by Mel Odom
Peering through the smoking haze that remained of the barrier, Sage took a step back, crouched, and spotted the merc who’d targeted the wall. Sage swung his rifle up. Coolly, he put two gel-grenades over the merc’s face and dodged back just ahead of the fire that ripped through the space he’d just been.
The gel-grenades went off and knocked the Zukimther backward and down as he grabbed at the explosive, succeeding only in spreading around the combustible material.
Sage moved back to Escobedo, placed a hand on her armor, and read the injury report assessed by her suit’s near-AI. There was no immediate threatening damage. “Private?”
“I’m all right, Master Sergeant. Just had the wind knocked out of me.”
Gripping her hand, Sage pulled the young soldier to her feet. “Let’s go.” Trusting her to make her way, he continued up.
On the fourth floor, he whirled out of the stairwell and spotted the two Zukimther guards there. He sprinted toward them and triggered two gel-grenades at the one on the left. The explosives went off an instant before Sage threw himself into a feetfirst slide toward the second merc.
The first merc blew up, dead or heavily concussed, but remained standing unsteadily. The grenades had plastered the Zukimther’s lower abdomen and opened traumatic, possibly lethal, wounds.
Recognizing the danger speeding toward him, the second merc brought up his weapons and opened fire. Two of the plasma bursts splashed across Sage’s upper body for just an instant, then he drove both of his feet against one Zukimther’s left knee. The merc’s joint shattered with an audible crack and the splintered bone tore through flesh like a jagged spear.
His forward momentum slowed by the tree-trunk-thick leg he’d collided with, Sage pushed off his opponent’s broken limb and rolled to his feet. The Roley came smoothly to Sage’s shoulder and he opened fire immediately from less than a meter away. Gel-grenades slapped against the Zukimther’s face and covered both his eyes. Without pause, Sage slammed his shoulder into the merc and shoved his opponent back into the room with the cannons.
With the merc blinded and seconds away from death, Sage took cover behind the plascrete wall, shoved his arm up to the grenade launcher loading gate, and pumped in more ammo.
Alert, Master Sergeant, the suit warned. Gel munitions running low.
The gel-grenades inside the room detonated and Sage whipped around through the doorway as sections of the plascrete ceiling and wall spattered over him.
Sage continued forward, stepping quickly as the 100mm cannons fired again. “Acknowledged.”
The overlay on his faceshield revealed a double-punch along the bazaar’s surrounding wall that brought down a large section in a tumble of plascrete chunks. One of the snipers came down with it.
Escobedo opened fire behind him. A quick check in that direction let Sage know Zukimther reinforcements had entered the building after them. He concentrated on the cannons.
Thirty-two meters away, the cannons filled a large section of the floor. The Zukimther mercs had removed most of the walls to make room for the weapons. That left a lot of open space.
Four Zukimther operated each cannon. One sat in an attached seat on one side of each gun and used a cyber-assist helmet to lock in on targets. The other six mercs loaded the big weapons from munitions crates at the back of the room. At the moment, they turned their attention to Sage.
Ignoring the Zukimther, Sage aimed at the base of the cannons. Bolts as thick as his leg ran through the floor to anchor the big weapons. Cracks spread out from the bolts and showed the growing weakness of the floor to handle the recoil of the cannons.
One of the cannons fired and the sliding action compensators negated part of the recoil to ease the brunt of the movement. The merc sitting in the attached seat whipped back with the gun, jerking so hard that Sage didn’t know how the operator survived the whiplash.
Triggering the grenade launcher, Sage covered the floor between the big guns with gel explosives. The reservoir emptied quickly on full-auto and left a crooked trail of grenades plastered to the floor.
Plasma bursts and 20mm rounds hammered Sage and drove him back.
Armor is at critical levels. Seek shelter.
The AI’s voice remained steady, but the faceshield held a red tint that grew in intensity as Sage took further damage while withdrawing from the room. He whirled and blasted depleted uranium rounds into the two Zukimthers who had engaged Escobedo. She plastered the lead merc and the stairway with gel-grenades.
