Devil's Due by Taylor Anderson

Author:Taylor Anderson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2017-05-18T12:05:00+00:00

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Maggiore Rizzo joined Kurokawa on the seat of the rickshaw, even as Kurokawa snapped at the two Grik holding the poles to proceed. The rickshaw jerked into motion and their guards fell in, trotting alongside. It was five miles back to Kurokawa’s residence, and would take about forty minutes to get there at this pace. It was a good thing they’d been closer, at Riku’s ammunition factory, when the enemy attack began. They’d been able to see a great deal from there, and telegraph reports from around the harbor and the surrounding facilities had given them a more complete picture. In spite of his rage and frustration, it had actually been Kurokawa who guessed what might happen at the prison compound. Rizzo did beg him to intervene, but decided he’d meant to from the start. Still, when they set off, Rizzo wasn’t entirely sure Kurokawa didn’t mean to do exactly what his men attempted: kill the prisoners in retaliation for the raid, and rip his greatest vengeance from the women. Not getting an answer, Rizzo had reasoned with him, then threatened to depart—with his planes—if anything was allowed to happen to them.

Though a dedicated fascist and firm supporter of the League, he was unhappy with what Gravois had set in motion. Surely an accommodation could’ve been reached with the Alliance instead of this madman. They were half a world apart, after all, and need not come into direct conflict for decades, if ever. Who knew what the future might bring? But the policy of encouraging the warring parties to tear each other apart had been set in motion long ago and had succeeded quite well. Peace between any of them was clearly impossible. Best to make the most of it. But he’d personally been horrified by what Captain Laborde and Savoie had done to Amerika, and then by the treatment of the survivors brought here. The League had treated its own prisoners, human and otherwise, abominably, as it systematically subjugated the Mediterranean. Laborde had participated in that, was a product of it. Suspicions regarding his support for the pre-Revolutionary regime in France had probably made him even more zealous than others to prove his commitment to the League. But Rizzo liked to hope that one day, when the hard work of establishing civilization on this world was done, they might rebuild a measure of humanity to populate it.

That was what made him increasingly desperate as the rickshaw approached the prison compound. Kurokawa had said nothing as Rizzo threatened and cajoled, his demeanor merely shifting from manic fury to that unnerving, icy resolution. Rizzo still hadn’t known what Kurokawa meant to do, even as they strode toward the confrontation in the compound, and if things had gone as Rizzo feared, he wasn’t sure what he would’ve done either. That Kurokawa’s behavior had surprised him was an understatement. He wondered if it signaled a return to sanity, or had merely been a fragile bubble of reason and humanity rising through the swamp of madness, only to pop at the surface.

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