by Selina Rosen
"But, My Lord . . . You said . . . the plague they brought, the kidnapping of the Prince."
"I said pretend. We must know what our enemies want. We must be prepared if they attack."
"But, My Lord, if we should try to trick the Reliance, if we try to make a show of force . . ."
"Ziphed, am I not a god? Look at how I have been cured of the illness while you are almost dead. Surely you would not now question the will of a god?"
"No, Sire, all shall be as You have commanded." As hard as it was for him, he bowed to his King, and then with the help of the younger priests he left the throne room.
"Toulan!" the King called. The head of the King's army ran to his side.
"Are all the King's Guard in the palace?" Taheed asked.
"As many as could be brought back, and also many war ready veterans as we could gather from the surrounding villages, just as you commanded, My Lord," he said.
"Then alert the guard. Do you remember your instructions?"
"I do, and I will carry them out upon your command."
The King took a deep breath. "Then all that remains, my friends, is for fate to find us." He stood up and moved to embrace his manservant Yashi. He patted him hard on the back with his stumps. "Today our fate is no longer in the hands of the priests. Today, my noble brothers, our fate is our own. And tomorrow when the sun rises, no matter what our fate, this will be a new world."
* * *
David didn't like the information that was coming from the receiver. He liked it when they had one plan, and that plan didn't change. He hated it when you had a perfectly good, feasible plan, and then someone screwed it up, and you had to come up with a whole new plan. He especially hated it when it fell to him to make that new plan.
"Apparently he took a troop of fifty elites including three GSH's and a fully loaded battle cruiser," RJ was saying.
"How do you know?" Jackson asked.
"We passed each other. They were leaving the station; we are going to the station. The Captain made contact with Stratton, told her exactly what he planned to do and basically pumped Stratton for information about the planet and the culture. She managed to give him enough information so that he wouldn't find her answers suspect, but I think it's safe to say that she didn't tell him anything that's actually going to help him," RJ answered. "This changes everything, David. You could be walking into open combat in the streets – maybe even a blood bath. After all, Briggs has no idea that the natives are restless. I can't tell you what to do because I'll have my hands full here, and I won't know what the hell is going on there. If you want to abort the mission, then do it. It won't affect us up here."
David knew that RJ didn't want him to abort. It was an option. If she had wanted him to abandon the mission she would have said so out right. He looked at Taleed. "It's your kingdom – your palace. What do you want to do?"
Taleed didn't even take a second to think about it. "I want to remove the Reliance from my palace and my planet. How dare they send an armed guard to address my father for crimes he has not committed against them, when their crimes against my people are as numerous as the stars!"
"That's your answer, RJ," David said. "We're going in."
"Be careful and use your head. Keep your ship out of range of the battle cruiser. You may need to make a quick retreat . . ." Just then a magnetic pulse cut their transmission.
"You just worry about your own ass," David mumbled.
"GSH – that means like RJ, right?" Janad said. David nodded silently as he walked over to the weapons cabinet and started rifling through its contents.
"Then they can't be killed?" Janad asked.
"Oh, they can be killed," David said. He pulled a rocket launcher from the cabinet and smiled triumphantly. "Just takes a little more fire power." He tossed laser side arms to Haldeed, Janad and Jessit. "These are easy." David held his own in his hand where they could see it. "You just click off the safety here, aim and pull the trigger. No! No! No!" he screamed at Janad who was starting to take the safety off. "You don't take the safety off until you are ready to fire, and you make damn sure that no part of yourself or any member of your unit is in front of you when you fire, because if you do . . ."
"We know what they do," Janad said. "We will be careful." She looked at Jessit. "It doesn't look like it is as much fun as a spear."
Jessit nodded. "Or even a really big rock."
* * *
The King looked at the three men who stood before them. Two of them were huge men, who were obviously no strangers to combat. Their leader, however, was a small, balding, ugly little man whose pompous air of importance did nothing but make Taheed even angrier.
"So you see," he was saying, "we want to trade with you in good faith. Trading has served all of our people for many generations, and there is no reason that should stop now. I want you to know that we forgive you for the attack on our station. Since your people obviously do not want to join us in our holy war, we will no longer be trading you for your people. Only those goods in which we have always traded."
The King laughed loudly for several minutes until the Reliance man started to laugh as well, no doubt thinking Taheed a foolish primitive who needed to be humored. Taheed stopped laughing suddenly and glared down at the Reliance goon until he, too, stopped laughing and looked nervously around. Then the King took the chains from around his throat and hurled them at the man's feet.
The man reached down and picked up the chains. When he noticed the weightlessness of them he stared at the King in amazement. He must have noticed then for the first time that Taheed was not as badly afflicted as the priests he had seen.
Taheed watched as the man's face seemed to fall like bread that has risen too long in the sun.
