Hold the Line (Chimera Company Book 5)

by Tim C. Taylor

  It was a technique he’d been taught in a particularly unpleasant torture course.

  This wouldn’t kill the Littorane, but it would overwhelm it with pain for the moment of space Urdizine needed.

  He jumped to the side and winced at the wet sound of the truck crushing the Littorane beneath its wheels.

  “Should have looked before you leapt. Sorry, buddy.”

  A score of others joined him on the snow, Littoranes and Human Worldies.

  They’d taken out the three guards from their truck, but the rest of the convoy was stopping, and they were on a featureless ice plain—no cover in sight, and probably no shelter within a hundred klicks.

  “Run!” he yelled and hurried away from the trucks.

  Every step tore agonizing strips out of his wounds, but Hrish-Ek looked to him for leadership, and the other Littoranes looked to her. He had to set an example, even if it killed him.

  After a few hundred yards, he turned to see what the zombies were doing. He’d expected gunfire, but they had something altogether different in mind.

  They’d disgorged around 50 captives out of the trucks and lined them up in the snow. humanoids were face down and limbs spreadeagled, Littoranes on their backs. More were being roused from the trucks.

  “Come back!” a zombie Human shouted.

  Urdizine counted 25 escapees, including himself. Between them, they had just one weapon, the PA-71, and it was in the hands of a Cora’s World officer.

  “Come back, or they die,” the zombie shouted, “one by one.”

  The armed Worldie yelled back, “Better dead than corrupted.” He took aim at the zombie who’d shouted and drilled his head with holes.

  For a few seconds, the zombies seemed too confused to respond. Then a Zhoogene brought out a blaster pistol and put a bolt through the head of the first captive in the snow.

  “Shoot that zombie,” Urdizine urged the armed Worldie.

  He didn’t. The man watched as the Zhoogene calmly proceeded to blow the heads off another nine captives. With her pistol pointing at the eleventh, she stopped. “Come back or another 10 die.”

  “We’ve no choice,” Urdizine told the others.

  The Worldies all sneered at him. “Don’t you get it?” their officer said. “They’re better off dead. We’re all better off dead unless we can get away.”

  The zombie murdered another captive, blasting their brains into the snow.

  Urdizine advanced on the Cora’s World officer, thinking to take the railgun from him.

  Then he saw the conflict on the man’s face and stopped.

  A strong jaw thrust outward. The freckles across his dark skin emphasized the twitching of his facial muscles. Urdizine didn’t know this Human personally, but he’d been around enough to conclude that he was wrestling with his conscience. If Urdizine waded in, it would only distract him.

  The officer took aim at the murdering zombie and blew her away. The report of the railgun was swiftly swallowed by the snowy expanse, leaving silence filled only by the low rumble of the idling truck motors.

  “What’s your name?” Urdizine asked the officer, compelled to make a connection to this strange being.

  The Human shot him a look of total contempt. “You can call me sir. Everyone, move out!”

  The zombies came to life—or something passing for it. They shot the captives lying in the snow and fired at the escapees.

  The officer lay prone and fired back. “Move out, I said! I’ll join you when I can.”

  Perhaps he thought he was making a heroic last stand. It didn’t last. Several of the escaped Littoranes mobbed him, clubbing his body with their tails.

  Urdizine watched it happen, too torn to know how to act.

  The idea that they could escape with their lives was probably only ever an illusion. Whatever, it was gone now. The zombies marched them back to the trucks, their arms high.

  “Typical xenos,” the officer growled as he spat a bloody tooth at Urdizine. “You’re weak.”

  “Why single me out? I didn’t turn on you.”

  He stopped. Narrowed his eyes. “Because they are beasts. You should be so much more, but you’re not. You’re indecisive. Without your betters to tell you how to think, you’re nothing.”

  A zombie guard hit the man with his buttstock and set him marching again.

  Urdizine had no reply. He edged away from the Human.

  “The name’s Captain Roberto d’Anje,” the man called to him. “Remember that. In my final days, I intend to make yours a misery.”

