Death was literally staring him in the face.
With a cry of surprise, the Kreelan suddenly flew backward through the wheat, her body carried by the volley of flechettes fired from Reza’s rifle. The reflexive spasm by his right index finger on the weapon’s trigger had been the narrow margin between his life and her death.
Shaking like a leaf from the adrenaline surge, he quickly forged onward through the wheat, his heart hammering in his ears as his mind relived the brief battle a thousand times in the blink of an eye. He looked about wildly for more warriors, but with visibility of less than a meter, it would be another chance encounter, with the odds stacked well against him. Fate would not favor him a second time.
Unexpectedly, he burst onto an open quad. While he desperately wanted to cross over the clear ground instead of struggling through the wheat, he knew that to be seen was to be killed.
But the sounds of pursuit that suddenly arose above the wind and the whispers of the stalks as they caressed one another made his decision. There was no going back the way he had come. He pounded across the field at a full run, glancing back over his shoulder for signs of the enemy. The sound of his footsteps and his labored breathing thundered in his ears, as if his senses became more sensitive the further he went across the quad.
“No!” Reza shouted as the Kreelan ship suddenly shot overhead to hover directly above him. He raised the rifle and fired, but the flechettes merely ricocheted harmlessly, not even scratching the vessel’s hull. He stumbled, dropping the rifle, then began again to run toward the safety of the wheat, which beckoned to him from the far side of the quad.
I might make it, he thought hopefully, as his legs pumped and his chest heaved. He bolted the last few meters to the waiting wall of golden wheat.
A Kreelan warrior, crouching unseen, suddenly rose up in front of him. The weapon she held looked incredibly huge. She squeezed the trigger.
For a moment Reza went blind and his ears rang from the buzz of a thousand angry wasps. But then he suddenly felt as if something soft and warm had embraced him, driving the air out of his lungs and the strength from his limbs. He crashed through the first few rows of wheat to land, unconscious, at the warrior’s feet.
***
“These animals have all met the standards you set forth, priestess,” the young warrior declared, her head lowered to honor her superior.
Tesh-Dar ran her eyes across the hundreds of human children arrayed like so much cordwood near the base of the shuttle, their bodies stunned and then drugged into a stasis sleep for the long journey ahead. Knowing – and caring – little about human physiological development, Tesh-Dar had set height as the main criterion for selection, as it was a convenient reference, easily measured. Any child taller than about one and a half meters was not acceptable. And therefore would die.
“Carry on, child,” she ordered, returning her subordinate’s salute and watching as they went about loading the human pups for transport to the great ship waiting in orbit. Across the planet, thousands of other human young were being collected for transport back home. Back to the Empire.
The sound of an approaching scout flyer drew her attention as it settled into a hover nearby. The clawed landing gear hummed from recesses in its belly and locked as it settled to the dusty patch of ground that served as their main landing zone.
Several warriors descended from the gangway before it had finished opening, bearing two bodies between them. The first, a small human, was deposited unceremoniously at the edge of the enormous pile of humans that would be left behind to die when Tesh-Dar’s party took their leave of this world. Hundreds of them lay there, many long since crushed to death by the inert weight of those on top. Few, except for the adults who had been killed out of hand, bore any blast or penetration wounds. After being stunned and measured, they were simply discarded like trash.
The second body, Tesh-Dar saw, was that of a warrior, her chest armor riddled with the tiny holes made by the humans’ flechette weapons.
Curious, nodding toward the dead warrior, Tesh-Dar asked, “What happened to her?”
The lead warrior, an elder as old as Tesh-Dar but far less accomplished, replied, “A young human killed her as he fled through the vegetation.” She flicked a glance at the tiny human body, her cobalt blue face passionless. “Kumar-Etana was not fast enough, it would seem.” She turned back to Tesh-Dar. “We stunned the animal, but it was not within your parameters, priestess.”
