The Dark Defiance

by A. G. Claymore

  “Still, her nephew seemed alert enough when we pulled up,” Tommy offered with an amused smile.

  “True, he’s a good lad,” Kobrak admitted. “Thanks to your people, I can tell his mother that he’ll be o.k.” He looked sharply at Tommy. “That reminds me: I have a mysterious stranger to track down.”

  “He must be in hiding,” Tommy thought out loud. “Otherwise the Kholarii would have torn him to pieces by now. People our size seem to cause a negative reaction with the natives of this planet.”

  Kobrak laughed out loud. “Let me guess – they think you’re those big Midgaard that are supposed to come back here and trash the place? The old empire only made things worse when they tried to suppress them.” He grabbed his tea. “From what I’ve seen in the history vids, everyone thought the Apokalyptii were just a bunch of nuts, but then the imperial troops started shooting them on sight. Really helped the nutjobs look like they were on to something. For every zealot the soldiers shot, three more would pop up.” He took a drink.

  “So they finally gave up trying to eradicate them?” Tommy asked. “After all, they’re still here and the empire is long gone.”

  “Not quite.” He set his mug down and his eyes focused on a random point on his holographic display. “The emperor shifted a half million troops down here from Cera – that’s where you’ll be taking that delivery for me – and they spent five years bringing the planet back under control. They killed a quarter of a million Kholarii, tore down the temple and completely eradicated the movement, or so they thought.” He wiped the screen out of existence. “Ideas are the hardest thing to kill. As long as there’s one believer left, the cycle will repeat itself.”

  Temple. Tommy leaned forward. “Kobrak, are there any ruins left from the temple? This religion is very dangerous to my people and it might be worth our time to go there and see what we can learn, unless the place is swarming with Kholarii.” He had no desire to become the target of an angry mob.

  “The ruins are there, in the wilderness,” he answered in a cautionary tone. “The inscriptions are all in Kholari and that’s been a dead language since the empire set up shop. Everyone here speaks Dheema, even the natives.” He spread his hands. “You won’t learn much, but at least the Kholarii don’t go there. Just tell Chelak and he’ll take you.”

  The Völund

  In orbit around Khola

  Carol sat at Tommy’s station, cursing as her packet of dehydrated fruit slid off the keyboard and spilled on the deck. She ignored the mess for the moment and pulled the chair up to face the camera above Tommy’s monitor, wincing at the sound of crushing food beneath her feet. She activated the connection and breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of her old friend. “Captain, it’s good to see you’re o.k. We’ve been given the impression that Khola isn’t exactly safe.”

  “Yeah, well we’ve had a taste of that already.” Harry’s lips formed a grim smile. “So far today, we’ve been mistaken for evil gods by an angry mob, laughed out of a mining company office, and engaged in a deadly firefight that left two aliens dead… well – three, really – and we haven’t even had lunch yet.” Suddenly, his gaze focused intently on his first officer. “Hang on, who gave you the impression that Khola wasn’t safe? If there’s impressions being given, I’m supposed to be the one getting them.”

  “A Chinese ship is parked next to us. One of their ensigns came over here for a visit and she seemed to take to our science officers. Before she left, she told them that the planet might not be safe for us. I don’t think she was supposed to tell us that. She just kind of dropped it on them and ran off.”

  “Well isn’t that neighborly!” Harry exclaimed with no small amount of sarcasm. “Carol, they have an operative embedded with their own business partners down here. That’s probably why she feels we aren’t safe.”

  “Should we get her back over here and see if we can’t convince them to lay off?” Carol looked out the port side bridge window at the Zheng He. Probably stuffed with weapons for their business partners. We should start doing the same.

  “No.” Harry was firm. “We don’t acknowledge a thing. We just go about our business. Speaking of which…” He turned aside, talking quietly for a moment before turning back. “Our new business partner, Kobrak, is manufacturing the fittings needed to match up with our loading umbilicals. Get Keira to set up the number five compression fittings on all external probes. He’s going to deliver to us in orbit but, first, we need to start loading up with a delivery for a planet called Cera. One of his shuttles will come up for a linkage test in a couple of hours. Use Gelna to translate for you.”

