by Hal Archer
Her grasp slipped through the particles that were once his fingers.
He stood frozen in the storm, unable to stop her fall into the blackness.
The storm of sand and grit swelled until it filled every space around him. He could see nothing else.
He fell to his knees, grasping the wrist of his handless arm. "No!"
He trembled, but the icy wind could only lay partial claim to it.
DARKNESS.
Hot burning smoke. Jake felt it. Smelled it. A roaring passing before him, not too distant. It reverberated through his muscles and rattled his bones. The darkness broke with fire. Explosions. Everywhere war-ready craft flew about, bursting through columns of sooty gray and lingering clouds of death's vapors. Blasts and crashes. Cries cut short with death's silence, while other lamentations went on. The battle raged in the air and below. Mighty beasts suffered the pulses from the advanced fighters, but the creatures did not falter. Mounted on the towering monsters of the Untamed Lands, Waudure fighters rode courageously against the forces of the Cracians, who attacked in waves and with precision. No place of respite was visible. No crag of rock nor distant valley offered refuge. War enveloped all.
Across the scene, fixed over the heavy blanket of smoke and fire, a figure came into view. Too distant to see clearly, the outline and hazy visage revealed a man of strong stature and commanding presence. Jake watched him as the man seemed to survey the battlefield. Occasionally, the figure pointed his arm at a position across the ravaged landscape, and a new group of fighter ships flew past him, following his direction, raining down energy weapons and ballistic and explosive shells on the Waudure forces below.
Jake strained to pull a clearer vision of the man through the smoke, but the fog of war swelled up to counter him. Just before it entirely obscured the man on the perch of rock across the battlefield, Jake noticed a second person step up behind the one directing the aerial forces. The other figure leaned in to the first, as if to whisper to him, and gestured with his hands. Jake heard a faint breath of the whisper, but the sounds of the battle drowned out any meaning from the words. The first man nodded, but another explosion erupted between Jake and the two men. He saw no more of them.
"Jake!" He heard the call and turned toward it as a Cracian ship came down nearby, exploding into a fireball, the hot blast of which struck him. His eyes and ears failed him as he tumbled backward.
DARKNESS.
Clank. The metal cuffs dropped from his wrists and ankles, falling onto the piled chains beneath him. A cacophony of boos and jeers and cheers echoed through the massive arena. Jake rose from his knees and elbows to stand and face the man before him. The sting as his eye is invaded by the drop of blood falling from the gash on his head reminded him he was in all too familiar territory. He curled the end of the chain and shackle once around his hand. He smiled at the man across from him.
About damn time.
A SHARP PAIN swelled up inside his forehead. A bitter taste washed across his tongue as he swallowed. Then the pain faded and his eyes drowned the images from his mind, replacing them once again with the room, the ceiling. He turned his head and caught sight of the three Waudure Elders still seated across from him.
They didn't speak. Not until he had righted himself, returning to a seated posture in front of the now dampened pile of smoldering vegetation.
"What you saw," one of the elder men said, "was for you alone."
Jake rubbed his eyes and gently shook his head to clear his thoughts.
The woman spoke. "We have broken with tradition for you."
"Explain." Jake waved his hand toward the burnt pile before him, making sure no more smoke made it to his face.
"The stories of the future," she said, "are meant only for the Elders. But these are dangerous times." She glanced at the other two, who then nodded. "The fate of our people is at stake."
"I know you're at war with the Cracians," Jake said, "but it's not my war."
"Our visions told us you were coming. They told us you would bring death, yet also perhaps life."
"I had no idea about that delivery. Rules were broken," Jake said. "I never would've—"
"We understand," she said. "Nonetheless, the means to our end came by your hands. What we have given you is a glimpse into your future, so that you might save ours. You and the weapon are of the same tale. How it ends is up to you."
"You're asking a lot from a guy who just got swindled into doing something."
The three Elders rose to their feet. The two men left the room first.
The female Elder gazed upon Jake for a moment, as if assessing how he might act when the time came. "You must tell no one what you have seen." She turned and left him alone in the room.
He stood and stared at the pile of now ashen plants.
"What a mind screw."
Don't blame Sarah, you bum. She took the delivery, but you put the pressure on her for the big payoffs.
Contraband cargo. Hijacked. Personally responsible for impending genocide.
And I haven't even gotten paid.
Not my best day on the job.
"And this is what you do to get away from the bastard you were?"
He noticed his blaster on the floor behind where the Elders had been seated.
"Ah, hell. Guess you'll go after it."
He stepped over to his weapon and picked it up.
"Save the day, or die trying. And you know you're still not going to get paid."
CHAPTER 23
J ake moved down the winding tunnel until he reached the training arena. One of the Waudure assigned to accommodate him during his stay had given him directions. She'd brought him food and drink early in the morning and, before leaving him to partake of it, told him how her husband had died, killed by the Cracians while out on his patrol.
I get it, he thought, but he simply replied, "I'm sorry for your loss. We'll do what we can."
