Books One to Three Omnibus (Armada Wars)

by R. Curtis Venture

“Oh shit, yeah.”

  “Ready?”

  “Ready. No, wait! Yeah… ready.”

  “Go on, Bro! Go!”

  Bro dashed into the junction, zigzagging around the hotspots, and was leaping over Norskine before the first shot split the air behind him.

  Eilentes slipped into her own space and time. She was aware of every sound that moved the thick air. She heard Bro’s heavy footfalls on the ground, lengthened into crackling forevers. She knew without looking that the Viskr shot was a miss, even while she took aim herself, and smiled at the stretched thachhhht of the sniper’s round hitting a building. Her scope brought the enemy closer to her, intimately close, so close she might whisper a secret, and she ended him.

  This time, there was no return fire.

  “Two.”

  “Third one’s gone to ground,” Caden said.

  “Fucking hell,” Bro panted. “That was not cool.”

  “You see Taliam?” Daxon asked. “Is she still alive?”

  “Didn’t really get the chance, Dax,” Bro said. “Everything was a blur.”

  “Fuck.”

  Eilentes was back in full cover, staring across at them. “Am I clear or not?”

  “Can’t really tell,” Daxon said, ducking out quickly. “I’ve lost line of sight— Oh shit, he’s got backup. Three more of those ugly fuckers just appeared from nowhere.”

  “Eilentes—“ Caden said.

  “You’re going to have to cover me again.“

  “EILENTES!”

  “Caden, what?!”

  “I don’t mean to rush you,” said Caden, “but you’ve got company.”

  Eilentes glanced across at the others. Caden and Throam gestured frantically, pointing straight back at her.

  She turned around to look back down the way they had come, and her heart made a mad bid for freedom through her open mouth.

  Skulkers were coming.

  — 09 —

  Boys Will Be Boys

  Fog this thick was always a double-edged sword. Rendir moved stealthily through the damp oceanic air, trying to make as little noise as possible, straining to hear the slightest sound that might give away the enemy’s location. He squinted into the drifting, white-grey morass, knowing that the advantages it gave him were also being bestowed on the other side.

  He could not let them win. And he was the last man standing.

  Masel and Nidri had been mown down by gunfire, during the first assault by the Viskr on his landing party. Corporal Ichen had been pulped by a skulker that lurched at him from the wet-wreathed shadows. Hitami — sweet, bold Hitami — had blown herself apart with a grenade, in a desperate bid to cripple the enemy’s armoured column. They were all of them gone.

  His last chance to end the occupation was to reach the Viskr command centre, and blow it to the Deep. If he failed, then this world was doomed to slave under the yoke of oppression for the rest of time.

  Rendir stole his way through a long passageway, clinging to the wall, leaping across the openings that led off to invisible chambers. It was a straight run, but he could not yet see the other end; could not yet see what lay in wait for him in the veiled depths up ahead.

  He went on regardless. Cowardice was a foreign concept to him.

  When the trap was sprung, the threat came from behind. Too late he heard boots clomping on the ground, quickly coming up behind him. He whirled around and saw a dark shape emerging from the mist, already pointing at his chest.

  Rendir collapsed against the wall, his whole body jerking and his hands flailing. He sank to the ground and slumped onto his side, tongue lolling out of his mouth, eyes rolled back in his head, and shuddered out his cooperatively dramatic death throes.

  “Peow-eow-eow! I got you!”

  “Geerrrghh–ghh–ghhhhh!” He said.

  “I GOT HIM!”

  More shapes moved towards them, stepping out of the fog.

  “The Viskr Junta wins again,” Josué declared. “You guys give up yet?”

  “NEVERRRR!” Rendir yelled it from the ground, throwing up his arms and casting off any pretence at being dead.

  “Are we playing again?” A smaller boy stepped towards Josué. He was at least a Solar younger than the others.

  “Of course we are, stupid,” said Josué.

  “Can I be on your side?”

  “Don’t be so stupid. We’re playing with the same teams, Elías.”

