He saluted. "Yes, ma'am," he said in a voice she could barely hear above the rumbling whine of the carriers.
Snapping a return salute, she said, "I'm tired of waiting for the MEF to figure out which hand to use and try to grab their own ass. Get your brigade into march formation. We're leaving."
He bowed slightly and said, "Very well, General." Just as he turned to walk away, she grabbed his shoulder.
"Wait a minute." He stopped mid step and turned back to face her while she surveyed the troop carriers and tanks of the Second Brigade. "They're all here. You have a full inventory of vehicles."
"Yes, ma'am. We repaired some and Colonel Therus agreed to let us borrow the bulk of his armor."
"So the First Brigade is holding the Highlands without their tanks."
"They still have a few, but he and I agreed that the General would want a full brigade when she decided to attack the Paladin."
"And what if the General doesn't agree, she asked?" He was right of course, but she always enjoyed seeing just how many moves ahead General Kim could really think.
"I have the elements in question on warning orders. If the General would prefer they return to the First Brigade, they can be there before the end of the day." He spoke calmly, as if discussing a chess move and looked at her with eyes that never moved, but told her it was a very good thing that he was on her side.
"That won't be necessary, General. You are correct. I'd take the whole division with me if I could. Carry on."
He bowed again and said, "Yes ma'am." He clasped his hands behind his back and walked the entire line, occasionally stopping to point and give an instruction she couldn't hear as his troops moved with rapid precision through their preparations. Every movement, from unplugging and neatly coiling the power cables on spindles attached to the carriers, to loading troops into the carrier bays, was conducted with an almost ceremonial grace that came from hours of drilling on even the most mundane procedures. There wasn't a single act that hadn't been discussed, planned, practiced and perfected.
It was the precision of the honed military mind she had been taught to embrace since the day she was born. There was one reason which justified their existence, and one reason alone, which now played out before her eyes as it had for her mother and her mother before her. That the one thing mankind seemed suited for was to conduct war was not merely accepted; it was embraced, nurtured and molded into a blade that stood between the Shoahn' and those who had invaded their world. She eyed the lone carrier in the rear where Shoahn'Fal had been quartered, along with the Old Scrolls. Once again, there was a real reason for all of this, even if it was just one flicker left - a flicker that was unlike any other in the universe.
Once again they would fight so that they shall survive. The thought that there might be something more flickered through her mind, snuffed out by a spark of pain just behind her eyes that snapped into her existence, barely noticed, and then was gone.
Priestess
Shoahn'Kra folded a tattered shawl and laid it on top of the rest of her belongings inside a cloth bag. She patted a swollen cloth bag infused with the pitch of a cord tree to make it water tight.
Shahn'Dra sat in the middle of their hut with her knees pulled up to her chest. Her antennae lay still against her head as she peeked over her hands while her mother packed.
"I still don't see why you have to go."
Shoahn'Kra tied a rope around her satchel and smiled. "You have more important things to do than look after your tired old mother, child."
"There is nothing more important."
Shoahn'Kra padded over to her daughter and sat down next to her, putting her arm around her shoulder. "Don't sulk, child. You have already shown yourself to be much too old for that."
"I feel alone already."
"You are not. The humans are here now."
"They bring war. Nothing else."
Shoahn'Kra gasped dramatically, hiding her urge to smirk. "Oh, is that all? Then why did you call them?"
"I was scared."
Shoahn'Kra turned her daughter's face towards her own. "As you should be. He has abandoned The Way. He has brought the Dark Winds." She peered deep into her daughter's eyes, probing past the sadness between them. "He has embraced Dren'Vil. These are the reasons you have called the humans."
"I know," Shahn'Dra said, pulling her chin away. She stared at the wall.
"They will need your help now, Shahn'Dra. And you will need theirs. Dren'Vil is a curse that all must find a way to conquer."
She stood up and picked up her satchel and water bag.
"Are you not also part of all?" Shahn'Dra asked.
