The Siege of New Terra (Star Sojourner Book 7) (15 page)

“What?” I sat up.

“You were having a nightmare.”

“Oh.” I stroked her cheek. Moonlight rimmed her hair and figure. “But I woke up to a dream. Is it night already? Man, I'm hungry.” I drew her close and kissed her.

“For what?” She smiled.

“I hate that you're here, Soph, in danger.” I stroked her curly mop of raven hair and breathed in her aroma. “But God, I love having you here. You smell like pine.”

She chuckled. “You like it? It's my new perfume.”

I laid down and drew her close. “Soph, in five days the WCIA ship will return.”

“I know.”

I took a breath. “I want you on it,” I said firmly.

“I know.”

“I'm afraid these Orghe people are doomed.”

“So am I.” She lifted onto elbows. “But you'll stay and fight to the death to save them.”

I looked over to where women chatted as they cooked on open fires. Children laughed and ran and swung from trees as though nothing had happened. “I have no choice, Soph.”

“No. Heroes never do,” she said evenly.

I stroked her shoulder. “If anything happens to me, will you go back to your home on New Lithnia? You had a good life there.” I laughed. “Chasing crusties all over the ocean bottom.”

She brushed hair off my forehead. “If anything happens to you, Hell is a good place for me, and it will be my home.”

“Don't talk that way.”

She rolled to her back. “You want lies? OK. I'll go home to New Lithnia and find a nice accountant and settle down to a nice secure life and have pretty babies with him.”

I took her hand. “It wouldn't be a bad idea.”

She pulled it away. “And every night, I'll walk to your lonely grav… Oh, I'd bring back your body, and I'll stand over it and curse you for leaving me alone in this world and all the others. And I'd pray that you found no peace, until I joined you.”

I rolled my head to look at her. She stared at the lightening sky. “I'm between a rock and a hard place, Soph.”

“That's where you live!” She threw off the blanket, got up and strode to a cook fire.

I sat up and watched her. Bat got to his feet and picked up his medkit. “Jules, suppose we put some new skin over that burn now.”

“OK.” I unzipped my jacket, unbuttoned my shirt, laid back down and sighed. “Got something in that black bag to mend a broken relationship?”

“I do, bubba, but you wouldn't like it any more than you like needles.”

I winced as he applied salve to the burn.

He smiled and took out a container from his bag marked New Skin. “You just don't like to be touched, do you?”

“It depends on who's doing the touching.”

He pulled on plastic gloves from a small dispenser and unrolled a square of new skin. I drew in a breath as he pressed it gently over the burn and smoothed the edges.

“I didn't want her to come here, Bat.”

“Y'all ever consider what she wanted?” He ripped open the paper covering on a gauze pad and pressed it over the new skin, then taped it on. “That'll do it.” He glanced at Sophia, who was helping a woman stir pots over a fire. “Wish I could mend the inner wounds this easy.”

“What am I going to do, Bat?” I sat up. “I can't leave these people to die.”

He closed his medkit. “You think they won't die if you stay?”

“I can use my tel powers to pinpoint advancing mercs.”

“Then what?” He stood up. “How many times can the Orghes run and hide on this island?”

I watched Sophia spoon food into two dishes. We'd lost our reserves of digestall with the destruction of the hovair, along with the sous chef and all our other equipment. But mostly we lost our ability to take to the sky to fight the merc ships and their hired Shayls.

“The people won't leave this island,” I said.

“No, they won't.”

“Bat, Joe has influence in Alpha's government. He has friends in high places.”

“He does.”

“When you get back there, urge him to contact those friends and get Alliance ships to fight the mercs. Not just here. On all the islands of New Terra.”

He shook his head. “It's out of their jurisdiction.”

I got to my feet. “Since when did
that
stop the WCIA?”

“We tried it, remember? They left us three jeeps and a hovair and took off.” He put a hand on my shoulder. “Come with us, Jules. If anybody can convince Joe to cut through red tape and get these people help, it's y'all.”

“I figure I can do more good here, while I'm waiting.”

“And fight them with three jeeps, some draks, and people who just now learned which end of a rifle has the trigger, and which end has the fire?”

I shrugged.

“What're you going to do if Sophia refuses to leave?”

“Well, between you and Joe and Chancey, I figure you can get one woman aboard the WCIA ship without hurting her.”

Bat kicked a rock. “I figure we can do the same with you.” He turned and strolled toward the people.

I looked at Joe. He was awake and listening. So was Chancey. Huff and Galrin still slept.

