by Ross Winkler
The short reprieve granted the Choxen the few seconds they needed to dive out the door and escape.
Corwin and Phae darted to the open doorway to fend off another attack. It was clear that that battle was over. The Choxen retreated across the courtyard, climbing, scrambling up and over the broken walls to the safety of the dense forest.
Corwin rushed back to Yerama-gar's side. In a widening pool of alien blood and mud, he knelt next to Kai. With gentle hands he tried to realign the Prehson's slender neck. It was no use. The cloudiness of its eyes was gone; its gills no longer rippled with passing breath.
Rocking back onto his heels, Corwin wiped his armored arm across his helmet and tapped his pistol against his forehead as he tried collect himself. This was his fault. If he had been more accurate, the Choxen would be dead. If he had stopped firing sooner, he wouldn't have hit Yerama-gar. The Diviner might be alive, and no doubt the Śeṣanāga would still be in their possession.
Phae knelt down beside him, hand sliding along his forearm until she had his gun in her possession. "They're falling back." She took him under the elbow and lifted. "Come on."
"Should we follow them?" Kai asked as he jogged back through the Diviner's rooms.
Corwin looked up through the red-rimmed ash that drifted down. Fire had burned the tent's ceiling away so that only the night's sky and its stars shone through. "No. There aren't enough of us left for that."
"Aye, sir."
CHAPTER NINETEEN
"You let them escape!" the Car-karniss Guard General said, slamming a taloned hand against the side of a reconstructed medical tent. The Maharathas' helmets translated her hisses and growls into recognizable Human words.
Corwin didn't flinch. "We rescued your priests."
"You failed! Only one survived."
The crack of Yerama-gar's neck echoed through Corwin's mind. He pushed the memory away. "They would have all died if not for us."
"Yes. You Humans. You were here to guard us. Protect us on this planet. Where were you?"
"On the far side of the complex where we were housed, as guests, not guards," Corwin said.
The Guard General hissed in frustration, shaking her head. "Your species proves its weakness."
An Ordeiky arrived, her robes singed and dirt-spattered. "Guard General, we have not located the Śeṣanāga within the Diviner's chambers," the creature said with clacks of teeth and gurgles.
The Guard General growled and slammed her hand onto the tent pole again; the tent shuddered. "You have lost us our prize!" She stepped forward, yellow nostrils flaring, the scales on her throat and belly flashing from yellow to red. "I will have your head!"
Her hands stopped inches from Corwin's throat. His pistol pressed into the soft spot on the underside of her lower jaw. "Touch me and you die, lizard."
Corwin wasn't sure if his insult would translate, but from the sudden bulge of her eyes and orange-red flush of her underbelly skin, he suspected that it had. "If you want our help, tell us what to do, but we will not take the blame for a surprise attack on a known hostile world."
Her arms retracted, and so too did Corwin's gun. From the edge of the medical tent, a young Foralli jumped and waved for attention. "Guard General! Humans! The Diviner wishes to speak to you!" Despite his soft scales, his movements reminded Corwin of the young apes he'd seen at play in the jungles.
The Guard General growled and led the small procession of warriors into the dim tent. With the death of Yerama-gar and the Groaton, the next to take control of the mission was the Foralli priest they'd saved during the raid.
The triage tent was a mass of groaning and writhing bodies as the overworked medical staff healed who they could. The Car-karniss — who had borne the brunt of the casualties — could regenerate a lost limb quickly enough if their bleeding could be stopped in time. The other aliens weren't as lucky, and due to the Grunts' presence in the battle, more than a few were missing limbs and bore deep wounds.
The Humans' stomachs turned despite their familiarity with combat, and they kept their eyes focused elsewhere.
The new Diviner lay on a small medical bed covered with a blanket. Tubes in his arm fed nutrients to the small alien and provided a constant flow of nanites to aid in healing. Two Car-karniss guards straightened and bowed as the procession approached.
