“And how the hell do you know that?” I looked across at my partner. “You spent the war swabbing decks and pumping bilge.”
He bristled. “Caccamo told me, actually. He said KM rounds were for use in emergencies only.”
“If that’s Caccamo,” I said, “then my money is on his friend being our old friend, Viktor Denisoff.”
“Agreed.”
“Hey, what you mean you agree with me? How do know Denisoff is best pals with Caccamo?”
“How do you think?”
I didn’t know. All that mattered at that moment was that the force shield was now shimmering, cycling through every possible color faster and faster, as if trying desperately to escape the onslaught pouring in from the folly.
Then the answer came to me. “You and Denisoff?” I said, not quite believing it. “You’ve shared his rack?”
“He’s a dangerous man,” Sel-en-Sek replied. “Don’t tell me you’ve never felt his pull, NJ. I know he feels yours.”
A halo of lightning bursts ripped into the air in front of the shield, and the ground throbbed so violently that it shook ripples into the puddles on our rooftop three hundred meters away.
Sel-en-Sek didn’t seem to notice. “Viktor has made several discreet visits to Port Zahir since our posting.”
“Never mind who’s pulling whose whatever,” I shouted. “Shield your frakking eyes.”
I set my eyes to flash-filter mode and waited as the ground churned our guts with its low-frequency screams of torment. This was it, I thought. I’d never seen a force shield explode before.
I looked out in what appeared to me to be the darkest night, but the blinding flash never came.
Instead, the throbbing relaxed into the powerful hum of a motor handling enormous energies but well within design capacity.
I allowed light back into my eyes and saw the mayor had evidently turned off his force shield, leaving the suckers with their antennae surrounding him on the ground like toy arrows.
He didn’t need his personal force shield, because he’d deployed his big one. The entire main residence, ornamental lake and some outer buildings were protected by a heavy force dome. A smaller one protected the main gate. You needed heavy duty weapons to punch through these, usually orbital artillery. They would only delay a fully equipped and supported Marine battalion, but the intruders were just two men.
Two heavily outnumbered men.
Armored figures began streaming out the back of the two nearest bunkers.
I needed a gun! The mayor’s troops were outside the force shield. I just needed my carbine and my brain in working order and I could pick them off with ease. I roared in frustration.
The intruders abandoned their weapons and ran for the cover of the ornamental woods.
The leading defenders dropped to a knee and flailed the temple with machine gun fire. The one who might be Caccamo took a bullet in the leg, hobbling a few paces before a disembodied hand descended from above and lifted him up and out of sight.
They may be out of sight behind whatever stealth cloaking they used, but out of scent was a different matter. Dogs howled. More than dogs were emerging from the bunkers. Their handlers were Hardits whose howl not only resembled the canines’ but whose sense of smell was nearly as keen.
And Hardits could use more than just their noses. One of the handlers stopped suddenly, brought to a halt by whatever he was seeing on a handheld device. He lifted the gadget – some kind of scanner – in front of him, slowly turned, and then looked directly at me.
“I’m too young to be neutered by your wife’s jaws,” said Sel-en-Sek. “We need to get out of here.”
“Good luck,” I shouted at Caccamo and we both limped as fast as we could across the rooftop.
— CHAPTER 50 —
“But we’re married!” I complained.
The Littorane seemed uneasy. I didn’t blame him. Silky and I had stalked Schaek, bursting out at him from behind an equipment cabinet at one of the entrances down to the flooded levels, where the K’Teene spent most of their time.
“We are broadminded people,” he insisted. “Inclusive. We do not judge others who do not harm us.”
“I know. But we’re not others, we’re family, remember? Even Koelb-Ndo is my honored cousin and he tried to kill me.”
“And Clesselwed too,” added Silky. “She’s also a favored cousin.”
“Yes, and her, thank you. Now, Uncle Schaek, please get to the point.”
