Alabaster Noon

by Chris Kennedy

  “I did not want to leave, but my bass made me leave. He programmed information into my CASPer that will make the Peacemakers intervene and stop this war. My mission is to get that CASPer off-planet and to the Peacemakers so we can stop this war.”

  “What information do you have?” Good asked. “We have countless examples of the Merc Guild breaking the rules of combat—nearly every single one of them—yet the Peacemakers haven’t intervened so far.”

  “I don’t know what it is,” she said looking down in embarrassment. After a second, she looked up again. “But I do know that it is there, though, or Colonel Mulbah Luo would not have sent me on this mission. It is too late to save him and the rest of the Korps, but it is not too late to save Earth.”

  “Well…that certainly is interesting, if nothing else.” Good turned to Tsan. “Any other surprises?”

  Tsan looked up from where she was preening her tail. “I think that is all,” she said. She slow-blinked. “For now, at least.”

  “Okay,” Good said. “In that case, let’s reach out to the Cavaliers and the Fae, and bring them here so we can coordinate out efforts. The Cavaliers will be helpful in the attack on the headquarters, as will the Fae. They may be able to figure out the message, too, which will be a lot easier to get off planet if it isn’t stuck in a CASPer. Tsan, it would be easiest if you could go and get them—” He stopped as Enkh sat up straighter and turned to her system. “What is it?” he asked.

  “I just intercepted a transmission from the guild headquarters. They’ve found the Cavaliers and are sending out a force to trap them.”

  Good turned to Tsan. “Can I convince you to do it now, actually?”

  * * * * *

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Southwest of Taubaté, Brazil, Earth

  “I told you they wouldn’t believe me,” Sunshine said as she raced along the Via Dutra—Brazilian Highway 116—toward Taubaté.

  “The size of a warrior doesn’t matter as much as their spirit,” Tsan said. “Compared to some of your Human CASPer drivers, I am tiny, yet would you want to face me?”

  “No,” Sunshine said, trying to hide a small shiver that went down her back. She’d seen the assassin in action and knew that fight could only have one outcome—Sunshine’s death. Worse, when time wasn’t of the essence, Tsan tended to like to play with her victims rather than give them a quick, clean kill, which remind her far too much of when she had been in the service of one of Monrovia’s warlords. He, too, liked to play with his victims as they died, and Sunshine had always found that disturbing. If someone needed to be killed, kill them and move on. Causing them more pain than was needed indicated a darker, more sadistic, side. Having seen it too many times in the streets of Monrovia, it wasn’t a place she wanted to go.

  Like many other vehicles they’d used in their travel from Africa to Brazil, Tsan had “acquired” the automobile. Sunshine was less worried about something so transient as theft; it was just part of life where she’d grown up. Besides, she wasn’t going to actually keep the vehicle when they were done, so it wasn’t really stealing; Tsan would clean it of their presence and they would leave it somewhere for the local authorities to return to its owners. It did, however, cause small flashes of guilt, as it was something Colonel Luo probably wouldn’t have approved of, stealing being bad for the image of the Korps, after all, but she thought he would have allowed it, maybe, as it helped ensure the successful completion of her mission.

  “Easy,” Tsan said, looking at the map on her slate. “We will take the next off-ramp.”

  Sunshine forced herself to slow down. The fact that the Merc Guild was coming was in the back of her mind, and every time she looked down, she found her speed was much higher than the last time she’d looked. Driving was a skill she’d never expected to have, or to need, for that matter, but she’d had to learn along the way. While Tsan could have driven, it would have attracted too much attention.

  Sunshine followed Tsan’s directions and drove past the address they’d been given. A man stood outside a large warehouse smoking.

  Tsan made a coughing noise. “Like that isn’t obvious,” she said.

  “What?”

  Tsan made the coughing noise again, and then said, “Look at that man. He looks different from everyone else here in town. His skin is too lightly colored. He’s obviously bigger and better fed, while the locals look malnourished. He’s smoking a cigarette like he does it daily, but the locals here treasure their cigarettes like there’s a shortage; they smoke a little then stub it out to save it for later. That’s the wrong place for him to stand, too, if he didn’t want to draw attention. There are deeper shadows over to the side of the building. Besides, there are lights on in the building. How many other buildings are so well-lit?”

