by Yakov Merkin
Nayasar recognized his tone; she was not getting an answer no matter what she did. Well, nothing she could do in the middle of the palace, at least. So she resigned herself to following Felivas, and after a short, brisk walk, they were outside. Nayasar found herself squinting in the midday sunlight. Small puffs of dust floated by as a breeze blew. Was it the dry season already? It felt hot enough to be.
Felivas led her to his private duster parked just outside the compound. “Where are we going?” Nayasar asked again as they got in.
“Like I said, I’ll tell you when it’s time. And here I thought that everyone who sat through officer exams was capable of patience. Shows how much I know.” The duster began to hum as Felivas turned it on and they sped off, outrunning the cloud of dust thrown into the air by its engine, the sound overpowering Nayasar’s indignant sniff.
They moved quickly, and sped out of the city at a speed that was probably above the legal limit, and were soon moving across the vast Shinnai Expanse, a massive stretch of plains and canyons that went on for hundreds of miles—though notably smaller than it had been thanks to expanding cities.
They weren’t completely crossing it, however, and after a short time Nayasar saw trees in the distance. “We’re going to the forest? Really?”
“No complaining,” Felivas replied. “We’ve hardly spent any time together these last few weeks, so these couple of hours are mine. You agreed to it.”
“What? No I didn’t.”
“You didn’t argue when I told you to follow me. For you, that’s agreeing.” Felivas ended his sentence abruptly as Nayasar reached over and punched him in the side.
“Don’t try and deny you deserved that,” Nayasar said.
Felivas smiled. “If you’re done using me as a punching bag, I’ll tell you where we’re going.”
“I already know we’re going to some forest,” Nayasar replied.
“Well it’s more interesting than that,” Felivas said. “It’s also a mountain.”
Nayasar looked ahead of them again and saw the curves of the hills and mountains at this particular edge of the Expanse.
A few minutes later Felivas slowed the duster to a stop just before the first trees, and then disembarked.
“How long do you think it would take to run up this mountain?” he asked.
Nayasar glanced up. She wouldn’t call it a mountain really; it was more of a large hill within the forest. And what kind of a question was that, anyway?
“I don’t know, maybe a half an hour, running quickly. Why do you ask?” she turned to where Felivas had been standing, but he was not longer there. She looked around quickly, and soon spotted him a few meters away, walking into the forest.
“Race you to the top!” he said, his face rising in a grin, and sprinted deeper into the trees.
“Cheater!” Nayasar snarled, and ran after him.
The forest wasn’t too dense at first; it wasn’t hard to avoid trees while keeping track of Felivas, who was consistently some ten meters ahead. Nayasar gritted her teeth and upped her pace. She would not let him win. Especially not after he’d cheated. In the moment, she let herself forget everything else, and focused on catching him.
As they ran up the hill the forest began to thicken, and Nayasar had to focus more of her attention on not hitting a tree. Besides, she knew where Felivas would be. When she next checked, she had closed the gap by almost two meters. She had always been the faster runner. She couldn’t tell if Felivas was tiring yet, but she was starting to feel the fatigue in her legs, and he had to be at least as tired.
They were most of the way up the hill now. Nayasar was closing the gap, but not quickly enough. There had to be a way she could slow him down. She had one amusing idea of yelling something obscene, with the goal of at least making him turn around, but decided that interrupting her breathing pattern was not the best idea. A few more ideas crossed her mind, but they were all either unfeasible or involved shooting Felivas in the leg with her sidearm—that seemed a bit extreme.
She was running out of time. The top of the hill, mountain, whatever, was in sight now—not more than a few minutes’ run. Just as well—she was starting to tire. Nayasar looked at the top of the hill again. There wasn’t anything of interest except for a large tree. Suddenly an idea came to mind. She did a quick calculation in her head, then smiled. She would win. In a smooth motion, Nayasar pulled out the small grappling gun that had been attached to her armor’s belt and fired it at the tree. A few moments later the grappling claw secured itself and Nayasar had it retract the line, pushing off the ground as hard as she could as she used it to bound up the hill. Weighing so little did have its advantages.
Nayasar was about to pass Felivas when he turned, looked at her, and then leapt sideways onto her, knocking them both to the forest floor and forcing her to release the grappling gun, which zipped to the top of the hill. After a few moments they skidded to a stop, Felivas on top of her. He remained there for a brief moment, a clearly forced smug look on his face, then leaped off, darting to the top of the hill.
Nayasar cursed and pulled herself to her feet, racing after Felivas, but she knew she would be too late. By the time she reached the top, Felivas was lounging against the tree, her grappling gun in his hand.
“What took you so long?” he asked with a smile.
Nayasar threw a half-serious punch at Felivas’s face, which he casually redirected.
“You won’t admit defeat?” Felivas asked.
Nayasar smiled and feigned a punch at his face, then hooked her leg behind his and with a quick strike and a shove, forced Felivas to the ground.
“Never,” she said as she stood over him. “Not that that would surprise you.”
Felivas tried to get up, but Nayasar put a foot on his chest. “Admit that you cheated.”
