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THIRTY-­SIX

Personal Quarters: Sage

Enlisted Barracks

Charlie Company

Fort York

1353 Zulu Hours

F
reshly showered, dressed in gym shorts, Sage sat at his desk in his private quarters and stared at the sat recon of the river where the Phrenorian base lay hidden. It lay out there like a bomb waiting to explode. He and Halladay hadn't quite gotten a handle on how to proceed with that threat at the moment.

The holo projection of the footage scrolled by in 8x speed, time and time again. The river remained undisturbed and continued to flow unimpeded through the jungle. Watching the projection over and over again was frustrating, but seemed to make him more awake than drowsy.

He'd tried to sleep, knowing he needed it, especially since the Makaum were going to turn out for the party tonight and the Terran Army was providing security. He and Halladay had spent time trying to talk Quass Leghef out of the festivities, but she had been adamant. With the way the Makaum ­people were split over the role offworlders were having in their lives and would continue to have in their lives, the Quass insisted on the holiday to remind them of the things they had in common and the crises they'd already weathered.

The Festival of the Beginning was celebrated every year and marked the day the survivors had climbed from the wreckage of the starship that had crashed on Makaum. It was a day to remember those who had gone on before, and think of those who would come after.

A knock echoed through his door.

Sage blanked the computer holo and leaned back in his chair. “Come in.”

Kiwanuka entered the room carrying a ­couple of meal bags. Like Sage, she wore sweat pants, but she also had an olive drab ARMY tee shirt that made her dark skin look even darker. “You haven't eaten, have you?”

“There was a protein-­sub in there somewhere,” Sage replied with a smile. “But it's long gone and barely remembered.”

“I saw you coming out of the showers a little while ago.” Kiwanuka put one of the bags in front of Sage and pulled up the other chair in the room to his desk.

Sage cleared gear from that side of the desk and put it on the floor to make room for her. “I should bring you a meal one of these days.”

“You'd have to bring enough for three, Top.” Kiwanuka reached into her bag and took out a carton of what smelled like lasagna.

Sage reached into his own bag to explore the contents, found a similar carton, and took it out. When he opened it, he discovered it was lasagna. “Three?” He looked at Kiwanuka.

“I have a roommate. Sergeant Bianca Dobell.” Kiwanuka took out plastic flatware and passed it around.

“She works in the motor pool.”

From what Sage remembered of the sergeant, she was an old-­school hardliner. Diligent and tough.

Kiwanuka shook her head sadly. “And she snores like an out of alignment magno-­drive.”

Sage smiled. “No fun to be you.”

“Not all of us get to be First Shirt and have our own quarters.” Kiwanuka opened up a carton of salad and added dressing, then she opened up a stay-­hot containing small yeast loaves. “You've got the wine.”

“Special occasion?” Sage reached into his bag again and found two wine bulbs. Both were marked with Terran brands.

“Since we're not going to be drinking at the party tonight, I thought we could celebrate now.” Kiwanuka picked up the bulb of deep red liquid. “There's not enough in one of these to last till the party. When does it start?”

“At dark. About twenty fifteen.”

“When all the bugs are out. Yum.”

“As I understand it, the bugs are a big part of the show.”

“I'm glad I'll be in armor.”

“Yeah. Me too.” Sage got out his carton of salad, dressed it, and dug in.

“I assume the secret project you've been working on with Halladay has to do with the Phrenorian base Jahup found.”

“Yeah. It's out there.”

“What is it?”

Sage shook his head. “Don't know yet.”

“Tell me when you find out?”

“As soon as you're cleared. This is strictly need-­to-­know.”

They ate in silence. When they finished the meal, Sage felt better, more whole. He helped Kiwanuka clear away the remains of the meal. “Thank you,” he told her.

“Have you slept yet?” she asked.

“Some while I was waiting in the general's office.”

“I was told Quass Leghef read the general the riot act.”

Sage was surprised.

“I heard that from the colonel,” Kiwanuka said.

“Doesn't seem like something the colonel would tell ­people.”

“He had to explain why you were still allowed in the fort after everything we did last night and this morning. He didn't tell us everything, but I know how the Quass can be, and I read between the lines of what the colonel told us.”

Sage smiled.

“So?” Kiwanuka looked at him intently.

“So what?”

“So was that woman fabulous or what?”

Sage's smile widened. “She was. Entirely fabulous.”