  “You’re not supposed to call me stupid, Jos. I’m gonna tell mama!”

  Rendir got to his feet.

  “No you won’t,” Josué said. “If you do, you can’t play with us any more.”

  Elías stuck out his lip, but remained obediently silent. His position in their fraternal dictatorship had been made quite clear.

  “What do you want to play next?”

  Josué turned his gaze towards Rendir, and considered the question out loud. “We’ve done the Battle of Kemrik, the Massacre at Rinnow’s Point, and the Occupation of Baujaan — twice. Those are all the good ones.”

  “Najila fell last week,” said Rendir. “I saw it on our house holo. We could do that.”

  “Doesn’t that mean the Viskr are supposed to lose?” Josué‘s face was the very picture of disapproval.

  “Maybe this time they won’t.” Rendir waggled his eyebrows, as if that might entice Josué to accept being on the doomed side of a conflict.

  “I’m a bit sick of playing as the Crusties,” Josué said. “Shall we all swap sides?”

  Rendir shrugged. It was easier than having an argument with Josué; much easier.

  “How does it go, Ren?”

  Rendir looked behind him, and saw that his crack assault force had returned from the dead. Hitami was looking at him expectantly. He felt his cheeks go hot, and hoped the mist was enough to hide any blushing.

  “We went to Najila to blow up their ship factories,” he said. “But the ones in space were only where they put them together. They were making the engines and the guns on the ground.”

  Josué frowned. “So… we just pretend to fly about and shoot at a planet? Lame game!”

  “No, we went down to the planet too. We wanted to take their strilli… their zetrill—“

  “Their xtryllium?” Josué formed the word carefully, with a barely hidden smirk. Rendir might have been the group’s resident Perseus conflict expert, memorising every news report he saw and turning each one into a game, but Josué was far, far better with the difficult words to which their sport exposed them. He never missed a chance to remind everyone of that.

  “Yeah, to get their xtryll-ium.” Rendir aped Josué‘s pronunciation clumsily, and the other boy’s face adopted the satisfaction of a harsh critic.

  “Xtryllium. It’s just capture the flag all over again. Bor-ring.”

  “I think it sounds fun,” said Hitami.

  “Nobody asked you,” Josué said.

  Rendir bristled.

  “So?” Hitami said. “Nobody asked Roima Gotharom to blow up that big Viskr ship, but she still did it.”

  “Well my dad says she’s just a jumped-up crowd-pleaser with a flagpole stuck all the way up her bottom.”

  “Your dad’s an idiot then.”

  Josué stepped towards her. “Say that again, I dare you. I double-dare you.”

  Hitami stood her ground. “Your. Dad’s. An. Idiot.”

  “I’m going to knock you on your ass!”

  Rendir was between them in an instant, his face right in front of Josué‘s. He was the taller of the two by half a head, and broader, but Josué puffed his skinny chest out as if that would somehow compensate.

  “Back off, Jos.”

  “What’s it to you, Rendir? Is she your girlfriend?”

  Josué laughed, and his friends laughed with him.

  “Rendir’s got a girlfriend. Ooh, please don’t hurt my girlfriend.”

  Rendir counted to five, as Peshal had taught him. Be the reed, she always said. Be the reed that bends in the wind but never bre
aks.

  “Stop being a kid,” he said. “I have to go in soon. So do you. We’re just wasting time.”

  “Yeah, Josué. I’m getting bored,” said Nidri.

  “Am I on your side?”

  Josué made it look as though he were backing off from Rendir to speak with his brother, nothing more.

  “I already told you; yes.”

  “I don’t think I want to be on your side now,” said Elías.

  “Fine, go be a filthy Crusty with these losers. You know they all get killed? But maybe this way you’ll get a girlfriend before you die.”

  Rendir’s friends had all moved over to one side, and Elías went to join them.

  “Soldiers of the Imperial Combine, with ME!”

  Josué shouted the order and dashed back down the passageway, followed closely by his entourage. Rendir watched them disappear into the fog, bounding away with whoops and whistles, in search of a corner that would serve as a landing zone.

