Freeforce: The Gryphon Saga

by L. E. Horn

  Lianndra trailed blood-soaked fingers over Michael’s face. At a point early in the process, he’d mercifully lost consciousness. He breathed and his heartbeat remained weak but steady.

  He might live, she thought, but it’s far from a sure thing.

  Lianndra found herself reluctant to remove her hands. As long as she touched him, she felt the reassuring thump of his heart. He’s alive. Despite her exhaustion, she went within one more time to trace the energy meridians. They were full of snarls and eddies in the flow of power, and a couple were severed. She used the last of her energy to re-establish natural order, bolstering some nodes while soothing others. She couldn’t repair them all. It would have to wait until she regained her strength.

  Both Healers had stretched beyond their limits. As Lianndra finally sat back, Hannah nodded and Drake gestured two men forward with a makeshift stretcher. The captain’s body was crimson with cuts from the creature’s wicked scales.

  Lianndra appreciated he’d forgone healing so both women could work on Michael. It’s taken all we could give to save Michael’s life.

  Drake helped Hannah to her feet, waving away her feeble attempts to heal him. “I’ve had worse cuts from my razor,” he muttered, supporting her with a well-placed arm. He and the other men had spent the hours digging graves for the dead slaves. They stood for a moment of silence over the mounds, lost in their private thoughts.

  Lianndra sagged against a boulder. She couldn’t take her eyes off Michael, lying so quietly on the stretcher. He is so close to joining those just buried. He is supposed to go home, not die on this planet.

  Her heart lay like lead within her chest. She’d never been a person of faith, and even if she were, who should she pray to on this alien world? She closed her eyes. Please. Please let him live.

  XOEK’SANK JUMPED WHEN THE LIFT tone sounded even though she’d been waiting for Ewtk’fisk. She clutched her wrap closer to her body, shivering in the cold that permeated the ship’s lower levels. Just beyond where she hid in the shadows, the lift door opened and her friend disembarked.

  Ewtk’fisk walked off the lift with the businesslike stride of someone who belonged there. It amazed Xoek’sank that her friend had so easily embraced the subterfuge necessary for the rebellion, a deception she’d yet to master.

  Xoek’sank shuffled her feet in the darkness, and Ewtk’fisk walked around a large conduit before sidestepping to join her friend.

  “Have you received the latest message?” Xoek’sank’s voice came out strained and squeaky.

  Ewtk’fisk nodded. “The rebellion must have planned for such a contingency. It was an obvious strategy to take out the planetary shield.”

  Xoek’sank shivered. “My contact told me they expected an attack on the shield but not something this extensive. The intelligence reports indicate the shield is more resilient than anticipated so it will require a tremendous amount of power to take it down.” The heavyset Fara paused, glancing around nervously. “The conglomeration of engineers constructed an ambitious plan to route the combined power of multiple Motherships to a single cannon. The modifications are complex, but they have already begun alterations to the power grids on the four orbiting Motherships. The proposed cannon will need power from five ships, so the Arkbtz will arrive in the next rotation.”

  Ewtk’fisk gasped. “Five ships! What if it backfires and damages the power grids?”

  “If it damages the grids on all five ships, our people will only have three functioning Motherships remaining and they are far away. They might not get here in time to save us. This plan could kill thousands of Tlok’mk.”

  Ewtk’fisk’s color had paled to lilac across her face and neck. “What is so important about this planet to risk such a catastrophe? Do the rebels know what is driving this?”

  “The primary rebel leaders know. It is a closely guarded secret. Yet this latest level of commitment surprised even them.” Xoek’sank couldn’t get warm. She shuffled her feet again, shivering in her wrap.

  “Do the rebels have a plan for stopping the cannon?” Ewtk’fisk started to tremble noticeably as well.

  “They are working on it. The level of coordination required with all five ships makes it difficult. The rebellion does not have any members confirmed on the Arkbtz.” Xoek’sank’s voice shook. “The rebellion’s best chance is to hold position to see how the Gryphon respond to the shield being attacked. Assisting the Gryphon with their battle plan is less likely to show our hand.”

  “Are they so sure the cannon will take down the shield?”

  Xoek’sank hesitated. “The cannon will have the power of five Motherships. There is no recorded history of such a powerful cannon ever being built.”

  The power of five Motherships . . . what has become of us? Xoek’sank thought. What could be worth that kind of risk? If the power grids on the ships go down, we will have to evacuate. The three remaining Motherships can not take us all even if they get here in time.

  Ewtk’fisk reached out to lay her hand on her friend’s shoulder. “We have to trust the rebel leaders will think of something. Their plans have served us well to date. They will find a way through.”

  Xoek’sank nodded but didn’t meet her eyes. Everything they’d worked so hard toward could be rendered useless by this latest development. If the shield goes down, it will be a bloodbath. We will wipe the Gryphon from the face of the planet. And for what? What could possibly be worth all this?

  Chapter Fifteen

  THE REBELS COULDN’T STOP MOVING for anyone or anything. They carried Michael’s feverish body on a stretcher between two of his huge Zraph buddies. The bulky aliens moved Michael without effort, but it meant the rebels were short of vital muscle at the head of the column. Luckily, with the jungle thinning around them, they continued to make good progress.

