She walked up the trail, probed a body, and motioned to the others to follow. Five bodies, five laser rifles, which they picked up. Shit! Laser weapons, and here I thought we could intimidate them. The rifle fire from the village was now scattered, and deliberate. Krisha made a hand signal and they moved around the bend of the trail.
They found Vilos Compagno there, lying on his face, dead, two laser burns in the middle of his back. Ahead of them another body sprawled in the trail. No robe. Krisha took a deep breath, heart pounding from fear of whom it might be. They moved ahead.
It was Takey Xu, wounds burned black in hip and lower back. He groaned. “He’s alive,” said Krisha. “Turn him over, carefully.” An exit would through his stomach was huge, boiled intestines protruding from it. She shook her head at the others. “We’ll come back for him. Move out.”
“We can’t leave him here!” said a young marine.
“I said move out, mister,” and they followed her obediently while she thought; What if it had been Kari? Would I have left her behind like that? Could I have done it? But Kari was somewhere ahead, so were Mike and Osen. The others were safe for now if Nik didn’t blow them away when they got to the camp.
The village came into view, doors of the obelisk obliterated and smoking, sporadic tracers still raking the interior. Krisha dug out her radio. “Tango, this is Elg. Cease fire, but cover us. We’re moving in.”
“Affirmative, Captain,” said Tango. “There are still people in the obelisk, all with laser weapons, but we shot down a bunch of them.”
“We’ll dig ‘em out,” said Krisha. She snapped instructions and led her marines in a crouch to the village square where they fanned out, sprinted past the amphitheatre to the obelisk and knelt at both sides of the open doorway. “You in there!” she shouted. “I’ll give you one minute to come out with your weapons over your heads, and then we’re blowing this place to pieces! Let’s hear you!”
The reply was immediate; “We’re coming out! Don’t shoot!” Eight men filed out of the obelisk, laser rifles held loosely above their heads.
“Move over here and drop the rifles. Hands on top of your heads. Anyone left in there?”
“Only our dead,” said a young man.
“Yeah?” Krisha looked at the marine opposite her by the door. “Toss me a grenade.” He tossed it underhand to her; she tapped its base on the wall. Seven seconds. “Anyone still in there? Kari, you in there?”
No answer. Four seconds—three—two—
She flipped the grenade backhand into the darkness beyond the doorway.
The explosion was deafening, a cloud of burned wood and rock belching forth. “Inside!” she screamed and they charged inside to find broken, bloody bodies in the entrance and along the hall. “You,” she said, pointing to one marine, “stay with the prisoners. The rest of you scatter and search.”
They searched the obelisk from top to bottom: living quarters, an elevator powered by huge batteries in a basement, a place like a church, hidden rooms empty behind it, a storage bay with tracks leading outside through a huge door and down to a beach, two musty rooms on a third floor where they found a few books and then returned to meet Krisha at the front entrance. “That’s it? That’s all you found?” she said.
The marines nodded, but then there was a shout from the church area, and they rushed inside again. A marine was at the altar, fumbling in a tray he’d placed there. “Medical stuff,” he said, “just below the altar here. Some tools, a syringe. What’s this?” He held up a vial filled with clear liquid. Two lumps of dark gray matter glistened there. The marine looked closely. “Ugh,” he said, wrinkling his nose. “Looks decayed.”
“Wrap it all up and put it in your bag. The books, too. What’s the console for?”
“I tried it, but it has to be unlocked with a key, on the right, there.”
“That’s enough for now. I want to chat with the prisoners.”
They went outside and found the prisoners sullenly sitting on the ground, hands on heads. She went to the oldest, meanest looking one in the group and stood before him, the muzzle of her rifle inches from his nose. “Get up,” she ordered and he did it, smirking at her.
“Three of our people are missing. Where are they?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said the man, his smirk fading as he looked into her eyes.
“That is the wrong answer, sir. Two men and a woman; where—are—they?”
The man shook his head, mouth closed tightly. “Take this,” said Krisha. She handed her rifle to a marine, took out her handgun and released the safety.
“Captain, the prisoners are unarmed. You can’t—”
“I’m not going to kill him, private.”
Krisha aimed her pistol deliberately, and shot the prisoner in the left knee.
He screamed and dropped to the ground writhing as she bent over him. “Just to clarify your situation, I am not a nice person. I will ask you one more time; where are—?”
“I saw the woman!” screamed another prisoner, a young boy obviously terrified by what he’d just seen.
“Shut up,” said another.
“No—no, they’ll kill us! I saw the woman! Jezrul carried her out back; they took the airboat to the island, to Toth.”
“Was she alive?”
“Yes,” said the boy. “They took her to Toth. I saw no others, only the woman. This is the truth, I swear!”
“Maybe. I want a house-to-house search, two to a house. Do it now.” She pointed at a marine, then another. “You get this guy’s knee cauterized and wrapped. You watch the prisoners. I’m checking the beach.”
The marines scattered to the homes, herding frightened people outside. One house was empty, a family missing. Krisha went to a neighbor of the house, a woman who clung fearfully to her husband. “Where are the people who live next door?”
