Alien Salute

by Charles Ingrid

  Amber looked closely at him. “I think you have promised all that you can do.”

  He knew she had caught him. He was silent for a long moment. “Very well,” he said. “Do you know why I am called a saint?”

  “I looked you up once,” she answered, with a mischievous grin that was far more like the old Amber he knew than this worried young woman who sat next to him. “You were rumored to have raised the dead.”

  “No rumor,” he said, feeling uncomfortable. “But he’d just died in my arms. Doctors do it all the time.”

  “But you were at a Walker outpost.”

  “Yes. Relatively primitive conditions, and don’t ask me how I did it because I don’t know. I just know that, suddenly, I was filled with this outrage that he should have died, and I was determined that he shouldn’t suffer the indignity of his broken body… he’d been in a cave-in, trying to reach a group of school children who’d gone in to see some artifacts just as a minor quake hit. They were frightened but safe, the area they were in had been shored up well. He was killed in an after-shock. I was very young then. I was angry that someone so good should have died so horribly.” Colin looked away from her then, filled with the memory. “I remember holding him very tightly as I prepared the body for his widow to see. The esophagus had been packed with dirt. I cleaned him out, straightened broken limbs, and washed him. Then the outrage hit and I held him tightly one last time, thinking—and I’ve never told anyone this—thinking how pissed off I was at God that it had happened.”

  “And then he began to breathe in my embrace.”

  Colin took a deep breath himself and turned back to Amber. He had not quite told her all of it, but some things were between himself and his God.

  “And so that’s why they call you a saint.”

  “I presume so. It cannot be for holding my temper in check. Amber, I cannot guarantee it would ever happen again. It would be a mockery to do so. God heals, not I. I can’t guarantee God’s manifestations.”

  She pushed the silken sleeves of her caftan up in determination. The light blue tracing of her tattoos seemed alight. “Maybe not. Now tell me what happened to Rawlins.”

  His jaw fell. “What do you mean?”

  “What do I mean? What do you think I mean? The two of you walk into an ambush at the Thrakian embassy and the two of you walk out alive? The only thing wrong with you was broken ribs. I knew something had to have happened to Rawlins. He was in a daze for a month, and now he follows you around as though you had a psychic leash on him. We all have our histories on Bythia. I simply couldn’t figure out what yours was.”

  Colin shook his head. “He took a chest shot meant for me. I healed him. He… was not dead.”

  “But dying.”

  “Perhaps.” He felt very old, suddenly. “Amber, I’m not the man you took adventuring to Lasertown. I’m not even the man who went to Bythia. It… it takes a toll, perhaps one I can’t begin to pay any more.”

  “That’s why I’m here. Please. You’ve got to help me try. Together.”

  Colin looked at her. Night pressed in about the room, even though there were no windows. He could feel its presence, very close. Her heat warmed his right side, but nothing could keep the iciness of a soul at ebb tide from his left. “All right,” he said quietly. “Take my hands and see if you can find your way to him.”

  Amber took the older man’s hands in hers. She could feel the age in his skin. Wrinkled. Not elastic like hers, springing back after each touch. And the pads of his hands were callused and broad, like a man who had worked with them each and every day of his life. She wondered at that even as she felt the tiny drum of his pulse under her fingers. Anchored by his steadiness, his age, and his wisdom, she flung herself into the void in search of Jack.

  She expected cold. She received nothingness, a stretching of herself until she felt vast and incredibly transparent, a sprinkling of mortal dust that the first solar wind could scatter irretrievably. She had to make the effort to pull herself together before she mingled forever with the infinite possibilities of the universes she encountered. She was a kite, soaring, and Colin was the flier, far behind her, yet connected by a tenuous string of simply being.

  Her perception of herself and Colin was so altered from what she’d expected, that she had no idea of how to look for Jack. Would he be dust also? Or a rock, like Colin?

  No, she thought. She remembered him from her first impressions, locked in his white armor, hot with vengeance. He was a sun. She knew that and went in search of a planetary flame that burned as brightly as any solar disk.

