by Jean Kilczer
“You want to know about my tel powers?” I lifted my gaze to him. “I'll tell you this, Slattie. If the Terran woman dies at Lord Aburra's hands, I will burn your brain stem first, then seek him out for a death blow. I'll watch your body and that miserable maggot who calls himself a lord, fall dead before you reach the ground!”
His eyes widened and he drew back lips. “You will not die as fast, Terran. Consider the depths of pain possible with living flesh.”
“Consider that I'll turn my power on myself and join you in geth state. Great Mind doesn't take kindly to the miscreants who answer to Him before the next lifebind. Perhaps for your coming bind, he'll reincarnate you as a roach. I hear they're pretty hardy.”
He hit me across the face. I fell off the chair. Luckily, it was on my left side. I used the chair to get to my feet. “Is that how you end arguments?” I wiped blood from my lip. “I'll bet you win them all.”
He shoved me into the chair. “Tomorrow our troops will go on a mission against the infidels. You will accompany them and use your tel to aid our crusaders.” He went to the window of the small, bare room and gazed out. “We will strike at the heart of the heathens. The stronghold of the Pit Lord's own minions.”
“Which is where?” I asked.
He turned. “No danger in telling you since you will be with us. A city of heathen sinners, northwest of here.”
“And if I refuse to help?”
“Then will you die, human, far from the Lord's altar, too late to save the female of your species from agonies you cannot even imagine.”
I lowered my head and felt a trickle of blood slide down my chin. “I have no choice. But when your kwaii leaves its body, as it will do someday, the scales will be balanced by the one god who created us all, including your precious Ten Gods.”
* * *
I lay on my bunk in the dark and listened to the sounds of Slatties talking in the courtyard below, and vehicles humming by as they prepared for tomorrow's assault.
Sophia, I thought, and hugged the small pillow against my chest to ease the ache in my heart. Where was she now? Could I feel her anguish if the Cultists had captured her and were dragging her away? “Oh, God, Sophia!” I slammed a fist against the ice wall and felt chips cut my knuckles. The pain was a relief from a much deeper agony.
“Jules!” someone called from outside the window.
“What?” I got up and climbed the chair to the barred window. “Who is it?”
“Chancey, and Big Sarge.”
“What kind of a sick game is this?”
“Damn it, Jules, it's us. We found the sunken vessel's gold bars and hired Sarge and his crew. Sarge an' me jumped out of Sprite when I landed here and she was covered with snow. Joe flew her away.”
“We've come to rescue you,” Big Sarge said. “We even stole a Cult jeep for the job.”
I clutched the bars.
“Take this chain,” Chancey told me and threw it up to the window. I caught it. “Tie it around the bars. We stole a vehicle and we're gonna rip out this fucking ice wall!”
I started to wrap the chain around the four bars. “Wait a minute.” I stopped.
“What the hell's he doing?” Sarge said.
“Jules!” Chancey called, “what the fuck–”
“Chancey, listen to me,” I whispered. “They sent a special unit to the Cleocean's village to kidnap Sophia so that I'll help them.”
“Motherfuckers!” Chancey exclaimed. “They got no souls.”
“Listen!” I said. “Tomorrow they're going to attack a Slattie city northwest of here. It's going to be an all-out campaign. You've got to warn the Rebels.”
“OK,” Chancey said. “OK, we'll warn the Rebels with our comlinks. Now wrap the friggin' chain around–”
“Hold on,” Big Sarge said. “I know what he's saying. If he escapes, the Cultists will know that the Rebels are warned and they'll change their plans.”
I nodded, though they couldn't see me.
“We can't rescue him,” Sarge said.
“That's right,” I agreed and bit my lip. “You've got to go back and stop them from kidnapping Sophia! You've got to, Chance. And warn the Rebels.”
“Jesus and Mary!” Chancey pulled the chain back out. “Sorry, kid. We'll be back for you.”
“OK, Chance,” I said, “I'll be with the attacking Cultist force tomorrow.”
“We'll look for you,” Sarge said. “Hang in there, cupcake. Is your hair still long and blonde and sexy?”
