Freeforce: The Gryphon Saga

by L. E. Horn

  When the screen went black again, silence filled the room. Before long, noise erupted as Fara discussed this remarkable series of events. Ewtk’fisk looked at Xoek’sank, her friend’s skin had gone pale. It proved impossible to gauge the surrounding reaction, but the general mood seemed tense. Whether the elders wished to acknowledge it or not, many took the rebellion’s message seriously.

  The noise level dropped and Ewtk’fisk followed the gazes of many Fara. At the entrance to the room, a large group of Bernaf slaves lined up along the walls. Their huge, fathomless, onyx eyes seemed to bore straight into her soul. Ewtk’fisk’s skin crawled. She didn’t have to look to know their collars revealed the colors of the Chamber of Elders guard.

  “Time to go,” Xoek’sank said.

  Ewtk’fisk nodded, and rose. The establishment does not wish the rebellion taken seriously. Message received. They are dreaming if they think a few Bernaf will stop this tide. It is gaining momentum and nothing will halt the coming confrontation.

  TARK’TOSK GLOWERED AT HER console. A tech forwarded her a copy of the rebellion’s message since they hadn’t received the original broadcast on the planet’s surface.

  How do they expect me to win this war, she thought, when they cannot even control what happens on their own ships?

  Tark’tosk understood the strains of an extended conflict could reveal infrastructure weaknesses within a species, even one as advanced as hers. It did not surprise her that a group of Tlok’mk opposed to the war existed. Resources had become scarce, and so few Fara knew the true reason for the conflict. Genetically tweaked to reduce the conduct of independent initiatives, her people should not be capable of such behavior, but genetic variability meant there were always a few susceptible specimens. It was disconcerting, however, to think a group of individuals were organized enough to bypass the computer safeguards and make a fleet-wide announcement.

  It is a sign the elders have not been monitoring what is going on within their jurisdiction. Fools. Tark’tosk forced herself to focus. The shield is close to failure. The cannon’s protection is our primary concern. If these rebels are more widespread than we think, they may have plans to sabotage it.

  She had sent a message to the Chamber of Elders about enhancing the safeguards for the cannon. In light of this latest announcement, it couldn’t hurt to bolster that message with another. She tapped in a request to the elders and marked it a priority.

  AS KESAR’S ARMY ATTACKED THE front lines, Karn’s forces prepared their assault at the canyon entrance. Roz joined them as Karn led Drake, Michael, and Andrea to a spot where they could look down upon the Fang army.

  “No Tlok’mk commander,” the big Gryph said, handing Drake his magnifiers.

  There will be a few lizards in charge of the slaves guarding the canyon entrance. Where the heck are they? Drake looked through the magnifiers. The Blooddancers milled around, each one clutching a wooden spear. Many sat or stood in dispirited groups. Drake could hear their soft echoing voices from where he stood.

  He could see a mobile laser cannon escorted by the hulking Zraph. Groups of slave soldiers moved back and forth, visible behind ramparts made of metal and wood. Farr commandos stood in loose groups just beyond, clutching their weapons. Drake noticed multiple rows of metal spikes buried in the ground, pointed at an angle toward the canyon’s mouth. The tactic contained a stab of familiarity—historically, spiked barriers provided an effective tactic against cavalry back on Earth.

  They looked like they could be equally effective against the Gryphon, Drake thought. I wonder how high my four-legged mates can jump?

  The rebel captain scanned the enemy forces, unable to see the Fang commanders responsible for controlling the slaves and coordinating the battle strategy. Unless they could find them, they had limited options.

  Drake offered Michael the magnifiers. “I think the head lizards are staying concealed in the slaves’ midst, well behind the cannons.”

  Michael frowned as he waved off the glasses Drake offered. “I don’t need them,” he said. “But I can’t see them either.”

  “We put a significant dent in the number of lizard commanders, but I doubt all the rearmost soldiers are controlled by those we knocked out. There must be more hidden close by.” Drake addressed Karn. “What’s your plan?” Apparently, the Gryphon had a few cards up their sleeves for dealing with the slaves.

  Karn and Roz exchanged glances, and Karn nodded. “Have plan. Save slaves.”