  “So that’s one of the Cavaliers?” Sunshine asked as she pulled over. He did look much larger than anyone she’d seen in the area and was larger—bulkier and more muscular—than probably anyone on the continent of Africa.

  “I think it’s obvious,” Tsan said, “even without needing to see the drone flying overhead.” She slow-blinked, which Sunshine had come to realize was Tsan’s way of smiling.

  “Stay here,” Tsan said as she got out of the car.

  “Why? Don’t you trust me to come along? I can hold my own!”

  “I know that, young one,” Tsan said with a slow-blink, “but I can convince them faster than you can, and I don’t want to come back and find out our car has been stolen by someone who recognizes it’s from out of town. We may need to leave in a hurry. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but the Merc Guild is coming.” She went invisible and shut the door before Sunshine could reply.

  * * *

  Taubaté, Brazil, Earth

  Tsan made a quick lap around the warehouse, then jumped up onto the ledge of one of the open windows. They needed to have the windows open, she saw. With all the big humans inside, working to fix their metal suits and the vehicles they had acquired to transport them, it was warmer than she would have liked. She would have had them open, too.

  After surveying the scene for a few moments, she jumped to the floor and bounded over to where a knot of men stood talking.

  “—it triangulates somewhere near Ubatuba,” a large man was saying as she approached. He pointed to something on the slate he was holding. The man was enormous—probably one of the biggest Humans she had ever seen—and she had no idea how he wedged himself into one of their metal suits.

  “Where the hell is Ubatuba?” asked another male with a gold oak leaf on his hat. As Major Good wore the same device, she decided he was probably a major, too.

  “It’s about seventy kilometers from here,” Tsan said, dropping her quintessence field. “If you want to meet the Merc Guild, though, you don’t have to go there; their forces will be here within the next thirty of your minutes.”

  “Who the hell are you?” the major exclaimed. All of their hands went to their pistols, but no one drew. The interior of the building went quiet, too, as everyone stopped what they were doing to see what had caused the major’s reaction.

  “I am Dama Tsan of the Whispering Fear Clan. Major Good of the Golden Horde sent me. You need to leave, right now.”

  “Wait. How did he know where we were?”

  “They are monitoring the Merc Guild’s comms. That’s also how he knows they are sending a force to trap you here.”

  “Wait. How did they know we were here?”

  “It wasn’t hard. This is the only building in town with a white man smoking a cigarette in front of it, with lights on inside it and a drone flying overhead. You’re lucky; I would have just called in an airstrike. You’re obviously not very smart or good at stealth.” She yawned as all of the men started talking at once.

  “Humans!” she exclaimed, and they all stopped to look at her. “We don’t have time for this.” She took the slate from the large man and typed an address. “Here is where you will find us—Major Good and me, as well as a few others.
It is in the town of São José dos Campos, southwest down Highway 116 from here. You need to leave, now. There will be time to discuss our options once we are there. I will see you there.” She turned to leave.

  “Wait!” the major called.

  It seemed to be his favorite word. That, or he used it to cover the pauses he needed to think. Humans, sometimes, did not adapt to new information well. “What?” she asked, turning, as her tail flicked impatiently.

  “Where are you going? Why don’t you come with us?”

  She cocked her head, as she’d seen Humans do. “Who is going to kill the MinSha spying on you if I do that?”

  “There’s a MinSha spying on us?”

  How Humans had become a threat to the Merc Guild was beyond her sometimes. “Yes, there is a MinSha. Yes, she is watching you and reporting your movements. If I don’t kill her, she will likely follow you and report where you go, giving away our location as well. As I am more concerned with killing Peepo than I am every single one of her minions, I would rather this not happen. It is inefficient. Now, do you have any more wasteful questions, or can we leave before they get here?”

