Land of the Dead ittotss-3

by Thomas Harlan

  Xochitl cursed-a long, bitter oath-and his face suddenly cleared, dark eyes glinting through his faceplate. Anderssen felt his “mask” stir. In her Sight, hidden signs and symbols flared to life around the Mexica lord as though he were wreathed in ghostly flame. Fascinated, she watched them solidify first into a wholly alien symbology and then flicker into the more recognizable glyphic alphabet of the Mexica.

  Customized, she had time to think, before a dissociative jolt jarred her mind. There had been no noticeable physical sensation of movement, but Anderssen was suddenly sure they had passed over a threshold. What a peculiar sensation-as though we’d stepped through a doorway within a doorway, leading into a room within the room where we were already present.

  Slowly, she withdrew her gloved hand from Sahane’s arm and turned to stare at the alien. “Revered Sahane,” she breathed, as though addressing him for the first time.

  “Get away from him,” the Prince ordered. The marines and Koris turned as well, catching a peculiar tone in her voice.

  Ignoring the threat in Xochitl’s command, Gretchen marveled as the Hjogadim’s periphery gleamed brightly with a dizzying array of symbols. Far more in number, and far more varied, than the ghostly effusion accompanying his outburst in Secondary Command on the Naniwa . Now his z-suit and fur were literally crawling with signs and symbols of all varieties. Yet as she watched, they began to settle down, consolidating into a rotating, half-seen mesh of glyphs which almost entirely obscured the alien.

  Apparently unaware that he had changed, Sahane returned her gaze with one of great curiosity.

  Her awareness of the symbology congealed as the glyphic aura around the creature settled down. Vectors of meaning began to emerge, revealing the shadow of a greater pattern. Anderssen found she could not-did not want to-look away, but at the same time she felt her own memories begin to fray… Hummingbird, she howled mentally. You evil old man! Nothing ever happens around you by accident.

  “Your eyes are… quite golden,” Sahane said in puzzlement. The Hjo didn’t remember if this toy had expressed such a peculiar appearance before. Then he flinched back as the Prince’s Macana assault rifle jammed past his snout and against Gretchen’s head, muzzle wedging in between her neckring and helmet.

  “Where are we going, Swede?” Xochitl’s voice was flat, menacing, much like the flash-suppressor digging into her ear. “Is this a transit car?”

  “You know it is, Tlatocapilli,” she squeaked, forcing her unwilling tongue to form human words. The peculiar jolt in her perception made her aware of two distinct identities occupying the same physicality-her old self and now something new. This evolving Gretchen rode at the edges of her nerves, altering her perceptions of the universe… supplying meaning, context, and direction. Constellations of glyphs began to appear in silhouette around the Prince, the marines, the Jaguar Knight-even Sahane had his own annotations. A Hjogadim epithet suddenly sprang to mind: A sure and certain Guide to my thought!

  “I assure you, Lord Prince, we are going where you wished to go.”

  “I do not think so,” he said, eyes narrowed. His exo-and by the Risen Christ, it was a vast relief to have his exocortex operating again-was reporting a flurry of unexpected changes in Doctor Anderssen’s breathing, in her kirlian field, in the tension visible in her skin and bone. “I think you have become infected with something.”

  Gretchen raised her arms, turning fully towards him. The flash-suppressor clinked across her helmet, coming to rest square on her faceplate. “I am very sure, now, that Hummingbird did not expect you to be here, Lord Prince, nor indeed, the Holy One.” She opened her hand towards Sahane. “He expected to need just one key -myself.”

  “Key?” Sahane said, curiosity winning out over naked fear. “Key to what?”

  The transit core suddenly came to a halt and everyone froze as they felt the ancient device grow still. In motion, none of them had been aware of anything, but now that the room had completed its travels, each of them felt their equilibrium settle. The door that showed the worst battle damage ground up, shedding dust from long-unused mechanisms, allowing a pale roseate light to shine through the opening. Armored corpses spilled into the nonagonal room, tumbling away from the hulks of shattered war-meka. Even Xochitl jumped back in surprise as a cascade of broken battle-steel bounced away across the floor.

  There was a buzz of static on their comm channel, but then the earbugs cycled frequency and the irritating sound died away. The Prince was the first to regain his composure. He whistled in astonishment at the size of the chamber revealed behind the long-dead combatants.

