Soldier's Duty

by Patty Jansen

  Braedon went into a bakery and came out with a bag of bread rolls which they took to Rehan at the airport.

  In the cramped cabin of the craft, they studied plans and discussed their attack.

  Braedon's supply of rolls vanished.

  When the sky had gone dark blue, they donned armour and then the jackets and cloaks. Izramith strapped her guns on: one on the waist, one on her right arm, one on her left leg. She felt cold and hot at the same time, and her sweaty hands made moist marks on the gun barrels.

  Daya wore and Asto-style silver insulation suit under his cloak, as well as armour. He carried just one gun, and also a Mirani crossbow slung over his shoulder.

  Izramith grinned. "Use their own weapons against them, huh? I'm afraid that thing will only slow you down. If they have charge guns, what good is a crossbow going to be?"

  "Wait and see."

  Braedon gave her a look that said there was more to this arrangement, that perhaps this wasn't a regular crossbow, or that Daya had some trick up his sleeve.

  All dressed up and armed, they left the craft again after checking and re-checking all the gear.

  In single file, they passed the checkpoint again, where Daya spoke to the guards.

  The guard chuckled and pointed at the crossbow.

  "What did he say?" Izramith asked Braedon when they passed the checkpoint.

  "Daya said that we're cold and going to find some blankets. The guard asked if the crossbow was to chase off the maramarang."

  The cousins of the Barrash meili. Ah, so the crossbow was part of a disguise.

  "They've become worse since we left." Braedon searched the sky. "Stay close to walls."

  The streets had not been very busy when they came here earlier, but now they were deserted. In the commercial quarter, shops were closed and the only windows that were not dark had heavy curtains that blocked most of the light. The whole city could have been deserted for all Izramith knew.

  In the alley between the council building and the Trader Guild headquarters it was so dark that Izramith could barely see the ground. A broad ribbon of stars arced overhead with the brightest star a pink dot low on the horizon. Of course, that was not a star, but Asto.

  They walked in single file along the wall of the Trader Guild headquarters, first Braedon and then Dashu and Izramith, with Wairin and Daya behind. The orange glow of light radiated from an upstairs window, but didn't reach the ground.

  Braedon stopped. "This stop will do. Once you're up there, make sure that you spend as little time as possible exposed on that wall."

  Izramith took up position with her back to the wall. She linked her hands together. Braedon stepped into them and climbed on the wall.

  "All clear." He heaved himself up, and vanished. The last visible part of him was the hem of his cloak as it jerked away when he jumped.

  Next was Wairin, who was considerably stronger but needed more effort to get up. "You heavy bugger."

  He, too, clambered over the top of the wall and vanished. Then Daya, and Dashu was last. She kneeled on top of the wall and extended a warm hand to help Izramith up.

  "Damned freezing hellhole," she muttered at Izramith.

  The top of the wall provided a view over a longitudinal courtyard that ran past the side of a single-storey part of the building, all shrouded in darkness. Good.

  A light from a reader flicked on at the base of the wall, gilding Daya's face. He was looking at a map of the building.

  Dashu slid down and Izramith followed, landing heavily on the ground.

  Daya led the group across the courtyard.

  In the far end there were steps into an arched entryway that ended at a door that sagged on its hinges. A chain around the door handles held it shut, but when Izramith pulled, the door broke clean in half. The chain fell off, and she caught it before it could land on the paving.

  They entered a corridor with gritty floor that stretched away on both ends. Dusty and broken furniture stood stacked against both side walls.

  Braedon mouthed that way and started off to the left. Their footsteps were the only sound in the stuffy space.

  Izramith made a mental picture of the building. She noted all side corridors and passages. Some doors stood open, revealing dusty rooms with more furniture.

  They came to a door that led outside, this one properly locked. Daya stopped to examine the doorframe, looked behind him, drew his charge gun and fired at a little knob at the top of the doorframe. The charge left a black mark on the frame.

