* * * * *
Chapter 44: Tavistock Fitzwilliam
“Fitz to Phantom. Are you decent, Justiana? Because we’re coming back hot.”
“I’ve been listening in on your chatter, Captain. I’ve run pre-flight checks every hour. We’re ready to lift off as soon as I’ve got you aboard.”
“Ahhh. I may have exaggerated just a tiny bit,” he told her. “I should have said we’re coming back warm, because we’ll need a minute to get our wounded safely strapped up and my captain’s butt settled where it belongs on the flight deck.”
“Copy that.”
“But you’ve done well, Fregg. We’re all alive. The Nyluga has remembered she adores me. And we’re about to collect the biggest paycheck of our lives.”
“Er…Captain? I think you’ve jinxed us. Perimeter sensors are showing inbound vehicles from the west. Wheeled trucks. Armed. Scores of them. They’re just a few minutes away.”
“Copy that, Phantom.” Fitz was driving the lead vehicle. He hit the accelerator. “You heard that, everyone. We’ve got company. Floor it!”
The ancient riverbed was uneven, making him swerve at speed to avoid scattered rocks and sudden dips. The vehicle rocked and rolled. He edged back the speed a fraction and told Fregg to transmit the raw sensor data. He matched it with his location data to build a tactical map in his head.
Izza was better at this sort of thing, but she had taken a nasty blow. As it turned out, the situation was so clear, he didn’t need her, but he wished she were sitting beside him to shore up the confidence he could feel draining through the floor.
“Fitzwilliam, what is our situation?” demanded Nyluga-Ree over a commandeered squad mic.
“We’re not going to make it back in time, Nyluga. Fregg, take off immediately!” A crack of thunder rolled over the dead valley. What now? “Fly south,” he told Fregg. “We’ll rendezvous when safe. All transports, wheel left. Let’s get out of this dead river.”
The thunderous crack had been followed by an ominous rumble. What the hell was going on? Had this planet rediscovered weather?
The other three tubs pulled off the river and headed south.
“Keep going,” he urged them. “I’ll join you. But first, I need to check on…something.” A plume of smoke was rising a short distance ahead. Or was it dust? He couldn’t get a good view.
“Captain, we have a problem,” said Fregg.
Fitz turned a corner in the riverbed. “Yeah, Fregg. I see it.”
When they’d landed, he’d parked Phantom in the lea of the largest hill around. It had been a big sand dune, really.
Well, it wasn’t quite so big now.
The sandy hill had collapsed, burying his lovely ship. That crack of thunder must have been explosive charges.
Had the Corrupted done that? It didn’t seem their style.
The enemy’s lead vehicles charged into view, firing wild shots at his tub. From the firing position behind him, Sybutu lit them up.
Despite the kid’s need to be all discipline and no play, Sybutu had grinned from ear to ear when Fitz had first told him that Phantom held a store of PA-71s, the archetypal Legion rifle. The Legion had decided not to confiscate them on the trip to JSHC. In fact, they’d replenished the cases of flechettes. Sybutu sent some of their contents as a welcoming present to the Corrupted vehicles at two klicks per second. He must have been feeling generous because he was dishing them out with abandon.
Neutron-degenerate tips tore through the trucks and their cargo of armed zombies.
A truck swerved violently, spilling bloody bodies out of the back to be crumpled beneath the tires of the following vehicle, which then ran into the back of the lead truck and caught fire.
The first few trucks were nicely snarled, but there were more. Many more. And there was plenty of space for them to ease around the obstruction.
“Nice shooting, Sergeant. But we’re not hanging around for the second round of this game.”
Fitz tore the hover-tub around and gunned the motor. It flew up over the southern bank and landed hard enough to ground the gravitics for a few moments. Then it lifted, picked up speed, and tore off after the other tubs.
“Fregg, are you okay?” he called over the radio.
Blaster bolts whined over Fitz’s head and sizzled along the ground. Damn! More enemy trucks were on the south bank too, flanking him. The hiss and crackle of the bolts drowned out Fregg’s reply.
