by Scott E Moon
“Sibil Clavender,” Kin said.
“Who is Sibil Clavender?” the trooper asked.
Kin pointed at the wormhole, discolored and turbulent from the disturbance of the planetary assault. “She’s the person who soothes the spirit of the wormhole.” Kin couldn’t hear if the soldier snorted without activating the helmet speaker, but he probably did. Kin held the trooper's gaze until the helmet slowly turned toward the pulsating wormhole.
The trooper faced Kin and waited for what had to be an order from Fleet Command. “You may look for her. I will escort you.”
Kin turned, stepping through the alley to emerge on a street not much wider than the path between buildings. He trudged up the steep dune, navigating twists and turns, avoiding the direct route in order to disorient his guard.
“This is the wrong way,” the trooper said. “Our drones have already mapped this area. What are you doing?”
“Making a fool of myself, apparently.”
“Don’t.”
Kin studied the reflective visor and searched for clues in how the trooper stood and how he chose to arrange the accessories on his armor. There were no engravings or unit markings beyond the Earth Fleet emblem. “Do I know you?”
Silence. They stared at each other.
“Please continue.”
Kin waited a few moments and turned away. He walked slowly, sensing it would annoy the trooper. This type of guard duty was a waste of time. A good soldier would resent it.
“I thought you’d be looking for Imperials,” Kin said.
“Why would you think that?”
“I heard some troopers talking about them.” Kin waited. He assumed Imperials blasted this Fleet Armada through the wormhole, but had never heard of them. Whoever they were, their presence in Earth Fleet controlled space occurred after Hellsbreach.
The trooper didn’t respond.
Kin led the unhelpful guard to a cottage set into the side of a dune. Little more than the door betrayed the location of Sibil Clavender's home. A gaggle of hopper birds loitered near the threshold. Fur grew around the faces and forelegs of the strange creatures. The hopper birds also possessed strong hind legs for running and multicolored wings in perpetual motion.
Kin squatted, waiting until each hopper bird scrambled to him and pecked his hands. “I am Kin Roland. I mean no harm,” he said several times, making sure they recognized his scent and the sound of his voice.
“Why do you do that?” the trooper asked.
“They’re my friends.” Kin stood.
“They’re messenger birds.”
“They are.”
The trooper stood motionless while receiving an order Kin couldn’t hear, but could remember from a hundred missions.
Secure all forms of communication. You’re the tip of the spear, Trooper. Report success to Command and Control. Do you copy?
Roger that.
The trooper looked at Kin. “They will be confiscated.”
“Good luck.” Kin ducked inside the dwelling, leaving the Fleet trooper to chase birds around the yard.
Dimly glowing stones illuminated the surprisingly large room. As his eyes adjusted to muted light, he noted simple items—a pitcher on the low table, a bowl of local fruit, and silver beads in a pattern representing the ring of moons around the planet. Glow stones were set in the walls, like oval windows or portals to unknown worlds.
Kin moved to the table. He studied a book Clavender never allowed him to open. Something like an angel graced the cover, with multicolored wings, noble beard, and the face of a warrior king. The eyes reminded him of Clavender.
His fingers grazed the book.
“Are you well, Kin Roland?” Sibil Clavender emerged from the shadows in all her alien glory. She wore a silk tunic narrowly covering her small breasts and gathered at the waist by a decorative chain. The fine metal made Kin think he could hook one finger under it and rip it off. Her back, naked all the way down, gave room for white wings tipped in blue and dusted with diamonds. The hem of the tunic reached her ankles—slit up the sides to her hips. Her unruly hair was tied high enough to expose her slender neck. Her eyes, blue-green like a tropical lagoon, welcomed him.
Kin stepped away from the table and cleared his throat. “As well as might be expected.”
She smiled, moved closer, sent his heart racing. The exotic way she walked fascinated him. Her wings dazzled his vision. The silver beads in her hair seemed magical.
“Have you been outside?”
She nodded, pressing against him. Kin felt the warmth of her body.