  “Won’t Tommy be with them?” Carol touched Keira’s image on the crew list, dragging a copy to the bridge icon. Her image began to flash.

  “No, he’s learned about some temple from an old religion. It’s not a very human-friendly religion, to say the least, so we’re going to go take a look at the ruins – see if we can learn anything that might help us to get along with the natives down here.” He paused for a second. “Have you been in touch with Jim?”

  “He’s bored, but fine.” Carol nodded. “Maybe I should check in every hour, given the new situation.”

  “Do that. Otherwise, we’ll keep radio silence. We’ll probably be back aboard by dinner-time, depending on how far out of the city we have to go to see this temple. Remember, get Keira going on the fittings right away. Talk to you later.” The image disappeared.

  Great, thought Carol. It’s like the wild west down there. Keira’s image had stopped flashing, indicating that she had acknowledged the page and was on her way. Carol looked out at the Chinese ship. It was similar to the Völund, an adaptation of the cruisers that had fought in Mars orbit more than a decade ago. It had the new propulsion systems, based on captured technology, and it carried fewer weapons than its military counterpart. Like the Red Flag vessel, the massive forward batteries had been discarded in favor of cargo space and the surface turrets had been reduced by half. The projectiles from those weapons had no chance of getting past the Völund’s nav shield, but that didn’t mean the Zheng He posed no threat.

  She reached out and dragged Danraj Rai’s image onto the bridge icon.

  Khola

  The Central Continental Cloud Forest

  “How old is this forest?” Tommy leaned against the railing of the suspended walkway, his breath misting in the cool mountain air. “The trees look like they may be only a century or so old.” The rest of the group were taking turns having their pictures taken above the deep, dark ravine that trailed down into obscurity beneath them. The bridge they stood on ran for several hundred yards through lush, dense growth.

  “As old as the planet.” Chelak seemed surprised at the question. “This is the full height for a tree at this altitude.”

  They shifted aside hastily as the tree tops above them, stripping moisture from the air, suddenly released a patter of precipitation on them.

  “They look like the cedars we have on Earth, but some kind of ‘weeping’ kind. The branches of cedars don’t droop like this.” He waved a hand at the mossy trunks around them. “They’re beautiful… What was that?” A low pitched croaking sound ran through five tones and then repeated itself. An answering croak sounded from the distance. Or is that just an echo?

  “It’s a tsallit,” Chelak noticed that the group was moving again and he started towards the far end of the bridge, Tommy falling in with him. “They’re amphibians that spend most of the day calling to each other. At night they spread their wings and hunt insects. No idea if they ever sleep.”

  As they walked off the end of the bridge, they found themselves on the edge of the ruins. Huge, quarried chunks of limestone lay in jumbled mounds. One structure, ten feet square, seemed newer. It was made of concrete and stood roughly fifteen feet high. Heavy pilasters ran up the corners, flaring out at top and bottom.

  A crest was inset into the concrete, depicting a stout, heraldic beast with fearsome fangs and extended talons.

/>   “The imperial boar,” Chelak nodded at the crest. “Implacable, and deadly when aroused to anger. Also prone to starve if you cut off his hunting grounds.” He chuckled. “Should have chosen a carrion eater instead.” He moved past the structure by going to the left because a pile of rubble was lying up against the right side, blocking the main path.

  Tommy gazed for a moment at the crest and the words inscribed across the top in imperial Dheema. ‘Behold, the fruits of fanaticism, the harvest of insurrection.’ He shuddered as he realized how many dead Kholarii this structure represented.

  The rest of the group emerged from the thicker mists above the ravine and Tommy joined them. They headed towards Chelak, who waited patiently next to a medium-sized pile of rubble. “This is the most informative section,” he explained as they reached him. “I was dragged out here during my school days. “They told us this was where most of the inscriptions from the old temple ended up.”

