by Richard Fox
“We beat the Slavers. Two thousand years of war on the plains. Burnt cities and stolen women and children. We beat the Slavers in our lifetime. Our ancestors would never have believed such a thing was possible.”
“They didn’t have nuclear weapons…then again, we don’t either, not anymore,” Elsime said.
“Those things are cursed,” the guard said, shifting uncomfortably in his seat.
“Is it true? The rumors from the end of the war?”
The guard’s jaw worked from side to side, but he didn’t respond.
“That every Blooded, Speaker, and Royal that approved the use of the weapons on the Slavers’ home islands died?” she continued. “Rather unexpectedly within a few months of the Slavers’ surrender?”
“The Close Guard failed. Utterly. The assassinations happened within a single day. The deaths didn’t happen over months like we let the public think. To have so many senior members poisoned, stabbed, drowned, or killed in ‘accidents’ all at once…it would’ve ruined any faith in the King…but Iptari was dead and Menicus still too young to assume the crown immediately.”
“That’s…horrifying. Could the Hidden be working with the humans?”
“Good question. Perhaps the King will ask the one in the bunker. Consensus amongst the Guard is that they’re not connected. The Hidden have been a part of myth and legend since the gods placed us here. The earliest trace of the humans is a few years old, and captured humans aren’t suicidal. Yet.”
“Hidden are always burnt alive once they’re discovered, in stories and historical records, which suddenly are a lot more believable. That only makes it more complicated. If the King can’t declare that the humans are somehow part of the Hidden…wait…”
“Welcome to the King’s court. Nothing is ever easy,” he said. “Virid and Osuda are away, leaving the Shadow and the marshal as the King’s nearest advisors. I’ll let you figure out what’ll happen next.”
“Did my predecessor have these problems?” Elsime put a hand over her mouth and looked out the window, noting the evidence of her lack of sleep in her reflection off the glass.
“She spent most of her time eyeing potential husbands. Virid couldn’t stand her and tried to pawn her off on the lowest-born noble she could find just out of spite. Didn’t work. You should’ve heard her go off when the dowry from House Duross was announced. She can curse worse than an Islander with a stubbed toe.” The guard chuckled.
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Elsime took a deep breath, and fatigue set in.
“Want a bit of oaxa?” He reached into his jacket and took out a small tin.
“I doubt hallucinations as my spirit ascends to the gods’ realm would be very helpful,” she said.
“There’s oaxa and then there’s oaxa. Strains from the grasslands have different potencies. Take a tenth measure and it’ll perk up your mind. Better reflexes. Sharper vision. Old Blooded trick that the Close Guard picked up on. Just don’t take more than a tenth or…you know.”
“From the grasslands…but that oaxa only grows around bronto herds.”
The guard nodded and popped a small dried mushroom into his mouth.
“They grow off the bronto’s…leavings.” She wrinkled her nose.
“Can’t even tell after they’re washed,” he said between chews. He smiled and touched his earpiece, then tapped it several more times.
“Something wrong?” Elsime asked.
“No signal.” He opened the door and got out. Elsime followed and came out onto a hot runway and into muggy air that smelled of burnt jet fuel. Close Guard were outside all the vehicles in the motorcade, all tapping their earpieces.
Doors opened up and down the hangars adjacent to the flight line. Blooded in sandbag bunkers shouted at each other. Soldiers ran from the hangars, carrying ammo boxes and rocket launchers.
Her guard muttered to stay near the limo, then trotted over to where his fellows were huddled at the lead vehicle. A pair of helicopters farther down the flight line began spinning their blades.
“What’s happening?” she called out to the Close Guard, but none answered.
She touched her apron, feeling the box holding the King’s signet ring and seal in a small pocket. She could not lose that box, no matter what happened.
A faint point of light rose in the night sky, blossoming into a distant fireball. An air defense cannon chattered at the far end of the airstrip. Elsime looked at the bunker where the King had gone, then the open door on the limo.
