by Ian Cannon
“Well, he didn’t. And I’m a fine insulter.”
Ben took a breath, laid his head back. He didn’t have time for Rogan’s antics. He angled in his head, thought about the situation, seeing it from all sides. He said, “These people—this Faction—didn’t kill you back on Hominus Four. They captured you, didn’t they?”
Rogan crooked his lips, looked at him, kept quiet.
Ben continued, “They tortured you. Took an eyeball. You cut a deal with them, didn’t you? You agreed to bring me to them. I’m the one they wanted, not you. You got Sympto to help.” He shot his gaze back and forth as if following his thought. “He didn’t contract you. You contracted him.” He speared an angry look into Rogan. “You set a trap.”
Rogan laughed in fury, loud and over-played, “Hahaha! Like a Molta-Danoran whore in a virgin house.”
Ben clicked his teeth. He corrected, “Virgin in a Molta-Danoran whorehouse, you idiot! And your context is still all wrong.”
Rogan looked at him confused. “Huh?”
Ben said, “What was the payoff?”
“What payoff?”
“What. Did you offer. Sympto?”
“Oh, ha—that’s the whole best part. Do you really want to know?”
“Color me curious,” Ben said.
“Do what?”
“Yeah! I want to know! Gods, how do you even breathe?”
“A million yield bits split in half. Fifty, fifty. His half, my half.”
Ben blinked, thought. A million yield bits? He looked up angry, and said, “The Heiress Orona bounty.”
“That’s right,” Rogan said like a big reveal and started dancing around. “I’m going to get what’s mine. I’m going to get what’s mine.”
Ben dropped his head back to the table, infuriated, insulted, beaten.
Rogan continued, “That’s right, old buddy. And guess what you’re going to do. You’re going to give them to me. All of them. All million of them.”
“You must be out of your mind.”
“Oh no. In fact, look whose got the brains now. See, I told you I’m not stupid, at least not more stupider than you. Now, where is it?” he roared unsheathing a portable computer upload/download device from his jacket pocket and began scanning it over Ben’s hand. “Where’s your finance mol? Is it in your hand?” The device showed nothing. Rogan sneered and jumped over the table straddling Ben painfully. “Your arm, is it in your arm?” He scanned the device across his arm.
“Get off me!” Ben growled.
“Where is it!” He showed Ben a fist. “If you don’t show me, they’ll use a worm bug on you. You think Molosian wasps hurt?”
The door whisked open and a man entered wearing a long, official-looking greatcoat that flowed down to his ankles slimming his narrow frame and giving him a patient, sinister appeal. Rogan dismounted the table looking suddenly nervous at the man’s presence. The man said in a toneless voice, “Leave.”
Rogan swallowed and said, “I was just—”
The man said, “Get,” and swiveled his head to Rogan, “out.”
Rogan looked down and ushered himself quickly from the room.
Ben followed his new company with his eyes. The man went to the full viewport and stared out, his hands placed behind his back. It was a magnificent view of the lunar night at altitude. This room was at the top of a mountain set into the mountainside on enormous pylons. Far below was the expansive lunar flatland reaching out toward the horizon.
Several long seconds past in silence before the man took a breath and said in his smooth even tone, cold and icy, “Benjar Dash. Born eight-one-two-sixty-two of the universal calendar, Solar Twin War era, thirty-seven years old, universal. Citizen number nine-nine-three-six-nine-eight-four-six-four, Golothan system, Golot Major, sector seven-one-seven. Member of the Golothan service, Red Guard, assigned to regiment three, battalion eight, five-oh-first high altitude assault squad, Imperium. Later assigned to combat intel, then promoted to full combat officer and collapse-wing drop pilot.”
He turned away from the night moon vista and paced around Ben’s captor table, continuing his long, droning diatribe, “You were a combatant in the Primus sub-Wars. Survivor of fourteen drop missions, in all. Impressive. It was a dirty action. Some say the most reckless campaign of the Solar Twin Wars, second only to the Denubis campaign.” He stopped, turned, started pacing again. “It did offer you some commendation though, didn’t it? The Red Guard valor award and the leadership nomination clover. You’re a hero.”
