Land of the Dead ittotss-3

by Thomas Harlan

  ***

  “My lord…” Xochitl turned away from Susan’s impassive visage, feeling thwarted at every turn, and advanced on the Hjogadim with a fierce expression. “We must determine the provenance of this-object-and if it poses a threat to Mexica space! Then we can-”

  “ Stand away, toy!” Sahane yelped, frightened by the Prince’s fierce movement, reflexively making a form of obedience with his hand, as though the human were a servant in the house of his fathers. Xochitl staggered, eyes wide, his face draining of color.

  «Heart failure induced,» his exo said brightly. «Cortex shutdown expected within ten seconds.»

  The Prince collapsed to his knees, and then tipped to one side when his arms failed to support his weight. A great rushing sound roared in his ears. He saw the two Jaguar Knights lunging forward, weapons out, striking at the Hjo with all the speed they could muster. Sahane’s exposed fur shifted color and tone, and the first bodyguard to reach him-butt of his shipgun reversed as a club-saw his knockout blow glance away from a sudden effusion of spiked scales which covered the Hjo’s z-suited arm in a blur.

  The creature, furious and sick at the same time, backhanded the marine with a long, gray arm. There was a crack of electricity and the Jaguar Knight was flung back, armor coiling smoke, to strike the floor, limp and lifeless.

  «Cortex shutdown in seven seconds.»

  Everyone in Secondary Command froze. The other Jaguar fetched up, weapon raised, suddenly unsure of how to attack the fully armored apparition. Sahane stared down at his arm, the dark, rune-scribed z-suit now glittering with a spiked metallic shell, in astonished horror. “I did not do that,” he declared in a weak voice. “I could not. This is impossible.”

  “Esteemed One, stay your merciful hand!” Hummingbird’s voice was clear and direct, ringing in the air as the nauallis prostrated himself on the deck. “These shiau har-e will not serve without their lord being shun tzing. If he bends to your will, then all will be harmonious and we may flee this accursed place in speed and safety!”

  Xochitl, barely able to see, gasped for life on the deck. The exo’s implacable voice continued to count down the seconds left before his brain starved from oxygen deprivation. The Hjo loomed over him, blocking out the light of the overheads. A pair of black eyes stared down and the long mouth twisted in a snarl.

  “Let this toy live, when it has raised a paw against me? Why should I?”

  “Think, Esteemed One,” Hummingbird said, his voice controlled-persuasive-without a hint of disobedience, “Think of your offspring in their thousands to come-we must be away from this accursed place swiftly and this one ”-the nauallis’ boot toed the Prince’s side-“is their Authority. Through him, you control the others and may achieve a swift departure.”

  «Four seconds to cortical failure.»

  Xochitl fought to form a coherent thought, and found he could still command his conscious mind, despite the annoying overlay of the exo. Desperate, feeling his mentation slipping away, he brought to focus a string of numbers- three, five, five, seven, eleven, thirteen, seventeen, nineteen, twenty – nine and… the voice of the exo abruptly stopped. There was no audible sound, no flashing overlay informing his vision of the event-but the fail-safe tripped, shutting down his implant.

  Wheezing, his chest thudding with pain, the Prince closed his eyes, hoping to avoid further agony. His mind, suddenly, seemed quiet and empty-desolate. His limbs weak, helpless. The Prince began to panic, realizing that his interface to the shipnet would now have to be managed manually-and he didn’t even have a hand-comp stowed in his luggage.

  ***

  “Get us underway, nongmin.” The Hjogadim stepped away from Xochitl’s body, careful to keep his eyes averted from the vast panorama filling the v-display. Then he loped from Command, making a beeline for the lift a corridor away.

  Gretchen looked up questioningly from her pirated console, trying to catch Hummingbird’s attention. The nauallis had tilted his head, watching with great interest as the Prince struggled to his feet. Xochitl’s skin had turned waxy and he blinked incessantly. Without the exo to refine his vision, he did not see well at all.

  “My Lord?” The old Nahuatl offered the Prince his hand.

