The Swordsmen of Angetenar (Mastery of the Stars Book 5)

by M J Dees

“Where are they?” she asked Effeek’o.

  “It wasn’t safe, so Ay-ttho took them somewhere, I can’t tell you where.”

  “Can’t or won’t?”

  “Can’t. The Swordsmen are already marching on the administration building.”

  “What? But I brought weapons and ammunition from Herse.”

  “Then you should take them there.”

  By the time Scotmax arrived at the administration building on her hover bike, the armed law enforcement officers had already arrived.

  She reached into the supplies she had packed to the bike and pulled out some hand held explosives. As she did, a law enforcer bore down on her, preparing to shoot. Before the enforcer could take the shot, a swordsman leapt up and grabbed the weapon. The enforcer fired, killing the swordsman. More enforcers closed in.

  The Swordsmen had erected a barricade to protect themselves from the enforcers’ fire. Scotmax climbed to the top of the barricade, her hands filled with explosives.

  “Stay back,” she shouted to the enforcers. “If you don’t, I will detonate these.”

  Scotmax brandished the explosives.

  “Sure, they will kill me,” she continued. “But they will also kill you all and take out this entire section, including the administration building.”

  She was sure they had already evacuated the bureaucrats from the building, but losing the building alone would plunge the planet into chaos.

  The enforcers looked at each other, unsure whether Scotmax was bluffing. Eventually an officer, presumably in charge, gave a signal and the law enforcers withdrew.

  “Scotmax.”

  Scotmax looked to see who was calling her name. At first she couldn’t see anyone and then she realised the weak voice belonged to the dying swordsman who had, only moments before, saved her life by blocking the enforcer’s shot.

  She went to see if she could help the swordsman, and it was only as she drew close that she realised the dying figure was Tsruhwed.

  “I’m glad you came,” he said. “I had hoped we could fight together.”

  “Why did you do it, Tsruhwed? Why did you block that shot?”

  “I wanted to die before you.”

  Tsruhwed was struggling to breathe, but clearly had more he wanted to share with Scotmax.

  “I have a message for you.”

  He reached inside his bloodied suit and produced a small holographic disc. With some effort, he offered it to Scotmax, who took it.

  “He gave me it before you left for Herse, but I was too afraid to give it to you. I wasn’t going to give it to you at all but I thought, if I didn’t then Roraldir, God of Forgiveness, would not leave me in peace in the afterlife.”

  Tsruhwed coughed up a little life juice.

  “Promise me that, after I am dead, you will touch my proboscis with yours.”

  “I promise.”

  “I loved you, Scotmax. I always wanted you to be my partner.”

  Tsruhwed let out a long sigh and then breathed no more.

  Scotmax extended her long thin probe and attached it to the sucker at the end of Tsruhwed’s proboscis. Then, shaking with emotion, she withdrew it once more.

  Leaving the other swordsmen to protect the barricade, Scotmax went into the nearest bar and found a dark corner to view the message.

  The holographic image sprang to life. It was Nadio, explaining that Ay-ttho had taken him away and giving his new location.

  “My love, they are taking me away. Within ten rotations, they will leave. For now, we are on the Mastery of the Stars in a deep cave beyond the outskirts of the city. Please come when you can.”

  Scotmax recorded a reply.

  “My darling, I was so pleased to receive your message, I had gone to the temple to find you, but Effeek’o could not say where you had gone. Tsruhwed only just gave me your message now. Do not worry, I am with the swordsmen at a barricade in the city. As soon as I can, I will come to you. Take care, my love, and do not worry, we will be together.”

  Scotmax ended the recording.

  “Quigley,” she shouted. “Take this to Nadio, he is on Ay-ttho’s ship, the Mastery of the Stars. They have hidden it in a deep cave somewhere outside of the city. Give the message directly to Nadio, do not leave it with anyone else, understood?”

  “Understood.”

  “Take my hover bike,” said Scotmax, unstrapping the supplies.

