by Nick Cole
So the Republic could kill her.
On this distant world, his squad of leejes was surrounded by the galaxy’s version of the perfect killing machines and tasked with doing the impossible. One more time. Again. For just a little bit longer.
He saluted them all, each in turn. The Legion salute.
“For the Legion.”
The five remaining troopers, shot to hell and dying before his eyes, seemed to stand a little taller in that moment when their general honored them. After all, it wasn’t every day a living legend of the feared Legion saluted you. Even if you were about to die.
Lieutenant Hilbert, whose men would one day call him “Pappy.”
Sergeant Reyal.
Corporal Tacas.
Specialists Ahamalee and Ren.
They stood… and saluted their general back.
“For the Legion.”
Then Rechs grabbed the hand of the daughter of Ambassador Krayvan and disappeared through the smoking hole in the outer defenses of the pirate’s fortress. The Cybar were coming for them, and this time they would get through. The rendezvous with the Repub rescue shuttle was five clicks to the rear. Five clicks through a burning swamp. Time to get moving.
He towed her after him and out into the festering, blazing jungle. Republic warships had just nailed the area with an orbital strike. Rex’s armor was offline, but it would reboot after the strike, once it had dealt with the EMP effects. He had his hand cannon for a weapon, and that was it. The silk bikini-clad girl who would become Mother Ree had managed to grab a battered N-16 assault blaster from the gloves of a dead leej.
He dragged her through the fetid jungle, pushing through the tall grass toward the swamp and the river. Large sections of the jungle had gone up in walls of hot flame, and black plumes of oily smoke rose into the air. But the primary threat was the half-biologic, half-mech killing machines known as the Cybar. A lifeform undiscovered until now. They had been a surprise to the five hundred leejes who survived the assault landing.
The leejes of the 101st.
Rechs had led them against the pirate stronghold on this planet. Officially, that was their mission—to knock out a pirate base. Unofficially, it was to secure the girl he was now trying to save, so she could be returned for execution at the Sector Orbital Fortress on Demaron V. Nearly a thousand men lost, all for one girl. All so she could die in the right place, at the right time.
When Rechs and the girl reached the river, they found the remains of a pirate raider, a converted medium freighter, sinking into the mud of the shallow yellow river. The bodies of the dead crew drifted away with the sluggish current.
“What now?” says the girl at Rechs’s side. Though she has been brave, and tough, and has fought alongside the leejes sent to rescue her, everyone has a limit. And she’s close to hers.
“Hang on,” grunts Rechs through his armor. Inside, his HUD is trying to reboot, but it’s malfunctioning. He hefts her onto his shoulder and wades out into the muddy yellow river. In unpowered armor. But the Cybar are coming, and maybe the river is some kind of defense. He can hear their scouts thrashing through the tall grass like Dongolian dust devils, but worse. More murderous and maniacal somehow.
“We’ll get through this,” he tells her as the mud sucks at his boots and the water tries to carry him away .
“Then what? You’ll take me to Demaron to be killed?”
Rechs doesn’t say anything, because there’s something big in the water with them. Some other lifeform on this planet no one has bothered to survey because it was overrun by ancient killer robots long before anyone had even heard of the Galactic Republic. He hopes it’s not some kind of alpha predator.
Gargantuan muddy brown humps slither through the river. It’s some kind of sea serpent swirling about them and causing the water to whirlpool and froth. Rechs can only think of the eels mankind discovered on one of the first worlds they surveyed after the Big Jump. Murderous and vicious beasts. But in time they became great traders and scientists. You just had to get past the deadly neurotoxin they paralyzed their victims with, before they dragged them down into the coral-laden depths of their emerald water world.
But this thing coiling about them in the water is much larger than those eels. Like some prehistoric beast of fable and legend.
Rechs won’t be able to use his gun in the river.
