Rise of the Defiant: Book Two of the Warpmancer Series

by Nicholas Woode-Smith

  Leri saw an entire life in the span of a second. This was not like the garbled memories he had once mistaken as his own. This was an observation of an existence. Like a voyeur, Leri saw his ancestor born, live and die. Right down to the final crushing of his ancestor’s head by an Immortal, Leri remembered.

  He saluted a life lived and a sacrifice made. He knew that the password could not be changed. His ancestor had started this plot fifty years ago. He knew that someone of his seed would finally reach this point.

  Leri tapped the screen to reveal an onscreen keyboard. He wrote the password: Kazh-aira.

  It was accepted and at once, the facility shut down. The distant hum of drones and electricity stopped and all the lights went off at once.

  Kazh-aira had ended this atrocity. Leri was disappointed to find that this was not a breeding ground where he could save females, but rather a mutation centre, but he felt relief at ending the suffering of these impure Zangorians.

  With his ancestor’s memory, he didn’t only find the password, however. He also found his next target. Kazh-aira was their new goal, and they would save their women.

  “No matter how cunning or clever, a traitor is still a wretched being, unworthy of trust.” – General Morog of the Merka Horde, a year before his betrayal of the Emperor, and the subsequent dissolving of the Horde by a Trooper and Exanoid Federation coalition

  Chapter 16. Liberation

  Danny had been sitting in the same position for Terra knows how long. Sometimes they fed him ration paste. It was just enough to keep him alive. Sometimes, they even let him sleep for more than an hour.

  Danny had lost track of time. His last count was around two days, after that he had blacked out from pain.

  They kept questioning him on his orders and allegiances. They questioned him on his source of Aegis funds and his relation to Zona Nox. Danny didn’t say a word.

  He had never realised how hard that could be till now. They kept promising him that the pain would stop when he gave in. They kept offering him salvation and an end to torment. He didn’t tell them a thing.

  He felt dead already – he had numbed to the pain. It was his now. He was but a conductor of the electricity. His torment was now his tool. He would not give up – he had no need to. He was pain.

  Of course, Danny could have been over exaggerating his acceptance of his predicament but the fact remained that he didn’t give in to any of the interrogators’ demands and had only recently stopped trying to lie to them.

  Danny had woken up naturally this morning (he always called the time he woke up morning). This was unusual as he was normally awoken by sharp jolts of electricity surging through him.

  Not today. Today he awoke feeling refreshed. He felt as if he had managed to get a full night’s rest. It was glorious.

  He didn’t feel any concern from the straying of procedure. He was just happy to have managed to sleep properly.

  ‘Guys,’ he shouted, ‘you trying something new today?’

  No reply.

  ‘Come on, I think I can handle a little more volts. Try me.’

  Obviously, Danny did not wish to be shocked any more but he had a suspicion that his days of being electrocuted were now over. No voice came from the intercom and Danny was assured that the office overlooking his cell was deserted.

  Smiling, he examined his restraints. They were simple plastic bands with metal locks. Danny knew them well – he had used them against traitors and foes on many occasions. There was a knack to disengaging them. With a few sharp movements and jumps, Danny had loosened his one hand enough to free it from his restraints.

  With his free hand, he pulled out the electrical cables which had been shoved into the back of his neck. He felt a warm trickle of blood escape the wound but it wasn’t dangerous. He was relieved to feel a pain other than that of electricity.

  In a few minutes, he was free of his confinement. He stood and then fell face first to the floor. His arms caught him as his wobbly legs gave way. It had been too long since he had last stood upright. He would have to take this slowly.

  As Danny attempted to stretch and accustom his limbs to use, he felt a vibration. The floors shook, and the discarded restraints fell onto the floor. Echoes of explosions and alarms sounded in the distance. This did not concern him. Any explosions here were obviously in opposition to his captors.

  To be honest, Danny did not hold any ill will against his captors. They were just doing their job. Like a common foot soldier couldn’t be blamed for his kills on the battlefield, an interrogator could not be blamed for his harsh treatment of his prisoner.