  “Now, Swede, now you’ve found us something.” Xochitl felt a great lightness rise in his chest. “We are the first beings to look upon this vista in ten thousand years,” he said. “Marines-patrol pattern! There may be automatic defenses left active, even after so long…”

  Sahane’s long snout peeled back from his fore fangs in horror to see the faded signs and symbols emblazoned upon the shattered fragments of armor. Hundreds of corpses slithered down out of the doorway, many of them bearing recognizably similar diagrams.

  “The place of the Celestials,” the Hjo whispered, unable to believe his eyes. “And The Fallen Thousand… the Banner Crimson and Black. My revered ancestors. This is… impossible. This is a children’s fable! ”

  “All too real, Esteemed One,” Gretchen said in a thick, hollow voice. Her facial muscles jumped randomly as her old self struggled to regain neural control from the gold-tinged invader. “My Lord Prince, your control structure.” She pushed his assault rifle aside and stepped down from the sled, hands spread wide to frame the vast chamber lit through a clear wall by the glare of the accretion disc’s light-year-long plasma jet shining far, far away to her left. Beyond the wreckage at the doorway, where some ferocious battle had denied an equally forgotten, unknown enemy entrance, long rows of triangular crystalline cradles rested upon the floor in such numbers as to vanish, uncountable, into the distance. Far, far away, a tall pylon rose from the flame-lit darkness. It shone with subdued green and gold lights, crowned in shadow.

  Xochitl pushed past a seemingly frozen Sahane, following Anderssen cautiously, gun at the ready. The xenoarchaeologist moved slowly, trying to keep control of her limbs, the visible world a riot of conflicting data. The Mexica prince signed for one of his marines to shadow her, while the other four set themselves to the points of the compass. Koris followed slowly in the sled.

  Left alone in the transit core, the Hjogadim heaved violently into his waste-tube and wept purple tears into his matted, unkempt facial pelt. He trembled uncontrollably, leaning against the door frame, overcome by stunned fear. Oh Guide of Thought, he blubbered to himself, why have you sent your worthless servant into such a terrible place? I am no priest, no demagogue-I know nothing of the rituals of greeting or awaking! What cruel, cruel fate has placed me here, among barbarians and slaves and discarded toys, at such a time? To place me before the Gods themselves? He could not bring himself to step across the threshold.

  But the toys are already inside the Holy of Holies. The voice in his mind was faint and hard to understand; by far the most ancient of all his teachers. The others, who had begun babbling in counterpoint, fell silent.

  You must go in, young smoot. Your only way home lies forward.

  The Kuub

  Loitering in the dark, shipskin aligned to full absorptive mode, the Wilful lay at the edge of the debris cloud generated by the destruction of the Khaiden battleship Khorku. The region of radioactive metal ash left behind by fusion containment failure served the little freighter as an extra screen, hiding her from the intermittent lidar scans emitting from the enemy ships still in the vicinity of the Pinhole. On her bridge, De Molay had moved back to the captain’s station, her puffy black jacket, blankets, and the shepherd’s cap supplemented by thick woolen gloves. The environmental systems were still trying to recover from their ill-use during the rescue efforts.

  The old woman had her eyes closed, an
d a faint snore escaped her lips.

  Thai-i Patzanil-who seemed very young to De Molay, far too young to be aboard a ship-of-war, much less acting as her navigator-was watching the plotting projection and the status boards. Weary himself, he stood and paced around the periphery of the tiny Command, peering at the old-fashioned dials on the equipment and idly fingering the cracked leather seat-backs. When he’d returned from the head, something had changed on the plot and he sat down hurriedly, red-rimmed eyes scanning the boards.

  “ Sencho? Sencho De Molay?”

  The old woman opened one eye halfway, squinting at the boy.

  “The Khaid main fleet is in motion, kyo. They’re making for the Pinhole.”

  De Molay sat up, rolled her neck, and gestured for him to update the plotting projection. When the holo had refreshed, she pursed her lips, brows drawing tight. “Tired of testing the waters, hey? Has there been any sign of the Kader? ”

  Patzanil shook his head. “They’ve been down behind the radar shadow of the Tlemitl for at least two hours. Recovery operations must be complete by now, so I don’t know-”

  “ Chu-sa Hadeishi has something in mind, I’m sure.” The old woman scratched at the edges of the gel sealing her face wound. On the plot, the Khaid battlewagons had formed into an evenly spaced line and were picking up velocity. The other, smaller ships were also in motion-save one.

