by Sara King
Lavik grinned at the top of his assassin’s Takki-patterned head. He enjoyed provoking the Huouyt—it had been one of his only amusements the last few weeks. “I thought the Congressional Prisoner Act allowed its soldiers to give their names to the enemy.”
“This one refuses. He spits at my questions, regardless of what drugs I use on him.”
“Interesting. The drugs have no effect?”
“He can nullify them, sire.”
This gave Lavik pause. He had heard of such things before, but if it were true, it would mean their guest had once walked the halls of Va’ga. A cold itch began to snake under his scales as he watched the prisoner, who had gone silent to listen to their conversation. One eye the normal blue-white, the other purple. Lavik had heard of something like this before. “Is it possible he’s faking it?”
“No, sire.”
“But you drugged him once.”
“I surprised him and used a dose that would kill a hundred Jikaln to incapacitate him. He’s got a strong resistance, probably somehow linked to his…deformity.” His assassin’s distaste was clear. “However, the dosages I’m giving to him—he’s got to be nullifying them.”
“He could be Va’ga-trained,” Lavik noted. “Their resistance is quite high, I’ve been told.”
The Huouyt made a derisive sound. “Not hardly. Not with his...disgusting appearance. Va’ga would not let his filthy body pass its gates. Congress must have simply inoculated him with antidotes to my drugs. I’ll have to resort to alternative methods to extract the information we require.”
“No torture.”
“Sire, he will not answer my questions…”
“Then you weren’t asking the right questions.” Lavik strode to where the prisoner lay, scattering his Takki guards. The enemy stared up at him with two different-colored eyes. Interesting. Lavik had never seen such a thing before, and yet it was still tickling some buried memory.
“I’ll make you a deal, Huouyt.”
“I do not deal with Dhasha slime,” the prisoner retorted.
Lavik laughed. “Oh, that’s a pity. You would’ve liked this one. You see, I was about to offer to tell you whatever you want to know about your situation. I know you crave to know who betrayed you. You want to know how many Dhasha I’ve got with me, how many tunnels are blocked off. I’ll tell you.”
The Huouyt’s purple eye became suddenly alert. He obviously still thought he had a chance of escape. “And what do you want in return?”
Lavik sighed. “I want to know who’s winning.”
“We are,” the Huouyt said automatically.
Lavik sank to the ground before the Huouyt. “You and I need to come to an understanding. I’m not letting you escape, Huouyt. Not while I’m alive, anyway. Further, the only way you’ll continue to live is if you answer my questions. I won’t torture you, won’t force your responses in any way. If you fail to engage me sufficiently, I’ll just kill you.”
“Then kill me.”
It actually sounded as if the Huouyt was serious. Lavik laughed. “Have you already forgotten the deal I offered you, Huouyt? You have a chance to gather the intelligence that could possibly give you the edge you need to escape. For every question you answer of mine, I will answer one of yours. Simple enough?”
“Who gets the first question?” the Huouyt asked warily.
Lavik laughed. “Oh, I am not that foolish. I’m the host. I do.”
“And how do I know you’ll tell the truth in return?”
“I will.”
The Huouyt eyed him a moment, then said, “Ask.”
“Who’s winning?” Lavik asked.
“You are.”
Lavik found himself liking this creature. “Let’s try this again. Who’s winning?”
The Huouyt watched him keenly before he said, “I don’t know. In the first wave, you lost twenty-two princes. We lost all but two thousand groundteams. We can wear you down, but you’ll probably work your way through Planetary Ops before you fall.”
“Ah,” Lavik said. “Then you don’t know the Vahlin. Go ahead and ask, Huouyt.”
Immediately, the Huouyt’s mismatched eyes flickered to Lavik’s subordinate. “Where’d that spineless traitor come from?”
“A gift from the Vahlin,” Lavik said. “He told me I’d need one to defeat your team.”
The Huouyt scanned Lavik’s face fearlessly, a look dangerously close to ka-par, then nodded. “Ask.”
“What’s been said in the Regency about using an ekhta?”
