by K S Augustin
Cheloi couldn’t speak a word now even if she tried. The analgesics had started doing their job but pain still laced her body. She gritted her teeth hard, held onto Lith with a death-grip and kept her eyes focused on the dark ground beneath her feet, trying not to collapse with each step.
She had been so ready to die before. Now, a handful of hours later, she was clutching at a chance of escape with talons as equally tenacious as those that belonged to the scar-raptors she used to wear on her shoulders. The fact that she couldn’t hear the good doctor’s voice any more indicated that she had subsided below the stress level trigger point but she knew she was in for a tough session the next time she activated the Copan wetware.
Lith negotiated the tunnels smoothly. When they emerged into a still night, up flights of stairs that she thought would never end, Cheloi couldn’t help taking in as deep a breath as her ribs could stand. To her surprise, they were on the outskirts of a small town, the lights from houses splashing on the ground only metres from where they stood. That made sense. There was nothing like a populated area to mask guerilla movements. Above her head, the night sky continued its impressive light show. Sparking streaks of colour shot across the firmament, obscuring stars.
“You’re going to slow me down,” Lith whispered. “I’ll leave you here and pick you up when I’ve found some transport.”
“Here” meant beside an emergency water-well, an insurance policy against infrastructure failures and the arid unforgiving planet. It was some distance from the nearest row of houses and its circular wall was wide, high and cool to lean against. Cheloi sagged against the well with a sigh and shut her eyes, blissfully revelling in the soft tufts of fresh air that caressed her cheeks. She didn’t rate their chances of escape very highly. Despite the lax, almost-festive circumstances Lith described, they could still be discovered by a walking patrol or arouse the suspicions of a sympathetic local out for an evening stroll. Lith might not find a transport. Or they could run out of fuel and be recaptured. Or the Perlim forces might spot them and decide to shoot first and ask questions later.
Cheloi squeezed her eyes tightly shut then relaxed them again. What was the matter with her? Was she still so enamoured of the idea of dying that she couldn’t envisage escaping? After all, there were two of them running now, not just one. A doubling of chances.
Lost in her thoughts, fading in and out of lucidity, Cheloi didn’t hear the vehicle until it was almost on top of her. It was an archaic-looking dusty wheeler being erratically driven by a hunched old man. Even though she could barely move, Cheloi’s Fusion training kicked in. Could she work up enough energy to jump the man? Or would she be better off taking him hostage, forcing him to drive around so she could find Lith before dumping him? She knew she wouldn’t kill him. She had her fill of violence for now.
The old man stopped and his figure straightened. Cheloi widened her eyes in surprise. This was no ancient villager, but Lith. And it struck her that the antiquated vehicle and matching driver would be less conspicuous than a screeching modern vehicle tearing across the landscape. Cheloi’s lips twitched with pride.
“I’ll put you in the back,” Lith told her quietly, but her voice was still like a rod of iron. “Think like a sack of grain.”
Cheloi nodded. After some fumbles, she settled down on the flat surface behind thse two front seats, her head resting on a makeshift pillow. The air was dusty and smelt of lubricating oil but at least the bare metal was covered by something that felt like sacking. She lay on her back and prepared herself for a bumpy ride, trying not to breathe too deeply.
Lith disappeared for a few minutes then reappeared, holding two small, low concrete blocks. She placed them on either side of Cheloi’s arms. “Rest your forearms on these. It may give you some relief. Do you understand?”
Cheloi nodded. If she had known what she might have had to endure on Menon, she would have requested fortified bones before mission insertion, but that might have somehow tipped off the Perlim to her alien origin. And there was the chance that the rebels wouldn’t have left her alone until they’d heard the tell-tale snap of a bone or two.
Never second-guess anyone. Least of all yourself.
“I’ll be covering you with supplies and bits and pieces of junk. Try not to move. I’ll be going slowly so we probably won’t make it to the nearest Perlim outpost till the day after tomorrow.” Lith’s sentences were clipped and fast, efficient in a way that the fuzzy-headed Cheloi appreciated…until she focused on the actual words. The day after tomorrow. That was a day later than she’d been anticipating but there was nothing she could do about it. Lith’s plan made too much sense.
