by Mel Odom
That was intolerable.
“The assassin was hired by Blaold Oldawe,” Mato said.
Zhoh transmitted a shrill hiss over his comm. Instantly, his warriors fell into formation around him. He sent them the tracking coordinates to the site where the rocket attack had come from. The area brought them closer to the fort, and he was ready to take it on by himself if he had to.
“Triarr,” Mato said, “this could all be a fabrication.”
“This is something Blaold would do,” Zhoh said. “If he could rid himself of me, extinguish me here, on a planet the Empire cared nothing about, it wouldn’t take long till I ceased to exist. I am not Laliwu, not of the preferred bloodline. I am kalque. I have no future. I am less than the lowest cridelrad in their eyes.”
“Not if you deliver this planet, triarr,” Mato said. “Deliver Makaum to the Empire and you will be given a Kabilak. No one can take that honor or that medal from you.”
“If Blaold truly hired this assassin,” Zhoh said, “he has brought dishonor to himself. The Primes hold him in their favor. Just as they held Rangha in their favor. Both of them are Laliwu.”
“Rangha is no more,” Mato reminded. “And the father of your wife—”
“Selydy, you mean, because she is no wife to me.”
“—never delivered a planet to the Empire,” Mato went on. “Only a few warriors have done that. Be one of those warriors, triarr, and you will find the salvation you seek.”
“I will.” Zhoh picked up the pace, running toward his destiny, intent on snatching it back. “I am that warrior.”
FIFTY-TWO
Nyeth Street
Outside Fort York
0741 Hours Zulu Time
Sage took cover in a rubble-strewn alley and watched the huge Phrenorian tracked assault vehicle grind toward the fort. The Taierne-class TAV turned the plascrete streets beneath it into powder and shredded the sides of buildings it bumped up against.
The assault vehicle towered two stories tall, thirty meters long, and ten meters wide. Heavily armored and carrying an array of armament, including large particle cannons, two fore and one aft, the war machine was a dreadnought of destruction.
The constant yammering of the tracked treads filled the street and even briefly drowned out all sounds of the storm and the battles being waged around it.
The Phrenorians had fielded six of the units, none of which they were supposed to have by agreement. Sage guessed that the assault vehicles had been shipped in as some kind of equipment, either by the Sting-Tails or third-party black marketers, and reassembled in the Phrenorian Embassy because that’s where they’d rolled out of.
A salvo of rockets from Fort York burned through the haze of rain that filled the air. Most of them slammed into the assault vehicle and scattered flames across the armor. At least two of the rockets missed their intended target, or ricocheted off it, and hit nearby buildings. The structures came down in tumbling ruin. However, the ablative armor covering the assault vehicle prevented it from taking anything more than cosmetic damage.
“Master Sergeant,” Culpepper called.
Sage’s HUD located the man one alley behind him. “I hear you, Culpepper.”
“Think maybe the unit can give me and Pingasa some covering fire for a minute?”
“For what?”
“We want to try to stop this thing before it rolls right on into the fort.”
“Copy that.” Sage gave the command to the rest of the team and told Culpepper to signal the attack.
“Now!” Culpepper said.
Sage swung out around the corner of the building and fired gel-grenades at the Phrenorian assault vehicle. He knew they wouldn’t do any good because the rockets hadn’t done much damage. Thankfully, the jumpcopters had carried ammo and supplies to restock what his team had burned off shutting down the fortress.
The other soldiers peppered the war machine with weapons fire and more grenades. The small explosions cascaded across the assault vehicle and did nothing more than leave smoke that was quickly washed away in the downpour.
The war machine halted for a moment, then fired both forward cannons. The rounds struck the building where Sage had taken shelter as well as the one on the other side of the street where Murad had his team. Chunks of plascrete and warped plasteel became missiles that knocked the armored soldiers down.