The Guard General took a knee. "Diviner. You asked for us?"
"Yes," the Foralli squeaked. "There has been much Schism today. Yerama-gar has been taken from us; we have lost the Śeṣanāga; many have perished. The Schism of this battle will be felt for generations."
"Diviner, the Humans…" the Guard General said.
The Diviner waved his hand through the air. "The Maharatha saved us. We were foolish to believe that we were safe."
The Guard General shut her mouth with a hiss and an angry tongue twist.
The Diviner turned his bald, scaled head towards Corwin. "The Diviner believed that Accession was upon us — an old Schism returned to Wholeness. You must find where they took the Śeṣanāga. You must retrieve the Śeṣanāga."
"We must speak with our superiors," Corwin said. "They may have other tasks for us."
The Guard General hissed and rounded on Corwin. "You dare to deny a request from a Diviner?"
A feeble, delicate hand reach out to alight upon the Car-karniss' wrist. "Be still. They do their duty, as do you."
The Car-karniss hissed again and thrashed her tail.
"I have spoken with your Oniban, and she has seen to your reassignment to us. You will be in our care until we retrieve the Śeṣanāga, or until we all die trying." The Foralli stared at Corwin, reptilian eyes wavering in and out of focus.
Behind the safety of his helmet, Corwin frowned. He didn't like being assigned to a group of maniacs who would throw themselves against their enemies even if it meant defeat. He saw now why the ideas of dreng and jendr that so pervaded the Republic culture were important: efficiency in all things applied to Human lives as well as material goods. If you fought a battle, make sure you won, otherwise the loss incurred would be for nothing. Did the entirety of their battle force comprise of the Maharatha and the handful of the Car-karniss still standing?
If that were the case, their quest was hopeless, and he needed to make sure that he could get himself and his Void out if, no, when, things went bad.
"I leave the planning up to you, Guard General." The Diviner leaned back and closed his eyes.
The Guard General turned to the four Humans. "We will plan our next moves and let you know how you may be of use to us."
The four Maharatha lounged again in their bunks, relaxing as best they could, still dressed in their sneak suits.
Pulling the helmet from his head, Corwin set it on the floor. "It's true," he said, sighing as he rubbed at sweaty hair. He had called the Oniwabanshu to speak with the Oniban, but he'd spoken with one of her generals instead. "We've been assigned 'until the conclusion of our services' to the IGA. The IGA has in turn assigned us to this particular group."
"It is dreng to assist the IGA…" Phae said.
"Not when it will get us killed fighting a religious war without end." There was venom in Chahal's voice.
Phae scoffed. "Says the Exilist? That's some hypocritical wickt if I ever heard it."
"The First Exiles removed religion from their society for this exact reason. It doesn't do anyone any good and gets everyone killed."
"So your kind puts it back in, and that makes it okay, right?"
"NO!" Chahal slammed her foot on the ground. The outburst surprised everyone into silence. "They call what we do 'religion' because they are afraid of us. We honor the First Exiles because they were the epitome of dreng. Their trials were real, tested on the field of battle instead of in training halls."
"You have a problem with the way the Republic does things?" Phae leaned forward, gesturing with her hands.
"It has made us, as a species, weak. Too concerned with dreng and jendr and caste to defeat our enemies."
"You think I'm weak?" Phae stood. Chahal rose to meet her.
"Both of you shut up," Corwin said.
They turned their heads towards him, shocked by the ice in his voice. "You can argue all night and won't get anywhere. So just shut up and pull yourselves together."
Something broke within both of them — Corwin could see it deep in their eyes.
"I don't need this," Phae said, grabbing her helmet from the bed and walking out the door.
Chahal didn't say anything; the set of her teeth and curl of her lips communicated enough. She took up her helmet and left as well.
Kai and Corwin looked at each other.
"You should talk to Chahal," Corwin said.
"Me?" Kai snorted a mirthless laugh and lay back in his bunk. "I'm not her superior officer." The shadow of the bunk above hid dark eyes hooded in both anger and sadness.