  Condensing herself, she trailed across worlds in a track that had no signposts, no maps, no indication of where she had been or where she was going. She found a flame or two, tasted them—not Jack… not even human. She flew onward.

  There was a tug at her string. She looked back and saw Colin’s anchoring of her self grow a little weaker. Time had no meaning. How long? she thought. And then, how far? He reeled her in until she hovered, not in her body but close enough to see out her eyes and once more feel the touch of flesh upon flesh. Her ears were filled with song, a thousand notes and vibrations, some discordant, most melodious.

  “Here,” Colin was saying, and his voice was so thin, so far away, she could barely catch the sense of it. “Amber, can you hear me?”

  Her lips opened. “Yeeesss,” she whispered.

  “Jonathan’s located the current campaign. Star maps will do you no good, but I have something. This was made for me by a Walker congregation from Oceana. Use it to home in on.”

  He pressed something into the palm of her hand. Her impression of touching it was double-layered: the faint, gritty impression of rock and cloth upon her palm, and a closer, much more intent impression upon her ethereal body. She grasped it and flung herself away again, this time with a lodestone for her direction.

  To that, she added pain, for, previously, she had forgotten to look for war, and although every planet she touched echoed with strife, she looked for immolation.

  She reached a world and slowed, uncertain, felt a gigantic brush of another body past hers, and saw, was seared by, the impression of an immense warship coming to, turrets swinging around, and the planet below trembling under the blast it received.

  She quailed from the uprush of death and pain and fear, alien though it was, for the planet being destroyed was not inhabited by humans. She heard their cries in her mind and tumbled away, letting the backlash of the weaponry sweep her away.

  Quiet hovered behind her. The warship thundered out of orbit and left, the planet wrapped in an aura of radiation. Amber held her lower lip between her teeth as she took one last look back, over her shoulder.

  Sand, she thought. A sand planet but sand no more. Its atmosphere rippled in a prism of color.

  She had no time to wonder. The lodestone in her hand jerked to the right, and she soared, and found another solar system.

  The white flame she sought guttered low. Fear coalesced in Amber’s ethereal body as she drew near, and found a physical world, torn by battery placements and shelling and laser fire—all scars that would heal quickly, unlike the world she’d seen irradiated. Below her stretched a cityscape, half in ruins, flames licking at it, gray pavement streaked with crimson. Beyond it, she saw countryside, its green trampled, ground broken, trees snapped and flung aside. Men in armor ranged it, moving quickly. She saw the sand waiting on the horizon, sand and the abhorrent touch of Thraks.

  Drawing in upon herself, she swooped down, no longer having to search for Jack. She was air and he was fire, and he sucked her in as though she existed only to fuel him. Her last gasp was to reach for Colin.

  Colin felt the sharp jerk on his soul. It nauseated and frightened him because it felt as if something was trying to suck him out like a raw egg from its shell. Amber’s chill hands convulsed within his, and then he was gone, his mind ripped out of his body, and he found himself confronting…

  It was not death. He knew death. It was Jack
and something different, something primitive and feral, something desperate to do anything to maintain its life… yet something with an ultimate form that shimmered on the edge of Colin’s senses like a golden curtain of intelligence and benevolence. He was reminded of an embryo’s selfishness in its mother’s womb, launched toward a life it could not possibly comprehend yet.

  Amber enveloped him. Can you help? Dear god, hurry, I’m losing it…

  Colin sensed Jack’s wound, but the second presence fended him off, would not let him near, and, worse, this thing knew and understood the plane they inhabited, the spiritual self. It could and would destroy Colin on this plane. He approached again, and was rebuffed so solidly it made him gasp and pant in his physical form and his senses whirled, torn between what he experienced in his two selves. He was fading from Amber’s grasp. All he could do was offer the second presence a glimpse of the life awaiting it, before their contact exploded and he and Amber were flung across the galaxies.

