He twisted his head a few degrees to the side and looked in the opposite direction. “Fine—suit yourself.”
We sat there in silence for a few moments, before Kovac began moving his massive arms, which pressed me even harder against the side of the pod. He reached into his pocket, pulled out his earphones, and, with his elbows digging into my chest, and awkwardly popped one in each ear. I really wanted to say something snarky, but I’d said I was done talking to him, and I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of getting me to break my oath.
Over the muffled roar of our pod’s burning thrusters, I heard the faint sound of saxophones coming from Kovac’s earphones. I held my tongue.
Suddenly, there was a high pitched beeping and the pod’s computer system told us that we would land in thirty seconds and to please fasten our safety restraints. I turned to look out of the window at the planetoid below us and gasped.
Just outside the biosphere containing Pluto’s capitol city, Dominion soldiers were pouring through several swirling colored circles hovering above the ground. Not again.
And we were headed straight toward them.
19
AS OUR ESCAPE pod sped toward the stream of Dominion troopers pouring out of the portals, I broke into a sweat and suddenly felt intensely claustrophobic. I struggled to bring my hands up to pull my surface suit’s face mask over my head, mostly because Kovac’s beefy arms were already up and pulling on his.
Our pod’s safety protocol forced us to turn away from the troopers below and turned us, instead, toward a nearby ridge made of discarded boulders. As soon as we’d cleared the ridge, the pod rotated so that we were now moving vertically toward Pluto’s surface. The landing thrusters fired loudly and then the pod shook as it touched down.
I slapped the wall behind me, hoping to hit the button to free us from this metal coffin, but I kept missing.
“Open the door,” Kovac said slowly. It looked like he was back to his old talkative self.
I cursed, kept slapping, and finally hit the right object. The door slid open behind me and I went tumbling out of the pod backward. I fumbled for my feet and quickly activated my anti-grav boots. Kovac tossed my rod-sword out of the pod and it started to drift upward in the low-gravity atmosphere. I leapt up and snagged the sheath’s dangling belt buckle just in time.
Kovac squeezed himself out of the pod and was reaching for his vibro-hammer when I remembered our new surface suits were equipped with short-range comm units. That’s how good of a leader Colonel Hiller was—he was helping us even after we’d lost him. I choked back another tear and tapped the arm of my suit to open a channel between us.
“We need to hide—they’ll be here any second!” I yelled.
“And the pod?”
I looked around at the boulders and then at his hammer.
“Smash the pod.”
Kovac hesitated.
“Do it!”
He clicked the hammer’s activation button and I could see the blurring effect around its head from vibrating so quickly. After Kovac swung the hammer just a couple of times at the side of the pod, it looked like a badly dented can of fizzing drink that people on Old Earth were so obsessed with.
We shuffled away from the pod with our clunky anti-grav boots, rounded a rather large boulder, and then ducked behind it. I peeked out just far enough to see around the edge, and cursed again.
Two troopers had just arrived at the scene of our landing with their crossbows drawn.
I held my breath and watched as one of them searched the damaged pod while the other stood guard. The one checking the pod shook his helmet at the other and they had just started to leave when one of them stopped and began looking at the ground. Suddenly, his head shot up and both of their crossbows snapped up to the ready.
But before they had a chance to make a move, I spun around the boulder with my arm outstretched and summoned the up-tempo drum and electric guitar music of the orange stone. At the same time, I imagined a golden lasso in each of my hands and tossed one around each of the troopers’ helmets. Then, in my mind, I jerked the lassos toward me as I crossed my arms.
The two troopers were yanked forward, head-first. Their helmets slammed together and the two dropped like burlap bags filled with coins and goblets.
I rushed over to the trooper closest to me and sized him up. He was about my height, but a little skinnier. That should work. I popped off his pointy-toed boots and when I grabbed his shin armor, I noticed that it wasn’t connected to the armor on the rest of his leg. What I found, instead, was a stretchy dark fabric that the armor plates were connected to that held everything in place—like the sort of fabric I imagined superhero outfits were made of.
