He let out a long, pained breath to focus his mind.
“I executed Dolamiir for failing to participate in the peace talks in good faith and for engaging in operations whereby, of his own admission, all Peacemakers on the ground—including me—were to be killed. I also have engaged the assailant who came at me last night.” Hr’ent chuckled. “I suppose I should say he engaged me, and the joke is that I thought I’d already killed him. Lesson learned. I should add that I believe he was a bodyguard for Dolamiir. It’s the only thing that makes sense, and he sure as hell was stronger and faster than any Jivool I’ve ever seen or heard of. You may want to find out who that fucker was and make sure there aren’t any more like him. He almost got me before I got him, and he may have punched my ticket for good. I probably have a concussion from a boulder to the cranium, multiple stab wounds and lacerations from combat knives—one of which is still stuck in my belly—some sort of botanical poison—ingested and introduced directly into my blood stream, although I seem to have dodged that bullet—and a near-hit from a frag grenade—one of our own, by the way. How’s that for a status report? Basically, I’m just about done down here, and it wouldn’t surprise me if I checked out before another hour goes by. To that end, I wanted to tell you that you’d better get yourself another Enforcer, Hak, and I understand if you just want to leave me here. It seems this candidate came up a little short.”
There was a click as the comm went dead, followed by a few heartbeats of silence.
“I guess that’s my answer,” Hr’ent said in a raspy whisper. He closed his eyes wondering what it would feel like to die. He felt very, very alone.
There was another click, and the comms came back.
“Hr’ent,” Hak started slowly, “I want you to listen to me very carefully. We’re not coming to pick you up. We haven’t reached that point yet. We have the shuttle on standby about 30 klicks north of the city, equipped for extraction and air support roles, but too much is at stake right now, not the least of which are those Peacemakers. You do not have permission to check out just yet. I have too much invested in you. So, you are going to do exactly what I say, or I’ll come down there, skin you, and pin your flayed hide up on the wall of the latrine in the Hall of Heroes.”
“We’ll that’s an image,” Graa’vaa said in a muted voice, but it was loud enough to be heard over the mic.
“You said you had rations. Do you still have them?” Hak continued urgently.
Hr’ent rolled his eyes. Hak was worried about him eating a square meal. Seriously? What does a dying Oogar need food for?
“Yeah, Hak,” Hr’ent croaked slowly. “Enough for a week or so, but it’s not like I’ll need it where I’m going.”
“Eat them,” Hak ordered, and it definitely was an order. “Eat all of them as fast as you possibly can, and I want you to eat them on the run.”
“On the run?” Hr’ent said, feeling his eyes flutter as dizziness washed over him. “I’m not sure I’ll be able to roll over, boss.”
“Trust me,” Hak insisted. “We just need to get some fuel inside you. Your new body should do the rest.” Hak’s voice softened, as if he were covering the mic. “How far is it to those ruins you spotted on the last set of scans?”
“About a kilometer due east of his position,” Graa’vaa said.
“Mark a waypoint for him to follow on his slate,” Hak ordered. Then Hak said clearly into the comm, “Hr’ent, you need to eat one ration right now, then bandage up any wounds that are still bleeding badly. Pull the knife out and hit the wound with skinseal. When everything is sealed up, hit yourself with two stims. Don’t take them until after all the holes are closed.”
“What about a nanite injection?” Hr’ent injected.
“Don’t bother,” Hak said immediately. “Your enhancements are better and faster. Save the nanites for later.”
“You got it,” Hr’ent said a bit dubiously. If his body’s healing abilities were better than nanites, then whatever Hak and done to him was truly miraculous.
“Once that’s all done,” Hak continued, “you need to get your ass to that waypoint as fast as you possibly can and keep eating along the way until you feel like you’re going to puke. Then, eat one more. And water…lots of water. But food comes first. Am I clear?”
Hr’ent sighed heavily, and even that was brutally painful.
