Second Strike

by Tim C. Taylor

  I yelled, “For freedom!” and rushed out into the street.

  ——

  Silky was bent over with hands on knees – that psychic blast must have drained her – but the shock of my noisy arrival at the mob’s rear won her a few seconds to recover. That was all she needed. Even before I could swing my fist at the closest thug, she had transformed into a whirlwind of deadly motion that lashed out kicks, sweeps, strikes, and punches to temples, hamstrings and knees, never committing herself to one position long enough for her opponents to pin her. If they did, their weight and numbers would rapidly overwhelm her.

  Our enemies were armed with knuckle dusters, knives, and metal bars. I went for the only person I saw armed with a gun, grabbing his hair and smashing his face down onto my fist. I grabbed the pistol while he was stunned, but before I could do anything else a second man came at me and knocked the gun from me. I swept his legs from under him and punched him on the way down.

  With the mob under attack from each flank, the Littoranes sprang to life. The first I knew of it was the cries of the humans pinning them down as the aliens flung them high into the air. The aliens emerged bloodied but defiant.

  I whooped. This was a crazy, chaotic melee and I was good at brawling. Just so long as the enemy weren’t armed…

  But then I saw another one with a pistol. He was aiming at Silky who was grappling with the woman wearing the heavy rings. The armed man was waiting to get a clear shot.

  I ignored the maelstrom around me and took careful aim at his head with my own pistol. I tried but could not pull the trigger. Maybe it was for the best, but I was gonna have to do something real soon about my messed-up brain. My mind might be broken, but the pistol was well made with a good heft. I threw it at the armed man and it cracked open his skull. He staggered for a second before one of the Littoranes swept its tail around in a wide arc and smacked into the back of his knees with the distinctive soft snap of crunching bone. I didn’t think he would ever walk again.

  The fighting reached a natural lull as each side squared off to take their measure of the other. We had waded into a mob of about forty, and half of them were out of action. Plus we had both the guns now.

  But we were tired and hurt, and the picket line scaring off the traffic were now reinforcing the mob.

  “What was your unit?” asked the larger Littorane.

  It took me a moment to realize the alien was talking to me. I regarded it a moment. Like many of its kind, its clothing was a harness to which were attached interlocking decorative scales made from the kind of rubbery plastic you’d expect in a shower room. His clothing had ripped away in the assault to reveal a lattice of old scars. This old warrior had seen plenty of action.

  “801st Assault,” I replied.

  “You mean the Mulehead Marines?”

  “Uh-huh,” I agreed, astonished.

  The mob was hurling threats and taunts our way, psyching themselves up to attack. I ignored them. An alien who knew about the Muleheads… that was far more interesting.

  “You Muleheads were our flank guards at the Third Battle of Khallini.”

  I remembered the boarding action against the enemy flagship like it was yesterday. My unit had guarded the breach points while the Littoranes carried the assault. “You were in the 43rd Serenity Brigade?” I asked.

  “I was. In the Marine Engineers. I wish you to know my name, Marine. I am K’Teene Schaek. The junior is K’Teene Schaek-Luelmas. It is an honor to meet you.”

  “Will you two elderly soldiers stop your love-in?” growled Silky.

  “I concur with the alien,” said Luelmas.

  “You with her?” asked Schaek.

  “Married.”

  “Tasty. Interesting potential.”

  What the…? I had no idea how to interpret that comment, but didn’t have time to care because the enemy we faced had remembered how to be more than a mob, and was sending out feelers to encircle us.

  “Shoot them,” said Silky and Luelmas, looking pointedly at the pistols Schaek and I carried.

  “No. We must resist killing,” said Schaek. “These humans are fearful. Did you not listen to them? They attack us in revenge for Littorane attacks on their own people.”

  “But who would attack humans?” queried Luelmas.

  “Individuals who follow an agenda,” said Schaek.

  “I’m with the big fish,” I said. “Whoever’s behind this, let’s not gift them martyrs. Break bones but do not kill.”

  “Very well,” said Silky, “but hand me your pistol, NJ.”

  “We have allowed them to encircle us,” observed Luelmas.

