“The time has come, Mystic. We depart.”
“Confirmed, Alpha Flight. Your efforts will not be forgotten.”
“Mystic,” came the curt reply.
Just as the visual topography of the region began to make sense, the aerospace fighters thundered back overhead, on their way to the Nova Cat landing zone.
“This is why they halted.”
Kisho nodded in agreement as the entire Nova Cat contingent ground to a halt at the crest of a ridge. As though falling from paradise to hell, the land before them lay shattered, rocky, and dry; an endless expanse of tortured arroyos, dead-end gorges and coulees, ghastly steep ravines, and bracken-filled gulches. The two tracked vehicles of his command were instantly taken out of the fight, and even the hovercraft would need to be careful through such terrain. No, he reconsidered. Taken completely out of it as well.
“Parak, Bordi . . .” he began, rattling through a half Star of tank commanders. “You will deploy as pickets along this line. Parak, you have the command. If possible, move your lines laterally up either side of these badlands, to try and hem them in. They will know our aerospace assets will be airborne once more within the hour to pin in the final fence. This is the hole they have chosen to die in.”
The “affs” came with resignation, but knowing their duty, the vehicles immediately began to deploy, moving away from the binary of ’Mechs. Looking at the horribly scarred land—as though riven and eaten away by some terrible disease able to afflict soil and rock like perishable flesh—Kisho wondered if they might not get their chance to fight, regardless of their pessimism. How long will it take us to hunt you down, Galaxy Commander? How long and will you try to make a break for it?
Of a sudden, he toggled on a broadband frequency, selecting an open channel and deigning to speak to the Spirit Cats for the first time since entering Addicks’ atmosphere. “Kev Rosse”—there would be no rank and honor given now—“we have tracked you to ground. You have soiled all that you have built with your Spheroid actions. Taking the life of warriors and mystics far above your station as they slept. The cowardice within you rots until the stink befouls the very air. Accept your burden of weakness and step forward to a Trial of Annihilation against you and any offspring that bear your genes, and your warriors will be spared, taken as isorla.”
A full ten seconds passed before a grainy response came, full of fury and indignation. “Savashri, Kisho. What is this about? What are you talking about? Cowardice? Cowardice! You strafe my DropShip without a batchall? You ignore our calls and now dare call me out?”
You coat your voice well, but I know what I would see if I beheld your face. “Do the lies come so easy? Have the years of your exile so perverted you?”
“I do not know what you speak of! And regardless, I hear the words you speak, Kisho. My warriors will be taken as isorla, not bondsmen. What have they done, what have I done that a warrior would take another and relegate him to a lower caste?”
The banked coals of revenge blazed until they towered, eating away at resolve and needed clarity, until breathing came in short gasps. How dare you. . . . How . . . dare . . . you! “You know what you have done,” he spit through clenched teeth, saliva speckling the forward viewscreen. “If you will not face it, if your warriors will not accept the burden of bringing you to justice, then I announce a Trial of Annihilation against you and your entire command. And pray that I do not find such weakness means all Spirit Cat warrior bloodlines need to be reaved!”
Silence fell like a coffin into a grave at the pronouncement.
“You would dare offer trial to pare down our Bloodnames? All of them? At once?” Incredulity, despite the static snap and wash, flooded over Kisho.
“Aff.” The word a hammer blow of bloodlust.
“Have you lost your mind? Have you gone rogue? If this is what a mystic is capable of, then why would we rejoin you? You are the ones who have fallen away!”
Kisho breathed deeply, closing eyes gummed with fatigue. Slowly clicked off the toggle switch to the channel, ignored the steady hum of repeated calls. He will not listen. He is beyond reason. Pulling hands away from joysticks, he clenched them together to stop the shaking. Finally he spoke on his command’s frequency. “They are become dark caste. Beyond the bounds of zellbrigen. Fit only for destruction.”
A moment’s hesitation, before a subdued benediction and agreement swept back across the channel, sealing the declaration, “Seyla.”