Don’t move. She’ll disappear from this dream. He held his breath. Not everything on Crashdown is dangerous. A battle scared veteran like me could be healed in this room.
“I have seen the strangers. They wear armor. Are we so dangerous?”
“I doubt they came here on purpose. Uncharted planets are always assaulted,” Kin said.
He forced himself to think. Few people could withstand Clavender’s presence for long without being enthralled. Crater Town people thought of her as some kind of spirit or goddess in communion with the weather and the wormhole. She appeared young. For all he knew she was immortal.
She touched him, gripping him with both hands. His pulse raced with something more powerful than lust or love. Clavender’s touch was like morphine, caffeine, and a childhood memory of spring pressed into a shiver.
“I am not so young,” she said.
Kin blushed, which should have been impossible for a genocidal maniac. “I worry about you. Crater Town needs you,” Kin said, shifting uncomfortably.
She smiled dreamily and took his hand. Sensation diffused throughout his body, filling him with peace.
“I wish to see the sky. Walk with me,” she said.
“There’s a Fleet trooper in your yard chasing the hopper birds.”
She turned her face up to him, still smiling like a satisfied lover but also with slyness in her eyes. She led him through a narrow tunnel that forced him to stoop as he walked. Moments later they emerged on the opposite side of the dune, then climbed a goat trail to a place where they watched the frustrated guard below.
Servomotors whirred as the trooper jumped left and right, grabbing at the local birds. Beyond that spectacle, the town spread out to the sea. Cleanup had begun with military precision. Crater Town thrived with activity.
Clavender looked at the sky. “She wants to come home.”
Kin looked at the wormhole and thought the space anomaly seemed masculine rather than feminine, as though it wanted to devour Crashdown. “You understand what that is?”
“I understand,” Clavender said. “You do not. Perhaps it is correct to call it a wormhole, but it did not come to this planet. It came from this planet. There is only one.”
Kin shook his head. “There are more than a thousand charted wormholes. I’ve been through a hundred of them.”
“There is only one,” she said, still gripping his hand firmly and nestling her small body close to his.
Kin shivered, not because her warm skin electrified his imagination, but because the thought of a single wormhole intruding into every corner of the universe terrified him. He pointed to it. “Look at the colors—red and orange and purple after the lightning flashes. Other wormholes are blue and silver, or green like your eyes.”
“Or like the reflection of the sea,” she said.
Kin suddenly imagined every wormhole looking down at Crashdown and soaking up color from the ocean. The thought unnerved him, because it felt right. Was he standing in the center of the universe? If he were, who was this young woman next to him who changed the color of the waves and the thrashing of the sea with her moods?
CHAPTER THREE
KIN took a knee—a soldier’s pose that came naturally. Clavender stood with one hand on his shoulder. They watched the trooper and the town as a sea breeze spoke softly.
“I am glad these soldiers are from your Fleet,” Clavender said.
“You mig
ht not be if you were in my position,” Kin said.
She bent and looked into his eyes.
He waited until she smiled. Knowing she wouldn’t ask the question, he answered. “Fleet Command gave me a mission to kill every last Reaper on Hellsbreach.”
She touched his face. “But you could not do it.”
Kin looked away, surprised at his shame. She didn’t seem to judge him. She squatted, wrapping her arms and her wings around him.
“We are not different. I hide from my people so that I do not lead them to war and ruin,” Clavender said.
“I thought you were the last of your people. I mean, everyone assumed,” Kin said.
Clavender laughed. “Have you not seen the migrations toward the wormhole?”
“I thought those were birds. There must be thousands,” Kin said. He recalled the swarms of flying creatures passing far above Crater Town. The mysterious migrations were considered good luck by everyone on Crashdown.
“Not birds, but foolish young men trying to prove themselves. They will never reach it. It is too high and does not open as easily as a door,” Clavender said.
“You should go inside. The Fleet has a bad record with aliens,” Kin said.
“An odd thing, coming from aliens,” Clavender said.
