by Mel Odom
“I will, mother of my father.”
“Good luck on your hunt. Give Noojin time to find her own feet along the path you have chosen. She is an independent young woman, and you will want one like that. She cares about you very much.”
“I care about her.”
“It may be that your paths divide.”
“If she so chooses.” Even though he stated that so lightly, Jahup knew that such a decision would pain him. He could not imagine a time when Noojin was not at his side. Yet, here he stood now without her.
Leghef smiled again in a way that Jahup did not quite understand. It was as though she knew something he did not, and that made him feel irritable because he was certain of what he was doing. “Her path has not been so easy either.”
Shrugging, Jahup doubted that. Noojin had always done as she wished, and most of the time she’d gotten him to do as she wished as well. But that was not going to happen now.
“Do you know the noodle maker? Huang?”
Surprised by his grandmother’s change of subject, Jahup nodded. He enjoyed many of the dishes the old man made in his shop, and Jahup often traded meat for meals.
“If you want to know where to find this Terran sergeant out in the jungle, talk to Huang.”
“Why would I wish to do that?”
Leghef arched an eyebrow. “In case you so choose.”
“What will a cook know about the sergeant?”
“Ah, son of my son, you are still so young. You still believe people wear only one face, when the truth is that they wear many. Talk to the noodle maker and tell him I sent you.”
“Perhaps I am not interested in this sergeant any longer.” Jahup couldn’t help feeling rebellious. He did not like being so easily read in this matter.
“Then there will be no reason to talk to Mr. Huang. Be well and safe until I see you again.” Leghef nodded to Pekoz, who let off the brake and urged the dafeerorg into motion. The lizards lurched into the harness and plodded down the street.
Feeling confused, Jahup watched them go and waved to his grandmother. Feeling angry for no good reason that he could think of, he glanced up at the sky and saw the rim of dark clouds starting to gather. It was going to rain before morning. He could smell it and feel it in his bones.
“We could always wait until the rain blows over,” Noojin suggested.
Jahup turned toward the sound of her voice and spotted her standing next to a cart of candied keval berries. The small crimson fruits stood out against the soft dark green cushion of fresh-pulled lekeher leaves that could wrap a man’s head.
“How long have you been there?”
Noojin shrugged and ate from a small basket of berries she had purchased. “Not long.”
“You talked with my grandmother.”
“Many people talk to Leghef. She is Quass.” Noojin looked obligingly innocent as she popped another berry into her mouth.
Rain came down without warning and many people around the carts cursed the weather as they always did even though they knew it was normal. Water ran through Jahup’s hair and trickled down his face, threading through the sparse hairs on his chin. “Do you wish to hunt?”
“You are still going now? Even though it rains?”
“Rain will not hurt me, and I’ve had my fill of the sprawl. I will hunt. People need meat.”
“Do you wish me to accompany you?” Challenge glinted in Noojin’s gaze.
For a moment Jahup almost let his anger have its release so that he would tell her she could do as she pleased, but he knew that he did not wish to hunt without Noojin. She was good, and she knew how to hunt with him. “I do. I want to be out there, not trapped in the sprawl.”
She shrugged and stepped out in the rain to join him. “Then I will accompany you. Have you told the others?”
“We will tell the others as we go.” Jahup hesitated, wondering how much Noojin knew about his grandmother’s talk with him. He thought that chances were good Leghef would have told Noojin about the noodle maker as well. Leghef and Noojin did not have many secrets from each other. It always seemed to Jahup that he was the last to know of what passed between them. “First I must stop at old Huang’s.”
Noojin cast him a sidelong glance as she adjusted her hunting jacket and pulled a hood over her head. “For breakfast?”
“No. I have eaten.” Jahup felt certain she knew why he was stopping at the noodle maker’s, and for a moment he feared that she might leave him.
But she remained in step with him. He accepted that and turned his mind to hunting. Anything to keep his thoughts from the sergeant. He hoped they stayed on separate paths. Huang’s information would help him do that.
