Chimera Company - Rho-Torkis Box Set

by Tim C. Taylor

  Vetch couldn’t help but grin. A legionary helm offered good protection against blaster bolts, shrapnel, bullets, and burning plasma. Against Lucerne, though, it offered little protection. The man’s brains had just been pulped inside his skull.

  Meatbolt threw off the two legionaries pinning him and rushed the jack with the teeth.

  Meanwhile, Vetch carried on his hammer swing over his head, building up speed as he brought it low and then swept up beneath the chin of the next legionary in line, who was too busy readying his rifle to realize the danger he was in.

  The man’s PA-71 charge pack sent electric juice into its rails, but before he could fire, Lucerne’s studded metal head thumped into the base of his chin and snapped his neck back so far that the rear of his helm was touching his spine.

  In skilled and untired hands, war hammers made superb melee weapons, but there was still a lot to be said in favor of weapons that only required you to point and shoot.

  As Vetch recovered his hammer into a neutral ready position, Meatbolt was trying to wrest control of the legionary-vamp’s PA-71, while the remaining jack was pointing his rifle at Vetch’s center mass.

  Bugger!

  “Liberty or death!”

  The Militia battle cry came from all around, as if being uttered by the blizzard itself.

  Blaster bolts sizzled through the air, followed by the reassuring shapes of Raven Company reinforcements.

  Vetch dropped Lucerne and dove to one side.

  The jack fired but missed, distracted first by the cries of the charging Militia troopers, and then by the multiple blaster bolts that crackled like persistent lightning over his visor.

  Legion helms were good protection against blaster bolts. But at such short range, that protection only went so far.

  The visor exploded, the legionary’s head with it.

  Still, the jack had Vetch in his sights. He should have blown darts through him but hadn’t.

  How very un-Legion-like.

  The blizzard was closing in again, but Vetch could see that Lily was organizing a defensive ring, and the fanged jack was on the ground.

  “Are we boring you, Meatbolt?” he asked of the crouching young trooper, trying to snap him out of the shock that seemed to have uncharacteristically gripped him.

  Meatbolt drew his coat closer around him. “Sorry, Sarge, it’s just…” The trooper stood and shook his fists in rage. “Those skragg-stuffing jack-heads. They bit me!”

  “Just their deviant way of showing affection.” Vetch scanned the battlespace, expecting to see blaster bolts zipping through the snow. He should be hearing the whine of railguns charging and the crack of grenade explosions. But there was nothing. It made no sense. All around them, legionary HUDs should be flashing news of the dead jacks.

  “Lieutenant Shen this is Arunsen. Request you switch to channel 13.”

  “Why are you trying my patience, Arunsen?”

  Stupid dope. Channel 13 was the only channel the jacks shouldn’t be able to eavesdrop. “Sir, request you switch to channel 13.”

  “Why?”

  Blaster bolts sizzled through the falling snow. “Why? Because the legionaries are trying to kill us,” he shouted over the open channel. “Raven Company. Raven Company. Legion is hostile. Disengage. We are betrayed. Withdraw to the east.”

  A humanoid shape loomed out the snow. Vetch smacked its knees with Lucerne and it fell. “And don’t hesitate to smash a few jack-head skulls on the way.”

  He swung Lucerne around his head and down into the twitching figure at his feet.

  It stopped moving.

  “Militia, to me!” he bellowed. “To me, troopers!”

  Raven personnel formed a wedge around him.

  They were bunching. Too close.

  Before he could shout at them to put some space into their shape, a heavy blow glanced off his helmet making him stagger back.

  Head ringing, he felt out the wound with fat, gloved fingers. There was a new groove cut through his crest and one of his beautiful helmet lamps had shattered.

  “Right! Who broke my bloody lamp? You’ll pay for that.”

  Red berserker mist descended. Vetch no longer cared what his mother would say to him in the afterlife.

  “Kiss my hammer!” he screamed. With Lucerne high, he charged the jacks who’d ruined his helmet.

  NOW

  OSU SYBUTU

  She came for him again.