Corwin clenched his jaw, alternating sides as he thought. "Fine. You stay here so I don't have to chase after you either."
"Don't worry about me."
Corwin took up his helmet and rifle and left. He didn't want to be a Psychic Medic, along with a Void Commander and a Quisling — too many masks to wear. At this moment, though, he needed to act the part.
Wickting Republic, he cursed to himself. It was jendr to admit to mental distress, for it showed weakness; and it took an order from a superior officer to force a soldier to visit the Medics for such an injury, and even then it could take months or years to heal. Corwin didn't have time for that; they'd be thrust back into battle tomorrow or maybe the next day. He needed them functional. Now.
A medipatch would do. Or a hot knife to cauterize the wound.
Corwin found Chahal only a few meters from the door. She had not violated operational security and wandered off to be alone and had instead stayed within eyesight of Phae and their bunks. Phae leaned against a tree at the edge of the forest.
"Want to tell me what's going on with you?" Corwin asked. Despite his attempts to add some warmth, his voice was cold.
"They never talk about this in combat school," Chahal said after a few moments.
"What?"
"The nightmares. Insomnia. The faces of the Sentients we kill. The smell of death that lingers on our boots and in our hair and … and…" She trailed off and looked without seeing up into the sky.
"My family was so proud that I had made it into the Maharatha, proud for themselves, proud for me. Wickt, I was too, but…" She ran a gauntleted hand through curly hair matted from sweat and combat.
She shook her head, eyes still unfocused. "The First Exiles provided detailed accounts of their exploits down to the cultivation of food and the fabrication of hide clothes, but somehow they missed the kind of mental trauma that combat creates."
She signed and squatted, dragged a finger through the dirt. "The only mention of combat we have are the tactics they used, the numbers of allied to enemy dead, and the heroic stories of victory against insurmountable odds. Where's the rest of it?"
Corwin almost answered the hypothetical question with something noncommittal. He stopped himself in time. This was a real question, one for which she needed an answer; something that would help her reconcile her tumultuous feelings in the now and the contradictions presented in the texts that defined her life.
He worked his jaw as he reached for an answer and instead struck upon the long-forgotten memory of a story.
"When I was young," Corwin said, "I would join my brother and cousins when the warriors of my family returned home from a raid or salvage operation or trade and we would ask them questions. 'How many were there? How many did you kill? What did you do? How did they die?'
"At that point in our lives we thought of combat as a game, and when one of our family didn't return and the mourning started, we joined and mourned alongside the others, but well, we were children, and what did we know of death?
"When the greetings ended and questions started, some unknown signal brought my Grand from the trucks. He'd gather us up and tell stories, ending always with the same one.
"Once there were two dragons, one with black scales, the other with white scales, and these dragons played games of war with each other for eons and were the best of friends. One day, the black-scaled dragon found a treasure so powerful that it hid it away at the center of a volcano. Over time, the black dragon began to drift away from its youthful playmate, away from their games, spending more of its time admiring its treasure.
"The white dragon became jealous and followed its friend to the volcano. The white dragon hid among the crags as the black dragon withdrew its treasure from its hiding place. It was a silver mirror.
"The white dragon confronted its friend. 'You desert me for a mere looking glass?' it bellowed and in a fit of rage dashed the black dragon's head against the rocks, killing it. After the battle, the white dragon took up its friend's treasure. In it, the white dragon saw only itself reflected."
Corwin sighed, feeling nostalgia and remorse bubble up for a moment. He stomped it back down. "I never understood the story until after my first raid with the warriors. I was seven then, maybe. I was different when I got back."
He put a hand on Chahal's shoulder and looked her in the eye. "No amount of storytelling or writing or film can prepare you for war. Violence and killing thrusts that kind of self-knowledge on you, whether you like it or not, and it makes you different in a way no one else can understand unless they, too, have killed."
