Zero Recall (58 page)

Bagkhal didn’t
answer.  His claws had sunk into the stone like it were clay and his front paws
lost purchase, his body sliding back downward before he could struggle to lift
his huge head above the surface again.

“A test for what?!” Joe
shouted.

“Jreet hells, boy,”
Bagkhal gurgled, thrashing his head to stay above water.  “Isn’t it…obvious?”

“Goddamn it, enlighten
me, Bagkhal!”  His Prime had something wrong with his eyes—they were leaking
fluid down his shirt.  “What the hell were you thinking, you damned furg?”

“It’s a test for
you
.” 
Bagkhal continued choking. 

There was a long,
miserable silence as the Dhasha struggled to breathe in the pit beneath them.  “I’ll
kill the ashsoul,” the Human whispered.  “I swear it.”

“Forget that nonsense,”
the Dhasha snorted, clawing its way back up the wall again.  “I have…heirs. 
Hundreds…of them.  Good boys, all of them.  Jemria will take care of them.”

“What the hell
is wrong with you, Bagkhal?!” Joe screamed, hurling his PPU across the
tunnel.  “He doesn’t care about you.  He sent you here to
die
! 
All
of you!  Goddamn it!”

The Dhasha
prince made what sounded like a sad chuckle.

Flea watched his
Prime steel himself.  Over the com, he said,
“Galek…”
  He hesitated, his
small brown eyes catching on Flea.  Flea froze, knowing his Prime was about to
do something incredibly stupid.  He nervously crawled up the wall, away from
the Dhasha.  But Joe said,
“Kid, your job is done.  Get back here.”

To the Dhasha, Joe
swiped his arm across his face and whispered, “What the hell were you
thinking?”

“God hates a
coward, Joe.”

Joe flinched as
if the Dhasha had hit him.  “You dumb furg,” he whispered.

The Dhasha
prince could not respond.  He couldn’t get his head high enough above the
churning water to breathe.

Flea and Joe
watched Bagkhal struggle for air, still as statues on the rim of the pit.  The
Dhasha’s every breath ended with him spraying water and gasping.  His body was
too dense to swim.  In moments, it was over.

“Well,” Flea
said, staring down at the Dhasha prince, “That was the easiest one yet.”

Joe cast him a
dark look and said nothing.  He slammed his rifle over his shoulder and again swiped
his arm across his eyes, then stalked around the pit without even glancing
down.  “
The prince is dead,
” he sent to headquarters.  “
Send us a
pickup.
”  Flea followed at a wary distance, stopping to pick up his Prime’s
PPU, which Joe had simply left where it had fallen.

Jer’ait and
Daviin were coming down the tunnel at a run, and hesitated upon seeing their
Prime.  Joe just brushed by them, headed for the surface.

“What happened?!”
Daviin roared at Joe, twisting back on himself to follow the Human.  When Joe
didn’t respond, he frowned down at Flea.  “What happened?”

Flea dropped
their Prime’s PPU into Jer’ait’s hand.  “I don’t know,” he said, still
confused.  “It’s like Joe knew him.”

Daviin
flinched.  “The Dhasha?”

At the same
time, Jer’ait froze.  “Merciful dead.  He just killed Bagkhal?”

“Yeah, that’s
the name he used,” Flea said.  “Bagkhal.”

“Mekkval’s
brother?” Daviin demanded.  Daviin and Jer’ait glanced at each other.  In the
silence that followed, Joe said,
“Mag, you’re gonna send us a pickup, or you’re
next.  I don’t care how many Dhasha I’ve gotta kill.  I’ll find you.”

“
Thirty-two
hours,
” Phoenix said.  “
Miss the drop and we won’t be back for you.
”

Up ahead, Flea
watched his Prime stiffen.  “
I don’t like the way you said that, Mag.  It’s
almost like you’ve got more important things to do than pick up a groundteam
that’s gonna get you that Corps Directorship.
”

“
Oh, you’re
too late for that,
” Phoenix said, “
Rat already killed the Vahlin. 
That’s why shuttles are scarce.  They’re on the other side of the planet,
digging him out.
”

CHAPTER
29:  Mission Over

Joe tossed
another stone across the clearing, furious they’d abandoned his team in enemy
territory to wait while they dug out an oversized Dhasha.  He checked his watch
again.