Kin laughed.
“I will stay outside. Do not worry. I have hidden from my people for a long time. I can hide from yours,” she said.
Kin nodded. They stood, holding hands for what seemed like a pleasant lifetime.
The breeze shifted, bringing the smell of burned buildings mixed with the salty air. It stung Kin’s eyes. Wind wouldn’t disperse the odors until the smoldering huts cooled. Clavender probably didn’t appreciate the odors of destroyed machines, but they painted a picture for Kin, bringing back memories. He looked down on the Fleet trooper who gave up on the idea of capturing the hopper birds and stood like a statue. Kin listened for the quiet sound of gears in the assault armor.
He descended the front of the dune. The trooper turned to face him. Kin was glad the trooper was alert, even though they were destined to be adversaries. Fears of interrogation and torture seemed distant, because Clavender touched him. He laughed inwardly. He hadn’t been checking on her, he’d been seeking comfort. The Fleet would learn his identity and he would run, fight, or die. It was simple and unavoidable.
Kin Roland was a common name and he had taken many steps to hide who he was—a new identification number and plate in his arm, the meticulous and expensive removal of tattoos, and an assignment on a terra-forming mission that should’ve taken him to the very rim of Earth Fleet controlled space. But he couldn’t avoid scrutiny forever.
The false identity plate in his arm would not withstand a close, forensic examination. Someone would remember him. Orlan certainly knew him and this trooper that was so interested in him probably did as well. The question was why the trooper didn’t sound the alarm.
Kin still didn’t understand how he was able to board the Goliath in the first place. They had checked his finger prints and photograph—a moment he had dreaded but found unavoidable. Nothing. The security screener ran his picture and prints without finding a thing. Either the captain of the Goliath had known who he was and didn’t care, or the system was too big for its own good. Fleet intelligence officers, however, wouldn’t be fooled.
The trooper was shamming ignorance for reasons unfathomable to Kin. He hadn’t imagined the moment this person recognized him, but couldn’t figure why the trooper suddenly pretended ignorance.
“Let’s go to the meeting hall,” Kin said.
The trooper nodded, walking next to him.
Kin looked for Orlan, but couldn’t find him. The sergeant was uncommonly large, and since assault armor added a foot to a man or woman’s height, Orlan was seven and a half feet tall when wearing his full kit. Without armor, Orlan was thick chested, hairy, and had a face that looked as though it had once been handsome, but had been stepped on too many times. His eyes were watery and sickly, almost clear. Kin never trusted Orlan’s eyes, even before the man betrayed him. If Orlan recognized him—and he would—he wouldn’t hesitate to kill Kin.
“This isn’t the most direct path to the meeting hall,” the trooper said.
“Did your computer tell you that?” Kin asked.
“The computer is correct. Don’t you know your town?”
Kin shrugged. “I know this place like the back of my hand. I also know that if I walk down Main Street, people will see me and want to talk. It’ll take three days to get to the meeting hall.” Kin was impressed with his own bullshit. He picked his course to avoid Orlan, who would be shaking down Crater Town citizens like the thug he was.
Hellsbreach memories, ever present, rose to the surface. He took a deep breath, held it, then exhaled slowly. The urge to close his eyes was strong, almost as strong as the desire to return to his bed and sleep the day away. He never yielded to the post-traumatic stress and the melancholy that came with it.
Anxiety could give way to manic euphoria, much as it had when he realized he survived the first Reaper attack, but he didn’t know whether other veterans felt the same. He embraced the supercharged good feelings as often as he could, aware that he had probably lost his mind more than once. He scanned his environment and remained ready for anything, though the cinematic big screen in his head played continually.
Kin heard his younger voice screaming at his platoon as Reapers charged across sand and rocks. Sergeant Kin Roland, Class IV Weapons Master and unit commander, gathered his men and retreated behind a smoking row of Colossal Class Battle Tanks. The Fleet’s war machines leveled two cities before the Reaper ambush annihilated them.
