AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Desperate to know what was happening, she clawed and climbed her way to the open door, now hatch, and hauled herself through. To her right was Drake, a few men, and two mauleons. Strewn to her front and to the left were what seemed the dead. On second look, most moved and groaned. The florses were alive despite the flagrantly wild gunfire. Their eyes rolled and mini wings flapped. Their hooves clattered in agitation. Dark liquids puddled and gleamed in the street lighting, and every single gun seemed focused on firing at a jumping, whooping figure that bounced from position to position, hopping down the street in a series of perfect leaps. When that figure caught the light, it shone like metal.
“What in all the hells is that?” someone muttered.
“Sassi,” she breathed. She’d unleashed some sort of hippity-hoppy assassin. Was this mere exuberance or true assassin-quality violence? She had no idea.
What she did know was the guns fell silent after the last leap. In the subdued lighting, the bot was revealed, walking back toward them with almost a maniacal swagger to the hip region. Sassi surely did not have hips.
A bot thumb-type digit was thrust skyward. “Enemy is vanquished,” echoed down the street.
Drake ambled forward, limping, gun in hand. Five men flanked him, then eight as a few more heaved to their feet. They hugged cover as if not convinced of their victory. “Check for anyone alive. Be prepared to shoot.”
“I think they’re all goners,” someone added in a hushed voice.
“Maybe.”
“That the princess’s bot?”
“Yep.”
It was time to decide. She was alone.
Using handholds and placing her sandaled feet carefully, she slipped and jumped down the side of the coach, her feet landing on dry road. Something had scratched her shin on the way down. To either side was wall but several yards back an alley attached itself.
Follow Drake, or... she gulped.
What did he need her for?
A liability, that was her. A way to get his men killed. She’d caused this. This bold ambush. This carnage. And for what? To protect an evil brother who was dead anyway.
Her eyes ached with unshed tears and felt as if someone had scooped them out, polished them, and stuck them back in her head.
Ears ringing from whatever had exploded against the coach, she partly walked, partly staggered into the alley. The energy left her muscles and she slid down the wall and collapsed. Head in her hands, she tried hard not to sob and mostly succeeded.
Where was she going to go? Drake couldn’t possibly want her. He didn’t need her to rule.
Sassi came around the corner and stared down at her. She knew it was him despite his transformation into a sleek bot with flowing curves. Muted red and blue dots glowed and subsided in predatorial stripes and whorls up and down his gleaming human-shaped body. For a second the tips of his fingers were red-stained spikes, then they softened and the tips became blunt and clean.
Despite her despair a thought surfaced. What technology enabled this?
“Drake sent me to make sure you were safe.” At least his voice was the same.
“Well then.” She eyed him. Maybe this was a sign? She’d never dare to leave dressed as she was, to walk through the night streets in a see-through dress. With Sassi in tow, she’d not fear anything. She levered herself upright. “Come. I need to go somewhere and think.” Somewhere sad, somewhere dark, to suit her mood. “Wait. Can you go back to the coach and find the envelope inside? Can you write on it? I’m safe and uninjured. Don’t worry. You can be king without me.”
“I can do this. Where do we head for?”
“The spaceport. It’s old and dark and no one else dares to go there for fear of being irradiated.”
There was no radiation hazard. Her father had maintained radiation warning signs, and sometimes corpses of animals had been left at the periphery to foster the belief it was a dangerous area. The effort and machinery to clean up all the blown-up ships was impossible without cranes and bulldozers, and no one had those.
Sassi sped off and returned barely thirty seconds later. “Done. I left the message and signed it Princess Calliope.”
“Good.” She turned and walked away briskly.
When the spaceport fencing was in sight, Sassi spoke. “I won’t interfere with your personal moping and self-pity, Princess. However, there is something I wish to discuss with you.”
“Moping and self-pity?” That was a trivial way to describe the devastation she felt. She eyed him dubiously. “If you wish.”
“I do wish. Can bots have wishes?”
