by Mark Wandrey
He spun in his next leap and fired, dropping two of the Pushtal advancing on Sonya. “Drake, get to Sonya!” In that instant, everything changed, solidifying into laser sharp focus. “Bana, move everyone over to the wreckage of this transport. Andrews, grenades on the right flank!” He barked out order after order as he fought, dodged, fired, moved.
He forgot his knife as he used his sidearm and voice to command. He didn’t know where the commands came from, some deep part of himself, yet they were all right, and the men followed them without hesitation. Somewhere his father’s voice echoed an old lesson. If you ever have to command, do it with complete confidence.
Dad…what if I’m wrong?
You won’t be, Shadow. You’re my son. Do what needs doing.
The battle swirled around them in chaos, but awareness of his siblings burned into his brain. Drake took a bloody but non-lethal wound to his left arm. A bullet cracked Ripley’s face shield, cutting her face and nearly taking out an eye. Several of the Human members of Silent Night fell to the marauding Pushtal, who largely kept trying to get at them with claw and tooth.
“If they ever give up on hand to hand, we’re bloody fucked,” Bana said.
“The rate we’re going down, we’re fucked anyway,” Corporal Plesh replied. “Look out, they’re rushing again!”
* * *
“Come on!” Meesh screamed at his troops. “There aren’t even fifty of them remaining. We outnumber them three to one, easy.” His troopers were beginning to lose their resolve. Many were fingering weapons and glancing to the side, considering gunning the lightly armed Humans down or maybe just running away. But that isn’t what Meesh wanted, entropy curse them. The Zuul had cost him an eye and his offspring. He wanted their blood in his mouth.
“Follow me, cowards!” he snarled and charged.
That did the trick, as all 150 or so of his surviving clan moved in a rippling wave of fury toward the Humans and Zuul. Now we end it! He leaped over a pair of Humans toward the nearest Zuul.
* * *
“Drake!” Shadow yelled as a Pushtal suddenly jumped over the ragged line. He had a half glimpse of an eyepatch. “There he is!”
Drake ducked and pivoted as Eye Patch went directly over him. Drake ripped his oxygen mask clear and bit the passing leg. Even 10 meters away, Shadow heard bone crunch, and the cat howled in pain. Even badly injured, it landed and kicked out, sending Drake sprawling. A nearby corporal had the presence of mind to rush over and replace the oxygen mask on Drake while he lay stunned on the bitterly cold ground.
Ripley was a hand’s reach away from the Pushtal’s landing spot. In a flash, she drew her own knife and plunged it into the Pushtal’s thigh, only to be backhanded a dozen meters. She cartwheeled through the frozen air to crash into a group of Silent Night fighting for their lives.
Shadow pulled his father’s long knife from between the crossed belts on his armor, advancing. Sonya made an amazing one-legged leap from behind, mounting the massive feline and, like her brother, removing her mask to sink her long canines into the bastard’s neck. Eye Patch jerked sideways at the last second, so Sonya’s teeth sank into his shoulder instead. Blood flowed, and Eye Patch roared in pain and rage, shaking Sonya like a leaf. But she clung on.
Eye Patch reached up with his left arm, trying to claw Sonya. He couldn’t reach her, and for some reason didn’t use his right. The arm appeared injured. Still, he slowly stretched toward where Sonya jerked back and forth, working her fangs in deeper.
Shadow lowered his head and leaped, driving the blade forward in both hands and dragging it upward. “For Father!” he screamed as the blade slammed into the Pushtal’s abdomen. Propelled by his velocity, Shadow felt bone crunch and organs split as he impaled the pirate scum on his deceased father’s blade.
The Pushtal’s eyes went wide, and he let out a gurgling scream. Sonya jumped clear, and Shadow saw bright streaks of blood on her chest where he’d clawed her after all. But the look on her face was savage glee, ears high and teeth bared. The momentum of Shadow’s strike knocked Eye Patch backward, and he hit the ground in an overly slow low-G impact and slid. He kicked twice and finally died.
