Ashes of Freedom

by K. J. Coble

  Like the being that wielded it.

  Vorsh finished and returned the stone to its pouch. He switched the weapon to his right hand with a flourish and twirled it through his fingers. The steel caught ghostly flicks of greenish light off the glow strips as it cut the air.

  Vorsh switched back to his left, the dagger’s motion never interrupted. The cavern offered little room for the full sequence of strokes from the old ritual. Vorsh was forced to end the exercise early with a cut that left him in the strike position again.

  The point now aimed at the offworlder.

  Vorsh studied the human, sought some sign of what lay within his head. Humankind had the annoying tendency to wear their emotions openly, the air thick with their pheromones, their damp heat and their insecurity. This Crozier felt straight and even, tempered with a taste of rage and a hint of something suppressed, of some hidden secret.

  The Shmali wondered if the human sensed his secret. The blade itched in his hand.

  Sin made a habit of following the sinner. Vorsh believed in no God or Higher Power but he’d survived long enough on enough worlds to understand that the Universe had an undertow, a current of energy. Death and violence, courage and cowardice marked a being, changed them—stained them. Like a birthmark or a mutation. Sin, too, had its stigmata.

  Vorsh had many sins.

  He began to hone the blade again, finding some before unseen nick. Each stroke over the stone brought increased energy. Vorsh should sleep but his eyes remained on Crozier, the secret agent and the advisor...

  And what else?

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Sleep for a Korvan was a precise thing, an event controlled along pre-programmed parameters. Dreams, too, were measured occurrences. Nightmares said much about a being, their content, and the subject’s response to them. The subconscious was often a more intense field for study by the Omniptorate—the analysts of Behavioral Tolerances—than the conscious mind.

  HaustColonel Zarven always had the same nightmare.

  The memory was seven Terran years old. Zarven had been a junior officer at the time, only weeks after his Ascendance to Haust and still twenty months from recruitment into the Omniptorate. Young, but already experienced enough to recognize the stain of reality spreading through the purity of childhood Korvan ideals.

  He found himself, once more, in the sewers beneath the slagged, murdered capitol of Tsing, wading through thigh-deep oily filth with the miasma of feces and death pressing in upon him. Scarce light had compelled him to switch to infrared, the cylindrical sewer walls springing into cool blue detail. An occasional orange-red highlight flicked into view, foot-sized, spider-like creatures that occupied the ecological niche filled by rodents on other worlds.

  Worm holdouts had been creeping up out of the ancient aqueducts to strike Korvan supply lines in this sector. Fighting in the blasted streets had proved Zarven to be something of the predator, even then. This aptitude had gotten him “volunteered” to lead one of the hunter-killer teams sent down to snuff the worms out.

  Zarven had divided his team by twos and spread them through the network of conduits in the area. The Awareness and onboard AI meant no Korvan would be out of communication or get lost. In the endless, stinking dark, though, Zarven had quickly lost sense of distance and time.

  He didn’t see the false door, at first. His companion, the platoon Senior Fanrohaust halted and indicated a slab of concrete to their right with a terse thought across the Awareness. Zarven noticed the faint red glow bleeding from beneath the otherwise cold surface.

  The two flanked the door, Zarven feeling his genitals climb up in animal reflex. He shivered in the sludgy damp as the Senior Fanrohaust produced a grenade and signaled his readiness. Zarven’s pulse slammed in his neck. His body flushed with adrenaline and synthetic endorphins from battle implants.

  He gripped the edge of the slab and jerked it free with the artificial strength roaring in his veins. The crash of falling concrete hadn’t subsided before the Fanrohaust tossed the grenade through. Its sharp detonation shook mortar free and sent bits of shrapnel cracking off rounded sewer walls.

  Zarven charged through settling dust. Something lunged for him from a corner. He clearly picked out tattered details of a barely teenage female with a short sword—katana, a part of him remembered—before cyan blasts spun her into flaming tatters.

  It was over in a second.