  “I don’t like your brother very much,” Hitami said.

  “I don’t like him very much either.”

  Hitami smiled at Elías. “You’re okay though.”

  Elías went bright red.

  “Guess we should find ourselves a good place for a factory,” said Rendir.

  Ichen’s face lit up. “What about the solarium? It’ll be empty in this weather.”

  “Oh, good idea,” said Hitami. “And it’s only open at the front. Easy to stop them sneaking up on us!”

  They ran across Level 230, not bothering to shout and holler as Josué‘s side had. The longer it took the others to find them, the better their chances were. Few of Josué‘s friends had any real patience.

  “Sentries, there and there,” Rendir said. “Give me a spotter up high!”

  The others scrambled to follow the orders. When it came to military manoeuvres they obeyed Rendir without question. Not one of them had seen anywhere near as much footage from the front lines as he had.

  Elías climbed onto the wall surrounding the terrace of the solarium, and then up onto the roof of a permanent awning built into one corner. Even with the fog, it was the ideal spot from which to see without being seen.

  “I think we should have some things for them to try and capture,” said Hitami. “You know, like parts. They can’t win if they don’t get them.”

  “But we don’t have anything,” said Masel.

  “Yes we do,” Hitami said. She walked to the edge of the solarium, took hold of a potted plant, and dragged it to the centre of the terrace. Masel and Ichen looked at each other, then followed her lead. Before long, there were four neat rows of them in the middle of the tiled floor.

  “There. Weapons factory.”

  Rendir gave Hitami a thumbs-up. “Nice work, Private.”

  She beamed back at him.

  Time passed slowly in the cold, damp gloom of the early evening, and Rendir began to wonder if perhaps they had gone too far across the level. Josué and his friends might even be too lazy to scour every corner for them. It was, after all, a lot of ground to cover.

  Once or twice passers-by moved quietly through the fog, going about their business. Rendir tensed every time they appeared, expecting an attack, until he was sure that the dark shapes were adults and not children.

  Eventually, the intrusion came.

  It was one advance scout, running through the fog quickly and quietly. She galloped along the broad avenue in front of the solarium, realised she had missed quite a large opening, and doubled back. She saw Masel in the same moment that he saw her.

  “HERE!” She shouted.

  “Peow-eow!” Masel’s fingers riddled her with imaginary bullets. “Down you go!”

  “Ack-ack-ARGH!” She collapsed to the ground, shaking violently.

  “Weapons free,” Rendir said. He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, a gesture copied from one of the many holo clips he had pored over.

  The others came swiftly towards their comrade’s death cries.

  Masel gave as good as he got, falling at the same time as the boy he gunned down. Two more ran at the entrance to the solarium, with Josué following closely behind them, and passed between Ichen and Nidri.

  Josué spied the deliberately misplaced rows of potted plants, understood, and shouted to his troops. “Seize those weapons!”

  The two Viskr sentries riddled his vanguard with bullets. As he passed between his fallen soldiers, Josué opened his arms wide and pointed a finger of each hand at Ichen and Nidri.

  “Pow, pow!”

  They fell obligingly to the floor.

  “Brack-ack-ack!” Shouted Hitami.

  Josué ignored her, and grabbed for one of the pot plants.

  “Hey, I got you.”

  Josué continued to pay no attention to her, and took the rim of another pot in his free hand.

  “I got you,” she insisted, and took his arm.

  He shrugged her off aggressively. “No, stupid. You missed.”

  “I didn’t, that’s not fair.”

  Hitami tried to pull one of the plants back, and he pushed her away.

  “Get off, I’m taking them. I’m seizing this factory in the name of the Empress.”

  She pushed him back.

  Rendir was back between them just before Josué‘s hand reached her face. The boy had swung it hard towards her, but from so far back that the wide, arcing strike took forever to complete. The hand slapped against Rendir’s upper arm, and stopped dead.

  Rendir pushed Josué; one hand in the middle of his chest.

  “Oh, come to save your girlfriend?”