  “What are they leaving behind, Thai-i?”

  Patzanil was already correlating the emissions data. “Something in a destroyer’s mass-range, kyo. Might be a Mishrak -class-we’d identified a couple of them in the attacking force before the Gladius went down.”

  “We’ll stay well away,” De Molay said, settling back into her cocoon. “Any others left behind?”

  “ Hai, kyo. Three others-same general class-at the corners of the box.”

  “Sentries, then.” On the plot, the last of the Khaid heavies had disappeared behind the seemingly invisible veil of the Barrier. She nodded to herself, making some mental calculation. “Very good.”

  The boy looked at her expectantly for a moment, but De Molay closed her eyes again.

  “Ah, Sencho-sana?” His voice was tight, hinting at an internal conflict between well-ingrained Fleet duty and the plain fact that the old woman was not a Fleet officer.

  “Yes, Thai-i,” De Molay responded. “You can get something to eat.”

  “Thank you, kyo!” He was up and out of his seat and through the hatchway before she could open both eyes. When she had sat up fully, he was long gone. De Molay laughed softly to herself, then keyed into her console and-after negotiating several authorization screens-brought up the t-relay interface. Then she sat for a moment, considering the plot and tapping her fingers slowly on the edge of the console.

  Not that much time to dither, the old woman thought. The boy will be back soon, and I’ve no surety the Khaid will not return swiftly, or that reinforcements have not been summoned. The iron is hot, so we must strike. She wondered if Hadeishi and his reclaimed cruiser were still busy recovering the crew of the super-dreadnaught, but her window of opportunity was terribly short. The Order masters would say to act in the moment of balance, De Molay remembered from an old book she’d been forced to read in the collegium.

  She shook her head and keyed open a comm channel. The message had been composed in her mind for at least a day, but she had needed the bridge to herself before risking a transmission.

  Peregine, Pervicax transmito. Cohortes imperatoris deletae sunt. Khai sepulchrum intraverunt. Quinque custodes Khaianes consisti sunt, whispered out into the aether.

  De Molay felt a mingled sense of relief and wary anticipation. There had been a dozen times in the last week that she’d expected to be incinerated, or captured, or simply vanish in the blossoming flare of an antimatter detonation. But-somehow-she had won through, and now her entire purpose had been discharged with a single message. One which will likely go The console chimed softly, indicating an incoming message spooling through the relay. She stiffened, startled to receive such a quick reply.

  The message read: Venimus. Signa transitu pone pro insertio directio teleportano. Evigila.

  Ready we shall be, then. By the Lord, they must be close by.

  Her attention shifted to the plot. All four Khaid destroyers on sentry duty remained in their watchful pattern. No missile launches were detected by the forest of sensors extruded from the hull of the Wilful, no movement towards her on their part. De Molay settled back, wincing a little at the enduring pain in her face, her side, and her leg. I am far too old for this, she grumbled mentally.

  Which, said a voice much like her own-damnable conscience!- is why you’d retired. Why exactly did you volunteer for this excursion?

  Patzanil clattered onto the bridge, a large bowl tucked under one arm. The smell washed over her like the tidal return from Port Valletta on a long, hot summer day.

  “Is it meatlog?” she asked politely.

  The Thai-i gave her a devil-may-care smile. “I don’t know, but if the Khaid can eat it, I can, too.”

  De Molay suppressed a laugh. “Back to sleep for me, then. Nothing new on the plot.”

  The Naniwa

  Kosho felt her stomach quail and the lighting in Command pulsed twice as the battle-cruiser dropped gradient into realspace. Brisk, well-practiced chatter flowed across the bridge stations as the officers of the watch confirmed they had made transit properly, that ship’s systems were on-line and they had a solid navigational fix. The threatwell began to refresh as the remote watching the Pinhole unspooled the last eight hours of captured data. Oc Chac was working his checklist in a low fast voice, ensuring they still had maneuvering drives, nothing had lost pressure or vented during the transition, and all compartments were secure for combat.

