by J. N. Chaney
Because you were a miracle survivor? Magnus thought. But there seemed to be something more, some card the warlord was playing close to his chest.
Abimbola cleared his throat. “News spread, and soon the government asked for help in developing an antigen from my body.”
“They figured if you’d survived that long, you must have an immunity or something.”
“Yes. They offered to share the cure with whatever organization gave them aid.”
“And the Elonians responded,” Magnus said.
“Correct. Others did, too, but no one had more power and more credits. They had the best scientists, the best mobile facilities, the best starships.”
“Then I’m guessing Awen’s parents were scientists?”
“Doctors and researchers. But they were also kind. I remember being scared of them. The stories I had been told…” Again, the warlord trailed off. He coughed. “Anyway, the stories were not true, at least about them. They treated me with kindness. They treated me… like I was a son.”
“And it surprised you.”
“No. What surprised me was that I began to treat them like parents. Their son and I became like brothers—that is, Awen’s father, Balin.” Abimbola swallowed and took a deep breath. “The first antigen was released within a month of their arrival. It was not the most effective strain, but it saved millions of lives. Their research continued over two years, getting better and better. It was a good life. And they were able to develop other cures from their work, experimenting with their findings to make amazing things. But then it ended.”
“Why? What happened?”
“Marine assassins invaded the lab.”
“Marine assassins… you mean, a hit team?”
Abimbola nodded. “Awen’s grandparents told Balin and me to hide in a ventilation system. Told us not to come out until two days after we heard the last blaster round. Balin hid, but I watched.” Abimbola’s hands squeezed the steering wheel so tightly that dried blood split and fell from his knuckles. “They tortured them. They asked them where I was. And when they would not say, they executed them. So I lost two families in two years. I was nine.”
Magnus was choked up. It was a truly terrible story. He knew others like it, of course—Abimbola wasn’t alone in his suffering. The galaxy had many harsh worlds… worlds the Marines had been sent to liberate. But there was no way a Marine special operations unit would be sent to eliminate an Elonian science team on a planet they’d just helped liberate. Something wasn’t adding up.
“Abimbola, can I ask what these Marine assassins looked like?”
“Do not bother trying to defend your flag, buckethead.” Abimbola’s soft side was gone, replaced by his battle-hardened demeanor. “I know what I saw. And I have slain the same set of armor a thousand times over.”
“I don’t doubt that. Just… for me. What stood out about them? Colors, insignias, anything?”
“All-black armor, like a midnight sky. Late Mark V.”
“You sure?” Magnus asked.
“Dammit, buckethead—”
“Sorry, I get it. I just…”
“Betrayal is a bitch, isn’t it?”
Magnus lifted an eyebrow. “Sure is.” He paused, not wanting to rile the warlord, but he needed more information. “Nothing else noticeable that you remember?”
Abimbola worked his jaw and looked out the side window again. He’s thinking. Thinking’s good, Magnus told himself. Give me something, Bimby. Anything.
“They had stripes on their shoulder and chest.”
Magnus’s gut twisted. “Stripes?”
“Yes. I can still see them.”
“Three white stripes?”
Abimbola looked at Magnus, teeth clenched. “You know these Marines?”
“I do. And they’re not Marines. Least, not anymore.”
“Then what are they?”
Magnus considered the question more deeply than he’d intended to. He thought about what Abimbola had been through as a child—the world he must have grown up in and the life he’d lived until now. He thought about the battle that had just raged in the Western Heights and how he’d only discovered a handful of survivors in the compound. He thought about the attack on the mwadim’s palace, about Awen and the Luma she’d lost. He thought about the late senator and Valerie and Piper…
That little girl’s trust in you is misplaced. You know that, right, Adonis?
Then he began to wonder how many other lives had been affected by these rogue operators who dared sport Republic armor and, worse, how many more lives stood at the ends of their blasters in the future…
So, what are they, Magnus? And what are you gonna do about it?
“They’re people I have to stop,” Magnus finally replied to Abimbola, his hands tight around his MAR30. “And I won’t rest until I do.”
