by Jean Kilczer
I scooped it up and smiled as I extended it to him. “You dropped this.”
He pulled it from my hand, more in anger than in defense, and slung it over his shoulder. “We crawl from here, cub, before they burn off your skinny pink ass.”
I peered over the dune. Four blue-banded Slatties were down on all fours, rifles slung over their backs, loping in our direction. “I think we run!” I scrambled to my feet, staying low. The Slattie went to all fours and we raced for the high dune with the flag. Blue laser flashes zipped past us. Return fire from the dune made the four Cultists scatter and take cover.
We dived behind the dune. I rolled down soft sand, slid into a crouched Slattie, and knocked him off his feet. “Sorry!”
He threw his arms around me and squeezed hard.
“I said I was sorry!” I rasped.
“Jules?” he cried. “Jules, my Terran cub!”
“Huff?”
“I am Huff!” He licked my cheek, which made it colder. “You came against my warning words in the mind.”
“I came to Kresthaven because you called me here for help,” I said.
“So far,” the Slattie handed me back my stingler, “he's been a real plus to the campaign.”
Huff hugged me again. “My liver is in joy that you have plussed our champagne.” He waved toward the Slattie. “This is General Ara Sin, one of our generals. General Ara Sin, this is–”
“We've met,” the Slattie said. “The name's Ara Saun. Do you mind if we get on with the assault?”
“I do not mind in my mind,” Huff explained.
“He drives everybody crazy,” Ara Saun said, “with his damn literal translation of everything we say.”
“Oh?” I exclaimed. “I thought you all did– Never mind.”
He drew back lips. “No, Terran, we don't all do that. Captain Justrop!” he called.
A Slattie came running and slid behind the dune. “Yes, General?”
“The Cultists are attempting to catch us in a pincer formation.”
“I noticed that, sir.” Captain Justrop's tongue lolled as he panted.
“Close your ranks into a wedge formation, Captain,” Ara Saun ordered, “We're outnumbered. At my signal,” he touched a whistle around his neck, “we charge the bottom feeders, break their formation, and drive them into the sea. Then we burn their two boats, starve out the slimers, and kill them as they come ashore.”
“Uh…” Captain Justrup scratched his cheek with a back paw. “Anything else, General?”
“Just follow my orders!”
“Yes, sir.” Captain Justrop saluted, went down to all fours, and raced back to his troops, who were ensconced behind high dunes as they fired into lower shore dunes.
“Won't the Cultists just swim to their base?” I asked.
“It's too far and these waters are barren.” He picked up graphoculars. “The Cultists fished them out to make drugs from sprite rays to sell to off-worlders.” He lowered the graphs and squinted at the battle. Slatties were yelling, some screamed as they fought and died below us.
I shivered, not just from the snowflakes settling on my face.
“They created a hundred-mile dead zone,” the general said," with the pollutants from processing drugs."
“Illegal drugs, right?” I asked.
He nodded. “And deadly if not properly processed and stored.”
“Can't they just board your ship if they're pushed into the sea?” I asked.
“We have people hiding onboard for just such a contingency.”
“Suppose they just swim away?”
“It is further too far,” Huff said.
“What the rocket scientist is trying to tell you,” General Ara Saun said, “is that we Slatties can swim about fifty miles.” He opened a small plastic box with folded maps, a compass, and a military hat with a row of five frosted stars across the band, and extended it to me. “Here's my rank.”
“Five stat general,” I said.
“Why not?”
I took the hat and ran my fingers across the frosty stars. “The stars like ice.”
“That's very poetic.” He took the hat and jammed it on his head. “You should copyright that.”
“I just might. What's plan B, in the unlikely event that your troops are driven back into the dunes?”
“Don't let the Ten Gods hear you.”
I wasn't sure if he meant it.
“We retreat to the processing plant and their base,” he gestured back, “past the dunes.”
“Is that why they brought the two dead Druids here, for the processing plant?”
