Voyage of the Sanguine Shadow 1: Shadow Galactic (23 page)

Zerki, Valerie and Gavin acknowledged the order
and returned to their roosts in the desiccated trees.  They dined on rations as
they waited.

“This spore wood is beautiful,” Gavin mused. 
“They have spore trees on Afskya too, but they never get this big.”

“Maybe half this size,” said Valerie.  “I love it
here.  Last night, there was this shrill echo that would go off every so
often.  It was so eerie.”

Zerki teased, “Probably a ghost.”

Gavin chuckled.  “I hope not.  Do you believe in
ghosts?”

“I do, but only because of personal experience.  I
wouldn’t expect anyone else to.”  Pensive silence followed, as they enjoyed the
sounds of the storm.

Hours passed, and the downpour gave no sign of
abating.  In fact, the clouds had thickened further.  A distant rumble of
thunder now joined the soggy midmorning.

Brucker assembled the strike team.  “I got eyes
from orbit, and we’re closer to the target than we thought.  We’re moving to
the road and following,” he declared.  “It’s risky, but we need to make up some
time.”  He looked to Valerie.  “I hear you’re good at sniffing out snipers.”

She flushed and glanced to Gavin.  Clearing her
throat, she said, “Sure.”

“Great.  Take point with Sammie.”

“Which one is Sammie?”

He raised his hand, and Valerie walked over to
him.  They made their way along the storm-drenched forest floor.  The rest of
their teammates followed at a distance.

By midday, the winding road at last came into
view.  Moving steadily, quietly, they followed its path through the spore wood
as the weather worsened.  Rain drove so furiously that the strike team could
hardly see in front of them, and they began to lose their footing more and more
frequently.  Forks of lightning did more to reveal their surroundings than their
goggles did, and Brucker again called for a stop.  After taking the lay of the
land, he led them to the shelter of a ragged overhang.

Shivering, Valerie huddled close to Gavin.  “Why
is it still raining?”

“I swear it’s following us,” muttered Gavin.

Zerki said, “There’s a lot we don’t know about
this planet.  You might be right, Gavin.”

He shuddered.  “I better not be.”  They huddled
close and slowly began to warm.

The day wore on.

·· • ··

Not until sundown did the rainfall begin to ease
up.  Again, Brucker assembled the strike team, and Sammie gestured for his companions
to follow closely.  Lightning lit up the forest, creating vast glowing mosaics
of varicolored, translucent spore trees.

Abruptly, Valerie signaled for a stop.  Ahead of
them, she sensed someone in the trees, and beyond that, she sensed dozens of
armed kwercians.  Sammie silently advanced toward the kwercian sniper, keeping
low, as Valerie returned to the group.  He locked on the gunman and broadcast
his position across the networked targeting goggles.

Haley whispered, “Gavin, lock in.  Catch him as he
falls.”

Nodding resolutely, he steadied his breathing and
concentrated.  Beside him, Haley crouched and found the kwercian with her
targeting scope.  Gavin’s goggles indicated a locked shot from Haley’s rifle,
and he found the sniper’s personal gravity well.  The air shimmered behind the gunman,
and Haley pulled the trigger.  Shot through the head, the sniper toppled
backward into the hole in spacetime.  He fell through the air behind Gavin and
Haley and landed with a muted thud on the muddy ground.

Brucker nodded toward Valerie as Sammie returned
to the group.  “Is it clear?”

“I don’t sense anyone else in the trees, if that’s
what you mean.”

He laughed.  “Yes, that’s what I mean.  Thanks for
your help, Ms. Sawyer.  Why don’t you head back to overwatch.  We’ll take it
from here.”

“Sure,” she replied and pushed her way through the
overgrowth to Gavin' and Haley’s position.

Brucker led the rest of the strike team closer,
where they heard laughter and conversation over the storm.  The smell of
grilled beans and spicy sausage lingered upon the air.  Tents had been erected
between four covered trucks, and timid light from a gas stove cast a bright
blur through the rain from beneath a rugged easy-up.

