by Isaac Stone
“Shut up! Shut up! SHUT UP!”
Kushmanda shook her head and held the gun on him.
“You sick pervert,” she said in a voice of fake concern.
Basepholon looked into her eyes again and saw the thing he dreaded the most.
He screamed, put the barrel of the pistol in his mouth, and pulled the trigger.
Chapter 16
“That was such a waste,” Sir Nagashi said to Kushmanda as he emerged from the shadows. “I’d looked forward to dancing with him. Now I’ll never have the chance. At least not in this life.”
In both of his hands, he held a pair of short swords. They were long enough to carry with him in their sleeves on his white belt, but not so big as to slow him down. Kushmanda stood silent with her pistol drawn and looked down at the weapons he carried. Something began to pulse inside her head and she remembered a few things. Those weapons weren’t very hard to work if you understood what they could do. Good tools to open up a mango or take out an opponent at close range.
“Let me kill him,” she heard Shardhula yell from his end of the room. “Just one shot is all it will take. Please, commander, I’d like to think I had one confirmed kill this campaign.”
Sura stood up and faced Nagashi. She looked at the short swords he carried in both hands and admired the way he held them. She didn’t doubt for a moment he knew how to use them. She also had no doubt he’d move out of the way the second Shaula pulled the trigger.
“Watch it, kid,” the commander called to him. “You have no idea what we’re up against.” She prayed he’d take her advice.
Shardhula looked across to her over the barrel of his rifle. Was she serious? That Jacobite knight was headed straight for Kushmanda. Both he and she had their weapons trained on the man. How was he supposed to be any threat?
Sura watched the knight focus on Kushmanda and knew she had to distract him somehow. For some reason, the young woman was frozen in place with her gun leveled at him. If she didn’t move, the knight would kill her.
“I don’t think I understood you, commander,” Shardhula said from his stationary position.
Furious with him, she ignored the pain in her eye socket and pulled out her pistol. Maybe the Jacobite knight would back off if he was the focus of another gun.
It happened in slow motion. She watched the knight drop one sword, grab the pistol out of its holster, shoot her in the chest, replace the pistol into its holster, and grab the sword before it struck the ground.
Nagashi turned to Shardhula. “You might be able to get me, but your commander will bleed out before you do,” he told him. “I suggest you take care of her and let me and this other woman finish our little conference.”
Shardhula froze, then swore and ran to Commander Sura. She wasn’t conscious. He pulled her out of the bank vault while he kept his eyes on the Jacobite knight.
Nagashi returned his concentration to Kushmanda. “Care to try your hand with one of these?” He tossed her one of the short swords.
Kushmanda grabbed it out of the air with her freehand and smiled at him. “Nice balance,” she commented. “I’m ready whenever you are.” She slid her gun down the back of her pants.
“I’m going to kill him!” Commander Sura yelled as soon as they left the building. “I order you to take me back in there so I can kill him!” She’d returned to consciousness the moment he had her outside the bank building.
“I don’t think you are in any condition to do a thing,” Shardhula told her as she wrapped a bandage around her chest wound. “I’ll go back inside and help her out.” He placed his commander next to the building and unslung his rifle. He stopped for one second to make sure a cartridge was chambered.
Sura swore at him as he walked back into the bank. She had some sense of what the Jacobite knight could do and knew the marine wouldn’t survive. She’s lost her pistol inside the building and was defenseless. It didn’t bother her half as much as the knowledge Shardhula would commit suicide when he returned to the bank.
Kushmanda faced off to Sir Nagashi inside the building. She tested a few of his defensive moves and found them solid. She was about to launch her first attack when Shardhula walked into the bank and fired his rifle at her opponent.
Nagashi fell to the floor the moment he saw the motion out of the corner of his eye. The bullets went wild and Kushmanda froze in place. All she needed to do was make the wrong move and he’d shoot her by accident. The light was still dim in the bank and he had trouble finding his target.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Kushmanda yelled at him. “Get out there and take care of the commander. I can handle this myself!”
“You won’t have to if I kill him!” Shardhula yelled back at her. The next second his clip ran out of ammunition.
This was the moment Nagashi anticipated. Funny how it never happened in the video entertainments. He’d managed to slip around behind Shardhula while the marine had fired his rifle in the spot he thought the Jacobite knight was located.
As Shardhula loaded another clip in his automatic rifle, Sir Nagashi slipped up behind him and slit his throat. The body hit the floor with a loud thump.
Nagashi had another thought and realized there was one more thing to take care of before he finished these two. He shot out the nearest door, leaving Kushmanda behind.
Kushmanda ran to Shardhula. Dead, as she assumed. She looked to the door and ran out in search of the commander.
It didn’t take Nagashi very long to reach the proconsul’s private shrine.
He knew where it was located since Nagashi had spent plenty of time spying on the Synarchist encampment near the center of the city. Even with the stitching in his thigh, he was able to make his way to it in a short amount of time. He stopped several times to make sure the bandage was in place and the armor was secure. Each time he was satisfied with and moved onward.
