The Way of Death

by James Von Ohlen

  The two waited in silence, crouched together near the APC. Close proximity to it when it was stealthed would make them harder to spot. At least according to the manual. Having been written over two hundred years ago, it was possible that the manual was no longer correct, Reiji surmised.

  The intake pump shut off and a dim orange light showed that the tank was full. Without incident the two turned the APC around and began to descend the slope leading away from the pool. Reiji did a double take as soon as they began their descent.

  Below them, some two hundred meters or so, stood no less than a dozen mounted men. They were spread out in a long skirmish line. The man in the center of the line held what appeared to be a data slate, looking at it intently. The tech clashed with his ragged leather clothing and the small bones and feathers woven into his hair. The warpaint on his face that Reiji could clearly see at this distance.

  The mounted warriors didn’t move when the APC left the pool. Reiji supposed he could very slowly move away from them in a different direction and simply ignore them. He quickly conferred with Tod and the pair agreed it would be better to avoid a fight with potentially suicidal men with powerful weapons.

  As the APC turned, the man holding the data slate motioned to the other men and they slowly moved to remain in its path. He spoke loudly, but without yelling. Reiji didn’t understand the words spoken, but there seemed to be no ill intent in them.

  The vehicle slowed and finally stopped as the horsemen moved to fully block the path of advance. If he was going to avoid a fight, Reiji would have to drive off a short cliff. No doubt the vehicle would survive, but the same couldn’t be said for its occupants.

  The man with the data slate looked down at it, then held it up in his line of sight. Aligning it with Reiji’s position. As he did so, he raised the other hand above his head and began to wave. Apparently at Reiji and Tod.

  “Warriors,” the horseman called. His voice carried well through the night air, bringing his heavily accented words to Reiji’s ears. “Show yourselves that we might speak to you as men and not as spirits hiding in the night.”

  That sounded like a challenge to Reiji. Given that they already knew he was there, he considered dropping the stealth and gunning the engine. He had no idea if the horses would be able to keep pace with him, but he’d be able to turn a few of them into paste beneath the treads before they could react.

  “Let’s see what they want,” Tod suggested as his hand fell to the hilt of his blade. One of them at least. He’d taken a blade from a fallen man in Fort Houston and used the tools they’d stolen from the garrison commander’s lockbox to reshape it into a twin of his own kukri. He’d taken to practicing with two blades in the passing days, the same as Reiji.

  Escrima, the ancestors had named the style after they’d picked the boys movements from Reiji’s mind. Whatever it was, it blended nicely with the weapons and the boy’s use of them. Perhaps Reiji was about to get his first taste of what the boy could do with the dual-blades in a fight.

  This is fucking insane, Reiji thought as he lowered the stealth concealment of the vehicle. Grabbing his own blades, he opened the pilot’s door and leapt out to the ground. Tod emerged behind him a few seconds later. The two stood side by side, staring down the slope at the horsemen outlined in moonlight.

  “We’re listening,” Reiji spoke. Loud but not angry. Using the same tone that the warrior had addressed them in.

  “Hear my words and know they are true,” the horseman began to speak. “I am called Swift Death. First warrior of my people.” His voice carried to Reiji with ease. Reiji grimaced. It was sounding more and more like a challenge to him by the second.

  “I have been sent along with my most trusted warriors to find you.”

  Reiji’s feet moved to a fighting stance of their own will. Had he just been told that these men had been sent by Cent-Sec to capture or kill him?

  “The Oracle has spoken, and as always his words have been true. He knew you would come to us, and he bids you join us. We will escort you to his hidden fortress that you may speak with him.”

  Reiji and Tod looked at each other and shrugged.

  “We will come with you,” Reiji answered. “But first, tell me who The Oracle is.”

  Without hesitation, Swift Death answered.

  “He is our priest and our leader. He would have words with you.”

  “And what does The Oracle do in his hidden fortress?” Reiji asked.

