by Scott Moon
Kin began to comprehend the stakes. He began to hope all the suffering and loss might mean something.
“I need Clavender,” Nander said.
“She might be safer with the Reaper.” Kin doubted everything Nander claimed. Warrior societies like the Mazz army knew nothing but conquest. The Slomn was probably the only force strong enough to keep them in check. When it was all said and done, the Imperials were still enemies of Earth Fleet and the Ror-Rea.
“She is the only one who can deliver us to the final battle and out again,” Nander said.
“You sound like the High Lords.”
Nander grunted. “Those fools think her power can defeat us.”
“Why do you want to go to the Bleeding Grounds?” The question was a gamble. Kin didn’t know the location or significance of the place, only that Hasic and the other High Lords had demanded Clavender take them there and that she refused.
Nander’s response confirmed Kin’s suspicion. Wherever Clavender’s home was, whatever it was, the Imperials and the Ror-Rea needed it.
“What do you know of the Crucible?”
“First in, last out.” It was a reckless guess. The words felt false, but Nander’s eyes bulged in recognition and alarm. A good military commander chose the battlefield. Some battlefields were better than others.
Nander gathered his surprise, locked it away, and stared at Kin. “You guessed. For a moment, I thought Clavender had told you a secret thousands of our agents died to obtain.” He laughed, making a short chopping sound almost like a swearword. “I commend your instincts, although it might be wiser to think before you speak. Especially with the fate of the universe at stake.”
Kin shrugged. “It’s not my fault I’m a genius.”
Nander gave him a final look, then went to command his troopers.
The guard motioned toward a gully with his weapon. “Take cover.”
“You first.”
The guard stared at him.
“And people say I lack a sense of humor.” Kin slid into the natural shelter and waited. His guard lowered his legs into the opening but leaned on a mound of earth at the top and kept his eyes on Nander and the others.
“What do you have against the Ror-Rea?” Kin asked.
The guard remained professional. “Nothing. It is what it is.”
KIN expected an explosion of atomic proportions and was disappointed. Soft thumps resonated beyond the mouth of the gully. His guard flinched and drew back. When the light came, Kin understood trooper’s reaction.
The explosions that destroyed the Slomn wormhole beacons released just enough force to cause damage, but the aftereffect of the synchronized blasts made nightmares seem pleasant. Kin’s guts churned. Pain ripped through his skull and he couldn’t breathe. Heat washed his face, followed by freezing cold.
In the next instant, he plummeted toward Hellsbreach, the three-layered FSPAA shield vibrating around him. He kept his arms pressed to his sides during the dive, holding handles on his hips as terminal velocity threatened to drag his hands beyond the shield. Nothing was visible through his darkened faceplate but fire.
Sweat ran down his back and front, pooling in his boots and venting steam behind his trajectory. This was the point during an assault when a trooper was the most alone. He couldn’t see or hear his platoon. The computer sensors offered nothing until the heat shields peeled away.
Shield two exploded and vanished. Shield three began to glow as air brakes deployed. “Second platoon, assault formation on my mark. Three, two, one.”
He commanded the last layer of protection to release. The composite ceramic screen expanded, jolting Kin as speed dropped to manageable levels. His parachute flared, guiding him the last hundred meters before detaching.
“Touch down. First squad, take point. Second and third squads move to flanking position,” Kin said. The rest of the platoon charged across the broken plains of Hellsbreach with Kin in the lead.
“Sergeant Orlan, give me a Sit Rep.”
The FSPAA radio crackled as it always did after a planetary assault. “Nothing on our right flank but Reapers. Looks like First Platoon is taking their time.”
Kin glanced up and back as he ran. First, Third, and Fourth Platoon soared across the landscape toward a touchdown marker three kilometers distant. “Either they missed the beacon or we did.”
Orlan laughed. “When was the last time you missed a target?”
“Second Platoon, we have a long haul to regroup with the company. Stay tight. Reapers don’t have ranged weapons. I want you moving shoulder to shoulder until we see Captain Usegi and the rest of our unit.”