“The two of you… Sharing the same quarters…”
“Yes?”
The Littorane bobbed his head, his Littorane voice adding in a whisper, “The implications…”
“Yes,” I agreed in a similar whisper. “The implications are horrendous.”
The Littorane relaxed his posture. “So, you understand?”
“No I don’t. What implications?”
“You know…?”
“No I frakking don’t know. It’s one of those cross-species things you’ll just have to force yourself to explain in all its disgusting detail in the interest of the Divine Song’s harmony.”
Silky was no help. All she did was try her best not to laugh.
“If you two are together,” said Schaek. “People will think of you… being together. Your bodies interlocking in unsponsored mating! To our people, the thought would be–”
“Arousing?”
“No! Never! It’s the children I worry about. The young are so impressionable, their minds easily ruined by thoughts of unusual… practices.” The Littorane shuddered. “And then there’s the politics. Your presence here as family members is still shocking many.”
“So, to soothe the fevered dreams of the innocent, cover your six politically, and protect the clan’s upstanding propriety, you want me to stay away from my love.”
Schaek flicked his tail aggressively. “No, Ndeki. I order you to do so.”
Our superior would say no more but walked off without a hint of haste or tension, leaving a damp trail on the floorboards as he retreated. Clesselwed would love to hear that; Schaek was the scourge of any clan member who entered the unflooded areas of the compound without thoroughly drying themselves off first.
Silky waited until he was out of sight, but not out of hearing, before she rolled about laughing with such abandon that she fell into the water, which made her laugh even more. If I hadn’t fished her out, she’d have drowned. Or at least that was the impression she gave, but her performance was probably for my benefit.
I did give a halfhearted chuckle. Winding up the Littorane elder was the closest we’d come to amusement in the days since I’d watched the failed attempt to kill the mayor.
Every day the news grew worse.
And every day it became more difficult to piece together. The local news feeds themselves had been shutting down and then reopening as mouthpieces for Philamon Dutch, who was now Acting Governor of Hy-Nguay until the elections that were promised after the six months he required to restore order.
Communication from the rest of Revenge Squad had dried up to a trickle. Dy Alonzo, the Section ‘B’ leader, had contacted us to tell us Caccamo had appointed him acting director of the branch and that we should stay with the K’Teene and await further instruction while he organized the dispersal of our agents. He’d not heard from Caccamo for days.
César had told us Shahdi had been arrested but she hadn’t been injured in the process. We’d not heard from him since.
Our only advantage was the weakness of the human-dominated police department’s reach within Littorane zones. So long as the acting governor didn’t bring out the Littorane units of the Civilian Defense Force then we should be safe.
I didn’t want to be safe. Orders be damned, I wanted to do something.
As the days passed tensely, keeping me apart from Silky swiftly ceased to be amusing, and the little time we were allowed together grew more precious. I needed a friend and she was the best I had. My ghosts were no longer enough to keep me san
e.
I was an unstable equilibrium. Something was about to blow.
— CHAPTER 51 —
“Hy-Nguay News Agency reports that Operation Forgiveness, the campaign to suppress the coup planned by an alliance of Leveler anarchists and professional vigilante bands – now in its third day – is proving a success.”
The screen showing the newsfeed cut to mayor and acting governor Philamon Dutch at a news conference, the provincial flag, and that of Port Zahir City crossed behind him.
“Martial law is a last resort,” he lied to the press. “The scars will last a generation, but the decision to bring out the Civilian Defense Force to root out those who would destroy our way of life was made not a moment too soon. Hour by hour, we learn how close to disaster we truly were.”
“Has anyone actually seen the CDF in the streets?” I asked, though many of the Littoranes milling about the above-ground communal area hadn’t bothered to wear human translator devices.
“Stay at home after dark,” Dutch told his audience sternly. “Stay away from the voices of hatred. Stay true, my friends. Stay true.”
