Stone Blade (12 page)

The leader swaggered up to Micah.

“Well maybe we DO want some trouble!”

Then he swung at Micah's head.

Micah blocked the club easily and fisted the leader hard under the ribs. He collapsed backward a few steps and the others converged.

Bixby, Jeffers and McCree fought well but they lacked - yet - the reflexes hard-trained into Micah. The thugs might have done well against their ilk but they stood little chance against him.

Before long Micah, Bixby, McCree and Jeffers stood alone.

“I think we'll leave now,” said McCree, wiping blood from her lip.

Movement at the edge of vision. Micah's instincts triggered and he turned, knowing already what he faced.

The leader, recovered now from Micah's punch, rose with something small and deadly in his hand.

Time slowed. Micah felt the familiar flood of panic and prepared to shunt it aside.

The man lifted the pistol. Time slowed but it took Micah with it! He moved much, much slower than he should!

Fear! Micah suppressed it automatically and tried to focus himself. He knew he'd be too late! He moved as though through a thick syrup, trying to push himself to the speed he knew so well.

A dull pain stabbed Micah at the base of his skull. The leader leveled his pistol and squeezed the trigger. Micah hurled himself forward, knowing he'd be too late but knowing he must at least try.

Muscles that should be bursting with energy lay like flaccid lumps. Time slowed. The pistol flashed. Searing pain washed through Micah.

***

Images. Micah's hand breaking the man's wrist and his other hand crushing the man's throat. His shirt flaming and burning where the bolt hit, a small pain against the shot itself. The world spinning. The ache in his head stabbing through his skull all the way to his eyes.

McCree turning toward him, her eyes numb with shock.

The street hitting him hard. The smell of synthetics and urine.

The pain...

The pain!

An infinite field of numbness with a single point of agony. A beacon. A bright light in a dark fog.

Voices. Numbly heard. Focus. Focus!

Micah swam through a sea of viscous apathy toward the brilliant point of consciousness.

The pain!

“... he's fighting it!”

Micah heard the voice through a vast space of cottony indifference.

“Increase to forty. Stat!”

Micah fought to open his eyes.

The leader and his bangers! They were trying to finish him off!

Blurry shadows drifting against a light-dark infinity. One moved toward him.

Nearly blind with pain, Micah acted on instinct. Though it felt like moving ten arms he reached for the indistinct shape hovering over him. He fought toward wakefulness as he tried to disable the crunchy torturing him.

“Holy mother nebula!”

Micah tingled and his muscles tried to spasm but he kept his grip. The strange new pain pulled at him. Time twisted as did the thing he held.

“Heaven's flaming feces!!”

Other shapes with the first. Micah struggled but to no avail. He heard a melange of sounds and voices punctuated by an icy metallic prick on his neck.

Darkness.

***

“He's coming around now.”

Micah knew that voice. Again he drifted in a sea of incoherence but now he swam toward something besides the pain. He hurt dreadfully but the agony was sharp and clear.

“Micah! Micah, don't fight it!”

Jeffers. Dale. Micah finally opened his eyes. He saw Jeffers against a too-bright background. With that point of concentration Micah finally found his focus.

“Uhh.” Not what Micah wanted to say but Jeffers understood.

The background resolved itself into a room containing Jeffers, a medic and an assortment of medically complex devices.

“Easy, soldier,” said the medic, “Rest easy. You're safe. You're in the base hospital. You've been through a lot. Do you understand?”

Micah nodded. He felt a hypo and reality snapped into existence around him.

“Better?” asked the medic.

“Yes sir. Mostly. What happened?” The mushy sound coming out his mouth surprised Micah but the medic apparently understood.

“You got into an argument with a pulse pistol and lost. Well, mostly lost. You survived it.”

“Bix...”

“We're fine,” said Jeffers, “Bix, Paige and me. You fought harder after he shot you than all of us put together before. That sonofawhore didn't have a chance.”

The medic made a disapproving sound but no matter. Micah relaxed into the fatigue now overwhelming him.

