Celestial Hit List

by Charles Ingrid

  How long had it been since he’d run up against such blind idealism and excitement? Storm stood a moment as though held in thrall peering into a mirror, looking at himself twenty-five years ago, but his youth would be a poor copy of this boy—his own hair much darker blond, almost muddied, and his eyes sun-faded with squint marks at the corners from too much wind and laughter. Then he shook himself mentally as he realized that Rawlins eagerly awaited his answer. He nodded. “I’ll think about it.”

  “Very good, sir. That’s all I can ask.” Rawlins saluted again.

  Storm moved past him in the corridor and on up to the lounge, his mind clouded with faint memories—and he paused for another second, poised in the cubbyhole’s doorway, as he wondered which memories were real and which had been implanted.

  “Damnit, Storm, don’t just stand there, you’re blocking the beer run. We’ve got this down to a fine science and the timing is to the millisecond.” Kavin shouted good-naturedly at him over the tiny round table that brimmed with empty glasses. “Glad you could make it.”

  The commander swept aside a few disposables to make room for Jack. Others had been there and left and now only the two of them were there, along with the invisible beer runner, somewhere in midshuttle.

  “What is it?”

  Kavin leaned back in his form hugging chair and put both heels up on the table. His silvery hair gleamed in the low power illumination of what had been intended to be a closet. But his brown eyes weren’t dim. He’d had a drink or two, that Jack could tell, but he’d never known the commander to get drunk. Kavin eyed him. “How long have we known each other?”

  “Long enough, I’d say.”

  “The mercenary code. A man protects your back once and that’s all you have to know about him.”

  Jack grinned and set his own heels up. “Something like that.”

  “You never asked about what Scott told the emperor.”

  “I figured you’d tell me if you wanted me to know.” He shrugged. “If not, I already knew enough about you.”

  Kavin smiled as the beer runner ducked in with two ice cold bottles and left. Jack had a fleeting thought that they were lucky to live in a time when ship’s gravity could be maintained throughout an entire flight. They popped the caps off and clinked the necks together.

  “To soldiers.”

  “To soldiers,” Jack echoed. He took a long drink. “Only once did I ever wonder about you,” he said to his commander.

  “Oh, yeah? When was it?”

  “Where were you when I got hijacked to Lasertown?”

  Kavin’s smile went lopsided. “I followed you,” he said. “I got as far as Ng’s cold sleep lab and killed the son of a bitch for his troubles.”

  “What? I was told his employer did it for botching the job.”

  “Probably would have. I beat ‘em to it. Couldn’t get him to tell me where you went, though. Sorry.”

  They tilted their bottles back again. Jack felt better than he had in a long time.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “Don’t mention it. You’d have done the same for me.” Kavin slapped his bottle down and sat up, suddenly alert.

  “What is it?”

  Kavin shook his head.

  “What is it?” Jack repeated.

  “Listen.”

  He did. Then he felt it… the vibration of the ship’s orbit. They were coming in gradually—it would be another hour before they hit dirtside, but now he felt the inconsistency of the motion.

  Barely perceptible. Only veteran mercenaries like Kavin and himself might notice it.

  “Shit. We’re in evasive maneuvers.”

  “Right. What do you say we pick a few of our best and brightest and suit up?”

  The ship shuddered. Jack looked at his friend. “That was a burst. I’d say you’re a little late.”

  They surged to their feet. Kavin activated the intercom just inside the door sill.

  “The following personnel meet at the suit lockers. Lassaday, Abdul, Pickett, Hernandies, Peres, Sax—”

  “Rawlins,” Jack suggested.

  “And Rawlins.” Kavin’s voice had just finished echoing throughout the corridors when the general quarters alarm went off.

  Jack and Kavin were already halfway to the equipment hold. They took a running leap through a closing bulkhead, somersaulted back onto their feet. Jack slid down the last corridor, his commander on his heels. Lassaday was already there, lock ripped off the crate.

  Storm looked at it and knew that whatever evidence he had of tampering was gone. He put the idea out of his mind and reached for Bogie, splitting open the seams and suiting up as the hold filled with the Knights called for, the veteran and the novice, all of them without question reaching for their battle armor.