TWENTY-FIVE
West-southwest of Makaum City
2113 Zulu Time
The lab occupied a small cave at the bottom of a broken mountain amid thick trees. According to the lidar readings Sage’s scouting team had taken earlier, no tunnels led out from the cave. The cavity was a pocket scraped out of the mountainside by rain. The biopirates working there had trapped themselves, trading escape routes for an extremely defensible position. Since they were tucked out of the way and not likely to be found unless someone knew where to look, the trade was a good one.
Twilight settled over the jungles and filled the empty places between the trees with deep purple darkness. The lizards had gone quiet as the light green sun had sunk below the tree line. Before that, they’d been busy. The predators had sniffed out the soldiers, but short bursts from microwave emitters around their defensive perimeter had turned aside whatever rudimentary interest they’d had. Getting a meal somewhere else was easier. The biopirates holed up in the cave used the same kind of aversives to lizard and insect intrusion.
A small stream poured from the top of the mountain like a broken-backed snake. The water reflected small coins of light from the lab operation. The drug lab operated behind a camo veil that obstructed view and kept most of the illumination within. From what Huang had said, the group—maybe working for DawnStar Corp—had been there for months.
The biopirates had become lax. Evidently they’d worked the location for a time and had grown complacent because no one had ever bothered them. All of the pirates were armed, but some of the members were designated as guards and wore full combat armor.
Kiwanuka used burst transmission to speak with Sage over their private channel. Her words appeared printed across the inside of his faceshield.
LOOKS LIKE THE NOODLE MAKER KNEW WHAT HE WAS TALKING ABOUT.
YEAH. BUT THIS IS STILL GONNA BE DANGEROUS.
GUY WHO RECRUITED ME SAID DANGER IS WHAT I SIGNED ON FOR. PROMISED ME THE ARMY WOULD TEACH ME HOW TO BECOME INVISIBLE AND INVINCIBLE.
THEY PROBABLY TAUGHT THAT GREEN LIEUTENANT THE SAME THING IN OCS. I BET HE DOESN’T AGREE TO DO THIS THE EASY WAY.
I’M NOT TAKING THAT BET. I’M SURE THE COLONEL HAD HIS REASONS FOR PICKING THIS GUY, BUT I’M NOT SOLD YET.
Huddled behind a rocky outcrop three hundred meters distant from the lab, Sage leaned over to Lieutenant Murad and used the touch comm permitted by the helmet contact. “Your call, sir, but the easiest way to deal with this situation is to mine that mountain and bring it down on top of the pirates. Shut down the lab in one strike without risking our soldiers.”
“You’re talking about just executing those people.” Murad sounded like he couldn’t believe Sage had suggested that.
Sage didn’t flinch from the truth, didn’t attempt to soft sell it. “Yes sir, I am. We’ve got green soldiers. Some of them haven’t been under anything more than small arms fire situations inside the Makaum sprawl before. What you’ve got over there is a hornets’ nest waiting to explode if we don’t take it down sudden. We’re here to send a message, and killing them would send a strong one.”
“You’re talking about murder.”
Sage held the man’s gaze through the faceshields. “Killing an enemy isn’t murder, sir.”
“These people aren’t enemies.”
Making himself breathe, Sage waited, knowing he had to let the officer work through the problem for himself. Personally, Sage wanted to end the confrontation as decisively as possible. And as quickly. In his mind, the biopirates were the enemy. They definitely wouldn’t hold back if it came to a firefight. If the soldiers held back at the beginning, expecting an easy victory, some of them were going to die.
“Also, if we do as you’re suggesting,” Murad went on, “we lose any chance of recovering testimony that these people are working with a corp. Proving complicity is part of what we agreed to do, Top, and I don’t see anything in that cave that screams DawnStar to me. We tie the illegal activities to the corps and let the diplomatic channels handle the fallout on their level.”
“There might not be any proof. Those people inside that lab may not know who their ultimate employer is. The corps use cutouts to insulate themselves from people like this.” Also, Sage wasn’t convinced the Terran diplomats would draw a hard line against the corps even if they were given irrefutable proof of their involvement. The diplomats might try to leverage DawnStar with the information instead of trying to push them offplanet. A lot of people enjoyed the space station parked in orbit around Makaum.