  “No.” I grinned as I surrendered the weapon I could not fire. “We’ve allowed them to detach their best fighters from the main group. Our escape route is straight through the middle of what’s left.”

  “I’m with the ugly ape-man,” said Schaek. “On my mark. Three… Two… One…”

  “For freedom!” we all shouted at the top of our lungs.

  With the Legion’s battle cry tasting sweet on our lips, we rushed the center of the mob.

  — CHAPTER 27 —

  Battered, angry, but fired up with the desire to regroup and fight back against the mayor and everything the frakking city had been throwing at me, when Samuel moved out of a side street to intercept our party three blocks away from the Slaughterhouse, I would have smashed his head in if Silky hadn’t interposed her body and her sense of calm.

  “Easy, NJ,” said Samuel. “The boss was worried… Your friendly cop said you should’ve been back hours ago. He sent me ahead to meet you.”

  He regarded my two unwanted Littorane companions, who had cost me my evidence. “Are they friends?” he asked, sounding like he’d already made up his mind on that point.

  “K’Teene Schaek, and K’Teene Schaek-Luelmas are our guests,” Silky answered, “until I say it’s safe for them to return home.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Samuel didn’t make an effort to sound gracious. He was an associate, a lower Revenge Squad pay grade than agent, who was currently assigned to Section ‘B’. A data analyst and keyboard wrangler, or some such.

  Samuel was highly principled, and his principle was to distrust aliens.

  So I was surprised when he offered to help our Littoranes. “You’re hurt. Do you require medical assistance?”

  The aliens politely declined, but tagged along as Samuel escorted us back, explaining along the way that Section ‘C’ had been formally dispersed and most of the other two sections and HQ staff had also been ordered by Caccamo to go to ground.

  I didn’t like this. Revenge Squad was being far too passive.

  Caccamo was waiting for us beyond the threshold of the Slaughterhouse’s main doorway with our Littorane agents: Qyn and Siyuk. The way he hung back inside made me think new hidden security measures were in place.

  He gave me a wink, but greeted the Littoranes first, bowing deeply from the waist. The Littoranes pivoted their torsos up to the centaur position, and then bowed in turn.

  “I offer sanctuary, should you need it,” Caccamo told them. “You are guests here. Not prisoners, nor supplicants. Agents Qyn and Siyuk, please make our guests welcome.”

  Qyn sniffed at the two new Littoranes before leading them to where Siyuk waited at the front desk. There they formed a slowly rotating circle of torsos and tails, unbroken except for the occasional lifted head as one would glance from time to time in our direction.

  “It’s good to see you safe,” Caccamo told Silky and me, slapping us affectionately on our backs, an act that brought memories of how easily the Old Man could knock me out.

  “It looks adorable,” he observed as we watched the circling Littoranes. “Like bounding puppies, aren’t they? It isn’t, though. They’re working out a hierarchy – how they relate to each other. If we interrupt them now, they would kill each other.” The affability vanished and he asked, “Did you tell them anything?”

  “No.”

  “Good boy. Neit
her did we. Come, we need to talk.”

  — CHAPTER 28 —

  “We think our arrests were intended as a warning to us to cooperate,” said Caccamo in the privacy of Interrogation Room #2. “They kept us locked up overnight and then let us go. I don’t know why you were selected for special treatment, but I’m sure this is about more than the mayor’s ship. He’s gotten a partial state of emergency but I think he wants to push all the way to martial law, and he’s seizing the levers of authority and control to get what he wants. We’re not the illegal vigilantes he makes out, you know. We have had the right of due cause retribution extended for five-year rolling periods since setting up in Hy-Nguay. Not anymore. The mayor’s pushed through a municipal decree stripping us of that authority. We’re now regular civilians, but that hasn’t stopped the police paying a visit every few hours since you were arrested. Day and night. They’ve sealed our armory and taken away our toys.” Caccamo gave me a piercing look. “They took away everything they could find.”

