AmerIndian 2192

by J. Scott Garibay

CHAPTER 13

  Celetain Prax sat quietly before the stars. Her chair sat before the far transparent wall of her temporary quarters on the Brule's only lodge ship, Cold Pyre. Through twenty meters of smooth force field reinforced glasteel, Celetain watched as AmerIndian Confederacy shuttles, fighters and cargo ships bustled between massive lodge ships. Four hundred and sixteen thousand tribals, all depending on her wisdom.

  Celetain thought of her tribe, the Haida. They were responsible for healing, prophecy and spiritual research in the AmerIndian Confederacy. Of the Haida population of 22,000 tribals only 10,000 were shamans, the rest were apprentices, support and researchers. Just as the Nez Perce tribe had attracted blacks (due to their affinity for piloting) the Haida had a large percentage of Hispanics and Latinos who excelled in spiritual arts the Haida performed.

  The first chief of the Haida and the greatest shaman in the AC's short history was Morningstar Prax, Celetain's mother. From the beginning Family Prax had been integral to the success of the Haida, and consequently the entire AmerIndian Confederacy. Morningstar Prax, a Harvard Doctor in History specializing in shamanic rituals, joined Potlatch Weaver in building the AmerIndian Confederacy three months before the end of the Six Captives Law Suit. She became the chief of the Haida in 2164, the first year of the AmerIndian Confederacy. In 2165 Celetain Prax was born. Her father, a Nez Perce Pilot, died a month before Celetain was born, killed in an attempt to steal a prime ship for the AmerIndian Confederacy.

  Despite her husband's death, Morningstar left her research behind and became a practicing shaman. She single-handedly lead thousands of tribals in reviving a level of shamanic activity and power that had not been seen since before the white man walked the sacred lands of North America. Celetain loved her mother and emulated her in every way with the exception of her studies, which embraced a broader spectrum of rituals and magic.

  In 2180, Crafter, a Tsimshian tribal, launched an extensive program of archiving all available data on shamanic rituals. At the age of fifteen Celetain began speaking with Crafter every day. She used her status as a chief's daughter to keep in touch with him and encouraged him to include other occult material. Crafter became attached to Celetain and considered her a sister after only a year of discourse. Between 2180 and 2183 Celetain worked with Crafter to develop a new form of Shamanism called Cybershamanism.

  Cybershamanism was a mixture of traditional Shamanism, Wicca, Asian Ancestor Worship and Yoga, all filtered and manipulated by complex code agents. A most unusual religion, Cybershamanism quickly dwarfed the progress Celetain’s mother, Morningstar, had made with traditional Shamanism since 2164. Morningstar grew distant from her daughter as Celetain achieved phenomenal results; healing in seconds, clear, exact prophecy and stunning visual effects used in storytelling rituals.

  During the years after the creation of Cybershamanism Celetain grew distant from her mother and fell into dark brooding. However, tribals had never seen anything like the power Celetain wielded. The Elders tried to ignore her results while young tribals embraced her practices and Celetain developed a powerful following. Morningstar was horrified by her daughter's return to blood rituals like the Sundance. Ritual of the Black Heart, a new healing ritual developed by Celetain was the final straw. In this ritual Celetain inhaled sickness out of a person and then wretched it back up in huge, bloody clots from her own body.

  Events came to a head in 2189 when UDA President Johanson secretly sent his son to the Haida with C-HIV to be cured. At the request the Elders Morningstar performed a three-day ritual to cure him. Her efforts failed to have any effect on the young man. In one hour, Celetain and her group of acolytes healed him completely. Celetain's reputation in the AmerIndian Confederacy grew. When the story was leaked to the UDA media, her reputation approached legend. (President Johanson had to fend off an impeachment attempt shortly after for turning to an enemy force for aid.) It was a difficult time for Morningstar and Celetain and they interacted little.

