by Scott Moon
The Rage, distracted by whatever interested the juvenile demon, was no longer chasing her. Is it too much to hope it forgets I’m here?
Her only chance was to find help before the Rage came at her again. She felt sorry for any poor bastard who drew its attention.
“Halt and identify.”
Rebecca stopped and put her hands up. She recognized the voice. “Major, where are your men?”
Silence.
She moved forward, looking for Major Mike Eagle and trying not to get shot. “Tell me this is part of the plan and everything is under control.”
Eagle grunted. “No, Lacroix. This is not part of the plan. I’m over here. Can’t move, so you need to come to me.”
She climbed the slope of sand to a crevasse between two rocks on the perimeter of the formation, listening to the Earth Fleet officer as she moved.
“The Winger wasn’t supposed to cast her net so wide. I hadn’t planned to find myself on Hellsbreach again. But you know, the more I think about it, I wonder if the Mazz Emperor tricked all of us.”
“What is wrong with you?” she asked. His head and shoulders came into view as she climbed. She thought he was holding a weapon in his lap but wasn’t aiming it at her.
“It is a good thing you came when you did,” Eagle said. “I don’t have a lot of time.”
Rebecca flinched when she saw his wounds. The FSPAA-IIA armor had sealed the stumps of his legs to stop the bleeding. He had other wounds that defied first aid. The Rage had been this way and left one of the best Earth Fleet troopers alive to die alone.
“The son-of-a-bitch took out my team. Ruined two of my ships. Slashed off my legs at the knees.” He spread his hands. “I swore I wouldn’t die on this planet.”
“From what I heard, a lot of people made the same oath,” Rebecca said.
Eagle stared into the sun as it climbed higher over the red desert. “It’s coming back, isn’t it?”
She nodded.
“Okay. Listen, Lacroix. I couldn’t make it to the Mech, but you’re here and I can’t think of anyone better to pilot it. Come over here and I will give you the codes.”
She hesitated.
“What am I going to do to you? My fucking legs are gone!”
Embarrassed, she knelt beside him and held his hand for several moments.
“Thanks.” He transmitted authorization codes to her FSPAA-IIA. “The Mech is hidden beneath the wreckage of the first ship. There are survivors from the previous campaign running about and I didn’t want them to steal it. They might find the airships, but there isn’t much of value in them, unless they are poachers.”
Rebecca looked toward the wreckage and scanned with her armor sensors until she detected the heat signature of a functional Mech unit. “Can I take down the Rage with this Mech?”
“Hell no. Nothing can stop that monster. I watched it jump after a heavily armored airship and drag it down like a toy. We should have killed it when we had the chance.”
Rebecca remembered seeing the Rage in Earth Fleet custody.
Eagle laughed. “If we could have killed it then. I put that thing on my ship, thinking it was beaten. What would have happened if the Mazz Emperor had ordered it to slash up the bulkheads?”
She turned away from the Earth Fleet officer as he rambled. Half listening, she moved toward the hidden Mech. Bit by bit, the beautiful machine revealed itself to her and it was like she was in love, or at the very least, lust like she had never known for an inanimate object. If the FSPAA-IIA was an advanced design, this new Mech was a machine of perfect violence.
The weapons barely showed from beneath the smooth armor. There was nothing to be targeted by an enemy. She could see where armor protected over-sized gears and hydraulics. She calculated how fast it could move and how much torque it could generate as Eagle screamed at her.
She turned back but made no move to go to him.
“Don’t leave me here!”
“What do you want me to do?” she asked.
He swallowed. “Put me out of my misery.”
“Why don’t you do it yourself?” Memories of Randal Dogface, Mikey-Danny, and the rest of her brigade burned away her compassion for the double-crossing officer.
“I can’t.”
She thought about the Rage and the other creatures of Hellsbreach. “Let me make sure the Mech works, then we’ll talk.”
“Okay,” he said. “Just don’t forget.”