“What rules were there to break? I don’t recall setting any. And you didn’t order me to lose the race. Next time if that’s what you want, let me know. Will it be a military order or a royal decree, my lady?” Felivas replied.
Nayasar pressed her foot down harder. “In my experience, it’s not smart to irritate someone with their foot on your chest.” She flashed him a wry smile. “You might want to reconsider your—”
Nayasar found herself interrupted as Felivas grabbed her leg with both hands and pulled her off balance for a brief moment. Before she could determine how to react, she was flat on her back, with Felivas’s knee holding her down.
“You were saying?” he said. Nayasar tried forcing him off of her, but he weighed too much, and was positioned too well.
“There are those who would take advantage of a beautiful lady in your position,” Felivas went on, “but I am fortunately not one of them.”
Nayasar wasn’t sure whether she should laugh at him or punch him in the face once she got out of this. She settled on a response, but decided to let him continue for a little while longer. Just so she could make fun of him for it later.
“However, no one is completely immune to temptation… and I don’t believe in letting opportunities pass by without taking something from it.” He reached a hand around the back of Nayasar’s head, found her ponytail, and pulled off the elastic band, letting her golden hair splay itself around her head. The hand then moved to the side of her face. Nayasar felt her face grow warm, and smiled up at Felivas, staring into his eyes. A moment later, she realized that she had nearly forgotten about her plan, which made her flush even more.
Enough of this. She reached up, grabbed Felivas’s head in both hands, and pulled it to one side. The rest of his body followed, and a moment later Nayasar was free. She didn’t waste the opportunity. In one fluid motion she unsheathed one of the long knives she carried and rested it lightly on Felivas’s neck.
“I win,” she said.
“Okay, you win,” Felivas replied hastily. “Could you, uh, move the knife away from my neck?”
“Well I could,” she said with a wicked grin, and pressed the blade down with a tiny
bit more force. “But I do so love having you completely at my mercy. And after what you just pulled…” Nayasar trailed off, unable hold the laughter back any more. Why did this always seem to happen around him? She removed the knife from Felivas’s neck and put it away, but smacked the side of his head with the back of her hand.
“And don’t even pretend you didn’t deserve that,” she said once the laughter subsided.
Felivas moved into a sitting position facing her. “I definitely deserved that one,” he replied with a smile, his pointed white teeth contrasting sharply with his space-black fur. “But I did beat you in the race.”
As he smiled, Nayasar felt her heart flutter. His smiles always did that to her. “Enjoy the victory while you can. The next one will be mine,” Nayasar said. “So,” she continued as she caught her breath, “did you really just bring me all the way out here for a race up a mountain?”
“Apparently. It was easy to arrange on short notice, and sufficiently removed from other people. I miss when we used to take little trips like this all the time, just to have fun. You still believe in fun, right?”
Nayasar laughed. “I suppose I do.” This really had been fun. Memories from one of their first trips came to mind, and she realized that she had missed them too.
“I know I can’t keep you from working a lot, both because of… what’s happened and because it’s in your nature. But I need you to promise to make some time for relaxing, even if it’s something simple like this. You need to take care of yourself too, after all.”
Nayasar wasn’t about to give Felivas the satisfaction of seeing her interrupt her own objection again. He was right, as usual. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt relaxed, let alone laughed. Even now that his face had returned to its general neutral expression, she could see the happiness in his eyes—happy that she was happy. She wouldn’t say so to Felivas, but a not insignificant part of her would be content to stay there in the forest with him forever. The stubborn part of her, however, didn’t want to even admit that he was right again. At a loss for what to say, Nayasar yawned.
Felivas glanced at the chronometer on his armor’s multitool. “I thought you said the energy drink would keep you up for four hours. It’s barely been two.”
“I guess I… miscalculated,” Nayasar replied, yawning again. She really did feel exhausted. Must have been all the running.
“If that’s the case, then we should begin heading down to the duster,” Felivas said, standing up. “It’ll take nearly an hour to get down if we walk.” He offered a hand to Nayasar to help her up. She swatted it away and stood up.
Felivas smiled again. “Let’s go then. I don’t want to have to carry you down.”
“You realize that I won’t forget any of this,” she said, eyes narrowing.
“I hope not,” Felivas replied, and began to head back the way they had come.
Nayasar wondered for a moment what he could possibly have meant, but gave up in favor of letting her tired mind rest, and followed him.
The way down was slow going. The incline was rather steep, and they had to watch their steps carefully, lest they trip; a fall could mean an unpleasant tumble into a tree. Was it this steep on the way up as well? Nayasar felt the fatigue creeping up on her, forcing her to watch her step even more closely. Fortunately, Felivas had the sense not to mention anything, though he did silently offer her a hand twice when they reached a particularly steep area. She refused the offers out of hand, though she did pause briefly to clear her head before continuing down.
After almost an hour of walking, which had felt like four, Nayasar finally spied the duster through the thinning trees, as the incline became much more gradual. Almost there. After that things grew a bit hazy as the days without sleep finally caught up to her. She was aware of leaning against a tree for a moment, and the next thing she knew she was sitting in the moving duster.
She blinked to clear her eyes and turned to Felivas. “Promise me you’ll help me find a way to make them pay,” she said.