He was irritated the little dance he wanted to take with the woman called Kushmanda would be delayed. She was petite and pretty, just the way he liked them. If she didn’t prove to be what he thought, he could keep her for himself. He was obligated to turn over all valuables taken from the campaign to the royal treasurer, but they were forgiving when it came to women. His initial orders were to be on the lookout for any possible manifestations of an artificial avatar. The intelligence division of the royal house was convinced someone was attempting to use the legends about the return of Negadasha Kushmanda against both the empire and Synarchists. He’d thought she might be some kind of deep cover agent for the Jyotish military intelligence to use for rallying the troops, but he wasn’t sure.
It was important any trace of the proconsul’s obsession with her be destroyed before he eliminated the last of the marines. If there were any physical signs of his obsession back at the inner sanctum Basepholon kept in his private quarters, he needed to know about it. If a proconsul was manipulated by an agent of the local military, it would be a new development he needed to document.
It was easy enough to slip around the sentries who watched the outside of the encampment. Moving in the dark was an art he’d learned years ago. Jacobite knights were expected to take out an assassination target without causing any kind of alarm. An ideal assassination involved a target deep inside a guarded installation. The ideal outcome would be the assassin leaving and no one discovering the elimination until a day later.
He found the door to the inner sanctum locked. No problem, Sir Nagashi took out a hammer he’d located on the way into the office and knocked it loose with one strike. The pain seared through his thigh when he hit the lock, but it was only a few minutes. He concentrated to get the pain sensations under control.
He stepped into the inner office and stared at the image of Kushmanda made out of available materials that the proconsul had managed to locate. For a brief job in his spare time, it wasn’t bad. The man had some potential as an artist, too bad it would never be realized. Nagashi searched around the camp in silence and found a can of fuel that should do
for what he planned next.
He went inside the storage room used as Basepholon’s office and poured the fuel over everything. The image was drenched. He counted to thirty to ensure it was all soaked. This would cause some panic in the Synarchist camp, but it fitted into his plans. They would be too busy to think much about him.
Nagashi found a small lighter and dropped a burning torch in the middle of the former proconsul’s office. He crept through the camp, careful not to disturb anyone. He turned around to get a good view of the flames as they became visible through the entrance of Basepholon’s quarters. Satisfied, he continued on his way back to what he needed to finish.
Chapter 17
“Appears to be just me now,” Commander Sura mentioned as Kushmanda examined her wound. Shardhula had done a decent job taping her up outside, but she’d lost a lot of blood.
They were back in the library. Kushmanda didn’t think it a good idea to carry her further once she saw the extant of the damage. The Jacobite knight knew just where to shoot her to do lingering damage. He’d struck her right in the gut where she could survive if they could get her to a medical unit. There was no way Kushmanda could fix her with the materials she had available. The commander was in bad need of a blood transfusion.
“You’ve still got me with you,” Kushmanda reminded. “All I need is time to call in a VTOL and get you out of here. Don’t worry; I can take you to any pick-up zone we need to reach. Give me the code I need to radio your HQ.” She felt the commander’s pulse and it was fading.
Sura coughed and felt the weakness in her body. She didn’t like weakness; it was something for people who lacked fortitude. She was from a strong family and didn’t get sick very often. She remembered her father the day he died. It happened quickly. They’d found him collapsed before a tractor engine he needed to fix. Her father hauled that engine across the shed himself when he could’ve had any field hand do it for him. He was like that, stubborn. Perhaps she got her streak from him.
“Don’t worry about me,” Sura told the other woman. “Besides, how will it look if the only survivor of our brigade is the commanding officer?”
The commander turned and looked at something. “Do you see that flag propped up against the wall over there?” She managed to point to a small banner they’d brought along when the four of them moved into the library.
“Yes, I do,” Kushmanda responded. “What about it?”
“It’s the battle standard of Aayda Brigade. Could you see that it gets back to HQ?”
“Sure. Why is it here? You sent back most of your marines to escort those refugees, why didn’t it go with them?”
“So long as we’re in combat, it stays in combat,” she explained.
Commander Sura reached into her uniform’s breast pocket and pulled out a slip of paper. “I’m not supposed to write this information down,” she explained to the younger woman. “I do a lot of things that don’t follow the manual. This time I felt it was important to have a record of these numbers in case anything happened to Tripada or me. He’s gone and I don’t think I’ll last much longer.” She handed the folded paper to Kushmanda.
“These are all the frequencies the JFA Special Forces use to broadcast. There are five of them and the one at the bottom is an emergency frequency that all of them use. It doesn’t matter who broadcasts unless you know the call sign. It’s based on the horoscope house for the hour you send it. You know anything about astrology?”
Kushmanda thought a few seconds and fired off her knowledge of the cardinal points, who ruled each hour and day. She became quiet and looked at the commander.
“I don’t know where I came by that information,” she said to her.
“Always thought it was so much mumbo jumbo myself,” Sura coughed in response. “Just recite the ruler for whatever hour you broadcast and they’ll listen. I don’t think I have much longer to live.”
Kushmanda squeezed her hand. “Commander, let me call in the extraction,” she pleaded. “Your HQ will send in a VTOL to pick us both up and we can get out of this mess. Basepholon is dead; the Synners won’t last much longer without him. We can let the army take care of the Jacobite.”
