Second Strike

by Tim C. Taylor

  My right hook hit the first male in his orange-tipped snout. As he went down like a stuffed crocodile, I spun around and caught his friend in a roundhouse kick to the base of his jaw that left him gasping and clutching his throat.

  “Want some more?” I asked the two fallen amphibians. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I should have wrestled Clewie, because even taking on the both of you isn’t much sport.”

  I was just blowing off steam. Anyone reasonable would know that, but when the strength returned to the Littoranes, they sank into powerful crouches with tails raised high and threatening like a scorpion’s sting. They hissed and spat at me in challenge.

  I sucked in a deep breath. Why did I get myself into these situations? But I wasn’t unhappy about the prospect of a fight.

  Skittering claws announced another Littorane rushing in from the passageway to join the brawl, and I began cursing myself in earnest. I couldn’t take on three and win.

  The Sarge surfaced in my mind, as he sometimes did in tactical situations.

  You forget you have been promoted, he told me.

  Sarge, has your mind gone stale again?

  He laughed. I hadn’t heard that sound since he was alive. His was a very manly and reassuring sound. I never held with the idea of humans being officers, he said, but you’ve leapfrogged that and been promoted straight to godhood. A sex god of all things. You, Ndeki. Unbelievable!

  Back in the real world, I watched the third Littorane enter and instead of smacking my legs from under me, she took a fighting stance by my side.

  “I knew it,” said Clewie. “You only turned me down because you feared to hurt me. I may be young, Blessed Ndeki, and I am of the Head not the Tail, but I will prove to you that I have a true warrior spirit.”

  Before she finished explaining the depth of her crush on me, she was leaping, mouth open, at the throat of one opponent.

  Half a second later, I was flying at the other.

  — CHAPTER 53 —

  “I do not need to be of the Tail to understand that fighting breaks out between frustrated warriors who imagine they have been imprisoned in their barracks while battles are raging outside on the sea of war.”

  Schaek paused to give me his best glare across his desk. The Littorane managed to look threatening but he had the body posture of an alligator lying across a low bench, while I was kept standing. He lacked the height to glare properly at a human.

  When the silence stretched on, I dared to speak. “Is that it? Am I forgiven for brawling?”

  “Silence!” The Littorane elder paced around me. His feet tapping on the wooden floor of his office sounded comical, yet the heavy physical presence made me nervous.

  “No permanent damage was done,” he said. “Perhaps this was a useful discharge of dangerous pent-up energy.”

  “May I speak, sir?”

  “No! Your relationship with Clesselwed and her faction disturbs me deeply. You do realize she is infatuated with you?”

  “I had some inkling, sir.”

  Schaek slowed down, coming to a halt in front of me. “At least you’re not completely ignorant of our ways.”

  “I have done nothing to encourage her.”

  “Nothing deliberate. Yes, I believe you. But encourage you have. I said it disturbs me, and that is because I see divine inspiration behind this. I shudder to think where your presence amongst us may lead, but even one of my advanced years and standing can find myself sorely tested by the Goddess. There are parts to her song that are not easy to sing.”

  “May I make a suggestion, sir?”

  “That depends. Will you suggest leaving this compound to make a foolish gesture of defiance against your human enemies?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Then please tell me how I can solve the problem of K’Teene-Joshua Ndeki.”

  “I’m a team player, sir. I need to be with my team. Let me share quarters with my wife.”

  “But you see her every day.”

  “That’s not how it works for our species, sir.”

  Schaek stared up at me.

  He was relaxed. He was silent. He gave nothing away.

  A human would have answered yes or no, but Schaek did neither. After several minutes in which he gave no indication he’d even heard my words, he said something that didn’t seem connected at first. Typical alien. “I didn’t order you here to confuse you, nor to punish you. A message has been passed your way.”

  Schaek handed me an object. It was a scuffed black data wafer, the size of my fingernail. Anything could be on there.

  “My cyber specialists have been over it, and declare it to be clean. I believe you have a unique form of intimacy you share with your wife. Since this message is addressed to both of you, I suggest you use that special connection.”

