by Damon Alan
“If you find out where she is, let me know right away.”
“I will.” What he said next chilled Sarah. She was surprised to actually shiver. “Finding and killing her is the only way any of us are going to survive. It’s either her. Or it’s us.”
“Corriea, Alarin is going to be with you for a while. We can’t send him home, he’s too useful, and I suspect putting him back on the moon would be a death sentence for him.”
“I agree, Captain. This shuttle’s not bad. It’s meant to haul cargo and personnel, so it’s roomy. I’ll see what else I can get from Alarin. I won’t put him back into Merik's hands.”
“Let me know what you find. Dayson out.”
Sarah closed the link. “Have the Yascurra launch two grapplers fitted for an orbital strike. I want our next strike to take minutes, not hours. Get them in position and cycle them out every forty-eight hours.”
“Right away, Captain.”
Sarah lay back in her command station and stewed.
If Merik had been home, this conflict might be over.
But if it wasn’t clear there was a war before, there certainly would be one now. Merik had to know the ‘demons’ just tried to kill her.
Chapter 24 - Two Birds in the Hand
Late morning of Secondday, cycle 72, year 8748
Merik sipped a juice drink from a cold glass at her country estate. She rested on a slate veranda. A palatial house cast a shadow across her, keeping Secondday warmth at bay. She reclined on a lounge, speaking with two of the adepts who separated from Alarin's expedition to search for the demon men. Servants fanned the three of them with large silken fans.
During the last longnight Bellor contacted Merik and reported success in acquiring two prisoners, although there were casualties on both sides. The demons possessed powerful weapons and items that gave them abilities. Dangerous abilities. Bellor delivered the prisoners to her wine estate outside of Zeffult. Merik allowed Bellor and Maratha to remain at the estate for a short while as a reward.
Additionally the estate provided a secure place to interrogate the prisoners.
“I congratulate you, Bellor. Alarin judged you incompetent; this will no doubt be a thorn in his foot.”
“I eagerly await seeing him eat his words, Master Merik,” Bellor replied, bowing to Merik. “I only seek to prove my worth to you.”
“He mistreated Bellor when he sent us away,” Maratha interjected.
Merik turned cold eyes on the woman, and Maratha visibly shrank. “Did he? Bellor must have displeased him in some fashion. Do not forget, Alarin is Second Adept. You would do well not to provoke him.”
Bellor watched the exchange, and sipped his glass slowly.
Maratha squirmed under Merik’s glare. “I only meant for you to be aware, Master.”
Merik sighed. Maratha was too useful to torture in such a way. And too dim. “Drink, Maratha, enjoy the offerings of my vineyards. In later days that which you drink will be the finest wine in Zeffult, no… not just Zeffult. On the continent.”
Maratha wisely remained silent.
Merik stood and walked to the edge of the patio, overlooking a carriage house. Sunlight glistened in her white hair, and the wind played with her sheer clothing. She looked west, toward the city she loved. The land sloped downward toward Zeffult, ending in the cliffs that stretched north and south along the coastline. Merik's estate sat in the hills east of the city, half a day’s ride from the capital.
She stood still for several minutes, enjoying the warmth of the sun and the silence of her guests.
Without warning a brilliant object appeared in the western sky.
The atmosphere rippled like water in a pond and the sky burst open. A lancing flame left a trail of orange as it plunged to the ground. A pulse of bright light flashed from within Zeffult. Four breaths later the sound struck her. A distinct sound, not unlike the first stroke of a bolt of lightning.
Bellor and Maratha jumped to their feet and raced to the railing. Horror was etched on their faces.
Merik watched as a dust plume rose above her city, looking like a giant mushroom. It was as if the gods struck Zeffult from the heavens.
She turned away, strode across the balcony, to the door of her estate house. She paused, taking one last look at the destructive power rising over Zeffult before stepping inside.
Bellor and Maratha started to follow her, but she waved them off. “I will be alone.”
She strode toward a spiral staircase, grand and ornate. Descending, she reached the basement level of the house, and a guard standing in front of a large door greeted her formally.