The girl in his arms shrieks when it comes close. The mammoth coils bump against them and almost knock Rechs over. He goes down on one knee in the sucking mud, and she’s underwater with him. He can hear her gasping and choking on the dark water. It takes all his strength to force his unpowered armor up out of the muck and raise her back above the water line over his head. His helmet is almost submerged, but he gets her out of the water, and a few feet later he can feel the rise of the sand ahead.
They collapse on the sandbar, both of them gasping. Along the far bank they can hear the mechanical monotone chatter of the Cybar. It’s like being pursued by a pack of ghostly mechanical wolves.
The armor is still struggling through its reboot. It’s taking forever, and Rechs wonders if maybe it’s not finally done for. He knows they don’t make ’em like this anymore. He slaps one armored fist into the side of his helmet, and the armor reboot cycle finally engages like it’s supposed to.
For the next hour, the two of them try to stay ahead of the Cybar. They run through the smoking jungle on the far side of the river. They come across twisted debris and dead pirates from the battle that took place overhead. Three Republican corvettes and three hundred pirate raiders of various designs had fought in the skies above.
That alone had been enough to make it a major action. But no one would ever know, because the Republic was merely covering up all their dirty secrets with dead leejes these days. And this girl was yet one more secret that needed to be cleaned up.
And that makes you nothing but an assassin, Rechs told himself as they ran.
A Cybar came out of the jungle at them. Rechs didn’t have time to bring his hand cannon to bear before it had three iron tentacles wrapped around one of his arms. Another was flailing like a metal whip, trying to crush his helmet. The Cybar’s face, a bizarre hydraulic jaw assembly beneath actual eyes from some big jungle cat, leaned in. He fought to push the thing off him so he could shoot it.
The jaws opened and bit into the armor effortlessly, tearing away a section of the shoulder plating. Rechs smashed in the “face” of the neurotic monster with a head butt that seemed to do little other than sound a loud metallic ring above the burning crackle and snap of the blazing jungle. And the thing was growing more biomechanical tentacles and wrapping them around Rechs’s armor.
“Should I shoot it?” screamed the girl.
Rechs weighed the option as even more tentacles sprouted and whipsnaked around his armor. The beast was dragging him to the ground, and he couldn’t do anything about it.
“Do it!”
She fired on full auto. Shots hit his armor and rebounded. Not a pleasant thing when you’re inside old Mark I armor, but it was better than being holed by a blast. Others hit the Cybar, and it emitted a ghostly shriek and frenetically leapt away. A moment later it was scrabbling through the dead fall of the burning jungle debris and lunging for the barely clad girl.
In one fluid motion Rechs drew, tracked, and fired.
The Cybar died rolling toward the girl’s feet.
Target Z987 had been the girl’s designation in the briefing. He tried to remember her name. Maybe he hadn’t learned it on purpose. Maybe that made it worse.
You’re just an assassin now.
No, he thought to himself. I’m no hired killer. There are… reasons.
Except right there in the jungle, he couldn’t think of any reasons that made sense for why he’d been doing the Republic’s dirty work. It hadn’t started out that way. It had started out as something noble. Something worth fighting for.
“It’s changed,” he muttered.
“What?” gasped the
panting girl.
The leejes had been calling her “the Fox” ever since seeing a picture of her during the briefing holo. She was tall, lithe, with red hair and pale skin. Piercing arctic blue eyes. No wonder the pirate who’d botched everything and carried her off the starliner on her way to be executed had chosen to add her to his harem instead. No wonder. She was an epic beauty.
But to Rechs she was just a girl.
Not even a target.
“What is…” He paused. He knew he was crossing some boundary. Some line. Some river on a map that meant a lot more than just a navigational feature. And he’d learned long ago that you didn’t always come back when you crossed certain rivers. What was the old saying? Let the dice fly.
He nodded to himself. She was staring at him. Her mouth open. Her skin dirty with ash and blood. The blood of leejes she’d dragged out of harm’s way in the middle of psychotic firefights with real live alien monsters. The very same legionnaires who’s been sent to kill her.
