Red Planet: The Revolt (Tamarians Book 2)

by Lauren Landish

  “Not much,” Kelbara admits. “They're military bases in orbit around the planet, right?”

  “That and more,” I reply, taking over the controls from Kelbara. “There are two main bases, one on each of Tamaria's moons, and those are full military bases. They're used for a lot of purposes too, and actually have some civilian presence. Extraplanetary ships launch from there, FTL flights originate from the lunar bases, some scientists conduct experiments outside the domes in the microgravity, but mostly it serves as the living quarters for the troops that man the orbital platforms. Those platforms aren't big enough to be self-sustaining, so the lunar bases support them, sending fresh troops out on a weekly basis.”

  “So what are the platforms?” Kelbara asks. “I thought they just coordinated communications and stuff.”

  “They do. But even on ancient Earth, they'd figured out you don't need a man to run a comm relay station when an automated satellite can do all that and more with a lot less space and expense, and do it better too. So the platforms, they're weapons platforms. And on them.... are Q-weapons.”

  Kelbara gasps, and I can see her skin going pale. “Q-weapons? Are they insane? Why would the royal government keep Q-bombs pointed at their own people?”

  “I asked Mogar and Tauren the exact same question when I found out what the orbital platforms actually contained. According to Mogar, the missiles are omni-directional. The platform is supposed to be there to protect Tamaria from any hostile exoplanetary threats. We know there are other Earth colonies out there, and who knows what else. Tamaria had native life when our peoples settled the planet. Who says that on another planet another species hasn't achieved sentience and developed space flight?” I ask. “However, Tauren also mentions that there were discussions during the time that I was leading the Resistance among the old Noble Council of using those missiles on the Resistance if our position could have been pinned down far enough away from any population centers.”

  “Q-weapons,” Kelbara shivers, shaking her head. “As if slaving wasn't bad enough, my people have Q-weapons pointed at their own planet. Are we mad?”

  “No madder than mine,” I reply, taking her hand again. “You haven't had the time to study more than a fraction of our shared history, Kelbara, but Earth nearly killed itself so many times in its history. But if we're going to get past that, we need to be better than our ancestors.”

  Kelbara swallows and looks into my eyes. “I want to be better. What do we need to do, sir?”

  I shiver again, she's so sexy when she calls me sir, but I don't have time for that. “First, we need to find Tauria. There's two ways to activate the Q-weapons. The first is in person at a terminal within each orbital platform. That requires a genetic scan. The other is if Tauria can reach a multiplexing transmission unit, she can use her codes to activate them as well. The advantage to that is...”

  “A multiplexing transmission unit needs a big antenna,” Kelbara finishes for me. “Not the sort of thing you can build around here with a few meters of wire and a power cell.”

  “No you can't. And from what Mogar taught me, it would need a big computer to run the targeting algorithms too. Unless you're a total computer geek, which I get the impression Tauria isn't,” I joke. “Not enough Neyla crystals and fashion in it.”

  “Ambaris isn't either. He can use computers, but he's just a user, not a coder or a programmer. Everything I've ever seen him use came in already made packages. Which means they'll need a powerful computer too. So...”

  “So let's get going. We find them, we find the rebel base, and we call in the troops.”

  Kelbara looks around at the cliffs that are still to our left, worried. “Jensen, those bluffs, they're full of halnocite. It's what that cave we were just in was made for, they expanded on the natural cave to mine the halnocite, until purer veins were discovered in other places. Still, if the base is anywhere near there, there's no way troops can get in for a surgical strike.”

  “Then we don't bring in troops,” I reply coldly. “We get near enough, we set a locater beacon, and we get out of the way. Tauren will call in shuttles to plaster the rebel camp to glass if he has to.”

  Kelbara goes quiet, and I understand why. Before, there was at least a chance that Ambaris would be captured alive. But this plan would almost ensure his death. She may have tried to stab the man in a fit of anger, but actively trying to kill him in cold blood, that's something totally different. Finally, she nods, and looks out on the water. “The next camp where they might get the thing together is a good way off, nearly two hundred and fifty kilometers from here. With the speed of this thing, it'll take a while.”

