Guerilla (8 page)

“You can't hold us like prisoners,” Noojin stated in a hard tone. She held the small girl before her, hands on the thin shoulders, in a protective manner.

Or maybe those barriers wouldn't be broken. Kiwanuka tried not to let her frustration show.

The small girl still looked frightened and shrank back into Noojin's loose embrace. “Have you seen my grandmother?”

Kiwanuka answered the youngest child's question first. In the sergeant's eyes, both of the girls were still kids.

“Quass Leghef is busy at the moment, I'm afraid. But she knows you're here and that you're in good hands. She trusts us to take care of you.” Kiwanuka wanted to emphasize that.

“We're
prisoners
.” Noojin took an aggressive step toward Kiwanuka.

One of the soldiers standing guard took a step forward to block her way.

“As you were, Private,” Kiwanuka said.

After a brief hesitation, the soldier nodded and stepped back into formation.

Kiwanuka turned her gaze to Noojin, who met her attention full measure.

“You're not prisoners,” Kiwanuka replied. “You're being projected.”

“In this?” Noojin snorted derisively as she pointed at the Bubble. “Do you really think it's better than your fort? The ­people who did this have big enough weapons to destroy this crawler.”

Maybe that was true, maybe not. The answer didn't matter to Kiwanuka at the moment. She also thought Colonel Halladay was going to have his hands full talking to the girl.

“We have somewhere to go,” Kiwanuka announced. She adjusted her faceplate and darkened the material, then turned and started walking toward the command post where Halladay was working.

In her 360 view, Kiwanuka saw Noojin standing her ground stubbornly. The hard set of her jaw told Kiwanuka that she was going to resist. One of the soldiers put a hand on her shoulder, but Noojin immediately shrugged and pushed the hand away.

The soldier took a step closer and put his hand in the middle of Noojin's back. This time she had no choice but to take stumbling steps or be shoved along. She called the soldier all of the obscene names she'd learned in Terran English. The list was well fleshed out and even Kiwanuka heard some terms that were new to her.

Abruptly, several shouts arose from the assembled Makaum natives. More had joined the mob and tempers were flaring. In the helmet's view, Kiwanuka saw one man take a swing at another, then when the combatants were roughly shoved apart, another man close to the action took a swing at one of the men trying to keep the fighters apart. That only started two more fights, which in turn turned the whole gathering into a vicious kicking, hitting, and spitting scrum.

The mob teetered as they fought. Men went down under fists and feet and tripped others. Suddenly, the group staggered into the laser field and a dozen ­people had their senses shaken and stirred. A handful of them got sick, throwing up and going boneless, causing even more problems for the crowd.

Kiwanuka got her charges moving, but she watched the developing violence.

“Lieutenant,” a soldier bellowed over the comm link. “Permission to use dispersal gas and microwave repellers.”

Before Murad could reply—­the lieutenant was still green but coming along, so he was slow to make a call—­a shrill, melodic whistle cut through the air.

“Grandmother!” Telilu shouted. The girl started to run toward the soldiers and the mob.

Kiwanuka grabbed Telilu and wrapped one arm around her. “Wait, little one. It isn't safe.”

Telilu looked at Kiwanuka in disdain. “It's Grandmother! Everyone is safe with Grandmother. She is Quass.”

“Just a moment,” Kiwanuka said.

“You can't stop us,” Noojin shouted. She fought to get free of the soldier that held her but she didn't have the strength. “We're not prisoners.”

Kiwanuka lifted her eyes to meet the girl's gaze. “Do you want to take her through that?”

Face twisted in rebellion, Noojin calmed herself and reached out for Telilu's hand. “It's okay, Twig. We'll stay here. The Quass will come for us.”

Kiwanuka released the girl and was relieved when her two charges stood still and watched the crowd.

The effect of the whistle was instantaneous. Since Telilu had assumed her grandmother was there even though she hadn't seen her, Kiwanuka assumed that the whistled tune had something to do with the identification.

The mob quieted quickly, splitting out into groups and standing by meekly.

Through the chasm created between them, Quass Leghef strode like a general taking the battlefield. She wore a green and gray
kifrik
silk gown bright enough to stand out even in the early morning. A silk headdress covered her head and face, but the material was transparent enough to see the lean, brown features seasoned with a few wrinkles. Her hair was black but shot through with gray strands. She was small, barely five feet tall, and thin. She carried a wooden staff a foot taller than she was.

