The Defector

by J. C. Andrijeski

  Still, he knew the attacks would come as soon as the darkness settled.

  Those attacks would worsen in the early hours.

  They would worsen not long after midnight struck.

  As far as sleep went, they usually stopped not long after the Org team stopped, which only happened for a few hours at most, and often less than that.

  Each of them in Yumi’s unit would be lucky to get thirty, maybe forty minutes of sleep in a stretch, as they rotated through some combination of guard duty––both the Barrier variety and the physical kind––and catnaps with the other infiltrators.

  Revik knew that was part of their psychological sparring with the Org, too.

  The Rooks would make sure they always got more sleep than their quarry.

  They would also try to make them want it, and push every individual seer to work around their own infiltrators to get it. Knowing it was a power play didn’t really help to combat the effects. Sleep deprivation was harder on seers than humans in some ways, in that it depleted their light, making them weak in more than simply the physical.

  That was part of their role as quarry, though.

  They could only do what they could to maintain a safe lead, to protect Balidor, and to buy the seers ahead of them time––time for whatever it was Kali needed time for.

  The seers ahead of them were probably carrying Kali by now.

  The thought brought a low stab of pain that caught him off guard.

  Revik wasn’t the only one to feel it; a few of the nearby seers jumped a little, glancing at him.

  It wasn’t sexual pain, at least––not that time.

  It was more like worry mixed with a deeper, sharper, less-specific anxiety around the flavor of the Org’s construct following them.

  He knew Terry would want to kill Kali.

  He remembered his partner well enough for that––well enough to know that much with absolute certainty.

  If Terry was really out here, and Terry knew Kali was the escaped prisoner he and his people chased, he would definitely want to kill her.

  Knowing Terry, he would be obsessing on killing Kali as much if not more than obsessing on making Revik watch him kill Kali.

  Terian being involved in this mess might even explain why the Rooks took Kali in the first place. Knowing Terry, he could have done it on his own––outside the chain of command, that is, and even against Galaith’s orders.

  It wouldn’t be the first time.

  In fact, the more Revik thought about it, the more he could very easily picture Terian doing exactly that, especially if he somehow found out where Kali was.

  He’d do it out of spite. He’d do it out of revenge.

  He might even do it to lure Revik out in the open.

  Assuming the Org continued to track Revik’s whereabouts after he left their employ, and Terry got ahold of that information somehow, Revik’s old partner would likely do anything he could to get Revik out of those monk’s caves. The very idea of Revik being in there, meditating around a bunch of “kneelers,” would have driven Terry either into paroxysms of laughter––or rants born of disbelief and fury––or both.

  The pain in Revik’s gut sharpened a second time at the thought.

  It wasn’t as bad that time.

  Even so, it was intense enough that Revik found himself wishing Kali’s damned mate would get her out of here already.

  Why the fuck would anyone choose to have a baby out in the jungle?

  Why didn’t they have more backup at least?

  Not just in the Barrier––but down here, on the ground. They should have five times this number of infiltrators helping her, given who she was.

  He saw a few seers in the team glance at him, curiosity in their eyes.

  “Why are we going this way?” he muttered to himself.

  He wiped sweat off his brow with the back of his forearm as he said it, gazing up the tree-filled slope and feeling his jaw harden. He’d been talking to himself mostly, barely muttering really, but Mara surprised him by answering, speaking in an almost normal tone of voice from where she walked slightly behind him.

  “We’re going this way because your wannabe girlfriend is an intermediary, Rook,” the female seer said, a thread of humor in her voice. “…and apparently, she’s calling the shots right now. Not brother Balidor. So stop your whining, Dehgoies.”

  “Is whining against the law, now?” Ontari said, winking at Revik. “I think someone should tell sister Dalai that, if so.”

  “Bite me,” the same seer said sweetly.

