Heart of Annihilation

by C. R. Asay

  I reached for it, my arm shaking with the effort. She rose to her feet, pulling it out of my grasp, and stared down at me. Cold humor etched her face. With a scornful snort she turned away.

  “Marshal Lafe.” The commander made her way past the scattered crates over to the mortally wounded Rethan leader.

  The officiate hunched over her injuries. Bulging eyes glared through strings of shimmering silver hair. Her mouth opened and closed. The commander ejected an empty magazine and allowed it to splash to the ground before snapping in a new one. She pulled back the slide and released it with a metallic snap.

  “You should have listened to me when I said she was unhinged. You should have done something. But to condemn me to the new council? You knew I had nothing to do with the murders. You knew!” The commander ran her hand over her face to expel the anger. When she looked up again, her expression was calm. “None of it matters any more. I fluxing well don’t know where she hid the Heart of Annihilation, and of course she doesn’t know. They never remember anything do they, Officiate, these RAGE inmates? I blame you for the loss of the weapon more than I do her.”

  She shook her head and tapped the pistol against her leg. Without another word or expression she raised the pistol, pointing it at Officiate Lafe’s head.

  “I’ve spent over twenty years trying to find another source that will lead me to the Heart of Annihilation and now, finally, I am close. So very close.” The commander looked to her left. I followed her gaze until my eyes lit on the still form of Marshal Rannen. She looked back at Officiate Lafe. Her finger tensed on the trigger.

  “And,” the commander swung the pendant in front of the officiate’s face, “I have the key. I want you to die knowing you failed your mission here, and that I destroyed Retha’s last chance at finding the device.”

  The commander’s face tightened, not in pleasure but cold, hard, premeditated justice. I closed my eyes the instant before the shot fired. The sound ricocheted through my mind—a heavy thump and a splashing sound. The busy voices of the soldiers in the background became perceptible only as they silenced. Rain pounded into the puddles, cheerfully fulfilling the yearly moisture quota.

  The rumble of a motor cut through the rain.

  “Sergeant Wichman, there you are. So good of you to finally join us.”

  I forced my eyes open. A Deuce was now parked inside the circle of buildings, with the driver’s side door hanging open. Dark streaks covered Sergeant Wichman’s shoulders, and water beaded on the brim of his hat. The commander didn’t look at him while she holstered her pistol, but I got an eyeful of the shock on his face as he surveyed the scene. The expression was gone when the commander looked up.

  She nodded in the direction of Marshal Rannen. “I’ll have the other men get the portal and load that one in the Deuce.” She jabbed her thumb at me. “Make sure the rest are dead.”

  She shouted orders to the milling figures. The rain lessened for the first time since it started, and I was able to see the carnage in vivid detail. The headlights of the vehicles illuminated the twisted bodies of Hoth, Rannen, and Officiate Lafe. Lieutenant Justet was being helped to his feet while someone else slapped Luginbeel’s face.

  I gripped Thurmond’s leg, grateful that my near-paralyzed state didn’t allow me to see the way his stomach refused to rise and fall.

  Sergeant Wichman was suddenly crouching beside me. His eyes roved down my body to my trapped leg, and he placed two fingers against my throat to check my pulse. When his eyes made it back to my face I gave a slow, accusing blink. He jumped.

  “Hey, little buddy,” he whispered.

  I blinked a few more times. My tongue glued to the roof of my mouth.

  “Where’s Thurmond? What happened to him?”

  I tightened my grip on the motionless leg.

  “Oh, shit.” He glanced around. “You’ve got to hang tight here for a bit. Don’t let them know you’re alive.”

  “Wh—” I swallowed and tried again. “Wh-where am I g-going ta-go?”

  “Sergeant Wichman. Sometime today!” The commander called. Wichman leapt to his feet. “They’re either dead or they’re not. Finish up. We need your help over here.”

  “Be right there, ma’am.” He crouched next to me again, slipped something white into one of my muddy pockets, and whispered, “I’m really sorry about this.”

  Wichman drew a 9mm from a shoulder holster, and for a moment I believed I’d used my last life.

