by Andy Kasch
He made it up the dirt mound and started to climb the boulders above it when a small rock hit him in the shoulder. Did it come from above? He looked up. No. Couldn’t have. He looked down. There was Kayla and Casanova. Kayla frantically waved at him to climb back down with one hand while making the universal shushing signal with the other. Alan complied.
“Where’s Jumper?” she whispered when he was safely in the gulley. Alan noticed she was holding Casanova back, who seemed to desperately want to climb up the embankment.
Alan quietly explained the last known positions and intentions of Jumper and Shaldan. Kayla became concerned when she learned Jumper was on the heights. They both scanned the mountainside, but didn’t spot him.
“Someone’s on the other side of these rocks,” Kayla said. “I heard them chattering, and Casanova’s acting like he smells something he doesn’t like over there.”
“Maybe it’s Fardo and Kush.”
Kayla shook her head. “No. I couldn’t understand them when they spoke. They didn’t have the Sulienite accent. It sounded like a …foreign language.”
Alan cocked his head. Foreign language? The very concept was alien. The implants they all had surgically embedded along their auditory nerves as a young child translated every known language in the galaxy. Alan had never heard any intelligent being utter anything incoherent, unless they were mumbling or had consumed too much argim.
Suddenly a laser fired from the top of the boulders. It missed both their heads by no more than a foot.
“Come on!” Kayla pulled Alan’s elbow. They ran farther into the gulley and ducked behind a clump of bushes just as the laser fired again right behind them.
“Extat!” Alan said. “We were talking too loud.”
Kayla had let go of the leash in the scramble and Casanova now seized his opportunity to get away. He began climbing up the embankment directly above them, but kept low and slunk as though he were stalking prey.
“Casanova!” Kayla said.
The big cat ignored her.
“I think he’s out of the attacker’s sight,” Alan said. “Maybe we should climb up there, too.”
The laser fired again, this time over the tops of their heads through the brush. The attacker must have moved down into the gulley. Bits of burning bush fell between them.
“Or maybe not.” Alan hunched down. “Who are these people, and what do they want with us?”
“Whoever attacked Threeclack and his party,” Kayla said. “And maybe Fardo, too. I think it’s safe to assume they want to kill us. If only I had a laser!”
Alan looked back up the embankment. “Or maybe better control of Casanova.”
Kayla shot Alan a mixed look, that of both scorn and enlightenment at the same time. She nodded and scanned the rocks above.
“Get down!” Kayla pulled Alan to the ground just as a new laser beam fired, this one from the top of the boulders a little farther south than where Casanova was lurking.
The first attacker fired again from behind the bushes. It came along the side this time. From its angle, you could tell whoever was shooting was coming closer. Alan and Kayla were trapped. They huddled together tight against the embankment.
“Our piece of real estate is getting smaller,” Alan said. “We need to do something.”
Kayla didn’t answer. She was looking up, stretching her neck to try and see as much as she could. As she did, the laser from the boulders on top of the embankment fired, so close Alan could smell her hair singe. He pulled her back down.
Kayla responded with a one-word shout at the top of her lungs.
“Wasah!”
She then pulled Alan’s head in close to hers. The laser beams returned from both directions. They formed an angle and left them no room outside their huddled mass. The beams both stayed on this time and inched their way tighter and closer. Alan could feel their heat.
But then a blood-curdling scream erupted from above. It was short. The laser coming from the boulders shut off. In another second, so did the one approaching from beyond the brush.
Kayla and Alan stood and looked up the embankment. Casanova was there, holding a limp figure by the neck. One of its arms—the one holding the laser—was lying on a flat rock below him.
The laser from beyond the brush then fired at Casanova. It was high, but adjusted and struck him on the back. Casanova dropped his prey, howled and leapt down into a crevice.
“You bastard!” Kayla shouted. Her voice echoed across the canyon. The laser went out.
“Extat!” Alan said. “You reminded him we’re here.” Alan realized his chance to rush the attacker had come and gone too fast for him to react.
