by P. K. Lentz
There was no time to think, nothing to consider. The command on Arixa’s tongue abruptly changed, no longer a word of retreat.
“Attack!” she screamed.
Twenty-Six
The enemy took cover behind its makeshift barricade, the two heavy guns still belching oversize slugs. The moment she found her footing, Arixa charged behind Dak, screaming and holding down the trigger of her vazer. The rest of the Dawn followed. Roaring, the thirty-odd strong band plunged across the metal plain into a hail of flying metal.
Dak’s Jir shield was killed instantly, spraying blue-black all over. Dak took hits that sent red blood bursting out through the back of his leather and bronze armor. Were he not augmented, such wounds would have killed him instantly.
Arixa kept her alien weapon trained on the barricade, as did all of the Dawn. Many Scythians had seized guns by now, and the air was filled with their sharp cracks as slugs flew in both directions. Some slashed through unaugmented Dawners who crumpled with bloody wounds to Arixa’s left and right.
Aliens manning the barrier shrieked and died, too. One of the tripod-mounted cannons fell silent for a few seconds until another defender moved behind it.
Leaving a line of Scythian corpses and red blood in its wake, the charge reached the barricade. The surviving Jir began to flee. Arixa lunged and caught one in the back, her war-pick piercing his armor, if barely. He fell, and Arixa hacked at him several more times on the floor.
Bloodied and bellowing madly, Sandaksatra who had begun the charge threw down his once-living shield, now a lump of blue and gray meat, and hurled his sagaris at a fleeing Jir. The ax glanced off of the alien’s helmeted skull, but the impact caused it to stumble. Another Scythian overtook it and delivered killing blows to its neck and chest.
Dak fell onto his hands and knees.
Racing up, Arixa knelt beside the gore-covered giant while the war band flowed around them gunning down the remaining Jir making their escape down a side tunnel.
“I’m... fine...” Dak replied. Each of his breaths a strained grunt, he shrugged off Arixa, rose with difficulty, and shuffled over to retrieve his ax.
A glance back the way they had come showed glistening heaps of armor in the low light. The Dawn had lost at least eight men and women in the charge.
I have doomed us all, Arixa thought with a pang of regret which quickly passed.
It was better to die here than live another fifty years with the deeper regret of having done nothing. Even if their current endeavor failed, it was a success. Humans had drawn Jir blood and struck a blow against the enemy of all humankind.
Movement caught Arixa’s eye and made her spin, but it was only black-clad Zhi emerging through the far iris to pick her way past the corpses. Her life was much too valuable to their plans to risk in an attack like the one the warriors had just undertaken. Thankfully, Zhi understood that and had left the costly charge to the Scythians.
She looked haunted. “We cannot afford more losses like this.”
Arixa answered grimly, “I know.”
Of the fifty or so who had followed Arixa at the last split, less than twenty remained alive. The few augmented among them, including Arixa, were covered with wounds. One augmented had fallen, his head burst open by a projectile that had struck him between the eyes.
Even their enhanced bodies were not resistant to all wounds.
Zhi squatted over one of the black-armored Jir bodies. “Take their armor,” she said. “It is much better than yours.”
Since most present didn’t comprehend Nexus-G, Arixa translated Zhi’s words into Scythian for the Dawn, which set to stripping the bodies.
“Take these, too,” Arixa said of the two tripod-mounted heavy guns. Without setting aside either of her own weapons, she slid arms underneath it and lifted to gauge its weight. The things were heavy enough that only the augmented among them would be able to carry them without great difficulty.
Since Arixa preferred not to be weighed down and Dak was heavily wounded, she called over the two other remaining augmented. One opted to exchange his slug-thrower and war-pick for the heavy gun while the second shared Arixa’s preference to remain unencumbered.
“I’ll take it,” Zhi said and proceeded to detach the second gun from its mount.
“No. You must remain in the rear,” Arixa protested. “We can’t lose you.”
“Then I’ll guard the rear.”
There was suppressed fear but also determination in the Han woman’s unusual, beautiful eyes. She wanted to prove her bravery, as much to herself as to the Dawn.
