Hold the Line (Chimera Company Book 5)

by Tim C. Taylor

  It took a few seconds to take the edge off Urdizine’s surprise, then the questions began forming. “How did they get here so fast?” he whispered. “It’s only been six days since we sent that message.”

  “Yeah,” Iytal said. “I wondered that. Could be spy sats monitoring this planet—sats with FTL comm links that relayed our mayday. If they’re listening in so close, it means whoever sent the brigadier regards this world as a very high priority.”

  “Whoever sent? What are you implying?”

  “At no point did Lonsieu or anyone I spoke to state their unit. That goes against Legion comm protocol. Whoever they are, they aren’t regular Legion.”

  “How very interesting,” d’Anje said. “Perhaps we’re about to encounter one of the infamous Legion kill brigades.”

  * * * * *

  Chapter Twenty-Six: Urdizine

  “Orion’s fucking beard! Ah, yes! Yes!”

  As Urdizine’s screams died away to happy groans, Sriti rolled off and snuggled against his side, taking practiced care to avoid pressing against his torn abdominal bands.

  “No more,” she whispered into his ear. “You’ve exhausted me, and the day’s not yet begun.”

  Eyes still swimming with the rich, oily scent of her passion, he buried his face in her blossoming head growth and lost himself once more in her.

  The petals of her blooms shuttered.

  “Who is Orion? You have mentioned this name before.”

  Chuckling, he shifted up a little to rest the back of his head on the rolled blanket they used as a pillow. “It’s a Human saying. They swear by him.”

  “I understand. Who is he?”

  “That’s the thing, crazy Humans, it’s not a person, but a place. The faraway region of the galaxy they came from, bringing with them the Littoranes you’ve seen, but also other races who’ll be serving somewhere on this ship. Humans! I’ve lived with them all my life, but they still don’t make sense.”

  “I don’t like them. We tolerated them in my hexworld because their numbers were always limited. I do not like Captain d’Anje, nor the people he leads. Those Humans do not know their place.”

  “They’re dangerous, but from what I’ve seen on Rho-Torkis and the hex planet you called home, we need them. Come. Rise. I’ll show you Humans. Doubtless there’ll be some at the meeting I’ve been summoned to.”

  “No.” She softened and stroked his chin. “Not today. I am yours, Urdi, as you are mine, but duty binds us more strongly still. I lead my people to strange new pastures in the name of my father the king. Duty calls you, too.”

  He kissed her. Azhanti, but she was everything he needed. To look at her, to touch her hand were such simple pleasures, but he needed Sriti’s guidance even more. She could see the galaxy for what it was, uncluttered by all the crap Federation society confused you with.

  “The more I think about it, the more I want you with me at this meeting,” he told her. “For my benefit, true, but also yours. You’ll change. So will everyone in the Federation; they just don’t know it yet. Humans will be key.”

  “Maybe, but I do not wish to deal with Humans today.”

  Sriti kissed him on the lips. It was a seal of ownership. He didn’t mind in the least.

  “You know our paths will soon split?” he said.

  “I’m not a child.”

  He turned onto his side and enjoyed the sight of her. He’d been so drunk on her scent that he hadn’t spent enough time enjoying the view. “I wish we had more time, Sriti. Parting from you will wound my heart, but I can’t promise to come back to you. I want to, but the universe has plans for me.”

  She laughed. “This huge vessel almost the size of an entire hexworld…the universe brought this ship for you, Urdizine. Just for you. You don’t have to explain that destiny calls you.”

  “Chimera Company,” he muttered. The mutant woman had used that term. He could scarcely believe any of it. Even his rescuers on the Steadfast wouldn’t or couldn’t explain why they’d been ordered to retrieve him.

  Her fingertips danced through his head growth. Flashes of delicate lightning burst behind his eyelids. “My people place great value in stories,” she whispered. “Yours has barely begun. When the universe releases its grip on you, come seek me out. I wish to hear your epic tale and how it entwines mine.”

  They fell silent. The repurposed storage locker they’d slept in filled with the sound of their breathing. Outside in the passageway, they could hear refugees talking.