“I’ve got to get to that laser up there,” Kayla said. She began climbing before Alan could object.
Not that he had a better plan. If it wasn’t for Casanova, they’d both be toast by now. But Kayla was about to make herself an open target. Alan knew he would have to rush the attacker and take his chances. It was probably suicide to attempt it right at this moment. As terrible as it seemed, his best chance was to wait for the attacker to see Kayla climbing and shoot at her. Whoever it was didn’t seem to be that great of a shot, so hopefully his first aim would be off by a few feet. That might give Alan enough time to tackle him.
Alan crept his way to the edge of the bushes while keeping his eyes on Kayla above. He knew he was vulnerable here, with nothing between him and the attacker but a thin layer of brush. Kayla would be fully exposed on the rocks in a few more seconds. He raised himself up into the sprinter’s position. As soon as the laser fired at Kayla, he would go.
A laser fired. But it came from the wrong direction.
Alan jumped back against the wall of dirt. He looked up the mountain behind him. A steady beam was firing from a hole between two rocks. But it wasn’t the same color as the other two. It was more maroon—the color of the beam from a Banorian hand laser.
The new beam kept firing past the edge of the brush. It remained in place, but then lowered closer to the ground. Alan smelled burning flesh. The laser went out.
Alan looked back up the mountain. Jumper stood up from behind the two rocks and waved. He wasn’t smiling. Jumper then motioned down the gulley with the laser in his other hand. Alan knew what that meant.
Cautiously, Alan stepped around the bushes. A body lay on the ground only ten meters from him. Smoke rose from its torso. The weapon was still in its hand.
Alan didn’t waste any time. He ran to the body, crouched, and grabbed at the weapon. It was firmly clenched. Alan had to pry away stiff, dark, leathery fingers to free it. Finally, he held the laser that almost killed him.
He examined the weapon, a shiny metal tube with an anatomically-shaped bulge in the mid-section. Alan held it in the position that felt most natural, pointed it so both ends were away, and pressed the button on the bulge that seemed like the logical trigger.
It fired. This was a good hand laser. Well designed. In another moment, Jumper stood next to him.
“Thanks, Jumper. I needed that.”
“Glad you have that working,” Jumper said in a monotone voice. “There may be more of them.”
The figure on the ground was completely foreign. Alan had seen many aliens in his life, but never one who appeared this “alien.” He wore a military-style vest that formed into short pants on the bottom. His skin was a dark charcoal-gray, everywhere, and tough like a reptile’s—even tougher than that of Torian natives. And he was big, at least two feet taller than Alan, which made him about eight feet tall.
But the most striking feature was definitely his head. He had huge yellow eyes, a devilishly wide mouth, and a growth coming out of both sides of the top of his head which curled backwards along his skull as some animal horns do. Alan finally looked away when the sight of his exposed smoldering chest organs became a little much. He noticed Jumper was still looking out to the canyon floor.
“Don’t you want to study your enemy?” Alan asked.
“I’m more
concerned with what I saw on the other side of this embankment.”
“What? What did you see there, Jumper? More of them?”
Jumper didn’t answer.
“There’s a ship coming!” Kayla yelled from above.
That got Jumper’s attention. He and Alan both looked up to her. She had the other alien laser in one hand and Casanova by the leash in the other. The two of them descended the embankment in great bounds.
“An alien ship!” she repeated. “Coming up the canyon. We need to hide.” In a few more seconds she and Casanova were on the ground with them.
“Did you hear me?”
“The cave,” Alan said.
Kayla looked at him and nodded.
Jumper just kept staring at the top of the ridge. Kayla nudged him.
“Come on, honey. That was good work, but you need to snap out of it.”
A sound like a spaceship hovering came into earshot from farther down the canyon. Alan grabbed Jumper’s arm.
“There’s a cave back here along the trench. It’s deep. We can hide there.”
“Lead the way,” Jumper said.
