by S. L. Viehl
He shook his head. “I cannot answer. The League directors make policy. I am simply a soldier.”
“Good point. Maybe the soldiers will benefit the most. Imagine what could be done with an army that was genetically programmed to never stop fighting. They’d never have to eat or sleep. Never have to be pensioned off. Just fight until they drop.”
Shropana didn’t like that. I suspected he was far more intelligent than he wanted anyone to know. That might be valuable to remember when I put my escape plan into action. Smart men had a tendency to think too much.
“Let’s see your gymnasium,” I said. “I’d like to get some exercise. My sweat glands are shriveling.”
Once inside the gymnasium, I pretended to be fascinated with the weight-resistant equipment and began planning a vigorous exercise regime.
Shropana excused himself. “I have duties to attend to. Please remember to avoid all prohibited areas.”
I grunted as I pressed a heavy tension coil between my hands. “Will do.”
“Enjoy yourself.” He left.
I kept working my protesting muscles as I examined the room. The League probably hadn’t wasted recording drones on Tonetka while she exercised. I suspected I didn’t merit the same luxury, but they’d already screwed up once. I touched the pendant that still hung around my neck. The idiots had never even checked it.
Where could she have hidden it?
Visual inspection revealed nothing but a profusion of equipment, a cleanser unit, diagnostic console—I nearly dropped the weights.
The image of Squilyp and me arguing in Tonetka’s office popped into my head. “Tonetka has a habit of doing that when she’s in a rush to access the database,” I’d told him. “She drops what she’s holding and it ends up jammed somewhere.”
I casually finished examining the last machine and strolled over to the diagnostic console. I slipped under the scanner and ran a cardiac series on myself, the whole time searching the upper console board with my eyes, looking for the gleam of Jorenian alloy.
No, I thought, she wouldn’t have jammed it into an open seam. She wanted to keep it safe, for later retrieval. Where could it be? I sat down and scooted the chair forward until my legs were beneath the edge of the console. I let one hand fall in my lap as I leaned forward to study the displayed results of my scans. My hidden fingers danced lightly underneath the console recess.
Cold, sharp metal bit into my thumb. I controlled a yelp and the urge to snatch my hand back. Carefully I felt along the opposite, blunt edge until I knew how it was placed, then tugged it free.
It might be small. Hundreds of years old. Good only during close proximity to an enemy. But the archaic Jorenian scalpel was a weapon. Where to hide it was my next dilemma. I ran my open palm over my hair, hesitated for a moment, then smiled.
I dropped the knife in my lap. After I sucked the drop of blood from my thumb, I used both hands to release the thick cable of my braid. As I shook my loosened hair, I slipped the knife in my palm, holding it in place with my thumb. I raised my hands to my hair again, gathering the heavy mass into a bundle at my neck.
No one would question the wide, thick Jorenian warrior’s knot I now wore. They’d attribute it to my love of my adopted people.
The League believed it had me in its pocket. The biggest mistake of all.
I killed a couple of hours the next day by selecting furnishings for the quarters I had no intention of occupying for very long. Once we were out of the Varallan Quadrant, I planned to appropriate a launch and dive into an asteroid belt the same way the Potnarch’s pilot had done. They’d damage their ships in pursuit, while I made my getaway. I was planning on staying lost for good.
My abused stomach finally pleaded feebly for nourishment. I had just decided to access the new prep unit when the ship went on alert status. Curious, I opened my door panel and looked out. Warning beacons blared. Orange lights flashed. Crew members ran back and forth.
Damn. Had Xonea tried something stupid?
I couldn’t try to escape now. It would only put Joren back in the line of fire. I went to my display and signaled Shropana.
He responded after a few seconds. “Yes, Healer?”
“What’s all the excitement about?”
“We are under attack.” He turned his head and gave a sharp series of orders to someone. “Excuse me, Healer.”
“Wait! Who’s attacking?” I demanded. “Someone from Joren? Tell them I said—”
“It isn’t anyone from Joren. It’s the Hsktskt.” He terminated the signal.
