AmerIndian 2192

by J. Scott Garibay

CHAPTER 28

  The large opponent flashed toward Cavaho sending a flurry of jabs and short kicks that broke through his blocks. The opponent grabbed his wrist, twisted and kicked Cavaho’s legs out from under him in smooth motion. Cavaho slammed to the floor. Then instead of delivering a finishing blow, his opponent extended a hand and helped Cavaho to his feet. Cavaho nodded in approval of the tribals’ proper execution of today's extended jujitsu exercise.

  He grabbed the young tribals shoulders and positioned him. He then slowly echoed the movement, pausing for emphasis at the crucial points. Cavaho snapped his fingers twice and the large group of tribals paired off and began practicing the movements together. Cavaho walked around the room, stopping tribals, correcting stance, speed or delivery by demonstrating the proper execution himself. Cavaho held the classes for Brule Special Forces whenever his Infiltrator team was in from a mission on the Brule lodge ship. He typically had a turnout of fifty to a hundred tribals at the sessions.

  This was the third year Cavaho held a session when all of the tribes were together and even with all the mayhem the gym was crammed to capacity with tribals. As crammed as the room was the only sounds heard were low grunts when someone hit the mat. Cavaho did not demand silence. His own silence simply spread.

  Cavaho cut the session off at an hour and a half. Many tribals came to thank him. He nodded politely. A few made the mistake of asking him questions, to which he simply stared at the asker until someone pulled them away with whispered words. The gym emptied slowly. Cavaho had another seventy minutes of kata to complete and he continued. Twenty or more tribals watched him from the far wall of the gym.

  He was stretching between a Judo kata and a Jeet Kun Do kata when Sliver entered the gym. He glided forward, three acolytes in tow. He stopped a few meters from Cavaho. Cavaho stopped stretching and looked at Sliver waiting for him to state his business.

  “Celetain Prax, Elder Shaman, requests your presence.”

  Cavaho retained his blank, emotionless countenance. He nodded, turned, and entered the locker room. When he came out of the sonic shower, Keokuk was standing near his locker with Cavaho's dress whites.

  Cavaho pulled on the snug, perfectly cut white pants, white shirt, and the short cropped jacket fringed with short cut leather strings. He pulled on the gleaming white boots and white leather gloves. Cavaho wrapped a white bandanna around his bald head. He pulled the white leather jacket down. In his dress whites not a single one of Cavaho's tattoos were visible. Keokuk whistled mockingly.

  Cavaho walked toward the door and gave Keokuk a powerful shove that sent him crashing back into the lockers.

  Cavaho presented himself to Sliver to be taken to Celetain Prax. Cavaho's attire was appropriate for a meeting with an Elder. Sliver frowned. He turned without a word and led Cavaho through the lodge ship. Sliver entered Celetain’s quarters and led Cavaho to the center of the room. Without explanation he and the three acolytes exited. Cavaho stood arrow straight, waiting. He scanned the hundreds of paper volumes lining the walls.

  The large oak double doors swung open evenly, soundlessly and Cavaho watched as Celetain entered. She appeared different now, softer and welcoming. Her smile was unusual and it took Cavaho a moment to take in the rest of her in the beautiful hunter green dress she wore. It was a contemporary version of a traditional Midwest tunic. Made of soft buckskin, the dress was elegantly adorned with patterns of mica. Her soft moccasins were also decorated with a rim of mica. It was the first time Cavaho had seen Celetain in anything but her tight bodysuit Elder Shaman garb. Her hair was down, long and dark as space itself. She walked casually down the steps. “At ease, warrior.”

  With mechanical exactness Cavaho spread his legs to shoulder width and placed his hands in front of him. She raised her hands to her mouth to stifle a laugh. “Please, please, sit down, Cavaho.” She gestured toward a plush couch.

  Cavaho did not move. “It's all right, Cavaho. I called you here to simply talk-,” she frowned, realizing the awkwardness of her statement. “Please sit with me.”

  Cavaho did not move.

  Celetain looked away from him. She felt more foolish than she thought she would have. “I wanted to thank you for your kindness the other day. The position of Elder can be lonelier than I think most tribals know. It was the first time I was embraced by a man since before my mother's death five years ago. It was refreshing,” she said.