  He opened the door. "Quick."

  Into a courtyard which looked like the one that Izramith had seen from the other side when talking to the guard. In the time it had taken them to get here, the sky had turned almost black. A light from a top floor window spread a golden glow through the courtyard.

  Daya said, "Up there."

  Wairin started across the courtyard—

  The air moved.

  Braedon yelled, "Watch out!"

  Someone fired, but the shot missed the dark shape that swooped over the courtyard, sharply rose, looped back to Wairin—

  "Get out of the way!"

  Daya shoved past Izramith.

  A second dark shape fell from the sky and latched onto Daya's cloak. Huge wings flapped, the tips brushing Izramith's head.

  "Run!" Daya shouted.

  Braedon grabbed her arm and dragged her across the courtyard, while more dark shapes rained from the sky. Into an alcove. Wairin and Dashu were already there.

  "What the hell are those things?" Dashu asked, panting.

  "Maramarang. Don't stick a hand out. They'll eat you alive."

  Izramith pressed herself against the stone in the alcove, clutching her gun. This fucking planet was full of things that ate people. "What about Daya?" She didn't dare fire into the courtyard or she might hit him.

  Daya stood where they'd left him, covered in the black furry creatures. They hung off his shoulders and arms, one crawled on his head. Like the meili in Barresh, only much bigger and darker.

  Daya patted fur, scratched wings. One of the creatures headbutted his leg. Daya crouched and scratched its head. It rolled over, exposing a grey furry belly.

  Braedon gaped. "I've never seen anything like this before. Any normal person would be dead by now. They usually start by eating the hands."

  But Daya wasn't a normal person. Did none of the others see the blue glow that hovered over his skin?

  One by one, the creatures drooped off and once more took to the air with a great flapping of wings. Daya dusted off his sleeves and strode across the courtyard. His shirt was covered in hair.

  Izramith turned her attention to the door in the alcove.

  "This is the one," Daya said. A strange and vaguely unpleasant smell hung about him. "This is where they took me a few years ago. Guest quarters they said. There was no one else here then. The accommodation upstairs has all the luxuries, but the door remains locked."

  "How did you get out?" There was no handle or visible lock on the outside and pushing the door didn't even make it move.

  "Out the window."

  "I don't think we have time to mess around," Izramith said, taking her gun for its bracket. "They've already been alerted that we opened the other door." She pointed back at the door which Daya had just disabled. A tiny orange light flashed in the darkness of the porch.

  "Stand back." She fired at the lock.

  The material of the lock plate smoked and melted. The hole was big enough to stick a couple of fingers through—oh, fuck, that was hot. She pulled down her sleeve, jammed her fingers in the hole and felt around for something to push. The inside of the door was full of prickly metal things which moved under her fingertips.

  No time to be gentle. Izramith pushed and pulled as hard as she could. Now there was some movement in the door where there hadn't been any before.

  She took a step back and shouldered the door with all her strength. It creaked and moved a bit more. Again. Something snapped inside the fram
e, but the door still didn't open. She took a few more steps back and launched herself at the door with all her force.

  There was another snap. A whole section of the frame broke. The door shot open, and Izramith stumbled into the dark space beyond, clutching her side from a sharp stabbing pain.

  Oh shit. Did she just break something?

  She was in a stone-paved hallway with a set of stairs leading up. Golden light shone from the top floor, and the faces of at least twenty people looked down.

  "Are you prisoners here?"

  None of them said anything.

  But these had to be the people. At least half of them were zhadya-born men, the others keihu women, Pengali men and women and others she didn't recognise. Pale faces, sunken cheeks, hollow eyes. Many wore tattered clothes. Their arms carried red blotches from the cold. A man had only one shoe.

  And, as she progressed up the stairs, the stink of unwashed bodies grew.

  The people shrank back from her as if they were ghosts, or as if she was a ghost. In their emaciated faces, their eyes looked unnaturally bright and large.

