Resist the Red Battlenaut

by Robert T. Jeschonek

  "We've got a medal and a promotion for you, too, you know," said Perseid.

  Donna thought it over. "Can I take a rain check like Solomon?"

  "Absolutely not," snapped Perseid. "It's now or never."

  Donna looked stung. "Really?"

  "Just kidding." Perseid laughed. "Take all the time you need."

  Donna laughed, too. "In that case, I'm with Solomon."

  "So what are the two of you going to do next?" asked Rexis.

  "I don't know," said Scott. "Make it up as we go along, I guess."

  Perseid nodded thoughtfully and rubbed the scar on his left cheek. "You said it's time for a change. A change of scenery, maybe?"

  "Getting away from it all?" Scott grinned at Donna. "That sounds about right."

  "Then maybe I can do something for you, after all." Perseid turned to Rexis. "I think these folks deserve a decent ride, don't you?"

  Rexis pulled out her tablet and tapped away at the screen. "The Sun Tzu just got out of the shop."

  "Maybe something a little smaller." Perseid laughed. "After all, there are only two of them."

  Just then, the detention center door swung open, and Cairn stepped out, blinking and squinting.

  "Make that three," said Scott.

  "What do we have for three then?" asked Perseid.

  "The Sun Bin's out of the shop, too," said Rexis.

  "Now you're talking." Perseid rubbed the scar around his throat. "Would you say they did all right with it the first time they took it out?"

  "I guess so." Rexis shrugged. "If stopping Redmageddon and saving the Commonwealth from complete destruction count as 'all right.'"

  "Then yeah." Perseid grinned. "Their track record with that one doesn't totally suck."

  "Great." Rexis kept tapping the tablet. "Then I'll transfer control and have it moved off the Sun Tzu."

  "She's all yours." Perseid squeezed Scott's shoulder and Donna's, too. "Go find that change of scenery and figure out what you're going to do next."

  "We will." Impulsively, Scott reached out and squeezed Perseid's shoulder, too. "Thanks for the ship."

  "You have a ship?" said Cairn as he ambled over, shading his eyes against the sun. "How about giving a guy a lift?"

  Scott grinned. He hadn't seen Cairn once in the four weeks of his detention, and he was damn glad to finally see him now. "Which guy? And where to?"

  "Come on." Cairn walked past and kept going, waving for them to follow. "It's a surprise."

  *****

  Chapter 46

  The Iridess Chasm on Tack was blazing hot, just as Scott remembered it from thirteen years ago. It took him and Cairn hours to cross, since they weren't running for their lives this time with Vore in hot pursuit.

  Though, truth to tell, Scott couldn't help checking over his shoulder every so often to make sure Vore wasn't back there.

  It was the first time Scott had returned to Iridess Chasm since his abduction and escape in the wilderness with Cairn. Scott had never had the desire to go back; he wouldn't have gone this time, either, if not for Cairn. He'd always secretly worried that somehow the place would grab hold of him again and never let go. He'd feared that he would die a second time and not be found and resuscitated.

  But the fear wasn't with him this time. Maybe it was because of what he'd been through; maybe he'd conquered all the demons that had had their hooks in him for so long. Whatever the reason, he felt like he was finally seeing the place for what it really was--a desolate land devoid of mind or malice, able to hurt him only as much as he would let it.

  To a child fleeing a lunatic, Iridess had seemed like a living, malevolent thing. Now, the swirling dust devils and scampering red lizards seemed like natural phenomena and nothing more. The vulture-like scavengers circling overhead were instinct-driven parts of the food chain, not demons imbued with wicked sentience. Thorny bushes and stinging insects were nuisances, not magical menaces.

  And Penitent Peak was just a rock formation, not a towering spire alive with dark power and a mind of its own.

  As they approached that lofty crag, Cairn quickened his pace, racing toward it with single-minded intensity. Scott had to run to keep up--though he still wasn't sure why Cairn wanted to get there. Back on Archibald, he'd simply named the destination without explanation beyond saying it was for "old times' sake."

