Sons of the Lion

by Jason Cordova

  “You had no problem kicking Moses out of the shuttle,” Samson reminded him. He motioned toward the makeshift prison cell. “Why are you worried about killing an alien when you didn’t even blink killing another Human, bass?”

  “That was different,” Mulbah tried to explain.

  “Of course it was, bass.” Samson said, snarling at his commander. “It’s always different. We kill the Humans for the aliens to take their money, but now we’re not killing the aliens who kill Humans? The boys listen to you, bass, and they trust you. But this shit? This is stupid, menh.”

  “What? No,” Mulbah shook his head, confused. “The Blevin may have files on Peepo and what she’s doing here. I need those.”

  “Then what, bass?” Samson asked, looking away. He picked at his uniform’s collar, frustrated. “Then we wait until Peepo comes to kill us all?”

  “What are you asking me, Samson?” Mulbah asked, growing. “I can’t say to the universe ‘this is difficult for us, make it easy,’ can I?”

  “You can make it easier for us by killing the alien in there,” Samson snapped back. “If you don’t, I will.”

  “No, you won’t,” Mulbah said and moved between the captain and the prisoner’s door. Though Samson towered over Mulbah, the colonel didn’t budge. “I need that damn info.”

  “What you need is to remember where you’re from,” Samson retorted. “Move, bass.”

  “No.”

  “Bass, I don’t want to hurt you, but the Blevin has to die.”

  “After I get those fucking files,” Mulbah growled in a low voice. “Samson, don’t make me do something you’ll regret.”

  “I can snap you like a twig,” the big man reminded him. “Move.”

  “I’m not moving,” Mulbah replied. “So snap me like a twig.”

  Samson looked away, his hands balled tightly into fists. “Why you let her live, bass? Why? Why we kill those Italians? Why didn’t we run with the Horsemen?”

  “Because I didn’t think they were right at the time,” Mulbah said in a quiet voice. “I was wrong.”

  “We can still make it right, bass,” Samson whispered and closed his eyes. “Let me kill her.”

  “Not yet, Captain,” Mulbah said. “I need those files.”

  “Why though, bass?”

  “I know we’re not getting off-planet again, not as long as the planet is under the guild’s administration,” Mulbah said as reached out and grabbed the bigger man’s arm. Samson opened his eyes and looked at his commander. “Peepo will make sure of this. The information still can, though. If we can get it into Peacemaker hands, Earth has a chance. For this to happen, I need to get the files first.”

  “The Peacemaker Guild?” Samson asked, shocked. “You…already knew the Merc Guild would turn on us, menh? Why didn’t you say?”

  “Thorpi knew,” Mulbah said, his tone calm and neutral. “I was in denial. Thorpi knows how the guild runs, how Peepo thinks. He said they would turn on us once we fulfilled our tasks. We’ve done it. The only thing we can be now is a threat. I promise you will have your revenge for Doré. But it has to be after I get the information, ken?”

  “Yes, bass,” Samson acknowledged after a moment. He looked away, ashamed. “I’m sorry, bass. I wasn’t thinking.”

  “We all screw up, Samson,” Mulbah replied. “I should have listened to the Horsemen. I think now they were right about the guild. But would it have made things different? Probably not. I would have stayed here and made sure the aliens didn’t kill everyone just to make peace. Only thing it would have changed is how fast the guild turned on us.”

  “What now?” Samson asked.

  “We do our jobs,” he told him. “First Sergeant Simbo?”

  “Yes, bass?” Simbo asked.

  “In ten minutes, get two more armed guards from 2nd Company and bring the Blevin to the briefing room,” Mulbah instructed. “Nobody from 1st Company, you understand? Get with Oti and make sure he knows you’re borrowing some of his guys. Captain Tolbert?”

  “Bass?” Samson asked.

  “Let’s get ready for the meeting,” Mulbah told him. “We need to be on the same side, and the Blevin needs to see it if she’s going to break and give us what we need. After we record the confession, we’ll get her up in the conference room and put her on a show trial. We have to be on the same page for this, though.”

  “Same page…yes, bass,” Samson nodded. “That’s easy.”

