by Mel Odom
This isn’t rain, Zhoh told himself. This world is weeping. It knows I have beaten it.
He gloried in that. Visions of him receiving the Kabilak in the Grand Halls of the Empire on Phrenoria became more real. The fantasy was taking his patimong and killing Blaold Oldawe and Sxia immediately after the presentation.
But all things were possible.
Lannig changes everything, he reminded himself. Makaum was merely another molting time, another instance of growth and strengthening.
He ran.
Ahead of him, the female tripped and fell. She sprawled on the muddy ground. The child stopped and struggled to get the female to her feet, but it was already too late.
Zhoh stopped in front of them, towered over them, and reached down for the female. She was moving, so she was still alive, and that allayed some of the fear he’d suddenly felt when he remembered how frail she was.
The child turned to him, screaming and crying, and batted at the secondaries that Zhoh extended to pick up the woman.
Irritated at the show of defiance, Zhoh backhanded the child and she flew backward. Immediately, he regretted the blow. She would be of no use to him as leverage if she were dead. He looked at her and noted the rise and fall of her chest and the throbbing pulse in the hollow of her neck.
The old female rolled over and brought up a pistol Zhoh hadn’t known she possessed. She fired twice at point-blank range and both bullets smashed into him before he could wrest the weapon from her grip.
She screamed in desperate frustration and fury.
“Stop!” Zhoh commanded. “I won’t kill you, but I can injure you in many ways that will make you wish you were dead.”
She screamed again, an inarticulate explosion that was so primitive it impressed Zhoh. When he had seen the female on several occasions, she had always been calm and composed.
Zhoh waved to one of the warriors at his back.
“Restrain her,” he commanded. “Restrain the child.”
Two warriors bent to perform those actions.
Zhoh opened a comm link to Mato. “Send the transport ship down to my location.”
“At once,” Mato said. He sounded distracted. “There is news coming in just now from the Alliance meeting.”
As he waited, Zhoh watched tree branches overhead roast into ashes under an onslaught of laser fire. The opening grew quickly and revealed more and more of the transport ship.
“Triarr,” Mato said. “It has been confirmed. The Alliance is sending a Strike Wing of space fighters and a carrier to aid Makaum. The Empire has recalled the dreadnoughts. We are to be abandoned.”
“Get out of there!” Zhoh ordered. “Leave the buildings! That will be the first place the fighters hit!”
The Empire filled its facilities with explosives designed to reduce any site they built to smoking, radiated ruins rather than let any potential information fall into enemy hands. The signal to self-destruct the embassy and the outlying labs would be sent at any moment. Mato would be lost.
“There is no time,” Mato said stoically. “Kill the Terrans, triarr! Kill as many of them as—”
The comm link ended and Zhoh stood there in the rain as the transport ship burned through the leafy canopy. He didn’t hear the explosions that killed Mato, but they echoed in his head all the same because he had heard them before.
He turned his attention to the female before him and rage swelled within him.
SIXTY-TWO
Rilormang
The Sulusku Highlands
28 Kilometers North of Makaum Sprawl
0902 Hours Zulu Time
Ignoring the pain that seared his injured leg and the fact that his HUD was off-line and he was reduced to only his own vision, Sage sprinted and followed the Phrenorian tracks through the jungle. His breath scoured the back of his throat and he knew his body was burning more oxygen as he increased his demands of it and it worked to manage his injuries.
Jahup matched him stride for stride and Sage knew the younger man was holding back deliberately in spite of his grandmother’s situation. Jahup was a hunter. He knew strength lay in numbers when facing a larger or more dangerous quarry.
Sage cut around a tree and had no chance to stop himself before he ran into the ambush set by three Phrenorians. The Sting-Tails opened fire from the brush. Rounds hammered Sage’s armor, set off warnings, and blew away patches of the outer layer.
Knocked from his feet, breathless, Sage rolled into a kneeling position and brought the Roley to his shoulder. He bracketed the nearest Phrenorian and opened fire.
