Harry’s expression told her he didn’t agree, but Chloe’s tacit support came through.
“I won’t jeopardise the safety of this prefecture for thirty enemy soldiers,” he said, firmly. “They’re First Column, so will almost certainly be in stealth. Any delay on our part gives them a chance to scramble Semevale’s communications and bring in the invasion force.”
“Then let those in stealth get clear,” Chloe suggested, “then we blow up the ship, and only one person gets wiped out.”
Harry raised an eyebrow at her, but his opposition would not deter Laurel.
“Harry, you’ve ordered the garrison, so the prefecture is safe for now, anyway.”
It was against orders to take captives, but that was before the whole souls. Harry couldn’t ignore their intuition. Or their ganging up on him. He couldn’t even say the League’s way was better. So far, none of the League’s recommendations had got them anywhere. No doubt, he’d face the consequences of this decision later.
“Chloe,” he said, “signal Marta to bring Eli and Helen across. Prepare the gas. We need two other stealth teams to drop. Laurel?”
“Yes, Commander?”
“Get stealth ready,” he deliberately kept his voice steely; someone had to be in charge, had to be the decision-maker. It would horrify the League to know, as he did, that on this occasion, it wasn’t him.
Laurel was grateful Harry listened to them; if she could get inside the enemy’s mind, not just for a brief moment during battle, but to properly explore, it could be a valuable resource. In any event, a bloodless battle was better than what she previously witnessed.
The troop carrier lay in a grove of trees several kilometres from the outskirts of town. The carriers were able to deflect sensors on the ground, and Semevale 8 had mostly out-of-date, easily discombobulated equipment, resurrected only since the war, so the carrier was safe, hidden away from the mountain paths.
Two League scouts and two axispods hovered, stealthed, outside the grove, on the route the enemy would take to the prefecture. Chloe maintained her position above the trees, and they waited.
“I’m not sure what Canon Akkuh will say about prisoners, Laurel,” Harry said. “It’s been a futile exercise before.”
“Canon Akkuh is a fool, Harry,” Laurel snapped, surprising even herself at her annoyance. She’d had a few discussions with Xavier concerning the Canon on the VI, possibly, Xavier’s suspicions influenced her more than she realised. She softened at Harry’s expression. “And he’s not here; he’s back in the safety of the League while we’re out in the field. I don’t believe all this bloodshed is furthering progress towards the end of the war. It’s just both sides killing each other until there’s no-one left to kill.”
Harry sighed, conceding the point. “It feels like that to me. Perhaps if the other side sees we are more respectful of life, it will give us a chance to open a dialogue.”
A movement below distracted Laurel from saying more.
“All half-soul soldiers, Laurel?” Harry asked.
Laurel flicked a quick glance at Chloe, who shook her head slightly, several enemy soldiers were quarter-souls, relaxed though focused. Laurel saw Chloe’s wisdom in warning her to silence.
“Only enemy soldiers, Harry,” she skirted the truth. “And all with intent.”
The soldiers wandered casually and with confidence from the transport, heading towards the prefecture.
“Not a care in the world,” Chloe said softly, observing them.
“Not yet, anyway,” Harry signalled to the axispods to disperse the gas.
It was over in minutes. Marta and Helen wearing stealth armour and several of the squad easily took out the stealthed soldiers with a spit ring jab to the temple; Laurel subdued the pilot, then satisfying herself they sent no distress signal, dragged him outside to where all his comrades were laid out in a row.
Laurel stared at the unconscious soldiers in bewilderment. None of them was armed. It made no sense. Why wouldn’t First Columnists be armed? Harry was kneeling beside a prone enemy soldier, his armour already uncoupled. Harry looked up as Laurel approached.
“They’re not armed, Laurel. Not even side arms. Is it possible we’ve been set up?”
Laurel heard his unspoken, “Yet again?”
“Honestly? I don’t know. Maybe they’ll tell us more when they wake up.”