  Maybe Caccamo was right about the mayor’s priorities regarding Revenge Squad, but I wasn’t convinced about Silky and myself. I thought the mayor wanted to play with us and then kill us. But I wanted to hear Caccamo’s viewpoint, so I shut up.

  “What are our orders?” Silky asked.

  “I’m dispersing the team,” he told us. “After this briefing, return to your apartment. Silverberg had you two formally released without charge for now. I do have jobs for you, but the most important task is to keep your heads down.”

  “Negative,” I said. “They’ll come for us soon whatever we do. We need to do something. The mayor–”

  “Is a problem we need outside help to deal with.”

  “He’s a sick bastard. And I have evidence…” I growled in the back of my throat. “Had evidence.”

  “Go on.”

  I told Caccamo about the torture, Silverberg’s help, and what rescuing the Littoranes had cost us. Everything.

  “You might have uncovered the key, NJ. For now, leave it alone. I will deal with this. There are plenty of other matters that need our attention. Not least our comrade, Sel-en-Sek. He’s gotten himself mixed up with very bad people.”

  “Sel-en-Sek? You want to distract me with whatever is bugging the old sailor?”

  “I’m doing more than it appears,” Caccamo replied in a warning voice. “Trust me.”

  “I admire your subtlety, sir. But lacking it, I need to do something more tangible.”

  “What exactly?” asked Silky. “We can’t solve every problem with our fists.”

  I hated when she was right, but I was damned if I would sit and wait for the grown-ups to sort out my problems. Then I remembered: we weren’t the only ones in the drent. “Sir, could you tell me Lieutenant Rachel Silverberg’s current location?”

  Caccamo considered me for a moment. “How could I possibly know that?”

  “Because you know everything about everybody. And anything you don’t know you can find out.”

  I watched his eyes roll up in his head. They rolled back with an answer. “As of this moment Rachel’s enjoying a pot of mint and tarngrip tea at her favorite coffeehouse.”

  “What? All this going on, and she’s having a cup of tea?”

  “I suspect it may be connected with the conversation she had with her superior immediately before she set out.” Caccamo cleared his throat and then adopted an impression of a synthetic translator voice. “Get out of my chodding station house and don’t bother returning unless you can remember you are no longer in charge. I believe those were the words spoken by Captain K’Zoh-Zhan immediately before Rachel’s departure.”

  “I promise I’ll be as quiet as the stellar wind,” I assured the boss. “No nonsense. No nuisance. I just want a word with her.”

  Caccamo folded his arms and regarded the two of us. He didn’t look convinced. “Don’t annoy her. Come back here when you’re done so I can brief you on Sel-en-Sek.” He glanced at a camera image on the wall showing the amphibians circling the front desk. “Hopefully, they’ll be done,” he said wistfully. “I flew an X-boat fighter for two hundred years, but just looking at them makes me dizzy.”

  ——

  Two blocks out from the Slaughterhouse, Silky grabbed the lapels of my jacket and swung me into the doorway of a boarded-up general store, pushing herself against my chest as if wanting a romantic embrace.

  She didn’t.

  “Talk!” she said. “How the bloody hell did Caccamo know the policewoman’s location?”

  “One – you still need work on your cursing, and two–” I paused. The old war hero had entrusted me with the most important secret I’d ever had, but I could sense my ghosts urging me to save time and tell. Silky and I had walked in each other’s minds. We could have no secrets, and Caccamo must have known that. The more I thought about it, the more I decided that it was only the sudden circumstances that had prevented Caccamo from including Silky when he’d told me his secrets about the Cabal.

  I studied my wife who was widening her black eyes appealingly, but trying to resemble a cute baby animal wasn’t necessary to get me to talk.

  “Silky… I learned something recently. A secret that I swore not to reveal. It’s dangerous to…” Hell, this was like picking my way through a minefield. “It’s dangerous to the… ah, person who, ah…”

  Damn Silky’s hide. She said nothing, just looked at me expectantly and trusting out of those big black alien eyes.

  I leaned close against Silky, cupping my hands to provide a tunnel of privacy for my words. “Caccamo is a LISTer.”

  She nodded. “Figures.”