  There was a moment of silence as if the other man was trying to figure out how to describe the activities of the tribe’s high priest in a foreign language.

  “He speaks to the stars.”

  Reiji looked to Tod and nodded once with a small smile on his face.

  “Let’s go.”

  “YOU’RE not quite what I was expecting.”

  A simple statement that Reiji couldn’t help but think as well. He’d been expecting some shriveled, old man with skin like leather. An elder of the tribesmen who had led him to this place. Instead he was talking to what appeared to be a middle aged soldier.

  Clean-cut and pale, and still wearing a crisply pressed and well-kept Coalition Military Forces uniform. Or at least that’s what Reiji thought it was. He didn’t recognize the individual insignia of rank and division on the shoulder and chest, but the rest looked a great deal like what he’d seen in old documentaries and photos.

  The horsemen had led the APC at a slow pace into a narrow valley that at times threatened to trap the vehicle. Eventually the path had begun to ascend and wind back and forth as it clawed its way up the side of a plateau. After two hours or so the vehicle emerged from the narrow corridor of rock onto a flat surface.

  Hard rock, probably granite, stretched for hundreds of meters in each direction before dropping what was likely a similar distance to stony plains below. In the center of the plateau stood a collection of large buildings.

  One was emblazoned with the words SAT-COMS CENTER. Another was marked MECHANIZED SUPPORT. Yet another bore the legend BARRACKS and a fourth was marked ARMORY. Each of the buildings bore the mark of the Coalition Military Forces.

  These days on Lexington, that was a rare thing indeed.

  Near the buildings stood a collection of tents and lean-tos. Apparently the home of these tribesmen. It was still dark, but the light of the moon revealed enough of the encampment to show a few warriors on watch and another tending a large fire.

  What they were burning was a mystery to Reiji. He hadn’t seen a single tree during the course of his ascent. A stand of pines grew in the distance a good way from the buildings, but showed no sign of having been harvested.

  The APC had been guided to the Sat-Coms building and Silent Death had called for Reiji and Tod to dismount. When both emerged carrying weapons, the warrior said nothing. If they were unconcerned that their visitors were armed, it could mean they were confident in their abilities to defend themselves, or it could mean that they weren’t expecting a fight.

  Ambiguity like that had always bothered him, but Reiji pushed it down and kept at least one hand near his blades as he walked. Doors opened before him and cool air rushed out and over him. Air conditioning, he thought. A vestige of civilization even out here in the literal middle of fucking nowhere.

  The warrior escorts knelt in respect, speaking what sounded like prayers beneath their breath as they faced the open doors.

  “Enter,” Silent Death began, motioning towards the open pathway into the building. “Take refuge within, and he will find you.”

  “Are you not coming with us?” Reiji asked.

  “We have not ritually cleansed ourselves. We may not enter.” Silent Death spoke as a matter of fact. “But he waits for you. Go.” He pointed again and fell silent.

  Reiji shrugged and took a few steps into the open doors, Tod close at his heels. When both were inside, the door slid smoothly shut behind them and the interior was lit at a comfortable level.

  The entrance chamber was laid out like so many
others that Reiji had seen. A large desk where a receptionist or security officer would sit, and a glass doorway to the left showing a dimly lit hallway that moved off into the distance.

  As Reiji looked, the glass door opened on its own. From somewhere beyond, a voice called to him.

  “Back this way. Third door on the right.” A man’s voice that echoed, hammering home emphasis on how quiet the inside of the building had been until he had spoken. Reiji and Tod moved, always staying close to provide support to one another. It was unlikely they would have made it this far without violence if anyone here had wanted them dead. But it never hurt to be prepared.

  Their footsteps echoed throughout the building. It caused Reiji to look down at his feet and see how badly worn his own boots were becoming. The same pair he’d left his apartment with after he’d first met Gavin. They’d held up well to the tasks faced by a man kicking in doors and gutting people in a densely packed city.

