Guerilla (31 page)

The accusation stung. Zhoh's wound still pained him and he had not slept since yesterday. There had been too many things for him to do once he returned to his base. He shouldn't even have been here, and wouldn't have been if he'd had a choice. The argument between the Makaum ­people, the foolishness of them even thinking they had a choice in their future, was a waste of his time.

Only Rangha had insisted Zhoh be here as a show of support.

“What were you doing, Captain?” Rangha demanded.

No longer wanting to take the abuse from Rangha, Zhoh took the white noise generator from his chest pouch and activated it, shutting down his and the general's comms, leaving only the two of them talking.

“I went with Sage this morning because you left a trail to that storage bay containing all the weapons you've been stealing from past campaigns,” Zhoh said in a tightly controlled voice. He couldn't stop the words. They poured out of him. “Your partner, the human female Ellen Hodgkins, had a computer that named you as the seller of those weapons. She had a copy of every transaction you have made on this planet.”

Rangha drew back from Zhoh's wrath and his pheromones stank of fear and rage, but the fear was stronger. “You're lying!”

“I still have copies of those records.”

“What are you going to do with them?”

“I'm going to send them to the Empire.”

Regaining his composure, Rangha stood taller. “Do that and I will tell the Empire you falsified those rec­ords, that you were the one doing business with the Hodgkins female. We'll see if they take my word or that of a
kalque.
”

Zhoh knew then that Rangha was speaking the truth. Given a choice of whom to believe, the Empire would side with their general and bloodline hero because it was in their interests to do so. The best that Zhoh could hope for in that instance was a quick, painless death.

And he knew they wouldn't give him that. Despair swept over him as he tried to figure out how he was going to fix his mistake.

At that moment at the well house in front of the Makaum ­people, Staumar's head exploded into bloody chunks.

Zhoh moved, automatically seeking shelter, and he felt the wind of a large-­caliber bullet sizzle by, missing him by only millimeters.

Rangha felt it too, and he gazed at Zhoh with fury in his eyes. “You should have been dead! He should have killed you! Try to hide! He'll find you!”

Zhoh ran back toward Rangha, taking the general down to the ground as a few Makaum ­people in the crowd unlimbered concealed weapons and started fighting.

Lying on top of Rangha, knowing the general's personal bodyguards were even now racing to his aid, Zhoh pulled his Kimer pistol, used his body to block the view of what he was doing, and slid the weapon under Rangha's thorax armor and fired three times.

Rangha jerked with the impacts, then he lay still.

Pushing himself up, Zhoh yelled at the approaching bodyguards. “Form a circle and get a medkit. The general has been shot.”

2058 Zulu Hours

When Staumar's head blew up—­and Sage couldn't think of any other way to describe what had happened—­he'd reacted immediately and wrapped his arms around Quass Leghef, protecting her with his body. The woman didn't know what had happened to her debate opponent. All she had seen was Staumar had been injured.

“He's hurt,” she cried. “He needs help.”

“He's dead, ma'am,” Sage said as he picked the woman up and started for the nearest house. He and Kiwanuka had chosen it for their fallback point in case something happened. “You can't help him. Now let me take care of you.”

Sage stumbled around other ­people, not wanting to hurt anyone, as the cracks of two large-­caliber rounds echoed over the distance. “Kiwanuka.”

“Yes, Top?”

“There's a sniper out there. Find him and put him down.”

“Copy that. Already on it.”

Sage ran, dodging ­people and occasionally jumping over them, making the straightest course he could to the safe house. They had reinforced the walls just that afternoon with carboplate that would offer defensive measures against bullets and beam weapons.

Small arms fire broke out from three or four areas on the Makaum section, and more fired from the rows of offworlders. Several rounds peppered Sage's back as he ran. The Terran soldiers were slow out of the gate, but they responded swiftly once they got into motion.

“Use mercy rounds!” Sage ordered as he entered the house. He started to set the Quass down, then noticed she was as limp as a rag doll. As he held her back so he could see better, he saw all the blood that had stained the front of the woman's dress.

He put a gloved hand to her throat and verified that her vital signs were all over the place. He opened up a comm channel. “I need a medic—­
now!
”

Two medics raced through the doorway and huddled over Quass Leghef, breaking out equipment and meds from their carryalls.

“Take care of her,” Sage ordered.

“Copy that, Top,” one of the medics said. They worked smoothly and efficiently.

Sage pulled his Roley into position and stepped back into the town hall. Everything was in a pandemonium. Terran Army soldiers, citizens, and Phrenorians all fired at each other. Dead and wounded lay strewn across the ground, some screaming in pain.

Sage felt echoes of Sombra de la Montána hammering through his mind. He went forward to get control of his men and help where he could, but he knew he was already too late.

 

EPILOGUE

Med Center

Fort York

0246 Hours Zulu Time

S
age sat on a chair outside the triage center with his helmet on the ground beside him. He replayed what had happened in the market square over and over in his mind. He'd already seen recorded events on the HUD screen of his suit.

