by George Olney
She started to point them out, but Grete's hand shot out and grabbed hers. The woman gave a slight shake to her head in emphatic negation. After a second, Frenchy realized what she meant. No sound, no movement, and the lee'thal would never know they were there. After that, she stayed frozen on the ground.
A million or so years later, Grae was back at her side, reaching for his sword. "Did you keep it well, mistress?" he asked.
She nodded her head and received a kiss. The other two couples, she saw, were acting out similar scenes.
He clipped a small device to the neck of her leotard, took an attached cord and clipped the button on it to her ear like an earring. "This is a locator button," he whispered. "Everyone else has them, too. It will tell you where each person is and allow them to know your location. Make sure you keep it on at all times. No need in getting hit by friendly fire, mistress."
Frenchy found herself with a sudden awareness of the location and identity of each member of the group. The downside was that her extrasensory perception was blanked out by the device. She found it took a real effort of will to even get a feeling of what Grae's thoughts were like. She didn't like that, but decided to wear the thing anyway, if it would make things simpler during the attack.
Even in the dark, Grae saw her expression. "I was afraid of that," he said softly. "It hampers your perception, doesn't it?"
She nodded silently.
"That's why I didn't give it to you before now. But you have to have it."
She nodded again to signal her acceptance.
"Good. Be careful, mistress."
Grae raised his voice slightly to reach all of them. "Everybody ready?"
There was a murmured chorus of agreement. "Okay, keep it quiet. Let's go."
All six rose quietly and slipped down the hill.
Frenchy had no idea how long the short trip down the ridge and up the hill took. Time was suspended in the nervous fear of the stalk through the night. Looking past Grae, she realized they were in the cup in the hillside where the headquarters tunnel door was located. When Grae dashed across the cup to plaster himself against the stone next to the door, she was right next to him, clutching her bopper. She could see Weykhaz and Grete similarly hugging the hillside on the other side. Evan and Maev remained in the opening of the cup, scanning the hillside for chance intruders.
Grae leaned over and attached something to the middle of the door, then rolled back to the hillside, covering her body with his. "Blast coming!" he said urgently.
With a low CRUMP, the middle of the door split open, parts of it leaning drunkenly in opposite directions. Grae dived for the open center section. "INSIDE!!" he screamed.
Frenchy ran after him, and the locator button told her that the others were right behind. There was a smuggler just inside the tunnel, reeling drunkenly from the blast. Grae knifed him as he passed without even pausing in his dead run. Drawing his pistol, he skidded to one knee at the point where the tunnel opened out into a huge open area hollowed out of the hill's living rock. It was completely full of stacked containers, piled two or three times Frenchy's height. If this was Somnolent, it looked like the smuggler’s whole inventory, ready to be delivered.
Frenchy dropped to a position on the side of the tunnel's entrance opposite him and pulled off her head cloth. It was bothering her and she figured camouflage was now a moot point. Behind her, she knew the other four had already split and were charging up the side tunnels. There was an echoing CR-K-K-K-K that Frenchy realized was Evan's stutter gun. Looked like he'd already met opposition.
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In a room off the other cross tunnel, game pieces were scattered as the five men jumped back from the table, surprised by the noise of the door blast. The duty man wasted a glance at the security board, but it showed neutral. Where in hell were the sentries and why wasn't there an alarm? With a variety of curses, they grabbed their weapons from various spots around the room and ran out the door, headed for the Boss's office.
They skidded to a stop as the leader saw a shadowy figure standing in a dark corner of the tunnel, still and silent as Death itself, and just as ominous. The leader started to bring up his gun. There was a soft snick from behind the figure and the man's head jerked to one side, his body collapsing, a small hole in the middle of his forehead spouting blood. Grete cranked her spring rifle again with a quick and sure motion.
Weykhaz stepped into the full light of the tunnel and confronted the four stunned smugglers like a lion facing a pack of hyenas. "Screwed up, didn't you," he said as he raised his sword.