Fitz upped the volume. “Say again, Fregg, what is your status?”
“I think Phantom might have some bent aerials,” she said. “But all other diagnostics are reading green. I’m looking up at the cockpit, and I can only see black. Tough windows. Not even scratched.”
“You’ll be fine, Justiana.” A flurry of explosions rippled through the ground to his right. Rocket-propelled grenades probably. “Double-check air and power for me.”
“Already did, Captain. Phantom has enough air, water, and power to last me for months. The bad news is she’s critically low on beer and cookies.”
“Just relax, Fregg.”
“Who, me?” She sounded a little frantic. “I’m taking a little forced sabbatical, on full pay. What could be more relaxing? I am getting paid, right?”
“Of course. With a fat bonus at the end.” Large munition bursts bracketed Fitz’s tub, the overpressure fuzzing his brain for a few seconds. “Just hang tight,” he told Fregg when his mind cleared. “Whatever you do, do not start the engines.”
A whining noise descended from the sky and ended in a detonation twenty feet in front of the tub. Red dirt was flung into the air, blocking Fitz’s view.
He swerved as the dirt rained into the tub. “What the hell was that?”
“Some kind of howitzer,” Sybutu replied. “Crude, but who needs sophistication when your target is an open-topped vehicle?”
“Thank you, I’m quite aware of that. There’s a reason I use foldable hover-tubs. Phantom needs room for other items in her hold.”
Sybutu’s silence sounded unimpressed.
It was broken by two more howitzer rounds landing nearby.
“The next time I acquire a ship,” Fitz added, shouting because his ears were ringing, “I shall remember to pick one with enough space for a troop of heavy tanks.”
“That would be advisable, Captain. We are inside a glorified toboggan. There’s a reason why toboggans never established themselves as the premier armored fighting vehicles.”
“Yes, thank you for the wry humor, Sergeant.”
“Where to now?” Sybutu asked.
Where to, indeed?
After another fifteen minutes of headlong flight, Fitz’s tub met up with the other three. The enemy artillery was still lobbing rounds at them, but they were falling short. It seemed they had escaped beyond the maximum range of the guns.
“Do you see any signs of pursuit?” Fitz asked.
He slowed to allow Sybutu a less bumpy platform to scan the horizon to the north.
“No, sir. They’re not coming after us. Perhaps they feel there’s no reason to.”
Fitz put the tub on auto and stood up. Sybutu had a point. In every direction but back, the same, red-tinged dead zone stretched to the horizon.
No food. No water. And oxygen-poor air that would slowly kill them with hypoxia once their oxygen canisters ran out in a day or so.
The broken land was all there was until the polar seas, 4000 klicks away to the south.
“We need help,” he said under his breath.
Lynx unstrapped himself and hovered over. “Excuse me, Captain. Did you just state that we needed outside assistance?”
“I’ve got this, droid. Leave me be.”
Lynx’s status lights displayed solid red. “If you insist, Captain.”
Did I just miss something? Fitz wondered to himself. Even for Lynx, that exchange had been weird. He shrugged it off. He had plenty more to worry about than an erratic droid.
* * * * *
Chapter 45: Ve
tch Arunsen
The stars and the silvered columns of light reflected off orbital mirrors shone down on the barren land, painting wondrous patterns across the heavens for those who troubled themselves to raise their heads and see.
Which was precisely what Vetch was not supposed to be doing.
He took another visual scan of his watch zone through the binocs mounted to the hover-tub’s cage.
Nothing.
No concealment. No way for an enemy to sneak up on them. From horizon to horizon, there was nothing alive except for Chimera Company. Although, not all of Vetch’s comrades were properly alive.
“Hey!” he called, kicking the dumb droid. “You’re supposed to be on watch too.”
Lynx buzzed angrily but otherwise ignored him.