  Danny held all his resentment against the leader of his foes – whoever that may be. He would find out soon enough, and then Aegis would have just cause to take Nova Zarxa.

  First things first, he had to get out of this cell. Gazing at the flat metal surfaces around him, Danny realised that that was easier said than done.

  

  Upon the decision to escape the Zonian Trooper holding area, Yobu and Nathan stormed the nearest arsenal with fifteen fellow ex-Troopers. The skeleton crew of two Zarxian Troopers fell easily. They regretted murdering their comrades, but it was necessity. Each and every one of them escaped Nexus covered in firearms, explosives and ammunition. They fled by shuttle to an abandoned mining facility some distance away from Nexus. There, they consolidated their hold. In disguise, they took turns travelling to Nexus.

  The news they brought back was horrifying. In response to Zonian insurgency, Dedelux had instated martial law. Innocents were being slaughtered by Zonian terrorists, according to the news, and by Yellow Troopers. Grag-Tec had been expelled from the city and was in the process of moving out. The planetary CEO had promised retribution from a Grag-Tec cruiser, which now orbited Nova Zarxa.

  What they had also found out was the location of Dedelux’s private prison.

  Now they were attacking it.

  ‘Get a charge on that door!’ Nathan ordered, his voice transmitting through his mask to all the Troopers out of earshot. Ex-Troopers to be accurate but none of them truly believed that they were no longer Troopers.

  Ruble stuck a charge onto the door and took cover. The door exploded with inward force and Nathan took cover by its side. He tossed a flashbang through the doorway and entered, guns blazing. With a few kicks of his shotgun, the two Dedelux guards inside were killed.

  ‘Move, move!’ Yobu commanded.

  The group had no formal leader but both Nathan and Yobu dominated the command. Nathan’s superior rank as a Lieutenant made him the official CO, but the group really deferred to Yobu and him due to their combat experience. In actuality, the need for command was limited. They were all good soldiers. They knew what they had to do.

  They surged forward as one.

  The prison took the form of a huge tower on the other side of Nova Zarxa from Nexus. With a stolen fighter shuttle, it was easy to get there. Storming it was a different matter.

  They had been held at each checkpoint for nearly half an hour apiece but were yet to take a single loss. Like their prison back in Nexus, this prison was run by a skeleton crew.

  ‘I need two men watching our rear. The rest, move forward. When we get to a split, I will take half and the rest go with Yobu.’

  A split did come and they separated, both teams freeing convicts from their cells as they went. Nathan knew the convicts to all be political prisoners. They didn’t belong behind bars.

  In one cell, Nathan even found Frank McGraff. His confinement hadn’t changed him one bit.

  ‘What took ye so long?’

  Nathan passed him a gun and they continued down the facility, killing Yellows as they went. Nathan was glad to be saving his fellow Troopers, but there was only one Trooper he cared about.

  

  The explosion in the distance had happened around half an hour earlier. James waited patiently in his cell, conserving his energy in order to attempt to steal a Conduit from the Imperials that he suspected were now
raiding the prison.

  Let them come.

  He heard footsteps. He exhaled his breath and then stood up from his bed. He took a combat position and waited. The electric bars fell and he charged out. He stopped as he saw those who had freed him. They weren’t Imperials. Standing in front of him was an assorted group of inmates, Troopers and Marshal. Standing next to him was none other than Nathan himself.

  ‘Captain, it’s time that you return to your command.’

  

  A few more explosions had somehow revealed a passage way. The facility proved to be a prison as orange clothed inmates were running in all manner of directions. All the guards lay dead – local Trooper guards wearing Yellow armbands.

  Danny sneered. It seemed the local governor wasn’t a fan of Aegis.

  Later, Danny was able to catch a pod to a nearby mining town called GragMin IX. From there, he washed himself up and prepared to travel back to Nexus where he could find an Aegis contact. A commercial shuttle took him to Nexus where he was met by chaos.