Arixa allowed it. “Where do we go from here?”
Hefting the heavy weapon, Zhi started, “I don’t—”
The crackle of gunfire interrupted her. Scythians shouted and dove. Arixa whirled and raced toward the sound, which she quickly gleaned was coming from a side corridor. None of her people had been hit, thankfully, all having taken cover to one side or the other of the intersection.
How can any being live in tunnels such as these? Arixa had wondered since boarding the god-ship. Like ants or burrowing rodents.
To fight the war that Arixa foresaw, Scythians would have to learn to live like this. She would have to learn...
“Bring those cannons over!” Arixa barked.
When Zhi came near carrying one, Arixa slung war-pick and vazer and made to relieve her of it. Zhi twisted away, giving Arixa a shoulder.
“I can do it,” she insisted in a voice which did not inspire confidence.
The Scythian wielder of the first cannon swung out of cover and sprayed slugs down the tunnel before ducking back. The invisible Jir returned fire, hitting nothing.
Reaching around the corner, Arixa sent back a few blind vazer shots of her own.
These Jir were in a smaller side-tunnel leading off of the larger main corridor, which meant that they weren’t barring the only path forward. The Dawn could bypass this resistance if it chose. But that would only leave them to be dealt with later. The only good Jir were dead Jir.
Zhi poked the thick barrel around the corner and let off a barrage while Arixa covered her with vazer fire. When the combat-virgin swung back against the wall, breath racing, Arixa gave her a smile of pride.
“Behind!” a Scythian screamed as fresh gunfire sounded from another direction.
Arixa spun and saw still more Jir shooting through a widening gap in the door behind them. The Dawn swung its weapons to fire on the new, more immediate threat. Zhi spun her cannon and blasted away. Alien shrieks filled the corridor. The incoming fire ceased and the door reversed, sealing again.
Zhi hung her head and lowered the cannon, letting its barrel touch the metal floor. Arixa noticed a glistening spot on the black sleeve of her left arm.
“You’re hurt,” she said, setting a palm on the warm wetness.
“I can handle it,” she said. “I would not be here otherwise.”
“Just remember this is all pointless if you die,” Arixa warned.
That was an exaggeration, perhaps. There was nothing pointless about what the Dawn had achieved so far. Still, without Zhi, they were all certain to die here.
The iris stayed shut, for now. Some Scythians cautiously returned to stealing and strapping on plates of ill-fitting alien armor while others sprayed return fire down the side tunnel from which slugs intermittently flew.
After a few such exchanges, a rising chorus of Jir screams echoed down the side passage. The incoming fire tapered off and halted. For a few seconds, there was silence—then muffled voices speaking in Scythian.
Arixa laughed and called out loudly in her native tongue, “My darlings?”
“It’s the Captain!” said a distant, familiar voice.
Peeking around the corner, Arixa saw a number of her warriors filling the passage. They had taken the pocket of Jir defenders by surprise from behind.
Among them were Ivar and pilot-imprinted Vaspa. As the parties reunited, Arixa saw that Ivar’s armor, like her own, was riddled
with holes which bled, wounds that would be fatal were he not augmented.
Ivar’s party consisted of thirteen men and women. Like Arixa’s group, many had black Jirmaken breastplates loosely fitted over their own armor.
“We split up twice,” Ivar reported bleakly. “We’ve lost around ten since the last division.”
Arixa set a hand on his shoulder and assured, “We’ll win this.”
She was hardly certain but she made it sound so, as was her duty.
He smirked. “I know.” The Norther was less good at sounding certain.
Together, the combined band of thirty-odd fighters proceeded down the broad main corridor, a direction which Arixa chose on instinct alone. Perhaps she was wrong. Her instincts were steppe instincts ill-suited to this iron place, but they were all she had.
While they moved, Arixa sent comms to the pilot assigned to Olkavas’s group. No answer came, and she gave up.
At the end of the corridor, a dead officer’s arm helped them to open another sealed iris. No threat waited immediately behind it, but at the very next turn, the Scythians nearly collided with a handful of Jir running in the opposite direction.