"You think we are foolish, don't you, Captain? Foolish people with foolish beliefs. Ignorant and backwards – and of course you are right. But nothing cures ignorance as fast as treachery."
Taheed nodded his head, and the Chief guard sounded the war siren. In almost the same instant the Chief guard slung his spear into the back of the Reliance chief. The man looked at Taheed in disbelief and then fell forward. His face made a sick, crunching noise when it hit the hard metal floor of the throne room.
His guards acted quickly, throwing their spears into the two huge Reliance men. As the spears bounced off the men, doing them no harm that Taheed could see, they acted just as quickly, opening fire on the King's guards – who fell like flies. With the guards out of the way, one of the huge Reliance men picked Taheed up by the collar of his shirt and the belt of his loin-cloth like he weighed nothing and tossed him with force into the huge window. Taheed's head hit hard, and the pain was immediate. The blood from his wounds left a stripe as he oozed quickly down the window onto the floor. He saw Yashi crawl across the floor and grab the weapon of the fallen Reliance leader. Yashi fired and hit one of the Reliance guards as he started to grab the King once again, and he just kept firing till the huge man stumbled and then fell. The other Reliance guard grabbed Yashi, and Yashi dropped the weapon. Taheed watched in horror as the giant broke Yashi over his knee and tossed him aside as a child might discard a broken toy. Then he picked up the weapons and left. He didn't even bother to finish Taheed off, and Taheed knew what that meant – he was dying.
He dragged himself to Yashi's side and saw that he, too, was yet alive. He hugged him with his stumps. "Yashi, my friend, greater was my love for you than for any woman. I am sorry. Sorry that I let you down."
Yashi smiled, shook his head, and then he died.
Taheed held him and cried. "I failed you, Yashi, because there were gods – I just wasn't one of them." He watched as the large moon faded and the blue moon began to shine brightly, and he smiled. "It is your time to shine, my son. Wherever you are, it is your turn to shine."
* * *
They had landed on the outskirts of the village on a small hill. From their vantage point they could see both the palace and the Reliance ship. Taleed heard the war siren as
soon as the hatch opened and told the others what it meant.
"From here we can get to the back entrance of the palace through the gardens without being seen," Taleed explained. "From there it's not far to the throne room."
"All right, then," David said with decision. "Decker, you will stay here and keep the ship ready in case we have to make a quick exit. The rest of us will go." He turned and looked with meaning at Jessit. "I only hope you know what the hell you're talking about."
Decker watched them go, knowing that the real reason he was being left behind was because he would slow them down. "A stupid spear," he cursed, as they disappeared from his sight. "Dozens of battles on three different planets with not so much as a bad scratch, and I get busted by a freaking spear!"
He was watching the Reliance ship below, keeping an eye out for any change. He booted up the screen and focused it on the ship to get a better view. Using the viewers, he could even make out the fighting in the village below. The Reliance had the firepower and they were mowing the natives down. But the natives just kept coming, and the Reliance men were falling, too. Just like Stratton had said, eventually they would be over-powered. He wished he could have helped them with a little added firepower, but he barely had enough power for a quick getaway if they needed one. He certainly didn't have enough to fire the plasma cannon. Even if he had the power, it wouldn't really damage the cruiser. If he fired it into the crowd he was likely to kill more natives than Reliance personnel.
He'd gotten himself hurt early in this battle, and now all he could do was sit back and watch.
He was missing the real fun, and it really sucked.
* * *
They got into the palace without a hitch. "This is the way we always sneak out," Taleed explained. "The guards at the back gate are heavy sleepers. They are gone now; no doubt in battle."
"Good for us," David said. "They'd probably try to kill me and Jackson." He put the com-link to his mouth. "Decker, we're in. Clear so far. Over."
"I read you. Good luck. Over."
"Come on, it's this way," Jessit said starting down the hallway.
The similarities between this ship and the Argy ship they had found in the side of the mountain made David a little uncomfortable. Was that only yesterday? No! That was this morning! No wonder his muscles still burned. He and Janad were running on nothing but pure adrenalin now. He only hoped it would be enough
They entered the throne room, and saw immediately that the carnage was complete.
"Father!" Taleed ran to his father's side. He lifted him with his new hands. "Father?"
"Taleed?" he said, not even having the strength to open his eyes.
"The gold is tainted," Taheed warned.
"I know this, Father."
Jackson knelt and ran the pocket medic over the King for a quick diagnosis. He stood up looked at Taleed and shook his head sadly.
Taleed started to cry, the tears streaming down his face unchecked. "I am here to take your spirit, Father."
Taheed made a sound that might have been a laugh, and blood ran out of his mouth. "You don't need my spirit, son. You have your own." His body went limp in Taleed's arms.
