Guerilla (4 page)

Moonslight sparked silvery fire from metal in the hands of the shadow and Noojin knew she was staring at an ambush. Whoever was in that alley intended to kill the Terran soldiers. Even from this distance, she could sense that. Their thoughts were loose and fiery, not totally guarded.

Knowing she had no time to waste if she was going to save the soldiers, Noojin caught up her nearby bow and slid an arrow free of her quiver hanging from a branch. As she stood, she put arrow to string, drew back till the stiff insect wing fletching glided along her cheek to her ear, and released.

The arrow skated through the leaves and stayed on course, sliding over the top of the mesh fence, and then struck the nearest of the soldiers in the side of his head. Noojin trusted the polycarbonate shell to deflect the arrow before it did any damage. Splintered on impact, the arrow dropped to the ground, but it had smashed into the soldier hard enough to stagger him.

Military training took over and he went down, presenting a smaller target profile as he searched for his attacker. Judging from the way the other soldier moved, the first had warned him.

Noojin knew about the armor's onboard near-­AI, and she knew the software—­whatever that was because it sounded like magic to her—­would track the arrow's flight back to her. She grabbed her quiver and pulled it over her shoulder, then reached down for Telilu, catching the young girl under the arms and scaring the
eanga
away in a frantic flutter of wings.

“Time to go,” Noojin whispered into the startled girl's ear. She tossed the bow ahead of her into the brush behind the dwelling. “Fall softly.” She took two steps and vaulted into space on the other side of the house. Behind her, gauss blasts tore the trees above the house to shreds and someone inside the dwelling screamed in terror.

 

FOUR

J-­Keydor Node

Stronghold RuSasara

Makaum

5023 Akej (Phrenorian Prime)

L
ieutenant Sibed led Zhoh up a narrow stairway that let out into General Rangha's offices. The younger officer did not speak and Zhoh asked no questions. The footsteps echoed in the cavernous weapons vault behind them.

Built into the wall behind the balcony, the general's personal office overlooked the immense room and the weapons standing in neatly ordered ranks. Massive and orderly to match, the office had been designed to intimidate and provide an illustrious history of the man behind the large
daravgane
desk.

The orange-­red resin piece of furniture was calculated to impress visitors even further.
Daravgane
was prized on Phrenoria, and was found in no other place. The resin was drawn from the sacred primordial predators on the home planet. The great beasts swam in the Phrenorian seas and were regarded to be distant ancestors of the Phrenorians. Draining the
daravgane
was the most dangerous thing a warrior could do, and usually he did so only to create heirloom weapons when sanctioned by a prime after he'd made a name for himself on the battlefield.

To have drained enough
daravgane
to create the desk of one piece was astonishing as well as bordering on self-­aggrandizing. Zhoh had never seen nor heard of anything like it. The desk was carved into a block of translucent solidity, then inlaid with darker pieces of
daravgane
so deep a red they stood out against the orange.

The images carved into the desk celebrated the achievements of a warrior armed with a
patimong
and using an
arhwat
, one of the original chitin bucklers, not one of the electromagnetically enhanced units carried by present-­day warriors.

Rangha stood behind the desk, ramrod straight and as imposing as he could. He was still half a head shorter than Zhoh and not nearly so wide, and the captain took pleasure in that distinction. “The warrior in that image is Faylas HatVeru, my ancestor, at the Battle of Arquacha.”

Zhoh bit back a scathing retort. With the family name of HatVeru, the general's claim to distinction came from matriarchal lineage. He did not even have a true pedigree of entitlement to his position or pride.

“I have heard of Faylas HatVeru,” Zhoh said. “He was a very brave warrior. Skilled and deadly in melee against his enemies.”

The Battle of Arquacha was legendary. Hundreds of songs and stories had been sung and told of the warriors and the combat. The land had become a sea of blood.

“I am all that is left of the HatVeru family.” Rangha's voice carried a threatening timbre, and Zhoh knew the man recognized the unspoken disrespect that he held back. “Faylas HatVeru was a great commander and fierce warrior. The Empire wanted that preserved.”

So neither you nor your family before you has fought in a true battle in over four hundred years. Not only that, but your bloodline has thinned.
That happened when a family tried to stay within the prime lineages. That was why Sxia's father had pursued Zhoh's father to set up the mating match, wishful of fresh blood to carry on his brood. Instead of a legacy, Sxia had borne damaged goods that had to be exterminated.