  The major looked at her with his mouth open as he processed the information. Before she could say something else—or stab him, something to get him going—the large man began giving orders for everyone to pack up in preparation for moving out. She took that as a good sign and drew her quintessence field around her.

  The Humans’ trucks were just rolling out of the warehouse when she returned to the car ten minutes later. She opened the door and got in before becoming visible again.

  “It’s about time,” she said shaking her head at the Humans. “Let’s go; the guild forces will be here any minute.”

  Sunshine started the car. “Sure thing, bass.” She drove off down the street and looped back on the next street over. She could see the lights of the Humans’ vehicles a couple of blocks down. Shadows flitted from building to building as they passed the street with the warehouse on it. More MinSha; they had cut it almost too close.

  “Did everything not go well?” Sunshine asked.

  “It all worked out,” Tsan replied. “Why?”

  “You’ve got a little blue on your tail.”

  * * *

  Taubaté, Brazil, Earth

  “It’s a MinSha scout, no doubt about it,” Ryft said as she observed through the drone.

  “Let us see,” Dante said. Ryft sent the feed through the others comms, and they all looked. The insect form was cloaked with a highly advanced image-blurring cloak. It would have been hard to both notice and pick up on most scanning devices. The Dusman had been using the tech for thousands of years, though, and weren’t impressed.

  “Let me kill it,” Shadow said. He had the MinSha firmly in the crosshairs of the former Oogar laser rifle, his finger just outside the trigger guard.

  “No,” Splunk said, shaking her head. She was a hundred meters away on another rooftop. The Dusman were in their element in the city full of two- and three-story buildings—many of which had balconies or even flat roofs. Humans so seldom looked up, she doubted anyone had seen them. If they had, the Humans probably thought the Dusman were cats, or other small creatures. “We need to get the scout’s comms before killing it.”

  “She’s right,” Dante agreed. “Sandy, Peanut, go get the bug’s communication gear then kill it.”

  “Done,” Peanut replied.

  “Whoa, what was that?” Ryft asked.

  They brought up Ryft’s view and found a completely different scene. The MinSha was spinning around, flashing its razor-sharp midarms at something they couldn’t see. Blue blood splashed, and one of the arms fell off. A split second later, the MinSha collapsed to the ground in a heap, blood pumping from the center of its torso.

  “Peanut, Sandy, move!” Splunk ordered.

  A kilometer away the two Dusman flew across the intervening territory, jumping from rooftop to rooftop.

  “Shadow, be ready in case whatever it was is still there,” Dante said.

  “On it,” Shadow said.

  “Wait,” Rfyt said. “I have vehicles entering the area.” He paused and then added, “Two…no three truckloads of Oogar just arrived. Gah. I can smell their oily taste from here.” They could hear him spit, then he picked up his commentary. “They are forming up to assault the building where the Cavaliers were…and there they go. Not a bad job, assuming everyone within a mile is deaf and didn’t hear them coming. Oops, sorry stupid Oogar, you’re too late.”

  Ryft chuckled. “They’re standing around looking confused…still confused…ooh, we have a newcomer; a Veetanho just entered. It’s not Peepo. Request permission to kill her.”

  “Denied,” Dante said. “Hold your fire, and let’s see what they do. We don’t want them to know we were here, too.”

  “I can kill them all before anyone notices,” Ryft noted.

  “No,” Dante said. “Do not give away our presence. What is happening now?”

  “She’s yelling at the Oogar…Still yelling…Now they’re going back to their vehicles. Yeah, they’re leaving.”

  “Okay,” Dante said. “Shadow and Peanut, go see what you can find out.”

  The two appeared on the monitor, coming in from both directions with blades drawn and at the ready. Splunk watched them sweep the area and eventually give the all-clear signal.

  “No sign of an attacker,” Peanut said.

  “Be thorough,” Splunk implored him. “If we have a new player, we need to know.”

  The two spent several more minutes using their gear and going over the scene millimeter by millimeter. Eventually, they shook their heads and came back to rejoin the others. Together they moved into one of the plentiful abandoned apartments.

  “Report,” Splunk ordered them.

  “The MinSha was taken out by a pro,” Sandy said.