  Urdizine propped his arms behind him to rise, but Sriti pushed him back down, buried her face in the crook of his shoulder, and breathed deeply.

  “Your scent is…”

  “I know,” Urdizine said. “I’m hollow.”

  “No! Restrained. Choked. No. No. No! These are all the wrong words. Quiet. Yes, your scent is quiet, but it speaks strongly to me.”

  She drew back salaciously, dragging her head beneath his nose and releasing herself to him through her blooms. She gave more than a scent of arousal and identity. She released her inner scent. Vital, thrusting, yet also vulnerable.

  He trembled, a little stunned. No one had ever offered him their inner scent before.

  For the first time, he felt shamed by his hormone suppressor. He wasn’t even sure he still had an inner scent. How much of himself had he surrendered to fit the Federation’s convenience?

  Don’t make it about me, he told himself, breathing in her gift.

  One day, he would return to his Legion comrades, and he would try to explain this moment over beers. They would laugh and nod, but they wouldn’t understand. Not the Humans.

  The Human men might compare what Sriti had just offered him to a private erotic dance from their Human lovers. Well, Sriti was very pleasing to the eyes, and the way her thighs rippled as she walked across the room cried out for him to caress them, but they were Zhoogenes. Scent was everything, so much more densely packed than visual signals.

  She slapped him on the leg. “Snap out of it, you maudlin clown bag. Pull up your panties and get moving.”

  “Listen to you, trying out Human speech.”

  He watched her dress for a few moments before quickly donning his clothes and grabbing what little gear they had. They left together.

  The refugees of Sriti’s people who’d slept in the passageway outside were already standing at attention when the two of them left the locker. She was royalty, after all.

  Urdizine and Sriti dropped their bedding on the deck and smiled politely at the couple who took their place in the locker. Even royalty had to share the privilege of privacy.

  Arm-in-arm, they walked as far as the ladderwell to Deck 12, then parted without a word, though her scent lingered with him for a while.

  He’d been summoned to the briefing room near the secondary hanger, which was half the ship away.

  If God had intended Urdizine to be able to traverse starships, he would have made him a marine, not a SOTL. He was 30 minutes late.

  But it took only milliseconds to see what was terribly wrong.

  * * * * *

  Chapter Twenty-Seven: Urdizine

  SOTLs understood the value of patience.

  Urdizine bided his time, not like those Militia heathens in the room. Hell, they even had a Muryani trooper with them!

  The sergeant was there. So were Zavage and Zy Pel—Bronze, as everyone called him now.

  Tavarius Stryker was not.

  Urdizine hadn’t expected any of his friends to remain alive, but the news of Stryker’s death left him reeling. The man had been so full of life. It was difficult to grasp that it had drained away into the snows of Rho-Torkis, and his end had come just hours after Urdizine had last spoken to him.

  Impossibly, the others had also hooked up with Colonel Lantosh. As for how, and the nature of the mission she was now deployed on, the guys were glossing that over for the moment. All in good time, Urdi.

  The sergeant wouldn’t have brushed him off before. He was more closed now. Al
l of them had changed.

  Bronze had always carried a different aura. Part of the Legion, yes, but also an irregular. Nonregulation. Maverick.

  Last time Urdizine had seen Bronze, he’d had matching hands. Now the skin on his left looked like uncooked chicken flesh. Typical Zy Pel.

  Something of the man’s unorthodox nature had rubbed off on the other two. Even Sybutu, who wore his usual buzz cut and pained expression, though he stood differently. Maybe it was the smell. Urdizine hadn’t washed for two weeks.

  He pointed to Sybutu’s hip, where a nonregulation sidearm was holstered. “Is that a CPS-7, Sergeant?”

  Sarge stopped what he was saying and pulled out the CPS for him to see. “No,” he explained. “It’s the Super Six. Shorter effective range, fewer shots, heavier punch.”

  A plasma pistol. It didn’t fire plasma induction lances like a blaster. Instead, it drew dollops of superheated gases out of its magazine and spat them out the barrel like a phlegmy fire dragon. This was a weapon of terror, more suited to pirates than legionaries.

