by Sara King
Jer’ait peered at the Ueshi. “Now that we’ve freed you, what will you do?”
“My orders were to stay until Daviin left the war, sir.”
“But a Huouyt assassin attacked you,” Jer’ait pointed out. “It gives you great cause to flee.”
The little Ueshi’s big eyes boggled. “If I left Daviin, Jemria would kill me.”
“So you truly intend to stay.”
The Ueshi nodded vehemently.
Jer’ait cursed. He was staring an agent of the Geuji in the eyes and he couldn’t haul him back to Levren for questioning. He straightened, irritated. “I’ll see the Huouyt who abducted you dies in your place. They’ll stop searching for you. Just use a different alias next time you come to work on the Jreet and you’ll be fine. We can never tell you Ueshi apart, anyway.”
“Huouyt!” the Jreet shouted, pounding on the door again. This time the wall around it vibrated and strained dangerously. “What’s taking so long?!”
“Lie down,” Jer’ait told the Ueshi. “I will come back for you in an hour.”
The Ueshi’s head-crest gave a terrified flutter. “But…”
“Do it! Stare at the ceiling.” Once the Ueshi had reluctantly complied, Jer’ait walked up to the door and opened it. “We can go, Daviin. My work here is done.”
Daviin peeked in at the Ueshi and immediately his face contorted. “You told me he’d feel pain.”
“Right now, he is experiencing a level of pain beyond pain itself,” Jer’ait said, glancing over his shoulder at the Ueshi doctor. “A horror only a Va’ga can unleash upon him. His ancestors will truly feel it.”
“You said there would be screaming!” Daviin roared.
“Oh there will be,” Jer’ait assured him solemnly. “At the end.”
Daviin turned to peer at Jer’ait, interest lighting his metallic eyes. “At the end?”
“At the end, he will scream until he gurgles blood.”
The Jreet twisted to stare back at the Ueshi, obviously impressed. “Can we watch?”
“By all means,” Jer’ait said, gesturing towards the door. “Joe won’t begrudge a few hours from his Sentinel. As I understand, he never wanted you to bind to him in the first place.”
“True.” Daviin reluctantly pulled his head from the room. “But the fool steps in trouble like a melaa steps in its own shit. We’d best be getting back.”
Jer’ait sighed and glanced at the Ueshi. “It’s a shame to leave such masterful work unwitnessed.”
“Show me again later,” Daviin said. “Right now, you must help me get out of this maze so I can find my ward.”
“Very well,” Jer’ait said reluctantly. “This way.”
CHAPTER 22: Flea Kicks Ass
All around them, the sounds of the shuttle’s engines roared as it broke into Neskfaat’s atmosphere.
In one corner of the shuttle, the Jreet and the Baga were throwing dice and taunting each other. The Ooreiki was watching closely, his lower body pooled into a blob of what looked like biosuit-coated blubber. Jer’ait was staring across the room at the far wall, saying nothing. Scarab, alone in his corner, awaited the next mission in silence.
Watching him stare straight ahead, black eyes utterly emotionless, Joe wondered if the Grekkon even cared about what the others in the shuttle were doing. Scarab looked like a statue of a colossal, mutated Earth insect, and his constant, mute silence wasn’t doing much to dispel the image.
That morning, Headquarters had delivered the orders for every soldier of the first wave to return to the tunnels. Six days early. Their excuse was that they were investigating reports of a leak within the command, but everyone knew that it was because Daviin and the Welu heir had almost killed each other.
Congress was putting them back to work as quickly as possible, as many times as possible, before the inter-species groups disintegrated.
They’d already been written off as losses.
At this point, Joe and everyone else waiting in the exit bay already had their final messages recorded and ready to go. Their barracks room was spotless, their belongings packed neatly at the foot of their beds, their wills copied and laid out on the center of their beds to expedite the cleanup process.
Though Headquarters hadn’t had the balls to say it, Joe had the feeling that none of the survivors of the first wave were leaving in anything other than bodybags. They’d already beaten the odds by taking out a prince, so as far as Congress was concerned, any Dhasha they killed from here on out was merely a bonus. They’d never join the second, larger wave of attackers because they would be dead long before PlanOps assembled for the next attack.
