I took the sword and backed further away from that monster, while I drew the 45 and fired. My aim was good and three slugs found their mark right into that open maw and a fourth shattered one of the stalk eyes, the last three bullets careened off the armor of the beast.
None of my shots had done anything to slow down the beast, or hurt it in a significant way.
After getting the empty 45 back in its holster, I grabbed the alien blade that was somewhere between a broad sword and a scimitar with both fists and jumped out of the way of a snapping claw arm.
The blade was heavy and looked sharp and it rang with a bright note as I hammered it against the other claw that was about to decapitate me.
The arms and legs of that monster were covered with the same tough armor as its upper body. But then the sword bit deep into a leg joint, there, where the arms and legs were articulated, was a small area without armor.
While my head was still ringing like the brass bells of the Thing stead Round House from the rock that had grazed my temple, I danced and jumped between the legs and claws of the monster, knowing even the slightest oversight would be my end.
Another sword blow against the joint right behind the claw showered me with a spray of dark green ichor and rewarded me with the painful, high pitched scream of the monster.
That claw dangled useless from its arm and this success made me careless and another claw almost caught my left leg, its saw like edges scraped painfully across my shin bone.
I clenched my teeth, ignored the pain and cut off two of the mouth tentacles.
The fight went on and, while I had no way of telling how long I was hacking and jumping, I noticed my own energies fading. I would not last much longer.
My monstrous opponent was no longer as fresh as it was before, missing two of his claw arms, two legs, and most of its mouth tentacles, but so far I had hit nothing vital and I had not seen any place or mark where I could sink the blade and end the bout.
I wished I had an arsenal like Har-Hi; one of his anti-matter pellet grenades would do the trick.
Here I was fighting for my life and that of my two best friends, against the toughest life form I had faced so far and I was in this situation not because of the Kermac or someone else’s fault but because of my own doing.
Yet I could not, I must not fail. My own life was not important but both Har-Hi and Narth lay on the ground not far behind me and for their sake I had to prevail. In all this I tried to keep a cool head, to keep my anger down. I knew my rage was a gateway for whatever was inside me and I told Narth the truth. I feared that even more than the Shogotrz before me.
Then I slipped on a smooth rock, stumbled and as I tried to regain my footing one of the remaining claws of the beast snapped around my left ankle.
It felt as if the beast had clipped my foot right off as it pulled me with irresistible force towards the remaining tentacles.
I successfully cut one more of these arm thick leathery tentacles before the last one sneaked around my neck. I could see the small feeler like things inside the creature’s maw reaching out like a hand.
I would not fail!
I chocked as I had hard time getting air. As I was struggling I could feel something growing inside myself, I knew it was my true self, but it was dark and felt so utterly cold. In all this I tried to precent its rise, my own voice seemed to have changed. ”Nay I say! I shall not be slain by a mindless foul creature! What Gods and the Elders of the Universe could not accomplish shall not be thy triumph.”
I raised my free arm.”BEREAVER TO ME!”
Chapter 23: Ambush
I could not tell or recall what had happened as I found myself standing between the rubble and the smoking ruins of what once had to be some sort of mountain village. Most of the houses were utterly destroyed, nothing left but the foundation walls. The debris of heavy rocks, busted wood and household implements were strewn over the steep mountain meadows behind, as if a wind of tremendous gale force had blown the sturdy stone houses apart. It was eerily quiet, except for the crackling of a fire nearby consuming wooden beams. There were dead Ithe everywhere. Horribly dismembered, hacked and torn to pieces. The fine Ultronit mesh of my suit was torn to shreds, yet I felt no pain or injury, even though I remembered the monster grabbing my leg.
My Wrist com was gone and so were the mono whip and the belt I had worn. One boot was completely gone and from the other only the shaft remained. The only things that survived whatever ordeal I went through were my trusty old fighting knife, the empty 45 and a mini first aid kid in my left leg pocket. The right side of the leg cover was completely gone.