“You win the prize. Now let me concentrate on the battle, unless you have more important questions to ask.” He raised the whistle to his snout and blew it.
I heard shouts from below as his troops formed a wedge and ran toward the Cultist positions.
Huff peered over the dune. “I should join there with the troops.”
“No.” The general shook his head. “I might need a runner.”
“I do that well.” Huff drew back lips, exposing predatory teeth.
“'Course the message might get a bit garbled,” Ara Saun muttered.
I patted Huff's shoulder. “My team, General, is waiting for me offshore with two fifty-foot boats. Suppose I contact them and ask if they'll tow the Cultists boats out to sea instead of destroying them?”
“Now you tell me? Yes, by all means, contact them!”
I took my comlink from out my jacket and flipped it on. “You know, you talk stelspeak more like a Terran.”
He raised the graphs again to watch the battle. “This is not the time for my resume, but I attended your Princeton University, where the Great Terran Einstein once taught.”
“Oh,” I said, “that explains a lot. What did you major in?”
“Physics and Shakespearian Drama. But when Aburra began to gather a force that could take over the North Sea of Kresthaven, I left the university and attended a military school in Virginia Beach. You want my grade point average?”
“That explains the rest,” I said. “Did they make you a general?”
“If Aburra can make himself a lord, I can make myself a general. All it takes on Kresthaven is this hat.”
He lifted the graphs. “The mudlumpers,” he muttered.
“How goes the battle, General?” I asked.
“Not well. We're losing people.” He lowered the graphs and wiped a hand across his eyes. “Contact your team.”
“OK.” I turned on the comlink. “Joe,” I said into it, “Come in, Joe.”
“Where the hell are you, and why?” Joe answered.
“Is it Jules?” I heard Sophia cry.
“It's him,” Joe said.
“I'm with Huff and the Rebel forces on the beach, Joe. They need your help.”
“Help how?” I heard Chancey ask.
“Did you hear that, Jules?” Joe said.
“General Ara Saun would like you to tow the two Cultist boats, the ones with the blue flags, out to sea. He's driving the Cultists into the water and he doesn't want them to have their boats. He has people hiding on the Rebel boat in case they try to board it.”
“We can do that,” Joe said.
“I'll steer this boat,” I heard Bat say. “Chancey, will you drive the other one so we can tow both the Slattie boats?”
“I'm on it,” Chancey said. “The love of your life, Sophia, got us into another fine mess.”
“Joe,” I heard Sophia say, “please tell Jules to stay out of the fighting.”
“Did you hear that?” Joe asked.
“Tell her I'll stay safe,” I said, “and that I love her.”
“She heard you,” Joe said, “not that she or I believe you'll stay safe. Over and out.”
“The team is here in whole,” Huff said. “We are together in the all again.”
“Yeah.” I shut off the comlink and pocketed it. “I hope it remains that way, Huff.”
“I think your boss does not
approve of you, Terran,” Ara Saun said.
“How did you know he was my boss?”
“A certain note of authority in his voice, and a strong touch of disapproval.” He raised the graphs to his eyes again. “The gods turn their backs on us,” he muttered.
I peered over the dune and saw red-banded Slatties being chased uphill by the blues. A rout, I thought as they ran in different directions, tongues lolling, howling, dropping their rifles and going to all fours as they struggled to outrun their pursuers' fire.
A battle is always a sad sight, as one side wins and one side loses. It's even sadder when your side loses. I sighed. “I don't think the wedge worked, General. Do we go to plan B?”
“Let's go. A controlled withdrawal. Huff, you want to give your pink-assed cub a paw?” He went to all fours and ran uphill toward flat land.
“I will carry you, my Jules cub.” Huff dropped to all fours. “Cling to my fur.”
The shouts were getting closer. No time to argue. I laid across Huff's back, clutched two handfuls of fur over his ribs and wrapped my legs around his flanks.
