Enter the Sandmen

by William Schlichter

  Playing Captain Adventure ended in the casino firefight.

  He glances around the chamber. Running his finger along the cold stone floor reminds him of the granite bathroom countertop in his parents’ master bedroom. On either side of the stone throne are crumbled remains of chair platforms. The damaged walls appear to have been ripped away and replaced with furry animal hides covering bone support posts. With his limited experience, he would guess an advanced civilization once existed here.

  There are no females. Not one woman attends any of these men or the village. How could it be useful? Reynard has yet to determine if it is advantageous to his escape. Warrior cultures tend to oppress women. If these men gender-stifle, Australia won’t be of much use in negotiations.

  No guesses about culture matter until he learns about his crew’s status. He has three women in his group. Crewmates highly skilled in their fields. Two of which are invaluable and one he knows little about except that Maxtin thought she could enhance his team.

  His spine crackles as he turns. Sprawled next to him, his companions remain unrestrained. The tiger riders must not find them much of a threat. They witness the funeral pyre. Beyond the bier Joe hangs restrained inches over a sled of bone spikes.

  Don’t.

  JC’s voice reaches inside his head.

  He holds back his instincts to pounce. Even with her propensity for breaking telepathic law, she doesn’t directly enter another mind on a whim—better to trust her.

  Reynard keeps his head down enough to not draw attention and continues to visually inspect the chamber.

  Dancing warriors part, so the only one among with his hair uncut and feathered in vertical peacock plumage marches to the throne. He slams his shield in a groove of the throne chair. Scalps of his enemies dangle from his belt. Woven into his chest armor are dozens of blue opals. Leashed to his wrist, a final decoration hovers over his head. The parrot-sized lavender-furred dragon flaps its tiny wings. The adorable creature sticks out among such battle-hardened warriors.

  They trade with off-worlders, JC thinks inside his brain.

  The Halcary pain sticks and the tiny dragon prove interaction. Reynard wonders what he could offer to these warriors. His magnum remains in his holster, so they must not consider him much of a threat.

  The chanting slows. Each warrior retrieves his shield and kneels before his king.

  The spartan ritual continues with the thumping of shields on the ground and their repeated clanks together in the air.

  Australia jams her fingers in her ears.

  Reynard would guess this rhythmic sacramental beat warns the afterlife of an impending warrior. He’ll confirm his speculation with Australia. He needs her language skills. The universal translator fails to reveal what they warriors say. As the mantra becomes louder, Reynard’s concern turns to his sword brother and what will happen to him when the funeral ends.

  From behind the throne emerges a green robed figure. Unlike the warriors, this shaman carries a staff with a large blue opal at its head. Woven into his robes are dozens of smaller opals. He raises his staff, and the chanting ceases. He swings the staff, leveling it at Leahla’s face. She struggles but all her strength fails to match one warrior. Two give her no quarter as they drag her before the king.

  Reynard loses to his instincts as he leaps to protect her but finds himself crumpled into JC’s arms by the swift backhand of one of the warriors.

  The green robed shaman waves a third warrior forward. A fresh plasma burn scars his chest.

  The translator fails to understand the babbling warrior. Reynard guesses they are asking the chief to determine judgment, which he does with a single nod.

  They drag the cadet to her feet. Leahla vomits profanities Reynard’s translator can’t handle. The king raises his bladed weapon. Not even the swift-moving Calthos fighters he faced under Joe’s tutelage moved as rapidly. Leahla’s body splits from her forehead to her hind quarter in a single motion.

  The king reaches into her open chest and twists.

  Squishy crunch.

  He brings out her heart and bites into the tissue. He tosses the organ to the disfigured warrior. He eats the heart.

  Reynard becomes lost in a haze before Leahla’s corpse slumps to the floor. No amount of training prepared him for this.

  They just killed her.

  No duplicitous trial.

  No explanation.

  No moment to allow her to prepare.

