Heart of a Traitor

by Aaron Lee Yeager

  “Ami, you really need to think before you talk,” Michi sighed.

  “I don’t care what you guys think,” Ami defied. “The Luminarch loves me.”

  “The Luminarch may love you, but everyone else thinks you talk too much,” Nariko snapped as she put Ami’s suit on mute.

  Her voice is so high and squeaky; it’s like listening to a chalkboard being scraped by another chalkboard.

  A few hours later they brought the remains of Sorano’s body they had collected from space into the medical lab, a collection of meaty bones, dried-out flesh and organs, and scraps of clothing.

  Nariko hoped that it would be enough as she checked her chronometer. 0719 hours Correllian standard time. They had been forced to expedite their search when they realized how close it was to dawn on Correll.

  The doors swished open and Taka fluttered freshly showered into the lab, towels wrapped around her body and head. “I heard you guys set a new record for garbage collection,” she smirked.

  “Were you in the shower all this time?” Nariko asked, puzzled.

  “When you have an accident going number three it takes way more than one shower to clean up afterward.”

  Suddenly there was a sharp ping of noise. The air in the room swirled around Sorano’s remains, which glowed brighter and brighter until those present had to shield their eyes. The morning sunlight had touched the remains of the royal palace on Correll. Amidst the light, bone and flesh began to reknit themselves together at a frightening pace. Tendon and muscle found their correct positions and aligned themselves. It was like watching a body decompose in reverse. From somewhere mass was added and the body took shape again.

  Just on the edge of her senses, Nariko could hear the gleeful cackling of demons as they swirled about the room feasting on a portion of Sorano’s soul. Tearing away a portion of her mind and spirit, as payment for their services as they reconstructed her body back to its designated form.

  The light around Sorano’s body began to fade and she took in a deep sharp breath as her nervous system came to life.

  “Now we’ll discover what happened in her quarters,” Keiko surmised.

  Sorano sat up on the table. At first she was shocked and then the expression quickly turned to anger.

  “Aww frak!” she swore. “I knew I shouldn’t have cut the blue wire!”

  Chapter Eighteen

  The Swamps of Pirané

  Liberty is not a naturally occurring phenomenon. It can be cultivated only under the most specific of conditions.

  It exists behind very high walls, protected by very large guns.

  Only those who stand on those walls and carry those guns can understand how truly frail it is.

  -Book of Cerinţǎ, Chapter 5, verses 75-77

  None of them had ever experienced this kind of heat before. The air felt thick and sweat dripped off their noses and chins without cooling off their skin at all. The sun felt like it was three inches from the back of their necks.

  That was the constant climate of Pirané, a horrible little swamp world stuck up in the northern spiral of the galaxy. Even at night the heat wouldn’t let up and the members of Shiro squad would just lie sleeplessly in puddles of their own sweat, wondering if they would go mad.

  The mission had been exciting enough at first. Some trader had spread a rumor that had reached Forgemaster Nori’s ear, about a death world that was home to the most vicious natural predator anyone had ever heard of. Unbelievably aggressive, with a hide that dripped with a powerful neurotoxin that supposedly liquefied the higher brain functions of its victims within seconds. Naturally, Shiro squad was dispatched to bring in some samples for Nori to try out on the Kuldrizi Queen.

  It turns out that the ‘unbelievably aggressive’ creature was nothing more than a bloated, white creature that resembled some sort of giant earthworm, sluggish and unresponsive. So dimwitted and docile, that at first the members of Shiro squad had disregarded the things when they came upon them and kept on looking for their super predator. It wasn’t until after a week that they realized that their ‘super predator’ was the earthworms. They saw a stray bird land on one’s back only to instantly fall off, twitching and foaming.

  The neurotoxin that coated their skin made them completely impervious to natural predators, so they had no need for aggressive behavior. They just lazily floated along in the swamp currents filtering blood leeches out of the water with their gills, occasionally writhing up on to the higher spots of land to bask in the sun.