  In 2190 Morningstar was killed when her shuttle was shot down on her way to serve as a combat medic in a particularly bloody Brule operation. All of the mystery surrounding Celetain, her popularity among the youth and the sentiment surrounding her mother's death propelled Celetain into the position of Elder at the age of twenty-five. The tribe chiefs simply voted the choice of the people, and their choice was Celetain. John welcomed her as an Elder while Stormseeker was furious over the outcome of the vote.

  Cybershamanism’s effects were fast and powerful, as opposed to the slow, steady river force of traditional shamanism. However, less than half of the Haida were able to master even minor levels Cybershamanism. Celetain's personal Emerald Acolyte Pack consisted of the twelve strongest Cybershamans in the Haida tribe. They did not work together often, instead training other Cybershaman packs. When they were together, however, their results were nothing short of incredible.

  Celetain and her Acolytes wore hunter green leather with glowing neon runes (controlled by their comp sets) that constantly shifted into new rune shapes. These were tools they used in their work.

  Now beginning her third year as Elder Shaman, Celetain felt the weight of duty on her shoulders. She learned the art of leadership from Potlatch Weaver, the father of the AmerIndian Confederacy and the wisest, kindest man she had ever known. She missed him now. His strength, his hope, and most of all his ability to make every person, including her, achieve the limitless potential within them. She shook her head. She loved what she did. Never had she been as fulfilled as she was in the leadership role she now filled. Still the weight of responsibility grew heavier each day.

  Since her acceptance as Elder Shaman, she and the Council had struggled to rebuild the AmerIndian Confederacy. John, Kugan and Stormseeker all had years of experience on her, yet, their greatest years as Elders were still ahead of them. That gave Celetain hope. But Morgan Weaver; she wondered why his father had not been wise enough to see that this son would not be a good Elder. Morgan had no vision, no strength, and at times Celetain thought she saw a dangerous, selfish ambition in him. He had been nothing but an obstacle to the council since his acceptance four years ago.

  Celetain thought back on the tasks the council handled since she became an Elder. Even eleven years after the White Earth Massacre, recovery was still the greatest challenge. The AmerIndian Confederacy had been devastated by that attempt to gain a Homeland. The following years had been spent scrambling to replace lodge ships and other resources. New tribals had not been a problem. So many UDA citizens from each of the seven settled galaxies as well as periphery folk had come to join the AmerIndian Confederacy that some had to be turned away.

  Thankfully, the UDA had fumbled their media handling of the White Earth Massacre. It was well known White Earth was the vacation haven of the elite and few UDA citizens ever set foot on the planet. Most UDA citizens were not pleased to learn tens of thousands of UDA soldiers died to preserve skiing and wind surfing for the UDA’s richest.

  The UDA media aired hours of raw battle footage from the White Earth battle hoping to show the violence and chaos the AmerIndian Confederacy created. What many UDA citizens saw was the first force in the UDA's 136-year history that could actually survive battling with UDA forces. The coverage of the battle looked like a cat fighting a mouse. The fight was long and bloody for both sides. Members of the Anarchists party were amazed at how much the comparatively minuscule AmerIndian Confederacy had been able to accomplish. Many young Anarchists had joined the underdog force, the AmerIndian Confederacy, after the White Earth Massacre.

  The next challenge the AmerIndian Confederacy faced was the building of the Merc Force. The Merc Force was a two-purpose project for the AmerIndian Confederacy. The first and most critical purpose was to build and maintain a diverse, dedicated and deadly army that would not be drilling and practicing endlessly on comp generated opponents but would have battle-earned, war-tempered experience. The second purpose was to put some creds back into the AmerIndian Confederacy's
coffers.

  Within two years both purposes had been achieved. Currently forty percent of the AmerIndian Confederacy served as mercenaries of one sort or another; Infiltrators, infantry, body tank warriors, fighter pilots. Since the introduction of the Merc Force in 2180 the Confederacy’s casualties averaged around twenty thousand per year. But new tribals kept coming and an AmerIndian Confederacy death carried more respect and glory for many than anything the UDA offered.