Eli jogged across. “The ship carries an impressive arsenal, but none of it primed. We weren’t expected, I’m sure of that.”
“It’s not up to me to have the odd feelings,” Harry said, “but Eli, if you sensed the ship, why didn’t you fire on it? Those are standing orders.”
“It’s a good thing he didn’t,” Laurel cut in. “With the garrison deployed; the townspeople are safe. Shooting this ship down would have been just more senseless killing. If they’d detected Eli when he dropped stealth to fire, they’d have alerted their command. At least now, if anyone comes, our soldiers are here to greet them.”
“Something’s going on, Laurel,” Harry stroked his chin. He was worried. “That last engagement? Now, this First Column having no weapons and the quarter-souls disappearing from your radar?” Harry watched the captives being carried into the scouts. “Perhaps I’m just paranoid.”
Laurel understood. The momentary lapse in her senses back in the town unnerved her. She felt nothing. It was fleeting but frightening. Though her abilities were still fresh, they were with her constantly now, and to lose them, even for a moment, made her feel vulnerable.
“I don’t find this easy, calling Semevalians quarter-souls when half of them aren’t,” Marta confided in the others when they returned to their lodge.
“I don’t see how we can blow wide open a centuries-old practice,” Laurel said.
“Surely other whole souls have sensed this?”
“Maybe, but this is wartime, perhaps that’s why the shifts are so dramatic.” Laurel turned to Eli. “Eli, did you lose your sense of the Semevalians at the prefecture?”
Eli nodded, “Yes, I picked up the troop carrier at the same moment Marta did, but I’m guessing we all lost the Semevalians at the same time.”
“I wonder why? I lost them completely. I couldn’t even sense Harry.”
“Perhaps there’s a natural phenomenon in the vicinity,” Helen suggested through a mouthful of bapth she’d hijacked from the galley on the way back.
“Everywhere else, my senses become keener every day,” Chloe said.
Helen shrugged. “I still don’t know why we didn’t have these abilities on Earth?”
Marta sat next to Helen, moving away as Helen dusted crumbs from her uniform, “Xavier did apparently.”
Helen blew a crumb at Marta. “I must admit, my abilities are no match for yours, Laurel, in fact, they’re by far the weakest.”
“I think we’ve got different strengths, Helen,” Laurel said. “Chloe and Eli seem to be strongest with technology, Marta and me with sensing people. Personally, I’d like to know how you withstood a blast at almost point-blank range.”
“Me too,” Helen agreed. “I know you can read minds, Laurel, and that you and Marta talk in your heads. But can you read my mind?”
Laurel hesitated. She merely had to look at them to see their thoughts if she chose.
“Yes, Helen, I can,” she admitted. “I can read you all, but I don’t.”
“I thought you could,” Helen said matter-of-factly, and the others shrugged their indifference to Laurel’s admission as they announced they were off to find food and the company of their respective squadrons and was she coming along?
Saying she’d catch them later, Laurel watched them leave. So much for a big reveal. Laurel had been concerned they’d see it as a violation, but when her toe first touched the waters of other people’s minds, she’d tried desperately not to read anything. If she’d ventured out just a little more, she would have seen these people understood her and this ability and expected her to deal with it as they did their own. Her
d-com lit with a request to attend the lodge where the prisoners were held. Harry and Asde were waiting for her.
“I believe you are a better choice to speak to the prisoners,” Harry said. “Maybe you’ll get a sense of the situation on Semevale 8, why they were unarmed or if it was a test of our capabilities, or a trap,” he added as an afterthought.
“I don’t think it was either, Harry,” Laurel turned her head towards the shelter as if listening. “Besides, none of them has answers.”
Asde led her through the security. She felt perfectly safe, but Harry insisted she wore a wrist lick, and Laurel noticed he was also armed. Along the left wall of the lodge, twenty young men, in their early to late teens sat up on low bunks, anchors over their chests, arms and legs. They turned their faces towards the door as Harry, Laurel and Asde entered. On the other side, the remaining ten men, much older, one possibly around seventy, with the others in their forties or fifties, looked up in curiosity. Laurel felt no fear from any of the men, and several were definitely quarter-souls.
