BloodWind

by Charlotte Boyett-Compo

  "Like the old Ebola virus from the late nineties," suggested Dorrie.

  "Yes," the Director agreed. "It, too, was a hemorrhagic virus."

  "Can we safely conclude this horror won't repeat itself?" asked Amala.

  The Director held up the test tube containing the lethal virus. "I am going to destroy this as soon as the vaccine is developed." She stared with fascination at the innocuous-looking liquid. "I want to make sure this demonic product of Sejm's warped mind is never unleashed on the men of any world ever again!"

  THE PROPHETESS-Mother's hands were folded into the loose sleeves of her purple gown as she led her flock up the serpentine stairway of the Titaness. Twelve women in lavender silk robes followed silently in the Prophetess-Mother's wake. The flickering lights of lavender candles lit up the circular stairwell and cast long shadows on the gilded plaster walls.

  It was evening; the time for Vespers.

  The women were heading for the vertex of the obelisk upon which rested a hundred foot wide circular platform. Opened to the evening air, protected only by an intricate fretwork railing around the outer perimeter, the Chanting Dais was a focal point of more than two thousand blue-clad women of the Order of Oceania who were gathered in a circle around the Reflecting Pool far below, their faces lit by the shifting lights of torches set in high stanchions.

  Cyle Acet, the spiritual leader of these women, gained the platform just as the last melodic tone came from the Vespers Bell. She stood aside as her Court fanned out around the platform and took their places facing the statue of Tethys, The Mother. When everyone was in her assigned place, the Prophetess-Mother walked to the statue of their beloved Creatoress and knelt; the women on the platform, as well as those on the ground far below, knelt with her.

  "Oh, Majesty of the Multitude, Fruitful Mother of us all: Hear out prayer!" Cyle chanted.

  "Hear our prayer!" came the united response from the women.

  Sejm spoke the words almost absently as she stood high atop the pinnacle of their Order's power. She closed her eyes to the stirring of the brisk wind that whipped her robes around her ankles and breathed in the smell of frangipani borne on the air from the botanical gardens a mile away. She stood with her Sisters then turned with them to face the four arcs of the heavens, the wind pushing at their backs.

  The Prophetess-Mother lifted her arms to the evening sky. "Lead us from our misery, oh, Mother of us all!" she cried out.

  "Lead us!"

  "Teach us the pathways to peace and prosperity!"

  "Teach us!"

  "Grant us the fulfillment of our bodies and souls!"

  "Grant us!"

  "Grace us with the wisdom to rule our world with a just hand and a pure heart!"

  "Grace us!"

  "Protect us from the savagery of the male who would abuse us and enslave us; who would murder our Sisters with impunity and slay our offspring!"

  "Protect us!"

  "And give us your Majestic help to set right the wrong that was done to our Sisters on this very night so long ago!"

  "Help us!"

  Cyle Acet brought her arms down from the heavens to which she had cast her prayer and extended a hand to her Court. "May the Wind be with you," she said softly.

  Hael Sejm moved as one with her sisters as each woman reached into the pocket of her robe and withdrew a vial of pale blue liquid. Uncorking the vials, the women released the live bacterium into the wind that swept over Rysalia Prime.

  Chapter 25

  THERE WAS a noxious smell coming from the Reaper's cell as the group of five men made their way down the poorly lit corridor. Onar, already infuriated to find the guard absent from his post, drew a clean handkerchief from the pocket of his tunic and held it over his quivering nostrils.

  "Put Hein on report, Ensign," he ordered. "Sixty lashes for dereliction of duty."

  The four Interrogation Guards— ranged two in front, two behind Onar— felt a distinct uneasiness as they neared the prisoner's cell. It was an intricate part of their training: the interception of alarming currents floating through the ether around them. The implants buried deep within their brains were giving off danger signals. They looked at one another, delving the depths of each other's discomfort, then, almost in unison, their hands strayed to the phasers on their utility belts; they switched the settings to heavy stun.

  Onar came to an abrupt halt about four feet from the door when one of the Guards held out a barricading arm into which the old man walked. "What are you doing? Get out of my way, you imbecile!"