To make things worse, all of Joe’s suspicions had been thoughtfully confirmed by the Baga. Flea had eavesdropped on the Overseers for three days, trying to determine which of them was responsible for the leak. He’d found nothing, aside from the fact that anything Joe’s team did from here on was simply going to be a statistic for some Bajna number-cruncher.
There would be no survivors of the first wave. They would send them back again and again until they were all dead or the second wave was ready for its attack.
None of them had any delusions about surviving that long.
“Well,” Galek said, rising from the pool of flesh beside Flea and Daviin, “At least whoever kills the next prince is getting a kasja. About time. They should give one to Jer’ait for the first prince.”
“What would you do with a kasja if you got one, Galek?” Jer’ait asked.
“Wear it,” Galek said, with a look that suggested the Huouyt had asked the stupidest question in the world.
“He’s talking about the money,” Joe said. “The three mil.”
“Oh.” Galek gave him a sheepish look. “Set it aside for retirement, I guess,” Galek said. “What about you, Daviin?”
Daviin, looked up from his dice, “I care not for Congressional honors nor its money.” He gave a fearsome Jreet grin. “I’m winning all I need from the Baga.” He jingled a bag of tokens above their game.
“Eat me,” Flea muttered.
“Careful, he just might,” Jer’ait snorted.
“Flea, what do they know about the Vahlin?” Scarab interrupted. It was the first thing the Grekkon had said since coming out of the tunnels.
Flea turned away from the dice game with obvious relief. “The Vahlin? They think he’s a thousand turns old, one of the leaders of the last Dhasha rebellion that somehow got off the planet.” He flicked one of his claw-like arms dismissively. “The Peacemakers have no idea where he is. They’ve got reports he’s everywhere from straddling the north pole to living in a sealed bubble under the south ocean, they’ve got no real information on who he has with him, and they don’t even know his name. They’ve been trying for rotations but still have no spies in the Vahlin’s employ, something that made them call for the Huouyt Overseer’s resignation at the last meeting.”
“So,” Scarab said, “we know nothing.”
“Yeah,” Flea admitted. “They were throwing around the idea of offering full retirement and benefits to anyone who can bring them information on the Vahlin. You heard them at the briefing. It’s their number one concern, aside from convincing Koliinaat to let them blow up Neskfaat. They’re desperate. I tell you, if we bring back some dirt on the Vahlin, they’ll give us anything we want. Hell, they’d promote us all. Joe, they’d give you Overseer in a heartbeat.”
Joe glanced at the Baga, slightly uncomfortable at how much he had learned from his eavesdropping.
The shuttle thumped and the engines died. Daviin raised his energy level and vanished from the visible spectrum. Everyone tensed as the door opened. Seeing nothing hiding amidst the gelatinous red foliage, they unloaded.
“Flea, Daviin, you two are working together again. Assume they know we’re coming. Jer’ait, you go left, Flea and Daviin take right. We’re moving up two hundred rods from the dropoff and Scarab’s digging us a fighting pit. If you guys encounter more than you can handle, get your a
sses back here.”
His team split, with Jer’ait taking the form of a Jikaln warrior. His body blended with the thick, heavy scarlet foliage, rendering him almost as invisible as the Jreet as he disappeared into the forest.
Joe picked a high spot and the Grekkon dug a short tunnel for the three of them. Then, with Joe and Galek guarding the entrance with plasma rifles and biosuits, they waited.
Jer’ait was the first to report.
“There’s a group of Takki guarding our planned penetration point. I’ve counted three hundred sixteen so far. ‘Bout half of them are carrying laser rifles. I suggest the Baga retreat before he’s seen. The Jreet and I might be able to clear out a path to the penetration point.”
“Crack you, Huouyt,” Flea snapped. “I’ve killed three of them so far. We do this together.”
“You’re not doing it at all,” Joe said. “Get back here. All three of you. Scarab will dig us a tunnel all the way to the den.”