  The burning pain of the flame-heated rock hadn’t lasted, sucked away by the cold, and leaving Osu with surface burns that had soon cooled.

  That was a good thing about the sub-freezing temperatures.

  The bad was that the cold was also sucking away Osu’s life.

  His torturer had misjudged him, though.

  He wouldn’t break. He wouldn’t beg.

  But he also wouldn’t survive much longer.

  Maybe that was why she’d come for him at the end – to finish him off herself. Lily Hjon struck him as the kind of killer who would rather suck his dying breath into her lungs than let Rho-Torkis take him anonymously in the night.

  Osu laughed sourly. All that death he had witnessed at Camp Faxian. Malix… Sanderson… and then Yergin. Somewhere along the line, he had convinced himself that if he could get the message out to Captain Fitzwilliam then their deaths would have meaning.

  Such a lie. It was obvious to him now. A bitter one too, because his team hadn’t even gotten halfway to their destination. But here their journey was about to end.

  “I don’t approve,” said the torturer.

  Wait – was that his torturer?

  He tried to squeeze clarity into his blurred vision, but to no avail. The woman who’d spoken certainly hadn’t sounded like Lily.

  “It seems you have had the pleasure of becoming Trooper Hjon’s personal project. Lily was just playing with you before we were ready for your interrogation.”

  “Per… Play?”

  “Hjon has her issues. Playtime with her can be fatal, and she went too far with you, Sybutu.”

  The woman wasn’t alone. She commanded a group, he realized, as she began gesturing instructions. “Take him down. Clean him up, and for pity’s sake, put some warm clothing on the man. This is a disciplined Militia facility. Not a Fraxxan brothel. In the future, no one is to be chained to these rocks without my explicit approval.” She hesitated. “Or the colonel’s.”

  Osu sensed people around him. They acted as if they were releasing him from the manacles, but he was too numb to feel anything.

  “My name is Major Shinto Yazzie, and I am executive officer here. I want answers from you, Sergeant Osu Sybutu of the 27th Independent Field Squadron, Legion Engineers, based out of Camp Faxian. I expect to get them. Lily Hjon may appear somewhat… unconstrained in her actions, but we lost six good people to Legion railguns a few days ago, and your commanders deny these murders even took place.”

  “All dead,” said Osu, confused. Did this major not know what had happened at Faxian?

  As he was being gently lowered from the rock, he whispered, “We were betrayed.”

  “Don’t speak here,” Yazzie hissed hurriedly. “I will listen with an open mind, Sybutu. And if I don’t like what you have to say, I will have you and your friends chained on these rocks and I will flay you to death myself.”

  OSU SYBUTU

  “There’s no denying the evidence of your bio ID, Sergeant.”

  Exasperation colored the Militia officer’s words. “You are Sergeant Oso Sybutu of Third Troop, 27th Independent Field Squadron. A sapper of the Legion, no less.” Yazzie pursed her lips, and Osu decided that she wasn’t frustrated by his refusal to speak, as he’d first assumed; she was irritated to be confronted with a time-wasting idiot.

  Yazzie took his empty cup and replenished it from the flask of warm Pryxian brandy she kept decidedly on her side of her desk. For a moment, he weighed his chances of grabbing the flask itself, but when she pushed his cup across to him, he settled for gripping
it between both hands and tipping a small quantity past lips still numb with cold despite the wondrous warmth of her heated office.

  The brandy burned briefly as it drained through his throat, but the sweet warmth that spread through his chest was heavenly. Even the brandy-infused air he exhaled through his nose thawed the inside of his skull.

  Yazzie gave him a minute for the liquor to warm him before proceeding.

  “So, Sybutu, why did we find you a few klicks from Iceni pretending with charming ineptitude to be…” She raised her hands to the ceiling. “This is a point on which I am still unclear. Just what is your cover meant to be? Are you pretending to be bike pirates? Is this some form of performance art?”

  It wasn’t easy with the numbness mixed with crazy tingling from every nerve ending, but Osu did his best to clamp his mouth closed.