  They ended her existence in barbarity.

  Barbarity consumes Reynard’s mind. No logical thoughts prevail. He draws his magnum.

  Before the barking thunder echoes through the chamber a new pain sends him to the floor. The cells in his brain separate and cook as if in a boiling pot. Through water-soaked eyes, Reynard notes the glow of the blue opals decorating the witch doctor. The wizard swings his staff at the crew. They deal with the same agony crippling his thoughts. He fights with his own shaking arms. Fingers wanting to claw his eyes out to remove the pain. The gun slips from his hand.

  No!

  The gun remains firm in his grasp. Some thought wants Reynard to fire on his own crew.

  He revisits the urge, but the heat surrounding his head intensifies. Clear fluid drips from his nose. He discerns JC’s form through cloudy pupils. She stands firm. Raising her own arms in defiance she reaches out as if to place an invisible shield between herself and the shaman.

  Telepathic.

  These people must have telepathic capabilities but are untrained men. Males carry the recessive genes for telepathy. Only females develop the talent. Reynard shakes off those thoughts. They won’t help. He has to fight the swinging of his arm toward JC.

  JC pushes back.

  The shaman strains against a trained mind. Even with all her skills JC’s mental strength won’t push back forever. Through his watering eyes Reynard notes the three tear drop tattoos under her left eye glow with the same azure blue as the opals.

  JC draws back her right arm before thrusting it forward. The invisible shove shatters the smallest opal on the breast plate. The shaman loses all concentration.

  Nine-foot warriors step back.

  Reynard’s brain cools. He swings his magnum aiming at the largest opal woven into the breast plate, guessing the polished stones must enhance telepathy.

  JC steadies herself. If the shaman attacks mentally again she has no defense left. None of these men have seen anyone guard against their witch doctor. The warriors fail to hide shock from their ruler.

  If he were to add support to JC’s wobbly knees, their deaths would follow any sign of weakness. Australia rises. Her knowledge confirms what he speculates, as she stands as straight as her five feet of thin height give her.

  The king snaps his fingers, and guards scamper from the chamber.

  Reynard contemplates they speak telepathically to each other but they seem so untrained as if their ability is new. They certainly haven’t applied the kinds of societal rules the rest of the galaxy follows.

  He thinks, What do we do now?

  Nothing.

  JC’s one-word answer leaves him with no clue how to protect his crew. A pipe dream. He has no method to defeat these warriors within his reach. Short of a complicated head shot he doubts he’s able to fire enough rounds to injure more than one warrior before they strike him down. The best option: keep his gun pointed at the largest opal. A bullet should damage it and weaken the shaman further.

  If the tiger riders were in control of their mental abilities, they should be able to read my mind. Despite the language barrier, my intent should radiate. JC says strong emotions do so. Fledgling telepaths these people have to be. The stones enhance natural abilities and even the shaman lacks training to control his own mind enough to read thoughts.

  The parrot-sized dragon continues to flutter above its master.

  Reynard remembers reading about such creatures. Some branch of the IMC created them in a lab as children’s pets. There was an outrage over enslavin
g thinking creatures. Even with a law against such a practice doesn’t mean the IMC didn’t continue, and a gift of such a creature would open up bargaining for the mineral rights on this planet. The Halcary pain sticks could also be leverage to secure a mining station. Useless information. He won’t give these primitives the two Mokarran rifles back on the Dragon. The only weapons he has suitable for humanoids of this size.

  Guards shove three nearly naked humanoids across smooth stone floor. Their bathrobe-style coverings have become soaked in their own blood. With shreds of clothing Reynard wonders if Australia deduces what origination these three represent.

  The heavy set man on the right has deep lacerations over his chest and abdomen. The woman in the middle bears two holes in her abdomen where her ovaries once were. The third man’s tattoos indicate he was military. The man bleeds from between his legs as his scrotum hangs torn open.