  They had clearly not been intended for use in the desert wilderness. They were still in one piece, but just barely. Held together by a few strands of thread and a thin piece of badly frayed and worn leather. As he looked at them he thought that he might have to kill the next man he met with a decent pair and take them off his corpse. Hope he’s the right size, he concluded.

  The pair passed through the glass door and into the hallway, counting doors on the right as they went. They approached the third and entered a dimly lit office of some sort. A man sat at a desk with his back to them. He reached up and removed a data plug from the port behind his ear and placed it in a case, and then rotated in his chair to face them.

  He was silent for a moment, eyes darting back and forth without blinking. Looking them over intensely before he spoke.

  “You’re not quite what I was expecting.” He started, almost jumping at the sound of his own voice echoing down the hallway, and quickly composed himself. He stood from his seat and extended his right hand to Reiji.

  “What branch are you guys with?” He asked, looking at the filthy rags Reiji and Tod wore. Seeking some semblance of military rank or identification on their clothing.

  Reiji considered lying to the man, but he knew virtually nothing about the inner working of the Coalition Military Forces. A wrong answer might mean a total lack of cooperation. And that could set him back a considerable amount of time.

  “We’re…civilian contractors,” Reiji spoke as he grasped the man’s hand and shook it. He let the words trail off, but remained perfectly balanced to pull the man towards him and into the business end of one of his blades if need be.

  The man released Reiji’s hand with a confused smile and then took a deep breath as he ran his hand over the stubble on his head. A tight regulation haircut from what Reiji could tell.

  “All this time out here by myself,” the uniformed man began. “Well, not completely alone. I have these guys out here playing cowboys and Indians that hang around. Not much for conversation though, they just keep asking what they should be doing. Call me The Oracle. Like being able to read surveillance and communications satellite output is some kind of magic fucking power.

  “What was I saying?” The Oracle asked, but didn’t pause to hear an answer. “Oh, yeah. All this time out here by myself, doing exactly as ordered, and they send fucking contractors to relieve me? No offense, but what the shit guys? Do you even have military grade training as a Coms Officer? I went to school for five fucking years for this shit. Even after I got the implant,” he reached up and tapped at the neural interface implant on the back of his head. “They still insisted I keep learning about doing this shit. Just in case the implant stopped working. Like that would ever happen.”

  He paused to catch his breath. Reiji wasn’t sure what to make of this guy. One second he was smiling and the next he looked like he was about to crack. Manic was the word he was looking for.

  “What’s your name?” Reiji asked, putting just a hint of authority in his voice. Military types usually responded well to that. Without hesitation the Coms Officer answered.

  “Price, sir.” He stiffened his back as he answered, as if on review. “Or at least it used to be. Now most of the men out there won’t address me directly and when they refer to me they say ‘The Oracle’. Fucking annoying if you ask me. Makes me wonder if all the shit I remember from before is actually what happened.”

  “Price,” Reiji began. “You talk a lot.”

  “Sorry. Sorry. It’s just I’ve been here for so long without any meaningful conversation. Just the people out there, and they’re never interested in anything other than if any raiders are coming or if there’s good hunting, or where the best water can be found. I can answer all of that within a few hours. The satellites are still up and running and the atmospheric conditions here are perfect for off-planet communications.

  “I was checking them the other day when I saw your vehicle moving up the road. I sent some of those fuckers out there to go and show you the way. You guys were coming here right? I mean where the fuck else would you possibly be going? There’s nothing in every direction for thousands of kilometers. Just sand and rock. And a bunch of primitive assholes poking each other with pointy sticks to control some muddy water that’s probably crawling with parasites. They like the minerals that get dissolved out of the rocks.

  “That’s why they put it here, you know? Because the rock made a good foundation and the atmospheric conditions were the best on the planet. They had to drill some wells pretty far down to get water, but eventually they did. Man that was a fucking long time ago.”