As his force bridged the crest and began to make its slow way down the steep incline, words tumbled within him like the jumbled and crushed stones bursting into smaller pieces under the heavy impact of fifty-five tons of metal death.
Were you so wrong, old man? Your visions for bringing the Spirit Cats back to the fold. He is corrupt. And by his corruption, he corrupts those who follow him. Will we Reave the Spirit Cats until blood flows as a torrent through The Republic, leaving our mission hollow? A failure?
The death of Hisa, the death of Tanaka; the failure to see this coming . . . for the old man to see it coming. The failure of the old man to see the defilement eating away at the Spirit Cats. Laughter, stark, harsh as solar wind in the depths of space, ripped through the cockpit, unknowingly floating onto airwaves, setting all who heard it on edge, as though the cackle of the ancient dead floated from musty graves, calling for those entering battle to join in the unending misery of the undead.
29
Felldowns, Frankalia
Addicks, Prefecture III
The Republic of the Sphere
30 December 3136
A godlike thunderbolt hammered into the ravine wall, pulverizing rock, sending a treacherous landslide cascading in a river of hard-edged death for the unwary. Another whip of azure energy burst forth from the barrel of the Wendigo, thrashing the wall once more, sending another flurry of sliding, bouncing, and jouncing stones down to block the deep gulch. Another two blasts filled the canyon to the point it would take even a ’Mech—provided it did not mount jump jets—precious long minutes to muscle through to freedom.
And you do not have jump jets, do you, Galaxy Commander?
Kisho’s laugh sounded as hollow as the hole eating within him. This was the fifth such gap he closed, moving methodically. And, with a scientist-subcaste surgeon’s dedication, he would eradicate the infestation of Kev and those who would support such a leader.
Turning away from the savage wound inflicted on the earth—too cold to notice, too focused to care—fingers wrapped throttles and joystick, booted feet connected to pedals, and the BattleMech began wending towards another target.
Before the ’Mech took twenty steps, a foul wind tore into the Wendigo’s right side, pitching the machine back. With a deft twist of controls and pedals, Kisho settled the machine back into a half step to regain balance as numerous long-range missiles shattered armor plating. Swiveling the upper torso back around, bringing targeting reticule and weaponry on line with the sudden appearance of an Arbalest less than a hundred meters away—stepping halfway out of an almost hidden arroyo branching off from the main trunk of this canyon—Kisho returned in kind.
A shotgun blast from his LB 10-X autocannon scoured away armor like a djinn in a raging sandstorm. Evil strobes of cobalt lighting, as though accompanying the djinn, caressed already damaged armor, sending tendrils of death seeping into gradually widening fissures. Support struts under armor plates across the torso, already pushed beyond survivable stress levels by several previous encounters, softened under the hellish energies of the particle projector cannon, then bent, and finally shore off. As a wash of black exhaust from another volley of twenty missiles leaping hungrily towards him almost obscured the target, Kisho ignored the incoming fire, centering on the newly revealed breach in the Arbalest’s defense and lining up another shot from the autocannon, and sent a terrible blast of hypervelocity flechettes straight into the ’Mech’s heart.
A testament to the other warrior’s acumen, most of the missiles found their mark, sha
king the Wendigo as though in a heavy storm. However, the Arbalest began to dance as though in a palsy, as the gyro, engine, and central processing for myomer musculature all began to disintegrate, jerking the ’Mech in an obscene dance before dropping twenty-five tons of dead metal unceremoniously to the ground.
Kisho sighed with satisfaction, letting out a pent-up breath of adrenaline-choked energy.
And so the battle progressed as Kisho knew it would. In the tortured landscape, battle lines were nonexistent and coordinated attacks impossible. And yet, it seemed right. It felt proper. As though Kisho led the Nova Cats here specifically to show the Spirit Cats and their false leader how fallen they truly had become. As though the individual battles, just as that with the Arbalest, and the two previous encounters, would bring the Spirit Cats to their knees in awe. Would show them that they might follow the forms and speak the words, but they were as much Clansmen as mercenaries were House troops.