The Hsktskt? Attacking a fleet of sixty League ships?
I punched the display keypad until my display showed the external view of the ship. Beyond the thick field of cruisers, a solid wall of heavily armored Hsktskt transport and attack vessels were bearing down on us.
“God.” I didn’t have to count. There were a lot more than sixty vessels out there. Try two hundred. Three hundred. So many that I couldn’t see clear space behind them. “Looks like we’re not going to Fendagal XI after all.”
I was sure Shropana would try to negotiate with the raiders. Typical League first response. He may have even sent the initial “truce-request” signal out before the displacer fire began. Did the Hsktskt want Joren, and the other neighboring worlds in the system? Was the League simply in the way?
I saw the other fleet vessels dodging the Hsktskt attack, felt the deck rock beneath me as the displacer blasts smashed into the hull. I wasn’t afraid. I rather liked the irony of the situation.
“Blow us to Kingdom come,” I whispered as I watched the approaching tide of vessels. “Be sure you get all the Terrans.”
“Cherijo!”
My door panel was forced open. Salo stood in the opening, panting, and bleeding in several places.
“Cherijo? Are you well?”
“Salo!” I jumped up and ran to him. “What are you doing here? Are you crazy?”
He gulped in air and shook his head. “We must go.”
“You’re hurt,” I said and began assessing his injuries. “How did you get so far into the ship? Did anyone come with you?”
He tucked an arm around me and hoisted me up the way he would a child. “Your pardon,” he said, held me against him, and ran.
I didn’t have time to argue. My job was to hang on while Salo dodged the frantic crew members running past.
Salo carried me down two levels to the ruins of a launch bay. I saw Dhreen and Xonea using one of the League launches as cover while they held off a small security team with pulse rifles. Salo didn’t hesitate, but shot his way through to the launch pad. I tried not to look at the writhing, screaming bodies on the deck as he waded through them.
“I have her!” he shouted.
Xonea and Dhreen climbed back into the small, fast shuttle Dhreen had used to transport me here. Salo literally tossed me in and dove through the hull doors just before they closed.
We were out in space, dodging the crossfire between the Faction and the League before I could get up off the deck. Salo apologized profusely for his rough handling, until I smacked an uninjured area on his arm.
“You did a wonderful job rescuing me. Shut up. Xonea, get me the medical pack.”
Salo had suffered only moderate lacerations and a few pulse burns. I cleaned him up and temporarily dressed one bad gash. I looked up and saw Joren looming in the viewer. “We’re going back to the homeworld?”
“Yes,” Salo said. “Let the Faction and the League destroy each other.”
“Oh, I’ve no doubt the League will end up littering space, but the Hsktskt won’t stop with them,” I said. “They’re here for more than target practice.”
“Someone signaled them directly.” Xonea sat down beside me.
“What?” I was aghast. “Are you kidding? Why would anyone want to signal the Hsktskt?”
“With the League in orbit, Joren is vulnerable. The Ruling Houses have ordered all offworld traders be detained until we discover who betrayed us.
”
“It doesn’t matter who did it. They’ll destroy the planet anyway,” I said. I closed my eyes. Wished I had let them take me back to Terra a year ago.
“We can try to evacuate as many of our people as we can. If the ships scatter in different directions, transit to other dimensions, most will escape.” Xonea was bleak.
“There are not enough ships, however. Only enough for ten or twelve percent of the population.”
No Jorenian was going to celebrate the death of their world.
We landed just before the League began bombarding the surface again. Xonea instructed Dhreen to escort me to the underground medical facility that had been prepared. He and Salo then hurried away to their defense stations.
Tonetka, Xonal, and Sberea were waiting for me. I rushed into my old friend’s arms.
“I thought I’d never see you again,” I told her when she finally let me go. “Has she been driving you crazy, Sberea?”
“As much as she ever has, Cherijo.”
