by Steve Perry
With the help of a few carefully chosen words ...
She'd told Shorty that he loved human women, and that he obviously wanted to father her children. How wonderful, that it was his own conceit and intolerance that had cost him the battle. How typical.
How very yautja.
Noguchi stared down at the suffering Hunter for a moment longer, then knelt by, him, staring into his spiteful, hurting face.
"Human," he spat, and Noguchi nodded, not at all surprised that he could speak the word clearly.
"That's right," she said, and plunged her wrist blades into his throat. She watched his eyes, watched the spark of life leaving him, feeling only triumph.
A moment later, he was dead. Noguchi stood up, flicking the hot blood from her blades and retracting them, looking around at the body-littered clearing. Nirasawa was gone, ruined, but he'd managed to take out four Hunters first. Three had been unBlooded, but the fourth had surely been a challenge, the etched star shape on his brow marking him warrior.
Noguchi reached up and touched her own mark, thinking of Broken Tusk, wondering if he would have approved the things she'd done. She was still proud to wear his symbol, and thought that he would have understood--but it occurred to her that it didn't particularly matter whether or not he would have supported her actions. He wasn't there-and as trite as it seemed, she knew that it was her opinion and hers only that mattered. It had always been that way, but she'd forgotten for a while.
Noguchi turned away, looking for her burner. She had a ship to catch.
Lara heard the bugs coming through the jungle and her heart sank. So close, they had to be less than half a kilometer from the Hunter transport, and she simply didn't know how much longer she could go on. Max was faltering, his steps slowing, and Jess had tripped and fallen twice since their encounter with the Hunters. They'd been through so much, the space station, Briggs, facing death again and again through all of it-and Jess is about to collapse, and Ellis could very well die any moment, and I'm so, so tired
Lara gritted her teeth, forcing the thoughts away. They were close, and she'd faced bugs before. It was still very dark, although it had to be early morning by now-but drones made more than enough noise to target. She was down to her last few rounds, but she was a good shot, she knew she could make them count.
Ellis may not be able to help, but Jess will hang on ...
Whether or not he could aim very well anymore wasn't something she wanted to consider, but she stepped closer to him, both of them standing close to Max. If he couldn't do it, she'd take the burner when she ran out of bullets.
They were getting closer, at least ten, fifteen of them, the sounds of their approach violent and wild, trees snapping, their chittering shrieks growing louder.
"Ten o'clock," Jess said, and Lara nodded-and then Ellis spoke, his shaky voice quiet and small.
"Stay back we kill," he said, and Max's arms both locked forward, Briggs's body sliding to the ground in a heap.
Before Lara could consider the implications of "we," the first drone tore into the open, ten meters away. And Max took one step forward and became death, the world catching fire at his touch.
Max-ellis saw the first break cover and opened up, no longer certain of the best kill method, no longer able to mark an exact distance. They fired everything, deciding in waves of red-and-black awareness that a solid curtain of defense would probably work. "
Flame erupted from Max-ellis's right hand, a stream of napthal that stretched to meet the XT, its bounding form halting, screaming, turning in circles as its fluids heated and expanded. Its exoskeleton burst, and Max-ellis were already working the next moving forms, finding them, sending HEAP and incendiary grenades into the midst of the tumbling bodies.
--we kill and thirteen more
Part of Max-ellis had been injured by heat, when there had still been a separation. The fusion had been necessary for the good of the whole, although elements of both halves had been lost. There was no pain, but very little clarity, either, the entity's self-awareness muddled, incomplete.
Max-ellis did not think of this as they sent two full cartridges of rounds into the jungle, two hundred armor-piercers that tore through legs and arms, mists of drone blood flying, exo shrapnel from the exploding bodies slamming into other bodies. The napthal continued to stream across the congregation, burning to death those that didn't fall right away.
In less than two minutes, it was over. The only movement in the burning was the burning itself, smoke and flame rising and twisting up, finding new things to burn.
The Lara and Jess were speaking, but Max-ellis's capacity for speech was extremely limited, their understanding of language reduced to fundamentals.
We go now assigned parcel.
The body. Max-ellis turned and picked it up, doing as little damage as they could to the fragile flesh. Then they turned and moved ahead, in the direction that they had been going since before the meld.
In a matter of moments, they had reached the destination.
* * *
Chapter 29
Noguchi ran through the dark, aware that time was short. She'd heard the explosions only minutes after leaving her battlefield, and knew that the Hunters would head for the sight and sound of action. It was surely that suit, Max, and she hoped that the firefight meant Lara and Jess were still alive, that Ellis was protecting them.