Chapter 6. Truth Without Beauty

Micah knew he'd had some restful sleep when the nightmares started. They came with faces he knew and faces he didn't. They accused him, attacked him and shamed him. They stared at him with eyes that knew far too much. Eyes that had seen far too much. Eyes that knew Micah and knew him well. He wept and he knew, somehow, that his body did as well. They overwhelmed him, ripping and tearing him. He struggled but to no avail.

Then the angel came. It judged Micah and spoke to him. The nightmares didn't attack it and it almost seemed to want to help him.

Micah drifted between bleary semi-wakefulness and torrid slumber. Sometimes he fought the nightmares alone, other times the angel helped him. In the far back recesses of his mind Micah felt something trying to form. He fought to give it shape but the harder he tried the harder it hid from him.

***

Micah woke, sweat-drenched and weak. He hurt but his mind was clear. Paige McCree sat beside the bed and napped in an uncomfortable chair. He tried to move himself silently but the rustle woke her.

“Hi there.”

“Hello.” Micah's voice was harsh and speaking woke a desert in his throat. “What...”

McCree reached over his head and pressed something. Then she poured him a cup of water and held it for him. The water was life itself, cold and sharp.

“Better? Good.” McCree set the cup aside. “What happened? You, my friend, are something between a hero and a hellspawn. Do you remember the fight?”

Micah nodded.

“At the end of it that sewer-sipper pulled a pocket blaster and shot you. We tried to help you.” A shadow clouded her face. “Micah, we tried. All that training... We tried.”

“It's okay. We made it.”

“We tried.” This a whisper. “Then you saved us. After you got shot.”

“ 'Nother scar. So what?”

That startled McCree. She looked at him hard and then managed a weak grin. Then she leaned over and kissed his cheek.

“You hurry up and get better. We miss you!”

The door opened and a white-uniformed lady entered.

“Bye, Micah,” said McCree.

“Mister Stone,” said the lady, once McCree left, “I'm Eva Tiber and we have some things to discuss.”

Micah puzzled over this.

“You're the angel!”

“What?” Tiber pulled up a char, turned it backward and straddled it.

“In my dreams. The angel.”

“Ahh. You remember our chats?”

Micah tried to shrug. When he glanced down he saw restraints on his hands.

“A little,” he said, “I was dreaming and there was an angel. Why am I tied down?”

Tiber pressed something and the restraints retracted.

“Because you were a most uncooperative patient, Mr. Stone. You tried to strangle one of the field medics at the scene. You then shook off a stunner. Next you grabbed an intern and you thrashed against almost anyone who came close to you. While you were unconscious.”

“Oh.”

Tiber smiled. “It's nothing to be ashamed of Micah, if I may call you that. And I'm Eva. I just hope you do as well after your training.”

Tiber smiled while she talked and she spoke the words with a simple, sincere honesty. Then her mien turned serious.

“Speaking of training, I'd like to hear about yours, Micah. Before you left Caustik. Tell me everything you can remember, please.”

Tiber's last request had the sound of an order. Micah obeyed it.

Micah started with enlistment and all he could remember of it. A vague pain, more of a memory than a reality, started at the back of his head. As he talked, it grew. He tried to shunt it aside but that was like lifting water with a fork.

“What about the sounds,” asked Tiber.

Micah tried to remember. The pain was severe, now, clouding him.

“It... It...” Micah fought to speak. He put his hand to his head and tried to massage his temples. “It...”

Sudden searing agony exploded inside Micah's skull. He fought for breath that didn't come.

Words.

Sounds.

Blackness.

***

“Micah!”

Micah woke to a cold core of fear. Tiber sat beside him but not alone. A huge Marine stood at relaxed attention close to her. When Micah moved he felt the restraints again.

“Eva. What...”

Tiber smiled. “That, Micah, is what we're trying to find out. Do you remember our last talk?”

Micah squeezed his eyes shut and held them. When he moved his head he felt the brush of wires and pickups.

“I... I don't. Sounds. In the barracks?”

A sharp pain stabbed Micah between the eyes and Tiber checked a readout.

“Fight it, Micah. Fight it!”

“The... The sounds. When we... When... When we...” The agony throbbed in time with his heart; it blurred his vision and fogged his mind. “The f-fear...”

***

“Micah.”

