A group of our soldiers formed a line and commenced firing. Many tigers were torn apart as they flew toward the line. Other Berrillians crouched and returned fire. It looked like they used phase-plasma rifles. Whatever they fired, they were extremely effective. Our soldiers fell quickly.
Maybe ten big cats hit the squad, and it exploded like billiard balls. Berrillians seized Kaljaxians and ripped into them. Comrades tried to stab or beat off the beasts that were mauling their friends, but they had little effect and soon became the next victims. I fired from a short distance away and was able to pick the Berrillians off gradually. By the time the ten cats were dead, forty Kaljaxians were in pieces, mutilated beyond recognition.
A second wave of tigers entered the clearing and charged at the membrane. They were quickly directed to the breach. I ran to cover the opening. By the time I made it there and began shooting, five cats had already burst through. They split up into two squads and charged in different directions. Our forces were swarming in my direction, so the group of three Berrillians were quickly surrounded. Our troops were able to take cover and shoot at the Berrillians. Two cats returned fire. The other charged on all fours with a deafening war cry. He was lost in bloodlust. He was the first of the intruders to die and didn't take anyone with him. The remaining two lay prone and kept firing for a few minutes before they were killed. Man, they were tough! Luckily they weren't such great marksmen. They wounded several soldiers, but none too seriously.
The other group was heading toward…the command center. I couldn't leave my post until I was certain no more tigers were coming. There was still a steady stream of enraged cats rushing at the breach. I used the membrane as a shield. I could fire a few shots then pull back behind it. Even though they must have known the shield was there, they continued to shoot at me when I was fully covered. I was too inviting a target to ignore.
I held my rail gun in my left hand so I could also use my laser finger. It was a lot more satisfying to fry the bastards!
Several of our soldiers charged after the two Berrillians, though they were considerably slower than the bounding cats. Between assaults on my position, I scanned the ops center. I could see defensive firing. Good. I hoped the tigers would never make it there, but they did. I saw one disappear into a door, while the other burst into a bloody ball, the victim of several simultaneous rail shots. I closed my eye briefly and said a prayer.
Then another group of Berrillians charged me, and I was back in action. Plasma shots rained into the membrane, making a hateful sound. A group of twenty pulled together tightly and rushed toward the breach. They continued to fire on my position, trying to pin me back as they advanced. I curved my laser finger around the edge of the membrane and kept them under constant fire.
When the lead cats died, the ones behind held up their bodies as a shield. That slowed their charge, but the corpses made excellent shields. As the ball of Berrillians reached my position, those left alive hurled the bodies at me. Some rushed under the gruesome projectiles, others vaulted over them. Once they were in the clear, I shot with both hands and fragmented their assault. Three lived to hit the breach. One slammed into the membrane and flew backward, landing in a bloody pile.
One grabbed the rifle with a mighty paw and tried to rip it from my hands. The other rounded the opening and slammed into my chest. A human would have lost the gun and been crushed to the ground. I wasn't a normal human. I parlayed the one cat's ferocious bite on the rifle to throw him into the membrane's edge. It sliced him in two.
The cat trying to drive me down ignored his comrade's fate. He pounded the dirt with his hind legs and pulled me toward his teeth with a powerful bear hug. I plowed the butt of my hand into his neck and was able to hold him inches away from my head. He snapped and snarled with abandon. Saliva and hot breath spewed into my face. His fury allowed him to slowly arch over me, but my strength held. In his language, I snapped, “You're the ugliest kitten I've ever seen.”
That broke his focus infinitesimally. My kick to his groin hefted him overhead. He landed hard on his back but snapped back up instantly. He lunged at me, insane with rage. I snatched his head with both hands and crushed down on his thin mane. That brought howls of protest, and he swiped at me with one paw. He ripped my shirt to shreds in one pass, then raised his paw and aimed deeper. Before he could strike, I pushed his head down and my knee up. I landed my blow first. His body went limp in my hands, and I dropped him.