He signaled, and most of Brucker’s teammates
fanned out, moving slowly and silently.  Zerki crouched and raised her rifle,
sweeping her surroundings as Ajax set a heavy blaster upon its tripod.  When he
was ready, he tapped her shoulder, and she brought her scope to bear on one of
the kwercians.  He stood next to two others under the roof of the easy-up,
wearing an automatic rifle over one shoulder.  He stood in front of an
untouched stack of bratwurst.

Hold on
, she thought, and she scanned the
camp.  Every kwercian wore a gun, and none of the food was touched.  “Wait,”
she hissed as Ajax powered up his heavy blaster.  Her scope trained on the
first warrior she had focused on.  He was looking right at her.  With a smile
and a wink, he gestured subtly with his hand, and she yelped as the very ground
she crouched over reared up.

Constrictor vines surged from the soggy ground,
wresting the guns from the strike team, tipping over the heavy blaster.  An
instant later, they immobilized the same people they had disarmed.  Zerki
gasped, clawing at her throat as the wind was choked from her.

Calmly, the kwercian warriors readied their
weapons and approached the line of Union soldiers.  A kwercian head burst, a
spray of bark and sap, and the lead kwercian gunned Sammie down in response. 
“Enough!” he shouted.  “Come on out!  Look, the only thing that’s keeping these
vines from tearing your friends apart is me.  You kill me, and they die.  You
kill any more of my team, and they die.”  He waved his gun in the direction of
overwatch.  “So, come on.  Come on.”

“
Captain
!” gasped Valerie, and she clutched
Gavin’s sleeve.  “What do we do?”

Haley said, “We settle in and wait for
extraction.”

Gavin shot her a fearsome glare.  “No!  I won’t
just sit here and let the captain die!”

Her eyes sharp, her lips thin, Haley hissed,
“That’s exactly what we’re doing!  It’s fucked, I know, but if we give
ourselves up, we all die.  Your safety is the overriding primary, Santiago, so
calm the
fuck
down!”

The kwercian leader frowned slightly and raised
his brows.  “Maybe I’m not making myself clear.”  He pressed his barrel against
Fletcher’s head and pulled the trigger.  “Do I have your attention?  I hope
so.  You’re running out of friends, and I’m just going to find you, anyway.” 
He exhaled impatiently, and the leaves that crowned his head swayed more
rapidly.  “Come on!  Please, come out.”

“I have to do something,” whispered Gavin, and he
startled to see Haley shove her personal firearm in his face.

“You… will…
not
.”

“Fine,” said the kwercian leader, and he let his
gun drop to his side as he gestured upwardly with his arms.  His troops raised
their weapons.  They took aim.

“
Stop
!” Gavin shouted, and he stood up. 
“Stop!  I’m here.”  A blaster popped behind him, and red muzzle flare lit up
the sniper’s roost.  He winced, gripping his side as he stepped forward.  He
heard the sounds of struggle at his back.  A moment later, Valerie scrambled to
her feet, panting.  She fell in behind Gavin as he slowly approached the
kwercians with his arms up.  Rain washed into a stream of his blood as it ran
from his side.

The kwercian leader smiled, relieved.  “Oh, good,
thank you.”  He gestured for them to move closer.

“Release them,” said Gavin, and he stopped.  He
coughed and grimaced in pain.

“Why should I do that?”

“Because I did what you asked.  That was the
deal.  We show ourselves, and you call off the constrictor vines.”

Grimly amused, the kwercian leader paused before
shaking his head overdramatically.  “No, I never said that.  I said I was going
to kill all of you.  That’s what I said.”

“With mindless guard plants?”  Gavin rolled his
eyes.  “Really?”

“Oh, you prefer to get shot.  Well… plants or
guns, plants or guns,” pondered the kwercian leader, and he wagged his head,
wearing a wild grin.

Guns
, thought Valerie.

Looking to the constrictor vines, he said
something in Kwercian.  The vines released their prisoners, and for a moment,
the kwercian leader seemed confused.  He shook it off and barked, “Stand up!” 
He waved his rifle in Zerki’s face.  “
I said stand up
!”  He swallowed
hard.  “All of you, stand up.  Come on.”