  “We’re not leaving,” Xochitl rasped, his throat raw. He slumped weakly into the command shockchair. He pointed at Gretchen. “You-the one with the ugly hair-what happened to our probe?”

  Turning slightly in her chair, Anderssen shrugged. “The relic is guarded by the same kind of protective lattice as the whole star system.” She caught the Prince’s eye and grinned. “But if we stay, I can get you inside.”

  “We should leave,” Hummingbird snapped, glaring across at the Swedish woman.

  Xochitl looked the nauallis up and down, realizing he did not know who the old man was or where he’d come from. “Who the devil are-wait, you’re one of the tlamatinime!” His face contorted in a snarl. “ Cuauhhuehueh Koris-get this old witch off my bridge! Put him in the brig-someplace locked tight! With nothing on him but his skin.”

  The remaining Jaguar Knight rose from inspecting the body of his comrade. The master sergeant’s visor was opaque, having shifted into combat mode, but his voice boomed hollowly. “As you bid, Lord Prince.”

  Hummingbird clasped his hands behind his head without a fuss and was escorted away. Gretchen watched him go with interest, wondering what the old Crow was up to now. He’ll be closeted with that alien in sixty seconds, she wagered with herself. He doesn’t really want us to leave-just nudge the Flowery One in some direction of his choosing. But, she thought, two can play that game.

  Seeing the initial results from her analysis of the Chimalacatl ’s surface-even just on the battle-cruiser’s shipnet, much less after node 3^3 3 had taken the datastream apart and put it back together-had solidified a chaos of options vying for her attention. I need to set foot on this thing, if that can be managed safely; even a half-hour would make all of this worthwhile. Another certainty had formed in her heart, crystallizing out of a thousand points of long-held despair, anger, hatred, and delighted curiosity. Hummingbird needs to be there, too. Oh yes, he does.

  “Now you, woman, what is your name?” Xochitl blinked owlishly at her, trying to glare in a properly Imperial manner.

  “Doctor Gretchen Anderssen, xenoarchaeologist, University of New Aberdeen, Lord Prince.”

  “Are you now?” The Prince sat up straight in his chair, surprised and pleased at the same time. “How did you get out here?”

  Gretchen said the first thing that came to mind. “I was supposed to be with the others, but I missed the survey ship, so I came on this one.” She spread her hands, encompassing the whole of the Naniwa.

  “How fortunate for you…” Xochitl’s attention, now that he still lived and breathed, was drawn inexorably back to the enormous shape of the Sunflower. He bit nervously at his thumb. “Do you… do you know what this thing is?”

  Anderssen felt something like an electrical shock, a tingling jolt from crown to toe. In that instant, something blossomed in her mind and, for an instant, she was back under that overhang on Ephesus III, staring up at a rock-face which had grown so impossibly detailed and distinct in her vision that she could barely process the flood of sensation streaming into her from the totality of the world. But now there was a sensation of discrimination and all of the extraneous data could be discarded, leaving the Flowery Prince isolated in her perception and laid bare before her.

  She absorbed all of the Prince’s frailty, fear, doubt, ignorance. She glimpsed a fading half-image of a peculiar, inhuman second self which had shrouded him like a ceremonial mask. A facade which had worn him, completing his persona, investing him with a thousand subtle cues to authority and rule. Without that, he was only a shadow, less than half himself.

  “No, Tlatocapilli.” she said, supremely confident. “But if you give me leave, I will peel back all of its secrets for you-every last one. But… didn’t you tell the ambassador we were leaving? What will y
ou do about him?”

  Xochitl swallowed, blinking again, his hand trembling in physical memory of incandescent pain twisting in every nerve. “I’ll have to kill it-kill him-and atomize the body. Or, or cast it into the sun-or…” The Prince seemed paralyzed by the decisions before him. Without his exo providing summaries and risk-vectors, everything seemed suddenly gray and murky.