  Schaek reached into a drawer and fished out a fat data cable a meter long. “If you swear there will be no sexual touching, no visual or oral inspection of each other’s body parts, then you may have half an hour of privacy with Sylk in my office.”

  “I swear it.”

  The Littorane looked at me without speaking. I don’t think he believed me, but he opened the door to his office. Silky was waiting behind.

  “Just…” said Schaek. “Just don’t.” He scuttled away.

  I held up the cable in one hand and the data wafer in the other. I didn’t need words: Silky understood. I lay back onto the Littorane equivalent of a sofa. It was an oval of blue and green fabric cells stitched together. I think it was meant to represent a pond, but it looked more like monster-scale frogspawn. It was soft and supportive, though. Silky lay across my chest and as soon as I had absorbed the data wafer into my body, she plugged herself into my brain.

  Yeah, that’s right. She lifted the flap of skin under my left ear and jacked right in.

  Theoretically, Silky and I shared enough plumbing compatibility to do the unsponsored horizontal dancing that gave Schaek the screaming fits, but that wasn’t a kind of intimacy we shared. All that work the geneticists and bio-engineers had done to standardize our mental input ports, combined with the natural empathy of the Kurlei species, meant that our special connection brought us so close that by comparison, the most fevered sex other people enjoyed was as immediate and intimate as corresponding via interstellar post.

  Silky and I didn’t use body parts: we connected via data cable.

  I felt a lurch in my gut, and then Silky and I were falling through the swirling mists of unreality until my butt hit something soft, and suddenly we were sitting on our apartment sofa in front of the unfurled, floor-to-ceiling viewscreen we used for entertainment feeds.

  Today’s showing was Rachel Silverberg peering into a camera in what I guessed was her own apartment. The fact that I had to guess confirmed that the wafer inside the neck of my real body only carried a dumb recording: I wasn’t experiencing a direct impression of Silverberg’s memories, which was just as well because she hadn’t high opinions of either of us.

  She scowled at us through the camera. Really, it was as if she were in the room with us.

  “If we live through this, I might come around to thinking I was wrong about you.”

  “If she wants to join our gang,” I said to Silky, “I’ll tell her no.”

  Silverberg brushed away her stray fringe from her eyes, allowing the dim, yellow-tinged light to better expose the puffy black folds under her fatigue-ridden eyes. Fates, she was a mess!

  “Don’t bet on it, though. I’m more likely to arrest your ass and leave you to rot.” She sighed. “But that’s for afterwards. I think there’s been a power struggle. Some of the rumors you’ve probably heard about CDF mutinies are true, but we’re marching to Philamon Dutch’s agenda, and the Levelers weren’t ready for this. The mayor is tightening his grip. Even Captain K’Zoh-Zhan has disappeared, replaced by Dutch’s people. The net is closing in on me as well as you. They’ve taken my badge and my gun. I’m under house arrest. If you see this, I guess I made it out. You should do the sa
me. Get out while you can. Good luck.”

  “Listen to her,” I told Silky, but she shushed me.

  “Silverberg hasn’t finished.”

  I looked back at the screen. The Earther woman looked like she was trying to swallow down an acid and crushed-stone cocktail as she built up to say something profound. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “Was that it?” I shouted. “I don’t give a frakk about her apology. We need to get out. Hell, I must be mad but I like these crazy Littoranes. I don’t want to put them in danger.”

  Silky’s slender hands balled into fists. “Do you think I do?” She unclenched. “I will not have this argument again. We obey orders and stay here. Nothing’s changed.”

  “My sources say we have until tomorrow night,” continued Silverberg. “Then it’ll be an indefinite curfew and executions in the street.”

  The recording ended abruptly, but Silky and I were still linked. We’d only just begun our argument.

  Silverberg’s warning was the last we’d get. I tried to get Silky to see reason, to convince her we needed to go, now, but the most I could win out of her was that she would reconsider when my mind had returned to a calm state.

