The dart hit Shan’am in the chest, expanded through his clothing and tore into his ribcage. It locked itself into the bone, and a cable connected to the dart began to reel itself back toward the man.
Shan’am fought it, but the dart was lodged too deep, the cable too strong. The man pulled him closer, and then reached down and grabbed Shan’am by the arm.
“Show me your face at least,” Shan’am said, as he was hoisted out of the water and slammed onto the bank. “Before I die.”
The man hovered over Shan’am. Then he did as requested, removing his helmet, slowly, with both hands.
The man’s face was more gaunt and drawn than Shan’am remembered. Paler, with lines accentuating his thin lips. His eyes were dark, but distinct and recognizable. His hair still short but now gray. And there were scars. Lots of scars, crisscrossing his face like the scraped surface of a moon.
“You look beat up, Jacque,” Shan’am said, his chest now hurting from the pain in his heart, and from the dart. Searing pain. It was hard to breathe. He tried to probe The Magpie’s suit and body with IMTel nanotech, but whatever technology present in the bird was in his suit as well. He was untouchable. “Beat up and worn down. You’ve had a tough life, I know. You’ve been asked to do unspeakable things, and perhaps we all deserve your wrath. But it’s time to stop. You must stop before there is no turning back.”
“Not yet,” The Magpie said, reaching into his boot and producing a small pistol. He cocked it back, then hefted it in his hand, lording it over Shan’am like a jewel. He was teasing him with it, and Shan’am could see a hint of glee flash across The Magpie’s face. Madness.
Shan’am still held his empty pistol in his hand. Well, at least The Magpie thought it was empty. But there was one more round waiting, a special one, an explosive one that would only drop into the chamber with a special squeeze of the handle.
Shan’am squeezed the handle and felt a light shift of weight as the plasma snapped into place.
“Goodbye, Shan’am,” The Magpie said, a hint of regret in his voice. “There was a time when I loved you.”
Shan’am nodded. “And I you.”
The Magpie was younger, faster. His shot sounded first and ripped through Shan’am’s chest with a fury that would guarantee his death. As Shan’am pulled his own trigger and watched as his shot fell low and buried itself into The Magpie’s thigh, he could not help but think of the bird with a black-and-white body, with iridescent green wings, gliding through the morning air.
Shan’am laid his head back to die, and The Magpie screamed as the explosive round in his leg ignited.
* * * *
Commander Miryum Stuzan was pleased with the report, though she could not deny feeling regret at what it meant: The Magpie was dead; her brother was dead. And too, one of her dearest friends, Mick Shan’am. They had all been friends once, during simpler times. But the burdens of life and command had taken them into different directions. Now two of them were dead, and she was still alive. Alive and standing on the precipice of one of the greatest victories in Isorian history.
Without the fear of assassination, the 5th Isorian Guard was no longer pinned in place, and thus they broke through the stubborn Algoryn defenses. One more massive push and the enemy would collapse. Let the thing be pushed, she had ordered, and now she stood in front of the virtual array, watching point by point, her forces sweep into the enemy. It was a glorious engagement, one for the books. And she had planned it all. Where would this victory lead, she wondered. Command of an entire division? An army? The possibilities were limitless, and Miryum Stuzan smiled and dreamed of a bright future.
She turned the virtual array off and back to her half-eaten breakfast.
A small bird sat on the table next to her plate. It was a beautiful thing. A sparrow, perhaps? But upon closer inspection, she saw that the pretty thing had a black-and-white body with iridescent green wings.
It hopped on only one leg.
Commander Miryum Stuzen had just enough time to see the red sniper’s dot shift from her chest to her forehead.