Kin led his platoon over the crest of a hill, crashing into a mass of Reapers like he’d never imagined. Military Intelligence hadn’t imagined the force either — or they really hated Kin Roland and his team.
“Shift left! Shift left. There are too many in the center!”
A wave of angry alien flesh swept Kin and his platoon from the field. He muted his helmet communications, not wanting to hear the chaotic screaming of his men or let them hear his terror.
Something jumped on his back, driving him face down against the rocky soil. The blackness lasted a long time.
He lay on the ground facing the night sky of Crashdown, ears ringing, pulse pounding in his temples. Nander’s face appeared, looking down, smiling. But the smile was an act. The man seemed mortally wounded.
“What happened to you?” Kin asked.
“It is nothing. The wormhole sickness has taken me. I may survive.”
Kin wasn’t sure how that made him feel. Nander betrayed him as thoroughly as his worst enemy. But did he want the general to suffer the strange malady so evident in his drawn features?
He sat up, looked around, and saw his guard lying motionless with his helmet off. Blood streamed from his eye sockets and his dead hands gripped his own throat. Something else was wrong. Kin leaned closer, then stood and faced the other direction. The soldier, whose name he never learned, had broken his back during his struggle with imaginary demons.
Kin pushed memories of his own ghosts from his mind. They were creatures he would expect to find at the bottom of an ocean — or in the void of space.
“Your friends are looking for you. We must go,” Nander said.
“That doesn’t seem like a reason I’d want to abandon this little piece of paradise.”
Nander motioned for a pair of troopers to guard Kin. “If you stay, you will see them die.”
“Not if I can help it.”
“You can’t. But if you cooperate, we will leave them to their fate. Only fools approach a destroyed wormhole nexus. If they have sense to turn back, they’ll survive.”
“Until you ambush them.”
“You have my word, Roland. If they don’t spot us and attempt a rescue, I will order my men to let them wander across this horrible planet.”
Kin studied Nander. Thinking of their first meeting and everything that had happened since, he came to a conclusion.
“I don’t trust you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
ORLAN dragged the survivor away from the other Imperials as the passage shook and fire vented from fissures in the rock. Smoke and stony grit clouded the air. Booming gunfire and soldiers screaming through armor speakers sounded a symphony written in hell. He heard the Slomn tearing his enemies apart in the cavern below but didn’t care. The Serpent-Salamander men terrified him to the core of his soul, but they weren’t after him, not right now.
So who cares? If they want me, they can come and get me.
Shapes flickered in the shadows just beyond his vision. “Damn alien freaks!” He manhandled the Mazz Imperial, dragging him out of the mouth of the cave as the confused image of a Slomn slid out of sight below. Serpents. Salamanders. Centipedes with cobra hoods. What kind of madman built the monsters?
Revelation flirted with Orlan. Something to do with the creators of the Slomn. He thought he had a pretty good idea where they came from,
and he was going to make a certain someone pay.
He’d seen a squad of the things drop hundreds of legs from the side of their snake-like bodies like braces for an anti-tank cannon. At the time, he’d laughed as the old Earth ships rocked on their landing skids but withstood the barrage.
And then he’d been running, outdistancing the chaos. He’d darted up steep subterranean tunnels like a monkey-cat, until the Imperials attacked.
Taking a page from Kin’s book, he’d led them on a merry chase right into a Slomn patrol and nearly been crushed between the two unstoppable forces. But it worked.
What did it matter if the Slomn destroyed his enemies? He’d fear the Slomn when it was time. Right now, the bell tolled for the Imperials.
That’s what they get for ambushing me.
Kin was nowhere to be seen. Probably, the Slomn got him too. They’d kill everyone. It didn’t matter.
“I got you now.” Orlan wiggled his knife between the helmet and neckpieces of the Imperial armor.
The man turned his head sideways and down, attempting to snap the tip of the blade and tighten the opening against attack. Orlan pushed the helmet straight and smiled into the man’s visor.
