A Cat Among Dragons

by Alma Boykin

  “Captain Ni Drako?” Major Gupta called.

  “Yes sir,” she unfolded and rose to her feet, coming to stand beside the blocky reptile.

  “You’re still not comfortable with the intel available, are you?” he asked, forelimbs folded across his chest.

  She shook her head, “No sir, I’m not. But I’m probably just being paranoid, sir.”

  Gupta considered the smaller mammal. “Of anyone, you have the best reason to be paranoid, Rada. What about this situation has you so bothered?”

  “Partly the missing weapons, sir. I’m not one hundred percent confident that the nationalists didn’t have someone within the militia, passing them ‘defective’ weapons and information. And to be completely honest sir, I’m unhappy with Lt. dar Ohrkan’s impatience.” Ni Drako caught the major’s look and shut up as the first position reports came in from the Scouts’ patrols. She retreated to her corner and resumed listening silently.

  Out in the night, Yori’s patrol made very good time towards their assigned target. He followed the progress of the other two groups on his display monocular, slowing his team so as not to outrun the ridge squads. “See anything yet, Sergeant Mityara?”

  “Nope. Quiet as the bar when a priestess walks in,” the Rigellian joked, drawing a quiet snicker from some of the closest troopers. As a precaution, dar Ohrkan had sent two pairs out wide on his flanks, letting them get slightly ahead of the main body of soldiers.

  None of the three patrols met any resistance as they advanced on their targets, and at Lt. Gomez’s signal their air support came in and worked over the two known positions. Yori opted to forgo the air attack and instead advanced directly towards the deserted nationalist hiding place.

  Fourth Squad, dar Ohrkan’s group, ran straight into a buzzsaw. Just as the point man kicked in the door, a mortar round fell on the building, blowing it to bits as cached landmines inside exploded. Of the twelve soldiers near the structure, four died instantly, including Sgt. Mityara. Then rifle fire began pouring down onto the Scouts from the southern wall of the valley, where Yori’s flankers stumbled into an ambush. “Pull back to those rocks,” dar Ohrkan called over the comm, trying to keep his voice calm and professional as he tried to find a target in the darkness. The fire bleached out his infrared sensors, blinding him to the enemy’s movements until he and the others could get farther away from the conflagration.

  Which way to go? Farther down the valley seemed safest, but he hesitated. “Where’s the damn hover shooters?” someone demanded on the squad freq, and dar Ohrkan sent out a belated request for fire support. He thanked his gods as the hover shooters worked back and forth across the area the shots came from. He still had to get his squad out, and now he wanted revenge for the ambush.

  What happened next haunted him for centuries. Explosions boomed and cracked behind the squad as mortar rounds began walking up the valley, cutting off that route, while the gunfire faded and died on the cleared ridge ahead of them. Damnit! We’re going after those bastards! Dar Ohrkan called for one more strike, then ordered his troopers to pivot and advance up the hillside, towards the enemy. Right. Now we get the fuckers, he snarled and charged up the slope and straight into a killing zone. Heavy rifle fire lanced down from the left and right, catching the Scouts hard in the open. Another mortar round slammed down behind the five remaining Scouts. Dar Ohrkan heard a scream on the comm freq, then static again. We’re dead, he realized. All of us. He gave a dragon’s battle cry and continued forward, no thoughts left but anger and hatred that burned in him with unholy fire.

  Then shots came from behind and beside him. “Four-One, Three-One, I’m on your six and closing. Report,” Capt. Ni Drako ordered as she sprinted up beside him. He snarled, barely capable of responding, “Ambush, up there” and he swept his rifle as a pointer, reloading as he moved.

  “Three-one to Four-all, hold your position. Repeat, hold your position and hold your fire!” Yori started to argue and Ni Drako slammed into his mind. His body staggered and he lost his footing and fell. Over the main freq he heard her calling in her squad, who rolled down slope towards the two officers. “Four One, how many effectives do you have, over?” Ni Drako asked.

  The lieutenant tapped a command on his armguard and the numbers came up. “Three uninjured, one wounded but fightworthy,” he answered.

  Ni Drako nodded once. “Gather them up, and locate your wounded and dead, Four One. And watch for the minefield,” and a purple swath appeared on his tactical display.