  He stared a moment and then gave a slight nod as if acknowledging the duty he had accomplished. His face remained blank, passive. For a second she looked pained but it passed instantly and she stepped toward a large hard light display. “I understand you are no stranger to loneliness yourself.” She paced and Cavaho watched as her dress suddenly appeared out of place, a flowered sheet draped over a tiger. “I read in your service statement that your silence is a choice, that you choose not to speak because you were spurned by your fiancé.” She circled back into his view and locked her gaze on him. “You have not spoken a word for four years because a woman, now married with two children, left you?”

  Celetain paused waiting for an answer. Cavaho's remained still. “Answer me, warrior,” she snapped.

  Cavaho did not breathe. No nod, no answer.

  Celetain stepped directly in front of him. “I am an Elder of the AmerIndian Confederacy to which you have pledged your complete allegiance. Answer my question.”

  Cavaho stared back hard but did not utter a syllable or give the slightest nod.

  “You have refused the direct request of an Elder. Now I suggest you report to a contemplation cell to consider the results of your blatant, selfish insolence.”

  Cavaho shifted. His teeth were bared, his body tense. He broke away and walked quickly, angrily toward the wall. His white boots clicked on the marble. He reached the wall, hopped upward and pulled himself up five shelves until he could reach a large red bound book. He dropped to the floor, landing effortlessly. He stormed to her desk, threw the book down, and scanned the pages quickly. With a motion almost too quick to see he drew a knife from his boot. It whirled between his fingers a second before he stabbed it into the book. He glared at her with anger and exited.

  Celetain watched him leave. She stood for a moment and ran her fingers over her forehead and through her hair in exasperation. This had not gone the way she had hoped. She walked over to her desk where Cavaho had shown his unique method of highlighting text. She read carefully. The book was a collection of poems by Ayo Kukri, “For when the light bathed me, I knew my soul was desolate. How can I give that which I have destroyed?”

  Celetain slumped into her chair. She was not sure how much time passed before Sliver entered. He interrupted politely and went over several tasks she needed to complete that morning. She asked him to bring a change of clothes. She suddenly felt foolish in her dress. She donned her comp set and keying bands and finger tapped. A roster for the contemplation cells appeared. There were rarely more than ten tribals there. Only three tribals were there now. A Brule who had assaulted his superior, Broge and Cavaho. She closed her eyes but the text of the poem remained in her vision.

  Derek’s brother burst into his room panting. “The Indians invaded a planet, a colony kind of planet. They're going to put the spaceship fights on the wall screens. Some Indian came on TV and said that Naanac now belongs to them.”

  Derek followed his brother to the viewing room. He stared at the wall screens with the rest of his family. Unlike his mother and his siblings, however, Derek paid attention the scrolling text fragments around the image of Elder John. There. He saw it. Three symbols in specific order - Spear, Star, Sparrow. Derek had to concentrate to follow the symbols, to make sure they were in the correct order. Dozens of symbols flashed around the edge of the video message. They were all gibberish to Derek, save these three. He marveled at how Lucas had been able to weave these symbols into their roleplaying game as spell runes.

  Derek understood the message.He pulled himself from the wall screen.
It was time. For two years Lucas had told the group about the time when the AmerIndian Confederacy would seize land from the UDA, when war would come. Like a biblical prophet Lucas had told each of the youths to be ready, to keep a go bag packed and accessible. Derek ran into his room.

  Derek threw himself onto the ground and shoved his hand deep under his bed, dragged out his go bag.

  “What's matter, bigbo?”

  Derek's brother Tommy was five. He would be the hardest to leave.

  “No worries, Tommy. Why don't you go watch some more and call me when you think they are going to start the spaceship fights? OK, little buddy?”

  Tommy jumped. “No, no, no, no. Mommy says we can watch with her. Come watch with me and Mommy. Come watch.”

  Derek's mind was racing. Lucas had told the group that the AmerIndian Confederacy would probably hit White Earth two to three years from now. This was a surprise. Derek scrounged through the go bag to make sure everything was packed. Until now the go bag had only been a symbol of hope. When he walked out the door it would be everything in the world he owned. He looked at Tommy and a tear rolled down his face.

  “Why you cry, bigbo?”

  Derek's face was now wet, but he laughed at Tommy's question, a hiccupy wet laugh. He grabbed Tommy, kissed the top of his head and hugged him close. “I love you, little buddy. I love you. Please don't forget that.”

