by Yronwode
“Good evening to you, General Kitaen,” Alkema called out to him.
“Good evening to you, Lt. Cmdr. Alkema,” Kitaen called back, taking steps forward, oblivious to the weapons trained on him.
“You got our message, I take it,” Alkema called out to him.
“Indeed,” Kitaen confirmed. “Three of the Hammerhead missiles you launched managed to break atmo. They were retrieved by the Aves Chloe. After some debate, we determined a plan to send additional support to you. I have twenty men with me.”
“After some debate?” Alkema questioned.
“There was some thought that sending additional men to a planet with almost no hope of return to the ship was unwise,” Kitaen cocked his head. “Can you imagine that?”
Alkema would address the issue of ‘little hope of return’ later. “How did you know the location of the base?”
Kitaen explained. “TyroCommander Change selected the landing site herself.
She also told me to tell you that you were all idiots for coming down here without being sure you could make it back.”
Alkema began to reply, but he was interrupted by General Parka, who asked him, “Is this General the one in charge of your chip’s military resources.”
“General is not my rank,” Kitaen called out to clarify. “General is my given name.
As a Holy Man, I am not entirely comfortable with the accoutrements of rank. I prefer to be addressed by my given name, which ironically happens to be General.” Parka’s left eye twitched slightly, but you would have had to be very close to see it. “Then… you are not in charge of your ship’s military resources?”
“In yet another ironic twist, I am.”
General Parka seemed satisfied by this information. Kitaen inquired as to Commander Keeler’s status. Alkema supplied the answer. “We found the wreckage of the Aves Zilla¸ and one escape pod. But he wasn’t in either one. We think he may have survived the crash, but we have no idea where he could have gone.”
“If he has been lost in the Wilderness of Howling Zeal, his chances of survival are not good unless he has superior survival skills,” Parka noted grimly.
“He may also have been taken hostage by one of the Xirong Phalanges,” Alkema added.
“He would be better off trying to survive on his own,” Parka again noted grimly.
“Our primary task will be to find him,” Kitaen said.
“Then, we will find a way off this world,” Alkema added.
“TyroCommander Change has all available resources working on that,” As Kitaen spoke, fourteen warfighters and five tactical specialists were arranging themselves in flanking positions around him. Kitaen called one forward, a younger man will full lips and thick honey-colored hair that escaped from under his helmet in curls as the wind passed through it. Kitaen introduced him, “Tactical Specialist Dayvan Cowboy, a specialist in desert operations, he’ll be your primary tactical liaison for the search-and-rescue op.”
Alkema shook his hand. “Dayvan, good to see you again. How’s your mom?” Cowboy shrugged. “She’s good.”
Kitaen addressed General Parka. “My crew will need to establish a command center… a base of operations. Do you have a place where we can set up? We don’t need much; most of our equipment is in the pods.”
“Of course,” Parka answered. “You almost landed on our primary base of operations, and we almost had to shoot you down.”
Kitaen laughed, revealing that his canines had been altered to look like fangs.
“That would never happen,” he assured Parka. Then, he turned to his troops. “Load up, men. We’ve got a job to do.”
A Midian officer, Adjutant Colonel Rigor (Midian Intelligence) interrupted, “Under Midian Security requirements, I must demand that all of your men surrender their weapons to Midian custody immediately.”
Sixteen pulse rifles clicked into Hot Standby mode. “Would you care to rephrase that?” Kitaen baritoned icily.
Colonel Rigor persisted. “No one except trained Midian Security personnel are allowed to carry weapons.”
Kitaen turned to General Parka. “If my men are not allowed to keep their equipment here, then we shall go elsewhere.”
“There is nowhere in Midian…” Rigor began before Parka cut her off.
