by Various
Kou’to spoke into his tightbeam. ‘Team one, secure the perimeter. The rest of us will go down to the lake and fill our flasks.’
‘What are you doing?’ Hollett suddenly yelled.
‘We’re getting water,’ Kou’to answered.
‘No! This isn’t what I meant.’ Hollett started to panic as more of the fire warriors emerged from the forest. ‘There’s a river. About an hour’s walk from here. You can drink that.’
Shadowsun stopped and whirled around. ‘Shas’ui, silence the prisoner.’
‘Hollett-la,’ Kou’to snapped, ‘be quiet!’
‘You can’t! It’s sacrilege,’ Hollett cried. ‘Damned xenos!’
Shadowsun spun towards Hollett. Her intention was clear to Kou’to, who swept the Guardsman’s legs out from under him and began to pummel him with the butt of his pulse rifle. The human grunted and rolled over onto his side, curling his legs up to his chest. Kou’to stopped and, panting, called back, ‘The prisoner has been silenced.’
Shadowsun surveyed the two of them, and then continued towards the lake once again. Kou’to peeled off his helmet and watched her go.
‘That’s twice now. What, is it your job to hit me so she doesn’t have to?’ Hollett moaned.
‘The commander would have killed you if I hadn’t beaten you first. I can’t let her dishonour herself so.’
‘Very kind of you.’
Kou’to looked down at him. ‘Don’t mistake duty for pity,’ he snapped. ‘We do our best not to commit wanton murder, even in the fires of war. But if you don’t mind your place, our options will be limited. Do you understand?’
Hollett struggled to his feet. His arms hugged his chest and he stooped severely. ‘It’s holy water,’ he managed to say.
‘Your beliefs are ridiculous to us,’ Kou’to said, ‘but perhaps you can take consolation in the fact that you at least tried to stop us.’
Hollett grunted, and together they slowly followed behind Shadowsun.
When she came to the water’s edge, the commander stopped. The fusion blasters left her hands full, and she would have to disarm herself in order to drink. She ejected the guns, which fell soundlessly into the grass, and then knelt down by the crystal lake. She dipped a gloved hand into the water and raised it to her parched lips. The water was sweet and cold, and it bathed her throat like nectar. Greedily, she drew more and more, stirring up the surface with expanding ripples. After four handfuls, she took note of her reflection. Her forehead and chin looked distorted and her eyes seemed to swim.
I look like Oru’mi, she mused, and her chest heaved without her consent.
The youngest of Kiru’s daughters was beautiful. Everyone said so. She had hair as black as the void and a soft and round face dominated by expressive, watery, red eyes. Their father often said that of the three of them, it was Oru’mi who most resembled their mother. Ty’res remained neutral after hearing such a slight, and voiced no opinion on the matter. Shadowsun, the steel-tempered eldest, scoffed at such mawkishness. Oru’mi could be their father’s favourite all she wanted, it didn’t change the fact that she was always on the verge of tears.
In fact, the last time she had seen her, she had been crying. Their father had died only days previous, and the three of them were now charged with going through the family estate, selecting which of Kiru’s possessions were to be kept and which were to be sent to the military museums. Oru’mi had argued fervently with Shadowsun over each and every item. She had wanted to keep them, no matter how miniscule.
‘You can’t get rid of that,’ she would whine. ‘That’s part of father’s legacy.’
‘No,’ Shadowsun replied coldly, ‘it’s just a thing. We’re his legacy. We don’t need cast-offs to remember him. Someday you’ll understand that.’
‘But… but…’ Oru’mi blathered. Seeing the eldest sister’s impassible face, she called for help. ‘Ty’res!’
Ty’res stayed true to her non-confrontational middle-child nature. ‘Work it out for yourselves!’ she yelled.