Since everyone kept telling me I was doing the Goddess’s work, I seized a roughly grenade-sized religious icon from a shelf by the window, and threw it at the large viewscreen that hung by the inner wall. My projectile caught the mayor in the chin, but the screen was as impervious to projectiles as the man himself, taking no more than a temporary dimple. As I cast around for something sturdier to throw at the mayor, one of the Littoranes took pity on me and pulled out the screen’s data feed.
“I saw CDF forces today,” the Littorane told me.
Oh crap. I’d been expecting this ever since the former acting governor had been shot dead at the mayor’s residence – presumably by my boss. This was the first I’d heard of the CDF appearing openly in the streets.
“They were demonstrating their presence,” continued the amphibian, “marching along Coffman Wharf. Most of the soldiers were of our people. They were wary. We can all see the acting governor lies, but the soldiers I saw behaved as if they expected to be attacked at any moment.”
“They are right to fear attack,” said another of the Littoranes. She looked squarely at me. “Attack from humans.”
Silky rose to her feet. “Why would humans attack Littoranes? We see the tension between the extremists of all races – as you know – but are you seriously suggesting those Littoranes patrolling at Coffman would be attacked by humans?”
“By the Levelers,” said the Littorane female. “I heard there was a mutiny at the Third Reserve Division barracks. Several regiments declared against the acting governor. These were human-dominated units and carrying Leveler flags.”
Mader Zagh! Civil War. Not again!
“I wish you’d been part of our song a decade ago,” the female Littorane told me. “You could have been useful then. Your presence here at such a late hour is only an incitement to violence.”
“Are you threatening my husband?”
I put a restraining hand on Silky’s shoulder while I considered the Littorane. “Well?” I asked, unsure myself. “Are you?”
“For now you are my family member. Strange, intriguing even and I would defend you to the death, K’Teene-Joshua Ndeki.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I mean that sincerely.”
“Good,” the Littorane replied. “Then know this, if the city splits along racial lines and there is war between humans and Littoranes, then it is with the deepest regret that I and my cousins shall kill you both.”
“Yeah, I’d be sorry about that too.”
I took Silky away. She was spitting blood lust, but it would do no good, because the K’Teene genuinely were jumping out of their scaly skins to make every attempt to welcome us. I wish we could head somewhere private, but privacy was something the K’Teene had never allowed us. We were kept apart most the day, hidden from the outside world in separate quarters. All day and all night we were watched – for our own protection we were told. As I linked arms with Silky and walked the perimeter of the inner courtyard, our chaperones were there, keeping their distance but staying within earshot.
“We’ve got to do something,” I told her.
“Our options shrink day by day. I see nothing left but a faint chance of escaping the city and abandoning our comrades in the process. Or… how about this, NJ? You keep calm, don’t antagonize our hosts, and obey your frakking orders.”
“Which were to stay out of trouble and distract ourselves sorting out Silverberg and Sel-en-Sek. Meanwhile, Caccamo was supposed to do the grown-up stuff. But he failed, Silky. I saw him.”
“You think you saw him.”
I threw my arms up in frustration. “Who else could that have been?”
We were splashed when a Littorane couple jumped out from the pool at the courtyard’s center and began slithering over each other, the sound of wet slapping flesh echoing off the walls.
“We will obey orders and stay here,” Silky insisted. “I accept we risk detention and arrest with every day we remain, but we must maintain our position as instructed unless it has clearly become untenable.”
I shook my head. “I can’t stay here,” I said firmly.
“If there was a better plan the time to implement it has already passed. It is not for want of considering options, NJ. Even if it was Caccamo you saw getting shot, he may still have knowledge, allies, and equipment that we do not. Come, NJ, rest your head on mine.”
The Littoranes stopped to watch us, intrigued. That suited me fine. I had learned that their after-pool slithering was more a Littorane form of towel-flicking horseplay than full-on public orgy, but the less frenzied writhing going on, the easier I would find it to relax.