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Frenchy's locator told her when the other couples were out of the side tunnels. Almost immediately, both sets dashed to positions hugging the wall, Weykhaz and Grete behind Grae and the Evan / Maev combination behind Frenchy. Grae fished a small device that looked like a tube from his belt pouch. Placing his thumb on a button on one end, he said tensely, "Blowing the charges."
They all ducked as the twin blasts threw dust and small rocks out into the main tunnel. With the billowing dust covering their approach, they started carefully out into the stacked drum-like containers of the main area. Weykhaz and Grete swung to the right, Evan and Maev to the left, and Grae, followed closely by Frenchy, went up the middle.
The sweep was on.
Grae walked softly, dangerously, up the pathway of the storage area. Frenchy was behind him, trying to look in all directions at once. As they passed an open walkway between stacks of drums, she heard the quiet snick of a spring rifle and a soft thump like falling laundry. Glancing up the causeway, Frenchy saw the fallen body of a smuggler, his bolt gun still in one outstretched hand. At the far end of the walkway, Grete was swiftly turning the crank of her spring rifle a half turn to cock it as she pivoted back to follow Weykhaz.
Careful, girl, Frenchy told herself. Don't just look. See what you're looking at!
She moved on after Grae and was far more careful about open spaces.
A bolt slapped into a crate just past Grae's head and the firefight began.
Grae dived forward into the intersection of two walkways between containers, landed rolling on his side and returned fire at an aimed rate that took less than a second between shots. Frenchy froze for a moment, unsure if she should move forward to help him. The sound of weapons firing echoed throughout the storage area as other smugglers bumped into the other two couples.
Her dilemma was solved seconds later as a smuggler jumped off the top of a drum to her right front, his attention on Grae. There were several more on top of the stack. Frenchy dived to her left and fetched up hard against the side of another stack. With Grae out of the immediate line of fire, she swung her bopper smoothly from the hip and squeezed the trigger.
THUMP.
The smuggler on the path in front of her, those on the drum and the drums themselves dissolved away from the weapon's blast in a cloud of burnt fragments and ash. Grae, his other preoccupations now removed, paused a second to grin at her then leaped to his feet and moved forward at a faster, still cautious, pace.
As they approached an open area at the end of the stacks, three smugglers dashed around the side of the drums and up the path unaware Grae was in front of them. Grae's knife was again magically in his hand as he was suddenly in their midst and launched an attack that was a flashing blur of deadly speed.
The three were down and Grae was turning to scan the open area when Frenchy, horrified, saw blood spurt from the side of his head above the ear. As he fell, she saw the gang leader, her enemy, standing at the entrance to the office tunnel and working the crank on a spring rifle. Frenchy swung her bopper and fired across Grae's still body, but missed as the woman dropped the rifle and dived back inside the entrance.
Frenchy sprinted to Grae's side, reached down to touch his shoulder, but it was still. She was no medic. She had no idea how to treat wounds. There was so much blood.
She gently rolled him over. The way his head rolled loosely on his neck as she did it made her think of o
nly one thing. He was dead. There was too much blood. He was dead! She was sure of it! Out of the corner of her eye, Frenchy could see Grete moving fast to join them, but there was nothing she could do. Grae was already dead, shot in the head. The leader had killed him!
Suddenly she noticed one of his eyelids flutter. He was alive! Then Grete was kneeling next to him, her hands busy. Her face had that deadpan look of professional urgency Frenchy knew from Emergency Room nurses back on Earth.
Moving with smooth efficiency, Grete checked his pulse, airway and eye dilatation. It was obvious the older woman knew what she was doing. "One picks up a trick or two in a long life such as mine," Grete commented without taking her eyes from Grae. Taking a bandage from her belt pouch, she quickly unwrapped it and placed it firmly on the head wound.
Frenchy asked with nervous concern, "How is he? Is he going to be okay?"
