The Mercenary's Dawn

by L P Peace

  Thanesh grunted in response.

  When he picked up his bag, she stepped up to him and waited.

  ‘Are you coming with me, little human?’ he asked, dropping the bag and stepping over to her, he pulled her into his arms.

  ‘As far as the docking bay, yes.’ she smiled at him.

  ‘I am not sure if I can resist you the entire way to the docking bay,’ he growled and kissed her.

  He didn’t. They were halfway through the ship when he pulled Alethia into a room and vrokked her against the wall with his tongue before finishing against her stomach.

  ‘I am not sure why I did that,’ he said, frowning as he cleaned her with a spare top from his bag. ‘I got the overwhelming urge to mark you.’ His frown lines deepened. ‘To make you smell of me and make sure I smell of you. Must be the Sehn,’ he murmured.

  ‘Sehn?’ Alethia looked at his fangs and gasped. ‘You have Sehn in you? That’s where the fangs come from.’

  ‘Sehn and Fedhith,’ he nodded.

  Alethia wasn’t listening. ‘Why are you bleeding?’ she asked, lifting his lip to see the blood on his fangs.

  The look he gave her was part hesitance, part guilt. ‘The urge to bite you is getting stronger,’ he admitted. ‘I had to bite myself.’

  ‘Thanesh,’ she shook her head. ‘You should just bite me. If it’s instinctive, it can’t be harmful.’

  ‘Yes, that is how these things work,’ he quipped.

  Alethia huffed. She’d been teaching Thanesh sarcasm, and he’d taken to it disturbingly ease.

  Thanesh gave her a reproachful look. He pulled her into his arms. ‘We have no idea what the Cealin did Alethia,’ he said. ‘Tevin checked my venom. It is changing. My people are a mixture of human, Cealin, Fedhith, Sehn and Enhari, along with a few other races. We have no idea what my venom will do to you now, and until Tevin comes back with the results, I will not risk it.’

  The first time Alethia was in the docking bay, they had just arrived back from Vidan and Thanesh rushed her through to get her to Medbay. This time, as they entered, she took in the vast, dark space.

  As with the observation deck, this room was black but brightly lit. There were several landing pads. A shuttle sat on all but two.

  She followed Thanesh to the far back of the room where they found a group of several Protectorate stood around one shuttle, including Jarit and Kerr.

  Electric blue hair stood out from the sea of white. Alethia gasped, afraid it was Dairon. When the face turned to her, it was a different half-Kuyon; his skin was paler than Dairon’s. An off-white grey-blue where Dairon’s skin appeared to be almost violet-blue because of his human heritage, he also had the trademark horns of one of Thanesh’s men. Another hybrid.

  As they approached, Jarit said something and they immediately lined up, standing at attention. Thanesh took a moment to look them over. ‘Very good. Everyone aboard.’

  As one they turned to Alethia and bowed, then turned again and walked, single file, onto the ship. Alethia frowned at Thanesh, who smiled at her.

  ‘You are my female. They will show you the proper respect.’

  Thanesh gripped her upper arms, his smile reappearing. She felt her stomach churn again. He reached into the front of his sleek uniform and pulled out a tablet, handing it to her.

  ‘What’s this?’

  He smiled. ‘Have a look.’

  Alethia took the tablet and read the screen. She gasped.

  ‘I wanted it done before I went down to Teralis.’

  She looked at the confirmation of transfer of ownership: from the Ledaan that bought her more than twenty years ago to Thanesh, then from Thanesh to Alethia.

  ‘I tracked down the Huan that owned you and your mother and through them found the Ledaan.’

  ‘Oh, Thanesh.’ Alethia could barely speak. She stepped into his arms.

  ‘There is a fuelled ship,’ he whispered. ‘If you take Makios before I return, I understand.’ She could hear the pain it cost him to utter those words.

  She reached up and touched his face. ‘You idiot. I’m not going anywhere.’

  Thanesh let loose a rushed sigh of relief. ‘Then I am definitely taking you to Dahnus Ascent.’

  Alethia giggled.

  Thanesh leaned over and rested his head on hers. ‘I am coming back.’

  Alethia nodded. ‘I know.’