So far, there were 37 confirmed deaths and 183 injuries. Those injuries were of the Makaum ­people who had come to Fort York to be seen by doctors. Others hadn't come, and the numbers were going to climb.

Fatigue overwhelmed Sage. He'd helped control the outbreak of violence, helped sort the quick from the dead, but that hadn't been helping. Not really.

Captain Gilbride found him a few minutes later. The doctor wore bloody scrubs and looked worn to the bone. “Top.”

“Yes sir.” Sage started to get to his feet and saluted, following the training when nothing else made sense. He kept seeing Quass Leghef limp in his arms.

“They just told me you were here.”

“We finally got everything out there sorted, sir.”

“You came here to check on the Quass?”

“Colonel Halladay told me to get out of the market. He thinks maybe I could be a target too. I came here because I couldn't think of anywhere else to go.” Sage didn't want to ask about the Quass because he was afraid he knew the answer.

“She's alive, Top.” Gilbride shook his head. “I did what I could for her, but her still being with us—­well, that's more because of how stubborn she is, not how good I am.”

Sage nodded.

“We'll have to wait and see how it goes from here.”

“Yes sir.”

“If you feel up to it, maybe you could join Jahup. He's in the room with her. She's in a coma now, so we'll have to wait to see how she does.”

“Yes sir. Thank you.”

Gilbride told him what unit the Quass was in, clapped him on the shoulder, and went back to surgery.

J
AHUP LEANE
D ON
the bed and held on to his grandmother's hand. The Quass looked small and still in the sterile sheets, nothing like the energetic woman she had been only a few hours ago.

Feeling awkward, Sage stood in the doorway.

“Come in, Top,” Jahup said without turning around.

“You're alone?” Sage crossed the room and stood beside the boy.

“Yeah.”

Sage had checked the list of KIA. Noojin hadn't been among them.

“Noojin has Telilu,” Jahup said. “She doesn't need to be up here and see Grandmother the way she is now. Pekoz is still in surgery.”

Guilt stung Sage. He'd forgotten about the old man. By the time he'd remembered and checked on him, he'd been told Pekoz had been medevaced on a jumpcopter.

Tears rolled down Jahup's cheeks, cutting through the dirt smeared there. The
draorm
on Sage's wrist caught his attention. “Grandmother gave you that?”

“She did. I tried to tell her I couldn't take it, but she wouldn't listen. She said it belonged to your grandfather.”

Jahup smiled a little. “You can't give something like that back.” He looked at Sage. “Did she tell you what it meant?”

“She said fathers make them for sons and that it had belonged to your grandfather.”

“She didn't tell you anything else?”

“There was a lot going on.”

“A
draorm
signifies family, Top.” Jahup's voice broke a little at the end but he held it together.

Sage waited and the machines beeped in the silence while he tried to figure out how he felt about that, and why the Quass had given him the
draorm.
He didn't have any answers and thinking that hard right now just made his head swim.

Looking back at his grandmother, Jahup asked, “What do we do now? Everything's so messed up.”

“We fight for your world, Jahup, because that's what she expects us to do. We rest, we look at what we know and what we need to know, and we figure out what we need to do. The colonel's already working on that, and tomorrow, we get started.”

Jahup nodded. “Do you have somewhere else to be?”

“Not right now. I figured I'd stay here with you for a while. If that's all right.”

“Yes. Thank you.”

Z
HOH LAY IN
the nutrient-­rich waters of his homeworld in his private tank. Warriors were posted on his door, but that was for his protection. No one suspected that General Rangha hadn't died at the hands of an assassin. Once the violence had broken out, events had become tangled.

Now he lay back and rested, letting his chest wounds heal. The wounds hadn't been enough to trigger a full
lannig
, but he knew he would be stronger in the morning, and then he would make his case to become the commander of the forces on Makaum. He would lobby for his advancement based on his past performance, and—­if he had to—­there were primes he could contact to help him. They would not want to lose a bloodline hero, and the facts Zhoh had collected would strip Rangha and his legacy away from them.

First he would deal with that battle, then he would go to the base that Rangha had set up out in the jungle and take a proper inventory of what was there. Zhoh had already started plans for how he would deal with things, and going head-­to-­head with the Terran Army was on that list.

In order to do that, he was going to have to limit contact to Makaum. Too many freighters came and went on the planet. It would be too easy to resupply the army. Zhoh intended to trap them, isolate them, and eradicate them.

He also needed to find out about the assassin Rangha had intimated was out there. That could not be allowed to stand.

For now, though, Zhoh closed his eyes and healed as dreams of conquest slid through his mind.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

MEL ODOM is the bestselling author of
Master Sergeant
and many film and computer game tie-ins, including
Forgotten Realms, Mack Bolan, Buffy the Vampire Slayer,
and
Angel
. He won a prestigious Alex Award for his YA fantasy novel
The Rover
. He currently lives in Oklahoma.

Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at
hc.com
.

 

By Mel Odom

The Makaum War

M
ASTER
S
ERGEANT:
B
OOK
O
NE

G
U
ERILLA:
B
OOK
T
WO