  "Your pardon, Lord Onar, but we are concerned," the Chief Guard answered. He nudged his chin toward the door and the three other men moved into defensive positions to either side of the cell opening. The Chief Guard unhooked a phospho light from his utility belt and thumbed on the switch.

  Onar stayed where he was as the greenish-yellow light bobbled at the threshold of the cell door. He trusted his guards; their psychic abilities were something he never questioned.

  At the Chief Guard's nod, the man on the far side of the door reached up to slap a hand at the door pad entry button. The door shushed back.

  Ensign Graz shifted the phospho light from his right hand to his left, then drew his phaser. So far, there had been no movement from the cell, no sound, and it was now obvious to all five men that something was very wrong. Graz pointed the light into the cell and nodded. His men raced in: one to either side of the door, one straight into the space between.

  "What the hell was that?" one man cursed. He had tripped and fallen, his hand sliding into something sticky and thick.

  Graz stepped through the door with his light and the beam fell on the thing over which his man had tripped. The Ensign could not stop himself from gagging any more than his Sergeant could keep from turning and puking up his morning meal when he found what he had landed in.

  "By the gods!" Onar heard a guard gasp then there were more sounds of retching.

  "Graz?" Onar questioned.

  "Don't you move!" a guard roared. "Don't you fucking move or I'll fry you, Cree!"

  Onar, more concerned that he would be denied the exquisite pleasure of hanging Kamerone Cree than with his own personal safety, rushed through the cell opening, but was brought up short by the horrific sight that met him.

  The missing guard's body was lying just beyond the opening; his head, trailing torn arteries and ragged chunks of flesh, was lying about two feet away. The eyes were gone, as were the ears, and the dead man's gaping mouth was an obscene hole where two rats played hide and seek.

  "Urghhhhhh!" Graz groaned, no longer able to keep the hot surge of vomit from erupting. The contents of his stomach splashed against the wall on which he leaned, his light still trained on what was left of another dead man's body.

  The other body— Onar thought it might well be Deon Inse— was propped against one wall, his head tilted impossibly flush with one shoulder. His glazed, milky-white eyes would stare forever at whatever horror they had last seen. Where his throat should have been, there was a ragged, gaping hole; the upper portion of spine was missing, allowing the head to recline at its grotesque angle. Also missing were his hands, snapped off at the forearms.

  Onar shuddered. He wasn't so much affected by the sights upon which he gazed as he was by the brute strength it had taken to rip Inse's hands from his body. "Where is Cree?" he asked.

  "He's there," Graz croaked, swinging an arm behind him to the dark shadows of the cell. He gagged, then convulsed as more bile left him.

  Slipping the phospho light from Graz's rigid grip, Onar swept it over the damp walls until it came to rest on the thing hunkered down in the corner of the far wall. For once in his life, Traye Onar was speechless and he took a step back.

  "Hungry, old man?" A throaty gurgle of laughter erupted from the Reaper. "Here, try this!"

  A yelp of disgust piped from the Justice as he leapt back from the grizzly offering that was thrown at his feet. He stared down at one of Inse's missing hands, stripped of its fl
esh all the way down to the bone on all but the ring finger where the Keeper's signet ring still banded the flesh.

  "Too lean?" Kamerone Cree chortled. "Try this one!"

  Inse's other arm— chunks of flesh chewed away— was flung at Onar's head.

  "God!" a guard breathed as the horrible missile hit him in the chest, and then plopped to the floor. The guard's eyes rolled up in his head and he slumped to the floor in a dead faint, his head hitting the stone with a meaty thud.

  Cree howled with laughter and the blood-curdling sound echoed through the nine by twelve cell, sending chills of terror through the other men. Slowly, he began to rise, his gaze riveted on Traye Onar.

  "G-Graz!" Onar screeched. "D-do something!"

  Graz armed the vomit from his mouth and turned. He stared at the Reaper who was on his feet, his lips skinned back from sharp, wicked fangs.

  "Graazzzzzz!"

  Still trying to swallow the bitter vetch lingering in his throat, Graz aimed his phaser and ordered his men to fire.