Ben turned his head away insulted by the word.
The man stopped, took a sigh and continued, “Of course then it was off to the lunar front of Sarcon, one of the Imperium’s more futile attempts to strike at a Cabal homefront. Big mistake, yes? It cost you a leg and ended your time at Sarcon. But then, only then, you were given the most fateful assignment of your military tenure.”
He turned his long, angular face toward Ben with the lunar shadows cutting across the deep crags of his features and said with a wild grin, “Malum … A true military disaster. For both sides, I might add. A logistical nightmare. An exercise in tactical futility. A waste of resources—and the bloodiest universal year of any lunar campaign yet launched. Entire regiments scattered, leaders abandoned their men, entire columns registered as casualties of war, everyone driven mad with the Dark found there.” He said, lowly, “Monoxide toxins seeping up from surface pores in the rock. Unexpected, that.” He continued, “Compatriots turning on each other, brothers in arms at each other’s throats, the enemy always a whisper away.” He kneeled down by the head of Ben’s table and ran his fingers through Ben’s hair, whispering the words, “Pure insanity.” Ben jerked away.
The man stood back up and said, “And that is where the hero lost far more than a leg, isn’t it? In fact, he was never seen again, not by an Imperium outpost, an Imperium officer, not so much as an Imperium trooper. The hero lost his thirst for war, as it appeared.” He stood back at the far viewport just looking out, but turned his head slightly, revealing the angular slopes of his face and asked very curiously, “Or is it possible that you found a greater cause to fight for amidst the Dark of Malum?”
Ben oozed disdain. He knew what this man with the flatulent words was referring to, and it wasn’t his experiences on Malum. He’d never wanted to hear that word again. Malum. The only good thing that ever came from his time on that place of human carnage was…
“Tawny Dash,” the man said, low and mean. “No previous surname, only Group Zero, as was given to all her kind—” he looked back and said, “orphans of war.” He turned his head back to the moon vista and continued, “No known age. Homeworld Raylon. Brought up a ward of the state where she was found to have an early aptitude for certain combat skills, namely…” he made a noise, almost like a chuckle, and said, “all of them, but particularly hand-to-hand. Served in the Underworld’s Raylon Destroyer Apiary, stratum four-four-one, sector nine-zero-subset-B. The assassin group. Raylons make excellent assassins. An interesting story, that one.”
He pulled himself away from the window and began his pacing. “Her services were used to great effect on many fronts, namely the orbiter skirmishes of Digitus and Malitus; the Cabal victory at Tericron where her campaign repelled the Imperium’s direct frontal assault on Omicron Prime, capitol world of the Cabal. Then came Gorba, Tremus, Jingut and a number of others—all before her time spent on the moon Juto of Dionesse.” He kneeled down next to Ben, seemed to take a great deal of joy in his next words. “You’re aware of her time at Juto. They tortured her, didn’t they, made her do things she dare not relive.” A long silence passed. The only sound was Ben’s breath being drawn tight and angry through his nostrils. In. out.
The man stood suddenly as if to break the moment, and said, “Thank whatever god she chooses, rescue came shortly when the moon Juto was taken, at least for a short while, by an Underworld offensive, and the Cabal reclaimed their prisoners of war. But doubting her resolve, the Cabal sent her to her
most fateful campaign just as the Imperium did you. Malum. Where, coincidentally, she was never seen nor heard from ever again either, lost by the Cabal. And now, here you both are. Curious, wouldn’t you say?” He whispered to him, “You’re both deserters.”
Ben turned his head and sneered, “Where is she?”
The man went back to the window, looked out. “Somewhere out there. Captured. Fighting. Who knows? Perhaps, she’s dead.”
Ben jerked on his restraints, then settled. She wasn’t dead. Ben believed that. He looked up. This man knew her past, somehow. He’d found her records scattered amongst the Cabal data nets, pieced together their relationship. Ben knew, even this man wasn’t convinced she was dead. Ben assumed, “You’re hunting her.”
