Ashes of Freedom

by K. J. Coble

  Crozier noticed her attention, looked down at the silvery band and swore quietly.

  “I didn’t know you were married.”

  Crozier upper lip quirked and his hand went to the ring, cupping it once so he could look at it, then stuffing it back under his shirt collar.

  “What’s her name?”

  Crozier shook his head, murmured something, but finally answered, “Becca.”

  “Do you miss her?” Sandy pressed, feeling the shivers recede somewhat, feeling a sudden daring. Crozier could be made uncomfortable. He could be human.

  “Of course, I do,” he replied in a tone tightening with annoyance.

  “Is she back on Earth?”

  Crozier’s features pinched for a moment. Sandy thought he might shout at her but the tension passed as his eyes squinted in the sunlight. “No. She went back to New Centauri to be with her family. Our daughters went with her.”

  “Children?” Sandy felt a smile. More human by the second. “What their names?”

  “What difference does it make?” Crozier’s voice bordered on a snarl. But the ghost of a smile flitted through his features. “Hope and Pauline. Hope would be seven now and Pauline would be...”

  “Yes?”

  Crozier seemed to strain and the skin around his eyes wrinkled. He bit his lip and looked down, head shaking as an angry chuckle shook his chest. “I can’t remember. Can you believe that? All this damned biotech in my body, my skull, and I can’t fucking remember how old my little girl is!”

  “It’s all right,” Sandy said. “It is. I can’t remember what my parents looked like sometimes. I can’t even remember how long it’s been since they died.”

  “The days are so long, here. And the seasons.” Crozier stared at the rock face across the creek from him.

  “That’s right. Easy to lose track of time.” Sandy thought of touching him, of giving him some sort of reassurance. “What about your wife?”

  “No, Sandy.” The hardness returned to his visage, a wall of stone slamming down. “No. I’d like to finish shaving, now. By myself, if you don’t mind?”

  Sandy pushed back into the water, felt like she was rebounding from a blow to the stomach. “I...apologize, Major. I didn’t mean any disrespect.”

  Crozier nodded, but there were no words. He raised the looking glass again and the razor went stroke, stroke across his face. Bands of clenched muscle stood out along his jaw.

  Sandy turned and resumed her downstream course, the water now rather chilly around her. Only after quite some time did she recover enough courage to look back.

  Crozier continued his even swipes, clearing skin of beard. The necklace had flopped free of his loose collar again. The wedding band gleamed in the sunlight.

  COLE WORTHY TIPPED his head back and let the smooth burn of whiskey fill his mouth. He winced, nodded forward, and swallowed. The warmth spread through him and he closed his eyes. Images etched across the inside of his mind since the ambush shook and faded. He could almost smile.

  A hand jerked the bottle from him.

  “Save some,” Vorsh, seated beside him, hissed.

  Cole watched the Shmali take a quick pull and lick his lips. He had never seen one of Vorsh’s kind get what a human would call drunk, but they seemed to enjoy the effects of alcohol.

  They sat on a lip of rock overlooking the gorge. Access to it had been made by a precarious climb along a narrow trail. The first stars speckled the sky and day’s last, feeble gasp was a band of light on the horizon. It would be time to find their way back into the Station, soon. Night was a time for hunter and hunted and Cole Worthy had no interest in being either.

  Below, a female Shmali—Cole was guessing...too damned hard to tell, really—led a trio of children behind her, the last stragglers to abandon the pleasure of the waterfall. The Shmali juveniles were wriggling, pink masses of energy, chattering in their race’s native tongue as they scurried from sight.

  Cole glanced at Vorsh. He’d rarely seen his companion with any of his own kind. His only reaction to watching the little family was to draw the bottle to his lips again and take a longer drink, his features creasing very slightly in what could either be a grimace or a snarl. In a human, the behavior might have evoked in Cole sorrow, a need to comfort or question. In Vorsh, he knew you didn’t ask those questions and sorrow was a waste of time.

  “Damned shame about Cameron.” Worthy settled for a topic he needed comfort on.

  “It was bound to happen,” Vorsh replied in a sharp voice. “Kid was clumsy, put too much emotion into it. He won’t be the last.”