  Even now, as Cairn reached the bottom of Penitent Peak, he offered no insight. He just kept moving, scrambling up the dusty slope. Scott did the same, still checking over his shoulder now and then.

  As more time passed and the sun lowered in the sky, the two men continued to climb. Their footsteps from thirteen years ago were long gone, but they didn't need to see them to follow the same route they'd taken as children.

  The crag steepened, slowing the climbers, but not stopping them. Hand over hand, foot after foot, they pulled and pushed themselves up the face of the peak, closing in on the destination they'd been seeking since they'd first stepped into the chasm that day.

  Scott missed a foothold and slipped once, but clung to the rockface and steadied himself. Cairn, a good ten meters above him, paused and looked down, then kept going, scuttling the rest of the way to the ledge they'd been aiming for all along. He swung himself up over the edge and disappeared, leaving Scott to cover the remaining distance on his own.

  As he'd done thirteen years ago, Scott reached the ledge and boosted himself up onto it. Getting to his feet, he dusted himself off and took a look around.

  The ledge was crescent-shaped, thirty meters across. Its widest section, in the middle, was ten meters from rockface to rim. That was where Cairn was sitting, legs dangling over the chasm, gazing into the sunset.

  Scott started toward him, then felt a sharp pain in his chest and stopped. It passed quickly and left him wondering: was it the same as walking over his own grave? Because the spot on which he stood was the one where Vore had beaten him to death so long ago.

  Another wave of pain flashed through him, and he gasped. The memory of the beating welled up in him, the echo of each blow landing with fresh and terrible immediacy.

  He remembered Vore's black-lipped face howling over him like the visage of a god gone mad. He remembered what had seemed like dozens of fists pounding away at him, so fast and furious had been their rhythm. He remembered blackness rushing through him again and again, only to be driven away as Vore shook him by the throat.

  He remembered it all with the obsessive clarity of a fanatic and sole survivor. For thirteen years, he had thought himself the only witness, the only one alive who knew the full truth of what had happened. He'd thought he was the only one who could look at Penitent Peak and see the bloodstains and terror that were invisible to everyone else.

  But all along, though he hadn't known it, he had not been alone. There'd been someone else out there, hidden away, who shared the same vision.

  Making his way across the ledge, Scott sat down beside him. For a while, they watched the sunset in silence, faces glowing with reflected light.

  "Wow." Scott shook his head as the blazing orb of the sun sank through layers of scarlet, rose, and gold. "Who knew this place could be so beautiful?"

  "People who weren't beaten to death here, I guess," said Cairn. "Or snatched away by a wicked freak."

  "Just another reason to thank Vore." Scott cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted into the distance. "Way to spoil a natural wonder for us, asshole!"

  Cairn smirked, but only a little. For once, he was the more low-key of the two.

  "So what's up?" asked Scott. "Why are we here?"

  "To get rid of this place," said Cairn. "Once and for all."

  Scott managed a smirk of his own. "Blow it up, you mean?"

  Cairn shot him a sidelong look. "Can we do that?"

  "They should totally let us," said Scott. "We're heroes, aren't we?"

  Cairn smiled. "I guess I'll settle for putting it behind me, then."

  Scott looked at him, then went back to staring at th
e sunset. "Didn't you already do that? When you killed Vore on Bellerophon?" He elbowed Cairn in the side. "Which, by the way, nice work, man."

  "You'd think that would do it, wouldn't you?" Cairn let out a heavy sigh. "But I keep feeling like he still has me. Like I'll never get away."

  "But he doesn't. And you did. You're free."

  "Maybe I'll never be free, until I'm gone." Picking up a stone, Cairn flicked it into the chasm.

  Scott swallowed hard. Was that why Cairn had wanted to come back to Penitent Peak? To end it all? To leap off the ledge the way he had thirteen years ago, but without Vore and his antigrav vest to pull him back into bondage?

  "I didn't mind going over the side with Vore, you know," said Cairn. "It was actually a relief, until he stopped us from falling.