"Indeed I am." Shoahn'Kra watched her daughter while she adjusted the satchel and walked to the door. "My part is to free you from the burden of tending me. I am too old for any other purpose. And so I go now. You understand."
"I do not."
"Yes, you do, my child." She opened the door and started to step out when Shahn'Dra leapt to her feet and ran to her mother, throwing her arms around her neck.
"I am not ready."
Shoahn'Kra clasped her hand over her daughter's. "None of us ever are."
"Where will you go?"
"Where I cannot be seen."
"That is too far." Shahn'Dra began to sob.
"Remember what I have told you. It is never forbidden to defend yourself. Let the meaning of that make itself known in your mind, Shahn'Dra." She grasped her daughter's shoulders and held her away so she could look into her eyes one last time. "Tell me now you know what that means. Show me I am right. Show me there is hope."
Shahn'Dra rolled her shoulders back and draped her hands at her side. She unfurled her antennae, letting them stretch out above her head, and held them perfectly still. "Of course I know what that means. I am the last priestess of the Pyramid. I am its guardian. I am its keeper."
Shoahn'Kra brushed her daughter's cheek, quivering as she held back her tears. "Indeed, you are."
Shahn'Dra took her hand. "There is a last time for all things. I will always miss being your child."
Proposal
Shahn'Dra and Major Walker each sat on a folding camp stool in front of his command tent. He watched her as she weaved her hands through the air, reaching out for something that she could not yet see, but sensed at the edge of her awareness. Walker wiped the sweat from his brow and flicked the moisture from the tips of his fingers. He grunted as he massaged his leg and hunched forward to stretch the muscles around his healing wound.
Shahn'Dra popped her eyes open and her antennae froze in place. Looking straight ahead, through everything and beyond the furthest reaches of what her eyes could see, she groped her way out of the camp stool to kneel in the dirt. Still staring into the distance, she extended a claw and scratched a rectangle in the ground. Then she drew a circle in the middle. He finger trembled as she scratched the wiggly sides of a triangle and then tapped the ground in its center. "This," she whispered, still staring like a blind woman.
'What does it look like?" Walker asked.
"It is the color of the sky." She lifted her finger and touched the inside of the rectangle. "And this is the color of night," she said.
"Where is it?" Walker asked.
"I'm looking at it," Shahn'Dra said, still staring straight ahead. "I can see it. There. And far away at the same time. Hidden inside a hut that rolls through the desert and growls like a tired animal. Sad." Her voice trailed off.
Walker looked at the diagram with half-closed eyes, straining to visualize what she was trying to show him.
"This is important," Shahn'Dra said, tapping the triangle. "What color do you call this?"
"Blue," he said.
"Why not the color of the sky?" she asked.
"Blue is easier, I guess. Why not blue?"
She lifted her snout to show a playful grin. "Things are the color of the sky because they are beneath it. They are the color of the ground because we walk upon it. They are the color of trees because we cut
into them."
"Green," Walker said. He had never seen anything green on Shoahn'Tu; not even the plants that grew from the sparse patches of soil that could nourish them could quite be called green.
"Once the color of the sea," she said.
"Hmm." He nodded absently.
"But this," she said, again tapping the triangle, "is, as you call it, blue. It is not connected. It was made this way by men with Dren'Vil in their hearts."
"Does it mean anything to you?"
"Yes." She lowered her snout and scooted closer to him. "It is the symbol of the Old Scrolls. They are a key to open the Pyramid." She pulled herself away from the trance and let her antennae settle back on her head. She looked at Major Walker and asked, "Do you remember what I showed you?"
"Captain Holt!" Walker yelled.
Inspecting one of the Cats hunkered down behind the command tent, Holt yelled back, "Yessir."
"What's the status on the Guard's Second Brigade?" Walker tried to get up, winced in pain and sat back down, massaging the wound on his leg.
Walking up to him, Holt said, "Easy there, boss. Doc says you need to give it another day."
