by Mel Odom
Zhoh returned fire and, for a minute, Sage was afraid the Phrenorian warrior had forgotten about the drone. Then the drone rocketed forward again and drove Sage to cover.
Metal screeched as the thing grinded against the aircar wreckage. It pounded against the aircar violently four times, moving up, then pancaking down again, like it was hoping to flatten the aircar and Sage with it.
He realized almost too late that the tactic was intended as a distraction. Glancing back up at the barrier, which had more daylight than ever spilling through it, he spotted the two Phrenorian warriors who had climbed the side of the building to get at him.
He recharged the uranium rounds from the ammo rack on his combat harness and brought the weapon to bear. On full-auto, he fired into the facemask of the Phrenorian on the left, cored through the lighter armor, and blasted apart the alien’s cephalothorax. He switched to the other Phrenorian and opened fire just as a round caught him in the chest and rocked him back on his heels.
The drone swung at him again and he barely escaped the impact. By the time he got in a protected position to fire, the second Phrenorian was on him. The warrior pointed his rifle at Sage point-blank and opened fire. Rounds tattooed Sage’s armor and he knew the integrity was thinning as the anti-kinetic plates fractured under the barrage.
Lunging up, Sage knocked the rifle barrel aside with his own weapon and hit the Phrenorian just as the drone came down again. This time the Phrenorian caught the brunt of the impact. His exoskeleton split and burst, and the warrior’s insides evacuated the smashed shell.
Sage didn’t know if the alien was dead or dying. Nor could he guess at how much pain the Phrenorian was in. Terran PsyOps had a lot of unanswered questions because Phrenorians almost never survived capture. They died fighting, or they killed themselves once taken prisoner.
He drew the Magnum and put a mercy round through the Phrenorian’s brain. Even after he was certain his opponent was dead, the Phrenorian twitched and moved.
The drone hammered the corpse twice more, then shot backward toward the barrier. As Sage shoved the Magnum into his thigh holster, he reached for the remote detonator attached to the combat harness.
This time the drone ripped through the hanging plascrete and shot out into the open. Before the drone pilot thought to stop the aircraft, it collided with the hovering aircar. The impact didn’t do much to either one of the vehicles, but when Sage triggered the detonators, a massive fireball dawned on the drone.
With the explosion still ringing in his ears despite the aud dampers in his helmet, Sage sprinted forward. When he reached the wrecked wall, he climbed the pile of debris, thought he could span the distance to Zhoh’s aircar, and threw himself forward.
For a moment, his fingers caught the aircar’s edge, but it tipped slightly as it took on his weight. The shift was just enough to cause him to lose what little purchase he’d managed.
He fell four meters to the ground and instinctively bent his knees to absorb the impact. Although the armor he now wore wasn’t as heavy as an AKTIVsuit, the impact shattered the plascrete boardwalk when he hit. He rolled, shed more of the force of the drop, and pushed himself to his feet.
Knowing he didn’t have a chance of going toe-to-toe with the aircar crew and Zhoh, Sage focused on the pin Fachang had dropped onto his HUD map and sprinted toward the well. His heart hammered and he resisted the impulse to comm Kiwanuka and tell her he was coming.
He wouldn’t hold his soldiers up. If he got there too late to accompany a soldier in an AKTIVsuit that had an air supply, he’d try to make the distance himself without it.
Staying out on the street was just going to get him killed.
Sprawl Provisional Protectorate
Makaum
27843 Akej (Phrenorian Prime)
Zhoh blinked his forward eyes but couldn’t clear them from the brightness of the explosion. His suit’s faceshield had reacted too late. He turned his back and used his rear eyes, scanning the area for Sage. He’d expected to see the Terran master sergeant lying on the ground helpless.
Sage wasn’t there. The large cracked crater showed where the human had hit, but he was gone.
The aircar struggled to maintain a hovering position. The pilot was wounded, barely able to maintain control of the aircraft.
