Penult

by A. Sparrow

  This dog fight had turned into a rout. The last two falcons disengaged and fled, zipping away at top speed to catch up with the other retreating craft. Bugs began landing on the beach and dunes all around me. I was heartened by how many had survived the battle. But where was Karla?

  “Damn good show!” said Olivier, striding up behind me.

  Two beetle riders came slinking out of the scrub where they had taken cover with Olivier. One by one, the rest of the bugs landed on the dunes, some without riders. Tigger did not join them but instead flew back to the fig tree and its aphids. I looked around for Karla and her robber fly but could not spot her. My stomach dropped.

  “Looking for me?” I turned to see Urszula smiling back from atop a dune, beside her dragonfly, her short but sturdy scepter propped over one shoulder.

  “So … how did the scouting go?” asked Olivier.

  “We have a few problems,” said Urszula. “There were many marches of new Cherubim moving to the boats. We hide in the tall grass until the night came. The bugs were restless. But coming back … we came too close to their ships. They have new weapons. They are using the plasma now. One hit destroyed Tyler’s fly and he went down into the water. That is how they catch him.”

  “They got Tyler? Shit!”

  “But … there are targets. We find many good targets. We can show you.”

  Urszula tore a branch from a shrub and stuck it into an urn slung from her saddle. She slathered some kind of resinous balm over some severe abrasions in Lalibela’s shell. It looked like someone had taken a chainsaw to her.

  Olivier stared out across the bay at the retreating Pennies.

  “We’d better get a move on. Now that they know we’re here, they’ll be back, by air and ground. Maybe even by sea.” He started counting heads. “Alright now. Who did we lose?”

  “I saw at least three volunteers get hit,” said Ubaldo, still astride his hornet. “Plus one of the scouts.”

  “Kitt?” said Urszula, alarmed.

  “She took a direct hit from one of the condors,” said Ubaldo. “I saw it happen.”

  Viktor came screaming in low over the trees.

  “Yaqob’s fallen. In the forest.”

  “Shit!” said Olivier.

  “We need some help over here!” someone shouted.

  A group of volunteers had gathered around a limp body sprawled in the sand—Kitt. She panted heavily. Her flannel shirt was soaked with blood.

  Urszula rushed to her side, skidding to her knees in the sand beside the fallen scout. I kept looking around for Karla. Where the hell was she? I was beginning to fear the worst.

  I went over and crouched down next to Kitt, placing my hand gently on her arm. Besides all the bleeding, there was something terribly wrong with her mid-section. There were lumps and dents in all the wrong places.

  Urszula shook her head. “The bones in her chest are crush. They have new weapons—a kind I have not seen them use before. They now use the plasma like us.”

  Kitt’s face was bruised and bloated, her hair matted with blood and sand. But her eyes were open and alert. She beamed at me with bloody teeth.

  “Hey James. It’s nice to see you.” Her voice was croaky and weak, but she sounded almost cheerful. She writhed around and took my hand, squeezing it tight.

  Her manner was much too chipper for the situation. It threw me for a loop. What do you say to a dying person acting so nonchalant?

  “I guess I’m headed … to the Deeps, finally. “

  “I’m so sorry, Kitt. We’ll find a way to get you back here.”

  At least … I won’t be alone.” “Tyler’s probably there already. Did you hear?”

  “Yeah. Urszula told us.”

  She pressed her eyes closed, grimaced and grunted.

  “You’re gonna be all grey next time we see you, though. You’re gonna be a Duster.”

  “That’s okay,” she said. “Some of my … some of my best friends are Dusters.”

  Two men came down off the dunes carrying Yaqob, clearly struggling with his girth and weight. Thick ballista bolts pierced his chest and belly. The hole in his chest wheezed and foamed pink as he struggled to breathe.

  The men laid Yaqob down beside Kitt. Three others who had fallen were assembled in a separate group down the beach where their comrades mourned the souls who had already passed into the next realm. I was afraid to look too closely over there just yet.

  “Hey Yaqob, those wounds look patchable,” said Olivier. “You’re not bleeding too bad. Someone get a flesh weaver over here.”