“Yeah,” Chancey said, “he's real sexy.”
“We'll spot you,” Sarge told me.
“OK.” But I felt sick to my stomach.
Then they were gone.
I got off the chair and listened to the jeep's whine diminish in the distance.
Big Sarge was the leader of a band of mercenaries. He'd been hired on planet New Lithnia to close down the lithium slave mines. He was the best, and his men were handpicked, but he was bisexual and always after my ass. Once, he'd gotten me into a headlock and kissed me on the lips. Sophia was so infuriated, she'd punched him in the stomach, and he'd conceded that I belonged to her. If he and his mercs could vanquish the Cultists, I'd put up with his advances. After all, Sophia knew karate.
The sound of footsteps.
I laid down quickly on the bunk and pretended I was asleep.
Someone shone a light on my face from the hall. I lifted my head and squinted. “What?”
The light flicked off and the footsteps faded down the hall.
I sighed and stared at the glow from outside on the slick ice ceiling. There would be no sleep for me this night.
Chapter Eleven
It was predawn when they came for me. The sound of ground vehicles mixed with the drone of a hovair and the bark of commands to troops as they gathered on the field below.
One of the five guards unlocked the cell door and I was escorted to a vehicle with two blue checkered flags that waved from the front fenders. The morning air was bitingly cold. Snow crunched under my boots. I put on my woolen hat and walked to the vehicle.
“In the back,” a guard ordered.
I slid into the seat, next to two Cultists, and pulled on my gloves.
I figured it was Aburra in the passenger seat from the deference being paid him and the golden band that he alone wore around his right forearm.
He scrutinized me as I zipped the jacket to my throat.
Neither of us spoke, but I sent a light tel probe, calculated to slip past the brain's watchdog without alerting it. I touched upon a mind that burned with a craving to be placed above all others, including his own people. Here was a creature incapable of love or compassion, a mind that had replaced the gentler emotions with a core hunger for power. Not even a love of material wealth, which power can bring, but a savage determination to annihilate all who would dare to question his rule.
I withdrew my probe, a bit shaken by a being who would challenge Great Mind Himself if they disagreed.
He turned his gaze on me. “Did you find what you were searching for?”
I drew in a breath, surprised. “No. Not what I was hoping for.” Some shred of humanity, I thought, but didn't say.
Perhaps two to three hundred Cultists marched out the open gates on all fours, singing in their native tongue. Most were foot soldiers, or should I say paw soldiers? They carried beam rifles slung across their backs as they trotted alongside the ten vehicles, while the hovair cruised above. They were better armed for battle than the Rebel troops I'd seen.
Sophia… Had they kidnapped her, or had Chancey and Sarge warned Joe in time? I could have influenced the minds of the four Cultists in the vehicle, and burned Aburra's brainstem where he sat, but the threat of what they'd do to Sophia, if they had her, kept my mind tied as effectively as if it were my hands.
My stomach was in knots as I watched Vega peek her golden head above the white eastern hills, as though reluctant to face this day.
So was I.
* * *
The sun was high when Aburra called the troops to a halt on a hill overlooking the Rebel village. All seemed peaceful below, but I knew better.
“Get out,” a guard ordered and escorted me to a vantage point behind a boulder. Aburra was on my other side.
“What do you read?” he asked.
I closed my eyes and formed a red coil of tel power, then probed in a broad field to scan the village. I thought the throngs of red-banded Slatties below strolling through a marketplace were all females by their height and lighter builds. Their relaxed attitude, and the laughter that carried up to us, belied the apprehension I felt from their minds as they awaited the Cultist attack.
Large brown sea sponges, hollowed out, held overflowing dead fish. Blue and white driftwood from some clement Southern climes were either decorations or had a purpose I couldn't fathom. Fishing nets were folded nearer to the sea, perhaps a quarter mile to the east. Dried fish hung from bone racks, with stone knives laid below the racks.
