The Eve of War

by Christopher Hopper

  “No! Don’t you touch that!” Awen struggled against his invisible grip but still couldn’t move. “That’s not yours!”

  “It became Luma property the moment the mwadim passed it to you.”

  How does he know the mwadim handed it to me? The whole thing didn’t make sense. No one knew of the drive except a handful of off-world vagabonds. And the only person who knew that the mwadim passed it to her personally was Magnus. Even though she disdained Magnus’s choice of occupation, she couldn’t picture him being a snitch. Plus, he lacked motive, nor did he have access to the order’s grand master. None of it made any sense to her.

  “You’re no Luma,” Awen spat.

  “Easy, my child.”

  “Stop calling me that!”

  “Now, now. You need to rest.” So-Elku lowered his head. “After all, you’ve had a long trip.” Awen suddenly felt dizzy, a wave of vertigo disorienting her senses.

  “No,” she mumbled, squinting against a sudden urge to vomit. “Stop this.” She felt something press against her hand—the stardrive—and her thumb moving atop the button. This can’t be happening. Awen wished Willowood would rush through the door and rescue her. She tried to center herself, to gather her strength to reach the elder. But it was no use. She was too tired.

  “There you are,” So-Elku said, “lying beside the mwadim at the back of the dais. The second explosion detonates, and his body slides closer to you. You’re barely conscious. Then he places something in your hand…”

  The images flashed in front of Awen’s eyes as if she were experiencing the episode all over again, only this time, she wasn’t lying on the ground but hovering a few meters above the scene. A true out-of-body experience. She didn’t want to relive this, yet the images were being forced upon her. Then she noticed that something about the memories didn’t feel right. This wasn’t her spirit watching her body. It was too sterile. Too clinical. Too…

  Too robotic, like a hover-bot with a holo-cam. Awen realized she was watching a feed of the events in the mwadim’s palace from a drone. These were not her memories of the encounter; these were what So-Elku had seen. But who would have been recording her? And why would So-Elku and the Order send a hover-bot? It meant that they expected this.

  Awen’s head ached, and the pain was growing more intense by the second. She wished Willowood was here now more than ever, and her heart began to despair as she realized the master’s power was too strong for hers. Awen tried to reassert her will against So-Elku’s, but doing so only made her head hurt worse. Still, she had to resist. She would rather die than lose like this.

  “Don’t fight it,” So-Elku coaxed her. “You see yourself, don’t you? Remember. Remember.”

  “I… won’t… yield.”

  “Remember!” he yelled at her.

  “I won’t… yield!”

  “Remember!”

  “I WON’T YIELD!”

  From across the room came an elderly woman’s voice. “Awen? Master So-Elku, what’s going on?”

  Awen instantly felt the shackles on her body fall away, and the images vanished. She fell to the ground in a heap, gasping for breath. Willowood had sensed her need after all!

  “Leave us!” So-Elku yelled at the woman.

  Awen blinked, regaining a sense of her surroundings. The cold marble floor felt good on her palm. Her other hand held the stardrive. She swallowed, suddenly aware of blood dripping from her nose, and looked up to see Elder Willowood standing at the open doors. If Awen was going to have a chance of survival, this was it. “Help me,” she mouthed to Willowood.

  That was all it took for the elderly woman to spring into action. Defying her aged appearance, Willowood raced forward, dipping her head toward So-Elku in concentration. A wave of power rippled through the air and slammed into the man. It hit him hard enough to make him stumble backward. Willowood kept running and reached a hand toward Awen, who grabbed it and tried to stand, but her legs were too weak.

  “Come on, dear. You’ve got to move.”

  “I don’t—”

  Awen and Willowood were sent sprawling, sliding across the smooth floor. Awen felt herself slam into the wooden doors, and a shock of pain wracked her body.

  “What do you think you’re doing, Willowood?” So-Elku said.

  “I’m stopping you from whatever you’re doing.” The woman climbed to her feet. Blood trickled from her forehead.

  Willowood looked skyward and tore away a section of the domed ceiling. It fell toward So-Elku, who glanced up, sending the sandstone to one side. That was all the time the old woman needed. Awen watched as So-Elku became constricted as if an invisible vise had pinned his arms to his sides.