“They refused the Ground Force’s request to use it,” the Huouyt said. “The politicians are squabbling over who gets Neskfaat when we rid it of Dhasha, and there’s talk the Vahlin will destroy more planets post-mortem if we bomb you.”
Lavik grinned. “As he will.”
The Huouyt watched him in silence, weighing his reply. Then, softly, he said, “How does the Vahlin know where and when we’ll arrive?”
“Do you know of the Fourfold Prophecy, Huouyt?”
Anger flashed in the Huouyt’s face. “If this is a way to distract me—”
“The Fourfold Prophecy predicts a race will one day rise up against Congress and win its independence. Lesser-known is that the Prophecy also predicts that the leader of this race will have the powers unto a god. The Vahlin is that leader.”
The Huouyt’s face remained unreadable. “You believe the Vahlin is a god.”
“He is,” Lavik agreed. “How else could we have known your leader would change your drop coordinates at the last tic?”
“Our leader betrayed us,” the prisoner said immediately.
“Ease your mind, Huouyt,” Lavik assured his guest. “Your leader is just as oblivious as you were. You can’t do battle with a creature that can see the future.”
“So the Vahlin is using a Trith.”
Lavik laughed. “You get ahead of yourself.”
The Huouyt watched him, then nodded.
“I’m told this is your third time down a den. Did you kill the princes, or was it another of your team?”
“I killed one of them.”
“How?”
“Is the Vahlin using a Trith?”
“No. How did you kill the prince?”
“Poison. A lethal dose of ooma secretions.”
“You carried it with you or made it yourself?”
“When was the last time you spoke with the Vahlin?”
Lavik found himself growing irritated. “What do you care of the Vahlin? You’re going to die here, Huouyt. You should be asking of your companions’ fates, your means of escape, the strength of my forces.”
“Answer me or the game ends.”
“Ten days.”
“I made the poison myself.”
“I’m told that’s impossible.”
“How did the Vahlin originally contact you?”
Lavik peered at the Huouyt, not liking the way he was fixated on the Vahlin. He had thought the creature would ask about the tunnels, solidify his situation in his mind. Instead, he was interrogating him on subjects he had no right knowing.
But the creature was never going to leave the tunnels alive, and Lavik was bored out of his mind with waiting. If nothing else, he could simply kill him as soon as he had learned what he wanted to know.
“The Vahlin contacted me via courier. Gave me predictions and told me to watch the news. Once he’d convinced me, he sent another message summoning me to Neskfaat.”
“So you’ve never seen the Vahlin?”
“How did you create that poison, Huouyt?”
“I’m Va’ga-trained. Top graduate of my class. I can use my body chemistry to reproduce two thousand six hundred and thirty-seven different chemicals with effects varying from lethal seizures to a mild a muscle relaxant.”
Lavik felt his scales tighten against his chest and he had to resist the urge to pull his legs away from the assassin.
Beside him, his servant snapped, “You’re Va’ga-trained? You lie. They don’t
waste their time with the deformed. What’s your name?”
“Leave,” Lavik said quietly. “Go monitor their progress.”
“But I should not return to his group without at least knowing his name—”
“Leave!”
His servant did.
“So you’ve never seen the Vahlin?” the Huouyt repeated.
Lavik got to his feet. “The game is over, Huouyt. Make peace with yourself.” He lifted a paw to slice him in half.
“Before you kill me, I have one more question,” the Huouyt said, his multi-colored eyes showing no fear. “After all, it is my turn.”
Lavik gave an irritated flick of his claws. “What difference does it make? You’ll only take the information to the grave with you.”
“This is a desperate attempt to delay my death as long as possible because I fear the consequences of my actions in the afterlife.”
Lavik laughed, despite himself. “We both know that’s not true.”
“Nevertheless, I have a question.”
“Very well. Ask.”
“Do you realize you’re being used?”
#
“This is turning into a Takkiscrew.” Joe concentrated on his anger to keep thoughts of the tunnels at bay. “Where the soot did they all go? It’s like they’ve got burning Houdini working for them.”