“For your men, the requirement is waived. You may keep your weapons with you as a military courtesy,” Parka told him. “Now, will you accompany me to the facilities we have set up for your men? You may establish your command center there.” CHAPTER: 10
Yronwode – The Wilderness of Howling Zeal
The morning after the shooting stars passed over was unremarkable in Izzan-Al-Izzan, except for the approach of a strange, hideous, mechanoid creature to the town’s edge. It walked through the hanging dust of the hot morning, every measured step bringing it deeper into the city. Its pace was so quick and its movement so fluid it appeared to be gliding over the stony ground.
It was exactly two meters tall. It looked like a man with a metal face, swathed in filthy bandages, except for its hands which consisted of long, metallic, needle-like fingers.
Behind it, two more creatures came, identical to the first. They moved steadily, and determinedly, along their course. And as they walked up the streets, shutters dropped over windows and doors locked. Although the whole city knew who the creatures were coming for, they were taking no chances.
In the early years of the prison colony, the Lethal Injectors had kept order by carrying out immediate executions of prisoners who murdered other prisoners. Over the centuries, their numbers had dwindled somewhat while the planet’s population had grown and spread out. Also, there were so many killings on the planet that the Injectors only rarely appeared for common murders, but for a notorious assassination, they almost always came to mete out prison planet justice.
K-Rock was in the Central Administration building that served him as both residence and headquarters. Ten loyal guards surrounded the outside. Inside, K-Rock studied maps of the Wilderness of Howling Zeal. Two of his most trusted aides-de-camp, Blunt Hardcheese and Punch Rockgroin, were with him, showing him on the maps the realms of influence of the ten tribes he was seeking to bring together.
“Only four Chieftains gonna to meet you, now saying,” Hardcheese told him.
“And gonna to send only lieutenants. No chieftains.”
“They have seen the sign,” K-Rock told them. “Why have they not agreed to make the journey to Urbtar Lek?”
“None of them belive in your power, now saying,” Rockgroin told him.
“Also,they’re afraid if they all get together in one place, the Theocrats’ll wipe ‘em out.”
“What would convince them of my power?” K-Rock asked. “Maybe we should show them the weapons we’ve recovered from …”
At that moment, Bang pushed her way into the chambers. “K-Rock, the LIs have appeared in the city. They come for you.”
“The what come for who?” K-Rock grunted.
“The LIs. You killed Boros,” Bang told him. “Now, the LIs are coming to carry out your death penalty. The penalty for murder of a Chieftain is death.” Thickneck and Rockgroin stood rock still and kept their faces fixed in concentration. They wanted to get their own asses out of there, but were more afraid of displaying cowardice in front of the Chieftain. And his battlestaff.
K-Rock rose from his comfortable chair, grabbed his staff, and pointed at Bang.
“I’ll take care of this. You make me some pancakes.”
“Here!” Bang said, offering him a flask of the acidic, bitter-tasting water of the badlands. He drank it, making a mental note to teach these people a few things about water purification, and how to make tonic water, and how to make gin to mix with tonic water. On second thought, he’d just cut to the chase and teach them how to make gin.
K-Rock walked out of his compound and into the blinding daylight. The High Street that ran through the center of Izzan-Al-Izzan was devoid of life. At the end, three dark figures in ragg
ed cloaks approached with deliberation and faster-than-human speed.
K-Rock crouched in his strike-to-kill position. The sun was behind him, and this was moderately helpful. He seemed to be able to slow his perception of time by concentrating, and saw the approaching killbots in sun-blazed detail. Their faces were gleaming metal skulls wrapped in leathery bands. Metallic arms and needle-fingers showed beneath the rags of their shrouds.
“Stop!” he commanded them. “I am K-Rock! State your purpose.” The lead Killbot stopped. His voice was ancient, dry as the windswept plains, and came through a distinct electronic synthesizer. “Prisoner K-Rock, you have committed murder-death-kill of a prisoner of rank, in violation of Directive Beta, Protocol 3, Section 2. The penalty for the deliberate termination of a prisoner of rank’s life is death by lethal injection, pursuant to Directive Beta, Protocol 3, Section 2, Subsection 2a.”
A second Killbot spoke. His voice was identical to the first. “You are entitled to appeal this sentence.”