At the start of the watch, Lynx had declared he had more important things to do than pointless sentry duty, and he could say for certain that neither were they pursued nor was there anything dangerous out there to hurt them during the night.
The droid hadn’t bothered to identify these vital tasks, but Vetch’s guess was that he was chatting with 3Condax, the weird robo-dog sitting next to him in the bottom of the recharging hover-tub.
He kicked Lynx again. “When you get complacent,” he told him, “that’s when you wake up dead. You might be good at computation and recalling facts, droid, but that’s not the same thing as learned wisdom.”
He clicked on his throat mic. “Hey, Zavage. You Kurlei fancy yourselves poets. I bet your people have gushed plenty of pretty words over the stars.”
“Of course,” replied his sentry partner from the other side of the hover-tub circle. “I think every civilization of every species has looked up and marveled.”
“And seen meaning too,” said Vetch. “Patterns. Early humans certainly did.”
“Our people were the same. My ancestors thought the night sky showed a map to enlightenment. Our bitterest rival civilization saw the sky as a celestial battlefield, the stars being armies that marched and counter-marched across the heavens in a perpetual stalemate.”
“It never occurred to me that your people came in different flavors,” said Vetch. “I guess that’s because there aren’t many of you in the Federation.”
“Only my civilization survived to make it into space and encounter other species. Kurlei society is even more competitive than humanity’s is. We wiped out our rivals.”
“Brutal.”
“I’m not proud of it.”
“You don’t have to be. It’s not like you personally exterminated them. Anyway, you didn’t wipe them out entirely. Their culture is remembered by you. You’ve just passed on their idea of the battlefield sky. I like it. My ancestors saw patterns too. It’s where we get the Perseus in Perseus Arm from. It was the name of a mythical hero, I think. I wonder what the ancients would have thought if they knew the stars cast unique patterns for every star system.”
A sudden twinge of pain shot through Vetch’s mind. It was like a burst of static in his head.
Before he could collect his thoughts enough to worry about it, the sensation had gone.
Don’t panic, he told himself, you’ve had a rough few months. He shook his head and slapped his arms across his body. Only another twenty minutes before he was relieved. Keep it together, Vetch.
“Do you see the bright blue star low in the sky to the northwest?” he asked his companion. “It’s called Menkib, another ancient Earth name. It was one of the stars that made up the pattern of Perseus. And now, thousands of years after it was named, I’m seeing it from the far side. I think that’s awesome. I mean, our current situation sucks in so many ways. But you’ve got to admit, standing watch on a broken planet under the stars is the kind of thing you expect in a Legion recruitment booth holo. Right?”
Zavage said nothing.
“Zavage,” he said. “Are you okay? Respond!”
Silence!
Vetch turned to get a visual on Zavage’s vehicle, but as soon as he did, he thought he saw movement in his peripheral vision.
Or did he imagine it?
He turned back. Saw nothing. But there was no doubt in his mind what he should do.
“Contact!” he bellowed in a voice that would wake the dead.
Demounting his PPR3 from the firing support, he crouched down. If he could get to the other end of the tub before popping his head up, he was less likely to get it blown off.
Cries were beginning to issue from the other tubs as people woke.
“Shush, my pet,” cooed a feminine voice.
The night air rippled, and Maycey appeared, draped over the driver’s shield like a…
Like a person about to die.
He wanted to shoot her full of bolts. But his arms wouldn’t move.
“Did you miss me?” she teased. He was sure she was blinking those huge green eyes, but the night was dark and getting darker.
The damned cat had drugged him!
She jumped into the hover-tub just in time to catch him in her warm arms as he pitched forward into oblivion.
* * * * *
Chapter 46: Vetch Arunsen
Vetch woke.
It was a good start, he supposed—and better than the alternative—but he was getting tired of prisons, reeducation camps, and being the plaything of psychotic Guild assassins.
He was laid out on his back, head propped against something soft and warm. His eyesight was even blurrier than his head, but it seemed to be filled with women. Maycey, Zan Fey with a bandaged head, and Lily.