Before I could really collect my thoughts and search for Har-Hi and Narth, a singing hot thermo blast peppered the ground before my feet and a dark green open top flyer came into view. I counted six Drak soldiers all aiming their weapons at me. An amplified voice echoed over the destroyed village. “No sudden moves, alien and drop that axe.”
Only now I noticed that I was holding that ancient battle ax that I had last seen hanging on the wall in my private quarters. I had no choice but to obey, they were too far away and too many. I had an obligation to stay alive and find my friends.
Two of them jumped over the sides and stomped towards me, while the other held some sort of scanning device and said. “I cannot detect any radiation or residual energies, yet this is the epicenter of the tremors we detected.”
The other kept his gun trained at me and said. “You, Alien Human female, don’t try anything or we shoot you on the spot. Now tell us what happened!”
I heard the soldier but I did not care what he said. I felt as if I had a terrible night mare. All this destruction, the torn bodies all around, my right arm was encrusted with purplish blood and so was the axe. I noticed the shape of a child half buried beneath heavy rocks from a collapsed house wall and my throat went dry.
Was this the little Ithe boy? The last thing I could recall was my fight against the monster and I clearly remembered that I was about to lose the fight. I could remember my anger at the cowardly village men. Then there was nothing, just hazy, out of focus images and yet somehow I knew whatever happened to this village had somehow happened because of me.
Yet the carnage and destruction around me could not have been done by a human being armed with an axe. What force could shatter solid stone houses like that?
The Soldier spoke louder and this time he did not speak Squawk but addressed me in Standard Union, his accent was heavy. “You, Alien woman, drop that axe. We are taking you in for questioning.”
I turned and looked at him and said. “Do you know what happened here?”
He looked around. “Probably a blast from the ancient Karthanian Orbital Punishers, it is a miracle you are still alive. Now I won’t say it again, woman, drop that weapon
Something heavy rushed through the air, a gray tank sized boulder dropped on the soldier’s flyer and crushed it like a nutshell, and both soldiers were pelted by a hail of sling shot rocks.
Ithe suddenly appeared from behind the boulders and rocks. To my surprise they were led by a huge brown furred Togar and a Dai warrior!
The Soldier with the hand held scanner went down with a smashed-in face. The other however managed to activate his suits shields. From the shimmering whitish color and the crackling energies I deducted it was a crude and quite primitive three dimensional force field. Still more than enough to deflect rocks, he fired his blaster and vaporized two of the mountain men.
The Togar cat yelled. “Alien Woman run and follow us, if you do not want to go to the Smelter Moons.”
More out of instinct than anything else, I threw my axe and it whirled through the air, slicing through the force field as if it wasn’t there and split the soldiers head, helmet and all down to its shoulders. The energy field collapsed with a loud crackle.
I sank to my knees. What was I doing here, what had happened? Did I do all this? My friends were gone! Har-Hi and Narth they were here with me.
As fo
rmidable as Narth was, he could be hurt. He had been hurt before and almost died. Har-Hi was a Dai, a fighter to the last fiber of his body but he too could be overwhelmed. They both followed me into this trap; they both were hurt or worse because of me. Yet there was still a mission and still my ship, but without Narth and without my equipment the ship was unreachable.
The landing tank was cloaked and it was Har-Hi who cloaked the machine. Even if I could find it, it would not open or uncloak for me without my Com unit. The tank was not SHIP who would recognize me.
Kneeling there in the middle of the destroyed village, I felt helpless and frightened, not because of my situation but because there was the possibility my friends both were dead.
I pulled myself together and got up. I was still the Captain and my responsibility was to the ship and the rest of my crew.
The Togar warrior flanked by the Dai came closer with the mountain folks a few steps behind. The Togar said. ”Female, I am Ninety. We must leave this place before the Drak coats come with more men.
I said to him. “I can’t leave. I must look for my friends.”
“The Dai and the hooded human?”