K-Rock nodded. “I invoke my right of appeal.”
The third Killbot spoke. His voice was identical to the first two. “Your appeal is denied. Prepare for execution.”
K-Rock drew into a fighting stance and twirled his walking stick. “Bring it on, raggedy-bot.”
The first Lethal Injector came upon him at about twice the speed of a running man. Keeler swung the Thean battlestaff and caught it squarely in the chest. He imparted as much acceleration as he could into the blow and sent the killbot arcing upward where it smashed into, through, and out the other side of one of the decrepit buildings that lined the street. Most of the Lethal Injector disintegrated on impact. What remained – a detached skull, detached hands, some rags and a collection of parts none larger than a pebble — rained down briefly in the alley behind the street.
K-Rock faced the other two. “1 down, two to go. Your move.” The other two Lethal Injectors stopped and briefly compared notes on the demise of the first injector. The second killbot spoke. “Prisoner K-Rock, you have resisted execution in violation of Directive Gamma, Protocol 13, Section 5. You have furthermore destroyed Commonwealth Property, in violation of Directive Alpha, Protocol 9, Section 1. Prepare for termination.”
“You prepare for termination,” K-Rock commanded.
The Lethal Injectors spread apart so that each was outside the reach of his battle staff and moved apart. K-Rock, meanwhile, retreated to his strike-to-kill. He saw what the injectors were trying to do, flank him, so that he could not evade both of them.
His attack on one would permit the other to strike.
K-Rock decided to strike first. He charged the nearest Lethal Injector, intending to bring down his battlestaff right on its head. The robot managed to deflect it with its ghastly metal claws. It made a strike for K-Rock, but K-Rock deflected it with a reverse swing of his battlestaff.
K-Rock had anticipated the other killbot would come up behind him. He quickly swung the battlestaff backwards, hard. He felt it slam into the Lethal Injector and permitted himself a quick turn to see the killbot slammed against the wall of a building.
“Prisoner K-Rock,” the Lethal Injectors insisted in unison. “Cease and desist your resistance to your execution.”
“Or what?” K-Rock sneered. “You’ll execute me twice?” He swung against and smashed the head of the second Lethal Injector, loosing a spray of sparks into the desert air. The killbot twitched and fell still.
The final Lethal Injector came at him, needle-fingers prepared to plunge into his skull. K-Rock dodged at the last moment, ducking out of the way of the deadly needles, which plunged hard into the corrugated metal wall and rooted there.
The killbot was trapped, and K-Rock didn’t wait. Seemingly in response to a thought, the end of his staff sharpened to a spear point. K-Rock plunged it into the body of the stuck killbot, where it must have struck a capacitor or a power cell, because green-orange energy pulses flashed outward, covering the body of the killbot in a miniature lightning storm.
Panting with exertion, K-Rock pulled his battlestaff free. He turned to go back to the complex. “They will see I have slain the lethal injectors. That oughtta be worth some kind of sign to these filthy ignorant…”
K-Rock felt the sting of the needle as the lethal injector jammed him hard in the side, penetrating him just below the bottom of his ribcage. The second lethal injector had been wounded mortally, and would soon collapse to the dust never to rise again.
But K-Rock would be dead by the time that happened.
K-Rock felt the three chemicals pushing into him like hot acid. First came the numbing anesthetic that filled him with a warm feeling like every part of him was falling into a deep, deep sleep. This was followed by a muscle relaxant that turned his legs and shoulders to butter (not literally) and made him collapse gently to the dusty ground.
Then, came the third chemical, whose purpose was to stop his heart.
“Well, if this doesn’t suck…” would be the last thoughts to go through K-Rock’s brain.
Midian Security Base 1: The Hangar
Zilla’s wreckage had been brought to a large aircraft hangar, where its pieces occupied a space next to Prudence, which was just barely intact enough not to qualify as wreckage itself. Alkema stood on a catwalk overlooking the two ships, which were being tended to by Midian Engineering Technicians. Tended to,” meaning studied and stripped for any technological details the Midians could learn and adapt to their own security needs.