“Mato!” Zhoh shouted.
“Yes, General?” Mato responded.
“Where is Sage?”
“I’m looking.”
“Why weren’t you tracking him?”
“There are other points of conflict that have to be managed. Looters have taken to the streets and are attacking our warriors. Some have even dared to attack the embassy.”
“Give the order to kill anyone who stands in our way,” Zhoh said.
“I have.”
“And look for Sage.”
Zhoh scanned the streets and only then registered the presence of hot metal burning against his carapace. He brushed the shrapnel away with his secondaries but had to stop when the more vulnerable limbs threatened to take more damage than he currently was.
“I’m playing back recordings of the drone cams now,” Mato said. “I will have Sage in a moment.”
Zhoh leaned toward the pilot. “Put us down, Corporal.”
“Yes, General,” the warrior responded weakly.
A moment later, his forward eyes now clear, Zhoh leaped from the aircar as it sat on the ground. Bullets and beams struck the vehicle. Reaching back into the aircar, Zhoh pulled the pilot free and laid him on the ground next to the vehicle.
Instead of a rescue as he’d intended, Zhoh only succeeded in pulling a corpse from the aircar. Immediately, Zhoh plucked a grenade from the dead warrior’s gear, pulled the pin with one of his secondaries, and wedged it under the pilot. He marked the booby trap on the battlefield so his warriors would know to search carefully before taking the pilot’s body back to the embassy.
If someone else reached the body first and didn’t notice the grenade, the pilot would manage a kill even while dead. It was the best a warrior could hope for on the battlefield.
“I have Sage,” Mato said.
“Where is he?” Zhoh stood and pulled a grenade from his harness. He lobbed it toward a tumbled-down store where hostile guns fired at him. The resulting explosion brought down what remained of the building and crushed or buried the gunners hiding within.
“Sage took the same path as the other Terrans.”
Zhoh looked at the alley where he’d seen the soldiers fleeing earlier. He ran across the street. “Send warriors to me.”
“Twelve are already on the way, triarr.”
Zhoh spotted the warriors through the eyes in the back of his head. They came on the double, hurried through the smoke and flames and debris, and fired at targets in the street and in nearby buildings. Zhoh’s heart swelled with pride, and he smelled his own pheromones issuing a challenge to all around him.
“Where have the Terrans gone?” Zhoh asked.
He waved a scout into position and the warrior leaped forward and entered the narrow passageway. Zhoh ran after him.
“I don’t know, General,” Mato said. “None of the sec cams we have access to have them in view.”
“They’re not running toward the fort. What can they hope to reach?”
“I don’t know.”
Zhoh flicked through the map on his HUD and searched through the streets and businesses listed there. He wasn’t certain the list of shops and outlets were up to date because new businesses took over for old businesses that had pulled out of Makaum at a rapid pace.
Some of the buildings in this sector had become homes for homeless beings from a dozen worlds. The economic downsizing after the assassination at the Festival of the Beginning had stranded several beings who now didn’t have passage offplanet. Zhoh had seen the same thing happen on several other planets the Empire had enslaved.
Once Makaum was broken, then would come the culling. Those beings unable to work would be executed.
For now, Zhoh wanted to find Sage and kill the master sergeant. The Terrans would pay for their attack on him.
Nainir’s Well
North Makaum Sprawl
1757 Hours Zulu Time
Bullets and beams pursued Sage as he ran through the alleys toward the location Fachang had marked for him. As far as he could tell, none of them were fired by Phrenorians. Looters and opportunists raided the local shops. The fact that he couldn’t do anything to stop the thievery or protect the people inside the shops chafed at Sage. But this wasn’t the place or the time to try to do anything.
He knew he was being pursued. Zhoh wasn’t the type to just give up and go away.
Especially not if he thought the Terran military was behind the assassination attempt on his life.
Thankfully, as Sage sprinted around buildings, crawlers, and carts that were on fire, there appeared to be no innocents on the streets. Several dead people and a few dafeerorgs lay where they’d fallen.