  Derek calmed himself. Tommy looked frightened. “It's OK. It's OK,” Derek said with a smile. “Bigbo just had a sad minute. Let's go watch with Mommy.”

  Derek let Tommy lead him to the view room. The whole family was there, watching file footage of the White Earth Massacre on Triax Hard Core News. Close graphic clips of infantry battle. A fast tribal threw down an empty rifle and hacked at a UDA soldier with a hatchet. The screen froze with the tribal holding the hatchet high over the UDA soldier. The image was then rendered by comp graphics into a multicolored shimmering icon. Trailer music cued in and the news snippet line slammed against the screen. “Red Death Rising.” Derek shook his head. The rest of his family was too enthralled to see the gesture.

  A picture perfect blonde, no doubt a clone, came on-screen looking serious as she read her prompts flawlessly. “Eleven years ago the UDA engaged the AmerIndian Confederacy in one of the UDA’s bloodiest battle. The AmerIndian Confederacy, then headed by Potlatch Weaver, assaulted White Earth with four hundred outrider ships and twelve lodge ships. ‘Lodge ships’ is the term used by the AmerIndian Confederacy for stolen colony ships. Planet guns were used to destroy many of the lodge ships and outrider ships. However, a barrage of concentrated laser fire laid down by AmerIndian Confederacy ships destroyed all of White Earth's planet guns. The UDA traitor who gave the location of the planet guns to the AmerIndian Confederacy has never been identified. The AmerIndian Confederacy was poised to take White Earth by a destroying the rest of the UDA ships, which had no ground support.

  “While half of the AmerIndian Confederacy fleet was assaulting White Earth the other half was waiting in the Periphery until the right moment to fire into the battle by correspondence plane. UDA Captain Lige, now Admiral Lige, destroyed that half of the AmerIndian Confederacy fleet that was lying in wait. When Lige informed AmerIndian Confederacy leader Potlatch Weaver that he had destroyed half of their fleet he was so distraught that he abandoned the assault on White Earth.

  “Seventeen hundred UDA prime ships were destroyed by the AmerIndian Confederacy at the White Earth Massacre. Lige's ships destroyed eleven lodge ships and sixty outrider ships in the periphery battle. Potlatch Weaver was also killed trying to escape from White Earth.”

  The wall screen showed three circles of chrome, each forty meters in height. A monument to the dead. “Amazingly, the AmerIndian Confederacy has grown to over four hundred thousand members over the last thirteen years and now has a fleet of thirty stolen colony ships. While the population of the AmerIndian Confederacy is still smaller than at the time of the White Earth Massacre, many experts contend that today's Confederacy is far deadlier than the force was thirteen years ago. The AmerIndian Confederacy has grown in power and wealth by serving as a mercenary force. Their soldiers have seen more battle than most UDA troops and the experts readily admit the AmerIndian Confederacy tech-jacks are of a caliber unmatched in the UDA. Sources report that an underground system of communication has allowed the AmerIndian Confederacy to build a cadre of sympathizers on almost every colony and outpost. Experts disagree on the exact number of sympathizers, but put the number between fifty and three hundred million. UDA military sources agree that we are at the brink of another significant encounter with the AmerIndian Confederacy. A critical figure in all of this is Admiral Gavon Lige. Sources reveal that Admiral Lige recently suffered a defeat at the hands of the AmerIndian Confederacy Elder Council. Nine UDA prime ships, and over seven hundred UDA soldiers were lost. Admiral Lige will be commanding his fleet as they engage AmerIndian Confederacy forces at Naanac. He will be one of nine admirals under the command of Grand Admiral Ramus. We spoke to Ramus as he prepared for battle.”

  The wall screen showed Ramus' gleaming smile. “The Elder Council of the AC has made a major mistake. They believe the antics of a few tech-jacks can stop the force of the UDA naval fleet. The tricks they used to devastate Admiral Lige will not work again. We will vastly outnumber AC ships. The Confederacy will submit.”

  “What do you have to say about their threat of spiritual retaliation?”

  “I am not frightened by the inane ramblings of witch doctors. Every man can pray but the one who will walk off the battlefield alive is the one who puts his faith in his own ability to win. If you will excuse me I have a victory to secure.”