“Of course I will,” Felivas replied. “And will you promise to take care of yourself?”
“I will, I promise,” she replied, then leaned on his shoulder and let her eyes close.
CHAPTER 2
As Executor Darkclaw watched the timer to the fleet’s arrival at its destination, he took a moment to assess the status of his armada. Selixan Station was continuing to pump out both war materials and cloned soldiers at an impressive rate; in the very short time since the conquest of the Cytan system, it had already produced dozens of warships and several thousand clone soldiers programmed with everything they needed to go directly into combat. Darkclaw could understand why the other, not-quite perfect Tyrannodons were in awe of the facility, though of course he felt nothing himself. And as much as Darkclaw would have preferred to have the High Lord and his infinite power at his disposal, he recognized that in order to conquer, they needed war materials and soldiers, and the High Lord was needed to power Selixan Station.
It was fortunate that matters had been proceeding as well as they had; with their two easy victories, the Tyrannodons had access to huge stores of natural resources with which to resupply the station once its own stores ran out; and more importantly, no warning had been allowed to escape the captured systems. That was the most crucial piece of the plan in this phase. The captured information had indicated that the Galactic Alliance would need at least three weeks to fully mobilize its primary armed forces, the vaunted Legion Navy, and every system that could be taken In advance of that inevitable conflict would make the campaign all the easier. While Darkclaw did not doubt that his own fleet could defeat the combined forces of the Alliance, maintaining secrecy would allow him to press into its center virtually unopposed, and destroy the Legion Navy while its ships sat at dock. First, however, the High Lord had commanded that these three systems, the Zarian, Cytan, and the Reathan, be taken as an initial foothold in enemy space; three relatively minor systems, whose silence, while notable, would not prompt an immediate investigation or action.
A warning sound toned as the final countdown began. Darkclaw rose and, as he had twice before, converted the command deck to its fleet command configuration, the control hub rising around him. Quickly, all craft in the fleet confirmed their connection to the network, and Darkclaw gave the order to drop out of hyperspace via a simple, nonverbal command.
As expected, there were no spacecraft orbiting the one inhabited world in the system, Reath, one of many Tehlman worlds. This was unsurprising. The Tehlmans were the most populous and widespread race in the Alliance, and secure in their power as one of the Alliance’s founding races. As such, they relied exclusively on the heavily Tehlman Legion Navy for defense, to their detriment now.
Darkclaw ordered the fleet into a loose formation and to approach the planet, the only developed world in the system. Once the fleet was within weapons range he would deliver his ultimatum to the planet. He glanced at the latest countdown. Ten minutes until they were in range. Even if the Reathans were defiant, Darkclaw had no qualms about damaging the world. Its only value was its location. But with fewer defenses than even the Zarian system, Reath would likely not challenge him at all.
The fleet was three minutes from weapons range of the planet when the Hudecar shuddered—they were being fired upon. It was not possible. Scanners showed no ships in range, and if there were enemy vessels equipped with stealth capabilities so advanced, they would not have waited so long to attack. Darkclaw looked at the display screen; the tactical display was of no use at the moment. A few moments later there was a flash from the planet, and a frigate took a direct hit and exploded, debris impacting the Hudecar’s shields. As the fleet continued to advance, the attacks grew more frequent. The only explanation was that there was some type of long-ranged defense battery on the planet’s surface. There had been no mention of any such thing in the information he had perused. Upon reflection that was sensible, as that information had been freely open to the publ
ic, but that understanding made it no less problematic. This changed everything. The High Lord will not be pleased, Darkclaw said to himself, but he had no choice. He ordered the entire fleet to reverse course and move out of range of the guns. He would need to formulate a new strategy, one that would avoid unnecessary losses.
As the fleet began to fall back, a warning alarm began to blare, and Darkclaw turned back to the tactical display. Thirty-six warships were entering the system. A quick scan confirmed what he already assumed; a Legion Navy patrol. The operation had just become even more complicated.
Darkclaw immediately ordered his fleet to surround the planet. There were not enough to completely do so, of course, not with the ships remaining out of range of the planetary defenses. But the immediate problem was not the guns, it was the Legion Navy patrol. This might have been the final system before the war would be taken to the more central Alliance worlds, but the Tyrannodons would need as much time as possible to initiate their primary offensive before the enemy became aware of their presence. And more importantly, those were the High Lord’s orders.
On his display, Darkclaw saw the small patrol move closer to the planet. Unsurprising. Darkclaw’s interdictor warships would prevent the enemy from jumping to hyperspace near the planet, and were jamming all long-range communications. There was a little time before this mission was a failure. The question was if there was anything he could do to keep them from escaping. By moving closer to the planet, the Legion Navy vessels had given Darkclaw more time to deal with them, but now they were protected by the planetary defense system. At some point they would likely scatter and attempt to flee the system. It did not matter if most of them were destroyed in the attempt; the one that escaped would be all that mattered. They were already moving toward the far side of the planet, and the Tyrannodon fleet had yet to complete its encirclement.
“Commence a scan of the planet. Locate the defensive batteries,” Darkclaw ordered.