  ***

  In Main Command, Chu-sa Kosho watched the Prince and Doctor Anderssen discussing the attributes of the Chimalacatl on her surveillance cameras. Though her mien was impassive and controlled, she was deeply troubled by what she’d seen. A command sequence was waiting on her console, constructed in great haste during the scuffle and now refined, to vent the entire compartment to the void, and flood the evacuated rooms with hard radiation. Would that be enough to kill this “ambassador” with the self-generating combat armor? She was furious with herself for not attaching more security to the alien.

  Susan had never encountered a “Hjogadim” before, and shipnet had nothing for her-no detail, no rumors, and no warnings-despite the fact that the creature spoke passable Nahuatl and was obviously well known to both the Prince and the nauallis. The thought of Hummingbird loose upon her ship made Kosho’s stomach twist. Brow growing thunderous, she tapped up the security cameras for the ship’s brig.

  The remaining Jaguar had brought the old Nahuatl to a primary security cell and stripped him naked before locking him inside. Oc Chac, at Susan’s direction, had already scrambled the codes and reviewed the list of those crewmen with access to the compartment.

  His kind will not remain contained for long, Sayu.

  Alone in the bare room, the old man looked up into the cameras and the faintest hint of a smile crossed his lips as he lowered himself gingerly into a cross-legged position on the floor.

  Kosho sneered back, wishing once more that her sensei Hadeishi were on hand to deal with his “old friend” and all these intrigues. I am not cut out for this, she thought darkly. We should flee this place, not stay, poking at a dark hole in the cliff with sticks… no matter what the Emperor demands.

  Aboard the Khaid cruiser

  Hadeishi wiped a coating of yellowing foam from the captain’s console of the light cruiser. His armor was blackened and scored by flechette impacts and all of his grenades were gone. Cajeme and the other Team One survivors were dragging the last of the Khaid corpses away, for the enemy had tried to make a stand on the Command deck. The console was flickering in and out of focus-part of the glassite surface had shattered-and the Nisei officer shook his head in dismay. Disgusted, he shut down the entire console, then went to the Navigator’s station where he was pleasantly surprised to see the Fleet standard interface was up and awaiting input.

  He clicked channel. “Found one working, Sho-i.”

  Lovelace was still far down the ship, barricaded into the Engineering compartment, with the remains of Team Four as her guardians. Between them, the shipcore was momentarily in Fleet hands, but there were still gangs of Khaiden roaming the side passages, exchanging intermittent gunfire with the Team Three commandos. Locked out of all of the control interfaces, the enemy had little chance of mounting an effective defense, but the Khaid were nothing but persistent. In some places they had cut their own way through the internal doors-but none of them had any heavy equipment, which meant the frame bulkheads and the main hatches were a serious barrier. “Keying in.”

  Got your login, kyo, she responded a moment later. Handing off shipnet on deck one to your console.

  “Received.” Weary, he sat down in the chair, ignoring the foam which spilled onto the floor. His first thought was to check in with De Molay, so he activated the intership channels and pinged around until one of them locked onto the Wilful.

  The freighter captain’s face appeared on the display a moment later and she brightened to see him. “Well, if it isn’t our Engineer’s Mate, gone missing the last day.”

  “Fortune has smiled,” Hadeishi replied, glad himself that she still lived. “Did you take any damage?”

  De Molay shook her head. “Your wounded have been coming over in a steady stream-didn’t someone tell you?” She looked off-screen. “There are at least a dozen more laid out in what space we can spare. But we’re entirely out of meds and ancillary supplies.”

  Mitsuharu levered up his faceplate, scratching a terrible itch beside his nose. “The sickbay here is all Khaid supplies, but I’ll have Gunso Ad-Din peel someone off to search the holds-there may be useful meds somewhere…” A shipbug scuttled across the console, wearing a crown of foam. “Are you low on vermin? We have more than I can stomach over here.”

  She shook her head. “I can live without them. How stands your new ship? Does she have a name?”