  “No doubt,” Peanut agreed. “They knew the perfect kill-spot. You’d have to know their physiology to stab one in the brain. Not many know their brain isn’t in the head.”

  “Not that they have much of a brain,” Ryft said.

  Dante nodded, then spoke. “Clues?”

  “Not a one,” Peanut said. “The weapon was a blade, though not a special one. No residue. No footprints.”

  “No such thing as invisibility,” Splunk said. Ryft had the recording of the attack running, going through it over and over.

  “The SooSha are close,” Shadow said.

  “They have to know you’re there to blank your memory,” Dante said.

  “Look,” Ryft said. She had the recording frozen at the second of the MinSha’s death. The blade, coated with blood, was visible as it punched into the insect’s torso along with a crackle of discharge from the cloak. She zoomed and enhanced the knife until a tiny hand was partly visible. It was distorted to the point it was more spectral than real.

  “Depik,” Dante said.

  “What are they doing here?” Splunk wondered. “Not only that, why are they taking out a scout watching the Cavaliers?”

  “Safe to say the Depik isn’t working for the Merc Guild,” Dante said.

  “Can’t we find the Depik and ask it why?” Shadow asked.

  Dante laughed and shook his head. “Little one, you don’t find a Depik; it finds you. They go back to the great war. Haven’t been many of them around since, though. They keep a low profile. They’ve got skills, and you don’t want to mess with them.”

  “How do you take them out?” Shadow asked.

  “Preferably from orbit,” the old, one-eyed warrior answered.

  Splunk nodded and considered. They still had the drone from earlier, the one belonging to the other group of Humans in the area. Maybe it was time to link up, and possibly combine their resources. Besides, if they turned out to be on the wrong side, it would be easy to have her team liquidate them. “We’ll do our best to give the Depik a wide berth,” Splunk said, before mentioning her plan.

  * * * * *

  Chapter Tw
enty-Three

  Merc Guild Command Center, Ubatuba, Brazil, Earth

  “General, we have a message from the emergence point. New Era and a fleet have returned to Sol.”

  “The whole fleet?” Peepo asked, looking up from a slate of reports.

  “A partial fleet,” the comms tech replied. “Report says twenty-two ships, light on escorts. Mixed Bakulu and Izlian, including Trushista, the ship Paka was commanding. It appears most have suffered damage.”

  “I expected losses, but why so few, and why Trushista and New Era?” It wasn’t actually a question and she didn’t expect an answer; what would the stupid elSha know of the tactical situation? “Send messages to Admiral Galantrooka and Paka. Give them my regards and tell them to report the status of the New Warsaw conquest immediately; signed, my office.”

  The comms tech saluted and left her office. Peepo scratched her chin and considered. The fleet had orders to send a courier reporting success as soon as the battle was won. A fleet wasn’t a courier. New Era and Trushista had returned, which meant they hadn’t lost. She couldn’t conceive of a scenario where the dreadnought would survive the attack to withdraw and return; Admiral Galantrooka wasn’t the type to give up. Besides, dreadnoughts had only slightly more acceleration than a behemoth; they weren’t made to run. If it was back—and they had an overwhelming force compared to the fleet they were facing—they had won and were back to report that something unexpected had happened. Perhaps the remainder of the Golden Horde had blown themselves up and there was now nothing left in New Warsaw and no reason to stay.

  Her mind tried to come up with another possible outcome as the minutes ticked by from the lag time of message transmission to reply, but there wasn’t one. Using her pinplants, she called up the data for the newly arrived fleet, including velocities and disposition. Initial scans showed New Era had taken a beating but wasn’t severely damaged. This was to be expected, but the fleet’s composition was strange—like the sensor ops at the emergence point said, the ships had almost no escorts. The fleet was comprised solely of battleships, battlecruisers, and cruisers. And the dreadnought. Where were the escorts? Surely Admiral Galantrooka hadn’t left them to guard New Warsaw; that made no sense. Their entire presence and their disposition made no sense, their comms procedures were abnormal…nothing about their appearance made sense, and that made her fur stand on end.