“That will use up all of my secretions,” Scarab said quickly. “At this distance, if I hit a main corridor, I won’t be able to back up and seek out a slave tunnel. We’d be down there without an escape route.”
“I think the three of us can take out the defenders,” Daviin insisted.
“Think about it, goddamn it,” Joe snapped. “Instead of six battalions on each prince this time, we’ve got three groundteams. They’ve got more Takki to go around, and just like last time, they knew we were coming. Except this time, they know where we’re planning our tunnel penetration. The Takki are a distraction. They’ll have Dhasha waiting for us there, too. Now get your asses back here before you’re seen.”
Joe realized suddenly that it was his three most stubborn groundmates who were out there, and all three of them had told him to go to hell in the past. If they didn’t agree with him, they were just as likely to keep doing things their way as come back to regroup.
Please don’t turn this into a fight, Joe prayed.
Jer’ait, to his surprise, was the first to return. He had found a stream or river along the way, for he had shed his Jikaln pattern and was once more in Huouyt form, his violet eye oozing irritation. He said nothing as he climbed into the Grekkon’s hole, simply hunkered down and inserted something into the vertical slit in his head. The red wormy appendages of his zora slipped out to take it, and immediately his body grew squatter, his muscles and flesh condensing in a shifting that looked both painful and revolting. Still, no matter how many times he saw the Huouyt take a new pattern, Joe could not look away.
Flea and Daviin arrived later, though neither of them showed any of the anger Joe feared.
“All right,” Joe said, “Let’s go, Scarab.”
The Grekkon did not move. “You’re talking about two ferlii lengths of extrusion, if not more. I will be useless to you afterwards, if I even make it to the tunnels.”
“Do it,” Joe said. “This will be an easy crawl anyway.”
“It’s never an easy crawl,” Scarab said, its four black eyes staring back at him. Then, slowly, the Grekkon bowed its two spearlike appendages until they almost touched the ground. “But you are Prime.”
Scarab wordlessly began backing into the soil behind him at an imperceptible angle towards the Dhasha den. He was gone so fast that Joe and the others had trouble keeping up.
They were panting by the time the Grekkon backed into a slave tunnel and reversed. Jer’ait and Flea took opposite directions and disappeared down the tunnels as Joe rigged a mask for the entrance.
“Clear toward the surface,” the Baga said. “The end is sealed maybe ninety rods up.”
“No Takki guarding it?” Daviin asked.
“If there are, they’re not on this side.”
“Good,” Joe said. “Get back down here. Jer’ait, what do you see?”
“Tunnel’s different from all the slave tunnels I’ve ever seen,” Jer’ait said slowly. “There’s less confusion about where the tunnels want to go.”
“I agree,” the Baga said. “None of that up and down and sideways crack. I can go full bore and not worry about slamming into a wall.”
“Another oddity,” Jer’ait added, “There’s no side tunnels so far. No Takki, either.”
“Probably won’t find any until we start hitting other tunnels. Jer’ait, stay there. Flea, Daviin, go down there and meet him. Scarab, stay here and guard our way out.” As Flea sped past at almost fifty lengths an hour, Joe switched his headcom to broadcast to the other three groundteams who were supposed to making the insertion with them. “Teams One and Three, you make it?”
Nothing.
“We’re on our own again,” Joe said, after he repeated his request. He glanced at Galek, signaling for him to wait to follow the others into the slave tunnel. “Flea, you catch up with Jer’ait yet?”
“Caught up and passed,” Flea announced. “Still no connections.”
Joe frowned. “How far have you gone?”
“I don’t know. A long way.”
“And no connecting tunnels?”
“No, Commander.”
Joe blinked at the added ‘Commander.’ He wondered if the Baga was being sarcastic. “All right, go another hundred rods. If you don’t find anything, stop. This might not be a deep den. We might’ve found something else.”
“Like what?” Galek asked.
“I was told this planet used to belong to the Trosska. Mineral-rich. Had some ruvmestin pockets. We could be in a mine shaft.”