  They hover close together, never making eye contact with Reynard’s team. They seem afraid to speak as tiger riders cut Joe from his bonds.

  ••••••

  THE TIGER RIDERS dump the three alien humanoids from their mounts. Reynard and his crew are allowed to slide from the saddles, confusing him as to their difference in treatment.

  Torment prevents these people from speaking. Reynard wants to protest that they are being shoved from the trail across a field toward exposed bedrock. A tiger rider extends his arm, leveling his weapon to keep Reynard’s group behind him.

  As the three approach the halfway point to the arched cave entrance, the woman flails out her arms to halt both males. She slumps to a knee nearly falling over. Her fingers clean the mud and gunk from faded symbols carved in the dark stone. “Someone did this as a warning line.”

  The woman’s speaking sends the tiger riders into frenzy. Reynard doubts they are able to translate her words. Her speaking offends them, but none of them will approach the scorched rock.

  “Abandon all hope!” she screams to Reynard’s team. “No one has ever made it to the cave’s entrance.”

  Why aren’t there any bodies? Reynard questions the scene before questioning himself. He went through the training. He’s learned to pilot. He studied under master combatants. He lacks experience to save his crew.

  Joe motions his bottom right hand at his sword brother as if he knows of the uncertainty. He signals a warning not to let the tiger riders sense his reservation.

  Energy pulse shoots out from the cave and tears through the tattooed male’s lower left leg disintegrating it. In the seconds it takes him to bleed out, he thrashes, causing a second blast to incinerate his body into streams of red mist.

  The impact of the blast startles the tiger mounts as well as their riders who barely prevent a stampede. Reynard notes they fear the power of the beam weapon, but knew of its existence from their position well out of the range of scorched ground.

  The weapon hangs acquiring its next target. In those seconds Reynard assesses the tactics of defeating the weapon. Efficient as it is, age has slowed the device, but not enough for the panicked pair to notice. The woman screams as she races back to the safe zone.

  She doesn’t reach it.

  The third male lives for the few seconds it takes the cannon to acquire a target lock. The beam misses his midsection due to him tripping in the millisecond before the energy beam discharges.

  The high branches of a tree behind the tiger riders disappear. The tigers growl, twirling to break free of their reins and flee. Even these cultured warriors panic. Reynard guesses they fear an enemy without a mind for their shaman to focus on.

  The cannon finishes its task.

  Once their mounts are back under control, the king waves his hand. Reynard and JC are driven forward, expected to defuse the weapon.

  Reynard runs his fingers in the carved symbols of the black rock path. “It’s a warning.”

  “But to what?”

  “Old temples are full of them.” Reynard shifts into a terrible Bela Lugosi accent: “Enter and you shall be cursed.”

  “No one has made it to the entrance.”

  “It wouldn’t be the first trap we’ve seen coded to the DNA of a specific species.”

  “And we know why there are no bodies surrounding this place.”

  “But Ki-Ton just waltzed right in.”

  “How do you know?”

  Reynard rolls some cloth between his fingers. “Michelle’s. I found it hooked on a branch as we rode by. They came this way.”

  Reynard remains on one knee. He taps the earpiece, “Aus, you receiving this?”

  Aus had slipped on her headset and eyepiece during the tiger skittering. The warriors seem to take less of an interest in her. “The view screen image is mostly snow.”

  “Sounds like a Missouri weather forecast because it’s bright and sunny.”

  “Not a time for Osirian jokes I don’t understand.”

  “They never could predict the weather correctly where I grew up. A call for warm and sunny could yield a blizzard.”

  “They just march people to the entrance to die?” Australia’s question crackles in his ear. “A beam weapon still working after a few hundred thousand years must have automated maintenance.”

  “If we step past the warning, it will discharge.”

  “Aus, decipher any symbol?”

  JC peers across the scorched field.

  “You know there’s only one way to make it drop down. Age may have slowed it, but there’s no way to make it target you first.”

