The planet, he thought. It’s poisoning me.
He didn’t think he’d be able to reach the nearest hill, let alone the land beyond it, but he kept walking anyway. He didn’t have a choice. Even if he wasn’t in the middle of the trials, staying in place meant certain death. Eventually, assuming the chemicals in the atmosphere didn’t kill him first, he would need food and water.
It’s a trap, he thought.
No, Colt persisted. You don’t need to breathe. You are not human.
Nuri scoffed weakly and kept his eyes locked on the hilltop. He sensed a great deal of movement around him now that he was visibly faltering, but he tried to ignore its presence. He didn’t sense that his visitors were Watchmen and any other threat could be handled by his rifle if they came too close. More than likely, they were curious custodians or families visiting the graves of their loved ones. It was rare that a cemetery planet was completely devoid of visitors, although Nuri was not so naïve as to believe the volume of traffic around him was typical for a toxic dusk like that one. Cemetery planets, by rule, were off-limits for three months out of each solar year (aside from new burials) to allow the custodians to complete renovations and general maintenance. The schedules varied widely so Nuri couldn’t be sure whether his impromptu visit to the dwarf planet fell within that window, but his gut told him that it had.
They don’t want you here, Colt said.
“I don’t want to be here,” he muttered.
You must control your body. You must know that you are Hidria, then you won’t need to breathe. The atmosphere won’t affect you at all.
The idea sounded great but Nuri wasn’t sure how to accomplish it, especially since his body very clearly was affected by the atmosphere. It seemed impossible to simply will himself not to feel the toxins in his body, although he was fairly certain he’d managed it at least twice during the trials so far.
Both of those instances could have been illusions, though. This could be the real thing. I could be dying right now.
You are Hidria. There is no such thing as death.
At last, the burn in his veins was so severe and disorienting that he had to stop walking or he would have fallen over and likely smashed his skull on a gravestone in the process. He felt the soft earth beneath him yielding, eager to swallow his body and add him to the graves sprawled across the planet’s surface. More troubling were the sounds of a dozen unknown creatures pressing in around him, seeing that he was too weak to resist their advances. He didn’t dare guess their intentions, but he had his rifle and laser blade to sort it out when the time came.
You must get off this planet, the Duri Master said. Find a ship and get to Prime. That is the only way you can see the face of God.
“Fight it,” he growled, summoning all the strength left in his body to rise to his feet and survey his enemies.
Indistinct, expressionless alien faces regarded him beneath silver atmosphere masks. Each of them carried a heavy-looking blaster rifle and wore dull gray suits with black armor covering their chests, arms, and abdomens. Their legs were protected by heavy-looking boots that stretched all the way to their hips where they intersected with chest plating. There were at least twenty of them in all and more emerged from behind the gravestones with each passing moment. When they saw Nuri marking their approach, they froze in unison and regarded him suspiciously.
“Chizuuma shul,” one of them declared, raising a fist in the air in the universal sign to ‘hold.’ Evidently, it was the leader of the group, for they all fell back into defensive positions upon his command, seeking any available shelter while keeping their blaster rifles locked on Nuri in case he had any designs on a pre-emptive strike.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” Nuri said, addressing the alien who’d given the ‘hold’ order.
“Neither are you,” the creature responded with a heavy, guttural accent.
Nuri tried to suppress a cough but gave up when the burn in the back of his throat threatened to make him vomit instead.
“Why did you come here?” the alien asked, lowering his blaster rifle. Clearly, he was confident Nuri posed no immediate threat to him or any of the other masked soldiers, and Nuri didn’t blame him. He didn’t look like much just then and they outnumbered him at least fifty to one when all was said and done.
Once Nuri had his breathing under control again, he steadied his legs and looked the leader in the eye. “I didn’t mean to come here,” he said. “I was brought here.”
Reflexively, a half-dozen of the soldiers glanced over their shoulders, in the opposite direction that Nuri had been traveling.
The landing pad, he thought, stifling a grin. Naturally, a few of the troops had gotten spooked at the idea that another ship was in the area and wanted to make sure they hadn’t missed anything on their sensor sweeps. In doing so, they had unwittingly provided Nuri with directions to the nearest ships, and that positive return outweighed any struggles he could possibly have with the small army surrounding him. A chance to get off the planet quickly was priceless no matter how many bodies he left in his wake.
Any man who raises his fist against the Hidria is a servant of the Evil One and should be killed without question or court judgment. One who would impede the will of the Divine Infinite cannot exist within its framework. He must be removed to Tscharia, the decaying planet in the universe of darkness.
He couldn’t remember which sacred text the passage was from, but it certainly wasn’t The Divine Incendiary.
“What do you mean? Who brought you here?” the leader demanded, raising the blaster rifle again and sidestepping in Nuri’s direction.
Slowly, his battle instincts began to take over. Without thought, he’d assessed the layout of the graves surrounding him as well as the nearest soldiers. The toxins from the atmosphere had begun to filter out of his bloodstream as his Hidria form emerged from hibernation into a rage and surety of purpose.
“God brought me here,” he said.