“I don’t know. Leader Queal was with them earlier. Please, we want to go to Toth’s house. Our sons are there.”
“Later, when we’re ready to leave. Your sons attacked us without provocation. Some of them are dead, the rest are our prisoners. We’re taking them to our camp until this whole mess is sorted out.”
The woman burst into tears as Krisha walked away. We’ve shot up their village and killed their sons. I’d cry too. But we didn’t start this, lady. She went down to the beach, saw the guard lying there, throat gaping. He had no weapon, and a depression in the sand showed one boat missing. She looked out to sea, several boats anchored close. There was a conspicuous gap between two of them. Mike never sailed in his life, but he just might have done it. There was mist out to sea, stars twinkling overhead. She looked at her watch in penlight, and it was ten-forty-two. The next flyover was at eleven-thirty, and she had narrowly missed an opportunity to contact Mootry. What will he say when I tell him we had to kill people? Did we provoke them? She thought about regulations, survey ships authorized to intervene in cases where a colony had gone in directions not defined by the Rubion Federation. They were, in effect, a police force. Did Mike make that clear to the villagers? And did Mootry make it clear to the assholes on Brown’s Planet when their retrofit was put off until after this landing?
She turned from the sea and walked back to the village. The people had assembled in the amphitheatre there, surrounded by marines. She walked to the podium at the center, looked out at their faces, some angry, some weeping.
“A terrible thing has happened here tonight, but you need to understand that we were defending ourselves and the people who were your guests. At least one of our people is now dead, two are missing and one, a woman, has been taken by force to an island out to sea. We came here with good intentions, and have done nothing to provoke such hostility, but you have given it to us and we have responded in kind. I assume no guilt for that. You are a colony of the Rubion Federation, established by contract, and that contract does not include the right to kill federation representatives.”
“We had nothing to do with that,”
said a woman.
“I intend to find out who did. Until then, some of my people will be kept here to watch you. They will not interfere in your normal, everyday lives, but further hostile actions will not be tolerated. Our prisoners go with us to our camp, and they’ll be well cared for. When we leave depends on when we get our people back safely and how soon we can resolve the mess this colony has apparently become. Any questions?”
“May we bury our dead?” said a man.
“Yes. I will need a list of their names.”
“We bury our dead at sea, it is our tradition.”
“You’ll have to bury them on land until everything is settled here, at least for the next couple of days. By normal, everyday life I mean life in the village. For the next two days I want no fishing, no gathering of food. You have more than enough food in your homes. For the next two days and hopefully no more, everyone remains in the village at all times. Any other questions?”
“You have no right to do what you’ve done. Toth will punish you for this,” said a man.
“Then he’d better be a quicker shot than I am,” growled Krisha, and she stomped out of the amphitheatre to bark more orders. Two marines were assigned to village duty; two others to retrieve Takey and speed him back to camp. She ordered the prisoners to carry their wounded comrade, and then marched them out of the village without looking back. The going was slow, penlights waving to keep the trail in sight and they stopped at the cliff. Krisha again checked her watch. It was only a few minutes to flyover. She opened a channel on her radio: “Nik, it’s Krisha. Come in.”
No answer and she cursed silently. They moved out, picked up Vilos’ body, and walked hard until they saw the lights of the camp perimeter. Krisha stopped, the rest moving on. “Nik, come in. It’s Krisha.”
“Got you, Captain. Some tired, scared people here, but they’re okay.”
“We’re coming in with prisoners, Nik, and patch me through to the ship. It should be coming over now.”
“You’ve got it in ten seconds on one-zero-four.”
She counted to fifteen. “Belsus, this is Captain Elg, reporting to the Colonel, please. Over.”
No answer. She called again, looked up at the sky. The stars were still and quiet. Five times she called, and nothing came back. By now they’d be out of contact again. Where was the ship? WHERE WAS THE FUCKING SHIP? She pocketed the radio and hurried to join the others as they reached the camp perimeter.
A small crowd was waiting for them, tired-looking people eating a quick meal. They were cold and shivering, more likely from shock than the night air. They stared silently as Krisha sat her prisoners down in a cluster by the huts and posted a guard over them. Nik came up to her. “More guests, I see. Where do we put them?”
“Where the front-loader is, I guess. It won’t hurt the machine to sit outside a couple of nights. I couldn’t get Mootry just now. What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know. Not even a click or a buzz. He just wasn’t there.”
“I was watching the sky, and the ship didn’t come over.”
“He must have changed orbit, Captain. We were expecting that. I’ll stay on the radio and get to you when he comes in.”
“How’s Takey?”
Nik shook his head. “Dead on arrival, Captain. He didn’t have a chance; his insides were boiled out. Is that Vilas’s body you brought back?”
“Yeah.” Krisha wiped her forehead. Quite suddenly her legs were shaky. Two dead, three missing, one of them the Major, another who was central to her life.
“Want a burial detail?”
“No. Bag ’em overnight. Hopefully, a flyer will be down here pretty soon.” Nik raised an eyebrow at her. Something has happened to the ship. There might not be any flyer coming for us—ever.