“Sure, Hak,” Hr’ent croaked weakly. “Assuming I can do the first part, I’ll see about doing the second…and the third. I’m not going to make any promises, though, so you’d better send a message for them to make room in the latrine for my hide. Tell them they’ll need a bigger door.” His chuckle was weak, but loud enough to prompt one from Hak and Graa’vaa over the comm.
“Hr’ent,” Hak said with a good deal of passion, “I selected you for a reason. I mean that. I have no doubt you can do this. I just need you to believe it. You were and still are the best choice for this mission, this program, and the guild. You are the future, and while it may not seem like it now, I know without a doubt that you’re going to get through this.”
“All right, Hak,” Hr’ent said weakly. “I’m moving.”
“Good,” Hak replied. “That’s the spirit.”
There was another pause in the comms, and Hr’ent took the opportunity to roll on his side, groan in pain, and rummage through his rucksack. He pulled out a ration, a water bulb, some stims, a tube of hair-remover, and two tubes of skinseal.
“Hr’ent?” it was Graa’vaa’s voice.
“Go ahead,” Hr’ent replied weakly as he opened the ration pack.
“I’ve set the waypoint. It’ll show up on your slate. The ruins are at the top of a big hill that rises about 300 meters above the rest of the forest. There’s a river near you that will lead you to the base and should provide you with plenty of water along the way. Don’t forget to use steritabs before you drink.”
“Roger that.” He was too weak and in too much pain to tell her to stop belaboring the obvious. He knew they were worried about him. “Let me get to this. I’ll call you once I start moving.”
“Understood,” Graa’vaa replied, and there was no missing the worry in her voice.
Hr’ent took a bite of the flavorless ration and chewed slowly. Even that motion set the fist-sized lump on the back of his head to hurting. He took another bite and chased it with some water. Once he finished the ration, he went through the agonizing exercise of sitting up, wincing with every motion as his body protested each injurious insult he had endured. Opening his tactical vest was another exercise in agony that nearly made him puke. Once it was open, he applied the fur remover to every spot where his flesh had been opened up during the fight. It would take only a few minutes for the stuff to dissolve his fur and sterilize his skin. He could feel bits of metal in a number of his wounds, and that raised a question.
“Hey,” he said weakly. “What about the shrapnel?”
“Don’t worry about that,” Hak said. “They’ll hurt when you move, but as your body heals itself, they’ll work their way out, or they’ll stay where they are. We’ll take care of the rest later.”
“Great,” Hr’ent said. He had no doubt that anything still inside him would be painful and keep cutting into his flesh until it was removed surgically. He’d just have to trust that his enhancements would be enough to counter any internal bleeding caused by his movements.
“Hr’ent,” Hak said, “I’m signing off. I have to deal with a few things, but Graa’vaa will stay on the line for as long as you need her.”
“Copy that,” Hr’ent replied. He’s probably going to make arrangements for another Enforcer, he thought. Without another word, he downed the rest of another ration as quickly as he could. He spent the next few minutes patching up the rest of his pelt. He counted 13 fragmentation wounds, the holes on both sides of his forearm, and the gash on his thigh. Most of the wounds had already closed up on their own, which is why he hadn’t bled out, but he was generous with the skinseal, to make sure nothing o
pened up while he marched through the forest.
When he finished with the small ones, he focused on the combat knife still stuck in his body. Gritting his teeth, he wrapped his paw around the grip and yanked it out. Fire raced along his nerves, emanating outward from the openly bleeding gash in his abdomen. He dropped the knife and applied a healthy dose of the skinseal, squeezing some into the wound, then spreading it out over his flesh. The area tingled for several seconds, then the painkillers built into the mix started to take effect.
Gasping for breath, he leaned back for a few minutes until a good deal of the pain subsided. Sitting back up, he hit himself with two of the stims, injecting one into each arm. The injection locations burned for several seconds, and then he felt his heart rate nearly double. A surge of energy pulsed through his body and the pain dulled to bearable levels. That’s a little better, he thought. He drew in a deep breath, winced again, then waited for the pain to level out.