29
“My lord, we have vehicles inbound from the west.”
“Let us see them.” Abimbola walked up behind Berouth, his assistant, seated at one of the many workstations in the hideout’s headquarters. Magnus remembered the man from when they drove to meet Ezo for the first time. Berouth made a few gestures in the holo-display and sent a live feed to float over the room’s central table.
Magnus stood from his chair on the opposite side of the room, still holding a cup of tea. In the last few hours since arriving, he’d gotten a shower, had his weapons and some of his armor cleaned by Abimbola’s crew, and managed to get kicked out of sick bay by Valerie three times. He’d only wanted to visit his men, but apparently, they needed medical attention, “not fist bumps from Marine buddies.” She insisted he would see them in a few more hours.
Magnus stared at a dot on the horizon with a trail of dust blowing to the south.
“Zoom,” Abimbola ordered.
Berouth entered more commands. The camera zoomed in to reveal an aggressive-looking skiff with several more behind it.
Abimbola walked around the workstation and moved to the holo-projection. “How many?”
The image rotated to give a top-down view. Magnus got dizzy from the quick move—he’d had enough weird things happen with his vision for one day. He moved forward and examined the convoy.
“That is Rohoar, all right,” Abimbola said.
“Looks like four dozen armored skiffs.” Magnus stroked his beard with his free hand. “Maybe five. He’s coming to fight?”
“Maybe. But that is overkill.”
“I dunno. From what I’ve seen, your turret emplacements alone could put up one hell of a fight.”
“Fight me?” Abimbola looked at Magnus with a look of astonishment. “No, buckethead. Rohoar does not fight me. I pay him too much. I mean, it is overkill if he wants to fight you.”
“Oh.”
“I am not the one firing on his ships up there.” The warlord pointed a finger overhead.
“Fair point.”
“ETA?” Abimbola asked Berouth.
“Fifteen minutes at their current speed, my lord.”
Abimbola looked at Magnus. “You might want to see if your ambassador is up for a visitor. He could be the one who saves your life today.”
That prospect made Magnus sick to his stomach. “I’ll go check with the good doctor.”
* * *
“No. Nope, no way.”
“Valerie, I just need to—”
“I already told you!” Valerie said. “They need to rest, and all of them have wounds that we need to keep free of—”
“The Jujari mwadim is coming. He’s going to want to speak to the ambassador. That man in there”—Magnus jabbed a finger past Valerie’s head—“may be the only thing between you and everyone else being executed today or getting to go home. Got that?”
The two of them stood outside the makeshift sick bay. Clear plastic kept the outside world away, while bright lights, blinking terminals, bundled tubes, and a dozen beds filled the space.
“That man is our only hope?” Valerie thumbed over her shoulder as h
er face went pale.
“Yeah.” Magnus felt uneasy about the way she’d said that. “Why?”
She hesitated. “He’s… he’s… crazy, Lieutenant.”
“Crazy?”
“I mean, at the very least, he’s incoherent. But he might actually be crazy, too, once he has time to get well. Whatever he’s been through, it rattled him pretty good. Probably permanently.”
“You’re saying brain damage.”
“Head trauma, psychological trauma, yes—all of it,” Valerie said. “He also has severe burns, contusions, ruptured eardrums… he’s showing all the signs of surviving an explosion or something.”
“That’s because he did survive an explosion. I don’t know how. But he did.”
Valerie looked away from him and bit her bottom lip.
“What? What is it?” he asked.
“It looks like he’s been tortured, too, Magnus. All of them have. Some of the marks on their bodies are… inconsistent with anything else I’ve ever seen. I can’t even tell you what the Jujari did to them. But it’s…”
“Can the ambassador at least have a conversation with his superiors?”
“No, that’s what I’m saying. Listen, if you’re putting any hope in him to be the person who saves your hide today, you can forget about it.”
“Dammit.” Magnus clenched his hands and turned away. He paced a few steps then turned to face her. “There’s nothing you can give him? A stimulant? Something to make him focus even for a couple minutes?”