I nestled into the soft embrace of Silky’s kesah-kihisia tentacles and closed my eyes, inviting the even softer caresses of the peace she would emit through them.
I wasn’t receptive though.
I didn’t mean to, but I blocked her at every turn because my deep self did not want to be calmed. I wanted to fight.
But what could I do?
So far the only options were to get myself killed in a suicidal gesture, flee, or stay here until we were arrested and executed.
I needed another angle, an opening, but had nothing. And time was running out.
— CHAPTER 52 —
“What do you do?” asked Clewie the following morning.
What you think I’m doing, Gator-girl? I held my snappy reply in check, reminding myself that my young and somewhat creepy friend was not human.
“Are you sick?”
I laughed and couldn’t resist stroking her head – she was kind of endearing. “Not in the way you fear. I’m exercising, Clewie.” The light streaming into my shared and not-at-all private room picked out the sweat pooling over my arms, and I supposed from the heat I could feel on my face that I looked feverish. “I’m doing press ups. Do you Littoranes even do them? I’ll go for a run in a minute around the quad. I suppose I am sick, in a way. Sick in the head because I need to act. Marines aren’t built to sit around and do nothing.”
“I understand. We wrestle to dissipate tension and excess energy. Would you care to wrestle with me?”
I stared at my friend. Was she winding me up? The gold-flecked eyes that peered up at me along her snout looked uncannily human, but she was not human and trying to read her was a waste of time. I sighed. “Another time, perhaps. I’m almost done here.”
Okay, so maybe I could read some Littorane body language, because Clewie raised her shoulders in a way that I knew meant she was disappointed with my response.
“To be honest,” I told her, “I’m trying to be sensible here. Koelb-Ndo made a mess of my thigh with his claws. It’s healing well but I need to stay fit and if you wrestle me, you might damage me.”
Clewie’s shoulders relaxed. “I understand the words you will not speak,” she told me, “fearing to hurt my emotions. You are tougher than most humans, Ndeki. You fear if we wres
tle in joyful play, your warrior spirit will unleash and you will harm me.”
I shook my head. The crazy alien had it all wrong. I was about to explain this when a couple of Littorane males came in. I didn’t want to embarrass her, so kept silent.
She rose on her back legs and lifted her clawed hand onto my cheek. “Honored Ndeki, before your arrival my opinion of humans was poor indeed. I listened to the voices who say this planet would be more peaceful if your race no longer lived upon it. You have taught me to be a better person. I know now that the Song of the Goddess has you humans at its beating heart, and you do Her work. Thank you for helping me to hear that.”
She scurried away, fled I think. I watched her go, wondering why the hell I bothered trying to understand aliens. I noticed the two males were staring at me.
“What?” I challenged.
“You are… disruptive,” one told me. Actually, it’s more accurate to say he accused me. Within their homes, Littoranes crave order and predictability; it is when they step outside that they can go crazy. So when a clan member of good standing describes their cousin as disruptive, it’s the human equivalent of saying they pull legs off cute puppies and use the severed limbs to gouge eyes out of orphaned children.
“I don’t see why I’m causing trouble,” I replied. “She asked to wrestle with me. Are you telling me I should have?”
The Littoranes looked at each other. “You turned her down?” they asked in unison.
“No one in the K’Teene would turn Clesselwed down,” said one. “Even the blessed Heart of our clan would enjoy playing with K’Teene-Imesty Clesselwed.”
“Thank you,” I told him, “for restoring my belief in the impossibility of alien species. I’m sorry, Silky. I apologize, Uncle Schaek. And to you, Clewie, I apologize most of all.”
“Why?” asked the talkative Littorane. “What have you done?”
“Nothing. Yet.”
Although Littoranes are impressive in many ways, when they are politely confused – a common mental state for them – they lift their heads up and hold them rigid. A perfect target for an irritated human pushed too far.
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