Sage flew across the alley and through the wall on the opposite side. Plascrete dust settled over him and the wreckage of the electronics goods store he’d been blown into. He struggled to get his breath back as he knocked plascrete and transplas from him and sat up. He deployed the two drones from his suit to get a better view of the street action.
Behind the war machine, a small army of Phrenorian warriors were racing to their location on foot. Sage guessed that someone aboard the assault vehicle had sent for them.
He checked on the five soldiers with him and discovered Corrigan was unconscious.
“Escobedo,” Sage said, “you and Robinson transport Corrigan out of here. Find someplace to lie low till her brain’s unscrambled.”
“Copy that, Master Sergeant.” Escobedo pulled one of Corrigan’s limp arms over her shoulder as Robinson did the same.
Sage strode to the hole his team had made in the wall, marveling that the building hadn’t come down on top of them, and watched as the war machine came straight at them. Evidently the pilot had decided to plow through the building.
Then Pingasa and Culpepper, identified on Sage’s HUD, sprinted from the alley. They each carried a satchel charge. The assault vehicle’s rear cannon swiveled to pick them up, but it was too late. Pingasa and Culpepper threw the satchel charges onto the treads as they spun up under the war machine’s mudguard. The olive-drab packages vanished under the assault vehicle’s skirt.
The rear cannon fired and opened a crater that could have swallowed a supply crawler in the cracked street. Pingasa and Culpepper were knocked from their feet for just an instant, then they were running away from the group of Phrenorian warriors who had just arrived.
The satchel charges under the assault vehicle’s skirt exploded. One of the tracked treads broke and slapped at the war machine as it turned. The other continued to function. One broken tread was all that was needed to bring the assault vehicle to a stop.
Sage pinged the Phrenorians with a laser targeting marker beaming from his left glove. He opened a comm channel to Fort York.
“Yes, Master Sergeant.” The young man at the other end of the connection sounded harried.
“Can you target a strike on my position?”
“On the assault vehicle?”
“Negative,” Sage said as he pumped depleted uranium rounds into the Phrenorians. “We’ve stopped the assault vehicle. The Sting-Tails have mounted a squad of foot soldiers that intended to follow that assault vehicle right into the fort. I’ve lit them up for you.”
“Copy that, Master Sergeant.” The tactical officer sounded relieved. “Be advised that you have birds in the air.”
Sage bellowed a warning to his troops to grab shelter. He took cover behind one of the building’s fractured walls as beams and bullets chopped into the plascrete around him.
Another salvo of rockets struck the street, only this time they were on top of the Phrenorian warriors. Body parts and plascrete flew everywhere. Smoking craters occupied space where they had been.
“Target confirmed,” Sage said. “Thanks for the assist.”
“Thank you for taking out that assault vehicle. We couldn’t make it happen.”
“You can thank Pingasa and Culpepper when we get out of this,” Sage said.
He ran out into the street. Some of the surviving Phrenorians continued fighting, but the battle didn’t last long. All the Sting-Tails died because they wouldn’t surrender. Culpepper and Pingasa clambered up the assault vehicle and tossed in explosives.
“Do you see that?” Lieutenant Murad demanded as he gazed at the dead enemy. “Do you see what they have?”
The sight of human heads strung around the waists of most of the Phrenorian warriors wasn’t new to Sage. He’d been on other worlds and seen it happen.
“They’re not supposed to do that,” Murad said. “They’re not allowed.”
“Yeah,” Sage said. “I know. But the Phrenorians here are outside the rules of engagement now, Lieutenant.” He clapped the younger man on the shoulder hard enough to get his attention. “C’mon. We don’t have time to gawk. Let’s get someplace where we can do some good. They need us at the fort.”
Murad nodded, then gave the command to move out.
Sage ran slack behind his group to cover their retreat from any latecomers to the push.
Halladay buzzed Sage’s comm for attention. “Master Sergeant?”
“Yes, Colonel,” Sage replied.
