Warlord

by Angela Knight

  She’d had no choice but to agree.

  For the next nine years, Alina had no cause to regret the deal she’d made. Galar was a bright, intelligent boy, the image of his father, mischievous and handsome. They existed in a happy bubble of contentment. And they were able to spend a great deal of time together, since other warrior couriers had come into service and her missions were relatively infrequent.

  Until the day last year when Rajin called her into her office and gave her a pouch of firegems she wanted delivered to a buyer on Calista. Kasi House didn’t deal in gems, and they both knew it. “Consider it a personal favor,” Rajin said, with a sly smile.

  Rajin was stealing from the company.

  Alina had delivered the stones, found out who the buyers were and which Kasi House department the gems had disappeared from.

  At last. Here was the evidence she needed to free her son. But before she could present it to the Kasi House Council of Femmats, Rajin called her into her office and told her she’d ordered a termination virus loaded into Galar’s computer implant. It had programmed his computer to fill his riatt reservoirs with a neurotoxin. All she had to do was broadcast the code, and the boy’s comp would flood his bloodstream with the poison. He’d die in agony, his body so damaged no regenator would be able to repair it.

  Reading the death in Alina’s eyes, Rajin said, “Keep your mouth shut, give me one more year of service, and I’ll erase the code and free you both. But if you touch me, he dies now.”

  One year.

  It was a devil’s bargain, and Alina had known it. She would have killed Rajin on the spot, except she feared she wouldn’t be able to do it before the Femmat transmitted the code.

  It was tempting to try some surprise means of assassination, but she knew she’d be executed for murdering a Femmat, regardless of her reasons. Her son would be left an orphan, the child of a rogue.

  So Alina had agreed, secretly planning to hack into the boy’s implant and disable the code. Unfortunately, she’d quickly discovered that any attempt to destroy it would result in its activation. And she didn’t dare go to the authorities for help, because Rajin would activate the code and kill her son. She’d had no choice but to abide by the agreement and hope Rajin kept her vow.

  Rajin had taken full advantage of her blackmail. There had been other deliveries after that—not many, but a few. Mostly gems, some objets d’art. All were items that had mysteriously gone missing from Kasi’s treasury.

  But was Baird right? Had Rajin gone beyond petty theft to treason—and made Alina an accessory to the crime?

  It was time to go to Baird and tell him all the painful truths Rajin had forbidden her to tell. If anybody could help, he could.

  But what if something went wrong? What if he tried to move against Rajin and got Galar killed?

  By the time the Antares Empress arrived at Calista, she’d decided it was time to take a chance. Back when they’d fought together, Baird had always found a way to turn defeat into victory. If anybody could help her get out of this mess, it was him. Besides, she was tired of shouldering the burden alone.

  When she called his quarters, he’d already left, so Alina hurried to meet the next shuttle, hoping for a chance to talk to him before he caught transport elsewhere. But arriving at the shuttle deck, she found the line to board reached all the way down the corridor.

  There was nothing for it but to wait and pray she got to him in time.

  Alina descended the shuttle’s ramp behind a lushly curved woman with a mass of bright green curls spilling down her back. Her boots clicked as she stepped onto the tarmac.

  Warily, Alina scanned the port. All around, other shuttles stood—long, sleek shapes with aerodynamic lines designed for travel into planetary atmospheres. The beacons encircling one of them suddenly began flashing. With a blaring hoot of warning, the huge craft lifted off, floating slowly upward balanced on a delicate antigravity field. It drifted gently higher, lazy as a soap bubble, until its thruster fields abruptly cut in and shot it toward the horizon with a rumbling sonic boom. The field generators in its stubby wings glowed a shimmering blue as it zipped off over the obelisks and broad flat discs that made up the city’s architecture.

  Baird was somewhere out there. And she needed to find him quickly, if she was to have any hope of escaping the trap she was in.

  Scan for him, Alina told her comp.

  Pinpointed, it replied after a pause. She looked around to see a set of red crosshairs appear in her field of vision. Hefting her bag over her shoulder, Alina strode in that direction, ignoring the rest of the travelers headed for the sprawling terminal building.

