Rogue Stars

by C Gockel et al.

  Kazim shifted restlessly. “Low eighties, but Shima, those targets are harder to hit than the aliens are. They are much smaller.”

  “Yes smaller, but they don’t move or fire back at you.” Shima looked at Merrick. “And you?”

  “High nineties most of the time,” Merrick said without pride. “I really was going to be warrior caste, Shima. I’m better than all my sibs.”

  Shima flicked her ears in assent. She believed him, but again it wasn’t target shooting they were speaking of. “If I do this, I’ll need you both to do exactly what I tell you. No wild heroic charges. We are not trying to kill Merkiaari, we are rescuing our people. If we can do that quietly without blood, we do it and thank the Harmonies for it.”

  “But you don’t think that will happen,” Kazim said, his camera zeroed into Shima’s face in a tight close up.

  “No I don’t, but the principal stands. I need your word you will do as I say and nothing more. If we find the situation different to what we expect, or we can’t rescue the prisoners, I need to know you will accept it and escape to the keep. We can fight and avenge them another time. Do I have your word?”

  Kazim was quick to agree, but Merick was slower.

  “Merrick, your word?”

  “My family...”

  She felt bad for him, but she could not budge on this. “I know, and we will do our best but dying ourselves against impossible odds won’t help them. Now, your word or we part company and Kazim and I head for the keep.”

  “You have my word that I will follow you and do as you command, Tei.”

  “Don’t call me that!” Shima snapped, and Kazim laid a hand on Merrick’s shoulder as he jumped in surprise.

  “I’ll tell you later,” Kazim murmured to Merrick.

  Shima stroked a hand over her harness and counted the loops holding her only chance at success. She ignored the significant glances the two males were passing back and forth.

  “Fine. We try,” Shima said, and prayed her father and her ancestors weren’t scolding her for acting foolishly. “We need to move fast. I will lead you closer. I will tell you what to do when we get there.”

  Shima raced into the trees back the way she had come with Merrick, using her own scent to find where they had first met. When she reached the spot, she switched to Merrik’s scent and followed that to the place he had been captured. The stink of Merkiaari saturated the place along with Shan pheromones of fear and desperation. Shima’s vision threatened to tunnel, but she forced away the fight/kill reflex and found a trail to follow.

  Shima pushed the pace beyond safe limits. She knew she did and tried to compensate using the Harmonies. It was harder to do than she thought it should be. It was the combination of distractions she decided. Trying to sense danger with the Harmonies, trying to use scent and her tracking skills to follow the trail left by the Merkiaari, while at the same time running through wilderness with not one but two untrained males... well, it was a wonder she could do it at all.

  Finally, she found them.

  “Stop here,” Shima panted. “They are not far ahead now. Take these.” She gave each of them a beamer. “Have you ever seen what happens when a beamer cell is overcharged, or burned?”

  Merrick gulped and Kazim’s jaw dropped. Shima started plucking free all the spare cells she had loaded her harness down with. She kept only two back for later, if there was a later. She gave each of the males half of the cells.

  “This is what you will do...”

  The fauna and flora of Child of Harmony was different to the homeworld, and well did Shima know that. Those differences played a large part in her research. Modifying food crops to thrive here in this environment was the goal of her research. But a tree was still a tree, no matter how different its form and those oddities played no part in the current use Shima had for them.

  Shima followed the Merkiaari patrol high in the trees, using the canopy to hide her movements and the thick chunky branches as her highway. Shan as a rule were more comfortable on the ground, but hunting and pouncing on prey from above was a valid skill. Her ancestors certainly thought so. She doubted Kazim’s would, but then the deserts of Harmony had no trees, just scrub and brush, and lots of sand. Hunting there was more about finding prey to kill than combat. Desert clans hunted fire lizards and the like. Hard to find in the first place, but not hard to kill once found. Fire lizards were fast like most species back home, but they had few defences once cornered.