“Oh shi—”
Trials of Necessity
By Duncan Waugh
The caverns thundered all around Kaanen as the sound of scores of roaring Boromites rebounded off the roughhewn architecture, building to a fever pitch as the beasts approached the course’s final stretch. Small groups of gangers clustered around suspended vid-displays like isolated islands among the crowded confines of the hawkers and bazaars that lined this stretch of tunnel. Within each gathered ensemble, the hides of the gamblers were marked in their own particular clan and familial markings. One trio of aged fighters, crammed in beside a tinkerer with a myriad of half assembled drones and neural harnesses laid out across his table, bore what appeared to be an anarchic mixture of hard edged cuts and lacerations across the scales of their left arms. These seemed to speak more of ritualistic scarring and the traditions of generations past than any conventional combat injuries. On the other side of the makeshift street, a band of young Boromites from the Rennox clan bellowed in aggrandized congratulatory behavior; clashing shades of orange and blue patterned their backs in an almost random fashion, in keeping with their brash, boorish attitudes.
In this latest of conclaves, the track-masters had finally learned to disperse the viewing portals around the entire complex, rather than congregating their patrons all in a single location. It was hoped that by ensuring an absolute minimum of inter-clan mingling during the high stakes betting, some of the more unfortunate instances of gang-on-gang violence could be averted, or at least delayed until the participants were off-world, when they would become someone else’s problem. And so far, it seemed to be working, with the majority of disgruntled frustrations amounting to little more than the odd dirty look or shouted slur that disappeared into the gulf of noisy carousing and general rumbling of business that served as the constant background hum for these halls. When the majority of the itinerant population that had gathered were carrying weapons of one form or another, this was not considered a bad outcome.
“Well, what’s it to be?” Kaanen’s attention snapped back to the present, the gruff trader’s terse questioning wrenching his focus back to the high capacity mag pack he clutched in the roughness of his palm.
He weighed the brushed metal box in his hand, feeling the reassuring solidity and hidden power that lay buried within its comparatively diminutive confines. “I have your word? They will perform as well as you say?”
“You know the relationship between our families,” the shopkeep bristled indignantly at the implied insult. “I stripped these down and rebuilt the compression coils personally. You’ll find a round capacity eight percent higher than standard, with negligible impact on the recharge rate. But if you think you can find better among these,” his hand waved dismissively at the various stalls and impromptu shack setups that stretched away in either direction. “Feel free to take your business elsewhere.”
The young Boromite held the trader’s gaze, in spite of the man’s glowering stare, before raising his hands in mock surrender. “Okay, Brenwar. I apologize. You know how it’s been for us these last couple of years. We’ll take a hundred. And Clan Jent thanks you for your consideration in this matter.” The elder before him nodded in return, the momentary infraction between the two forgotten.
“We have a long history together, no doubt,” Brenwar leaned in closer, his voice dropping low so just the two could hear. “Just don’t take too long to get me my payment - I can’t keep product like this withheld from certain groups for long. You understand me, don’t you, Kaanen?”
“You’ve always been fair in your dealings with Jent, Brenwar. That is not something we take lightly. You’ll have the coin before the day’s out. Until another time?” A subtle smile curved the edges of Kaanen’s mouth as he extended his arm out to the old dealer.
“Until another time,” Brenwar agreed with surprising solemnity as he grasped the other’s forearm in acknowledgment.
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br /> With that, the two parted ways. It would likely be some time before their paths crossed again. Clan Jent had gained information on a recently discovered nearby gate that led to a cluster of verdant, habitable worlds rich in mineral resources. Information which also drew the interest of the IMTel-reliant civilizations such as the Concord and Isorians; and thus, making it increasingly hard for those of a more enterprising nature to ply their trade in the local group of systems. With the ensuing rapid colonization efforts, it was only to be expected that there would be a crackdown in military patrols and shipment checks along the encircling transport routes. And faced with increasingly dangerous radiation activity along the more circuitous journeys, even to the extent of causing severe drive overloads on the less well shielded of ships, many of their ilk were cashing in and moving on to less populated climbs.