  “And next time, if you have a problem with me, don’t bring it up in front of anyone else,” Mulbah warned him. “We need to be seen as united by the men. If they think we’re fighting, they lose faith in our ability to lead.”

  “Yes, bass,” Samson nodded sheepishly. “I won’t do that again.”

  “Good.” Mulbah grunted. “Now, let’s go make our visitor feel most unwelcome.”

  * * *

  Twenty minutes later, Mulbah was seated at a conference table in the unsecure briefing room inside the Kakata Korps headquarters. Next to him, Samson was staring at his personal slate. The two men had decided to make the alien assassin across the table from them sweat nervously and wait in the silence.

  Do Blevins sweat? Mulbah wondered idly as he stared at the blank slate in his hands. The reptilian alien across from him couldn’t see what he was looking at, since the angle was wrong, but her imagination was obviously filling in enough to make her extremely agitated. He made a show of swiping the slate and set it on the table, face down, and folded his hands. Leaning forward, Mulbah gave the Blevin a curious look.

  “Nothing I’ve found matches what you claim,” he began, his voice perfectly neutral. “Care to elaborate?”

  “It’s there if you know what to look for,” Kl’arn responded, her thin-slit eyes darting between Mulbah and Samson nervously. “I have the data stored somewhere safe.”

  “You uploaded it to the GalNet?” Samson asked, incredulous. “You wouldn’t be that crazy.”

  “No, somewhere even Peepo would never think to look,” the Blevin responded, her voice sour.

  Mulbah chuckled. “I know where you put it. Ballsy.”

  “What?” She turned her head to look at Mulbah in surprise. “There’s no way you could possibly know where I put the data.”

  Mulbah smiled at her. “You uploaded it to one of Earth’s Aerthernet storage sites.”

  “How…?” her voice trailed off as Samson, grumbling to himself, pulled his wallet out of his back pocket. He pulled out an old dollar bill, printed over one hundred years before, and handed it over to Mulbah. The merc commander waved Samson’s payment of their bet away before continuing.

  “You’re very calculating,” he told the Blevin as Samson repocketed the bill. “You know Peepo well, and I’m guessing you consider the leader of the Mercenary Guild to be arrogant. So what better place to hide data which could ruin her than right under her nose, the one place she would never think to look?”

  “Humans are ingenious little tinkerers,” Kl’arn said as she settled back uncomfortably in the chair. It was designed for Humans and did not fit the ungainly alien. She tried to make it work anyway. “It is why the guild despises your kind so. They want obedience. Humans are…anything but.”

  “It’s an evolutionary thing,” Mulbah smirked. “Survival of the wittiest.”

  “I have not heard that before,” the Blevin noted.

  “Look, we’re not going to punish you for your assassination attempt on the President of Liberia,” Mulbah promised her. “You missed, no harm done there. But we need the data if we’re going to truly get back at the Mercenary Guild.”

  “You swear?” Kl’arn asked, confused. “No punishment for shooting at your president?”

  “None whatsoever,” Mulbah said as he held up an open palm. “I swear upon it with my life you will not be punished for attempting to kill our president. Now, help us help you.”

  “When you release me, I shall give you the dropbox it’s stored on,” the Blevin countered, evidently pleased
by Mulbah’s desire to not kill her. “If I give it to you beforehand, you’ll just kill me.”

  “Wrong,” Mulbah told her. “We’ll keep you here until it’s safe for you to leave. It’s better than us killing you, wouldn’t you think?”

  “Safe?” the Blevin asked incredulously. “You think I’d be safe anywhere on this entropy-forsaken planet? Ha!”

  “You stay here, nobody knows what happened and everyone assumes you’re dead,” Mulbah told her as he leaned back in his chair. “Peepo won’t be hunting you to find out why you missed the target.”

  “Let me go,” the Blevin countered. “I’m much better on my own.”

  “If I let you go, Peepo will eventually find and kill you,” Mulbah reminded the Blevin. “In fact, I could just let it slip out onto GalNet you were captured by a Human merc company on Earth, assassinating its political leaders on behalf of Peepo and the guild. Who knows what would happen then? I might die, the Korps might get attacked, but…I wonder what your lifespan would be after this interesting bit of information got out?”