  Chapter 22

  Jack staggered and went to one knee, jarring himself inside the armor. A lead broke loose from where it was clipped to his torso, and he swore. But the sharp pain did some good. It broke the lethargy riding him. His shoulder sent a jag of agony throughout his body, broke sweat out on his forehead, and raised bile to the back of his throat. He righted himself. He listened for Bogie to goad him onward, but the sentience was uncharacteristically silent.

  Around him, return fire kept him pinned down. He checked his target grids, uneasily aware that he’d been about to walk right into a crossfire and wondering what his mind could have been on. That’s when he knew just how badly he’d been tagged. He was losing it…

  “Jay-sus, commander, you’ve been hit!” Garner hit the dirt field next to him, ducking his helmet behind a barrier of mud and rock thrown up by the earlier pounding the installation had taken.

  “How close are we to getting in?”

  Garner’s helmet swung to face him. Through the sun-screened visor, Jack had difficulty seeing if there was humanity within. But Garner’s voice held a trace of his fierce, biting humor.

  “You and me and Aaron, and three or four well-placed grenades should do it. They’ll be facing a fatal distraction… if you can do it.”

  “Don’t worry about me.” Carefully, Jack reached around to unsling his field pack. He left it and the laser rifle within it lying at his feet as he stood, keeping the outcropping between him and the main nest.

  “Commander—”

  “No more weight than necessary,” Jack said. “Take what you need and leave the rest. If this works, there won’t be enough left of the Thraks to matter. If it doesn’t… the team coming up behind us can use it. Where’s Aaron?”

  “He hit the dust over there.” Garner pointed. Armor could be seen lying amongst charred and broken ground, grass clumps still attempting to wave feebly despite damage and trampling, like a forlorn banner.

  Aaron’s young voice came in faintly over the com. “—Com trouble, but I’m ready when you are—”

  “Ready.” Jack keyed his grenades. “On your feet. I want to see if you guys are good enough in armor to keep up with me.” He surged out of hiding and charged the Thrakian battlement.

  Bogie felt the renewed heat of Jack’s blood. He lay against Jack’s skin, listening to the thunder of his pulse as the man launched himself against the enemy.

  And within the armor, Bogie fought another war. He felt the touch of something he could not identify, something…celestial. It offered him so much more than mere life. It gave him a view of the being he might grow to be out of the baseness he was now.

  But not a being sprung out of blood.

  No.

  And as Jack threw himself at the nest, laser fire rippling off his armor, Bogie drew back his cilia, denying himself. He did not have the strength to heal Jack the way he once could have. Instead, he worked at stemming the flow by blocking here and here… doing what he could to make sure the man who nurtured him might live.

  But there was no way either of them could block the barrage from the remaining Thraks.

  Jack flung his grenades, hit the power vault and somersaulted in midair, away from the resulting explosions. The burst flung him, as he’d intended, out of the line of return fire. He heard Garner yell and Aaron bite off a curse that sounded much too vehement for his youth. Then the mikes went dead, overloaded by the following blasts. He landed, and a shock wave tumbled him over. Garner landed well. A laser blast blossomed in the middle of his chest plate. Crimson and ebony blocked out his rank insignia and Garner crumpled slowly.

  Sound bled back in. Jack stood. He heard the ricochet whine even as the projectile slapped him again and he felt the pain tear through his right thigh. Damn, he thought, as he went to one knee, and twisted around. I’m never going to get out of here in one piece!

  Then, all was was silent… except for a piercing screech that became louder and louder. He looked up and panned the darkening sky. A Needier whipped in overhead, lower and lower. He saw the canopies hitting the air below it.

  The shield crew.

  Jack withdrew his right hand very slowly from his gauntlet and sleeve and wiped his face. His skin was clammy.

  Static crackled. “Thank you, Commander Storm. All clear now, shield crews dropping. Stand by for pickup. Acknowledge.”

  Jack cleared his throat, his thoughts still fuzzy. “This is Commander Storm. Please repeat.”