I quickly confirmed no more Berrillians were heading to the breach. I signaled to a group of approaching soldiers to come cover my position as I sprinted toward Command Central. I heard screams and rifle shots that got louder as I approached, then abruptly stopped. I hit the doorway and scanned the room. Toño was hunched over someone on the floor. JJ and Tao brandished rifles at the cat crumpled on its side nearby. The Berrillian wasn't moving. I arrived at Toño's side and pushed him to see who he was tending to.
It was Sapale, or rather, what was left of her. The Berrillian had nearly decapitated her, and she was missing a leg. My heart stopped beating, and my lungs stopped breathing. I couldn't move, speak, or feel. In that moment, my passion for life extinguished, and my unquenchable rage ignited. I shoved Toño to the floor and lifted my brood's-mate in my arms. I supported her head so it didn't flop backward as I pressed her to my chest. Toño said something. I have no idea what. It didn't matter. JJ tugged at my shoulder. I don't know why. It didn't matter. I held Sapale, my eternal love, and I began to cry.
Doc told me years ago that robots were incapable of tears, that there was no pathway for tears to flow. He claimed he'd never written a subroutine for crying. It didn't exist. He was wrong. Androids could cry. A mindless, vengeful evil had travelled generations to come to this planet and take from me that which I cared for the most. It was as painful as it was impossible. But it was more real than anything I'd ever experienced, and I could not make it right.
I don't know how long I stood there crying with Sapale in my arms. Maybe a few minutes, maybe a few days. The next memory I had was that of a stern, dispassionate Tao forcing Sapale's body from my grip while admonishing me to behave like a soldier of war. If I had any strength left in my body, I'd have killed him with my bare hands. But I didn't. Instead, I crumpled to the floor and covered my face with my bloody hands.
Days after the attack, JJ came to me in the vortex. I had been sitting in front of the view screen staring at nothing. It was turned off. He said it was time to bury his mother. He held a hand out to me and guided me out the portal. As we walked, he said he knew Sapale had loved me with an endless passion. He missed her too. He always would. But he reminded me that his mother was tough—tougher than tough. She would demand of us all that we force ourselves to move forward. She’d be disappointed if we faltered, even for a moment’s grief. He was right, of course.
The burial traditions of Kaljax were complex. I'd never paid much attention to them before, and I didn't then. I stood numbly by my family and endured whatever they were doing. We buried my Sapale in the center of the village. A mighty monument would, in time, be erected on the site. Her final resting place would eventually become the center of a proud, just empire. Over the centuries, Kaljax would be all but forgotten. Azsuram would be the new home of its people, its culture, and its collective memory. It would all live because of my Sapale. The legacy of my pure love's vision and force of will.
Sapale's life meant so much to so many. The countless songs and tales of her worth never began to do her life's work justice. She would become, in the fullness of time, god-like in her legend. But to me, she would always remain my irascible, beautiful, love-rich wife. I've always felt, secretly in my heart, that she was more than I deserved. But that she cherished me as much as I did her has reassured me eternally that getting more than I deserved was all right. It was a compliment I would take with grace and humility and one I would never release from my memories.
TWENTY-EIGHT
I was lost in a dense fog the next week or so. I i
nteracted with no one. The work of digging out and beginning the repairs on the colony had begun. My attention was not required, so I was left to myself. Bone-numbing grief, it turns out, is extra hard for an android. It wasn’t eased by the need for sleep, food, or drink. I was cursed with many more hours a day to pine away and to seethe. I hadn’t the slightest idea where the Berrillian home world was. But in that period, an obsession was born in my heart. I needed to find and destroy it. I replayed a dozen different methods I would use to exterminate them as a species. But mostly I mourned the loss of the most important person I'd ever had in my life.
Finally, Toño came to me one day to see how I was doing. He brought a pot of coffee, two mugs, and a sympathetic ear. I told him several times I didn't want to, need to, or intend to talk with him, but he just sat there, sipping his drink and waiting until I was ready to open up. Occasionally, he'd mention some trivial aspect of the rebuild or pass along greetings from someone, but mostly he waited for me to speak.