With defiant expressions, the surviving members of
the strike team slowly got to their feet.

Gavin closed his eyes, fighting through the pain. 
He concentrated on the kwercian warriors.

“Guns,” the leader decided, and looked to his
troops.  Muzzle flare lit up the night as machine guns roared.  But they
unwittingly fired into a dozen faintly shimmering wells in spacetime.  The
bullets traveled along their Mobius paths, exiting from points directly behind
the shooters.  In an instant, the kwercian soldiers mowed themselves down.

Only their leader still stood, and he hardly had
time to stammer before Zerki lunged, pressing her hand blaster to his head. 
“Come on,” he rasped, and she pulled the trigger.

Gavin wanly smiled, and he collapsed.

“Everybody,
soon or late, sits down to a banquet of consequences.” –Robert Louis Stevenson

Gavin regained
consciousness inside a tent, in the company of Valerie and Zerki.  Rain
pattered on the cloth roof.   “He’s awake,” Zerki whispered, and Valerie
brightened as she knelt beside him.

“Thank God,” she breathed, and she took up his
hand, pressing it against her cheek.

“Hi, Valerie,” he said, and he wore an adoring
smile.

“How do you feel?”  She eased his hand down to his
side.

He snickered.  “Oh, never better.  Actually, I
feel like I’ve got really bad gas.”  He winced as he prodded his bandages. 
“It’s freezing in here.  Where are we?”

Zerki stepped into view.  “The Thayless Estate. 
Brucker doubled back and stormed the grounds after the kwercian hostiles were neutralized. 
As it turns out, they were transporting a couple crates of brilly leaves.  Do
you know what those are?”

“Not a clue.”

“Brilly trees are semi-intelligent, and they’re
extremely endangered.  It’s no surprise there’s a preserve on this very planet
that’s been set aside for them.”  She checked his dressings.  “I forget what
planet they’re native to, but their leaves are highly prized for their
medicinal and narcotic properties.  They were heavily forested for decades
before the Union took action.”

Turning to Valerie, she quietly noted, “We need to
change these soon.  He’s bleeding though.”

Valerie nodded and rummaged through a medical
kit.  “Just a sec.”

“Bleeding through?” Gavin asked.  “I thought Haley
shot me with a blaster.”

“She grazed you,” Zerki explained.  “No
cauterizing.”

He puffed his cheeks.  “Awesome.  How is she, by
the way?”

Valerie pursed her lips as she retrieved gauze and
tape.  “I let her live.”

Amused, Zerki said, “Anyway, Brucker’s here,
pressing his advantage.  If you don’t mind, I’m going to step out for a few and
see what trouble I can get into.”

“After we change his bandages,” Valerie added.

“Right.”  Zerki smiled.  “After we change your
bandages.”

It wasn’t long before Zerki emerged from the
triage tent and found her way to Brucker’s side.  His surviving teammates held
the kwercians of House Thayless at gunpoint.  Ashley Fenmore, the acting head
of the family, had insisted the brilly leaves were to be milled into medicine
earmarked for Hygeia, a planet badly in need of relief from a deadly Canten’s
flu pandemic.

“Where’s your mill?” Brucker demanded.

“It’s en route,” Ashley insisted.  “It’ll be here
tomorrow, I swear!”

Zerki scoffed.  “Liar.  You run a protection
racket.  I haven’t had the chance to dig deep, but I’m certain we’ll find that
most of your money comes from drug sales.”

“Captain Ibarra, is it?” he began with a supplicating
smile, and he gracefully extended a branchlike arm, turning up his curled
fingers as he slinked close.  Entranced, she followed his movements.  “Root-prefect
Ashley Fenmore, emissary of the Exalted High Crown-prefect Rowan Fenmore du
Quagbrae.  It’s an honor to make your acquaintance.”  Bedecked in leafy white
robes, the edges crafted of finest sculpted ivy, he sported an upswept crescent
of braided vines upon his shoulders and a flowing suit of woven silver.  Upon
the smooth bark of his nose, he wore a topaz monocle framed in platinum.  His
bark was rich brown and luxurious in appearance, and his facial branches had
been expertly trimmed, shaped to match his humanoid contours precisely.

