The Eve of War

by Christopher Hopper

  He wondered how Awen was doing and if she’d returned to normal life on Worru. He recognized that normal was a relative word given all the things she’d seen. Still, he wondered how her after-action review had gone—if that was even what the Luma called it—and if she’d endured any negative fallout. Probably not, he thought. She had survived a nightmare, and her COs surely understood that. He felt the urge to check in on her, to send an external call over TACNET.

  And say what, Magnus? “Hi? How are you doing at being a Luma, Awen? Learn any new spells lately?”

  The more he thought about it, the more he realized he sounded like a complete idiot over TACNET in his imagination. Good thing comms are down, a-hole.

  • • •

  Night approached as Magnus reached the settlement. He was grateful for the fading light, certain that he’d been spotted earlier in the day. Only a completely inept sentry could have missed his black armor trudging toward them across the desert in the daytime. But war had taught him that the cover of night could often erase many daylight missteps. Magnus expected he would have an easier time of gaining access to shelter in the village’s outskirts as the sky darkened; he only wished that his thermal imaging was online to give him a tactical advantage. The Jujari might be a superior biological force, but his night vision would have leveled the playing field. Instead, his helmet now accompanied the ladies, as the visor was too dark for the fading light.

  “Are we almost there, Mr. Lieutenant Magnus, sir?” Piper asked from the sled. The steady swoosh of sand under the glass became more noticeable as the night air grew still. Magnus could feel the temperature dropping, too, as the sun’s glow faded from the sky.

  “Yes, Piper,” he replied, licking his cracked lips. “We’re almost there.”

  “And what will we find?”

  “Piper,” her mother reprimanded. “That’s enough.”

  “But I want to know what we’ll find, Mother.”

  “We’re going to look for water, something to eat, and a safe place to sleep,” Magnus replied, not minding the little girl’s questions nearly as much as he might have. Hearing her speak reminded him who he worked for and who he would fight to protect. Life, this life, was precious and worth dying for. And I will die for you, Piper Stone, if I must.

  The faint glow of fires began to appear throughout the village—some on rooftops in braziers, others from within the linen walls of sandstone buildings and standalone tents. Smaller fires burned atop lamp stands, while dozens of wall-mounted torches illuminated streets and archways.

  Magnus pulled the sled behind the skeleton of a blown-out skiff that lay on its side. So far, he had not attracted any attention, at least none that had warranted inspection from the village’s inhabitants. For that much, he was grateful. With any luck, this town would be sympathetic to the Republic cause and welcome them with open arms.

  Were you born yesterday, Marine? You’re so naïve sometimes.

  No, I’m optimistic. But he knew his true self was right. He hated when that guy was right.

  “Pardon me, Mr. Lieutenant Magnus, sir,” Piper said, her teeth chattering, “but I don’t see any food or water yet. I don’t see a bed either.”

  “Piper, be patient,” Valerie chided.

  “It’s okay,” Magnus said, catching the glint of Valerie’s eyes in the distant torchlight. Despite the wind- and sunburn, the woman’s face still looked like fine porcelain. “She’s right to question me.” He looked down at Piper. “I haven’t found any of those things yet, but I will. For now, I need you to wrap yourself in the parachute and stay close to your mother, okay?” Piper nodded. “I’ll be back in a few minutes. No sound, no movement, copy?”

  “Copy?”

  “When I say ‘copy,’ you say ‘copy’ back to confirm that you understand me.”

  “Copy back,” Piper said in a tiny voice.

  Magnus smiled. “Right.”

  Suddenly, the little girl reached out to him. Magnus wasn’t sure what to do. Seeing her little hand, he realized just how different it was from everything else he knew—from war, from violence, from death. Take it, you idiot, he prodded himself. He slipped off a glove and placed a finger in her palm. Her fingers wrapped around it.

  “You always save me, Mr. Magnus. You always do.”

  Great, he thought. No pressure. But the truth was, he wanted to save her more than anything else. He would too—at least, he would try his best. Someday, he might fail her. No one was perfect. But not that day. That day, he would be the warrior in her dreams.