  The building he found himself in had become a place of protest for fired Grag-Tec employees and discontented Zarxians. They voiced their frustrations and shouted at Yellow Troopers.

  It was not the shouts or placards which interested Danny, though, but the whispers. Every so often he could hear word of a figure called the Defiant – a man who had stood up to the governor; a man who had sacrificed his freedom, fighting for the freedom of all.

  It sounded like the start of a cult. Danny just hoped this ‘Defiant’ was a good man. Danny was sick of bad leaders ruining everything.

  He bought a snack from a merchant servicing the protesters and then moved on.

  “A leader can rule through force, through diplomacy or through the love people hold for him. Most often, the latter is the most powerful – and the most unwieldy.” – Commentaries on Power by Martian Philosopher David Keye

  Chapter 17. Turncoats

  Bexong had fallen. Its humble clay homes had become smoking gravestones. The worm fields were craters and the hall in which Leri had started his great insurrection was no more. One worm farm compared to planetary rebellion was reason enough for the Xank to shell Bexong. It didn’t take much effort.

  For once, Gura-teng looked thankful towards Leri, as he had ordered the evacuation of Bexong days before. The leader despised the changes to his way of life, but he held the lives of his people in higher regard. He was a good person, Leri thought, but weak.

  Peron had provided an elaborate cave network to house the Bexong refugees. With Word Lectorate technology, they lived in comfort. Yet, still they yearned for open skies. Caves were strong and safe but they were not freedom.

  His people needed a city. Kazh-aira could be that city.

  ‘Kazh-aira is the capital of the heartland of this hemisphere of Zeruit. It is the largest female breeding facility on the planet and the only one which females are allowed to live semi-freely. It has houses, walls and defences. To take it, you will sacrifice many but once secured, your rebellion will become a galactic force.’

  Peron’s explanation excited Leri. As Rii, he would work with caution, but as Leri, he was begging for the chance to take Kazh-aira. They could not take Kazh-aira with their petty few, so Rii and his Bexong rebels changed their tactics. No more sabotage. No more stealth. They were now a political force on Zeruit. Like how Leri freed Bexong before, they now went and freed worm farms and male settlements around the continent.

  Gifts from Peron and the Lector became more abundant and more advanced. Hovering personnel vehicles allowed them to speed across the swamps and jungles of Zeruit with ease – contacting Zangorians, freeing them and slaying their oppressors. Their campaign no longer went unnoticed. With the War Lectorate not receiving as large a Body Budget or their worm rations, the Xank were forced to act.

  The grey clouds on Zona Nox had forced the Xank forces to retreat and replace their losses, but now Leri’s rebellion was becoming a real thorn to the Empire. No longer were Leri and his forces facing only drones and turrets, but now the forces of Glerans and Zangorian warrior slaves. The latter was what disturbed Leri the most. He was now being forced to kill his kindred. He had done so many times in the fighting pits while serving the Xank, but he had thought himself past this. He came to Zeruit to free Zangorians, not kill them. His comrades took it even worse. They had never killed before. Drones were inanimate oppressors. Zangorian warrior slaves were living, breathing, thinking enemies. With Leri’s help, Bexong forces won, but not without some sort of loss.

  ‘You have sent my people to their death,’ Gura-teng had said all those weeks before.

  He had been right. The Bexong people were not dying outright but they were no longer the innocent people that had danced and sung in that hall. They were killers. They were like Leri.

  Leri clenched his cybernetic fist when he thought of this. The Xank had forced them to become killers. Now they would fall to their own creation.

  ‘Rii…Rii…’

  Leri awoke from his brooding to see Xupa. The youngling was holding one of the Xank blasters that they had looted a few days before.

  ‘The Gleran wishes to see you.’

  Leri nodded and proceeded to Peron’s small office at the back of the cave.

  He passed a myriad of sights. Children learning to fight. Infants being fed with worm rations. Rebels checking their weaponry for defects. Blacksmiths making and sharpening kuru and tiao.

