While he didn’t want to admit it, he had a degree of respect for the dinosaur-birds. He would do his best to kill every one of them, but there was a code of the warrior that he thought they followed.
Shit, now they are knights of chivalry? he derided himself. Is the cancer eating out my brain?
Ryck edged forward. The 2/3 Marine to his left looked over, then edged towards him a few steps, as if to be better placed to protect him. Ryck appreciated that, but he didn’t want anyone putting himself in danger by trying to keep him alive.
The trees to the front of Ryck were young, only a meter or so tall. When the Klethos emerged from the forest, they strode among the trees, stopping only 200 meters from the Marine lines. As expected, one Klethos stepped forward, looked at the Marines facing it, then launched into its dance.
It looked pretty magnificent, Ryck acknowledged. Its feathered collar flashed in the sun, the bright yellow and red tinted with some other iridescent, almost lilac color. Ryck remembered the report about the necropsies the xenobiologists had performed on the dead Klethos the brigade had recovered, and they found out that the feathers had densely packed nerve bundles that branched directly into their brains. Some of the xenobiologists thought the feathers were sensing appendages of some sort, some thought they had a sexual purpose.
Why am I thinking about that? Ryck wondered. Feathers or no feather, we’ve got about three minutes until all hell breaks loose. Their sexual organs don’t really matter much.
This Klethos seemed to jump higher and spin faster than any Ryck had seen before. The other Klethos seemed enthralled as well, if he was reading alien posture correctly. This was more than a Zulu warrior beating his shield. This was a pure celebration of the warrior ethos, of what a warrior was, Ryck was sure. This was a physical celebration of what made a Klethos a Klethos.
With a final flurry, pieces of small trees flying into the air as they were torn up, he lifted his head in a screech as he spun to a stop, facing the Marines in the now-familiar lunge pose.
Ryck almost laughed, wanting to shout out “ta-da!”
Now he’s going to slap me with his glove and call me out at dawn, he thought, actually laughing at loud.
And with a thundering explosion that almost stunned him, the dam in his subconscious broke, and his “plan” boiled to the surface.
Grubbing hell, he thought, suddenly sure of himself.
The Klethos pulled back from its lunge and half turned to the others who seemed to gather themselves.
Ryck stepped forward, rammed his externals to the max, and shouted out “Ooh-rah” as loud as he could.
And almost broke down coughing,
The lead Klethos stopped, uncertainty evident in its posture as it turned to look back at Ryck.
“Sir!” Çağlar shouted, stepping forward.
“Hold, Hans! That’s an order!”
Ryck started forward, walking straight at the Klethos.
“All hands, hold your position. Do not fire,” Ryck passed on the open circuit.
Am I fucking out of my head? he wondered, as second thoughts started to chip away at his determination. Shit, I’m almost dead as it is. In for a penny.
None of the Klethos moved as Ryck marched deliberately forward. All had their eyes locked on him. The Klethos looked impossible tall as Ryck stopped ten meters in front of it.
“I challenge you!” Ryck shouted, knowing the thing wouldn’t understand the words, but he hoped it would understand the tone.
The blast of his externals caused ripples in the thing’s feathers, and Ryck was pleased to see it flinch before it stood back taller, the feathers around its neck standing straighter.
Carefully, Ryck took out his rocket pistol and dropped in on the ground.
“Sir!” Çağlar shouted over the P2P.
Ryck turned off his comms. With his right arm, he grabbed his M77, and with a wrench, tore it off his arm, hydroconnector fluid spurting from torn lines. Then, and most important, he slowly took out his mameluke, dropping it to the ground.
He stared up at the Klethos, unarmed and at its mercy.
The Klethos stared back down at Ryck for a long ten seconds, the longest ten seconds of Ryck’s life. Then, Ryck swore it nodded at him. It dropped its rifle, then held out its sword horizontally at shoulder height before dropping it.
A wave of relief swept through Ryck. He’d been right, and he’d known it for a long time. He just hadn’t realized he’d known it.