Shadow allowed satisfaction to flow through him for half a second. A Pushtal nearly cut his head off with a swipe of his massive paw. He managed to lean back at the last minute, enough so that only a single claw tore at the facemask, gouging a line right above Shadow’s eye. The pain barely registered.
“Pull back into a circle,” Bana yelled. Only one of his arms was working; the other was crusted over with frozen blood.
Everyone moved closer, some dragging useless limbs, others dragging wounded comrades. The dead were everywhere. Lots of Pushtal, and lots of Humans.
“We’re not going to win this, are we?” Drake asked woozily after getting kicked in the head.
“I don’t think so,” Sonya said. She was holding her left hand against her chest, staunching the blood, her right holding a pistol. She had to sit because her right leg wasn’t working anymore.
“Almost out of ammo,” Ripley said. She visibly gasped with each breath and held her elbows against her side. Shadow guessed she’d undone some of her healing.
“No,” Shadow said. “We will not fall here.”
“You sure, bro?” Drake asked.
Shadow closed his eyes for a second and nodded. “Yes.”
A dozen hulking Pushtal rushed the siblings, who all raised weapons, despite the odds. But then all the enemy cats were torn apart as if god’s own chainsaw had ripped into them.
“We gotcha!” a voice blared on a loudspeaker, and the whoosh of jumpjets sounded. A Mk 7 CASPer braked to a landing.
“Captain Tucker!” Drake shouted, and a cheer went up from the beleaguered defenders. In a split second, 10 more CASPers were in the mix.
No longer facing soft targets, the Pushtal switched to their guns. It was completely ineffective. The armored CASPers tore into them with a vengeance. No doubt seeing many of their own down at the hands of the enemy, more than a few of the newly arrived troopers resorted solely to their integral arm blades. Swung with the force of electromechanical muscles, the carbon fiber overlay blades tore Pushtal completely in half.
An explosion rocked from the far right, and another of the transports collapsed in fire and shrapnel.
The rout began, with nearly 100 Pushtal rushing toward the base, the best cover left in the field of broken transports and wrecked bodies. It was an illusion of defense—before they could reach it, they came face to face with the Lumar pouring out. With CASPers on one side and Lumar on the other, the Pushtal surrendered in a ragged wave. The battle was over.
* * * * *
Chapter 15
Classified Engineering Guild Holding—E’cop’k System
Shadow looked over at his siblings, sitting on the bench of the freshly cleared rec room as the medics tended to their wounds. Sonya was the worst, with crushed bones in her leg. Drake’s bullet-wounded arm was already tended to, as was Ripley’s aggravated chest wound. For himself, the enemy had missed taking out his right eye by a millimeter. It would be a spectacular scar. For now, he refused medical attention while the men were tended to.
Veska’s fur was singed badly enough that she’d been slathered in anti-burn cream, but she’d dismissed the need for further treatment, and instead had kept to Shadow’s side as he paced, a few steps behind him with her head on a swivel.
Shadow resolved to ask her how she’d taken down the last active transport, but first he had to share with Tucker all that had happened…including the death of his father.
“It’s a miracle any of us survived,” Tucker said after delivering a healthy string of curses.
“How did you get out of there alive?” Drake asked. “Figure the cats would have had you for shark biscuits right off to get this ambush started.”
“Well, they almost did,” Tucker said. “But the Vergola half convinced the couple who came to kill us that they’d already done us in. The
cats didn’t buy it completely and were trying to get to us when their boss chucked a wobbly. Seems the Zuul boss dog fucked up the cat boss right proper before she died.”
“So Captain Nillab is dead?” Veska’s step hitched, but she didn’t sound surprised.
“Aye, lass. All the Zuul there are dead that we could see, and the Vergola too.”
“I expected that when they didn’t join the battle.” Her ears drooped, and she panted through a wave of pain. “My whole company.”
Drake stood and put his uninjured arm over her. She gave him a small smile, though her ears remained low.
“What happens now?” Sergeant Bana asked, looking at Captain Tucker.
A part of Shadow wanted to hand everything over to Tucker or Anderle and call it a day. He could shower off three species’ worth of blood and sleep for a week, and someone else could clean up everything.