  “Somehow I knew.” She unzips her knee-high boots and curls her bare toes in the grass. “I run first. Just don’t miss.” JC crouches into a stance ready to sprint.

  Reynard racks the slide. He catches the ejecting cartridges. He pockets the unspent shell, knowing the weapon’s ready to fire.

  A lavender blur whirls across the carved warning from behind them.

  The king shouts angry protests.

  The parrot-sized pet dragon hovers before Reynard.

  “You free me. I owe you a debt.”

  “Not at the cost of your own life.” Not sure how he freed the creature, Reynard notes the flapping leash has been singed.

  “Did you see where the blast came from?” JC asks, still in her sprinter’s stance.

  “From under the left side a cannon dropped, fired, and retreated.”

  “Observant ball of fur.”

  Reynard, unlike his normal quick-draw tactic, laces his left hand over his right, securing the weapon as he aims at the cannon’s future location. He locks his elbows, inhaling as much air as possible. His left eye shut, he breathes, “GO.”

  JC darts left, right, left giving a wide berth for the lavender dragon, who barrels straight for the cave.

  Zigzag pattern. JC sends out a thought. The child’s pet ignores her if she even reached his mind.

  The cannon lowers.

  Booming thunder disturbs the tigers.

  The tiny dragon zips straight up. The cannon targets him.

  Durasteel shells riddle the cannon as it tracks the creature.

  The beam blast burns the cave ceiling as the weapon was never designed to track a flying target. Chunks of stone smolder on the cave floor as pieces of the device rain down.

  With the device’s destruction the tiger riders’ protests subside.

  He kicks the smashed cannon to ensure it’s dead.

  Reynard runs his fingers along grooves in the wall. The recent disturbance of the door having opened shook loose impacted grime around the frame. As ground dirt crumbles to the ground, the shapes of unknown symbols are apparent.

  “How long do you think it would take to translate, Aus?” he asks into the headset.

  “The stone advancements used to construct this bunker could stretch back tens of millennia.” JC inspects the broken cannon. She has to step with care to avoid the rock fragments with her bare feet.

  “A dead language,” Australia whispers over the comm.

  “How do you figure?”


  “Some catastrophe sent this planet back to the Stone Age. They haven’t progressed much beyond tribal society. Anthropology dictates certain progressions happen in most cultures. Hunters/gatherers happen before farming. Farming progresses into more stable settlements.”

  “I get it, Spock,” Reynard quips.

  “Many cited examples from those societies also skipped the basic progression.”

  “The need for a Prime Directive.”

  “What?”

  “A visionary futurist from my culture felt a policy of noninterference with worlds who had not reached a certain level of technology advancement.”

  “He would not approve of giving Halcary pain sticks to tribal huntsman.”

  “Basically.” Reynard pushes on each symbol hoping one might move. One does to reveal a small, pinky-finger-sized hole. “Keyhole?”

  “We need our scanner.”

  Reynard spins around, pointing at Australia. “We have to have her.”

  Reluctant, the king waves his soldier to escort Australia across the field.

  The warrior hesitates.

  The king twists his pain stick.

  The soldier marches across the scorched fields with Australia in tow. He remains with her as she slips the scanner from her pocket. Unable to fit in the cave even if he kneels, he stands vigilant at the edge.

  “I do not know any of these symbols.” It takes the scanner seconds to examine inside the hole. “It is a maze of small conduits. Logically, the only way to the tumblers is fill up with a liquid and then somehow harden it to create pressure unlocking the door.”

  The device beeps.

  The tiger rider grips the pommel of his edged weapon.

  “Inside a DNA reader resides.”

  “Would these people be Ki-Ton’s descendants?”

  Australia waves the scanner close enough to scan the tiger rider without him knowing. “Evolve from transmogrification to telepathic. No known evolutionary path would travel in such a direction.” The scanner confirms part of her hypothesis—the fledgling telepath lacks DNA to be a shapeshifter.