Peacemaker (The Revelations Cycle Book 6)

by Kevin Ikenberry

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  Tara heard nothing else. In the white light and violent explosion, the CASPer systems failed in unison, and the mecha twisted as it flew and slammed her unprotected head into the helmet mount on the right side. Her world went black.

  * * *

  Qamm remained on her hands and knees long after the final ripple ran down from the Altar mines. All radio frequencies were silent, and there was nothing she could see in the mess around her. She suspected the Altar detonated their colony and the mine entrance in one fell swoop. The thought of her lost mercenaries, and the millions of credits in lost equipment, enraged her. With Kenos dead, there was no viable pay source. The Peacemaker Guild would only reimburse the cost up to a certain percentage based on the situation. Given what happened, and what their representative on the planet knew, they might not pay anything at all. Qamm picked up her knife and snuck around the curving helm of the Raknar toward where the Peacemaker landed.

  The Peacemaker had to die for Qamm to be paid. The dead could not refute the claims of the living. It was reason enough for Qamm to leave cover and concealment. She moved quickly through the loose sand. Scanning the ground in front of her, she looked away to the river and noticed the Selroth had retreated. Twisting for a better glance, she contemplated the changing situation as a laser bolt tore through the exterior of her combat vest just below her sternum and passed harmlessly underneath her arm pit. She made for the legs of the stationary CASPer, slid the knife into her sheath and drew the pistol. Another bolt impacted the titanium alloy legs as she knelt for cover behind them. The shooter was up against the Raknar and well hidden. Qamm pressed her back into the thick armor of the CASPer and looked over her left shoulder.

  “It’s over, Peacemaker! Put down the weapon and come out!” she yelled and heard an echo of her voice in the distance. There was no response.

  Her back against the CASPer leg, Qamm pushed herself into a standing position and brought the pistol to her chest. “Peacemaker! Put down that weapon! I’m here to help you!”

  The lie came easily and as much as Qamm believed gullible human nature would take effect, it did not. She looked around the leg expecting a shot, but there was none.

  Maybe she believes me?

  Qamm decided to press the advantage. “That’s right, Peacemaker. I know what’s happening, and I can help you. You have to put down your weapon. Let me approach, and we’ll get out of here together.”

  There was no response again. Qamm came out of her position and held up her own pistol, barrel up and away from the general vicinity of the Peacemaker. Still nothing. Emboldened, Qamm shuffled forward, portraying a weary and tired commander. “Look, I want this over. You can help me end it.”

  Fresh rifle and cannon fire filled the air behind her. Qamm turned and pointed. “See? The mercenaries and the colonists are killing each other. Kenos and his promises are dead. There is nothing that can stop peace.”

  “Quite right,” a voice called from behind her. Pain in her back followed a split second later. The smell of dead fish caught her nose and Qamm looked down at a smoldering exit wound on her chest about three centimeters below the right shoulder. She turned slowly toward the voice and tried to bring up the pistol in her right hand, but found it would not respond. The pistol clunked into the sand. A Selroth, his rebreather-hidden face twisted in a smirk, held a pistol on her but kept his eyes on the Raknar hull. “Leader Qamm. You should have stayed with your forces.”

  Qamm blinked in pain and sudden realization. “Ooren? You killed Kenos?”

  “No, but it’s just as well he’s dead. He was a figurehead and, frankly, in the way of my benefactor.” The Selroth smiled. “It’s perfect that you’ve come along just as I am tying up loose ends.”

  The knife on her left thigh called to her. She could try for it and perhaps draw it as she closed the distance. Selroth, especially those bred for the boring duties of leadership, reacted poorly in a combat situation. This one looked like he’d never held a gun, much less used it. A distraction, even for a few seconds, would work.

  “What of Leeto and the Wandering Death?”

  The Selroth laughed. “He’s dead. Along with scores of Altar and almost all of the humans our Peacemaker brought with her.” He stressed the words loudly enough for the Peacemaker to hear, but there was no response from the human.