"Second Brigade," Walker grunted.
"Our patrol lost contact, so nothing new since they left their compound."
"Well, it looks like they might be headed this way. Check the perimeter sensors, set up an OP and start working up a fire plan to defend against an attack coming in from somewhere between here and their compound."
"We don't have a lot to go on, sir," Holt said.
"Well," Walker grunted, "tell your patrol to get it in gear. We need to start now. We'll adjust as necessary when they get closer."
"Aye aye sir." Holt saluted and then ambled back to the Cat to finish his inspection.
"I know somebody who can help," Shahn'Dra said.
Walker put up his hand, telling her to wait as Petty Officer Graham approached for his hourly check on his patient.
Massaging the heal patch wrapped around his leg, he asked Graham, "Isn't there anything you can do about this itching?"
"Means it's healing," Graham said, pulling a portable monitor from his pack. He attached a metal plate to the heal patch and inserted its wires into the monitor. He tapped a few keys and tendrils of wire emerged from the plate and dug in to the heal patch. Studying the monitor, he said, "I told the Major, the more he fusses with it, the longer it will take to heal."
"Can't you make these moles work any faster?"
"You're spoiled sir. The moles take two days. On your own, you'd need six weeks. Now, sir, quit fussing with it." He jerked the leads from the monitor and the tendrils slipped back into the plate. He put both in his satchel and pulled out a syringe. He removed the plastic cap and jabbed the needle into Walker's shoulder.
"Ow!" Walker glared at his corpsman.
"All that fussing down there - you've killed off too many moles. Now, you need more."
"Well thanks for the warning."
Graham pulled the needle out of Walker's shoulder and said, "Think of this next time you feel like fussing with that leg. hmmm."
"Yeah, alright." Walker rubbed his shoulder and worked his arm in a circle as Graham walked away. "And Petty Officer Graham," he called after him.
Graham stopped and turned to face him. "Yes sir?"
"Next time you come around, I need to see an R-51 on your shoulder and some mag pouches on your belt."
Graham took a deep breath and nodded. "Yes sir."
Turning back to Shahn'Dra, Walker said, "You were saying you knew somebody who could help."
"You know him as Captain Brandt."
Walker blinked and then tilted his head towards her. "Dekker's XO?"
"I know him," she said. "He will hear me."
Walker reached down to massage his leg and stopped short. He rubbed his shoulder instead. "You can try, but listen Shahn, you cannot let him find out where I am. Do you understand?"
"He will believe me."
"You can't tell him about this camp. I know this is difficult for you to understand, so now you must believe me." He groaned and worked his arm again. "I don't know who to trust right now. You must keep our secret."
"I will keep your secret. And he will believe me. And he will help. All of these things are possible."
"I wish I had your confidence," he said.
Walker thought of the last meeting at MEF. In his mind's eye, he scanned the faces of everyone sitting at the table, asking himself a question as he thought of each one: Can I trust you? More than that, who among them could really do anything? Major Walker had found himself moving among shadows and searching out ways to remain unseen even as he himself was blind to the unfolding events the he knew had been set in motion - buy why? Not only did he need somebody he could trust, he needed somebody who would listen. Who among them understood the uncertainty of the obvious, the implications of shadows and was still willing to explore the alternatives?
His mind stopped to study one man's face. He had been the only one to actually say it, to admit that his Cataphracts were the only way to make it an even fight. He would be the one man that was least likely to be in step with whatever forces had decided to attack him on the very ground he was trying to protect. It was a long shot, but it was the only one he had. He wouldn't have to reveal much - just an intention. He wouldn't even have to show himself, would he? If the man refused, nothing would really change.
Walker stood up, pressing his hand against the bandage. "Come with me."