Her eyes still on her patient, Grete responded, "I know not. It depends if the dart glanced off the bone or dug deeply in its course. That he shall live, I am certain. I cannot tell if there is damage to the brain. That must lie in the hands of the medical people coming with the Strike Team. 'Tis best if there's no brain damage. We cannot regenerate brain tissue. All we can do is staunch his blood and keep him comfortable. Guard you my back."
With a guilty start, Frenchy remembered she was still in the middle of a fire fight. There didn't seem to be any shooting and according to her locator Weykhaz was coming quickly. The other two were still working their way around the storage area. "Who did this?" she heard Grete ask. "'Twas not a bolt gun, else he would be dead. This was the work of a spring rifle."
Searching the immediate area for hostiles, Frenchy answered, "It was that woman, the leader."
Grete answered in a preoccupied voice, "The gang leader. She it is, then, we must above all else seek to kill. I would, if I had the power, do for her as she attempted to do for my son, but with better result."
Something snapped inside Frenchy. Her head was spinning and she felt a little crazy. Weykhaz came pelting up. He was also bleeding from several shallow cuts but looked to be as fully capable as ever. He dropped to one knee next to Grete and swiftly looked around for trouble.
Frenchy started running for the door the woman had used. "Weykhaz is here. I'm going after her!" she yelled over her shoulder. With a bloodlust for revenge Frenchy never knew she had, she wanted with every cell in her body to kill the person that tried to kill Grae.
"Frenchy, stop!" Grete yelled. "She's..."
Frenchy didn't hear any more. She wasn't going to be talked out of this! That woman was a blood enemy. She'd tried to kill her and tried to kill Grae. There were going to be no more tries.
Running hard, she dodged inside the tunnel entrance and plastered herself against the left wall of a short hall with doors on either side. The one on the right was closed and she couldn't see the one on the left clearly because it was recessed. At least the hall was lighted.
Remembering the way cops and soldiers acted on TV, she edged down the corridor with her back against the wall, her eyes searching constantly for movement, her bopper ready to fire. Coming even with the closed door across the corridor from her, she considered briefly charging over and kicking the door down. Then she had a better idea.
THUMP.
The bopper blew a huge gap in the wall, totally obliterating the door and wrecking the room behind it. Without thinking, Frenchy stepped away from the wall to check the room.
CRACK.
The bolt slapped the corridor wall before her face, just missing her head. Startled, she dropped her bopper and threw herself back against the left wall. The bolt had come from the room next to her, one she was planning to investigate next. Its door was open and she hadn’t realized it. Or checked. Dumb. Dumb will get you killed, girl.
She realized she was no longer holding her gun. It was lying in the corridor in front of her, in plain sight of the open door next to her left shoulder. She couldn't get it without coming into the sights of whoever was in that room.
Remembering her ax, she quickly drew it and held it ready to swing. If whoever was in that room came out to finish her, they were going to get a steel surprise!
Who was in that room? The question suddenly became very important to her. She tried to sense who it was, but got nothing except the locations of Grae and the other two couples. The locator. It was interfering with her powers. Her full attention on the doorway, ready to strike if anyone showed themselves, she used her left hand to reach up and remove the button from her ear, leaving the other part of the locator in place.
Immediately, she knew who, or rather what, was in the room and she was nauseated. She'd never felt an escetepus colony before now. It couldn't even be called a person. The only thing she could sense before she closed her mind to any more impressions was a sickeningly foul stew of hate, degradation and thirst for destruction. Carefully, her face screwed up in involuntary disgust, she analyzed the brief impression of the colony.
There was something familiar about the... It was the woman. She knew for a certainty it was the smuggler leader in that room. What's more, she knew where the woman crouched. She was alone in the middle of the room, aiming into the corridor and waiting for her. There was something else, faint and familiar. It was too faint and Frenchy forgot about it in the tension of the moment.
A female voice echoed out of the room, surprisingly well modulated and sweet. "It's you, isn't it. The big yellow-haired one. I remember you. I wanted to destroy you."