The man turned his head and looked at him with emotionless eyes. He said nothing, but the answer was clear. They were hunting her.
Ben grinned bitterly. “You’ll never find her. She’ll hide in places your men will never know to look. If there’s a nook, she’ll find it, a cranny, she’ll use it. And shadows? Heh—shadows are a weapon to Tawny. And if that doesn’t work, she’ll hide in plain sight. It’s what she does, pal. Let your men search. With any luck, she’s already off planet. Oh, and one other thing. Tell your men not to pursue her. If they have her cornered, tell them to surrender. Cornering Tawny is the last thing they’ll want to do. Trust me.”
Chapter Fifteen
Tawny’s eyes opened and she came to consciousness swimming in a sea of agony. She was on her side, her back propped up on a rock. Everything hurt. She couldn’t tell where her injuries were. It seemed she’d broken everything.
First, she checked her hands. Going to need her hands. She flexed the fingers of her right hand. Still worked. Then the left. They were okay.
Feet—could she feel her feet?
A broken back would spell certain doom.
Yes, she could feel them. The right, then the left. But somewhere between her foot and her brain was a pain so perfect it dizzied her. Left knee. It was a goner. As this registered, it made her wince in terrible pain. She’d blown it out. There were probably pieces of it scattered all over the inside of her bio-suit pant leg. She inspected. A large plug of floxa-foam had been secreted by her suit to plug the breach. It had also dampened the pain, but its effect was obviously wearing off.
She dug her right foot in and tried to sit up. More needles and pins of pain articulated throughout her body. Something felt funny in her back. Bone was probably pressing into her spine.
Wonderful…
And for the first time, she realized how painful it was to pull breath. Every rib in her body was probably bruised, some of them cracked.
“Ugg,” she groaned, her own voice bringing her fully back to reality. “This sucks…”
“Would you like a bio scan of your injuries and…”
“Shut up.”
“Sorry,” the suit said. “Congratulations are in order, though.”
“Huh?”
“I’ve never heard of anybody surviving a fall of that distance using only a boost apparatus. Of course, no bio-suit has ever been successful in preserving its pilot from that kind of…”
“Please be quiet,” she said between labored breaths.
“Of course. Would you like a systems check, at least?”
“I need deadener.”
“I’ve had to patch three primary suit breaches. The floxa-foam is down to fifteen percent.”
“Good, I’ll take it,” she wheezed. “My back.”
The floxa-foam had a double use. Her bio-suit released it at the point of a breach to seal the hole, but also as a pain dampener. The bio-suit manufacturers deemed it logical that a suit breach also meant bodily injury at the point of puncture. They were generally right. Tawny felt the cool, lubricous foam secrete from its woven fibers and plume across her lower back, at the point of the most pain. Its deep numbing affect began working immediately. She figured her knee would have to wait. She had two knees. One back. She groaned in relief and muttered, “Okay, give me that systems check.”
“Aside from the overall suit breaches, we also have a puncture in the two-oh-nine charge pack. You have what charge is left, then we’re out.”
She glanced over. The cannon lay next to her, undamaged, save the charge pack strapped to her back. It had probably cushioned her fall from some injury. She said, “How many shots do I have?”
“At full strength, one.”
“Can we conserve?”
“Mmm—I can recalibrate with the gun itself through the suit interface. That might conserve power.”
“Do it.”
“What percent?”
“Twenty.”
“Done.” The idea was to decrease the payload of each shot to give her additional barrages.
“Oxygen?” she asked.
“We have only seventy-one minutes left at your current rate of consumption. Not bad. Not good. You have three reserve canisters, I notice. They were not punctured.”
She felt for the small canisters of compressed O strapped to her thigh. Had one been punctured, the resulting explosion would have blown a leg off. She was lucky. Nevertheless, there they were.
With her back numbing, she was able to prop herself up against the rock and look around. She was in a lonely place, swallowed by the girth of the sheer stone face directly above, and the impassable terrain all around her. Getting out of this mess would be a trick. She wondered about her comm system. She needed to talk to REX-sub, have him come pick her up. She knew the suit’s infrastructure was in workable condition. What about the electronics?
