Six cupped a hand behind his ear. "What?"
Chapter Sixteen
"Six, hold up!" Pietas stooped beside a pool at the bottom of a short waterfall. "I need to wash off my mask."
"Your what?"
"My--" Pietas stopped short. "I forgot we pretended the ritual. It felt real."
"Told you it would work. There's power in role-playing."
"Apparently. I'll duck under the falls and clean up." He stepped into ankle-deep water and caught his balance on the mossy rock. "Slippery in here. Be careful if you come in."
"I'm going to. Let me refill the canteen first."
Pietas waded into the shallow pond and slid beneath the short deluge. While the icy falls beat upon his body, he closed his eyes and went through lines from his ritual, reaffirming his strength and resolve.
He opened them to find the feral green eyes of the panther watching him from atop a boulder. The expression held curiosity and joyful menace. As if the animal wanted him to run so he could be chased.
"Not happening, beast."
"You've started talking to yourself. You worry me, Ultra." Six waded into the pond, stuck a hand under the falls, screwed up his face, and stepped beneath the water. He sprang back out and danced around, shivering and swearing.
Pietas bit his lower lip to keep from laughing out loud. "That might have been the shortest shower in the history of mankind."
"That's freezing! How can you stand there with liquid ice pouring over you?"
"Discipline." He returned his attention to the cat, but it had gone.
"Yeah?" Six sloshed through the pool. "I figured out something. You Ultras are supposed to be genetically enhanced. You ask me, they packed more strength genes into you by yanking out the genes for hot, cold, and sleep." He pulled off his shirt and wrung it out. Even in the lessening light, the teal dragon tattoo across his back showed. He put the shirt back on, muttering about ice water the entire time.
Pietas stayed under the numbing flow, wishing it had the power to numb his dread. He faced every fear, ignored every pain, refused to permit regret any place in his life. But dread? Dread dogged his steps. No matter how hard he fought, dread seeped into his life, insinuated itself under his skin, and muddied his decisions.
Dread soiled him.
Once Six had dried himself, Pietas returned to the bank and sluiced off the last droplets. He bent so he could reach his hair and tousled it. As short as it was, it would dry fast.
Six sat and dried his feet with a rag. "I sure miss clean towels." He pulled on his boots.
"Oh?" Every piece of clothing Pietas had worn rotted during his year of captivity. He'd begun his life on Sempervia naked. Six's one spare outfit fit like a little brother's clothes. "I miss clean everything."
Six picked up his pack and they headed out.
"All right, ghost. Let me brief you about the people you'll be meeting."
"Sounds good."
"You know my sister, the twins, and Joss. You'll recognize my parents. Both are blond and blue-eyed. My mother is a miniature me, except she's beautiful."
Six snorted a laugh.
"What?"
"Every description of you contains the words lethal, terrifying, and beautiful."
"How flattering. You find me attractive."
Six held up both hands. "I didn't say you were cute, Ultra. Just stated facts."
"I strive to be worthy of lethal and terrifying, but beautiful?" He flipped a hand in dismissal. "Bah! I want no credit for my father's work. I do nothing to make myself attractive." He flicked his hair. "I cut this with a dagger. It's not that I don't appreciate beautiful things. I'm fond of art and gems. The hilt of my favorite dagger was a silver dragon studded with turquoise. I had a silver cuff for my hair that matched. I liked wearing the pristine white and teal of the Council." The memory of his ship and crew being disintegrated cut into him. He banished the image. Now was not the time. "But my mother? Ghost, she deserves every accolade. You'll see. She's delicate. Tiny. But don't let size deceive you. She invented most of the processes used for terraforming planets. And forgive me if I brag, but every planet terraformed in the last thousand years has her signature on it. Literally. Somewhere on every world there's a mountain, lake, or river named for her. Not that she named them. Others named them in her honor."
"Impressive."
"You don't know the half." Pietas sobered. "And then there's my father."
They continued hiking through the low scrub for a ways in silence. "So. Your father."