  “I know, we're halfway out of fuel anyway. The map shows a supply depot up ahead about an hour away, we can get fuel there before continuing on. Kelbara....”

  She shakes her head, looking at me with eyes full of pain. “Give me some time to think, Jensen. Please. I'll keep a watch on the front of the boat.”

  I nod, watching Kelbara as she sits down in the front of the boat. I want to go to her, to tell her that it's all right, that she won't have to hurt anyone or do anything bad... but I can't.

  I'd be lying, and I don't want to lie to her. I've had to lie before, I've lived a lie when I pretended to be both a slave and a Resistance leader, but I don't want to lie any more, not if I can help it. Heaven and stars, this is hardly what I'd call a good first date, even if Kelbara says it is.

  It actually takes us a little over an hour actually to reach the supply depot, a small fuel stop on the river that normally caters to recreational traffic. Another Neyla crystal from my pocket and the Tamarian depot owner is more than willing to fully fuel our boat, and in a spit of good will he give us some food as well. “It ain't much, my Lord, but it'll fill your stomach,” the owner says as he puts the bag on the boat. “Where y'all headed?”

  “South,” I reply simply, not wanting to give any information away that I can avoid. “Say, have you had other customers headed that way? Three people, two men and a woman, one of the men bald, the woman a rich bitch?”

  The depot owner thinks, then shakes his head. “Sorry my Lord, I ain't. Since yesterday all I've had is my normal fishermen and a trader boat that was headed north, taking supplies to a mining camp upriver. Oh, and a few shuttles, local folks only. If you don't know the halnocite currents, piloting a shuttle around these parts is right dangerous.”

  “Thank you for the info and the advice. And most of all thank you for the food.”

  “Thank my wife, Lord. She's the one who made it. Y'all have a good day.”

  The midday sun blazes down by the time we get underway again, Kelbara chewing on her massive sandwich in a very masculine manner. I watch her, shaking my head in amusement. She might have the face of a feminine angel, but she's got the strength and mannerisms of a man in a lot of ways. It doesn't take away from her attractiveness though, regardless of how it blends together in a weird mix that is all Kelbara. She doesn't sit with her knees together, but instead in the poised, ready to jump into action stance of a trained fighter. Even the way she eats is somewhat masculine, with huge quick bites that tell me she's not tasting her food as much as she is ingesting calories to fuel her petite body.

  “You know, the fuel depot owner said it was supposed to be the best sandwich in the whole town. Did you even taste it?” I ask, chewing slowly. It was something Mogar taught me, to relish food. When I have the chance, or if the food's worth it, I do. “It's got a delicious relish on it.”

  Kelbara looks at the single bite of sandwich left in her hands, then at me. “There was relish?”

  “Come here,” I command, laughing lightly. I take half of what's left of my sandwich and hand it to her. “Now, chew slowly, in small bites. Thirty chews at least, let each of the flavors rest on your tongue before you swallow. Tell me what you experience.”

  Watching Kelbara chew slowly is pure visual bliss. The way her eyes close as she begins to focus on the flavors, the way her eyebrows lift in sligh
t surprise, the twitch of her lips as she begins to smile, and the way her throat muscles flex as she swallows is innocent and sexy and beautiful. When she opens her eyes and sees me looking at her she blushes, smiling bashfully. “What, sir?”

  “You're a very pretty girl, Kelbara. That's all,” I admit honestly. “I'd like.... well, if this is our first date, I was thinking I would like to have a second, after this is over.”

  Kelbara blushes slightly, flattered. “After this is over, I'd like that too. Shall we?”

  “We shall. One more thing, Kelbara.”

  “Yes, sir?” she asks, my cock stirring in my pants again as she calls me that.

  “Don't call me sir anymore. It... it distracts me from the mission.”

  Kelbara thinks for a moment, then smirks. “Of course.... sir.”

  I swear she tries to wiggle her hips a little as she walks back up to the front of the boat, untying the line from the dock and pushing us away. I man the controls, trying my best to keep my focus where it's supposed to be, on the river.