"I want nothing to do with it anymore," Chahal said, eyes closed hard to block out whatever it was she saw.
"Too bad," Corwin said. The response startled Chahal. "You can't go back now. You can't quit. You can't unlearn what you've discovered about yourself. You can only accept it. You are a murderer. And so am I, and so are Phae and Kai and the Guard General."
"But I … I don't — "
"Doesn't matter. You will keep on killing, must keep killing, because if you don't this war will force your siblings or cousins or children to learn what you have learned."
Chahal clenched her jaw and nodded.
"And remember, just because you kill, it doesn't mean you must enjoy killing."
"W-what did you do to deal with the trauma of combat, your family I mean." Her voice started out weak but gained in strength as she spoke.
"Our Grands served the same function as the Psychic Medics here, except they've been through war; they knew what it was like."
"You've been doing this longer than I have, how do you … how can you keep your mind in check?"
"Push it down. Lock it away. When you have time, bring it back up and deal with it in digestible chunks. Above all, come to terms with the fact that you're a killer. You're no better than the Choxen."
Chahal's head snapped back, eyes widening in surprise.
"We aren't. We killed an entire Quisling family: women, men, elders, children — we killed them all and locked those few that survived into a cell. We're no better than they are … except we didn't like it."
Chahal nodded and looked at the ground. "No, we didn't. I understand." After a deep breath, her eyes hardened — a reflection of Corwin's own. "Thank you, sir." Her voice echoed the steel in Corwin's.
Two paces away, Phae acknowledged Corwin's presence with a grunt and a jerk of her head. "I noticed you spoke with the Exilist first."
"She was the first one I came to," Corwin said as he stopped beside her, gazing back at the damaged complex with her.
She snorted.
"What's bothering you?" Corwin said after a few moments.
"Nothing's bothering me. I just needed some time away from Chahal and the Variant."
"You are lying to me," Corwin said without looking at her.
Her head jerked, face showing surprise before she closed her eyes and shook her head. "Everything is getting muddled."
Corwin kept quiet until she was ready to speak again. "When we were young, everything was black and white: Humans are good, Siloth are bad; dreng is dreng and jend
r is jendr, and there is no way one could be the other based on the circumstances, and the IGA was here to protect us and help Humanity. And that was that."
She pinched the bridge of her nose with armored fingers. "Now the IGA sticks us with religious zealots to follow them into death and, and…"
"Nothing is like it seemed," Corwin finished for her.
"Yeah! Right! Everything is muddy. Shades of gray." She shook her head. "And you know, and family, they're supposed to be there for you to help you, right?"
The abrupt shift of her mental track surprised Corwin. "I … I guess so. If you're lucky enough to have the right kind of family."
"I don't." She looked him hard in the eye. "I took your advice while you were busy chatting with Chahal; I split myself off from my family. I am now Dreng-less." She grabbed Corwin by the ears and pulled him close for a kiss. "I'm free of them!" She let go and twirled, arms flung wide like a little girl, spinning for the thrill of it.
"In just the few minutes that I've been free of them, I've already had half a dozen requests from Maharatha families for adoption!"
"Congratulations," Corwin said. "What are you going to do?"
"Come with me into a new family."
"They will never take me. I'll be just as much an outcast as you were."
"No, it'll be fine…"
"It won't be fine," Corwin snapped. "They will never accept me, and I will never accept them."
"What if we made one? Just us two. The first in the line of Family Shura." There was hope in her voice.
He shook his head. "No. I don't belong here. I'm not a part of the Republic or the Republic's ways, understand?"
There was fear in her eyes, real fear. Corwin had seen that same fear in himself those first few years he was in the Republic, when he'd felt adrift in a foreign culture. That fear hadn't been there just a few moments before. Then she had been full of hope. He had cut her loose.
But he didn't mean what he'd said, not really. He'd been surprised by her, and in his surprise he had acted from an instinct born from battle after battle with himself and his feelings.