by Peter David
“Shukko?” Vacu said softly and peered out from his hiding place. Then he gaped at what he saw, his black eyes going as wide as they possibly could.
It was Shukko, all right, but he looked terrible. His fur was stiff and matted with blood. His paws were up and covering his face as he staggered. He wasn’t saying anything. Considering the amount of blood on him, it was possible that someone had cut his throat.
“Shukko!” Vacu cried out, louder this time, and he emerged from his hiding place, crossing quickly to his pack mate.
He drew within two feet and the smell was even more wrong. There was death … death was clinging to Shukko, but it didn’t seem possible because Shukko was standing right there. Clearly he wasn’t dead, but he didn’t seem quite alive. It was too much for Vacu to figure out.
He did not, however, have time to figure it out, because Shukko drew an arm back and hit Vacu as hard as he could in the side of the head. Vacu staggered slightly and looked at Shukko with crossed eyes. “What’s the matter with you, Shukko?” he demanded.
Shukko hit him again and Vacu still didn’t come close to toppling over. He did, however, start to realize just what was wrong, and he grabbed at Shukko’s head and yanked as hard as he could. The fur-covered head tore off and Vacu found himself staring at a bloodied and distinctly non-Dog face that peered up from beneath an armor plate. It took him that long to realize that Shukko was, in fact, dead, and suddenly the creature with the non-Dog face yanked a piece of pipe free from the wall and swung it as hard as he could. He struck Vacu with full force in the skull and Vacu went down, his ears ringing. “Stop it!” Vacu managed to get out thickly, feeling more annoyed than anything else, and then several repeated blows to the head were enough to knock Vacu cold.
* * *
Xyon quickly stripped off the rest of his makeshift costume and tried not to let it get to him—although he desperately needed a bath. He couldn’t believe how many attempts it had taken him to down the behemoth he had encountered, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that somehow he had gotten off lucky.
Fortunately, the ship was lightly manned. Most of the Dogs were out and about, enjoying themselves and having just a grand old time spreading carnage and destruction wherever they went. That left Xyon with enough leeway to do what needed to be done.
He made his way quickly through the ship, trying to steer clear of any random members of the skeleton crew left behind. Considering he was covered with the blood of one of their associates, the odds were that they would be able to smell him with no trouble if they came anywhere within range of him.
His plan was simple: Find the engine room and disable the engines so that the main ship would be stuck on the planet, giving him the lead time he’d need to get to Montos before they did. He was reasonably sure that he could make his way to the engines, wherever they were, in fairly short order.
He took one turn, then another, ducked through some sort of circuitry tunnel, emerged on the other side, and stepped through a door …
… and found himself on the bridge of the ship.
It was fairly small, really, constructed for maximum efficiency and use of space.
There were two Dogs there, apparently running systems checks or in other ways performing routine maintenance. They turned and looked at Xyon with open-jawed astonishment.
“Hello,” said Xyon, and suddenly he had a knife in each hand. Before his presence had fully registered on the Dogs, he had left fly with the twin blades. They sped through the air and landed squarely in the chests of the two Dogs. The creatures didn’t even have time for a howl of protest as they pitched forward. Xyon gave them no further thought as he shoved them out of the way so that he could inspect the weapons and guidance arrays. There was a viewing port set into the front section of the bridge, giving him a clear sight line to the surrounding area.
He studied the consoles before him and quickly came to some interesting conclusions. He tapped what appeared to be a pivot control and discovered that he was absolutely right. The entire bridge section swivelled a full 360 degrees. Apparently they were positioned squarely on top of the vessel and the full-turn capacity was how they managed to view everything around them.
Nestled all around the flagship, like so many contented little guards, were the smaller ships.
Xyon discovered the weapons array and he grinned in a most satisfied fashion. “You creatures like carnage?” he murmured. “Here’s some carnage for you.”
* * *
Rier’s first hint that something was wrong was when he heard a series of explosions coming from the general area where the vessels had landed. Other members of his pack who were with him likewise reacted with surprise, looking in confusion at each other as if automatically assuming that the other would have some sort of explanation. “Come on!” shouted Rier, and they left behind their amusements as they bolted in the direction of the ships to see what was causing this rather unexpected assortment of detonations.
When they drew within sight of the landing area, they froze, unable to believe it. The upper section of the flagship was turning, opening fire on all the ships around it. It was ripping into the ships with no particular accuracy; instead it was just shooting and shooting in all directions as it continued to turn relentlessly. However, since the vessels around it were not moving, it had no problem blowing the lot of them to kingdom come. The Dogs let out a collective howl of fury as, one by one, the ships erupted in flame. Shrapnel and assorted bits and pieces of the ships spiralled through the air, crashing into rocks and debris like so many flaming meteorites.
“Who’s doing this!” barked Rier, but no answer was forthcoming. The other Dogs ducked back, but Rier refused to be intimidated by his own ship. He charged forward, darting between the random blasts, making his way deftly towards his flagship. With every yard he covered, he bristled more, became more furious as he contemplated the way he was going to avenge himself on whomever it was who had the nerve to interfere with the Dogs of War.