Sage slapped a magnetized hand against her shoulder, set himself, and yanked her back with him to a gaping hole blown in the wall at some point. “Private. We’re leaving now.”
He didn’t know if the hole was large enough, but there was no other exit point. And the gel-grenades were counting down on his faceshield.
3 . . .
2 . . .
Sage crossed his free arm over his face, dragged Escobedo behind him, and slammed into the opening. He didn’t fit. For just a moment, it held against him.
1 . . .
The sudden din of the gel-grenades going off caused his aud filter to muffle all exterior sounds. The only noise that reached him was the conversation of his team, and that was confusing because there were soldiers down, dying, wounded, dazed, and scared.
The blast smashed Sage and Escobedo through the wall like a cork from a champagne bottle. He got a brief glance at the ground four stories below him as it came up fast.
He hit face-first, unable to balance while holding on to Escobedo. She crashed into him almost at the same time and drove him to the ground. His senses swam as he struggled to remain conscious.
THREE
A-Pakeb Node
Interstellar Communications
Makaum
27435 Akej (Phrenorian Prime)
Gazing down on the dead body of his former commanding officer lying in the lannig receptacle, Captain Zhoh GhiCemid tried to summon up some sense of loss. The effort wasn’t working and that left him dissatisfied. He had to sell himself to the Phrenorian Prime War Board in only engits.
During that interview, in addition to thinking that he felt his commanding officer’s loss, he had to convince them to believe he was capable of handling the situation on Makaum and that the situation on the planet was growing more dire.
In fact, the state of affairs on Makaum truly was getting more dangerous to the Empire’s goals. And to Zhoh’s own. He needed the War Board to believe part of the reason he wanted to assume command of the Makaum forces was to avenge his fallen general.
If his personal stock had been in better shape, Zhoh could have gotten by with merely wanting the now-vacant position to improve his standing among the warriors. Once not so long ago, he had been a respected and higher-ranking officer, a colonel about to make brigadier general.
Now he was a captain and was kalque, one without a future in the Phrenorian Empire. He had endured the designation for the last two months. Now he was in position to reverse his bad fortune.
There was no loss in Zhoh’s heart over General Rangha’s death. From the beginning, even before he had met the general, he had despised Rangha. Zhoh was the one who had put the general in his crypt. If he had been true to his own wishes, Zhoh would have taken credit for the assassination and allowed others to learn of the general’s lack of honor in becoming a black market munitions supplier.
Better still, Zhoh would have challenged Rangha over the matter when it had come to his attention. He would have issued Hutamah, a personal call to combat for honor, and killed him with a patimong instead of the Kimer pistol he’d wielded only a few nights ago. Then he could have eaten the general and excreted the weakling’s remains on the nearest dung hill.
General Rangha HatVeru lay in state in waters from their homeworld. Normally those waters would offer comfort during lannig, the times when a Phrenorian molted and split his exoskeleton as he outgrew it. Females molted as well, but their growth was not so aggressive or often because they served primarily
in support positions in the Phrenorian civilization. In the military they functioned to keep warriors equipped and healthy, and they had skills as science officers. They also served in security positions on base. Other than that, they bore the young, at home and on the battlefield, to further the Empire’s future.
With his primary appendages wrapped over his thorax, and both sets of secondary appendages wrapped as well, Rangha’s body didn’t show the wounds where projectiles had ripped under the hard surface of his exoskeleton and killed him. His lesser hands lay curled into balls like wilted blossoms, the thumb and three fingers tight against each other. His chelicerae lay curled peacefully against his face, as if he was only sleeping.
Rage quivered through Zhoh. The general deserved no peace even in death. Zhoh wished he could have desecrated the corpse and provided no place for his remains to rest.