Tesh-Dar nodded for the warriors to continue their duties, her mind idly pondering the likelihood of such a situation. She had noted the size of the human when they threw it onto the open grave, and it was far too small to have been trained as a warrior. Yet, it had killed Kumar-Etana, who had never been noted for sloth in combat, in what Tesh-Dar had implicitly understood to be a fair match.
Curious, Tesh-Dar allowed herself to be drawn to the mountain of dying humanity. Pitiful cries rose from the heaps of flesh as the effects of the stun wore off, for those humans who would not be leaving with her were not given the stasis drug.
Prodding one or two of the bodies with her sandal, she stepped to where her warriors had left the small human who had killed Kumar-Etana. It lay face-down, its frail form wrapped in clothing that was torn and battered. She hooked one powerful foot under the animal’s left side and lifted, flipping the body over onto its back.
“The scar,” she gasped as she saw the creature’s face. Kneeling next to the human, she touched the scar over its left eye, wondering if it was possible for another human to have such a mark.
But, no, she decided, after studying the pup’s face. The hair was darker perhaps than it had been that night, and the scar had lengthened as the skin stretched with growth. But on this creature she could clearly see the face of the pup she had nearly killed those few cycles ago. The one whose scar she shared.
Her mind probed into the human’s spirit, examining the ethereal thing that lived within the shell of flesh as she might an insect pinned to a tree. It did not sing as did her spirit, but there was no denying that it was the same human.
“Much have you grown, little one,” she said to the still form, fingering the human knife that still rested in her waist belt, a treasured curio she valued for the memories it brought to her. “And, perhaps, much may you yet learn.”
Effortlessly, she picked Reza up in her arms and carried him to the healers who were preparing the other human children for transport. “This one shall go, as well,” she ordered, setting him down next to a little African girl whose skin was as black as Tesh-Dar’s armor. “Ensure that he survives.”
“As you command, priestess,” the healer replied as she continued her tasks. Tesh-Dar watched as the boy was drugged into stasis for his voyage to the Empire. As the healer worked, stripping everything from the pale body down to the skin before injecting the necessary potions, Tesh-Dar saw her remove a tiny object from around the boy’s neck, tossing it toward the pile of human debris that would be left behind.
Effortlessly, the priestess snatched it from the air and held it up to the yellow light of the planet’s sun. Its shape and manufacture intrigued her. It must have been of great importance, she thought, for the young animal to be wearing it around its neck.
“Curious,” she murmured, glancing at the child, who was now being wrapped in amoebic tissue as if he were being rolled into the tight embrace of a pulsating, living rug. It would keep him alive for the long voyage ahead.
With a final nod to the healer, Tesh-Dar put the small cross of shiny metal into the pouch in which she collected her trophies before heading toward the shuttle’s landing ramp to await the time of their departure.
***
The sun had not yet set when the Kreelans lifted from Hallmark with their human cargo. Once back aboard the battlecruiser Tarikh-Da, Tesh-Dar resumed her place on the bridge and began the final stage of their visit into human space.
The human survivors – those who were conscious – left behind on Hallmark rejoiced
as the last of the Kreelan shuttles left for orbit. But their revelry was to be short-lived.
Seventy-seven black spheres, each about five meters across, were dispatched at precisely timed intervals from special bays arrayed along the Tarikh-Da’s flanks. One after another, sometimes in pairs, they flitted away like melancholy balloons, seeking their orbital nodes with unerring accuracy to form a shell around Hallmark.
The last was launched from the battlecruiser only moments before the ship broke orbit for its jump point. As the Tarikh-Da sped away, a signal from the ship initiated the detonation sequence of the seventy-seven orbital weapons. In moments, Hallmark’s atmosphere was transformed into a cloud of churning plasma, and the planet’s surface temperature soared to that of molten lead.
Four hours later, when the lone Kreelan warship jumped into hyperspace, Hallmark had been scoured clean of all signs of life.
***
Nicole’s flight bag was so full that she had to sit on it to get it to close. She had found half a dozen books for Reza and some chocolates for Wiley, and somehow had stuffed them all into the bag, along with her clothes.