  “No need,” said Yaqob, wearily. “It is my time.” He took Kitt’s free hand and clasped it gently.

  “Will you show me the ropes, Mr. Yaqob?” said Kitt, struggling to be brave, but her voice was strained.

  “I … will not … be joining you,” said Yaqob.

  Oliver reached down and put his palm on Yaqob’s chest. “His body, it’s getting cold. His breathing is slowing. He ain’t dying. He’s shifting modes. He’s heading off to the long sleep.”

  “Crap,” said Kitt. “I was hoping for some company. Any chance I can go with you to the Singularity?” She dug her fingers deep into Yaqob’s fissured palm.

  “I am afraid that you are not an old soul, Kitt,” said Yaqob.

  “Listen, the Deeps aren’t so bad,” I said. “And maybe Tyler’s already there, scouting ahead.”

  “Not to mention, the three volunteers we lost,” said Ubaldo.

  “You guys stick together,” said Olivier. “Stay away from the marches. Ignore the fucking Horus.”

  “Find one of the free settlements,” said Urszula. “Go there. The Hashmallim stay away. And it is safe there from the Horus.”

  “I still have friends there who didn’t cross,” I said. “Like Urszula said, find one of the free towns. Ask for Lady An. She knows me. She’ll take good care of you guys.”

  As we gazed into Kitt’s eyes, they dulled and took on the terrible and unmistakable glaze of death. I felt a pair of arms slide around me and hug me tenderly from behind. I turned and buried my face in Urszula’s dusty hair.

  Chapter 58: Regrouping

  From the tangled rat’s nest that was Urszula’s hair, I looked up to see Karla standing a few feet away with a group of other volunteers gathered around Kitt’s body. Karla glanced at me and smirked, before looking away, feigning disinterest, though she blinked a few too many times to make her apathy convincing.

  Urszula saw what I was looking at, she pulled away like she had suddenly found herself in the embrace of a hot, pot-bellied stove.

  “Your woman? She is back?”

  “Yeah. She’s back, yes. But … she’s not my … uh….”

  “Not your what?” said Karla, with a lopsided grin, her eyes now fully engaging mine.

  “You’re a friend. Just a friend. That’s all.”

  Her smirk only deepened.

  “And what is she?” said Karla.

  “I am friend too,” said Urszula. “We are all friends. She backed away towards Lalibela, but then stopped and faced Karla. “But you had better watch out. Be nice to him, or I will make him more than friend.” That erased Karla’s smirk pretty quick. Urszula winked at me, turned deftly on her heels and skipped across the beach to her dragonfly.

  “Glad you made it back okay,” I said, feeling awkward. Should I go to her? Hug her? Make up for the affection I showed to Urszula? But I just stood there, gawking. “So … how’d it go out there? The fighting?”

  Karla stared at me a bit, before answering.

  “You saw, no? I did not get any good shots in, if that is what you are asking. Your dragonfly did better than me … and without you. You stayed behind, I see?”

  “Yeah, well. I guess don’t have the knack yet for wrangling bugs.”

  Olivier came bustling over, one side of his face crusted over with freshly clotted blood. Ubaldo followed behind him, looking sullen and pensive. He stood at the edge of the surf and let the waves lap at his ankl
es as he stared across the bay to where the Pennies had retreated.

  “Come on people!” said Olivier, clapping. “No standing around. We got shit to do. Need to figure out who’s coming, who’s staying.

  “Whoever stays behind will need to go inland from here,” said Ubaldo. “This camp is no longer safe.”

  “We have some wounded for sure who will need to stay back,” said Olivier. “Bugs and folks.”

  “This one will not be able to make the crossing,” said Viktor, examining a dragonfly with a crumpled hind wing. “It will need a splint and a patch. But she can make it to the bogs, I think.”

  I saw one dragonfly go down in the water,” said Karla. “I think it might have drown.”

  “And we’re short at least one robber fly,” said Olivier. “Alright, let’s patch up whatever, whoever we can and make our assessment. I’d like to clear out of here within the hour.”