  Peron’s office was dug into the cave wall itself. A glass door marked the entrance and Leri entered without knocking.

  As Leri entered, the six-eyed little anomaly handed him a tablet computer.

  ‘War Lectorate has split in two. Kurags have mutinied and have returned to their home worlds. The Xank have had to pull back completely.’

  Leri looked up into Peron’s eyes.

  Peron assured him, ‘Straight from the Lector himself.’

  There was no inhibition as Leri rushed out of the room.

  ‘Our people are rebelling! The Xank will fall!’

  News quickly spread and Leri felt the energy. Soon after, cheers erupted throughout the cave.

  His people wanted to be free.

  

  This village stood on the edge of a cliff face overlooking an ocean the likes of which Leri had never seen. The village had no name but was strategic nonetheless. It held a cannery for seafood. A food source that Leri’s now expanding rebellion sorely needed. His forces now ranged in the thousands, but almost none of them were professional soldiers. They still fought a guerrilla war.

  Despite the efforts of the Xank, many villages and compounds had fallen and risen up under Leri’s banner. The spirit of Zeruit was still strong with its people and they wanted to be free.

  From his vantage, Leri could not see any enemy forces. Only fish mongers, factory workers and fishermen. It seemed to be a peacefully unoccupied village. There were many like it on Zeruit. Male Zangorians were expected to grow up and work for their entire lives without leaving the confines of their home village. Leri would soon put that to an end.

  Leri stomped his foot three times to signal the advance and at once, three squads of five Zangorians each placed boards upon the sandy slopes of their vantage point and surfed down.

  Onlookers in the village stopped to stare at the cloud of brown dust tearing towards their home. None of them bore weapons. They were fishermen and factory workers, not fighters. Besides, they did not even seem phased, only curious.

  As Leri’s vanguard squads secured the perimeter of the village, Leri descended the hill. A crowd had gathered to watch his men work. There wasn’t any fear. Leri landed and was steadied with the help of a rebel. Flanked by two guards, he went forward, red cape fluttering behind him in the wind. The crowd made way for him as he surveyed the area for a perch. A ventilation box along the side of a factory was appropriate enough. He clambered on top of the box and saw that everyone had already followed him.

  The people stared idl
y. Only their actions betrayed their curiosity. A sea of varying orange covered the black-grey asphalt below. Leri’s rebels surrounded the crowd, without need, and him. Leri cleared his throat and did what he had now done hundreds of times before.

  ‘My people, I have come to free you!’

  It always started with that line. He would then speak about the evils of the Xank, the breeding programs, the pogroms and the rebellion. The reactions varied. Sometimes he received the feedback that he had originally found at Bexong, other times he was met with dull looks.

  These people fell into the latter category.

  Leri secretly wished for some sort of drone presence in the village. The drones were always placed to guard against unruliness. This village did not have any drones and that was because its residents were complacent.

  Disappointed, Leri got off the ventilation box. These people were little better than robots, but they would serve. Just not in the way Leri had hoped. Already, Xupa had been organising search parties to find and destroy Xank communication and distribution tech. This village now belonged to the rebellion.

  As his forces undertook their work with a vigour that belied their long work hours over these last few months, Leri stood at the end of the settlement. He was overlooking the ocean. A vast ocean. Leri did not have a waking memory of an ocean, besides the brackish excuse for one near Galis City on Zona Nox. On Zona Nox, one could see the land on the other side of all bodies of water. Here, Leri could see nothing. An empty horizon. Only sparkling fields of gold reflected off varying shades of blue. From here, he could not smell the fish. Only the clean, salt air. It calmed him.

  The sun was setting as Xupa reported back to him that the entire village had been rid of pipes and wires. All production would now go towards Leri’s armies. Leri opened his mouth to say something when a gush of water knocked him back. The salty water assaulted his throat and nostrils and he found himself coughing and wheezing. A huge group of Leri’s Zangorians had rushed to the scene, spears and blasters at the ready. Leri didn’t know what was happening until Xupa helped him up.