  Once there were tribals and UDA credits in adequate amounts the next challenge had been the acquisition of eleven lodge ships to replace those lost in the White Earth Massacre. Most of the ships were taken by orchestrated internal betrayal. UDA navigator officers were not difficult to bribe. The nav officers were bribed to adjust a scheduled jump to a designated point where dozens of AmerIndian Confederacy outrider ships waited in ambush. These UDA colony ships were usually taken without combat. A few UDA colony ships were taken by force. One colony ship was actually handed over willingly by its UDA captain and ninety percent of its crew joined the AmerIndian Confederacy.

  All of these challenges Celetain had watched as a teenager. Now she wondered what would be next. She knew from experience the period of success for the AmerIndian Confederacy would have to end soon. The AmerIndian Confederacy currently had over one hundred and fifty thousand tribals involved in seven ongoing merc campaigns. And while body bags arrived at the lodge ships every day, the violence, the blood, was elsewhere. It was at distant mining outposts and on far flung colony planets. For over two years the AmerIndian Confederacy had been able to avoid the attempts of UDA forces to capture or kill an Elder. Only one lodge ship had been lost in the last two years. And the Merc work was bringing in billions of creds.

  Another surprising turn of events was the newly developed core competency of the Haida tribe. Faced with the gruesome task of patching up thousands of tribals from a near infinite variety of injuries, the Haida had turned their lodge ship into the best trauma hospital in the known universe. Med students from all the core and periphery colonies flocked to learn with the Haida. And unlike UDA hospitals the AmerIndian Confederacy could give medical service without regard to politics. UDA elites paid through the nose for services that the UDA denied them for one reason or another.

  Too much was going well. Celetain had foreseen that it would not last. She sipped at the sweet thick hot chocolate that Broge, her assistant, had made for her. She set it down on the table next to her and relaxed. It had been a long day. Soon she slipped into a shallow sleep.

  At first she dreamt of the Elder Council, each member appearing before her in his true form. John was rabbit, wise and swift. Kugan a turtle, conservative and cautious. Stormseeker a bear, strong and fearless. Morgan strangely appeared only in his human form and Potlatch Weaver, his father, stood distantly behind him. This confused Celetain. Each Elder spoke but Celetain heard only music; different tunes emanating from each one's mouth.

  Suddenly she could her feel physical body falling and the dream changed from soft fluid vision to a cruel, crisp clarity; everything brilliant and sharp. She could see four men each in a separate shell. One man glowed a brilliant blue, a powerful illumination showing through his shell. The second man burned with flame, green and black, he was in terrible pain and yet he remained silent. The third man was covered with a dim white light and she could see fear on him, not for himself but for the others. The final man had no flesh and a dark figure, cold and black and not shaped like a man, hugged him through his cracked shell.

  Celetain sensed the present danger these men faced, but did not know who they were. The clarity and brilliance began to dim and she realized that she was slipping from the dream. She surged back, pushing and pulling with her mind, refusing to awaken, sliding back into the dream.

  She spoke to the men. “Who are you? Where are you?” None responded and she knew why. This was not their realm. Not their place to speak. But she knew who could hear her. “Who are these men and what is this place?”

  The dark figure unfurled his arms and released the skeleton in the shell. It came forward moving without movement. She could feel it studying her.

  “Why should I answer you, witch?” His words spewed forth and speckled on her face.

  Celetain pulled herself to a position of strength in the realm. She yelled, “Because if you don't I will bind you by your name and even if I cannot hold you the others will know that for a moment you were mine. Speak, dark spirit!”

  “This one,” the midnight figure's arm pointed to the brilliant blue man, “is the beginning of the end for you and yours. He will start the flow for the river of blood. Blood is the only payment for that which you seek. This one,” the black form extended a tendril arm toward the man engulfed in green and black flame, “will be the blood bringer's strength, and the last,” he pointed to the man of white light, “will be part of his wisdom. There will be others.”