Two hours to
go.  He dropped his wrist and hurled another stone, imagining it was the
Geuji’s face.  He’d kill him.  He’d
murder
the Takki scum.  Bagkhal was…

…good.

The only
good
Dhasha Joe had ever met.  And he’d killed him.  For that, the Geuji was going
to die.  Joe hurled another stone so hard it exploded a small alien tree-trunk.

“You really
should stop doing that,” Daviin said from thin air beside him.  “A Dhasha might
hear it.”

“Let ‘im,” Joe
muttered.  “You can bet they plucked Rat and her crew off the surface the
moment the Vahlin was dead.  They’re probably being paraded around Dayut right
now like heroes.”

Daviin cocked
his big head and considered that.  “You really think they killed the Vahlin?”

“No,” Joe said. 
“But Headquarters thinks they have, so they’re gonna get every gift in the
book.”  He threw a stone hard enough to disintegrate another alien trunk.  Joe
looked down at his biosuit appreciatively.  Its ebony surface was covered with
slightly acidic water droplets, leaving him completely comfortable despite the
whipping wind and the rainy, wretched weather.  Then he thought of the water
droplets sliding like oil off Bagkhal’s scales and his mood soured again.

“Daviin!” Galek
called from across the foggy clearing.  “We found a dead Dhasha! Come help me
move this body before Jer’ait sees us!  Flea wants to get at the claws!”

Daviin snorted. 
“Let him get his own claws!  And stop shouting!”

“Go help him,”
Joe said tiredly.  “We’ve cheated him out of enough trophies, and I doubt he’s
ever gonna see the money from that
kasja,
now that they’ve got what they
wanted.  This might be his last chance.”

Daviin sighed
and slid his huge bulk out of the fighting pit.  He paused at the edge and
looked back at him.  For a long moment, he said nothing.  He knew how much
Bagkhal had meant to Joe.  Joe had told him so many war stories in the hundreds
of hours since the Jreet Sentineled him that, at times, Joe had found himself
wondering if that’s all the Jreet thought he talked about. 

And now he was
dead.  Because Joe killed him.

“I wish I knew
what the Geuji wanted from all this,” Daviin offered.

Joe’s hand
fisted on the stone.  “I intend to find out.”

#

Daviin crossed the
clearing and hesitated.  “Galek?”

“Over here!” Flea
called.  “Ten rods in.”

Daviin peered into the
dense alien brush.  “Joe wants us to stay in sight.”

“You big Takki,” Flea
laughed.  “He’ll still be able to hear you if you scream.”

Daviin narrowed his eyes
and peered over his shoulder at Joe.  Their Prime was still sulking, tossing
stones across the clearing.  He wasn’t even watching Daviin.

“This better not be a
game,” Daviin growled, pushing his way through the brush.

He was about to turn
back, uncomfortable at being out of sight of his ward, when he saw a body
crumpled near a stream.  There was no Dhasha in sight.

“I knew it,” Daviin
snapped.  “
Baga, if this is your idea of a joke, you’re a furg.
”

Daviin only had a moment
to register Flea’s irritated, “
What’s a joke?
” before he noticed the
tentacle pushing under his scales.  He opened his mind to warn Joe, but the
warning never came.

#

Joe waited for
Daviin’s response, and when it did not come, he went back to lobbing rocks. 
Guess
they worked it out,
he thought.  Then he winced, imagining Daviin
confronting the Baga, especially now that Flea was in such a bad mood.

“
You guys
play nice,
” Joe said.  “
Any fighting and I’ll be peeling your face off
the bottom of my boot.  Get me?
”

Neither
responded.

Joe sighed and
chucked another rock.

Jer’ait climbed
over the edge of the pit and settled down beside him. 

“Find anything?”
Joe asked.

“There’s a
couple active dens nearby,” Jer’ait said.  “Nothing close enough to hear us.”

“Good.”  Joe
threw another stone.  Then he yawned.

“Tired?” Jer’ait
asked.

“Yeah,” Joe
muttered, rubbing his eyes despite knowing it would do no good with the biosuit
on.  “Can’t wait to get back to my bed.  We haven’t gotten a good night’s sleep
in a couple weeks.”

“I’ll take shift
for you,” Jer’ait said.  “If you want, you can take your biosuit off and get
comfortable.  Shouldn’t be long, right?”