Kin glanced at the unit motto stenciled on the side of an armor panel. Unstoppable HOE.
Unstoppable Hell on Earth. Tanker humor.
“First and Third squads, choose your targets. Fire at will.”
How do animals without heavy weapons destroy a CCBT column?
Burns tattooed broken hatches. Metal rods jutted from multiple barrels of each tank. Segmented wheel treads stretched across the ground—dead metallic snakes—sad, lost, and betrayed.
“Second and Fourth squads, hold right and left flanks.”
Hundreds of deadly humanoids charged Kin’s unit, armed with fists of lightning that they could throw a hundred meters and swords wreathed in fire. He had never seen Reapers like this. They reminded him of shock troops, aggressive and well-armed. Their leader carried a whip that cut burning arcs in the air, splashing acid in all directions. Weapons were a new development for Reapers but their fearsome ingenuity unnerved Kin.
The Reapers roared, voices full of clicks and scraping sounds.
“Double perimeter,” he ordered.
His best troopers moved to fire large caliber rifles and plasma guns, using the damaged tanks as cover. Some climbed on the twisted metal turrets for better advantage. They opened fire. Scores of enemies went down. Few stayed down.
“Fall back,” Kin ordered.
The outer line of soldiers ran for cover while the second team opened fire to protect them as they hustled toward new positions. Kin’s unit was being pushed back as far as they could go without fleeing into the desert. No cover or concealment existed beyond the Tanks. The Reapers would drive them beyond any source of water or refuge. One step into the sandy waste was a death sentence.
His unit fired weapons, but started edging back. They were good soldiers, but every one of them had seen how the Reapers fought. They didn’t kill in battle. That came afterward, when there was time for torture. The beasts liked to eat living meat.
“Stand fast! Hold your ground!” he yelled, when his men looked like they were about to break. “Hand to hand. Weapons up.”
Kin led the way with a sharp bayonet. He fired, charging into the wave of Reapers, never pausing to reload. The fight was close, bloody work, and he received more injuries through his armor than he could count. The rifle was torn from his hands. Withou
t hesitation, he drew his sword—a weapon his superiors didn’t approve of—and thrust it through the mouth of a Reaper.
One of the psychotic beasts fell away from his attack after losing its hands. Another lost its head. The third refused to die even though the sword ran through its body. When he couldn’t free the blade, he abandoned it, hacking with the axe he pulled from the back of his armor. He didn’t see his unit through the enemies surrounding him, but had little time to search for them with Reapers slashing with claws and flaming weapons.
Just keep killing. Take care of business. Regroup later. But Kin knew there would be no time to regroup. Too many. I’m sorry, Becca, there are too many.
Mental images tormented him. He couldn’t understand the visions he saw, but felt each thought as a physical pressure in his brain. When he could no longer lift the axe or remain standing, he fell to his knees. Reapers pounced on him. He suddenly understood why he couldn’t see his unit. They had fled—every one of them.
Strong hands forced him to the ground, holding him there. Sharp things pierced his skin through his armor, cutting slowly, like a skilled surgeon wielding a scalpel. They would tear him out of his armor with their teeth and devour him.
He tried to twist his head as a Reaper pushed down on the side of his helmet with a clawed foot. The weight was too much. His helmet cracked. Claws thrust into the sand near his mouth. With one eye, he managed to see three men in battered assault armor dashing toward a craft that swooped down to rescue them.
Milton was the slowest. Kin watched helplessly as Reapers jumped on his back and pried open his armor. A small, fierce Reaper thrust his hand through Milton’s shattered visor until his elbow disappeared. Blood, flesh, and brains squished out of the helmet. The Reaper thrust deeper, all the way to his shoulder, clawing down Milton’s throat and into his chest.
Kin saw Jack Tenderfoot turn and fight. Reapers piled on him, ripping off his arms and legs, dragging his body toward a hole in the ground. Jack’s wet screams blasted from the helmet speaker. The battery of his armor failed, mercifully silencing him until the visor broke open.