Zhoh leaned over his primaries, rested the huge claws at the end of his largest set of arms on the container, and stared with disgust at the general’s body. He regretted killing Rangha, only because the being’s death had come too quickly. And he had accomplished it in a fashion that lacked honor because Rangha was Laliwu, of a preferred bloodline. With that designation, Zhoh would never have been able to even openly mock the man, let alone deliver physical harm. Rangha had been protected from lesser castes.
Normally Phrenorians prided themselves on the purity of their exoskeletal colors. Blue and purple were most desirable. Those who wore those hues received special dispensation for that feat alone so that Phrenorians could breed true.
But being of Laliwu heritage meant that the family bloodline was secure because an ancestor had fought bravely in some great battle. Rangha’s ancestor had lived over four hundred years ago, had made a great name for himself in battle, had eaten the flesh of his enemies, and collected their skulls.
Rangha only had to breathe to maintain that privilege his ancestor had provided.
The Terrans, even the greenest soldier among them, had more right to respect than the dead thing that lay before Zhoh.
“Triarr, it is almost time.”
Drawn by the announcement, Zhoh straightened and looked at Mato Orayva standing only a couple meters away. Bound by blood, they had been friends and allies since before they had first taken up arms in defense of the Empire. Their mothers had been sisters, which was why Mato was allowed to address Zhoh as triarr—“family of my family.”
Mato’s father was Raltu Eytuk, a warrior known for his bravery and for his coveted purple hue. Mato’s coloration reflected that of his sire. He stood tall and ready in his armor and weapons, a perfect Phrenorian warrior in his glory.
Zhoh glanced at the others in the communications room. “I am ready.”
Computers lined the walls and left open the holo space at one end of the room. A nascent fog covered a vague, intangible doorway that signaled the entrance to the holo. Rangha’s honor guard stood at one end of the room to watch over their fallen commander’s remains. Zhoh faulted them for their inefficiency—they hadn’t been there when he’d slain Rangha after all—and for the waste they continued to be by guarding the general’s body. A war waited to be waged and won, as well as glory and wealth and power.
The communications officer glanced over to Zhoh from his seat at the holo controls. “Captain. When you are ready.”
Zhoh nodded. “Execute transmission.”
The lieutenant turned his attention to his computer and his secondary hands flew over the keyboards. Zhoh didn’t understand much of the way the interstellar communicator worked, but he knew the connection made through wormwave technology in a manner similar to the Terran Alliance’s Oakfield Gates.
A spot of white light came to life in the center of the nascent fog, then it spread outward to form a disk large enough to encompass Zhoh. He ran his lesser hands over his thorax armor and his weapons, and briefly touched the Kimer pistol at his hip and the patimong sheathed down his back. He clacked his primaries, irritated that his unease had grown, and stepped into the fog.
27619 Akej (Phrenorian Prime)
Zhoh experienced only a moment of disorientation before striding into the War Board Command Center. He wasn’t really there, of course. He was still at the Phrenorian base on Makaum. But he had been in the command center before and the holo’s replication was faultless.
Thick slabs of orange-red daravgane stood out on the floor, reproducing the symbols for courage and skill and cruelty to enemies. Harvested at great risk from the primordial creatures that lived in the deepest parts of the Phrenorian seas, the resin symbolized the strength and conviction of the Phrenorian warriors.
Zhoh stood in the center of the floor. Across from him, seven members of the Seraugh, the commanders of the military, sat on tall daravgane seats. The warriors wore full armor and carried a mix of traditional weapons—patimongs carved from daravgane and tempered by fire and acid, beam weapons, and slug-throwers. Ceremonial capes so darkly purple they were almost black hung from their broad shoulders to the floor. Their chelicerae twitched only a little as they focused their gazes on him.
None of them wanted him there, but he had a right to make his claim known. Even as a kalque. The thought lay bitter in Zhoh’s mind and he pushed it away. Unless dealt with, the memory would only scar over, though, and remain festering as it had been doing.