The Baga obeyed, then said, “I went a ways further and still see nothing.”
“All right,” Joe said, “Everybody stay where you are. Flea, go find out what’s at the end.”
“Flea?” Joe asked, after a couple tics.
“Still going,” Flea responded. “No connections so far.”
“Nobody would dig a tunnel like this without a reason for it. Let us know as soon as you find something.”
Ten tics later, Flea said, “I think I found a slave tunnel.”
Joe sat up. “Ghosts. How deep are you?”
“I don’t know, but it’s crackin’ hot. A furnace. I’m surprised the walls aren’t glowing.”
“What makes you think it’s a slave tunnel?” Jer’ait asked.
“There’s Takki crawling in and out of it.”
“Ash,” Joe said. “How deep did you say you were?”
“Deep enough to make my abbas feel like they’re drying out.”
“Probably a length or two,” Daviin said. “On Vora, we dig deep because we like it hot.”
“Flea, take a guess on the temp,” Joe said.
“A lot warmer than your skin. Almost like the casing on a haauk generator after it’s been running a few hours.”
“Soot,” Joe cursed. “That’d kill me without my biosuit. Jer’ait, you gonna be okay down there?”
“I doubt it. Huouyt cannot operate in conditions over sixty-nine-point-three grads Standard for long. Even in another species’ pattern, our zora begin to lose functionality once they reach sixty-nine grads. After our core temperature reaches the breaking point and remains there for more than four tics, our zora will go into hibernation and we will lose our pattern, thereby quickening our demise, as our natural bodies are aquatic.”
“Are you trying to tell me it’d kill you to go down there with him?”
“It’s a strong possibility, Commander.”
Joe glanced at the Grekkon, who was sulking in the small trap-hole he had dug in the wall with his remaining secretions. They were down two teammates and they hadn’t even met the enemy yet.
“Flea, how easily do you think you could follow those Takki you’re seeing?”
“It’d be easier to pluck the scales off a live Dhasha than get through there unseen.”
“Too many Takki?”
“That, and the tunnel’s small.”
“Too small for Daviin to slip through?”
“He could make it through, but the Takki would know he’s there.”
“How
about deeper in the shaft we’re in? There might be another entrance.”
“You want me to go deeper? Any deeper and my wings are gonna catch fire.”
“Go deeper,” Joe ordered.
The Baga did not report for another tic. Finally, he said, “There’s another tunnel, but it’s too small for Daviin. Joe, you might be able to make it, but you’d have to crawl on your stomach. That fat Ooreiki would get stuck. Damn, it’s hot down here.”
Coldness traced along Joe’s spine as he listened to the Baga’s report. He was once more all too aware of a tunnel crawl fifty turns before, one in which they had lost his groundteam’s flag and Joe had been utterly too terrified to go back and look for it—and had subjected his entire platoon to a suicidal frontal assault instead. “Flea, see if you can find a bigger tunnel.”
“This is it,” Flea said. “The last one down. All the others were crawling with Takki. This one looks like some sort of waste shaft. Got a little stream running out of it. Probably comes right out of the prince’s watering hole.”
“Did anyone see you?” Joe asked.
“No. One thing about these Takki…they’ve got vision like a Jreet.”
“I see well enough to whip you at dice, Baga.”
“Tonight we’ll try cards, Jreet. When I’m finished with you, you’ll slither back to Vora crying like a Cu’it slave.”
“Like you cried last night after losing all your credits?”
“It’s hot down here. Commander, if you don’t need me, I’m getting back to somewhere cooler.”
“Check out the tunnel,” Joe ordered. “If it goes to the den, that’s where we’ll make our insertion.”
The Baga said nothing for several more tics. Then, “Yep. Straight to the deep den. My scanner says there’s twelve adults in here, not counting the females, though none over five digs. The prince himself is only a little bigger. Lots of young, though, and I’m pretty sure some of them are small enough to fit in the slave tunnels. Want me to stick the prince?”
Joe took a deep breath. “No. I’m coming down with you. Meet me at the tunnel entrance.”
“What about the rest of us?” Daviin asked.