He leaped ahead at an all-out gallop, a speed I never knew he could attain. Powerful muscles rippled beneath me as he ate up ground and plowed through soft sand. Perhaps fear was a good incentive to swiftness. I buried my face in his furry back as wind and snowflakes assaulted my exposed skin.
I looked up when Huff came to a sliding stop on snow in front of a low wooden building. The general threw open a rickety door and held it while Huff leaped inside with me still clinging. The Rebel force was not far behind.
I ran to a window that had shutters but no glass, threw open the shutters and aimed my stingler as the Rebels plunged through the door with the Cultists close behind. I still couldn't bring myself to kill these Slatties who looked just like Huff. I fired over their heads and they scattered. Huff, at another window, was aiming for their heads with his two mouse stinglers.
Blue-banded Slatties rolled in the snow, blood spurting from torn necks and burned skulls. Four Rebels also fell. One rose to his knees and swayed. Two red bands grabbed him on either side and dragged him through the doorway.
Another Rebel went down and tried to gain his feet.
“No, don't!” I whispered as a Cultist aimed at him.
“Please, brother,” the Rebel cried, “we are of the same blood. Please don't kill me. I supplicate you in the name of our Ten Gods.”
The Cultist hesitated, but another one fired a sweeping beam that decapitated the Rebel on his knees.
“Fucking scuds!” I muttered as his head rolled into snow. Anger rose in me like mental bile. I swept the two Cultists across their chests with a continuous hot beam. “That's how it feels,” I said through my teeth. They screamed and clung to each other, then fell together and lay still.
My tel sense was assaulted by bewildered kwaiis flitting into geth state, enemies clutching at each other as they sought comfort in the great void between lifebinds.
I had to raise my shields or risk being taken with them. Priest, a good friend, had almost done that when he clung to my kwaii from fear of the great void.
“The barbarians are at the gate.” General Ara Saun slammed the door shut and locked it as the last Rebel threw himself inside. “Bolt the windows!”
Huff and I did that and backed into the center of the plant as hot beams burned holes in wooden walls that flamed.
The room was dark, with dusty rays of light filtering through breaks in the walls. I breathed the rank odor of rotting flesh stuck in cutting machines. The floor was sticky with dried blood. Pieces of raw split bones lay scattered on tables that were gouged with knife cuts. A taste of death invaded my throat and I retched.
The Rebels who still had rifles kept guard from behind tables, columns, and benches. We were about thirty-five, all told, with Huff and me. How many had died, I wondered, as Huff and I stationed ourselves behind a stack of tied white furs with pieces of clinging flesh.
“What now?” I whispered as voices from outside called to each other around the building. “We're surrounded, Huff.”
“Huff!” General Ara Saun called, “keep those mouse stinglers at the ready.”
“At the ready what?” Huff asked him.
“Christ and Buddha!” Ara Saun yelled, “I don't have time for this!”
“My comlink beeped. I dug it out, flipped it open, and turned it on.”Jules here."
“What happened?” Joe's voice was edged with anxiety.
“We were forced to retreat, Joe.” I realized my voice was shaky and tried to control it. “We're, uh, holed up in the Cultist processing plant behind the dunes. The…the Cultists have us surrounded. We lost a lot of people. They're brutal, Joe! They–” My hand shook harder.
“All right. Take it easy. Are you OK?”
I jumped as something hit the flimsy door hard. It cracked. The Rebels trained their rifles on the door.
“So far,” I said. “I don't know. It doesn't look good.” I dropped the comlink, picked it up, and squeezed it tight, like a lifeline.
There was a pause.
“Dad!” I shouted into the comlink.
“I'm here, son.” Joe sounded weary as he said something to Chancey.
“You mean they're surrounded?” I heard Chancey exclaim, “and outnumbered? Motherfucker!”
I cleared my throat. “Dad, can I talk to Sophia?”
“Not now. She's on the other boat with Bat. You'd scare the living hell out of her. Is Huff with you?”
“He's right here. Jesus!” I jumped as the door was hit again and daylight poured in.