As Kaanen wandered the packed corridors and halls, he could not help but marvel at the sheer size of the gathering in which he found himself. The endeavor was on a massive scale, whole sections of the rock sub-strata the size of small mountains hollowed out just to accommodate these few days of business dealings. Yet, what took place here would shape his clan’s fortunes for the coming year, maybe even determining the viability of their continued survival. If events did not run according to plan, he did not even like to think of what the consequences would be. But their Guild Mother, Kana, had worked on this scheme for months, building the network of contacts and informants that were required, setting their families up for a haul that would be the envy of every rival group. They just had to hope that by the end of the conclave they had managed to acquire the seed money that such an ambitious plot needed. For if they did not, some very powerful people would not be happy, and that would not bode well for Clan Jent.
* * * *
Renck paced the length of the rock warren, inspecting his charges with a careful, measured gaze. Hastily erected mini-pylons had been hammered home into the ground, emitting invisible, but no less impregnable, barriers of highly charged energy between the pairings within each network. As the lavan creatures approached adolescence they became increasingly fractious with one another, and he preferred to keep them isolated during such times. This allowed them some degree of freedom, rather than simply suppressing all their natural instinct with the neural transmitters that were embedded into each of their gnarly, stony hides. His father had always sworn that an overuse of such tools would permanently deaden some of the creatures’ natural spark and aggression, and Renck was not about to turn his back on the decades of careful breeding and growth techniques that had led to the infamously fearsome stock that Clan Jent now had at its disposal.
This section of the asteroid had been given over to them for the duration of the proceedings, each clan afforded a space of their own to prepare their creatures for the races or for trade with others. With just a single entrance in or out, and two yan thick walls of some of the hardest composite deposits to be found on such rocks, there was very little opportunity for rival groups to interfere with his pets - not that that had stopped all would-be saboteurs in the past. For such situations, the guild’s leaders had assigned some of the clan’s most battle-proven and downright intimidating fighters to guard the passageway, knowing full well that the more weather-beaten and scarred individuals would often prove as effective a deterrent to potential intruders as any experienced shooter’s skills would do.
Renck did not recognize many of those assigned to protect both himself and his flock, and those he did were little more than passing acquaintances. Even among a people as insular and distrustful of outsiders as the Boromites, he was considered a reclusive character, happy to live out the majority of his life in considerable isolation. Renck had always found his bond with the lavan beasts to be stronger than that which he shared with his fellow sons of Borom, even when taking into consideration the members of his own family. He was no fool, however, and knew that the creatures held little such sentimental regard for their keepers. They were animals, with an insatiable appetite for consumption, and a stubborn, aggressive streak that he found all too often mirrored his own; but that said, he knew that he had imprinted on their psyches in some form. In much the same way that a parent’s love for their child can never truly be fully reciprocated thanks to the asymmetric shape of that relationship, looking down at their fearsome, yet eager faces, he felt there was a strong parallel between such a bond and that of his with his lavans.
As he approached the final of the impromptu enclosures, he allowed himself a moment’s indulgence. Bending down, he leaned over the barrier, the optics covering his left eye picking up its energy residue bleeding off into the ultraviolet end of the spectrum, keeping him from the extreme agony that came with any accidental shocks. Here were kept the newest of the brood, the hatchlings’ talents yet to manifest themselves, a hectic pile of scrabbling hunger and potential climbing over and under each other in search of more food on which to sate their unending desire. He scooped up the nearest of the younglings in one hand, hoisting it out of the cage and being rewarded with the sharp biting pain in his palm as the little beast cranked its extended maw shut on the soft flesh beneath. It was a sensation not new to the man, having become a regular experience over the years, and Renck smacked the creature hard at the back of the neck. It released its powerful jaws reflexively and, satisfied now that the Boromite’s palm did not hide any mineral-rich deposits, stared up at the giant that towered over its ever-growing form.
There was an intelligence there, no doubt about it, a cunning that no entity could ever manage to suppress. Where some saw a dangerous, wild animal, something to be avoided and certainly not raised and trained, Boromites like Renck saw something different. What others rarely understood was that rearing lavans was about more than merely drilling in the neural control rods that caused crippling pains whenever the creatures’ humors became too bold. There was a battle of wills inherent to the process; a long, drawn out journey through which a grudging respect was fostered on both sides. Holding it up before his eyes, he wondered what characteristics this little individual would reveal in time, its tiny pincers clacking inquisitively as the deep, recessed eyes glowed greedily.
