The Weapons of War

by Dan Schiro

  “Come on, guys,” Orion said aloud. “Show up and work.”

  He waited. Finally, after angry hours drifting above the heavily forested world, a bell sounded on Orion’s control dash. A VeleveTech ether pod blazed out of the interstellar passageway a few hundred thousand miles away. In a pocket of the blue-gray smartcloak draped over the captain’s chair, Orion’s datacube vibrated.

  “By the Goddess, Orion,” Aurelia said when he opened the link. “Why in all hells have you dragged us out to this prehistoric gutter?”

  Orion let her have it with a sputtering, poorly performed version of the diatribe he had been practicing for the last hour. When he finally ran out of breath, he heard Aurelia’s bright laughter, and Kangor’s bellowing slightly muted behind hers. “Just get over here,” he said, pinging them his location as he broke the link.

  A quick pod-to-ship docking later, Aurelia and Kangor stood in the main cabin of Orion’s Prodigal Star. The Lady of the Jade Way looked as impeccable as ever, covering just enough of her flawless green skin with purple silks to satisfy modern mores. Kangor looked every inch a monster, seven feet of muscle and leather and orange fur topped with a wolfish face out of a dark storybook.

  “How many times,” Orion growled at them, “do I have to explain that AlphaOmega is always on call?” He raised a hand to silence them as they opened their mouths to launch a barrage of excuses. “Let’s just skip it and get to work.”

  The VeleveTech pod flew back toward the ether route, preprogrammed to return to the nearest rental post, and Orion launched a Zanthic Munitions Inquisitor from the probe bay. The gunmetal-gray tablet fell into a low orbit and raced over the green globe scanning with a dozen different sensors, and Orion explained what little Zovaco had told him about the urgent job. After a few minutes, the probe found a small quantity of manacite, just enough to facilitate a modern spacecraft’s star-to-star journey.

  “That’s it,” Orion said, grateful that the slavers were still planet-side. “That must be our target.”

  Aurelia patted his shoulder. “It would be quite a coincidence if it wasn’t.”

  “Do we have a plan?” Kangor asked.

  Orion glanced up at him sheepishly. “I was thinking, wait till dark and sneak up on ‘em.”

  “Simple.” Kangor nodded, a smile baring his lupine teeth. “I like it.”

  They landed on Lorobane’s northern landmass as it spun away from the system’s young sun, Orion’s ship rendered almost invisible by the shift-skin and pink noise generators. As they disembarked down the moss-crushing ramp, Orion looked up into the gloaming and realized the trees of Lorobane stood much taller than he had expected. Their shaggy red trunks stretched up hundreds of feet before branching out in twisted limbs replete with green leaves and spiny fruits reminiscent of pineapples. Thin patches of brush dotted the darkening forest floor around them, and the pleasantly oxygen-rich air was cool and damp.

  “Alright, Kangor,” he said with a glance at his beastly companion. “You’re on.”

  Kangor swaggered away from the ship, his nostrils flared wide as he sampled the night. For a few moments he stood still as a statue, his fire-orange eyes closed, and then he took a handful of steps into the fading breeze that caressed the clearing. “A small cluster of alien scents,” said the big vycart. “Upriver, on the move.” He thought for a few seconds. “Mystskyn. Poxgane.” He pivoted and pointed east toward the setting sun. “That way, metal and cold ion engines.”

  “Bastards,” snarled Aurelia, the bronze streaks of her head tentacles and matching eyes catching the last rays of light. “They must be on their way back to their camp after a raid.”

  “My thoughts exactly,” Orion said. He called the living-metal gauntlet to his right forearm and conjured a long, curved knife in his hand. “I say we throw them a little surprise party when they get home. Care to lead the way, Kangor?”

  After a few miles walking softly across the compost of a thousand years, they saw the low glow of campfire embers and the outline of a stout cargo ship in a forest glen. Orion, Aurelia and Kangor crept to the edge of the shallow valley and laid flat on their bellies to peer down at the landing site. Orion squinted in the light of the tiny moon and saw that the spacecraft looked to be of an older make, its hull well-scarred by debris and patched pulse bolt wounds. The dug-in campfire at the bottom of the cargo ramp emitted the faintest wisp of smoke, clearly untended for some time. The site seemed quiet, but for the chirps of alien birds, the scrabble of small animals from the forest and the buzz of an occasional insect.