Several soldiers scoffed and turned to each other to share mocking glances even though their expressions were concealed. The leader of the group, however, didn’t flinch.
“Why did God bring you here?”
“Why are all of you here?” Nuri countered. “And why are you armed?” Then, realizing that the chemicals in the atmosphere were part of the cemetery planet’s clean-up, he took another step closer to the commander. “No one’s supposed to be here when the planet’s shut down. Are you grave robbers?”
The commander matched his steps. Soon, they stood toe-to-toe, though Nuri was slightly taller than the alien and wound up looking down on him. The other soldiers moved in closer as they sensed the tension. Those among them who’d allowed their weapons to relax during the banter now assumed offensive positions with their blasters aimed at Nuri’s chest.
You are Hidria, Colt reminded him when the first wave of fear began to manifest in the pit of his stomach. He didn’t need her reassurance now that he’d willfully filtered the toxins from his bloodstream. Hidria didn’t need to be afraid of a small squad of alien soldiers, only large armies built by the Evil One. If it came down to it—and Nuri guessed that it would—he could dispatch the aliens easily enough.
“How are you able to breathe?” the commander asked, ignoring Nuri’s question.
Now that he was glaring down at the alien soldier (who was clearly made of sterner stuff than the rest of his crew), Nuri sensed the fear pervading the creature, and that meant the rest of his men were even worse off by comparison. If he could play on those fears, he might not even need to kill them all. Maybe making a few examples would suffice.
As long as they’re willing to give me their ship, he thought. No matter how intimidating his combat prowess would be to them, he couldn’t imagine they would willingly concede their vessel without one hell of a fight. Cemetery planets were barren during the off months, and even if the life-support systems in their suits could hold out until the end of the toxic wave that purged the atmosphere, the
y would run out of food on the surface long before then.
“You’d better answer quickly, human, or I might lose my patience,” the commander growled, pressing the end of his blaster into Nuri’s chest.
“I am Hidria,” Nuri answered. “I don’t need to breathe.”
“Hidria?” the commander spat, taking a startled step back.
The rest of his soldiers immediately retreated to cover behind gravestones once again.
“Hidria.”
Almost immediately, the blaster bolts began to fly, creating spectacular swirls of color as they crackled through the toxic atmosphere. If the shots hadn’t been aimed at Nuri, he might have even admitted that they were beautiful.
Aesthetics, his Duri Master sternly cautioned. Distractions.
As he rolled away from the first wave of blaster bolts, seeing everything around him with senses beyond his normal human perception and reacting faster than the soldiers could compensate for his movements, he realized that the Duri Master was right.
And yet he was still alive.
12
“Use only your blasters on the surface. You’re not yet trained well enough to use your blades. Blades require proximity to your target, and face to face, your margin for error is miniscule. Always remember that the deaths must be impersonal, otherwise they will not be viewed as objective judgment. If the public thinks a subjective vendetta is involved in this cleansing, or that you are godless savages unable to fulfill your charge with due solemnity, there will be backlash, and you will be the ones who pay for it.”
Nuri nodded to the commander of the Called recruits, one who still wore scars across his neck and forehead from his unsuccessful journey into the ethereal realm.
“All right,” the commander continued, flipping the switch on his spacesuit to lock his helmet in place and obscure his features beneath the purple mask. “Make sure your blasters are charged and hit the gates as one unit. Kill everyone, but don’t rush. Remember, the root of our power and mystique is our reputation as cold, remorseless death-dealers sent by God Himself. If you rush or if you hesitate, we lose our veil of lethal indifference.”
Nuri stole a quick glance at the other Called recruits who’d been assigned to the mission, trying to decide if any among them were as apprehensive as he, but they had all been well trained. Their expressions betrayed nothing but calm detachment.
“You’ll have three hours to finish the job and then a ship will touch down outside the colony for extraction.”
“Yes, sir,” the Called answered in unison.
The commander nodded and moved to the front of the ship to provide instructions for the pilot on where to skim the surface to best avoid detection. He had to be certain that a ship was never seen transporting the Called to a colony cleansing. Since Dublokee, the Duri Masters had invested a great deal of their tax collections and plunder on stealth technology so that the Called could arrive unannounced in their featureless masks, as though they’d been transported from Prime itself to drown the heresy of the colonists. For, as much as the Duri insisted they didn’t need theatrics to prove they’d been sent by God to rid the galaxy of sinners and all affronts to His Holy Name, Nuri had marked the extreme, brutal measures they employed to remind the heathens of their supernatural endowments.
No measures more extreme than this, he thought, gripping his blaster and willing away the butterflies in his stomach. He’d run kill missions before but he couldn’t imagine ever getting comfortable with them, especially when the Duri Masters themselves admitted that only a few colonists out of the hundreds on the moon were guilty of heresy. On top of that, Nuri was still reeling from his encounter with the girl from the river the night before, or perhaps her ghost. He still couldn’t decide what exactly he’d seen or whether he’d dreamed up the whole interaction, but the state of his Duri Master in the morning assured him that at least his drinking and cursing about The Divine Incendiary had truly happened.