Huff aimed his two stinglers over a bench. “When there is no more door,” he said evenly, “I will fire until I have no more fire.”
“You could also burn down the building,” I told him.
“Jules!” Joe called, “is there any other way out? A basement, or a crawl space?”
“I don't…” I looked around. In the middle of the dark floor was the shape of a door and a knotted rope to open it. I ran to it and lifted the door. A smell of wet sand emanated from the opening. “It's a crawl space!” I told General Ara Saun, who came running.
“Captain Justrop,” the general called.
“Yes, sir,” Justrop answered from behind a column.
“What's happening?” Joe asked.
“Wait, Joe,” I said.
“Take two people,” Ara Saun told the captain, “and check out this crawl space, pronto! See if it leads to their base or any escape route.”
“Pronto, sir?” Justrop asked.
“Goddammit! Just do it!” Ara Saun shouted.
“Yes, sir!” Captain Justrop jabbed a paw at two smaller Slatties and motioned them into the crawl space.
“The rest of you hold off the Cultists,” Ara Saun said, “until the captain returns.” He smiled tightly. “Let's hope with good news.”
“Son,” Joe's voice sounded tight, “if they break through before you can escape, and they overwhelm the Rebels, they'll…”
“They'll want to take me alive. I know.”
“From what I've heard, Aburra makes examples of any aliens he captures, especially Terrans, as sacrifices to his gods.”
“I know.”
“He wants to discourage competition for his illegal offworld trade.”
“Yes.” I felt a shiver run down my spine.
“If it comes to that–” Joe said.
“I know what I have to do.”
“If you find a way out, wait for nightfall. It won't be long.”
“Then we'll rendezvous,” I said.
“Yes, we'll drive the skiffs further down the beach, and then onto the sand, and pick up you and Huff, and as many Rebels as we can.”
“That sounds good, Dad. There's only about thirty-five of us left. The inflatables can take us all.”
“How many Cultists do you figure?”
“Maybe sixty.”
I heard him sigh and it rattled me. “Keep the link open, son.
”
“OK. Thanks.”
“Chancey!” I heard Joe call, “as soon as it's dark, we move the boats inshore and launch the skiffs.”
“OK, boss. I'll tell Bat and Sophia. What if Jules can't find a way out?”
“The link's still open, Chance!” Joe growled.
“Oh. Sorry. I'll go tell Bat and Sophia.”
Cultists smashed open the door and fired in sweeping random blasts around the room. The stack of skins caught fire and Huff and I backed behind a column. Slatties screamed as they were raked with hot beams on both sides.
General Ara Saun ran to our column and crouched behind it. “They're hesitating.” He nodded to the Cultists moving just outside the door.
“If they wanted to,” I told him, “they could burn down this shack with us in it. But I think they prefer to save all this expensive, imported machinery.”
“They've got vehicles at the base,” the general said, “that could crash right through these flimsy walls. I have to assume they're waiting for them to arrive.”
“What's their policy on taking prisoners, General? I mean, just in the remote possibility…you know.”
He stared at me with tight-pressed lips.
“That bad, huh?” I asked.
“Worse.”
“General!” Captain Justrop came through the floor door, wiping sand from his snout. “The base, sir. The crawl space pronto leads to the base, but there's a left branch too!”
“Which leads…?” the general asked.
“To an underwater grotto with an air space!” the private squeaked.
“You heard him, people,” the general called. “Go! We take the left branch, which will be easier to guard. I'll stay here and cover you.”Double time, my brothers. Go!"
“I'll stay too, General,” I told him and fired at the split door."
“I will stay three.” Huff fired both stinglers at the door. It blazed and collapsed outward.
“The windows,” I yelled and fired as something battered them. The wood blazed and fire raced across the dried wall.
“They're committing suicide!” a Cultist yelled from outside.
“Throw sand on the fires,” another called. “By the Pit Without Bottom, we don't want the plant to burn down!”
The Rebels threw themselves through the floor door in a controlled escape, one at a time.