The cave was not only deep, but wide. It took a few moments for Alan’s eyes to adjust once they were inside. When they did, he found a perfect observation spot. It was high on a platform on the west side of the mouth. From this position they would probably be able to see the approaching ship. Best of all, they were all perfectly hidden there, concealed not only by the darkness but by being off to the side, which would keep them off any thermal scopes.
Except for Casanova. He was content to sit at the lower level near a small water pool under a dripping stalactite. After getting a well-deserved drink, he proceeded to lick his laser wound.
“How is he?” Alan asked.
“He got hit in the back. It looks like a flesh wound. He’s hurt, but he can travel okay. He saved us, you know.” Kayla looked at Jumper, as if expecting some kind of reaction.
Jumper gave none.
The noise from the canyon grew louder and the ship came into view. It was sizeable.
*
“You’ve been here how long?” General Islog8 asked.
“Only a few days,” Brandon said. “I must say I’m pleased that you showed up so soon after my arrival, General. And I’m impressed by your fleet.”
That much was true. The Torian fleet was a most welcome sight. If there was any doubt over Tora’s military dominance in the Erobian Sphere, all one had to do was get a glimpse of the dozens of transport ships—escorted by multiple squadrons of ITF1’s—currently drifting in the space between Dirg and its solitary moon.
“Humph.” General Islog8 lifted his tube of Redflower20. “This is only half of it. I usually don’t come in here with anywhere near this many. But our last runner ship brought a message from the High General requesting us to make a grander showing for some extat reason.” He eyeballed Brandon suspiciously before taking his drink.
Brandon swallowed his as well.
“Did the message include any information about me?” Brandon spoke too soon, before the storm of bitterness in his mouth had fully subsided—so he ended up choking out some of the words.
The general stared at him for a minute before responding. The two of them sat in a small conference room on the command ship, surrounded on all sides by panoramic video screens with a live shot of the space outside. Seven or eight Torian transport ships floated peacefully in the foreground. Beyond them, Brandon could see his own ship—dwarfed in size by comparison—orbiting Dirg. The rest of the fleet was behind them.
“About you specifically?” Islog8 finally said. “No. But I was told a Class-3 reconnaissance mission may be meeting me here to relay information they have gathered.” He paused again. “I’m hoping whatever you have to say is of some military relevance.”
“Why wouldn’t it be, General?”
Islog8 leaned forward to place his empty tube in the rack on the table.
“Your anomalous friendship with Olut6 is known among the high command, as is your notoriety among the Earthling population. I’m aware that the High General places some credence in your purported peripheral …abilities. But there are those of us who are hesitant to invest in these types of intangibles.”
“I can only assume you are referring to the unfortunate label some humans have assigned me.” Brandon casually retuned his own tube to the rack. “I assure you, General, that I take every opportunity to deny and disown that. I’m before you now as a personal favor to the High General, only because he judges me most qualified for the task. But, if tangible military prerequisites are needed before you’re capable of giving my report the respect it deserves, I’ll think you’ll find my resume is not short on those. I’d wager that I’ve personally been involved in more critical military actions than any native in your fleet.”
Islog8 managed a smile. “Yes, you were a good shot in your younger days, weren’t you?”
The general’s comment should have been irksome. But it wasn’t. Not today. Brandon was rattle-proof after his conversation with Bleear at the Ulork village. And he now discovered something interesting. By being emotionally detached from the conversation, he was able to see through Islog8. He knew his intentions. This was simply how the general rolled. It was how he sized people up, being slightly rude and making unflattering insinuations. That was his way of gathering insightful information. Had Brandon been vulnerable to his emotional jabs, he probably would have missed that.
“Why don’t we get to business?” Brandon said in a friendly tone.
Islog8 frowned. Perhaps he realized he met his match today.
“By all means, Brandon. Proceed.”
Brandon slowly relayed the findings of his mission as factually as he could. While he explained the reasoning behind each decision, he was careful not to use defensive language. It was not his purpose to steer the fleet commander towards any conclusions. It was only to provide information. Hopefully, Islog8 would arrive at the same deduction as he and Perry.
He didn’t.