Xonal smiled sadly at us. “Cherijo. It appears you will be free of the League, but not for very long.”
That was better than being a League prisoner. “Have you started the evacuation?”
“Yes. Members of all HouseClans have been selected at random to take the escape vessels. They are reporting now to their Transport assignments,” Xonal said. He looked at Tonetka. “Your name was on the list for our HouseClan, my ClanSister.”
Tonetka sniffed. “Another, younger Torin may have my position. My place is here.”
He nodded. Displacer fire boomed above our heads. “The League is being decimated. They have been signaling for you, Cherijo. Their leader demands a response.”
Shropana was a known threat, the Hsktskt only theoretical at this point. I might be able to buy time for the evacuees if I answered the signal. “I’d better talk to them while I still can.”
Xonal took me through the underground network of tunnels to his defense headquarters, where a vid of Colonel Shropana appeared an instant after he signaled the League.
“Healer. You have reneged on your bargain.”
“I was rescued from a Hsktskt attack.”
“You may still save yourself. I have managed to negotiate a temporary ceasefire with the Faction. They are willing to allow us to leave Varallan space, with you, in return for not interfering in their raid on Joren and the other occupied worlds in this system. That, and a considerable amount of our available supplies.”
“You’re a real humanitarian, Colonel. Forget it.”
“Joren will be destroyed, by one force or another,” he said. “Surely you can see that.”
“I’ll die with my people. Good-bye, Colonel.” I went to terminate the signal.
For a moment, Shropana seemed wistful. “I enjoyed meeting you, Cherijo.”
“Wish I could say the same.” I cut off the transmission. It looked like there was no way out of this. Then something Shropana had said made me smile.
“Xonal,” I said, turning to my ClanFather, “I have an idea.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
The Last Betrayal
Several hours after I arrived on Joren, I left again with Dhreen. Our shuttle flew directly to Shropana’s ship, which looked battered, but remained in full operation. A few vessels had been disabled, but the bulk of the fleet remained intact. We were received in the same launch bay, minus the pomp and ceremony of my last visit.
Colonel Shropana and a small detachment stood waiting as Dhreen landed. We climbed out of the shuttle. I made the introductions.
Shropana nodded to Dhreen, then turned to me. “When you signaled, you indicated you had a specific request before we departed.”
“Yes. We are evacuating approximately eleven percent of the surface population from Joren. If you allow the refugees to accompany us to Fendagal XI, I will cooperate fully with the League for the remainder of my existence.”
Shropana’s cynical eyes glowed with triumph. “I will grant your request. We will have to disperse the Jorenians among all the fleet ships, however.”
“Thank you. Signal your ships to expect to receive them in one hour.” I gestured to Dhreen. “My friend, of course, will be staying with me.”
“Of course. I’ll show you to your quarters.”
“There’s no need. I remember the way.” I led Dhreen off, keeping my head high and back straight until we were out of sight. “Do you think he believed me?” I murmured.
“I don’t know, Doc.” Dhreen looked ill. “I hope this works.”
All we had to do now was wait. We remained in my quarters, Dhreen near the door panel, me by the viewport. I’d offered to prepare tea for us, but Dhreen declined.
“Last thing I want to do is regurgitate in the middle of this,” he said. He gestured to the interior of my new quarters. I had redecorated—everything was in shades of HouseClan blue. “They must like you.”
“A comfortable cage is still a cage,” I said.
The door panel slid open and Joseph Grey Veil strode in. Only Dhreen’s quick movement diverted the trajectory of the server I threw, and it smashed into a wall panel. Two strong arms clamped around me.
“Cherijo!” Joseph visibly seethed with wrath. “You will cease attacking me every time I approach you.”
I fought to twist free of the Oenrallian’s hold. “Let me go, Dhreen. I won’t kill him. Not right away.”
“Quell down, Doc.” Dhreen gave my creator a hard look. “You should leave.”
I kept struggling. “Five minutes. That’s all I want. Just five minutes.”