  “I wonder if he knew it was coming.” Cole felt a cold ripple in his gut. “I’ve heard folk say that you do.”

  “In my old line of work, my superiors would say that Death should never be a surprise to a prepared soul.” Vorsh seemed to ponder his words, then shrugged and took another drink. He spat on the rock in front of him. “Of course, they had a lot of ridiculous sayings like that. And I never gave much thought to souls.”

  “Still, it’s a shame.”

  “I suppose it is, if you have to think in terms such as that,” Vorsh replied. “It’s another gap in the line we have to fill.”

  Cole listened to his companion’s words and felt a growing cold. He snatched the bottle from Vorsh and took a long pull, sputtering when he was done. He thought he heard Vorsh chuckle, but it could have easily been a breeze.

  “What are you gonna do when this is all over?”

  Vorsh hissed something under his breath and grabbed the bottle back. “You’re drunk. What kind of a stupid question is that?”

  Cole blinked, felt a hint of dizziness. “I’m serious. Don’t you ever think about it?”

  “This will never end. There’ll always be a war.”

  “It has to end, sometime.”

  “Survival never ends until you’re dead, Worthy. That’s the real war. As long as I’m alive I can take what I want from the Universe.”

  “Which is what?” Cole didn’t really want to know, but the whiskey in his veins was warm and the words tumbled out.

  Cole didn’t hear Vorsh’s dagger come out of its sheath, saw only the blade gleaming centimeters from his face and the Shmali’s icy smile behind it. Slowly, Vorsh pulled the weapon away, produced a whetstone and began honing the blade. His face worked its way into a smile and his answer came out in a cool whisper.

  “Amusement.”

  Cole swallowed, felt the need to retreat, then felt anger wrench in his chest. “You’re an asshole, Vorsh.”

  “That’s no way to talk to a loyal ally, human. After all, what would homo sapiens do without Shmali or Grak lackeys to do their dying for them?”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Korvans are a human problem, aren’t they? They were human until your kind decided to expel them, hunt them across the galaxy because of their way of life.” The strokes of Vorsh’s knife across the stone had sped up. “Seems only fitting they want revenge.”

  “So why don’t you go help them?”

  Vorsh stopped and looked at Cole for a frigid moment.

  Cole bit his lip and looked away. “Sorry. Shit.”

  “You think too much, Cole,” Vorsh said. The hiss of the blade across the stone resumed, more slowly now. “That was always your problem. Thinking kills you.”

  Cole felt the relief of the whiskey draining into a hot, sick lump in his stomach. Cameron’s face fluttered behind his eyes—stupid, puppy-dog kid. Cole tightened inside, the nausea growing worse. He wished he could have at least told the kid goodbye. He took the bottle from Vorsh again.

  “Gotta have something to go on.”

  “Fine,” Vorsh said, honing away. “Keep going for revenge or stubbornness or survival or that dead family of yours. Whatever it takes.”

  “Hey, fuck you!” The words came out in a sputter of the whiskey he’d been drinking. He coughed once and jabbed an index finger at Vorsh. “They’re alive, you Shmali motherfucker.”

  Vorsh
continued to hone his dagger but met Cole’s gaze, smiling with a glitter in his eyes.

  “Whatever it takes.”

  Cole looked away, motion so violent it set his world to spinning. He brought his knees up from the edge of the rock, leaned against them and took another drink.

  “I don’t know why I hang around you.”

  “So don’t,” Vorsh replied.

  But Cole did not move to leave, as much of him urged him to do.

  He had to have something. Or someone.

  “THE BASES ARE HIGHLIGHTED in blue, supply caches in yellow, and the refugee camps in white,” Ro said as a holographic map of the southeastern Coreal Valley sprung to life, casting a bluish haze through the dimly lit room.

  Crozier’s quarters were cramped and largely featureless, save his knotty bunk, taking up a third of the space, and hardcopy maps and notes taped to the walls. The room had more than likely been some clerk’s office—or closet, as Ro had quipped—located in the Station’s lower storage levels.

  “How are we doing on weapons distribution?” Crozier asked.