  Tommy translated. It’s like working for a bloody tourist company.

  “These little squiggles are different from the little squiggles they use now?” Liam asked as he saw a carved inscription beneath his feet. He crouched down to get a better look.

  Bernie, standing next to Liam, suddenly took a half turn to the right, a look of shock on his face. Tommy was looking in his general direction and he watched as the purchasing agent looked down, dumbly reaching up to grasp his shoulder. Blood trickled out between his fingers.

  It took a second for Tommy’s mind to register the faint sound that had roughly coincided with Bernie’s sudden movement. He jerked like he had been hit – hit… “Sniper,” he shouted, racing towards Bernie who stared back at him in mute surprise. Tommy bounded onto a small column lying behind his father and launched himself at his wounded crewmate, grasping the man’s jacket and spinning him to the ground as he fell past him.

  Liam and his team reacted instantly to the warning. In fact, Liam had nearly collided with Tommy as he launched himself, backwards, over the column. A white puff of powdered limestone appeared near his head as he fell. He took a deep breath but Ken was one step ahead of him. “Seen,” he yelled from the pile of rocks where he had taken cover. “He’s in the rubble to the left of the structure we passed on the way in. Popping CS.”

  The tear-gas grenade sailed over the rubble to bounce down into a crevice between the debris and the wall of the structure. A white cloud began boiling out of the enclosed space, adding to the mist that already drifted around the ruins. “Cover me,” Kale shouted.

  The team poured a steady stream of fire into the cloud of gas, giving Kale the chance to get close enough to deploy a stun grenade. He took cover behind a small pile of stone and metal, laying his assault rifle down and raising to his left knee. “Frag out,” he called, lobbing the weapon with his right hand.

  Tommy could see the look of surprise on his father’s face. ‘Frag out’ could only mean one thing: Kale had defied him and brought along fragmentation grenades.

  The four-second fuse expired and a sharp bang sent a visible shock through the gas and mist around the small structure. Kale raced forward weapon at the ready. “Target down,” he called as he scanned the area beyond the structure. Ken and Terry moved past the structure on the right side, leapfrogging their way towards the bridge, the only entrance to the temple site.

  “What are you bloody playing at?” Liam was stalking angrily towards Kale. He reached him just as the other man finished climbing down from the rubble and grabbed him by the shirtfront, shoving him back into a seated position on a large rectangular block of limestone. “If I say we bring nothing but bloody pencils for weapons, that’s what you bring. Do you understand me?”

  Kale lunged back to his feet. “It got the job done, didn’t it?” He stepped in closer to Liam, face only inches away. “That wasn’t some yokel with a squirrel gun. That was a big-as-life, special forces sniper. We go messing around with CS gas and flash-bangs, we get ourselves killed.”

  He scrambled back up through the cloud of noxious vapor and then returned with the CS canister, still smoking. He held it to his face and breathed the fumes. He coughed as he threw it aside. His eyes were rimmed in red and mucus was trailing from his mouth. “I can still breath, Liam. I can still see you and I can sure as hell still put a bullet in your head.” He spat. “That was no ordinary grunt, down on his luck – he was one of the Five-Minute Men.”

  “The Five Minute Response-Unit?” Liam pushed past him and climbed up to where the body lay. “How do you know that?”

  Kale joined him, looking down at the dead soldier. “Met him in Estonia. Couple of years back. Don’t remember the name but I remember seeing him on the podium when China won the overall title.”

  “Title? You mean the Erna Raid?” Liam had also participated in the international special forces competition.

  Kale crouched beside Liam. “Yeah. This guy was working counter-terrorism in Hong Kong two years ago.” He looked up as Ken and Terry appeared at the end of the bridge. “How much you want to bet he’s still drawing pay from the PLA?” He got up and scrambled back down the sloped rubble before stalking off past his returning teammates.