“I’ll drive through the night and tomorrow as well, if you’re up to it. We’ll stop at dusk and take shelter somewhere.”
There were hidden depths to Lith Yinalña, Cheloi realised. The fraught situation had brought out a steady strength that Cheloi couldn’t help but fall more deeply in love with. But how could she say those words when her throat didn’t work and it was an effort just to draw breath? She closed her eyes again as Lith tented lightweight alloy struts above her before covering the whole construct with a blanket of some sort. The air around her became thick and trapped. It was uncomfortable and claustrophobic but better than a cloying mask over her head and a gang of rebels surrounding her.
The wheeler jolted. And they were away.
Chapter Thirteen
Day 1,535 of the War:
Sab-Inuk.
There was nothing here that could later haunt Cheloi because the village didn’t exist any more. Like a skeleton bleaching in the sun some walls were still upright and solid. Others had crumbled into dust. It looked like it had been cleared years ago, swept clean of even the usual people-detritus that cluttered an abandoned site.
They had been travelling for an entire day. After the last toilet break, Cheloi had insisted on sitting up front, next to her driver. She had enough of dusty suffocation to last her entire life. Lith had reluctantly agreed after confirming their position and adjusting their bearing.
The setting sun cast red shafts of light against the ruins of the village, accentuated by the storms’ growing flashes of colour across the sky. To Cheloi’s eyes, the crumbling walls looked like blood-soaked relics. She got a quick glimpse of all this before Lith bundled her into the most complete building she could find. Yet another basement. She would have laughed if it didn’t hurt so much. She took in two quick gasps of air before they disappeared beneath the ground’s surface again, finding shelter for the night like animals while the rebels used the cover of darkness to come out and play.
Even sitting up in the passenger cabin, the trip had not been pleasant. The wheeler had only a conventional roof, no air-conditioned bubble, and the air Cheloi jerked into her lungs was hot and smothering. The terrain was also rough, jolting the vehicle with every sudden move. Cheloi wanted to scream, wanted to stop and storm out of the vehicle but, like the good soldier she was, she remained in place. She had to trust her subordinate to use her own initiative to get them out of the rebel’s grasp and smiled encouragement whenever they stopped for a quick break. Her teeth were chattering but she gritted them shut. The day’s travel had been completed with hardly a word shared between them.
Now they were in the shell of what used to be Sab-Inuk.
Cheloi noted with relief that their refuge turned out to be only a half-basement. The narrow windows, set high and peering to the outside, were long gone but the gaps the frames used to sit in remained. Lith forced her to lie down on a makeshift cot she threw together from some boards of wood and two blankets. Cheloi eased herself down carefully and watched the red of the sun’s rays on the ceiling, gazing at them as they deepened amid the scuffling sounds of Lith’s fussing.
Cheloi felt like she was somehow floating in a world divorced from reality. She could feel the pain of her own body but no awareness beyond that. She didn’t know what temperature the room was or what she was lying on. And she didn’t care. The e
rrant flashes from the ionic storms were quick in the darkening sky but everything else seemed to move more slowly and it was still black at the periphery of her vision.
“I’ll give you another shot of analgesics,” Lith told her in a more normal tone of voice.
She had been terse and muted until now, as if afraid the rebels could pluck their utterances from the air. Cheloi thought that was a possibility…if they had a circle of appropriately-specified satellites orbiting the planet. And if Menon IV didn’t suffer from the kind of storms that reduced most advanced technology to the level of atomic-age savagery.
“And a broad-spectrum antibiotic.”
“What for?” It seemed to take ages for her neurons to fire, for her mouth to form the question. After speaking, Cheloi clenched her jaw to stop herself from shaking but Lith had already noticed.
