The Stars Like Ice (The Star Sojourner Series Book 8)

by Jean Kilczer

  We pushed the overturned jeep back onto its wheels, helped the wounded man inside, and followed the Rebels. With all the dust raised, I couldn't see the battle, or hovairs, just blue flashes of hot beams.

  We drove back to the medical tent where Bat and I helped the wounded man inside and laid him on a cot. He was moaning, only semi-conscious, and sweating.

  Bat inspected the remaining medical equipment and nodded to us. “I've still got my black bag.”

  Chancey and I went outside. The dust was settling. For better or for worse, the battle was over.

  “I hope Joe's all right.” I wiped dust from my face.

  “I'll lay odds on that,” Chancey said. “The boss man's too tough and too crusty to die.”

  “And too savvy. I hope Huff's OK, too.”

  Chancey shrugged. “He wouldn't know enough to lay down if he was dead.” He nodded toward the pass. “Let's go take a look. I got a feeling our tags beat the Cultists' asses or they'd be after us again.”

  We took a jeep and headed toward the pass, staying off the road, and behind trees, just in case.

  But the Cultists were bunched together on the battlefield, prisoners now, sitting or standing, their weapons gone. Rebels and mercs surrounded them with rifles. I found out later that Sarge's mercs had raced down from the central and northern passes, and with Ara Saun's forces, they had overrun and decimated the Cultists, who finally surrendered.

  From the looks of the remaining Cultists, perhaps five hundred of them, not only the battle, but the war was over.

  The field was strewn with the dead and the wounded. Mercs and Rebels walked solemnly among them, searching for the living on both sides, and loading them onto gurneys.

  “It's over, Chance.” I sat on the ground. “It's over.”

  “Sure is.” He sat next to me. “But I got to tell you, we were seconds away from that geth state you talk about.”

  “Hey!” I pointed to where Joe was talking to Big Sarge.

  “Told you,” Chancey grinned, “can't kill the boss man with a machete.”

  I got up as a Slattie ran toward us. “Huff!”

  “Watch out!” Chancey got to his feet. “He's going to knock you on your ass.”

  Huff skidded to a stop and slide across sand on his backside.

  I trotted toward him. “Hey, buddy, you OK?”

  “My liver swells with happiness.” He stood up on hind legs and embraced me.

  “The ribs, Huff, watch the ribs.”

  He let me go and slurped my face.

  “Ah,” Chancey said, “where's Bat with the paper towels when you need them.”

  “Never mind Bat.” I wiped my face on my sleeve. “Where's Aburra?”

  We walked toward Joe and Sarge. Joe grinned when he saw us coming. A rare expression for our team leader.

  He took my shoulders, stared at me, then hugged me. “Chancey.” He shook his hand, then patted Huff's shoulder. He must've been really worried about us to show such a display of affection.

  General Ara Saun strolled up. “All's well that ends well.”

  Sarge glared at him. “You like to cut it close, don't you?”

  “Ah,” Ara Saun replied, “the unkindest cut of all.”

  “Asshole,” I heard Sarge mutter.

  “What about Aburra?” I asked. “Is Aburra among the prisoners?”

  Sarge shook his head. “Last we saw him, he was high-tailing it north in a jeep. Moving so fast he left dust clouds.”

  “That's a loose thread,” I looked toward the pass. “Dictators have been known to regain power.”

  “I think if he shows his face,” Ara Saun said, “his own people will drag him to his altar.”

  “I hope you're right.” I kicked a rock. “I never probed a more evil, twisted mind than his.”

  Sarge chuckled. “You better not link with me before I've had my morning earthbrew.”

  “But how in hell,” I asked, “do these madmen become leaders?”

  “It's an old tradition on your world,” Ara Saun told me. “May I point out King Richard the Third as an example?”

  “No, thanks,” I said. “I think I've had enough of kings and lords for a while.” And generals too, I thought but didn't say.

  “Aburra lied to us, my brethren,” I heard from the group of prisoners. Drut, the driver we had spared, with the raw patch on his belly, stood before the Cultists. “The Terrans and the Rebels, the Cleoceans and the Druids, are not our enemies,” he shouted. “Aburra is our enemy. We have been duped and drugged by a malicious leader who wanted total power and cared nothing for our lives. We must be better than Aburra, my people. Return to your homes, your families, your work. Let us all be brothers with the peoples of Kresthaven, and live in peace.”

  A murmur went through the Cultist prisoners as the message was conveyed among them, and rose to a roar.

  A large male, his snout fur yellowed with age, strode toward Drut. “Do we have the Rebels' word that we will not be harmed if we return to our villages?”

  “You have my word,” Big Sarge shouted and strode up to the old Cultist. When they were close, Sarge extended his hand. I held my breath. A hush fell over the throng. The old Cultist scanned the prisoners. I saw some nod. He grasped Sarge's hand in both his paws. A cheer went up on all sides.