  “You’ve got to move,” Willowood said to Awen. “That won’t hold him for long. Come on.”

  Willowood helped Awen through the massive doors while So-Elku seethed behind them. The man spewed profanity that stung Awen’s ears as if some demon had replaced the spirit of the legendary master’s soul. Willowood drew the doors shut and waved her hand to seal them.

  “Are you okay?” Willowood asked as she tried to get Awen to run down the main hall.

  “I think so. He was, he was—”

  “He was hurting you. That’s all I need to know.”

  Awen struggled to keep up with the woman, but each step brought renewed strength. Willowood held her hand as they gained speed, heading back toward the Arielina’s entrance. Several passing elders tried to inquire of Willowood, but she ignored them.

  “I don’t know what you’ve gotten yourself involved with, dear, but we’d better get you out of here,” Willowood said.

  “It has to do with—”

  “Not now. Listen, whatever So-Elku wants, he’s probably not working alone. Do you trust that pilot who brought you here?”

  “Captain Ezo? I don’t really think—”

  “Enough to get you someplace safe?”

  “I—suppose.” Awen felt Willowood tug her down the steps and into the afternoon sun.

  “Good. We’re getting you back on that ship.”

  • • •

  “So, we have a deal, then?” Ezo asked, his boots crossed atop the cantina table.

  “You make a delivery of our shipment to Sorrelle, three days, no questions,” confirmed the Faddamo trader, the large gills on his neck rhythmically slurping air. “Two thousand now, three thousand upon completion.”

  “Standard contract, if you ask me. And a pretty good one at that.” Ezo stuck his hand out to shake and noticed someone across the cantina looking at him with recognition. Ezo knew he had to wrap things up fast. He also wished he’d not told TO-96 to stay with the ship. “I’ll receive your cargo, platform thirty-nine. But can we move the time line up? I just realized that—”

  “Idris splicking Ezo,” came a gruff voice from the bar. “Why, if it isn’t the bounty hunter who swindled me out of fifty thousand credits over Fiad Six.”

  “Gormar, how nice to see you.” Ezo kept his right hand extended toward his nearly closed client and placed his other on his blaster for insurance. The gray-skinned gargantuan Diim rose from his seat at the bar—his two seats at the bar—and lumbered toward Ezo’s table.

  “Wait, fifty thousand credits?” the Faddamo asked.

  “We thought he was dead,” Ezo replied then turned to Gormar. “We thought you were dead.”

  “I almost was, thanks to you alerting those Republican troopers.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” Ezo said to the Faddamo, waving his hand and removing his feet from the table. “It was resolved months ago. This fellow has just had one too many whiskeys.”

  “I haven’t even started drinking,” Gormar insisted, getting closer.

  Ezo looked back to the Faddamo, desperate for the trader to shake his hand. “So, we have a deal?”

  The Faddamo looked between the Diim and Ezo then back again. “I think we’ll take our business—”

  “Perfect!” Ezo said, slapping the aquatic humanoid’s hand. The ne
xt instant, Gormar drew his weapon and fired a bolt. Ezo jumped back, knocking his chair over as the blast of energy shredded the table.

  Wood fragments peppered Ezo’s pants, and the stringent smell of ionized air made his heart race. He always loved a good firefight, and it had been a while since his last one. Too long, he mused. Ezo’s SUPRA 945 was up and aimed faster than most humanoids could think. He squeezed the trigger, and a white bolt grazed the Diim’s shoulder. Ezo didn’t want to kill the beastie, after all; there was no need for unnecessary violence. Plus, he never knew when an older client, even a vengefully malicious one hell-bent on tearing his arms off, might be a repeat customer if the circumstances were right. He just wanted to make sure the giant thought twice before interrupting negotiations with a client—should there ever be a next time.

  “What’d you do that for?” Gormar shouted, dropping his blaster and grabbing the wound. Patrons screamed as they rushed for the exits, glasses and furniture toppling over. Ezo ignored the Diim and looked to the fish-man.

  “Platform thirty-nine! Don’t forget!” Ezo yelled.

