by Mel Odom
“I heard there were beings in the streets other than the Terrans who attacked Phrenorian warriors.”
“There were.” Zhoh took in oxygen and let it out. “The Empire has conquered several worlds. We have enemies everywhere. We will keep those enemies forever, either as slaves or as enemies we have not yet killed. They will fear us, and they will stop daring to fight us. They will accept their subjugation and learn to live in it. We’ve seen this on a hundred worlds.”
Nhez continued prying at the second of the plascrete shards. “I know. I have never before been this close to the front line.”
Zhoh took in the air and tasted her pheromones. She smelled of excitement and bordered on a mating frenzy and fear. The fear was insufferable, but he didn’t know if she was apprehensive of the situation on Makaum or of her work healing him.
“Everything is as it should be,” Zhoh told her.
“You came close to death today.”
Zhoh smelled his own courage and bravery and he noted that her secondaries worked more steadily when she took in his pheromones. “I have been closer.”
“What will you do?” Nhez asked.
“Heal. And await word from the Seraugh.” Zhoh had already contacted the War Board and let them know the situation on the planet. “Once I am told that I may attack the Terrans, we will destroy them.”
He had plans for the secret base General Rangha had set up in Stronghold RuSasara to the southwest of the sprawl. Once the Seraugh gave its permission for those weapons to be brought out into the open, the only two choices the Terrans would have would be to go to war or submit.
But once those weapons were unleashed, it would be too late. The Terran soldiers didn’t have that kind of firepower. They would die rapidly and the Phrenorian victory would be assured.
The Seraugh awarded special medals to generals who delivered planets to the Empire. Zhoh had seen them, had coveted them, and he had known he would achieve one or die trying. He just hadn’t known it would come this soon.
A warrior wearing such a medal was given instant respect wherever he went in the Empire.
Zhoh watched one of the screens as repair drones floated across holes in the embassy walls and laid down layers of plascrete. They swam together like cridelrad, the small fishes that lived in the shallows of the Phrenorian oceans. All of them mimicked the same movements and flowed smoothly. As they passed, the embassy walls reformed.
Another screen swept out to view a sec drone shooting down another being in the street. Zhoh saw no weapon on the creature and suspected that it only ventured out to rescue the body of a loved one or perhaps to loot the dead. The execution was a reminder of how worthless emotions like love and greed were. Blood would only be shed to achieve a goal worth accomplishing. Rescuing a dead body or gathering hardware for resale was not a worthy objective to spend a life on.
A warrior’s life was spent killing his enemies.
Zhoh’s comm blared for attention and he acknowledged it.
“General,” Mato said, “I have an incoming message from General Belnale, senior among the Seraugh.”
Nhez extracted the final plascrete shard and laid it in a surgical pan to the side of the table with a small clink. She worked quickly to cauterize and cover the wound.
Zhoh waved her back and sat up on the bed. Dizziness swam through his senses and he waited just a moment till it passed. “Put the general through, Mato.”
The screen shimmered and Belnale’s countenance filled the main section while Mato’s image shrank to a corner.
“General Zhoh,” Belnale greeted.
The title swelled Zhoh with pride and he was glad that the other warrior was not in the room to taste the self-satisfied pheromones he secreted in that moment. There was no excuse for his excitement and it would appear unseemly.
“General Belnale,” Zhoh replied.
“I have been apprised of your recent troubles,” Belnale said.
“They’re only momentary, I assure you.”
“They are insufferable. We negotiated with the Terrans in good faith, and yet one of them tried to assassinate you.”
“The man paid the price for his transgressions,” Zhoh said.
“You have identified him?”
“There was not enough left of him to do so.” That wasn’t necessarily true, but no one would know any different.
“You know he was a Terran soldier?”
“Yes.” Zhoh had no reservations about lying. He believed what he was saying even though a body had not turned up and there had been no confirmation on the assassin’s identity. He would not be denied his prize. Makaum would be his. The Kabilak medal would be his.
Then he would have his revenge on his wife and father-in-law. Their deaths would be true horrors.
“Good,” Belnale said. “Then we will attack without mercy.”
“I’ve already planned for that,” Zhoh said. “Our first attack is only hours away.”
“Hold off on that for a time.”
Zhoh couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “General, why would I delay?”
“Because the Empire is even now negotiating with the Terrans regarding the attack.”
“Why would we negotiate?”
“The Empire wants to put on a good face for the other worlds,” Belnale said. “Our war with Terra must be won first before we move into other sectors. The Empire doesn’t want any more star systems aligning against us. Makaum has been chosen as a turning point in the war. Once we take that planet, others will more easily follow.”
“Then let me proceed.”
“Wait, General. At present, you are outnumbered and outgunned on that planet.”
“It doesn’t matter. We are Phrenorians.”
“I know that. But the Empire wants to assist in your victory.”
“How?”
“Your superiority on land is without question, but there still remains the issue of the orbiting space stations.”
“The battle won’t take place in those areas.” Zhoh felt confident he could get enough warriors into orbit to take the offworld holdings when the time came.