“You wouldn't do that, would you, Joe?” I asked.

He threw off his blanket and sat up. “Try me.”

Chancey grinned.

“You'd have to find me first!” I strode toward Sophia as she turned and walked toward me with the two dishes. I stopped. So did she, and stared at me.

Suddenly I knew what I had to do. Big Mack was the paymaster. If I could catch him alone, I would spin a death probe and slice his brainstem. Instant death. I didn't like being the assassin, but with Mack gone, the flow of money to mercs and Shayls alike would dry up. These ravagers didn't ply their gruesome trade for ideals. With the creds cut off, they'd board their Starship faster than a horde of rats scrambling out of hot water. I bit my lip. One death could save a village of Orghes.

“What is it, Jules?” Sophia asked.

My gaze slid to a jeep. I'd wait for night before leaving the village. The guards would spot me, but by the time word got back to Joe and the team, I'd be gone. One thing…

“Jules?” Sophia said. “Dammit! I know something's wrong.”

“No. Nothing,” I said casually. Nothing except that with my lousy sense of direction, could I find the merc base again?

* * *

Joe turned and stared at me as I checked out a jeep with a fully charged battery. My rifle and stingler both showed green buttons. Our extra battery packs had been aboard the hovair.

I glanced at Joe and smiled ingenuously. He studied me, then turned back to supervise the placement of guerrilla traps and pits again. It seemed a futile endeavor, and I think we all knew it, but it gave the men work and a sense of accomplishment. Others dug out large square pits to be used as shelters until stone huts could be erected.

Women were solemn as they built outdoor ovens. Chancey worked with a group of boys that scraped out logs for dugouts. The girls repaired bedding and clothing torn or burned in the battle. Children gathered firewood. Sophia, Huff, and Bat had gone to the lake to help a group of men in the unfamiliar fishing grounds. It was almost reflex to build again, even in the face of stacked odds.

Joe walked over to Chancey, said something to him, and gestured toward me. Chancey gave me a twisted grin and nodded. Joe returned to his crew. Damn him! He was reading me like an open book. He knew that whatever plan I'd devised involved this jeep. I glanced at the draks, tied on long braided twines to trees while men built a corral. Well, maybe not!

Night.

Cold mountain air cut to my bones. Stars blinked their crystal eyes through branches. I shivered, rubbed my arms, and pulled the blanket tighter around me and Sophia as we sat by a fire. “Be nice to have gloves and scarves.” They had also been in the hovair.

She leaned against me and I felt her shiver. “We need a lot more amenities,” she said, “than gloves and scarves.” Her dark eyes caught flints of light from the fire, and blushed her cheeks warmly.

Huff, on my other side, moved closer to lend his fur for added warmth. “It was not a good thing to lose your fur, my Terran cub.”

“Happened a long time ago, Huff.” I chuckled. “I don't think we'll grow it back anytime soon.” I rubbed Sophia's hands and blew on them. “I wouldn't turn down a mock steak, mashed potatoes, a nice crisp salad, maybe a couple of cannoli.”

“Whatever happened to mudpie?” Bat asked from across the fire and jammed his cap lower to cover his ears.

I laughed. “OK, Bat, mudpie too.”

“When we run out of our digestall pills,” Chancey said, “we might be eating mudpie.”

“As long as we're not eating crow,” I said and laughed.

Joe flicked me a look.

I was purposely keeping the conversation light to disarm Joe and Chancey.
Who, me? I'm not going anyplace. I'm just sitting here making dumb remarks.

But Joe just doesn't fool. His jaw was set as he stoked the fire, sending sparks to swirl in heated air.

I watched Oldore place his wooden statue of the Sunspire Village's protective god Orin on a fresh tree stump. One man had been meticulously carving a pedestal for it all day.

Night hunters were rousing, there in the dark arena surrounding us, snuffling, and yipping to each other. A vagabond wind whispered its song through tall pines and was gone. I drew in a smoky breath as its tail swept by.

I no more wanted to leave my circle of friends and these warm fires for dark, deep woods, than I wanted to jump naked into the lake.

“Something's bothering you,” Sophia whispered. “You want to talk about it?”

“No.” I kissed her cheek. “I just have to go pee.” I stared at her, perhaps too long.

She smiled. “Will you miss me? I'll come with you.”

I tried to smile and couldn't. “Some things you have to do alone.” I kissed her gently on the lips and hoped this wasn't goodbye. I stroked Huff's shoulder and he laid his head against mine.