My creator addressed the Oenrallian directly. “Perhaps you can persuade my daughter to change her unacceptable behavior.”
“I’m not your daughter!” I yelled.
Joseph Grey Veil contemplated me with mild surprise. “Is this your idea of complete cooperation?”
“When the refugees are safe,” I told him. “Not until then.”
His arms folded. “I am weary of your childish tantrums.”
“Oh? What are you going to do about it? Kill someone else?”
“There will be a great number of Jorenian children traveling with us to Fendagal XI,” he said. “I can arrange to have them brought to the lab.”
“Two minutes, Dhreen!” I struggled wildly. “Give me two minutes!”
My creator decided he’d said enough, or realized he was courting serious injury. He walked back out.
“Why did you stop me?” I yelled when Dhreen let me go. I pushed him out of my way and ran to the door panel. Outside, the corridor was deserted. I whirled around. “Do you have any idea what he’s capable of doing?”
The Oenrallian’s pallid skin was nearly white. “We have to maintain, Doc. At least until the launches arrive safely.”
I flung myself down in a chair. Well, there was that, too.
“Don’t perspire over it.” Dhreen reached over and patted my arm. “You’ll get another chance.”
An acid taste rose in my mouth. “No, I won’t. In a few minutes it won’t matter, I guess.” I huddled in the chair, drawing up my knees, resting my brow against them.
The sense of imminent catastrophe was no surprise. I’d arranged everything. This time, I couldn’t put the responsibility on anyone else. Not even the League.
A signal came to my display.
“Healer.” It was Colonel Shropana. “Please report to launch bay. The Jorenian vessels are on final approach.”
I stood at the side of the League Commander while the large Jorenian launch eased into the bay. Shropana’s men were setting up to help the refugees report in and get their quarters assignments. The Colonel’s stance was that of the omnipotent, benevolent despot—hands folded behind his back, spine straight, chin elevated.
“I might earn a seat on the Supreme Council for the success of this mission,” he said. “Delivering you, now saving the Jorenian refugees from the Hsktskt. All I need is to discover some uncharted world rich in mineral deposits on the jaunt to Fendaga
l XI. I can store my uniform for good.”
“I hope you get everything you deserve,” I said with complete honesty.
“You have done well, my dear. Not only for yourself, but for these people.” He nodded toward the launch as it touched down on the docking platform.
“I’m sure they think the same thing.” I wondered how long it would take. Maybe another minute. “Tell me, Colonel, do you know anything about prehistoric Terra?”
The thick lips stretched over his teeth. “Only that your people spent centuries trying to annihilate one another.”
“That we did,” I said. “Terrans have always been very good at wreaking havoc. Some of our idioms are based on events that occurred during such conflicts.”
“We should discuss it in the future,” Shropana said. “My people have similar linguistic oddities.”
“There’s one expression that comes to mind at the moment. Do you know what a Trojan horse is?”
“No, I don’t believe I do.” Shropana’s gaze sharpened as he noticed my expression. “Perhaps you would explain it to me. At once.”
“Oh, I don’t have to.” I nodded toward the Jorenian vessel as its hull doors opened. “You’ve just let one land inside your ship.”
The Colonel’s powdery hair flew as he whipped his head around and saw what had stepped out onto the docking ramp. “No,” he whispered. Then, with a terrible shout, “No!”
The occupants of the launch streamed out into the bay. I dropped to the deck and covered my head with my arms as soon as weapons began firing. The Colonel seized me and yanked me back up. His claws cut into my flesh as I struggled to free myself.
“What have you done?” he shrieked as he shook me.
I gazed into his rounded, terrified eyes. “It’s called pay-back, Commander.”
He shoved me aside. I hit a wall panel and let myself slide to the floor. Weapons discharged heavy, ceaseless streams of deadly energy, and bodies thumped as they fell beside the launch and all around me. I peeked through my arms and saw Shropana charge directly into the fray. His Commander’s tunic probably saved his life. He was captured and disarmed in seconds.