A heavy hand touched the back of her neck. “Stay with me,” her guard said forcefully. “We don’t know what’s happening, but protocol is to get the King away from any danger.”
“My work,” she said, bending to pick up the scroll and lap desk, but the guard pulled her back.
“No. Stay ready in case—”
White energy bolts appeared out of nowhere above the flight line and struck around the farthest hangar. It exploded into fire and sent metal siding hurtling up and into the air. The guard pushed her down and bent over her, shielding Elsime from any threat. Fighter jets roared overhead, flashes sparking off their fuselages as internal machine guns roared to life.
“Evac air!” a Close Guard shouted and the order reverberated from every Royal bodyguard in the convoy.
Elsime looked up and saw the King, Marshal Hawn’ru, and Ciolsi being rushed out of the bunker. Her guard put an arm over her shoulder and half carried, half dragged her to the pair of waiting helicopters.
She tried to walk on her own, but her feet barely scraped against the tarmac as her guard hurried her away from the motorcade.
The helicopters erupted into fireballs, the blast wave slapping across her whole body and sending her ears ringing. She lay on the hot tarmac, stunned, as burning hunks littered all around her. Smoke caught in her lungs and she coughed, unable to hear herself over the tinnitus din in her ears.
“Help.” Her battered eardrums muted the sound of her own voice, but she could hear it. Looking to one side, she saw the Close Guard’s impeccably shined shoes. His upper body was askew, slashed through from his side to shoulder by shrapnel from the blast. Blood pooled out beneath the body, creeping toward her.
Elsime crawled back, her eyes locked on the blood flowing toward her. She put a hand to her mouth and screamed.
Someone hauled her off the ground and threw her over his shoulder. Her view of the horrors surrounding her bounced as her carrier ran across the flight line.
A column of light beamed down around them, and Elsime felt herself floating. She tumbled in slow motion across the flight line with no sense of up or down from her abused, confused eardrums. Three bright lights were “over” her and she made out a three-sided craft above that.
As quickly as the light came, it was gone and she landed hip-first on the tarmac. She slapped a hand over the seal within her apron, breathing hard.
“Are you OK?” asked a new Close Guardsman—probably the one that had carried her—as he grabbed her shoulder.
Elsime looked at him and just laughed, a guffaw just on the right side of sanity, but not by much.
The guard, a mountain of a Tyr that would put a Blooded’s size to shame, picked her up against his side and carried her off like she was a toddler on the verge of a meltdown. He brought her into a hangar where more Close Guard had formed a perimeter around the King, Hawn’ru, and Ciolsi.
All but the King and she were armed.
King Menicus pulled her in and sat her next to him. He put an arm around her and held her close.
“It’s all right. My men are trained for this,” he said. “They’ll get us out alive. Don’t worry.”
“I have your—” She reached into a pocket on her apron and felt moisture. Her fingers came out stained by ink from a broken well. She went for another pocket and touched the seal. “I have it.”
“Good.” Menicus gave her a smile. “When you write all this down, make it seem like I had a better command of the situation. The marshal and my Clo
se Guard are better at this than I am.”
Elsime nodded quickly then leaned back, feeling wooden crates against her back.
Rifle and machine-gun fire broke out beyond the walls of their hangar. Elsime flinched every time the angry retort of a gun firing far faster than any Tyr weapon went off in the distance. Every time she heard the tight snaps, the sound of Tyr fire decreased.
“No! No, please!” a soldier cried out, then she saw the shadow cast by fires in front of the hangar. A Myrmidon held a Tyr up by the throat. The Blooded kicked and struggled, but it was useless. The cries grew less and less until they ended in a choke as the Myrmidon’s grip tightened. The mercenary’s hand snapped into a fist and the Blooded’s head popped off, the rest of his body falling like a sack of meat.
The head rolled across the front of the hangar. A moment later, the Myrmidon appeared and gave it a playful kick.