“Pneumonia,” she replied shortly. “You’ve been drawing in shallow breaths and liquid could have built up in your lungs. I don’t think you’ve got a punctured lung but you have a fever, your eyes are too bright and you’re shaking.” She dug through the emergency medkit she must have stolen from Drel’s lair. “I wonder if I have anything for that?”
In the end, Lith came up with her own concoction. “Antibiotics to stem the pneumonia, analgesics for the pain, muscle relaxant for the spasms, but not too much. It’ll have to do until we can get back to friendlier territory.”
Cheloi tried to watch Lith as she worked, but it was too much effort and strained the wrong set of muscles. She lay on the makeshift pallet. Staring up. Blinking slowly. Listening to the scrabbling sounds as her driver got organised.
Maybe she was going insane, but the sounds of another person moving about purposefully around her was reminiscent of home. Love. A partnership. Remembrances of Eys walking from one room to another, picking up something she’d forgotten, checking the latest events at Gaard’s Sub-Prime, or welcoming the odd visitor. Cheloi missed those innocent reminders of domesticity. Beloved yet taken for granted at the same time. If only she’d known that they would be the last sounds of joy she’d hear for more than a decade.
“You know. A lot,” Cheloi croaked, trying for a tone of friendly reassurance. Beyond some basic field treatments for trauma-related wounds, she wouldn’t have been able to figure out with any confidence what to use when. Her skills lay in other directions.
It was too dark to see if Lith blushed. From her tone of voice, Cheloi thought it a distinct possibility. “I’ve dabbled in some medical courses,” she replied, moving closer with the hypodermic. It hissed with a sibilant whisper. She moved away.
Cheloi continued staring at the ceiling, watching as the red of the setting sun slowly faded. The darkness in their small shelter increased. Her meditation was interrupted by Lith returning with a flask. A straw, inserted into the container and bent near Cheloi’s face, indicated how she was supposed to drink from it. The medical cocktail was taking effect. After only a few minutes, Cheloi started feeling halfway sentient again. As an added bonus, her throat was lubricated enough to enable more normal speech.
Lith had retreated to the other side of the basement without setting any illumination and Cheloi declined to ask for any. If it wasn’t for the physical circumstances in which she found herself, she could almost believe this was a replay of their first dusk-shrouded conversation in the mute bubble high on one of her headquarters’ escarpments.
“How were you treated? At Drel’s camp?” Cheloi asked, when it seemed Lith would be content spending the night in complete silence. It was her burning question of the moment.
“Not as badly as you.” Lith’s voice was soft and lilting.
Cheloi closed her eyes. “I was the star attraction, but you were my accomplice. I’ve been wondering…why they didn’t treat you worse.”
“They did.” There was defensiveness in her voice. “I’ve got bruises and contusions all over my body from their rough handling.”
“Lith.” The one word stilled all movement from across the room. Cheloi gathered the little strength she had. She had noticed more than just their surroundings during their escape. Like the fact that, besides one fat bruise on the side of her head, Lith’s face was untouched. That she was walking without effort. That her appearance was still too neat for someone held in a dungeon and interrogated for two days. “I’ve got little enough time for any bullshit. Why did they leave you alone?”
Silence.
“Did you…tell them something?” Cheloi prompted. “Share intel? I wouldn’t blame you. If you had.” She tried forcing breaths deeper into her lungs but her body was resisting such overtures. She had to gasp out her phrases quickly, in between shaky inhales of air. “If you gave them information. In an attempt to negotiate a prisoner swap. It was a wasted effort. Nothing. Short of your miraculous escape plan. Would have saved my life.”
When Lith eventually answered, it was as a disembodied voice from the darkness.
“Saving you was the last thing on my mind.”
Cheloi frowned at the sardonic thread in her voice.
“Then why did you?”
She was uncomfortable. Cheloi could tell that by the abrupt sounds as Lith changed position. She was making short jittery movements denoting discomfort and an internal struggle. Cheloi steeled herself for what she was about to hear.