I whirled around and almost yelled. “Yes, where are they?”
“I am sure they are at the District Command Center by now. They will be interrogated and most likely sent to the Capital after that, and then by the next transport to the Smelter Moons.”
They are alive?”
“We saw them move on their own as the Drak arrested them.”
A rock as big as Nilfeheim rolled of my heart, I gathered the Axe from the grizzly wound.
The Dai Warrior wore bits and pieces of various armor suits, but nothing was Dai. He did, however, wear an obviously hand-made circular brass chest piece with a Clan Glyph. I looked at it and said. “You are a warrior of the For-Ka-Ti Clan. Is it not a clan that took the long way?”
He spoke to me in Squawk. “I do not speak the language of my kind very well. You are the first who knows things about my clan.”
The Togar gestured with urgency. “We must go fast! If they think we are to strong here they’ll loose another sky bolt from the Orbital Punishers. There is no escaping them if the sky eye can see you.”
As I followed them and around the house sized rugged bouldersI noticed a primitive contraption made of what looked like aluminum girders. It was carried by four men and I identified the thing as a trebuchet. It was this ancient siege machine they had used to defeat the modern flyer. I remembered our class on pre-industrial siege machines during my first academy year. I could almost hear Cadet Applegate’s voice complaining why we would need to know about such primitive things and I saw the face of Lieutenant Aurelius before my inner eyes, patiently explaining why the fleet found it necessary to teach these things. In situations like this I realized how well the Academy prepared Cadets.
I followed the men, down the mountain path and we passed the carcass of the Shogotrz. The beast was hacked to pieces. The Togar was running next to me and said. “Naroma told us you attacked and killed the Shogotrz with nothing but a Mountain sword.”
“I don’t remember killing it!”
While I found the boots of my costume somewhat impractical at times, running bare feet over a rugged mountain path was even worse.
How did I always end up in situations like that? I doubted Captain Harris ever had to run around bare foot on an away mission. I was certain Admiral Stahl would have sorted it all out by now, found the secret Seenian base and be on his way to the next problem.
Maybe I had chosen the wrong path after all. If I had stayed on Nilfeheim to become a clan leader, I certainly would not be in this mess. Only now, as the mountain men turned to the left, I noticed a barely visible path that forked off the main route, snaking between boulders. I had completely overlooked it coming up.
“Where are we going? All I need is some sort of communication device to access my landing craft.”
“We are taking the high pass, where we have left the Grythers behind. Whatever craft you have, it will be useless and destroyed by the sky bolts, I am sure the Drak Sky lords are watching this area very closely right now.”
I didn’t want to argue with him, that there wasn’t anything the Karthanians could build to stop a Union Landing Tank under full shields or find it if it was cloaked. However without a signal device to uncloak, un-shield and access it, the tank might as well be on the other side of the world.
Staying with the locals was maybe my best chance to find the place where they kept Narth and Har-Hi. What I could not understand is how they managed to keep my friends.
To restrain and imprison a Dai was hard enough, but to do that to a Narth was an entirely different thing. The path was narrow and allowed only single file movement. It kept winding between sheer rock walls, overhanging boulders and small meadows of the same coarse grass we had encountered before. This kind however was somewhat shorter and green.
One of the Ithe mountain men behind me must have noticed me looking at the grass and said. “This is the reason anyone lives in the mountains, Gathr grass and water. It grows everywhere but only up here where there is water from the mountain springs. It grows fast and becomes green. The Nuktur thrive on it and produce good Nuktur nectar and meat.”
One further behind him said. “It is the Drak who benefit from our hardship and labor. They take what they want.”
The Togar before me said. “You are very tough for a human woman, what makes you immune to the Depro-Waves?”
While I silently cursed as another stone cut into my bare feet, I growled at him. “I am too angry and too confused to feel much of anything. What do you mean, immune to Depro-Waves? What are those?”