  Zarven and the Senior Fanrohaust stood in smoldering silence. The holdout lair was a cramped side conduit, filled with piles of canned food and scattered weapons. The brief exchange had claimed four worms. A sound came from the rear of the chamber, beyond a ragged, still smoking curtain. Agonized breaths, whimpers—a fifth worm, clearly wounded.

  The two Korvans swept through the curtain and into the next chamber with weapons ready.

  And froze.

  A worm female knelt on a rug with the stained remnants of an officer’s tunic drawn back from her naked chest. Her black eyes were wide with pain and panic. Caked strands of hair ran wild about a gaunt face. A trickle of blood and spittle leaked from the corner of her mouth.

  Zarven’s eyes went to her bare abdomen and the blade of the knife sliced halfway across it as trembling hands struggled vainly with the handle to finish the cut. Blood had pooled in the folds of her pants and about her knees. She tensed, grunted as she tried to find the strength to continue. Her lips mouthed silent words.

  “Worm bitch is trying to do herself,” the Senior Fanrohaust said. Zarven felt his excitement filling the Awareness, eclipsing the fear-thrill of before. He stepped around behind her cautiously.

  “I know what she’s doing,” Zarven said, his eyes on the Fanrohaust rather than the worm. “Ritual suicide. This particular worm culture believes death removes dishonor.”

  The Fanrohaust knelt at the worm’s shoulder, touched her hair with the back of his hand. “It looks as though her will was not strong enough, though.” He stood, set aside his plasma blaster, and began undoing the clasps of his bodysuit trousers. The Awareness went thick with his lust.

  “What are you doing?”

  The other Korvan met Zarven’s gaze, the challenge and insult unmistakable. He’d been up and down the lower ranks with disturbing regularity before transfer to Zarven’s unit. Memories dwelt on his harmonic chilling enough to sicken a hardened deviant. With a Behavioral Profile well in the red and his gene-seed already stricken from the familial genotype, only a twenty-year service record kept him from liquidation.

  “I’m helping her finish what she has begun,” the Senior Fanrohaust replied.

  “We can’t.”

  “Yes we can.” The Fanrohaust’s pants came down. “They have taken much from us. I propose we take something back.”

  Zarven felt sick, wanted to leave. But beneath that, swirling in with the nausea came a current of bestial energy, a primal sort he had spent much of his life training to suppress.

  “I think you want to help me,” the Fanrohaust said with a forbidden smile. He gripped the worm’s hair. Her hands dropped free of the knife in her belly as he jerked her head back. A groan escaped.

  “Help me finish her, Haust...now...”

  HAUSTColonel Zarven opened his eyes.

  For an instant, the interior of the executive compartment aboard the Davrar-class troop transport flickered with afterimages of cold sewer wall caving in. He blinked once and focused. His mouth was dry and his skin felt oily beneath the bodysuit.

  “The Battalion has completed its unloading, HaustColonel,” said the transport pilot. The ship was flown by an artificial intelligence but a Korvan always occupied the cockpit, should the automated systems fail.

  “Thank you.” Zarven savored the flicker of apprehension in the younger Korvan’s mind. He didn’t think of himself as a bully, precisely, but you didn’t go far in the Omniptorate without becoming intimate with intimidation.

  Zarven rose from his seat and proceeded to the rear of the compartment where he descended a short ladder i
nto the main transport hold. A Minrohaust work crew was gathering the last of the Battalion’s gear as he strode by, their minds too empty to recoil from his presence.

  He stepped into the lashing cold of Lurinari. The lights of the landing field were globes of brilliance in the swirling haze of an unexpected snowfall. Zarven paused, took in what he could of Fort Ranzac.

  Ranzac lay thirty-five kilometers from the outskirts of Mondanberg, perched atop a plateau in the midst of the low, forested ridges dominating this part of the valley. Arranged in a precise, fortified hexagon, it was the staging base for all Korvan operations into the Coreal Valley and headquarters for the 10th Ground Strike Division. A small city, secure behind cleared fields of fire, minefields and intertwined blastcrete walls, redundant security suites, Minrohaust patrols and anti-orbital defenses.