The Klethos did have their own code of chivalry. They were warriors, and they fought, not for land, but for the glory of the battle. Before each battle, though, a champion was offered to fight. If the challenge was not accepted, the other side was slaughtered. And that explained their berserker reaction on Ruggeri’s World. Their champion, leader, or whatever had been cut down before the challenge had been made. The code had been broken, and the transgressor had to be punished.
Ryck was as sure of this as of anything he’d ever known in the past. More than that, he understood it—and accepted it.
Ryck weighed his chances. The Klethos was much larger than Ryck and much, much faster. Ryck was in a PICS. With the sword, Ryck wouldn’t have had a chance. Without weapons, he thought he might. He flexed his left arm, which was still balky as the suit’s nanos tried to reroute the hydroconnector fluids Ryck had torn out.
Afraid of breaking some unknown code, Ryck moved into a modified en garde, waiting for the Klethos to move. And without warning, the Klethos struck. Ryck barely had time to raise one arm as the warrior hit him like a freight train. Both of them crashed to the ground, flattening the small seedlings around them. Instinctively, Ryck put one foot under the Klethos’ crotch as they hit, and kicking out, he sent the big guy flying over him.
Ryck scrambled back to his feet as the Klethos got up as well, facing him. Ryck didn’t recognize the position it was in, but it sure had the feel of a type of martial art. As it darted forward, Ryck spun around on one leg in a move he’d practiced not for combat, but for the patron day’s dance. Converting it mid-swing into a spinning back kick, his armored boot hit the Klethos high on the shoulder as it came forward, driving it into the dirt. Before Ryck recovered, though, to exploit the situation, the Klethos scrambled forward and out of the way. It seemed to Ryck slightly dazed and favoring its left side, raising his hopes.
“MacPruitt, help me here,” he called out, scoring a jab to the warrior’s chest and bringing an uppercut that strained the PICS’ servos.
Only the uppercut never connected. Incredibly, the Klethos stopped the swing with its own hand. Hans had said his Klethos was too strong for him to peel its grip off of him, something Ryck should have remembered. And now he’d closed in.
Stupid!
Ryck brought up his knee, ramming it into the Klethos’ belly, but the knee glanced off with no discernable effect. He stomped down on the unprotected claws of its feet, hurting it, he knew, but it leaned forward, pushing its feet out of Ryck’s reach. It started pushing Ryck back, bending the left arm as if could sense the damage Ryck had done to it. Ryck struggled to resist, his AI calling out a warning. Ryck thought he could smell something burning inside his combat suit.
With a force of will more than anything else, he stopped the arm, right at what he was sure was its breaking point. His back was arched, his feet couldn’t reach anything, one arm was pinned, and the other was about to break. Ryck was in the shit.
The Klethos shifted, and it let go of Ryck’s right arm to apply more pressure to his left. Immediately, instinctively, Ryck hopped up with his legs and ducked down with shoulder, relieving some of the pressure on his left arm. His right arm flailed for purchase as he tried to keep from falling, pain lancing through his cancer-eaten shoulder.
His hand closed over the Klethos shoulder, over its left small arm. He couldn’t see it given his arched back, but his biofeedbacks left no doubt. Ryck raised his right arm and brought it down as hard as he could, once, twice, three times, each blow a jolt of agony fr
om his shoulder. He felt the Klethos small arm give, and while the Klethos screeched something, it never let up, bending Ryck’s left arm farther and farther. When it snapped, as it would, Ryck knew it would be over. He’d have lost.
He reached for the Klethos neck, but it was leaning out of the way, as only his fingertips touched it. Something lighter touched his gauntlet: the neck feathers.
“Go for the balls if you have to,” Seth MacPruitt’s voice reached him from across time and space.
Ryck couldn’t reach the Klethos’ crotch, even if it had balls. And he wasn’t sure if the feathers-have-a-sexual-function faction was right, but it was all he had. He closed his fingers around the feathers and pulled with all his might.