  Wichman aimed, and I jerked as he unloaded two rounds into the mud not far from my head.

  Then he disappeared from my line of sight to answer the commander’s beckon. Rannen’s enormous body was rolled over and lifted by a team of no less than seven soldiers, who struggled to wrangle him into the back of the Deuce. Camouflaged figures moved past me, pulling the silver plates off the tower. No one noticed the simple silver coin they were churning deep into the mud. They jostled Officiate Lafe with irreverent feet as they worked off the hand-scanning panel and disconnected wires. The pieces were piled into overturned crates and loaded into the Deuce with Rannen. Every eye avoided looking at me.

  Luginbeel, his head lolling, was helped into the Deuce by another private I vaguely recognized. Sergeant Sanderford gave me a hard, unreadable stare as the commander spoke softly in his ear, her back to me.

  Everyone climbed into the vehicles with juvenile whooping and cheering like they had scored a victory, not murdered a bunch of guiltless alien visitors and two former comrades. I included myself in this count, since there was no doubt I would be following Thurmond shortly.

  Sergeant Sanderford finally looked away, nodding to the commander as she climbed in the passenger side of the Deuce. Doors slammed and headlights flickered around. They maneuvered the vehicles between the buildings, all except the Humvee parked on my leg, and trundled off into the darkness.

  The officiate’s body lay directly in my line of sight. She was twisted in an unnatural heap, her blank silver eyes staring at me. The bullet hole in her forehead oozed a trickle of blood that the rain washed down her nose.

  “Daddy,” I whispered.

  I was painfully aware of my isolation, my utter aloneness on this bloody hilltop surrounded by corpses. Corpses of enemies. The corpse of a friend.

  Shoot me. Cut me. Crush me. Anything but be responsible for a friend’s death.

  Please let me die, I thought.

  You die, I die. The angry voice in my mind snarled. Caz. That’s what the commander called her—called me. Dig yourself out of this you stupid, selfish little girl.

  I couldn’t feel anything but sorry for Caz. She would die with me, angry and vengeful to the end.

  Something shifted under my fingers followed by a groan. I gripped Thurmond’s pant leg, only to have the fabric ripped away. Movement, muttering, and swearing. A face hovered inches from mine.

  “Hey, Rose.” A soft touch to my head.

  The moon shifted out from behind the clouds. I couldn’t tell where the mud ended and the blood began, but there couldn’t possibly be a bullet through Thurmond’s head if he was talking to me. My lips parted to take in a shallow breath. He pressed two fingers on my neck, checking my pulse, and then vanished.

  A moment of panic. Had I imagined him?

  Thurmond staggered around the Hummer, bracing his hand on the side for support. I closed my eyes, maybe even took a snooze, because when I opened them he knelt next to me. He gathered my face in his hands. His thumbs wiped the blood and grime from my cheeks.

  “Come on, sweetheart, you’re in shock,” he said. “Can you talk to me?”

  His voice, a composed rumble of sound, penetrated deep into my injured soul. Soothing. Quiet. My consciousness wavered. A light slap to my face. A shock of breath shuddered through me.

  “There you go. Good girl. Deep breaths.”

  Tears jammed up somewhere behind my eyes.

  “Say something, Kris. Come on now, talk to me.”

  “There’s a H-Hummer on m’leg.” />
  Thurmond barked out a brief explosion of humorless laughter. “I know there is.”

  He pulled a sticky strand of bloodied hair from my face and smoothed it back. His eyes flitted to the wheel of the Hummer. I couldn’t imagine how he was going to get it off. I don’t think he knew either.

  “You’re going to be okay, but you need to stay awake for me. Can you do that?”

  For him? Sure. My body, however, rebelled, quietly shutting off the lights and closing the doors.

  Indistinct flashes of events paraded before of me, Thurmond’s voice a constant soundtrack. Sometimes he seemed to be camped out near my head, patting my cheek to force my eyes open. Sometimes he was a shadow, moving around the Rethan camp and assembling a pile of debris. Sometimes I didn’t see him at all, although the Hummer rocked on my trapped thigh.