  Quigley headed out of the city to the area where he knew the largest caves would be. The ones large enough to contain a freighter were part of a disused mining colony and, once there, the sensors on the hover bike could pick up signs of life and she soon located the Mastery of the Stars.

  “Ay-ttho? I sense a hover bike with one rider approaching,” said Ron.

  “Species?”

  “Thug.”

  Ay-ttho took a weapon and headed for the entrance.

  “Any updates?” She asked when she reached the doors.

  “It appears to be Quigley, the offspring of D’Auria,” said Ron. “She is armed.”

  “What do you want?” Ay-ttho asked over the entrance intercom.

  “I have a message for Nadio from Scotmax.”

  “Leave it there and go.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t do that. She told me I should give it to Nadio, personally.”

  “Why didn’t she bring it herself?”

  “We have been fighting law enforcers outside the administration building all morning. She is there now.”

  “Well, we are not opening the doors so you either leave it there or you take it back to Scotmax and ask her to deliver it in person.”

  Quigley thought about it for a moment, then bent down and left the shiny disk on the brown dust floor of the cave before leaving to re-mount the hover bike and speed off into the distance.

  “Analysis Ron? Is it an explosive?”

  “No, it appears to be a standard holographic disc.”

  “Has she gone?”

  “She’s gone.”

  “Open the doors, Ron.”

  Ay-ttho walked down the gangplank, picked the disc out of the dust and slipped it into her suit before returning to the ship.

  “Shall I alert Nadio,” asked Ron.

  “No, that won’t be necessary.”

  CHAPTER 10: DEPARTURES

  Ay-ttho went to her quarters and watched the message from Scotmax.

  “Anything important?” asked Ron.

  “Scotmax is fighting in the city. Maybe if she gets killed, then Nadio will forget this ridiculous infatuation.”

  “Are you sure?”

  She contemplated the message for a while, and then she went straight to the armoury and dressed herself in her old Corporation security battle suit.

  “What are you doing?” asked Tori, arriving to find out what had brought about this unusual behaviour.

  “Has something happened?” asked Sevan, whom Ron had also alerted.

  “Scotmax is fighting in the city.”

  “And?”

  “She might get killed,” Ay-ttho attached and carried as many arms and explosives as she could, then headed for the exit.

  “Wait!” said Tori. “I’m coming with you.”

  “No, stay here and guard Nadio.”

  Ay-ttho left the ship and left Sevan and Tori feeling anxious.

  When Ay-ttho arrived at the barricade the swordsmen had constructed in front of the administration building, she saw they were under heavy fire from law enforcers who had hidden themselves behind a variety of windows in the building itself.

  “They are trying to provoke us into returning their fire,” said Nnam. “They want us to exhaust our ammunition, then they will attack.”

  Ay-ttho spotted that the law enforcers had sent an observer or a sniper up onto the roof of the building alongside the barricade. She took a shot, carefully aiming at the helmet of the law enforcer to knock him out rather than kill him. She was successful.

  A moment later she spotted another sniper and repeated the procedu
re, again with success.

  “Why didn’t you just kill them?” asked a nearby swordsman.

  Ay-ttho did not answer.

  The law enforcers wheeled out a laser cannon, which blasted off the top of the barricade, sending debris flying high into the air. Ay-ttho and the swordsman had to retreat for cover into the surrounding buildings.

  “The barricade is undefended,” shouted Nnam. “Take out that laser cannon.”

  The swordsmen inflicted a heavy barrage on the laser cannon, killing two-thirds of the law enforcers, but the assault cost most of the remaining ammunition.

  “How do we stand?” asked Nnam.

  “We have plenty of weapons, but hardly any ammunition,” answered a swordsman.

  “I’ll go into the street,” said Scotmax. “There are plenty of bodies all around, I’ll collect the ammunition.”

  “No,” said Nnam. “It’s too risky.”

  “It’s the same risk as anyone here.”

  “I’ll go,” said Ay-ttho.

  “No, you’re too slow in that armour,” said Quigley. “I’ll go.”

  “Come back!” a swordsman shouted.

  “Pull her back!” shouted another.