  Shima paused, gauged the distance to the next tree, and leapt, landing with claws out to gouge into bark and secure her grip. She was above the prisoners now, and Merrick was exactly right in his description of what to expect. Five Shan, four females and one male. The male was awake but not well. The Harmonies told Shima he was in pain, and her nose told her he was bleeding though not how badly. The Merkiaari warrior closest to him was no longer carrying Merrick’s father. He simply prodded the injured and stumbling male forward, snarling words that only another Merkiaari would understand. The intent though was obvious. Move faster or die, seemed the likely translation.

  Shima could have killed this warrior easily from where she was, but that wasn’t the plan. She had to save them all, not just one injured male, and to do that she needed Kazim and Merrick to do as she had bid them. It shouldn’t be long now.

  Shima used the trees to move ahead of the column and circle around, scouting the problem from all sides. This wouldn’t end bloodlessly she decided, not entirely unhappy with the decision. If she could see a way to save the prisoners without fighting, she would use it. She meant what she said to Merrick. Anything could happen in a fight. The only way to ensure everyone’s safety was not to fight, but that wasn’t an option now. With two warriors so close together and near Merrick’s father, she couldn’t possibly spirit him away without being seen.

  It was nearly time. She readied herself by removing her visor and securing it on her harness. She hadn’t forgotten the desperation she had felt when she thought she had lost it, and hadn’t yet found a solution to let her wear it in the kind of fight she was anticipating here. She had never used it while hunting with Tahar, and although this was a different kind of hunt, she wouldn’t need her eyes to find the aliens. If all went well she would have the advantage regardless. She had planned for it at least.

  The first explosion took even her by surprise, but she was falling upon her prey just moments later. The flash as the energy cell exploded blinded all within sight of it, but not Shima. Her eyes were so bad in the dark without her visor that she could have stared right into the explosion without discomfort. Not that she was going to do that. She was busy killing her prey.

  The Merkiaari she landed upon had no time to scream. Shima landed on his back already reaching around his neck and ripped his throat out with the claws of both hands. He was already choking on blood and dying as she sprang away directly at another alien shaped blur.

  More flashes lit the trees and plunged them back into deep shadow as Kazim and Merrick threw beamer cells and shot them, causing them to explode. Beamer cells contained enough energy for hundreds of shots. Liberating all that at once made for an energetic display. Flashes of light lit the night, making shadows leap up and cavort amongst the trees. Mere moments later, the trees were plunged back into darkness all the deeper for the brief display.

  Merkiaari roared in anger and surprise, firing indiscriminately into the trees at targets they couldn’t see. Trees soaked up the damage, some cut in half beginning a majestic fall, but the forest was dense and they couldn’t complete their descent, branches tangling with their brothers.

  Shima disembowelled her second alien, not slowing to watch him die. The scent of Merkiaari and blood made her rage, and she let it take her. It was a liberating and fearsome thing, allowing her primal self to come to the fore. This must be what her earliest ancestors felt when the clans fought each other before the Great Harmony.

  The fight/kill reflex of her people tunnelled her vision and clamped her ears tight
to her head. Her muzzle gaped wide, her lips rippling back exposing killing teeth. She screamed her rage into the night sky. It was her battle cry, her first ever, and was the scream of a hunting Shan giving challenge to all enemies within hearing.

  Shima was essentially blind now, but as her father had maintained, she didn’t need eyes to hunt her prey. She had the Harmonies. She sought out the insane mind glows using her gifts, and raced madly into the trees aiming for the knot of alien mind glows. Behind her, she left two dying aliens and a bewildered Shan male in her wake.

  Shima slashed into the aliens, darting between them and splashing blood in all directions. Not stopping, she raced into the trees and circled back to attack from another direction over and over, whittling the enemy down with quick hit and run strikes; none of them instantly fatal, but all debilitating and confusing.

  Merkiaari weapons raved chaotically, blasting the trees to kindling as they sought targets that were simply not there. They did not know a lone Shan female was responsible for the carnage.

  More explosions and flashes of light courtesy of Kazim and Merrick lit the dark, and suddenly Merkiaari were falling to beamer fire as well as claws.

