Warp World

by Kristene Perron

  “For now. It will pick off the easier prey, above us,” Seg said.

  “And them? Are they gone?” Handlo glanced down at the corpse.

  Tirnich, looked left to right. “Doesn’t matter, we have to move. The lieutenant says—” He stopped in mid-sentence and turned in the direction from which they had come. “The kid! We have to find him!’

  Seg nodded to Handlo as Tirnich jogged off. “Go with him.”

  Seg slung his chack and dragged out his auto-med. The cool numbness was radiating up to his collarbone now, the poison would be moving toward his heart.

  “A rock. What a dumb way to die.” He sagged against the wall, wrapped the sleeve around his forearm, and cued up the machine. His tongue felt thick and he resisted the urge to guzzle water before he had a report from the auto-med.

  Bloodarrows, a perasav, and an Etiphar boy wandering outside the Keep? What other secrets were the wastelands hiding?

  In moments, Handlo returned. “Tirnich says you need to come right now.” He turned to leave again but quickly added, “Sir.”

  “Help me up.” Seg extended his hand. The progress line on the auto-med was taking an appallingly long time to tell him if he was going to die, but he would damn well be productive in the meantime.

  Handlo pulled Seg upright and positioned himself to take the tall man’s weight as best he could. “Kid’s in a state,” Handlo said. “Tirnich can’t calm him down and whatever language he’s talking isn’t in our chatterers. He’s scared, though, worst I’ve ever seen.”

  As they stepped out into the open once more, Seg could see Tirnich grasping the boy’s torn coat to keep him from running.

  “He’s half dead, and his ankle looks busted from the fall. I found him trying to crawl out on his hands and knees. I know he’s from the Keep, because of the coat, but he doesn’t speak your language.” Tirnich spoke loudly, in order to be heard over the frantic mutterings of the young Etiphar.

  Wide-eyed, the boy turned to Seg, tears muddying his face as he pled and pointed.

  At the same moment, the auto-med on Seg’s arm chimed. He glanced at it long enough to determine it had recognized the venom and had a stock antivenin that it was busy injecting. Apparently he had an eighty-four percent chance of survival. Good odds.

  He looked back to the Etiphar. “The language is a blend. Older words and phrases my People don’t use anymore, mixed with what must be some native language. The Eaters, that’s probably a reference to our attackers. The Bloodarrows practiced cannibalism on their home world. It sounds as if they may have killed this boy’s friend. Hold on.”

  He pulled loose from Handlo and fell to his knees as his stomach emptied. He vomited the remnants of ration bars onto the rocks until there was nothing left, and rode out a wave of dry heaves. Finished, he wiped his mouth and accepted help from Handlo to stand again. “We need to move.” He gasped to catch his breath. “Now. We’re taking him with us. Slap on an auto-med for his pain and let’s go.”

  Tirnich nodded and tried to communicate to the boy through gestures. Understanding dawned, and their captive let Tirnich fix a cuff around his arm. “Didn’t know why he was out here, Theorist,” Tirnich said to Seg as he brought the machine online, “but as soon as I saw the fancy shoulder decorations were missing off his coat, I figured something was off. You said they were important.”

  “It was good work.” Seg glanced back at their prisoner. “This could change everything.”

  “You’re going to be okay now.” Tirnich attempted to assure the boy, who was not much younger than him. “Our camp’s safe.” He gestured to himself with his free hand. “I’m Tirnich, Tirnich Kundara. You got a name?”

  The boy nodded, eyes darting everywhere before he wheezed a reply. “Hephier Bendure.”

  Seg’s head whipped around at the name. “Bendure?”

  “That name mean something, Theorist?” Tirnich asked.

  “It did a century ago.”

  Inside the Field Headquarters, Ama and a small crowd watched Elarn tend to the Etiphar boy. An even larger crowd hovered just outside. The arrival of the prisoner had ignited a blaze of curiosity among the Kenda, despite Fismar’s best efforts to quell it.

  Elarn had set to work on his injuries right away but Seg had insisted on questioning the young man as he worked. Though she sympathized with the boy’s pain, Ama knew Seg wanted to dig out as much information as possible while the patient could still speak.