Jahup was there before Sage could yell a warning. The younger man ran up a tree till gravity took hold again, and flipped backward over the arc of bullets that hammered the trunk and pursued him. As he turned in the air, Jahup opened fire. Sage’s rounds ripped his target’s cephalothorax to pieces.
The second Phrenorian shivered from the impacts of Jahup’s rounds. Sage partially blinded the third warrior with a gel-grenade that covered several of its eyes. As Jahup landed in a crouch, the Phrenorian blew up.
The concussion knocked Sage and Jahup from their feet, but they got up quickly and ran toward the hovering transport ship.
Bullets and beams hosed the jungle around Sage and Jahup as the crew aboard the Phrenorian ship opened fire. Dodging quickly, Sage and Jahup went to ground behind trees. Sage got his Roley up and fired, but the Phrenorians stood behind heavy armor.
He cursed in frustration, knowing he was so close but that he wouldn’t reach Leghef or Zhoh before the Phrenorian general escaped with his captive.
“Sage,” Halladay called over the comm, “the Phrenorians are pulling out of the system. The Alliance is sending ships to support us. If you people can hang on a little bit longer, we’ll have reinforcements.”
Sage looked for the transport ship’s weaknesses he could exploit, something—anything—that would give him an edge so he could force it to turn away. “That’s good news, sir.”
Jet engines provided vertical takeoff and landing capabilities. The wings held two massive engines for forward thrust, and two more engines mounted in back of those and to the side at ninety degrees for vertical lift.
Engines were delicate. Any wing or cavalry or powersuit squad griped about that constantly. The rule of thumb was that for every hour of operation in the field, the wrench jockeys had to spend three hours in maintenance and repairs.
The basso report of a heavy-caliber sniper rifle roared over the constant intake of the transport ship’s engine. A moment later, one of the Phrenorian gunners toppled from the ship.
The sniper rifle boomed five more times. Two more Sting-Tails fell from the transport ship.
“Kiwanuka?” Sage called.
“Affirmative,” Kiwanuka responded.
“Can you take out the pilot?”
“Negative,” she answered. “I’ve already tried. The cockpit’s reinforced. Even these enhanced fifty-caliber rounds won’t penetrate. And even if I did, there are automated systems on board.”
The transport ship continued dropping as it burned its way down to the ground. The pilot carefully avoided the tree line during the descent.
Spurred on by an idea, Sage brought the Roley to his shoulder, slipped his finger over the grenade launcher trigger, and fired three rounds into the trees nearest the transport ship.
When the grenades exploded, they reduced tree branches into kindling that was sucked into the roaring jet engines. Harsh grinding immediately followed. One of the engines released a cloud of thick, black smoke and exploded a moment later.
Out of control, the transport ship slid sideways, hit the trees, and a second engine exploded. The ship dropped like a rock, flipped over when it hit, and broke into pieces. A half dozen Phrenorians stumbled out and took defensive positions around the wreckage of their aircraft.
“Kiwanuka,” Sage said, “can you—”
“We’ve got this,” Kiwanuka replied. “We’ll protect your six while you get Leghef. Jahup’
s little sister, Telilu, is out there too. She has a tracker. That’s how we found you.”
“Copy that.”
Two innocents were on the line. Sage pushed the dread and uncertainty he felt from his mind and focused on the task at hand. Even without an exfil, Zhoh could disappear into the jungle.
Hoping to take Zhoh by surprise, Sage pushed up and ran forward. Jahup must have had the same idea, because he was up only a half-step later.
A small figure lay on the ground ahead.
Cold fear wormed through Sage’s stomach for a moment, then he saw that the figure was still breathing.
“Telilu!” Jahup yelled. He ran for the girl and crouched beside her. He reached for her and a round cored into his back and knocked him forward.
Spinning, knowing he’d made a mistake, Sage brought the Roley up and looked over the sights at Zhoh standing behind a copse of trees. The Phrenorian warrior held Leghef before him, using her as a shield. He pointed a big pistol at Sage.