Laurel turned to Harry. “The older man is the only one who speaks Seera.”
“Are you sure?”
“Trust me.”
The man watched as they approached.
“You are the commanding officer?” Harry spoke in Seera, but the man looked to Laurel and didn’t answer.
Laurel signalled Asde and Harry to withdraw a little, and she sat beside the man. She touched his hand and turned it, palm upwards. His thoughts were clear. He considered a sentence, a phrase, preparing to offer her his words, but Laurel’s questioning gaze stopped him.
“This is not my war.” His thoughts came to her, defeated, angry and confused, a litany repeated so many times in his head. “It is the war of the ancients. My world is divided. We are all at the mercy of a madman.”
As he realised he was not giving voice to his words and that nevertheless, this woman understood him, Laurel sensed his moment of panic. The man had heard tales of strange people who could read minds, mythical beings called whole souls, lost now for millennia. Was this kind young woman with the remarkable jewel-coloured eyes, one of those beings? Laurel stilled his fear with a gentle smile and squeezed his hand to reassure him she meant him no harm.
“You have a wife?” she asked softly.
After a moment, the man moved his head, gesturing towards his chest. Asde followed to where the man indicated and found a pouch sewn into the man’s uniform, a small disc located inside. He placed it on the man’s manacled hand. A tiny projected form emerged, a woman working in the house; simple day-to-day chores a traditional wife who worked in the home may carry out any day of the week. It gave the man comfort, and he smiled, addressing his next words to them all.
“I am the senior officer, but I have no information for you. None of us has. We were only the First Column, non-combatant and defence of our unit only. On our homeworld, we are builders, conscripted to the war and untrained in fighting. Our duty was to send intelligence to the Duke’s central command at the fortress on Semevale 7, estimate the numbers of Semevalians left in the prefecture, locate the refugees; information unable to be determined from space. Even occupation force commanders are only provided instruction as required. Command gives First Columns orders, but not information.”
“But others are armed,” Harry pointed out.
“I received a direct communication,” the man said, “forbidding us to arm ourselves. Then we were issued new landing coordinates.”
Harry looked at Laurel, “Is he telling the truth?”
“The complete truth, Harry,” Laurel smiled at the man. “It seems it might have been a trap, but not for us.” Laurel stood and dropped her voice to a whisper. “I wonder about your informant, Harry. Whoever they are, this is an act of sabotage and treason to simply hand us their troops.” Harry agreed with a silent nod. Laurel turned back to the room; all eyes were on them, none held fear, only curiosity, and in some cases, relief.
“These people aren’t a threat to us, Harry,” Laurel looked up at him, her amber eyes earnest, filled with the certainty of her words.
“We’ll get them to Mentelci when we can,” Harry said, finding himself, and not for the first time, momentarily distracted by those eyes. He quickly refocused, as much to make sure she didn’t see his distraction as to consolidate his decision on the fate of the enemy soldiers. He could see for himself these were people caught up in something they wanted no part of.
“We believed all along the regular troops are kept in the dark and merely operate as killing machines,” he said. “It’s confirmed largely. I think they purposely keep the strategies close to the chests of one or two of the officers. I suspect this Duke is not altogether sure of the loyalty of his army.”
Laurel indicated to Asde to release the restraints on the old man. He looked to Harry for his approval before he acted. Asde liked and admired Laurel, but she wasn’t in command, yet.
“What do you call yourselves? Your race? Your world?” Laurel asked as the man smiled his gratitude at being freed from the anchors. “Do you have any knowledge of the mechanism by which you entered into this space?”
“As a people, we are Gartrya or Gartryan,” the man said. “Our homeworld is Gartrya, part of a largely uninhabited system on the other side of the nebula. We were told our leadership developed an organic technology that allows us to navigate through.”