  A squat pyramid structure bulged in the heart of the base, a smaller cousin of the structure found in Mondanberg. Unlike that complex, filled to capacity with Korvan command staffs concentrated on the mission of subjugating the worm Free City States, this building—secured beyond the possibility of threat—held an Awareness Node.

  A compressed copy of the monstrous database on Homeworld, the Node contained the racial memory of the Korvan race. More than the relay for the communal intellect to Korvans across this hemisphere, it was the closest thing to what a Korvan would call “holy”, a shrine to the Ideals and the Quest of their people. The very embodiment of the order they hoped to bring to the entire Universe.

  Warmth—perhaps like the womb—enveloped Zarven. He paused, felt the database’s presence, and tasted his people’s glories before busying himself with their problems.

  The moment passed. He looked across the landing field.

  The 18th Omniptorate Special Commandos stood in three blocks, motionless, as if carved from ice. He had ordered them to disembark the transport in full gear, bulbous in battle armor, bristling with plasma blasters, very much with the intent of making an impression.

  Zarven smiled within himself as Ranzac sizzled with the shock of their arrival. He stepped from the ramp of the transport, eddies of snow about his feet, and made his way across the pavement.

  The Special Commandos were the militant arm of the Omniptorate, the praetorian guard of the Uberminds, and the most feared Korvan shock troops. All-Korvan formations, they remained clean of the lazy taint of Minrohaust lackeys. All were veterans of the fiercest—and dirtiest—engagements. They carried out Homeworld’s will when few had the stomach for...decisive measures.

  They were the best and—some cowards felt—the worst.

  A knot of Korvans approached from the opposite end of the field, black figures emerging from a billowing curtain of flakes. Physical presence was not necessary for greeting, but the show of posture was a calm counterstroke to Zarven’s aggressive display.

  “Fort Ranzac welcomes you, HaustColonel Zarven,” Dramen-Singlo said as he drew near. The Korvan stood tall but with the near-gauntness Zarven had noted amongst many veterans of the Lurinari campaign. His face was narrow with a hunting-bird’s sharp features. “And your Commandos.”

  “Thank you, HaustCommandant.” Zarven met the officer’s eye for a teasing instant. Zarven had no hope of probing one of Dramen-Singlo’s status. But the weakness was there, in the liquid, gray eyes.

  Dramen-Singlo and his immediate staff fell into step around Zarven as they met at the field’s center. The HaustCommandant took the lead back towards the compound, saying as he did so, “All arrangements have been made for your Battalion.”

  “We are grateful,” Zarven replied. “But only the most minimal quartering will be necessary as I expect to be in the field shortly.”

  “Of course.”

  Zarven watched Dramen-Singlo’s gaze wander across the ranks of Commandos. The HaustCommandant took obvious note of a Fanrohaust in the front with a diagonal scar nearly dividing his face. The Commando made no attempt to suppress the snarl twisted across his mouth.

  Dramen-Singlo looked sharply away.

  “Where will you begin?”

  “East,” Zarven replied. “The territory around the settlements of Teshima and Forlorn seems especially troubled.”

  “Yes. Sparsely populated. Much forest and the mountains are close. Worm raiding parties strike isolated units and withdraw before determined pursuit can be mounted. And they’ve grown more daring as our air assets dwindle. With the surveillance satellites gone, they’ll be able to move almost freely. Our outpost commanders are hesitant to send out any force smaller than a company.”

  “What is your estimate of worm strength in the area?” Zarven asked.

  “Wild figures have circulated amongst some of my subordinates. But I would say no more than two thousand hard-core holdouts in several disorganized bands. The numbers fluctuate with the seasons and the fortunes of war. A handful of my field officers insist the worms are building an army in those mountains.”

  “And you disagree?”

  “They are bandits and deviants, even by worm standards,” Dramen-Singlo said, letting his disdain sound clearly across the Awareness. “The effect of these gangs—for lack of a better term—is chaos, not organized rebellion. If someone managed to weld these mismatched pieces together, I would have to be impressed.”