  The shrill tones of four phasers set on heavy stun pierced the space of the small room, nearly deafening those gathered inside. Cree was picked up by the quadruple blasts and flung back against the wall, his arms to either side of his body as though he were being crucified. He slid down the wall, and then fell to the floor. What would have killed a human man merely rendered the Reaper unconscious.

  KULLEN WAS the first off the ship, his long red hair blowing in the crisp wind. He sniffed the air, frowned at the heavy scent of lavender, and then turned to Feis Coure. "Do you smell that?"

  Coure lifted his head, inhaled. "Aye. Not an unpleasant scent, but very thick."

  Kahn came off The Sirocco behind its Captain. He stopped. "Merciful Alel," he whispered. "That must be the gas we're smelling."

  "But how?" Kullen growled.

  "My surrogate mother is here," Kahn replied, knowing it as surely as he stood in the deserted loading bay.

  Feis Coure put a hand on Kahn's shoulder. "If that is the case, perhaps Cree is safe."

  "If Dr. Dean was correct, the Retrieval crews and those men loyal to the Resistance were the only ones inoculated against the death virus," Kahn replied. "But does that mean the Tribunal and its guards are dead?" He shook his head. "We can't be sure."

  "Then we go on to the Interrogation Center," said Kullen.

  The Keepers and Shepherds preceded their six Reaper captains and Kahn. With phasers set to kill, they moved down the corrugated corridor into the main docking station, the hub from which eight docking bays projected. An eerie silence hung over the station and their footsteps rang out on the metal flooring.

  "Where the hell is everybody?" grumbled Kullen.

  "Smythian," Coure said quietly, pointing.

  Beyond the Ops counter, there were bodies lying scattered on the floor in pools of drying blood. From the agonized expressions on the dead men's faces, the passage from their world to the next had not been an easy one. The men counted twenty-nine corpses.

  "The gods be good to them," Tohre, the Reaper captain of The Chinook, sighed.

  Kahn looked away from the bodies, his face set, his fists clenched. The woman who had given him life was responsible for this mass atrocity. At that moment, he hated her more than he had ever hated anyone in his entire life and he vowed to find her if it was the last thing he ever did. Her and her vile partner, LeJong Kym.

  "They will go to the Titaness," Kullen stated, reading Kahn's mind just as the other Reapers had. "There is protection for them there."

  "There will never be protection for them," Tylan Kahn snapped.

  Tohre and Belial, the most superstitious of the Reapers, exchanged a look, but it was Belial who spoke. "These women are magi, Admiral. They can— "

  "Die just as other women can," Kamahl Gehdrin, the Captain of The Levanter, barked. He swept an arm around the room. "Look at this! Is this not to be avenged? Does no one pay for this obscenity?"

  "We didn't say that," Tohre put in. "But to attack the stronghold of the Multitude? That is folly, Kamahl!"

  "Stow the argument!" Kahn ordered. "We have more important matters at hand." He cast one final look at the dead, then turned resolutely away and headed for the transporter room.

  There were more bodies lying juxtaposed on the floor of the Ministry of Engineering. Unlike the docking bay where the smell of death had dissipated quickly with the opening of the air lock, the stench of blood was thick here and the Reapers growled, their generic hunger goading them.

  "Are any of you near Transition?" Kahn grated, his hard gaze shifting over the dark warriors.

  "By the gods, I hope not!" one of the Shepherds grimaced.

  "I think I speak for us all," Kullen stated. "It is safe for a few days more." He pointed at Belial. "He is close."

  Kahn nodded. "All right, then. Let's get the hell off this floating graveyard." He looked at one of the Keepers. "Wynth, isn't it?" At the Keeper's nod, the Admiral asked him to stay behind to operate the transporter. "Should there be the first sign of danger, get us out of there ASAP. Understood?"

  "Aye, sir!"

  Kahn looked around him. "How many of us are there?"

  "Thirty-two," Tohre replied.

  "We'll transport down in four groups then," Kahn suggested. He pointed at eight Keepers. "You will be First Team. Once down, move into position to secure the transport site."

  "We'll go next," Tohre put in, indicating Belial, Gehdrin and himself. "Just in case."