  They didn’t even stop for Michael’s frequent treatments. Lianndra would just hop onto the stretcher as it rocked along between the Zraph.

  Lianndra battled with the virulent bacteria contained in the Vloxx’s claws. She lost track of the times she had to reopen his wound to drain the infection. Michael swam in and out of consciousness, living in a world of hallucinations with rare periods of lucidity.

  His raging infection made it impossible for him to eat. In desperation, Lianndra gave him nutrients directly into his blood. By opening veins in both their arms, Lianndra pushed her blood, with its nourishment, into him. This was messy for both, besides risking further infection to him, so one afternoon she modified her right index finger.

  From her recent trials, Lianndra knew her limitations when altering her body. She could only duplicate cells or destroy them. So, she enlarged the artery supplying her fingertip by duplicating the artery wall cells and then enlarging the vessel, creating a channel to the claw’s base. Modification of the claw itself proved tougher. She destroyed cells to hollow out a channel along the underside before growing cells around it to make the claw longer and finer.

  Once completed, she used the claw as a primitive hypodermic, feeding him the nutrients from her blood along the modified channel. The gene sequences would cause her claw and the blood vessel to grow out as the cells replaced themselves, but it should last like this for long enough to do the job.

  More than once, she caught Drake watching her with an amazed expression. When Hannah pointed out Lianndra’s rapid weight loss, he removed her from scout duty, and made sure she had a steady supply of food.

  Lianndra ate and slept on Michael’s stretcher. It remained a testament to Michael’s popularity that no one protested or claimed he put the entire unit at risk by slowing them down and keeping Lianndra’s valuable talents tied up. At least not out loud. Even if they did, Drake left no doubt where he stood on the issue.

  Somehow, their sacrifice became clear to Michael. During a rare period of clarity, Michael begged Lianndra to let him die. His request irritated her, and she telekinetically shoved him back into a feverish sleep without answering him.

  You will not
die, she silently promised him. Not after all we’ve been through. Dammit, you will live.

  THE FARR COMMANDER’S TWIN HEARTS pounded hard, a sure sign of his agitation.

  In front of him stood his scouts, four human slave soldiers. Stiffly at attention, they did their best to ignore the waves of anger coming off the Fang.

  The jungle thinned. Already the trees’ sizes diminished and grassy plants became more common.

  Fresh mounds of earth littered the surrounding ground. The commander stood over one he’d ordered dug up—it contained human slaves. A Vloxx lay off to one side, shot dead by a laser.

  Straight ahead lay a trail, leading out of the jungle and into the grasslands.

  The commander hissed in anger. There was no longer any doubt. These slaves are running free. How did they deactivate their collars?

  To find out, he must follow them. Grasslands meant Gryphon. To continue meant possibly running into an enemy Gryphon troop. Caught out in the open, the Gryphon’s mobility would spell disaster for his slave soldiers.

  The commander now traveled far outside the regular patrol zone for the missing unit and well beyond his own perimeters. Fortunately, there had been no Gryphon raids along his stretch of the front line while he’d been pursuing the mystery of the vanished unit.

  The fact he’d not caught up with them before they left the jungle enraged him. With the increased threat of Gryphon contact, he could not continue tracking without reporting in.

  He gestured to the slave carrying the portable comm equipment. The human scurried to set it up on a nearby stump.

  Being impatient, the commander gave him a short burst of pain stimulation to promote better performance. It didn’t soothe the humiliation of not completing his mission to capture the missing slaves. It did serve to get the comm unit up and running in record time.

  SARK’NAEK WAITED FOR THE CALL. When she saw the frequency, she nodded to her fellow tech and took the message herself. They often took the calls preferentially for it helped with the continuity of information if the same tech handled related messages.

  She listened to the Farr on the line, feeling her hearts race within her torso. When he finished, Sark’naek responded. “Follow trail. Report back on results.”

  Technically, not much new information existed on the matter. Except that they might follow a trail made by slaves that should have been frozen in place by their collars the moment their commander died.

  Terminating the transmission, she prepared a datachrys for the war coordinator, informing her that the Farr commander followed up on a missing unit. She contacted the neighboring zones’ commanders, asking their units to cover the gap until his return. This fell within her jurisdiction as it passed on relevant information.

  Finally, she tapped in another message on the secure channel, sending it before deleting it as before.

  Sark’naek sat back, hoping the pounding of her blood wasn’t as obvious as it felt. At worst, she could be criticized for not passing enough information on to her superior. Unless they uncovered the last message she had sent—in which case, her fate wasn’t the only one teetering on the edge.

  ALL AT ONCE, THE JUNGLE disappeared. As their group slowly climbed onto the plateau, the vegetation changed to shorter, scrubbier stock, with sections of thick brush broken up by grasses.

  The grassy plants seemed determined to compensate for the lack of trees. In places, the spikes appeared taller than a Zraph, growing in dense tufts with huge seed heads. The rebels circumvented the grasses rather than beat their way through them. Hannah no longer achieved enough altitude to guide the group safely. Instead, they relied on the decrepit navigation equipment scrounged from the Fang unit to keep them from walking in circles.