“You’re known throughout the galaxy as the Butcher of Sab-Iqur.”
Cheloi was arrested by the unexpected statement. Throughout the galaxy? Throughout the system, she could understand. Throughout the Perlim Ground Forces. But throughout the galaxy?
“Responsible for the slaughter of thousands of innocents,” Lith continued. “How do you feel about that…Cheloi?”
She was using the darkness as a form of camouflage, Cheloi thought, using the cloak of night to say all the things she thought she couldn’t say in daylight. If they were ever to get back to the Nineteen in one piece then this night in Sab-Inuk was probably going to be the most private moment they would ever share. The realisation made Cheloi weigh her words before speaking.
“The massacre at Sab-Iqur was,” evil. A travesty. A crime, “a necessity.”
“And how can it be a necessity to kill children?” There was a choked sob in the question. “Can you tell me that?”
Cheloi sighed even though it hurt to do so. “Lith—”
“I saved your life,” she cut in savagely. “I think that gives me the right to ask some questions and get some fucking answers. Don’t you?”
Yes, she supposed it did.
“So you want to know about Sab-Iqur?” She paused. “In that case, you should also know what led up to Sab-Iqur.”
Cheloi had never spoken about this to anyone other than the Copan avatar. She tried to put her thoughts in order. Already, she found she could breathe a bit easier. That would make the narration of her tale smoother. She took a deep swallow of water through the straw. It was important that her words be as clear as possible.
“At the time of Sab-Iqur,” she began, “I was newly promoted and just assigned to command of the Nineteen. There were questions around the death of the Nineteen’s previous commander, Senior Colonel Samnett. To be honest, from the reports I read, he was an incompetent commander, lazy and wasteful, so his death wasn’t the issue. The rumour that kept everyone whispering was that both sides of the war, Perlim and Menon, had reason to want him dead. Looking through his record, I had no doubt that was true.”
She paused to take a few breaths before continuing.
“Although nobody could prove a thing, several people within Central Control suspected that Koul Grakal-Ski had him assassinated. I think that’s why I eventually won command rather than Koul. Central Control doesn’t trust him as much as he thinks they do.” She smiled briefly into the darkness. “It was a very volatile time for the territory and for the Perlim effort. When I assumed command, it was very important for me to gain control and keep it.”
Exhausted by the effort of speaking for so long, Cheloi dropped her
head back and closed her eyes.
“So your idea of gaining control was by murdering civilians?”
Cheloi didn’t try to deny the charge. “What else could I have done?”
It wasn’t just the Perlim who had run through the scenarios on Menon. The Fusion had done so as well, coolly and dispassionately. Better minds than hers had tracked multiple scenarios years into the future, including the outcome of putting Koul in command of the Nineteen.
“I don’t know what you should’ve done,” Lith told her savagely, “but nothing, nothing, excuses what you did at Sab-Iqur.”
Koul would have turned the Menon even more against the Perlim, that much was true. That was an action in the Fusion’s favour. But because of his inherent brutality—if Koul knew how finely dissected he was by the psychoanalysts of the Fusion, he would have blown his brains out in horror—he would have inevitably gone too far.
“But it’s not just Sab-Iqur, is it?” Cheloi murmured to herself.
The Fusion figured that Perlim losses under Koul would have risen to indefensible levels, leaving only one way out. He’d be ousted by Central Control within six months, no doubt aided along by a juicy promotion off planet, and replaced by an unknown quantity.
“Sab-Solin, Sab-Supehn, Bul-Vehim.” She recited them slowly, not caring if Lith heard, lost in her own thoughts.
Six months was not enough time to both weaken the Perlim and rouse the locals, especially when there was no guarantee of what would follow. What the Fusion wanted was a slow burn over a couple of years before the explosive conflagration, not merely the conflagration itself. That was how they trained her for the job. Even if she couldn’t be transferred to the Nineteen, she could still carry out part of her mission in one of the other important territories. That was the backup plan: get command of one of the other centres of action as quickly as possible.