  The hardest part had been figuring out how to catch them since you couldn’t touch them and they would shake violently when netted, spraying venom in all directions. Taka had come up with the bright idea of ramming one with the hover skiff in an attempt to flip the thing onto its back. She put her theory to the test without getting permission or warning any of the other squad members. She just put the skiff into full-throttle forcing everyone else to hang on for dear life.

  The collision ripped the stupid worm in half and bathed the front of the hover skiff in intestinal fluids that were so acidic that the skiff was completely ruined and the spare skiff had to be brought in from the dropship.

  After that the mission went from exciting to disappointing to mind-numbingly boring as the squad rode around on the skiff in that stifling heat day after day, looking through the deeper currents in the swamps for yet another creature. Sorano had started calling them surds and the name just stuck.

  When they found a surd they’d get the hover skiff in front of it, as it floated there in the black filthy swamp water, then cut the rear gravity lock and back up, scooping it up like a giant spatula.

  They would need to catch another three to reach their mission quota, but it was getting more and more difficult to find the things. It had been three weeks now, under the hot sun of Pirané, and everyone was feeling the effects of sleep deprivation and heat exhaustion.

  “I think we’ll break for lunch here,” Nariko said, poking her katana into the side of a knoll that rose up out of the swamp to make sure it was firm enough. The squad pulled out the collapsible table and began setting it up.

  Nariko sheathed her blade and tugged at the collar of her uniform.

  The sun feels like it is three inches from the back of my neck.

  Sorano was sitting happily in the back of the skiff tinkering with a plasma rifle.

  “What are you doing now?” Nariko asked suspiciously.

  “I’m working on a new injection nozzle,” Sorano explained enthusiastically, a drop of sweat falling off the tip of her nose. “I want to see if I can get a standard twenty-shot plasma flask to empty in a single shot.”

  “Not a chance,” Nariko said, snatching up the weapon. “You know you aren’t allowed near high-explosives for the next month.”

  “Why not?” Sorano whined.

  “Because you blew yourself up, that’s why.”

  “What were you doing in your room, anyway?” Michi asked as she pulled out the ration crates.

  “I was practicing bomb disposal.”

  “You’re supposed to practice without real explosives,” Nariko corrected

  “Where is the fun in that?”

  “And THAT is why you aren’t allowed near high explosives anymore.”

  Sorano tightened her red headband and hopped out of the skiff grumpily. Above them, wearing a tank top and short-shorts over her null-suit, Taka flitted around in the air looking for any surds off in the distance with a pair of binoculars.

  “Okay, Taka, your turn,” Nariko announced as she pulled out her data slate. “It’s time for your hand to hand combat rating.”

  “You said you didn’t care about that stuff,” Taka complained, fluttering down lower.

  “I said I didn’t care about your uniform. Nice shorts, by the way.”

  “Thank you,” Taka said, twirling around in the air.

  “This is a skill. This I care about. Everyone in the squad gets rated and the crap duties are given to the person with the lowe
st scores.”

  “We’ve always taken turns before,” Ami explained as she gathered some wildflowers together.

  “That was before. Now you have to improve your scores to get out of the crap jobs.”

  “Like scraping the blue ice off the dropship?” Ami asked, pinching her nose.

  “Exactly.”

  “Taka huffed and landed in front of Nariko. “We don’t have time for this, we have more important problems.”

  “Like what?” Nariko asked, wiping a wet strand of platinum hair out of her face.

  “Like where is the pie I didn’t ask you for?”

  “You...didn’t ask me for it.”

  “Exactly,” Taka yelled, her wings twitching angrily. “As Gunsho, you are in charge of requisitions; it’s your job to anticipate my needs!”

  “Anticipate your needs? Look, I’m not your boyfriend; it’s not my job to read your mind.”

  “That’s it! I cannot work under these conditions,” Taka announced, folding her arms resolutely. “I will not be training today!”

  Take spun on one toe and fluttered away, her nose held high condescendingly.

  “You’re not fooling anyone, Taka, you just don’t want to do the test,” Keiko shouted as she set up the chairs.

