by George Mann
At midmorning they found themselves between two long yardangs, the one to their left rising some twenty meters tall, the one on their right almost thirty. The rock formations stretched before them through the dusty haze farther than the eye could see. And on they walked. On and on until finally, at midday, they reached the end of the long corridor where the two yardangs almost touched. Beyond, in the dusty haze, they could see indistinct hummocks rising from the windblown ground.
Yao felt a tap on his shoulder and turned to see Thien standing behind him. She pointed ahead, her mouth moving behind the faceplate, forming words he could not read. He moved to lean in, to bring their faceplates into contact, when he saw from the corner of his eye Seto raising his weapons in a defensive posture. Yao spun around; Zong and Jue did the same. He drew his saber from its sheath and narrowed his eyes.
Through the curtain of dust before him Yao could see figures rising up from the ground, painted in garish shades. Mexic warriors sprang from concealment in pits dug into the hard ground at the base of the yardangs, weapons at the ready.
Yao turned back to signal to Thien and saw even more Mexica rushing at them from the rear, coming out of the clouds of dust. They were pincered in, trapped.
“Form on me!” Yao roared into his helmet radio, toggling on the transmitter, but got only static in response.
As Yao fought, he caught staccato glimpses of the melee on all sides, brief flashes that strobed before his eyes, bloodstained.
He saw Seto engaged with a Mexica wearing a surface suit decorated to look like a jaguar, carrying a fire-lance. Seto swung his sword in a wide arc, connecting with the Mexica’s helmet and cracking the face plate. The Mexica stumbled back, firing his fire-lance and dousing Seto in a spray of burning liquid magnesium. And then Yao’s attention was torn away.
One Mexica already lay at Yao’s feet. Another rushed toward him, a club lined with razor-sharp blades raised high overhead. Yao just had time to take in the Mexica’s surface suit, its carapace and limb-coverings painted in garish blue, the helmet constructed to resemble a bleached-white skull, the faceplate set in its open maw. As the Mexica brought his club down, ferociously, Yao met it with his saber in a parry that vibrated right to his teeth. In a return movement, Yao drew his saber’s blade across the Mexica’s arm, opening a line in the constrictive fabric just below the elbow joint. His opponent dropped his club, staggering back, clutching the rend, and hissing in pain.
Yao glanced back, catching the briefest glimpse of the tableau behind him: Zong down on his back, saber raised to block the downward swinging club of the Mexica standing above him, while a short distance away Min kneeled on the ground clutching her stained-red shoulder, the saber of the dead Green Standard soldier lying in the dust at her feet.
There was a flash of movement in the corner of his eye. Yao turned to see Thien a few meters from him, Xun’s knife held in her wavering grip. Another Mexic warrior advanced on her, club held high, his surface suit jet black and spangled with white stars, his helmet conical. Yao didn’t waste an instant in thought but rushed over, raising his saber and closing on them.
Before Yao could intercept the blow, the spangled Mexica brought his club down in a two-handed arc, crashing it into Thien’s leg below the knee.
Yao angled as he ran and barreled shoulder-first into the Mexic warrior, knocked him from his feet and sent him sprawling almost a meter. Yao swore beneath his breath as the Mexica managed to maintain his balance, feet planted, and turned to face off against Yao, club raised high overhead.
A long instant passed in which Yao and the spangled Mexica faced one another, each sizing up the other, considering their next moves. Yao’s elbows still ached from deflecting the skull-headed Mexica’s blows, and his shoulder throbbed from its recent collision with the spangled warrior. He counted himself lucky, though, that the Mexica prized so highly the capture of live prisoners, or he and his men would have been picked off long ago by sniper fire from the Mexica entrenched further along the corridor. The warrior he faced had a rifle slung across his back, but even if the Mexica chose to employ it, he could never get into position before Yao reached him with his saber’s point.