Magnus knew he was asking a lot of her. Doing what he requested probably meant breaking her code of ethics as a medical professional. Such drugs existed, even if they weren’t legal. The Recon had modified the Mark VII armor to include injections of several survival drugs, including adrenatex. It gave injured and incoherent operators several lucid, pain-free minutes to get their splick together. If a Marine survived an op, surviving the side effects was the next challenge. Adrenatex could leave operators disabled, sometimes permanently. But if it saved a life, the Recon reasoned, it was worth it.
“I do have something, yes,” Valerie said. Magnus was about to order her to give it to the patient when she interrupted him. “But I want you to realize you’re probably sending him to his death.”
“I get that.”
“Do you, Lieutenant? Do you really?”
“Yes, I really do! And I also realize that if we don’t do this—if I don’t do this—everyone in here could be sent to their deaths too. So, yeah, I get it. It’s what Marines do. We make the hard calls no one else wants to, and we live with the consequences like no one else can.”
To her credit, Valerie didn’t even flinch during Magnus’s mini tirade. She just looked him square in the eye and responded, “Very well. Twenty cc’s of epinadrol. You’ll have him mostly coherent for about forty minutes. After that, he’s comatose until we can get him to a real hospital.”
“That’s more than I need. Have him dressed and sent to the control room to await instructions.”
Without another word, Valerie turned, walked through the slit in the plastic wall, and headed for Bosworth’s bed.
* * *
Dusk drew near as Magnus stood beside Abimbola, waiting outside for the mwadim to arrive. The Jujari skiffs pulled up to the hideout’s entrance like a herd of angry rhinosaurs then slowed, drive cores whining to a halt. The machines were late-model Republic Super Sleds, light armored personnel carriers. They were fast, and—given the blaster turrets and missile banks the Jujari had modified them with—very deadly. Sand and dust swirled around the convoy as hatches opened and Jujari climbed to the ground. In the lead skiff, a door opened, and Rohoar stepped out, his figure silhouetted by the setting sun in the west.
As the mwadim neared—arriving with no fewer than twelve personal bodyguards—Abimbola bowed and tilted his head sideways, exposing his neck. Magnus followed suit. He hated the gesture, but he hated the alternative more—having his throat slit.
“Welcome, Rohoar of the Tawnhack, mwadim of the Jujari,” Abimbola said.
“Rohoar sees you, Abimbola of the Miblimbians.” Rohoar sniffed the air. “But he does not see this Republic scrumruk graulap you keep company with.”
Magnus made to interject, but Abimbola cut him off with a twitch of his hand. “He is the same that stood before you this morning, the one bound in blood.”
“But his kind have betrayed our trust!” Rohoar snarled, raising a clawed finger to the sky. He turned to Magnus. “Rohoar gave you warriors. Rohoar gave you his blood. And how is it repaid?”
“My people have betrayed your trust, yes,” Magnus replied. “But for reasons I do not know.”
“Though we intended to find out for you, Great Mwadim,” Abimbola said, glaring at Magnus. “It seems that because you graciously allowed us to hunt Selskrit in the Western Heights, you now have a very valuable gift in your possession.”
“And what—Abimbola, warlord of the Dregs—might that be?”
“The Republic ambassador.”
Rohoar tilted his head, his ears perked. “The ambassador?” A large tongue flopped out and licked his chops. “The fat ambassador from my predecessor’s palace?”
“The one,” Magnus said.
Rohoar eyed him cautiously. “And what do you suggest I do with him, Republic Marine?”
“If it were me, I’d order him to call General Lovell for you. Then, when you’re done, you can eat him, for all I care.”
Rohoar’s ears lay back. “A warrior who freely offers his representative to death?”
“He is not my representative. Respectfully, Mwadim. I fight for my people, not the whims of my politicians.”
“I see.” The mwadim licked his lips. “But you already offered Rohoar a meeting with your General Lovell. Why does Rohoar need a fat ambassador to do the same?”