Having won the battle with the flight bag, she appraised herself in the mirror. Trim and dashing in her dress black Navy uniform, her epaulettes carried the single thin stripe of cadet ensign, and her boots shone like mirrors. Even though the trip itself would take nearly a week – a third of her leave – she wanted to look her best for them from the start. For her friends. For her family. She got along well with the other cadets (even the upperclassmen) and the instructors, but Reza and Wiley were her only family.
She had half an hour to catch the shuttle that would take her to the orbiting freighter and on to the first leg of her trip to Hallmark. Hefting her bag, she had just started down the hallway toward the elevators when a voice caught her from behind.
“Carré!”
She turned to find three of her friends rushing toward her. They all looked as if they had just lost a close relative.
“Oui, mes amis?” she asked as an unpleasant tingle ran up her spine.
“Nicole,” Seana, her roommate asked quietly, “have you heard?”
“Heard what?” Nicole asked, her throat constricting with foreboding. The three of them looked at one another in a manner Nicole had seen often enough. It was the unspoken vote as to who would break the bad news.
“What is it?” Nicole demanded.
Seana looked at her two companions and knew she was the one who had to do this. She was Nicole’s roommate and the best friend Nicole had here. But this was a duty she did not want to perform. Nicole always talked about the orphan boy on Hallmark, referring to him as her brother (although Seana knew that Nicole was deeply in love with him), and doted on the old man – a Marine hero, she had said – who was her surrogate father. Sometimes all the talking about the boy annoyed Seana, who could not wait to get away from her own four brothers. But she could not deny the obvious love the girl felt for the boy and the old Marine, and she had come to find that listening to Nicole made her think more about how much she missed her own family.
And now this.
“Nicole,” Seana said, taking a step closer to her friend and gently putting a hand on her shoulder. “A report came in across the op’s desk. A week ago, something happened… on Hallmark.” She paused, unsure as to how to continue, her mouth working as if she were chewing something unpalatable, indigestible.
“Dammit, Seana,” Nicole lashed out, her heart thundering with dread, “what is it?”
“The Kreelans attacked Hallmark, Nicole,” Seana said softly, ready to break down in tears herself. Then she went on with the brutal truth, knowing that Nicole would not tolerate any of the candy coating so many others needed to take with their dose of tragedy. “They used something – some kind of new weapon, or so the rumor goes – that burned away the planet’s entire atmosphere. The surface…” She shook her head. “There was nothing left.” Her voice had fallen to a whisper as she watched the blood drain from Nicole’s face.
José finished it for her. “There were no survivors, and no record of what happened during the attack, except some debris from the orbital defense network. That’s the only reason they’re sure it was an attack instead of some bizarre natural disaster or something.”
“That’s enough, José,” Seana told him. “I think she gets the picture.”
Nicole did not hear her. The flight bag that she had been clutching so tightly in eager anticipation of her departure fell to the floor with an empty thud, the precious books and chocolates now dead weight without destination or purpose. The image of Hallmark boiled into her mind, the planet’s atmosphere burning away, incinerating the surface as it blew off into space. Tens of thousands of human bodies swirled in its wake.
“Non,” Nicole murmured, shaking her head slowly as first Reza’s, and then Wiley’s face swam out of the maelstrom, the flesh burning away until there was nothing left but a charred husk, the jaws locked open in an unending scream of agony. “Mon Dieu, pourquoi?” she whispered, her hands pressed tightly to her eyes to shut out the living nightmare. The only family left to her had been torn away like a tender sapling in a brutal whirlwind, spinning away into darkness. “Why? Oh, God, why?”
But God had no answer. He stood silently by as she collapsed into her friends’ waiting arms.
Five
Reza awoke with a blinding headache, waves of pain pounding inside his head in a symphony of agony. He was not sure how long he had been floating on the edge of consciousness, but bit by bit he came to the conclusion that he was still in one piece, alive.