Micah opened his eyes, awakening from Hile and Sanders and a thousand variations of them tormenting him. He felt weak and drained.

Tiber sat in her accustomed spot but now the Marine sat as well.

“Micah, we did a comprehensive blood tox on you. I have some questions I'd like you to answer.”

The pain tried to take Micah. They struggled, he fought, he won.

“We found traces of some psychoactive agent,” continued Tiber, slowly but clearly, “By the residue we found you had hefty doses over a long period of time. Our biochemists can't say anything other than that it's emotionally triggered.”

“The Fear,” whispered Micah, still struggling.

“You don't have to be afraid, Micah...”

“No. The Fear. They... They gave us Fear. It... It made us afraid.”

Slowly and with often-broken sentences Micah told her. He told her of the Fear and the Flame. Talking and fighting the pain drained Micah quickly. Finally, blessedly, Tiber nodded.

“Thank you, Micah.” She held up a hypo. “This can help you sleep untroubled.”

“Please!” Micah felt ashamed of his weakness but he welcomed the peace that washed over him.

***

The scrape of a chair woke Micah.

“Eva.”

“Good afternoon, Micah. I have some answers for you. If you want them.”

That puzzled Micah.

“Of course I want them. Why would I not?”

“Micah, they're not pretty. I can help you but it will take a hard price. Or...”

“Or?”

“You'll be a fine soldier, Micah. Private Brumley,” Tiber nodded at the Marine, “assures me the Drop division will be proud to have you.”

Micah thought long and hard. The elusive something at the edge of thought pointed  firmly toward one of Tiber's options.

“I want answers, Eva. Please.”

Tiber nodded.

“I'm not surprised. For what it's worth I think you made the right choice.

“Micah, early in the history of the League, not long after the Collapse and the chaos that came with it, a lot of planets had to fend for themselves. The League was more of an ideal than a reality. It needed all of its military just to protect Metropole and Sector Prime. Planets that petitioned for membership often brought attacks opposed to the League and what it stood for.

“Some of these planets survived and some didn't. Some of them lost their idealism. Some of them kept to the letter of the charter but violated the spirit beyond recognition. Some of the planets that fought needed a lot of soldiers fast. They didn't have the time or the resources to field well-trained and experienced men so they took other options. Short cuts.”

Tiber spoke her next words carefully.

“Micah, have you ever heard of juice troopers?”

Micah thought a moment and shook his head.

“The League doesn't condone them or use them. Until now we... It was believed that none of our member systems did either.

“Juice troopers were given the rudiments of training: how to fire a gun or take an emplacement. Whatever they could learn in a short time. Then, when they went into battle, they used boosters. Drugs. Chemicals tailored to increase strength, awareness, speed; there were a lot of variations on the theme.”

Tiber spoke with an obvious effort now. Micah felt a hollowness inside.

“They were effective,” continued Tiber, “They were very effective. But the drugs... The drugs usually had side effects. They burned people out or wore them out. Sometimes very quickly. Heaven help us all, some of the soldiers considered it a fair trade. Some of the planets only took volunteers. They warned the people beforehand and they only took the ones willing. Other planets...” Tiber paused a moment and visibly marshaled herself. “Some of the others conscripted their juicers. They justified it by using prisoners or sociopaths. Then... Then it was easy to use the so-called undesirables of their society...”

Micah held up his hand and Tiber stopped gratefully.

“So,” said Micah after a long time to think, “I'm a juice trooper?”

Thought it cost her Tiber nodded.

“How will that affect me? Will I be dismissed from service?”

Tiber looked away, wiped her eyes, then looked back. She spoke against a struggle.

“Micah, that depends on you.” Tiber wiped her eye again. “Micah, I don't see how you can just... just accept this! It's... It's obscene! It's so... Wrong!”

The emotion racking Tiber surprised Micah. When she controlled it he managed a bitter, sad smile.

“It's not really a surprise, Eva. Lowcarders on Caustik aren't valued past what we can produce. Sometimes not even that much.”

Tiber looked at him with raw disbelief. Disbelief and something else.

“Eva, is there more?”

“Yes. This... It's even worse, Micah.”