Krisha briefed Nik on the action in the village, Kari’s predicament, and her suspicion that Mike and Osen had somehow escaped to sea. As she talked, it seemed as if all her energy was draining through her feet and into the ground. Her knees began shaking and she passed a hand across her face.
“Pardon me, Captain,” said Nik, “but you don’t look so good.”
“Don’t feel so good either. Get the others to bed, will you? Tell them I’ll want a briefing tomorrow morning on what happened in the village. And stay on that radio. Right now, I’ve got to flop.”
“I’ll handle it,” said Nik. “See you in the morning.”
Krisha went to the hut she’d shared with Kari only nights before and crawled inside. Kari’s perfume still lingered there and as she smelled it Krisha felt the sting of salty tears in her eyes. Sitting down on the cot, her legs weren’t shaking anymore and she cleaned her rifle, the sharp odor of powder solvent masking Kari’s scent. The faces of the villagers still haunted her: expressions of anger, sorrow, and resignation. She was an invader, a murderer of their sons, a destroyer. She had gone in to save the team and now at least two of them were dead. Three were missing, the ship missing, eight prisoners to guard, and a powerful enemy somewhere out to sea.
She stripped off her clothes, lay down naked on the cot and sighed. In the dim light of her lamp she saw a rumpled pile of underclothes tossed carelessly to the end of the hut. Kari’s, from the night before she’d left for the village: bra, panties and tee shirt. She reached over and picked them up; put them under her hard pillow beneath her cheek. Her lover’s scent was there again and she closed her eyes to squeeze out the tears, biting her lip and crying soundlessly into the pillow. And as the blessing of sleep began to descend on her she mumbled a promise to herself and to another:
“Oh, Kari, I’m coming for you. I’m coming for you, baby.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Michael stood at the bow of the boat and stared morosely at pinpoints of light scattered atop the black silhouette of land four kilometers north of him. He searched it with Osen’s night glasses, but saw no signs of movement and didn’t want to chance using the radio until certain it was safe to do so. Osen stood next to him and yawned. Neither of them had had any sleep that night. Davos was at the tiller; his women huddled at one railing, dozing, Gini held her son to her chest. Nimri sat with his father, staff ready in case they encountered a Charni, which they had not. It had been a quiet, slow trip after they’d seen the blaze of light when Belsus was hit. Michael dared to hope the ship had somehow survived, but at the time of each successive flyover in a clear sky no moving star had appeared above them. The ship was simply gone, but even that observation gave him reason for hope. If Belsus were destroyed or crippled it would surely remain in the orbit it had occupied when attacked. Had Mootry powered out, then? Was he in fact hidden in some geosynchronous orbit at this very moment? Whatever the situation, there was no radio contact to be had and without that no pilot crazy enough to fly in for a pickup. They would wait, but for how long? Kari was gone, perhaps on that airboat they’d seen, maybe dead in the obelisk. There had been screams during the firefight. His own people?
Too much speculation. Michael sighed and left Osen behind to walk the length of the boat to where Davos and Nimri had been quietly talking to each other. “How long before we reach shore?”
“An hour, maybe two,” said Davos. “The morning wind will come soon.”
“No hurry. I want to be sure my people are there before we go charging in. I’ve had enough surprises.” He looked down at Nimri, whose eyes were averting his. “One surprise was your son, here, helping us. Why did you do that, Counselor, I thought you were a sworn servant of Toth?”
“I am,” said Nimri, looking starboard to the sea.
Michael chuckled. “Perhaps you can explain that to me. You might be the only counselor left alive right now.”
Nimri smiled. “Oh, I’m sure Jezrul has seen to his own safety, and it was he who ordered your capture.”
“Not Diego?”
“He was confined to his room when I arrived. Jezrul said Lord Toth had ordered him to take control and seize our visitors, that Diego was too weak to do it. He said if we didn’t, y
our military was about to attack the village with heavy firepower from your ship. All the others believed him. I did not.”
“Why not?” said Michael.
“He ordered us to kill you if you resisted. Lord Toth would never give such an order. It’s forbidden by The Law to kill another human being for any reason, even in defense of your own life.”
Davos made a rude sound. “You still think Lebyn’s death was an accident?”
“No, father, I do not. It was Jezrul, acting on his own. For two years he’s been talking secretly against Diego, claiming himself favored by Toth with private audiences preparing him to seize power, and that Diego had grown weak and indecisive. A strong leader was needed in an hour of great danger, he said, and Toth has put him in charge. Jezrul is a brute. He always was, even as a boy. Toth would never trust him with such power.”
“Yet the others believed him and you didn’t?”
“He worked on all of us, and Diego was weak. Your arrival sent him into despair. He’d become reclusive. The only times the people saw him were on Toth’s Day. The Chosen were missing services, and he did nothing. That was when Jezrul first took charge. He wielded his staff, and the sanctuary was full again for His Day. I respected that. We all respected that. We were trained to uphold The Law. But The Law does not include killing, and Toth must be warned.”
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