  With our time in Schaek’s office nearly up, Silky pulled the plug, and I fell back into my physical body to find she’d propped herself up over me, her face staring down at mine. “You will report to me twice a day,” she told me, “and I will put some calm into you whether you like it or not. That is an order. Starting right now.”

  “Roger that, Section Leader.” After about a virtual hour of arguing in the accelerated time of the mind-link, that seemed a more practical response than pointing out what an idiot she was being. “Now, get a frakking move on if you’re going to bring out those disgusting alien tentacles of yours and make my mind dance to your alien tune. We have only five minutes before Schaek comes back.”

  “I can’t,” she snapped. “You have to relax first, you ugly, goat-loving, sub-normal baboon.”

  I tried. I really did, but my ghosts wouldn’t let me. None of them trusted Silky fully. Sanaa would never easily relinquish her dominance over my mind, even temporarily; the Sarge had sworn to be forever vigilant against the moment when Silky said she would strike me down, and Bahati blew hot and cold over my newest wife, but recently had mostly wanted to take control of my flesh so she could experience rubbing it against Silky’s.

  I managed to unwind my muscles, but only because I’d been trained in that relentlessly when I was a novice. But I could not manage the same with my mind. How could I? This was no time to relax.

  Silky was wrong. The mayor’s grip on the city was tightening hour by hour. If we didn’t act soon, the mayor would act for us.

  ——

  There was, at least, one advantage of being separated from Silky: she couldn’t perform her usual trick of knowing what I was going to do before I did.

  That night I engineered a meeting with Uncle Schaek.

  “Time is nearly up, Honored Uncle. You’ve been brave and bold, but Silky and I have to go and now. If we don’t, then we will bring a world of trouble over your heads.”

  “I forbid you to leave.”

  “What? I’m trying to help you.”

  He whipped his tail up in warning. “Trust to the Goddess. You are a singer in Her song. You must not abandon your part. It is not your place to do so.”

  Quickly realizing that arguing with the big fish was a waste of time, I slunk out of his office, cursing the crazy Littoranes and their stupid religion that made them even crazier.

  I was so absorbed in my irritation that I fell over the figure who had been listening outside the door.

  “Goddess’s Song, my ass,” said Clesselwed. “What a load of crap.”

  “Not a believer?”

  “I believe the Goddess cherishes those who help themselves. Stay quiet, Ndeki, and perform calmness. I shall spring you out tomorrow night. We shall leave the city via the sewers. Be ready. Both of you.”

  She hurried away, probably under the delusion that to organize our flight from Port Zahir meant she had the more difficult task.

  She did not.

  I had to persuade Silky to leave. And I had until tomorrow night to do so.

  — CHAPTER 54 —

  Our fate, it seemed, would wait no longer.

  I was woken by the sound of shouted orders, of heavy booted feet running into position. The penetrating rumble of gravitic motors shook the building.

  I looked out the window and saw immediately that the CDF had locked us in a ring of steel.

  Tanks. Heavy weapons. Armored infantry. Discipline, training, and numbers.

  This wasn’t looking good.

  Boots thundered up the steps to the top floor of the compound, seeking an elevated firing position. By the time they got there, running out through the inner courtyard would be suicide, but that was my only exit route.

  My instincts screamed at me to go down fighting, but I owed the K’Teene to give them as little trouble as possible. Fight or yield? I trembled in the grip of these two conflicting drives.

  And what about Silky?

  Something caught my eye. What the hell? I steadied myself against the windowsill and took a closer look at one of the CDF fighters.

  She was a slight figure, drowned in the flak armor designed for someone more my build. Human, though. Although she carried an aura of confidence and authority, she didn’t fit into this picture. While all around her was slick purposefulness as the CDF unit moved to efficiently secure the compound, she stood in the open as if waiting for something to happen. Such as being shot at. Clearly, she was not a soldier.

  Despite the cheek pieces of her helmet, I recognized the permanent scowl etched on her face by her disapproval of the inadequacies of the citizens of Port Zahir.