  Celetain looked past the dark figure trying to ascertain where the men were. “This place is the Homelands.” The figure said with a strange finality.

  Celetain saw thousands and thousands of rocks floating behind the men. Each rock dripped with blood, long strands of the fluid undulating between them as they rolled and crashed. Celetain strained to stay but exhaustion washed over her and she slipped from the dream. She woke to a sharp pain along her cheekbone. She was sprawled on the floor and Broge was kneeling, his face just above her face.

  “Celetain, Celetain…” He sounded frightened.

  “I am fine now, Broge. Please, help me up.” Broge rushed to lift her gently and seated her again. She took another sip of the hot chocolate. In a moment, she was composed.

  “Broge, I want a liaison from each tribe to meet me in the Weapons Hall at the start of the next hour.” She rose and donned the heavy green cloak she wore in the halls and pulled up the voluminous hood. She left the room quickly.

  Broge did not hesitate at setting to his task. He finger tapped and began selecting the liaison from each of the eight tribes.

  On Desperado, an Apache Lodge Ship at Steel Circle, Keokuk closed his physical eyes and let the data flow before his mind’s eye. He communicated with the comp at near the speed of thought thanks to over two decades of experience with the tools of his trade. The trick was to be able to ask the right questions in the right way. Right now thousands of figures flashed before his eyes regarding the RZ 140 Slammer Rail Gun.

  Kugan’s operatives had purchased fifty of these massive ship mounted slug throwers. Firing a twenty centimeter slug at an accurate range of fourteen kilometers the Slammer had been a bargain at any price, the only problem was the guns were now giving the ship's server fits with all the custom adjustments each Slammer's specific tribal gunner was trying to program for it. Keokuk was now stripping out the clumsy programming each gunner had created and replacing it with clean, fluid code that would give each gunner the custom performance he was looking for without leaving code sludge on the ship’s server.

  Desperado's server ran at eighty-three percent efficiency, four points higher than any other ship in the Confederacy and Keokuk had plans to increase that figure dramatically. Everything had to be tight, every code line, every subroutine. He was half way through the Slammer project when the line appeared across his comp set reading, “Your presence is requested in the real world.”

  With a finger tap Keokuk made the lenses of his comp set translucent and swiveled his chair. He stopped abruptly. Before him stood Celetain Prax, the Elder Shaman, with a cadre of Acolytes behind her. Keokuk was startled. He saw Elder John on a regular basis and he had dealt with each of the other Elders occasionally but this was the first time he had ever been this close to Prax. He also could not remember her being on Desperado before.

  “Elder Prax,” he stammered, standing immediately. “How may I help you today?”

  Celetain stepped forward. “Your brother is in great danger. I have arranged for transport to Naanac. The outrider ship's departure waits
only for you.”

  Keokuk stared a moment and then answered, “Thank you, Elder Prax. I have a ready bag in my room. If one of your Acolytes would lead me to the ship.”

  Ten minutes later Keokuk was on board Thunder Lizard, an eighty metric ton outrider ship with a crew of one hundred and berths for fifty body tanks. Thunder Lizard was loaded for bear. Troops bustled past Keokuk who sat quietly near a view window. A steady stream of white shooting stars filled his view. The ship was now cruising at 20,000 K.P.H. putting some distance between the gathering of lodge ships and its jump point.

  Naanac was billions light years away. The number crunching to accomplish the jump took just over twenty-seven hours and that had been a rush job. Keokuk felt angry and frustrated. He had been unable to contact Celetain after she left him and the Acolytes would give no details about what danger Wovoka and his pack faced. It surprised him that Celetain had known about the situation for over a day now but had saw fit to give him only ten minutes notice.

  Keokuk strained to understand why Celetain was bringing him on this rescue op, but could think of no logical reason. It was unlikely whatever struggles Wovoka's pack had run into involved a comp problem. He was, however, selfishly glad that he might have a chance to pull Wovoka’s bacon out of the frying pan. That would anger his brother and that was just fine with him. Keokuk pulled a passage from the Gospel of Luke and continued his personal study on Predestination versus Free Will.