  “The Khaid called her the Kader. I haven’t found a hull-plate or record to indicate the Fleet designation.” Mitsuharu rubbed one eye. Adrenaline was draining from his system, leaving only the ache of lactic acid buildup. “The Khaid failed to destroy the communications equipment and their sensor records. Sho-i Lovelace reports we have all of the telemetry of the attack on the Tlemitl, the Research Station, and the IMN escort fleet-if I understand her correctly. But she is speaking far too quickly today for me to follow. Can you come across and take over cleanup here in Command? I need to go back downdeck and make sure the Khaid holdouts are run to ground.”

  De Molay nodded, pursing her lips. “You want me to break down the Khaid battlecast?”

  “With Lovelace’s help, yes.” Hadeishi suddenly looked thoughtful. “Also, you will want to bring a cushion.”

  “A cushion?”

  He shrugged. “Khaid chairs do not fit us so well. There’s no sign any of the Fleet interior fittings survived, which is a great pity.”

  De Molay laughed in delight. “You are having trouble sitting down these days. I will see you in an hour or two.”

  ***

  Three hours later, after one of the burlier Team Four kashikan-hei had carried her up from the cargo bay where the Wilful was now docked, De Molay stared around at the wreckage of Kader ’s Command deck and wrinkled up her nose. The thick musk of Khaid blood was mixed with the astringence of fire suppression foam to make a particularly foul smell. Beyond that, the chair at the weapons officer’s console she’d been offered by a slightly built, worried-looking Sho-i gave her serious pause. “A beetle shell?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Lovelace offered an apologetic smile. “Haven’t found anything better.”

  De Molay shrugged and fitted an instafoam pillow into the peculiar dished chair back, then sat down gingerly. “We’re underway again? I felt the drives light up while that big fellow hauled me up ten decks on his back…”

  “ Hai, Sencho.” The Sho-i called up a navigational plot, showing the past track of the Kader, as well as the projected patrol pattern. “I recovered this from one of the engine control nodes-when we flashed the whole ship, temporary storage went too-but some of the secondary systems had working copies, and this was one of them.” The route spidered out from the main Khaid elements near the Pinhole, covered an irregular section of the stellar vicinity, and then angled back to join the pack again. “The Chu-sa wants us to be as inconspicuous as possible-so we follow the ordered route, submit status reports at the requested times, and so on. I’ve already sent one, cobbled together from the last transmit from the t-relay system, but we’re due for five more before getting back to tau zero.”

  “This course was intended to cover the area of battle?”

  “ Hai, Sencho. The Khaid commander peeled off these three ships to mop up.”

  De Molay smiled, tapping through the navigational interface. “Well, let’s press on then, shall we? I believe these three signals are Fleet evac capsules.” Her stylus sketched in a slight change in vector to overrun all three icons on the plot.

  ***

  Mitsuharu frowned, reviewing a comm-system composition pane. The Monkey of Fate, he thought with considerable irritation, is laughing. Now I have to su
bmit status reports to some Khaid overlord! He looked over at Inudo, lately of the Scout Corduba, who was now sitting pilot for the Kader. “How many men have we recovered in total, Thai-i?”

  “Over a hundred now, Chu-sa.”

  Hadeishi sighed, and then picked up his stylus again: Our mission continues to be successful. We have found and destroyed nine Imperial escape pods. Additionally thirty useable z-suits, numerous small arms and edged weapons were recovered. Return to the hunting pack is expected within twenty-three hours.

  A firm tap on the running-man glyph spooled the message off into the t-relay system. Done, he thought, with that exercise-for another six hours.

  “Isn’t that strange,” De Molay said from her seat at Navigation. Somehow the old woman had acquired a puffy black expedition jacket and mittens. Hadeishi didn’t think it was so cold in Command, but he allowed that the Khaid had not set environmental to warm either. “The ship’s previous course indicates they took no prisoners, captured no equipment… just a missile or beam into each pod and on their way.”

  Mitsuharu tried to swivel the beetle-chair at the captain’s console, found that the chitin was sticking again, and stood up. He had been sitting too long in any case. “That is an odd course for a military so very in need of technical expertise, as well as slave labor. Haste overthrew their normal procedure, I think. They always took the time to dig every last beet from the fields before.”