The Slatties had no fire, no campfires, but then, they had no need for fire. It was a simple community, for a race that lived simply, as much at home in these frozen seas, or on an ice floe, as strolling the frozen land looking for fish in the holes they'd cut. But if Aburra had been keenly perceptive, he would've realized that no children were present. Perhaps they hid in the water, with adult guardians.
“I could do better with graphoculars,” I said, to gain time while I mentally probed for the Terran minds of Sarge, his mercs, and my team.
“You'd better not be stalling.” Aburra turned to a guard and said something in his native language.
The guard trotted up, unslung graphoculars from around his neck and handed them to me.
I trained them on the marketplace while I tel-scanned to breach the walls of ice huts that stood in rows behind the stands. A Rebel woman with a basket over her arm inspected a fish on an ice slab, then picked up a yellow prickly pod and threw it into her basket. The pod uncurled into a many-legged creature that tried to scurry out. She slammed the basket on the ice block and the creature slowly curled and was still.
Poor thing. I watched her hand the merchant a whorled pink shell. Wampum, I thought.
“Well?” Aburra nudged my shoulder, “what can you tell us?”
“So far,” I said, “nothing unusual.” I trained the graphs and my probe on the holes in the ice just past the huts. The village was built on a snow-covered spit of land, I realized, and the holes were entrances to the sea.
With the graphs, I caught shapes moving beneath the ice. Druids come to assist the Rebels? Could be. Or the Slattie children under protection for the coming battle?
I tel-probed an ice hut with a powerful focused send and found what I'd been searching for. Sarge and some of his mercs. I lowered the graphs and contained a smile. Aburra's troops were probably already surrounded.
“I'm not getting anything from inside the huts,” I told Aburra, “except for a few old Slatties.” It was as non-committal as I dared get, considering that they might have Sophia. If only I knew for sure! I handed the graphoculars back to the guard. “You're seeing the same thing that I'm seeing,” I told Aburra.
“That had better be so,” he said, “or the Terran female will pay for your lies.”
“I've told you what I know!”
He turned to a guard. “Bring her here.”
I think my heart stopped for the space of some breaths not taken as Sophia was pulled out of a vehicle, her hands tied behind her, her cheek and lips swollen and discolored.
“Sophia!” I started toward her.
“Jules,” she cried and tried to break away from the Cultist who held her arm.
He slapped her across the face and she fell.
“No!” I screamed and ran toward her. “You bastard!” but I was tackled by a guard and slammed to the ground. Pain tore through my ribs as I struggled to my feet. I gasped and pressed my right arm against my side. “Don't hit her!”
A guard stood between Sophia and me as Aburra strode up. “Did I give you consent to go to the female?” He slapped me across my face. I staggered back but kept my feet and put a hand to my stinging cheek. He could've hit much harder, but he wanted my tel powers intact. “Did I?” he shouted, his forepaws clenched, the skin under his cheek fur reddening. His red cape fluttered in the breeze as though reflecting his anger.
I stared at Sophia as a guard dragged her to her feet. “Let her go down to the village and hide in a hut during the attack, and I'll do whatever you say.”
“It's not what I say, human,” Aburra grabbed my jacket by the front, “it's what you know that I want.”
Sophia, Aburra, and I were all within range of my death blow. I could've killed them, and then myself, and left our fates in the hands of Great Mind. If I told Aburra about the trap set for him, more Rebel soldiers would die, and perhaps some of Sarge's men, and my own team. I lowered my head. I could not love thee dear so much… The words came unsummoned to my thoughts. “I've told you everything I know,” I said, and stared at Sophia. Tears burned behind my eyes. My chest ached with wanting to hold her, to comfort her. “Let her go!” I whispered in a last attempt, “and you have my word that I'll do whatever you ask.”
“Your word?” Aburra came closer. “Why do I need your word when I have her?” He swept an arm toward the village. “Look again with that sight in your mind, and be very certain of what you see.”
I closed my eyes, probed within the huts, and counted numerous Terran and Slattie minds crowded inside, all intent on trapping the Cultists like fish to be caught in nets and slaughtered.
Boulders of ice lined the village on a slope across from the marketplace and the huts. What use did they have, except to roll down on the enemy?