  In the thick smoke that clouded the area following the assault, Quigley leapt from the barricade and began collecting ammunition from fallen swordsmen and law enforcers alike.

  As the smoke cleared, the law enforcers shot at her, but she continued to collect ammunition, singing as she danced to avoid the firing.

  And the Swordsmen know,

  When the Swordsmen fight,

  We may look an easy target

  But we’ve got some might!

  A laser bolt exploded close to Quigley’s feet.

  So never kick a Krunkut

  Just because he’s an Aux’in

  A laser bolt hit Quigley.

  We’ll fight like twenty Threvvon

  And we won’t give up.

  Quigley threw the bag of ammunition towards the barricade.

  So you’d better run for cover

  When the Aux’in grows -

  Another laser bolt hit Quigley, throwing her to the ground where she lay motionless.

  Scotmax and another swordsman ran out to collect the bag of ammunition and drag Quigley’s body back.

  The swordsman distributed the ammunition.

  “I’m okay, thanks,” said Ay-ttho, refusing her share.

  As the situation at the barricade became more hopeless, the mood of the swordsmen became calmer; perhaps it was the growing inevitability of death which the swordsmen tried to ignore.

  But the calmness was simply masking an apocalyptic mood, and each swordsman was fighting an internal struggle to reconcile themselves with the inevitable.

  “Barricade the windows of the shops,” ordered Nnam.

  “Are you planning a retreat?” Ay-ttho asked her.

  “We have to. There’s just one last job first. We have to execute this law enforcer.”

  Nnam took Ay-ttho to where they had tied up Rioch.

  “I’ll do it,” she said. “I’ll blow her brains out.”

  “Okay, I’ll leave you to it,” said Nnam.

  Ay-ttho aimed her weapon at Rioch.

  “You are no better than I am,” she said.

  Ay-ttho dragged Rioch to her feet and led her outside and round the corner, out of sight of the barricade.

  At the barricade, Scotmax was wondering where she had seen Rioch before.

  “Take your revenge,” said Rioch to Ay-ttho.

  “You are free,” said Ay-ttho. “I am Ay-ttho San An Too, I pilot the Corporation Class II interstellar freighter, Mastery of the Stars, hidden in a cave on the outskirts of the city.”

  It stunned Rioch to hear Ay-ttho’s peculiar speech. She turned to leave, but then thought better of it and turned back to face her once more.

  “Take your best shot.”

  “Go away, Rioch,” Ay-ttho said dismissively.

  She turned and left.

  Scotmax suddenly realised where she had seen Rioch before, the raid on D’Auria’s lodgings.

  “Nnam? Was that law enforcer Rioch?” she asked.

  “It was,” Nnam confirmed.

  Ay-ttho fired her weapon into the air.

  The sound of the shot filled Scotmax with cold horror.

  “I have done it,” Ay-ttho told Nnam when she returned to the barricade. “Why is the population not coming to help you?”

  “Sometimes even the downtrodden place their own happiness above the general welfare,” Nnam explained. “We shouldn’t begrudge them this selfishness; it is the individual’s right to prefer their own interests to those of the whole. Individuals are resistant to the more violent forms of progress such as revolutions and insurrections. They are afraid of violence and incapable of understanding the ideals that motivate them. But self-interest, however understandable, must not and will not be the guiding principle in the galaxy. Angetenar’s rejection of the swordsmen is a temporary aberration, a sickness. The revolution is basically healthy. With all its relapses, failure of nerve, intermittence, it is surely marching toward its ultimate success.”

  Ay-ttho admired Nnam’s optimism.

  The law enforcers launched another vigorous attack. The swordsmen fought back, with Scotmax exposing herself to draw fire at one side of the barricade and Nnam picking off her targets in the administration building with deadly efficiency on the other.

  The battle remained a stalemate for some time, but gradually the constant onslaught from the law enforcers wore down the swordsmen’s defences. Many swordsmen lay dying or wounded, they had almost depleted the ammunition, and the law enforcers seem to replace every fatality with reinforcements.

