by Scott Moon
Droon’s voice was so clear that Kin looked around for him, not thinking the Reaper was in his sleepy mind, but was stalking him.
Across the landscape, on his own stand of rocks and unique trees, Droon squatted. This time, he was alone. Without his followers surrounding him, Droon’s angry eyes and visible strength radiated greater menace. Each of the Reaper’s limbs seemed to relax and contract in time with his breathing as though he might spring into action. His Reaper eyes were closed to slits to minimize the red-orange glow.
Kin looked at his old enemy several times as he tended his injuries and planned ways to defeat the Slomn-Reaper.
He is the Burning One, Droon thought. Not a Slomn-da — not at all what Kin-rol-an-da assumes he is.
“Get out of my dreams,” Kin said. He dropped the slide of the handgun he had finished cleaning — wiping excess oil from the exterior.
Kin-rol-an-da does not dream. He is awake. He sees Droon but is afraid to come to Droon.
“That is because Droon eats people.”
No response.
Kin lowered himself into his hiding place, wondering if he dared sleep. I am tired.
Droon laughed on the fringes of Kin’s conscious mind.
You could help me kill the Burning One. Kin wanted to curse.
Something about Droon’s emotions changed. Kin opened his eyes but didn’t move.
I don’t believe Kin-rol-an-da, Droon thought. Kin-rol-an-da believes lies. Weak. Weak and dead.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Turning a Wrench
REBECCA moved through the Earth Fleet camp. Her uniform was different from the new arrivals’. Randal Dogface walked beside her, looking for a fight, she thought. He had been unusually quiet and a big pain in her ass since Admiral Shield offered them amnesty.
“Where the fuck are we going?” he asked.
“What, you aren’t going to throw the bitch word in there?”
“It is my favorite word right now. Fucking sue me.”
“What is your problem, Dogface?”
“All my friends are dead and Major Eagle is a pretty-boy scumbag.”
Rebecca thought about that before she answered. Half of Mike Eagle’s face was scarred to hell and back. Pretty boy wasn’t a term she would throw at him. “Mine too,” she said. “So what?”
Dogface grunted. “What are we doing?”
“Stowing away on a ship.”
Dogface threw his head back and his hands up as he laughed bitterly. “You always were a recidivist, Becca.”
“So nasty with the big words. Keep an eye on that guard; he is following us with his eyes,” she said.
“He is staring at your ass.”
Wordlessly, she shook her head, rolled her eyes, then focused on Major Eagle’s ship and the guards. She felt Dogface staring at the back of her head. On any other day, he would have been checking her out with exaggerated enthusiasm followed by one of two insults: “you’re getting fat” or “you’ve got a bony ass and need to eat a sandwich or ten.” Today, he acted like a conflicted mixture of her judge, jury, and unhappy accomplice.
She moved closer to the perimeter and frowned as each of the guards stood straighter and communicated on helmet radios. She couldn’t hear what they were saying, but she could guess.
“This won’t work,” she said.
“If I knew what you were talking about, I would agree. Whatever the hell we are doing moping around Eagle’s ship is definitely not worth the trouble.”
Rebecca took Dogface by the arm and headed for the nearest liberty tent. The temporary, open-air saloon wasn’t private. She couldn’t talk about anything she wanted to talk about. Dogface wasn’t in the mood to say anything useful, or nice, so it wasn’t a huge loss. His scowl kept people away from their folding table He ordered what she liked to drink.
“Perfect,” she said.
Dogface grunted and leaned back in the flimsy chair to watch Earth Fleet troopers and sailors that neither of them knew.
Rebecca hoped that Kin saw through Eagle’s schemes. She wasn’t sure if he did. Disrespecting him and heading off to the Ror-Rea, wherever that was, might have been a smart play even though that was what Admiral Shield and his enforcer Major Eagle wanted, minus the public disrespect.
Droon would follow with all of his Reapers. If Earth Fleet was lucky, the Mazz might slip into that trap as well. Close the door, or maybe send in a team to make sure Roland and other unwanted parties never came back, and suddenly Earth Fleet was the dominant power in the universe.