“We’re still alive,” the Grekkon noted. “That is a good sign.”
“Jer’ait could be rotting in a slave tunnel for all we know,” Joe replied. “Goddamn this soot. We haven’t seen a Takki for three hours. It’s like they know exactly where we are.”
“What if they do?” the Jreet asked.
“Then we’re well and truly charred.”
No one felt like adding to that.
“All right,” Joe said after another twenty tics passed without a single victim for their trap, “Let’s assume they know where we are. How’d they figure it out?”
“They got Jer’ait,” Galek said softly.
“Jer’ait’s got no idea where we are,” Joe said. “He took off without us, the cowboy sootbag.” He was still pissed at that, and would be having a polite conversation with his Second about it just as soon as they got back to the barracks. A polite conversation probably involving a plasma pistol and pruning shears.
“Say they found him and interrogated him,” Daviin said. “If they’ve got a detailed map of their tunnel systems, they could probably pinpoint the most logical route we’d take to get to the deep den.”
Joe thought on that a moment. “So you’re saying we’ve gotta do something illogical?”
“We need to take a path we wouldn’t normally take.”
“While sticking to the slave tunnels,” the Grekkon added. “If we don’t, and you’re correct, as soon as we leave the slave tunnels, the Dhasha will ambush us.”
Joe rubbed his clenched fist against his knee. “Okay. Galek, you lead. Find us a tunnel that you wouldn’t normally take that connects to a main passage. Doesn’t necessarily have to lead to the deep den. I want to test a theory.”
Galek took the lead, unhesitatingly leading them through a maze of slave tunnels until they crouched at the entrance to a main hallway, this one large enough to fit three Dhasha abreast.
They waited three hours and saw nothing.
Joe’s mood deteriorated as the time passed without seeing a single enemy. Finally, Joe said, “So they know where we are. And it’s not Jer’ait.”
“They knew where we would land,” the Ooreiki reminded them. “Maybe the Trith are still helping them.”
“Shut up about the Trith,” Joe snapped. “They don’t help anyone.”
“What are Trith?” Daviin asked.
“Never mind. Bones.” Joe considered their options. Their presence had been compromised, and right now, the only thing keeping them from getting their asses handed to them was the fact they had millions of lobes of dirt squeezing them in on all sides, making it impossible for the Dhasha to reach them.
“I could go in alone,” Daviin suggested. “My energy level raised.”
“You’d have no protection if you ran into more than one,” Joe replied.
“We’d have a better chance of succeeding if we split up,” Daviin insisted.
“We’d have a better chance of dying if we split up.” Joe took a deep breath, eying the tunnel. “It’s either—”
“Something’s coming!” Galek interrupted. “Behind us!”
Joe twisted around and brought up his weapon to face the tiny crevice that he had somehow managed to crawl through three hours earlier. He saw nothing. “Where?”
“Getting closer,” Galek said.
“I can hear it,” Daviin said after a moment. “It’s a Takki. I can hear its scales grinding against the stone.”
“Damn it,” Joe said, “What if it’s Jer’ait?”
“If it’s not, and you don’t shoot it, it can run to alert the others,” Daviin said.
“The others already know we’re here. You just proved it,” the Grekkon reminded them.
At that moment, a Takki’s head popped into Joe’s field of view and Joe got an immediate rush of goosebumps. Holding his gun trained on the Takki’s face, he growled, “Name yourself, sootwad!”
“Shoot me, and you’ll have to carry my remains back to Va’ga yourself, Human.”
Joe frowned at the Huouyt. “What the hell are you doing? I told you to burning stay with us!”
“I did some scouting. There’s a good access point behind me. Slave tunnels all the way to the deep den. Low head count. That whole section of the den is deserted. Prince is all alone.”
Joe glanced at the others behind him, then said, “Okay, let’s go.”
The Huouyt led them back through the tunnels, taking tunnel after tunnel with confidence.
At his last choice, Galek suddenly grabbed Joe’s ankle and held on.
“What the…?” Joe turned, frowning.