  The reporter turned smiling. “If confidence is a weapon, Admiral Ramus is packing a rail gun. We only hope he is right and has the ability to put down the AmerIndian Confederacy without losing too many of our boys.”

  The camera swept to a shot of marines loading Lawbringers. The wall screen changed again and the image of a cold beer filled the view. “Heading to the darkest corners of a distant galaxy? Near twelve hundred prime ships filled with Earth's finest troops. We are with each one of you. So tonight and every night we raise a glass to you and we are keeping a case cold for your return. Budriller Beer salutes the UDA Navy.”

  Derek stood and brushed his hand over the manual control panel at the rear of the room, shutting off the wall screens. The white room seemed dead without the dancing lights.

  Derek walked in front of the couch, facing his family. “I am leaving.”

  His mother scrunched her face. “This is family viewing, Derek. Don't go out now. And was it really necessary to turn off the walls for that.”

  Derek breathed in. “I am leaving this family, this city, this outpost, this galaxy. I love all of you and I will come back for you when I can. Mother, you have sacrificed too much for that damn wall. You raised me to be strong enough to escape. For that I thank you. The best thing you can do is put a chair through every wall screen in this apartment.”

  He leaned forward and kissed his mother's forehead. She stared at him with her nose turned up as if she smelled something bad. He kissed his brothers and sister. To Tommy he whispered, “Before you turn ten, learn to read English, little buddy. It’s important.” With that he headed out of the apartment. He slammed his grav board down and slid down the hall. As he reached the door to the stairs, hopped off and stuck his hand on the panel. The wall beeped and he looked down the hall before he entered the mag lift.

  In front of the apartment he had lived in for sixteen years, he saw only Tommy. Tommy stood tall and waved at his brother. Derek waved back with the arm holding the grav board and dived into the stairwell. He was at the nearest street level within a few minutes. He weaved through the crowd quickly with his grav board and kept his eyes on the street.

  He hailed a bikercab, one of the independents. He held up a silver certified cred card. The hoverbiker was a dark Jamaican with no
helmet, dressed in every color of the rainbow. The certified cred card held five times the amount the three-kilometer ride would cost. “The whole card is yours if you get me to sector nineteen in less than fifteen minutes.” The biker looked around. Traffic was getting heavy and the Biker realized something was going on. The biker snatched at the card. Derek deftly pulled it back.

  “Aye and Aye be dare in ten minutes. Time burning. Get on. Wha happenin’?” The hoverbiker called over his shoulder as Derek strapped into the plush passenger seat. “A new dawn my friend. A reversal of fortunes.”

  The biker cursed something under his breath about the cryptic answer and revved the large Hailey hoverbike out on to the street. They zipped along between autocabs and private citizen cars for a block and then the hoverbiker jerked the vehicle perpendicular. The hoverbike flew right over the edge of the street and into the well between the massive building structures. He gunned the engine to keep the hoverbike from dropping down between the levels below. The hoverbiker turned his vehicle in tight circles for a moment while looking down, watching. Then the hoverbike’s engine cut off at the flick of his thumb and dropped level after level like a stone.

  The maneuver was highly illegal and as the bike plummeted sixty levels it passed within twenty meters of two UDA police patrol cars. With considerable skill the hoverbiker throttled his vehicle to a perfect stop at level sixty-seven. In a flash the hoverbike was darting through street turns, fast enough to lose a pro racer. The hoverbiker got Derek to sector nineteen in less than four minutes. Derek gave him the card and thanked him.

  Derek turned to see half his gamer friends waiting in a nearby parking lot. A broad smile came to his face. He was happy, excited and hopeful. The pack members were all holding go bags. Lucas smiled back at Derek. In an hour he and his friends would be rendezvousing with a stolen prime ship. Derek was going to live with a people he had only read about on a planet he had never seen. He was going home.

  Celetain observed the bustle of the Naanac AC base camp. Almost two hundred thousand tribals were now on the surface of Naanac and more were coming. They were utterly jubilant. Women and children danced joyously on the soft damp ground. A light drizzle fell steadily but no one seemed to notice. Celetain had much to do to prepare for the Ghost Dance. She shut off the part of her mind still thinking of Cavaho. She had toyed with the idea of “freeing” him. It was absurd. Contemplation cells were used voluntarily and Celetain doubted ten men would be able to get Cavaho out of his cell.