  “Better than I expected,” Ro answered. “It will be some time before we have the means and the Korvans are distracted enough to move the heavier equipment out, though.”

  “That’s fine. But it’s critical that the small arms, explosives and armor are dispersed. I don’t expect to have to abandon this base anytime in the near future, but I’d like to think that if the Korvans hit us here tomorrow, the Movement’s means of making war wouldn’t fall with it.”

  “Of course,” Ro said in that voice that made Crozier feel like the Grak already knew everything that needed to be done. The tone changed slightly. “We’ve been somewhat successful in getting food and first-aid supplies through to the refugees, as well.”

  In the hologram the blue dots formed a string along the edge of the Coreals with yellow lights scattered between them. The white refugee icons were clustered further back, well up into the mountain range.

  Crozier paused, eyes on the white dots. “Just remember where our priorities lie, Ro.”

  “Certainly,” the Grak replied. “But remember, Devin, that many of these people aren’t just fighting for some Cause.”

  Crozier locked gazes with Ro for a moment, then smiled. “You’re right, of course.”

  He turned to his bunk and picked up the black beret there. It wasn’t regulation, was actually a Navy technician’s duty cover taken from Station stashes. But there didn’t appear to be any Pathfinder red berets about. Crozier had never worn the full dress of his adopted branch, anyway. He put it on and straightened it. It would have to do.

  “I noticed in your debriefing you recommended Sandy for promotion to Squad Leader,” Ro said.

  “She did a hell of a job with that ambush,” Crozier replied. “Held her ground when everything was going crazy. You disagree?”

  “No, I think it’s an excellent idea,” Ro said. “I’m proud, in fact. She and Cynthia have always been...projects of mine. Sandy, especially, has come a long way.”

  Crozier sat on his bunk, staring into the hologram but seeing, instead, Sandy’s features as she bobbed in the stream that afternoon. Perhaps he’d slammed the door a bit hard.

  “What do you know about her, Ro? I mean, before she and Cynthia were with you?”

  The hair about Ro’s mouth rippled. “Theirs is a pretty common story amongst a lot of our young people, I’m afraid. Their family was massacred when the Korvans swept through this region, after Mondanberg capitulated. There was a lot of fighting still going on, a lot of confusion at that point. Sandy and Cynthia were shuffled into one of the holding camps the Korvans had established to keep POWs, political prisoners and troublemakers herded together until they had the facilities set up to harvest them.”

  The bristling spread to the back of Ro’s neck. “I’ve heard about these camps, Devin. They were run by the lowest dregs of the Korvan machine, scum rotated to rear-echelon postings where they were out of trouble, while the top-of-the-line models did the serious work. I suspect the Korvans are unwilling to admit such deviants even exist in their kind. They carried out sadomasochistic experiments, torture, mutilation, mass orgies orchestrated between groups of prisoners, rape. And plenty of killing.”

  A low growl rumbled in the back of Ro’s throat. Lips tilted to show fangs before he got himself under control and put a hand to his mouth. He whispered harshly. “For some of the interred, I’m certain being brain-wiped as a Minrohaust was mercy.”

  Crozier licked dry lips. “Where did you find them?”

  Ro smoothed his hair with a hand as he spoke. “At a brothel in Forlorn. Sandy worked bar and Cynthia...worked. We used them for intelligence, at first. Lot of Collaborators went in there, got drunk, and talked too much about their ‘allies’. Later, Sandy got into trouble, stabbed a Collaborator Militia officer who thought he’d take her upstairs. We had to smuggle her out. Cynthia stayed behind for a while, before joining us. We still use her from time to time. She doesn’t seem to mind the, ah, dangers.”

  Crozier swallowed, imagined what the auburn-haired sisters must endured. “Well, that explains a few things, anyway.”

  “Yes.” Ro rubbed absently at one of his horns while staring into God knew what. He still looked agitated, but had the bristling and the flecks of froth about his mouth under control.

  Crozier stood and reached for the gun belt still on the bunk. He held it in his hand for a moment, wondering if the blastpistol at his hip was a bit too piratical. He fastened the thing on after a pause, deciding it would convey the element of dash he desired. He turned to Ro. “What do you think? Good enough for the Big Speech?”