  “How many defenders? All men?”

  As Seg spoke, Elarn simmered with quiet disapproval and attached another lead to the young prisoner’s arm. Fismar watched impassively. Ama’s emotions, and Cerd’s, from what she could see, were far less subdued.

  “He’s just a boy,” Ama said under her breath. “Who throws a child out into the wasteland?”

  “Did my first Hard March out here when I was a bit younger’n him,” Fismar said.

  “That doesn’t make it right,” Ama said.

  The boy spoke softly to Seg, who had re-tuned his chatterer to compensate for the antique language of the Etiphars. Elarn reached in with a pair of tweezers and extracted a long string-like object from the boy’s back.

  Fismar winced at the sight. “He wouldn’t have made another day with the strings in him.”

  “Strings?” Ama asked.

  “Parasite. Sneaky one. It’s a kind of plant. Tasty plant, and for good reason. Something, human or animal, eats the plant, next day it’s got a garden growing out of its skin. Day after that? Dead. We call ’em p-strings.”

  “The plant didn’t cause all that other damage, though.” Cerd nodded to the old bruises and scars that were visible on the boy’s slender frame. “He’s been beaten.”

  “Fingers have all been broken,” Fismar said. “Right ankle was busted in the fall but he’s got a limp on the left, too. Old injury, you can tell by the way he’s adapted to it. Yeah, I’d say they weren’t handling him too kindly back there in the Keep.”

  “How many stand watch?” Seg asked Hephier, oblivious to the ongoing discussion.

  The boy replied in his own language, which no one but Seg could understand. He coughed as Elarn directed him to roll to his other side.

  “Theorist,” Elarn said, using the Kenda tongue so the boy couldn’t pick up a stray word, “I understand the need for intelligence, but the boy is riven clean through with p-strings and if you want him alive by tomorrow, I need to work on him.”

  Seg looked up at Elarn. “How long?”

  “Give me two hours to clean his system and pull the strings.”

  “Two hours.” Seg stood and dusted off his legs, as he turned toward the others. When he spoke, it was in Kenda. “We have them, we have the Etiphars.”

  He relayed a summary of what he had learned.

  “Sounds better’n I’d hoped,” Fismar said. “Though sixty-odd can still bottleneck the karg out of us if they get any time to put it together in there.”

  “What did he do?” Ama kept her voice to a respectful whisper. “What did that child do to deserve to be beaten and driven out of his home? Look at him. He’s younger than Tirnich and Slopper; he can’t be more than fourteen.”

  “He was male,” Seg said. “The Etiphar leaders have consolidated the women among the faithful. They drive out the competition as soon as the boys come of age. Useful for our purposes.”

  “Savages.” Cerd spat, then lifted his chin to glare in the direction of Julewa. “So how do we get in? And how soon?”

  “The Etiphars make offerings and exchange with the local stam, what we would call tribes or gangs,” Seg said. “So we exploit that habit. We slide the grabber in, and once the control signal goes positive—”

  “We go in,” Fismar concluded.

  “We go in. And, if he lives, we take young Hephier Bendure with us,” Seg
said.

  “Bendure?” Fismar looked past Seg, at the boy. “Seriously? Of course seriously. Damn.”

  “What does that mean?” Ama asked.

  “Devian Bendure, his ancestor, was a karging military genius,” Fismar said. “She’s the reason Julewa’s even an issue now. Everyone in the World coming after them, she’s the one who kept Etiphar’s Guard together long enough to get here. She got them set and dug in enough that they held out against a full wing assault. For what it matters,” he said, looking hard at the teenager, “kid’s got some impressive bloodlines.”

  “Given that they’ve fallen into gender polarity, I wonder if the Bendure bloodline is discredited because Devian was a woman?” Seg mused.

  “Sounds about stupid enough,” Fismar said.

  “Hopefully the ones we’re going after didn’t inherit their ancestors’ cunning and bravery,” Cerd said. “If they do this to their own spawn—” He gestured to Hephier, who was sinking into unconsciousness, thanks to Elarn. “—Nen only knows what they do to their enemies.”