  I wasn’t sure when my leg came free of the tire, but with a release of pressure my flattened limb curled toward my body. The coolness of the mud on my chest spread to my back. The moon and stars, fringed by wispy clouds, rolled into view. Strong arms cradled me like an infant.

  “Come on Kris, wake up. Please! I need you! God, I need some help!” Thurmond’s voice whispered in my ear, desperate, pleading, and prayerful. “Please, she needs a doctor and I don’t know how to get that for her! I don’t know what to do!”

  I remembered my dad saying, When you’ve done all you can do, God will make up the difference. My mind cleared and I saw a possible solution.

  “Let’s take the hummmm . . .” Too many m’s. My lips wouldn’t move beyond that.

  “Rose?”

  “Hmm mmm?” That was almost clear.

  “The battery on the Hummer’s dead. I don’t know what to do.” Discouragement poured from his words.

  “Use hummman jummm jummm-per . . .”

  “Jumper cables?”

  “Me.”

  “You can’t even walk.”

  “You haven’t . . . you . . . given me a chance.” Blackness crept in. The small window that opened long enough for me to communicate a solution began to slide shut.

  “Didn’t you use all of your energy on the portal?”

  “Dunno.”

  Thurmond’s face disappeared as my eyelids fell shut. The problem with the Humvee suddenly didn’t seem so important.

  “Rose? Hey! Come back!”

  Movement. A warm touch of skin to my hands. Cool metal under my fingers. My despondency lifted for a brief second as a jittering surge of electricity erupted from my fingertips. The hazy roaring of an engine. The musty canvas smell of a Humvee.

  CHAPTER 23

  Caz

  5 hours and 40 minutes pre-RAGE

  Caz had never taken the opportunity to step inside the council chamber. Few did. Not that it was forbidden. Just looked down upon. For a government with the sole purpose of keeping their population peaceful and content, they allowed little if any participation in decision-making. Everyone was always happy with their decisions, thanks to the serene enforcement of the marshals.

  One would think that the council chamber would be housed beneath the extravagant, gaudy dome that could be seen from thousands of grids away. Attikin’s dome. It wasn’t. But the council chamber was legendary in and of itself. An enormous half-circle amphitheater descended before her, the roof open to the sky. A zapping, multi-colored electrical web usually covered the arched entrance. The web was now missing, absorbed by the blast in the square. A chatter of frightened voices from deep in the chamber filled the air in the web’s absence.

  Caz trailed her fingers across the archways and came to a stop inside the chamber. Each step of the amphitheater was made of a different metal: the ones closer to her were alloys, making them more resistive to electrical conductivity; the lower ones, pure metals such as copper and gold. Highly conductive. Highly valuable. Exactly one hundred and twenty-two elaborate seats, staggered across the different steps, were filled with either aging Rethans who would most likely die in their seats or the younger sons or daughters of dead council members, groomed their whole lives for the position. Like Vin.

  The very epicenter of the chamber was a stage made of the most precious of Rethan metals, the most highly conductive pure silver, which had been tarnished through the ages. The hundred and twenty-third seat, a huge, garish throne, was occupied by the commandant himself.

  Caz stood above them all, looking down at the silver heads. Some were already out of their seats, gathering their things in preparation to leave. Others stood in tight groups. A cold wind whipped through the chamber, scattering their tense, frightened chatter.

  Caz took the time to count. Attikin’s ass. All the seats were filled except one. And she knew exactly who was missing.

  Xander.

  She shrugged, knelt, and opened her bag. Several items were laid neatly side-by-side. Caz touched the melon-sized orb in the very center. The yellow glow warmed her fingers. It was so lovely. She sighed, and moved her hand to the two items beside it.

  She’d spent her whole Rethan life obsessing over weapons. The cold, hard mathematics; the elegant engineering, the thrilling potential of killing capacity. What she never considered, until the last few weeks, was the artistry essential in taking an individual life.

  Fire a weapon, set off an explosion. None of it had that personal touch. The cool of the other person’s skin. The flicker of terror in their eyes. The recognition of her complete power.

  All the mathematics and science in the world were no match for the most basic of weapons. She already had the materials in her lab: the anvil, the forge, the nichrom hammer. And silver. Alloy silver with lead, and strength was added to the weapon’s high conductivity.