Finally Yao and his opponent closed, dancing back and forth, thrust and parry, neither able to get the upper hand. Yao’s teeth vibrated with the force of the Mexica’s blows, but he was able to drive the warrior back time and again, giving as good as he got. Suddenly, without warning, the Mexica stumbled backward, his hold on the club slipping, the expression behind the faceplate distorting in agony. The Mexica turned away, as though to flee. Yao, startled, caught sight of a brief flash of red and a knife protruding from the Mexica’s thigh, the blade buried several centimeters deep in the muscle.
Thien lay close by, propped on her elbow, the knife’s sheath in one hand, her face red with exertion and pain behind her faceplate.
Yao smiled grimly. Taking one large stride forward he swung his saber in a precise motion, aiming for the exposed airhose on the Mexica’s back. The blade struck home and the hose flopped away, leaving the warrior with only a few mouthfuls of air before he was breathing the thin Fire Star atmosphere. Repositioning, Yao raised his saber again and brought it down in a fierce arc, aiming for the joint between the left arm of the Mexica’s surface suit and his armored carapace. The sword bit deep, nearly cleaving the arm from the body. It sent out an arterial spray of bright red that shot an impossible distance through the thin air, freezing in the low pressure and cold so quickly that it fell like scarlet sleet onto the sands.
The dust storm had worsened. Yao could not see more than a few meters in front of him. He knelt down, helping Thien into a sitting position. He bent low over her, looking over her wounds.
Thien maneuvered her head forward until the faceplate of her helmet made contact with Yao’s. “I…” she began, her voice strained. “I saw something ahead, before the attack. Mounds. One of them looked like the entrance to the shelter.”
Yao intended to point out that, even if this were so, the shelter they sought was on the other side of a ring of Mexic warriors and beyond a line of entrenched riflemen. But before his lips could frame an answer, another Mexica rushed forward and his response was cut off.
This Mexica’s surface suit was fiery red, his helmet made to look like some sort of dog. He carried a mace, a large metal ball on a handle nearly a meter long. Under Earth’s gravity, such a weapon would require several men working together just to lift. With Fire Star’s lower gravity, one strong man could lift and swing it with relative ease.
Yao raised his saber to parry, but the movement came too late.
The mace crashed into Yao’s chest. It caved in the hardshell carapace, pushing the hard metal into his ribcage. Yao’s torso exploded with pain. The Mexica was momentarily unbalanced by the inertia of the blow. Yao saw the slimmest window of opportunity, and burst into motion. He lunged forward, ignoring the pain in his ribcage as best he could, and drove his saber point-first into the Mexica’s belly, just below the protection of the blood-red chest carapace. As he released his grip on the handle the faceplate of the Mexica went red, matching his dog armor, as the warrior sprayed the inside of his helmet with spitted blood.
Yao blinked back tears and helped Thien unsteadily to her feet. The storm was such now that they could scarcely see a meter ahead of them. Yao could barely force himself to breath, every attempt a riot of agony.
Yao leaned over and touched his faceplate to Thien’s. In a harsh whisper, the loudest he could manage, he said, “We should make for the shelter.” He left unspoken the hope that Thien was right, and that they weren’t just heading for shadows.
Yao could walk, somewhat, but had trouble breathing, every attempt sheer agony. Thien’s leg was broken, the fabric of her suit open to the elements, her skin bruising badly. Leaning one against the other, they were able to make slow, painful progress through the haze.
Miraculously, they managed to blunder their way through the blinding storm without encoun
tering anyone, neither their own people nor the Mexica, and at no point did they feel the sting of a sniper’s projectile ripping into their flesh.
After what seemed an eternity, the shadow of the hummock loomed out of the billowing dust and sand before them. Yao could see that it was, indeed, the shelter they had sought. It was a long, low ridge, like a cylinder cut in half, standing some six meters tall with an airlock hatch set into a half-circle of dark metal at one end.
With some difficulty, working together, they opened the hatch and fell into the airlock. The pain in Yao’s chest was by now almost unbearable, and he wasn’t sure how long he could retain consciousness. He was sure Thien was doing little better.
As the airlock cycled, Thien and Yao were able to communicate via radio, without the dust to scatter the waves.