"What about him?" In the waning light, he stepped on a sharp rock. Pain radiated through his foot, sparking instant anger. Pietas hopped around, examining the wound. Though a minor bruise, it still hurt. He brushed off his hands.
"What has your father accomplished?"
"My father?" Pietas lifted his face to the paling moon's cold light, wishing himself elsewhere. For a moment, he indulged in the childish yearning before abandoning it. He faced Six. "My father succeeded in making me his enemy. Enough said, ghost."
"Oooh-kay." Six mimed zipping his lips. "No more questions about daddy."
A faint light came on in camp, revealing the shell of a pod standing on its end. The unit had been opened and its insides removed. Not far from that, another pod's light appeared. Combined with the first, it brightened the entire area. Though dim from this distance, it revealed two other pods upright between them and the presence of people.
Still a good twenty minutes out.
Six shifted the backpack to his other shoulder. "Who else is down there?"
"Joss said the entire council is awake."
"Not telling me much, Pi."
He halted and crossed his arms. "Ghost Corps did nothing to prepare you for your mission. You know nothing about us."
"You thought the Corps sent me to fight you?"
"If they didn't, then who did?"
Six slid his pack to the ground. "We were hand-picked last minute by some guy in a black uniform. Came into rehab and pointed to us. Usual military thing. 'I need volunteers. You, you, and you.'"
"Rehab?"
"Yeah. We were all in rehab. Supposed to have a day's rest after reanimation."
"I take it you didn't get it."
Six picked up a hefty stick and poked it at the ground. "No."
They had mistreated and dishonored his friend in more ways than Pietas could count. Robbed him of life, implanted him with a malfunctioning chip intended to negate his emotions and destroy his sex drive, and then sent him out to die so they could resurrect him to fight again.
"What I wouldn't give for a hundred copies of you."
Six's head jerked up. He squinted. "Say again?"
"After all they did to you, you still carried out your duty. We were bred to be enemies, but I've come to respect you. They threw you away. I swear that will never happen while you're with me. I honor those with valor."
Six's jaw tightened. "Remember what I said when you told me you were accustomed to obedience from your men?"
"I do. Shall I quote you? 'First time I heard about Ghost Division, I signed up, knowing if I got killed, they'd bring me back. The sole purpose of a ghost is to kill Ultras and the Ultra we wanted to kill most was you. Don't think for a minute I'm gonna be your servant. And I am never gonna be one of your soldiers.' I was rather insulted."
Six rubbed his neck. "At the time, I meant for you to be, but I've long since changed my mind."
"You were born with the heart of an Ultra, my friend." Pietas resumed his pace and Six fell in beside him. "You never told me how you were chosen before."
"You mean how they recruited me for the fight?" Six hooked his thumbs in the straps of his pack. "It never came up."
"The man who gave you intel about which pod to approach. Was he the recruiter?"
"I couldn't tell."
"Explain."
"He wore a fake-face." He drew a circle around his own face. "You know. A holographic image over the body. It kept changing. No way to know
how tall or what race. The entire thing was blue. Voice changer. It was like trying to count air bubbles in a pool. Could've been a woman, I guess, but I didn't get that impression."
"And he came in and grabbed you last minute?"
"We waited less than an hour after we suited up."
"Not a full hour? You're certain?"
"Yeah." Six tightened a strap on his pack. "I was nervous, so I watched the clock. Why?"
"The other council members and I--" Pinching the bridge of his nose, Pietas stopped.
"What?" Six waited beside him.
Why the bald lies of humans should surprise him, he didn't know. "We spent no more than minutes in the trap they'd set before you and your crew entered. The fact you were prepped and ready long before we arrived puts a new light on their treachery." And the Council's stupidity. He had warned them again and again. "Did you train for it?"
"Ghost Corps trained, but not for that mission. We'd all been on the front lines and we'd faced Ultras that week. Sad to say, we'd had our butts handed to us. We'd been reanimated right before we fought you."