  Gormar grabbed his blaster off the ground and leveled it at him. Another blast tore through Ezo’s toppled chair, splinters spraying the floor.

  “Thirty-nine!” Ezo exited the cantina and squinted against the sunlight.

  “Sir,” a voice said in his earpiece, “are you enjoying your jaunt to rustle up some new business?”

  “Fire up Geronimo, Ninety-Six! I’m coming in hot. Three minutes.”

  “Marvelous, sir. Hold on, sir.” There was some commotion in the background. “I say, we have quite enough fuel already. And don’t touch that!”

  “Ninety-Six! What’s going on?”

  “I’m sorry, sir. Bawee technicians are putting their filthy hands all over the ship during refueling. Though I hesitate to classify them as technicians. They’re more like—”

  “Confirm my last transmission!” A blaster bolt zipped over Ezo’s shoulder and smacked into a glass storefront across the street. People shrieked and dove to the ground. While there was no such thing as a seedy part of town in Plumeria, Ezo always managed to find the watering holes where the most disreputable residents congregated. He thought it ironic that the street looked like any upscale thoroughfare in the galaxy even though the cantina was rife with riffraff. Even the fastest skiff still finds flies, he mused. “Get the ship ready. We’re leaving hot.”

  “I was just going to suggest the same thing, sir.”

  Ezo hesitated and fired a shot over his shoulder. “Wait—why?”

  “Do you remember the very attractive Luma emissary?”

  “Yeah?” Ezo dodged another of Gormar’s blaster bolts as more people screamed.

  “She’s back.”

  Chapter 17

  “Lieutenant?” the man in the holo-vid said, an urgent tone in his voice.

  “Go ahead, Colonel Caldwell,” Magnus replied.

  Magnus sat in the comm officer’s seat of a Sparrow-class LAT—light armored transport—trying to ignore the gawks of the two private first-class Marines. They stood abnormally close to the bridge door, acting as if there was some important business with the keypad or magnetic door sliders. He didn’t blame them—not for the gawking part but the being bored part. On such a small craft, there wasn’t much to do. These old ships were used as a last resort for moving small units around quickly. The Sparrows—which resembled a slender bird’s beak with split-V tail stabilizers—were fast but lacked anything in the way of comfort. It was no wonder that this was one of the only military transports left for the sector chief’s disposal.

  “Seems someone else needs your help more than the seventy-ninth,” Caldwell said.

  Magnus’s heart sank. “Colonel, sir. You just—”

  “Listen,” Caldwell said with a raised hand. “We both know you don’t want to be headed anywhere else but Oorajee right now, but this is direct from Brigadier General Lovell. Change of plans, son.”

  This week can’t get any stranger, Magnus thought as he nodded at the two privates in the entrance.

  • • •

  After saying goodbye to Awen and stepping off Geronimo, Magnus pulled up Plumeria’s map in his HUD and left the starport. It had been a while since he’d wandered any city alone, much less a thoroughfare in a veritable paradise. He wondered if there would ever be a day when he enjoyed a place this beautiful while not in Mark VII armor. He realized, then, how truly out of place he felt—a Republic Marine in full kit walking through a city of diplomats, academics, and students with large endowments. If Plumeria had a nice beach, which reports said it did, he might be back. One day. But not as a Marine. He suspected that moment would be a long time from now—if he even survived the next decade.

  Magnus finally arrived at the substation headquarters and reported to the sector chief.

  “Well, look who we have here!” The gray-haired officer rose to his feet, clenching the stub of a cigar in his teeth.

  “Colonel Caldwell, sir?” Magnus could hardly believe his eyes.

  “In the flesh, Lieutenant.”

  The two men strode across the room and clasped forearms, the more personal greeting of Marines who’d seen battle together.

  “I’m—I’m surprised to see you here,” Magnus said.

  “Really, son?”

  “Well, it’s just that—”

  “You never saw me as a desk jockey? Well, neither did I. Which means you probably don’t ever see yourself in an office like this either. All I can say is get ready.”

  “Copy that, sir.”

  “Let me look at you,” Caldwell said, stepping back to size up Magnus. “You look like splick, son.”