  At last she reached the edge of the buffer zone of vegetation that lay around the landing field. The local equivalent of trees were blue with alien chlorophyll, their leaves feathery, more like giant ferns than anything else. The “grass” that covered the ground beneath them was just as blue and equally feathery, leaves spreading out rather than up.

  She’d just stepped out under the trees when her comp began howling. Warning! Xer lifesign! Baird is under attack.

  What? Sweet gods. What the hell were Xer doing here? Their home world was fifty light years away. She slung her bag across her back by its strap and began to run through the trees. How many of them?

  Six. The comp flashed her a mental image of what her sensors were picking up—seven figures, six of them attacking a lone man.

  Where the hell did they come from?

  Unknown. It appears to be an ambush.

  Give me riaat. She clenched her teeth as the burning chemical storm began, swirling through her body like a wave of lava. In a moment, strength poured in after it, and she was bounding.

  What kind of capabilities do they have?

  Insufficient data at this distance.

  Well, tell me when you figure it out! Alina put her head down and concentrated on running, darting around trees and leaping any shorter vegetation in her path.

  She burst into a clearing and almost ran right into them. The six Xer wore civilian clothing: long tunics split for leg room, and one-piece pant-boot combinations, all in dark colors. Silver skull rings jutted from their shaved heads, implanted in patterns. Like the Vardonese, their ancestors had been human colonists, but a couple of hundred years of genetic engineering had left its mark in great strength and vicious intelligence.

  Just the sight of them sent rage searing through Alina. Twenty years ago, their kind had invaded Vardon and laid the planet waste. They’d raped and murdered and stolen every bit of Femmat technology they could get their hands on. It had taken Vardon’s warrior class five long years to drive them off, and countless good Warlords and Warfems had died in the process.

  Alina didn’t even break step before slamming into the first of them with a howl. The impact tumbled them both halfway across the clearing. When they rolled to a stop, Alina was straddling him, powering her fist again and again into his face. He was out before he could get in a punch.

  Then she was on her feet again, leaping for the remaining five, who had Baird down on the ground and were struggling to hold him there. She grabbed one and spun him around into a punch.

  As he fell, Alina danced back, more than ready to fight. To her relief, she saw Baird throw off one of those holding him pinned and hit another in the face. The Warlord surged to his feet, bleeding, his lower lip swollen, his eyes burning red with riaat.

  “Change of heart, Alina?” he snarled, dancing backward, slamming punches into the three remaining Xer warriors who were attempting to close in on him again. “Or don’t you have the stomach for treason?”

  Eight

  “I’m not a traitor!” she spat, and grunted as the Xer she was fighting rammed his baton into her side. The blaze of pain sent her to one knee, fighting to breathe.

  “Lights out for you, bitch,” the Xer snarled, stabbing his baton toward her unprotected neck. If it touched her spinal cord, she’d be out for hours. She threw up an arm in an instinctive block.


  “Shit.” Baird barreled into her opponent, taking him down hard. Alina gasped in relief and reeled to her feet. Despite the pain, she aimed a kick at the Xer’s balls, as he struggled with Baird on the ground. She hit her target; he convulsed with a bellow. Baird threw him off and rolled upright as the remaining Xer closed in. For a moment, he and Alina exchanged a single, searing glance. “You can’t believe I’m working for these monsters!” she spat.

  She watched doubt war with their battle-tested bond. The bond won. “If I had, I’d have let him hit you.” Baird and Alina moved into the fighting pose that had become habit twenty years ago—back-to-back.

  Where the hell did these guys come from? Alina commed to him through her computer.

  Don’t know. One minute I was cutting through the park to meet somebody, then…

  She caught movement coming through the trees and glanced in that direction. Rajin Kasi stepped into the clearing. The Femmat had forgone her usual aristocrat’s robes for a civilian tunic and leggings. Her shimmering violet hair was piled on top of her head, held there with an intricate arrangements of combs.