“It’s over, Zhoh,” Sage said. “Your people have probably already let you know the Alliance is sending support to Makaum. They’re not going to let this planet go. They’re going to protect these people.”
“Is that what they’re doing, Sage?” Zhoh’s tone was mocking, which surprised Sage because the modulators didn’t normally have that much complexity. That kind of interpretation took years of speaking. “Only hours ago, the Alliance was still behind you getting your people out of here and leaving the planet.”
“That’s above my paygrade,” Sage said. “I’m a soldier doing my job, and my job right now is to save that woman.”
Small arms fire cracked in the distance and Sage knew Kiwanuka and her team were hard-pressed standing against the survivors of the Phrenorian crash.
“Why save her?” Zhoh mused. “Why is this being any more important to the Alliance than any other they have let die?”
“She’s important to me,” Sage said.
Zhoh moved one of his primaries reflexively. “What if you can’t save her?”
“I’ll kill you.”
“A Phrenorian would have already killed me. Even if it meant killing her as well.”
“I’m not you,” Sage said. “You already knew that. That’s why you’re holding on to her.”
“Perhaps she’s worth something to the Alliance as well.”
“Do you have a way of asking them?” Sage challenged. “Because I’m not making that offer for you.”
“Even at the risk of her life?”
“If me and you can’t come to an arrangement right here, right now, involving the Alliance diplomatic corps isn’t going to help. They won’t offer you anything more than I’m willing to offer you.”
Zhoh hissed distastefully. He straightened himself and stood taller. “What do you have to offer?”
“Let the woman go and you can live.”
“You’re talking about surrender to a Phrenorian warrior of the Empire?” Zhoh’s chelicerae twitched. “The only reason we understand that concept is because we crossed paths with humans. We don’t even have a word for that in our language.”
“I hear you don’t have a word for mercy either.” Sage shifted slightly and tried not to get noticed.
Two other Phrenorians stood to one side of Zhoh. Both held their assault rifles at the ready, but neither appeared too eager to use them.
“But mercy is something I’m willing to offer,” Sage continued. “You just need to let the woman go and lay down your weapon.”
“What would you do if our situation were reversed?” Zhoh asked. “Would you accept . . . mercy?”
“No,” Sage stated flatly. Rain ran down his faceshield and made his vision blurry. “The Empire doesn’t recognize mercy, and they have no use for prisoners.”
“Maybe you’re wrong about that.” Zhoh paused. “Do you know what I was wrong about?”
Sage wanted to keep Zhoh talking. As long as the Phrenorian was talking, he wasn’t going to kill Leghef. “What?”
“Our stories,” Zhoh said, “are not so different, Master Sergeant. I arrived on this backwater planet under a cloud of disgrace. Some small part of it was my own fault. I was too covetous of a higher position within the Empire. I wanted to grow more quickly. The parents who gave birth to me marked me with their low-caste colors. I was marked, and would never rise above where I was. Only through skill and bravery did I change that. Lannig changes everything.”
Sage remembered the phrase from the briefing he’d had on the Phrenorians.
“I knew that if I was patient,” Zhoh said, “I could again take control of my future. Except the mate binding I agreed to robbed me of what little future I had. I became kalque. Do you know what that means?”
“No.”
“It means, in the eyes of the Empire, I was nothing, no one, and I would never know any kind of life that I deserved. I was fated to die on the battlefield of some planet somewhere far from my homeworld. The Terran military sent you here for the same reasons.”
“I fought to get here,” Sage said.
Zhoh hissed. “In a nowhere, out-of-the-way place like this?”
“There are people here who needed protecting,” Sage said. “I signed on to do that.”
“Insignificant people!” Zhoh shouted. “None of them worth a drop of your blood because you are a warrior!”
Sage waited, knew that they were getting to it, and still wasn’t sure what was going to happen.