“The space stations can’t easily leave orbit, so they will take sides in the war. And they will challenge us too. They can wreak a lot of damage onto the sprawl in their efforts to destroy you. They can provide intelligence that the Terrans at Fort York won’t have without them. The Empire doesn’t want to lose those resources so readily. Captured space stations can be used as staging platforms for the recovery of that planet’s raw materials. So we propose to help you capture them. Some of them. The others will be destroyed.”
“What is the Empire going to do?”
“In due time, General. We must each play our parts. Until we are ready, stand down.”
Zhoh bristled at the command. As general of the Phrenorian forces on Makaum, the decision of whether to attack or not attack should have been his. But he answered the way he knew he had to. “Of course.”
Belnale looked at him. “Congratulations again on winning your command there, General Zhoh, and on surviving the assassination attempt. You have come a long way toward glory. I would see you finish the journey you have begun today. Heal from your wounds. The next step is ours. We will be in touch soon.”
The comm cut and Belnale’s image disappeared.
Zhoh seethed and it took him a moment to see that his pheromones were eroding Nhez’s professional behavior. He calmed himself and slid from the table to stand on his peds. “You may leave, Geneticist Nhez. Thank you for your ministrations.”
Nhez folded her secondaries and backed out of the room.
“Mato,” Zhoh said.
“Yes, General?”
“Notify Stronghold RuSusara to ready the armored units there.”
“I will.”
“And send in a full complement of seasoned pilots for those units. Once we are given permission, I want them to lead the attack against Fort York.”
“At once, General.”
Thinking of the victory that lay ahead of him lessened Zhoh’s pain from his wounds. He would have to wait even though his blood boiled to strike now, but he told himself that would be fine. The Terrans didn’t know about the stronghold, the existence of which was also a breach of the treaty, but it wouldn’t matter.
Makaum was going to fall in days, if not hours.
TWENTY-NINE
Med Center
Fort York
2341 Hours Zulu Time
Sage blinked his eyes open and felt the numbness that spread across his face on both sides. He reached up, touched his jawline, and trailed his fingers across a metallic surface that ran along his left cheek to the underside of his jaw. Another metal surface covered the right side of his face over his eye to his temple.
“It’s nanite membrane. Dr. Gilbride didn’t have time to grow clone skin or harvest skin from your back and thighs to cover the burns.”
Sage turned his head slightly to the right and saw Kiwanuka sitting on a chair beside the bed. She held a water bulb out for him to drink.
Not trusting his dry throat to speak, Sage drank.
“Slowly,” Kiwanuka admonished. She took back the water bulb.
Sage looked at her and thought of how she had saved him, and how much she had covered his six since he’d been on the planet. “I have to admit, Kjersti, I didn’t think I was going to make it out of that well. I thought I was lost.”
For a moment, he thought her eyes misted a little, and maybe his did too.
She shook her head. “I can’t allow you to get lost, Master Sergeant. You’re not going to leave me with all this mess you made and expect me to clean it up.”
“No,” Sage said. He reached out for her hand and she let him take it. For a moment they sat in silence, then Sage smiled at her. “When we get this mess on this planet sorted, I owe you a drink.”
She smiled. “You owe me more than that. Dinner at least.” She looked at him. “I’m curious what Frank Sage is like when he’s not in a war zone.”
“Not much different,” Sage said.
“We’ll see.”
They released hands and Sage hated letting go, but he knew they both had things they had to do. The coming war wasn’t going to wait while they figured out what was going on between them.
“Don’t you have somewhere you’re supposed to be?” Sage asked.
Kiwanuka leaned back a little and became all business again, something that Sage appreciated. “Not according to Colonel Halladay. I’m supposed to watch over you and sleep as I can. His orders.”
“How long have I been out?”
“A little over five hours.”
“What are the Phrenorians doing?” Sage rolled to his side and sat up. Kiwanuka didn’t try to stop him and Gilbride was nowhere around.
The med center was packed with wounded people, most of them civilians, but there were four soldiers in beds that Sage could see.
“The Phrenorians are shoring up their defensive perimeter,” Kiwanuka replied. “They’re rebuilding the embassy and adding military fortifications.”
Sage closed his eyes against the bright lights and shook his head slightly to try to clear the fog from his thoughts. Part of it was from the anesthesia and part of it was from the physical damage he’d taken. “I figured they would have attacked by now.”
“The Alliance is talking to the Empire,” Kiwanuka said.
“Is that doing any good?”
“No. The Phrenorians claim that a Terran soldier attacked their embassy. We say we didn’t. Nobody has any proof one way or the other.”
“What happened out there?”
Kiwanuka shook her head. “I think the assassin we were looking for tried to kill Zhoh to create more confusion onplanet. The colonel and I have reviewed the vid footage and that’s the best we can come up with.”
“Do you know who the assassin is?”
“We think it’s a Fenipalan male named Sytver Morlortai.”
“Fenipal?” Sage considered that. “They weren’t attacked by the Phrenorians. Some corp sucked them dry.”
Kiwanuka nodded. “The Black Opal Corp. Years ago.”
“Then what’s Morlortai doing here?”
