Second Strike

by Tim C. Taylor

  I think Silky heard my every thought, because she eased back her head, though only to its starting position before her advance.

  “The touching of lips is common in human displays of affection,” she said. “I have no experience of this ritual, but you have my permission to conduct such displays with me whenever you wish.”

  “Er, thank you.”

  “So long as we are in private, of course.”

  “Naturally.”

  Silky withdrew her hand from my lips and – still sitting in the cradle of my left arm – businesslike Section Leader Sylk-Peddembal was back amongst us.

  Before I let her complete her transformation, I captured one of her hands in my right hand, my left gently squeezing her thigh. We’d nudged at the gateway of something profound. I wasn’t sure exactly what lay behind that threshold, but it was important – possibly disastrous too, knowing me – but nonetheless precious. I wanted to mark that door so we could return here at another time. When we were safe. When I was ready.

  “Your lips…” I started, but I didn’t know how to continue.

  “What about them?” Her voice was gently teasing but supportive all the same.

  “What you said. About displays of affection.”

  “Yes?”

  “I will,” I promised.

  “I know,” she said and smiled. As smiles went it was a modest affair. Neither the wicked glee of illicit thrill, nor the gently teasing expression that she often used with me. It had no need to be showy because the deep contentment it expressed was revealed everywhere from the softness in her shoulders, to the glint in her obsidian eyes, and nowhere more than the organ of honesty that lay atop her head.

  “I know,” she repeated. Then she brought the moment to a close, pulling her hand forcibly from my grip and wriggling a signal for me to let her down, acting as if nothing had happened, nothing had changed.

  But it had.

  Everything had changed.

  — CHAPTER 58 —

  Beneath Port Zahir, the sewers, conduits, storm drains and service channels are a network of highways that allow anyone who knows their secrets to move undetected across any topside barrier to appear at any point in the city that they wish. Imagine it… in effect, wormhole technology that could completely bypass normal topside space-time.

  Got that picture in your head? It’s exciting, isn’t it? The implications are a little scary too.

  Shame it isn’t true.

  For a start, long before the Legion assigned us here, the Hardits had already settled the planet. The underground-dwelling Hardit miners were few in number, but the original Port Zahir settlement was theirs and some still lived here underground, venturing topside as rarely as they could get away with, and as welcoming to intruders as… well, a Hardit in a bad temper. And the sewers had security gates precisely to prevent them from being used as a secret highway.

  I faced such a barrier now at one of the frequent junction points. I looked down from a ledge onto an enormous bowl, easily a hundred meters deep, into which several incoming water channels were choked into high pressure jets and then spun by the rifling cut into the walls.

  To a land-liver, the resulting vortex of dark, foaming liquid must have seemed the lair of a vengeful sea demon. But I wasn’t a land-thumper. My natural home was aboard voidships, only descending gravity wells to take the planet below by force of arms, and I’d liberated nearly as many water worlds as those with dry continents.

  This, at least, was the confidence I tried to project to the Kurlei and the Earther woman, both of whom had hardwired assumptions of up and down, land and air. With our face masks and breather tanks, we couldn’t see each other well, but I knew Silverberg was scared because she’d stopped bossing us around and let the Littorane contingent of our task force take control. I felt Silky’s fear as ice cutting through my spine. I could only hope that my resolve worked in the other direction, and kept terror from overwhelming her.

  “Just one more gate,” I shouted into my radio comms – the roar of rushing water making any other form of speech impossible. “Then we’re through.”

  “It had better be quick,” said Silverberg. “I’m low on air.”

  Silky’s fear spiked and I knew why. We all had only a few minutes’ air left. The Littorane breather tanks were a courtesy for occasional guests, and not intended for serious underwater operations for species so badly evolved that they lacked gills.

  I made a mental note to remember that next time.

  “It’ll be easy,” I told them. “We’re not alone, don’t forget. I brought my family.”

  I had a brain wave. At least, it felt like that, but the thought tasted of the AI casing in my spine that carried the personality of Lance Corporal Efia Jalloh. I edged over to Schaek and tapped him on the shoulder. “Honored Uncle, could you please explain what we are seeing here?”

  “I would be delighted,” he said, and he meant it.

  K’Teene Schaek was the leader of the clan faction who called themselves the ‘Head’. I was still learning what that meant, but so far I’d worked out that this ‘Head’ handled engineering, logistics, strategic planning analysis, and bookkeeping. Schaek had been a combat engineer and he spoke with a true engineer’s wonder at how these junctions in the city’s underground network were engineered to perform simultaneous functions. They weren’t merely a security feature, but critical components of the port’s flood and tsunami defenses, and even linked back into the supply of potable water to buffer the water pressure that made the flow of water predictable when I turned on the tap in my apartment.

  This last point was a deeply disturbing revelation, because the system clearly provided another function, made obvious by the dark water color in two of the incoming channels. I was already filthy and reeking from my journey so far through the sewers. There was more sewage to get through before we reached the mayor.

  Of course, I had asked for Schaek’s engineering geek-speak to distract the other two air-breathers from their looming terror, and my plan seemed to be working.