  Third Squad finished sweeping the nationalists out of the woods, capturing six mortars, three heavy automatic rifles and a cache of explosives and prepared mines. Lieutenant dar Ohrkan assembled his two uninjured flankers and sole walking wounded and then began mapping the positions of his other casualties. False dawn had begun lighting the valley when Third Squad finished cleaning up or capturing the opposition. Their medic stayed with Fourth’s survivors, and med-evac lifters loaded the wounded and took the last casualty back to base even before Third emerged from the trees. Dar Ohrkan and his two flankers waited for Capt. Ni Drako and her people, and watched the growing light reveal the nature of the trap they had walked into.

  “I’ll give them credit for preparation and terrain use,” Ni Drako grunted. “Report, Four One.” Yori pushed everything else aside for the moment and told the captain what had transpired. She listened, as did Major Gupta and Capt. Ssaliar. After Yori finished, Gupta’s voice crackled through the radio. “Three-One, Five is coming in to hold the position. As soon as they arrive, brief Five-One and return with Three and Four to base.”

  “Wilco,” Ni Drako replied.

  The HalfDragon guessed that he had been relieved without anything official being said or even suggested. At the moment, he was so stunned by what had happened to him and his soldiers that he didn’t think about what might come next. He and the flankers fell in with Three Squad and made their way back to base. Dar Ohrkan said something appropriate and thanked his remaining soldiers before dismissing them to go to debriefing. Then he followed Capt. Ni Drako into Major Gupta’s tent.

  The reptile gave him a chance to grab something to drink, then had Yori walk through everything on a 3-D model, as best as he could remember it. Ni Drako stood and listened, face expressionless. After Yori finished, Gupta turned to Ni Drako. “Your report, captain?” She stepped forward.

  “As per your orders, we started moving as soon as Gomez’s Two reported seeing people crossing the ridge northbound. We skirted upslope, here,” and she pointed along the top of the southern ridge. “We could see the mortars and took out the ones at the valley mouth here. It was not difficult to find Four and one of my flankers, Corporal Chk’krikk, found the minefield, but didn’t trip anything off. I had the squad continue up-valley and got behind the nationalists, then intercepted Four’s charge here.” Gupta nodded and made a note of the observant flanker.

  Gupta turned to the junior officer, “dar Ohrkan, have you seen to your people?”

  “Yes, sir. I’m going to the medics as soon as possible to check on Sgt. Adir and the rest of my wounded and the other two are in debriefing now,” the lieutenant replied.

  “Good. As soon as you do that, write up a formal report and then you’re off duty. I suggest you get some rest,” the major ordered. “Lieutenant dar Ohrkan, you’re dismissed. Capt. Ni Drako, come with me. We’re going to have a word with a militia officer or two while your memory is still fresh.”

  “Yes sir,” the two officers replied, then went their separate ways. That Major Gupta had not reamed him out made Yori feel worse about what had happened. Later that afternoon, when the others came in, he pretended to be asleep. He pretended so well that he woke to the sound of their snores long after sunset. He glanced around to find Capt. Ni Drako measuring new wires for her portable harp, audio-plugs in her ear-holes and totally lost in a piece of music. After a while she too dozed off.

  * * *

  Just before sunrise 1st Lt. Yori dar Ohrkan finished writing his
report, sealed it, and walked into the misty morning, slipping out of camp and past the sentries without being seen. I killed them. I killed them as surely as if I pulled the trigger myself. Even after seeing what happened to Rada on Markan Three, I still walked into the trap and the men followed me like herbi to the slaughter. He continued a ways beyond the camp, finally stopping beside a small lake. The tall man sat down on a fog-wet rock, staring at the quiet gray water. He’d failed. He’d failed Maj. Gupta, Capt. Ni Drako, and worst of all, had failed his men.

  There was only one thing left that he could do to atone for what he’d done through his impatience and anger. The junior officer reached into a padded, hidden pocket inside his tunic and removed a small vial with dark brown liquid in it. He studied the few milliliters of Night’s Daughter extract, remembering what he’d been told of it. “It is very, very fast acting, and a very painful way to die. But there will be nothing left within your brain for an enemy to use, which is why we issue it,” the intelligence officer had detailed. The lieutenant had “forgotten” to turn it back in after that mission and no one came looking for the drug. He shook the flask, making certain it was still good.

