Celestial Hit List

by Charles Ingrid

  The scream seared his mind. He looked down at his blood-stained armor and looked up and saw Amber throwing herself at him.

  He caught her.

  He was alive again in her eyes.

  “Oh, god,” he cried and held her. He tore the Bythian headdress off her hair. He kissed her. She clung to him, crying. He held her as tightly as he could, Bogie’s senses making the armor a second skin, and he said, “I’ve got to go after Winton.”

  Hussiah danced in agitation. There must be only one Champion. One! And then he realized his folly. He had heard rumors… and not understood them. But the humans were only half a sex. It took two of them to be complete. Unwittingly, Hussiah had delivered to Jack the balance of his being.

  Before she could answer, the ground around them burst into flame.

  With a scream of their own, the Bythians, en masse, fell to the dust and put their heads to their earth as the Holy Fire erupted about the two Champions.

  Amber let go of Jack. The fire passed around her. She felt its cool flame licking at her. It surrounded Jack and only Jack.

  A skimmer grazed their heads. Lassaday looked up. “I bet my balls he’s going to get off-planet.”

  “How?”

  “We started evacuating last night. The transport’s half-loaded now.”

  Jack’s eyes narrowed. His dark blond hair was illuminated in the eerie flames. “I’m not losing him this time. The suit’ll carry me!” He strode away, and broke into a run, taking the ground in earth-eating leaps. The Holy Fire burned after him.

  Amber put her hand to her mouth.

  Instead of char, the flame left a verdant streak. It plowed the dying plains around Sassinal with life.

  She thought of Claron. If only he could see what he was doing!

  Hussiah took her by the elbow. “Come,” he said. “We must see!”

  She looked at the Bythian High Priest. “I failed you,” she said.

  He shook his head. “No. I be failing myself. I was not strong enough to see the fulfillment of my own prophecy. But the Third Age has begun. Come! I must see the Holy Fire!”

  Red field. All his guages showed red fields, but Jack did not slow. He let his momentum carry him after Winton. Just let him get close enough!

  He caught him at the crest. The bush skimmer coughed and hesitated, dipping low, and Jack raised his gauntlet. Laser fire clipped the rear thruster, and the skimmer gyroed.

  It came to earth carrying its reluctant rider. Winton jumped off and hit rolling. Jack let him get a few strides head start. Then he power vaulted, overleaping the running man.

  He pivoted and smiled as Winton ran into his grasp.

  Even as his head tilted back and his bones popped from the strain of Jack’s hold, Winton gasped, “You’re a traitor. You’re infested. You know—”

  “That’s right, Winton. I know you ordered us to die on Milos.”

  The man stopped struggling a moment. His eyes narrowed in memory. “Milos…”

  “Why?”

  Winton’s lips worked, too dry to spit, but he tried. “You should have died on Milos. If you had half the guts you should have had, you would have! No one was meant to survive Milos. Infested. All of you were infested! And Regis had to be gotten out of power. It was the only way.”

  “Who were you working with? Who told you to sacrifice the Knights?” He applied a little more pressure with his gauntlets.

  “Who do you think?” Winton sneered. “Pepys was always right there, waiting for Regis to make a mistake.”

  “And Claron?”

  Winton’s sneer became lopsided under Jack’s grip, but he got out, “All your fault, Jack. If you hadn’t been there, I’d have found another way to deal with the sand crèche.”

  Jack squeezed tighter, and Winton died an ugly death.

  The Holy Fire died with him. As Jack dropped the body at his feet and looked around, he saw the flames gutter. As it died, he looked back and saw the acreage behind him where the flames had fanned out and spread.

  Green shoots pointed skyward. Trees rippled and branches hung low with leaf and fruit.

  Jack closed his eyes in sorrow. He knew, for the barest fraction of a second, he might have had this miracle for Claron as well as Bythia, but he had killed. The Blue Fire crept up his armor and curled in the palm of his gauntlet, the very crumb of a miracle.

  Hussiah gained the crest with Amber. He lifted up his hand and let her go to Jack. Holy Fire sparked the gap between them, and then the High Priest held the fire in the palm of his hand. He looked to Jack. “I will take it to the rest of Bythia,” he said. “Your part is done.” He turned his back on the two of them and went back the way he had come through tree and brush, the bruised fragrance of his passage drifting back to them, his hand upheld like a torch.

  Lassaday chewed his stim-gum with relish as the transport shuddered and shifted into top speed. “I’m gonna miss those snakeskins.”

  “What on earth for?”

  “What for, kid? Well, for one, they made one hell of a good beer.” And the sergeant rubbed his palm over his bald head. “And because we had to leave th’ commander back there with ‘em.”

  Colin sat back in his chair. The cold sleep bays had not all been readied yet, and he waited with the handful of others. “I think, sergeant,” the prelate said, “that he died the way he wanted to.”

  “With honor and not because the Thraks had a hold on him,” Amber said.

  “Th’ only way to go,” Lassaday agreed.

  Jack had a faraway look on his face.

  “Jack—” she began, but the intercom interrupted her. “Gentlemen… and ladies… it’s going to be a rough ride back. We’ve just gotten word the Thraks have declared war.”

  A tiny muscle flexed in Jack’s jawline. How could he pull down the emperor and commander of Dominion defenses if they had to go to war against the Thraks?

  “What are you thinking?” she whispered.

  He looked down, and considered her eyes. He smiled and pulled her closer. “I was thinking, first things first.”

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