Setting the ’Mech moving once more, he stepped lightly around the smoldering ruin and took a half step into the artery. The arroyo moved erratically back and forth, until it bent out of view to the right, three hundred or so meters from his current position. Rubbing sweat-soaked and tired right-hand fingers and thumb together, he tried to decide which direction to follow.
“Where are you, Galaxy Commander?” he whispered softly, toggling through several secondary screens as he read known topographical maps—woefully inadequate for this region—radar, and other sensor screens. He smiled wryly. Might as well be on a moon. Alone. The smile turned cruel. “But if I am alone, Galaxy Commander, then so are you.”
For no reason, he abruptly closed gummy eyes, casting about as though with an invisible will, laughing bitterly at the absurdity. “Where are you, Kev? Where is my great power, old man, to find my prey?”
Hisa!
Like a burning brand of terror, the word sought to unhinge and dislocate. Not this time. Not this time. This is for you! Even for the surat Tanaka.
Wrenching controls as though to tear them clean from their mountings, he sent the ’Mech forward, almost stumbling, wings of purposefully forgotten nightmares fluttering, until the sound could be heard among the pounding of giant metal-shod feet crushing stone, bouncing back and forth like a harsh oscillation of mocking laughter.
Time distended as he pushed the machine to an extreme of speed in the cramped, interweaving corridors of stone. At times, despite superb abilities, the Wendigo shouldered into protuberances, like malignant outgrowths budding and spawning in horrible striations away from the wall; kicked and almost tripped over berms and rocky outcroppings, like stunted, malformed rocks. Like blood dripping from his face, red splotches began to mar the outline of the Wendigo on the status display, self-inflicted wounds to scour away a thousand misdeeds, to ignore the crosses behind and the nightmares ahead.
Glorious, all-consuming fire suddenly eclipsed all sight as emerald darts seemed to cleanse, at least for now, the momentary lunacy. Warning sirens shrieked of abrupt enemy proximity and target lock; of harsh damage turning additional sections red, and some even black, on the status display.
Centuries of genetic breeding ran true as, even taken by surprise and lost to his own world, Kisho’s body immediately tried to bring the Wendigo down to a manageable speed, targeting reticule seeking the golden hue of target lock to unleash a return swipe at its savager. Another double dose of large-pulse-laser energy pounded down at an angle, blistering armor into runnels across a half dozen ulcerous wounds.
Finally fully focused on his situation, Kisho spotted his tormentor and realized with chagrin that the ’Mech actually stood up above the channel of the ravine. By the Founder, how . . . ?
Sickly lime-fluorescent light glowed deep within twin over-the-shoulder barrels and another flurry of pulsing energy darts burst armor in scorching rents, before his feet stomped down on pedals, sending the Wendigo in an incredibly short arc to the top of the arroyo. Before the machine touched down, twin medium pulse lasers delivered a flowering of jade darts in return, while the deep-throated jugging of the autocannon added to the symphonic crackle of the particle cannon. Most of the weapons unerringly found their mark, and the enemy Ghost felt the caress of death waiting in the wings.
For a half eyeblink, Kisho hesitated at the image, as nightmare wings seemed to flutter around once more; beating wings stirring the air currents in the cockpit until the overheated air seemed like a cyclone of sucking warmth. “What have I done?” he yelled, lips peeled back until his face threatened to crack in half under the strain. “What! What do I need to do?!” He yelled not to Hisa, not to the old man, but, for once, to himself.
Something began to unfold within. Something that seemed to blossom as does a seed in the darkness, petals awakening to an unknown energy, unfelt and unseen, unheard before.
The top of the canyon wall proved to be a large plateau, with seemingly unending ditches and humps, as though the swollen and bloated intestines of some impossibly large creature, baking in the sun, marched into the distance. An incessant buzz began, of a comm demanding answers, but Kisho lashed out with killing indigo energies in response as the Ghost used its superior land speed to try to work around the Wendigo, cutting hard to his left.