  Kl’arn hissed and drew back from the table. Her six fingers drummed on the table, a telltale sign the alien was nervous. The Blevin was probably not used to being manipulated like this. Mulbah could see her discomfort and tried to withhold a grin.

  Years at the corporate level had taught him it was all about an individual’s buttons, and when to push them. Skilled negotiating tactics were something he had been forced to develop as his startup had struggled to compete with the mega corps on the galactic scale. He’d shown Kl’arn the bad, and painted the worst possible picture he could imagine. It was time to show her some of the good.

  “Or, you stay here, as our prisoner, and we let slip the assassin died after a failed escape attempt,” Mulbah offered, dangling a different sort lifeline in front of her. “Peepo wouldn’t bother looking for you. Meanwhile, you could build a new persona and get off-world at your convenience. Or, conversely, we could just execute you and dump your body into the bay. Sharks around here are pretty aggressive, and any evidence would be quickly eaten. It would be unfortunate, but an acceptable loss.”

  The Blevin blinked rapidly and looked away, lost in thought. Mulbah gave her enough time to consider all the options which were on the table before she began to nod, slowly at first but with increased enthusiasm.

  Next to him, Samson helpfully chimed in. “You haven’t seen a shark feeding frenzy, have you? Pull one up on the GalNet sometime. I heard one of the clips was bad enough to scare the Besquith, who promised to never set foot in our oceans.”

  “Enough,” Kl’arn growled, her yellow pupils narrowed. Knowing what he did of the Blevin, Mulbah guessed he had struck a nerve. She continued, “I’ll remain here, in your ‘safe’ custody. No information on GalNet about my arrest, none of your sharks. I’ll download everything I have, raw data and otherwise, in exchange for my life.”

  “I knew we could come to an agreement,” Mulbah nodded as he looked at First Sergeant Simbo. “Grab two men and take her back to the cell. Try to see about making it more comfortable. In the meantime, we need to have a general staff meeting.”

  “Oh yay, more staff meetings,” Samson said as he rolled his eyes. Mulbah ignored the comment.

  “First Sergeant, you’re dismissed,” Mulbah said. He looked at Kl’arn. “Simbo will help get your information downloaded and safely stored. We thank you again for your generous assistance.”

  “I like living,” the Blevin countered. “This was my best option.”

  “I’m glad you see it the same way we do,” Mulbah said as the Blevin stood. Simbo and Kl’arn left the room and Mulbah waited a few moments before he continued. “As soon as we have the information, dump her ass in the bay with a bullet in her brain.”

  “You’re breaking your word?” Samson asked, surprised. Mulbah shook his head.

  “No,” he countered as he flipped the slate over and played with the edge of the device with his fingernail. “I said I wouldn’t kill her for attempting to assassinate the president. I never said a word about her shooting PFC Doré. I made sure it never came up.”

  “Ruthless,” Samson observed. Mulbah grunted.

  “We exist in a universe where everything can kill us pretty easily, Captain,” the commander of the Kakata Korps replied. “If humanity can’t be ruthless, we won’t survive.”

  * * *

  Cahill Memorial Hospital, Miami, United States District

  Thorpi looked at the Sphen-Eudy standing atop the bench with no small amount of trepidation. What the sleek, black-feathered alien was proposing was insane, and the odds of the Information Guild’s plan succeeding were almost zero. Yet the simple fact remained, it was the only feasible way to transmit the information Mulbah had sent him off-planet without the Mercenary Guild catching wind of what they were doing.

  The Sphen-Eudy’s brows went higher, the yellow tufts of feathers an obvious sign of the agent’s exasperation. Thorpi had known all along he was playing a dangerous game, working for both the Mercenary and Information Guilds. It was now time to turn the tables on Peepo and her ilk, for better or for worse. He hoped what he was about to do didn’t come back to bite him later on.

  “And you’re absolutely certain she has enough?” Thorpi pressed, nervous. He actually liked the young girl, crass attitude and all. She reminded him of a rebellious creche sister, which pleased him to no end. Creche sisters who made the lives of favored daughters entropic were impossible to find. Especially in his family. He continued after a breath. “The Korps are inordinately fond of the girl. As am I.”