“Good.” Kiwanuka stood and pulled Sage to his feet and pushed him toward his bed. “It's sixteen eighteen now. That gives us four hours of sleep before the party tonight.”

“Us?” Sage looked at her.

Kiwanuka pursed her lips. “Look, you're not sleeping and I haven't gotten very much sleep since this morning—­or yesterday morning, actually—­so I thought maybe we'd try sleeping together.”

“Together?” Sage knew he must be tired if he couldn't do anything but repeat what she was saying.

“Bunk buddies, soldier. Nothing else.”

Sage nodded. “And if we can't sleep?”

“Then we get up and make sure our gear is right. Again.”

“All right.” Sage let her pull him onto the bed and lay on his side. She spooned in next to him and closed her eyes. Cautiously, he threw an arm around her and held her. When he didn't get an objection, he thought everything was fine. He felt her breath soft and warm on his forearm, felt her heart beating, closed his eyes, and felt more at peace than he had since he'd hit dirt on Makaum.

He was asleep before he felt her breathe again.

Piyosa's Spring

West of Makaum Sprawl

0753 Zulu Hours

Even though she gave no indication, Jahup knew the exact moment Noojin knew he was there. He sensed her awareness of him through that bond that they sometimes shared. When they were younger, they could almost touch each other's minds, could know instantly how the other was feeling.

Now that he thought back on it, he wasn't sure when knowing each other had become so difficult.

She sat on the edge of the small spring, her bare toes in the mud and the water, letting the tiny
blutinny
nibble at her toes. Actually, when they were small, she had insisted the small fish were kissing her toes. Jahup had never been able to think of it like that. He'd always thought it was too silly for boys to think of the sensation in that way. The
blutinny
simply ate whatever stuck to a person's bare feet or licked the salt from their skin. Besides that, the fish got to know a lot of their world through their mouths.

The spring sat isolated from the sprawl, off the beaten track, and most hunters didn't go there anymore because the place was so small. Jungle surrounded the spring, which bubbled up in waves that never ended. Before the offworlders came, children had come here to explore the pool and to play.

Now, with so many evil ­people in the jungle doing bad things, the children weren't allowed out of the sight of parents or other adults.

“Are you just going to stand there and stare?” Noojin demanded.

She wasn't wearing her hardsuit like Jahup was. When he'd returned to his grandmother's home instead of the barracks because he'd wanted time to think, Jahup had cleaned his gear the way he'd been trained. He'd even invited Noojin to join him, but she had politely refused.

Now she wore her hunting gear instead of her armor and she didn't sound polite at all.

Jahup popped his faceshield up. “I didn't know if coming over to you was safe.”

“The
blutinny
won't hurt you.”

It wasn't the
blutinny
that worried Jahup. Noojin got like this sometimes. Jahup didn't understand why exactly, but Grandmother had always insisted that those times would pass, and they did.

Jahup crossed over to the spring and knelt down beside her. With the armor on, he was heavy enough to sink into the bank, which made her scowl at him.

“Why did you come here?” Noojin asked.

“Because this is where you are.”

“Did you need something from me?” Her voice sounded sharper and she sounded angrier.

Jahup didn't know what he'd done wrong, but he'd obviously done something to offend her. “No, I just wanted to make sure you were all right.”

“I'm fine.”

“Because we nearly got killed and I couldn't help thinking how close I'd come to losing you.” Jahup said that before he really knew he was going to.

Silently, she picked up a twig and drew in the water. Jahup couldn't tell what she was drawing. The waves broke her efforts apart before she even finished them. The
blutinny
thought it was a game and followed the end of the twig as it darted around.

“We nearly died because you insisted on being part of the Terran Army,” Noojin said at last. “We are not them. They are not us.”

Jahup chose not to argue with her because he knew they wouldn't see things the same way. He didn't know why Noojin couldn't understand that they had to help the Terran Army fight to get their lives back.

“No matter what you think, Jahup, the Army is not helping us get back to who we were.” Noojin sounded calmer, almost sad. “Nothing will ever be the same again.”

“Is it okay if I just sit here?” For a moment, Jahup thought maybe she hadn't heard him.

“It's fine.”

He looked at her because she didn't sound right and saw that tears dropped from her cheeks into the spring. The
blutinny
swarmed the tears where they fell in the water.

Jahup knew better than to mention the tears. Noojin didn't cry often, and she
never
wanted it mentioned. She went straight from crying to being fighting mad.