He must consider his next words with care. "Six, you're saying they gave your squad no specific training before they sent you in to fight me. Did you even know who you were facing?"
"When they told us, we didn't believe him. Someone had captured the Bringer of Chaos? Riiight! We laughed about it until we saw the video of you in that room. I remember thinking I'd already been given last rites. It would do me no good to pray." He shifted his pack. "But I fell on my knees and did it."
The confession didn't sit well with Pietas, yet it satisfied at the same time. "Forgive me, but they didn't train you in any way for a fight with me? With my reputation? Surely you knew no human had ever laid a hand on me in battle."
Six smirked. "I hit you."
Jaw tight, Pietas chose his words with care. "You got in the way and I ran into your fist. It was a lucky blow."
"Which you acknowledged during the fight."
Pietas had been so startled at being hit, he'd nodded in respect. "Yes." Pinching the bridge of his nose, he called on all his patience. "Very well. It counted." He met his friend's amused gaze and saw, to his satisfaction, a bit of fear there. "But your squad hadn't prepared to fight me."
"No. We weren't a squad. We'd never worked together. Ghosts don't wear nametags. We use codenames. If we're taken prisoner, the enemy won't know who our families are and we can't give anyone up. I never knew the other guys."
And here he'd assumed they'd sent their best squad. How vexing.
He'd assigned a number to each of the eight ghosts as he whirled through their midst, snapping necks and cracking skulls. In less than ninety seconds, he'd killed seven. To protect his mother, he'd spared the one who'd slipped past him and reached the controls of her pod.
The ghost he'd numbered six.
Pietas scoffed. "No wonder they were so easy to kill. It's insulting."
"How?"
"You were lambs to the slaughter, Six. A sacrifice to make their own actions appear valid."
"How?"
"They'd promised to expel our module into space and explode it unless I surrendered, but they knew I'd try to find a way out. Some other means of escape. They siphoned all the air and sent in your squad. They knew I'd think I'd exhausted my options. I was out of air and anticipated more ghosts. And just because I want to say it, if that had been my father's pod you were standing over he'd have been immolated. I would never have submitted to save him."
"So if I'd had the code for his pod, I could've walked out of that room."
"Oh, I'd have killed you, but I'd have been slow about getting there. You could've pushed the button first."
Six grimaced. "Fair enough. There is one detail I remember about the first guy. Not sure if it was part of the disguise or if I could see what was there."
"Description."
"A patch on one sleeve. Triangular. A dark field with a white letter T. Written funny though, with a hook on the bottom and the top left." He slid off his pack, stooped, and then brushed aside leaves and cleared the sand. "Mira. Like this."
Pietas squatted. Even in the fading light, the letter from an ancient language was clear. "It symbolizes a hate group. TAU: Terrans Against Ultras. Part of the Human Pure Movement."
Six jumped up and kicked sand over the mark. "Sorry I drew that."
"Don't be." Pietas stood, brushed himself off. "You were passing intel, not judgment."
"Look, Pi, I hated Ultras because the leadership lied about you. My uniform had Ghost Corps insignia but I ripped off every one before we even left Enderium Six."
"I didn't notice the discoloration where the patches had been until we were halfway across the planet. At first, I thought you did it because you feared my people seeing them and killing you on sight."
"I'd be stupid not to, but that wasn't why I took them off."
He slid one bare toe across a patch of dried grass. "Oh?"
"They had a strict rule in your cell. No talking. So I whistled. When you told me to shut up I almost had a heart attack."
Pietas hadn't realized then that he'd connected to Six telepathically. "Go on."
"They took me out of your cell. When I came back and your pod was wrapped in chains, I knew they weren't surprised you were awake." Six grimaced. "They knew and they wanted you to suffer. I tore off those patches that night. I wanted no part of the Corps."
He squeezed Six's shoulder. "You're a good man. I confess, I was a racist when I met you. I hated humans. Every human. You've opened my mind to the truth."