  The area being used for the AmerIndian Confederacy outrider ships to drop settling tribals off was an expanse of mossy grass circled by huge grey trees a kilometer away. At the end of the mossy expanse a wide high cliff loomed over a vast, dense jungle. An outrider ship sat a few meters away from the edge of the cliff, still in the clearing. The ship now served as platform for the work of both Haida and Tsimshian tribals who had prepared a place of power for Celetain. Thick power lines snaked across every surface with fat black modules interspersed across the ship’s surface. Force fields, array collectors and several transmitters were linked into the ship’s server, which was in constant communication with lodge ships and outrider ships outside the Free Mantle. Keokuk had been involved in making sure the new AmerIndian Confederacy chunnel was equipped with powerful burst transmitters that could relay data from the Naanac’s surface to orbiting ships and back as well. Runes were painted in neon across the unruly collection of tech.

  Celetain started to climb to the top of the fifteen-meter high outrider ship. Immediately nearby tribals hurried to assist her. She was carefully lifted to the top. There she stood, quiet and still. Tribals near the ship turned to watch her. A murmur passed through the crowd. Soon every tribal on the field below was watching her.

  Celetain's twelve acolytes moved quickly to disperse themselves at equal intervals throughout the crowd spread out below Celetain. The Elder Shaman threw her hands up straight, pointing to the rock filled sky. She pulled her arms down and a bright rune, easily visible even in Naanac’s grey wet light, appeared outlining her movement. In harmony each of her acolytes made the same gesture producing the same effect with different runes. The crowed gasped and pockets of empty space blossomed around each acolyte. Celetain spoke, without a comp set or nearby audio drones. Her voice resonated from her position as well as the position of each Acolyte.

  “Brothers, sisters. I call you to work once again. The defense of this planet cannot be accomplished through military strength. Our fleet is severely outnumber by even segments of the UDA fleet. However, the time has come to show the UDA our true power. The time of the reckoning, the time of blood.”

  Celetain turned away from the crowd and stared across the jungle terrain. When she turned again her green leather was gone. Her dark oak colored skin changed. Her black raven hair changed. Celetain glowed white. Three thousand tribals gathered at the Naanac touchdown point raised their hands, shielding their eyes. The Elder Shaman's voice was changed now as well. “I invoke the Ghost Dance. The UDA will not allow us peace and so the Ghost Dance must commence until they attack. We culminate the dance at the first wave of UDA laser fire on our ships. We will strike a deathblow against the UDA that will not be forgotten for a millennium. I invoke the Dance of Prophecy, foretold by the wise and tragic Wovoka, the Great Native American hero our White Buffalo is named for. Know that once the dance begins its pillars must stand until the culmination or until their sacrifice.”

  With these words Celetain’s white glow disappeared and only her hunter green leather showed as she crumbled, falling heavily to her knees. Tribals swarmed to her, and also to each of the acolytes who fell in the same manner. The tribals gently helped her up and offered her water, which she drank greedily. Vegas, the Clone chief, was the first to begin organizing large groups of tribals into circles. The first dance circle consisted of nine tribals, one representing each tribe. At an interval of four meters another circle began. Tribals lined up somberly. The older tribals knew what was starting. John was now walking through the crowd stopping every now and then. At the seventh dancer position, he moved tribals, putting the youngest and strongest into pillar position.

  The pillars were dancers who served as the spiritual support of the Ghost Dance. Once the dance began the pillars would have to dance until all of the power of the Ghost Dance was released or until the pillar died from exhaustion. If the pillar died dancing, sacrificing their life, it intensified the Ghost Dance. Celetain was prepared to absorb all of the power produced by the dance, prepared to release the power when the moment came. Out of the three thousand tribals still at the Naanac touchdown point, seven had taken position as dancers. One hundred of those were committed as pillars, dedicated to dance until the rituals culmination or their own death from exhaustion. If even one of the pillars chose to stop dancing, the Ghost Dance would fail. John had chosen the pillars carefully.

  Sliver's comp projections supplied Celetain confirmation of her theory of the powers a Cybershamanism Ghost Dance would produce, but nothing was certain. The Ghost Dance had not been attempted for the purpose of offense since Wounded Knee on Earth over four centuries ago. Never had the Ghost Dance been attempted with so many tribals, or on any planet but Earth.