He tried to open his eyes, but his eyelids were solidly gummed shut. With a seemingly Herculean effort, he managed to pop them open with a sickeningly loud crackle. Mercifully, the light in this place, wherever he was, was turned down low, the features around him lost in shadow, blurry. He felt some sort of bedding underneath him, hairy and thick like an animal hide, its faint musky odor reminding him of the real leather coat he had seen Mary Acherlein sometimes wear to the library before she went out on a date.
As his hands probed his surroundings, he incidentally discovered that he was completely naked. Any other time he might have tried to be modest. Right now, however, he was still in too much pain, and the resurging memories of the attack on Hallmark filled him with dread.
He sensed movement to his right. Much to his regret, he tried to turn his head. The resulting typhoon of pain threatened to render him unconscious again, but after a moment it began to subside. He stifled a groan and tried to keep himself from recoiling as the Kreelan who had been silently sitting next to him applied a cool, moist cloth to his forehead.
“Who are you?” he murmured at the blurred shadow with blue skin, the sound of his voice reverberating painfully in his skull. His forehead tingled from whatever the cloth had been soaked in. The Kreelan held it there for a few moments, watching him with the inscrutable expression of a reptile.
She reached to her side to pick up a wide-brim cup holding a foul smelling concoction. She lifted his head with one hand, careful not to scratch his skin with her talon-like nails, and put the cup to his lips. He vainly tried to turn his head away. The smell of the cup’s contents forced him to the brink of vomiting.
“Drink.” The alien’s command, spoken in Standard with the husky voice of one used to being obeyed, caught Reza completely by surprise. He involuntarily gaped at her, never having heard of a Kreelan speaking in a human language, and she used the opportunity to toss the oily liquid down his throat. That left him with no choice but to swallow it quickly or drown. He decided to swallow, as his benefactress looked in no mood to try and resuscitate him.
“Ugh!” he croaked, trying with all his might to keep from throwing up. The alien pinned him with one silver-nailed hand and forced him to drink the dregs that remained in the cup. “Oh, God,” he gasped, “what is that?”
Not surprisingly, she did not respond. Instead, she gave him a cup of water to chase down the
offensive brew. After he had drunk it all, she released him, taking the cloth and wiping his face and neck free of the liquid that had spilled from his lips. She threw the cloth into a small earthen bowl and returned her gaze to Reza.
“What is your name?” she asked in eerily accented Standard, her white fangs glistening as she spoke.
Reza saw that her skin was as smooth and sleek as the handmade porcelain he had seen in a spaceport shop once, with lips that were a very deep red and lustrous as satin in the soft light. Her silver-flecked cat’s eyes, perfectly spaced above a sleek nose that probably was much more adept at its job than his, were clear and bright, taking in everything in an instant. The talons on the ends of her fingers were short and silver, and stood in marked contrast to the gold-trimmed ebony neckband with its hanging pendants that was a trademark feature of every Kreelan ever observed by humanity. Had she not been the enemy, she might have been considered beautiful.
“Reza,” he said, choking back the pain in his head. “Reza Gard.”
She gave a quiet huff at the information. “This,” she held up the cup that had held the horrible liquid, “will relieve your pain and allow you to begin soon.”
“Begin what?” he asked. He looked around again. “Where am I? And who are you?”
His warden narrowed her eyes. Then she reached forward with one hand and flicked a single finger against Reza’s still-throbbing skull. He gasped at the pain.
“Animals do not ask questions,” she growled. But after a moment she went on – whether in answer to Reza’s questions or as part of a prepared speech, he did not know – in near perfect Standard, spoken slowly as if Reza were a complete imbecile. “I am Esah-Zhurah.” She considered him silently for a moment. “You, and those like you, were chosen by the Empress to come among Her Children, that you may be shown the Way, so that She may know if animals such as you have a soul.”
For a moment, Reza was simply shocked, but then her words gave rise to anger. “Of course I have a soul, you–”
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