  “And just what do you think you are doing, Flame’s Son?” a voice asked from the fog. Captain Ni Drako had come up so quietly and was so well shielded that he hadn’t noticed her until a small, grey figure appeared beside his rock.

  “I am making up for my mistakes, Captain Ni Drako, in the only way left to me,” he said with great dignity.

  She considered the object in his hand and the lake. “Making up for your mistakes by compounding the error through pride. Interesting way to consider the matter, Yori. Excuse me if I disagree with both your assessment and your method.”

  Somehow her coolness and calm only inflamed his pain. “Damn you, Rada! You have no idea what I’m going through! I killed those men—nearly my entire squad died because of me!” He stood up, advancing on her, his eyes burning red with anger. “I’ve lost everything now. My command, my rank, and my position with the Division are all gone or soon will be. There’s nothing left for me but darkness. At least I can restore my honor,” he snapped.

  “And killing yourself restores your honor how, Yori?” she pressed him. Rada stood there, arms folded, as quiet and unmoving as the stones on the lake shore. She met his eyes, silver to crimson, Wanderer to HalfDragon, experience to energy. He glared down, trying to hurt her or force her to leave, and failed. Yori broke the staring contest first, looking away. “I’m waiting for an answer, my friend,” she reminded him, her voice now full of sympathy.

  “Damn you,” he cursed again, turning his back to her. “Damn you to hell!”

  She snorted, “Where we will meet, if you do what you intend. There are different reasons for committing suicide,” she started, as if discussing philosophy over a mug of keritang in some smoky bar. “To protect information, to buy others’ lives with your own, to escape the pain of illness that has grown beyond control, all those I understand and agree with. To join a beloved beyond the Lady’s Veil I don’t agree with, but can see how a broken heart and future empty of love might drive someone to kill themselves.” Ni Drako walked up beside her friend, looking at his profile and doing her best to hide her own emotions.

  “I do not understand and have no sympathy for anyone who offs themselves because of a wounded ego!” She growled, letting him feel some of her own anger. “It is a sin of pride and anger, a sin against love and hope, and from what I understand of religion and gods, the one nearly certain path to damnation. If that’s how you want to be remembered, not as an officer who learned from his mistakes and valued his men’s lives and memories enough to go forward, but as someone who ran away from ghosts and killed himself for wounded pride, go for it. I won’t stop you. Hell, I’ll loan you my pistol if you want to make double certain!” She drew her weapon, presenting it to him butt first.

  Then she waited, unmoving as stone. Yori wanted to hit her, to make her hurt as much as he did. Why didn’t she see how badly he’d screwed up? How much he hurt? What his impatience had cost? But no, she stood there, waiting, implacable.

  Unable to stand it any longer, he screamed a dragon’s challenge, swinging around and slamming his hand into her head. Rada tried to dodge the blow but wasn’t fast enough and the force of it knocked her into the stony ground and sent her blast-pistol flying into the brush behind the shingle. The small woman’s crumpled body looked like nothing so much as a broken china doll and Yori stared at her, the reality of what he had just done taking his breath away.

  “Oh no,” he whispered, dropping to his knees beside his friend, everything else forgotten. He checked for a pulse, watching her chest rise and fall, then very carefully, almost tenderly, picking her head up and feeling her skull to make certain he hadn’t crushed it. Please may I not have hurt her, please, he implored to whoever would listen. I wanted her to leave, not to hurt her.

  After what seemed like an eternity Rada winced and started moving again. “Yori, please do not, ow,” and she gritted her teeth as he slid his arm behind her neck, helping her sit up without moving her head. “Do not let me stick around the next time you lose your temper.” She put her hand to the rapidly swelling lump and cringed. “Oh fewmets, that hurts worse than a keritang hang-over.”

  Yori could have hugged her.

  By the time they got back to camp, she had a story worked out. Major Gupta’s yellow eyes narrowed and his forked tongue flicked out in disbelief. “You tripped, Captain?” He stared at her, noting the obvious lump on the side of her head and other signs of a concussion.