“Have your people ever been known by any other name?”
“Gartrya is the home of my forefathers. Some say we came from here, and that is why we fight.” The man spread his hands, signifying he had nothing to offer. “I am a humble builder, my lady, crafting stones for dwellings before the war, but I understand architecture and the infrastructure of cities.”
“This Duke is your leader?”
“The Duke commands us, and his generals; to disobey means death to our families. He is our ruler. We do not question.”
“Do you have a name, a name that we may use when we address you?”
“Collitt, my lady,” the man dipped his head. “Collitt of Da’mere province.”
Laurel took his hand. “Well, Collitt of Da’mere province, I’m Laurel, and this is Commander Harry. It is our hope we will deliver you to your family in peace.”
To Laurel’s surprise, the man raised her hand to his forehead then kissed the inside of her wrist. From her sense of the expression; this was a greeting of the most honourable kind. Collitt was a decent man, mired in a war not of his making.
The man on her right drew Laurel’s attention; he nodded vigorously to his chest. Asde reached into the man’s pocket and produced an identical disc to the one Collitt possessed. A little boy jumped up and down in the hologram, joined by a smaller girl. The man smiled through his tears.
Laurel glanced up at Harry. “Pictures from home.”
“So it seems,” Harry appeared moved by the raw emotion from the men. “Asde, can you make sure fresh water bags for bathing are available and provide food. Remove the anchors from the prisoners and install a perimeter arc on the shelter.”
Asde bowed his head in response and called in several other guards. Laurel was sure they would be treated to a parade of home movies, the younger men taking their lead from their superior officers. Asde had a kind heart, so she was assured they would be cared for.
Harry walked Laurel back to her lodge.
“I know you wanted more, Harry,” she said. “Intelligence, explanations, but there are thirty men there who may still get home to their families.”
“If they’d been armed, Laurel,” Harry said grimly, “they would have shot at us.”
“If you’re not sure of them, why did you agree to release the anchors?”
“Because you’re sure of them and I can’t argue with your abilities,” he sighed, “but they’re still under guard, just in case you’re wrong. I can’t get too sentimental.”
The night had drawn in, and Laurel felt the chill. She was weary and glad to see the welcoming light o
f her lodge. Today had been another easy victory, and she hoped never to see what a hard-won victory might be like.
“The gas worked well. It has potential,” Laurel said just before she and Harry parted company.
“I think Helen had a stroke of genius there,” Harry smiled, peering around her to the others; Eli and Chloe visiting and chatting with Xavier on the VI, “and the Gartrya still don’t know about it. A plus for us.”
“Perhaps, if nothing else, we’ll save more people, on both sides.”
Harry tilted his head, she knew he wasn’t convinced, but he said it anyway, “I’m prepared to try anything, I just hope you’re not wrong about our prisoners.” He smiled a goodnight and walked away, but still he heard her, in his mind, or was it her voice, an echo carried on the night air.
“We can’t be more wrong than the way the League is handling the war.”
Chapter 26
A few weeks and several lengthy, bloody, brutal, soul-destroying, but albeit successful battles later, Marta, Helen and Laurel were alone in their lodge after a day with Cere, who arrived to make sure they hadn’t fallen into any bad habits. The pigmented gas proved to be a valuable resource, but a sudden halt in enemy action was an ominous sign, suggesting the Duke was rethinking his strategies. Many prefectures now had garrisons, but League forces had retaken not one city nor prefecture, and Semevale 7 remained under the control of the Duke.
“You know,” Helen said, massaging her foot and wincing. “I was figuring out how long since we arrived. Must be months.”
“Chloe kept a record, she reckons it’s about six,” Marta replied, flat on her back on her bunk. They were too tired from Cere’s training to join their squadron for some downtime eating and recreation.
“She said she was turning 17 when Darlen took her,” Laurel sat untidily on a chair with her feet on the table.
The Soul Monger Page 24