Marshal Hawn’ru stood up from behind the crates and opened fire with his pistol. Close Guard joined in, shooting the Myrmidon in the head and shoulders. Bullets smacked off the weeping angel face on the visor, but none broke through the armored glass.
The Myrmidon backed away, seemingly surprised by the sudden hail of bullets, then swept his gun arm across.
Snap-snap-snap
Crates exploded into splinters and someone tackled Elsime to the ground. Guards and the marshal kept firing. Elsime stared at the ceiling, where an overhead light fluttered on and off and swayed.
A warmth seeped across her chest.
She touched her apron and saw blood, not ink. She didn’t feel any pain, but the blood was hot.
“Sire?”
The King lay next to her. He coughed up blood and reached for her.
“To the King! To the King!” she shouted, pressing her hands onto an exit wound on his shoulder.
“Tell him…” Menicus rasped and put his crown in her hands, “he deserves this.”
“Move!” A Close Guard threw her aside and started first aid.
She backed into the shattered remnants of the crates where spymaster Ciolsi stared up at her with dead eyes. She brought her knees to her chest and clutched the crown to her breast, praying that the nightmare would end soon.
****
“This is starting to get on my nerves,” the pilot of fighter Yellow 2 said over the radio.
Blooded Captain Jiniq rolled his eyes and adjusted the oxygen mask over his mouth and nose. He shifted from side to side in his cockpit and did a visual check that his wingmen were still in formation around him.
Dawn broke over the horizon, and golden light highlighted the top layer of clouds below. After hours in the air, this was one of those few moments that made the boredom worthwhile.
“Cut the chatter, Two,” Jiniq said. “You know who’s monitoring. You run afoul of their standards, you’ll get a snap transfer flying over the Slaver lands.”
“I heard your piss starts glowing after the first month,” Yellow 4 said. “Good news is that’s supposed to be a cure if you…cal…leave…” His transmission degraded into static.
“Radio check.” Jiniq switched to the squadron’s alternate frequency but got nothing more than squeaks over the airwaves. He turned around as best he could as his squadron closed in on him, waiting for a visual signal from him.
Loss of radio comms was a regular drill, but to actually experience an outage—especially while they were flying top cover for the King—was cause for concern.
His wingman flew close enough that Jiniq could see him in his cockpit. The other pilot tapped the side of his helmet, then slashed an X in front of his face. Jiniq returned the signal and checked his heading; they had a few more minutes until the racetrack pattern they’d been flying was due to change course.
“I’m not the only one having this problem…doubt the heretics can jam this far from the border.” He looked over to the rising sun, contemplating if a disturbance there was causing the problem. He barely understood the electromagnetic power at the center of the system, but the Toiler engineers assigned to his squadron warned about potential interference often enough.
“This isn’t something I can fix. Best have the Speakers commune with the gods to…what is…”
He leaned forward, his eye catching a series of glints over the horizon. He checked his radar, but there were no new returns on his screen.
A dark streak flashed overhead and his fighter went tumbling end over end, slamming him against his restraints and whacking the edge of his helmet against the canopy glass. He grabbed the control stick and jerked it from side to side, feeling his fighter react as he fought to get the nose pointed straight down and continuous airflow over the wings.
The jet engine intakes beneath his wings sputtered, then caught life again, accelerating him toward the clouds. He pulled up, g-forces crushing him against his seat and threatening to drain all the blood out of his head. His vision darkened at the edges, but after a few painful moments, he was level again.
A flaming mass fell through the sky, trailing black smoke.
“No, no, no…” He followed the dark trail up, praying to see a parachute, but there was nothing but the brightening sky.
Jiniq’s breathing quickened and he climbed for more elevation as he swung around, searching for his wingmen and whatever had just barely missed him.
He did a double take at a dark shape just over the clouds. It was just…hanging there. Almost twice the size of his fighter and with a quivering shadow beneath it, it was matte-grey and had pairs of stubby wings at the fore and aft.
Jiniq keyed the radar trackers on his missiles and banked his fighter around to begin his attack run. He didn’t know what it was, but the Close Guard at the mission briefing had been very clear: any craft that isn’t of the kingdom is hostile.