  "How many of you up there?" Izramith asked.

  She'd come out in a large room with many sets of mis-matched tables and chairs, where people sat. There were women, there were children. One of the girls looked pregnant, much too young.

  A fire burned in the hearth in the corner, but it barely did anything to raise the temperature in the room.

  "Get all your clothes, we're taking you out of here."

  "It's useless," said a wrinkled man with long greying hair. He was a zhadya-born with a strong Hedron accent. "We tried to escape many times, but they always catch you."

  "Not this time. We got help from outside. How many of you?"

  "There's thirty-four, thirty-five including the babe."

  "Is Reyar here?"

  "How do you know him?" said a middle-aged man in the corner. He was Hedron zhadya-born with long and lanky greying hair that hung limply down both sides of his face.

  "I'm Izramith."

  Silence. He rose and came closer until he faced her. "Damn, I didn't think that sister-in-law of mine would ever come to any good." His voice sounded husky and clouded with emotion.

  The fathomless depth of his eyes made her shiver. His shirt hung off him like an empty bag, dirty and torn. The light from an oil lamp lit his face from the side, bringing out canyons and crags in ravaged face. A scab on his forehead looked infected.

  There were also scabs and dirty bandages on his lower arms. Purple blotches marked his skin.

  A wave of nausea threatened to overwhelm her.

  The other members of her team had come up the stairs behind her, Wairin with a hard expression on his face, but Dashu pale and wide-eyed. Clearly, she had never seen anything like this before.

  Daya said, "Come on then, quick, we need to get down. Rehan is coming." He strode across the room and disappeared through a doorway in the far corner.

  The old man who seemed to be the group's leader, said, "Down the stairs? That's not going to be easy. A lot of us can barely walk."

  "We'll carry any of you who can't walk. Get anything you want to bring."

  Braedon was standing near the window, talking on his comm to Rehan. He spoke a rendition of Trader Coldi so full of jargon that he might as well have spoken another language.

  Some of the residents already lined up, one of them the pregnant woman, who was also the mother of a young child. Izramith noticed the groove in the woman's nose: she was keihu. But couldn't have looked less like keihu had she tried. Too gaunt, her hair too dull and too straight, her skin too pale.

  Damn, how long had she lived, and been mistreated, here?

  The older residents were slowest to get ready, and not just because of their age.

  "We tried to get out so many times," a man told her. "We always failed. It's the punishment afterwards that gets you."

  Dashu and Wairin were already helping people down the stairs. Izramith helped another keihu woman who had a bad leg. She was so skinny that it looked like a mere breeze would snap her bones.

  "Didn't they feed you?" Izramith asked.

  The woman didn't reply and obviously didn't speak Coldi, but clutched onto Izramith's arm all the way down into the hall. She shivered, her hands were cold as ice. What the hell did Miran do to these people?

  Izramith ran back up the stairs—

  A window shattered upstairs. People yelled.

  "They're already shooting at us!" That was Dashu.

  Izramith ordered, "You and Wairin, go down and secure the courtyard."

  Wairin and Dashu thundered back down the stairs. She ran up, meeting Braedon on his way down. "Got to guide Rehan to make sure he doesn't come to the wrong courtyard."

  Then he, too, was gone.

  Izramith entered the upstairs room. "All of you, hurry up. Collect anything that you would not want to leave behind, and get dressed in as many clothes as possible. Then come down the stairs as far as you can. Help people who can't." She found Reyar's face in the group. "Come on, whatever language they speak, tell them to hurry up, if they don't want to be left behind. Get you backsides moving. We've got a couple of very high-profile people with us, and they risk a lot by coming here, so if you want to stay here then fine, but everyone else, don't drag. When that aircraft comes down, I want everyone in the courtyard."

  "Aircraft?" the old man said. "You are bringing an aircraft? Who are you?"