  “Yes, sir. I hit a rough spot and tripped, fell against a rock,” she maintained.

  Gupta studied the captain, the lieutenant, and the ceiling. “Go get it taken care of, Captain Ni Drako. Go with her, dar Ohrkan, since she can’t seem to walk straight, then come back here.”

  “Yes, sir,” they said.

  After they were out of earshot, the major drummed his claws on the top of his worktable and hissed. He’d seen the woman sneaking off, had shadowed her almost to the edge of the lake, and had heard most of the conversation and the challenge scream. “Tripped on a rough spot and I’m a haircoated pacifist,” he muttered.

  Five years later Captain Yori dar Ohrkan and Major Ni Drako parted ways. “You’re certain you want to stay here?” she asked, looking down at the forested valley and its tiny farms. “I can take you almost anywhere you want, anywhen. All you have to do is ask,” the Wanderer offered.

  Dar Ohrkan shook his head, smiling down at her. “No thank you, Rada. I’ve liked this backwater planet ever since we were here with the Komets. It’s not going to be easy, but nothing good ever is.” He took a deep breath of the pine- and smoke-scented morning, then asked his best friend, “You ever going to settle down, Hairball?”

  “I can’t. You know that as well as I do, Awful. Too dangerous for the people around me.” She looked at the sleeping houses below them and wondered what it would be like to have a home, then shook off the thought. “Besides, someone has to be the horrible warning. You know, as in ‘If you don’t eat your greens and put away your toys, you’ll end up like Rada Ni Drako’?” They both laughed at the image and the big man hugged his commander and friend. She returned the embrace, then pushed away. “Shoo, Yori. Neither of us needs to be seen here.”

  She turned and started walking back to her ship as he picked up his rucksack and other gear. “Major?” he called after her.

  She turned enough to look over her shoulder at him. “What?”

  “Thanks. For everything.”

  “You’re welcome. Don’t screw up,” and she winked, then disappeared behind a cluster of boulders.

  * * *

  Several decades later, Joschka Odenwald blinked and then nudged his companion. “Alexander, who’s the moth in with the butterflies?”

  The Imperial Hussar followed his friend’s gaze and smiled. “The rather plain brunette in blue and grey?”

  “Yes, h
er.”

  “She’s someone’s country cousin from Ireland. Lady Rosemary Ni Panguar, I think was her name,” the blond cavalryman recalled.

  Leutnant Odenwald approached the pale young lady as the orchestra prepared to resume its music. “I kiss your hand, gracious Lady,” he said, sweeping into a low bow and kissing her offered right hand. “Forgive me, gracious lady. I know we’ve not been introduced, but might I have the pleasure of this dance?” After a moment’s hesitation, the small woman rose gracefully to her feet. As they swept onto the dance floor to the strains of “The Roses of the South,” she looked up at the tall, young-looking man and smiled.

  «Still as polite and charming as ever,» she said into his mind and he almost missed a step.

  «So it is you, Major Ni Drako!» Joschka swung her lightly through the measures of the long waltz, catching up quickly on the past forty years of his life. If his fellow cavalry officers thought it odd that the handsome but landless Joschka spent most of the rest of the evening with the visiting Irishwoman, they chalked it up to the lure of novelty.

  «Can you keep in touch, Major?» he inquired at the end of the evening’s dancing.

  «It’s Commander now, Joschka, and I’ll try. No promises,» she replied, smiling up at him. «I’m glad to see you doing well for yourself here.» Out loud she fluttered up at him, “Thank you for a most delightful evening Leutnant Odenwald! You are one of the best dancers I’ve met.”

  The brown haired HalfDragon smiled down at his former superior. “Thank you, Lady Ni Panguar. I’ve had the good fortune of having an excellent teacher,” and he kissed her hand again as she fanned against a faint blush.

  Fear and Promises

  Do not move, Rada hissed to herself. Don’t move, don’t panic, just listen. She sipped from her mug and set it back on the table, using it to keep her hands from shaking. Her silver tabby wig, green lenses, and fur-paint hid her identity, especially if she kept her back to the two intoxicated Traders. But she could barely hear them over the pounding in her ears, could not hide her terror for much longer.