by Chris Bunch
‘Think well, think carefully. Fight hard, fight with the intelligence you have been trained to use.’
None of the Chitet cheered as the speaker clicked off. They would have been shocked at the suggestion.
‘Do you suppose the Federation will arrive before they kill us?’
‘I don’t even know if they’re on the way,’ Wolfe said honestly.
‘If so, and we are not able to slip away in the chaos their arrival will bring, have you considered what we will tell them?’
‘Have you decided to allow them to capture you?’ Wolfe asked, a bit surprised.
‘I am not sure. But for the sake of our discussion, let us suppose I shall.’
‘Sure as hell we can’t tell them about the Guardians, nor their planet.’
‘No. I specifically referred to what lies beyond, in our old space-time. What you are calling a virus.’
‘Do you think any of them would find truth in those words?’ Wolfe said, switching to Al’ar.
‘It is a remarkable concept,’ the Al’ar said. ‘Does the one you call Cisco have the mental reach for that?’
‘Again, I do not know.’
‘But we must try.’
‘Why? Why do you give a diddly damn if the virus comes through into our space? Wouldn’t that be an ultimate victory for the Al’ar?’ Wolfe said.
Taen looked down, ran a grasping organ through the dust that covered the sensors of the control panel in front of him, then spoke in Terran.
‘No. Life is life, whether Al’ar or human. That other - that virus - is something else. And we have all agreed I am corrupted.’
The deck jolted beneath them, and the slam of explosions came.
‘As you said before, now it begins,’ Wolfe said.
‘And, most likely, ends.’
The Chitet moved into the station slowly, methodically. A squad would secure an area, take up firing positions, and a second squad would move through them to the next location.
They moved almost like professionals.
Almost.
Joshua’s fingers rippled across the controls.
‘You perform as if you are familiar with these weapons systems,’ Taen commented.
‘Not really. I was aboard a couple of these stations during the war for a few days.’
‘Your movements are deceptive, then.’
Three screens lit simultaneously. Joshua studied them, frowning. ‘Damn. They made sure this lion’s toothless. No missiles, no guns, no nothin’. I guess we’ll just have to take four cards and pretend there’s a kicker.’
He turned to another, very dim screen.
‘Come closer . . . closer . . .’ he said softly, hand poised over a contact.
A hatch slid back on the skin of the fortress, and a triple-barreled missile launcher appeared.
An alarm squawked at a weapons station aboard the Udayana.
‘Sir,’ a rating said.
‘I have it,’ the officer in charge of the position said. ‘Chaingun . . . target . . . fire!’
As the sailor pressed the controls, the officer snapped, ‘Cancel that! There’s nothing in those tubes!’
It was too late.
Four hundred collapsed-uranium shells roared out the multiple muzzles of the close-range weapon and tore into the station, smashing the deactivated launcher . . .
. . . and the platoon of Chitet who were just entering that weapons compartment.
Sirens bellowed, echoed through the deserted tubeways of the fortress.
‘Now let us measure our foes,’ Joshua said in Al’ar.
Taen extended a grasping organ. Wolfe touched it, then slipped out the hatch.
The reserve platoons waiting in the bay shifted, murmured as the alarms threatened chaos around them.
‘Silence in the ranks,’ an officer snapped, and the women and men were motionless.
A slender man wearing a black shipsuit appeared on a catwalk above them, lifting a heavy blaster.
He opened fire as the officer began to shout an order, and the bolts cut through the ranked Chitet.
The screams drowned out the sirens.
Return fire shattered the catwalk’s railing, but Wolfe was gone.
The squad moved slowly down the corridor. Two men flattened on each side of the door, while a third booted it open, peered inside. Their officer stood to one side.
‘Nothing, sir.’
‘Next,’ the woman said calmly.
They moved to the next doorway. One man kicked at the door, and it swung inside.
He peered in, and the officer saw him convulse, drop.
He rolled as he fell, and the woman had a moment to gape at his slashed-open throat as blood fountained.
Taen came out of the compartment, slender weapon spitting flame.
‘Sir,’ the officer said into his mike, ‘we have twenty-seven casualties . . . eleven dead. More suspected - there are units no longer in touch.’
‘Continue the mission,’ came from the Udayana.
‘Yes, sir.’
The voices were still calm, controlled.
There were three of them. They prided themselves, as much as a Chitet permitted himself pride, on being better soldiers than the others. After all, they had been Federation Marines before realizing the truth, deserting, and joining the ranks of those who lived logically.
They worked together smoothly, clearing passageways, reporting back to their officer on their progress.
Secretly they held him in contempt for not having the courage to stay with them, but none of them said anything.
They came to a place where several tubeways joined. They saw nothing.
They chose a new passageway, started down it.
Breathe . . . fingers touching . . . power focusing . . . accept Zai . . . become one . . . become all . . .
One of them thought he heard something, looked to one side.
A blur, and then there was a man in a black shipsuit beside them. He took one step forward, leapt, and one leg shot out.
It took the first man at the angle of his jaw, and his neck snapped cleanly.