  Is she too scared to move? Qamm thought and dismissed it immediately. Peacemakers were too well trained to be scared in any situation. There had to be something the human waited for. Something that would give her an advantage. “She’s not here,” Qamm said. “I think she ran toward the colony.”

  “She did not.” Ooren stepped forward, leveling his pistol at her chest. He was three meters away and easily within striking distance. He froze and looked into the sky above them, and the pistol’s aim moved away. Qamm snatched the knife from its sheath and lunged forward. She grasped at the Selroth’s throat and plunged the knife into his chest. The Selroth gurgled and tried to wrap his arms around her as life drained out of his body. She pushed away, letting him fall, and stood. Her body quivered for a moment before a massive weight hit her from above and drove her right shoulder hard into the sand. Her left leg twisted grotesquely, popping as it failed. The smell hit her nostrils as sharply as the pain along her spine. An Altar!

  “Get off me,” she wheezed. The damned thing could not hear her, but her mercenaries could, and the radio filled with chatter instantly. The weight above her shifted painfully and then lessened as the Altar stood on its legs. Qamm looked up to see it render the Selroth’s head from his body with a snap of its powerful mandibles. Black blood spilled across the tan, dusty sand as Qamm struggled upright. Her leg would not work properly as she tried to get it under her.

  Her headset squealed to life. “Leader Qamm! Orders? The Altar have retreated into their mine, and the other mercenaries refuse to retreat. What are your orders?”

  Qamm stood in agony. She screamed and looked directly into the sun as she did. Legs wobbling in pain, she pressed a clawed finger to her headset and snarled in her native tongue. “Kill everything that isn’t ours. Let the Darkness fall!”

  She lowered her head and saw the Altar, their queen no less, staring at her. The big ant-like alien’s mandibles quivered. “You must experience justice for what you’ve done.”

  Qamm laughed through her tears of pain. “Just kill me, Klatk.”

  The Altar did nothing, and Qamm saw her eyes move a fraction to the left. Qamm tried to turn, but her shattered leg would not comply, and she collapsed into the sand. The Peacemaker approached from her cover and made her way toward the Selroth’s corpse with a rifle in her hand. She fired once, at the Selroth’s head for insurance, and closed the distance rapidly.

  The Altar spoke. “This is Qamm. She is the leader of the Wandering Death.”

  The human stared, but said nothing for a moment. “Your forces are engaged in genocide, Leader Qamm.”

  She chuckled. “My forces are fulfilling a contract with Administrator Kenos and the Dream World Consortium, Peacemaker. As it is a valid contract, there is nothing you can do.”

  The human looked up the hill behind Qamm for a moment. Cannon fire continued. “You ordered your forces to kill everything that wasn’t yours. That exceeds your contract guidelines.”

  “Other incidents as required,” Qamm said. Her knife was a full meter away and beyond a quick reach. Any move would clearly show hostile intent, and that would end badly for her, without the chance of at least wounding the human. “The contract is quite clear that negotiated positions change with the situation. Arrest me if you wish, but your charges will not stand in a court of law.”

  “My charges are born out by the weight of evidence, Leader Qamm, as stipulated by the guidelines of the Peacemaker Guild,” the human said. She drew her weapon and pointed it at Qamm’s head. “I have no intention of arresting you or your forces.”

  Qamm snarled. “No Peacemaker would ever execute an unarmed suspect, r
egardless of the crime.”

  “It’s a good thing I don’t have to,” the human said as she stepped back and holstered her weapon,

  By the time Qamm reached for her weapon, she realized the Altar queen was moving toward her, mandibles open, with a speed she’d never seen much less believed possible. She reached up helplessly, “Please! We can talk this through. We can—”

  * * *

  Jessica turned her head as Klatk fell upon the screaming Veetanho mercenary. Under the false awning of the fallen Raknar, she looked up at the cockpit section expecting to see Taemin readying himself to shoot them both or awkwardly climbing down the CASPer’s legs. There was nothing. Grotesque, wet noises ended the mercenary’s screams and screeches. A bone jarring crunch almost caught Jessica’s attention enough for her to turn her head, and then there was silence. As she waited for Klatk to finish, Jessica collected her pistol, performed a quick function check, and holstered it against her thigh.