  Chapter 7

  Kelbara

  The sun goes down while we're still over a hundred kilometers from the next possible site, and Jensen throttles down, giving the engines a rest. “This boat was made for day trips to go fishing, not chasing down escaped prisoners, we've got to let things cool for a bit.”

  I huff, frustrated. I know my father, and I know that every minute that we're not at full throttle trying to close the gap with him, the greater the chance he can get Tauria to a multiplexing unit. The knowledge in her head can end this entire planet, not just Tauren's kingship.

  Still, Jensen's right, I can hear the engines ticking furiously as they try to shed the heat from their constant high speed running. Wherever the owner is, he's going to need a full overhaul of these engines when he gets his boat back. I take a deep breath to calm myself and sit down on one of the benches that surround the sidewalls of the boat behind the pilot's chair. “How long do you think we need to sit here?”

  “The mechanic in me says thirty minutes, but the other part of me says five. Let's split the difference and call it fifteen,” Jensen says, sitting down on the other side of the boat. Since I teased him a little, calling him sir even after he asked me to stop, he's been careful not to get too close to me, and it's starting to make me jumpy, as well as regretful. I'd do anything to have his hand in mine again right now, it helps with the stress so much.

  “Jensen?” I finally ask after a minute of silence. “Tell me something. Please?”

  “About what?” he asks, looking over at me.

  “Just tell me something I don't know about you. You're so much like this sort of half-real, half-mythical being to a lot of people. Even sharing the meetings with you as we talked with King Tauren, I still had to remind myself that you're real. Now.... well, I know you're real, but I don't know a lot about your past or who you really are. And it'd kill some time.”

  Jensen chuckles, looking around as he tries to figure out what to say. “Okay. Hmmmm.... okay, well, did you know that until I was fifteen I didn't know how to swim?”

  “Really?” I ask, surprised. I learned to swim when I was only three years old. “Why?”

  “I was born in the northwest region of this continent, near the ocean. If you've ever been up there, the water's far too cold most of the time for people to even think about trying to swim, and we didn't live in a village that had a lot of money, so there were no heated pools or anything like that. So I never had a chance to learn before Audra and I were captured by slavers. I was lucky to be bought by Mogar, he started teaching me from the beginning. I barely understood that I was a slave, I was so busy just trying to make a new life for myself. Mogar wasn't that much older than I was actually, barely past twenty-one, but already he was a well-respected scholar. In a lot of ways, I started to think of him like a big brother as much as anything else, although some of the other humans who worked for him made sure I understood the rules. In private, he was Mogar, my friend and teacher. In public, and public meant any other Tamarian, he was Lord Mogar, my owner and master. Not that it really mattered, my duties weren't much, mostly learning.”

  “So how did you come to learn how to swim?” I ask. “I don't take Mogar to be an athletic scholar.”

  Jensen shakes his head, his auburn hair bouncing in the sunset light. “No, but by the time I was fourteen I was already starting to question the way things were on Tamaria. Mogar had promised me my secret freedom at eighteen if I continued to learn, but he also saw that I was much more athletic than he is. I'd already been taking martial arts and training for years by this point, but one day, I sustained a shoulder injury that couldn't just be fixed with a simple injection, but needed a few days to heal up. The martial arts teacher informed Mogar that a big problem was that my shoulders were not mobile enough in his opinion, and that swimming would be a good way for me to strengthen the muscles that I'd injured as well as encourage mobility.”

  “But you didn't know how to swim.”

  Jensen laughs, nodding. “Yeah, you should have seen the look on Mogar's face when I told him that. He just got this look that I'd never seen before, and I think I can count on my hands the number of times I've seen it since. I'm pretty sure it's his look when he's actually surprised. He just looks at me with this strange look on his face, then goes, 'Hmmm, that is something we'll have to rectify, isn't it?' and walks off. I had no idea what in the heaven and stars he meant until the next day, when I go into the classroom and instead of Mogar, I found a former Tamarian Games human swim champion there, waiting for me. Three weeks later, I could swim quite well. My hair was three shades lighter from being soaked in chlorine tinged water so much, but I could swim quite well.”