Count the dead, make a plan, treat the wounded…the list unwound in his head, and he didn’t want to do any of it.
Unbidden, a ghost image of his visions rose in his thoughts. The rotten sea, the exploding ships, the stars. The bridge only he could make of alien strands. He’d lifted his head to speak when Tucker answered.
“Don’t look at me,” Tucker said, “talk to them.” He pointed at the four Zuul siblings.
“Us?” Sonya asked, incredulous. She looked back at Shadow, and he closed his mouth. He knew what happened next.
“You. Alan planned to leave Silent Night to you. Only stipulation is, you take care of your mom.” Tucker reached into an inner pocket and pulled out a data chip. “Merc commanders don’t leave succession to chance.”
His siblings, and Bana, stared at the chip in Tucker’s hand in shock, but Shadow nodded sharply. There would be more than enough time for mourning, but for now…
“Sonya,” he said, his voice roughened but clear, “ask Yanow to meet us here. Drake, find Niss and do the same. Tucker, you’re sure no one’s left on the Vergola base?”
“From what we saw…no chance. The Zuul gave as good as they could, but it was a bloody sucker-punch ambush.” The older merc shook his head and opened his mouth to say more. Then he shrugged and gestured for Shadow to continue.
“Veska…” His ears drooped at the pain that still held her rigid, but she nodded immediately in response. They had work to do, and she was ready. “Get a message to the Paku. We’ll need the Zuul. Bana, Ulan’s got the surviving Pushtal in the barracks—bring him and whoever they consider their leader, with Eye Patch dead. Ripley, find Anderle.”
“What are we meeting about?” Drake asked. From his lowered ears, he was asking more from curiosity than challenge, but either way, it was a fair question.
“Ifka is dead, and probably all the Zuparti. I don’t much care for the Engineering Guild. It’s up to us to figure out what comes next.”
“And we’re sitting on a billion credits worth of hyperspace juice,” Sonya added, eyes widening through her exhaustion.
“We’re going to figure out what comes next,” Shadow said again, certainty coating his voice, “and we’re going to do it together.”
* * *
It took less time than Shadow had expected to gather everyone together. Anderle and her squad had fallen back to the entrance of the mines, protecting the Aku and ensuring the explosion-happy Pushtal didn’t get under the base and blow them all sky-high. It was a good move that saved lives in those hectic minutes of battle. Yanow responded to Sonya’s call immediately and had been with Ulan and the Pushtal prisoners.
I’kik had brought the Paku closer in-system after she received Nillab’s message, but then the Gheshu had never moved. It would be hours yet before they were close enough to land anyone, but their open channel had only seconds of delay.
They’d pulled together what furniture remained somewhat stable after the ambush, making for a large, if unsteady and bullet-pocked conference table.
Everything smelled of bleach and exhaustion.
And they had more to do.
Introductions ran quickly, though Bana and Drake didn’t take their eyes off the two manacled Pushtal, and Tucker regarded the Aku curiously. Veska refused a seat, keeping watch at his right shoulder, Ulan stood between the two Pushtal, and everyone else took a seat or squatted at the table as their physiology dictated.
“We’re at a decision point,” Shadow said, resting his hands flat on the scorched table in front of him. “We’ve found no living Zuparti or Vergola, and we don’t expect that to change. That effectively ends the conflict in the system, but also, with the gate still interdicted and no messages sent, voids the agreement, as well.”
“So no one gets paid?” Tucker asked, frowning.
“That’s one piece. Niss, anything in the GalNet that helps clarify matters here?”
“Well…” The Aku lifted his head further from his shell and tapped the table. “There are no claim holders on this world, nor in this system. The Zuparti kept E’cop’k out of the official records to minimize exposure. They hoped to avoid what just happened here with the Cartography Guild. Thus, without an official claim of any kind, Galactic Union law states whoever sits on it owns it.”
“Finders keepers?” Ripley said, and everyone from Earth nodded.
“I would suppose that is a way of putting it. I have read all the data I could find on the Zuparti’s guild contracts and licenses. The guild is intrinsically linked to the production of Astatine-222. This is the only place Astatine-222 is successfully mined. Thus…”
“If we control the planet, we control the guild?” Sonya asked, incredulous.