  That was Silverberg out there. What the hell was she doing with the CDF?

  Noises came my way from the corridor. I whirled to face them, but it was Clesselwed who appeared, breathless and carrying a hunting rifle.

  “I’ve come to get you out,” she said.

  I looked outside to the Earther woman, and then back to the Littorane girl.

  Clewie followed my attention, stood and took aim at Silverberg.

  “No,” I told her, and stroked her head the way she liked to stroke mine. When she lowered her aim, I rubbed harder. “Everything’s okay,” I said softly. “Trust me. I’m not in danger.”

  She dropped her torso, purred, and then laid flat. I took my hand away and grabbed at her fallen rifle, which was half-propped against the wall. By the time I’d safed it, Clewie had lifted her tail at the base. Damn! I was right. This head rubbing had been a sex thing all along.

  I glanced out the window and suddenly saw the CDF deployment in a new light. “The soldiers aren’t here to capture us,” I told the sex-crazed alien. “They’re positioned to stop people coming in.”

  Clewie sprang back onto all fours. “Why?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. But I think we’re about to find out.”

  ——

  Five minutes later, Silverberg, Silky and I were having a fresh cup of tea and a disgusting seaweed biscuit in Uncle Schaek’s chambers. The Head of the K’Teene had not only insisted on being there with us, but that Silverberg had to be welcomed as a person of importance with a Littorane tea ceremony.

  It was all very civilized and extremely slow.

  In truth, I was certain Schaek was rattling through the bare bones of the ceremony at breakneck pace, but it wasn’t fast enough for me. I waited until I’d forced down half my biscuit before I asked Schaek through gritted teeth, “Is the ritual of hospitality over?”

  “It is,” he replied, but before I could question Silverberg, he beat me to it. “What the frakk is going on?” he shouted at the police officer. “You’re meant to be washed up, human. How did you get a company of CDF in your pocket, stomping all over our territory?”

  “They’re here because I ordered them to prote
ct you while we talk,” said Silverberg. “I had a surprise this morning. Turns out I’m now a Fed.” She looked disgusted by the prospect. “You’re looking at an FIA agent.” Adding when Schaek didn’t seem to understand, “The Federal Investigation Agency. Federal super cops.”

  “How?” asked Silky.

  “The situation is changing rapidly,” said Silverberg. “Have you seen the news?”

  “Of course,” said Schaek.

  “No,” I said.

  The Littorane brought up a 360 view of the news feeds to form above his desk. The international feeds were leading with the same story. Due to the assassination of the two previous governors, and reports of civil unrest, the province of Hy-Nguay was now under the direct control of the distant federal government. A replacement governor had been appointed as the federal representative until order had been restored, a Legion officer called Brigadier Hamidou. It was martial law in all but name. Regrettable, but better than the alternatives.

  Unless, that was, you saw the local news media, which Schaek now switched to. In their version of events, the constitutional rights of Hy-Nguay citizens were being ground into the dirt by a distant federal tyranny. “Defy this evil,” exhorted a Littorane news anchor dressed in plain gray. “Most of you were born slaves, shackled for a thousand generations in thrall to faraway masters. The Goddess showed us freedom. Defy this false soldier who demands your obedience. Defy Brigadier Hamidou peacefully in the name of the Goddess, and together we shall prevail.”

  Schaek cleared his throat loudly. “I assume you understand that this is exceptionally bad.”

  “Just beginning to,” I replied. “How loyal are your new friends?” I asked Silverberg.

  She paled. “Loyalty is fluid. CDF General, Uitrendir-Lass, is flying in to take charge of all CDF forces in the province. He’s ordered local CDF commanders to keep order where necessary but to refuse to take sides. The major commanding the company securing your compound would like nothing better than to slice his blades through Mayor Dutch’s ribs, but he’s already going out on a limb to act as my escort. He’ll keep with us as long as he can, but expects to be ordered back to barracks before nightfall. The only good news is that he expects the pro-mayor CDF units to also yield to the general’s authority.”