Then Rier skidded to a halt. He saw the gunports angling down and around towards the flagship itself. “No!” he shouted, but even as he cried out in protest he was backing up as fast as he could.
The weapons lashed into the flagship, cutting a swath through the unshielded hull. Rier saw where the track of the blasts was taking it, but there was nothing he could do as the guns blasted into the engine room. Immediately the engines exploded, flame belching heavenward in a blazing column that made all the fur on Rier’s hide stand on end. From behind him there was distressed yipping from the other Dogs, but they—like he—were completely helpless. Fire erupted in concentric circles, enveloping the remains of the smaller ships. It seemed an eternity, but in reality it was only seconds as the entirety of the Dogs’ landing force was reduced to scorched or melting metal.
The other Dogs, numbering two dozen, gathered around Rier, staring in astonishment at a landing fleet gone completely awry. No one said anything. No one could think of anything to say.
“Atik,” Rier said after a time. “Fista. Omon.” In response to their names, three of the Dogs—Rier’s prime lieutenants—appeared at his side. Atik had the blackest fur of any of them, so dark that one could stare at the shadows for a time and never see him. He was also the only one of the Dogs who carried a weapon, having fallen in love with a set of two, razoredged swords captured during one foray. He had started wearing them on his back, referring to them as his “long claws.” Fista, litter brother to Krul, had a lean and hungry look about him, and his fur was a mottled gray. Omon moved with assurance and swagger. His gestures and mannerisms were always big and full of confidence, his dusky red fur slicked back and meticulously maintained. “Spread out,” continued Rier. “Scour the area.”
“Whoever was responsible, Rier, is surely dead,” Atik said in his customary just-above-a-whisper tone.
“Not if he set it for automatic sequencing, he’s not,” Rier replied. “He could have rigged it and gotten out before the first shot was fired. U
nless, of course, you have something better to do, Atik. Considering, however, that we’re stuck here until the rest of the pack realizes we’re overdue and sends rescue ships, I don’t see any problem with you spending some of your precious time in trying to determine who did this to us. And if—”
Then they blinked in surprise as, from the rubble, there was a stirring. Immediately the Dogs tensed, having absolutely no idea what to expect.
From the smoke, from the debris, rose a huge form. It was Vacu. He looked extremely puzzled and stared blankly at his pack brothers. His fur was completely blackened, and he coughed up a huge lungful of smoke. He staggered towards Rier and the others, who remained motionless as he drew nearer and nearer. Finally he stopped several feet away from them, stared at them as if not truly believing that they were there, and then said, “Ouch.” At which point he fell forward again.
“Perfect,” muttered Rier.
* * *
Xyon reached his ship without any further incident. That was something of a relief; considering everything that had gone on since he’d set foot on the damned planet, it was nice to have at least one thing go smoothly for him.
“Hello, Xyon,” his ship greeted him when he stepped into the cockpit. He referred to it as a cockpit because it was really too small to be reasonably called a bridge, being large enough only to accommodate two or three people at most.
“Hello, Lyla,” he replied. “Fire up the main thrusters and let’s get out of here.”
“Is someone trying to kill you?” inquired the ship. Naturally, it was capable of multitasking, so even as the ship conversed with Xyon, it brought the engines on line and heated up the main thrusters. The ship itself was not remarkably large or even particularly pretty to look at, being somewhat irregularly shaped since Xyon had a consistent habit of building on to it here and there whenever he had the resources or the luck to find something he could adapt. But the ship was fast and maneuverable, with a stolen cloaking device and enough weaponry to see him through most fights. At least, most fights that enabled him to hit and run.
“Of course someone’s trying to kill me. It wouldn’t be a normal day, would it.” He ran a quick systems check.
“Your respiration rate is three percent above the norm. Bio scans reveal three contusions, and eighteen burn marks.”
“Well, running one step ahead of a fireball the size of a small moon will do that to you. Come on, Lyla, get us out of—”
There was a thump at the front view port and Xyon’s head snapped around. A dog was there, outside, with fur as black as night and a sword that looked like it meant business. It should have posed no threat at all, but the dog swung the blade around and struck the view port. To Xyon’s astonishment, a narrow crack ribboned across the port.
The Dog stared straight into Xyon’s face, as if committing every centimeter of its structure to memory. Xyon felt a chill go down his spine even as he called out, “Lyla! Leaving now would be a truly excellent idea!”
The sword was drawn back to strike again, and then with a roar of its thrusters, the ship lifted off. The black-furred dog seemed to hesitate a moment, as if trying to decide whether to try and continue hacking its way in. At the last moment, the Dog threw itself clear. It was not a panicked move, though, that much Xyon could tell. Instead, the creature had simply calculated whether there was time to accomplish its task, discovered that there wasn’t, and exited its position. But Xyon had the uncomfortable feeling that the meeting was only a preliminary one. Even as the ship, Lyla by name (he had named it after the on-board consciousness that powered it), broke free of the planet’s gravity, Xyon did not believe that he had managed to achieve safety, but simply had obtained a momentary stay of execution.