What are you doing Kin? She squeezed the hard plastic mug of not-so-hard liquor. Would it have killed you to give me a clue?
“Why don’t you just ask Eagle for a ride if you want on that ship so bad?” Dogface said.
“I would rather he not know I am there.”
“Rather he not know we are there,” Dogface said.
“Yeah, that.” She had an idea. “We need to find someone in personnel. Rig some exchange papers or something.”
“Are you rated as a mechanic?” Dogface asked.
“Everyone on my team is rated; you know that.”
“Rhetorical question. Probably we could get assigned to a maintenance division if you aren’t too famous yet.”
Rebecca considered the idea.
“You will need to cover up your tattoos.” Dogface leaned forward, reaching out with his hand to pull the top of her shirt closed.
She smacked away his hand. “Lay off the goods, Lieutenant.”
Dogface shrugged.
She buttoned her shirt higher than felt natural. “That is a stupid plan. What kind of dumb-ass would authorize a transfer planet-side during an active campaign?”
Dogface finished his drink, took hers from her hand, and drank from the cup. “Any company commander short of personnel.”
She stared. “That is exactly right. Dogface, you’re a genius.”
“I have experience running a team with inadequate manpower. Desperate personnel shortages are my specialty.”
Rebecca laughed. She stood, in a better mood than she’d been in all day. “You coming?”
He finished his drink, then hers, and then called for another. “Well,” he said. “I owe my fallen comrades a few cold ones.”
Rebecca stepped close. She only had to lean down slightly to make contact. He wasn’t a giant, but she was small without armor. “What. The. Fuck?”
“Leave me alone, Becca. I can’t take another step,” he said.
“I bet you can if I kick you in the balls.”
He didn’t even laugh.
She punched down into his groin.
He blocked, twisted one leg in front of the other, and squirmed sideways in his chair all at once. Other soldiers on liberty hooted, calling out profanity and toasting them both.
“Why would getting my balls smashed make me want to go with you? Or walk, for that matter?”
“Because I will fucking do it again, you big pussy.”
His words came slowly, drawn out almost against his will. “That’s my battle bitch.”
She smiled, laughed harshly. “Come on. Let’s go.”
“How long will it be before I die like the rest of the Brigade?”
“They didn’t all die.”
“Then go find them for this stupid stunt.”
Rebecca took two steps away, turned, and faced him with hands on hips. “This is the last time I am asking. Are you coming?”
Dogface rocked forward and back a few times, finished a drink, then stood. “Fine. Let’s die.”
A few of the saloon’s patrons cheered.
“Crazy bastards,” Rebecca said as she walked through the tent flap.
“Hell, why not ask them to join us?”
Rebecca walked down the camp street toward the Earth Fleet ships. Dogface was full of good ideas today. The more people she could get from her former unit, the better chance they would have when the shit hit the fan. More importantly, the more people she convinced to join Eagle�
�s ship that were unaffiliated with her, the less chance she would be noticed.
If Eagle went after Kin, she was going to be there. And she was going to be pissed off.
TURNING wrenches had a calming effect on Rebecca. She’d been put in charge of the Zulu Maintenance Platoon, which meant she was a working officer. Leading grease monkeys from the front meant fixing things with her bare hands. She liked the work. She liked being dirty, grease smeared, and unrecognizable as an elite soldier. The first day without armor felt like an exercise in public nudity. Now it felt liberating.
Earth Fleet was a huge organization. She estimated it would take the personnel officer-in-charge two days or two weeks to locate her. When that happened, she might be questioned, but not like she was trying to commit treason. She wasn’t doing anything illegal. Everything was above board and approved through the Maintenance Company’s chain of command. Everyone except Westwood would assume she was just a burnt-out combat veteran, done with fighting but with nowhere to go but the Fleet.
Westwood, she thought with a mean smile. That jack-wagon’s panties would be bunched so far up his ass when he found out what she had done that he would need surgery. So all in all, her mission was a win-win from the start.