The man reached up and patted Pietas's hand. If Six hadn't been standing close, Pietas wouldn't have heard his whispered thanks.
Clearing his throat, Six picked up his pack and slipped it on. "So they sent us in there knowing you'd wipe the floor with us. They didn't prepare us because they didn't want us to stand a chance. They wanted you to kill us so you'd think you'd done everything you could. And then to make sure it never got out, we wouldn't have been reanimated."
There was no way to sugarcoat it. He'd spare his friend the shame of his predicament if he could, but he must tell the truth.
"I'm sorry. They never expected you to survive. Which is why you ended up on the transport here. With me."
Six swore in Spanish. "I knew I'd been betrayed when they locked me in there. But hearing they'd never planned to let me live in the first place takes betrayal to a whole other level."
Pietas spread his hands. "Humans."
The ghost narrowed his eyes but then laughed. "Starting to agree with you, Ultra." He shifted the pack. "Give me the quick and dirty on the others."
While they walked, Pietas described the others and included warnings about what to watch for with each person.
"Great. What a fun group of vipers. Anything else I should know?"
Pietas lifted one eyebrow.
"I mean, gee, your people sound nice." Six showed his teeth.
"That is the fakest fake smile ever."
"Oh, really? I saw you on the news when you took over the High Council from your father. You shook his hand and smiled."
He rubbed one temple. "Point taken."
"Will I get a chance to meet your family? Or will they kill me on sight?"
"My mother will love you. I'll warn my father you're under my protection, but..."
Six shot him a sharp look. "But what?"
"Stick close to me, my friend. Stick close. We're almost there."
Chapter Seventeen
Pietas went down on one knee. The Council had bivouacked in a sheltered area five minutes below his position and the temporary living quarters had the orderly look of a military camp. From here, bushes and scrub hid the inhabitants and central campfire, though the spiraling smoke showed its location.
The wafting scent of roasting meat might have made him hungry under other circumstances. Tonight, knowing who and what he faced, it gagged.
With the dark sides of the cradle behind them, he
and Six were all but invisible.
Where is Father?
That morning, Pietas had never heard the word kueshda. He'd plucked the term from Joss's random thoughts and along with it, what a "telepathic quest" was and how one was done.
Who would have suspected one could use telepathy to find someone in the distance? Why had no one ever mentioned his people could do such things? Better question, why had he never met with a group of telepaths and mapped out their skills? Leaders should know these things.
He set aside his personal irritation and summoned the skills he'd begun to learn. Effective or not, he was trying a kueshda outreach. He focused as Joss had and extended his awareness into the dark, toward the camp.
A disorienting sense of greenish-blue liquid overlaid the world. The color shimmered, fluttered, pulsed, and shone. Though he stood on solid ground, his stomach twitched as if he were windsurfing. He'd been kneeling. To control his rebellious stomach, he sat. Once the dizziness passed, he imagined himself standing and mentally set out toward camp.
He reached the outer fringes of brush and an immediate sensation of peril swirled around him. Like smoke, it stung his eyes and he rubbed them, to no effect. The sting was not physical. The awareness of danger teased his heightened senses but mocked him by providing nothing he could pin down.
The moment he released the kueshda, the feeling of unease ceased.
"Oh." He leaned back on his hands. "So that's it."
Squatting beside him, Six plucked a tall weed and stuck the stem in his mouth. "What?"
"Blocking."
"As usual, not a clue."
"It's a combat simulacrum on the aetheric plane."
"There you go again, explaining without a word I understand. No, wait." Six shook one finger. "I understood combat. All too well, in fact. And I get those little words. But otherwise? No idea."
He scratched his neck. "If you and I each have a comm-unit, we can talk to each other. But if you don't want me to know what you're saying, you could switch off yours. You could still talk, but I couldn't hear you. You could jam my signal so I couldn't speak to anyone. Same with telepathy. The other person can turn off the gift and they can prevent the broadcasts of others."
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