Zhoh kept the thought to himself because if the words were spoken, they could not be taken back. The insult he would give so lightly was punishable by death, tantamount to suicide. He would not die that way. He would live and he would glorify himself in the war, and he would return to avenge his name.

“As you know, Captain, bloodline is everything in the Phrenorian Empire. Those warriors who cannot deliver children to claim more prizes for the Empire are quickly forgotten.”

Zhoh stood there and accepted the affront. As a lesser warrior, he was a target for rebuke and admonishment. Also, his failure to produce healthy offspring was a matter of public record. No lesser warrior could bring the subject up, but the general had free rein.

Rangha snapped a primary at one of the chairs before the desk. “Sit.”

After adjusting his weapons, Zhoh sat and curled his tail around the chair leg so the appendage would be out of the way. He breathed in through his carapace and distanced himself from the room, turning off his emotions as he'd been taught by his father and by his first instructors when he'd entered officer training at Ath'ormy Academy.

The general did not sit and chose to remain standing. His primary hands hung at his sides while his lesser hands crossed his narrow, thin chest.

“The presence of this stronghold has surprised you.”

“The fact that we have not used the war machines that reside in that hangar surprises me.” Zhoh knew his statement bordered on insubordination, but it was also the truth and all within the room knew that.

Walking to the balcony, Rangha peered out at the aerial units sitting idle on the ring of decks that clung to the walls. “You look out there and you see a way to take Makaum, do you?”

“With those weapons? Yes, I do. Those are more than the Terran soldiers have.” Zhoh didn't hesitate about answering.

“You have been on this planet for two months, Captain. Yet you did not know about this place.” Rangha turned back to him. “Do you think it is possible there are Terran bases like this one that you do not know about?”

“The Terrans do not have this kind of equipment at their disposal.” Zhoh believed that. The spies they had in place among the humans were thorough. “The Terran Army does not have a space station circling the planet. They believe their precious Fort York is enough to hold Makaum. They use the space they have leased from DawnStar's space station. We know everything General Whitford has brought onto Makaum.”

“We do,” Rangha agreed. “However, General Whitford could send for reinforcements from the Khustal System. Those units could be Gatestreamed into orbit around Makaum within days.” The general snapped a primary in the direction of the hangar. “Can you guarantee the Phrenorian Empire War Council that you can take this planet before the arrival of those reinforcements? And hold it once those arrivals took up arms against you?”

Everything in Zhoh screamed to respond in the positive, that he
could
do such a thing. But the truth was that he
might
be able to deliver on those terms.

“Can you guarantee that?” Rangha demanded.

Zhoh forced himself to answer. “No.”

“Neither can I, and having to do so is almost an insult to my revered ancestor.” The general's response was cold and brittle. He took a breath and it hissed out of him when he released it. “A premature use of the weapons we have here would alienate the Makaum ­people, perhaps even unite them against us. Our standing here is improved as long as they are at odds.”

The Makaum ­people were no threat in Zhoh's mind. If not for the (ta)Klar and the Terrans, taking the planet would require no time at all, and within weeks a new supply route could ferry natural resources to the Khustal System. Those supplies were increasingly necessary, though the humans did not yet know that.

Instead of thinking about any of that, though, Zhoh focused on the one word that Rangha had inadvertently given him.
Premature.
A
premature
use of the weapons . . .

So there was a plan in place for them. Even as he recognized that, Zhoh also knew that was a question he could not ask. If the general had wanted him to know those plans, he would have offered that information.

Anger coiled inside Zhoh as he sat there in that office and knew that he was being kept from that knowledge on purpose. The lack of information—­the lack of
trust—­
was the general's way of dismissing him as an inferior.

And it was the way of the Phrenorian Empire.

Zhoh's anger was tinged with fear at being so far from the good graces he had always enjoyed, and he hated himself for it. He had never dreamed of being ostracized from the Empire. He had always been a loyal warrior. He had even married Sxia because his father and her father had agreed on the future of their families. Sxia was above Zhoh in station, but Blaold Oldawe had no sons to carry on the family name. The union should have brought them strength. It had before the primes, but the birth of their younglings had changed all of that.

Looking back on things now, with the knowledge that Sxia had been the only child Blaold Oldawe and his wife had had, Zhoh should have known the family was hiding something. According to stories, Blaold Oldawe and his wife had lost the rest of their brood in a tragic accident at a young age.