  Urdizine took it, inspecting the weapon the way a man abandoned for days in the desert without water might cradle a barrel of chilled beer.

  “I could have done with this bad boy on the hexworld. What did you call it? Doloreene?”

  He unlocked the safety and skipped across the room, chambering a round and feeling the weapon hum with infernal energies.

  His target was a petite Human woman chatting with the cylindrical droid.

  He rammed the business end of the weapon against her spine.

  “Keep very still,” he warned. “Everyone else, step away. When I press the trigger, anyone standing in front of this spy will get a fresh coat of hot mist.”

  The woman kept her cool. “It would be a shame to kill someone we’ve gone to such lengths to retrieve. Lower the gun and step away. Who knows? I might even let you keep your balls.”

  “Care to explain yourself, Mr. Urdizine?”

  This came from a Human man standing by a Zhoogene woman who was curvaceous enough to be almost Human.

  He lifted shades to reveal violet eyes.

  Wait…the mission on Rho-Torkis had been to contact a mutant. Could this be the same Captain Fitzwilliam?

  “This woman is an impostor,” Urdizine told the mutant man. He jammed his pistol harder against her back. “Who are you?”

  “Kanha Wei.”

  Urdizine didn’t understand the others’ reaction. He expected them to either come to the imposter’s defense or restrain her. Instead, he was reading mild anxiety in the room, as if such events were an unfortunate everyday occurrence.

  All except the curvy Zhoogene. He could smell her pleasure at the situation. There was no love lost between her and the woman she believed to be Kanha Wei.

  But she was wrong. He’d watched this woman die.

  Hadn’t he?

  He tugged the woman’s tunic up out of her pants. She had creamy smooth skin. Unblemished.

  “I met the real Kanha Wei,” he announced. “She never told me her name, but she worked with Chimera Company, and she smelled and looked like this. The real one died, shot with a blaster bolt that burned so deep, I saw the singed bone of her spine. This imposter doesn’t have so much as a scratch on her back. Unless you’re going to tell me Wei had an identical twin sister.”

  “Let me examine her,” the droid said. “Even through a perfect skin graft, I will be able to detect surgical repair.”

  The battered metal cylinder wobbled as it hovered around to Wei’s bared back and swept a sensor arm over her skin.

  “You’re lucky what we’re about to hear means I’m in a fabulous mood,” the fake Kanha Wei said. “Go on, have your fun. Everything will change in a few moments. You’ll see.”

  “It’s not her,” Urdizine whispered to the droid. “Tell everyone.”

  “Congratulations, Urdizine,” it replied. “You are correct. This is not the woman you previously encountered. She has never been shot in the back.”

  “I knew it!”

  “Indeed. It is an impostor. The woman you encountered previously was the real Kanha Wei. The person you see before you is…Kanha Wei.”

  “What the hell?”

  “You’re enjoying this far too much, Lynx,” the man with the purple eyes said. “Good to meet you, Mr. Urdizine. My name is Captain Fitz, and I beg you to please excuse my droid. I need to have him fixed.”

  Lynx extended two arms and approximated a shrug. “What can I say, Legionary Urdizine? If you feed me the lines, I can’t help myself.”

  “What are you saying?” Urdizine said. There was one answer that fit the facts, no matter how incredible. “Are you saying she’s a clone?”

  “Very good,” Wei said. “In my line of work, being killed comes with the territory.”

  “How many times have you been…reconstituted?” Fitzwilliam asked. The man was trying to come across as unflappable, but he wasn’t fooling Urdizine. He was astonished.

  “I’m the fifth.”

  Urdizine let go of the clone and pointed the CPS-6 at the deck so it could safely discharge the chambered round.

  “I’m impressed with myself,” Kanha Wei said. “I don’t remember anything after making the jump to Rho-Torkis. I never realized I’d gotten so close to retrieving the target.”

  “Damned situation,” Urdizine growled at her. “I can’t figure out whether I owe you an apology. Let’s assume not. I’ll let you know if I change my mind.”