  With her free hand Nariko drew her pistol, dialed it back a few settings and shot Taka square in the back. Blue energy rolled over her convulsing body for a moment until she fell with a plop into the swamp water below.

  “Okay,” Nariko said as she tapped on the data slate. “I’m putting you down as very poor. If you want to improve your score you can challenge me to a rematch.”

  “No thanks, I’m feeling a little light headed,” Taka gurgled. “I’m just gonna lie here in the mud for a while.”

  “Lunch is ready!” Ami announced happily as she set a vase of wildflowers at the center of the table.

  The squad sat down and began eating. Sorano chugged down her entire juice carton in one gulp, then crushed the empty carton against her forehead cheerfully

  “Ami, did you check the expiration date on these?” Keiko asked, her hair becoming a dull green as she sniffed her carton suspiciously.

  You worry too much, Kei,” Sorano declared, a rib bone hanging out of her mouth. “Expiration dates are just suggestions, like speed limits and taxes.”

  Michi only poked at her food and then sat back in her chair. “By the throne, I feel so bloated. I think I’m retaining water.”

  Keiko’s hair turned orange and she smiled. “Michi, this morning we watched you eat an entire gallon of ice cream. That’s over six thousand calories. You’re not bloated, you’re stuffed.”

  Everyone at the table chuckled as Michi puffed her cheeks out petulantly.

  After a few minutes Taka used her wings to blow-dry herself and joined them at the table. Nariko looked over and saw Sakurako eating quietly by herself in the center of the knoll, her metallic hair shimmering in the sunlight.

  She always eats by herself.

  Michi had pulled out a holo-magazine and was showing off pictures of exotic bridal gowns she had found.

  “Ooh, I like this one; I could totally wear this style. I have great shoulder blades,” Michi jabbered. “And look at the way the groom is standing there! I like him, he seems pretty nice.”

  “Yeah, you can tell a lot about the way a guy will treat you by the way he wears his hat,” Keiko commented sarcastically.

  “Hey Sakurako!” Nariko shouted, “Why don’t you come over here and join us?” Everyone at the table fell silent and Sakurako looked startled. For several moments no one moved or spoke.

  “Come on, sit with us,” Nariko bade again, waving her hand.

  Sakurako rose timidly, holding her plate tightly against her and took a few steps forward.

  “Why are you always sticking up for her?” Sorano grumbled, flicking her plate.

  “Quiet, she will hear you,” Ami warned.

  “Because I know what it feels like to be an outsider,” Nariko said loudly, making room for Sakurako to sit down.

  Sakurako thanked them softly and sat down, taking tiny nibbles of her food. The awkwardness was palpable as they sat there in silence for several minutes.

  “Look here,” Nariko said, tapping her hands on the table. Sakurako jumped in her seat. “There are hardly any of us left; we can’t afford the luxury of dividing ourselves up into little groups anymore. We are all children of Correll, right?”

  A few weak acknowledgments came out. “To the children of Correll,” Nariko called out in toast, raising her mug. The others joined in half-heartedly, clanging their mugs together.

  “I’m sorry, this just isn’t working,” Sakurako said, grabbing her plate. “I’d really prefer to just sit by myself.”

  “How can you all be this way?” Nariko complained. “You’ve been in the same squad for years. Certainly you can’t still think of her as a threat or something.”

  “It’s not that, sweetie,” Keiko said embarrassed, her hair a bright violet. “It’s just that everyone has things we’d rather keep private and when you are around someone who can read everything about you it makes you feel...I don’t know, self-conscious.”

  “Like we’re being judged,” Sorano added accusatorily.

  “Oh, I would never do that to...” Sorano began and then trailed off.

  “So, let’s even the odds,” Nariko suggested. “If we know her embarrassing secrets, it won’t feel so weird for her to know ours.”

  The squad wagged their heads a little as they pondered on this.

  “Sakurako, tell us your secrets,” Nariko ordered.