“I would rather try to save the proof, Top.”
“Yes sir.” Sage bit back a curse. Murad’s lack of experience wasn’t his fault. The young officer was as green as most of the soldiers he led, and he wasn’t as coldhearted as he would have to become in time to survive against odds like these in a situation like this.
“Is your team ready?”
“They are.”
Murad’s helmet dipped a little as he nodded. “It’s time then. Those harvester crawlers should be en route.” His voice sounded dry and hollow. “Let’s get this done. We’ll see what we have when we finish up.”
“Yes sir.” Sage checked the chron readout on the faceshield and saw that it was 2116. The three scavenger teams would be inbound to the lab now with the latest harvests they’d taken. They’d done that the last two days the team had set up watch over them. He opened the private channel to Kiwanuka.
YOU READY TO COVER ME IF THIS GOES SOUTH?
READY. I TAKE IT WE’RE NOT DOING THIS THE EASY WAY?
NEGATIVE. WE’RE DOING MY SECOND-FAVORITE PLAN. YOU GOT A HEAVY PLASMA LAUNCHER THAT CAN BE “ACCIDENTALLY” FIRED INTO THAT MOUNTAIN IN CASE THIS THING GOES SIDEWAYS?
I DO. BETTER TO ASK THE LIEUTENANT’S FORGIVENESS LATER THAN PERMISSION NOW?
YEAH. JUST DON’T FORGET TO SHOUT OUT A WARNING FIRST BEFORE YOU HIT THE TARGET. I DON’T WANT TO BE INSIDE WHEN THAT MOUNTAINSIDE COMES DOWN.
ROGER THAT!
Sage eased up out of the darkness and moved through the jungle back toward the rutted trail that led to the cave. The deep furrows left by the crawler tires were almost hidden by the fast-growing grass, but an unwary soldier could trip over them. He opened the channel to his attack squad, two four-man fireteams that had the most experienced soldiers on them.
YOU PEOPLE READY?
A chorus of affirmative answers lit up his faceshield, ticking off the list he’d planned and engaged as he moved into position. Each fireteam consisted of a sergeant and corporal, who served as team leaders; two riflemen; two grenadiers armed with gel grenade launchers slung under their Roleys; and two soldiers carrying fully automatic Birkeland light machine coilguns capable of unloading a maelstrom of destruction in seconds.
Team 1 took up a position on the north side of the rutted road, hiding in the brush. Team 2, with Sage accompanying them, took up positions on the south side.
Sage settled in and waited, put his thoughts on hold, and let time slide by.
2122 Zulu Time
The harvester crawlers returned late. They were boxy-looking vehicles on eight wheels, 4 meters tall and 3.5 meters across. The front cab held a driver, a navigator, and a plasma mini-cannon operator sandwiched between them on an elevated seat. The cannon could sweep 160 degrees and rotated 270 degrees top to bottom.
The electromagnetic turbines growled thinly, not quite silent, as the crawlers hurtled through the jungle. Infrared lamps lit up the scenery in front of the crawlers, invisible to the normal eye, but turned the nightscape into almost day for the drivers and anyone equipped with an optics system.
To Sage inside the AKTIVsuit, the lamps threw out a large pool of light that pushed back the night. He closed his eyes.
“Look away from the lights,” Sage ordered. “Keep your optics clear. Wait till they pass. Snipers ready?”
“Ready.”
“Ready.”
“Fire at will.” Sage remained hunkered down, but he reached inside his combat harness and freed two ParaSights. He accessed them, bringing them online, then flung them into the air. They were small enough that the crawler systems wouldn’t notice them, and there was no way the unaided human eye could pick them out of the darkness.
The crawlers thundered by on wide tires, crunching through the grass-covered ruts.
As soon as the infrared lamps passed over him, Sage rose to his feet and took off at a run. The crawlers were moving faster than they’d estimated. He swung his arms at his sides, whipping them to gain speed, using the amped-up abilities of the hardsuit.