He had to admit, he was already feeling a little bit more like himself. He still felt pain over most of his body, and he was dead tired, but it wasn’t the agonizing wave that he had thought would be the death of him. He actually felt as if he might survive past his original estimate of an hour.
Time to get moving, he thought. He looked up at the sky and let the rain run over his face. It was cool but not cold, although it certainly didn’t cheer him up. It had turned into a dreary night, and although he would never tell anyone, he was still ready to give up. He’d failed at his mission, and in the shape he was in, there was no way he’d be able to do anything more than hobble through the forest. He was about as effective a weapon to Hak as a soggy loaf of bread.
Letting out a long breath, he slipped all of his equipment back into the pack and took several deep breaths in preparation for what he was about to do. He figured that if he could just get to his feet, he could probably stay on them for a while. Gritting his teeth again, he leaned forward, planted his paws on the ground, and slowly got up. Fire exploded across his body as he rose to his feet, and a wave of dizziness and nausea crashed into him. He almost staggered forward and collapsed, but through a sheer act of will born of the Feral within, he managed to stay standing.
He bent over, immediately regretting the action as the pain in his head erupted like a volcano, and picked up his pack. He removed eight ration packs and slipped them into his pockets. He closed up his tactical vest, slipped the pack over his shoulders, groaning with each movement, then moved through the forest to where the Jivool bodies lay in the shadow-speckled moonlight.
There was no question that both of them were dead, and in his assailant’s case, really dead. The frag grenade had taken part of a foot off, and his legs were completely ravaged. But that wasn’t enough for Hr’ent. He stepped over to where his PK-40 lay, crouched slowly to avoid another brain-crushing bout of pain from his concussion, and picked up the weapon.
Turning, he fired three times in slow succession. The first went into his assailant’s belly, the second into his chest, and the third straight into his face, boring a hole clean through.
“Now, you’re dead enough,” Hr’ent said with a weak growl. He spat once on the Jivool’s body, then he thumbed the comm. “This is E-H-Actual. I’m on the move.”
“Copy that,” Graa’vaa said. “I’ll see what I can do to monitor your progress. I’ll warn you if I see anything from orbit, but with that forest, it’ll be hard.”
“You’ve already done plenty, Graa’vaa,” Hr’ent said, and he truly meant it. “Hak, too.” He took several steps, then paused as a wave of dizziness threatened to topple him back to the ground. He feared that if he did fall, he wouldn’t be able to get back up again. Despair filled his heart as he realized he’d let Graa’vaa and Hak down. He’d let the Peacemakers down. Hell, he’d even let the Oogar people down. He shook his head in shame. “And,” he said slowly, “for what it’s worth, I’m sorry I botched this whole thing up. You were right about me.”
He heard Graa’vaa take in a breath, as if she were about to say something, but the line stayed silent.
Hr’ent nodded as the rain picked up. There really wasn’t much for her to say. They both knew he was right. He took a minute to gobble down another ration, and then, with a long, heavy breath, he glanced at his slate. He got his bearings, and took one ponderous step after another, heading for the ruins and probably a place to curl up and die.
* * * * *
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Godannii 2
Ruins Two km North of Emergency Relief Facility
A full moon peeked out from behind the mostly disintegrated storm clouds, bathing areas of the ancient stone ruins in silver light. The rest was cast in deep shadows from the thinning forest that spotted the top of the hill in a mixture of blacks and grays. The 300-meter hike had nearly sent Hr’ent to his knees a dozen times, but as he cleared the remains of a low outer wall, he let out a long breath.
“Made it,” he blurted. He staggered a dozen more paces toward part of a building that was still standing, with most of two walls and a high-arching window rising from the forest floor as if it had stood there since the beginning of time. He moved around the wall and saw more walls beyond, most of them only a meter or so high and broken in parts, but the shape and spacing indicated the building or buildings had once been rather extensive, covering 30 or 40 square meters.