  I think the old Littorane understood my intent because he made no reference to the security gate his team were cutting through, fifty meters down below the churning surface of the vortex. Nor of the antipersonnel mines guarding the barrier.

  No, the sewers are not a magic highway for desperadoes.

  Not unless you have an army of former Marine engineers, and like many of us who had served in the Legion, the War of Liberation had extended not just to our personal status, but to the liberation of service equipment too.

  There’s an old Legion saying. With a little butchering, it goes something like this. Gear adrift… is a gift you use at a later date to cut safe passage through underwater gates.

  “We’ve cleared the last of the mines,” announced Schaek. I’d expected spectacular sprays of water, but the maelstrom of fluid was so vigorous we could see no sign of the underwater explosions. “The mayor’s residence is 1.2 klicks down the third passage on the left after you emerge through the hole we cut through the gate. Wait for the all clear and then you’re good to go. May the Goddess shield you with the purity of Her song.”

  “And sustain us with a round of drinks when we’re done,” I added, as we waited for the Littorane on a far ledge opposite ours to give the signal.

  She lifted her tail high and curled its tip into a near-circle.

  With the others’ nerves frayed, I couldn’t afford to hesitate or give them the benefit of my wise-assery. I dived into the maelstrom.

  From our vantage point above the water, the churning vortex had been a humbling reminder of angry water’s immense power.

  But that was nothing compared with the elemental energy that tore at me beneath the surface. I was tossed, buffeted, snatched and twisted at the whim of the complex interplay of currents. And this was no gentle dance. The water flailed my flesh relentlessly, setting up a pounding beat in my lungs that forced out my air. Every instinct shouted at me to breathe, but to suck in a
ir though the breather mask against this furious buffeting was nearly impossible.

  But to breathe was my only task at this stage of the operation. Waiting Littoranes grabbed onto my arms and legs and steered me down to the gate.

  Their grip was not gentle. If I’d had the breath I would have complained, but then I saw them thrashing their entire bodies from shoulders to tail-tip in a powerful and thoroughly un-humanoid mode of propulsion with which they did battle against the water’s fury.

  I had lost all sense of up and down, but we broke through the current into relatively clear water and I saw we were halfway down to the gate. There was the hole, and the Littoranes waiting to guide us through.

  My lungs stopped quivering.

  We were about to arrest the most heavily defended person on the planet, a man who wanted me dead. And we were going to attempt this on his territory.

  That was merely insanely dangerous. The prospect of drowning was far more terrifying. Now that the worst was over, I realized how petrified I had been. My lungs returned to their normal state, but my limbs were trembling so much that it was going to be some time before I could stand on dry land without collapsing into a puddle of nerves.

  Not a problem. We were on schedule and the drowning part was over. And by the time we returned here with the mayor, the Littoranes would be waiting with the air refreshed in our breather tanks.

  Something large and heavy smacked into the back of my head, punched my kidneys, and pummeled my poor, suffering lungs for good measure.

  I thought one of the Littoranes was trying to kill me with a tail-swipe, but then I saw a hailstorm of dark slithers shoot across my vision accompanied by a spray of bubbles.

  Blood feathered into the water from wounded Littoranes. Instinct cut in and I gave myself and my companions a visual inspection. My alien guides had taken some minor cuts, but I didn’t see the twitching and arterial blood spray I feared.

  “A mine,” said Schaek over comms. “Missed it – it was lodged in a wall channel. Everyone check in.”

  I listened out for human and Kurlei voices amongst the translations of the hissing and gasping that passed for Littorane speech.

  Silky was fine. Silverberg sounded shaken up but unhurt.

  Then I reported in.

  I couldn’t.

  The bubbles I had seen when the explosion hit now took on a new meaning.

  I sucked at my breather mask but drew in only sewer water.

  Some instincts can be unhelpful. My body’s automatic response was to relax, switch a mechanical valve in my windpipe that you might not have, and pump the water down into my lungs.

  If you weren’t bred for war amongst the stars, then this auto-drown augmentation may seem like a physical impairment, but I was built to fight my battles inside combat armor, not in shirt and pants stained brown by my environment.

  There’s no cover to hide behind in space. The closest we can manage is to maneuver so flesh-crushingly fast, and jink so furiously, that we confuse the targeting systems trying to kill us. And for that we suck oxygen-generating buffer gel deep into our body cavities – most crucially our lungs. Even a Marine adapted for voidwar cannot breathe when pulling such high gees.

  This was sewer water, not buffer gel.

  But it looked as if my former White Knight masters were going to kill me in the end anyway, because my every instinct screamed at me to suck down this fluid as fast as possible.

  I cursed my lungs, implored them to expel the water, and my mouth to stop sucking it in.

  They betrayed me, obeying my old masters.

  I wanted to beg my ghosts to overrule my buffer gel instinct but they were too busy screaming in panic to help.

  This was it. The world was going distant and was about to leave me behind.

  Killed by my own body. I’d never guessed that was how I’d end.

  The water changed its taste, probably my body’s way of making sense of what was happening. It took on a smoky taste sharpened by fresh herbs.

  I surrendered to my fate and drank at this illusion.

  The world sharpened and returned to me.