He had come here after a frustrating meeting in which Kitaen had tried to work out a cooperation agreement with the Midian military for additional search and rescue attempts. The Midian military, with the exception of General Parka, seemed opposed to any action that would aggravate the Xirong, including any searches or rescues. Alkema had a sense that the Midians had written Commander Keeler off, and for that matter, written off any chance of Pegasus’s crew ever leaving the planet. Captain Steadfast had lately been asking him if his crew would be interested in a new development of apartment blocks being built on the shore.
He saw Trajan Lear also standing on the catwalk, staring at Prudence. Trajan spoke first as Alkema approached. “I can’t believe I wrecked Matthew’s ship again.
What is this, four times?”
“I think it’s only three,” Alkema told Trajan, grateful for the change in subject.
“According to Lt. Commander Kitaen, Commander Change has the entire Burning Skies Flight Group prospecting for volatiles in the system’s cometary cloud. Doom Patrol and the HellBlazers are running tactical simulations. QuickSilver Angels are running flight certs on the new cadets. Don’t you wish you were there?”
“I hate doing Flight Certs,” Lear said. “I always feel like they’re reading my thoughts through the neural connector.”
“Well, aren’t they?” Alkema asked.
“Technically…” Trajan began, then changed the topic himself. “You know, our Tritium Fuel Reserves are down to 40% and we haven’t had a refresh since we left Chapultepec. Aren’t you concerned about that.”
“That’s probably why she’s prospecting in the Oort Cloud,” Alkema said.
Although he knew comets were not usually good prospects for finding Tritium in major quantities. “Is Flight Captain Driver still at the Temple?”
“Affirmative that.”
Alkema scowled. “He’s been there for ten days.”
Trajan Lear only grunted in reply. Alkema persisted. “What did you guys do in the Chronos Universe that he’s had to atone this long?”
“You read our reports.”
“Za, it was like reading something Eddie Roebuck wrote, only less coherent.”
“The actual memories are even less coherent than the report,” Trajan assured him. Trajan gestured toward the ships. “Even if he were here, it wouldn’t make any difference. Neither of the ships is flight-capable.”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Alkema told Trajan Lear. “We could probably salvage enough parts from
Zilla to make Prudence flight-capable again.” Trajan thought about this. “You’re probably right. Prudence is structurally sound, but her power systems are shot. The fusion reactor on Zilla is operational. If her power nodes are intact, we could be in business.” He paused for a second. “Of course, we would still be stuck here.”
“We’re going to need a ship to get off this rock one way or another,” Alkema said.
“Do you have a plan?” Trajan asked.
“I’m working on something,” Alkema lied. In truth, he had nothing yet. But he was sure he’d eventually come up with something.
“Pruzilla?” Trajan Lear exclaimed. “We could call the ship Pruzilla, but just make icy sure Flight Captain Driver never finds out.”
General Kitaen entered the hangar, passed by the ships without looking at them, and shirtlessly made his way up to the catwalk. Alkema asked him if he had any news, and he did, although none of it changed their situation. “Technicians Humbucker and Freestyle have examined the escape capsule and correlated the data with the surveillance imagery of the crash site. They have concluded that its occupant, presumably Commander Keeler, survived the crash, likely with some extent of injury, and was removed from the capsule.”
“Removed?” Alkema asked.
“The capsule was opened from the outside,” General Kitaen explained. “This being the case, it stands to reason that Commander Keeler is in the custody of one of the Xirong Phalanges.
“So, why aren’t they trying to find out which Phalange, and figuring out how to get him back?” Alkema said testily.
Kitaen explained. “The Xirong live in teaming settlements of hundreds of thousands of people. Their buildings are filled with hiding places, tunnels, secret bunkers, and hidden spaces. Even if we knew which settlement the commander was in, we would have great difficulty locating and extracting him.” Alkema rolled his eyes, something he almost never did. “Let me guess, the Midian Diplomatic Core is in intense negotiation with their Midian counterparts as we speak.”