  They kissed, allowing it to linger for a few moments before Thanesh turned and boarded the ship.

  The shuttle shook and rocked through the planet’s atmosphere.

  Jarit was fine until he caught sight of the alien jungle beneath them. His ordinarily calm exterior suddenly broke down. Sweat appeared on his forehead, his hands trembling as they moved over the control.

  ‘Never thought I would be back here,’ he admitted, a nervous laugh erupted and was gone.

  ‘Me neither,’ Thanesh said. ‘I thought we had this planet firmly in our past.’

  The planet's two moons reflected enough light from the sun to light up the alien landscape beneath him. Thanesh knew, down on the ground, the jungle was the same as a thousand others. But up here, it was possible to see what it was that made Teralis a safe place to put the facility. The closer they got to the planet, the more the landscape revealed itself to be islands of mountains covered in growth, with rivers snaking through and lakes reflecting the sun.

  Each island was surrounded on all sides by the clouds, which acted like the planet’s seas and oceans. Those clouds were deadly. At night, when the air cooled, the gases expanded, thinned and covered the jungle. The plants and animals on Teralis had adapted; the plants breathing in the gases and breathing out oxygen during the night, while the animals had two sets of lungs, their rote set, for air and a smaller set for night that allowed them to breath the deadly gas, filtering the poison to leech the air from it. For anyone else, Teralis was uninhabitable at night. Anyone locked outside of the facility by the time the sun went down would suffocate to death. Thanesh and his brothers had learned this the hard way.

  The planet’s landscape appeared like an old painting; the paint flaked and cracked with the white of the canvass beneath peering through.

  The way the landscape appeared from up here, with the passages of clouds and the islands of life, it struck Thanesh how the layout resembled Protectorate space and the regions of space they guarded.

  ‘What do you think they are doing to our men?’

  ‘I do not know, but we will visit every injury back on them.’

  Jarit answered with a nod.

  They entered the planet from the dark side, flew high up in the atmosphere and set down an easy walk to the facility. Thanesh suppressed a grin. Easy for him. Alethia would probably take rotes.

  Jarit’s eyes flitted in every direction as they stepped down the ramp and onto the planet.

  ‘Anything seem familiar to you?’

  Jarit shook his head. ‘You?’

  ‘No.’ Thanesh shook his head. It didn’t seem much different from the planet he’d been on with Alethia.

  Thanesh saw the perfect leaf for Alethia’s hat-making and smiled.

  ‘Sir.’ Thanesh looked over at Garen, his half-Kuyon crew member. He pointed. ‘The facility is in that direction.’

  ‘Grab your gear. We all know what we are doing.’

  ‘Do we?’ Jarit said quietly. ‘This is not exactly familiar territory.’

  Thanesh stopped himself from laughing.

  ‘Yes, we will be doing some survival training after all this is over.’ He looked across the tree-obscured landscape. ‘I learned a few things about survival on that planet.’

  ‘Like what?’ Jarit frowned.

  ‘Like Alethia is excellent at it,’ he smiled. Jarit laughed.

  A howling broke through the trees in staccato. It seemed mocking. Jarit and Thanesh froze and looked at each other. It was as though they had first heard the noise hours instead of centuries ago.

  Jarit swallowed, his throat seeming to strain against the
action.

  Thanesh’s eyes danced over the scars on Jarit’s panic-stricken face and replayed the events that had left his friend scarred.

  Waking had been confusing. They killed everyone in the facility; those first hours a riot of blood. They were rich with screams and the smell of fear. Thanesh pushed the thought away; there were deaths he was not proud of, regretted even. He refused to visit those ghosts this rote.

  Jarit was like a feral creature. They all were, but Jarit more than the rest.

  By the time conscious thought intervened on their mindless rampage, it was the middle of the night. Raiding the facility, they tried to leave, but the whole facility was locked down, Thanesh learned later, because of the gas outside. When the doors opened, Jarit ran into the jungle. Thanesh hadn’t learned about it until later. He went into the jungle after him, quickly losing his way, disoriented by the dense rain forest. When he stumbled upon him, a nightmare stood over his bloodied and ruined form. It dragged sharp claws down his face and torso.