A swift close-quarters battle erupted. In its opening instants, a Dawner fell to Jir guns, but the following seconds gave the human fighters the upper hand. Jir skulls cracked and torsos were pierced by ax and war-pick.
Arixa pushed Zhi behind her to protect her from harm. Only seconds later, as Arixa pressed her vazer to the abdomen of the nearest Jir and fired, she head Zhi’s heavy cannon fall heavily to the floor. Arixa feared the worst until a glance spared between kills showed her that Zhi had cast her weapon down in order to start running.
“Zhi!” Arixa called after her before being forced to turn and finish off a wounded Jir trying to rise and fire.
When Arixa was able to look again, Zhi seemed to be involved in some fresh struggle further down the corridor, separate from the battle. With most of the Dawn hacking at corpses by now, Arixa raced after her.
She arrived to find Zhi straddling a small, strange creature on the floor which was clearly not a Jir. The alien was just a few feet tall with skin the color of milk. Its face was elongated, causing it somewhat to resemble a hairless horse, but with four slit-like eyes and a round mouth set at the front of its neck. The mouth emitted a high-pitched sound not unlike the hoot of an owl.
Its flailing feet were hoof-like, but in place of arms it possessed thin tentacles which currently were wrapped around the forearms of the woman pinning the creature to the floor.
“What the fuck is that?” Arixa asked over the thing’s agitated hooting.
“A Slintt,” Zhi answered. She yelled down at it, “Calm down! Stop! Quiet!”
Stooping, Arixa clapped a hand over the Slintt’s neck-mouth, muffling the sound.
“We won’t hurt you!” Zhi told it. “Where is the bridge? Take us there and you will be safe!”
“Will it really help us?” Arixa asked.
“I hope so. Remove your hand. The Slintt are a Lesser Race, like humans. She is a slave.”
Arixa uncovered its mouth. The creature remained silent.
“There’s nothing lesser about us,” Arixa complained.
“Tell that to the Jir.”
“That’s exactly what we’re doing.” She said to the horse-faced slave, “Help us to kill your masters. We’ll protect you.”
The Slintt let out a few soft, whimpering hoots.
A sharp, whistle-like sound filled the corridor, drowning the alien out. A throaty, disembodied voice emanated from the metal walls. A Jir voice.
“Attention human invaders! You are defeated. Most of you are dead! Throw down your arms and only you need die! Should you choose to persist in your futile attack, your entire species will suffer! Your families! Your children! Surrender now!”
The threat wasn’t worth considering or even acknowledging. Since it had been spoken in the Jir’s variant of Nexus, only Arixa and the other augmented and imprinted Scythians were capable of understanding. The rest heard meaningless strings of alien syllables. If the warning instilled doubt in any of her followers who were able to comprehend, she counted on them to ignore it as she did.
“We must move,” Arixa said.
Zhi retrieved her cannon. The Slintt was transferred to the custody of a Dawner whose face showed mild disgust.
“Show us to the bridge,” Arixa pleaded with the small alien. “You’ll be freed. I will free all the Jir’s slaves, if I can.”
Hoot hoot, it replied. That sounded to Arixa like a yes.
The Dawn pressed on, leaving behind it a slew of blue-blooded alien corpses. Now they even left weapons where they fell, since they had as many as they could carry.
Twenty-Seven
Arixa led thirty-odd battered warriors and Zhi in the direction the little horse-faced alien indicated with a tentacle.
“Don’t trust the Slintt too fully,” Zhi warned Arixa via comm. “In its extreme form, imprinting can be used to eradicate the will. It’s illegal under Jir law, and this one doesn’t show the signs, but it still—”
“Understood,” Arixa returned curtly, cutting Zhi off. She didn’t need any reminders that every step they took on these hard, unnatural floors was fraught with peril. Still, what choice did they have but to heed the little creature? It looked something like a horse, at least. A Scythian had to take that as a sign of good fortune, but Zhi wasn’t Scythian so couldn’t be expected to understand.