  “Price, how long have you been here?” Reiji asked at the first opportunity. The soldier stopped talking and looked up and to the left. Thinking about it. He didn’t know off the top of his head. That fucking long? Reiji would have laughed if the reaction hadn’t been so absurd.

  “I’d say just over two hundred years,” he finally answered.

  Reiji raised one eyebrow slightly at that answer. He’d learned about men and women who had lived hundreds of years in good health due to advances in medicine and genetics, but he’d never met one who was so open about it. He suspected that he’d crossed paths with a few on Lexington. But that was a sign of extreme wealth.

  And such was more than sufficient reason for just about any thug on the face of the planet to try and take what they saw as their share of that wealth.

  “You’ve been here, at your post, for over two hundred years?” Reiji spoke.

  “Yes, sir. Well not at my post the whole time. I had to sleep and eat and take a crap every now and then. A few times I got sick and spent a few days in the med-bay. But mostly I’ve been at my post. Monitoring global coms and the surveillance network.

  “I tried to access Overlord a few times, but it would appear that I’ve been locked out. Me, the ranking Coms Officer on Lexington, and I’ve been locked out of my own fucking systems.”

  Reiji shook his head for a second and looked at Price.

  “So you know why that shit is there?” Reiji asked. Price returned a blank gaze as if he didn’t know what Reiji was referring to. “Overlord, Price. Why does it even exist? What use could obliterating anyone who discharges a firearm and anyone within a hundred meters of them possibly serve?”

  Price swallowed hard and took a step back. Reiji realized after the fact that there had been a hard edge to his voice. The kind that crept in when he was considering doing great violence to his foes. Or anyone who happened to be in his way.

  “Oh,” Price began. “That. Well, I believe it was originally intended to be used as a law enforcement system. You know targeting wanted people, taking out anyone breaking the law immediately after it happened. This whole planet was just a mining colony back then. The shit was like the Wild West. Not enough law enforcement to go around. People grabbing whatever ore they could that was worth a few credits per ton. They needed something. But it wasn’t supposed to target everyone who used a weapon. I used to monitor the logs and when it first went live, it worked just fine.r />
  “People getting into shootouts with the police, homicides and things like that. It would make an almost surgical strike. Only the offender was taken out, even if they were inside a large building, in a crowded place, or up to fifty meters or so underground. It was beautiful. Just a pile of ashes and a slagged weapon left.

  “The disarmament legislation went into action a little after that and we expanded the scope to include any discharge of a firearm that wasn’t accompanied by a Coalition Colonies Government or Coalition Military Forces identification signal.

  “And then it started acting kind of crazy. Shooting people who weren’t doing anything. Taking out government operators, despite their ID tags working just fine. That happened to coincide with things going to shit all across the Coalition. You remember what a fucking madhouse it was out there? All kinds of crazy reports came in. Claims of alien invasions, open rebellion against the government, the population of entire planets just disappearing. Entire fleets and armies getting slagged on some backwater. Real crazy shit.”

  Reiji pondered what Price was talking about. He, in fact, did not remember any of that. By the sounds of it, he was about 200 years too young to remember any of it. Price wasn’t offering any explanations as he continued.

  “Our commanding officer suspected it had something to do with the ongoing war and attacks by enemy hackers. Whatever the cause, most of our unit was called away along with the Coalition Military Forces fleet stationed at Lexington. They were put here to protect the colony in case of alien attack.

  “It was a vital source of lots of rare minerals that they used to make things like beam teleporters, heavy armor, and laser rifles. Real important for the war effort. And they didn’t want it falling into the wrong hands. Know what I mean?”

  “Price,” Reiji interrupted with a raised hand before the man could take another breath and begin speaking again. “Why didn’t you leave when everyone else did?”

  Price’s face contorted for a moment. Anger and sadness battled there for dominance before he got himself under control.