  • • •

  Growls and barking came from deeper in the village as Magnus left the skiff’s cover, eyes scanning for motion. He ran forward to a heap of metal. As he took cover, he realized he was at the bottom of a shallow, blackened bowl. An orbital strike, Magnus realized. Not from one of the big LO9D cannons, as there wouldn’t be a village left standing if that had happened. No, this was a smaller laser strike but still nothing to mess with. The metal he hid behind was charred and gnarled, and even in the moonlight, he could make out the telltale blast ring around the impact crater only a few meters away. This village had been assaulted sometime over the past few days.

  Along with the distinct scent of laser fire, Magnus could smell campfires and cooking meat on the wind—something pungent and oily. The inhabitants here were the survivors of the strike or squatters who’d taken advantage of the aftermath.

  Magnus’s MAR30 was in low-ready position, giving him the ability to freely sweep the shadows and still bring the weapon to bear faster than most humanoids could blink. Without his helmet’s AI to call out targets, he activated the weapon’s holo-sight display, which hovered over the rail and extended down the barrel. The information-rich HSD projection was only visible from the operator’s perspective and emanated in relation to ambient light so as not to light blind the operator.

  Magnus maneuvered to the opposite edge of some debris, stole another glance downrange, and moved out. He headed for a low-walled well and sank below its sandstone blocks. He noted its position and hoped it had potable water at its bottom.

  Again and again, Magnus picked his waypoints, scanned for the enemy, and moved. Slow is smooth, and smooth is deadly, he reminded himself, mentally reciting one of the many unofficial mantras of the Recon.

  He was ten meters from the village’s outermost structures and wished his helmet were functional. With a working helmet, he would have been able to see and tag every living thing without them ever knowing. Instead, he used his senses to try to guess where potential threats might be hiding.

  A large broken portion of the village wall was visible to his right. Through it, he could see several tents with no internal lights on. The structures were made of sandstone pillars with linen walls and canopies. Magnus figured that either the inhabitants were asleep or these were unused, maybe even supply tents—wishful thinking, he knew. Only idiots would keep food, water, or weapons caches along the perimeter of any enclave.

  Magnus left his MAR30 to the care of its sling and withdrew his duradex knife while moving to the first tent. He pressed his back against the nearest sandstone pillar and listened for movement. No breathing, no rustling. Odds were, the tent was unoccupied. He squatted and turned, cutting a vertical slit in the linen. The blade made silent work of the task, and Magnus peeked inside.

  Once through the slit, he found only the remnants of a former occupant’s sleeping quarters. The Jujari equivalent of a cot—a nested litter of straw covered by a blanket—was strewn with windblown sand and refuse. And it stank. He pushed his toe through the shards of a broken clay vessel and flipped open a small box that turned up nothing.

  Magnus turned his knife on the inner wall that bordered the next tent and slit his way through. Once again, he found sand-blown litters and smashed containers. The third tent yielded more of the same. These tents were going to be dead ends for resources, but at least they would serve as cover for the night if he couldn’t find anything else.

  Magnu
s chanced a glance out the main entrance, keeping himself within the linen folds. A hard-packed street ran to his right and left, bending in a concave shape around the perimeter of the village. Torches lit the lane every fifty meters, casting orange light between long swaths of shadow. Judging by the lack of tent lights here and the noise beyond, he guessed that most of the settlement’s inhabitants had congregated near the village center.

  Magnus stepped into the street and crossed to the closest unlit tent. He stepped in with his knife at the ready only to find another old litter. Feeling more confident, he checked several more tents and found stale bedding, refuse, and the remains of various containers.

  Now it was time to see if the tents with lights on were occupied. Magnus maintained strict noise discipline as he rolled his boots into and out of each step. He stalked to the nearest glowing linen tent and double-checked his six, listening for any signs of life. He could hear heavy breathing from within. Ever so gently, Magnus used the tip of his blade to crack the folds of the tent’s entrance. Unless the occupant was staring directly at the spot where he placed his knife, they would be none the wiser.