  Liam shook his head at Terry’s raised eyebrow. “Never mind him, we have a body to dispose of. Probably the chap behind the attack at Kobrak’s office.” He handed his weapon down to Terry as the rest of the group gathered. He reached into the hollow where their attacker had been hiding and carefully pulled out his type 79 sniper rifle, handing it down as well before grasping the sniper’s hand.

  Ken edged up beside Liam and reached in for the other hand. The two of them heaved and the body slid out, tumbling them down the sharp rocks in a startled heap.

  The group’s laugh was cut short by a loud thumping sound. A pressure wave blasted past them, carrying chunks of limestone of various sizes. Miraculously, no-one was hit by any of the large pieces, but everyone now had a variety of small cuts on their faces and hands.

  “What the hell was that?” Harry’s voice rose dramatically over the course of the five words as he realized how poor his hearing had suddenly become.

  “Too big for a grenade,” Liam shouted. “He must have had a few ready-made charges, just in case he decided to blow up our vehicle.” He dug uselessly at his ear for a moment. “If a rock shifted and put enough pressure on the det-cap, it could have set off a prepped charge.” He worked his way back up to where the blast had originated. “Hello!” He stepped back and crouched, drawing his sidearm.

  Liam pulled out a small, aluminum flashlight, using it to wave Terry and Ken up to join him. “There’s an opening into the structure,” he called. He pointed down into the hole and they both kneeled, aiming their weapons down into the opening that the blast had created. Liam shrugged out of his load-bearing vest and tightened the wrist tabs on his rain coat, eliminating anything that might snag on rough edges and trap him in an enclosed space. He reached back to roll up his hood, securing it with a velcro tab.

  He shook his head at Ken, who had tapped one of the flash-bangs on his vest with a questioning look. Terry pulled his weapon up as Liam slid down into the gap in the rubble. Ken also pulled his rifle up as his aim was obscured by his teammate. Liam moved to the hole and leaned in, holding the flashlight as far from his body as possible before turning it on.

  He swung the light back and forth before dropping down into the hazy room, sliding down on the upper half of a metal door, bent inward by the blast. “There’s a room down here and a stairway that goes deeper.”

  Tommy watched as Terry handed Liam’s rifle, along with his own, down into the hole before sliding through to join him. Kale came running back from the bridge.

  “Sounded like a demo charge,” he said.

  “Small plastic charge, most likely.” Ken called down from where he now knelt atop the structure with his Stoner tight to his shoulder.

  “Everyone’s fine,” Tommy added in a normal voice, realizing that he had already regained most of his hearing, though a sligh
t ringing still lingered.

  “I’m not fine,” Bernie moaned. “I’ve been shot.”

  Kale walked over and yanked Bernie’s hand away from his wound, eliciting a yelp from the company buyer. He leaned in close to take a look and snorted in disgust. “Barely even broke the skin!” he growled. “He could’ve cut on you a hell of a lot more than that.”

  “I’m starting to think that driving you around might be hazardous to my health,” Chelak sighed.

  “Are you shining me on?” Tommy’s expression might not have a direct translation in Dheema but the tone conveyed his meaning. “The last attack was aimed at a business that you brought us to. That’s probably where we picked up our new friend here.” He waved at the body on the ground. “I’ll wager he followed us from Kobrak’s shop.”

  A voice wafted up from the hole and Ken nodded. “Kale,” he called. “You and I will secure this area, but the rest should go below. Sounds like Liam found something interesting.”

  Tommy waited inside the chamber for Chelak to slide down the bent door. “Did you know there was a door there?” he asked.

  “No. We always assumed it was a solid block of concrete.”

  They descended together in silence, joining the rest of the group who had entered ahead of them. Harry and Bernie had pulled the ends off of their lights, increasing the ambient light to the point where the room’s macabre contents were clearly visible.

  The wall was decorated with skeletons.

  “Certainly not a look I would go with,” Liam said quietly.

  “It explains how this is the fate of those who prefer fanaticism over imperial order.” Chelak pointed up at the glyphs that ran around the top of the wall in four rows. “This must have been built as a deterrent – a message to stay clear of the Apokalyptii.”