  The distinct tremor of surging power could be felt as the catalyst chamber of the outrider ship prepped for the firing that would take the vessel across thousands of galaxies, instantly. The sole piece of equipment that had propelled mankind out into the stars had been the Kellion Cannon. All lodge ships and outrider ships carried one.

  Invented in 2052 by Otto Kellion, a German physicist, the Kellion Cannon was the linchpin for the creation of the UDA. The modern Kellion Cannon was the product of two critical technology elements - the theory of correspondence and gravity control. The Correspondence Theory was the doctoral dissertation of Asian Indian Harvard student Tobuton Hasani. It was never published in any journal and actually was given only a satisfactory grade by Hasani's professors.

  Kellion found the Correspondence Theory buried on the colossal Harvard web site when he was twelve. He studied it for thirteen years and began designing the Kellion Cannon in 2046. In 2050 he went to a Las Vegas tech convention to look for an investor. Silas Mar put up the creds necessary to begin construction on the first Kellion Cannon ship, Furor, in 2051. Furor was completed in 2054. Silas Mar waited to use Furor as a trump card to aid the creation of the UDA.

  The Kellion Cannon had three major components. A Nagasphere, kept in a large draw chamber, powered the unit. The catalyst chamber, located directly behind the draw chamber, was where the correspondence plane was initiated. The catalyst chamber was a cube that measured six meters high, wide and long. The barrel of the cannon measured a standard 131 meters long, three meters in diameter. All Kellion Cannons were exactly alike and built to extreme specificity. Attempts to adjust Kellion's final design produced cannons that sent ships galaxies off the mark. Even forty years after its invention, Kellion's design was operational, but not fully understood.

  When a Kellion Cannon ship intended to use its Kellion Cannon it set its navcomp working on the correspondence code to merge two planes of atoms in two locations into one. Traveling by correspondence plane was referred to as “firing.” Distance had absolutely no effect on how much time or energy was required to complete the union. What were important were the gravity signatures of the two points to be united. If the areas being traveled from and to were gravity charted then the calculations took significantly less time and were far more accurate in creating the union. Gravity charting was a process by which the interstellar gravity forces of an area were studied and specifically valued. The UDA had a fleet of two hundred voyager ships that did nothing but gravity chart new systems. Charting could be done by telescope research but with considerably less accuracy.

  Calculating a correspondence code between two points was simpler for the navcomps the farther away the points were from a major gravity source. The task became impossible if either point was closer than one hundred thousand kilometers from a major gravity source. A body half the size of the Earth’s moon constituted a major gravity source. A navcomp took only a few minutes to calculate a correspondence code between two optimum points that were charted and at least two million kilometers away from a major gravity source. Attempting a jump to or from a system that was uncharted would extend the time necessary to calculate a correspondence code to hours or even days.

  The chance for a slip increased dramatically when a union was attempted to or from an uncharted area. A slip occurred when a Kellion Cannon ship made a correspondence plane and the code used did not correspond to the point the navcomp calculated it would. A slip could place a ship kilometers or galaxies off the mark. There was an eight-day time barrier where no more calculating time will lend accuracy to a correspondence code.

  It took another twenty minutes to reach the firing point and during that time Keokuk pondered the fact that Wovoka faced serious danger and still all he could feel was intense anger toward his only sibling.

  “Attention, Code Nine in sixty seconds.” Keokuk looked up and watched as all the troops around him checked their weapons and keyed last minute code into their comps. All AmerIndian Confederacy personnel assumed battle readiness before their ship fired through a correspondence plane. They never knew if UDA ships would be waiting on the other side.