In the end, Shadowsun had claimed that as Kiru’s first-born, she had an inherent veto over the others. They purged nearly everything. A great and suffocating pall descended over the ancestral home. Shadowsun, Ty’res and Oru’mi made a concerted effort not to encounter each other as one by one the rooms were shut up, and their furniture, murals, and tapestries were sealed in stasis fields. A week later, the house contained almost no evidence that their father had ever lived there at all. The three sisters stood outside the front gate, giving terse goodbyes to one another before heading off to their individual combat assignments. Oru’mi’s feelings got the better of her, and she broke down in tears. Ty’res put an arm around her. With a pleading look, she invited Shadowsun to do the same, but instead of joining them, Shadowsun had simply turned and walked away, thinking that her coldness made her strong.
It was difficult for Shadowsun to picture Oru’mi as a military leader, but in the years since, she had obviously become so. Tash’Var was a frontier planet, she knew, far from the home world. Its citizenry were hardy and resourceful, and perhaps amidst such people and out from underneath the protective wing of her family, the girl had blossomed. Aun’va had said that she had been defending members of the Ethereal caste from enslaving alien pirates. That was noble and heroic by any measure. But the poisons used by the Var Sin’da caused agony beyond description. Shadowsun wondered grimly if Oru’mi had cried like a version of her younger self as she lay in a hospital bed, dying by degrees.
Her chest lurched again. Shadowsun squeezed her eyes tightly shut. You didn’t get as far as you have by being weak. You will not break down, she told herself. They’re dead, but you are not. Now get to work.
She forced herself back to her feet, then opened her eyes and looked around. Kou’to and Hollett were approaching. The smoky wind had picked up again. Fire warriors collected water or stood guard alertly. The drone squad circled high overhead. Smoke continued to choke the sky, and a young boy stood beneath a drooping tree with leaves the colour of silver.
She gave a start. He was a tau male, perhaps four or five years of age, broad across the shoulders and narrow-waisted. He wore dark brown, loose fitting trousers and an ochre jacket with short sleeves. His forehead was high and noble, his eyes were bright and intelligent. He had a fine, narrow chin, and a short braid of hair that hung to just below his left ear. He smiled at Shadowsun, beckoned to her with a wide swing of one arm, and then turned and ran into the woods.
‘Did you see that?’ Shadowsun asked weakly before realising that no one was standing close enough to hear her. ‘Kou’to!’ she hollered.
The shas’ui sprinted over to her. ‘Commander, what’s wrong?’
‘I saw a boy,’ she said and pointed towards the silver-leafed tree. ‘Standing just over there by the edge of the woods.’
‘A boy? You mean a human scout?’
‘No, he was tau. He was wearing a shas’saal’s uniform.’ She took a few steps forward. A notion, the only one that might have explained the child’s sudden appearance, flashed across her mind: he was obviously another survivor from the crash. She whirled around angrily. ‘Why wasn’t I informed that a fire warrior cadet unit had been assigned to my flagship?’
‘Commander,’ Kou’to was utterly confused, ‘I know of no such thing.’ He brought his forearm close to his helmet and spoke into his tightbeam. ‘Sabu’ro, query. Were there…’ He paused at the sheer ridiculousness of the question. ‘Were there any children aboard the commander’s vessel?’
The answer was immediate. ‘Negative. Absolutely none.’
Kou’to shifted his rifle strap uncomfortably. ‘Commander, the current situation is very stressful, and you haven’t slept since–’
‘I saw him!’ she snapped, and began running towards the tree line. Behind her, Kou’to searched the sky in a sudden panic and called out after her.
The heads of several other fire warriors also jerked around to see what the sudden commotion was. Shadowsun left them all behind with a short burst from her suit thrusters. There was no trace of the child beneath the drooping tree, not even a set of hoof-prints in the soil. She looked around, suddenly desperate to prove that she hadn’t been hallucinating.
‘It’s all right,’ she called out. ‘You don’t have to hide. We’re not going to hurt you.’
Shadowsun glanced over her shoulder. ‘He was right here,’ she yelled. Kou’to was sprinting toward her. Sabu’ro trailed behind struggling as he carried her bulky fusion blasters.