  Shima was lost to the madness. She danced in the dark amongst the trees. Strike, strike, jump, spin and slash. Alien blood sprayed, she spit it from her mouth and screamed her challenge again, but this time it was not answered by weapons fire.

  Silence.

  Spinning on the spot, claws still extended, Shima barely had time to close her fists. Her attack thudded home into Kazim’s belly and he folded with a grunt of air expelled. He fell to his knees groaning. Shima stood tall above him and screamed one last time, arms held wide with claws extended. It was not a challenge, but a cry of victory.

  “Shima, it’s done. You killed them all,” Kazim said gently. He didn’t try to stand, perhaps realising that in her maddened state she might take it as a challenge. “It’s over.”

  Shima glared down at him, panting hard and still raging in her thoughts, but his words almost inaudible with her ears still tight to her head began to make sense. Over? It was over already? She blinked trying to see into the trees, but it was so dark. Dark? Her visor!

  She reached for the visor still secure on her harness, but paused staring myopically at her hands. Her claws were thick with blood and bits of meat and alien fur. Her hands were dripping red onto the ground. She peered down at herself, forcing a semblance of calm into her thoughts and her tunnel vision began to recede. Her pelt was matted with blood, and she swallowed remembering the fight at last.

  Shima’s ears struggled up, and swivelled at a sound behind her. She spun falling automatically into a defensive crouch, but this time she found more of her people staring at her. Merrick’s mother looked upon Shima with a kind of fascinated horror, but her cubs were frightened. It made Shima want to hide her bloody face. Merrick’s father bowed to her when she met his eyes, and Shima bobbed one back quickly in reply. He shouldn’t bow to her that way. He was older than she and surely wiser. He was due her respect, but he didn’t seem to see it that way.

  Shima looked beyond her audience and into the trees, not finding whom she sought. “Merrick? Where’s Merrick?”

  “I don’t—” Kazim began to say.

  In a sudden panic, Shima reached out with the Harmonies and found a lone Shan mind glow. It was dim and fading.

  “He’s hurt!” Shima shouted and dashed into the trees.

  Shima found Merrick amid broken trees on his back blinking into the night sky. He still had his beamer, and he made her proud by aiming it steadily in her direction as she rushed toward him. He lowered the weapon when he saw who she was.

  Shima crouched over the youngling, looking for wounds and found one. A huge splinter of wood had speared him clean through close to the hip joint. Shima chewed her whiskers. She dare not remove it for fear of blood loss, yet he was literally nailed to the ground by it. She was no healer, but the Harmonies had already prepared her.

  He was dying.

  No! There must be something I can do, some trick Tahar taught me, or something Sharn said about blood loss. Please... Ancestors help me!

  “My father?” Merrick whispered.

  “Lives,” Shima assured him. “All of them. You saved them, Merrick. You did. You will make a great warrior one day.”

  “No,” Merrick said, his voice already fading as his heart pumped what little blood he had left onto the thirsty ground. “I was a coward. I ran away.”

  Shima’s eyes burned and she clutched his hand in hers. “No young warrior, no. Your ancestors sent you for help... you came to get me, you see?”

  “You think so, Tei? I don’t want to die... a... coward...” Merrick’s hand released Shima’s and his eyes stared at the sky unseeing. His mind glow faded to nothing.

  Shima stared into his face, burning the image of the youngling she had failed to save into her memory. He was dead. It was her fault. She had taken him under her protection as she had Kazim, and failed him. What had she been thinking, bringing two untrained males into this? Worse, what had possessed her to bring a youngling? Kazim at least was adult, able to make his own decisions, but Merrick...

  “Merick, please forgive me...”

  “There’s nothing to forgive, Shima.” Kazim said. He was half carrying Merrick’s father and that slowed his approach. “He was a warrior, and you were his Tei.”

  “Don’t...” call me that. Shima didn’t say it. Merrick had been young, too young, but he had chosen her to follow. The knowledge cut her all the deeper for she had proven unworthy of him. “Just don’t.”