  Final days? Urdizine assumed they were in their final seconds, but d’Anje turned out to be right. The zombies were binding the wrists of the escaped captives before shoving them back into the trucks.

  “Why don’t you shoot me?” he asked a zombie when it was his turn to be bound. “That way I won’t be a threat.”

  And you can’t turn me into one of you, he thought.

  “Want fit and healthy young people,” the zombie replied. “You demonstrate are suitable. Perfect for the plan.”

  “The plan? Plan for what?”

  The zombie struggled with the question, abandoning the rope he’d been tying around Urdizine’s wrists. “Plan for everything,” he eventually stuttered out.

  “The whole of Rho-Torkis? The whole Federation?”

  The former Human shook his head.

  “The galaxy?” Urdizine whispered.

  The zombie ignored him and finished binding his wrists.

  “No,” he said when he’d finished. “The plan for existence. All of existence.”

  * * * * *

  Chapter Eleven: Osu Sybutu

  Secret Planetoid Base, The Redoubt Line

  Three Months Ago

  “In this part of the Perseus Arm, we’re close to the galactic rim. We man the ramparts on behalf of all star systems coreward. If the Andromedans breach the defenses here, they’ll eventually burn their way through to Earth.”

  “Earth?” Osu’s heart skipped a beat. Indiya was revealing a flurry of half-suspected truths, but this was even bigger than he’d imagined. “You’re in contact with Earth?”

  Indiya drummed her fingers against the carved wooden arm of her throne, for that was what it was, despite all her talk of not being an empress. Osu had been summoned to an audience in her chambers. She sat in a fancy chair that was far too big for her. He stood at attention in her presence. Felt like royalty to him.

  “No,” she said. “The most recent news I heard of Earth was six centuries ago, and even that came via unreliable sources.”

  “What did it say?”

  “Humanity continues to exist in our home system.”

  “Is that it?”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Humans remain in the Orion Spur and face existential challenges. More details would be unhelpful.”

  “Understood, ma’am.

  “As I was saying, the Exiles were brought here to fortify a frontier region still devastated by the first Andromedan invasion.”

  She pursed wrinkled lips, weighing her next words carefully. She looked away.

  Time moved on. Seconds became minutes, and Indiya…she’d zoned out. Was she asleep?

  He waited patiently for another few minutes, then her gaze snapped back to him. “I have a special role in mind for you, Sybutu. There’s something no one else in Chimera Company can do.”

  Behind his impassive expression, Osu wondered what this could be.

  “Wei is too sycophantic,” she said, “Green Fish too young, Lily too troubled, and Zavage too alien. Fitzwilliam has too many agendas, all of which involve him in a lead romantic role. Arunsen I like, but he’s spoiled before his time, becoming too cynical. Maybe he can be redeemed, but I don’t have the time. I could go on, but I’ve picked you. I have a need, Sybutu, one my husband used to satisfy. Now you will take his place.”

  Osu didn’t like where this was headed.

  Indiya waved at him in a dismissive gesture. “Foolish boy. I don’t wish to
bed you or share fine food by candlelight. My marriage was chaste. We shared a deep, mutual respect and a political agenda, but not love. I’ve never been in love. I’m incapable of it.”

  “Surely that isn’t true, ma’am.”

  “Spare me the platitudes. When I was a teenager, I had to make a decision that ended the lives of thousands of people with a single touch of a button. I’d grown up with many of my victims. It was an unfortunate but necessary decision—a tough call. The action of a true leader who sees the bigger picture, and all that crap. Did I do the right thing? I don’t know. I buried the memory so deeply, I can’t remember any of the specifics, just the guilt.”

  “I’ve read about the incident you’re referring to,” Osu said. “If you hadn’t pressed that button, I doubt any of our species would have survived. You did the right thing.”

  “Is that supposed to make things easier? You wouldn’t understand. You, Sybutu, are descended from a branch of Humanity bioengineered to be killing machines. Any qualms about slaughter were bred out of your ancestors. Any throwbacks who paid a mental cost to end another’s life were taken out and shot like diseased dogs before their genes could corrupt another generation. I descend from a different branch of our family tree. The moment I killed my friends haunts me every day. I can do things you regard as sorcery, but I can’t fix the pain in my head, because deep in my soul, I know I don’t deserve to be fixed, let alone loved.”