  "Hedron guards," Reyar said. He held a near-empty cloth bag over his shoulder. "She's my sister's daughter. If my sister is anything to go by, this will be our best chance to escape, because she's stubborn as hell and doesn't stop until she gets her way."

  That seemed to convince the few remaining people to move. The rest were on the stairs and in the hall.

  But where was Daya?

  She crossed the room and found that the door where he had gone led into a corridor with a number of doors to the side. Those were dorms, with rows of simple beds. There were no carpets here and no fires. The staleness of the air reminded her of Hedron.

  "Daya?" She arrived at the end of the corridor and couldn't see him anywhere. She walked into one of the rooms that faced the courtyard.

  "Daya?"

  He stood in front of the window, trying to open it. Both Wairin and Dashu were in the courtyard, firing into an alcove on the other side.

  "What's going on?" Daya asked

  "The guards have discovered the security breech. Come, help me open this."

  Izramith kicked the window. The frame bulged outward but didn't budge. Of course they would make these windows from glass-stone. Imported glass-stone no doubt, because there would be none of it in the ground here. The place to find glass-stone was Barresh.

  "Why not use the stairs?"

  "I want to get on that roof down there so I can pick off anyone who enters that courtyard."

  She pushed her cloak back and took her gun from its bracket. Turned it on, and the safety off. Normal glass, you could melt, but glass-stone you couldn't.

  With the gun on moderate setting, she fired at the frame where it was attached to the wall. The room filled with the arid scent of smoke from burning paint. She yanked at the handle. Something popped. Another yank, and the whole frame came loose.

  She peeked outside, but saw nothing except the courtyard paving lit by flapping oil lights. Where were Wairin and Dashu?

  Izramith lifted one leg to the windowsill and heaved herself up. The roof sloped away steeply from underneath the window, and at the bottom there was...

  Nothing.

  Just the empty courtyard, the flapping lights under the gallery levels. There was a light on in the opposite wing. That definitely hadn't been on before.

  The door on the porch opened a fraction. Izramith used the infrared sensor on the gun to track movement. There were three people at the door, armed and crouching.

  By their stance and shape, all three were men. None were Coldi. She would be happier knowing
where Wairin and Dashu were, but—

  The first man came onto the porch. Definitely Mirani.

  She fired.

  He went down without a sound. The door shut again.

  Shit.

  "Do you know how far away Rehan is?" she whispered to Daya, but he didn't seem to hear her. He wouldn't know guards' hand signals; she wasn't even sure that he would be watching.

  She could just see the tip of his crossbow. Why the fuck didn't he get the gun? Sheesh, she wished she had Braedon at her back. He wouldn't persist with stupid old-fashioned weapons for the sake of being interesting. Or something.

  Something was now happening under the porch where she had shot the man. A faint glow of light and dark figures moving. And more light behind the windows to the left of the door.

  Ah, there was Wairin, on the far side of the courtyard. Dashu would be with him, Braedon with the prisoners on the stairs.

  And Rehan… She held her breath to listen, but heard nothing unusual. Then again, the Rhion was known as a silent craft, especially the smaller models such as this one.

  Did Wairin and Dashu know that there were a bunch of soldiers behind that door? What were they even doing on that far end of the courtyard?

  Izramith wriggled so the slid down the steep slope of the roof until her feet hit the gutter. She lay flat on her back, holding the gun in front.

  The door on the porch opened again.

  One man came out, and then another. Izramith watched them through the infrared screen on her gun. A third man came out, while the first one left the porch and inched along the building's wall.

  She sensed movement in the courtyard and the next moment a flash erupted where the men stood. Her gun's visor tracked the shot back to the source. All right, that was Dashu's position. Good shot, that one.

  More soldiers came out the door. She counted at least five.

  There was also the unmistakable roar of aircraft engines.

  Damn, they were outnumbered and there would soon be a fire fight in this courtyard. They couldn't have that when Rehan was supposed to land in here.