  “And you look like the medals got too heavy, sir.” Caldwell’s Repub uniform was unusually spartan, given all the accolades Magnus knew the man could have displayed on his chest. But the colonel was among an ever-shrinking minority who consistently placed unit above career. Less fanfare, more warrior. Which was why this office didn’t fit what Magnus knew of the man.

  “Come on, have a seat.” Caldwell gestured to one of two leather seats and took the other himself. “And let’s dispense with protocol, Magnus. We’re both sirs here.”

  “Copy that. When did you take the promotion to sector chief?”

  “They promoted me after Caledonia. I knew my time outside the wire was done, and I was offered any sector I wanted.”

  “As you should have been. But I gotta ask… Worru?”

  Caldwell chuckled and blew out a plume of smoke. “I know what you’re thinking, Magnus. Repping the Marines for the Luma isn’t where any cold-blooded Midnight Hunter sees himself retiring, right? But I’m playing a hunch.”

  Magnus raised his eyebrows. “A hunch?”

  “Even the biggest bull loses its way after dark and needs light to get it home.”

  “How poetic.” Magnus grinned, but for the life of him, he couldn’t tell whether the colonel was comparing the Luma or the Republic to the bull. This was not what he would have imagined from the war hero.

  “Poetic? I live in Plumeria. What do you expect?”

  “Fair enough,” Magnus replied.

  “Enough about me. When they announced you, I nearly fell over.”

  “It has been a long time.”

  “There’s that, yes. But we all thought you were dead, son.”

  “So, you’ve heard about Oorajee?” Magnus asked.

  “Heard about Oorajee? Splick, son! Someone went and organized themselves a war, and the Fearsome Four was handed the first grenade. The whole galaxy has heard about Oorajee!”

  “So, it’s bad.”

  Caldwell forced a blast of air out of his nostrils. “Bad doesn’t even begin to describe it, son. Everyone’s scrambling from here to Pellu, when who walks through my door but the lone survivor of the attack!”

  “Excuse me,” Magnus said, his stomach tightening. “Lone survivor?”

  Caldwell’s mouth froze agape. Magnus had visited this partic
ular darkness several times before. Too many times, he realized. His mind went to Flow, Cheeks, Mouth, and the others, a few of whom he’d only met before the mission brief. The uncertainty he’d felt when talking with Awen now threatened to spawn into a demon that was nearly impossible to tame. He’d become an expert at avoiding it. The beast haunted him at night and stalked him during the day. Its claws hunted with anger, its mouth dripped with guilt, and its feet slogged forward with grief. Keeping it at bay took everything Magnus could throw at it.

  “Damn, son. I’m sorry. You must’ve got comm’d out then.”

  “Lost contact after the attack,” Magnus said with a nod, his eyes distant. “TACNET went down. Guessing the Jujari jammed all comms but their own. We were lucky enough to get out of the city in one piece. Then I found a way to get my asset off planet and back here. You’re my first debrief, Colonel.”

  “You were assigned the Luma contingent, then?”

  “Yeah.” Magnus nodded, his mind bringing up an image of Awen. “Wainright had the Repub ambassador, I had the Luma emissary.” Then his mind went to Wainright. “Are you telling me that not even the captain made it out?”

  Caldwell took a deep breath. “That’s what the intel coming out of the system suggests. I’m sorry, son. Granted, we have only visual and thermal scans at this point, but they’re not picking up any non-Jujari movement from the mwadim’s tower.”

  “Any word of a search-and-rescue team going in?”

  “I’m afraid not. Orbital bombardment is being considered, but right now, there’s a multifleet standoff.”

  Magnus’s eyes snapped to Caldwell’s. “Did you say a multifleet standoff?”

  “Republic and Jujari-allied ships are jumping into the system. Second Fleet has joined Third, and there’s even talk that First will be called up from Capriana Prime if the Jujari continue to amass ships.”

  “But, sir,” Magnus said with squinted eyes, “you’re talking over half of the Republic’s warships.”

  “So you understand how big this is.”

  “But that’s… that’s…” Magnus realized it was even worse than what he’d projected to Awen.