“Who is Basepholon?”
“The Synarchist Proconsul.”
“How did you know that?”
Another confused came over Kushmanda’s youthful face. “Why, I don’t know,” she said. “I must have heard him use it at some point.”
“I never heard it.”
“Commander, what difference does it make, we need to get you out of here!”
“You’re here for a reason, little girl. I don’t know what it is, but we need you. I never put too much faith in what they preached at temple, but someone has. You’re the avatar of Nagadurga Kushmanda.”
“Look, commander,” she responded, “I don’t know who I am. I could be anybody who looks like the avatar. I can’t even remember how I got here. Things fade in and out. I remember bits and pieces, but I’m no goddess.”
Kushmanda heard the commander’s breath become shallow. This was serious, she felt her arm, and the blood pressure had to be dropping as they spoke. She needed to get her out of here and fast. Kushmanda stared down the street out the window and wondered if she could carry her fast enough. There was no way she could walk in this state.
“I saw what you did to that proconsul,” Sura said. “You turned that sick bastard into a quivering mass of jelly. In minutes, you made him shoot himself. I’ve never seen anyone do that before. You didn’t even have to fire a shot and you took down the leader of an entire Synarchist Unit.”
“He was a functional psychopath,” Kushmanda explained. “People like him can rise to the top in a war because there aren’t any of the usual restraints on them. All I had to do was suggest a few things; suggest some more and I found the demon that wanted to eat him up from the inside.” She paused and wondered how it was she knew so much psychology.
“I don’t know how you came into being,” the commander told her. “But you’re the one we need. You’re the one who was sent here in the planet’s hour of need. Maybe it’s happened before. At least the stories say this it happened a long time ago. An unknown woman shows up and tells everyone she’s the avatar of Nagadurga Kushmanda. People listen and our ancestors were able to drive back the men from the North. You need to get on that radio and tell people you’re here to drive the invaders back into space.”
“And why should they believe me?”
“All you have to do is the same things you did after we found you. You shoot better than most experienced marines do. You know how to diagnose illnesses. You can manipulate the invaders. Get on that radio….”
Commander Sura began to cough and spit blood. She quit breathing and Kushmanda tried to massage her heart until it was obvious the commander was gone. Tears in her eyes, she rocked the body of Sura back and forth until she felt it was time to move on. She carried her inside the library and placed her next to Tripada and Shardhula. Next, she went over to the battle standard and folded it.
“I don’t know if I’ll be able to take this out for you,” she said to the lifeless form of the commander, “so if I fail in my duties to you, I want your soul to know I tried.”
Kushmanda covered the three bodies with the banner and stood back to look at them. Their forms were peaceful under it. The symbol on the banner was a local reptile that was famous for aggressiveness and ability to kill animals much larger than it was.
Kushmanda stood in silence and said a prayer to whoever would listen. Ancient words formed in her mind she didn’t know. They seemed to be the right words to say in this situation.
She checked the ammunition for her pistol and made sure there was plenty. She picked up the short sword the Jacobite knight tossed at her and slid it in her belt. Kushmanda wished she had a pair of boots and not these light sandals. She looked at the feet that stuck up from under the banner and considered borrowing a pair, then dismissed the idea
She could do th
is with what she had.
It was always intended for her to win against huge odds.
Chapter 18
Sir Nagashi waited for her outside the library. Kushmanda expected him and walked out into the night with her arms folded. She stood in the middle of the street and breathed deep. In the distance, she smelled the burn and saw the smoke rise in the distance to blot out the moon and stars.
She looked down and saw the form of the Jacobite knight in front of her. He held the short sword in one hand and waited. As she watched, he began to strip off his armor. His helm was already on the ground, but the rest of his armor soon came off. She stood there and remained silent until he finished.
“I won’t be accused of having an advantage,” he told her. “It’s bad enough I have to fight a woman. If I lose to you, it will be on even terms. The king will never hear that I took a dishonorable gain over a young girl.”
From the steps, she continued to look down at Nagashi. From where he stood, she didn’t appear to be much of a threat. A tiny woman, dark of skin with jet-black straight hair, she resembled any other woman on this backwater planet. Why both realms had to meet in this place was beyond him. She was a matter to be resolved.
“How would anyone know?” she asked. “From what I can tell, it’s just you and me. I don’t see anyone else around. What is burning?”
“The late Proconsul Basepholon left a mess I had to clean up,” he explained. “He seemed to think you were some kind of divinity. At least I think he did. I went back to check because he went down a little too quickly for any other explanation. Sure enough, he’d built a likeness in your image in his former office. I was forced to set it on fire.”
“You flatter me.”
“No, I don’t like to leave loose ends when I’ve completed my mission. He believed in that New Flesh nonsense the Synarchy pushes. I don’t even want to think about what might happen if his superiors found that thing. Your commander slowed down their advance through the city and messed up our plans too. The discovery of a divine image would cause more problems than we can tolerate. I decided burning it was the best solution. It also will keep his men busy for a while. I take it the commander is no longer with us?”