The Ooreiki was peering past him, at the Huouyt. He cleared his throat, glanced at Joe, then loudly said to Jer’ait, “Are you sure this is the right way?”
The Huouyt gave the Ooreiki an irritated look. “Of course. I memorized the route.”
“He’s wrong,” Galek told them. “Joe, he’s about to lead us into the biggest tunnel I’ve ever seen.”
Joe frowned back at the Ooreiki. “You haven’t seen it.”
“I can feel it. It’s huge.”
Joe peered at Galek. “You feel it? Is that some kind of joke?”
“What’s going on?” the Huouyt demanded sharply.
“Listen to him,” Flea insisted. “He can cheat at dice.”
“And you’re absolutely positive we’re about to get dumped into a huge tunnel?”
“Yes,” the Ooreiki said.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes!” Galek said, frustration and anger edging his thoughts.
Joe considered that. Then, “Dor’iet,” Joe called, watching the Ooreiki’s face closely, “You’re sure you didn’t take a wrong turn somewhere?”
Even as the Ooreiki was frowning, the Huouyt snapped, “I’m sure. I’m not a furg.”
Joe turned. “Yes. You are.” He raised his gun and fired.
#
They sat in a circle staring at the body the Ooreiki had dragged back through the tunnels with them. No one spoke. Behind them, the Grekkon had sunk itself into the wall and was guarding the only entrance to the tunnel it had made.
“Since when did they start using Huouyt?” Daviin finally said into the silence. “Dhasha hate the Huouyt. They hate them almost as much as they hate Jreet.”
The corpse remained in the form of a Takki, except with a large portion of its chest exposed to air where Daviin had ripped it open posthumously. It had no chip. It did, however, have zora. The only thing that remained of a Huouyt after taking a pattern.
Joe turned on his PPU and did a search for Jer’ait’s chip, but he found nothing. Even dead, it would have showed up on the screen.
The enemy had shorted it somehow.
“Dhasha wouldn’t use a Huouyt,” Joe muttered, but he wasn’t sure. He stared down at the dead alien. Had it been Jer’ait, who simply hadn’t been quick enough to catch his slip? Had Joe killed their groundmate because his claustrophobia had made him trigger-happy?
“So this means Jer’ait is dead?” Galek asked.
Grimly, Daviin said, “We haven’t heard from him since the surface, so I’d say that’s a safe assumption.”
“This still doesn’t explain why they know where we are,” Flea said.
“They tagged us,” Joe said simply. “Somewhere, the bastards tagged us.”
“I thought Dhasha didn’t use tags,” Galek whispered.
“They do now. Goddamn it. We’ll never find the thing.”
“He tagged me,” Daviin said. “I was the only one who had contact with him.”
“Great,” Joe said. “So we’ve got sixty digs of scales to pry up looking for it. And that’s if he only planted one. If he were smart, he would’ve planted one on all of us before he took off.”
“If he were smart,” Daviin said grimly, “He would’ve learned Jer’ait’s name before he killed him.”
“Va’ga-trained have a high tolerance to drugs,” Joe said. “They only have a very small window between ineffectual and lethal, and it’s likely this sooter had no idea where that window was.”
“So we can assume Jer’ait told them nothing,” Daviin said. “Because, if I understand correctly, it’s legal for a Congressional soldier to give his name once he is captured.”
“It’s legal,” Joe agreed. “But Jer’ait probably knew the vaghi would use it against us.”
“Would that matter to a Huouyt?” Daviin demanded.
“Yes, you furgling Jreet,” Flea said. “We’re his groundmates.”
Daviin swiveled to face the Baga. “A Huouyt wouldn’t care if we all died down here. He might even give his name away on purpose, so that we all would die down here, if he knows his own death is coming.”
“Jer’ait’s different,” Flea said. “He didn’t give his name away. That proves it.”
“You’re a fool, Baga,” the Jreet laughed, and for a moment Joe had the feeling the delicate camaraderie they had developed was going to regress back to the dangerous, rival bickering he had first seen as their commander.