  A small oil lantern sat on the floor, wick flickering with the last drops of fuel in the glass bowl. And there, curled up like a massive lapdog, lay a Jujari warrior, fast asleep. A sniper blaster rested against one of the sandstone pillars, as did a pair of binoculars and the warrior’s keeltari long sword. The warrior had no other possessions, which meant he was traveling light. A sentry, Magnus concluded, realizing he and the women had just stumbled into the best possible scenario.

  While the village had no doubt been a bustling hub of Jujari sectarian life in its former years, it was now being used as a military outpost. And a poorly run one, at that. Where barking families and wild commerce had probably once filled its streets, warriors used the town as a safe haven. But from where? Magnus wondered, figuring they’d been displaced from another village or city.

  Between the orbital-strike craters that he’d seen from the air and the one he’d stood in on the outskirts of the village, there was plenty of evidence that the Republic had already begun its assault on the planet. But judging from this pack’s lack of vigilance, as exemplified by this slumbering mongrel, they weren’t expecting enemies on foot. Which meant the Republic hadn’t sent a ground-assault force yet.

  He left the Jujari unharmed, figuring a dead body would raise the alarm sooner rather than later. At the moment, he needed as much time as he could to get the women hydrated and to cover. Still, he needed to know what size force he was up against. Magnus found a gap between tents that served as an alley, and he sidestepped his way down it toward the center of town. The light ahead grew brighter. He was careful not to catch his armor on the linen walls, moving like a shadow. A shadow that slays, he told himself. A Midnight Hunter.

  The alley broke to another hard-packed lane lined with torches, only these were closer together than the others. The circumference of the village’s circular shape was also constricting. He was nearing the center. He crossed to the opposite side of the street, hidden in darkness, and entered a similar gap between tents.

  Up ahead, he could hear the snarling, garbled speech of the Jujari. Then, as he approached the end of the alley, he saw firelight dancing off the side of the remaining meter of tent fabric. He slowed, edging forward.

  Magnus peered out from the shadows to see at least three dozen Jujari warriors gathered around a sizable fire pit. An oily carcass rotated on a spit, flames leaping every time black fluid dripped onto the coals. The beasts collectively lapped from metal buckets as the smell of something fermented wafted into Magnus’s nostrils. The scene was like that of any of a thousand warrior tribes across the galaxy: the calm after or before a storm when the fighters reveled in the fleeting breaths of their short lives. Brothers drank beside brothers, commiserating in their shared fate as those who would die for the society they prized above all else.

  Magnus realized that not only were these warriors not suspecting a ground assault, but they also weren’t expecting any kind of assault. Which means we’ve not been seen. It wasn’t much, but it was something. And Magnus knew that every advantage, no matter how small, could be capitalized on to bring him one step closer to mission completion.

  For the moment, he needed to return to the women, get some fluids in them, and find a place to sleep for the night. With any luck, this troop might vacate at first light—or after their communal hangover wore off. Magnus withdrew into the shadows. As he sidestepped the way he’d come, he heard Piper scream in the distance.

  Chapter 34

  Awen descended the Indomitable’s ramp with all the wide-eyed wonder of a child who’d just discovered chocolate cake. She could hardly contain her excitement as she took her first step onto the alien planet. Her boots pressed into the thick grass of the clearing TO-96 had landed in. Lush stands of trees lined every side, and just a few hundred meters beyond, Awen saw the city’s first foliage-covered structures.

  The urban sprawl rose toward the purplish sky like a mountain range covered in a green blanket, and Awen thought it was magnificent. She was most struck, however, by the metropolis’s size.

  No, she corrected herself, it should be classified as a megalopolis, at least by our standards. The shipboard holo-projections hadn’t conveyed its scale to her.

  The air itself was warm and filled with fragrant smells. The scent of blossoming flowers mixed with the full-bodied earthiness of a forest’s underbrush, one alive with sprouting flora and decomposing matter. Insects buzzed, and strange calls trilled and blatted from within the trees.