“Are you going somewhere?” she asked.
“You know I’m not your bitch.”
“Huh. So that’s how it is.” She recovered the Mech, confirmed the codes, and drove it out from the wreckage like a triumphant hero about to save all of humankind.
Eagle screamed at her as she reached the top of the first sand dune.
“Sorry, Major. You still have a duty that needs doing. Try to draw the Rage down there. I will strike from above.”
“WHERE is my Rebecca?” the Rage growled as he stalked through the night with the subtlety of a blowtorch. “Come back to me. I warn you I am not nice when I am angry.”
Rebecca studied the Slomn-Reaper as it navigated the sand-filled maze of rocks. She worried that her plan might fail. The impact force she was about to generate should feel no different from jumping onto exposed bedrock, but she still worried the Rage would survive.
“I killed your Earth Fleet Major,” the Rage said. “You should not have run away from me. I want to make you a deal. Your life for the life of the betrayer.”
Rebecca moved nearer the edge, aware of the Mech’s weight and how the rock precipice groaned and trembled. Guilt washed through her despite her anger with Eagle. The man might not be to blame for this mess, but he had his part in the plot. Randal Dogface and Mikey-Danny were dead. All of her brigade was gone. Political intrigue killed them before the battles started.
Focus, she thought.
“You are making me angry,” the Rage said.
Then you will love this. She jumped, landing squarely on his shoulders. The force transmitted during the impact rattled her teeth and caused several parts of the rock maze to tumble. The Rage was driven face first into his feet, twisted and crushed to the red sand.
She should have anticipated the explosion. Like the Slomn that was part of the Rage’s genetic code, he was a creature of energy. Rebecca didn’t see the flash; she survived it and found herself looking at a smoking crater.
Something crawled out of that hole. She had a really bad feeling that the Rage wasn’t going to be so easy with her when they next met. It was time for her to find help.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
Droon’s Captors
DURING the night, William took the form of a Darguul. The huge monster of Hellsbreach looked tough but translucent since the shapeshifter didn’t have sufficient mass to pull off the charade. That was why he only tried it at night, or so he told Rickson.
“Everything is scarier at night.”
Rickson listened but kept his eyes on his work. He moved carefully as he followed three sets of human tracks. “They have transportation. I wish I knew why they don’t use it.”
“They need a pilot,” William said as he became an awkward-looking boy that was the son of Orlan.
Rickson felt like an idiot. “Okay, since you are so smart, what is in that box?”
“Droon,” William said.
Rickson didn’t know what to say but closed his mouth before sand filled it. “They caught Droon? Who could catch Droon?”
“I watched them for a while. They seem to know their way around this place,” William said.
Ogre growled and moved away from Rickson, which could only mean bad was about to happen. They had a rhythm and understanding that made them a good team — dog and shepherd against the world. He put space between himself and the dog, hoping that would at least make things difficult for whatever danger was about to accost them.
“What are you doing?” William asked.
“Get down. Make yourself in
visible,” Rickson said, meaning it as a figure of speech. He cursed when the boy lowered himself to the sand and vanished with the perfect camouflage only a shapeshifter could manage.
Ogre whined.
“Just do your best,” Rickson said, then flattened himself to the side of the dune. What seemed like nine hundred hours later, a group of fierce Reapers stalked through the night after Dog and his team. Ogre kept inching closer to the war party, ignoring Rickson’s hiss and whistle.
“Stay,” Rickson said. “Sit. You stupid mutt.”
There was a female Reaper leading the group, and while Rickson was certain he had seen a female before, this one was different. She was bigger and more sinuous. Her tail was longer, and she had spines thrusting up from the back of her neck to the base of her tail. They twitched and swayed with their own language.
Probably really seductive to Reaper males. Rickson swallowed the taste of bile, not wanting to consider how the monsters mated.
She looked in his direction.
He didn’t move.
He refused to breathe.