  Only Pucatli was frowning, and the tense line of his head drew Susan’s eye like a magnet from her consideration of the survey plot. “Comms?”

  Puzzlement clouded the Chu-i ’s face. “ Chu-sa, there’s a recorded transmission on one-hundred-ten you need to hear.”

  Kosho tapped her earbug, cycling channel. Immediately, she heard: All Imperial evac capsules, converge on this signal…

  “An Imperial broadcast! Someone’s alive? How could…”

  We have captured a Khaid vessel and come to take you home. Converge upon this signal with all haste. The familiar voice spoke quickly, concisely. It hummed with adrenaline; its familiar tone was inextricably connected in her mind, in her body, to imminent violence and battle. Susan’s gaze tracked back to the threatwell-but there was nothing to be seen. The gravity-plot around the Pinhole remained quiescent.

  “Mitsuharu?” she said aloud, without meaning to. Oc Chac-who had switched his own earbug to listen in-caught her eye, his head canted in a questioning pose.

  Kosho replied to the unspoken question. “The Khaiden are not alone outside the Pinhole. That is the voice of a Fleet officer well known to me-it seems he is gathering up the fallen. But…” She paused, rewinding the message. “He can only have one ship under his command, and one taken from the enemy at that.” Despite herself, she started to grin in delight.

  Oc Chac shook his head in astonishment. “A tremendous feat, if true. But, Chu-sa, this could easily be a trick-a stratagem of the Khaid to lure us into a trap!”

  “It could.” Kosho straightened her shoulders, trying to quell a fierce and unexpected joy blooming in her heart. “But this officer was recently forced to the beach and the Fates would truly be against us if the Khaid intelligence services were so far-thinking as to capture his voice patterns for use against me. No, fantastic as it sounds I believe that Chu-sa Mitsuharu Hadeishi is-somehow!-beyond the Barrier, that he has captured a Khaid ship, and is using that same vessel to recover our lost evac capsules.”

  The Mayan’s expression became dour. “Sounds brave as the deeds of Hunahpu and Xbalanque in the heroic stories of my people, but doomed, surely. There is a full Khaid fleet at the other end of the Pinhole, Kyo. And against
them, one ship will not last long at all…”

  Susan laughed out loud. “Your twin heroes were fashioned from mortals who excelled at contests to the death, Sho-sa. In this living world, there is no ship commander more likely to achieve the impossible than the man whose voice we’ve just heard.”

  Then her expression darkened, lips drawing tight. “But more likely, the Khaid fleet is no longer waiting outside the Barrier. No-they have likely found a way through as well, and will soon be upon us. Then we will be the lone lion amongst the wolf pack.”

  Kosho turned to the pilot. “ Sho-i Holloway, bring us about and prep the coil to punch gradient. We need room to maneuver. Weapons, prep your launchers!”

  On the Moulins

  Docked within the Chimalacatl

  A groan escaped Hummingbird’s lips as consciousness returned in fits and starts. He opened his eyes, finding nothing but darkness. He tested the movement of his arms and legs, and found they were tightly bound. Shifting his head from side to side, the old Nahuatl determined that something-a rubbery plastic-had been stretched over his eyes. He was not gagged, which indicated to the nauallis that there was no one within shouting distance. In any case, he did not like to make noise when he could not see who might be listening.

  On my own, am I? Hummingbird shifted his shoulders, feeling walls on either side. A closet perhaps? But they were in a hurry-I am still wearing my skinsuit.

  The old Nahuatl twisted his head from side to side, testing the limits of his ability to move. Discovering that both knees could reach his chin, he managed to roll forward gently and get both feet beneath him. Then, Hummingbird stood up slowly and found the roof of the confined space less than a meter above his resting position. A bit cramped, but then I am not the largest of men.

  He twisted one shoulder around to bring the sealing strip of the skinsuit within range of his lips and then spent a good fifteen minutes trying to catch the recessed plastic tab in his teeth. Finally, after relaxing all of the muscles in his neck, back, and arms individually, he was able to do so. When the tab popped free, the skinsuit puddled to the ground in a pool of gelatinlike oil, leaving only the neckring. With a two-millimeter clearance between his bonds and skin, the nauallis was able to shimmy free in another twenty minutes of hot, sweaty work in the closet.