They were all smiling at him. Smiling and laughing.
None of it made any sense. But it did feel familiar.
“I know I’m still dreaming,” he told them, “because I’ve dreamed this before. Many times. I’m the only man left in the universe. It always starts well but usually ends up a nightmare.”
“So rude,” said dream Lily.
He realized he’d been breathing from an oxygen mask when it was taken away from his face. The air tasted bitter now, but he could see better without it.
Green Fish swam into his field of vision. “Ignore them, Sarge. You’re okay. Vol is fine too. Just embarrassed he let the Kayrissans sneak up on him. He felt better when I told him they got the better of me and Sinofar back at the Sanctuary.”
“You mean this is real?”
Maycey spoke. “My sister thought it prudent to disable your sentries before we paid our respects to your party.”
Vetch blinked. Day had broken while he was out. They were still in the circle of armored hover-tubs deep in the dead zone. And this wasn’t Maycey. It was Kaycey, the psychopathic one.
“I think Kaycey just wanted to play,” said Zan Fey. “With you.”
The softest of touches brushed the side of Vetch’s cheek, softer than blow-dried puppies coated with warm butter. He lifted his head and saw he was being stroked by the back of Maycey’s hand. He was cradled in her lap, and she wasn’t wearing much more than her fur.
She smiled at him. “You’ve missed me,” her upside-down head told him. “I can tell.”
“Looking comfy there, Sarge,” said Darant with a grin as he walked by.
Vetch sat up. He was awake. And this was a nightmare.
Darant rested his hands on his hips and peered down. “I came to rescue you, Sergeant, but now I feel like that would be a disservice.”
“Darant…” Vetch warned.
“We could swap places if you like.”
Maycey hissed. It set Vetch’s hairs on edge, but Darant just chuckled. He extended a hand and lifted Vetch to his feet.
“How’s Bronze?” Vetch asked.
“He’ll live,” said Zan Fey. “Fregg is alive too. Fitz and Sinofar are on the radio keeping her spirits up. Digging her out is our next task, once we’ve said goodbye to our honored guest.”
“Thank you for my vacation,” Ree told Zan Fey. “It has been deeply painful, but…” She looked away sadly. “It is what it is. Izza, are you going to fight to prevent me lea
ving?”
“Did your assassins plant explosives to bury my ship?”
“Yes.”
“No harm done,” said Kaycey. “We just slowed you down.”
“We have something on our ship to help extricate Phantom,” said Maycey. “We’ll drop it off for you as we fly out.”
“There,” said the Nyluga breezily. “All fair. I ask again, are we about to fight?”
“No. Are you going to bring help?”
“Perhaps.”
“What you said before, Nyluga-Ree. About us being family…”
“I meant every word. And that is why, despite your deception and your invasion of my Sanctuary, I hope you make it off this planet alive. But I hope you don’t get away too easily.”
“We can take one more on our ship,” said Maycey. She blinked at Vetch.
He undid the holster for his blaster pistol.
“You, Vetch, shall have the extra seat. As Verlys put it, we shall rescue the princess.”
“What the hell is all this princess bullshit? You’re all insane.”
“Once we are clear, maybe we will send help for the others,” Maycey said, reaching out to stroke his beard.
He took a step back and pulled his blaster on her. “Touch me, and I’ll put a bolt through your pretty face.”
“Dear, dear, Vetch. That’s quite unnecessary.”
“You’re right. It makes more sense to save my charge pack and introduce you to my hammer.”
“Oh, Vetch. You have such a crude way with words.” Again, with that damned slow blink. “I enjoy it.”
He face palmed. Could she get any more irritating?
Ree gestured away Maycey’s banter. “Come. We must go.”
But the cat woman was serious. “Nyluga-Ree,” she begged, “surely I can take one hostage home?”
“No,” Ree insisted. “I release Sergeant Arunsen. I no longer require him as a guest.”
Maycey’s fur stood on end. Her claws snikked out.
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