  “What are we waiting for?” Aurelia hissed. “Let’s make them regret their line of work.”

  “We have to wait,” Orion said with a chastising look. “Nobody’s home, Aurelia.” He glanced at Kangor.

  Kangor sniffed, his heavy brow knit. “He is right. But they are close.”

  “We wait,” Orion told Aurelia.

  They waited, despite Aurelia’s groans, but not for long. After a quarter of an hour lying prone on the soft, earthy potpourri, they heard voices and saw the bobbing lights of three floating datacubes.

  “Yeah, well who sets the traps?” said a lizard-like mystskyn man with a short coxcomb. He carried a pulse rifle, and the forest-green scales not covered by his rough mercenary vest showed homemade tattoos. “I set all the traps, that’s who.”

  A pair of thick poxgane men followed him into the valley, each hauling a net with a limp body in it. “All’s I’m sayin’,” said one of the pale, four-armed men, “is you could drag a net too.”

  “Once in a while, he’s sayin’,” said the other, the same in build but with a bushy black beard.

  Their mystskyn leader spun on them, his tail twitching angrily. “Look, dragging the nets is literally the reason you get paid, understand?” He gestured at them with the barrel of his large pulse rifle. “Overpaid, way I see it.” He stepped closer to them and propped his hands on his narrow hips. “You want me to sell one of you to the Independent Kingdom so the other can haul two nets?”

  “No, sir,” said the bearded poxgane.

  “No, no,” said the other, shaking his head. “We understand, sir.”

  “Good. Now put these two froggers in the hold and bring back some of the Ogga vat steaks.” He turned and poked at the near-dead fire with the barrel of his rifle. “I want to eat and put this demon-cursed day behind us.”

  “Yes, sir,” muttered one as he started dragging the net toward the lowered ramp.

  “Anything else, sir?” asked the other as he followed suit.

  “As a matter of fact, yes,” said the mystskyn. “Bring out the one we caught last night, the shapely one.”

  The poxganes mumbled assent and dragged their incapacitated cargo up into the ship. The leader, cursing his underlings softly beneath his breath, turned his attention to reviving the fire. On the ridge, Aurelia tugged impatiently at Orion’s arm, but again he mouthed the word, wait. Before long the leader had the fire blazing, and the two poxgane returned down the ramp of the ship. One carried a few wet slabs of meat, and the other led a female, bound at the wrist and collared with a chain. She had the curvaceous secondary sexual features that convergent evolution had bestowed upon so many of the galaxy’s races. Other than that, she looked much like a large, bipedal frog, with long limbs, webbed hands and feet, and slick gray skin spotted with green. She had thick lips on a wide mouth and large, frightened eyes that shone green in the firelight. A homemade cloth garment hung ripped, wrinkled and mud-splattered on her frame.

  “There she is,” said the mystskyn with a flicker of his forked tongue. “Bring her to me.” He beckoned them over to the log by the fire where he sat.

  “Why do you get to go first?” said the poxgane as he grudgingly handed over the chain.

  “Didn’t we just have this conversation?” The mystskyn snatched away the chain and jerked the native girl down to sit beside hi
m. “Get the meat going, I’ll be through with her by the time we’re ready to eat.” With the chain wound around his fist, the mystskyn hissed and groped the girl while she murmured a soft, terrified prayer.

  “Okay,” Orion whispered to Aurelia as the poxganes set up a makeshift grill and positioned the cuts of meat to sizzle above the flames. “You start with a bit of theater, get them pissing their pants.” He looked at Kangor. “You flank right and introduce yourself to our four-armed friends. I’ll flank left, get behind the bastard with the wandering hands.”

  Orion saw emerald light spark in Aurelia Deon’s eyes, and she and Kangor moved off in opposite directions, both staying low to the ground. Moments later, the ancient Lady of the Jade Way rose up in the air, and blindingly bright white-green light scourged night from the forest. Her voice rang out with a resonance that seemed to shake the shaggy red bark of the tall trees.