“What’s your name?” he asked her.
She shook her head. There was some sudden anger there. And then a helpless smile. An innocent smile despite everything. She had begun to believe that the galaxy had forgotten her. Forgotten her name. She’d been close to the edge.
“Mara,” she whispered.
He stepped close to her and took off his helmet. She saw a man with iron-gray hair and burning blue eyes. His skin was tan and hard, and if she’d had to guess, she would’ve told you he was middle-aged, barely.
If she had been told he’d once seen the Pacific Ocean of a long gone and fabled Earth, she wouldn’t have believed it.
“Mara, you won’t be executed. I promise.”
She let the N-16 fall to her side, and she exhaled like some sudden weight had been lifted from her slender shoulders. She gave one uncontrollable sob, then stood on her toes to reach up and grab his battered armor. She closed her eyes and kissed him on the cheek.
Yes… in the months of fleeing to come, she would fall in love with him. But he would never allow that love to blossom beyond this one princess’s kiss for the knight in battered armor who happened along the way. He would get her away from the Repub fleet that had come to kill her. They would run, and he would find a place for her to hide far out on the edge of the galaxy.
And all it would cost him was his place in the Republic, becoming Public Enemy Number One for the Council of Reason, and having the galaxy’s highest bounty placed upon his head.
But in that moment, with a jungle world full of lunatic monsters burning down all around them, Mother Ree—who had once been a beautiful young girl named Mara—found the love of her life.
She would never not think about him.
***
“I see you’re still rescuing young girls from the clutches of the Republic, Tyrus,” said Mother Ree, looking over her shoulder at Prisma.
“Some things never change, I guess,” Rechs mumbled.
They were ahead of the rest, and the brief space provided them enough room to have a moment’s private conversation on their way into the interior of the monastery.
“She doesn’t need to be rescued,” he said. “No one’s looking for her. Her father was just murdered by some local warlord. She needs a new life now. And I can’t give her that out there. But you…”
“You haven’t changed much,” said Mother Ree as she walked arm-in-arm with the bounty hunter. “But of course it would be foolish of me to think you would.”
Behind them, deep within the ice caverns that led into the inner sanctum of the hidden monastery, followed Prisma, the wobanki, KRS-88, and a coterie of disciples.
“I can change,” Rechs whispered morosely. “Some might even say that you were responsible for the biggest change in my life.”
“Ah, yes,” Mother Ree crooned. “Famed legionnaire general betrays Republic and absconds with daughter of traitor.” She paused when she saw that her teasing was making him even more withdrawn than normal. “You really did give it all up to save me, Tyrus. I know that now. I never fully understood it then… At the time I just thought you were my knight in shining armor come to rescue me. I had no idea the Republic would want you dead because of it. I was a young girl and I didn’t understand the ways of the galaxy—or even life. I only believed in good and evil and happy endings.”
She looked at him, her eyes serious now. Watching him as she spoke. “In the years since, I’ve come to appreciate your sacrifice. And all I can say now, and I know it’ll never be enough… is thank you, General Rex. I still believe in good and evil… and happy endings.”
They entered the grand colonnade of the outer monastery. Massive pillars of sculpted ice led out across a cobalt blue river of running translucent ice diamonds. Small icebergs disappeared into the darkness. On the far side, two grand and ornately carved doors signaled the entrance to the inner sanctum. Behind them, Prisma could be heard oohing and aahing. KRS-88 told her to mind the edge.
“It wasn’t all your fault, Mara,” Rechs began. “My leaving the Republic… it was long time coming. You were just…”
And then words failed him.
“What was I ‘just’ to you, Tyrus?” Her eyes searched his like they had so many years ago. Seeking some perfect answer when she begged him not leave her in safe hands that would hide her from the Republic for the rest of her life. “I loved you, Tyrus. You know that, right?”