  Sakurako gave off a tiny squeak of fright, her silver eyes wide and shaky.

  “Nariko, this is a terrible idea,” Taka said as she stood up. The rest of the squad grabbed their trays and stood up as well.

  “I’m my own cousin,” Sakurako said softly.

  “Say again,” Taka asked, picking at the purple and pink highlights in her hair.

  “I said...I’m my own cousin,” Sakurako repeated again, her voice a little shaky. The squad slowly sat back down, eyes fixated.

  “To maintain the purity of our bloodline, witches have to marry other witches and if there aren’t any available then you marry within the family. My father married his sister, so my mom is also my aunt, my dad is also my uncle and I am my own cousin.”

  “Really?” Taka asked, grinning from ear to ear.

  “Yes,” Sakurako said, hands twisting in her lap.

  “That’s awesome. So, if you had a daughter, she would be...”

  “My second cousin.”

  Taka sat back and clapped her hands, laughing heartily.

  “So, is that why your skin is all silver?” Keiko asked, fascinated.

  “Um, yes,” Sakurako said, tugging on her hair. “The Ashtari cells in our bodies give everything a silvery tint.”

  “Ashtari cells? I thought witches were mixed, like half-breeds?” Sorano asked.

  “Somewhat, yes, but it’s also like our bodies are host to Ashtari cells. We’re really not sure exactly how it works, to be honest, but we know that to maintain it we have to transfer all our blood intravenously to our children when we get old so that it will live on in them.”

  “So, it’s kind of like the same blood cells have been passed down your family line for centuries.”

  “Yeah, it’s a little weird,” Sakurako admitted, twisting her silver hair. “To be honest it kind of creeps me out sometimes when I think about it.”

  The squad nodded their heads, relishing the oddity.

  “I’m never going to be able to remember all of that,” Taka said, running her fingers through her striped hair.

  “This is fun, let’s do someone else,” Sorano pressed.

  “No,” Nariko said, “the whole point of this was to...”

  “Do Sorano! Do Sorano!” Ami yelled, hopping up and down.

  “Why me?”

  “It was your idea,” Keiko noted.

  �
��Yeah, do her next!” Taka agreed.

  “I’m not really comfortable invading her privacy like that,” Sakurako protested quietly.

  “Fine. Go ahead, I don’t mind,” Sorano said, placing her hands behind her head.

  “Really?”

  “Sure.”

  “Um, okay,” Sakurako said, fidgeting in her chair as she closed her eyes. “Sorano doesn’t believe in aliens.”

  Keiko snorted, her hair turning marigold. “Seriously?”

  “It’s true,” Sorano said, tightening her headband.

  “But, you’ve seen aliens,” Keiko explained. “Several, actually. You even shot one and kept its head as a trophy.”

  “I’m a skeptic.”

  “That isn’t even what skeptic means,” Keiko corrected.

  “Look, we’re on an alien planet so everything around us technically counts as an alien,” Michi argued.

  “That is the explanation the authorities give us.”

  Keiko reached down and grabbed a little furry creature that had been nibbling on dropped bits of food under the table. “See this?” she said, holding it up. “This is an alien.”

  The small creature purred and licked Sorano’s face with a long purple tongue.

  “I remain unconvinced.”

  “How can you be so defiant to something that is right in front of your face and licking you?”

  “My skepticism is boundless.”

  Everyone sat in silence for a moment, mouths agape.

  “Is she faking this?” Nariko asked at last.

  “No, she really believes it.” Sakurako confirmed.

  “You should totally put that in her personnel files,” Taka said, clapping her hands.

  “I suppose it would help if the brass knew she was insane,” Michi admitted.

  “Oh and you just volunteered to go next,” Sorano said, pointing at Taka.

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “What are you guys doing?” Nariko protested. “This is the complete opposite of what I am trying to accomplish.”

  “I just went, so I get to pick who goes next,” Sorano said, standing up in her chair. Go into Taka’s mind, Sakurako, I order you.”

  “W-what?” Sakurako squeaked, looking around furtively.