And had an immediate reaction.
The Klethos went ballistic. It screeched and shook Ryck like a terrier on a rat, all the time trying desperately to break Ryck’s left arm. Ryck managed to grab another handful of feathers and pull them out.
Ryck landed with a thump on the ground. He jumped back up, flexing his left arm. In front of him, the Klethos staggered before righting itself. It seemed out of balance to Ryck. Unless it was faking, it was hurt and hurt badly.
Ryck circled his opponent warily. It might be unsteady, but those arms were too strong for him. He could not afford to be caught again. He had to keep his distance.
Glad for his MCMA training, glad for all the hours he’d spent practicing PICS dance moves in the hopes of performing at a patron day celebration, he married the two, darting in and out with kicks that rained upon the Klethos body. If it had been whole, Ryck knew he’d have been caught and drawn in like a fish on the line. But the Klethos was not whole. It was damaged. It had almost no balance, and it was much, much slower.
But it never gave up. It kept swinging for the fences, twice connecting with thunderous blows that cracked Ryck’s display panel and almost knocked him down. But it couldn’t take the beating the smaller Marine was giving it. Ryck attacked the legs. One snapped gruesomely, yet it still stood erect. When Ryck connected to the other leg’s knee, it toppled to the ground where it glared at Ryck.
A wave of weariness washed over him as adrenaline faded. He asked his AI for a boost, but his suit had taken too much damage. All power was shunted to keep it working.
Ryck looked back at the line of silently waiting Klethos. He knew in his heart this was a fight to the death. The question was if this was it, or if another champion would be sent out to face him.
Ryck staggered as he was hit by dizziness.
Not grubbing now, he told himself. Keep it together.
His cracked display was still trying to post suit failure warnings. Several of his systems had redlined. He needed to end it now.
The Klethos had one good arm, and it held that up, palm flared. Ryck had to get past that. In the end, he just fell forward, the hand catching his throat as he broke out the ground and pound, fists pummeling the Klethos head.
The Klethos’ good arm tried to find a purchase on Ryck, but the blows were coming in too thick and powerful. It took ten or fifteen seconds, but the Klethos’ arm fell away. Ryck’s display plate was covered in blood, the too-scarlet blood of his opponent. Ryck stopped hitting.
Slowly, he pushed his way upright and turned to the Klethos, expecting another champion to come forward. If it did, so be it. Another Marine could challenge it after it killed him, and on down the line it would go, Marine and Klethos, Klethos and Marine, delaying the Klethos long enough for reinforcements to reach them.
There was movement in the line, and Ryck tried to wipe the blood off of his display plate so he could see. If he was going to die, he wanted to look his executioner in the eye.
But he began to realize that today was not going to be his day to die. The Klethos were turning around. They were giving up the field of battle. Ryck watched them disappear back into the forest. Slowly he turned around back to the Marines. A groundswell rose in volume as almost 2,000 Marines shouted his name at the top of their voices. A horde, with Çağlar at the head, rushed forward just as things went black and Ryck collapsed into the welcome embrace of the dark.
TARAWA
Chapter 32
Ryck opened his eyes to a soft white light. He was in a bed, not his bed, and he wasn’t sure why. His mind was fuzzy, like it was coming out of regen, but that didn’t make any sense. He was on Yakima 4, right?
Yakima 4 or not, he was in a hospital, he realized, looking down past his feet at the white room, holoscreen up in the corner, and too cheerful print of daises on the wall. Shifting his gaze, he saw Hannah in a stuffed chair, head back and eyes closed.
Shit, what happened to me there? he wondered. I wasn’t hurt that bad. Is it the Brick?
“Hannah?”
His wife startled, then looked up, catching his eye. She rushed over with a relieved look on her face and put her arms around his neck, squeezing tight.
“What happened?” he asked.
Hannah pulled back, the relieved look being replaced by something harder, something angrier.
“What happened? How can you be asking me that? You almost killed yourself!” she said, grabbing the lobe of his right ear and pinching it hard, her Torritite accent getting stronger as she became more stressed.