She stopped in the middle of the crowd and surveyed them with narrowed eyes and tight lips. “Look at yourselves,” she said in a hard voice. “Fighting among yourselves like savages.”

Many of the ­people hung their heads, and Kiwanuka couldn't believe the change that had overtaken them so quickly.

“When the ship that carried our ancestors crashed on this planet and scattered hundreds of bodies of the dead throughout that inhospitable jungle filled with predatory things our ­people had never before seen, they knew they had to trust each other to survive. That's what they did. That's what
we
did. And that's what we must do in the days that follow this one if we are to survive.”

Kiwanuka had to hand it to the old lady. She knew how to dish out guilt with the best of them.

“Now,” Leghef continued, “go home. All of you. Get back to your families and your jobs. Make something of today. Don't let these events affect the good that you can do for the rest of the day.”

There were a few grumbles, and maybe even a halfhearted attempt to argue with the Quass, but the mob went away, drifting in clumps to the other side of the street.

Then Quass Leghef turned to Kiwanuka. “Return my granddaughter and Noojin to me.”

“I can't, ma'am,” Kiwanuka responded. “I'm under orders to take them to Colonel Halladay.”

Leghef walked over to Kiwanuka and peered up at her. This close, even though she was short, the little woman was intimidating. “What does the colonel want with them?”

“They saw the ­people who attacked our soldiers.”

The Quass shifted her gaze to Telilu and Noojin, and it was obvious she was awaiting an answer.

Wrapping her arms around herself, Noojin shook her head and didn't quite meet the Quass's gaze.

“There was a man who tried to hurt Noojin,” Telilu said excitedly. “But Noojin hurt him and we got away, and then the soldier protected us.”

Leghef put a hand on her granddaughter's shoulder. “Did you know this man?”

Telilu shook her head. “It was dark and I couldn't see him.” She took her grandmother's hand in one of hers. “May I go home now? I'm sleepy.”

Leghef smiled. “Of course you may.” She glanced up at Kiwanuka meaningfully. “You may take Noojin to see your colonel, Sergeant, but I will be taking my granddaughter home with me. She saw nothing and I would prefer to take care of her myself.”

Kiwanuka knew Halladay wasn't going to be happy that a local politician had pulled rank on him. But she also knew from looking at Leghef's face that the older woman wasn't leaving without her granddaughter. Losing a friend on the Quass would not be something Halladay wanted either.

“Yes, ma'am.” Kiwanuka stopped herself just short of thanking the Quass.

Noojin started forward. “Quass, what about . . .”

Leghef shook her head, cutting Noojin off. “No. You'll be staying here.”

“I didn't
do
anything.”

Leghef tapped the fletching of an arrow in the quiver one of the soldiers carried, then she pointed at the broken arrow that remained on the ground. “I think that you did, and I think that you owe Colonel Halladay an explanation about what you did.” She paused. “You'll be safe with these ­people. I'll make sure of that.”

“I only warned the soldiers about the trap,” Noojin protested.

“Tell the colonel that.”

“Quass . . .”

Leghef remained firm. “You're a hunter, Noojin. One of the most important lessons you learn as a hunter is to stand by your actions. If you only wound a creature out in the jungle, you have to follow it until you are able to put it out of its misery. And you should not have allowed my granddaughter to get caught up in this affair.”

Chastised, Noojin stepped back and didn't speak again.

“No harm will come to this girl,” Leghef said to Kiwanuka.

“No harm, Quass Leghef,” Kiwanuka agreed. “I know how to stand by my actions.”

A faint smile touched the Quass's thin lips, then it disappeared. “What of my grandson?”

“He's not here, ma'am.” Kiwanuka was sure the Quass had been read into Sage and Jahup's op into the jungle, but she wasn't going to acknowledge that.

“When will he return?”

“I don't know. That time is flexible.”

The Quass's shoulders rounded a little more, like a burden had been dropped onto them. “Please tell Colonel Halladay to keep me informed in all of these matters.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

Holding her granddaughter's hand, Leghef turned and walked away. Her honor guard formed a sec detail around her. The soldiers manning the breach in the fence stepped aside so she and her party could pass once more.