  Beyond Karn, the army reorganized after their foray to capture the cannons. The big Gryph gestured with a hand, and pairs of Gryphon stepped forward—tall young Gryphon with very long legs. Each duo had a narrow band of netting between them, which played out as they moved apart.

  “Runners,” Karn said. “Swift. Sweep slaves away.”

  “Sweep?” Drake asked. What on earth is the big bloke up to now?

  Karn didn’t answer but glanced at the sky. The sunrise streaked the incoming clouds with red and purple hues. “Storm on schedule,” he said. Then he looked at Michael and his ears twitched. “Honored carry Berserker.” He sounded formal, but his nostrils flared and he curled his long lips in his Gryphon imitation of a human smile.

  Drake had seen him try the imitation smile before but with less showing of teeth. I must tell Michael to teach him how to just curl his lips to smile. I haven’t got the heart to tell him his current effort makes him look fierce.

  He watched as Michael bowed to the big Gryph and said, “As if you need to ask.”

  MOST OF KARN’S FORCES HAD fought in many jungle skirmishes with the Tlok’mk, sneaking close, striking hard and retreating fast. Today’s plan called for a different battle.

  Their first foray to capture the cannons on the cliff involved a direct frontal assault, the worst possible confrontation for his scouts. Hopefully, it would be offset by fewer casualties during the battle for the canyon itself. We paid a high price to disable those weapons, but it would have been worse if it were not for the Healers. The Tlok’mk created them to heal their soldiers, but they now help us instead.

  The Tlok’mk army’s rear guard had entrenched between the canyon walls. The Tlok’mk cleared the brush away from the entrance to the canyon, but they lacked the machines necessary to clear the large boulders and rock outcroppings. These would give cover for the Gryphon, protecting them from the enemy’s laser cannons still operational on the canyon floor.

  As the Gryphon army stalked closer, the sky overhead darkened. Rain occurred like clockwork this close to the jungle. Short of attacking at night, the cover of a storm proved the next best thing.

  The Gryph warriors with Karn included the biggest and heaviest of his soldiers, though they lacked the great bulk of his father’s heavy guard. Some carried extra weapons in the form of Drake and his men. The rebel captain sat tall astride the giant Gryph, Roz.

  Karn’s comm buzzed, and he answered in his native tongue. He signed off and looked skyward. “Position, good,” he told Michael, who sat astride his broad back. “Wait. Storm.”

  Karn’s long, tufted ears flicked at the low growl rumbling from Michael’s chest. The Gryph accompanied the big man on enough slave rescue missions to know Michael ramped up the anger, getting himself ready to unleash the Beast. Karn experienced a pang of worry for his friend. He could sense the energy that usually burned so hot within Michael didn’t come as easily to him this time. Everyone has their limits, even Michael. I hope he has enough left to see this through.

  MICHAEL HEFTED HIS SWORD AND looked to the sky. He wondered how many Fang slaves remained controlled, and how many might be able to break and run. They wouldn’t know until the hammer came down.

  A wave of weariness passed through him, but he did his best to ignore it. In the Berserker’s early days, he often collapsed in exhaustion after the rages subsided. As his healing ability improved, so had his recovery. I’ve never hit bottom, but today might be the day. He hadn’t rested more than a few hours since they rescued the Healers, and
he barely kept the gray fog of exhaustion at bay. To fight, he would have to call on whatever reserves he had left.

  Michael needed fuel for the fire. Hatred for the Fang always burned within him, and closing his eyes, he reached for it to stoke the rage. Images flashed in his brain: the cruelty of their capture and enslavement, the brutality of their training, the terrible things the Fang forced them to do, the friends among the slaves that had either been killed or chosen death rather than to serve, and above all—Lianndra—what the Fang had done to her, and might now be doing in the cold blackness of space. He welcomed the rage as it flowed through him, emerging as a rasping growl.

  A few large drops heralded the coming storm. The familiar plasma cannon beam crashed against the shields and temporarily outshone the lightning dancing across the sky. Thunder rumbled as the clouds released the rain in driving sheets of water that stung Michael’s skin and flooded his eyes. The pounding of Gryphon feet merged with the thunder from the skies above.