  Fismar snorted. “Where do you think you are? Trust me, Mascom, you don’t want to get taken alive by anybody on this planet.” He pulled up a digipad and projected the image of Julewa. “Time to get to work. Elarn, can you get my chatterer tuned for the next questioning session?”

  Ama turned to watch the sleeping boy as Seg and the others conferred. What if they had not found him? The boy’s life, and possibly all their lives, could hang on that fateful meeting. Seg would dismiss the notion, but she couldn’t help feeling as if there was more at work here than chance. Just then, a quiet voice came from close behind.

  “Is he okay?” Tirnich said.

  “He will be now,” Ama said. “You saved his life.”

  “Just lucky.” Tirnich flashed the drexla tooth hanging from his neck. “Nen protects.”

  Ama’s eyes roamed to the waterless expanse. How could Nen exist here?

  Shan shifted to one side, as her left butt cheek numbed. She would be happy when her furniture no longer consisted of only rocks and dirt.

  Fismar, lit by the downcast glow of his lifted visor, finished his speech and the Outers chanted “Take theirs, make it ours” loud enough to stir a lurkiya out of hiding. Thank the Storm it was over.

  Shan stretched her arms over her head and tilted her head to crack her neck. There would be no sleep tonight.

  If Fis’s goal had been to get these savages ready to charge into battle, she had to admit he had succeeded brilliantly. The minute he had started in on how the Etis were treating their children—hoarding the young girls for breeding, physically abusing the boys and kicking them out as soon as they were old enough to be considered competition—the crowd had started frothing at the mouth. By the time he got to the part where the Etis would lock away the women and kids as soon as they were under attack, and then set a torch to them all if it looked like the Keep would fall, she seriously thought all fifty of them might go screaming off right then and attack the Keep on foot.

  The boss had been quiet. No surprise there. If she ever saw that man show an emotion she might faint from the shock. Even so, his plan was a good one. Two of the Outers, disguised as wasteland trash, would carry an offering to the Keep. According to what Eraranat had learned from the Bendure kid, this was the way you asked to trade with the Eti fanatics. If the Etis took the bait, they would unwittingly carry the grabber right into their home. After that, it was all a matter of locking them out of their own systems and getting these Outers in to clean house before the Eti men de-popped the women and kids. Or, worse, blew the Keep sky high.

  She elbowed Ama, whose eyes were on Eraranat.

  “Look sharp, copie, we’ve got a long night ahead,” Shan said.

  “I’m ready.” Ama made all the motions of paying attention but Shan was no idiot. The boss was headed back to Cathind, right into the rigla’s lair, first thing in the morning. Likely the last they’d see of him. He and Ama had been sneaking glances all night, every time one thought the other one wasn’t looking.

  The Outers were breaking off into groups according to their assigned tasks; it was time for her and Ama to do the same.

  “We got a list as long as my leg of things that need to be fixed on that beast, but this is all about priorities,” she said to Ama. “First, and most important, is the EW—the Electronic Warfare console. You’ll be monitoring that. When the grabber takes hold, it’ll shoot us a signal. Our cue to get airborne.”

  She rattled off a short but critical list of the systems they would need to double and triple check before morning. All the major repairs were done; the rest would have to wait.

  “As long as that rust bucket can take off, fly, shoot out the Eti guns to clear us a path to the landing pad, and land to dump off the meat, that’s as much as we need,” Shan said. She stood and stretched again. “Stuff like the enviro controls can wait until we’re all settled into our new home. Besides, your Outer pals are getting used to sweating, I think.”

  Ama nodded. Shan fought the urge to shake her.

  A shrill whistle made her turn her head. Viren the Big Mouth was sauntering in her direction.

  “Oh karg,” she muttered. “Time to get moving.”

  “My lady of the sky!” Big Mouth trilled as he jogged to her side. “The battle approaches!”

  “Thanks for stating the obvious.” Shan grabbed Ama’s arm to direct her to the rider and away from this pest.