Kiwanuka's stomach unclenched and she drew in a deep breath. She had never talked to the Quass before, had never expected to because they moved at different levels in all the political jockeying that took place on Makaum, but she understood now why Leghef was Quass. The woman possessed a gravitas that Kiwanuka had seldom seen.

Waving to the soldiers with her, she headed back to the meeting with Halladay. The day was shaping up to be a busy one on all fronts, political as well as military, as the top brass figured out what to do about the attack. The Army couldn't just sit this one out. A statement had to be made.

She watched Noojin in the HUD, studying the young girl and wondering how much she knew. She'd fired the arrow to warn Corporal Anders. That meant Noojin had seen something. And if one of the men had tried to kill her and the Quass's granddaughter, Noojin had seen even more.

Noojin's jaw was set and her back was straight in obvious rebellion. Getting information out of her was going to be difficult. Kiwanuka was glad she wasn't the one who was going to have to attempt it.

 

NINE

Offworlders' Bazaar

Makaum Sprawl

0658 Hours Zulu Time

L
atest sim disks! Movies old and new! Action-­packed adventure tales! Erotica! Come see the beautiful men of Dardorn! Come see the beautiful women of Halinog as they perform the Forbidden Dance of Limber Shadows!”

“All-­terrain bicycles! Personal ATV riders! Don't walk when you can ride!”

“Come enjoy the zesty taste of Mongolian beef! Enjoy the fusion of spices that will provide a unique culinary experience!”

Ignoring the hawkers lining the bazaar located near the center of the sprawl, Sytver Morlortai strode across the hard-­packed earthen road that cut through one of the offworlder hubs that had popped up on the backwater planet. Merchants from dozens of different worlds had Gatestreamed to Makaum to sell their wares. Many of those merchants were there to entice newbies with their flashy tech and manufactured goods. Others were there to sell to the Terran soldiers, offering products not sanctioned by the Terran Army.

And a few of those hawkers would be spies who would learn what they could and sell information about the Phrenorians to the Terrans, or the Terrans to the Phrenorians. Maybe there would even be some information about the (ta)Klar, but information on those ­people was hard to get. That was one of the reasons Morlortai had come to Makaum.

“Insect repellant!” The last was offered by a young woman at a brightly colored pushcart featuring a gigantic wasp that was actually small by Makaum standards. “Guaranteed to work!” She held up a wristband to display the merchandise. “White noise generators that will turn away the fiercest bloodsuckers! Don't risk disease when a small payment will protect you!”

Morlortai continued past her. She attempted to intercept him, but he held up a hand and warned her away. She was good-­looking enough to attract the attention of someone who thought talking to her might lead to a romantic liaison.

Scowling, the young woman acted like she'd had no interest in him and approached an older Makaum woman who seemed tentative about visiting the market.

Morlortai continued walking and scanned the other ­people in the area. He knew urban areas, even ones this primitive, and he knew how hunters approached prey. So far, he was neither. He'd come to the bazaar to investigate a potential business proposition.

Most of the offworlder buildings were prefab domes of colored plascrete dozens of different hues that had been dumped into place by corp-­owned aerial transport vehicles. The domes were wired for solar power beamed down from corp-­owned satellites. Nobody went into business on Makaum without the corps getting a cut of the action.

That was about as genteel as thieves could be.

Of course, the corps owned most of the bashhounds that enforced security in the sprawl too. Most of the sec troops represented corp interests while others hired out to various enterprises. When the
aldoede
hit the spinning
iangoero
, though, the bashhounds' loyalty would still be with the corps.

From what Morlortai saw, the corps had nailed down most of the sprawl. The rest was divided by the Terran Army and the Phrenorians. No one except the (ta)Klar knew how much they controlled.

A small part of Morlortai's eroding morality felt bad for the Makaum ­people. He'd seen backward worlds ground under the heel of the technologically superior. There wasn't much left after the corps took what they wanted. He walled that sympathy away. Until a ­people could protect themselves, they were all victims. The split in the population was undermining their ability to assert themselves, and they would realize that too late.