Joe frowned at
the Huouyt, irritated and increasingly tired.  “Job’s not done.  Not taking my
suit off ‘til we’re back on Jeelsiht.”  He glanced at the rain.  “Besides, it’s
cold as hell.”

“Think of how
comfortable it would be.”

It
would
be comfortable.  Joe was tired of having to relieve himself in his suit.  He
wanted to feel the freedom of air on his skin for once.  But, more importantly,
he wanted to go to sleep.

“Might take you
up on the shift,” Joe said, yawning, “But biosuit stays on.”  Ghosts!  What was
wrong with him?  Surely he could stay awake two more hours, couldn’t he?

Jer’ait glared
at him.  “Four members of your team go without biosuits every crawl.  Are you
so weak you can’t expose yourself once?”

“Yep,” Joe
said.  He could barely keep his eyes open, now.  The lids felt so heavy…he
hadn’t thought he was that tired.

I’m
not
this tired,
Joe realized, stunned.  His eyes widened. 
The Huouyt is
drugging me somehow.

“I’m sorry,
Commander,” Jer’ait said softly.  “For what it’s worth, I think Yua’nev is
wrong.”

As Joe was
trying to comprehend this in his foggy state of mind, the Huouyt lunged
forward, attempting to push a tentacle into Joe’s mouth, to touch his tongue. 
Joe yanked the arm away and closed his mouth.  Then he closed his eyes, too. 
He curled into a ball, feeling his body rhythms slow further.

“
Daviin, I
need help!  Jer’ait drugged me!
”

There was no
reply.

Joe pressed his
biosuit-covered hands over his face, blocking Jer’ait from reaching any
orifices, and mentally told his suit to go into lockdown.

His last thought
as the suit shut down his biorhythms was,
He was lying all along.

#

“
Baga, if this is your
idea of a joke, you’re a furg.
”

Flea halted in carving
his name into the side of one of the grotesque alien trees.  “
What’s a joke?
” 
He was irritated, in a foul mood, and ready to spit at something.

The Jreet did not bother
to answer.  Flea returned to scratching symbols into the weepy yellow bark.

“
You guys play nice,
”
Joe said.  “
Any fighting and I’ll be peeling your face off the bottom of my
boot.  Get me?
”

Flea snorted and said
nothing.

Earlier that morning,
Jer’ait had shown him how to spell ‘Flea’ and had told him how Va’gans left a
calling card whenever they visited a victim.  Since Flea had killed a prince by
himself, he should at least mark a few of the trees outside the den where he’d
killed the prince.

It had been a long
flight, almost twenty tics, but when Flea reached high altitudes and had clear
skies, he could travel at almost the speed of sound.  He hadn’t told Joe he was
leaving—only Jer’ait, who had promised to keep it a secret.  He had two whole
hours to get back, so he wasn’t worried.

“
Daviin, I need help! 
Jer’ait drugged me!
”

Flea snorted and
continued drawing the final symbol. 
Shouldn’t a pissed him off,
he
thought.  He almost wished he could be there.  It was always funny, watching
the Huouyt drug their Prime to put him in his place.

But Daviin never replied.

Flea hesitated, his claw
sticky with cloudy sap.  He slowly realized that aside from Daviin and Joe, the
frequency had been utterly silent, more silent than usual.  No one was
talking.  “
Daviin?  What joke were you talking about earlier?
”

Daviin did not reply.

A tingle of dread was
worming its way under Flea’s carapace.  “
Daviin?  You all right?
”

Nothing.

“
Joe?
”

The frequency remained
silent.

Flea launched himself off
the branch and tore into the atmosphere, fear gnawing at his insides.  “
Is
anyone there?
”

“
I’m here,
” Scarab
said.

“
Scarab,
” Flea
called, relieved.  “
What’s going on?
”

“
Jer’ait just drugged
our Prime and is carting him off into the woods.
”

Flea blinked.  “
He
is?  Are you following him?
”

“
Why should I?
”

Flea sped up.  “
What
do you mean?  Is he hurting him?
”

“
Don’t know,
”
Scarab said.  “
Waiting for my pickup.
”

Flea was outraged.  “
Scarab,
is Joe in trouble?
”

“
Don’t know.
”  The
Grekkon sounded bored.

“
Well go find out!
”
Flea cried.

“
Why should I? 
Mission’s over.
”

“
Why…
” Flea could
not comprehend the Grekkon’s response.  “
Because he’s your ground leader!
”