Kisho struggled, knowing he was the superior pilot, but it felt like he fought two foes; one without and one within. As though a ghost rose within—while the Ghost fought without—and tried to block his every movement, blurring eyesight and tightening stomach muscles until he knew his stomach wall would rupture, splattering fetid and noxious human blasphemy across the insides of the cockpit.
A god’s fist stove in the entire left side of the Wendigo, tossing the machine violently to the right. His head whipped so hard to the left that the neurohelmet hammered into the control panel and he blacked out, possibly saving his life as his limp body rode the tumultuous and devastating tumble to the ground. The force of his ammo exploding forced the machine off the edge of the arroyo and down through an avalanche of torn-off rocks to finally land in a disheveled heap.
A voice brought him back.
Hisa?
The voice seemed strident.
Tanaka?
The voice held sincerity.
Old man . . . master.
The voice finally penetrated the webs of unconsciousness binding him down.
“Mystic Kisho. Are you alive?” the voice of Galaxy Commander Kev Rosse sounded as weary as though the world hung on his neck, dragging him to oblivion.
As I have felt? As I feel? Moving his head fractionally, pain scorched through every muscle, wrenching a scream of protest before lips sealed the sound away. With the pain came another sensation . . . the flowering of a seed now sending tendrils out to grasp firmly into the soil of his being.
The soil of his soul.
“Mystic,” the voice continued, as though desperate to be heard, regardless of whether Kisho might be beyond the ability to hear it. “I did not do what you accuse me of. I would not strike at a fellow Cat. Not unless you leave me no choice . . . as you have now. Please, call this off. Call your warriors off, before there can never be a great enough surkai to forgive what has happened between us.”
The surroundings began to take on reality, blood dripping down . . . up to splatter against uncaring metal. I am almost upside down? The idea burst a floodgate of knowledge and sensation while, simultaneously, the flowering within persisted relentlessly and a thousand possibilities flooded through him, carried on the current of a voice—a conviction of complete innocence. Violence began to dim under new light.
With the blood rushing to his head threatening to send him once more into oblivion, Kisho slowly raised one arm, until he gripped a handle on the ceiling—now floor—then snapped the release mechanism on the five-point restraining harness. The dead weight of his body almost smashed his head into the ceiling, his arm too wounded to bear the complete weight. Hot, coppery-tasting air hissed through clenched teeth, his skin scraping across unfamiliar metal.
Unknowingly, his face bore no semblance of humanity. Through the warring juxtaposition of internal and external sensations, a picture—not a cold, emotionless holovid, but a painting crafted with devoted hands to show a new level of minutia, a new understanding of purest meaning at each viewing—slowly materialized. As with his moments of previous clarity, this burned bright, flowing on the veins of the seedling tendrils now coursing to every part of his body. At such a moment, not even Kisho could lie to himself, despite the acute pain.
Wrong. I am wrong. Whoever has done this, it is not Kev.
A pressure building to the bursting point, a force so pervasive he was not even aware of it until this moment, slowly released, as the truth tore away the obscurants and delusions. Forced him to face the reality of his own situation. He knew he must answer Kev, must face him and accept the consequences . . . but for just a moment, he could finally grieve. Not for Hisa, though that pained him more than he imagined.
But for the pain he caused her.
For faults he wouldn’t see.
His own culpability.
She was right.
Lack of Faith.
30
Felldowns, Frankalia
Addicks, Prefecture III
The Republic of the Sphere
30 December 3136
“I come.”
The words fell into a chasm, far deeper than the physical one his ’Mech occupied. The sharp blade of a remembered nightmare seemed to pierce through feet, splitting and fissuring ever wider.
With aches, bruises, and pains clogging senses, fingers scrabbled across unfamiliar metal—sweat-slicked, slightly bloody—before locating the egress hatch. He undogged it, only to find a miasma of billowing dirt storming in, causing him to cough until he thought lung blood would surely splatter, joining that already found on hands and a wounded arm.
Eyes watering against the airborne irritants and stark sunlight, a hint of his previous sarcasm peeked out as though from an unused distance. At least the way is not blocked.
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