  Karn’s largest warriors held back as the swift frontrunners swept down on the army below. Michael snarled as they sped past, clutching his sword and continuing to ramp up the anger. He leaned forward as Karn surged into motion, hurling his big body over ground, becoming nothing but a blur, leaping bushes and rocks with such fluidity they barely registered. The rain now formed a nearly impenetrable wall. Michael heard screams from the slaves. As Karn pounded past, he saw humans hauled along the ground, tangled in the nets pulled by running Gryphon. The slaves took a beating, but they were alive and out of the battle.

  Then Michael and Karn flew past them while the rain ran like blood, lit with the crimson blasts from the laser cannons. Screams behind, in front, alongside. They crashed headlong into a wall of soldiers and Michael roared, unleashing the welcome rage. He swung the black sword as they swept past a blur of slave and alien flesh. The long blade whistled clear of Karn’s ducked torso to take out Farr. He felt the big Gryph’s muscles bunch as the spiked barrier loomed.

  As they soared over, Michael saw flashes of shocked faces from the trench below. Karn landed on his forelegs and spun to strike at the soldiers beneath. Michael hung on as the big Gryph spun again, lashing out with powerful hind limbs to knock the spikes clear out of the ground. On each side of Karn, his other Gryph warriors did the same, opening a path for the charge of their smaller fellows. Michael spotted a flash of silver out of the corner of one eye: Roz, carrying Drake and protecting Karn’s flank. Michael clung grimly during the Gryphon’s wild, spinning maneuvers. A few other soldiers slid off their mounts and waded into battle, lasers firing and swords swinging.

  Michael heard a commotion above the clash of weapons. A group of slaves ran toward them, fleeing. Some screamed, falling to the ground, shocked senseless with their collars sparking in the rain.

  They’re being controlled! Michael squinted into the deluge. The Fang commander must be close enough to see them.

  He had no memory of leaping free from Karn’s charging form, yet suddenly his feet slipped in the mud as he ran. Human feet were not as good in this footing as Gryphon claws, but Michael remained oblivious to the lack of traction. The running slaves split around him in panic. He jumped over one thrashing in the mud.

  The rage rose. His senses came alive when he embraced the Beast. Time seemed to slow. The battle revolved around him, each weapon and soldier outlined in a halo of light. Every scent, sight, and sound became crystal clear, everything except his sense of touch. He was only aware of his body as a machine—a means to an end.

  Three strides, four; swing at a soldier coming at him with a pike, snapping the weapon in two; slash at another, knocking the laser rifle clean out of his hands, knock him to the ground with a swift and brutal kick to the groin; duck under an axe swing, hack the Zraph’s legs right out from under it. As Michael straightened, he saw something move, not ahead, but a little above.

  A crack existed in the canyon wall, hidden by a scrubby bush. As he strode forward, the crack opened into a cave. Through the driving rain, he locked eyes with a Farr commander. Hiding like a worm. Michael let the rage explode from him, leaping from the ground to a boulder and through the cave entrance.

  There was little time to register movement within the cave before a Farr swung a laser rifle, aimed, and fired. Michael tried to dodge the beam, but it burned a channel along his ribs. He bared his fangs and roared as he swung his black sword in a bloody arc straight through the reptilian alien’s neck. After the Fang hit the ground, Michael jumped over him, stabbing his knife into the next. Leaving the knife there, he spun and sliced his sword across the belly of a Farr coming for him at an angle. As he flipped the sword around, he grabbed an alien’s arm to keep its upraised weapon from striking and used the spikes of his blade’s guard to skewer his foe’s throat.

  The bodies piled up around him, hindering his progress in the cave’s confines. Surrounded by dying Fang, he surged up, climbing a slumped body to lock swords with a Farr on the other side. In the chaotic shadows, Michael failed to see the second sword coming at him from below until he ran straight into it. Pumped full of adrenaline, he barely felt the blade as it crunched through his ribs and slid into the soft tissues beyond. Michael drove forward, impaled himself to the hilt and crashed into the wielder’s body before running the Farr through with the Vertraax sword, twisting it to do as much damage as he could. Then he spun to block the wicked curved knife of another coming at him from the shadows. A slash, and the knife fell to the ground, along with the hand holding it. The Farr shrieked in pain—a cry cut off as its head followed the hand.