  “From this day forward,” Drut called, “we will fight our fellow Kresthaven people no more!”

  The cheer rose to a deafening roar.

  When it was over, Big Sarge shouted, “Go in peace, back to your villages.”

  I didn't expect silence, but in silence the Cultists rose to their four legs and turned south, toward their homes."

  “I'd say we are all well in our livers,” I told Joe.

  “Yeah,” he answered, “or the organ of your choice.”

  Chapter Thirty Three

  The night was magical. Camped on a cliff overlooking the sea with the mercs and Rebels, Sophia and I watched stars so close in crystal air you almost wanted to duck. A south wind skimmed the water's surface and sprinkled the air with salt. White caps shattered on rocks below into white veils.

  Tomorrow we would board Sun Sprite, unharmed in her hiding place, and fly her to orbiting Star Sojourner for the voyage back to Earth.

  Sophia and I walked hand in hand, not speaking much. Not needing to as nature performed a visual symphony where sky and sea met land.

  I gazed at the stars, those nuclear furnaces that appear as cold chips. “The stars like ice,” I said.

  “That's very poetic.” She kissed my cheek. “I think I'll go back to the tent, Babe.” She yawned. “I worried myself to exhaustion today while you did the easy part.”

  We laughed and I took her in my arms and kissed her. “Have I told you lately that I love you?” The words were a joke between us.

  “Not often enough. See you back at the homestead.”

  I watched her walk to our tent. Other tents and late campfires dotted the plain where shadows of sparse trees and bushes danced in the flickering flames.

  I heard a scraping of branches there by the cliff, as though wind had stirred them. Stars winked between the spiky moving leaves. But the wind had died and no gust blew the foliage along the cliff.

  “Who's there?” I ventured. Only the seething hiss of waves washing back through a pebbled beach answered my call.

  I took a few steps back.

  The night grew sinister with the sway of those branches in a still wind. I reached for my stingler and remembered that I hadn't taken it. Probably an animal, I told myself and started back toward our tent and the comforting campfires.

  But a deeper wisdom, born of instincts implanted for millions of years, made the hair stand up on my neck. I paused. If there was danger, I didn't want to bring it to our tent with Sophia inside. “Is somebody there?”

  “Your death, demon,” a Slattie voice whispered from behind the tree.

  I knew that voice. Aburra!

  I turned and ran toward the camp. Claws clicked on
gravel behind me.

  “Run, demon,” he snarled. “It is no more than a game to keep you ahead of me.”

  I couldn't call for help. It might bring Sophia outside. I was running at top speed, but I knew the beast at my back would not let me make it to safety.

  He reached out a paw and swatted me off my feet. I fell hard, the breath knocked out of me as I landed on my bruised ribs.

  He hovered over me, enjoying the moment. It gave me time to reach into my boot and pull out my knife. I got to my knees and lashed out at him, slashing his left thigh.

  He howled and fell back. “Score one for the human,” he grunted. “It won't happen again.”

  Spirit! I sent. Spirit!

  Call for help, Jules, Spirit answered. Why are you hesitating?

  Sophia. I don't want her to come outside.

  I sense another mind receiving your call for help. Keep sending.

  I rolled as Aburra sprang at me. His claws ripped through my jacket and raked my back with a searing pain. I gritted my teeth to stop from screaming and scrambled to my feet. I swung my knife but missed him as he stepped back.

  “Score one for the lord.” He leaped at me.

  I threw myself aside as he reached out to claw me. A send came to my mind as I got up and ran, feeling weak. A message said I will come to help.

  I ran toward Sarge's tent, but Aburra loped in front of me. “Where are you going, human?” He swatted me and ripped the sleeve of my jacket. A cat playing with a mouse, I thought frantically and panicked as I skirted him and headed for the camp. But my legs seemed heavy. I felt blood seep down my back.

  I am coming! a send came through. Was it Aburra playing another game? He was a sensitive and knew when I was probing. But could he send?

  Aburra reached out and tripped me. I fell hard. My sore ribs blazed with pain. There was a ringing in my ears and I couldn't get my arms under me to get up. I crawled, clutching ground plants to pull myself along.

  “The game is over, Terran.” He dragged me to my feet. “You lose.”

  I swung at him and realized I'd dropped my knife. He chuckled as he picked me up by my arm and leg and held me over his head. I grabbed a bunch of his neck fur and clung to it, afraid he would slam me to the ground. Instead, he walked toward the cliff. “You have vexed me for the last time.”

  Waves crashed below. My heart slammed out its message of fear. I almost wished Aburra would throw me off the cliff soon, so this agony would be over.

  A growl. Not Aburra's this time. He turned as something big slammed into him and he fell. I rolled away and staggered to my feet, there by the cliff's edge.

  Another Slattie. Huff! Huff reared up over Aburra, came down on top of him, grabbed his shoulder between teeth, and shook him the way a predator breaks the back of his prey.