  Dalai trudged up the hill on Revik’s other side, an expressive frown on her fine-featured face. She looked about as seer as she possibly could, with the distinctive Asian-seer features and dark, purple-blue irises with orange rings.

  “…Is it my fault these wretched swamplands don’t agree with my delicate constitution?” she added, sniffing expressively.

  Ontari snorted a laugh, rolling his eyes towards Revik.

  “Don’t believe her for a second, brother Dehgoies. I’ve seen her chop the heads off rats and eat them, when we were hungry enough.”

  Revik smiled a little in spite of himself, clicking softly.

  “Should I tell him about our last job in Afghanistan, brother?” Dalai said, her voice even more mockingly sweet. “I’m sure he would love to hear that story, Oni.”

  “No,” Ontari said, laughing again.

  Mara gripped Revik’s arm, causing him to jump, then to look down at her face.

  “I know,” she said, giving him another grin, a glint in her light eyes. “Why don’t you use the time we have out here to try and learn how to walk quieter, Rook? That, or we can help Gar lose weight like he said he wanted, and make him carry you up the hill?”

  Revik glanced at Garensche, without slowing his pace as he hiked up the slope.

  The big seer probably carried half the camp requisitions on his broad back already.

  Garensche looked at him in the same set of seconds, frowning with his thick lips.

  “The hell I will,” he said, his voice a louder mutter than Revik’s had been. “No one wants to lose weight that badly, sister Mara.”

  On Gar’s other side, Poresh broke out in a laugh, as did Dalai.

  “Come on, brother Gar,” Poresh teased. “You know you want to… any excuse to get our youngster Rook alone.”

  When Gar looked over at the two of them, Dalai slapped the big seer playfully on the shoulder.

  “You did say you wanted to lose weight. I heard you. Same as Mara.”

  “Not by giving myself a hernia,” Garensche retorted, clicking and smiling, despite his tone. “Are you all forgetting how fucking heavy that damned Rook is? He may look narrow, but he has bones made of iron, I swear it. That, or––”

  “Are you sure those were his bones?” Dalai teased, giving Revik’s crotch a pointed glance.

  “Shut up, all of you,” Yumi cut in, her voice quiet, but still managing to penetrate the banter. She gave Dalai, Mara, and Poresh particularly hard stares. “Are we on a job here, or flirting with the ex-Rook? Which is it?”

  “Can’t we do both?” Gar asked, grinning at her.

  “No,” Yumi said, her voice colder.

  A few more of them chuckled, even Vikram, who was normally quiet.

  Revik felt flickers of humor from the group more generally, along with wise-ass remarks a number of them seemed to think better of and suppress, given Yumi’s threatening looks.

  As for the jokes themselves, he didn’t take any of it personally. He was used to that kind of thing. Being a smart-ass was kind of a military staple.

  It was just one of many ways of whistling in the dark.

  When Revik glanced forward, he saw Dalejem frowning back at the rest of them, too, even more deeply than Yumi. Revik saw his light green eyes settle the hardest on Mara, but couldn’t get a sense of what that was about, either.

  Or maybe he just didn’t want to.

  Brushing it from his mind, he gri
pped his rifle a little tighter, hitching the backpack higher on his shoulders in the same pause it took him to rearrange the gear. He’d been pulled into the rotation with equipment and camp set up and break-down like the rest of them. Although really, he’d put himself into that rotation, without being told, or even asked.

  As he finished adjusting his pack, he felt another thread of recognition whisper around his light. Someone monitoring the shield around Revik’s aleimi knocked the thread away, but the proximity of that familiar light, which felt more and more like Terian’s, brought a rush of adrenaline back into Revik’s blood, getting his legs moving faster.

  They hiked in silence for what felt like another few hours.

  Throughout all of it, Revik felt probes like that, only to have them pulled away by one of the Adhipan or Pamir seers, and once by Yumi herself. She glanced at him when it happened that time, frowning slightly, although it felt more like worry than an accusation.

  The realization reassured him.