“You’re in my space.”  She ignored his offered
hand.

Stricken, he withdrew his gesture and folded into
himself.  “You’re right.  Most of our money does come from drug sales, but not
the illicit kind.  There are so many colonies in our Grand Union that suffer so
badly!  Is the life of these trees and shrubs worth more than a man’s?  We
harvest these things and make drugs that can help.  Drugs that can only be made
here on K’n-yal.”

“You’re a living saint,” Zerki seethed.  “I might
be tempted to believe you if you hadn’t issued a kill-on-sight order to your
poachers.”

“I’m telling the truth!”  Ashley cowered before
Zerki, grimacing as if she was about to strike him.  “Please believe me.  We’re
deeply sorry for the lives you lost.  I grieve for them as sincerely as I do
the men I lost.  It was a tragic misunderstanding.”

Zerki balled her fists, resisting the urge to
backhand the kwercian noble.  “Screw it,” she muttered and let her hand fly on
its own.

Ashley yelped, and tears flowed from his umber
eyes.  “Please stop!  I only want to help!”

“Easy, tiger,” said Brucker, and he grabbed
Zerki’s fist, lowering it firmly.  Haley leaned close and whispered in his
ear.  He nodded as she straightened.  “We’ll give you the benefit of the doubt,
but until your mill arrives and we can verify your claims, you’re all my
prisoners.  Got that?  You’ll be confined to the lobby, all of you.”

“That’s more than fair,” said Ashley, and he wiped
his eyes.

The strike team herded the kwercians inside. 
Brucker assigned watches, and Zerki stormed off.  Despite the rain, she took a
lengthy stroll around the grounds.

Valerie helped Gavin move to a heated geodesic
shelter tent, and she zipped closed the door behind her.  She retrieved a dark
green sweatshirt and a pair of gray sweatpants that had been vacuum sealed in
plastic.  As Gavin rummaged through his pack, she shed her soaked camouflage
and changed into dry clothes.  She bundled her gear in a corner and adjusted her
pack to serve as a pillow.

At last, Gavin located his sealed sweat clothes. 
He set to peeling off his damp shirt and camouflage pants, laying out his dry
clothes before changing into them.  Valerie watched as he did so.  “How’d you
get the scar?” she asked, taking note of the uneven cord of skin running under
his stomach, just above the waistline of his underwear.

With a teasing smile, he answered, “Wrestling
sharks.”  He slipped his legs into his sweatpants and stretched wide his shirt before
pulling it over his head.  He closed his eyes, enjoying the sensation of dry
cotton against his skin.  Gingerly, he tested his wounded side.

“Sharks?”  She snickered.  “It’s OK, you don’t
have to tell me.”

Gavin eased down beside her and unrolled his
blanket.  “In truth, I don’t remember.  According to the police report, I saved
an entire family from a gang of heavily armed thugs, but…”  He gestured getting
stabbed.  “They got me.  But really, it wasn’t me.  It was the training.”

Valerie laughed and playfully punched his
shoulder.  “Fine, don’t tell me.  I’ll just read your mind and find out the
truth.”

“No you won’t.”

“Oh no?”

Gavin shook his head.  “Nope.”

She gazed into his deep, brown eyes.  “And why
not?”

“Because you respect me.”  He kissed her
tenderly.  “Because you love me.”

Valerie kissed him gently and leaned away, easing
onto her back.  “You don’t have to tell me.”

“That’s so unfair,” he said, and he leaned over to
meet her smiling gaze.  “Now I have to tell you.”  She walked her fingers up
his chest as he explained.  “When I was twelve, I was obsessed with climbing on
the roof of my parents’ cabin and jumping onto this giant tree in the yard.  I
was really good at it, too.  Of course, it freaked my parents out, but I kept
doing it.”  He exhaled heavily.  “One day, the branch I always landed on just
broke.  I fell onto a sprinkler head.”  He lifted his shirt, revealing the
scar.  “Not very heroic.”