Frenchy shuddered when she heard that voice. The contrast between the voice and the thing that used it was macabre. For some unknown reason, possibly to acknowledge the deadly duel between them, Frenchy had to answer. "It's me. You knew I was coming after you, sooner or later."
The voice replied thoughtfully, "I'm glad, you know. I want to finish this. You can call your friends to come help. I can't get out of here, but I can kill you before I die."
Frenchy never considered retreating, getting help from the others. This was between her and the woman. From the first meeting in the Port, this was between her and the woman. She was going to settle it, here and now.
"I'm not that easy to kill," Frenchy replied. She had to keep the woman talking, give herself time to think of a plan.
"Oh, I'll kill you, don't doubt that. I destroyed his woman. I killed him. Now, I'll kill you," the voice returned softly, almost tenderly.
It was obscene, like a romantic caress from a zombie. Frenchy reminded herself she wasn't talking to a woman. She was really facing an alien organism controlling a host body like a puppet. This thing had to be destroyed.
The tender voice came again. This time it was tinged with triumph. "You know, once you are dead, everything that was Grae will be destroyed. I'll never get out of this room, but, knowing I blotted out everyone dear to him, I can die with satisfaction. So much the better if I get one of the others, too. When they come, I'll kill them also."
"In your dreams, bitch," Frenchy snarled in a low voice. Time to end this, before that taunting voice made her so mad she committed a fatal error.
Frenchy planned her move with care. She was only going to have once chance. She rehearsed her plan in her mind, visualizing every action she was going to take. It made her want to vomit, but she forced herself to once again mentally touch the disgusting foulness in the room.
Yes. There.
Now!
Diving across the open doorway, she threw her ax with as much force and accuracy as she could muster as she briefly glimpsed the office and the woman that was her target. She felt the heat of the bolt as it snapped past her back, but the agonized, cutoff scream from the office said that her aim was true.
Another brief touch from her mind told her the escetepus colony was dying. The body it animated was already dead. Quivering with nervous tension, she waited a few more seconds, plastered against the corridor wall. Another check. Nothing. The colony was dead.
Feeling drained, Frenchy stepped slowly awa
y from the wall and walked into the office, moving like a long distance runner at the end of a grueling race. It was the woman, all right. Her body lay on the office floor in a pool of blood, contorted in the grotesque sprawl of death. The ax had hit her just below the jaw, cutting in to hit the spine.
Good throw, she thought for no particular reason.
She told herself she had to go back, check on Grae. First, she needed her ax. There might be more smugglers still alive, somewhere. She approached the body, grabbed the handle of the ax and jerked it free. She swept the heads over the dead woman's tunic to wipe off blood, then sheathed it. Then she noticed the woman's face. It was relaxed now, the expression almost peaceful, but different, somehow more familiar. Escetepus had changed her face in some subtle way but now the disease organisms were dead, returning her to what she had been before her infection.
Something familiar... Frenchy remembered a beautiful little red stone carving of a woman in Grae's ship. This was the face on the statue.
Her lethargy gone, Frenchy reached quickly down to rip the bloody tunic at the hip. It was there. The brand.
This was Grae's bondsmate.
That was what the colony meant when it said it had destroyed his bondsmate. It had destroyed her being. Frenchy had killed the body.
She heard a dry voice behind her. "There you are, mistress."
Elation surged through her as she spun around to look at the open doorway. It was Grae, pistol in hand and scanning around him for danger, but alive! His head was bandaged and he was still covered with blood, but he was alive! "I thought you were dying!" she cried.
He smiled at her, that old sardonic smile that caused her spine to tingle. "Glancing blow. Mother says I have a head harder than anybody except Father."
His expression changed as he looked past her and recognized the body on the floor. His face lost all color and his eye took on an unfocused look.
Frenchy tried to sense what he was thinking and felt a mind overcome with shock, horror, and terrible, terrible sadness. She reached out to him as he approached, but he walked by her as though she didn't exist. He stopped at the body and just stood there, staring down at his dead bondsmate.