  The blade sang against the Heart of Annihilation and whispered across the fabric of the bag. Caz held it before her eyes. Twelve inches of glistening, untarnished silver alloy, sleek with a graceful curve. A handle of polished copper fitted perfectly to her hand.

  Caz draped her bag’s long carrying strap over her shoulder and adjusted it so it hung down her back. She stood. Her eyes went straight to the lord of the room, sitting on his throne.

  The commandant stared back at her.

  “Cazandra, what in Gauss’s law are you doing here?” Commandant Paliyo’s voice echoed all around the chamber, silencing the other council members. The one hundred and twenty-one other faces turned on her.

  The commandant pushed himself to his feet. Caz hadn’t seen him since before Vin died. He’d aged in that time, adding at least another ten kilos to his weight. His face was splotchy, and cavernous circles shrouded his eyes.

  “We have an appointment,” Caz said into the silence of the room.

  “The hell we do. I told council member Fisk not to allow it.” Commandant Paliyo gestured to the side. A half a dozen marshals materialized from the shadows and came her way. “Get her out of here. And will someone please get me a report of what’s going on out there!”

  “I can tell you.” Caz adjusted her fingers on the blade.

  “You?” The scorn in the commandant’s tone worked a twinge of anger past Caz’s cool façade.

  “Yes sir, your honor. Or I could show you.” Caz sighted down the blade.

  The marshals climbed the steps toward her. Caz set her feet, bent her knees, and grinned at the closest marshal. He was young. Not much older than Caz was when Zak Faras died. Too young to carry the vacant mien of all Rethans.

  He reached for her. Caz slashed the blade across his arm, cutting through flesh and bone with ease.

  The world silenced. His mouth opened, his tongue as red as the blood flowing from the missing appendage. She recognized that noise should be filling her ear—screams, perhaps a spattering sound. It was lost behind the whoosh, whoosh of her own singing blood and the deafening song of adrenaline. Of rapture.

  The first marshal hadn’t even fallen before her blade moved on. A slice to her left, a stab to her right. She felt the blade penetrate flesh. The catch of bone. The tug of fabric. She counted as they fel
l. She danced down the steps, her feet light upon the alloyed daises, the melodious whoosh in her ears.

  Pure, tarnished silver brightened beneath her feet. The rushing sound faded and sounds penetrated. Screams. Running feet, cries of supplication, chaos. The quiet zap of the energy surging up and down the dripping blade.

  “Silence!” Caz whistled the blade through the air, projecting energy into a sizzling lightning bolt that swept the chamber and spattered those closest in blood. “I said silence!”

  The screaming melted into whimpers, and the council as a whole froze where they were. An ancient male wiped a crimson spot from his cheek. Caz scanned the doorways, nooks, and corners for evidence of other marshals. None appeared. Her path could be mapped by the blood and bodies.

  Caz’s boots squeaked as she turned on the silver daises. Commandant Paliyo cowered behind his oversized throne.

  “My esteemed commandant,” Caz said quietly. “Would you be so kind as to ask everyone to take their seats?”

  He came out from behind his chair, shuffling on his knees, his hands clasped prayerfully.

  “Cazandra.”

  Caz cocked an eyebrow. He stood hastily.

  “Everyone, take your seats,” the commandant said in a hoarse whisper.

  The council members, for the most part, obeyed. Hesitant and shaky, they managed to get to their feet and either collapse into the closest chair or perch precariously on the edge, so as to take flight at a moment’s notice. A few were unable to move in any direction.

  “My dear council.” Caz ran the blade of the knife across her arm, revealing the weapon’s shine. Blood saturated her sleeve. “We are gathered for a plenary session to discuss the inclusion of weapon number one-twenty-three to the public arsenal.”

  No one moved. No sound was heard except a groan of pain from one of the closest fallen marshals. Caz swung the blade around, directing a powerful charge of voltage into the copper handle and down the blade. White lightning curled out, striking the prone figure atop his head. The body jerked, then lay still and silent. Gasps exploded from the council members. Half rose from their seats. Caz silenced them with a look.