  But truthfully, not a lot.

  He’d gone back to more or less spacing out, focusing blankly on the jungle, when another… something… hit into their Barrier construct.

  That time, it wasn’t from the Org.

  Revik felt it through the others first, before the original impulse reached enough of his light that he could pinpoint direction, or even the exact flavor from the Barrier. Once enough of it filtered over his aleimi for him to get a sense of both things, understanding caused his breath to suck in, even as every seer in his group came to a dead halt.

  None of them spoke.

  They stood, listening.

  Their lights went utterly still.

  It was so quiet, Revik could hear Dalai breathing beside him.

  He saw her small, white fingers knuckle into a clench around the straps of her backpack, even as she glanced at him. He also felt the question in her light.

  He sent back an impulse, no words.

  The impulse essentially meant, I don’t know.

  He was still standing there, breathing into the silence of the trees, when Yumi spoke, causing all of them to jump a little.

  She spoke to Revik.

  “Looks like you got your wish, pup,” she said, her voice holding a thread of humor. “I guess your friend isn’t as reckless as you’d thought.”

  Ontari answered instead of Revik.

  “Which wish was that?” he said, his voice joking. “Or do we want to know?”

  Despite the male seer’s words, Revik felt the tension in the group deflate, even as relief swam through the mobile construct as a whole.

  Revik understood the why of that, too.

  Whatever he had felt up ahead, it definitely didn’t belong to the Rooks.

  Yumi exhaled in a series of soft clicks along with the rest of them.

  “His wish for Kali to have called in more of the cavalry,” Yumi said. “To not depend solely on us… the lowly Adhipan.”

  Revik could hear the smirk in her voice.

  He also felt and heard the relief there.

  Despite her teasing, and the open eyeroll, he felt her relief much more strongly, and the resonance with the other infiltrators as it rippled through the rest of their group’s light.

  Feeling somewhat emboldened by it, Revik reached out tentatively with his aleimi, actively scanning for the specific frequency in the Barrier he’d felt, rather than letting it trickle through the shields the others held around him. Once he’d aimed his light in the right direction, he could immediately see what Yumi had been referencing… partly because Yumi herself caught him in the act.

  Once she had, she plugged him directly into the new influence in the construct.

  Presence washed over him.

  New living lights exploded into Revik’s awareness, popping up all over the hill in front of him as they appeared in Balidor’s construct. Revik watched in a kind of awe as more and more of them grew visible, becoming a sea of light in the dark.

  Looking over them all in wonder, Revik realized they’d been deliberately revealed once they were close enough to provide an effective message.

  That message wasn’t meant for him, or for anyone in Balidor’s team.

  It was a direct, unambiguous billboard to the Org teams chasing them.

  Feeling the strength represented there, behind that distinctive flare of light, Revik felt his shoulders abruptly relax.

  He hadn’t noticed how tense he was––not until that tension lifted.

  “Reinforcements,” he muttered.

  “Yes,” Yumi said, smiling at him. “It looks like the group Kali’s husband told us about has finally arrived.”

  Revik frowned faintly, but didn’t comment.

  Kali’s husband was behind this? These were his people?

  The thought bewildered him more than a little, and made him wonder again who this Uye really was. He didn’t say anything though, or even bother to tell Yumi that was an intelligence briefing he clearly hadn’t been privy to.

  We couldn’t tell you, brother, Dalejem murmured in his mind. Not until now. Not with the Rooks’ infiltrators attacking your mind every few seconds. You should not take this personally. It is not an indication of distrust.

  Revik glanced at him.

  He flushed a little to realize he’d once more been overheard, but relaxed at the other’s words. Holding that still, pale-green gaze, he nodded, once, gesturing briefly in seer to acknowledge his words.

  Once Yumi finished showing all of them the full strength of their new allies, she once more closed down the specific thread hooking their group to Balidor’s construct. Revik figured the caution remained due their physical proximity to the Org extraction team.