  "After that, I just wanted to get away from him. I just wanted to go home. But then he put in the bomb." Cairn tapped the side of his head. "If I went anywhere near my family, anywhere near anyone, he said he would detonate it. So many people would die, all because of me.

  "But after a while, that didn't matter so much. I wanted the bomb to go off. I wanted to die. Anything to get away." Cairn sniffed and turned his head so Scott couldn't see his face.

  "I don't blame you. Nobody would." Scott's heart went out to him. He could hear the pain in his voice, the kind of pain you couldn't blow away with an army of Battlenauts. And he knew that it was up to him, as the only other person who'd been through the same gauntlet, to keep it from taking over. "I would've felt the same way."

  "But guess what? It's gone now." Cairn turned back to face him and tapped the side of his head again. "No more bomb. The docs took it out in the detention center on Archibald. So I've got my options back, y'know?"

  Scott knew exactly what he meant. "So what are you going to do with them?"

  Cairn shrugged. "I haven't really thought it through. Coming back here was as far as I got." Picking up another stone, he sent it spinning into the darkening sunset.

  For a while, the two of them sat silently, watching the colors deepen and the sun disappear. Soon, all that was left of it was a pale glow fading into an indigo horizon.

  Stars flickered into view all around them, like fistfuls of diamonds scattered over black velvet. Somehow, they looked just as breathtakingly crystal clear and lovely as they did when Scott was among them instead of under an atmosphere.

  Soon enough, he would be up there again. Donna, who'd skipped the desert trek to visit family in Tisserie, would meet him at the ship and take him back into space. Free of Marines and Diamondbacks, done with duty and obligations, they'd be able to go anywhere they wanted. They'd be able to do anything they wanted.

  So where did he want to go? What did he want to do? And what about Cairn?

  They were questions Scott hadn't really considered until now. His goals had been more immediate: get out of detention, get off Archibald, get to Penitent Peak. But maybe now it was time to think more long-term, while all the options were still on the table.

  "Are you ready to move on?" he said.

  Cairn whipped another stone into the chasm. "How do you mean?"

  "Move on," said Scott. "Start over."

  "Start over?" Cairn tossed another stone.

  "There couldn't be a better time," said Scott. "You're free. You can do anything you want. You can change your whole life."

  "And do what? Who the hell's going to give someone like me a chance?"

  Scott raised his hand.

  Cairn shook his head and laughed sarcastically. "You're going to help me change my life? Have you seen your own life lately?"

  "So help me make something of it. Help me turn it into something worthwhile."

  "Good luck with that," said Cairn. "Your career's in the crapper. Your big-shot grandma, the most hated woman in the universe, is locked up forever. And if you think there aren't any more Reds out there, and they aren't gunning for you, think again."

  Scott shrugged. "I've got a ship, don't I? And did you see what's tucked away in the hold, courtesy of Perseid?"

  Cairn nodded. "Battlenauts."

  "Three of them," said Scott. "A Mark VI, a CORE model, and a salvaged Red. Now what does that tell you?"

  "You can make big bucks selling them?"

  "What it tells us," said Scott, "is that we have everything we need. I've seen the way you handle a Battlenaut."

  Cairn pitched another stone. "Vore forced me to learn. He rented me out as a mercenary."

  "So we have three trained pilots." Scott held up three fingers on one hand. "We have three Battlenauts, one for each pilot's specialty: Red for you, Mark VI for me, CORE for Donna." He held up three fingers on the other hand. "And we have a ship." He pushed his hands together, interlocking the six fingers. "That's everything we need."

  "For what?" said Cairn. "To become a team of mercenaries?"

  "More like a strike force," said Scott, "but not for hire. We'd help people with no one else to turn to. People victimized by the Vores of this galaxy. Doesn't that sound like something worthwhile? Like something that could make a difference?"

  Cairn snorted. "Sounds more like a pipe dream. A real waste of time."

  "So you're not in, then?"

  "It's a joke," snapped Cairn. "People like Vore keep coming. You can never really make a difference."

  "Are you saying you didn't make a difference on Bellerophon?" said Scott. "That we didn't make a difference?"

  Cairn didn't answer.