“Beginning approach,” the pilot reported.
Nuri flipped the switch on his helmet and the painted visor snapped shut over his face. The readings that projected across the interior of his visor were disorienting at first, if only for the dizzying swirl of unrelated information, but he adjusted quickly enough. He had to. He would rely solely on the readings from his suit’s sensors to track down and eliminate any colonists who tried to hide or break for the mountains on the heretic moon.
The other Called soldiers—utterly faceless now with the purple visors filling their helmet shells—began to adjust their suits for the dive from the shuttle, checking to be sure that their internal life-support systems were functioning properly and their phase shields were set to the correct frequency. The colonists would have primitive, predictable weapons that emitted uniform pulse blasts or bullets, however, so there was no need. The research teams employed by the Duri Masters (they avoided the term ‘scientists’ at all costs) had devised adaptable shield modulation for their troopers to minimize the damage of each impact to negligible amounts.
“Two minutes to drop point.”
Checking to be sure his comm link had been turned off for the time being, Nuri sighed and finished calibrating the pressure equalizers on his suit. His Duri Master had warned during his training that if he programmed them incorrectly, his suit was likely to explode before he reached the moon’s surface. Yet he was still distracted by anxious rumination as he performed the checks, not the least of which involved the substantial mental preparation necessary to slaughter men, women, and children as they plead for their lives.
I wonder what she would say about this, he thought, remembering the not-so-subtle condemnations from the girl’s apparition.
He looked at the young woman beside him, who could just as easily have swapped places with another Called soldier while he was immersed in his own ponderings and he never would have known the difference. The suits were designed to mirror the act of the cleansing: uniform and impersonal. It was disappointing. He’d caught the girl’s glance a couple of times when they’d first boarded and thought she might have been feeling the same doubts that he was, but she’d quickly adopted the numb, expressionless demeanor of a devoted Called soldier. Now that they were in the thick of things, he didn’t dare engage her on a personal level.
Still, he couldn’t help wondering about her background, specifically what circumstances had brought her to the shuttle bench beside him preparing to launch an attack on unsuspecting colonists. These days, his own past was hazy any time he attempted to reach beyond his arrival on the mountaintop for training. The others on the shuttle had surely come from other planets and other mountain villages, but their training regimen would have been similar. The Duri always chose mountains for training because they felt it was an appropriate homage to the Divine Infinite, who Himself was said to reside on the first mountain of the planet Prime. It was also a reminder that the heavens were attainable, since the night skies from the mountaintop overflowed with stars that seemed close enough to touch.
And yet you are told to keep your eyes to the ground.
“One minute to drop point.”
Two-dozen Called soldiers rose dutifully from the benches, Nuri last of all. They drew their blasters and checked to be sure the safeties were off and the charges full. They carried laser blades for show, but as the commander had instructed, they were only to use the blasters once they reached the surface, and none of them wanted to be caught without a weapon. That would jeopardize their carefully formulated image, and other colonies might get ideas about resistance once footage of the cleansing was leaked throughout the galaxy. Any Called soldier would rather take his own life than allow that to happen.
Any Called soldier, that is, except Nuri. He wasn’t yet willing to lay down his life for the cause, although he considered it a failing of his own rather than his Duri Master’s teaching. As for the others, the Called were not permitted to communicate with each other outside of missions, so he might never know if any of them had doubts about the
ir commitment to the Holy cause.
“Thirty seconds.”
The commander joined them again in the rear cabin to oversee the drop. There were no windows on the shuttle but Nuri could tell they were near the surface both by the turbulence and the patter of rain over the outer hull.
“Fifteen seconds,” the commander told them, punching a button to retract the side door. The moon’s surface streamed by too quickly to catch any meaningful glimpses. It was night and they appeared to be skimming just above a jungle, although Nuri arrived at that supposition mostly by the intel provided in his mission briefing.
“Begin drop,” the pilot called back.
The commander nodded to the first soldier in line and the faceless Called began to drop from the shuttle, one by one, with Nuri anxiously awaiting his turn at the back of the line.
You must separate from the act, he told himself, trying to assuage the doubts that rose nearer and nearer his tongue as an outright refusal to go through with the mission. You are doing God’s work. Surrender to His will and let His judgment be your strength.
Soldier after soldier disappeared into the nighttime storm over the jungle until finally it was Nuri’s turn. He nodded once at the commander and then stepped out into the whistling, concussive wind.
The impact with the rushing air was more severe than he’d expected. He was knocked nearly unconscious against the side of his helmet even with the equalizers in his suit at maximum. He spun completely out of control for a moment with the rain pinging violently off his armor, catching a glimpse of the commander dropping a quarter mile ahead of him down the shuttle’s trajectory, and then the vessel vanished and Nuri calmed himself enough to remember to punch the adjustment pulses on his suit to right himself.
Even once he was facing the right direction, the jungle rushed up to meet him at an alarming rate. A lethal rate. He didn’t think he could trigger his parachute in time. The jungle canopy was about to tear him to pieces.
Breathe. Breathe and pray.
Colt: The Cosmic Prayer (Hidria Book 1) Page 11