“Open the door.”
“Right away, Master Adept.” The guard unlatched the thick wooden door, opening access to the hallway beyond.
Merik swept past him and into the hall, lined with cells, each barred with thick wooden poles. Two guards in the hallway saluted. An herbalist stood near a table, looking over the items captured with the prisoners. As he examined the mysterious artifacts with his eyes, he ground a poultice in a mortar.
Two prisoners occupied her cells. She walked up to the bars holding the first of her captives. He lay on a cot inside the chamber. The prisoner lay naked and unconscious, his arm blackened from the deadly bite of cold. Bellor said he'd frozen the prisoner's arm to stop his attacks on Merik's guardsmen. Merik wasn't a healer, but the arm looked bad. Idly she wondered if he'd lose it.
She walked to the next cell to find the prisoner within awake. He was naked also, his skin dark and ruddy. Merik was intrigued by his coloring, by his dark hair and eyes. She’d never seen a man like him. He was thinner than most men from Zeffult, yet his muscle definition was outstanding.
“This man is bred to be a warrior?” she asked the herbalist.
“He is strong, and well fed, Master Adept. I think warrior is a good guess. Or gladiator, but I believe his health means he is important among the demon men.”
She turned to face the prisoner. “Who are you?” She stared at him, not expecting an answer.
He replied with something in a gibbering tongue. It was harsh, with hard sounds. It discomforted both her ears and her mind.
“Barbarians,” she observed to the priest.
The herbalist nodded his agreement.
She caressed the prisoner with her mind, discerning his state of existence. She did the same for a stone in the wall nearby. She felt the stream of universal knowledge flowing through her, and she focused on these two things, then began to change the song sung by the universe. The man screamed as she transferred just enough heat from the stone to his feet to make standing unbearable. He collapsed to the floor and growled at her like an animal.
“He has spunk, I'll give him that,” she said. “He is afraid, but he wants to fight.”
The healer finished grinding something in his mortar and pestle. “It will do no good to create injuries I have to fix. Unless, of course, you wish him to suffer and for me not to tend him.”
Merik smiled at the grouchy old healer, amused by his willingness to speak frankly. Old men sometimes became so nonchalant about life they no longer cared to properly address their superiors. “You are a good healer, Xuld, or I'd have you punished. If you're to be insolent with me make sure you never fail to be useful.”
She watched the man in the jail rise, then back off into the far corner of the cell. Good. He fears me properly now.
“I don't mean disrespect, Master Adept,” Xuld answered. “I am in service to your every whim.”
“Of course you are. Don't worry, his feet aren't wounded. Intense pain doesn't require damage. In fact too much damage lessens the pain.”
Xuld wisely remained quiet, leaving Merik to her thoughts.
“If the other one with the destroyed arm regains consciousness, torture him to death in front of this one. Make it last as long as possible, and keep him conscious while he dies. I want the message to be clear for my new friend,” Merik said, pointing at the standing prisoner. “Get another pr
iest down here to teach this one how to speak. I can’t understand his barbaric babbling, and I want to know all about the demon and the demon men.”
“As you wish, Master Adept. I will notify the guard as soon as the other wakes up.”
“I'm returning to the city to deal with matters there. Bellor will stay here, to oversee his conversion to our point of view. Their simple minds excel at such things.”
“Yes, Master Adept.”
“Oh, and Xuld, you had best keep this one alive,” Merik warned. She turned to face the priest, and stared at him, unblinking as she awaited his response.
Xuld gulped audibly, then nodded. “Of course, Master Adept. As you will it.”
Merik swept from the basement and returned to her veranda. She told Bellor of her plans. The idiot smiled eagerly as she told him of the service she desired.
Alarin, you were right about this one. A simpleton. But even simpletons have their uses.
Merik reached east with her mind, searching for the familiar thought patterns of her lover. As had been the case for over a cycle now, she found nothing.
She worried as she left the estate for Zeffult, which surprised her.