“I could have done more,” came as an unannounced whisper from my lips.
Toño continued to stare into his mug. “You did more than anyone, and you did your best. You could not have done more.” His tone was kind and loving, and it carried no judgment.
“She died. If I'd done more, maybe she wouldn't have.”
“She died defending her people. Helping them was what she lived for. It was all-out war, and we were very lucky to have suffered so few losses.”
“You saw what that animal did to her.” I stopped, momentarily unable to continue. “She didn't deserve to die like that.”
“Do you know what happened, there at the end?”
I shrugged.
“The Berrillian rushed into the room and pounced on a junior officer unfortunate enough to be standing by the door. They rolled a few times on the floor, then the cat pinned him to the ground and began mauling him. Sapale grabbed a chair and charged over without hesitation. She splintered the metal chair on its back, knocking him off his victim. It took a second to recover, and then he rose up on two feet and grabbed her. She jammed the back of the chair into his throat, but in the end, he was too powerful. The beast swatted the chair away just as Tao got off his first shot.
“He hit him in the arm, causing the Berrillian to arch backward. Instead of returning fire or jumping for cover, the damn cat drove down toward Sapale. He bit her leg and swung her around in the air like a rag doll. Tao hit it twice in the chest, and he dropped her. She was lying on the floor underneath the tiger, losing blood rapidly. What do you think she did? She grabbed its throat and tried to choke it to death.” Toño shook his head slowly, marveling. “Just before JJ shot it in the head, the creature raked his big paw across her face and neck. Then it roared and fell to the ground. Tao and JJ rushed over and filled it with rail balls, but it was too late. That's when you came in.”
“Really, she tried to choke a five-hundred-pound animal with a neck the size of a tree stump?” He nodded and smiled in response. “Yeah, that would be my girl. Bet she surprised the hell out of the Berrillian.” We both chuckled at that. It was good to laugh, if only a little.
“So, you see,” Toño said, “she sacrificed herself to save that other fellow. And you know what?”
I shook my head.
“The man survived! He's missing an ear and several fingers and has required two operations so far, but he'll be fairly normal before all's said and done.” He patted my shoulder. “She gave her life to save his. You should be proud, not sad. You know she'd have wanted you to.”
“I know,” was all I could manage just then. Finally, I was able to say, “I miss her, Doc. I'm going to miss her forever.”
“Me too, my friend. It's not going to be easy for either of us, this immortality thing. Perhaps we'll get used to it, perhaps not.”
I raised my mug. “Here's to never getting used to it!”
He clinked his mug to mine. “To never losing our humanity!”
We sat there in silence for a few moments. “So,” I could finally ask, “who the hell was our guardian angel?”
He shook his head. “No idea, whatsoever. He never responded to any of our hails. After he'd taken out the last landing craft, he went straight for the flagship you disabled and destroyed it.” He shrugged. “Then he was gone. Puff!”
“Could he have been Deavoriath? Did he fold space?”
“Wrath is certain he wasn't Deavoriath. No, he didn't fold space or form a warp bubble. He simply accelerated away and disappeared. Like I said,” he threw his closed fists open in my direction, “puff.”
“Why bother to save our bacon and not even take credit? Who'd do that?”
“Someone who wishes to remain anonymous.”
“But why? It makes no sense. He either hated the Berrillians or intended to help us. Either way, you'd think he'd of at least said hi. If he’s our good Samaritan, he must like us. Why leave someone you like with unanswered questions?”
Toño shrugged.
“If he was out to get the Berrillians, why not enlist our future help? We'd be serving a common cause.”
“I can't say. I agree with your reasoning, but that doesn't alter the fact that he clearly wants to remain shrouded in mystery.”
“Like I need another mystery,” I said.
“At least you're alive to worry. If that ship hadn't intervened, there's no way a single one of us would have survived. We were outnumbered and outclassed.”