  “Brother Uye speaks for this team, as I told brother Revik,” she added, glancing around at the group as a whole that time. “It is a large number of infiltrators. Most of them highly ranked. Quite a lot of reinforcements, my brothers and sisters. But we cannot afford to drop our vigilance. There is a good chance the Rooks will call for reinforcements, as well.”

  “From where?” Vikram asked in heavily-accented Prexci. “This team of Uye’s. Where do they come from?”

  Revik glanced at him, surprised.

  Apparently he wasn’t the only one to wonder this.

  “Unknown,” Yumi said. “They are not Adhipan. Nor Seven.”

  “They are friendly, though?” Ontari said, his voice wary.

  “Very friendly. They are here for the Bridge,” she smiled.

  Revik heard a few sighs next to him, with more relief in them than he would have guessed. He hadn’t realized how much their precarious situation between the extraction team and Kali had been stressing all of them out.

  He alone seemed stunned by the rest of her words.

  “The Bridge?” he said, into that silence. “Is that known then? For certain?”

  Yumi gave him another direct look.

  She didn’t answer his question, however.

  “Balidor is coming here,” she said instead. “We are to wait for him to reach us. He says they’re only about fifteen minutes out, and that we should remain ready to move, if need be. So packs on the ground, but stick with field reqs if you’re hungry.”

  Revik glanced around as other seers began shrugging heavy packs off their shoulders, setting them on the ground or leaning them against trees.

  A few had canteens out already, and were drinking from them freely, heads tilted back. It didn’t really cool down very much out here at night. Not enough, anyway––not for the pace they were moving, and how much gear and clothing they wore and carried.

  Still, Revik felt some surprise in the others, at Yumi’s revelation about Balidor.

  Then it seemed like they were all looking at him.

  Meaning Revik himself.

  “Yes,” Yumi said, answering some question Revik hadn’t heard. “It is for him. I’ll let brother Balidor explain in full.”

  “Is that such a good idea, sister?” Vikram’s voice sharpened
. “Given what happened last time? It strikes me as… unwise.”

  “We will let Balidor explain.”

  “But sister––”

  “Again,” Yumi said, her voice harder, less compromising. “That is between him and his gods. He will have to decide for himself.”

  Realizing they were talking about him again, Revik looked over at her, seeing the bare outline of her face with his combat-trained night vision. The female seer smiled at him, but that time, he didn’t feel a lot of humor in her light.

  In fact, what he felt came a lot closer to sympathy.

  “Looks like you’ve been requested again, pup,” she said only.

  Before he could say anything, she shrugged off her own pack, and promptly sat on top of it, tugging out a piece of jerky from her vest. Revik watched her chew on it, and tried to decide if he wanted to ask one of the dozen or so questions now hovering over the construct they all shared.

  He decided he didn’t.

  Shrugging off his own pack, he let it fall to the ground pretty much where he stood, then bent his knees to sit on it, as well. Tugging the canteen from his belt, he took a long drink.

  He let the canteen fall to his thigh a few seconds later with a gasp, and pulled out a piece of jerky, chewing on it mechanically as he slowed his breathing, deliberately letting his body rest. He continued to bite and chew as he aimed his eyes up at the dark canopy and the few stars he could see past it, twinkling like sentries from between the dark leaves.

  Whatever was coming, whatever they were about to ask him to do, he already knew he’d likely say yes.

  He’d say yes, even if it were likely to kill him.

  He had his doubts Balidor didn’t already know that.

  He had even fewer doubts that Kali herself didn’t.

  When he sighed, letting his gaze drop back towards the camp, he saw Dalejem watching him, sitting on his own pack a few meters away. The seer was frowning with his perfectly-formed mouth, his handsome features hard, his canteen gripped in one hand. He stared directly and unambiguously at Revik with those light-green and violet eyes, his lips curled downward in what had to be anger.