She ran her fingertips over his scar, and he shied
away, suddenly very ticklish.  “Thanks for telling me.”  She wrapped her hands
around his forearms.  “You know, there’s something really big about you,
Gavin.  In that vision I had on Ry’lyeh, I saw you die during the kwercian
ambush.  I saw their leader gun you down.  It’s the first time in my life one
of my visions has been wrong.”

His shoulders hunched, and he leaned back to sit. 
“I don’t feel very big.”  For a drawn moment, he stared at the roof of the
tent.  “Ever since I joined the
Shadow
, things have been… I don’t know. 
I mean, it’s real, and I know it’s real.  I know what I can do is real, but it
doesn’t make any sense!  Why me?  My parents weren’t Navigators.  No one in my
family has ever been anything like that.  My dad flies a garbage hauler, and my
mom works at the New California City DMV.”  He puffed his cheeks.  “I don’t
know what I’m doing.  I just
do
it.”

“You understand it better than you think.”  She
sat up on her elbows.

Gavin stared off for a moment.  “Maybe, but why
me?  There’s a billion other people who think quicker than me, better than
me.”  He laughed dryly.  “I can’t even pass my intro to physics class!” 
Downhearted, he looked to Valerie and sighed.

“Don’t drive yourself crazy trying to find that
answer.”  Valerie pulled him close and curled into him.  “Why you?  Why does a
rose grow from a seed in the ground?  Why does it embrace the sun?  Why does it
open its flowers?”  She kissed his hand.  “Because it’s a rose.  Why can you do
what you can do?  Because you’re Gavin Santiago.”

Tears threatened to spill from his eyes as he
wrestled with a sudden rush of fear and hope.  At last, he whispered, “Thank
you.”

“Night, Gavin.”

“Good night, Valerie.”  He yawned and closed his
eyes.

The storm raged on.  Well after midnight, Zerki
quietly entered.  Drenched through and through, she too donned her dry, cozy
attire while Gavin and Valerie slumbered.  After unrolling her blanket, she
settled down near the mouth of the tent and drifted to sleep.

·· • ··

By sunup, the rain had moved along, leaving a
gentle mist in its wake.

The loud rumbling of a huge vehicle shook the camp
awake.  Zerki unzipped the tent door and peered out.  Her seeking gaze befell a
monstrous machine sitting atop enormous treads.  It stood as tall as a factory,
with a headdress of smokestacks and scaffolding jutting from its roof.  Pumps,
gearboxes and hoses divided up its surface.

“What is that?” asked Gavin.

“I think it’s their mill,” said Zerki.  She
watched Brucker and a handful of others march Ashley Fenmore out to the
machine.  They disappeared beyond the walls as it slowed to a stop just outside
the perimeter of the estate.  Zerki retreated back into the heated tent.

Valerie yawned and sat up, her arms draped in her
lap.  “It’s really loud.”  She blinked and yawned again.  “Also, it’s not their
mill.  Ashley’s counting on Brucker not knowing the difference, but Brucker was
in pharmacology before he joined the navy.  He knows the difference between a
medicine mill and a dust manufactory.”

They heard blaster fire in the distance.

“Bye, Ashley,” she said, and she stretched as she
got to her feet.  “What are we doing for breakfast?”

“Uh, rations, I think,” Zerki replied, and she
nodded toward her pack.

“Ashley was the primary target, right?” asked
Gavin.  “We’re done, aren’t we?”

Zerki nodded.  “We should be.”

Gavin breathed out.  “Good.”

By midmorning, the
Eridanis
had returned,
and the strike team bore their fallen to the cargo hold.  Zerki, Gavin and
Valerie joined them as they boarded and prepared for departure.  The starship
lifted off and took to the stars.  She soon arrived outside Ry’lyeh and
descended to the planet’s surface.  Her passengers disembarked and made their
way to the Command Center.