“Dogface,” she said. “Hand me that wrench.”
Unlike Rebecca, Dogface was mechanized — not in armor — but a two-legged forklift with a lot of tool attachments. Wordlessly, he crossed the maintenance bay, popped his toolbox, and handed her the wrench.
Mikey-Danny edged closer to her workstation. She wanted to walk over and punch the lanky redhead in the gut, so she did. He wasn’t avoiding attention; he was drawing attention. “What?” Her hand poised to hit him again.
“Come on, Becca, this isn’t my thing at all.”
“Your next evaluation report is going to get really low marks for espionage.”
He scrunched his brow and forgot to hunch over and look awkward and gangly. “There is an espionage section on our performance reports?”
“There will be,” Rebecca said. “Spill it.”
He looked around; right, then left.
Rebecca punched him in the arm.
“Okay!” Exhaling, hunching his shoulders down, he narrowed his eyes as he spoke. “My new girlfriend won’t talk about the location of the ship we are on, which shouldn’t be classified since we all got on at the same place and haven’t made a deep systems jumps — holy shit, I’m still getting used to that non-wormhole shit — so I figure we must be going after Kin.”
“Good work, Mikey-Danny. Parse that down to something recognizable as actionable intelligence.”
“Maggy says she thinks we are in the Ror-Rea. Slipped in right behind the Wingers.”
“Good for Maggy. Just keep telling her she is beautiful and we will be good to go.”
“She isn’t.”
Rebecca smiled and slugged him on the shoulder, not so hard this time. “Thanks for taking one for the team.”
“She wants to have a three-way with a Winger.”
“Oh shit, Mikey-Danny. The good kind or the bad kind?”
He made a sad, confused face. “I am still not sure what that means, but it sounds like maybe not so much fun. So I guess the bad kind.”
“Awh, is Maggy getting rough with you?”
“Yeah!” he said with a bit more laughter, but plenty of awkwardness in his tone.
“Get to work. These transport-lifts aren’t fixing themselves.”
“You got it, Lt.”
Rebecca worked alone for an hour, then cleaned up and headed to the mess hall for chow. She looked at people she passed in the hallway but never acknowledged anyone. Maintaining situational awareness wasn’t the same thing as inviting small talk. All she needed to know was whether the next moment required violence or lies.
She wondered about Kin and Earth VI. It got her through to the next moment. And the next.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Running the Ror-Rea
RICKSON ran down the twisting trail into the Ror-Rea proper. Some of the other humans were getting sick and moaning about going back to Crashdown, like that was a good place to live. Ogre ran beside him as they sped along the procession of humans and Wingers. He looked for Clavender. She was probably still circling in the sky. Ceana, before he ran off with Kin to get killed, had told Rickson that the Ror-Rea was full of thermal updrafts where someone with wings could soar forever.
He allowed his imagination to wander but could not quite see himself flying. Maybe if he had mechanical wings or a jetpack.
Ogre huffed.
Rickson jumped over a rock that jutted up on the edge of the trail. Landing without face planting required several rapid baby steps and undignified arm waving, but he got it done. Laughing seemed to help as well.
Running invigorated Rickson. Ogre seemed to enjoy the freedom; his tongue slapped all over the place and he looked about as happy as a scarred-up mutt could. Thoughts of mechanical wings and palaces of light danced in Rickson’s head. He couldn’t wait to see the Ror-Rea cities that Ceana and Clavender had described to him during their journey between the reality of the Ror-Rea and that of Crashdown.
Again, he imagined flying next to the Wingers into battle. Which led him to consider Wingers in their own versions of FSPAA armor.
He stopped running. Ogre dashed past him, scrambled to a stop, and came bouncing back as though Rickson was going to throw a stick or something.
Images of mechanized Wingers filled his head. “Wow. That would be amazing.”