  A laugh. “What’s the matter, Jack? That last salvo scramble your brains? There’s nothing moving down there but Dominion armor. Get your shit together and make the rendezvous point. I understand there’s a few of you guys need the doctor.”

  Jack blinked. He realized then that the dancing lightning of laser fire had ceased around him. He pulled Garner to his feet. The man came up, air burbling in his chest. Jack assessed the damage. He reached into the armor and made Garner place his own hand over the wound to staunch it. It wasn’t sucking air, so the man just might make it. Jack felt a surge of fierce joy as Aaron helped him brace Garner from the other side. Once more they’d beaten the Thraks at their game. He heard the Needlers screaming overhead. “Let’s go home.”

  Chapter 23

  Interloper

  The warship swept in before the tertiary alarms even had a chance to go off and the factories had no time to download for red alert. Young Brant stood at the con tower, unable to believe his comp readouts.

  “It can’t be in under the shields.”

  “Affirmative. Unidentified aggressor, bearing six-zero-niner—”

  “Shit,” he muttered and hit the manual alarms.

  Later, the records would show he was a full thirteen minutes ahead of the tertiary system.

  Brant then opened the general com lines. The armory factories could blow half the planet up if they went, and there was no doubt in his mind that the incoming wasn’t friendly. As he opened the lines, he said to the computer, “I want a Thrakian ID.”

  “Negative,” the comp replied smoothly. “The unknown is not Thrakian according to data bank.”

  “It has to be!” Brant stood on one leg and then the other. “Answer the com, dammit! Answer me!”

  A low thunder began to rumble. His fair blond hair stood on end. The tower vibrated.

  “ETA fourteen minutes,” the comp said. “Air to land missile approach.”

  “What?” Brant’s voice went up half an octave. “Oh, shit, oh, shit! Answer the com!”

  A light came on, but the screen stayed dark. “Good afternoon, this is Washburn Industries. If you wish to talk to personnel, key 1. If you wish payables, key 2. If you wish—”

  Brant screamed into the receiver, “We’re under fire! Emergency!”

  Then he ran for the underground silos. Behind him in the tower, the comp said smoothly, “ETA seven minutes.”

  And another comp replied, “If you wish to talk to customer service, key 5. Thank you for calling Washburn Industries.”

  Brant erred. The unidentifie
d assailant did not take out half the planet. But the predominant continent in the northern hemisphere suffered severe casualties. Washburn Industries, along with two grenade factories and Beretta Laser Rifles, were pulverized.

  Even the underground silos.

  Only the “black box” remained intact to tell the story after the first impact.

  Chapter 24

  You can let me walk across the quad. I’m not going to break in two, goddammit.”

  Amber said scornfully, “An overnight at the hospital and you think you’re healed. If you don’t behave yourself, you’ll be sleeping in the quad. Colin, talk some sense into him!”

  The Walker stood, Jack’s arm draped about his shoulder, looking as though he was bolstering the man’s weight while Amber wrestled to set up a four-wheeled cart. The early morning breeze ruffled Colin’s light fringe of hair and he took a deep breath. Malthen might actually have rain today, he thought as he inhaled. He no more supported Jack than Amber did at the moment and the two men exchanged a glance.

  Face pink, Amber straightened. “There. You sit. Or you go the hard way, facedown on a gurney.”

  Jack made as if to shrug, then winced and thought better of it. He sat down in the small cart and adjusted the handlebars to a comfortable reach. He started the cart. Colin and Amber did not find it difficult to match its pace as he drove across the palace grounds.

  “You know,” Jack said, “the medics didn’t say this was necessary.”

  “The medics,” Amber retorted. “The same medics who also released Garner this morning? Just before he collapsed?”

  “That’s different. Garner spent the trip back in a cryo tank. They thought he’d healed more.”

  Amber stretched her long legs and strode out in front of the cart, bringing Jack to an abrupt halt. She looked down at him. “I hear one more complaint out of you, and I’m going to tell Pepys and Baadluster you’re out early, and you can spend the day with them.”