“This… this was an early research facility, constructed out of a lava tube,” she explained, leaning against the rough-hewn wall of the lock. “They just capped the ends, pressurized and heated it, and used it as their base of operations. There are a lot of these sorts of shelters scattered across this hemisphere of Fire Star, though most, like this one, have been deserted for years.”
“We…” Yao began, hissing through his teeth with pain. He squeezed his eyes shut and struggled to remain conscious. “We… should be able… to ride out… storm here.”
“Assuming the Mexica don’t come looking for us.”
“Yes.” Yao managed a rueful smile and the ghost of a nod. “There is that.”
The airlock completed its cycle, the indicator on the inner wall showing a breathable atmosphere beyond. Yao and Thien struggled to remove their helmets; the sickly sweet, stale air of the shelter filtered into their nostrils as the hatch slid open.
Yao took a single step forward, into the gloom. In the dim light beyond the hatch, he could see an indistinct figure seated against the far wall. Yao’s eyes adjusted to the low light and the figure resolved into a Mexica warrior, a fire-lance in his hands, trained on the pair of them.
Reflex took over. Yao rushed forward without stopping to consider his circumstance, arms out, hands curled into fists, but before he had gone more than two steps the searing pain on the right side of his chest blossomed into a wave of agony and nausea that swept over his whole being. His vision went red, and his eyes closed on the world.
Yao was unsure how much time had passed. The air in the shelter smelled to him of sweat and fear, and his mouth felt drier than the red sands of Fire Star.
He lay on the floor, his shoulders on the cold wall of the shelter, still dressed in his surface suit. Without turning his head - the slightest movement was sufficient to send sharp shards of pain through his chest - he saw Thien sitting beside him, her leg in a crude splint, her helmet nowhere to be seen.
“Oh, you’re awake,” Thien said, and saw Yao looking at her leg. Her voice sounded strange in Yao’s ears, so long had it been since he’d heard the sound of it not propagated through glass or transmitted over radio static. “Blue-green Feather set my leg while you slept.”
The Mexic warrior sat a few meters away, the fire-lance laid across his knees, his dark eyes fixed on Yao.
“Blue-green… Blue-green Feather?” Yao managed through gritted teeth.
“Yes.” Thien glanced over at the Mexica guardedly. “His name is Matlalihuitl. That’s what the word means in Nahuatl: Blue-green Feather. He doesn’t talk much, though. When you passed out, he helped me to move you inside and then set my leg. Once he’d made the splint, he sat back down. He hasn’t said a word since.”
Yao moved his head fractionally, the slightest of movements. On the floor at the Mexica’s side he could see his knife, both his and Thien’s helmets, and their provisions stacked neatly. The Mexica’s own helmet lay some distance away, constructed in the shape of a jaguar’s head, its faceplate shattered. From the helmet, and the jaguar pattern painted on the Mexica’s surface suit, Yao recognized him as the warrior Seto had struck before being doused in burning liquid magnesium.
Thien followed his gaze and nodded. “Blue-green Feather threatened to set fire to you if I didn’t bring him your weapons. What I don’t understand is why he hasn’t just killed us.”
“The Mexica prefer to take live prisoners,” Yao said, finding it easier to talk in a low whisper, forcing as little air through his lungs as possible. “To sacrifice later. That’s how Mexic warriors proceed through the ranks, by sacrificing prisoners to their gods. His own helmet is cracked” - Yao pointed to the jaguar-shaped helmet sitting on the ground at the Mexica’s side - ”and our friend has no doubt discovered that helmets of Middle Kingdom manufacture can’t be sealed on a Mexic surface suit. He cannot go back outside. Not until help arrives.”
“What happens if the soldiers of the Middle Kingdom find us first?”
“In that case, Feather over there will likely just douse us both with flaming magnesium and then take out as many of our countrymen as he can. If his people arrive first, he progresses in rank having captured two enemies. If our people arrive first, he gets to kill as many of us as possible before leaving this plane to join his ancestors. Either way, he wins.”