  Keokuk had been through hundreds of firings in his lifetime. The soldiers around him took their seats. He could hear the hum of the Kellion Cannon charging. Soon the cannon would fire a stream of energy into a single plane of atoms one kilometer from the ship’s current position. The ship would fly into that plane and travel through to another plane thousands of galaxies away, exactly as navigated. Keokuk braced himself for the firing.

  Traveling through interstellar distances was excruciatingly painful. What made it bearable was the time it took a persons body to travel through the source of the pain, the correspondence plane, was only a fraction of a second. It left most travelers with something akin to the memory of intense outward pressure. Keokuk felt the surge, he saw an instant flash of black and he knew he had just traveled a distance of billions of light years. He noticed the soldiers tense, each waiting for the shields to be pummeled with laser fire.

  Keokuk carried no weapon and could not directly operate any of the ship's weaponry (although he had written code for most of them). He suddenly felt useless. A minute passed and a soft gong rang over everyone’s comp set informing those not near glasteel hull sections that the ship was not under attack. Keokuk looked out on a brilliant star blazing mint green light.

  He wandered the ship to keep his mind off the tension. Thunder Lizard was an atypical outrider ship. The crew compartments were more spacious than the body tank warrior’s compartments. Two to a room with beds and a desk as compared to six berths to a room for the body tank warriors. There was a large gym area for the troops and a huge common room in the center of the ship where crew and body tank warriors could workout and socialize.

  Part of the AmerIndian Confederacy's commitment to fighting sation addiction was to encourage old traditional games such as pool and darts. The ship was also equipped with a shooting and archery range. Keokuk was surprised to see the common room relatively empty. He realized most of the tribal warriors were sitting quietly, waiting for action.

  Every Apache troop on the ship knew Wovoka and the members of his pack, Jade Dagger. Wovoka's Infiltrator pack had laid the groundwork for many of their mercenary operations. Wovoka was respected and each Apache warrior now eagerly awaited the opportunity to help him. Keokuk considered what they would find. According to an Acolyte, the chunnel would be closed by now and Keokuk knew there was not enough equipment on this ship to build two kilometers of chunnel.
<
br />   If the Trighter had made it through the chunnel this would be a quick mission. The most likely outcome, Keokuk thought, would be to find the Trighter had not made it through and Jade Dagger was still trapped on Naanac. Keokuk found his walk had led him to the ship's bridge. Keokuk entered the bridge. Captain Squahana recognized him and did not shoo him out. He thankfully stood quietly behind the Nez Perce cross-worker pilot.

  Naanac grew larger by the moment. The ship's speed became evident as the planet filled the main window. The pilot veered the ship sharply into orbit twenty kilometers above the Free Mantle.

  “Scan for life signs and watch for AC hailing signals,” the captain ordered.

  Keokuk saw nothing below but the pandemonium of the Free Mantle. There were no obvious signs of a ship battle but Naanac had a circumference of eleven thousand kilometers. A great deal of area to search.

  “Dispatch all eight Obsidian Tigers. Set six on concentric search patterns around the planet, have the other two, Rogue Four and Six, flank the ship at five hundred klicks where they can keep an eye on us.”

  Jet Tigers were the AmerIndian Confederacy's workhorse fighters. Thirty years old, the Jet Tigers were mainstay fighters from the Periphery campaigns of the 2160's. They were heavy and slow compared to today's fighters but they ran forever on little maintenance and carried standard four conventional lasers, two under-wing bombs and a rail gun under the nose. Keokuk watched as some of the Jet Tigers arched away from Thunder Lizard. Keokuk piggybacked the pilots comp set. Two graphics appeared on his lenses, each a flat bar in a circle. If sensors detected life signs or hailing signals the bar would spike.

  Keokuk knew in ideal situations the bars would remain static until something was detected, but the interference from the Free Mantle made the bars jump and small spikes appeared every few seconds. The sensors would be useless. Captain Squahana finger tapped down the sensors and ordered troops to set up watch at every glasteel hull section on the ship facing the Free Mantle. An hour passed with nothing found and Keokuk began to wonder what the chances were Wovoka and his pack were still on Naanac.