The trees whipped past, Noguchi concentrating on keeping balanced, on skirting obstacles and keeping her speed up. She didn't want to be left behind; her fight on Bunda was over, and she was more than ready to be away from the Hunt.
And the Hunters, who wouldn't mind at all if I missed my flight.
Noguchi picked up speed, moving faster.
The Hunter transport was twice as big as the Nemesis shuttle, and looked something like a water pitcher lying on its side, a rounded body tapering at the neck. Jess wouldn't particularly care if it looked like a giant dog turd; he'd never been so happy to see anything.
The ship had set down in an angled clearing, near the top of a gently sloping hill, the jungle they stepped out of at the bottom. The sky seemed lighter, perhaps because of the open space, or maybe because the endless night was actually ending; they moved into the pale light away from the trees, Jess grateful to get out of the secretive dark.
At least we'll see the next deadly thing coming ...He considered crossing his fingers but thought it might be his undoing, the final exertion that would knock him out cold. He wouldn't be good for much longer.
Together, he and Lara struggled to keep up with the Max as it marched easily to the ship, holding Briggs with both arms. Throughout all of it, Briggs still hadn't come out of his post-implant coma. Jess knew that they'd have to leave the exec behind; he'd thought that they could use him if they ran into any Company people, but-
"I'll see about the controls," Lara gasped, breaking into his wandering thoughts as they neared the vehicle. "You get Ellis out of that thing."
Jess nodded, suddenly feeling more vulnerable than he had in the wooded jungle. He was afraid of what he would find when he opened the suit. Ellis had referred to himself and the Max as "we" before blowing up the band of drones that had come for them, and he'd been an emotional mess already, ever since 949. Jess had been with him for the first interface, and remembered how he'd gradually declined, losing his speech, becoming erratic-losing himself ....
...we'll take care of you, kid. Don't die on us-and don't stop being Ellis.
That was the worst of his fears, he knew, even worse than that Ellis might die from the second interface. The thought that Ellis might not be there anymore, that the spark of his character might be gone--no. He'll be fine, everything will be fine. Jess held on to the thought, determined to believe it.
They reached the ship, and it looked even more alien up close. It was made from some light gray material, matte and smooth, not a straight line in sight. Even the hatch was rounded, a giant stretched oval set into the side of the swollen body. Lara re
ached up and touched a panel next to the door, Jess holding his breath-and exhaling as the hatch slid to one side with a soft hum.
Inside, it looked more like a transport shuttle, with obvious chairs and a rounded console at the front. It was spacious and empty, and smelled faintly of something sour.
Lara moved inside, and Jess turned to Max, standing a few meters away. Even Hunter-sized, the door was too small to admit the bulky suit; he'd have to pull Ellis out and carry him into the ship.
"Okay, Ellis. Breathe easy, I'm going to-"
Max raised his rifle arm, pointing it down the hill, cutting Jess short, making him feel sick. Something was coming. It was as if every pain in Jess's body surfaced at once, the full extent of his injury and exhaustion finally letting itself be known.
No more. God, no more.
Jess turned, aching--and saw Machiko Noguchi emerge from the tangle of trees.
Max-ellis was safe and warm in the dark, feeling nothing, aware that the small woman was not a threat. They kept the left arm raised anyway, in case she was not alone.
She moved quickly up the grade and spoke to the Jess, the man, both of them making soft and light sounds, good sounds. She stood and waited for something, her posture expectant.
The man moved behind Max-ellis and touched the damaged area of their body. They realized too late what he was doing and tried to tell him no, no, that it was not good--and there was a shock of sensation, of many, ice and wet and pain. Max-ellis screamed soundlessly, born into the terrible cold, pulled from their womb of sustenance-and then there was nothing.
Lara sat in the center of the circular console, confused, not sure what to touch to make the alien ship come to life. She'd found the controls, at least-there were a dozen flat squares that might be buttons facing the blank front viewscreen, with two thick handles sitting above them. She'd punched the first square in the line and it had lit up, a deep red color. As far as she could tell, that was all it had done.
Intuitive, right ...
She was about to try the next when she heard Noguchi's voice coming from the open hatch behind her.
"I can pilot, come help-"
Lara stood and turned, hugely relieved at the sound of the woman's firm voice-until she saw Ellis in Noguchi's arms, streaks of drying blood on his ashen face. His hair was matted with red.
"Oh, shit," Lara said weakly, and hurried out from behind the controls, stumbling to where Noguchi stood. Together, they moved Ellis to one of the benches against the wall, laying him down as gently as possible.