Destiny
Shahn'Dra crouched down behind the console deck of the jumpjet. Her antennae peeked up over the edge while she hunkered down, her eyes darting around the interior of the cockpit. Her heart thumped relentlessly as the craft surged through the sky. The craft bobbed and swayed from thermals - invisible pockets of warm air boiling up from the desert floor. She peeked out the side window to see the ground scurrying by far below. It made her dizzy and gave her a sick feeling inside, so she ducked back into the cockpit.
Sitting in the pilot's seat next to her, Major Walker turned a dial on the console between their two seats and punched a button. She watched him as he spoke, hoping to distract herself from the reality of moving through the sky.
"Marine Two, Marine Two, Two Bravo Delta, over."
Static, a sound she recognized from her own radio, mixed with the shining whisper of the turbines and the sound of air rushing by outside.
"Marine Two, Marine Two, Two Bravo Delta, over."
Something whined in the cockpit and then a voice crackled in the air. "Two Bravo Delta, this is Marine Two, go ahead."
"Give me Actual," Walker said.
"Stand by."
The sickness inside her had subsided. Although frightening, there was something about watching the ground rush by that had intrigued her. She peeked through the side window again. Her pulse quickened and the sickness came again, but not as much this time as she peered at the blur of clay and brush whisking by, as if some great hand were spinning Shoahn'Tu beneath them.
Colonel Harris's voice sounded from the speaker. "Two Bravo Delta, Marine Two Actual. I'm surprised to hear your voice, Major."
"Why is that Colonel?"
"You're a wanted man, Major."
"About that - can you tell me why?"
"Not at this time. You are advised to RTB immediately."
"We can talk about that later. I have something more important for you right now."
"I'm listening."
"Advise Enforcer Five package delivery Crimson Sunshine, coordinates to follow after delivery."
"My turn to ask why. What's this about, Major?"
"Just deliver the message. Enforcer Five will verify authenticity. Two Bravo Delta out."
The sound outside changed and the world slowed down. Shahn'Dra's eyes grew wide and she felt her heart leap as the ground rose up towards her. She jerked her head around to look at Walker. His eyes were calm as he pushed a lever down with his left hand and peered through the small
window at his feet. She decided she had seen enough of the outside and continued to watch Walker until the jumpjet landed and the world grew still again.
The canopy hissed open and Walker reached behind his seat to retrieve a cloth bag with a shoulder strap. He handed it to her and she cradled it in both hands.
"There's water and some root plant, along with the transmitter. Do you remember what I showed you about the transmitter?"
Shahn'Dra nodded, still cradling the bag.
"Is the Priestess of the Pyramid ready?" he asked, smiling.
Shahn'Dra slung the bag over her shoulder. Remembering why they had come here, she stood up and swung her foot to the steps along the side of the fuselage. She eased down one step at a time, easing her weight onto one foot as it found the ground and then stepped off with the second. She walked around the front of the aircraft and looked up at Walker.
"I am ready."
"I can't tell you for sure if any of this is going to work, but Captain Brandt should be along in a while."
"I trust him," she said. "He will be here."
"If nobody is here after the sun leaves the sky, use the transmitter and I'll come back to pick you up."
"I understand."
He smiled again, but she could see the worry behind the mask he wore for her. She was just a child to him, cowering in the corner as Dark Winds cascaded over her soul. She thought of the word the others used, and the gesture they made. She raised her clawed hand to her forehead, angling it out as if she were shading her eyes from the sun. She scowled, trying to look serious.
"We will stop him, sir," she said.
His eyes glistened and his expression softened for just a moment as he saluted back.
"Very well," he said, "Carry on."
The canopy closed over him and she turned away as the jumpjet's engines churned the dirt and bits of rock into a momentary whirlwind. When it subsided, she turned back around and watched it lift into the sky and then float away until it was just a speck glinting in the sun.
She looked around, seeing nothing but scrub, dirt and clay as far as the eye could see. She was in the heart of Shoahn'Tu, a place where she knew she could survive for days even after the most hardy human would keel over from dehydration and heat stroke. She felt safe here.
The Terran Mandate Page 12