“I wanted to share some news with you,” Halladay said. “I don’t want this getting out to anyone yet. In case it doesn’t happen. But I also don’t want anyone caught by surprise and not know what’s going on if I buy a bullet in here somewhere.”
Halladay had already let it be known that he wasn’t leaving the fort until the last soldier was ahead of him.
“I’m confiding in you,” Halladay continued, “because you’re the most senior soldier at this fort and you work closely with Quass Leghef, who will continue, hopefully, to serve as a go-between for the Alliance.”
“Yes sir.” Sage trotted toward the fort. The walls were only a hundred and twenty meters away.
Bodies littered the streets, the shattered buildings, and the fence line along the fort. Sage didn’t try to sort them out. There would be time for that later, and it would be a job to do.
If he lived through the next few hours.
“The Alliance’s oversight committee regarding the military situation on Makaum is considering changing their stance on how they’re going to handle their part of this fiasco. The surprise attack by the Phrenorian Empire isn’t sitting well with them right now.”
Sage didn’t comment, although he had plenty he could have said, because it wouldn’t have done any good. Halladay wasn’t the person he would have wanted to speak to.
“There’s also the matter that the war is shifting this way and Makaum is going to play a significant part in resources. The Alliance now desires those resources.”
“They aren’t even concerned about the people out here dying,” Sage growled. “If they had been, they would have done something a long time before this.”
“You’re preaching to the choir, Master Sergeant. Chairman Finkley, father of Major Finkley, who is currently AWOL somewhere out in the jungle and will be facing charges if we live through this present situation, wants his son alive.”
“It’s good to know the committee cares about someone.”
“Chairman Finkley believed his son would be safe once we left Makaum. Now that it looks unlikely that Major Finkley is going to get out of this alive, the congressional leader is throwing his weight behind the shift.” Halladay sighed. “I haven’t yet informed him I’ll be bringing charges against the major.”
Sage stepped through the gate and entered the fort. Soldiers stood behind barricades, braced and ready for the next onslaught.
“I don’t want this getting out, Master Sergeant,” Halladay said. “That’s why I’m not telling anyone else. It might not happen. I don’t want our soldiers to know the Alliance turned its back on them.” The colonel sounded achingly bitter. “But if they do mount a rescue operation, we’re going to have to move quickly.”
“Yes sir,” Sage said. He didn’t get his hopes up. The politicos did what they wanted to when they got good and ready. “Just tell me where you need me, Colonel.”
“I need you to get to Quass Leghef, Master Sergeant. When the Alliance makes its move, they’re going to want to talk to her. They believe she’s the linchpin to hold the Makaum people together.”
“Yes sir. Where is she?”
“Out in the jungle,” Halladay replied. “I’m tracking a handset comm I gave her earlier. She left the fort ten minutes ago after some kind of dustup that left some dead men behind.”
“What happened?”
“We’re not sure. We’ve got some scratchy vid of the encounter, but no aud, and nobody I’ve got access to knows those people. The Quass was going into the jungle to join up with some of her people, but there are pockets of them scattered throughout the Green Hell.”
“Understood, sir.”
A still image of Quass Leghef ghosted onto Sage’s HUD as he flagged down a crawler. The young private braked so quickly in front of Sage that he threw mud all over him.
The young driver got out of the vehicle. “Sorry, Master Sergeant.”
Sage waved the apology away. He pinged Jahup, Pingasa, Culpepper, Escobedo, and two other soldiers to round out his team. He didn’t want to take all of the soldiers.
In the still image, Quass Leghef stood with a group of men. Sage recognized one of them as Throzath, but he didn’t know the others. He pushed the image on to Jahup and switched to a private frequency.
“Do you know these men?”
Jahup only needed a moment. “They work for Tholak.”
That news left a bad feeling in Sage’s stomach. He relayed the news to Halladay.
The colonel cursed. “I knew something was wrong when she asked for Throzath’s release. I should have been paying more attention.”