Tossing the hatchling back into the enclosure, its tiny body bouncing down the small mound of chitinous hide, he took one last moment to breathe in the smell of raw dust and listen to the rolling chatter of bone and rock that was the constant background noise for the majority of his existence. The race would be starting soon, and as much as he resented it, Guildess Madroth would be expecting his presence at the gaming gates. With a deep sigh of resignation, an uncommon reflex among a race as stoic and resilient as the Boromites, Renck began the long trek back to the hustle and bustle of the trading areas. On his way out, he nodded at the surly fighters lounging around the entrance. Engaged in some kind of game of chance with brightly colored metallic chits and a small randomizing nano-fold resting between them, they barely paid him any notice. With one last look back, he made his way to the tracks.
The little lavan wriggled its way up off its back and, once it had properly righted itself, snapped at the nearest of its brethren in irritation, leaving little score marks down the edges of their flanks, before resuming its never-ending hunt for more sustenance.
* * * *
Kaanen finally arrived at the agreed meeting point. Navigating the myriad of winding tunnels and busy exchanges had taken longer than he had anticipated, and his arrival was greeted by a stern look from the waiting guildess. Getting off on the wrong foot with Madroth was never a smart move, as even at the best of times she could be a cruel and critical taskmaster. Given the stakes of this particular mission, and the woman’s seemingly endless ambition to move up in status within the matriarchy, the gang fighter was really beginning to wish his role in the operation had been assigned to some other unfortunate soul. As he approached the assembled group, a small mixture of clan warriors, minor elders, and keepers, her eyes continued to bore into his skull, her mouth pinched tight, ready t
o tear into whatever excuse he could concoct, with as much venom as she could muster.
As with all Boromites, Kaanen respected and obeyed the clan’s ruling female contingent, but that did not have to mean he had to like them too. And in Madroth’s case, he most definitely did not. The woman seemed to expect disappointment, with mistakes and failures acting as the fuel for yet more diatribes of humiliation, delivered in a stinging tongue to her unfortunate underlings. Kaanen understood the need to put some of the less obedient in their place from time to time, but the guildess took it too far, with any minor infraction resulting in a dressing down of vastly overcompensating magnitude. She was a good organizer though, he had to give her that, even if it did make everyone beneath her miserable.
He made sure to maintain eye contact as he approached, not arrogantly enough to be seen as making any kind of power play, but with just enough surety and confidence as to not appear cowed before her fury. Slowly shrugging off the implied accusations in her body language, without blinking, he merely acknowledged, “The way here was busy.”
Madroth stood silently for the briefest of pauses, momentarily unused to her renowned severity failing to dominate one of those under her command, and she seemed almost unsure of how to continue. Then, with her traditional flair for pessimism she replied, “Well, let’s hope Renck’s latest offerings demonstrate a more impressive capacity for timeliness than you apparently show for navigating a few simple streets, Kaanen.” One eyebrow raised, she turned slightly to encompass the rest of the group. “Or we will all be in trouble.”
Guffaws emanated from some of the other fighters present, most were little more than mere sycophants in Kaanen’s eyes. They looked the part, sure, but how many were truly blooded warriors like himself and his kin? His family had never been held in particularly high esteem within the clan, but they knew how to fight, and in any other circumstance he would not have hesitated in facing down such an open display of impudence and disrespect. At such a critical juncture, however, he knew that now was not the time for any form of recourse; but that did not stop him noting a few of the more raucous individuals for a later, more opportune moment to continue the discussion. It was then he noticed Renck’s presence, a strange man in many regards. The Boromite always seemed more interested in his little pets than in any real, dangerous work, and largely kept to his own company. Standing on the edge of the little ring of onlookers, he seemed immediately out of place, his eyes slowly scanning the surroundings like an animal in a display enclosure.
Beyond Antares Dimensional Gates Page 3