Chapter 25 - A Trail in the Woods
17 ORS 15327
The site where the Amalli’s escape pods landed wasn’t hard to find. An area of forest several hundred square meters in size was burned out. Blackened trunks were all that remained, over ground covered with charcoal and ash. The pods rested on a hillside that sloped downward to a small river.
The escape pods landed less than fifteen meters apart. They lay on their sides, partially melted from the inferno that consumed the forest.
Gilbert shuffled uncomfortably as he surveyed the destruction from the cockpit of the insertion shuttle.
Forest fires don’t burn that hot.
Gilbert directed the shuttles to land in a small clearing. His men unloaded the battle tanks the shuttles carried. Two of the behemoths rolled out onto the soil of Refuge, and for the first time ever the Seventh Fleet were occupiers of enemy soil.
Gilbert checked his radio. Static. They were on their own, the Stennis was out of reach.
“Farrell, get in your suit and give me a perimeter check. Lt. Satier, let’s find out what happened here and which way the crew went,” Gilbert ordered. He noticed a blackened form among the ashes up the hill. “Or if there are survivors,” he added.
Sergeant Farrell saluted and ran to get in his exosuit. Satier rounded up the men. Three crewmen and six marines on each tank, a total of eighteen soldiers now paced the hillside, looking for bodies, survivors, or tracks.
“Commander Gilbert!”
As Gilbert ran up the hill toward the call, a scene of horror unfolded for him. Carrion birds pecked at bodies already well picked over. The birds tearing at burnt corpses created the only color in the area other than the black and white of ash.
Gilbert counted the dead to see if all six crewmen of the Amalli were accounted for.
Eleven?
Gilbert thanked the marine who’d found the bodies, and sent him back downhill to help the other marines. Gilbert walked alone among the carnage.
“Satier, confirm the crew count of the Amalli?” Gilbert asked into his radio.
Satier was still downhill organizing the tanks. “Six, sir. Why?”
“I have eleven bodies up here. We didn’t get here first.”
Gilbert walked among the dead, suppressing his instinct to gag from the smell. The carrion birds protested as they retreated, screaming to defend their bounty. Gilbert pulled his sidearm to defend himself if one refused to yield, but left them alone otherwise. The birds retreated to the unburned trees at the edge of the clearing, watching and waiting for their time with the dead to return.
Gilbert walked from body to body, joined in a few minutes by Lieutenant Satier.
“Which ones are ours?” Satier asked.
Gilbert pointed at one of the corpses. “The less burned ones, I think. The flight suits offered better protection from the fire than the locals had,” Gilbert guessed. His foot nudged something in the ash. He kicked it upward, so it lay on top of the white debris. “Plus it seems they had combat rifles. These are ours.”
“Makes sense. These four together are the least burned. The other seven are uphill, and seemed to have fallen forward and downhill as they died,” Satier said. “I’m thinking those were locals.”
“That leaves two men unaccounted for,” Gilbert said.
“Maybe they escaped,” Satier said hopefully.
“The wind has played hell with any tracks,” Gilbert observed. “I don’t know if we’ll know which way they went.”
“Get the medic up here, have him determine cause of death. Were they dead when they burned, or were they burned alive? I need to know.”
“Will do,” Satier said.
Gilbert walked back down the hill and noticed Farrell wasn’t yet in his exosuit. “Didn’t I give you a directive, Sergeant?”
“Yes, sir, but I noticed something you’ll need to see. I investigated it on foot.” Farrell gestured to his left. “If you’ll follow me?”
The two soldiers walked a short distance and Farrell showed Gilbert lines scraped into the ground. The sergeant pointed to the rut and gestured toward the north. “It looks like the natives built a couple of travois to drag something out of here, sir.”
Gilbert followed the furrows with his eyes until they disappeared into the unburned tree line. “That’s our two missing crewmen. Will you be able to follow it?” Gilbert asked.
“Easily, even on rock it will leave scuffs. They don't expect to be followed, or they'd have made gurneys.”