Crashing through the brush, Sage launched himself in pursuit of the rear vehicle. Four other soldiers fell in beside him, all of them chasing the crawler like a pack of wolves.
The crawlers had rear gunners as well. They occupied gimbal-assisted exterior blisters that allowed them to operate their plasma mini-cannon in different positions horizontally and vertically. Taking those men out, before they could fire or get word to the rest of the crawler teams or the base camp, was imperative.
Sage ran, telling himself the suit could withstand some of the plasma fire if things didn’t work out as designed. Getting fired upon would mean getting spotted, and that would send out an alert to the pirates. Taking the lab would be more difficult if the plan didn’t go as expected.
The rear gunner’s infrared lamp swept across Sage in a blinding arc. He didn’t break stride. There was no time to get the momentum going again. Then the lamp started tracking back, coming out of the jungle and rolling toward the group of soldiers catching up to the crawler.
Come on! Sage thought at the snipers. Get your target!
Amplifying the magnification on the faceshield, Sage watched the rear gunner. The man had been only halfway paying attention during the lamp sweep, but he sat forward now, taking control of the lamp to bring the beam back onto the trail. If there had been any chatter over the pirate channels, the comm operator monitoring those frequencies would have let him know.
Sage barely recognized the gunner as a Wedoidian, one of the heavily muscled denizens of the Whallath system. Only two planets in that system supported life, and both of them produced squat and ponderous humanoids capable of dealing with the heavy gravity.
Before the man could adjust the lamp, two armor-piercing bullets starred the impact-resistant glass, coring through and punching into his face. Partially flattened by the bubble, the rounds almost tore the man’s head from his shoulders. Limp in death, the gunner jostled in his harness, swinging and rocking in a macabre dance.
Since the crawler didn’t deviate from its course, Sage felt certain no one aboard knew that anything had gone wrong. He stretched his stride a little more, then hurled himself for the crawler’s rear bumper. His right hand caught the underside of the crawler, but his left missed. He flailed for a moment, then grabbed hold with his left hand as well. After he caught hold with both hands, he went limp, dropping prone to the rutted trail and stretching out. The rutted ground banged against him repeatedly, and he felt like a stone skipping across a pool of water. Others joined on either side of him.
Reaching under the crawler, Sage caught hold of the chassis and pulled himself underneath the vehicle. Bouncing and hammering against the ground, he climbed forward till he could lock his feet into place. Then he lifted himself from th
e ground and held on like a parasite. Two other soldiers climbed up beside him, then all five of them were secured as the crawler rolled toward the hidden base.
“Penetration Team in place.” Sage glanced forward, feeling the crawler shift as the driver applied the brakes and started slowing.
“Roger that,” Murad replied.
Sage controlled the ParaSights, sending them high and slow, creeping into the cave and taking up positions that gave him a look inside the operation. He relayed the information to the rest of his team.
Guards stood behind the camo veil that masked the entrance to the cave. Behind them, long tables filled with chemicals and equipment lined one side of the cave under the tracked rows of soft illumination. On the other side of the cave, processing vats and kilns took the raw product from its natural state to the gummy tar boiled and chemed down to its essence. The tar could be converted to other states that could be smoked, ingested, and injected, all with different levels of strength.
The drug was called lexoti by the natives, who had used it for pain management, but the black-market trade had branded it as Third Eye because of the out-of-body-experience high-quality forms often created. Not only was the drug supposed to expand the consciousness of whomever was taking it, the effects also enhanced sexual experiences.
The three crawlers came to a stop in the center of the cave. The doors opened and the crew in the cab got out to meet the people still inside the lab.
Sage used the ParaSights to do a quick head count. The operation had more manpower than he’d thought. Twenty-seven men and women ran the lab, working the raw harvest into finished product. That was eight more than they’d estimated. Boxes of Third Eye sat at the back of the cave.
“Somebody grab me a beer.” The driver stepped from the first vehicle and caught a bottled beer from one of the men standing at the sidelines.