  Abdul came in last, sweat dotting his brown skin from the exertion of opening the bulkhead manually and reclosing it. He flashed a grin at his commander and said, “Jesus, boss, they’re firing at us.”

  “That we know.” Lassaday stumbled, getting his other leg into the armor. “Tell us something we don’t.”

  “Awright, sergeant. It’s not the Thraks—it’s the Bythians. One of the splinter factions, just south of the equator. That’s why we ain’t been hit yet. They’re poor shots.”

  Jack paused, helmet in hand. Little twinges of power warming up arced at his wrists. “The Bythians?”

  “That’s right.” Abdul’s voice faded as he shrugged into his armor. His face popped back out. “They might not have done it yet, but their technology is good enough to at least try knockin’ us down!”

  Lassaday shot Jack an almost feral look of “I told you so” which Jack cut short by donning his helmet.

  Primitive barbarians with tracking and deep space technology. He bit his lip and keyed on his holograph and com lines.

  Kavin faced him. He wore the latest in armor now, but its grayed skin had been overglazed with a faint mauve tone, in deference to the battered antique which had been first his brother’s and then his. Jack could not see the face behind the sunscreened helmet visor, but heard the voice clearly.

  “Shall we try the drop tubes?”

  Jack felt the adrenaline surge. He hadn’t been to war in two decades as a Knight of the Dominion. “Yes, sir. I’ll get the com and tell them we want coords.” He switched frequencies while Kavin stayed on the main line. He was telling the others, Jack knew, what they were going to do. The new recruits had practiced this. One or two, as former mercenaries, had even done it. It was, Jack reflected, like making love: never as good or as scary as the first time. As he waited for an answer, he watched the others shrug into their field packs, containing parasails and other essentials.

  “Bridge here.”

  “This is Captain Storm. Commander Kavin says we’re not going to take being fired upon. Give us coords, and bring us in. We’re using the drop tubes. I want you to finish your landing pattern after we’ve dropped, and send back a troop hovercraft for us, got that?”

  The pilot sputtered a moment, then said, “Yes, sir!” with a kind of fierce joy. The ship rocked even as he keyed off.

  The drop tubes were little more than jury-rigged. Ten of them lay ready and the nine Knights loaded in. Jack felt the pressure lock flex at his end of the tube and sensed, more than felt, the inward lock circulating. He could see nothing in the drop tube. His outside cameras were unable to function, and his face was locked into a forward only view by the helmet.

  But he could feel. And he could hear. Someone wordlessly murmured a low chant.

  Lassaday said, “Shut up, Abdul.”

  Silence then. Someone sneezed. Jack felt himself smiling. His body tremored in compulsion, the anxiety of a well trained athlete waiting to be sprung into action. He felt his heart pound, then settle into a steady beat.

  And, god help him, he felt Bogie.

  *Boss.* It grazed him, flickered across his mind briefly, like an internal breeze, cold and chilling where it touched.

  “I’m right h
ere, Bogie,” he answered mentally.

  Nothing. It was gone. He searched after it, but the elusive spark stayed out of his reach.

  Jack hadn’t had time to strip down to the clothing he usually wore in armor, and his shirt was soaked. If he had time, he’d pull his arms out of the sleeves and rip the shirt off—

  The bridge broke in to the circuits, saying, “Launch in twenty seconds, gentlemen. Good luck.”

  The drop tubes shifted, angling their trajectory. Jack felt like bracing himself, but it was useless. He was already being held in the tube’s embrace.

  “Ten, nine,—”

  “Oh, shit,” a young voice broke in.

  “Seven, six, five—”

  “I’ll give my nuts to the first lad to make a kill,” Lassaday said.

  “Who’d want your nuts?” he was answered derisively, even as the tube shuddered, and they were slung into the air.