“You had a lot of balls in the air at the time, sir,” Sage said. Rockets punched holes in the parade ground and Quonset buildings only meters away and he ducked. “And the Phrenorians can be insistent about getting attention.”
“I know. Find her, Master Sergeant, and get her someplace safe so she can talk to the politicos when the time comes. I’m sending you the Quass’s comm protocol. You can track her down using that.”
“Copy that, sir.”
“I’m sending Murad orders now that he’s supposed to go with you. Bring him up to speed.”
“Yes sir.”
Murad took the seat next to Sage and looked at him expectantly.
“Stay safe out there, Master Sergeant.”
“Will do, sir. You do the same.” Sage accelerated and switched to his private frequency with Murad. The lieutenant listened without interrupting as Sage pulled up the Quass’s location on his HUD.
FIFTY-THREE
The Nyslora Lowlands
10 Kilometers North of Makaum Sprawl
0809 Hours Zulu Time
Without warning, the crawler stopped amid a towering copse of flowering atceri trees. Leghef gazed out the window at the surrounding jungle.
Purple blossoms as big as a person’s face sprouted on all the hundred-meter-tall trees. Heavy growth interlaced the branches so tightly that only a little of the rain reached the jungle floor.
The atceri bloomed only during the rains, and the trees soaked up the rains through the blossoms, which drank like greedy mouths. Even the bark sopped up water as spillover threaded down the massive trunks. Under the canopy of rain, blossoms, and branches, the open area reeked of the atceris’ fragrance, so sweet it was near to rot.
Osler slid out of his seat but held up a hand to stay Leghef before she attempted to get out as well.
“Where is my granddaughter?” Leghef demanded.
“Wait,” Osler commanded.
“I will not.” Leghef pushed up, but the man still sitting beside her pulled her back down.
“You will,” Osler said. “You’re not in command. Not out here.”
Leghef held back a retort. Threats would do no good here. And they wouldn’t bring her to Telilu.
A moment later, another crawler burst through the foliage and came to a stop in front of the one Leghef was in.
Throzath got out and limped to meet the other vehicle. “Father.”
The crawler driver sprang out and opened the vehicle’s rear door. Massive and burly, a once-proud warrior now gone to seed, Tholak stepped from the crawler. His broad
head was shaved clean and he wore a dark beard shot through with gray that Leghef would have sworn wasn’t there days ago. Scars from past narrow escapes from beasts he hunted because he chose to, not because he had to, looked gray against his tanned skin.
Tholak embraced his son momentarily, then ushered him into the vehicle. He turned his attention to Leghef and crossed the intervening distance with a cold smile.
“Leghef,” he greeted flatly.
“You took my granddaughter.” The cold rage in Leghef’s voice surprised her. She hadn’t heard it in a long time.
“I did,” Tholak admitted.
“I want to see her.”
Tholak took the seat up front with the driver and closed the door. “I’m going to take you to her.”
Osler resumed his seat beside Leghef and the crawler jerked into motion.
“Why have you done this?” Leghef demanded.
“Because I want to keep my fortune,” Tholak said.
“How are you going to do that?”
“I have made arrangements with the Phrenorians. When I give them the people they want, I get to keep my wealth and standing, and I’ll get a percentage of the shipments they take from this planet.”
The thought horrified Leghef. “You can’t do that, Tholak. Our people have fought for every breath they’ve taken on this planet. Generations have spilled blood to provide us the lives we have now. The Phrenorians will turn them—turn us—into slaves.”
Tholak shook his head. “Not us. Never us. I won’t accept that, and I have the word of the Phrenorian Empire that I will be appreciated.”
“They’re lying to you, and you’re too stupid to realize it. You’ll serve right alongside the people you’re enslaving. If the Phrenorians don’t kill you.”
Tholak laughed. “That’s not going to happen.”
The crawler bounced over the uneven ground. Leghef studied the jungle and realized she knew where they were heading.