  ***

  We buried Kitt and the other fallen behind the dunes, just on the edge of the forest. Some of the volunteers decorated their grave with a scattering of scallop shells and sand dollars. No one said a thing. There was nothing that needed to be said. We all knew Kitt was brave and spunky and we would all miss her.

  A party of the more able-bodied carried Yaqob to an outcrop of ancient coral in the middle of the scrub forest. They stashed him under an overhang where he would be protected somewhat from the elements, not that it seemed to matter with Old Ones. They weathered well even out in the open, gathering moss and lichens without ill effect.

  After that, folks just spontaneously sorted themselves out to accomplish the various tasks that needed to get done. Karla helped tend to the injured volunteers with Ubaldo and a Frelsian who had some skill at flesh weaving. The Frelsian—a short, bald Algerian named Ydris—had a knack for sealing wounds and mending broken bones through unbroken skin.

  I joined a crew that tended to the bugs, most of whom had suffered some sort of injury. Tigger, again refused to come down out of the trees when I called, but from the looks of things he seemed fairly unscathed.

  Lalibela, on the other hand, seemed badly injured, her cuticle cracked in several places and leaking profusely. Viktor and Urszula labored to patch her with resins reinforced with sheets of thin but tough membrane that Viktor carried for such purposes. Her wings were intact, other than a few rips and holes in the clear parts.

  Urszula shinnied up a fig tree to snag her a couple aphids. She knocked several down off their perches and they fell like coconuts. While she slid back down the smooth bark, I cornered an aphid against a tree trunk. I could see organs pulsing behind its translucent green cuticles.

  Urszula snatched it up and tucked it under her arm like a football with legs. She handed it to Lalibela who snatched it up greedily in her forelegs. Oliver strode over with Ubaldo, hovering as usual in his orbit.

  “So you’re the last scout standing.”

  “So it would seem,” she said, wrinkling her brow with puzzlement.

  “We’ve got a few more questions for you. How stiff are their coastal defenses? I mean, what are we facing?”

  “Defenses?”

  “Yeah. I mean, what can we expect? Do they have air defenses. Falcons on patrol?”

  “They have nothing,” said Urszula. “No real defense. It is as if they have never been attacked, and they think they never will be. They are the attackers. Their focus is all on this place. We saw many Cherubim marching to the shore, with only a few Hashmallim attending to them. They were going to the boats. We did not dare challenge them, but they did not seem very alert. They wore no armor, carried no weapons. Their limbs and skin are not yet modified. They were not expecting any threats.”

  “They give us no respect whatsoever,” said Ubaldo, grinning. “They think we are sheep. They cannot imagine us coming to them.”

  “We faced no opposition. Maybe it was a mistake to send us,” said Urszula. “Now they will be alerted.”

  “No,” said Olivier. “It’s good that we know what we’re getting into.”

  “One problem. The core is very weak over there,” said Urszula. “We had trouble making spell craft.”

  “Now that could be a problem,” said Olivier. “Maybe that explains why they fight the way they do. All those conventional weapons. Bows and arrows and slings. I don’t think they do it just to be Luddites.”

  “So what about the cracker columns?” I said. “Will they even work over there?”

  Olivier looked at me like I was an idiot. “Those have nothing to do with spellcraft,” he said. “They’re like the wings. Pure technology.”

  “Really?”

  “Wasn’t it Asimov who said that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic?”

  “I said the core is weak, not absent,” said Urszula. “Someone like James can use the core even when it is faint. Even … in life.”

  “We’ll be counting on you, then,” said Olivier. “The rest of us might be firing blanks once we get there.”

  My stomach churned, but it was just nerves—no conjuring of will.

  “Any chance you want to give that other column another shot? Try to get it working?”

  I just looked at Olivier.

  “Are you kidding me? Honestly … I’ve got nothing. Not a clue.”

  Olivier frowned. “Alright. But we’ll bring it along anyhow. We already got good use out of that one decoy. We’re not going to need three beetles though. Maybe we send mine back to the bog with some of the wounded.”

  “Yours? So then what will you fly?” said Urszula.