Concentrating, careful not to shift from the waist up, Yao slid his left leg slightly, rolling his foot slowly inwards. He smiled grimly when he felt a hard object press into the flesh of his left thigh through the constrictive material of the surface suit.
He always carried a second knife in a hidden pouch set into the fabric of the suit. If he were able to get the blade out, he might be able to make a move against the Mexica.
Night fell. The light trickling dimly through a solitary, small skylight overhead faded, leaving the interior of the chamber a murky, moonslit gray.
They had sat in a watchful silence for long hours, and Yao had yet to hear a solitary noise from the Mexica. Now, in the gloaming, he began to speak, the liquid syllables of his speech strange in Yao’s ears. The warrior’s voice rose and fell, rhythmically, like some sort of song or chant.
“Thien,” Yao said, his voice little more than a harsh whisper. “What is he saying?”
“My Nahuatl is rough at best, but I’ll try.” In the low light Yao could see her leaning forward, listening intently. “It’s a prayer. He says, ‘O lord of the near and the night, of the night and the wind. You see and know the things within the trees and rocks. You know of things within us, and hear us from within. You hear and know what we say, what we think, our minds and our hearts. Smoke and mist rise before you.’”
Yao scowled. He would have shaken his head if his chest could have borne it. “I don’t believe in gods or spirits. I believe only in the man fighting at my left, the man fighting at my right, and those who stand before me, wanting to kill us.”
Yao heard Thien chuckle, soft and indistinct. “Myself, I am a Taoist. I suppose I believe in the union of opposites, if anything.”
The darkness grew deeper. The sound of the Mexica carried on, into the night, praying to his gods, distant and strange.
In the long hours before dawn, all was quiet and still. Thien shifted restlessly in her sleep at his side, and Yao was convinced that the Mexica was asleep. Slowly, painfully, Yao reached his left hand towards the hidden pouch on his leg and gently took out the knife.
After what seemed an eternity, his teeth gritted against the pain, he managed to get the knife free of the pocket. But his fingers, encased in the thick material of the suit, failed to get a good grip on the knife and it slipped from his grip. Though it fell only centimeters, it clattered loudly, echoing through the darkened shelter.
Thien only rustled, but Yao could hear the sound of the Mexica shifting. He felt the eyes of the Mexic warrior trying to bore through the darkness. Slowly, carefully, Yao reached down and picked the knife back up again. He rolled onto one hip and slid it carefully under him, the blade flat to the ground so that when he sat back it was hidden beneath his leg.
Yao sat motionless, his chest in agony, his heart pounding, his ears straining against the si
lence.
Yao awoke, sputtering. He coughed violently. With each ragged noise he spat blood. The right side of his chest felt as though it was stuck through with hot pokers.
Thien reached over and wiped the blood-flecked spittle from his chin. “I think one of your broken ribs punctured a lung,” she said, her voice grave.
“Perhaps my injuries will take me, and cheat the Mexica of his prize.” He coughed again, his face contorted with pain. “Wouldn’t… that be… amusing?”
Yao closed his eyes and a fitful sleep overtook him once more.
It was near midday when Yao woke again. Thien had a small flask of water, which she poured into Yao’s mouth.
Swallowing painfully, his lips cracked and dry, Yao looked across the shelter at the Mexica. He kept his gaze fixed on them, his eyes narrowed.
“Thank… thank you,” Yao told Thien, when she pulled the flask away. “Where… where did you get…?”
“From Blue-green Feather,” Thien said, jerking a thumb at the Mexica. “I told him that if we didn’t have water to drink we were as good as dead anyway, so why didn’t he just kill us now and get it over with.”
“And he… didn’t like that idea?”
“He didn’t say much, only pulled this flask from our provisions and threw it across to me.”
Yao licked his parched lips, his eyes still on the Mexica.
“So it won’t… be… a slow death… by dehydration then?”
“Not until he runs out of water.” Thien smiled. “Of course, by that point, I think that thirst is going to be the least of our concerns.”
It was the middle of the afternoon, and Yao’s stomach growled, audibly.
“We need food,” Thien said.