Nainir’s Well 72.8 meters flashed across the map. As Sage glanced at it, the numbers rapidly dropped. He looked for the well and still couldn’t see it.
A Phrenorian aircar flew overhead as he ran across a street. Almost immediately, the vehicle slowed and the 20mm cannon on the fighting deck swung around. Rounds crashed in Sage’s wake, caught up rapidly, and left small craters punched into the street. As he sprinted into the alley, more rounds blew out the side of a building.
A wooden fence blocked the end of the alley. Without slowing, Sage barreled toward it, tore through like a bullet, and left shattered boards behind him.
The well stood before him in a large, open area. Rectangular and low-walled, the well was six meters long on the shorter sides and nine meters in length on the longer sides. Bodies lay around the well, torn and bleeding and in pieces, but none of them were Terran soldiers.
Breath ragged despite the armor’s augmented musculature, Sage reached the well’s side and peered down five meters at the dark water. Ripples covered the surface and he knew it came from the cannonade chasing him.
There was no sign of the tunnel that Fachang had said was there, but Sage knew the man had told the truth. Kiwanuka and the other soldiers were gone, and Sage hoped they were safe.
The aircar rose above the building and fired at Sage again. Knowing he had no choice, he threw himself over the wall and dropped. He hit the surface and sank deeply. The chill of the water soothed his torn and blistered skin almost immediately, but the rest of his face felt frozen because his current helmet didn’t self-seal.
He held his breath, wished he had a helmet light or infrared or even an idea of which way he needed to head. Knowing how deep he needed to go would have helped. His best guess was that he’d dropped at least six meters, and perhaps ten. The well was deeper than he’d thought it would be.
He was still sinking.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Nainir’s Well
North Makaum Sprawl
1801 Hours Zulu Time
Panic rose in Sage as his lungs tightened, but it was nothing he wasn’t familiar with. He pushed it away and concentrated on survival. He almost drove his armored fingers into the stone wall and climbed, then he realized that any kind of underground waterway would have to be deep. He continued to descend into the darkness.
The pressure on his chest increased. Sage wanted to surface but the body armor was too heavy to climb quickly enough and he couldn’t get out of it easily. Maybe not even in time to keep from drowning. If he succeeded in getting free of the armor and swimming up, he knew the Phrenorians would close on him and he’d have no chance at all.
Even as he was thinking that, something hit the top of the well and blew it to pieces. Large stones and broken mortar rained down into the water. The depth he was at prevented the debris from smashing into him, but the light went away and he knew the opening was sealed.
With no choice but to go on, Sage continued to drop. Even though his instinct was to leave the mask in place because of his injuries and the water, he peeled the filter from his face. Cold needles flared into both his eyes.
He didn’t have voice control over the HUD, but the map software kept him oriented. His feet finally struck bottom but he had no idea how far down he was. His lungs burned, desperate for oxygen. Falling debris continued streaming over him and a large stone struck him hard enough to knock him down.
Operating on stubbornness and his own will to survive, Sage pushed up to his feet and reached out to find the nearest wall. The current pulled at him, but he realized he didn’t know if he was supposed to go with it or against it. Fachang hadn’t said. Or maybe Sage hadn’t been listening.
The pressure on his body let him know he’d gone deep, and the need to breathe grew stronger. Locating the wall, he turned and dragged his fingers across the rough surface. When he felt the edge of an opening, he drove himself forward. There was no time for second-guessing.
Ramming his stiffened fingers forward, he dug a handhold in the side of the underground river. Natural stone, not mortised, lined the channel. He continued driving his fingers into the wall and climbing up as his lungs threatened to explode.
Black spots swam in his vision and he knew he couldn’t remain conscious much longer. He didn’t know if he would black out first or draw in a breath. If either one of those things happened, he was dead.