As a Fenipalan, Morlortai had seen his own world succumb to the Black Opal Corp. After Fenipal had been discovered near a newly built Gate, the Black Opal Corp had descended on the world and stripped it clean of minerals, reducing it to a wasted toxic husk before the Terran Alliance could step in. Once the Alliance troops arrived, all they could do was slap bandages on mortal wounds. Fenipal was a walking corpse, slowly dying because the planet had been sucked dry and poisoned by offworlder machinery.

Fenipal's economy had been based on technology five generations behind what the Black Opal Corp had brought. So many ­people loved tech that they embraced each iteration and forgot all the old ways of doing things. Seeing Makaum ­people nearby showing off “technical” marvels to their peers made Morlortai remember his own early years.

No one on these backward planets knew the trade goods they held today rendered their futures moribund. Their children would never have the lives they did because the technology jump erased the need for educations that were then taken for granted.

Morlortai had been fortunate because he understood violence and he'd learned to focus on his own survival. He'd joined an offworlder enforcement group and become a bashhound. He'd worked to support the Black Opal efforts to preserve their investments, and he'd helped loot his planet. His own survival had been all that had mattered to him, so he had learned to defend himself and kill anyone who threatened him.

He turned out to be very good at it.

When the Black Opal Corp had pulled out ahead of Terran Alliance interference, remaining on Fenipal hadn't been an option. Morlortai had spaced with the bashhound team that had trained him and found his own pathway through life. He hadn't had a home since, but worlds remained open to him. There was always someone willing to hire an assassin.

As he gazed at his surroundings through his 360-­degree HUD, Morlortai gave only fleeting interest to passersby as he walked toward the location where he'd agreed to meet his prospective clients. Most of his attention was invested in staying alive in hostile territory.

Soon-­to-­be hostile territory. Morlortai hadn't done anything criminal onplanet yet. Other than arrive under a false identity. His stolen background would take weeks to penetrate if someone started digging. Looking at the pack of thieves that pinged the facial recognition software juicing through his faceshield and wore other names than their own, operating under a false name was a slight infraction of the law on Makaum. In fact, he was pretty sure the local laws hadn't even considered such a thing. The planet's inhabitants lagged far behind the developing interstellar relationships evolving around them.

Morlortai's hardsuit looked scarred and ill used, but that was just a patina of disguise. Beneath the worn exterior, the physical enhancements, stimpaks, and built-­in weps were cutting-­edge.

Fenipalans were humanoid, two arms and two legs, and could be mistaken for Terrans at first glance. Anyone who didn't know the milk-­white skin and pale gray hair might still think they were Terran. They were slightly shorter than Terran average, underweight when compared to Terran average, but physically more resilient, with denser bones and stronger muscles. Fenipal's gravity was 1.2 Terran standard and Fenipalans tended to have redundancy systems for major organs. Morlortai still possessed two hearts, but one of them was a bionic construction, courtesy of a bulky Losool who had moved much faster than the assassin had assumed. The Losool might have burst Morlortai's heart with a bullet, but had paid for that with his head.

Morlortai pulled up the map overlay of the sprawl and took the turn indicated to reach his destination. The alley was narrow and two stories tall, filled with roots that tore through the ground and branches that stood out from the sides of buildings constructed by the Makaum. The buildings had been evacuated once the offworlders had negotiated trade rights and dropped in around them. Morlortai ducked the branches and stepped over the exposed roots.

No one followed him.

At the other end of the alley, he didn't break stride, but he took in the area in a sweeping glance. His contact had chosen well. The three-­story building had also been built by the Makaum and was festooned with growing vines, shrubs, and small trees. No Makaum lived there anymore. A group of Zukimther mercenaries had moved into it and used it as a headquarters while they “provided” protection to small merchants who couldn't afford bashhounds.

A few food carts dotted the open space in front of the building. Thieves, offworlder and Makaum—­though Morlortai saw few of those, came here to trade with the Zukimther. The mercs provided a small black market for goods, not enough for them to ship offworld, but enough to keep them living well.

Morlortai figured the mercs were on Makaum because they were hiding out. The Zukimther fought for credits, usually only for whom they believed the winning side would be, but sometimes wars didn't go the way they were supposed to go. Out of funds, temporarily on the run from hostile opponents, they holed up on backwater worlds until they could resupply themselves and build up another war chest by sponging off criminal activity.