“You had such small goals,” Zhoh said, “and you rose to every occasion. You earned the attention of the Alliance even though you didn’t pursue it. Tell me, Master Sergeant, do you believe in your Alliance? What it does? What it stands for?”
“Not everything,” Sage said, “but most of it. I know that it’s not perfect. We’re working on it.”
“Then I commend you for your belief, and I hope you keep it till your dying day.” Zhoh paused. “It is a horrible fate for a warrior to have to die for an entity that doesn’t even know who he truly is.”
“With me, it goes the other way around,” Sage said. “I know what I’m willing to die for. Who I’m willing to die for. Most of those people are unknown to me, but I want them to have their lives and for their families to be safe. I’m not looking for glory.”
“Nothing else exists for a warrior!”
“You’re wrong,” Sage said. “There’s home. I carry my home with me, from the mountains where I grew up, and I find a piece of that home and my mother’s people and my father’s people on every world where I’ve followed a flag.”
Zhoh was quiet for a moment. “I don’t have a home. Not anymore. I was stuck serving a dishonorable general who put personal gain before the needs of the Empire. I became mate-bound to a female whose father wanted only to have someone he could blame for the deformed children he knew she would have—which he had, but his child didn’t show her malformations. That Empire that I have served so long, and for which I wanted to be a bigger part of, wants to cover up all of that and to lay the blame upon me for losing this world.”
Sage didn’t know what to say to that.
“So you see,” Zhoh said, “your offer of mercy, if I were to take it, would be wasted. I have nowhere to go even if I were permitted to leave this planet, or if I escaped from whatever penal colony the Terran Alliance put me on.”
“That’s tomorrow,” Sage said. “That hasn’t even been talked about. Let’s just focus on this moment.”
“Let’s do that, then,” Zhoh agreed, “because that much I have figured out.” He drew his patimong with one of his secondaries. “I’m going to kill you, Master Sergeant, because I am a warrior, because I recognize in you a greatness we call Genyard.”
The syllables that came through the modulator on Zhoh’s chest were unintelligible to Sage.
“Do you know what this means?” Zhoh asked.
“No,” Sage replied.
“Pity,” Zhoh said. “The title is one of the Empire’s greatest honors and seldom is
given. It translates to ‘warlord’ and refers to a warrior so skilled in battle that all others automatically follow him.” He paused. “To me, that is what you are. Killing you will be a great honor.”
“I take no honor in killing you,” Sage said. “You’re a good soldier and a good officer. We’re just on opposite sides of this war.”
“It’s more than that,” Zhoh said. “You could never do what I do. You would hesitate to end those who are weak or injured or unable to defend themselves.”
“You took my side when I faced DawnStar’s sec team.”
A rough noise came from the translator and Sage guessed that it was what passed for laughter among Phrenorians.
“You impressed me then,” Zhoh said, “and I was looking for a battle myself that night. No, you’re weaker than I am, but still Genyard, so taking your life will still bring me glory. After I destroy you, I am going to kill every soldier I can until I am finally brought down. That way I can die with the glory a warrior should have.”
Sage aimed at Zhoh’s cephalothorax and squeezed off a single shot because he didn’t want to risk hitting Leghef. But Zhoh moved too quickly and the round only ripped the bark off the tree trunk behind him and exposed the white flesh.
Zhoh flung Leghef to the side and she went down with a cry of pain. When she rolled, Sage saw no wounds. While Sage was distracted, Zhoh pumped two rounds from his pistol into him.
Pain ripped through Sage’s chest and stomach, but he had the Roley up and firing. His first burst took out one of the Phrenorians caught flatfooted to Zhoh’s right. The general’s sudden movement had taken his two warriors by surprise as well. A half dozen rounds struck Zhoh, but Sage couldn’t tell how much, or if any, damage had been done.
The Sting-Tail Sage shot dropped to his knees. Jahup shot the other one, then tried tracking Zhoh, but by then the Phrenorian warrior was on top of Sage. The forward momentum and the Phrenorian’s greater weight took them both to the muddy ground.