He sat there beside her, almost touching, and never felt farther away from her.

 

THIRTY-­SEVEN

Lareta's Rapture

New Makaum

7078 Akej (Phrenorian Prime)

H
e's up there,” the voluptuous
A'shtasser
female told Zhoh as she entered the room he'd rented in the bordello.

She was humanoid, but she had green skin, blue hair, and a prehensile tail that she was in the habit of flicking when she presented herself to anyone with money. The thin wisps of spidersilk she wore barely covered her nakedness.

She'd told Zhoh her name was Ineena, but he didn't care. The only thing he was interested in was the fact that she knew Captain Achsul Oretas, who visited Lareta's Rapture regularly when he was in the sprawl.

Ineena slid onto the round bed in the center of the room and played with the chains and other devices that dangled from the mirrored ceiling. Images of ­people and creatures having sex played on a holo overlay at the foot of the bed.

“Is he alone?” Zhoh asked.

The female shrugged. “He's with a friend.”

“A friend like you?”

“I'm better.” She smiled provocatively at him and her tail twisted languorously around her forearm. “That's lucky for you.”

Zhoh went to the door and closed it, then turned around to the woman. The room smelled of sex and drugs and alcohol and disease. It almost choked Zhoh in its intensity and he couldn't think of many worse places to be.

The female mistook the closing of the door for his increased sexual interest. Phrenorians couldn't have sex with humanoids, but the humanoids' secretions were pleasantly intoxicating.

Zhoh did not know that himself. It was just something he'd been told by others. He would never lie with a beast.

“Come to me and I'll make you glad that you did.” The female crooked her finger at him and grinned salaciously. At least, that's what Zhoh thought she did. He wasn't certain of all humanoid emotions. He pulled a silenced pistol that fired depleted uranium rounds and put a hole between her disbelieving eyes. Blood flew through the holo images of sex partners as her body toppled onto the bed to stare sightlessly up at her own reflection.

Flipping his cloak over the pistol he held in his primary, Zhoh opened the door, walked outside, and punched in the lock code on the keypad. The door would not open again until the time he'd paid for had passed.

He walked along the hallway and did not look at the bar below. When he reached the room where Achsul lay with a human female, he used the cyber lockpick Mato had given him on the keypad, watched the symbols cycle. They stilled and the lock opened with an almost silent click.

Pushing the door open, Zhoh followed it inside the room, which was exactly like the one he had just left. A human female lay on top of Achsul. She was laughing, like she was enjoying her experience.

At least she would die happy. Zhoh shot her through the back of the head as he approached the bed. The corpse collapsed on top of Achsul.

The captain tried to push the dead female from him, but he was drunk on her nectar and he couldn't quite manage it.

Zhoh placed a primary on the corpse's back and pressed down, keeping Achsul trapped on the bed. Zhoh shoved the silenced pistol into Achsul's face, tearing off two of his
chelicerae
as he did.

“Silence,” Zhoh ordered. “One sound other than when I tell you to speak and I will kill you. Lift your left primary if you understand my directions.”

On the other side of the bed, Achsul's primary rose a short distance.

“Other than you, is there anyone else in General Rangha's command who knows about the weapons he has been hording from past campaigns? Speak softly when you answer.”

Achsul's mouth opened and closed a moment and he drank his own blood from where the
chelicerae
had been sliced off. “No. I have been with him the whole time. I hid what he was doing. He swore me to secrecy. It was not me, Zhoh, I was only following orders. I had to serve General—­”

Zhoh put two uranium rounds through Achsul's face, killing him immediately.

“Not anymore,” he said. He saw himself out.

There was only one more loose end to take care of.

The Canopy

New Makaum

1628 Zulu Hours

On the shaded rooftop bar of a two-­story building not far from the Offworlders' Bazaar, Sytver Morlortai drank imported beer from Hon'qua and looked at the holo images he had taken of the market square of what was now referred to as Old Makaum. A casual passerby might have thought him a tourist reviewing images he'd captured while on a stroll through the sprawl.

The bar was called the Canopy and was one of the least inspired names Morlortai had ever heard. Most of the shade came from large trees that grew up through the center of the building and extended six meters above Morlortai. Someone had worked at keeping the trees pruned, but they hadn't worked hard at it.

The place suited Morlortai because the clientele tended to be self-­absorbed offworlders who were distracted with deals they were doing over comm or who drank while they were crunching numbers.

