up. It is a drug. Hits the body and the mind.

  Lothar swallowed.

  And the crash will be ugly. Right?

  Yes, Wilt said. We will be more exposed to what lives in the Nest.

  Lothar shut his eyes for a second.

  The Azure Dragon could break loose. What do I do? I cannot tell her. God.

  The chains were there. Something inside him kept tugging at them, testing them, patient and eager. And that something was not silent anymore.

  Wilt drank her vial without drama. Just tipped it back and swallowed. Her pupils widened for a beat; her fingers trembled.

  Lothar breathed in once, then drank his.

  The liquid slid down his throat and the fire flared. Along with the fire came power. Dirty, heavy power, like molten metal poured into his chest.

  The tunnel seemed to pull away from him. The field thickened, denser, more alive. Foreign thoughts moved nearby, not words, more like movements in the dark.

  And then, deep inside, where the azure beast sat chained, a voice spoke.

  Clear. Bright. Almost delighted, as if it were smiling.

  Yes. The day has come. I am finally slipping free of this chain.

  Finsterherz flinched.

  At once, it was clear. It was not only in his head. The voice had pushed through the barrier. It was already searching for a way out.

  Up ahead, at the far end of the tunnel, someone slammed the butt of a rifle against metal. A signal.

  Footsteps quickened.

  And the ring closed in.