Lord Aburra was a power monger, a despot who cared nothing for his own people, but he also wasn't too high on the IQ ladder, and not much of a military strategist. I kicked a crust of ice. The trap was set, and the rat had no idea that it was about to be sprung.
“What do you see, Terran?” Aburra demanded.
Forgive me, Sophia, I searched for her with my eyes. Where had they taken her? “Nothing,” I told Aburra, and squinted up at the sky, where birdlike creatures soared and circled. The sun glinted off metallic wings. Though fashioned to resemble seabirds, these were no natural denizens of Kresthaven's northern skies, but a flock of Big Sarge's air beetles, armed with missiles and cameras. I leveled my gaze at Aburra's eyes. “Nothing, Lord Aburra. The village is yours for the taking.”
* * *
“Onward, my brethren!” Aburra shouted to his captains, who stood ahead of their squads wearing black armbands, and strode among them, his cape waving rakishly in the breeze. “There's not much meat here for the taking. The men must be fishing. But what there is, we'll take, and leave the heathens without their women.”
He rose up on hind legs, a broad, imposing figure. “The altar of the Ten Gods will run with streams of blood, nay, rivers, and you will all indulge in the heathens' raw livers.” He grabbed his shaft. “But not before we take our pleasure of the fallen women, and yay, my brethren, they will be fallen upon their four limbs when we mount them from behind before the sacrifice to our gods.”
The Cultists cheered. Some stood on hind legs, clasped their shafts and made thrusting motions as though having sex. I felt like throwing up, but I was more firmly convinced than ever that I couldn't warn Aburra of the trap, even to save Sophia.
Into the mouth of hell, I thought as the troops surged forward, the hovair lifted, and nine vehicles spread out and raced down the long sloping hill.
And then I saw what the bottom slimefeeder had done as the leading vehicle tore past me. Sophia was tied to the front grill in a standing position, her arms spread and held by ropes to fender cleats, her legs secured at her calves so that she had to stand up.
I stood frozen, unable to catch my breath. Then a scream tore from the depths of my soul. “No!”
It startled the guard who sto
od before me, his forepaws braced on his rifle. I shoved him aside. He stumbled and fell as I raced toward the vehicle. “Stop!” I shouted. “You can't do this! Oh God. Please stop.”
But Slatties on all fours are faster than humans. The guard and his companion caught up to me and threw me to the cold ground. I kicked them and tried to throw them off. It was futile. One put his hind leg on my neck and held down my head. I gasped in breaths with flurries of snow. “If you have any humanity,” I begged, “please don't do this. She's innocent. Take me.”
“We are not humans,” one said. “We obey the True Gods who tell us through our Lord Aburra to wipe the world clean of all non-believers.”
“You are destined for the Pit, infidel.” The other guard raised his rifle menacingly. “You vex our gods with your sins, and our sworn duty is to send you to the Pit sooner than later. If Lord Aburra had no further use of you, I would separate your head from your body and bury it so that you could not come back.”
“You don't understand,” I pleaded, “she's my mate. My life! Please. For the sake of the gods, release her before she's killed.” My tears mixed with snow. “I'll convert to your religion. I'll pray with you at the altar of your ten gods.”
“He puts on a good act for the spawn of the Pit and its dark lord,” one guard said.
“Yes,” the other agreed and kicked my foot, “he would defile the altar. His lord is The Deceiver. He who smiles upon you, then crushes your throat with his long teeth. Get up, heathen!”
I got to my feet and watched the battle begin as red-banded Rebels and Sarge's leather-clad mercs poured out of the huts and raced down to the village from all sides. Their hovair rose to engage the Cultist craft. The air beetles swooped down on the running Cultists and fired missiles that exploded among them. I heard the screams from the hill.
I swayed, suddenly numb, as though this scene was a cruel dream that played out before my eyes and I would awake and find Sophia, smiling, waiting for me on our boat. I let the guards lead me to their vehicle and got in the rear seat. One of them snapped a handcuff on my right wrist, then clamped it to the door handle. “This will hold even a demon heart,” he commented to the driver.