“According to Huang’s network, Sytver Morlortai is a professional assassin. Huang doesn’t know for certain, but there are rumors that someone back in the Phrenorian Empire took out a contract on Zhoh.”
Sage shook his head. “I’ve never heard of that happening. The Phrenorians usually stand together on the battlefield.”
“My guess is that this is a personal matter. Not a military one.”
“Usually they work that out in combat.”
“Hutamah,” Kiwanuka agreed. “I’ve heard that too.”
The assassin’s location was a small piece of everything that was now going on, but Sage needed to know everything he could. Especially since Morlortai, and whoever had hired the man, was responsible for pushing Makaum to the brink of war. “Where is Morlortai?”
“I was trying to find out when everything went off the rails in the north sector.”
Sage listened and drank water slowly as Kiwanuka brought him up to date on her operations of the day.
“This is my fault,” Kiwanuka finished. “If I hadn’t tried to get cute with Darrantia, things might not have gone so sideways.”
“I would have done the same thing,” Sage said. “Finding Morlortai and exposing him as Wosesa Staumar’s murderer would have helped shut down some of the anti-Terran feelings among the Makaum.”
“Maybe. We won’t know now.”
“Morlortai’s got a ship in orbit?”
“Yes.”
“Get the colonel to clear you and go after him.”
Kiwanuka smiled at him. “Already done. Huang identified the ship for us. I’ll have a ride in the next couple hours.”
“Good. Do we still have Throzath?”
“He’s locked up.”
“Then I’ll have a word with him.”
“No. That’s being handled. Colonel Halladay wanted you to report to Command as soon as you woke up.”
Sage pushed himself to his feet and was surprised at how fit he felt.
“Feel better than you thought you would?” Kiwanuka asked.
“Yeah.”
Kiwanuka showed Sage a small smile. “That’s Captain Gilbride’s doing, and the reason you were out so long. Doc said that if you were to get cut open now, you’d bleed nanobots, but he guaranteed you at a hundred percent. Colonel Halladay wouldn’t accept anything less.”
“Good to know.”
“The thing is, Sage, you’re running at the edge of what medtech can do. You may feel great, but if you take a lot of damage, you may not recover.”
“It’s been my experience that if a soldier gets vaporized or shot full of holes, chances of recovery are pretty slim too.” Sage looked for his armor and found it at the foot of the bed. “I’ll keep that in mind, but I’m not going to lie in bed while this tenuous peace ramps up into a full-blown war.”
“Do you think that’s where we’re headed?” Kiwanuka asked.
Sage pulled his armor on, locking in tight and taking comfort in the AKTIVsuit. “That’s exactly where we’re headed now that Zhoh has been made general on Makaum. And he’ll make that move as soon as he can. We’ve got to get out ahead of him.”
Tactical Command Center
Fort York
2352 Hours Zulu Time
“The colonel’s waiting for you in his ready room, Master Sergeant.” The corporal heading up the security detail was young and stood tensely at the entrance to the command center. Her eyes were bloodshot and she looked pale. Too many of the soldiers at Fort York looked the same way these days. They weren’t ready to be under siege.
Sage knew his view of them was tainted by the knowledge that they were on the precipice of war. He’d felt the same way about the young soldiers he’d trained in boot camp before he’d gotten back in the war. They had gone on, not as complete a
s he would have hoped.
Sage nodded at the woman and walked to Halladay’s ready room. “Thank you, Corporal.”
Two privates guarded the ready room door. One of them pressed a button and announced Sage and Kiwanuka. The door unlocked and slid to one side.
A holo table occupied the center of the room. At present, the space was blank, but as soon as the door locked behind Sage and Kiwanuka, the image came up again, unveiling a scene of rushing water and towering green trees.
Sage recognized the section of river and jungle immediately as the area where the Phrenorians had hidden their base containing rolling stock and aerial vehicles. He stopped at the table with Kiwanuka beside him. Both of them saluted sharply.
Halladay stood on the other side of the table and wore a grim expression. He looked tired too, but a fire burned inside him. “Feeling better, Master Sergeant?”
“Tip-top, sir.” Sage swept the room’s other occupants with his gaze. The roll call was pretty much as he’d expected, consisting of Leghef and Lieutenant Murad. Jahup was a surprise addition.
Leghef sat in a chair and surveyed Sage, taking measure of him. She looked fatigued but her eyes glittered. “I would say good evening, Master Sergeant, but we’re way past that. It’s late, and there’s not going to be anything good about it, I’m afraid.” A small smile quirked her lips.
“Ma’am,” Sage replied.
At her side, Jahup looked much better than Sage had last seen him, although he, too, wore silver nanite reconstructive membrane on the left side of his face and down his neck. The young man wore his armor with the scarlet ypheynte emblazoned on it.
He also sported sergeant’s chevrons on his shoulders.
When Jahup saw that Sage had noted the change in rank, he looked embarrassed, but he squared his shoulders.
“Congratulations, Sergeant,” Sage said.
“Thank you, Master Sergeant,” Jahup replied. He seemed to stand a little taller.
“You’re squared away with the med center?”