  “With respect, ma’am, I don’t recognize your description of my generation. Perhaps we don’t talk about it as often as we should, but killing does change a person.”

  “I hope you’re right. Since I couldn’t fix myself, I put everything onto my husband. He became my moral compass so I didn’t need one. I ceased to take responsibility for my own actions, relying on him instead to be my morality. He was tortured by his own decisions, of course, but he remained functional enough to make the hard choices for me again and again. Poor man. We didn’t understand about the Andromedans back then, but he said this day would come. That we would have to fight. That’s why I’m here. For him. It’s hard to care about anything when you get to my age, but I care about him.”

  “I’m not sure I understand what you want me to do, ma’am.”

  “I want you to be my moral compass. Chimera Company’s, too. I know you’re not in charge, but you set the example for others to follow. You’re already doing it more than you know.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Indiya’s faith in him was misplaced. Still, Osu mused, her confidence was a gift, and gifts were there to be used. “Ma’am, may I request some additional information? In order to set my…compass bearings.”

  “If you must. Be brief.”

  “Enthree. Friend or foe?”

  “Both. I’ve been reluctant to tell you anything about the Muryani people. Their relationship with us is complicated. All Muryani work for the Expansion; don’t fault Enthree for that. She probably feels her loyalties torn two ways. The Expansion is to be feared in the long term, but it may prove a necessary ally.”

  “Thank you. One last thing. My moral code says we don’t leave our own behind if we can possibly avoid it, and when we do, we come back for them. I left a man behind on Rho-Torkis. SOTL Urdizine.”

  “I know. You already asked Fitzwilliam to retrieve him. He hasn’t forgotten, but it’s not his highest priority.”

  “Then taking the time to recover Urdizine is precisely the moral example Fitz needs.”

  He immediately knew he’d overplayed his hand when she glared at him. Even the gills in her neck flapped with irritation. “Very well,” she spat. Literally spat at him. “You’ll convey the details of your man to Kanha Wei, and she will retrieve him.”

  * * * * *

  Chapter Twelve: Perling Jing

  Thousand Sorrows Inn, Raemy-Ela, Rho-Torkis

  Jing watched Yuin order drinks from the Littorane barkeep, impressed that she used the local language.

  Okay, so she screwed her tenses up totally, but she got the message across. The Littorane made no comment and set about pouring drinks.

  For someone who’d been on Rho-Torkis for less than a week, he was amazed at how quickly the new replacement had picked up the lingo.

  “Not bad,” he told her, thinking of more than her linguistics.

  Specialist Second Class Henniyth Yuin had caught Jing’s eye from the moment she’d asked him for directions to the Sensors and Signals team that had set up shop in an old lumber warehouse.

  Yuin’s looks intrigued him. They were as mixed up as her tenses.

  She had a long, narrow face and a pointed chin like a Kurlei. Her pale skin matched unsettlingly ice blue eyes, but made an odd contrast to her ripe, mulberry lips. She was wearing her hair long tonight, glossy dark auburn with scarlet tips. It was glorious.

  A few months of this hellish ice planet would change all that, but for now, the burnished vitality of her hair was a rare splendor.

  It made her look young.

  Or did it?

  Jing found her age strangely difficult to judge.

  He wanted to say she was in her 30s, but her skin was smooth perfection, almost like a child’s.

  Henniyth Yuin was remarkable. And she was watching him watching her.

  She acknowledged his scrutiny with a raised eyebrow and pushed a drink across the bar to him. She didn’t seem to mind his gaze, so he kept on looking.

  “Like what you see?” she teased.

  He glanced away, grinning impishly. “I’m sorry. That was…inexcusably regressive. I plead diminished responsibility. It’s this place. Been on Rho-Torkis almost a year. Everywhere, it’s the same. White snow. White ice. Noisy white of the constant storms. Even the Littoranes are whiteish shades of gray. When I come across anything more colorful, I find it precious.”