It was only then, as Kou’to screamed her name over the tightbeam, that she became aware of the whining sound of turbines. Out of habit, she looked to her icon display, but the command drone no longer existed and her head-up display had vanished along with her helmet. She turned and looked back towards the lake just in time to see a wing of aircraft – the flying crates that Hollett had called ‘Valkyries’ – crest the trees above her. There were three of them, and they immediately began to shoot down the drone squad. The little machines stood no chance against the superior range and volume of fire. They exploded into clouds of twisted metal and rained down into the clearing. Pulse rifle beams leapt up into the air as the perimeter guards opened up, but the machines were out of range. They banked high now, preparing for another pass.
Sabu’ro passed the fusion blasters to Shadowsun, who scrambled to reattach them to the arms of her battlesuit. Kou’to had his rifle in his hands and was barking orders over his communicator. ‘All units, return fire.’
The Valkyries were swooping over the lake again, firing lasers and heavy bolter rounds into everything they saw. Several of Kou’to’s men were cut down mercilessly. Once more, the other fire warriors did their best to shoot the enemy flyers, but their pulse blasts continued to fall short.
Shadowsun hefted her remounted fusion blasters and grimaced. ‘We haven’t the range,’ she said to herself. Opening her tightbeam channel she called out, ‘Into cover, everyone! Whatever you can.’
‘Hollett!’ Sabu’ro gasped, pointing back down the slope.
The major’s two ever-present bodyguards were shoving him towards the base of the massive statue. He stumbled and nearly fell. Each one took a shoulder and threw Hollett forwards. He hit the rough stonework just below the last words of the inscription, and whirled around. The Valkyries were beginning a third pass. The two guards, still out in the open, were hit by a flurry of bolter shells that tore them limb from limb.
‘We can’t lose him,’ Shadowsun gasped, and before either Sabu’ro or Kou’to could object, she was rocketing across the grass in a bounding leap. Her adaptive camouflage tried its best to hide her, but as the gunships circled around once more, they spotted her. Lasers and heavy shells tore up the ground around her and made her shielding reverberate. Her shield drones whirled around her, putting themselves in harm’s way in order to preserve her life. First one, and then the other, exploded into metallic ribbons, their passing marked only by an extinguished icon on her interface collar. With her last few steps, she spread her arms wide and covered Hollett with the battlesuit’s bulk. Lasers pounded into her back, but the armour held firm. Sweat fell from her brow. Breathless, she met Hollett’s wide-eyed face. She snapped around to survey the skies.
The Valkyries were screeching upwards. Their wings wobbled and it seemed to Shadowsun that their pilots were on the verge of losing control. This manoeuvre was obviously sudden and unexpected for them, and in a flash, she understood why.
She glanced at her communications icon, and opened an unencrypted wideband channel. She raised her fusion blasters threateningly and as clearly as she could, shouted in the gue’la language, ‘Break off now, or I’ll destroy it!’
‘What are you doing?’ Hollett cried from behind her.
The aircraft soared up into the ashen sky, collected themselves, and began to orbit in a wide circle above the lake. Their torrent of fire ceased. Tense seconds passed until at last a voice came through the tau communicators. It might have easily belonged to a trained baritone, deep and soft and almost pleasing, but Shadowsun could feel the chilling malevolence lying just beneath the surface of it.
‘Move away from the statue,’ it said. ‘Now.’
‘To whom am I speaking?’ She replied.
The smooth voice ignored her question. ‘Move away from the statue,’ it repeated, ‘or I’ll open fire.’
She smirked. ‘And risk destroying the Emperor’s footprints,’ she chided. ‘I think not.’ Her tone became serious once more. ‘Answer my question.’
‘My name is Emmett Falkens, leader of the Dieprian Mountain Men. And you are?’
‘O’Shaserra.’
The voice on the radio repeated her name slowly, lasciviously playing over every syllable. It trilled the r’s in such a way as to make her physically ill. ‘Commander Sun Shadow, I believe. Or do my translational skills fail me?’
‘Shadowsun,’ she corrected. Her throat was suddenly very dry, and she feared that she no longer sounded threatening or authoritative.