  “Invaders,” she cried with terrible passion. “You profane my forest. You take my children. You transgress the holy. For that, you shall face the agony of a thousand deaths, and spend eternity condemned to wander these trees!”

  The slavers cursed and covered their eyes, and the captive native cried out with a shrill scream. Kangor roared and leaped out of the shadows to land in their bonfire, scattering embers. The vycart quickly engaged the closest poxgane, grabbing the stout man by his top two arms and tearing them off his body with a brutal yank. Orion called on his training and became the Sliver of a Shadow to creep up on the mystskyn with a few fleet, soundless steps. The mystskyn leader pushed the girl to the ground and reached for the pulse rifle propped up against the log, but a swift thrust of Orion’s long knife impaled him through the back, precisely placed below the center of the torso where mystskyns kept their cardiac organ. The other poxgane came at Kangor with all four of his fists swinging, but the vycart simply absorbed the blows and closed his huge clawed hands around the poxgane’s thick-featured head. With a twist and a sickening crunch, the fight ended and the slavers lay dead.

  Aurelia’s dazzling luminescence faded, and she floated down into the glen. “Too easy,” she said as she alit in the light of the scattered campfire.

  “A well-planned assault, little friend,” Kangor said to Orion, licking a spatter of blood off his snout with his long tongue. “But hardly a fair fight.”

  Ignoring them, Orion called his knife back into his gauntlet, the spellblade metal running red with veiny rivers of captured life force. He turned to the girl, still on her back on the ground. “You’re going to be okay,” he said softly. “We’re here to help, we’re not going to hurt you.”

  She scrambled back, talking frantically in her own slippery language, eyes wide with terror. Orion kept on trying with more gentle words, but she only seemed more afraid when Aurelia and Kangor walked over to look down at her as well. Finally Orion simply reached down and grabbed her bound wrists with his left hand. She struggled, but he hooked a clawed finger of his gauntlet under the zip-tie and snapped it open. He backed away from her slowly and motioned for Aurelia and Kangor to do the same. “You get it?” he said, raising his hands. “We’re here to help.”

  For a few seconds she gaped at them. Then she exclaimed a few lilting words and dove at Orion’s boots, touching them lightly with her webbed fingers. When she finally looked up at him, she said a few words and pointed up into the ship, repeating the same phrase quickly.

  “I get it, I get it,” Orion said as he stooped to help her to her feet. “Your people are in there. We’ll get them.” He glanced at Aurelia and Kangor. “You two search the bodies while I go in.”

  Aurelia arched a fine bronze eyebrow. “Anything in particular we’re looking for, oh great leader?”

  “Not sure.” Orion pursed his lips for a moment. “But Zovaco wanted us on this because there’s something more than slaving going on here.” The frog-like native girl clutched his arm, pulling him toward the cargo ship. “I won’t be long,” he told them as he started up the ramp.

  The girl led the way through the greasy bowels of the ship until they reached the door of a large hold. She slapped at a wall port and mimed holding her face to it, and once he understood, Orion’s illegally modified datacube made short work of the optical scanner. The door slid aside with grinding gears, and Orion saw near a dozen frog-like humanoids. They huddled together in close-packed groups in a large, dimly lit steel room better suited to holding crates or cattle. He could smell that they had been left to stew in their own filth for days, and some looked badly beaten. Despite the desperation of the scene, Orion turned to the girl with his friendliest smile.

  “Do you mind introducing me?” he asked, gesturing to his own chest and then drawing a wide circle with his arm.

  She gazed at him quizzically for a moment, then offered a shoulder shimmy that he hoped was her version of a nod. As the beats of her words flowed over the crowd of captives, some rose to their feet, and Orion felt their green eyes on him. The girl explained with emphatic gestures what Orion hoped was a description of him taking down the slavers, and a few murmurs moved through the crowd. Finally the girl finished with something that sounded definitive and jubilant, and the other natives cheered with their strange ululating voices.