  My eyes bulged. “That’s the biggest secret of my life – the biggest secret any of us will ever hear in any of our lives – and that’s how you react?”

  She looked up at me, frowning, and I could feel the contriteness coming off her in waves. “I’m sorry. What was the correct human way to react?”

  I laughed. “How the frakk would I know? C’mon, let’s find our favorite blackmailer.”

  — CHAPTER 29 —

  Kaduna’s Café was the best place to enjoy a drink and a pastry in the whole of H’Sien Dock. It didn’t have the expensive wooden furnishing and liveried staff of the commercial district, nor did it have the cosmopolitan buzz of the hottest downtown coffeehouses. What it had instead was peace and calm – that is, if you could shut out the noise of the gaibolga gulls and the constant buzz of the harbor.

  Besides, it was the only place in the dock we could get pastries. From time to time, it had suited the three of us to use it for a quiet talk. But it wasn’t quiet enough for my liking today – not after the mayor had set his sights so clearly on me. I had to at least try to recruit Silverberg to our cause, and for that I needed to find somewhere free from listening ears.

  “Why do you hesitate?” asked Silky. “I wish to communicate with her.”

  Her was sitting on the patio with a pot of tea and a cream horn, pretending she hadn’t seen us. Her green Port Zahir PD uniform was pristine, and her gold-trimmed peaked hat showed her reduced status as a lieutenant, but was still worn with immaculate precision.

  “It’s like taming an animal,” I explained to Silky, plenty loud enough to be overheard. “You have to get them used to your scent first.”

  I edged to within arm’s length of the lieutenant, and hovered like a festering irritation. Annoying the hell out of a potential ally you’re trying to recruit might seem a strange tactic, but as soon as she’d made it clear she didn’t want to see us, I convinced myself that it would be best all round in the long run if I annoyed her. Admittedly, I enjoyed it too. Silverberg had sprung us from jail and saved our lives – true – but she’d been blackmailing us since the day we arrived in Port Zahir. She deserved it.

  She managed to get halfway through her tea before she said with a sigh, “I told you to get out of town.”

  “I can’t run away,” I replied.

  “Not even for her?” She narrowed her eye
s at Silky, and for the first time I saw that she didn’t dislike us evenly.

  “Why do you hate Silky so much?”

  “I have my reasons.”

  “Because you’re an intolerant veck who hates non-humans?”

  She sniffed the air. “Do I detect a whiff of hypocrisy? Listen, McCall, you tell yourself whatever you need to make yourself go away. I thought I did the right thing in breaking you out. Don’t prove me wrong.”

  I sat down next to her, Silky holding back because she had no idea what I was up to. “Frennan told me to remember my duty,” I said. “Well, I’m remembering it now. I don’t understand politics. I’m not even convinced whether Revenge Squad are the good guys, although I know for a fact that Caccamo is. But I do know that the mayor needs to be stopped. We’re not running. And I’m asking for your help.”

  “Stirring speech, NJ. All those syllables… very impressive. Now, fuck off!”

  “I know you feel the same way we do, Lieutenant. I know the situation is grim, but only if we team up will we give ourselves the best chance for turning futile gestures into effective resistance. Let’s talk.”

  “Not listening,” she growled into her teacup. “Can’t help you. Won’t help you. Don’t care.”

  “You do care,” I snapped. “That’s why I like you. You’re just as frakked-up as I am in your own way, but in there –” I pointed a finger at her breast – “a heart still beats warm. Still cares. That’s why you’re gonna help.”

  She sighed. “No, that’s why I helped you. Ask your alien woman to explain the concept of tenses.”

  I grinned, feeling that, for once, I’d scored a point in our verbal sparring. “But, Rachel, I never said you cared about me.”

  “Hey!” I called to a waiter cleaning the outside tables.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Have you eyes in your head?”

  He blinked before setting down his cloth and glaring at me. “Perhaps sir would care to choose a different frakking phrasing?”

  “No, we’re good,” I said cheerfully. “Watch this.” I flicked the peak of Silverberg’s hat, which sailed up into the air, where a breeze propelled it over the decking rail and down out of sight to the dockside below.