  Eventually, the trees disappeared altogether. The rebels wove their way through giant grassy mounds and rocky outcrops. It made everyone feel miniaturized, mere ants crawling among a giant’s scruffy lawn.

  The soil beneath their feet was sandy in some places, and stony in others. Younger grass tufts sprang up around the giant grass mounds’ periphery. Small, tough-leaved plants speckled the rocks protruding from the ground. Lianndra noticed blooms on some—tiny spots of color in the arid landscape. It reminded her of the dunes of Bodega Bay, which made her think of other things she would rather not remember. Michael will live. He has to. She rested a hand on his wrist, counting the beats of his heart.

  When they reached the rocky cliffs rising from the grasslands, she knew Drake’s priorities would change, for there would be a significant risk of running headlong into a Gryphon scout troop. The rebels needed a safe, defensible place to hole up for a few days. Drake sent scouts to scour the cliffs for a site that met his criteria.

  After much searching, they found caves that suited their purposes. The climb challenged them, especially for those carrying Michael. Lianndra stepped off the stretcher and helped as best she could, but she trembled with exhaustion. Once on top of the cliffs, she admired the panoramic view. The inaccessibility would buy the rebels time should they be discovered. Drake and Hannah discussed its lack of suitability as a permanent base, but it would do for now.

  In the night, Michael’s fever broke. He fell into a deeper, restful sleep, and Lianndra breathed a shaky sigh of relief. Hannah recruited Drake to force Lianndra first to eat, and then to slip into a bedroll.

  Michael still slept when Lianndra checked in several hours later to give him another nutrient feeding. Hannah promised to stay with him, shooing Lianndra off. “Go relax. He will be fine.”

  Lianndra felt guilty about her preoccupation with Michael. The rebels’ food stores had fallen so low they were at risk of running out. The jungle’s natural biodiversity provided a ready source, but most of it remained too perishable to store and too bulky to carry any distance. If the rebels were going to erect a more permanent camp, they needed to find a reliable local food source—or starve.

  The Healers were ideal food testers. Their ability to take everything to a subcellular level meant they easily screened potential food for toxins.

  After several hours of sleep, Lianndra still felt tired but the seed heads she’d noticed along their route might be an important food source. She could have sent a couple men to collect, but the grasses weren’t far away and she could test the seeds on site. No one needed to waste effort or risk injury bringing back useless samples.

  Lianndra felt weak but buoyed by Michael’s improved health. She retraced their tracks toward the jungle before she ventured off the path to search among the grass-like plants, leaving a scent trail so she wouldn’t get lost.

  The plants grew thicker as she got farther away from the cliffs. She finally spotted the giant seed heads. Using the knife hidden in a hair sheath along her hip, she chose stems from as deep within the clumps as she could reach. Lianndra worked to cut the tough, fibrous material off at the base, careful not to leave signs of her foraging where passing Fang or Gryphon units would see them.

  The Fang seldom come this far out of the jungle but I’d rather be safe than sorry.

  The seeds possessed a thick outer coating but were powdery inside. She cracked them between her teeth. Lianndra detected nothing toxic, so they should grind up into a paste and bake into an edible biscuit.

  She collected enough seed heads to hoist over her shoulder and started following her trail back to camp.

  Focused on retracing her scent trail, Lianndra smelled the Gryphon before she heard them. Their spicy aroma swirled past her on the merest breath of a breeze. For a moment she panicked and considered running. The erratic wind meant she couldn’t determine which direction the Gryphon came from. She couldn’t hide within the thick tufts of grass. Penetrating them without leaving a trampled path would be impossible.

  The only sensible thing is to not surprise them into an attack. After all, Drake wants to make contact with the Gryphon. Lianndra swallowed her fear and walked to where she would be visible, standing with a pounding heart. Memories of the Gryphon in the jungle spun
through her head: their huge size and strength combined with fierce weapons. She almost gave in to her fear and ran, but the little Gryphon’s image took over. Lianndra remembered her gentle eyes and insightful words. I must do this. The rebellion won’t survive on its own, we need the Gryphon’s help. She planted her feet firmly in the dirt and braced for the worst.

  Considering their size, they rolled into view with amazing silence, stopping in a swirl of dust. The five Gryphon must be either a scouting party or a small border patrol. The stripes and spots on their bright bodies worked surprisingly well at blending them in with the sunlit terrain. Lianndra’s eyes followed the outlines of their bodies, but she had problems focusing on some parts. Their chests and hindquarters appeared blurred.

  If it surprised the Gryphon to see her, they gave no sign. But they encircled her with their weapons drawn, looking down with their long-feathered crests and neck spikes fully erect. As they settled to a halt, Lianndra noticed the blurred outlines were caused by capes of reflective material—an impressive camouflage.

  Up close, she marveled once again at their size. The biggest could see above the grass when they stood on their back legs. This provided them with a clear advantage in these grasslands. She also noticed differences among them. Two were larger and rather than a crest, they had short manes of feathers shining with brilliant colors. They weren’t as large or as muscled as the ones she’d seen during the rescue of the little Gryphon.