When I stood up, so did Chancey.

“I'm going to take a leak, Chance,” I said. “Want to come?”

“Yeah.” He glanced at Joe. “We'll be right back.”

Joe nodded.

Damn them both!

I slung my rifle over my shoulder. “Never know what's out there at night.”

I strode into the woods with Chancey following me. Then I broke into a trot and used trees for cover as I circled back and hid among the draks. I thought of Oldore's warning that draks allowed you to ride them only when they wanted to. I grabbed a saddle with a canteen of water tied on, and a bridle.

“Nice drak,” I whispered to a mare who quietly chewed cracked bones, and tried to throw the saddle over her slanted, ridged, green-scaled back. She swung her long snake neck, fixed me with round, red eyes, hissed a brimstone breath, and nipped my butt.

“Bitch!” I said, and backed out of the way as she swung her thick, reptilian tail at me.

I retreated to a tall stallion and held the saddle and bridle in front of me as I approached. “Nice drak,” I said.

He extended his horny neck and I lifted the saddle for protection. He raised his head, sniffed me and gave me a hot, slimy lick on my cheek.

“I guess that's
hello
!” I wiped my cheek on a sleeve and gingerly swung the saddle over his back. He stood quietly as I cinched it. “Good drak.” I patted his neck. He twisted his head for an ear scratch and I obliged, scraping off parasites. Then I put on the bridle.

He stared behind me and snorted.

“What?” I turned.

Chancey gripped my arm. I hadn't seen him in the dark. “I'm not supposed to let you leave, Superstar. Joe wants you in the village.” His rifle was over his shoulder.

I threw off his hand and backed a step. “That's Joe's plan, not mine.”

“Maybe you ain't heard.” He grinned. “He be the boss.”

“And you be his lackey. I'm leaving, Chance. Don't try to stop me.”

“Yo jus' a one-man rumble, ain't you?”

“Cut out the bullshit accent. Just go back and tell Joe I already left.”

He strolled between me and the saddled drak. “You think you can take me?”

“You don't move away from that drak, we'll find out. I've got places to go!”

He unslung his rifle and laid it on the ground. “I could put out your lights with one hand tied behind me.”

“Now's the time to make good on that claim.”

“Maybe.” He hooked his thumbs in his pants pockets. “What's your plan?”

“Is this an academic question or are you really interested?”

"I'm always curious on how your mountain-goat brain works. What's the plan?

“OK. I'm going to sneak into Big Mack's base camp and kill him.”

He raised his brows. “Stingler or tel probe?”

“Either way.” I exhaled a breath. “Chance, with him dead, the mercs and the Shayls will pack their bags. They don't work without pay.”

“So why didn't you just say that first, man, 'stead of dancing around it?”

I shrugged. “You take orders from Joe.”

“Only when it suits me. Why don't we take a jeep?”

“We?” It would be good to have Chancey along for backup. “We'd be limited to roads in these thick woods, and we don't have extra batteries. And jeeps whine.”

He gestured toward the draks. “I hate those things! They're nasty, and they smell.”

I chuckled. “Maybe they feel the same way about us. Don't take the mare. She's a bitch.”

“Doesn't like a tag riding her, huh?” I think he winked. “I guess there ain't no geldings.”

“I wouldn't want to try to turn a stallion into one.”

“Couldn't blame him.” He saddled an even-tempered stallion and we walked them into the woods.

“Chance, can you find the merc base again?”

He chuckled. “You saying you can't?”

“I'm not sure. It's this way, right?” I pointed.

He shook his head. “You'll take us right back to the Orghe Village. Joe would like that.”

We mounted and he chuckled as I followed his lead. “Good thing you brought me along, Superstar.”

* * *

It was a cold night's ride. During rest stops for the draks, we used our stinglers to heat piles of rocks we'd gather and sit near as though they were fires.

It was after midnight. I was piling rocks when I heard a branch snap off to my left. I unholstered my stingler and swung.

“Hey, man,” Chancey said, “we've had our differences, but–”

“Dammit, Chance! Don't sneak up on me.”

“I wasn't sneakin' up!”

He dumped his rocks on the pile and I beamed them with the stingler.

We sat and held our hands over the hot rocks. Besides the warmth, the welcome glow held back a night filled with chortles, grunts, and other wild forms of communication.

“ 'I warm my hands,' ” I recited, “ 'over the fire of life.' ”

“ 'It dies,' ” Chancey said, “but I ain't ready to depart.”