  Fang filled the cave, well-armed and well-prepared. Michael pulled his second knife and ran it into the Farr beside him. As he did, another Farr grabbed the sword’s hilt buried within Michael and twisted.

  Michael’s entire body jerked in response, but caught up in his Berserker rage, he remained numb to the pain. Instead, he released the knife wedged in the dying Fang and raked the Farr holding the sword with fingernails now transformed into claws.

  Blinded, its face gushing blood, the Farr struggled to hold Michael’s upraised sword arm, but lost the fight when the big man sank his long canines into its leathery neck. Michael’s forward momentum allowed him to use the dying Farr as a battering ram, crashing through those trying to come at him from beyond.

  Suddenly the quarters became much too tight for the sword. Michael ran it through the body of a Farr and into his comrade behind him, abandoning it there. Armed now with only his teeth and claws, he became a whirling, roaring banshee of death, shredding and slicing his way through whatever dared to block his path.

  LIANNDRA SAW THROUGH FIFTEEN SETS of eyes. She’d never experienced a link with the Darkon quite like this.

  The plasma cannon drew ever nearer. Thanks to the increased Darkon participation, she experienced the surroundings as a panorama, including images that showed her strapped to the seat with Darkon all around, their eyes dancing with violet light. Her head spun. Keep it together girl. The Darkon didn’t seem to find the bond at all odd. This is how they communicate. “Where are the others?” she whispered.

  Berr tapped at her console. “Approaching on approved vectors. Ships two and five are in their holding pattern, ready to assist. Three and four are moving in.”

  The plasma cannon loomed larger on the viewscreen. Lianndra flinched as another set of beams converged overhead, shaking the entire ship. The deadly beams coalesced at the cannon and shot toward the planet.

  The Darkon hummed. It began as just a vibration, but the sound increased until it filled the cockpit. When the crew turned to stare at her, Lianndra knew she’d started humming with them.

  An alarm sounded, causing a sudden commotion among the crew as a flurry of frantic communication. The hum in Lianndra’s head increased but before she could request an explanation, the Darkon told her. The planetary shield is failing.

  “Get us as close as you can!” The power built around Lianndra. The Darkon threw the channel wide open, engulfin
g her in their desperation to stop the cannon.

  Berr surged the ship forward, and the plasma cannon loomed in the viewscreen. I can’t hold them! The intense power building within Lianndra was beyond anything she had ever experienced. Like trying to contain a solar flare, it filled her mind with blinding light and heat. The hum became a roar, and Lianndra fought for a precious few seconds to contain it.

  Overhead, the five Motherships lit space with their energy beams just as the power blasted from the Darkon and through Lianndra like a soundless explosion. It flew unfiltered past the viewscreen’s molecules and across the vacuum of space, penetrating the cannon. The heavy metal glowed as the outer casing disintegrated.

  The Motherships still had their energy channels wide open to the cannon as the weapon ripped apart and shredded in a blossoming explosion that lit space with a newborn sun.

  The shock wave knocked the Gryphon ship spinning backward. The planet came into view with each wild rotation. To her dismay, Lianndra saw the last plasma beam release from the disintegrating cannon and head toward the planetary shield. And with a blinding flash, the shield came down.

  GRIPPING ROZ TIGHTLY WITH HIS legs, Drake used the flat of his sword to bash a determined slave soldier unconscious and saw Karn gallop toward them. The slaves were in full rout. Many ran into the jungle, preferring to hide rather than end up in the Gryphon’s arms. Some, like the one he had just bashed senseless, continued fighting because they didn’t know what else to do.

  At the canyon’s mouth, Healers did their best to provide a gathering spot for the slaves. Drake could hear their voices calling out, offering to deactivate the collars to make sure no errant Fang could harm them.

  Twisting to look behind, Drake winced as a deep slice across his ribs protested the movement. Despite being covered in small cuts, he’d emerged from the battle in good shape. The fight had barely begun when the slaves defected from the Fang army in droves. It confused Drake since he’d seen neither hide nor scale of the lizard commanders that controlled the slaves. It meant one thing: someone found the commanders and dispatched them.