  “Some slight variations from the other subjects we’ve tested,” the Sphen-Eudy offered with a delicate shrug. Its white feathered belly ruffled, then flattened against its body. “Typical in Humans. My uncle states the differences in Human DNA sequencing between their various tribes is minimal at best. No, it won’t affect the information or the storage amount.”

  “And the Wrogul?” Thorpi pressed.

  “Ray says it’ll be a snap,” the Sphen-Eudy replied. “He’s oddly excited about this.”

  “Odd creatures, Wrogul,” Thropi muttered. “What will she remember?”

  “Pain.”

  “She can handle it,” Thorpi said. “We still are looking for a way to get her off-planet before the feces strikes the rotary impeller.”

  “I can’t help you there,” the aliens replied.

  “I thought your people were smugglers?”

  “We’re independent commercial and industrial financiers,” the Sphen-Eudy corrected with a sharp snap of its beak. “There is a difference.”

  “Payment will be made once the connection is established,” Thorpi told the small alien as it hopped off the bench to the tiled floor. The Sphen-Eudy grunted in an odd pitch.

  “There are so many different ways Humans are living, breathing weapons,” the alien casually noted. Thorpi’s ear twitched unwittingly forward but he quelled the movement before the smaller Information Guild agent noticed. “The guild is excited about their potential.”

  “Let’s just hope they survive whatever the Mercenary Guild has in store for them,” Thorpi cautioned the creature. “Whatever Peepo is planning, she aims to ensure they are firmly under her control when the time comes.”

  The Sphen-Eudy began hopping back down the hall toward the operating suite before it stopped and turned its head almost completely around to look at Thorpi. The dark eyes of the alien bore into his. “Has it not occurred to anyone else the Veetanho seem to control the most dangerous of the mercenary races?” it offered before shaking its head slightly. “No, a Veetanho wouldn’t notice this. But I find it…unsettling; the MinSha, Tortantula and Flatar, and the Besquith all seem to do the bidding of the Veetanho without hesitation. Perhaps there are other reasons, ones nobody has considered, which drives Peepo along her path? I shall leave those thoughts for others with time and money to ponder. I am far too busy. Good day, Thorpi, and good luck.”

  Thorpi didn’t wat
ch the Sphen-Eudy leave. Instead, he hurried back into the surgical suite waiting area, where he found Zion half-asleep in his seat. The Veetanho slid into a second chair without the Human noticing and pulled out his slate. As far as he could tell, the 3rd Company commander had not noticed he had left the room at all.

  * * *

  Zion waited patiently in the surgical suite, his eyes half-closed as he stared off into nothing, his mind scouring the GalNet for any information he could find about the current state of events on Earth. There were a lot of blocks in place, but he was still able to use the guild codes, courtesy of General Peepo and the Mercenary Guild. This was supposed to have ensured their loyalty, but the more Zion explored, the worse it became. It wasn’t looking good for humanity, which made the Korps’ current situation untenable in the eyes of the rest of the mercenary companies who were Earth-based.

  Word on the street was that the Izlian were backing away from the current war against humanity, but nobody could tell Zion why. Using his codes to dig deeper into the GalNet told him nothing except something big had happened involving the entire Izlian race and a time of mourning. Zion understood how phrasing worked, and using this new information was able to deduce that the Izlian’s most popular and successful admiral, Admiral Omega, had somehow died. In combat or just simply from old age, though, Zion couldn’t say. Even with his access levels, the information was restricted.

  As to why this information was being restricted, Zion couldn’t say. He suspected it was partly due to the remaining elements of the Horsemen who were still hiding out on Earth and using the GalNet to pass messages along. A niggling little voice in the back of his mind, however, suggested something else.

  Zion looked at the slight alien seated across from him. Thorpi, who had taken an interest in Sunshine as well, had come inside the hospital with them and decided to wait with the mercenary. The Veetanho was quiet as he read his slate, using his nails to flip through the screens at a rapid pace. Now that Zion actually had time to consider it, he decided the whole situation was strange. Thorpi was the first male Veetanho any Human had ever seen, and yet they knew almost nothing about him, even after three years of working with him.