  Dark green fur covered most of its body. Black rosettes stood out against the green, its back covered in deadly quills. When it caught his scent and looked at him, Thanesh saw its nose was folded up its short snout to reveal thick, long deadly teeth, its ears flattened against its head and its tail lashed out at him.

  The fight was short but brutal, breaking several of Thanesh’s ribs which he only discovered rotes later when they were picked up by an Amaran patrol.

  Thanesh jumped on its back, avoiding the quills, to deal the killing blow into the back of its neck and carried Jarit back through the rainforest, to the facility. His brothers were packing up the only ships available to them to leave the planet—ships they could fly, though none of them remembered training.

  Thanesh didn’t feel bad about killing any of the scientists or doctors until they were needed. It was a miracle Jarit survived his wounds. Infection tried to take him many times, making the scars uglier and deeper than they were to begin with.

  ‘Can we get the vrok out of here?’

  ‘Long-range ordnance,’ Thanesh ordered. ‘The heavier, the better.’

  That was another thing about the creature. It was huge. Thanesh had to jump on its back; he couldn’t have reached the neck any other way.

  ‘And set your suits to camo.’

  On instruction, the black of Thanesh’s suit disappeared, and the material took on the hues of the jungle around them. He placed a helmet over his face, seeing Jarit do the same. He saw his men’s masks change to match the camouflage.

  When they were all done and had checked each other, he nodded his approval. ‘Let’s go.’

  Thanesh led the way through the jungle. They moved silently, carefully, only communicating through hand signals.

  They came across the first Cealin patrol less than a madith from where they landed. Thanesh and his brothers took a long route around them to avoid detection.

  Thanesh watched them with interest. Their skin was as pale as Alethia’s, yet they walked around without covering. Their smooth faces weren’t bothered by the light. Their deep-set, wide, upturned eyes came in ice blues, greens and greys. Their hair was uniformly white. They were beautiful. As tall as the Protectorate were, muscular, but on the slender side. Lean muscle, where Thanesh and his brothers were bulky.

  A long time ago, on Caras, a Cealin female had propositioned Thanesh; he was almost tempted.

  The Ledaan who bought Alethia was based on Caras. When Thanesh spoke to him, the Ledaan was happy to get his money back. He had no interest in owning Alethia now that she was grown. Thanesh was tempted to go there to tear the male limb from limb. Instead, he sent Dak and a group of Protectorate to do it for him and rescue anyone the Ledaan owned. Just thinking about it made him want to blow Caras into space dust.

  They avoided a second group and reached the gorge shortly after.

  He signalled four of his brothers to do a perimeter sweep while the rest of them waited for them to return.

  The entrance to the facility came into view as Thanesh crept to the ravine’s edge. The white building lay on the floor a few hundred fenth beneath them. The landing bay was set above a pedestrian entrance below where Thanesh had gotten the first look of this planet so long ago. He remembered expecting to see a city, long before he knew what a city was. The thought confused him at the time, and he’d dismissed and forgotten it since. Looking down at everything that was still so familiar, he remembered clearly, looking out and being confused by the lack of tall buildings and flashing neon lights. He wondered now, was that the remnants of the human in him? Had he lived in a city like that?

  It was just as Thanesh remembered it, with most of the facility being built into the ravine wall. He noted the number of Cealin patrolling outside. One of them squatted and drank from the stream. Thanesh’s eyes backtracked to the two waterfalls that fed it. He considered it as a point of ingress.

  The camouflaged figures returned from their perimeter sweep. Thanesh motioned everyone to return to the safety of the rainforest, while he stayed behind, watching the camouflaged forms falling into the jungle. He looked at the facility one last time. His brothers were in there; he knew they were. So was this Kallis, and if it was the face he’d been dreaming about, the Ledaan wouldn’t be the only person rendered limb from limb.

  Thanesh fell back into the forest and found them a short time later. He pulled off his helmet, looking on the faces of his officers.

  ‘Scans.’ Garen indicated a pocket where he stashed the device. Thanesh nodded.

  ‘Let’s get back to the—’

  He felt it a moment before they were hit. They were surrounded.