“Give me a full digital and electronic optical layover diagnostic.”
“Systems are operable. That includes comm and weapon targeting. But the integration processor has been damaged. You’ll have to use them one at a time.”
She winced forcing herself into an upright position leaning all her weight onto her right foot. The integration processor was the least of her worries. If she had to lose a system, that would be a fine one to go.
“What about our visor connection with REX-prime. Is he still feeding?”
“No, but my hard drive memory can recall the map. Want to see?”
“Yeah, give me local,” she said, still trying to choke down a body-full of pain. The visor emitted a map of the surrounding area. Rock formations showed in 3-D topographical display—a confusing mess of ovals, circles and wavy lines. She immediately gasped. There were red blip indicators. Over a dozen of them. People advancing, the closest were closing to within fifty meters.
“Uh oh,” her suit said. “Are you seeing this?”
“Yeah,” she said, alarmed.
“Who are they?”
“Narse-holes. Give me targeting overlay.”
“No integration,” her suit said.
“Wipe the map,” Tawny said frantically. “Give me targeting!”
The gun swung into her grasp as her targeting optics zipped in. They were very close, a hundred feet. Hadn’t seen her yet. Too many stone outcroppings. Too many shadowed hiding spots in the jags. But they knew she was there. And now she knew they were coming.
Sneering from the pain, she stepped around the nearest cleft in the rocky terrain and looked over. They spotted each other at the same time—three bio-suited figures, each with blipping suit lights, armed to the teeth. Her reticle circled in, gave her a tri-beep. She pulled the trigger. The gun in her hands spit a twenty percent fusillade. The plasma grenade streamed through the air and erupted against one of their chest. What would have been an explosion of molten stone at a hundred percent merely blew one of them off their feet, a huge flame-rimmed hole burned through him.
Her visor showed one of the approaching life forms blink out. Got one. There would be no multiple kills with one shot, but it was enough to halt the others on their feet, make them duck way down.
“We have to move,” her bio-suit said. The words were like a nightmare in her ears.
Move? Easy for you
to say!
She started picking her way around the base of the mountain, clawing with her hands, hopping on her foot, hissing and sneering at the pain of locomotion. Her targeting screen showed another target to the west, a few hundred feet. She peeked over the rock, desperate to see. It was a moon vehicle buzzing toward the mountain over the nearby flatland, coming directly toward her.
“Target,” she said still fighting agony. The reticle honed in, the gun poised in her hand. “Firing.”
Another plasma ball zoomed out, yellow, hot and bright as a tiny sun, skimming the planet surface with only one intention. The moon vehicle braked in a panic. Too late! The plasma ball struck the forward compartment, burned through the metal and sank into its engineering, all in the blink of an eye. The following explosion tumbled it over into a barrel roll, one guy flipping out one way, another flipping out the other, lunar sand being kicked into a cloud.
She leaned back, sank into a shadow.
“Tawny,” her suit said, “I’m worried about your bio signs.”
She shook her head. “Shut up and give me the map.”
Her visor optics rotated her targeting display away, switched to the map layover of the general vicinity. “Zoom in,” she said. The area expanded up illuminating terrain details. She stood on a surface cap of distinctive phytokarst-formed rock towers, most of them ending in tiny peaks of their own, others forming into stone flutes, all of them with ripper-capable razor-sharp edges. The field spanned across the entire foot of the mountain range and out into the flats by several acres. Passage was impossible. She needed to find another way.
There!
A tunnel.
The map showed these mountains were veritable networks of underground passages. Most of them were large enough to pass through. One opened up into the stone face several paces ahead. She could lose them in there, at least buy herself some time.
There was more motion coming from directly ahead. It was indistinct. She couldn’t tell exactly who or what. But she had a feeling.
“Switch to targeting,” she groaned leaning against the mountain, absorbing the agony. There was no time to hurt. Her screen displayed. They moved in threes. They looked to be on foot, picking their way slowly across the base of the mountain, headed toward her.