As he made his way to the training grounds, he admitted to himself that he had adopted the Waudure, at least while he was on Daedalon. He felt responsible for their situation, even though it had been a mess long before he came there with his deadly cargo.
He stopped at the entrance to the arena, looking across the well-lit cavern to the group of men and women gathered near the other side, a hundred feet or so away.
Who knows. If you'd ended up in the Cracian base instead, maybe you'd see them as the good guys in all this.
But he hadn't, and he knew in war no side was all good. Not to argue moral equivalence, but everybody wants to live as much as the next guy. But then he thought about it some more.
No chance. Slavery. That's enough reason to take 'em down in my book.
He walked through the threshold into the arena.
One of the men in the group waved him over, and Jake made his way, scanning his surroundings as he did.
Loose gritty sand covered the expansive cavern floor. Appropriate, he thought. Who wants to fight and get knocked on their ass on a bed of rock?
A few other tunnels opened into the arena from points equally staggered around the perimeter. Aside from those, the walls were solid stone, blackish with a sheen. The familiar crystals blanketed the ceiling high above, casting their glow into the space below such that all was well lit.
The group he approached consisted of twenty Waudure, a third of them women, all of them dressed much the same as he'd seen Hodin— the warrior outfit, he thought. They stood watching Jake, awaiting his arrival.
To either side of the team rested a large crate of wood and metal. Each such box stood twice as high as any of the Waudure.
Jake heard chatter from the group as he neared, but he heard something else. Upon further approach, he realized the other noises were coming from the giant crates. Dust kicked up repeatedly from the base of the boxes, forming a low-hanging cloud a couple of feet off the ground. The Waudure seemed to take no notice of the crates or their rumblings.
There was nothing else in the entire space.
Jake looked at Hodin and the man next to him. "I'm here to join the idiots going into the belly of the beast."
A few of the Waudure in the rear of the group chuckled. The man with the insignia turned his head a few degrees in their direction, and the chuckling stopped.
"This is Jake Mudd," Hodin said to his superior.
The squad leader looked at Jake for a long moment before speaking. "Killed before?"
"I've been in my share of situations," Jake said. "I'm still here."
The man's expression hinted he appreciated the response. A man that felt the need to give details was either green or psychotic. Neither would serve well.
The squad leader tipped his brow slightly. "I'm Captain Drayin."
"Jake."
"Nadira vouched for you," Drayin said. "Hodin says you're probably not entirely useless."
Jake caught Hodin grinning and turned back to Drayin to await pronouncement of his judgement.
"The stakes are the highest," he said. "We need to be sure you're an asset and not a liability."
"Fair," Jake said.
Drayin nodded, then he stepped back. The group moved out of his way as he did. "Form up!"
The Waudure, including Hodin and Nadira, quickly shuffled to form a long line next to the back wall of the cavern. They each drew their weapons and held them at the ready. Drayin walked behind the oversized crate on his left. He lifted his hand to a lever on the back edge of it and paused there.
Looking at Jake, he asked, "Ready?"
Jake watched the crate shake and heard the rumbling from inside. "What the hell."
Drayin pulled down the lever, dropping the front wall of the crate to the ground. A cloud of dust and sand kicked up from the impact. Before it cleared, Jake, and everyone else, heard the snorting and growling of what he figured would be an annoyingly nasty beast.
Had to join the club, didn't you?
The creature's discharges, saliva and, no doubt, nasal projections, shot through the dust cloud. Jake watched them fly past him, spraying to the ground five feet behind him.
Drayin stepped out from behind the crate to get a better view of the scene.
Jake drew his blaster and backed up, waiting for his surprise.
The crate shook violently and out came a beast that resembled a wild boar, but with four tusks and ears that hung down to the ground like rough leather blankets, dragging through the sand.
Jake shot the creature, but the blast didn't slow the beast. The hide scorched at the impact, but wasn't penetrated. He did manage to piss it off, however.
He glanced at the Waudure, who had stayed in formation, weapons drawn and ready. "You guys are great."
The giant mutant bore, as Jake thought of it, wildly shook its head, gouging the ground before it with its tusks.
Hodin shouted from the formation, "That means she likes you!"
The monster charged Jake. He dove out of the way, but one of the large tusks caught his leg and spun him sideways in mid-dive.
Without moving from formation, the team of onlookers groaned and otherwise voiced sympathy for the blow Jake received. None of them did anything to help him, though.
His thigh would bruise heavily, but fortunately the rounded side of the tusk hit him. If it had been the point, the creature might have hooked and dragged him the twenty feet it ran before it stopped and turned to face him again.
Jake pushed himself up and spun around to a kneeling position, aiming his weapon once again at the boar monster. The creature broke into another sprint toward him. He held his fire while he tracked the creature's swaying head. He aimed for one of its eyes, large with drooped lids, caked with dried goop in the corners.
With the beast halfway to him, Jake squeezed the trigger. The blast shot dead on, piercing the creature's eye like the center spot on a target. The giant boar's head dropped at an angle, but it kept charging. Jake avoided the hit easily this time, since the monster's run skewed off course, due, no doubt, to the lost eye.