  But Alina’s attention was focused on Galar. The boy’s young face was cold with a terrible rage. Alina could almost feel the fear he was struggling to hide.

  Rajin rested a hand on his shoulder in a gesture that might have been mistaken for motherly. Alina knew it for the threat it was and felt her heart catch in her chest.

  The Femmat’s chill silver eyes met hers across the clearing. Stop at once. The command rang through her comp’s communication’s unit on the private frequency Baird couldn’t hear. As a Femmat, Rajin had a communication’s implant, but no battle computer or cybernetics, and no more than human strength.

  Sick fury rolled over Alina. “You are working for the Xer! You traitorous bitch!”

  “Take him down.”

  Her gut turned to ice. “Who?”

  “You know who.” Rajin’s commed voice was implacable. “The Warlord. Your lover. Take him down now, or watch the boy die now. Choose, Warfem.” Something vicious rose in that metallic gaze, and Alina knew she’d do it.

  But the idea of betraying Baird wrapped her in sick horror. He trusted her, had asked her to marry him.

  Then an image flashed through her mind: Galar writhing in agony, his face blackening, his eyes begging her silently to save him.

  “Now!” Rajin screamed. Her slender hand tightened on the boy’s shoulder.

  Galar’s golden eyes blazed. “Don’t do it,” he said through his own comp. “Don’t let her…”

  Rajin’s lip curled. “I will not tell you again. Now, or watch your precious boy shriek out his life.”

  Galar half-turned toward Rajin, tensing. He was going to attack her, and she’d kill him.

  With a howl of anguish, Alina pivoted with all the power of riaat and slammed her fist into the side of Baird’s head. He stumbled and went down.

  For just an instant, the golden gaze so like their son’s met hers. “Damn you, Alina,” Baird said on their old battle frequency. “Damn you to hell. I believed in you!”

  Before he could roll away, one of the Xer leaped forward and jammed his shock stick into the base of his skull, where spinal cord met brain. He went limp, instantly unconscious.

  Sick, Alina looked away as another of the Xer stepped forward and snapped some kind of collar on him. Goddess only knew what it did.

  She wanted to throw up. Then her gaze fell on Rajin. A cold, deadly rage replaced her guilt.

  Galar saw his chance, and knew he’d better take it. The situation had reached critical mass, as he’d always known it would. Rajin had finally pushed his mother too far. People were going to start dying.

  Galar was going to make flogging sure it wasn’t him or his mother. Or the Warlord. He’d grown up hearing stories about Baird, his mother’s heroic partner—and his father. He badly wanted to get to know the man who’d sired him.

  Fortunately, a Xer sprawled unconscious barely a meter from his sneakbooted feet. The agent’s stun baton lay forgotten by his head. Better yet, nobody was watching; the agents were too busy collecting the Warlord and dealing with their injured, while his mother and Rajin were focused on the hate swirling between them.

  In one smooth motion, Galar stepped forward, scooped up the baton, collapsed it by pushing on either end, and slid it into a pocket. The baton was one of several weapons his mother had trained him to use. All he needed now was a chance.

  His stomach knotted at the risk he was taking, but he ignored his fear. Kid or not, he was a warrior.

  Pretending to need reassurance, he moved to his mother’s side and leaned against her hip. Normally she’d rest a hand on his shoulder, but now she stood coiled, almost vibrating with rage. Yet her face was perfectly cool and expressionless. Oh, yeah. She was getting ready to kill somebody. She’d put up with a lot out of Rajin over the years because of him, but this had pushed her into a meltdown.

  If she went rogue…Galar swallowed. He’d seen a rogue warrior shot down once when he was six. As he’d watched the man writhe and die, Rajin had leaned down and whispered, “See what could happen to your mother…”

  He had to do something.

  Silently, Galar told his comp to eavesdrop on the conversation. The adults had no idea he’d figured out their private frequency and codes. It was a good thing Rajin had never thought to keep him from using his computer to its full potential. But then, she wasn’t a programmer, so there wasn’t much she could do about it anyway. One of her flunkies had designed the virus that installed the terminal code and programmed his computer to manufacture the neurotoxin.