He pointed first at the leather like skull cap he and everyone else was wearing and then he pointed sky wards. “Another one of the wonderful benefits the Karthanians have bestowed upon this culture. Modulated Theta Wave Patterns beamed from transmission towers all over this world affecting your psyche making you depressed and feeling hopeless. The only cure is to watch the official propaganda broadcasts of the Drak; it is one of the many ways controlling the masses.”
While I was walking behind him, trying to avoid the sharper looking rocks, I said. “I should be immune to most Psionics.”
He made a growling sound that could have been the Togar form of laughter and he said. “I get it; you are Union, perhaps even fleet, psionic conditioned and all. No, human female, the Karthanians are not as advanced as the Union or the Kermac. To us and them, Psionics are more magic than anything and certainly not technologically controllable.”
The Ithe behind me added to the explanation saying. “That does not man the Karthanian are primitive. They have developed very effective means to control their puppet civilizations. Theta waves were developed to to neutralize Kermac spies so I heard and are very effective controlling slaves from cultures that do have psionic abilities. These Theta waves affect even the best shielded Kermac agents. I should know I dedicated my life working on ways to neutralize them.”
The Ithe pushed something in my hands and said. “Put this on your head. Those skull caps generate white waves, neutralizing the Theta waves. Getting parts and batteries to make them is not easy.”
The leathery skull cap had a cable and a battery pack attached to it and there was a little switch at the bottom of the battery pack as well.
I put the cap on my head and switched it on. The depressing, lethargic feeling I had was leaving me as if a veil was pulled from my mind. It wasn’t me who destroyed the mountain village, what a ridiculous idea in the first place. Only a marine in a destroyer suit could have done such carnage and destruction, not a half-naked woman with an axe.
The Theta waves explained my friend’s condition and Narth’s inability to defend himself. They were alive and I was on my way to make sure those who captured and injured my friends would see the errors of their ways. I was cold and miserable and someone had to pay for that too! To Heel’s deepest pits with my own fea
rs and me trying to curb my anger. There was another time to contemplate my future and what I might turn into. Right now I was Erica Olafson, Captain of the USS Tigershark.
The Togar warrior laughed his rough growling laugh as he noticed I was passing him, walking with renewed energy and driven by my eagerness do do something, he said. “It appears you weren’t immune to the effects of the waves after all.”
“No Togar, I was not. I can think much clearer now. I wasted too much time already on brooding and thinking. It is time for some action.”
As I said that, the path widened into a small mountain plateau and on it, at least fifty large creatures that somewhat looked like falcons crossed with dragons. I had seen images of both creatures in the heraldic symbols of my home world.
The Togar laughed again and said. “I hope you are not afraid of heights, Union Woman. These are not Arti-Grav flyers but they will carry us to our hideout.”
“I need to get to this regional head quarters. I must free my friends before they are shipped off.”
He stopped and his feline face showed amusement and respect. “I would say that is almost impossible. The compound is heavily guarded but then for someone who slays a Shogotrz with an axe the word impossible might not have the same meaning. Your friends won’t be shipped to the city until morning. In our hide out you will be able to get clothing and weapons and perhaps you will find us willing companions in your endeavor.”
The Dai said. “You call a Dai your friend and you are willing to risk your life to free him. Let me risk mine to help you doing that!”
I approached the first bird like creature, it was big and the only all black animal and without hesitation I swung myself onto the leather saddle contraption right behind its neck and raised my axe. “Then let’s ride and show these Drak what it means to make me angry and take my friends!”
It was very much like when I rode the Ammutherathi on Pluribus, these Grythers weren’t as big as the Saran Beast, but they were still big, fast and wild. I held on to the reins as the ice cold wind brushed across my exposed skin and made my long hair fly. Despite my new form I was still a child of Nilfeheim and used to the cold depths of our oceans. These temperatures would be considered a mild breeze back home.
Eric Olafson Series Boxed Set: Books 1 - 6 (The Galactic Chronicles Series) Page 142