  “Are you capturing all of this, TO-96?” Awen asked, unable to pull her eyes from her surroundings.

  “I am indeed, Awen.”

  “Good,” Awen responded, still not looking back at them. “Keep logging everything you see. This place is… it’s fantastic.” She took several more steps forward.

  “Star Queen, hold on,” Ezo said, pulling yet another blaster sling over his head. He already wore a backpack filled with supplies, two canteens, his holstered SUPRA 945 pistol, and a blaster rifle slung over each shoulder. “We need to proceed carefully. We have no idea what’s out there.” He grabbed several more energy magazines and tucked them into open battery slots on his belt and inside his coat.

  “It’s not like we’re going to war or something, Ezo,” she replied, wincing at just how many weapons he’d been able to drape on his person.

  “I feel I must side with Ezo here, Awen. Since this planet is completely uncharted, it would be wise to take extra precautions for personal self-defense.”

  “I get it,” Awen said. “But how many weapons do you really need, Ezo? Doesn’t Ninety-Six have enough to defend us from a small Republic invasion force?”

  “I admit that my armaments are—”

  “Rhetorical question!” Awen and Ezo said in unison. They smiled at one another and gave a laugh. The mood was light, which Awen thought was a good sign. They were, after all, the first people in their galaxy to step foot on this alien world—perhaps even the first in their universe.

  “Well, come on, already!” Awen protested. The two bounty hunters walked down the ramp and into the grassy field with her. TO-96 activated the motors, and the giant vertical door whined shut behind them.

  “The first main buildings are due north, eight hundred meters,” TO-96 reported. “The capital city’s name is simply listed as Itheliana.”

  “Itheliana,” Awen repeated, “capital of Ithnor Ithelia.”

  “That’s correct,” the bot replied. “We’re presently standing in what appears to be the remains of an old plaza surrounded by residential structures just inside the woods. I suggest we stay within the main thoroughfare.”

  Looking in the direction the bot indicated, Awen saw only a wall of green. “Why don’t you lead the way,” she replied, gesturing with her hand.

  “As you wish, Awen.”

  TO-96 took the lead as the trio moved across the open area
and into the first group of trees. The light didn’t diminish so much as it changed. Awen looked up. At first, she thought the leaves were translucent, allowing the sun’s light to pass through them and kiss the jungle floor. But as she passed some leaves near a low-lying branch, she realized the foliage was not translucent but luminescent.

  “The leaves are glowing,” she said in amazement. “How is that even possible?”

  “They appear to be bioluminescent,” TO-96 answered. “Much like some forms of algae in our universe. According to my initial scans, the light is a surplus of what each leaf consumes, perhaps supplying it for layers of flora beneath it.”

  “Fascinating,” Awen said, noting the complex symbiotic relationship the trees had with the low-level species beneath them. She reached out to touch some of the leaves.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Star Queen,” Ezo said.

  TO-96 stopped and turned around. Seeing Awen’s extended hand, he added, “I must agree with Ezo on that point. We don’t yet know the chemical composition and biological compatibility of the planet’s life with your own.”

  Awen pulled her hand away. “Fair point.”

  The trio continued through the forest before arriving at a pair of buildings connected by an arch about ten meters over the jungle floor. Awen could make out dozens of glass windows, an elevated portico, and several awnings that extended into the surrounding tree limbs. All of it, however, was smothered by tree limbs, creeping vines, and vegetation, which sprouted from every crevice and crack.

  “Maybe it was some sort of gatehouse,” Ezo offered.

  “Correct, sir,” TO-96 said. “Records show this was one of the city’s many entrances. The term gatehouse would be a misnomer, however, as defensive fortifications appear to be nonexistent.”

  “So you’re saying the city wasn’t defended?” Awen asked.

  “That appears to be the case, Awen. Both during the period of its initial construction all the way to its last use, it seems that the Novia Minoosh were never preoccupied with the threat of invasion. Here, let me show you.”