Cover-­ups and lies spun out of that family. Zhoh knew that now, but he had never before encountered them on such a level. Blaold Oldawe had needed an heir. Blaold would be free to adopt a young male from another family to look after his holdings. Sxia would live an easy life, and Blaold would have a champion who owed him everything until the day he died.

Zhoh warred against the shame and outrage that threatened to spill over him, maintaining a level emotional state only by promising himself there would be an accounting. One day he would kill Sxia and break her open, then eat his fill of her and excrete her into the nearest dung heap. Then he would go after her father with the taste of his daughter on his breath.

“Why have you brought me here, General?” Zhoh was surprised at how calm his voice was.

For a moment, Rangha's
chelicerae
twitched in surprise before coiling back into place around his mouth. “You have a part to play in this as well, Captain.”

The statement could have been mistaken for a peace offering. Zhoh recognized it as yet another insult, telling him that out of this grand plan the Empire had, a crumb still remained for him. He was so ashamed of the way he looked forward to it.

“Of course, sir. I follow the will of the Empire.”

“So far the Terrans have been distracted by the drug cartels set up by the corps. This new sergeant—­” Rangha hesitated.

“Sage, sir. Master Sergeant Sage.”

“Exactly.” Rangha's primary snapped irritably. “I was told you saved this man's life.”

The general's accusation came out layered with thick, cloying pheromones that warned Zhoh to tread carefully. “I do not know him, General. To say I saved Sage's life would be to say I was acquainted with him. I am not. He is an enemy combatant.”

“You defended him against one of DawnStar Corp's chief sec officers.”

“I did so because having the Terran Army and DawnStar at each other's throat can only be beneficial to us, General. United, they provide a much more serious threat level.” That was only part of the truth. Zhoh had also respected the way Sage had fearlessly marched in to face Velesko Kos despite the odds being against him. A warrior recognized the bravery of another warrior, even if that warrior was the enemy. General Rangha was not conversant with that concept.

“That division is what I want you to concentrate on, Captain. Since this Sergeant Sage is so interested in combating the cartels, make certain you aid him.”

“Sir?” Zhoh looked at his commanding officer in surprise.

Rangha snapped his primary in annoyance. “The Terrans use some of the same spies we do. Make certain that information about the different cartels out in the jungle makes its way into the hands of the Terran Army. Keep them busy chasing those ­people, because the profits those black-­market enterprises make find their way into the money purses of several key members of the
Quass,
from what I am told. They will not be happy with Master Sergeant Sage's success.”

Reluctantly, Zhoh admitted to himself that it was a good plan. One of the major benefits of the Makaum civil unrest lay in how it kept the ­people separated. Polarized as they were by their wants, they could not change treaties or make decisions with any real speed. At this point, confusion was a potent weapon.

But there was another potential problem.

“The plan is good, General.” Zhoh was not going to give Rangha credit for coming up with it. Doubtless the strategy had been drawn up by the War Council leader assigned to the Makaum action. “However, the (ta)Klar will not hesitate to take advantage of the situation to champion their own interests.”

“Do not concern yourself with the (ta)Klar at this moment, Captain. As always, those creatures play their little political games behind the scenes, and this time they continue to be too far behind. They will take far too long to stop us. We gain momentum every day.” Rangha pulled open a desk drawer and took an ivory object from within with one of his lesser hands. He set it on the desk.

Zhoh recognized the alabaster grin of a human skull at once. Taking such prizes in combat went against the rules of engagement between the Terran Alliance and Phrenorian Empire. Rangha would only get chastised by the primes and the War Council if it was discovered he had the artifact. Rank had its privileges.

“I killed this human in combat on Akalo,” Rangha said. “For four days and three nights, I stalked him until he had no place left to run. Then I confronted him.” He dropped a primary hand onto the skull with a resounding
crack.
But the skull remained whole.

Zhoh barely held back a sneer. Akalo was an outlaw world on the fringes of the Pagor System that had fallen nine years ago. The planetoid wasn't part of the war and had existed only for spacefaring crews to pursue their vices. It was only a place the war had gone through, a blip on the path to victory. One day it had been there, and the next it was gone.

“I killed him and I ate him and I claimed his head.” Rangha's pheromones broadcast the sickening stench of pride. “I promise you, Captain, we will claim many skulls here.”

“Yes sir.”

Rangha's
chelicerae
twitched expectantly, as if the general had wanted a more robust response.