Jake backed closer to the open crate, calling with random grunts to signal the creature to his location. The beast squealed and snorted as it drew closer.
Jake stood directly in front of the fallen side panel to the crate, with the opening behind him. He shot the creature on its impenetrable hide, just above its tusks. Then he screamed at it.
His gambit worked. The four-tusked elephant-eared mutant boar charged him once more, this time more wildly than before. Animal rage drove its heavy legs, pounding the ground with a thunderous rhythm.
Jake holstered his blaster and stood in the beast's path, yelling at it. A moment before the creature was to slam into him, he pulled a small metal cylinder from a pouch on the back of his belt and tossed the device behind him, into the crate. Then, as the monster's tusks came within a foot of goring him, he jumped up. Stepping his right foot on top of one of the tusks, he pushed off, arching his head backward and extending his arms overhead. As he somersaulted, he grabbed the top edge of the open side of the crate and flipped himself onto the top.
The landing wasn't graceful. In fact, he tumbled onto his back. But he was clear of the beast's charge. The creature, with nothing in front of him to hit, continued past where Jake had been and slammed into the inside back wall of the crate. Then the device Jake tossed in detonated.
The explosion simultaneously knocked him off the top of the giant box and hurled it back against the rock wall of the cavern.
When the dust cleared and the coughing of the Waudure team stopped, they saw Jake on the ground near the back of the crate. His face bore a large scrape and a cut on his forehead. His left leg at the ankle rested wedged between the crate and the rock wall of the cavern.
Jake grinned.
"So, am I in?"
Drayin gestured with a tilt of his head to a few of his men, then he glanced at Jake on the ground next to the crate, which was still and silent now.
His men responded by hurrying over to Jake. The three of them leaned into the side of the crate. After a moment, it moved out from the cavern wall a few inches. Jake pulled his leg out from behind the giant box and got up.
He stood, looking to Drayin for a response. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Nadira tilting her head for a view past the men in front of her.
Drayin stepped over to Jake.
"If you're willing to die with us," he said, extending his arm to Jake, "we're willing to die for you."
Jake remembered how Nadira and Tay had embraced arms. Bond, not birth. He glanced at her and saw her nod to him. He took the man's arm as she had embraced Tay's.
"Dying's at the bottom of my list of priorities," he said, "but I get the sentiment. Thanks."
With mutual respect in their eyes, both men unclasped their arms.
Drayin reached under the front fold of his shirt and pulled out a sort of whistle that hung on a chain around his neck. "I would've called the beast off, if you were really in danger."
Jake shot him a raised eyebrow. "If I was in danger?"
Drayin smiled and tucked the whistle back under his shirt. "We'll skip the other tests." He glanced at the other crate. "That one gets a little wild. And it doesn't listen to me."
Jake looked at the second crate, wondering what precious creature waited inside. Then he turned back to Drayin.
"I figured I'd let it kill you if I decided you were a liability," Drayin said.
"Go team." Jake held his fist loosely in front of his chest, in a sarcastic gesture of enthusiasm.
Drayin walked closely past him, leaning in as he did. "Don't be a distraction to my team and we're good."
Jake looked at him as he passed, but then noticed Nadira nudging her way in front of the other Waudure to better see Jake. Her face, her eyes, made no attempt at concealing her attraction.
Where's that whistle? I think I'm in danger after all.
CHAPTER 24
K harn stood off to the side, watching Lorian carefully remove the components from the case. Kharn paced, only a few steps in either direction. He shifted his posture, as he waited for his science administrator to do his work.
"How soon until we can encode?"
Lorian, holding a small glass vial with a pair of metal tongs, didn't respond for a moment. After he sat the vial down delicately onto the table, he answered. "Soon. Once I mix the components, there is a settling process that must take place before we can proceed."
"Yes, yes," Kharn said, "I know." He paced more.
Lorian continued, "The process can't be accelerated. The solutions are too volatile. If we force it," he withdrew another vial from within the form-fitting pad inside the case, "we risk destabilizing the solution and losing any chance of encoding the weapon."
"You are right, Lorian." Kharn turned away from him. He stepped over to the large computer display on the wall behind him. After pressing a few buttons on the controls beneath it, he brought up a map of Daedalon.
Lorian glanced over his shoulder at what Kharn was doing. "Running the simulation again?"
"I need to factor in the latest weather projections," Kharn said, continuing to type on the controls below the wall-size screen.
"It'll work," Lorian said, returning to his work. "Once the solution is ready, we can program it. The storms will do the rest."
The screen above Kharn displayed a series of numbers overlaying the map. A few moments later, contours and vector arrows plotted the predicted weather patterns onto the azimuthal equidistant projection of the planet. Kharn watched as a single point of deep red grew and then morphed as it expanded, following the vectors that were the calculated winds. Within two minutes the simulation ran its course, and the red, representing the spread of the bioweapon, covered the map of the planet.
Kharn studied the entirety of the screen.
"What are you doing?" Lorian asked. "You've run that simulation a hundred times."