Noguchi moved to the controls and slid into the pilot seat, running her hand across the buttons from left to right. Immediately, the ship began to rumble, a steady sound of working machinery filling the faintly unpleasant air. At the same time, the front viewscreen flickered on, and Lara glanced up at it from where she'd collapsed, cradling Ellis's poor head in her lap.
The picture was surprisingly sharp, the colors muted, the view of the hill's base where the clearing met the jungle. Lara started to look away, to look for a supply cabinet, they have to have bandages of some kind-when she saw the darkness coil out into the open space.
"Jess!" Lara screamed, staring at the dozens of bugs that were surging out of the trees, at the running black tide of teeth and claws erupting into the clearing.
"He said he was-" Noguchi started, but then Jess was falling inside, tripping across the smooth floor to where Lara sat, landing in the seat next to her.
"Go, go, I'm in!" Jess shouted.
"Hang on, we're-"
Bam bam bam bam!
Noguchi whipped around, staring at the still-open hatch. "Who's shooting?"
"Briggs, I put him in Max," Jess said. "Now go!"
The drones were coming, the dark wave drawing closer, and over the sound of a pulse rifle Lara could hear their rising screams-and could see the front line crumbling, the closest of the trumpeting animals blown back by the steady beat of Max's firing-and then the hatch was closed, and Lara held on to Ellis as the transport jerked and lifted, rising up from in front of the teeming mass, from the sudden river of liquid fire that swept across the dark, insectile bodies.
Flamethrower.
Lara turned wide eyes to Jess, still not sure that she'd heard right.
"You put Briggs-"
Jess reached down and touched Ellis's forehead, brushing the hair away from his waxy brow. "Thought he could do some good with the time he has left," Jess muttered.
The transport rose for another few seconds and then shot away.
* * *
Chapter 30
Lara and Jess had done what they could for their friend, bandaging him with a few pieces of soft leather they'd found for cleaning weapons. There was a medkit on board, but the tough plastic patches that Hunters used as bandages weren't made for humans, and Noguchi didn't know about any of the shots or drug packs.
There was plenty of air, enough for at least two weeks, and ancient emergency rations that had been stocked on the slight chance that something went wrong on a Hunt, stranding the Hunters. The protein jerky would taste terrible, she knew from experience, but it would sustain them.
As the transport began its ascent into Bunda's outer atmosphere, Lara and Jess moved forward, taking seats near the piloting console. Noguchi glanced back and saw that they'd strapped the unconscious Ellis to a bench, his arms folded across his narrow chest. It was amazing to her, how young he was. She'd pictured him as much older, as a lined and weathered man, but the person Jess had pulled out of the suit barely looked out of his teens. With his face wiped clean, he seemed even more like a child, pale and fragile.
"How is he?" Noguchi asked.
Lara answered. "His pulse is good, but beyond that ..."
She trailed off, and the three of them sat quietly for a moment. Noguchi could hardly believe that it was over; not just their experience on Bunda, but her life with the Clan.
"So, where do we go from here?" Jess asked softly, his eyes closed, his voice thick with approaching sleep.
"Home," Lara said, looking out at the approaching stars, her expression peaceful, tired, and a little sad but at rest.
Home.
Lara was talking about Earth, but Noguchi thought there was more to it, the planet's name inspiring none of the warm and lovely things that Lara's answer had inspired. It was the word for feelings she'd never fully understood and she savored it, tasting it, wondering how it could mean so much now.
Home. Someplace I haven't been, yet.
They moved out into the void, the soothing lull of the engines putting her passengers to sleep, Noguchi looking forward to experiences she knew would put the Hunt to shame; to a life that would be whole and fulfilling and new; they were going home.
* * *
Epilogue
He slept, and as he had before, he dreamed.
He dreamed in concepts, in pictures of ideas. That there was strength and heat in the cold emptiness, that there was light in the dark, that time and thought were fluid, yielding to the pressure of his touch. He dreamed that there was no loneliness, no pain-and when the fabric of his dreams began to thin, when shredded, ugly holes began to appear in the fine cloth, he fought bitterly to keep his dreams close to him, to keep himself whole, it was no use. After what seemed an eternal struggle the beautiful darkness melted away, and there was pain, and he was alone. The war was lost ...but he thought that his name was Brian, and in thinking it, felt that perhaps losing wasn't the end of everything good.
He settled into a deep and healing sleep, and did not dream anymore.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
C
hapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Epilogue