“How many, Farrel?” Gilbert asked.
“Two travois, two men pulling each one. I won’t know more until we get to better ground for tracking. This ash is too stirred up.”
“I want to know ASAP. Get your suit on. We leave as soon as we bury ours.”
Gilbert hid a transponder in the burned out hulk of a pod. The fire destroyed the beacon the pod carried, replacing it would make it easier to find this location later. Another crew would return to recover the bodies of the fallen.
As a temporary measure, his combat team buried the dead Amalli crewmen in shallow graves after the medics determined the cause of death. Two were frozen. Two were burned alive from the inside out.
“What about the locals, sir?” one of the marines asked.
“They left their own to be eaten by scavengers. We won’t assume that isn’t their way,” Gilbert replied. “Leave them for the birds.”
The men dug four graves, relieved it wasn’t more.
Gilbert focused his energy on the enemy as he watched the burial, his fists opening and closing to vent his anger. It wasn’t working. The sight of the dead left to scavengers made the blood in his veins burn.
Captain Dayson says the natives are human. Maybe they assumed this was our way. If not they have the cruelty part of being human down.
Gilbert needed to speak a few words for the fallen, he was senior officer. He stood over the graves and made a simple promise. “I swear, you didn't come all this way to die for nothing. You survived Hamor. You survived being nuked. You survived the longest damned FTL jump in history, and you helped us find our new home. After coming all this way, you fell fighting a new enemy, bravely following my orders. I'll make every effort to bring justice to your killers.”
“Let's get 'em, Commander,” Lt. Satier added.
Gilbert raised his head and looked grimly at Satier. “Lieutenant, we have orders. Captain Dayson said we're not to indiscriminately engage the locals in combat, so we won't. But she didn’t know about this. The sons of bitches that did this are fair game. We're going to follow the bastards that took our men, and we're going to get our men and justice for the Amalli.” Gilbert pointed at one of the dead locals. “It's going to be hard to tell which soldier did it, so we'll engage every soldier we see until we get our boys back.” He raised his voice fo
r everyone to hear. “We take no risks with anyone armed. They will do this to us if we give them that chance.”
Satier nodded his agreement and rounded up the men. “Okay, you uneducated monkeys! Get to your tanks, and get ready to earn the pay you're no longer getting.” The Lieutenant pointed at Sergeant Farrell. “You, Farrell. You're the man on the ground. Stay half a kilometer ahead, maintain firing line of sight. If we can't see you, we can't protect you. Stupid is dead.”
“Don't worry, L-T, I like my skin warm, alive, and moving,” Farrell said as he finished locking into his exoskeleton.
Lt. Satier checked the function of Farrell’s exosuit. “If you see something, just put your camera on it, don't engage. The Commander will decide if it dies. We don't want the enemy to see you.”
As Gilbert walked up and added, “We have enough dead already.”
“Yes sir! I'm a ghost, sir. A real specter,” Farrell replied.
“We have a spook guiding us, Commander,” Satier said and clamped the final seal in place on Farrell's exosuit.
“You stay a living ghost. No heroics.” Gilbert slightly raised his voice and turned his head back toward the rest of his men. “The tanks will take the risks, right boys?”
The men cheered loudly.
Satier started to quiet them, but Gilbert stopped him. “Let them go. They haven't had a chance to blow off steam in a long time. Let them build their courage.”
Gilbert watched as they whipped themselves up a few minutes, then raised his hand. Silence returned.
“Feel better? Well you'd better because that's all the screwing off you get down here. From here on out you remember what you are. Professionals. Get in your tanks.” He turned away from the men, climbed onto his tank, and waited for his gunner to clear the hatch. Gilbert stepped into the hatch and climbed into his position. “Corporal Hamden, we're going to do this smart, so stay alert.”
“You got it, Commander. You call it, I kill it,” Hamden said.
The Commander strapped into his station, and fired up his tactical displays. “I'll call it, you kill it,” he replied automatically as he ran a quick diagnostic check on the tank.