"Jessit! Jessit, where is it?" David said as he started to rip the cloth and furs from the ship's control consol. Jackson started helping him.
Jessit looked away from his dead monarch and started to look carefully at the consol, trying to remember the pictures and directions in the Great Book.
"Jackson, does any of this look familiar?" David asked in a panic.
"Man, this shit is hundreds of years old. I ain't hundreds of years old; you've got me mixed up with your crazy friend, Topaz." Jackson looked at the consol, but nothing looked like a weapon to him.
"Here!" Jessit screamed. He looked at the switches and buttons before him and tried to remember. He wished there was time to go get the Great Books. Finally he just pulled the lever his brain was telling him was probably the on switch. A hum and the lighting of the small screen showed that he had a good brain.
Jackson walked up to the consol rubbing his hands.
"The cruiser is powering up its weapons!" Decker's voice screamed into David's ear, "and they're pointing right at your ship."
"Can we fire yet?" David asked. Jackson looked at him and shook his head. "Damn! We're screwed." He turned to Janad. "Get them and get the hell out of here."
"But, David . . ."
"Just do it, Janad," David ordered. Janad took the other natives, and they made a run back out the way they had come.
"Maybe you should go, too," Jackson said. "Even if this gets on line fast enough, there's no way of knowing whether it still works or not, and I'm not sure which button does what."
"I'm staying here to watch your back. That's the way we do things in the New Alliance. And just let me say, shame on you! Has The Ancestor led you astray, yet?" David asked with a smile and stood at Jackson's back watching the entrances.
* * *
Decker didn't give himself a chance to think about it. If he had, he probably wouldn't have done it.
They were all in there. If the battle cruiser fired its weapon, they were all dead and wouldn't need to make any sort of a getaway.
He closed the hatch, swallowed hard, lifted off and flew right at the cruiser, acting as if he were going to dive bomb it. The computer on the cruiser did what he knew it would. He watched as the cruiser's cannon turned away from its seemingly benign target to fire on the attacking ship. He took a hit that sent him spinning. He hung on tight, hit the accelerator and slammed into the cruiser.
He didn't feel a thing.
* * *
"Damn it!" Jackson screamed as he watched the skiff explode on the surface of the ship. His tears fell freely. "Damn it, buddy. I hope you didn't do that for nothing." He centered the cross hatches on his screen on the cruiser and punched the button he hoped made the damned thing fire. The ancient palace/temple/ship lurched in the ground it had lain in for centuries as the plasma cannon fired. The blast hit the cruiser, leaving nothing but fragments and a burning hole. "Damn! Now that's a weapon!"
"Crap!!!" David screamed.
Jackson turned in time to see the thing stand up out of the rubble.
David dropped his laser and quickly pulled the rocket launcher off his back. He fumbled with the safety trying to get it off as he backed away.
"Shoot it!" Jackson screamed. "Shoot the fucking freak!"
The thing was almost on David when he fired. The rocket hit the GSH square in the chest. He flew through the air and hit the window, where the rocket went off blowing GSH all over the room. It also made a new crack in the window, but it was still intact. Messy, but intact.
"Shit!" Jackson screamed wiping GSH from his face.
David walked over and retrieved his laser from where he had thrown it. "Come on, let's go find the others. There are still two more of those bastards down here," David said. Jackson nodded, grabbed his laser rifle and followed David.
* * *
Janad led them back the way they had come. She didn't care what David said, she had the safety off the laser. If anyone was stupid enough to stand in front of her when she fired it, then that was their own fault. They heard one load explosion from outside. Then there was another, and the whole palace shook. They were all sure the palace had been hit. They were almost outside when they rounded a corner, and there blocking the door it stood.
It was huge – easily twice as big as the biggest man Janad had ever seen, and she didn't need anyone to tell her that this was a GSH. This was the thing that was like RJ that you needed the really big gun to kill. She fired the laser sidearm at it, hoping to at the very least slow it down.
It screamed in rage, closed the distance between them in one stride, grabbed her in one hand by her throat and lifted her off the ground. She was sure she was dead, and then the thing screamed again – this time it sounded like someone was pulling its liver out its throat. From the floor where she had dropped when released, Janad looked for
the reason why, and she saw that the Prince had found something else that he could do with his new hands. He literally had the thing by the balls.
The GSH started to swing on Taleed, so Janad jumped off the floor, grabbed the thing's arm and just held on. Haldeed, seeing what she had done, and that it was working, jumped on his other arm. At least for the moment, it seemed to be mostly immobilized.
"Get off it! Get off it!" David screamed, and she and Taleed and Haldeed all looked at each other.
Janad swallowed hard. "A'trois," she said. They both nodded. "Un, deux, trois!" They all let go of him each jumping and running in a different direction.