  “Those medical scans Lady Indiya put us through,” Sergeant Sybutu said. “We were told they were to detect special abilities.”

  Holy fuck! Lady Indiya?

  “They were,” Wei said. “They scanned many aspects of your physiology, enough to create clones. Your first batches should be ready in about six weeks. Congratulations, welcome to immortality. Unfortunately, Sinofar, Zavage, Enthree, clone tech has only been developed for Humans and Zhoogenes. Nothing personal, it’s just that we’re the two most common species.”

  “Some of you have backups,” Lynx said, “some not. I fear this will be divisive.”

  “Nail on the head,” Wei said. “That’s why you weren’t supposed to learn this until after JSHC.”

  A bulkhead holo-caster came to life, projecting the emblem of the Far Reach Federation. Not the ubiquitous symbol Urdizine had grown up with; this was the original one from the earliest days, from a time before Zhooge had joined the Federation.

  Urdizine joined the other SOTLs. “Sergeant, I’ve had enough of the runaround. Why did you just refer to Lady Indiya? What’s going on?”

  “We are Chimera Company, a combined forces unit. We’re against those people you encountered on Doloreene, and to beat them, we need to whip the Federation into shape first.”

  “What’s the mission?”

  “That’s why I’ve been giving you the holding pattern, Urdizine. We don’t know. We’re here to find out.”

  The holographic emblem faded away, replaced by the head and shoulders of a Human woman. She was ancient, and even though the holocast washed out color, her hair was vibrant in the same shades as that mutant Fitzwilliam’s eyes.

  “Is that who I think it is, Sergeant?”

  “Yep.”

  “Shit.”

  “That about covers it.”

  “We’re ready,” the Immortal Empress told Chimera Company. She chuckled. “What am I saying? We can never be prepared for what we’re about to face, but we’re as ready as we’re gonna get. We’re out of time. We have to go now. However, we’ve managed to acquire the missing member Sergeant Sybutu has lobbied so hard to retrieve. Welcome, Sapper of the Legion Urdizine.”

  Urdizine saluted Lady Indiya, a woman dead for at least a thousand years. Was she another clone?

  “I’m green-lighting the JSHC operation,” Indiya said. “Your part, Chimera Company, is to go in first. You’re to provoke a response, deal with what you can, and report back on what you can’t. Take your support team with you. I
designate them Indigo Squad.”

  “We’re to provoke a response,” Fitzwilliam said. “We’re well qualified for that.”

  “In other words, we’re bait,” said a woman with a bizarre razzle tattoo. “We’re even more qualified for that.”

  All except the legionaries laughed with the woman.

  Urdizine didn’t recognize her. The Militia troopers who’d accompanied his team on Rho-Torkis had been too wrapped up against the extreme cold to reveal their faces. Sarge had said he’d been tortured by a woman with a tattoo, but hers had been a weeping rose.

  “When do we leave?” Fitzwilliam asked.

  “You’re to board immediately. Indigo Squad will accompany you to provide specialist support. Wei will observe from a distance.”

  The color leached out of Urdizine’s universe. His body refused to breathe. Fate had swept him up so quickly, there’d be no chance to say goodbye to Sriti. Not in person. But he’d record a farewell message.

  What could he say in words that hadn’t already been expressed in the storage locker? She’d breathed in his scent. She knew him. She knew he would come find her as soon as duty released him.

  “I’m not one for speeches,” Lady Indiya said. “In the past, I left that to others. So if you need a pep talk, feel free to give yourselves one.”

  She waited for the laughter to subside. “I will say this, though. Our reconnaissance is inadequate. Too bad. We have to work with what we have. If we fail, well, Urdizine has witnessed the fate that will befall every living thing in the galaxy.”

  Several of his new comrades looked his way.

  “This is where we hold the line,” Lady Indiya told them. “Liberty or death. It all begins at Joint Sector High Command in the Tej Sector. Chimera Company, it’s now up to you.”

  * * * * *

  Chapter Twenty-Eight: Major Storin