They continued on. He was almost leading her, as he had so long ago when she was a mere slave girl fleeing an invading force sent to kill her. But she was not so old that she didn’t feel him squeeze her hand once. Firmly.
They passed through the inner sanctum and entered the gardens. The wobanki begin to yowl, and Prisma gasped at the sudden lush beauty.
“The Hidden Gardens of Revelation,” Mother Ree announced with quiet pride.
They were standing on an immense platform. Below them, stretching seemingly in all directions, was a garden paradise. The cavern blazed with a light descending through the layers of jagged ice above. In the distance, Rechs could even see a smoking mountain.
“This is… amazing,” Prisma said. She came forward, staring in awe at the vast forest. Birds rushed from tree to tree, calling to one another in constant joy. The smell of jasmine and sandalwood hung heavy in the air. From a distance came the sounds of drums and flute. “What is this place?” she asked, her voice filled with wonder and awe.
Mother Ree knelt down next to the young girl.
“A place where one can find the answers we hide inside ourselves. And a place where some come to hide for the rest of their lives. It is where they find peace in a violent galaxy. Hidden beneath the ice here is a whole continent just like this, a continent we’ve created with bio-engineering techniques and philosophy. The Republic will never find you here, girl, and you will be safe for the rest of your life. If you want to stay with us.”
Mother Ree put her hand on the young girl’s wiry shoulder and felt her flinch. But she also saw the girl’s wide brown eyes gazing in amazement at Mother Ree’s garden.
Prisma shook her head. Then, slowly, she turned to face Rechs.
“No. I don’t want to hide. And I don’t want to run away. I want that… that… the man who killed my daddy… I want him dead. And I won’t ever… ever… I won’t ever stop until he’s dead. I’ll get out of here any way I can. I’ll join the Legion. I’ll learn how to kill. And then I’ll find him…” And now she was sobbing. But she continued on. “I will kill him for taking my daddy away. I will kill them all!”
Mother Ree pulled the small girl close, and Prisma, like some pole that wouldn’t bend despite all the winds the galaxy could throw at it, finally allowed herself to surrender and be embraced as her shoulders shook and the galaxy refused to change.
***
Rechs is deep with the hidden forest. He has wandered long and far away from the rest. And even though evening has fallen through the ice above, it is still warm and fragrant down here in this living forest beneath
an icy planet lost out in the Big Dark.
He hasn’t done this for a long time.
Life, a very long life in fact, has been spent jumping through space within the silence of a ship. Alone with his thoughts and memories until they became a kind of prison. And then there was all the searching through a thousand seedy spaceports along the edge, looking for…
For…
Bounties? But that didn’t seem true, even though it was. It seemed like a lie he’d been telling himself all along. A cover. There had been another reason for it all.
Another voice was there, and then—then it was gone. Maybe it had been whispering in the days since he’d met the girl. He just hadn’t been able to hear it. Until now. It spoke the answer that always came up when he asked why he was doing what he was doing: that if the Repub wouldn’t keep law and order on the galaxy’s edge, then it was up to him, and bounty hunters like him.
Leaving the Legion and betraying the Republic had freed him to operate beyond their weak and ineffective laws.
Isn’t that why you’ve been out here in a thousand spaceports and a million cantinas leaping through the Big Dark? Haven’t you been cleaning it up on your own, one wanted thug at a time?
“The galaxy’s a pretty big place,” he told the burbling fountain in the night. Some lone forest bird gave a short and mournful call in the twilight. The forest was almost utterly silent now.
The truth was, he hadn’t been thinking much. Not for a long time. He’d become a puppet. All strings and wires for the impetus to distribute justice. A killing puppet. Except who was pulling the strings? What original reason had you out here… waiting all along? Waiting near the galaxy’s edge for someone to show up.
But you haven’t really been doing that, have you, Rechs?
The voice that talked to him sometimes in his head—asking him questions he didn’t want to answer—was speaking here in the forest as though it were right next to him. So much so that he turned to see who it was that spoke.