  A whistling noise broke the calm of the rainforest, and something landed on the ground near them. Thanesh barely had time to recognise the stun blast before it went off.

  The faces of several Cealin soldiers surrounded them. He felt the dart, then nothing.

  Alethia watched Thanesh’s shuttle take off. She touched her lips, feeling the ghost of his kiss. She stared into the blackness of space beyond the energy barrier that protected them from the void. She was holding her freedom in her hands, the one thing she thought she’d never have, and Thanesh had given it to her. She looked down at the tablet and noted the name of the Ledaan who had owned her. Keevan Andalos. He had owned her for almost twenty-two years, and Alethia had never even known his name until now. According to the tablet, he was based out of Caras. She knew what that meant. If she’d survived him, he’d have put her to work. In a just universe, he would already be dead.

  She needed to tell everyone. Everyone wasn’t here, but Makios was.

  She walked over to a Protectorate standing at his station; he nodded respectfully as she approached.

  ‘Do you know where Makios’s room is? The Kathen?’

  ‘One moment.’ He picked up a tablet similar to the one she carried. His fingers danced across the screen before he looked up.

  ‘Follow me.’

  A few minutes later, Makios greeted her at the door.

  ‘Knew it was you,’ he smiled, hugging her. ‘I can tell your knock anywhere.’

  ‘Makios.’ She was breathless with excitement. ‘I trust him.’

  ‘You told him where Tessa is?’ His voice was surprised.

  She shook her head.

  ‘Then—’

  She held out the tablet. Makios took it from her. His eyes widened in shock when he realised what it was.

  ‘Alethia?’

  She nodded, the grin so wide it was painful. She couldn’t control it—didn’t want to.

  ‘I wish I’d known this before he left.’ Makios grimaced. ‘Tala’s in the gas giant, under the cloud cover.

  Alethia’s grimace matched Makios’s.

  ‘Nothing you can do about it now.’ She sat down on the bed across from him. ‘Is Deyuul watching?’ Alethia waved at Makios.

  Deyuul was Uunda. They were a powerfully telepathic race. He was also Makios’s second-in-command, and once he knew a mi
nd, he could talk to it over tens of thousands of madiths.

  Makios chuckled and nodded. ‘He’s announcing this,’ Makios held up the pad, ‘to the crew now. ‘He says hi.’ Makios scrolled through the purchase order, reading what Alethia’s mum had always termed legalese, that special legal language known only to those indoctrinated in the knowledge.

  After a moment, he went still but then started laughing. ‘Everyone came to the bridge. Deyuul is explaining.’ He held up the pad. ‘Valla’s crying. Dabin and Kenian are getting alcohol to celebrate.’

  ‘That sounds like a great idea,’ Alethia said, wondering if she could get Vaydin to bring her some. Dak had been sent on a mission, and Vaydin wasn’t nearly as attentive.

  ‘Hi, Deyuul. Have you heard from Dairon?’

  Makios looked up. ‘They were talking up until around three rotes ago, then Dairon went silent. He hasn’t heard from him since.’

  ‘Oh no.’ Alethia closed her eyes. Her mind was cycling through all the worst things that could have happened to her brother.

  ‘I’m sure he’s fine, Alethia, he’s probably been picked up by a Protectorate ship and is on the way here.’

  Alethia took a deep breath and scraped her hands over her face. ‘I hope so.’

  An impact threw Alethia from the bed. She rolled across the floor and hit her head on the wall, her world detonating into white then fading to black.

  ‘Alethia?’ Makios was bending over her, his face a mask of concern.

  The bright lights dimmed to red, and an alarm sliced through her temples and seemed to screech into the core of her mind, refusing her room to think, reason or remember.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘We’ve been attacked.’ Makios was lifting her from the ground. ‘We’re being boarded. We have to go.’

  ‘How do you know we’re being boarded?’ Her speech was slurred.

  ‘Deyuul,’ he said as the doors opened and he ran out into the corridor, carrying Alethia in his arms.

  ‘Where’s Thanesh?’ Panic made her voice clearer.

  The worry on Makios’s face increased as he looked from the corridor to her, then back to the passage.