Hoooooot-hoot, the Slintt intoned, aiming a tentacle. Ever alert yet moving with haste, the Dawn proceeded down a new passageway.
“Are you at all concerned that we’re not being shot at?” Ivar asked Arixa. His blue eyes cast about in search of enemies.
“The ship may be large, but its crew is not,” Zhi answered on Arixa’s behalf. “And most may not be well-trained for combat.”
“You heard her,” Arixa said.
Ivar growled. “It makes me nervous.”
“I’m sure we’ll be shot more soon,” Arixa assured him.
Hoot-hoot! The Slintt led them around another corner to a wide, hexagonal iris edged in a green glow. Alien characters were painted in white on the wall nearby.
“That’s it!” Zhi said.
The iris stubbornly remained shut.
“Vazers!” Arixa ordered urgently.
She aimed hers at the iris and depressed the trigger. So did Dak and Ivar.
That was when Arixa’s world turned a blinding blue-white. Searing pain coursed through her limbs. Screams filled her ears, including her own.
* * *
When awareness returned, she heard voices. Jir voices. She lay on her side, cold metal under her cheek. She cracked her eyes open and blinked them a few times for focus.
She saw oddly formed, black-shod feet. The feet of Jir.
Some weapon had rendered them unconscious, she quickly realized.
But the Jir had made the error of failing to kill her. They must be made to regret that. Now, before opportunity faded.
Arixa wiggled her toes inside her boots and invisibly tensed her arms, confirming that the muscles were responsive.
The handle of her war-pick sat loosely in her right palm. Her left was empty, but she could see the vazer it had held lying on the metal floor within reach.
There was no time to waste. She launched into action.
Clenching fingers around her war-pick, she swung the weapon hard in an upward arc aimed at the nearest Jir. At the same time, she reached for her vazer.
The pick struck home, piercing armor. The Jir shrieked before she silenced it with an invisible vazer blast that burst open his black helmet.
Wrenching her pick free, she sent a continuous vazer blast all around, catching two armored Jir from behind, at least wounding them. There were more than ten Jirmaken around her, all armored. Scattered at their feet were the fallen forms of two dozen Scythians.
Arixa kept low and kept moving, smashing another Jir in the helmet be
fore wrapping her irongloved right arm around its chest, blasting it through the neck and holding up the limp, black-shelled corpse as a shield between her and the others in the wide corridor.
Setting the muzzle of the vazer on the dead Jir’s shoulder, she held the trigger down while turning.
Its comrades dove for cover. Over their shrieks came a deep, familiar bellow, and blood-encrusted Dak rose up from the floor to strike down an alien with his ax and charge at another. Ivar sprang up, his vazer casting invisible death. Vaspa and another joined him.
Sharp cracks sounded and slugs flew as the Jir brought their weapons to bear. Arixa’s eye found the green-lined iris leading to the bridge.
It was open. Near it stood three unarmored Jir. Chaos erupting all around them, the three scrambled to retreat back through the opening to safety.
Still holding the dead Jir as a shield, Arixa went toward them, firing. One of the three fell to its knees on the threshold with heavy vazer wounds.
In the next moment, Arixa was shot in the arm and turned her attention and her shield to a nearer foe, only to see it felled by Ivar. It joined at least ten other black-armored bodies lying among and atop the fallen Scythians.
The Jir here were greater in number than she had seen initially. More might arrive. She had to get through that iris.
She moved toward it again to see that it was stuck halfway open on account of the dead Jir whose body had fallen in the gap. One of the remaining two was trying to clear it by dragging the body through while the third returned fire with a small hand-weapon.
Arixa aimed her vazer at the armed one, and it fell. She heaved her shield-corpse toward the door. It landed heavily atop the first body and knocked over the Jir trying to clear it.
Reaching the door and stepping on the bodies, Arixa sank her war-pick deep into the bare head of the last of the three.
“With me, my Dawn!” Arixa called without looking back.
In front of her stood a blank wall, but no door. The right was also blocked, but to her left, the way seemed open.
There was not a second to be wasted moving forward, but the battle behind her in the passageway was still—