“Damn mystery,” I mumbled. “So how bad were our losses?”
He angled his head. “Bad,” he tilted his head to the other side, “but we'll recover. We lost thirty-eight soldiers and about a hundred were wounded. The ground is so unstable we'll have to rebuild a lot of structures pretty far away from where they stood. But, power, water, and sewage are all functional. Everyone I've spoken with is remarkably upbeat. I think that in six months, we'll be mostly recovered.”
“How about my family?”
“Aside from Sapale, none were injured. The kids are pretty shaken, but they're Kaljaxian. They'll be okay. They're a tough lot, as you know.”
I rolled my eyes. “Tell me about it!”
We laughed again. It felt good.
“There's a council meeting tomorrow, if you're up for it,” Toño said. “If not, everyone will understand.”
“No,” I replied, “I'll be there. If I slack too much, Sapale will rise from the dead just to kick my ass.”
“I don't doubt it,” he said with a guffaw. “Well, I must be going. I need to check on the wounded and start repairing the equipment that was damaged.” He looked at me intently. “Will you be okay?”
I rapped him on the shoulder. “I'm going to be fine. I'll stop by later. Maybe we can walk the area, see what we're looking at in terms of damage.”
“Sounds good. Stop by anytime.” He slugged back the last of his coffee and set the mug down. He reached over and shook my hand. “If you need anything, I'll be insulted if you don't ask.”
“I'll keep you posted, my old friend.”
After he left, I had Al pull up whatever data we had on our mystery savior. Wow. I mean, I say wow a lot I guess, but wow! What a ship, what an attack. The ship was a flying pencil, as if built specifically for that type of assault. It was fifteen meters long and three meters across. There wasn’t room enough for more than one crewman, assuming she had a crew. She must have had a crew because the targeting was so precise. Then again, there was a whole hell of a lot more in the universe I didn't know than I did know.
From any significant distance, it was nearly impossible to tell if a ship had a shield membrane. Even then, you had to know specifically what you were looking for to find it. That said, I didn't detect one. It almost had to have one, given how and what it did. The vortexes had unbelievably tough hulls, but even those might have yielded under the type of force involved in ultra-high-speed ramming and the resultant massive explosion. Not to get too technical, but a membrane also absorbed the momentum in collisions. A ship's
hull could be as hard as you’d like, but the momentum of the impact could scramble the occupants of the ship really good. The argument against a membrane being used was that, at least up until then, we couldn't figure out how to maneuver a shielded craft that precisely. To withstand the force, the membrane had to be completely covering the ship. If it was, the engines wouldn't be able to steer the craft.
Still, I was the only one who seemed to have the technology to generate membranes. Well, Uto, the guy who gave me the know-how did. Wait, Uto…
No, forget him. He'd claimed responsibility for gifting me the membrane tech. He'd have done the same with the assist. Or would he? He sort of had to meet me to hand over the membrane instructions. But he didn't need to take a long, warm shower with me to blow my enemies out of the sky. Crap, more riddles and loose ends!
It could still have been the Deavoriath helping us. I knew they voted not to, but that Kymee fellow seemed pretty sympathetic toward us. He was their science genius, so he could have devised some radical new toys and been dying to use them. Maybe he sped away and then folded space? He maybe liked the rush of massive g-force on acceleration? Pretty convoluted reasoning involved in that explanation.
A race like the Berrillians had to have a string of archenemies from one end of the galaxy to the other. Any one of a long list of civilizations could have been really pissed that they were returning and aimed to terminate the threat. They owed us no explanation and required no thank-you from us because they were acting in their own interest. Maybe.
Still, why would they wait until the last minute to attack? This theoretical civilization could have attacked the Berrillians at any juncture. Why wait? Why would anyone wait, actually? Even Uto? If he was our champion, why wait until we were badly hurt to eliminate the Berrillians? Made no sense. He should have cut them to pieces when they first appeared on our sensors. Why wait? Did he want us to suffer?
The Forever Fight: The Forever Series Book 3 Page 21