  “You’re dead. She shot you.”

  “No she didn’t!”

  Josué emphasised the word ‘didn’t’ with a hard shove of his own, pushing Rendir with both hands.

  Be the reed.

  As Rendir took a step back, he grabbed Josué‘s wrists and turned. The other boy was put off balance, half-stepping and half-falling forwards, and began to struggle with him.

  Rendir tried to keep hold. Josué was moving more quickly, and it felt to Rendir as though he wanted to get his hands free so he could strike out again. They turned around and around, stumbling together towards the edge of the solarium, and Rendir kept having to tilt his face away to avoid being clawed by Josué‘s flailing hands.

  Rendir saw Ichen and Nidri, watching with open mouths. Elías, climbing down from the awning back onto the outer wall. Hitami, looking as though she were tired of watching boys fight. Masel, silently placing a mental wager.

  They banged against the wall, and Rendir felt his back collide with something else. Something much softer than stone or metal.

  “REN!”

  Hitami shrieked so loudly that the world itself seemed to stop. Both Rendir and Josué looked towards her.

  “Elías! He fell! He fell off the edge!”

  The boys released each other at the same time, and stood on tip-toes to look over the wall. Neither could see down the far side, so they both hauled themselves up onto it.

  Two metres below them, just visible through the drift, Elías was laid across the taut metal cables of the safety barrier.

  Josué dropped back down from the wall, and ran wailing into the fog.

  • • •

  Rendir was led home by Father Cabrera, and he had the good sense to hang his head in shame for the benefit of the priest.

  Warned ahead of time, Peshal was waiting at the door of their home. She looked at Rendir as though she would have many things to say once Cabrera had left them alone.

  “I think this belongs to you,” Father Cabrera said.

  Peshal ignored her son. “How is he?”

  “He broke his arm across one of the cables, but he should be fine.”

  “Father, I’m so very sorry this happened,” she said. “Rendir should have known better.”

  “Boys will be boys,” he said.

  “I don’t think we’ll be letting him off quite that easily.”

  �
��Don’t be too hard on him,” said Cabrera. “Elías did have his brother with him. I’ll be having words with my dear first-born when I get home; Josué should be the one looking out for Elías, not Rendir.”

  Peshal finally looked at Rendir. It was as though she had pierced him with her eyes.

  “What was it this time?”

  “Frontline,” he said quietly.

  “I can’t hear you, Little Man. What was it this time?”

  “Frontline,” he said. “We were playing Frontline.”

  “Those damned news feeds.” She turned her attention back to the priest. “He won’t stop watching them.”

  “War coverage is perhaps not the best diversion for a young mind,” said Cabrera.

  “I know.”

  “I can think of better things he might be doing.”

  “I can think of some too. There’s a whole room back there that needs repainting, Little Man.”

  “I was thinking of something along more theological lines,” said Cabrera. “Many of the youths of Level 230 were in and out of trouble before their parents brought them to me.”

  “Brought them to you…?”

  “Yes, at the church. Humanity Redeemed.”

  Lamis appeared at the doorway.

  “Go inside, Ren,” she said.

  Rendir obeyed, his eyes fixed on the fascinating ground. He went into the house and sat down in a chair, then looked up again. He could still see and hear the adults talking on the doorstep.

  “What are you proposing, exactly?”

  “Just that you let him come along to my lessons,” Cabrera said. “It’s after the service. Think of it as Sunday school for adolescents.”

  “I really don’t think he would be interested in that,” Lamis said. Rendir could hear a familiar edge in her voice, and he could see that Cabrera was oblivious to it.

  “Well, none of them are interested at first. But after a while, the simple lessons of our One Saviour—“

  “No, thank you.”

  “Surely there is room in your boy’s life for a little faith? For the teachings of one of the last great religions?”

  “You don’t want to know her views on religion,” Peshal said.

  Rendir knew them well, and braced himself accordingly. Across the room, he could feel Peshal doing the same thing.

  “Oh, surely you can’t be that opposed to a little bit of religion?”