So I pulled his leg armor off all at once, leaving the motionless trooper’s pale, naked legs exposed. I stepped into the armor and pulled it up over my suit. It was bulky with the extra layers, but fit pretty well—except for the piece over my crotch. That was a little snug, naturally.
The boots felt funny. They had small orange stones embedded in the side and below them were two stylized crosses, but it wasn’t their design that felt weird. As soon as I put them on, I thought I heard echoes of the up-tempo music that came when I used the larger orange crystal I’d taken from Monstros.
The stones in these boots obviously weren’t as strong, but I guessed they had the power to pull things toward them, too. Maybe the ground, in weak gravity? The only problem with that idea was you couldn’t pull the ground toward you unless you were a black hole or something. So maybe these boots pulled you toward the ground.
“Hey,” I said into my helmet, motioning to the other downed trooper. “Hurry up and put his armor on.”
Kovac shook his head. “It’s too small.”
I exhaled so hard that the edges of my face mask fogged up. “Unless you want to wait for second breakfast with the rest of the troopers, you’ll put that on.”
Then, tugging at the space between the armor plates, I said, “The dark fabric underneath is really stretchy, so it’ll fit.”
Kovac grumbled, but got to work.
I bent down and admired the insignia on the breastplate—the small blue circle, the yellow sun, and the vertical line crossed by eight short horizontal lines. I figured it was the emblem of the Dominion, but had no idea what it meant.
To get the breastplate off, I grabbed the helmet on either side of the T-shaped visor. I pulled it up slowly, over a long jaw and thin, blood red lips. Something about this trooper gave me the shivers, so I pulled his helmet off so quickly that his long, raven black hair floated up around his pale face.
That’s when his eyelids twitched and he snapped open his impossibly bloodshot eyes. He opened his mouth in a silent scream and revealed canines that were far too long and much too sharp.
I jumped back with a shriek. The helmetless trooper gasped for air and squirmed for a second or two until he went still for good. At least, I hoped it was for good.
Kovac was about pull the helmet off his trooper, but when he saw what happened to me, he gripped his vibro-hammer in one hand and grabbed the trooper’s helmet with the other. He tore off the helmet and raised his hammer to strike, but there was no need. Apparently, the other trooper—a normal enough looking, pale-faced human—was already dead.
These helmets were big enough to fit over our low-profile face masks, so after I had put on the upper set of armor, attached the red cape with black lining, and secured the round arm-shield—with only one cross beneath the small purple gem in its center—I finally put on the helmet.
Just then, I heard a chirping noise. I jumped—which is really tough in anti-grav boots—and looked around. My chest was buzzing, too, but when I figured out the noise and buzzing were happening at the same time, I realized it was coming from the armor. No—it was coming from my suit.
I poked my fingers along the edge of the breastplate and found the object that had just about given me a heart attack.
It was the communicator Rand had give
n me. I pressed it down, and it automatically connected to my suit’s audio system.
“Rand?” I said.
“Private Walker, I presume,” he replied. “Is Kovac present with you?”
I looked over at Kovac, who was trying to suck in his stomach to squeeze into the other trooper’s armor.
“He’s in a tight spot, but he’ll be okay,” I said. “How are you?”
“I can honestly say that I’ve been worse. Earlier today, actually. But I digress.”
Kovac was now hitting the top of his helmet to knock it into place.
Rand continued. “Lopez’s electronic expertise is quite impressive. Before I knew it, we had passed through the airlock and into Proserpina.”
“Great,” I said. “You’re inside.”
I buckled the new sheath holding my rod-sword around my waist so that it looked pretty natural. I turned to see Kovac, whose chest plate was riding really high on his chest, leaving the dark stretchy fabric over the bottom half of his stomach exposed. It looked like he’d left his armor in the drying unit too long, and it took everything I had not to laugh out loud.