“You’re big for an Imperial. I think I’ll have that armor.”
“No. No. The codes will blow us up.”
“Not if you give them to me.” He leaned his weight on the knife and felt the seal giving way. “I promise not to slit your throat.”
When Orlan finished donning the Imperial armor, he looked down at the naked man. “Did you soil yourself? This suit smells like death.”
“You will be caught and executed.”
“Maybe. But not by you.” Orlan hurled him down the mountainside. He watched for movement. A soldier who knew how to slow his fall might survive. Orlan didn’t think the Imperials were very good without armor. Earth Fleet trained each trooper for a year in unarmed combat, including Judo and Aikido, before teaching them to use an FSPAA unit — and that was only the beginning. Hand-to-hand combat instruction continued throughout a trooper’s career. Imperials seemed to skip this step, not that the man had a chance against Orlan in full gear. He couldn’t have fought back, but if he had learned to fight, to punch and kick and throw an opponent, he might have learned how to fall as well.
The Imperial crashed gracelessly through trees and bushes before lying motionless at the bottom of the escarpment. In Earth Fleet Planetary Forces boot camp, everyone had to learn primitive parachuting techniques, including the ability to land. Orlan’s victim seemed unfamiliar with the concept.
No parachuting skill, no fighting skill — the man was useless.
Orlan laughed, snorted, then held his breath when the Imperial suit beeped three times and went into lock-down mode. The wind carried a strange sound to his ears. Or maybe it was his imagination. Dead men couldn’t laugh. Neither could they explain why Orlan’s newly acquired armor was shutting down.
He spent several moments trying to make the unit move. He had entered the code and equipped himself unaided. Kin would have done it quicker, but Orlan was sure every piece fit. The only problem was that he now seemed a captive of the armor. What would unlock the Imperial security protocol? The armor was just a machine, and machines followed programming. Surely the enemy recognized the need for emergency overrides.
The chest plate began to constrict. Orlan laughed nervously. Earth Fleet armor self-destructed by leaking battery acid inside the unit. It seemed Imperials favored constriction. He struggled to breathe, grateful he wasn’t being melted. Burning flesh always stank.
Think, Orlan.
One of his ribs popped. An idea occurred to him as he forced air into his lungs, grunting against the weight wrapping his torso. “I must fight the Slomn! Long live the Empire!”
Pressure hissed from the armor. Orlan gasped as the chest plate relaxed and a voice spoke in a language he didn’t understand. The tone was encouraging, but he understood not a word.
“Yeah, sure. Whatever. I need all weapons on line and power at maximum.”
His earpiece beeped once. “Are you behind enemy lines requiring the use of Fleet speech?”
“You bet your ass, computer.”
He set out to find Kin. The arrogant bastard had saved Billy. He saved everyone. Made it look easy. Someday the man would realize how hard it was for ordinary grunts. Orlan smashed a small tree rather than dodge it.
Someone paralleled his movements.
“Anything you can do, I can do better.” Raien’s voice sounded strange. Her short captivity had changed her. “Imperial armor has power, but they stink.”
“Tell me about it.” Orlan listened, glanced at the trees above, and readied his weapons. “Is someone with you?”
“I told Tass to stay out of sight if possible. She says Kin led his captors toward Sophia’s Pass,” Raien said.
“Hmm. Not a bad place for an ambush, but there are too many. Send the Winger to her people for help.”
“I tried.”
“And?”
Raien gave Orlan her famous “no bullshit face” as she cocked one gauntleted hand on her hip with her rifle pointed skyward with the other. “She pretended not to hear.”
Orlan looked into the branches and slapped his palm on the trunk of a tree. “Tass. Get down here.”
Raien laughed. “Such a sweet talker.”
“Women.” He checked his location, staring at the map inside his visor. The words and symbols made no sense, but the three-dimensional topographical display seemed familiar. “Let’s go.”
“I’ll follow you.”