He waited for the tone of his air-to-air missile locking on, but heard nothing. He beat a hand against the controls, and when he heard a short blip, he fired anyway—not confident he’d hit whatever was out there, but hoping the missile’s streak might catch the attention of anyone else in the area.
Two missiles shot out from under his wings, the burning embers of their rocket engines leaving a streak in his vision as they sprinted away.
Both exploded simultaneously, well short of his intended target.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he said and switched to guns.
A panel opened on the top of the hovering craft and a swarm of dark objects flew out like insects from a flaming nest.
Jiniq’s world went into a spin as something struck his port wing and his fighter fell into a tailspin. Impacts against the fuselage knocked him against the sides of his cockpit, then his canopy exploded into fragments and a frigid blast of air struck him.
He and his stricken fighter fell into the clouds, and a grey abyss enveloped him, fires on the tail of his ship casting a spiraling glow through the gloom. He grabbed a handle on the back of his headrest and fought to brace against his seat as the inertia of his spin tried to pull him free and send him to the ground all on his own.
He yanked the handle down…and nothing happened.
Thrusting it up, he felt something click inside the eject system and pulled again.
Rockets spat him up and out of his fighter, the pull of the acceleration so momentarily intense, he worried it would stretch his ketafik into a Linker’s countenance. There was a jerk against his seat and he saw parachute risers overhead but couldn’t see the canopy in the thick clouds.
His training took over and he looked around, desperately trying to figure out where he was going to land, and if more of whatever had attacked him was waiting on the ground.
****
“No, you need to have the right timing fuse on the leading warhead or it’ll be no better than throwing fireworks,” Clay said as he tapped a pencil against a diagram on graph paper.
The bunker had emptied to just him, Fastal, Sazon, and a pair of Close Guard at the door.
Clay sniffed hard and looked over at the dead Myrmido
n on a heavy cart meant to move bombs or missiles. The body was starting to smell.
“You can’t just modify the shoulder-fired rockets we have in inventory?” Fastal asked.
“It’s not as easy as slapping a point detonating trigger on the tip,” Clay said. “Well…it is that easy, but only if you have the right trigger series in place or again…firecracker.”
“What’s the device behind your ear?” Sazon asked, and both Clay and Fastal turned from the table to look at her. “Because we X-rayed it and couldn’t find any moving parts.”
“He doesn’t have anything behind his ear,” Fastal said, rubbing sleep from his eyes.
“It’s surgically implanted.” She tapped the eraser on her pencil against the same spot on her head. “It was there on the other one and, by the look on his face, he’s more angry than confused by the question, so he has one too.”
“Other one,” Clay said, leaning against the drafting table. “Male or female?”
“Female…wait…” Sazon’s brow furrowed. “Are our parts the same, because in the autopsy—”
“Two of my kind have been lost on Tyr. The first was a male scientist who disappeared years before I ever arrived. The second was a woman named Julia Hower. Slaver raid? East plains territory?”
“That’s where we recovered…her, yes.” Sazon wrote on her clipboard.
“Explains how you knew about this.” Clay touched the pisiform bone on his wrist. “Where is she?”
“That matters? Thought we were working on something a bit more pressing,” Fastal said.
“Her husband never had the chance to say goodbye and—no, it isn’t as relevant. Tassa? The caffeine in it works the same on me as it does on you.” Clay looked over at a chipped kettle simmering on a hot plate built into a small table on wheels.
“Tassa,” Fastal agreed, sinking into a chair as Clay walked across the room. “I haven’t been a three-day hero for a few years. All that extra sleep I got as a farmer didn’t build up a reserve.”
“Are you aware of any other atypical reactions to substances?” Sazon was as bright-eyed as ever, even though Clay wasn’t aware of her sleeping or drinking even a cup of hot tassa. “Perhaps an accrued dependence on a spice or severe gastrointestinal stress following an insect bite?”