“And yourselves?” Rand asked.
I cleared my throat, moved forward a few steps, and looked out from behind the pile of boulders to see the Dominion troopers forming ranks and marching forward.
“Yeah—we’ll be inside soon,” I said quickly. “Where should we meet you?”
“Lopez suggests we meet ‘where Walker buys his lame civilian clothes.’ Do you have any idea what she’s talking about?”
I sighed. “Cosmart.”
“You mean, the popular discount store? The shining example of free enterprise?”
I got Kovac’s attention and pointed to his trooper’s crossbow that was hovering just above the ground.
“Yeah. I know the place,” I said. “And tell Lopez that their clothing’s a great value, okay?”
Kovac shook his head and held up his vibro-hammer. I shook my head harder and thrust my finger at the crossbow. Kovac just stood there.
“Look, Rand, I’ve got to go. The baby’s acting up. I’ll see you two soon.”
There was a small click, and we were disconnected. I felt underneath my forearm armor and tapped my suit’s comm unit to open back up my channel to Kovac.
“Kovac—Pick. Up. The. Crossbow.”
“But . . . my vibro-hammer.”
I sighed and softened my tone to soothe the massive child: “You can hold them both, okay? Just keep the hammer out of sight if you can—we don’t want to draw attention to ourselves.”
I looked up and down his comically ill-fitting armor. “But it might be a little late for that. Come on. And keep your comm open.”
I grabbed the other trooper’s crossbow—two crosses on the handle. I stood up straight and hurried toward the rows of troopers, with Kovac right behind me. They had already started marching toward an industrial-sized airlock near where the colorful, glowing circles were shooting out troopers.
“What are they?” Kovac mused dreamily. “Such . . . beautiful . . . colors . . .”
“Shh!”
We fell in at the end of a line and marched toward the opening. As we got closer, I kept looking to my left and right to see if any of the other troopers had noticed us. If they had, I couldn’t tell. That meant we were going to make it!
“Okay,” I said quietly to Kovac, even though nobody else outside my face mask could hear me. “As soon as we get inside, we make a break for the closest building. Will you be ready?”
“I’m always ready,” Kovac said.
“Good,” I said. “Follow my lead.”
We were only a dozen or so meters from airlock’s inner force field. I started sweating in anticipation of running and found myself already drifting away from the line of troopers. Which meant that Kovac was probably following my lead. I had just started moving back toward the line, when I heard a booming voice sound inside my helmet.
“Just where do you two think you are going?”
20
MY BLOOD FROZE. Someone had just caught us trying to pass as Dominion troopers and soon we were going to be inside an interrogation room getting tortured with an actual medieval torture device—probably a rusty one.
We quickly stepped back into line, but it was too late—we’d drawn attention. I kept facing straight ahead, but out of the corner of my eye I saw a strange-looking trooper walking quickly to my side.
He wasn’t in Egghead armor, but a vibrant green with a bright yellow breastplate. His helmet was also green, with a rounded red visor and something like fins sticking out from its sides. He kept walking, but turned his head toward me and touched the side of his helmet, just in front of one of his side fins.
“We will have order,” came a garbled voice that sounded as if it was speaking underwater. “Do you understand?”
How did these helmet communicators work? I felt the side of my own helmet and pressed a finger-sized indentation.
“Yes,” I said, hoping I sounded convincing. “Yes, your excellency.”
Your excellency? What was I thinking? This wasn’t one of those fantasy stories where everyone used ridiculous titles for each other. I might as well have said, “Your worshipfulness,” or, even better, “Your highness.”
The green-armored trooper let out a glugging noise and my sweat grew cold—I was sure I’d given us away.
“Excellency?” He said in a burbling voice, his hand still touching the side of his finned helmet. “Perhaps someday. Though not if my phalanx is marching like drunkards. Superior Magus Latchjaw will have all our heads if we so much as stumble.”