Joshua landed on his hands, rolled to one side just as the second man fired, blast searing the metal deck. Wolfe curled into a front-roll, and his legs lashed into the second man’s groin.
The third’s aim was blocked. She moved to one side, as Wolfe back-snapped to his feet, ducked under her swinging gun and struck twice, the first blow crushing her solar plexus, the second her throat.
The second man was trying to scream, backing away, gun forgotten.
Wolfe double-stepped forward, lunged, arm snapping forward, hips and shoulders turning. His palm smashed into the man’s face, driving his septal cartilage into his brain.
Joshua watched the final body crumple slowly.
Fingers touching . . . welcome Zai . . . let the void take you . . .
The air shimmered, and there was no one in the corridor except the three corpses.
Each member of the medical team towed an antigrav stretcher behind him. They had four armed men for security, yet still moved slowly, checking every passageway.
They spun, hearing a clang, saw a duct cover from the overhead air system rolling to a halt.
One medic laughed nervously, and they turned back, and then someone shrieked.
Standing in front of them was an impossibly thin, grotesquely white being.
One Chitet lifted his gun, was shot down.
Taen pulled a grenade from his weapons belt, thumbed its detonator, and rolled it into the center of the team.
He ducked around a corner as a bolt shattered the wall next to him, heard the crash as the grenade detonated.
The Al’ar stepped back into the corridor, surveyed the dead, the bleeding, then lifted his weapon and, aiming carefully, finished the job.
‘Sir,’ the officer reported. ‘We’re still taking casualties. We don’t know how many of them there are. There’s one man in a black coverall . . .’
‘That wi
ll be the renegade Wolfe,’ his superior said.
‘. . . and no one knows how many Al’ar. They’re all around us, sir!’ His voice cracked.
The other’s tones remained controlled, calm. ‘Very well. When one Al’ar - and Wolfe - have been captured, you have permission to kill the remainder.’
‘But - yes, sir.’ The young officer breathed deeply, reminded himself of the necessity for calm, stood. There were seventeen men and woman crouched around him, sheltering behind weapons mounts. Two hours ago, there had been thirty.
Fire . . . burn . . . take . . . all is yours . . .
‘Sir,’ one of them said. ‘Look.’
The officer noticed that a hose, hydraulic, he thought, had come loose from a mount. Suddenly the hose stiffened, began flailing, and a dark, acrid fluid sprayed out.
Two Chitet jumped for the hose, had it, then it slipped through their fingers, continued thrashing, the solution vaporizing as it showered them.
The officer saw a small round object coming toward him.
It seemed to move very slowly. He had all the time in the world to dive away from the grenade, shouting a warning. The grenade hit, bounced, exploded, and the fumes ignited. The ball of flame grew, devoured the Chitet, and they screamed, danced a moment in agony, died.
Joshua came out of the doorway fast, kicked the closest man in the side of the knee, went around him for the second.
He hit him with a hammerstrike to the temple, knew he was dead, and forgot him.
The third man’s rifle was coming down from port arms. Its front sight blade caught Joshua’s shipsuit, ripped it and tore his flesh.
The gun went off beside his waist, and the muzzleblast seared across his stomach.
Wolfe had the gun by the barrel, jerked, front-kicked into the man’s stomach, tossed the weapon away. The man buckled, clutching himself. Joshua doubled his fists, struck down at the base of the man’s neck, let the body fall away.
The first man was flat on the deck, gagging, cuddling his knee like it was a child, trying to end the pain.
Joshua high-stepped above him, drove his heel down into the man’s throat, spun away.
Breathe . . . breathe . . .
His hands came together.
Feel the earth . . . invoke chi . . .
Burn-agony seared, was recognized, denied, went away.
Wolfe ran down the corridor toward sudden shots.
Taen shot down the last of the five as Wolfe came in at the far end of the long room. ‘They have bravery.’
‘They do. For which the hell with them. Come on. I can feel them above, in front of us. We’ve got to pull back toward one of the command caps.’
Taen slid another tube into the slot of his weapon and followed Joshua down the tubeway.
Let the wind take us . . .
The alarm gonged needlessly. The watch officer had seen what was on screen.
Three Federation battleships had come out of N-space and were, a nearby prox-detector told him, less than fifteen minutes from intercept. A gnat-swarm of other ships snapped into being around them.
The officer slapped a button and sirens howled. The Udayana’s watch frequency blared:
‘All ships in vicinity of the Magdalene 84 Orbital Fortress. I say again, all ships in the vicinity of the Magdalene 84 Fortress. This is the Federation Battleship Andrea Doria.
‘You are ordered to cease all unlawful activity immediately and immediately surrender to this task force.
‘Resistance will be useless. Any attempt to open fire on any Federation ship will be met with the full force of our missiles.
‘I say again. Surrender immediately. Our ships will match orbits with yours and board. Do not resist!’
The Udayana’s commander was beside the watch officer. ‘Three battleships . . . a dozen destroyers . . . Mister, cut us loose from the station!’