  “That eventuality is precisely HaustMarshal Tan-Ezatz’s concern,” Zarven said. The small group was nearing the entrance to the field’s transient compound, angular and functional like most Korvan buildings. “She feels the upheaval in this region to be a major factor in the stagnation at the front; suppressing it to be a priority.”

  The caution with which Dramen-Singlo chose his words rippled across the Awareness. “The HaustMarshal does not fully appreciate our situation. She is consumed with the effort of crushing the Free City States. I fear she does not understand how thin our resources are stretched here.”

  Zarven’s gaze wandered across the fortified walls and the heavy weapons emplacements. A battalion of the 10th was stationed permanently in Mondanberg. Another two battalions were in the field, fighting the worms across the Valley. The remainder of the Division—more than half its strength—sat in or around the vicinity of Fort Ranzac.

  “I have listened to the criticisms and have sensed the rumors,” Dramen-Singlo said. “We are only fighting worms, I am told. But understand; they have geography, the elements, a sympathetic populace, and mobility on their side. And numbers—always numbers.”

  Dramen-Singlo paused at the entrance to the transient compound and turned to face Zarven. Their eyes met. From a superior officer, the unusual gesture could be taken as approval. As the senior Korvan’s gaze flicked momentarily to Zarven’s pins and adornment, Zarven saw disdain twitch through Dramen-Singlo’s pupils, saw fear, too, and knew he should not take the contact as such.

  Zarven held the HaustCommandant’s gaze. The other Korvan was taller with the cold poise of his rank, but had none of Zarven’s tight, attack-dog belligerence. Zarven felt the old bad smile begin to drag at his lips but suppressed it. He had long resigned himself to the fact that a less than celebrated genotype and certain established patterns on his Behavioral Profile meant he’d probably reached the limits of his Ascendance. Re-stoking the pointless fires again would accomplish little.

  Of course, the Special Commandos did encourage an officer with a chip on his shoulder.

  Dramen-Singlo broke the eye contact with a turn of his head that hinted at exasperation. “The Coreal Valley is over a million square kilometers, HaustColonel. I have told Tan-Ezatz many times. My command, alone, cannot pacify the entire district.”

  Zarven continued to stare at the side of Dramen-Singlo’s face, even though the other Korvan had looked away. He let the smile he had suppressed show.

  “I suppose that’s why I’m here.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  A gentle nudge to the shoulder awoke Devin Crozier. He sat up with pain clenching in his ribs and the small of his back and tried to hide a wince. He blinked itching eyes and
stretched, taking a breath cold enough to bite his lungs. The dreams had been bad. But looking around, he knew he woke up to the true nightmare.

  The partisans were turning their hide cloaks inside out, exposing the white underside and putting them back on. They made little noise, save an occasional muted word to each other or the metallic clang of weapons being readied. Crozier’s hand went to the ring around his neck, then to his weapon.

  “Good morning, Major,” Ro Atchraq said. The guerilla leader sat cross-legged with his rifle cradled across his lap. His eyes watched the others. “How did you sleep?”

  “Good. A little cold.”

  “We had snow, several centimeters. It is beginning to ease now.”

  “How far are we to the—to your base camp?” Crozier asked.

  Ro gave a thoughtful pause. “Two weeks.”

  The partisans looked up at the Grak’s words.

  “It was my understanding that it was closer to my drop zone than that,” Crozier said, noting the disturbance of the others.

  “It is,” Ro replied. He fixed the small company with a determined stare and Crozier realized his next words to them were an order. “But after the alternate route we will follow, it will take two weeks.”

  Crozier felt a cold that had little to do with plummeting temperatures. “You believe we’re being followed?”

  “I believe that the Korvans are a thorough people.” Ro rose to a crouch. “And that they are unlikely to have missed your insertion entirely. Whether they saw through your deception or thought you to be debris, they are still likely to send someone to confirm.” The Grak looked around at the others. “Ready?”

  Nods and grumbles in response. Ro gestured for Cameron to take the lead. The boy darted for the exit, slithered under rock and was gone. The Grak designated others and they followed.