  I moved away and held onto the trunk of a tree to steady myself. I wanted to run to my tent and grab my stingler, but my legs wouldn't respond. I leaned against the tree and slid to my knees.

  Aburra slammed Huff's head with a powerful forepaw. Huff let him go and Aburra leaped to his feet. They circled each other, two powerful hunters out for blood.

  “You are a traitor to your people.” Aburra swatted at Huff but missed.

  “You are the Dark Lord of the Bottomless Pit.”

  “One of us will die on this night, traitor, and it will not be me.” He lunged at Huff. They rolled, clutching each other, toward the cliff.

  “Huff!” I whispered, as they reached the edge.

  Aburra caught Huff across his snout with extended claws. Huff howled and let go of him. Aburra was on his feet, laughing, the sound of a crazed animal.

  Huff circled, until his back was toward the cliff. I don't think Aburra realized what Huff was doing in his rage to slay his opponent.

  I closed my eyes, formed a tight red coil and spun it fast and hot. My temples ached as I threw it at Aburra with a message: Leap at the traitor. Kill him with your claws, mighty lord. Leap now. He is weak. You are mighty. Leap and kill, mighty one!

  Aburra growled deep in his throat. His muscles bunched as he crouched.

  Leap! Kill! I sent.

  He sprang at Huff. “Die, traitor!”

  Huff jumped aside and Aburra flew through the air and over the cliff.

  He fell silently to his death, too proud, I think, in the end, to cry out his failure.

  I slumped to the ground. The stars seemed to crowd the sky, as though watching this spectacle.

  Huff stood over me, blood seeped from the claw marks on his snout. “You are hurt, my Terran cub.”

  “So are you, buddy. If it wasn't for you, I'd be dead.”

  He sat beside me, handed me my knife, and licked my face.

  “Thanks.” I slipped the knife into my leg sheath.

  His silhouette was rimmed by sparkling stars. “Then who would buy me a lifetime of candy bars?”

  I chuckled. “And I wouldn't have a horse to eat.”

  “Stay here, my cub. I will get the bat.”

  “I'll wait here,” I said.

  He got up to all fours.

  “Huff?”

  He looked back.

  “I owe you, my good buddy.”

  He grinned that predator's smile. “The candy bars will do.”

  * * *

  Hurry, Bat, I thought as blood spread across my back, and don't forget the pain killers. I dared not move. Any twitch of a muscle increased the pain. I stared at the stars, the indifferent stars.

  What was that scrabbling sound? Probably a night hunter. I lifted my head and groaned at the sharp pain as I peered into darkness. Why hadn't I taken my stingler? Oh, yeah, it was a magical night.

  A grunt in the blackness around me. I slapped the ground to scare away animals. “Go!” I shouted.

  “When I take you with me,” a Slattie voice growled.

  I gasped.

  Aburra's shadowed shape appeared at the cliff's edge.

  Oh no!

  His forepaws grasped for a hold and he dragged himself up to the flat ground.

  “It can't be!” I moaned, and tried to get up. The pain seared like hot whip lashes.

  Aburra rose unsteadily on hind legs and approached me. I smelled his bitter odor. His jaw was ripped, the flesh bloody and dangling. His skull showed through a tear on his forehead. One arm hung limp as he walked. What kept him standing? Somehow, he was more frightening wounded than when whole.

  I eased out my knife and held it under me. Maybe he would fall before he reached me. But that wasn't to be. His labored breath smelled sour as he dropped to all fours beside me. “I think we will both die this night.” He grasped my throat and squeezed. “But first, I will watch you die, human.”

  I wheezed in a shallow breath and raised the knife. He grabbed my wrist with his wounded hand. I shook it off and plunged the knife quickly between his ribs and into his heart. He shrieked. His paw on my throat spasmed, then loosened. I rolled away from him as he crashed to his side and tore the ground with claws, then lay still, his breath rattling. “This night, a martyr dies.” I heard him say, and then he exhaled for the last time.

  “Jules!” Sophia called. “Where are you? What was that scream? Jules!”

  She ran toward me. “Oh my God!” She clutched her throat when she saw Aburra, then fell to her knees beside me. “Are you all right?”

  “I'm great.” I reached a shaky hand to her cheek. The stars were a glow around her. “It's over, Soph.”

  I heard a jeep racing toward us. I closed my eyes and felt her kiss my cheek. “It's over.”

  Chapter Thirty Four

  We said our goodbyes to Big Sarge, Apache John Crossbow, Attila, and Granbor, and even General Ara Saun, boarded Sun Sprite and programmed her for a rendezvous with Star Sojourner and the trip home to Earth.

  I put my arm around Sophia as we watched Kresthaven shrink to an ice ball below us from a port window. “Going home, Soph.” I squeezed her shoulders. “Home is the hunter.”

  She gave me o
ne of her wide grins that lights up her face and makes me warm from the glow, and added a kiss on my cheek to seal the warmth. “And the sailor home from the sea.”

  END

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