IV
SHE HAD COME TO THINK of him as the Red Man. At first he had showed up only every few dreams, but lately he was always there, omnipresent. He watched her as if she were some sort of microbe, and his form was frequently different. Sometimes he was normal sized, no bigger than an average man; other times he was gargantuan, his face taking up the entire sky and leering down at her. At times like that, she felt the most powerless. She wanted to fight back, but she had absolutely no idea how to go about it. She endeavored to reach into inner resources, to pull up bravery and determination and everything else that a young girl could possibly require under such circumstances. But she kept coming up empty. All she could do was turn and run, even in her dreams. Her pumping legs would carry her over the vast wasteland, and as before, the voices would come to her, whispering things, asking her to join them, to stay with them, to become one with them. And as always they were so quiet, so quiet. All except the Red Man, the master manipulator, overseeing all and laughing, confident, in his power.
“Go away, go away,” she would call to him, and still he ignored her. And on one occasion, one particularly horrible occasion, his gigantic face had filled the sky and his hand had reached down for her. Reached down and seemed ready to scoop her up, possibly to throw her, possibly to crush her… she couldn’t even begin to guess. All she knew was that she couldn’t get away, and she raised her arms in front of her face to ward him off even as she sobbed and cried and begged for mercy that would not be forthcoming …
And then she woke up.
Her instinct was to cry out, to shriek her mother’s name, but thanks to long months of training, she stifled the impulse. She had had a good deal of practice in keeping her mouth shut, for she had not wanted to continue to alarm her mother. Consequently, she had foregone the habit of sleeping somewhere outside so that her mother wouldn’t be concerned as to her whereabouts. She certainly didn’t need mother wandering all over the planet trying to find where her wayward daughter had slumped into slumber on yet another evening.
On the other hand, she didn’t want to rouse her mother from sound sleep by waking up screaming. So she had developed a most disconcerting compromise, training herself to stifle her instinctive response so as not to disturb anyone. It took a supreme effort of will. As disconcerted, as disoriented as she was in her dreams, she had to reorient herself that much more quickly. It was the only way she could prevent herself from crying out.
She managed it this night, although just barely. Her mouth was open to scream for help, but at the last split instant, she remembered. Her desperate reaction was instantaneous: She sank her teeth into her lower lip so hard that blood trickled down, and she felt as if her entire lower jaw was going to go numb from pain. But she was at least successful, containing the urge to cry out and suppressing it.
Her room was dark, and she sat up in bed, reaching up with one sleeve to wipe the trickling blood from her chin. She wished that she could have felt some degree of triumph, or even vague pleasure, in her success, but all she felt was dread. For someday her control would be insufficient, and then would return the cries in the night, and her mother would learn with sinking heart that the dreams had not ceased. That, in fact, they had become more persistant, more clear than ever before, even though that clarity was still confusing in most aspects. She had wanted to spare her mother needless anguish, instead she had lied to her and hidden the truth. Even though she’d done it for her mother’s own good, she still felt guilty over it.
She heard footsteps just outside her door, and for one panicked moment she thought that perhaps she had had less control than she thought. That perhaps she had indeed cried out in her sleep and, as a result, summoned her mother inadvertently. She flopped back onto the bed, trying to appear as relaxed as possible, ignoring the sweat that filled the sheets and matted down the back of her nightclothes so that she felt a chill cutting through her. Just before the door opened, she realized she was holding her breath from nervousness, so she did the best she could to feign steady and relaxed breathing.
The light from the corridor just outside played across her face and, even with her eyes closed, she could sense her mother peering in at her. The tableau remained frozen that way for ages, then the door slowly closed. As forced as her “norma
l” breathing had been, Riella now let out a long, unsteady sigh, her heart fluttering within her chest.
Then she heard something else, something that confused her greatly. Her mother was talking to someone, but she had not known that her mother was expecting any guests. This was a particularly singular state of affairs because Riella couldn’t remember the last time that anyone had come to the house. Guests were not only a rarity, they were nonexistent. This was naturally more than enough to provoke Riella’s curiosity, but she didn’t want to do anything to draw attention to herself.
Cautiously, ever so cautiously, Riella swung her legs down and off the bed. With exaggerated care, she stepped onto the floor, pausing to see if there was any creaking of the floorboards beneath her feet. There was nothing. She strained her ears and heard muttering from the other room. Her mother’s voice, definitely, and one other. She thought—although she couldn’t be sure—that it was a male voice. That was even more unusual. She had spotted her mother chatting, from rare time to time, with other women in the town, but never a man.
She smiled to herself. Could it be that her mother had a secret life herself that she was trying to keep from Riella. That there was a man involved, and her mother thought Riella would be upset over a possible romance? How charming … even quaint. As if Riella would begrudge her anything in the world, considering how wonderful a mother she had been to her.
She crept ever so slowly to the door and opened it as narrowly as she could. The voices were definitely coming from the sitting room, which was connected via a small corridor. Riella suspected that, if she was very careful, she could sidle into the hallway and peer around it without being spotted herself, particularly if she did so on her hands and knees. She had to fight the urge to giggle; she felt like a little girl, a child, sneaking around the way she was.