“Greetings, my commanders.” Zhoh clasped his primaries behind him and kept his tail still. “May your strength always prevail, your appetites for the flesh of your enemies always gnaw at your stomachs, and you continue to add skulls of the vanquished to your war chests.”
Although the Seraugh had no leader and all members sat as equals, Belnale was currently the most senior among the group. “Captain Zhoh, you are punctual.”
He was large and broad, covered in a latticework of scars. His left primary had been lost in battle and now a black cybernetic limb replaced it. He kept the artificial arm wrapped in the folds of his cloak. He was sensitive about the loss.
Every Phrenorian who had lost something of himself in battle reacted the same way. Belnale’s face hung slightly askew as well. A grenade nearly destroyed his mouth in combat and surgeons had barely managed to return its function to him.
The observation of his punctuality was not lost on Zhoh. Of course he could not be late. That would have been inexcusable. But neither had he waited like a dim-minded etsayash in a cybernetic queue to be brought onto the floor at their leisure.
Most of the warriors on the War Board didn’t care for Zhoh and the captain was acutely aware of their displeasure. He had raised himself up in their gloried ranks through his own strength and bravery as he was supposed to, but the unacceptable nature of his offspring had pushed him out of favor and gotten him assigned to Makaum. That posting, especially under Rangha and since he hadn’t had the decency to die in battle, should have been the end of his career.
Only the war against the Terran military had slid that direction, and the resources on Makaum would be key to the continued struggle in just a short time. A chance lay with the planet for Zhoh to regain all that he had lost and he was not going to miss that.
“Events on Makaum are fluid at the moment, as I’m sure you are all aware.” Zhoh kept his voice well-modulated, choosing to show confidence instead of polite loyalty. If he was to regain everything he had lost in the Empire, he had no choice other than to be a warrior in all things. He would not curry favor. He would insist on respect. “There are many things there that require my attention.”
“Then you should devote your energies to those things,” Belnale stated.
“If I did, I would be remiss in my duties.”
“How so?”
The question was asked, but Zhoh knew they were aware of why he wanted this meeting. Their prejudice against him reduced him to asking for their consideration. Instead, they should have been pursuing him. “With General Rangha gone, the troops on Makaum need firm guidance.”
“There is a command structure in place on that pl
anet.”
Zhoh spoke a little more fiercely now. “At best, it is only nearly good enough. If you would hold Makaum, you need to put the right warrior into power.”
Belnale shifted on his seat. His spiked tail coiled around his left leg. His face remained implacable, but the stink of angry pheromones radiating from most of the members on the board filled the air. On the end, the youngest warrior, Ashvor, raised his deep red daravgane braest and would have protested Zhoh’s summation if Belnale had not looked at him. The spear’s three blades gleamed as they caught the light.
Ashvor was older and larger than Zhoh, deeply purple and blue. Burn scarring showed on the right side of his mouth. Only gray stumps of his chelicerae remained there. He was skilled in personal combat, but Zhoh was certain he could kill the warrior if a personal challenge was offered. If that was what it took to reclaim his path.
“Careful, Captain Zhoh,” Belnale rumbled. “You don’t want to risk offending any warrior present. We all choose who commands on Makaum.”
Zhoh looked at them, not backing down. “No, I would never insult any of you great warriors. But I realize that losing our presence on Makaum would be the greater insult. To me and to you and to the Empire. We need this planet and its resources to continue the war with the Terrans.”
They should realize that too, but he was going to remind them of the stakes.
“You requested an audience of us. Why?” Belnale asked as though not everyone in the command center already knew.
Despite his personal control, Zhoh knew pheromones leaked from him that betrayed his uncertainty about their decision. “I have come to stake my claim for command of the Phrenorian forces on Makaum.”
The board could easily refuse his request. Those abominations Sxia had borne him instead of healthy offspring had cast a permanent stain over him. The efforts of her father, Blaold Oldawe, to blame him and push any doubts from his daughter and bloodline had further torn away what honor had remained to him.