  “Your comrades say you were to deliver a message. What could that be, I wonder? RILs are arming themselves, and we already know you encountered uniformed Cora’s World rebels, so all land routes must be considered dangerous. Why, then, did you not simply radio your message? The global comms network is down, and every Legion station on the planet and above it is refusing to answer our hails, but that doesn’t explain why you didn’t use an old-fashioned radio signal. Cyphers do work, you know. Usually.”

  Yazzie barely gave him a chance to reply before continuing. “Clearly, yours is a message so vital that you must deliver it in person. And since this message is meant for someone outside of the ASI-39 perimeter, my guess is you were headed for the main spaceport at Bresca-Brevae. There your contact would relay the message off system.”

  Osu made himself concentrate on the brandy-warmth reinvigorating his body and not on the Militia woman who was penetrating his secrets with such ease. How the hell did she know all that?

  Major Shinto Yazzie was not easy to ignore, however.

  Outwardly, her physical appearance was unremarkable: average height and build for a female human soldier who kept herself fit. Unlike Lily Hjon, if Yazzie had any inked skin, she kept it hidden beneath her sharply pressed blue jacket with the silver-braided frogging and high collar. She boasted less jewelry and even less makeup than the Viking friend Lily had introduced while he was chained to the rock. Vetch, she’d called him. That particular oaf had worn eye shadow, and to the mob of freaks that called itself the Militia, he was a sergeant.

  Yazzie was different. From her steely gaze to the neatness of the bun of hair at the rear of her head, everything about her spoke of discipline. She worried him more than Lily Hjon ever could.

  “And now we reach the biggest question of all,” said Yazzie, her gaze running over him like X-ray search beams. “It’s a long way home, but I’m setting off tomorrow.”

  Osu half blinked. He swallowed. And then he froze every muscle. How the hell did she know Malix’s recognition phrase?

  “Your discipline is admirable, Sergeant. There may yet be hope for your mission. However, you are clearly not trained in clandestine operations. Your reaction to that phrase was obvious, which begs the question of why Lieutenant Colonel Malix would entrust such a vital message to a SOTL like you.”

  Osu said nothing, but he was screaming inside. How does she know?

  “You will be relieved to hear that none of your comrades has revealed a thing. I was using guesswork to fish for a response. Remember what an easy pool you are to fish in, Sergeant. It might save your life one day.”

  But you know the code phrase. That’s no guess.

  “It’s also my recognition phrase, Sergeant. I have a signal phrase too that I am to pass up the chain to my contacts when the time was right. Clearly, it now is. I expect Malix gave you another phrase to pass to your contact?”

  “What connection do you claim with the colonel?” asked Osu.

  “Malix? I’ve never met the man.” She leaned across her desk and looked him closely in the eye. “I was recruited by Colonel Lantosh.”

  Yazzie sat back, smiling at Osu’s astonished reaction. “Rally your mind, Sybutu. Insurrection, civil war, treachery, rebellion, invasion… I don’t know which of these we are currently experiencing on Rho-Torkis. The only information channel I trust at the moment comes from the patrols I send out from Iceni. Nonetheless, I can tell you, Sergeant, that the galaxy has not gone entirely mad. These are not necessarily the end days. History is a process. That’s what we are told by those who wish to diminish the very idea of heroes. Most of the time, I believe they’re right, but we know that there are also times when the fate of worlds, even of entire species, depends on the decisions of a few heroes. We of all people should know that. If it were not for heroes of the Orion Era, none of us would be here. Humanity would have been terminated.

  “Is there room for heroes in your philosophy, Sergeant Sybutu? Lantosh, Malix, and myself — we consider ourselves patriots. Some may even call us heroes because we saw beyond the process, beyond the centuries-long attempt to homogenize and diminish us so that the peoples of the Federation might be more malleable for those who would own us. Easier to fleece.”

  “I’ve served under heroes,” Osu replied, although he was thinking of his old half-troop commander, Lieutenant Szenti, rather than Malix or Lantosh. “I tell myself that they don’t always have to die pointlessly.”