Magnus had been afraid of this question. The truth was that he’d doubted he could arrange the meeting from the moment he first offered it. It wasn’t a total bluff, of course; there was always the outside chance he could get through to the general on his own merits. But Magnus hadn’t thought he would survive long enough to have to honor his promise to the mwadim in the first place. This was an inconvenient downside of surviving.
Magnus didn’t dare offer any of this to Rohoar, of course. He’d keep bluffing as long as he could. “Great Mwadim, I can secure the meeting with Brigadier General Lovell as promised. However, it is a matter of speed.”
“Rohoar does not understand you.”
“It will take me several hours to arrange the meeting, maybe even days.”
“Days?” Rohoar sneered, his hackles rising. “Rohoar cannot wait days! You lied to Rohoar!”
“I did not lie, Mwadim. We just never discussed the particulars. But with the ambassador at your disposal, this meeting can be arranged in mere minutes.”
Rohoar considered this, his nose twitching. Magnus tried his best not to recoil from the Jujari’s foul breath and the long teeth less than a meter from his face. He was, once again, in awe of just how terrible these beasts were up close.
Rohoar looked at Abimbola. “Do you agree with this assessment, warlord?”
“I do believe that Magnus can get you the audience you seek much faster with the ambassador at your disposal.”
The mwadim looked between the two men several times. He sniffed, licked his chops again, then howled. Magnus’s hair stood up. He wanted to cover his ears, as the day’s work had given him a headache, and he was extremely fatigued. But he knew that doing so would probably raise the mwadim’s ire. Instead, he stood there, waiting for the wail to die down.
When it did, the mwadim nodded. “Rohoar likes minutes better than days.”
Suddenly, Rohoar’s hackles went rigid as he looked toward the compound’s entrance. Magnus and Abimbola looked back to see the mwadim’s bloodhound standing in the doorway. He was bandaged on his leg, torso, forearms, and one shoulder. One arm was bound in a sling, and red-stained gauze covered his le
ft eye. Magnus couldn’t believe the Jujari warrior was even conscious, let alone walking. He’d been hurt badly.
“What is the meaning of this?” Rohoar demanded, his ears erect.
Abimbola made to speak, but the blood wolf cut him off. Up until that moment, the Tawnhack survivor had said nothing to either Abimbola or Magnus. Valerie had tended to his wounds as best she could—getting through all the hair was a feat in and of itself—but no words had been exchanged.
The blood wolf said something in his mother tongue. At Rohoar’s gesture, the warrior started limping forward, his lips curled in pain. Magnus and Abimbola stepped aside, letting the blood wolf pass. He approached Rohoar, lowering his head and tilting his neck in the Jujari greeting. Then he leaned in and whispered in the mwadim’s ear. Rohoar’s eyes grew wider as the seconds passed, darting to stare at Magnus.
Magnus was uneasy. In his mind, this was going one of two ways, and both resulted in someone dying. Given the Jujari’s extreme emphasis on honor, he imagined that there might be some level of shame for the blood wolf getting rescued by a Repub Marine—if he was telling the mwadim the truth. Maybe the blood wolf would even be slain for it. Or… maybe the blood wolf was lying to the mwadim, and Magnus was about to be executed. He wouldn’t put it past either of them.
Rohoar raised his chin, and the blood wolf turned away, limping behind him. “Rohoar has heard from his blood wolf.”
An awkward silence hung in the air as Magnus and Abimbola waited for whatever would happen next. And? Magnus wanted to say, but he thought better of it.
Rohoar said nothing. Then, as if the episode with the blood wolf had never even happened, the mwadim moved on. “Rohoar accepts the opportunity to speak with the general. Take me to my ambassador.”
* * *
Bosworth sat in a Miblimbian chair normally reserved for Abimbola, as it was the only chair the ambassador could fit in. He was hastily dressed in a medical gown and an old dress coat someone had scavenged from a supply locker. Bloodstains leaked through bandages around his torso and stained the gown. His head and face also had several fresh wraps of gauze, each turning red in various spots.