“Precisely,” Niss agreed.
“It can’t be that simple,” Drake said.
“Yet it is,” Niss persisted.
“Oof da,” Sergeant Bana said.
“Fuck me dead,” Drake agreed.
“Right.” Shadow turned his gaze first on Yanow, then to the slate displaying I’kik’s neutral expression from space. “Then I have a proposal. Silent Night is decimated. Big Strong Fist is a garrison, and has no way off the planet. The Aku are noncombatants, and the Paku is barely limping along. We can all scream for help the moment the gate’s open and fight till everyone’s dead—if someone else doesn’t come in with fresh guns blazing—or…”
“I might consider ‘or,’” Yanow said, folding a set of her arms.
“Or, we form a new company.”
“What, all of us?” Anderle’s eyes widened—not in rejection, Shadow realized, but in sudden interest.
“The Mercenary Guild is in shreds,” Bana pointed out. “It’ll take a while to get a new company approved and registered.”
“What if there’s an old one we can bring back?” Shadow said. It was hard to keep the smile off his face.
“Silent Night?” Tucker asked.
“Older.”
“Insho’Ze offers itself to Night Song,” I’kik said, so well-timed she must have spoken it without hesitation the moment Shadow made his proposal. She put a fist to her chest and tilted her head back to expose her neck. “I freely bind our fates to Krif’Hosh, now and forever. Direct us as you choose, Kal’Shin.”
Veska grunted in satisfaction, and Shadow’s ear turned toward her as she clasped her fist to her chest as well.
“Thank you, Captain.” Warmth radiated through him at their confidence, though he didn’t know if claiming that title—especially without talking to his siblings—was entirely appropriate. “Krif’Hosh, Night Song, is an ancient clan of the Zuul, and we,” he gestured at himself and the siblings sitting to either side of him, “are all that remains of it. I’d like it to grow.”
“It must grow,” Veska said, thumping the table with a fist. “The Zuul need you.”
“Then we all have equal stake in E’cop’k?” Yanow asked, holding very still. “And in the Astatine-222?”
“Yes. We would become…the Engineering Guild, I guess. Equal stakes, and we can contract out to others as we need to.”
“We would need to be cl
ear of decision-making, profits, and contracts,” Yanow warned. “This isn’t about bossing the Lumar around and sending us to die.” She shook her head solemnly. “We are tired of being the Mercenary Guild’s laser fodder. We are an ancient and proud race, despite how we’ve been laid low. I would like,” she paused, looked at Ulan, then continued, “rather, we would like this to change.”
“You care about your clan,” Shadow said, leaning forward. “I want you to be my clan, and I want us to be yours.”
“I have a question first,” Drake said, his head cocked and his eyes as intent as Yanow’s. “What’s the deal?”
“The…deal?”
“Is Ulan pretending? Are all Lumar pretending? Why are you so smart, and…” He waved a hand at her, then at Ulan off to the side. “Why are they…”
“Stupid?” she asked, and Drake blanched. “It is okay, our new friends.” She looked at Ulan, and despite their race’s differences, her care for the male was obvious. “They do not pretend.” Yanow sat back, tapping three hands’ worth of fingers as she considered. “Our males are exactly how they seem. The story of how we ended up as we are is ancient. They are, we are, as we sit here…simply as a matter of revenge. That is all I can say.”
Shadow had a million follow up questions, but he forced them away for the moment. “If it’s something we can help with, we would commit to that, too.”
“Song of the Night,” Yanow said, thoughtful. She glanced at Ulan, who grunted.
“Night Fist better.”
“Fair enough. Night Fist, the Lumar portion of Night Song?”
Yanow held Shadow’s eyes for a long moment and nodded.
“Niss?”
“We are happy to work for—”
“No, Niss. No more working for someone. You’re slaves no more. The Aku are more than worthy of being an equal part of our clan. Someone needs to unlock and run the gate. You know the most about the mines, the guild, and the Astatine-222. We need you to administer the mines and handle the business of the guild.”