  The sky was plum-colored. It swept past his visor in a blinding panorama, as they plunged through it. Propelled by the tubes, and weighed down by the armor, they plunged toward earth with a whistling intensity. Jack put a hand up to his parasail rigging and counted with Kavin as the commander said, “Target in sight, ready the pull-ropes, and guide yourself in. Prepare to do it one-handed, we’re going to go in firing. Steady now… OPEN!”

  His field pack jerked viciously as the parasail came out and caught the wind. Around him, other armor came to a swinging halt and then aggressively took the breeze, and they rode a thermal in.

  Jack had four light missiles on his gauntlet. “I’ve got them on my grid, but they’re slightly out of range.”

  “Let’s salute them anyway,” Kavin answered.

  He fired two quickly, covering their descent, for the rookies were making no move to fire. Kavin’s armor stalled and dropped behind and above them.

  “Got a problem, Jack. They’re too green to drop in well.”

  “I understand.” Jack did. There were four suits of armor hanging back… too inexperienced with the parasails or maybe just too scared to go in. He spotted Rawlins below and underneath him, diving in recklessly, too low and too fast. Same problem, different reaction. Jack squeezed his parasail rigging together, partially collapsing the sail and going in after him.

  With a whoop, Lassaday’s mottled green armor joined them and Jack realized the sergeant figured they were going down aggressively. The plum sky exploded into crimson and black, the explosion buffeting Jack. The Bythians had retargeted onto them.

  Lassaday muttered, “Get that son of a bitch first.”

  “I’ve used two of mine. Have you got the stingers to do it?”

  “Got one, son, and that’s all I need.” Lassaday’s parasail careened away from them.

  Kavin came in over a circuit that suddenly rang with static. “God damn, what are you three kids doing?”

  “Taking out the enemy,” Jack said grimly. He said to Rawlins, as green hills came up under them, and he could see the enemy lines, “Get ready to collapse your rigging. Start firing as we go down, remember to hit and roll, and for god’s sake, remember you’ve got a suit on!”

  Bythia was beautiful. He had time for that one thought, as Lassaday’s stinger arced toward the enemy installation and the horizon exploded in dirt and flames, metal shards and wood chips. Earth, air, fire, and water, Jack thought. The elements of life—and death. He opened up his right glove, pointed and let go the laser burst as infantry rushed them. The parasail rigging tore away as it was supposed to, and the suit plunged to the ground.

  Grunts, all around him, as they landed heavily, the armor taking up the shock as they rolled and then came back up on their feet. Abdul forgot about the suit translating his muscular action, and overcorrected, somersaulting across the field, tearing up landscaping as he went. Lassaday buffeted him to a stop and righted him. Kavin’s armor bounced gracefully next to Jack’s, but they were wide of the landing perimeter. The two of them turned and found several hundred infantry surrounding them.

  They never had a chance. Jack and J.W. went back to back without a word, and raised their gauntlets.

  “They don’t know what they’re facing,” Jack muttered.

  “Keep on target,” his friend and commander answered grimly.

  “They’re carrying projectiles, but I don’t see any anti-armor.”

  “Keep on target!”

  Jack’s brows dripped with sweat. He ducked his head forward, wiping it off on the targeting grid. It blurred a little, but at least he could see now. The infantry closed in, tightening the ring.

  “They mean to take us out,” Jack said.

  “Power up,” was Kavin’s answer.

  “NOW!” They both cried simultaneously as weapons they recognized as deadly trained in on them. Laser fire silently bled across the air as they pivoted back to back in a precision dance of death. The Bythians went down in a bloodied, smoking heap, charring their death into the forest floor. The two Knights stepped over them and formed a wing with their seven companions.

  “All right,” said Kavin grimly. “Let’s quit playing around. Hit your power vaults, I want to be on ‘em before they know we can run.”

  Jack toggled the switch and the suit hummed at his fingertips. They ran, taking the ground in fifteen foot strides, bounding across the plain, at the lines and quarters of the Bythian encampment beyond the hill. He could see a sudden bustle of activity. Shell fire exploded before them.

  Lassaday laughed. “They can’t get our range!” Even as the tough little sergeant exclaimed, a dark shell arced the sky, aiming right at him.