  Besides, she persisted in thinking of him as a normal ten-year-old, and he was careful to maintain the illusion. She hadn’t known enough warrior children to realize how computer implants stimulated brain growth and intelligence. And Galar was good at playing dumb.

  “What’s in the file, Rajin?” his mother asked in that cool mental voice of hers. Above the clearing, a white zip-truck swooped low and prepared to land.

  “That’s none of your concern.”

  “Given that you’ve made me an accessory to treason, I think it is.”

  Rajin folded her hands, her elegant face serene. “It’s nothing of great import. Not compared to the money they’re paying me.”

  “Been gambling on Wekita, again, I assume.” As Rajin’s eyes widened, she smiled coldly. “Yes, I know about that. I’ve investigated you thoroughly.”

  The Femmat shrugged with an elegant lift of one shoulder. “The Wekita are not a forgiving people when it comes to so much money. They go to great lengths to ensure debts are paid.”

  “Yet you keep gambling there.”

  “The risk is part of the attraction. And there was a very pretty little dragon flying in the Soji races. Quite fast. Just not as fast as I’d hoped.”

  “So you betray Vardon to pay for your vices.”

  “I do what I must. And so will you, unless you want me to transmit a certain word to the boy.”

  Gelar went sick and cold. If Rajin used the command, there was nothing he could do to save himself.

  His mother reached out and put her arm protectively around his shoulders. “I strongly suggest you think twice about that,” she said. “I may not be able to open your file, but I can delete it. And I doubt the Xer would be particularly understanding.”

  The blood drained from Rajin’s face. “You wouldn’t dare.”

  “I once attacked a Xer tachyon cannon emplacement with no backup except Baird. There’s very little I wouldn’t dare.”

  “The Xer will kill us all!”

  “So be it. This isn’t petty theft anymore, Rajin. Vardonese Warriors will die if you hand over military secrets to the Xer.”

  “What of it? We’ll just make more of them.” Her lip lifted in a sneer. “But can you make another Galar?”

  He felt her hand tighten on his shoulders. Daring a glance up at her face, he watched cold determination flare in her eyes. “I’
ll make you a bargain, Rajin. I’ll give the Xer the file if you erase the code and free us.”

  Rajin stared at her a long moment. “Very well, then, damn you. You have your bargain.”

  His mother’s grip eased, and Galar slumped in relief.

  The truck landed, and the Xer got busy loading their men into the vehicle. He hoped none of them noticed the agent’s missing stun baton.

  A tall, muscular Xer approached, implants shining in the sunlight. He eyed Alina dubiously, then turned to Rajin. Beyond them, a long, black zipcar landed beside the truck. “If you will accompany us, Femmat Kasi, we will make the transfer.”

  Rajin nodded in an abbreviated Femmat bow. “It will be my pleasure, sir.”

  Galar followed the adults as they got into the car. As he prepared to slip inside, his mother’s hand fell on his shoulder.

  Coded transmission from your mother, his comp said.

  “Nice work on stealing that baton,” she said, her comp transmitting in the private code they’d created. “I assume you remember how to use it.”

  His palms were sweating. “Jam it into the base of the skull. Knocks them right out.”

  “Right. That’s going to be a tricky spot to get to, since you’re shorter than the Xer. But luckily, Rajin tells everyone you’re her son, so they won’t expect you to be as strong as you are. Pretend you need to go to the bathroom, then stun your guard and run. The Xer have a jamming field set up to prevent our calling out, but as soon as you’re beyond it, contact the Calista authorities. Tell them the Xer have kidnapped a Vardonese agent and plan to kill him. The Calistans will set Baird free and clean up the mess.”

  What mess? “What about the terminal code?”

  Something cold and dark flickered in his mother’s violet eyes. “You let me worry about that.”

  Pain rolled in a searing wave from the base of Baird’s spine, burning its way all the way into his skull. Despite his fight for control, it jerked all his muscles tight, arching him into a bow of agony in the chair. Somehow he kept the scream between his teeth.