Then, “You, up there!” He said loudly while picking up his pace to move farther up the line. “Raise your knees higher as you march! We will not shuffle to victory.”
I lowered my hand to my chest and let out a deep breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding. That was close. I turned around and shrugged at Kovac. He gave a discreet thumbs up, and I turned back around.
Our group was now inside the large airlock. And after walking for a minute or two in silence, we passed through the internal airlock’s force field and stepped out into Proserpina’s massive biodome.
Soft light emanated from the thousands of large octagonal panels that made up the walls and ceiling. Judging by the dimness of the light, it must have been the city’s night cycle.
We marched into a wide loading area surrounded by several short warehouses, all of them the same shade of dark gray. Beyond these, the buildings quickly shot up like a forbidden forest.
The lines of troopers were now breaking into smaller groups of twenty or so. This was our chance.
“Pssst,” I said into my suit’s still-open channel to Kovac. “Let’s go.”
Our line had turned a sharp right, but Kovac and I kept marching straight for the warehouse ahead of us. Just another ten meters . . .
“Halt!” A gruff voice sounded in our helmets.
Not again.
Kovac and I froze in place. An unusually tall trooper approached us. He wore dark, fur-topped boots and flesh-colored body armor with long, green shoulder plates. The middle section of his green helmet was shaped like a thick wheel laying on its side. In its center was a single, eye-shaped visor.
“Why have you broken rank?”
I touched the depression in my helmet. “I—I mean, we beheld an enemy flee between the buildings yonder.”
I pointed ahead of us, toward the nearest group of buildings. Then, straightening, I said, “The Dominion must vanquish all its foes!”
I hoped that sounded convincing.
The trooper shook his head slowly. “By the Ancient Ones, why do I always end up with you imbeciles from the backwoods of Ares?”
I heard him sigh. Then, “Yes, ‘vanquish all our foes.’ All in good time.”
His helmet’s eye-like visor rotated toward the troopers we’d just detached from. “Go back to your phalanx—there will be plenty of time for vanquishing after we organize
patrols.”
We had only taken a step or two when the officer stopped us again.
“You,” he said, pointing at Kovac. “Who issued your armor? Another drunk clothesmith?”
Kovac shook, paused, then nodded his head.
The officer continued. “You look like a boy wearing an infant’s clothing! And what’s that in your hand?”
He pointed to the vibro-hammer. Uh oh.
Kovac fumbled to find the depression in his helmet to answer. To be fair, both of his hands were full, and it’s not easy to press buttons when you’re holding a crossbow.
“I found it,” Kovac finally said. “On the ground. Uhh, your excellency.” I winced. “It looked dangerous.”
His officer’s helmet cocked to the side. “What it looks like is a hammer,” was the impatient reply.
“But then again, who knows what the filth here uses for weapons. Turn it in to the weapons master as soon as your phalanx returns from its patrol.”
He motioned to the open space in front of the warehouses where the troopers had assembled into dozens of uniform groups—sorry, phalanx . . .es?—of four rows of four. Walking between the rows were a handful of troopers who wore bright olive green armor. Their capes were also an upgrade from the standard troopers—their red capes had a thick trim of woven gold. I guessed these were high-ranking officers in their army. Maybe even commanders.
Kovac and I nodded and hurried over to join the short-handed group. This was twice that we’d been reprimanded by a high-ranking officer from the Dominion and gotten away with it. We’d probably only get one more chance before everything hit the fan.
When we were only a few meters away from the group, another voice came on inside our helmets. “—columns of two along the through-ways. Kill anything that moves.”
A trooper in dark armor with thick white stripes along its arms and up the center of his head, like an Old Earth skunk, was pacing in front of the group. He stopped suddenly, struck the insignia at the center of his orange breastplate, and yelled, “For the glory of the Dominion!”
The rest of the troopers struck their chests and all at once inside my helmet I heard them answer, “For the glory of the Dominion!”
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