“What?” he asked, trying to pull away.
“Your BRC! You knew you had it. You had to as advanced as it be. Yet you go off and fight, and that almost be your end. You knew it, right?”
“I . . . I . . .”
“I knew it! So you be willing to leave your children, your wife, because only the great Ryck Lysander be good enough to save the world. And so you kill yourself!” she shouted at him, tears welling in her eyes.
“I’m. . . I’m dying?” he asked.
He’d already come to terms with that, but seeing Hannah cry sank home just what that meant. His kids would grow up without him. He’d never see them mature, marry, have their own kids. His grandchildren.
“No, you not be dying,” Hannah, said, pinching his ear lobe once more. “But no thanks to you. If you were not put into stasis when you were, you would be dead. When you got here, and by the time the doctors realized you had BRC, it was almost too late. Even then, we almost lost you. Doctor Brennan said another twelve hours, and it would have been too late.”
As she calmed down, her accent faded back to normal for her. She squeezed his hand so tightly that he had to adjust its position.
“Twelve hours?” he asked, more to himself that to her.
“Twelve grubbing hours,” she responded, the first time Ryck had ever heard her use his most common expletive.
“And now I’m cured?”
“No, you know better. You be in remission, but you’re always going to have to be checked. This regen just increases the rate of the BRC coming back. It be when more than if. But that be OK if we just catch it early.”
Ryck knew that, but with so much to take in, his mind was in a muddle.
“What happened on Yakima?” he asked, suddenly remembering why he’d delayed treatment.
“Yakima? Oh, the great Ryck Lysander did save the world,” she said sarcastically, but she couldn’t keep a hint of pride out of her voice.
“Is it still in human control?”
“Yes. The Klethos left when you defeated their d’relle, and they’ll hold to that for over 17 years,” she said.
“Their what? Dulla?”
“D’relle. Something like a battle leader. You accepted her challenge, and you defeated her. So now they have to cede the planet to us for 17 years. Sixteen years now.”
Ryck’s mind was reeling. “D’rella?” “Her?” SIXTEEN grubbing years?”
“How long have I been in regen?” Ryck asked.
“Honey, you were as close to death as possible. The regen was very, very extensive. You’ve been under for 15 months. You’ve got therapy coming, but the docs decided it was finally time to bring out of your coma.”
“Fifteen months? How are the kids? What’s with
this ceding the planet? Are we at war?” he asked in a hurried muddle.
“At least you put the kids first. They’re fine, and mighty proud of you. They’ll be by later today if you’re up to it.”
“I’m up to it,” Ryck said assuredly.
“As far as the Klethos, you’ve got a lot of catching up to do. We are at war, but not at war. They took three planets with huge losses of life before communications were initiated. That’s when we learned about their rules, which I think you figured out before anyone. Since then, one more planet has been lost, but two were saved.”
Ryck wasn’t sure he’d figured out any “rules.” He’d been acting on his gut without really analyzing why. But he was beginning to see the picture.
“So they want one of our planets, they issue a challenge, and we can defend it. If we win, they keep their hands off for 17 years. If we don’t accept the challenge, it’s war? And we accept that?”
“We have to accept it. They be far more advanced that we. If it be total war, then we’re gone like the Trinoculars.”
“The capys are gone?”
“They will be soon enough. No Trinocular champion is strong enough to challenge a d’rella, and to be frank, we don’t think they really grasp the concept.”
“Ah, General Lysander, how are we feeling today,” a man in a white lab coat and the assured manner of a doctor came in, ignoring Ryck but looking at Ryck’s bioreadouts.
“I’m fine,” he started before exclaiming “General Lysander?”
“Oh, I didn’t tell you yet. You were promoted to Brigadier General almost a year ago,” Hannah casually said as if she was mentioning what she had for dinner the night before.
“But, I just got my permanent colonel’s grade,” he protested.
Colonel (The United Federation Marine Corps Book 7) Page 20