  Four more long hours passed before Keokuk heard, “Rogue three to Mother, copy tango 659342. Center in. I have found objective. I have found objective.”

  “Thank you, Jesus,” Keokuk said.

  He felt the movement of the ship as it veered toward the coordinates. Keokuk forced himself not to rush as he made his way down to the main airlock, a large circular set of doors that split along the middle and rolled back along the hull sections. Six body tank warriors crammed into the airlock. Keokuk watched as the second set of doors hissed open and the warriors floated out randomly then locked in their boosters and shot away. It seemed like forever to Keokuk before anyone returned. Two body tank warriors appeared in the window carrying another body tank. The contrast between the suits was striking. The two Thunder Lizard body tanks gleamed bright red and their caution lights blinked brightly. All of the paint had been scraped off the body tank they were holding. It was covered in dents and the left caution light blinked dimly while the other remained off.

  Keokuk could not tell who was in the body tank due to the absence of any markings. Two medics ran up to the body tank and quickly threw the latches. They pulled away the top half of the body tank and Keokuk approached and barely recognized Wolf Plume when he saw him. His hair and beard were soaked with perspiration and yet his lips were dry, cracked, and bleeding. He drank just a small bit of water the medics gave him and looked at Keokuk.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  Keokuk nodded, “Drink, Wolf Plume. Drink.”

  More body tank warriors brought in Cavaho, who refused to sit and got out of his body tank without assistance, despite his obvious weariness. Wovoka was the next to be brought in to the ship. They open his body tank and offered him water, which he pushed away.

  “Captain Squahana, thank you, thank you. Now please get us back to the Steel Circle. I have urgent business there.”

  Squahana cocked his head, he was not used to Infiltrators telling him when and where to take his ship, but for some reason he did not question Wovoka. Just nodded and commanded his ‘gator to start running the numbers through the navcomp to get back to the Steel Circle. Keokuk helped Wovoka to his feet. Wovoka stumbled forward.

  “Wovoka, slow down. You have to rest a moment. We still have to wait for Slow Turtle. Last as always.”

  Wovoka looked Keokuk in the eye.

  Keokuk had never seen what he saw now in his brother’s eyes, utter devastation. It shocked him and he stepped back.

  Tears started and Wovoka broke down into deep uncontrolled sobbing. Keokuk was frightened by what he saw because it was completely without precedence.

  The last body tank warrior pulled Slow Turtle's suit into the ship and the medics threw open the suit exposing only a corpse. Keokuk lost breath. He had seen Wovoka and his pack return from dozens of missions. He had seen them come back battered, beaten, and bleeding, but always alive. One mission had sent Cavaho back with a three-inch tree limb shoved through his shoulder. The meds had patched him up and he was back with the pack in a week. Keokuk had begun to believe in the pack's invulnerability. He now remembered what Wolf Plume had once told him, “There are only two reasons any of us are alive; our ability to work as a pack and Wovoka's skill as a leader.”

  Keokuk helped the medics carry Wovoka, limp, to an officer’s quarters, trying to get him to drink as they went. Wovoka sipped lightly at the water letting half of it spill on the floor. The medics put Wovoka down on the bed.

  “Leave,” Wovoka said in a raspy voice.

  The medics and Keokuk all looked at each other, none of them sure to whom Wovoka was speaking.

  “I need to speak to my brother.”

  “Pack Alpha, we must tend to your…”

  “Leave,” Wovoka's insisted.

  The medics left and Keokuk remained silent. He felt confused, not knowing how to handle what was happening.

  “Keokuk. I lost Slow Turtle. I lost…” Suddenly the power was gone and Keokuk only saw a boy. His little brother, in pain. For the first time in thirteen years he stepped toward his brother and spread his arms. He embraced him.

  “It's all right, Wovoka. It is all right. Slow Turtle is not lost.”

  Wovoka wept and Keokuk held him tighter.