“Is that it?” Islog8 said when Brandon finished.
“Yes.”
“I don’t understand why you came to Dirg. Your mission failed.”
Brandon cocked his head. “Information was gathered, General. Just as Olut6 requested. I thought it significant enough to bring to you directly.”
“Significant? Why?”
“Everything I’ve discovered supports the High General’s suspicions of an enemy coalition.”
“A coalition involving who?” Islog8 slapped his hand on the table. “Azaar? I hate to be the one to break this to you, but you have nothing more than wild and unfounded hunches. Unless there’s something else you haven’t told me. But I doubt that.”
“Not only with Azaar,” Brandon said. “With all the outer fringe worlds except this one.” He pointed at Dirg on the screen.
“How in Erob do you draw that conclusion?”
Brandon couldn’t help but smile at the mention of Erob, even if it was used only as a curse word. He was still in full afterglow mode from a wonderfully enlightening meeting with a half-breed prophet. Erob was real, the Erobs were still alive and watching everything, and he knew it—at least for the moment.
The general, however, seemed only to become more agitated by his smile.
“You think you know special things the rest of us don’t because you have some magic gift, don’t you? I’m not persuaded, Earthling. Not by you and not by Olut6’s conspiracy theories, either. I’m a military man, so I follow orders. But let me tell you what I’ve seen out here these last eight months while I’ve been on patrol: nothing. No enemy sightings, no suspicious activity of any kind, and no abnormal traffic between these worlds. If I was in charge of Tora, we’d all be home protecting our own system, not out here on the edge of known civilization hunting phantoms.”
“You don’t find it odd that so many of these worlds have gone dark?” Brandon asked. “And only on this side of the sphere, where Latia
happens to lie?”
“Dark. What do you mean, dark? You mean that they stopped coming to Amulen’s extat tournament? Or that they’ve entered a period of reduced interstellar travel? And by ‘so many’ do you mean three or four? Because none of that adds up to a mound of yuquil dung.”
Brandon was undeterred. “What about the Chenel video I was given?”
“What about it?” Islog8 said. “You’ve handed me nothing but paranoid speculation. A message in a charm from a half-breed. Tell me, what do you suspect it contains?”
“Very possibly specific information about enemy activity.”
“Very possibly?”
Brandon had to check himself. He was beginning to lose at Islog8’s game. Extat, he started out so well. But this guy was good. The general was drawing him in and getting him emotionally charged.
“Possibly,” Brandon said in a calmer voice.
Islog8 cocked his head. “Tell me, Brandon Foss, what have you been doing since you arrived at Dirg?”
“I met with come military commanders, including Admiral Hochob. Since then I’ve been waiting for you.”
“Waiting in your ship the whole time?”
“No, General. I also had a conference with the Ulork leader here. The Dirg half-breeds.”
“I figured as much. You’re quite friendly with all the half-breed races, aren’t you? Getting secret messages in jewelry, and sitting around philosophizing about the fate of the galaxy, no doubt. But you know what I’ve noticed? They don’t fight. The half-breeds are great at telling us what to do, but when an attack occurs they stay nice and safe on the ground, and then run off to some neutral planet across the galaxy afterwards. All the while we natives die protecting all of our homes.”
Brandon was insulted now, and could no longer suppress his reaction.
“Maybe if we actually listened to them, there wouldn’t need to be any fighting or dying to protect our homes.”
“No,” Islog8 said. “There wouldn’t, because we’d all be dead—or slaves somewhere.”
“You’re wrong about them, General.” Brandon struggled to regain his composure. “They fight. I’ve seen them fight. Maybe they don’t fight in ways you can outwardly see or appreciate, but I’d say their fight is at least as important as ours. You cheapen their plight because you don’t understand—or respect—their ways. You don’t know, General. And you shouldn’t expound upon your ignorance in this manner. The fight for the Erobian Sphere is as much theirs as it is ours—maybe even more so. And it’s a fact that if it wasn’t for ‘the fight’ in the half-breed races, Cardinal-5 wouldn’t exist today.”