  Ro looked up at him and flashed his teeth. Crozier was pretty certain this time the gesture was meant as a smile. “You’ll do.”

  Crozier grinned and turned for the door.

  “You haven’t said anything about Cameron.”

  Crozier halted, closed his eyes and saw the white anti-matter flash erasing the boy’s blackened smile. “Not much to say.”

  “What happened out there, Devin?”

  “Forget it...” Crozier started to open the door.

  “Come on,” Ro said, sounding almost human. Crozier heard him get up from his seat and come to stand behind him. “We have to trust each other...right?”

  Crozier turned. The Grak was tall for his race, nearly as tall as Crozier and somehow more broad—and menacing, when he wanted to be.

  “I’m sure you’ve heard that old saying about no plan surviving first contact with the enemy?”

  “Of course.” Ro flicked his facial whiskers. “So, that’s all there is to it?”

  Crozier shrugged to hide a shudder. “More or less. I could feel the momentum slipping, could tell we were losing it. So, I fed Cameron into it. Thought it might shift things, at least buy us some more time...” Crozier felt his gaze drop to the floor, couldn’t meet Ro’s eyes.

  Ro put a hand on Crozier’s shoulder. “He knew what he was doing, Devin. Knew it from the day they killed his folks.”

  “Just a damned kid...”

  “We’ve got a lot of ‘damned kids’ out there, Devin,” Ro said.

  Crozier met the Grak’s gaze now, saw something bleak in those watery black eyes.

  “Yeah...”

  THE PARTISANS HAD TAKEN to calling the cave “Rock House”. Where most of the caves of the region were either artificial or recess caves—hollows cut into softer sandstone exposed by rock faces—Rock House was a true cavern, formed by geologic processes Crozier could not guess at.

  The cave was wide and long, winding both ways out of sight. Its cool, smooth floors sloped up into the arching walls and ceiling in tiers so even they could have been man-made. Narrow gaps in the wall allowed sunlight in and gave a view of the gorge winding below as well as its opposite cliff face, green with overgrowth and pockmarked with small openings in which off-duty guerillas lounged.

  Crozier turned from the view through a particularly w
ide crevasse to regard the men, women, Shamli and Grak gathered along the walls of Rock House. His gaze panned across each, taking in the ragged details, the scarred, gaunt, focused features and cold, feral light in their eyes. All had been issued smart-fibers and synthe-leathers, by now, though many had adorned them with personal affectations: the bandoleers of charge packs, the bandannas, the tinted sunglasses, the pistols and knives and general bravado of desperate, deadly people.

  They didn’t look like a mob, anymore; but they didn’t look like unit, yet, either.

  Crozier took a step forward, folded his arms before his chest, and hardened his face. To his left, Ro watched the gathering silently, eyes probing for the problems, the cowards, the madmen, and the weak who shouldn’t have come, should have stayed home with their crops and struggling families. Perhaps he wondered who amongst this group would be alive in six months.

  “Good afternoon, people,” Crozier began. “I am Major Devin Crozier, 21rst Coalition Pathfinders. As some of you may know, I am from Earth. I am here, on Lurinari, because I have been fighting the Korvans in one capacity or another for nearly six years.”

  “My unit, the Pathfinders, was formed, historically, with one mission in mind: to raise and train resistance movements on hostile or occupied worlds. As fortune would have it, the core of a movement has already formed on Lurinari.” He nodded at the crowd. “All of you. Therefore, my mission becomes more one of training and organization.”

  “That is why we have brought you all together here, those who are already leaders or have been identified by others as potential leaders. You may think you’ve had a rough time of it, already. You may think the Universe has really chewed you up. Some of you may think you’re really bad.”

  “You’re wrong.” Crozier smiled unpleasantly. “We are going to train you to be better, to kill Korvans faster and in greater numbers than you ever thought possible. We are going to train you on tactics, on theory. You are going to learn, people, learn so much and so hard you’ll wish you were just another petty bandit again, raiding Collaborator farms. We are going to show you weapons and technologies some of you didn’t even know existed. And we are going to train you to train others so that the network will grow like a vine to choke the Korvans.”