  “Is it done?” Jessica asked.

  “Yes,” Klatk said. “Why would you let me kill when you should have arrested her? I do not understand.”

  “There is a battle going on, Klatk. I don’t have the time, nor the personnel, to handle a prisoner,” Jessica said. “Move back from where Taemin can see you.”

  Klatk glanced up and shuffled forward. “Are you okay?”

  The question took her aback. Klatk stood there drenched in the blood of a mercenary she’d violently killed and asked her if she was okay. She frowned and nodded. “I’m fine. What are we going to do now?”

  Klatk pointed up at the cockpit section. “This mercenary arrived here without being seen. So, there must be a way to escape Taemin’s sight. From there we can get to the battle and salvage what’s left.”

  “What’s happened?”

  Klatk stood silent for a full five seconds. “Hex detonated the mines and likely his own CASPer to save the brood. My entire team that was with him is dead. None of your tanks survived the initial attack. Only one CASPer remained operational, but it has since gone offline. My people retreated inside the mine and are securing the other entrances. About 400 mercenaries remain engaged and are trying to breach our defenses.”

  Jessica considered the odds and found them lacking. “We have weapons, though? There are unused CASPers in the compound and more ammunition. You really need to move.”

  Klatk’s mandibles wobbled, the equivalent of a human shrug. “Given their proximity to the command center, they may have been destroyed. Your computer is trying to—”

  A large laser bolt tore down through Klatk’s chest and the Altar queen crumpled to the ground in front of Jessica. Jessica whirled, tracing the line of the shot, and froze. Taemin stood atop the motionless CASPer with one of the mecha’s small laser cannons cradled in his arms.

  How in the hell? She gaped. Either he’d studied a lot of CASPer mechanical engineering or something was more than it seemed. Jessica squared her shoulders to him. The breeze picked up and swept her hair across her eyes, but she didn’t move.

  “You’re not a mediator, are you?” she yelled up at him.

  The Caroon smiled. “I am in this iteration of life,” he said. “Before this life, I did many things the council expunged from all records. Wars for hire. Disputes solved with disreputable tools. All the things you hate. Being a mediator allowed me the opportunity to study disputes and determine where my services could be best used.”

  “For your own gain,” Jessica raised her palms up, showing him her hands were empty, and pulled her hair back over her ear just enough to brush against the on switch for her earpiece. The device rebooted with a series of chimes. “You’ve managed to kill all of the parties involved, haven’t you?”

  “Almost. The major players are dead and these simple colonists will feed from their fear long enough to render their colonies incapable of survival. The nuclear detonation below does not change anything, either. I can decontaminate the gold and secure the oil for good measure before the Consortium mounts any type of legal resistance. When they do, I won’t be here. My work,” he adjusted the heavy rifle’s barrel in his arms to point at her chest, “is nearly done.”

  Jessica laughed and brought a hand to her mouth in surprise. He meant to kill her, and there should be nothing funny about that, but he’d found a way to fool nearly everyone in his life including her—despite her top scores at the Academy in reading others and judging character. That was funny. A fresh breeze came up and blew her hair again, giving her another chance to touch the earpiece and whisper, “Lucille, foxtrot tango.”

  “What did you say, Peacemaker? Something to your precious computer?” Taemin jutted his chin up at the cockpit section, the meaning clear. “I disassembled that damned thing the moment the power came on in the consoles. I don’t know what you were trying to do, but it only managed to work for about 90 seconds. This beast isn’t going to fight for you or anyone else. You humans haven’t learned how to make others fight your wars for you, just yet. Pity, really. Until you do, you’re nothing more than cannon fodder disguised as a worthwhile distraction for most of the Union worlds. I can stop part of that right now. There won’t be another human peacemaker for a very long time.”