From where he sat, Morlortai could see some of the destruction left by the Terran Army action done earlier that day. Construction crawlers labored to carry the damage away and the verdant growth that had been harmed was already reestablishing itself.

“Did you pick your spot yet?” Turit asked over the comm.

“Already done,” Morlortai replied. “All I'm waiting for now is the party to begin.” He reached for the sweating beer bulb and took a sip, finding that it was not as cold as it had been, which was a shame because Hon'qua beer was meant to be drunk cold. “All we're waiting for is the contact that brought us to this
enthche
.”

After spending almost two days onplanet, Morlortai was convinced the world was a cesspool just waiting for someone to pull the drain. He was going to do his part to help that when he killed Wosesa Staumar. Ny'age, one of his merc family, had trailed the Makaum man all day yesterday to build as much of an idea of the man's routine as she could.

According to her, Staumar was a parasitic growth who profited from his own ­people's misery. He had sold out Makaum to the big corps and was cashing in on the bio market in a big way. Since getting wined and dined by the likes of DawnStar, Green Dragon, Silver Spin, and Tri-­Cargo, Staumar had totally adopted a life of immorality and wickedness. But he currently lived on the Phrenorian's tab, soliciting his friends and neighbors to believe the Sting-­Tails would be the best partner for the future of their world.

Killing Staumar would be a pleasure. Morlortai lived on the fringes of lawful society, and maybe he did murder for hire, but he had a code and he didn't kill innocents. Ny'age had discovered that Staumar had killed two prostitutes at the pleasure palaces, one woman and one boy. The Phrenorians had disposed of the bodies.

Remembering that left a strong distaste in Morlortai's mouth. He finished his beer and waved down a server for another, relishing the thought that it would at least be cold for a while.

After the drink was delivered to his table, Turit hailed Morlortai on the comm. “Your contact has arrived.”

Morlortai's senses quickened and he was instantly more alert. “You're sure.”

Turit made a choking sound, which was as close as the translator could come to emulating an Angenen's laughter. “He's the only Phrenorian in the bar.”

And that was the real surprise on the job that had brought Morlortai to Makaum. The price he would get paid for killing Staumar was only a drop in the bucket compared to what had been offered for the other contract.

“I would like to join you,” a deep synthesized voice announced.

Morlortai turned and gazed up at the blue and purple Phrenorian standing beside his table. The colors told him at once that he was dealing with a higher-­up in the Empire. In his career as an assassin, Morlortai had never worked for the Empire. Life these days was interesting.

With an air of largesse, Morlortai waved toward the chair on the other side of the table. He kept both hands in view on the table despite the way the Sting-­Tail was armed. After years of experience with Turit, Morlortai trusted that the Angenen would put a bullet through the Phrenorian's brainbox before he could finish drawing a weapon.

They exchanged the passwords the fixer who had arranged the meeting had prepared for them so they could identify each other.

“Would you like something to drink?” Morlortai asked.

“No. I won't be here long. I came only to give you the name of the target you're here for.”

“And half of the agreed-­upon amount.”

“Of course.” The Phrenorian extended a credstick and Morlortai pocketed it immediately.

“You know if the credits are not all there, I will come looking for Blaold Oldawe.”

The Phrenorian hissed angrily. “Have a care. Throwing names around like that can get you killed.”

Morlortai shrugged. “I can promise, General Rangha, if I am betrayed, you will never live to see if I make good on my agreement to kill the target.”

If the Phrenorian was rattled by all that Morlortai knew, he showed no signs of it.

General Rangha produced a small datacube. “All the information you need is there. Do not fail in this.”

“I never fail,” Morlortai said.

The general left the table without another word. Morlortai didn't worry because he knew Turit would keep the Phrenorian in his sights until he was out of the area.

“So who is the target?” Turit asked.

“Curious?” Morlortai loved tweaking the Angenen's natural curiosity.

“Yes.”

Morlortai laid the datacube on his computer and brought up the holo. A single file was contained on the cube.

“Captain Zhoh GhiCemid. Apparently Blaold Oldawe intends to get rid of his ex-­son-­in-­law.”

“It's a waste of credits. It would be better to see if Zhoh dies here.”

Morlortai shut down his computer and pocketed it, finished his beer and got up to leave. “It's a payday. A big one. I haven't met many who have hated someone as much as Blaold Oldawe does.”