  “I was thinking, time to upgrade my ride. I have my eye on Yaqob’s scorpion fly,” he said, winking.

  “We need to leave,” said Ubaldo, staring out across the waves. “Before they have a chance to respond.”

  “Yeah. We’re almost ready,” said Olivier. “Viktor’s fixing to lead a bunch of the more banged up back to the bogs. Soon as we see them off we can ship out.”

  “How far is it to cross?” said Ubaldo.

  “Not far,” said Urszula. “The water is narrow like a river. It is not really ocean. How you say? Strait?”

  “How long did it take you?”

  Urszula shrugged. “A few hours. We see land most of the way. Only in the middle do we see nothing. There were … some boats.”

  “Boats?” said Ubaldo, perking up.

  “Oar boats,” said Urszula. “Rowed by a single Hashmal. Like the condors. The Cherubim they stack like wood … in the hold.”

  “Maybe … we can attack some?”

  “I don’t think so,” said Olivier. “We don’t need any diversions. This mission is all about giving the Pennies a taste of their own medicine, delivering a cracker column to their shores.”

  “Though I worry about the beetles crossing,” said Urszula. “Taking over a boat would give them a place to land and rest.”

  “Our beetles did fine on the way over,” said Olivier. “Those bugs might be clumsy fliers, but they have staying power, unlike the mantids. If we get fed and watered well, they should have no problem getting across.”

  “Perhaps,” said Urszula. She and Ubaldo shared a glance.

  Olivier climbed up a sand pile and counted heads. “Eight,” he said. “Looks like we’re down to eight able bodies and bugs. Alright people, gather around. This is how we do it.”

  Chapter 59: The Boat

  We hung out on the beach, nervously eying the far point where the Pennies lurked, until Viktor, Ydris and the worst of our wounded had lifted off and were streaming over the forest, heading for refuge in the bog lands. Riders doubled up on the saddles of the fittest bugs, while the injured insects flew home alone.

  I managed to sneak up on Tigger while he sunned himself on the sand, and clambered onto the saddle before he could get away. He first tried to buck me, but quickly settled down, resigned to have me as a rider, this time at least.

  “I don’t think he likes me,” I said to Karla, beside me astride her comparati
vely well-behaved robber fly.

  “He’s just a baby,” said Urszula, on the other side of me. “Even Lalibela, I had to chase when she was new.”

  Ubaldo stood in the saddle of his hornet, watching Viktor and his contingent recede across the landscape.

  “If the Pennies are watching, hopefully they’ll think it’s all of us retreating,” said Olivier, as his scorpion fly nosed around in a heap of rotting kelp.

  “Shall we go?” said Ubaldo.

  Oliver gave a nod.

  “We stay low, skirt the northern arc of the bay till we’re over the open sea.”

  Ubaldo zipped away on his hornet. It dangled its tarsi, skimming the tops of the waves. The two beetles went next, each hoisting a cracker column. The rest of us followed, keeping as low as we could as we sought our assigned positions in the escort formation.

  Tigger kept drifting higher, but when none of the other bugs would join him, he shifted back down to their level. Good thing, because, I doubt any of my kicks and stomps were having any influence on him.

  Tigger also insisted on flying fly next to Lalibela, the only other dragonfly left in the formation. There wasn’t much I could do to deny him, even though Olivier had intended for us to fly on the other flank with Karla. Urszula just looked straight ahead and smiled like Mona Lisa. I can’t imagine Karla or Olivier were too thrilled.

  Ubaldo’s wasp, by far the strongest flier among us, ranged far and wide, scouting our flanks and the path ahead. Our overall speed was limited to the ponderous pace of the beetles. Their thoraces vibrated like Harleys as they glided over the glistening water. They were flying a little too low for my comfort. I worried what might happen if they dunked one of the columns. Those things were so porous, they would probably suck up seawater like sponges.

  Finally, we passed the rocky headlands that formed the northern buttress of the bay and moved out over open water. The sea here was clear and quite shallow. The sun easily penetrated to the sandy bottom, reflecting back aqua and turquoise hues with the occasional cobalt slash of a deeper rift or canyon.