  I opened my eyes, and flung my arms back in shock to see the Littorane snout banging against my face as it blew air into my mouth.

  He paused, pulled back for a moment, and I recognized the orange stripe running along the right shoulder of his tunic. I didn’t know his name, but this was one of the two males Clewie and I had brawled with. Guess he hadn’t held a grudge.

  I began to change my mind because when I needed my next breath, the Littorane swam away.

  Then another took his place. I could tell his replacement was female from the yellow snout. The scars she’d painted over her face in imitation of mine had smudged slightly in the water, but not enough to be in any doubt who this was.

  Clewie embraced me in all four of her stubby limbs and leaned in to breathe life into me, while strong flicks of her tail accelerated us through the water, passing through the gap in the barrier without slowing, but coasting once we were the other side. She drew her head back a little to stare at me through those near-human eyes set into an amphibian face.

  Then she started rubbing her tail against my leg.

  That was freaky enough, but I was carrying two vital packages strapped to my hip: stealth suits for myself and for the mayor once we’d captured him. I lowered my arms and guarded them jealously, but I needn’t have worried. The damned gator-girl was only tickling me.

  Amidst all her grappling, Clewie must have found time to swim, because I suddenly broke water and breathed in air that bubbled in my water-filled lungs.

  As Clewie hauled me out of the pool and into a sewer tunnel that held only a trickle of water, I was busy expelling the foreign matter from my suffering lungs.

  I’d been engineered to suck in buffer gel rapidly, and now another instinct cut in to purge it from my body, double quick time. Within three seconds, my lungs were free of the fetid water, much of my expulsion now dripping from Clewie. It’s one of the grossest Marine body functions, but it gets the job done.

  “Was it necessary to rub my leg?” I asked her, in between my heaving breaths.

  “Necessary? No, but I wanted to. It’s your long human legs…” She waved the stubby Littorane equivalents. “Humanoid legs are exotic. Yours fascinate me.”

  I put my hands my hips. “You’re not going to hump me, are you?”

  “No. But life can be short, Ndeki. Grab your pleasures while you can, and satisfy your curiosity while it still exists. Is that such a bad philosophy?”

  My near-death experience was so fresh that my irritation evaporated. “No,” I whispered, “You make perfect sense.” I slapped her on the shoulder. “Tell you what, if we survive this, you can touch my legs and stroke my head as much as you want. Get me drunk enough, you never know, I might even tickle you behind your ears.”

  Clewie’s tail shook with laughter. “K’Teene-Joshua Ndeki, if your wife ever tires of you… Talking of which.” She stuck her head back into the water and hissed a command.

  A few moments later, Silky and Silverberg clambered out of the water.

  I noticed that whatever she was saying, Clewie was taking care to stay off comms.

  “Leave your breather tanks here,” Clewie told us. “We shall replenish your air and bring apparatus for the mayor and to replace my honored cousin’s damaged tank. I wish I could go with you.”

  I bowed to her. “We are in your debt, K’Teene-Imesty Clesselwed. But you must obey orders and remain here.”

  “And, remember,” said Silky, “if we have not returned within two hours then we are never coming back, and you must abort the mission.”

  “Will you two stop talking like we’re already dead,” snapped Silverberg. “How your lot ever won a war is beyond me. Now, shift your ugly butts.”

  She set off along the tunnel, her flashlight beam revealing its simple polycrete construction.

  “Does Silverberg insult my appearance?” asked Silky.r />
  “Yeah,” I replied, crouching down to avoid banging my head as I hurried after the policewoman. “She’s just jealous,” I added when I felt anger flare in the alien’s head.

  Honestly, I’d thought Silky was joking, but her anger transformed to satisfaction at my words.

  I shook my head, which made me cry out as I scraped my crown on the tunnel roof. Life had never been this complicated in the Legion.

  — CHAPTER 59 —

  We finally emerged out of an overflow channel, and had to swim the final distance down and up through a pool in the faux ruined temple. We broke water for the final time in an undercroft where the reddish brick and pink mortar glowed like a furnace in the dawn light streaming through holes cut in the roof at ground level.

  “Thank goodness we left the Littoranes outside the boundary,” I said as we changed into our clothes for the next part of the operation. “They would bang on about emerging from a temple being a sign of divine approval.”

  “I do not think so,” said Silky. “This temple is merely an ornament. It holds no religious significance. And our allies’ religious conviction is valuable to us because it significantly boosts their morale.”

  “Yes, thank you.” I’d been trying for humor to lessen the tension, but Silky had her game head on and there was no room inside for anything outside her mission parameters.

  “Wasting your breath, McCall,” said Silverberg. “But nice try anyway.”

  Our gazes locked for a moment, united in the strangeness of being allies, and not just against the mayor. We two humans had pushed to arm the Littoranes and storm the compound. But Silky insisted this was a covert snatch operation, not an open assault. That the K’Teene contingent was led by Schaek’s engineering and bureaucratic faction, rather than Koelb-Ndo’s military one, was confirmation the Littoranes sided with Silky. Schaek had been adamant that we must not allow our endeavor to be seen as a Littorane attack on a human politician.