Moving around the wall, he stiffly pulled the rucksack off his shoulders, winced at the pain that still ravaged his nervous system, and collapsed to the ground with his back against the stone. He opened the rucksack and pulled out another ration. The sight of it almost made him vomit. He’d already eaten eight of the things, and he wasn’t sure he could get another one down. He found it hard to believe that he’d be in any shape to fight without a few weeks of convalescence, but he’d told Hak he’d keep eating, so that’s what he would do.
He opened the package, took a bite, then hit his comm link.
“This is E-H-Actual for Blue One, do you copy? Over.”
Graa’vaa picked up the signal immediately.
“This is Blue One. Hr’ent, are you all right?”
“No,” he said through a mouthful of food. He felt like he had one foot already in a shallow grave cut into the forest floor. “But I made it to the ruins.”
“I see your blip,” she confirmed. “Well done, Enforcer. How do you feel?”
Hr’ent managed a weak chuckle.
“Like 500 kilos of bloody Izlian shit.” He leaned his head back and took another bite of the ration. “And if I never see another field ration, I’ll die happy.”
“Enough of that shit, Enforcer,” Graa’vaa came back in an irritated tone. “You’re embarrassing your ancestors.”
That caught Hr’ent off guard, but the phrase stirred something inside him. Maybe it was the Feral. Maybe it was just the fact that he had a good deal of pride in the ancestors of his people. Either way, he realized it was exactly the right thing to say to him. Oogar didn’t give up. He drew a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“I’ve made a real mess of this whole thing,” he admitted. “The crash before graduation was nothing compared to this fuck-up.”
“You’re wrong, Hr’ent,” Graa’vaa replied, and her voice held a sincerity he couldn’t ignore. “I won’t lie to you. Cutting loose during the jump was about as stupid as it gets…” she paused for a moment, as if she were gathering her thoughts, “but everything you’ve done since then has been not only by the book but beyond any expectations I ever had.”
“What are you talking about?” Hr’ent asked. “Dolamiir is dead, taking any information he had with him, and I only found out who he was by accident. I’m half-dead…maybe a bit more,” he added as he shifted his position and endured another flash of pain. “The Peacemakers are either dead or still hostages. The peace talks are burning hotter than Moppicut, and I don’t have the slightest idea of what I should do next, assuming I can get back on my feet.”
“Let me ask you some
thing,” she said.
“What?”
“Did you haul Dolamiir through the forest rather than shooting him on the spot?”
“Yes.”
“And did you have a choice when you pulled that trigger?”
“No. I couldn’t take them both on, and he was as guilty as guilty gets.” Hr’ent closed his eyes, remembering the feeling of blowing half of Dolamiir’s head off.
“And are you talking to me now?”
Hr’ent paused. The question seemed a bit ridiculous.
“Umm…Yeah. Unless I’m delirious or already dead.”
“Then you’re wrong on all counts, and I’m right. You did everything you had to, and more. You should be dead, but you’re not. I have no doubt that nobody else, no Enforcer in the guild, would…could be talking to me right now. They’d be dead.”
“How can you say that?”
“His name was Satuur.” Graa’vaa’s voice was calm, almost toneless. “Satuur Nu Kovat.”
“Who?” Hr’ent asked, confused. He’d never heard the name before.
“Dolamiir’s bodyguard. The one you killed. I’ve been in the ISMC network for a while, and I was able to pull up his name, although there wasn’t much else. The Peacekeeper net gave me everything else. You should know, he was the baddest Jivool to ever draw a breath. If you put him down, you did what some of our analysts said wasn’t possible without a full team.”
“He almost got me, Graa’vaa.” Hr’ent shook his head. “Hell, it remains to be seen if he did.”
“Wrong again,” she replied. “You’re not going to die. At least not today. You need to trust Hak. And if you can’t do that, then trust me. You’ll see the sun come up. And when you do, you’ll figure out what to do next.”
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