‘Sir?’
‘I said seal the ship! Get us away from this station and jump into N-space! Move, mister!’
The watch officer began to say something, caught himself. He issued hasty orders.
The sentries in the boarding bay of the fortress had barely time to duck out of the way as the Chitet battlecruiser’s lock irised shut. Seconds later, the station’s outer lock closed.
They gaped and then felt the vibration as the Udayana broke away from the fortress into space.
One of them stammered a question, but no one had an answer.
Then their suit speakers crackled:
‘Fellow Chitet. This is the captain of the Udayana. We have been ambushed by superior forces of the Federation. To avoid exposure and damage to our cause, it is necessary for those of you on special assignment to give up your lives for the cause.
‘Under no circumstances can you allow yourselves to be captured, or to provide anything that might be damaging to the greater cause.
‘You served well. Now serve on. Your sacrifice shall not be forgotten.’
‘Our rescuers appear to have arrived,’ Taen said.
‘Yeah,’ Wolfe said. He saw the sniper who’d been shooting at them from behind a massive generator, and sent a bolt smashing into the man’s chest. ‘Now let’s try to stay alive long enough to be rescued.
‘I hate anticlimaxes.’
One of the Chitet ships bulleted toward the Federation units, vanished in a expanding ball of gases before it could launch a missile.
The Udayana and its two surviving escorts drove away from the fortress at full drive, then vanished into N-space.
The Federation admiral on the bridge of the Andrea Doria cursed and looked at the man in civilian clothes beside him. ‘We should have hit them without warning. Now we’ve got nobody to hang.’
The Federation Intelligence executive shrugged. ‘They’re not important. We can take them later. What’s on that fortress is.’
The admiral picked up the microphone, and the ancient words echoed down the corridors of the great ship:
‘Land the landing force.’
Federation soldiers spilled from the airlocks into the bays of the station.
Here, there, scattered knots of Chitet fought back. Only a handful of them disobeyed orders and tried to surrender.
The others died, as ordered.
‘Do you know, One Who Fights From Shadows, I have a possible solution to our problem with the Federation.’
Wolfe looked at Taen. The Al’ar’s eyeslits were focused on him.
Suddenly Taen’s head lifted, he looked beyond, then dove forward atop Joshua.
The bolt from the Chitet blaster took Taen in the back, tearing away his grasping organ and shoulder.
Wolfe heard a shout of joy as he rolled out from under the Al’ar.
Across the chamber he saw a Chitet, blaster snout aiming.
There was no thought.
There was no focus, no Zai.
Wolfe took Taen’s death from his mind and cast it at the Chitet.
The man screamed in impossible agony, fell dead.
Wolfe did not know if he had been the only Chitet left in the compartment, nor did he care.
He knelt beside the Al’ar.
Taen’s eyeslits were closed.
Joshua felt something leave, something that had been the last of a time when there was youth, no blood, no death.
His mind was still, empty.
Time passed. It may have been long, it may have been a few moments.
He felt a presence.
He looked up.
There were three men in the compartment. Two were Federation soldiers. They held blast rifles leveled.
The other was Cisco.
He held a wide-barreled pistol in his hand, pointed down at the deck.
Joshua got to his feet, walked forward.
Cisco lifted the gas gun, fired.
The capsule hit Wolfe in the chest, exploded.
Joshua stumbled.
He felt the savage insect clamor in another galaxy, building in triumph.
Then there was n
othing.
BOOK THREE
THE DARKNESS OF GOD
For Guy Glenn Tom McManus and Ken & Candy Leggett without them, the perspective might’ve gotten a little different
ONE
A Federation battlefleet whispered through subspace. In a compartment aboard its flagship, the Andrea Doria, two men stared down at Joshua Wolfe’s body. One was a fleet admiral, the other a Federation Intelligence executive.
A third man wore coveralls and combat harness. He sat in a chair, a blaster held casually in his lap.
‘How many safeguards does he have?’ Admiral Hastings asked.
‘Every damned one we could build into his mind, sir,’ the second man, Cisco, answered. ‘He was one of our best before he turned renegade.’
‘You think you’ll be able to get what you want without killing him?’
‘We have to,’ Cisco said grimly. ‘FI doesn’t have anything else.’
The first man pursed his lips. ‘Well, you built him, you ran him, so you’d better be able to peel him like an onion.’
‘Yes, sir. I’ve already got our best psychs on standby.’
The admiral left the compartment without responding. Cisco took something from his pocket and examined it. It was a gray, featureless stone with a few bits of color in it. ‘Stay dead like that,’ he said softly. He put it away, then swung to the guard.
‘How much longer are you on shift?’
‘Two hours and some.’
‘Stay careful,’ Cisco warned. ‘We don’t really know what we have here, so don’t get casual.’
The guard stared at Cisco. ‘Yes, sir,’ he said, putting heavy emphasis on the last word. Cisco nodded, then went out. The hatch slid closed.
‘Yes, sir,’ the man said again. ‘Yes, sir, Master Cisco, large-charge spymaster sir.’