  “You do realize, I may die tomorrow,” Big Mouth said.

  “Good.”

  “On my world, it’s a tradition to offer a warrior a farewell kiss,” Big Mouth said.

  “Go kiss a rigla.”

  “You can’t resist my charms forever!” He winked and headed back to his Outer crew with that obnoxious grin he was always flashing at her.

  “Watch me, pig,” Shan muttered. “Ugh, that brainless sack of meat. I hope he’s the first casualty.”

  “Viren’s not as bad as you think,” Ama said.

  “Yes, he is.”

  “On my world, he risked his life to save Seg, and he fought at the temple.”

  Shan twirled her finger in the air. “Someone give him a medal.”

  “And he was the only one, except me, who believed you would come back for us.” Ama stopped and, against her better judgement, Shan turned to face her. “Viren said you’d never back down from a challenge. Lieutenant Fismar wasn’t happy. I think he was ready to toss him out.”

  “Well …” Shan tried for a noncommittal shrug. “Even morons get it right sometimes. Now, come on.”

  They walked past Fismar’s second, Cerd, who was outlining a planned path through the Keep, to three of the squads. Something about that particular Outer always made her uneasy. But he hated Big Mouth as much as she did, which was a point in his favor.

  “I don’t envy the stompers, running right into the bowels of that old rock.” Shan jerked her chin toward Cerd and his squads. “Once we’ve cleared a path through the guns and settle on the pad, the hard part’s over for us. Definitely some perks to being a skyrider.”

  “What about the missiles?” Ama asked.

  About time she snapped out of it, Shan thought.

  “That’s part of what the grabber’s going to do for us—lock them out of their systems long enough for us to take out the defenses. We won’t have the time or the artillery to blast them all, but we can clear a path to the landing pad.”

  To the left, Elarn was crouched over his med kit with the one-armed Outer. They were laughing at some shared joke. Shan raised an eyebrow as Elarn laid a hand on the Outer’s shoulder. Fis had told her these backward Outers would cut off their own heads before they’d admit to being flip, but this one always lit up around Elarn in a way you’d have to be blind to miss.

  “Blood for water!”
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  Shan swung her head to the right. The kid, Tirnich, was huddled with his squad. Storm but he looked so young, and far too trusting. Him and the other skinny Outer kid had been tapped for delivering the grabber.

  “Nen protect, my brothers,” Ama said.

  Shan was about to shake her head—her tolerance limit for Outer nonsense was being sorely tested out here—but the younger kid, Slopper, was looking up at her with that goofy face of his all pleading and scared. Did he think she had some magic power to keep the Eti lunatics from disembowelling him if Eraranat’s little gift didn’t satisfy them?

  “Remember, don’t run in a straight line if they start shooting. Harder to hit you if your movements are unpredictable,” Shan said. Now there was some useful advice. A damn sight better than all this god babble.

  There was a long silence before Tirnich said thanks and the Outers went back to talking.

  The rider was dark. Out here, they couldn’t waste power or risk being spotted. Shan climbed the ramp to enter, reciting specs for the EW console for Ama, as she powered up the board. When she turned, she expected to find her co-pilot at her elbow, hovering too close, the way she always did. Instead, she saw Ama standing at the base of the ramp, staring toward the field headquarters where the boss and Fis were squaring up the final details.

  This wasn’t the time for this shit. After they had the Keep, and the boss was back from Cathind, then—

  “Karg.” Shan tromped back down the ramp. “Go! I can start the EW systems check without you.”

  Ama turned to face her, eyes overflowing with emotion. Shan wasn’t sure if she pitied or envied the girl. Maybe both.

  “Just make it quick, okay?”

  Ama jogged off.

  “Well …” Shan looked around the empty rider, “looks like it’s just you and me, Defiant.”

  Seg entered the command tent and looked over his shoulder to make sure that no one was within earshot before he spoke. Since he and Ama had been reunited with his lieutenant and the Kenda guard, every day had been consumed with planning or survival. Now that the plans were in place, the battle imminent, there was a discussion that required attention.