  "Maybe this is it," said Scott. "Maybe this is how you put it behind you. You stop it from happening to other people."

  Still, Cairn remained silent. He reached for another stone, then held it in his hand instead of tossing it right away.

  Scott looked up at the glittering stars. After everything he and Cairn had been through, they had come back to the same place. It was a place that had led them to tragedy before, but this time, Scott believed a better destiny awaited if he could convince Cairn to make the right move.

  "Would you do it as a favor to a friend?" asked Scott. "Do you think you might give it a try?"

  Cairn looked askance at him, then looked back down at the stone in his hand. He didn't say a word, but Scott thought he could sense the question between them: Friend? You're my friend?

  Of course. That's how Scott would have answered if Cairn had asked the question aloud. Of course I'm your friend.

  "So what do you say?" asked Scott. "Want to give it a shot?"

  Cairn didn't answer, but he did close his hand around the stone.

  Scott sighed. "You're a tough nut to crack, you know that?"

  "Shut the flux up," said Cairn. "I want to see the damn sunrise in peace."

  "Sunrise?" Scott frowned. "That's seven hours away."

  Cairn shrugged and tossed him the pebble. "You got something better to do?"

  Scott smirked and leaned back, gazing up at the universe sprawling above him, resplendent in its glimmering vastness, filled with promise. There was so much potential out there, so many opportunities for a new and better life. At the thought of it, his heart pounded in his chest; he couldn't wait to get out there.

  Tomorrow.

  "Hell no." Scott grinned and lay back, folding his hands under his head. "Nothing better to do than this."

  *****

  Special Preview: Beware the Black Battlenaut

  By Robert T. Jeschonek

  Now Available

  "Looky there," said Swindle, the leperchaun on Grist Halcyon's shoulder. He pointed with a crumbling green finger at one of the Battlenaut's cockpit video screens, and Grist looked in that direction.

  On the screen, Grist saw the barren, storm-swept surface of the rebel-held moon, Sangre. The latest flare of lightning revealed a towering black figure on the crest of the hill. At that instant, the very first instant he glimpsed it, Grist knew in his heart what it was even as he knew in his head it just wasn't possible.

  The flare of light faded, and the black figure faded with it back into the night. W
hen the next lightning struck a moment later, the hilltop was deserted.

  "Begorra." One rotting nostril fell away from Swindle's leprous face. "It's him, ain't it, boyo?"

  Grist blinked hard and shook his head. "Can't say." Just then, his arm burned as the automated hypodermic cuff strapped to his bicep shot a fresh jolt of go-juice into his system. A ring of lights around the forward viewport flashed in a pattern designed to reset his body's circadian rhythms.

  Must've been about to nod off. Can't have that, can we? As the go-juice pumped through his arteries, Grist felt himself return to full alertness. The Battlenaut's sensors and computers had done their job again, intervening at just the right moment with just the right dose of meds to keep Grist awake and alert for yet another hour.

  Grist licked his dry lips and checked the video monitor again. Lightning spiked nearby, revealing six soldiers in Battlenaut armor facing off on a rocky battlefield...but no sign of the dark figure from the hilltop.

  Grist stabbed the comm button and spoke into his mic. "Hey, Freak. Ever hear of the Black Battlenaut?"

  When he didn't get a reply, Grist looked at the button he'd just hit and realized it wasn't the comm at all. He was just about to punch the real comm button when the cockpit rocked from a powerful impact. It was enough to crack his helmeted skull against the headrest and snap him back to the reality from which he'd taken a brief vacation.

  Fight. That's right. His hands flew back to the steering and weapons controls. I'm in a firefight.

  I'm fighting a war here.

  *****

  Sharon "Freak" Freemare laughed like a maniac as she cut loose her Battlenaut's main guns against the oncoming enemy. One slug hit home in a big way, punching through the enemy's armor and leaving a jagged, smoking hole at the top of one leg.

  Still shrieking with laughter, Freak swung a laser around and opened up on the damage. Metal and plastic melted before the onslaught, and the enemy Battlenaut's leg gave way within seconds.