The eyes glowed like Droon’s but different somehow. Her big head cocked sideways several times as she tried to decide what she was looking at in the darkness, then she froze.
“She sees us. Get ready to run.”
“Okay,” William said.
The sound of his voice startled Rickson, who had only thought of Ogre until the invisible shapeshifter spoke. He held his breath. If the stare-down lasted much longer, he would gasp for air and ruin any chance of concealment.
A growl rumbled in Ogre’s throat. It was a real sound that an animal was supposed to make — not clicking or screeching or the atonal whistling sound of Hellsbreach night birds in the distance. Rickson loved and cherished the mutt’s growing anger, but it was the last thing he needed to hear. The dog edged closer to the top of the dune it was on until the next step would expose it to the Reaper hunting party. Stopping, moving, stopping again — the dog would get killed. Rickson backed up as slowly as a master sniper. Inch by inch he retreated, trying to bring the animal with him by his example.
The Reaper Queen snorted something foul, frothy, and luminescent from her nostrils, then moved after the shabby Earth Fleet veterans. The azure moonlight glinted on her spines and claws, but also on a belt that dangled human skulls. Twice she looked back and probably saw Rickson, but whatever she pursued must have been more important to her and her warriors.
“She wants Droon,” William said.
Rickson jumped to his feet. “When did you get so close to me!”
William pulled back. “I wasn’t that close. Were you scared?”
“I am always scared.”
“Really?”
Rickson nodded and moved higher on the sand dune to watch where the Reapers had gone. “It loses its effect after a while, but I still feel it. Hard to explain.”
William looked at his hands for a while. “At least I am not the only one. My father acted like he wasn’t scared, but I think maybe he was the most scared of all.”
“I doubt that. Orlan was a mean son-of-a-gun.”
William shrugged.
“I would like to get to that airship and fly out of here,” Rickson said.
“There is only one on Hellsbreach that can jump to safety without a wormhole,” William said.
“Where is it?” Rickson asked, barely hearing the answer as he wondered where he would go. Back to Crashdown? Without Laura or Kin, he didn’t stand a chance away from the planet of his childhood.
“If I take you to the jump ship, the Omega will capture you and hold you hostage against Kin’s good behavior. That’s all he wants with me, but I don’t think Kin would do much to save me at this point.”
“You don’t know him very well.” Rickson whistled quietly for Ogre and the animal came, violently shaking sand from his fur.
“Maybe we should find help first,” William said.
“Can I trust you?” Rickson asked.
“You can. I don’t know if you should.”
“Great.” Rickson dusted off the dog. “Let’s get to it, then. The sooner we find Kin and the others the better.”
“Maybe,” William said. “We have to follow the Reaper Queen for a while first, so be quiet.”
Night gave way to dawn as William led Rickson to the injured Winger. From a distance, it looked as though just another tangled warrior of the Ror-Rea with bright eyes, black wings, and a tangle of injured limbs had been slammed on the planet’s surface, but Rickson realized it was Ceana in his modified armor. He approached and discovered the champion was alive and glad to see them.
“Can you walk?”
Ceana stared straight up at the sky as he groaned. “I am only resting. Very soon I will fly into the shield wall of my enemy and cut them down.”
Rickson combined a shrug and a nod. “Well, you look busted up. It’s okay to take it easy. Don’t worry about a boy and his dog showing you up. I’m young and Ogre never gets tired.”
Ceana sat up and gripped his head with both hands. “I should not have taken the helmet off.”
“Why did you?” Rickson asked.
The Winger looked sideways. “I can’t believe you would ask such a question. With this face? How could I cover it with a bucket?”
Laughter felt better to Rickson than he imagined cold water would taste. Water! Why did I have to think about that?
“Who is the boy? He looks like the one who sits by the Mazz Emperor.”
“About that,” Rickson said. “We need to get you back on your feet before I explain everything.”
Ceana stood without his normal athletic quickness and took a long time to clear his head. Bandages in varying stages of distress covered his limbs. Two bound his head, narrowly allowing him to see out of his left eye.