  Those mulberry lips pushed out into a pout. Jing’s heart sank. She seemed disappointed with him.

  “Where to begin?” she drawled. “I’m not your precious thing, and I expect the men, women, and others of the 14th Tej Brigade would not be pleased to learn that you regard them as a smear of lifeless whites and grays. By the way…” She nodded at the drink she’d bought him. “You’re welcome.”

  Jing sighed. He’d be sleeping alone again tonight.

  “Guess I deserve that,” he admitted, “but I was serious about Rho-Torkis. It kinda…beats you down. Knocks out the best parts of civilization, leaving just the savage beast we all have within.”

  “I see. Now I understand why you’ve been staring so hard. You’re trying to imagine what I would look like after Rho-Torkis has revealed my internal savage—a term of oppression, incidentally. Did you imagine me wearing nothing but a fur bikini and thigh-length leather boots cut from the hides of my enemies?”

  “No. Of course not!”

  Jing felt sick to his core. He couldn’t even conceive of such a misogynistic viewpoint.

  Although…now that Specialist Yuin had put that fur-and-boots idea in his mind, it was proving hard to shake.

  He kept his eyes on his drink, not daring to look at her.

  Yuin reached across and rested her hand over his. She leaned over from her barstool and whispered into his ear. “Savage beasts excite me.”

  Her words were so mildly spoken, he couldn’t quite believe they were an invitation, but she left him with a hot sigh that warmed his ear and gently blew away his doubts.

  Whatever happened from this point, he knew he would remember this night for a long time.

  “I don’t know why you’re complaining, anyway,” she said. “I’ve been in Raemy-Ela for four days, and Rho-Torkis for eight. The place doesn’t seem so bad. Sure, the weather is extreme, but you can sit in a bar with a pleasant companion and have a quiet drink. What’s so bad about that?”

  Jing found his courage once more and smiled. “I guess the place doesn’t sound so bad when you put it like that.”

  “I heard a Legion team was here.”

  “What?”

&
nbsp; She tilted her head and narrowed those blue eyes. “Corporal Jing, this is what’s called backing off and changing the subject. I heard some kind of Legion special ops team was in Raemy-Ela when the 14th moved in. How does that square with your claim of relentless white and gray?”

  He shrugged. “It’s true. I was part of an advance team to the east of here when we collided with them. Lost a main battle tank, can you believe? There are reports that they showed up at the Battle of Bresca-Brevae. Wouldn’t surprise me because they seemed to be headed that way. But who knows? Bresca-Brevae was a clusterfuck, and not many made it back. Place is a freaking zombie colony now. Gives me nightmares just thinking what they might be doing there.”

  “Maybe the Legion team is still here in Raemy-Ela.”

  “Hiding under our noses?” He peered at her, trying to figure where Specialist Yuin was going with this. “It’s possible,” he admitted.

  She gasped. “Then something should be done about it.”

  “Don’t worry. We checked the area thoroughly. There was one who slipped through our fingers initially. A Zhoogene.”

  She shivered.

  “You don’t have to worry about him, Yuin. The zombies raided a few nights back, captured a bunch of civilians, insurrectionists, and some Cora’s World people, and took them off in the direction of Bresca-Brevae for whatever sick things they do to people in that hellhole. There was a Zhoogene spotted among the terrorists they took. That’ll be our man.”

  Talk of zombie raids was unsettling Yuin, her eyes darting nervously. “That’s why you were redeployed here,” he explained, trying to reassure her. “Part of upgrading the sensor perimeter so the zombies can’t raid so easily again. But of course, you know all that.”

  “I know what I’m tasked to do, but do you think they explain why, just because I’m in the HQ section?”

  “I guess not.”

  “How did you even know this dangerous Zhoogene was a Legion spy?”

  “That’s the Soft Intel Corps for you. You know how SIC are. Ask a million irrelevant questions and get a million irrelevant answers. Every once in a while, though, when they tie the answers together, they see a pattern that leads somewhere meaningful.”