Two more pulls with his arms and he reached the top of the river. It was at least eight meters deep and the current was strong and steady. Unable to hold back, he shoved his face toward the ceiling, unable to see in the darkness if there was any air space.
His helmet butted into the stone ceiling and he knew the river was flush, filled to the top.
There was no air.
Strength drained from him and the current took him. He sank and his armored body dragged across the stone bottom worn smooth by years of erosion. He tried to move and couldn’t.
A bright light suddenly flared before him and he guessed that his struggle was over. He was going to die on Makaum, lost and alone, and no one would know what happened to him. The war that he had longed to return to would be fought and won or lost without him.
Arms closed around his chest and he automatically tried to fight them off because the only instinct he had was to battle whoever came upon him. Then an armored hand tore away his faceshield and fitted a breather across his lips.
He opened his mouth and bit down on the rubber guard. When he breathed, his lungs filled with air, not river water. The swirling black spots cleared slowly from his vision.
Weakly, working to recover his strength, Sage wrapped an arm around the armored soldier who had him. His eyes adjusted to the light and he saw Kiwanuka’s face on the other side of her shield.
She pressed her helmet against his, linking their comms through direct contact.
“Sage?” Kiwanuka said.
He flailed a hand and managed to tap her shoulder in an acknowledgment.
“I’ve got you. Okay?”
Sage tapped her again. His helmet comm was exposed and he couldn’t talk with the breather in his mouth.
“We’ve got to turn around. Just hang on to me.”
Still weak, Sage managed to get both arms around her as she maneuvered around and headed back the way she’d come. Like he’d done, she clawed her way along the river wall. Sage tried to turn because he wanted to help.
“No,” Kiwanuka told him. “Streamline yourself. Let the armor do the work. I got this.”
Sage tapped her shoulder once more and held on as she carried them away.
A-Pakeb Node
General’s Personal Quarters
Makaum
28534 Akej (Phrenorian Prime)
“Are you in pain, General Zhoh?”
Lying on the hospital table, Zhoh was disgusted by the question. His pheromones radiated his displeasure and the female Phrenorian medtech attending to him drew in her secondary limbs and chelicerae in response. For a moment he thought his sharp annoyance would drive
her away.
She was tall and lean, an attractive female with mostly blue coloration, and threads of green swirled through her exoskeleton. Among Phrenorians, she would be sought after and fought over for breeding rights. Her lack of political connections would lessen her appeal, but she would birth strong children.
Not like Sxia’s abominations that had been ended as soon as they’d been born.
If Zhoh had not lacked for political affiliations himself, he might have mated with someone like the female before him. But he’d wanted glory, and that desire had left him kalque.
Now, though, glory was once more possible. He longed for it, and he knew he would not let it slip away again.
“I am fine, Geneticist Nhez,” Zhoh told her calmly in spite of the pain that radiated from his wounds. “Continue.”
Cautiously, Nhez unfurled her secondaries and took up the surgical tools she was using to remove the plascrete shards from his thorax. As she pulled and prodded with the forceps, she also used a laser to cauterize blood vessels and sprayed artificial chitin over the wound once cleared.
“I can shut down the pain, General,” Nhez said.
Zhoh stared at the ceiling and the floor. “Pain is what makes us strong. I will grow from this.”
He separated himself from the burning ache that was rooted in his thorax by thinking of the Terran soldiers he would kill and eat in the near future. He would harvest a mountain of their skulls.
Nhez continued working. She was the only one in the room with him. Mato was overseeing the defensive efforts and reconstruction of the embassy. Zhoh watched the progress of those labors on a dozen different screens set up around the hospital room.
“How much longer will this take?” Zhoh asked.
“Only a short time, General. I’m working as fast as I dare. I am being thorough.”
“Good, because I am needed.”
“Are we going to war with the Terrans?” Nhez asked.
“Yes. They attacked me. They attacked us. That cannot be tolerated. We cannot show weakness. Otherwise there will be others who rise up to challenge our authority on other planets. We will break this show of force now.”