“William tells me there is a group of Wingers and Mazz soldiers that have made a common cause and intend to go after the Omega. Yeah, I know that you don’t know who that is, but trust me, the Mazz want payback.”
“Did this Omega person offer serious offense to them?” Ceana asked.
“He pretended to be their Emperor.”
Ceana said something in the language of the Ror-Rea that Rickson didn’t understand.
An earthquake rumbled, causing Rickson to look down and then follow the visible tremor across the harsh landscape. He went from fascinated to alarmed, then checked to see if Ogre, William, and Ceana were still with him. The ground dropped several inches. Sand rose into the air for miles in every direction.
“What was that?”
Ogre barked. Ceana staggered around in a circle, cursing his armor with harsh Ror-Rea words. William moved closer and closer to Rickson, darting his gaze like a frightened animal.
When no one answered, Rickson stood straighter and shook his head. “I hate this planet already.”
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Dog Versus the Demons of Hellsbreach
DOG Rolston felt Jojo grab his arm and resisted the urge to break the weasel’s neck. I’m tired, hungry, and sick of your schemes. “When is this plan of yours going to work? We poisoned Kin, tracked him, and even captured a Reaper King. We have an airship that puts us in a better position here on Hellsbreach than we have been since the nuclear holocaust.”
“I don’t see the magic ship,” Dwarf said.
“Exactly,” Dog said.
“A ship needs a pilot,” Jojo said as he examined the sand for tracks.
Dog stared at him, thinking of a time when several rough recruits wanted to tape Jojo’s hands behind his back, gag him, and stuff him in a footlocker. The first problem was that it was a good way to get someone killed and go up on a court-martial for involuntary manslaughter. Since he knew what they were trying to do, he would have been part of the conspiracy.
And it seemed like a real dick thing to do to another recruit when they were all suffering under the wrath of the hellishly unfair drill sergeants and chow-hall petty officers. He hadn’t liked Jojo,
but once he brawled with three men nearly his size to defend the young man, he committed to the cause. That was where he had stepped up his fighting skills. Taking on multiple opponents almost every night taught him to think and sleep with one eye open. Things had been better once Dwarf joined in, but that hadn’t been until the end of first phase.
Dwarf approached from the high ground, angling down the side of the landscape so he was slightly above Dog. He squatted, looking Dog straight in the eyes.
A long pause. Hellsbreach in the background. The sound of a Reaper hunting party moving closer.
“Do you need a moment?” Dwarf asked, displeased, impatient, and slightly hopeful for something Dog could never identify — a revelation they were long-lost brothers perhaps.
“I was thinking about the early days.”
“Yeah.”
“Boot camp.”
“Hell, that’s way back. I know what you mean, though. There are times I wish I never tied on to Jojo and his schemes.”
Dog stared at Jojo as he rubbed sand between his fingers and examined it as though seeking answers. Once, he looked to see if Dwarf was watching the rest of the open area, then focused on the small man who always had one more scheme that kept them all alive. If there was a ship that could get them off Hellsbreach, then Jojo was the most likely person to know about it. If there was more to Kin’s orders during the invasion, then Jojo would know about that as well.
“Hunting party sounds like it’s closer,” Dog said without looking.
“It is. Probably the Solaa and her bully boys,” Dwarf said.
“Jojo!” Dog shouted. “Make a decision.”
Draining the sand slowly but steadily onto the desert, Jojo nodded and brushed his palms. “The new thing took Kin.”
Ice formed on Dog’s spine. He didn’t know what to call the giant fire-breathing monster. “Why are we just now seeing it after Kin shows up?”
“Because that’s typical for Kin. Everything goes sideways with him,” Dwarf said.
Jojo considered the question and the statement, saying nothing for a long moment. “We don’t have personnel to guard Droon’s cryo-chamber and the others. I think we should take the most important boxes and see if we can make it to the airship or a way station.”