  Orion hooked a thumb back over his shoulder. “Alright, so if you’ll just follow—”

  He broke off as they started to limp toward him and lay their webbed hands on his cloak and bodysuit, a four-syllable chant throbbing from their thick lips. They ran the gamut from gray to light green to dark blue in skin tone, with stripes and spots of contrasting colors, but the adoration Orion saw in their eyes was alike.

  “No, no,” Orion said, raising his hands. “It’s no big deal, really, those guys shouldn’t have been here, we have a Sovereign Destiny Edict, you know…”

  Their chant grew louder, and some of the frog folk dropped to their knees, seemingly overcome with religious fervor. Others crowded closer to him, and some of the wounded offered up their hurt limbs, pleading in sing-song voices. Orion had the feeling that this was going very badly, but the red veins of blood magic in his silver gauntlet gave him an idea.

  “Translate,” he said, opening his silver-swathed hand. A soft glimmer of white fire danced at his claw tips for an instant, and then it floated up and popped like a luminescent bubble over the crowd. The chanting stopped abruptly, and Orion saw more than a few frightened faces. “Did it work?” he asked the stilled natives. “Can you understand me?”

  They stood stunned into silence for a second, then exploded with frantic gibbering. This time, Orion understood their cries.

  “His voice — is he speaking shwa-to?”

  “‘And he shall speak your language as if it were his own!’”

  “Like the scrolls foretold…”

  “He is the Star-Walker!”

  Orion shook his head vigorously. “No, no, I’m not any kind of walker. I’m here for a job, that’s all, from another place, a place beyond your world.” He cringed as they hung on his every word. “I’m a regular guy, really, just trying to help you out.”

  “By the Gods,” said an awed voice from the back. “His humility is just as it is written in the scrolls!”

  Orion groaned, and the frog folk fell to their knees, some of them weeping. A profoundly resonant chant thrummed from their bulging necks as they kissed the floor of the dirty hold and exalted him. “Star-Walker, Star-Walker, Star-Walker.”

  Orion felt hot panic flush his pale face, and he ran a hand through his blond hair as he scrambled to think of a way to send these people home and still preserve some sliver of the Union’s Sovereign Destiny Edict.

  “Screw it,” he muttered as he came up empty. “Ye, my children, for you I have come,” he said, affecting a commanding basso. “I have come to deliver you from the hands of the… the otherworldly demons who abducted you. You who have suffered, you, um, chosen few, will return home now…”

&nb
sp; After the frog-folk departed into the forest singing Orion’s name, Orion drafted Kangor to search the slaver ship with him while Aurelia stood guard. “Hey,” Orion snapped at his chuckling comrade. “I didn’t know how to get rid of them, okay? They had already made up their minds that I was the messiah, anyway,” he added.

  Kangor laughed long and hard as they sauntered down the hallways of the ship. “Very good, little friend. But I assume you needed me with you for a reason?”

  “Yeah, I need to borrow that big nose of yours again.” Orion relaxed a little, his mind back on the mystery. “There was something about this job that Zovaco couldn’t say over the ether route. Or at least something he didn’t trust saying.”

  “Understood.” Kangor took a deep sniff of the air. “If there’s rotten fruit, I’ll find it.”

  After searching the antiquated bridge, the crew dormitory and the disgusting kitchen, they came to the storage compartments on the starboard side of the ship. They pried open three large lockers filled with weapons, ammunition and ready-made booby traps. Then they broke the lock on a twanging metal door and saw a hibernation pod — with someone inside.

  Peering through the glass face of the pod and the thick, swirling fluid within, Orion saw a s’zone woman’s sculpted face. He studied her for a moment, committing to memory her large, sleeping, almond-shaped eyes, delicate mouth, ivory skin and fine, pink scalp-speckling. Then he pulled his datacube out of his cloak and tossed it in the air. “Link to Zovaco Ralli, audio only.”

  His datacube winked with blue light, and soon Orion heard Zovaco’s voice. “Orion,” he said brightly. “I’ve been looking forward to your call. Has the issue with the poachers been resolved?”

  “They’re out of business,” Orion said, his eyes narrowed.

  “Oh, good.” On the other end, Zovaco seemed to lower his voice. “And the Edict is intact?”