  Shima took the beamer from Merrick’s other hand and holstered it upon her harness, before rising to her feet. She braced herself to meet Merrick’s father’s eyes, and the accusations she was sure would be there. She put her visor on to see them all the better, but the truth was she wanted to hide her own eyes for shame.

  “I... Harmonies forgive me,” tears began to fall and she let them. “I killed your cub. I have no words to express how sorry I am. I owe you a life and submit myself to your justice. I swear by my clan, my life is yours.”

  Kazim gasped as Shima spoke the old formula, but Merrick’s father had attention only for his dead cub. Behind him, his mate and other cubs arrived and the night was filled with wails of grief.

  Shima let the sound wash over her, and cried silently for Merrick, for Tahar, for her people.

  23 ~ Going Underground

  The Wilderness, Northern Continent, Child of Harmony

  They couldn’t take Merrick with them, there was just no way it would have been safe carrying him for cycles to the keep. Shima had hated the thought of leaving him for scavengers, of which there were many on Child of Harmony, but he would have understood the need. Thankfully, his father, Nevin, and his mother, Marsali, took charge of Merrick and they were the practical sort. They knew what had to be done.

  Shima was silent, her ears constantly swivelling listening for approaching danger while Merrick’s parents dug a pit using their claws. They would leave a marker of some kind so they could come back and take Merrick home when it was safe.

  Shima kept her head turning, watching for movement. She had both beamers in her possession again, in hand and ready to fire. She was wired, very tense, and feeling jittery. The Harmonies were screaming at her to move. Leave this place. Go. Go now was the message she was getting.

  There was no sign of more Merkiaari in the area, and she was watching with every sense she had. She knew they were safe for now, and yet the Harmonies were screaming of imminent danger. She wanted to run far and fast just as the Harmonies urged her to do, but they had to do right by Merrick first.

  Kazim was on the far side of the pit talking quietly to Merrick’s sibs. Kazim had asked Nevin if it was all right to record, and he said it was. It surprised Shima that he had agreed so easily, until she realised he wanted his cub to be remembered.

  Shima thought Merrick’s sibs looked a lot like their mother
, but then so had Merrick. Inaki had her mother’s patterning on her flanks, and so did Rahuri. Merrick had that distinctive pattern too. Miamovi lacked the pattern entirely, but she had her mother’s ears. In fact, her head matched her mother’s in shape and feature, not just colouring. The younglings had their mother’s looks, no question, but their manner was all their father. They walked softly like him, spoke with gravity as he did, and Shima felt certain they would take after him in their opinions. At any other time, they would seem reserved, Shima felt sure, but with Merrick’s death, emotions ran high and close to the surface.

  Shima froze for a moment when she saw it, but then continued her watch without a word to the others. It wouldn’t help anything to tell them that Merrick’s kah was standing there watching them. This wasn’t the first time she had seen one, and with the new war just starting, she doubted it would be her last. It would go to the Harmonies soon.

  Shima had seen kah before, but she had never seen one do what this one did next. One moment it was standing near Kazim, the next it was a pace away and in Shima’s face trying to talk. It gestured urgently and tried to say... something. There was no sound of course, and the kah seemed frustrated by that. It walked by Shima looking back at her with a pleading look when she stared. It held out a paw to her, still with that pleading expression upon its immaterial face.

  Shima was shocked motionless, her thoughts in chaos. Kah didn’t do this! They just didn’t! They weren’t people. This kah wasn’t the youngling she had met so briefly and failed to protect. It was... it was a memory of him, like one of Kazim’s films. That’s what she’d been taught when her father realised she was strong enough in the Harmonies to see them, and had invited his mate’s favourite sib to visit their home to teach her.

  Only Tei were ever taught about kah because only Tei were strong enough in the Harmonies to see them, but she was a special case. Strong enough to be Tei, but flawed in herself and unwanted by the clan-that-is-not. Tei’Thrand had been kind to teach the scared youngling she had been, and had broken many an unwritten rule to do it. Such deep knowledge of kah and their link to the Harmonies was held exclusively by the clan-that-is-not.