It wasn't much different from what Morlortai did, but Morlortai
always
had another contract working and three or four set up in case that one went sideways.

The Zukimther mercs stood almost three meters tall and were massive in armor designed to make them look even larger. Brown patches spotted their yellow skin where it was visible. Twin ridges of bone ran across their hairless heads, from just above their eyes to their shoulders, and provided a natural armor. More bone overlaid arteries in their four arms and both legs. Having those additional arms made them even more deadly, but they were strong, not quick. With the natural armor and the tactical gear they'd strapped on, they were hard to kill.

Morlortai knew how to kill them, though he bore scars from his first encounter with a Zukimther merc. After nearly getting killed, he'd learned fast. He flexed his left wrist and brought the compact gauss cannon mounted under his arm online. The fingertips of his right hand grazed the
waraw
at his right hip. At the moment, the weapon resembled a black tube as thick as two of his fingers and no longer than his hand. It was something a trade courier might carry a datastick containing bills of lading in.

“Did your contact mention anything about Zukimther mercs?” a quiet voice asked over the private comm link Morlortai had assigned for the meeting.

“No.” Morlortai pinged Turit's position, and even then he had a hard time spotting the Angenen on a small balcony of a building that held an angled view of the rendezvous site.

As an Angenen, Turit almost fit in on Makaum. His ­people were lizardlike, covered with gray and green scales. They tended to be long and thin, narrow shouldered and narrow hipped, but they were wiry and quick, so flexible as to be almost boneless. His face was elongated, framed around powerful jaws that jutted out twenty centimeters. Speech was hard for him, but the translator/enhancer he wore around his neck allowed him, once he had trained to use the device, to articulate well enough. His black reptilian eyes were close-­set like a human's instead of on either side of his head.

Turit sat at an uneven table and wore the somber brown robe of a Banatia priest to cover his armor. He hoisted a small bottle of local beer and managed to take a sip, which was a feat with that mouth. The pack on the floor beside him contained an Imhat squad automatic weapon capable of spraying depleted uranium rounds that could tear through the armor the Zukimther mercs wore. Massive and strong, the mercs were still big targets.

“You know I hate those
anckals
,” Turit said.

An
anckal
was a particularly disgusting carrion feeder on Queormu. It looked small and cuddly till it started burrowing through the corpse of a fellow soldier, then its hair, slicked back by blood and body fluids, revealed the stringy, muscular body that was an engine built for eating dead things.

Morlortai had signed the team up for a campaign on Queormu and things had turned out badly. They'd ended up living in underground trenches with
anckals
for weeks. Turit had especially hated them because the creatures hid in corpses and tended to pop out unexpectedly. There wasn't much that bothered the Angenen, but the
anckals
did. He just despised the Zukimther mercs on general principle.

“We're not here to do business with them,” Morlortai replied.

“You hope.”

“If it turns out that way, then we turn down the job. There will be another. On a world like this, there always is.”

“The payoff will be cheap.”

“This job, or another, is only a cover. The one we're here for will pay out well.”

“With a real good chance of getting dead. Phrenorians are hard to kill.”

Mirthlessly, Morlortai grinned. “That's why they pay us so well. Imagine having to kill Phrenorians for what the Terran Army has to do it for.”

Turit snorted derisively, something that took a lot of skill to do through a translator. The device hadn't been designed to deliver that particular reaction.

Morlortai started up the steps leading into the building and one of the mercs put a hand on his chest.

“This building's off limits,
cr'tontor
.”

A
cr'tontor
was an intestinal parasite native to Zukimther. Whenever they infested a body, it was always a race to get them out before they produced larva that invaded every system in the host. They were also considered a delicacy because the pharmacological venom produced by the creatures was a natural painkiller. “Harvested”
cr'tontor
were filled with the venom, and when prepared carefully, could produce an experience that would wrap the eater in dreams for days.

If it was prepared incorrectly, the diner risked death or infestation. Despite the aphrodisiac qualities promised by those who sold
cr'tontor
as a repast, Morlortai had never been tempted to try it.

“I'm expected,” Morlortai said. He resisted the impulse to place the gauss cannon in the center of the merc's chest and trigger it. The round would easily tear through the armor and blow out the merc's heart. Morlortai didn't care for the Zukimther mercs either. “I was told to meet someone here.”