  “Is there anything you can't do?” I ask teasingly. “You know, you've led a successful Resistance, you've become a Lord, you're a champion of the Arena... let me guess, you're a horrible cook.”

  Jensen shrugs, giving me a smirk. “I can cook a little. Had to, actually, there were times in the Resistance when you had to be your own cook. But I'm no super-human, Kelbara. Let see, what can I tell you that will let you believe me.... ah, I got it!”

  “What?”

  “I'm a terrible singer,” Jensen says. “Seriously, the last time I tried to sing, Audra made me promise to never, ever try it again. Put it this way, you know that at my estate are a bunch of Neyton and Neyilla's former slaves, right?”

  “You're rehabilitating them,” I confirm. “I remember Mogar telling me about that, some time I'd like to visit and see them. If they don't mind.”

  “I'll check, some of them may remember you from when you were with Ambaris,” Jensen says casually, in a way that doesn't hurt my feelings at all. “The heavy drugs and things that Neyton and Neyilla did to some of them, there's a few that have severe psychological problems. I actually had to keep one of the 'playrooms' because of it.”

  “Wait, what?” I ask, and Jensen nods, sighing.

  “For some of them, the sexual torture that Neyton and Neyilla put them through, it's the only way they can feel emotion anymore. I talked with Mogar, and he says that it's permissible to let them still use it, under strict supervision and I have a good couple of supervisors. I don't like it, but I won't let them be hurt anymore,” Jensen says, before shaking his head. “Anyway, back to a brighter subject, my lack of singing ability. No, I can't sing at all. Tauren on the other hand is quite good at it.”

  I'm about to answer when something bumps the boat, and I sit up, concerned. “What was that?”

  “Log?” Jensen asks, trying to get to his feet as well. The boat rocks again, harder this time, and he's knocked almost overboard, trying to hang on. “Not a log!”

  I jump to my feet and reach for Jensen, but something hits the boat again and I'm knocked to my knees, Jensen disappearing overboard into the water. “Jensen!”

  I grab my powerlance, glad that I kept it in my thigh holster and switch on the flashlight function. Jensen's treading wate
r, looking left and right to see what's attacking us, when his eyes fasten to the rear of the boat. “Kelbara! The engines!”

  I turn towards the engines just in time to see something huge and leathery come surging out of the river, a maw filled with teeth gaping open. I don't have time to do anything but throw myself backwards as the beast comes crashing down. At least three meters long, there's still more of it in the water, its black, empty eyes seeming to stare at me as it begins to snap with its jaws, searching for a meal.

  “Jensen!” I scream, scared out of my mind as the beast lunges at me again, and I point my powerlance at it, squeezing the trigger blindly. A plasma ball comes out, hitting the beast but not seeming to cause any damage except to piss it off. I try to back up again as the monster surges another meter of heavy body onto the boat, but I trip over a piece of decking that's been torn up by the impact and fall to my butt, scooting back as quickly as I can as I try to adjust to something more deadly.

  The monster's fast, and seeing me fall it surges forward again, the needle sharp teeth snapping just a few centimeters from my foot. I pull back, knowing I've only got one more shot, when out of the river Jensen vaults himself over the side of the boat to land on the monster's back, his powerful arm wrapping around the thick throat and rearing back. The monster twists, almost throwing Jensen off, but it's claws are too short and in the wrong position to reach back. Still, they roll, Jensen now underneath the monster, his arm straining to pull harder. “Kelbara! Shoot it!”

  “I might hit you!” I scream back. “You need to get clear!”

  Jensen tries, but he can't. Instead he lets go with one arm to reach to his thigh, but his powerlance is gone, and he looks up at me with desperate eyes, thrusting his hand out for help. I dart forward and slap the powerlance into his hand, and Jensen takes it, jamming it against the monster's side and pulling the trigger. I'd set it for Gauss rounds, and a stream of four hypersonic needles pierce the thick hide, the monster giving off a very human sounding scream before it spasms one more time and then goes limp, almost pinning Jensen underneath its huge bulk.