“I didn't know you had the soul of a poet, Chance, even if you did get it wrong. 'And I am ready to depart',” I corrected.

“I didn't get it wrong, man. I ain't ready to depart no way.”

I peered into the black night and thought of my daughter Lisa and Sophia. “Nor am I, Chance,” I said softly.

A sudden bolt of electricity coursed through my body and tore open my mind. I cried out and clutched my head as images from my sister Ginny's death burst through and I was reaching again, braced on solid rock, as her small fingers touched mine, her face contorted in terror, and she slipped away and screamed as she plunged down to the valley below.

My limbs grew rigid and I gasped in a shaky breath.

Chancey jumped to his feet and swung his rifle, squinting into darkness. “What is it, man? Who's there?”

I tried to lift my mental shields, to block this brutal tel-send. My barriers shattered like waves on rocks. “A tel probe,” I groaned out. “A powerful…” I pictured the bee that is my imagined essence and plunged it down to the protection of the flower's roots, there in my mind, the way my Kubraen mentor, Star Speaker, had taught me.

I moaned as the sender dissected my images, past culture, past memory, past instincts, as though picking petals, down to a wet response to light and touch, and skewered the bee to the flower's roots.

My heart beat with a primal determination that spoke of early creatures crawling doggedly out of shrinking tidal pools, while the tel-probe burrowed like a mining laser. Whomever he was, the sender bored into that protected mind-womb where our deepest feelings abide in their true form.

I blocked with a vision of Shiva.
Fear not,
Shiva said, His arms and legs swayed in a cosmic dance. He held up a palm.
All rests well in God.
The hand reached out to me. Blood flowed from its pierced wrist.
For your sins
. Christ smiled, became Buddha, beneath his Bo Tree, pressing the ground with fingertips. His fingers curled into a fist that breached the walls I tried to erect.

“A tel probe from
where
?” Chancey was saying. “There ain't nothin' around here for thirty miles.”

“I think,” I squeezed out, “the merc base.”

This is your warning,
the sender verbalized within my mind.
Leave New Terra with the rest of your crew. I do not wish to kill
.

Who are you?
I sent. Besides Spirit, the only powerful tels I knew of was the race on planet Equus.
Are you from Equus? Why are you doing this?

For the love of credits.

Then you're a rogue! Your people have no need of credits. They're beyond science and technology. They produce whatever they need with their minds.

We need when we are expelled from the community. When the All-Mind shuts us out. Return to the village, and wait peacefully for your starship.

I can't! Your boss intends to kill every Orghe on the island. You told him where we were, didn't you? If you don't want to kill, you're doing a poor job of it!

I gasped as I felt him touch my brainstem.

Yaywa! Will you and your cohort go back, or must you force me to kill?

I clenched my fists, squeezed my eyes shut, and threw every ounce of my concentration and energy into pushing him out of my mind. I felt his grip loosen.

You have improved since Equus,
he sent and released his hold on my mind.
The distance taxes my life force. If you come closer, Jules, Terran of Earth, I will exterminate you both like the rats of your homeworld. This I promise you.

Don't make promises you can't keep!
I sent, but he was gone. I slid to the ground.

Chancey laid down his rifle. “Are you all right, man?”

I nodded. “I just need to rest.”

“Was it Spirit?”

“No. No, an alien from planet Equus.”

In the glow from the rocks, I saw the look of fear on Chancey's face. “The telepaths that killed Bristra with just their minds?”

“I forced him to let go of me, Chance.” I rubbed my temples. “I made him get out. Help me up.”

He grasped my hand. “You beat him?”

I sat up and stared at the rocks. The heat had died and they were a pile of cold rocks. “Just round one. But you've got to go back.”

“How come?”

“He threatened to kill us both if we continue to the merc base. He wants us to leave the planet when the starship arrives.”

Chancey sat back on his heels. “He's the traitor who told Mack where the new village was located. Right?”

I nodded. “He's a rogue…working for Mack. You've got to go back, Chance.”

“And you?”

I took a breath. “I've got to prepare for round two.”

Chancey got up, pulled me to my feet and brushed me off. “When the bell rings for round two, Superstar, I'll be waiting in your corner with the bandages.”

“You taking over Bat's job?”

“With you around, he needs an assistant.” He gestured toward the woods. “The draks are rested, even if we ain't.” He lifted his brows. “Shall we continue on our way now?”

I mounted my drak. “You're a stubborn bastard, Chancey, and you know they'll be waiting for us. But I'm honored to have you along.”

“Do tell.”