  “If they didn’t take risks, they wouldn’t be heroes. And some challenges require a far greater test of bravery than simply charging the enemy guns alongside our comrades. Here you are, Sybutu, drinking my brandy, unchained and unguarded in my office, and I am taking a huge risk by revealing our recognition phrase. If that fell into the wrong hands, it could unravel the band of patriots who might be the last chance for Far Reach to avoid descending into oblivion. I could be torturing you for all you know about the legionaries who attacked my troopers. I could have you killed because the secrets you now know about me could mean my death. But Colonel Malix trusted you, and for that reason alone, I am going to put my faith in you and give you a choice.”

  “Let me guess, Major. You’re giving me a chance to be a hero.”

  “If you like. You can remain uncooperative, or you can choose to trust me in return. I already possess all the information you have with the exception of the identity and location of your contact, so it shouldn’t be too big a leap.”

  “You want me to cooperate? How?”

  “You will shortly undergo a formal interrogation. You will tell everything you know about why the Legion has locked us out of every planetary system and killed six of my troopers. You will tell my interrogators how in the Five Hells it can be that the Cora’s Hope Division is here on Rho-Torkis and openly supporting the Rebellion. You will report concisely and fully because later tonight you will escape. After an unfortunate delay, I will send a detachment to recapture you. The lieutenant in charge will not know of the deception, nor will the troopers. Only the sergeant. You’ve met him. Vetch Arunsen is his name, and he’s a better man than he realizes.”

  “Is he in your group of hidden patriots?”

  “No. Not yet, at any rate.”

  “And we are to evade your recapture attempts, which your sergeant will ensure fail?”

  The major swallowed hard. “Not exactly. The sergeant will escort you to your destination.”

  “You keep mentioning your sergeant will do this and deliver that. What about the lieutenant?”

  For the first time, Yazzie looked troubled. “The lieutenant is a problem that you and Arunsen must resolve between you.”

  Azhanti! If she was ready to murder one of her own subordinate officers, then she must mean what she said. But what kind of monster murders her own subordinates? And if she could kill one of her own, how much easier it would be to murder his legionaries.

  “It is good that the notion troubles you,” said Yazzie. “It is something I must wrestle with for the rest of my life, and yet if you discussed Lieutenant Julius Shen with members of his platoon, your conscience may not be so sorely tried. In any case, the matter of how to deal with
the lieutenant is one that you must resolve with my sergeant as you see fit.”

  The Militia major seemed to think that all was settled.

  She was wrong.

  “Your plan is flawed,” said Osu. “I’ve worked on a joint Militia-Legion operation before. On Irisur. It lasted less than a day before we started shooting at each other. It won’t work.”

  “I know all about Irisur, Sybutu!” The major’s eyes narrowed in quiet fury. “And the part you played in that debacle. Perhaps Lantosh and Malix were wrong to trust you, but interservice rivalry between Legion and Militia must be resolved. Are you the one who’s hero enough to rise above it? I don’t care about your personal feelings, Sybutu, and I don’t care that it’s hard. Grow some stones and think of your true loyalties. Make this work.”

  Osu shook his head. “Wishing something is true doesn’t magically make it so. Legion and Militia… it’s like taking a lion’s head and crafting it onto the body of a donkey. The two just don’t fit together.”

  “Lion and donkey.” Yazzie curled her lip. “Which one of those two beasts represents the Legion? Oh, don’t bother replying, man. Your hubris oozes like poison from every pore. Let me tell you something that Malix and Lantosh would say to your face if they were here. You legionaries have a lot to learn from the Militia.”

  Yeah, we do, Osu thought. Such as what a degenerate military organization looks like from the inside.

  “Lion and donkey,” said Yazzie in a more conciliatory tone. “You’ll have to work on a better combination, but you’re right in part. You must learn how to work with Arunsen in this chimera of a team.”

  “Chimera, sir?”

  “An ancient concept from the depths of the Orion Era. Mythical creatures that are two beasts in one body. It is a shame that your work must remain secret, because a chimera would be a beacon of cooperation in this catastrophically cynical galaxy.”

  “These chimeras sound like freaks to me. They’re not going to impress anyone.”