  The dance began and Celetain was pleased to find Naanac's energy was easily drawn. A concern rose in her. Was it too easy to draw? The only humans that had ever walked on this planet were a few hundred Rowan Cartel personnel. Celetain had Wovoka conduct a thorough destruction of the Rowan base. The Rowan personnel had packed up all of their research and comps in a matter of hours. Wovoka worked with the same Apache crews that built the new chunnel to tear down every laboratory, hangar and building to the foundations with gravdozers and autohaulers. All of the wreckage was then transported out of the new chunnel on shuttles. Celetain could still feel the scars Rowan’s facilities left on Naanac, but the cleansing by the White Buffalo working alongside the Apache would be enough to purify that land.

  Celetain was gambli
ng the Ghost Dance would not build any significant power in the first two hours. She estimated the dance would be primed at eight to ten hours. At fourteen hours the Ghost Dance would begin to lose power unless the pillar dancers were strong. It was now and hour and a half after Elder John's announcement was sent out across the grid. Celetain trusted Stormseeker's opinion that the UDA would respond between three and eight hours after the announcement, if they responded at all. The Elder Council was convinced the UDA would take the predictable action of launching their fleets to quell the Naanac invasion, despite the AmerIndian Confederacy’s warning.

  Celetain adjusted her position on top the outrider ship with the assistance of a few tribals. She spread her arms high in the position of Wambli, a position for drawing power she had used many times before. Sliver stood beside her, holding a large circular drum that served as an input device for the server of the ship Celetain stood on top of. He struck the drum once. A loud dull boom resonated from the drum as well as the drums held by the other Acolytes spread throughout the dancers' circles.

  The first circle of dancers, dressed in full regalia of black, grey and white, changed the direction of their circling. A pillar dancer shrieked, a sharp hawk cry that set the circle to faster dancing. They swayed and dipped, spun and lunged their shoulders toward the ground. One of the twelve Acolyte drums changed the beat and other drums flowed into its new rhythm like streams joining a river. The second circle of dancers changed the direction of its circling. Another drum and another boomed and new song echoed across the plain with seven hundred tribals dancing and singing to its powerful, deadly pattern.

  Haida Cybershamans monitored the gathering power through comp equipment Sliver had pioneered. A bright aura now surrounded Celetain. The gleaming image of Wambli, the great eagle grandfather enveloped her. Surrounding tribals gazed in amazement. Celetain pulled her concentration in and willed herself to allow hours to pass continuing to draw power from the dancers, the pillars and Naanac. Suddenly Celetain began to think not about gathering power but how she would control it.

  In the fifth hour, the Ghost Dance was in full sway. Lightning arced from the sky, grounding around the ship Celetain stood on. Immeasurable power coursed through her and it frightened her. The Elder Shaman prayed the UDA attack would come soon. Bright lightning arced from the center of the dance circles, each ribbon of electricity licking at Celetain. Celetain could feel gates being flung open. A tremendous force was being held in her mind, controlled by Sliver’s code, and Celetain struggled to contain it, longed to unleash it with a thought. Her body shook, convulsed with force. There could be hours left before the attack came, she thought. She had to control the power, contain it until the time of release. Sliver beat a syncopated rhythm and adjusted the code to assist Celetain. She screamed as she realized she must vent some of what she held or be torn apart physically. She concentrated.

  Blinding white beams shot from thick jungle trees at the edge of the plain. Wet limbs flew forward and beams of raw energy arced out of the trees. Tribals screamed as they clamored to get away. The beams shot away, each finding a target. Each beam plowed into a tribal, flinging them randomly, knocking away other tribals with concussive force. The dancers and pillars, entranced, conscious only of the dance, took no notice of the event.

  When the struck tribals landed the crowd swarmed around them. Each of the tribals was burning with an intense white flame. The intense heat kept the other tribals back. The flame consumed clothes and hair. After the flames dissipated, the bodies appeared clean, no signs of burns or trauma. The heat coming from the bodies kept the crowd away for a few minutes. When the surrounding tribals could get near, they rushed forward with blankets. All of the tribals struck by the energy beams had a pulse and were breathing but they could not be brought back to consciousness.