Orlan opened his helmet. “I don’t think we should use their coms. I’ll give verbal commands and hand signals.”
“Commands? I am a captain, sergeant.”
“You know what I mean. Now you’re going to bust my balls? Should have left you in that cell.”
He moved quickly, proud of his stealth despite the speed of his advance. Kin thought he was a brute. Maybe he was. But he knew his business.
SOPHIA’S Pass quivered like a bowl of pudding. Purple gel, glowing with power, sweat from rock and oozed across scorched dirt. Orlan’s first step into the area shattered a glaze of melted sand.
“Careful,” Raien said.
Orlan turned without moving his feet. When he had contorted his waist beyond the FSPAA tolerances, he paused. “No dancing? Where’s your sense of adventure?”
“And Orlan develops a sense of humor.” Raien faced Tass, who stood lightly on the edge of the scene. “Remember this day. History has been made.”
Tass shifted. “Orlan is a great warrior.”
“Yes, you’ve mentioned that a couple of times since we started,” Raien said.
Orlan moved closer to the blackened ravine. “It’s good to be appreciated. How’s your wing, Tass?”
The Ror-Rea shrugged. “I am also a great warrior. I will continue.”
Orlan and Raien laughed. Tass smiled, flexing her wing as she crept forward.
“The wormhole bleeds.” She jumped into the air and soared to the edge of darkness, landing next to Orlan and looking into the gaping hole.
Orlan touched his shoulder. He wasn’t sure what the gesture meant but had seen Ror-Rea warriors do it often. “Do you know what happened here?”
Tass looked toward the broken devices in the distance. “I know this technology not well. Not Mazz. Not human. I see that it damaged the wormhole.”
Raien gave up her over-watch position on their back trail and joined them, although by the way she moved, the idea of crossing the smoking terrain unnerved her. “Take pictures and measurements. The Fleet will need a complete report.”
“You take them. I’m going after Kin.” He stomped out of the disaster zone, his boots churning black clouds of dust that occasionally flared to life and shot away like bullets. He thought they might follow him but didn’t look back to find out.
“Orlan,” Raien said as she caught up.
“What?”
&nbs
p; “You’re not in charge.”
“Roger that.”
He led the way without looking at Sophia’s Pass and the site of the wormhole wound. Raien was right. He knew how to do his job. Intel won battles. Or lost them, depending on who gathered it and who decided what it meant. What Orlan understood was that he needed Kin.
Earth Fleet troopers held him in awe, even those who called him a traitor. Orlan never saw it. Kin was just a grunt like he was, yet the man always survived. Might be good to respect a record like that.
Raien interrupted his thoughts.
“Tass, scout ahead and tell me where Nander and the Imperials are taking Kin. Don’t be seen.”
The Ror-Rea woman flared her wings. “My wings are black for battle. They will not see me in the night.”
“Good,” Raien said.
“I can tell you where they are heading,” Orlan said.
“Nander will probably put him in my old cell.”
Orlan laughed. “Round and round we go.”
“And where we stop, no one knows.”
They hiked in silence until Tass returned.
“Nander-the-Traitor goes to base,” she said.
“The forward base where I was held?”
“Yes.”
Raien looked at Orlan.
He popped his knuckles, enjoying the exaggerated feeling they made through the Imperial FSPAA gauntlets.
“What’s your plan?” Raien asked.
Orlan rolled his neck from side to side, shook out his hands, and twisted his lower back one direction and then the other.
Raien stepped closer. “What is your plan?”
“Don’t know, but it involves death.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
IMPERIAL jet-copters flew low, skimming treetops. Orlan heard the rotors long before stars disappeared above the fuselages and engine noise. Those are some good pilots.
The flicker of dark shapes sliding across the night sky had saved his life once. It had been his first battle and he couldn’t hear anything. Simulators and training scenarios never prepared a person for real fighting, not even close. Explosions, screams, blunt-force impacts to his armor, and most of all, the sound of his blood running hot had turned the epic struggle into audio soup.