  Rawlins made a clean shot, exploding the shell in midair. The three of them ran through a rain of metal and flame. Out of the smoke and darkness a machine came roaring at them. Jack vaulted over it, pivoted and blasted it with his next-to-last stinger.

  “What was that?”

  “A tank, I think. Or something like that. They’re homing in on us.” Jack didn’t finish his sentence, as a line of the house-big machines reared above them. Dust and ash filled the plum-colored sky, along with the view of unstoppable traction treads.

  Kavin, Rawlins, Peres and Jack vaulted. Jack landed on top of the machine, wrenched its turret off and spewed enough laser fire inside to barbecue either inhabitants or circuitry. As the tank ground to a halt under him, he saw one go up in smoke, another roll helplessly to its side, and a fourth undergo the same treatment he’d given his.

  As Jack jumped down, he reflected that he’d probably killed more than a hundred so far and had yet to see a Bythian’s face. He’d not been looking, any more than he would have looked to see Thrakian faces.

  He licked his lips and hesitated a moment. He saw a line of soldiers up on the ridge. Kavin and the others were charring a flanking maneuver.

  He had to leave them something, even if only to carry the tale of a slaughter. He saw a massive battery of machines that could only be the last of their artillery works. He pointed and fired his last stinger at close range. The roar muffled his systems and he could not hear for a few minutes.

  When the smoke and dust cleared, the Bythians, the living among the dead, were facedown on the blasted hillside in fear and surrender.

  Kavin stepped forward. He wrenched off his helmet and took a deep breath of war-choked air.

  “Gentlemen,” he said. “Welcome to Bythia.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  The troopship is setting down at the South Quarter,” Colin said, sticking his head into the library, returning after being called away by one of the prelates.

  Amber’s attention immediately dissolved from the aerial maps she’d been examining. “Jack?”

  “He’s supposed to be on it. I’m going out to meet it—the local high priest will be there to scourge it.”

  The girl frowned. Bythians were a strange people, alien in thought as well as sex to her. She stood up, drawing her hand through her hair to separate the tangles gained during long hours of study and to tuck loose strands behind her ears. “Wh
at does that mean?”

  “It means,” Colin said, ducking inside and grabbing her hand, “that I get to see something I’ve only heard about. The scourge is supposed to be a cleansing ritual.”

  “I still don’t understand why they didn’t come in on the transport with the others,” Amber complained as Colin steered her toward the outside.

  “I’m told they had a skirmish at one of the trouble spots.” Colin added, “Rumor says the Bythians fired at them coming in. Kavin just couldn’t wait to get his armor on.”

  “They were fired on coming in?”

  “That’s what I heard.”

  She paused as they went through the heavy tapestry that concealed the main doorway. At her back, a hundred small bells shivered from their passage as the full force of Sassinal, Bythia, hit her.

  It was in the air, dancing in every breeze, the light, exotic scent of another world, even in the plum-colored horizon which would curtain the night like port wine when the sun went down. She smelled grasses and flowers, and trees brushed close to the concrete and stone villa, giving off new fragrances with every touch of their leaves.

  Amber wondered briefly if the Bythians smelled as she did, or with greater or lesser capability. Did she smell to them? Or did the ever present war so color their perceptions that only fragrance could distance them from it?

  Colin tugged at her hand, his deep blue robes shaking impatiently with the movement. “Come on, girl, I don’t want to miss this.”

  Remembering that religion was rightly the passion of the saint’s life, Amber uncurled into action and joined him as he strode away toward the South Quarter. She fought not to squint under the curious glances of the Bythians as they passed them in the wide streets. Polite and cool, but ever so curious, with their sideways eyes and colorful markings, the people of no-sex (or was it just one sex?) brushed by. Their dry skins oozed a musky fragrance barely hidden under the scents they affected. More than once, Amber ducked away as though jolted as she smelled—what was it? Anger? She thought it must have been. Tattoolike markings they seemed to have been born with swirled over every inch of visible skin. They walked upright but with a sinuous grace no human could hope to emulate, and they wore delicate, fluttering strands of cloth instead of hair.