  "Kiel, you and Coure will follow Kullen and myself as fourth team," Kahn said, waiting for the first three Reapers to leave. He stepped onto the platform as soon as the beam came back then nodded at Wynth. "Let's do it, Ensign."

  By the time Kryn Kiel and Feis Coure transported down to Rysalia Prime's Fleet Ops center, the area had been secured and scouted. Hundreds of bodies— some lying on top of one another— littered Ops. The stench was nearly unbearable and the floors were sticky with congealing blood. The men had to wade through the gory mess to leave the Ops center for the doorway that would lead them to the outside.

  "Why don't we take the tram from Ops to the Tribunal Hall?" Tohre inquired, moving so that he was walking in pace with the Admiral.

  "I don't want to signal our coming, Tohre, just in case any Empire warriors are left standing," Kahn said.

  Kullen snorted as he swept his hawk-like gaze over the masses of bodies lying everywhere around them. "I don't believe we have to worry about that, Admiral."

  "Where are the women?" Belial queried. "I haven't seen the first gods-be-damned woman since we docked." He hunched his massive shoulders. "I don't like it." He glanced around. "I don't like it one gods-be-damned bit!"

  Kahn had to agree; the silence was uncanny and the absence of the women was beginning to concern him. He looked up at the cameras that were cosmetically hidden on trees and lamp posts and wondered if anyone was watching their approach.

  He didn't have long to wonder.

  As soon as the men moved onto the Boulevard of Tears, the wide thoroughfare that ringed the religious center of Tethys, the women began to filter out from the surrounding buildings. The verdigris gates of the center swung open and more women began to filter out, moving into position to line the cobblestone walkway that lead into the compound. The women were silent, their attention riveted on Kahn and his companions. Everywhere the men looked, there were women, standing five and six deep in the circle that was forming around them.

  Kiel looked behind them. "They have cut off any escape," he said softly.

  The men turned to find themselves hemmed in from behind, the women closing the cordon around them. Looking in every direction, they could see no way to escape the throng short of firing their phasers and even then there were far too many women. At full capacity, the phasers could take out no more than a fourth of the silently shuffling females.

  Tylan Kahn's mouth became dry. He felt the animosity— as he knew the Reapers did— that was coming off the women in waves. As he scanned
the crowd, he could see hate in many colors glaring back at him from eyes that were hard and brittle. He swallowed, knowing they had walked into a trap.

  "I don't think this is a welcoming committee," said Coure.

  "I will take as many of them with me as my belly will hold," Tohre announced. He despised females and took great pleasure in slaughtering them when the need arose. The only reason he was with the traitor Kahn and the Resistance was because of Cree. At the thought of the Prime Reaper, Tohre put out a hand and stopped Kahn. "What of Cree?"

  "If they have him, he's in as much danger as the rest of us," Kahn replied.

  "More so," Kullen corrected. "He is our leader."

  "I believe— " Kahn started to say, but cut himself off as a small, dark-haired woman appeared at the gates of the religious center. She stood there, her hands tucked into the voluminous sleeves of her purple robe, with her unfriendly gaze locked on Tylan Kahn.

  "The Prophetess-Mother," Tohre informed Kahn needlessly.

  "Stay here," Kahn said. "I'll see what she wants."

  "Our hides," muttered Kullen.

  Cyle Acet smiled slightly, her unfathomable attention shifting to Symthian Kullen. She held his glare for a moment, and then looked away, dismissing him. She focused on the Chief of Space Fleet Operations as he walked to within four feet of where she stood.

  "Lady," Kahn acknowledged. "I take it we are your prisoners."

  Cyle inclined her head. "Yes, Admiral, you are."

  "And what do you intend to do with us?"

  The Prophetess-Mother's smile was brutal. "We intend to execute you, Admiral." She removed one hand from her robe and pointed to her left. The women gathered there moved back, fanning out to form a gauntlet at the end of which was a platform. On the top of the platform, there was a scaffold.

  On the scaffold, a noose wrapped around his neck, stood Kamerone Cree, his hands tied behind his back.

  "As you can see," Cyle said, "your hero has been taken."