He ran toward the plateau where Wingers were landing in a stately procession of pairs. The trail to ascend the elevated position cut back and forth, making the climb long and arduous but at least possible. Ridges of ebony jutted out like Winger jump-off platforms. Attacking the position without the ability to fly would be costly for any army.
He tried to think like an Earth Fleet trooper. Then, with sudden inspiration, he addressed the tactical problem as he imagined a Mazz commander would. After that, it only seemed logical to work through Winger ideas and even what something as nasty as Droon would do.
Kin would be proud. He wouldn’t say he was proud, but he’d have to admit that Rickson wasn’t acting like a kid. He moved and planned, teaching himself how to solve problems because no one else stayed around to help him.
From the top of the plateau, he saw the Ror-Rea in all of its expansive glory. Ceana had told him a lot about the place but was never clear if they were on one of the Crashdown moons or someplace like the moons. Focusing long and hard on the location of the Ror-Rea made him want to take a nap. Instinctively, he wondered if that kind of nap was the kind a person awoke from. It didn’t matter because what he saw from the plateau changed everything.
Far to the east — Rickson called it east — was the first of the Ror-Rea cities with shining walls of silver and towers topped with gold. Buildings seemed to be as colorful as the frequent meadows of flowers and forests of diverse trees and other plants. Animals and a thousand kinds of bees and butterflies and larger things that might not be insects at all flew in swarms that only creeped Rickson out a little bit. This was a place of flight. The ground-bound mammals and reptiles he found refused to allow his approach. Some were familiar. Others were strange enough to give him a headache.
Ceana walked to his side from the interior of the plateau. “Wait for the sun to move. It will surprise you.”
“Always does,” Rickson said. Most of the other Crater Town people hated the indirect and unpredictable sunrises and sunsets here because they were not regular or sensible. It was as though the moon or planet of the Ror-Rea was wobbling through its orbit. Nights could be cold or warm. There were days when all the humans but Rickson stayed beneath their blankets.
Rickson watched the people he had known all of his life toil up the trail, then spoke to Ceana. “I am not sure it was a good idea for us to come.”
“You have adapted well,” Ceana said.
“Well, I am not exactly nor
mal. Ask anyone.”
Ceana made a sound and a hand gesture that Rickson wasn’t able to understand completely. It seemed as though he was agreeing. “They will prosper inside of Riisla. Those who regret the view of the big planet can stay inside where it is always warm. We have palaces and amphitheaters larger than one of your Earth Fleet ships. I have been told that the gravity here is more natural to humans as well.”
Rickson laughed. “My Earth Fleet ships!”
Ceana touched his shoulder, smiling, nodding, and being Rickson’s friend.
“You promise that Kin will be all right?” Rickson asked.
“He was alive the last time I saw him. The Slomn-Reaper cannot stand against Kin Roland and Droon. When last I saw your mentor, he seemed to commune with the Reaper King.”
“I should go back and help.”
“He told you to stay with Clavender and the Crater Town people,” Ceana said.
“I did. Now I am going back.”
Ceana laughed. “You are the best of the humans.”
Rickson felt both pride and a bit of weirdness at the praise. He felt the same conviction that came with all of his decisions. When he knew what the right thing to do was, he simply knew. Then he did it. Then Kin gave him a hard time for being a reckless, immature kid who would never make a good Earth Fleet trooper.
Ceana pointed toward the distant opening of the pass. “Does that change your decision?”
Rickson strained to see the hazy outline of the mountains and the pass in the distance. “I have good eyes.”
“Not so good as a warrior of the Ror-Rea. When it moves, you will see.”
Rickson waited for several long seconds that felt like tortured minutes. A flash of light reached out like a slap in the face. “That’s a ship!”
“Yes.” Ceana sounded older. His good mood vanished as though it had never existed. “It is the first ship to reach the Ror-Rea since Clavender brought the Mazz to our home.”
“Is that a Mazz ship?”
“I think not. More likely it is one of the new Earth Fleet ships that does not require the wormhole to travel great distances.”
Rickson pivoted to look at Ceana. “How is that even possible?”