‘I see,’ Falkens said smoothly. ‘This world does not belong to you, Shadowsun. You are trespassing. I take a dim view of that. Moreover, you killed many of my soldiers yesterday; fine boys who were simply defending their home from unwelcome intruders.’
‘And you murdered hundreds of auxiliaries when you destroyed my ship.’
‘Non-combatants,’ Falkens sniggered. ‘That’s rich.’
She swallowed hard. ‘You will clear the skies immediately and allow us to be on our way, or I will turn this abomination of a statue into molten slag.’
Falkens’ disrespectful laughter vanished. He considered the situation in silence. ‘I don’t entirely believe you,’ he said at last.
With a quick swipe, she burned a glowing slash across the inscription. The word ‘insight’ liquefied and ran to the ground in orange rivulets. She heard a commotion in the background, the Valkyrie pilots and a collection of other human passengers gasping and swearing.
‘My next shot destroys it all,’ she barked. Her voice was strong. She felt bolstered by the reaction of Falkens’s men.
The background expletives ceased. Falkens took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Finally he said, ‘All right, you win a temporary reprieve. We will meet again, Shadowsun. You may count on it.’
With that, the Valkyries banked and roared away to the south. Shadowsun watched them recede into the distance. Behind her, Hollett rose to his feet.
‘Mountain Men?’ she asked.
‘A double-edged regimental nickname.’
A gust of wind brought fresh smells of smoke and ash. The fire-storm was creeping closer.
‘You spoke true, Hollett-la. Your shas’o is formidable. He waited until we were out in the open and then attacked with a reach superior to ours. He understands mont’ka.’
‘What?’
She surveyed the lake shore. The bodies of nearly a dozen fire warriors lay scattered about. ‘The killing blow,’ she translated. ‘From here, which way is it to the communications relay?’
Hollett came out from behind her to stand by her side. He gestured towards the road. ‘Just follow that. It curves to the west for a bit, but swings back southward at the Long Drop.’
Shadowsun grunted. ‘Kou’to,’ she said switching back to an encrypted tightbeam, ‘We’re moving on. Record the names of the fallen, and then join me. We’ll be leaving on a course due south.’
‘Understood, commander.’
‘No, I told you,’ Hollett said with a shake of his head, ‘the road detours to the west first.’
‘We’ll not be following the road.’ Shadowsun locked eyes with Hollett. ‘Travel along a single, predictable path, hedged on both sides by dense cover? You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Hollett-la? To lead us into another
ambush?’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘It’s simply coincidence that we are attacked the moment we stepped into clear view, then? You had nothing to do with it, I suppose?’
‘I’ve been helping you this whole time!’
‘Which only proves how disloyal and untrustworthy you are! No, I will not listen to any of your advice anymore, thank you. If you suggest a thing, I will circumvent it and do the opposite. We will travel directly southward, through the cover of the trees.’
‘That would be a mistake.’ Hollett’s voice was deadly serious.
‘So says my enemy prisoner.’
Fire warriors began emerging from the tree line. Sabu’ro knelt by one of the fallen, and began typing information on his flex-screen while Kou’to looked on.
Hollett’s head bobbed in frustration more than agreement. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Fine. We go straight south. Why not? Obviously you have nothing better to live for.’
With that, he walked toward the water and sat down among a cluster of reeds. He snapped one off mid-stalk, and began to pluck brown, fluffy seeds from the top. He cupped them in his palm before blowing them out across the surface of the lake. He did not see the look of introspection that came over Shadowsun’s face.
South of the sacred lake, the land sloped downward. The forest lost none of its density however, despite the rockier ground. The roots of the trees, unable to plunge into deep soil, spread outwards in a thick, interwoven tangle. Shadowsun and Sabu’ro took the lead. Kou’to walked a few paces behind them with Hollett at his side. To their left and right, the remaining fire warriors picked their way through the gnarl of undergrowth. The going was tough and slow. The tau fought constantly to avoid slipping or falling, their hooves scrabbling to find purchase on the incline. Exhaustion was setting in for everyone.
‘If only we still had the drones,’ Sabu’ro lamented. ‘We would have a better idea of what lies ahead.’