  The law enforcers charged the barricade and the swordsmen could only hold them back for a moment. Instead, they retreated into a shop Nnam had ordered to be reinforced.

  Nnam ushered the swordsmen into the shop and barred the entrance behind them.

  Scotmax, running from the far side of the barricade, tripped and fell, but Ay-ttho caught her and dragged her around the corner to a place of temporary safety.

  The assault on the shop was immense and the defence equally viscous. The law enforcers fired so much munition into the shopfront that barely any of it was standing when they ceased fire.

  When the dust settled, the swordsmen were dead or dying except for Nnam, who stood defiantly amidst the rubble.

  “Execute her!” ordered a law enforcement officer.

  Nnam dropped her weapons and crossed her arms across her chest, waiting for death.

  Her actions surprised the law enforcers so much that not one of them fired, and the scene descended into an eerie silence.

  A wounded swordsman, lying on the floor near Nnam’s feet, got up and stood next to her.

  “Long live democracy,” the swordsman shouted at the law enforcers, before turning to Nnam. “Do you permit it?”

  The law enforcers opened fire, blasting both the swordsmen to pieces.

  Ay-ttho, leading Scotmax away from the battle, saw a platoon of law enforcers approaching. There was no way forward and no way back. They had trapped them.

  She looked down and saw a grate covering a drain large enough for them to fit into. She lowered Scotmax down into the darkness and then followed, finding herself in a subterranean corridor.

  Darkness surrounded them, only a dim light entered from the grate, but Ay-ttho knew they would have to enter the darkness, Scotmax was injured and in need of medical attention, her condition seemed to worsen.

  There was a slight incline to the corridor. Downhill would lead to the river, which was bound to be teaming with law enforcers, so she lifted Scotmax onto her back and set off uphill, groping for the wall in the darkness.

  She caught sight of another dim light in the distance, another grate in a street somewhere, but she did not know how to find an exit from this dark labyrinth of tunnels.

  The corridor descended and Ay-ttho wondered w
hether she had made a terrible mistake and was heading for the river after all. Whenever she reached a junction, she would take the larger tunnel, assuming that it would lead to an exit where the smaller tunnels would probably lead to dead ends.

  As she carried Scotmax, she noticed her shadow in front of her. Turning, she realised that in the distance, where she had come from, was a moving light of a patrol of law enforcers. Fortunately, close to a junction, she flattened herself and Scotmax against the wall some distance inside a tunnel and remained quiet and motionless.

  She heard the enforcers reach the junction.

  “You must have imagined it,” said one.

  “I suppose so,” said another.

  “Let’s go back to the barricade, I don’t think any swordsmen tried to escape down here.”

  They turned to leave, but an enforcer fired down the tunnel, just in case. The blast hit the tunnel wall, just above Ay-ttho’s head.

  She waited, without moving, until the sound of the enforcers had disappeared completely and silence had returned and then began her march once more.

  The floor of the tunnel was slippery and the roof so low that she had to carry Scotmax bent over. She was hungry and thirsty, but carried on until she reached a junction that she assumed must be the outer sewer. There were several corridors joining, but she decided the widest which ran across them all was the one to take. She wondered whether she should go uphill or downhill and decided that uphill had not worked last time, so she should go downhill, which would presumably take her to the river.

  Before long, Ay-ttho felt she could go on no further and set Scotmax down on a small bank. She checked her pulse and tried to dress her wounds as best she could. Ay-ttho hated Scotmax for her relationship with Nadio which had driven Ay-ttho to help her.

  She checked her pockets and found a message and some food. As she ate the food, she read the message. It was to whoever found her to inform her begetter’s co-begetter, Yor, on Herse.

  The openings to the street were getting fewer, and Ay-ttho assumed night-time must be falling because the light was getting dimmer. It made it much more difficult to see where to step.

  She felt the pavement disappearing under her feet, giving way to a pool of water with a bed of mud. Unable to turn around, she went forward but sank with every step. She had to hold Scotmax above her head but felt she was about to disappear into the mud and die.