  Jessica looked down at the sandy soil as if hiding tears. In reality, she was double-checking that the safety strap on her holster was open, and it was. She cautiously flexed the fingers on her right hand and prepared to draw. She froze. Under her feet, the top grains of sand around her footprints vibrated and pulsed away from the Raknar in shimmering, dancing waves. More followed as the vibration came up through the ground and filled the air. A shriek from above caught her attention and she looked up to see twelve, red-tipped missiles streak over the Raknar from the southwest. They detonated on the high ground around the Altar mine entrances.

  More missiles came, followed by four green-camouflaged ducted fan aircraft unlike anything she’d ever seen outside of history books. Their sleek noses, hump-backed fuselages, and small tail sections gave them a sleek, porpoise-like appearance. Under their wings was a bevy of ordnance and twin cannons blazed from their noses.

  She looked at Taemin, “Friends of yours?”

  He lowered his eyes to her and hefted the barrel again. “What did you do? In the Raknar?”

  Jessica shrugged. “Plugged a slate into the console to run a system check. Why?”

  “The whole console came alive,” Taemin said. “I disabled it, but not fast enough.”

  What does that mean? These ships came because of the Raknar?

  Jessica squinted. “These aren’t your friends?”

  “No,” Taemin said and raised the rifle’s barrel up slowly. Another ducted fan aircraft shot over the Raknar, no more than 50 meters overhead, and pivoted sharply to bring its nose onto them. Taemin looked away, and that was just enough time.

  Jessica drew her laser pistol without looking, pulling it smoothly from the holster and feeling the touch sensors accept her handprint with a barely perceptible click before the pistol reached her waist. Her arms came up smoothly, left hand reaching across to stablize her right hand under the pistol’s grip. As her arms came up, she sighted the pistol on Taemin’s narrow chest and fired three quick shots. His face upturned to the flyer, he never saw a thing. The rounds impacted him in a four-centimeter area tearing apart his chest and leaving his back shrouded in a crimson mist. He contorted, fingers squeezing the trigger of the laser rifle as he fell forward from his perch on the Raknar. A green bolt passed harmlessly over her shoulder. Taemin hit the ground with a thud and Jessica shuffled forward, pistol down. The mediator’s eyes were open and unfocused. She knelt and checked for a pulse, and the body flinched one last time and settled into the sand.

  “You bastard,” Jessica said as she stood.

  Movement to her right caught her attention, and she knelt an instant before a laser bolt ripped through the air over her head. She spun toward the river, the pistol coming up in her hands. A squad of five Selroth emerged from the still water
focused on her. The closest howled in rage, an awful choking sound through its rebreather. Jessica centered the pistol on its chest and pulled the trigger. As it crumpled to the surface of the water, she moved the pistol to the right and found her next target.

  Center mass. Squeeze.

  Again, she found her target. She whirled to the third Selroth, an enormous tentacle-headed thing, just as it fired a laser bolt that grazed her left shoulder. Jessica winced and went instinctively down to one knee, firing five quick shots as she did. The third Selroth fell into the water. The two others closed the distance to her quickly. She fired again, knocking down the fourth Selroth as the pistol’s power failed. The last one came up from the water and charged.

  Jessica dropped the pistol and dove for the laser rifle lying in the sand next to Taemin’s body. She grabbed it and rolled in one smooth motion, bringing the rifle up in both hands. The Selroth slammed a two-meter long trident towards her face, which Jessica blocked. Jessica swung out her legs, catching the Selroth offguard, and tripped it backward. She rolled up from the sand, rifle at the ready as the Selroth staggered three steps away and turned to face her.

  From her position, Jessica realized she could still see the tops of the Selroth’s feet, which from her basic combatives class meant that she was out of its striking distance. She raised the rifle to her shoulder. The damned thing was heavier than it looked. “It’s over.”

  The Selroth squatted into a fighting stance, its trident lance at an angle, prepared to attack. The breeze freshened from behind her and swept her hair into her eyes. Jessica shook her head to clear her vision and saw the Selroth snarl at her.