Prince of Luster (27 page)

Never again would he look at a lower life form and consider it less worthy, as so many did. One had just saved his life. Even as he moved forward in his search, he fervently swore to show due respect in future, assuming he had one.

• • •

Nova huddled behind rocks near the incineration pit. It would be the last place anyone would want to search now. Decay and remains of the long dead lay strewn about. Only on one occasion had she found something worth saving and that was here. Now, it would serve as a safe refuge.

With the fires of burning buildings far behind, she grew colder. She had discard her cloak when burning debris had fallen on it and threatened to char her as well. Having been burned once, feeling flames come close to her skin had made her opt for being cold. Sadly, her gloves had been within the pockets of her cloak. Her palms were now so numb she couldn’t have fired the laser weapon Marcos gave her, even if her life depended on it.

Marcos
.

Where was he? And where was little Una?

In her fear, she began to cry. Never in her whole life had she felt so alone. She couldn’t even go back to her cave. If Forrell were alive, he’d save himself from the slugs by telling them where she lived, and offering her up as the one who’d saved Marcos.

All her medicines, including her birth control tablets, were there. If any steam tunnels still existed, the buildings over them would soon collapse and make them uninhabitable. No family would take her in, since everyone was fighting for their own lives and the lives of their children and kin. She was sure the mines were guarded. Slugs would have killed every human near them when the fighting broke out, even Forrell’s guards. There’d be little or no food left after the stores were burned. When the cold worsened, people would fight each other to survive.

She looked to the horizon. There simply wasn’t any choice but to go back to the cave and take her chances. If it was empty, she could salvage what she could and move to some other location. There’d be another cave in the barrens, though previous explorations in the hillsides had proven them to be fairly unsafe. But then what? What would life offer after that? When would help come?

As the monumental task of surviving one of the worst tragedies overwhelmed her, Nova put her face in her hands and wept even harder. What was the use in surviving without hope? If Marcos and even her pet were gone, there was nothing left for which to live. Even if a fleet of enforcers arrived tomorrow, what motivation would there be to get up each morning?

She swiped at her tears and shook her head. Self-pity wouldn’t help. “I
won’t
give up. I haven’t yet; I won’t now.”

• • •

As the night went on, Marcos encountered no one still living. Not even slugs.

He put Una on the ground and encouraged her to find her mistress. It seemed the little animal understood. She put her attention on furiously scrambling from one side of the street to the other. Though her head was almost indistinguishable from the rest of her fuzzy little body, she appeared to be sniffing the ground.

Finally, a hazy dawn crept over the horizon. Exposed as he was, he had weapons now and could defend himself. All he had to do was find Nova and get her back to the cave. If Forrell was still there alone and hadn’t contacted any of his thugs, the place might be safe. The governor wouldn’t have been able to contact anyone, since he had no communication devices. Cowardice being his mainstay, he’d have likely heeded the warning to remain there and keep quiet.

But if even Una’s intense searches revealed nothing of her beloved mistress, what would he do then?

He finally shook his head and screamed out her name, loud and long. Fear she’d never answer made him act in a way contrary to all instinct. He remained in the hazy light and kept yelling, even when he knew he should hide somewhere until darkness and keep quiet.

Either he was going insane, or a very familiar voice responded—one he hadn’t expected.

“Marcos! I hear you. Where are you?”

Marcos took a deep, gasping breath as black enforcer uniforms appeared at the end of the street. Through the smoke and limited light, he’d have recognized them anywhere. On hearing his cries and recognizing his voice, a dozen uniformed officers ran toward him from the direction of the decimated marketplace.

Darius had won. His brother and his crew had to have made it through whatever battle took place in orbit, or there’d be no uniforms on the ground.

As hope renewed every cell in his body, he ran toward them. One towered above the rest and pushed himself forward. He recognized the hue of green eyes so very like his own.

Barely daring to believe the vision, he stopped just a few feet from his older brother and stood there panting.

“By the love of all that’s h-holy … is that y-you, Marcos? What’s happened to you?” Darius asked as his voice broke.

Marcos’s burned appearance shocked the personnel standing before him. From the looks on their faces, he knew he must be barely recognizable. They’d all rightly assume he’d been a victim of fire plasma, but that didn’t matter now. He took a shaky step forward, then wrapped his arms around Darius’s shoulders and hugged him hard. It was over. The nightmare was over.

Darius held him a long silent moment, then gently pushed him away. His stare was poignant and horrified. “Who did this to you, little brother? You tell me who was responsible,” he whispered.

Marcos shook his head in denial, and swallowed hard to speak. “Later. I have to find someone. She saved my life. We were separated when slugs scorched the town.”

“We’ll find anyone you want, but you’re going back to the
Titan
right now. You need to have a med-tech check you out.”

“I can’t. I have to find her. Please … Darius … help me look.” He glanced at the other enforcers. “I’ll need everyone.” The pure desperation in his voice couldn’t be mistaken. He’d never spoken to anyone with such anxious appeal.

“All right,” Darius said. “We’ll help you. We need to search for survivors anyhow.” He turned to his crewmembers and gave orders. “Keep your communicators clear. Spread out in case of Limaxian brawlers. Though their fleet is burning, any who escaped in life pods may have made it safely to the ground. They’ll still attack. Locals may not care who we are at this point; they’re frantic to survive and protect their families. Don’t assume anyone is safe.”

“Their fleet is burning?” Marcos asked.

“Most of it. The rest surrendered after reports filtered from their negotiators. Seems some monstrous creature is wandering the streets. It attacked and killed their leader. Those slugs who survived and witnessed that event said the animal is a murderous carnivore; they begged their own fleet officers for surrender just so they could get off the surface.”

Marcos pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and index finger. Then he began to laugh uncontrollably and sank to the ground against a nearby wall. The sound of it was a bit hysterical, even to his own ears. Darius put one arm around his shoulders and offered comforting words, obviously thinking him half mad.

“Marcos … you need to get to the
Titan
. I’ll have my crew continue looking for whomever you want to find. But it’s obvious you’re not well. No wonder we couldn’t find your transponder signal. If the rest of your body is as badly burned as your face and neck, your tracking device was probably incinerated by the heat of the plasma.

The device his brother spoke of had been embedded in his breast muscle. It had, indeed, been burned. The remains had fallen from his chest as the flesh had. He’d never told Nova about it, because he hadn’t wanted her to know who he was.

Marcos put one hand on Darius’s shoulder and tried to allay his brother’s angst. “Una! Come here, girl.”

The fuzzy little figure that’d been frantically digging through debris in search of her mistress, acknowledged. She came bouncing toward him, making whimpering pup-like sounds that in no way made her appear as the horrific carnivore Prometheus’s surviving ground crew described.

“The reason I’m laughing is
this
!” he said as he held Una up for the enforcers to view. “This terrifyingly grotesque monster is what killed Prometheus.”

Darius frowned. Then he shook his head in apparent disbelief. “That’s it … you’re going back to the
Titan
right now. You’re not mentally any better than you look.” He grabbed Marcos’s arm and pulled him up, but Marcos gently disengaged himself.

“I’ll explain as we search.
Please
, Darius … I have to find her. I can also tell you where Adaman Forrell is hiding. He needs to be taken into custody. Just keep searching with me, and I’ll tell you everything, in excruciating detail. But we have to keep looking. It’s getting colder as we speak. Survivors might not last long.”

Darius nodded. “All right. But you don’t get more than three feet from me. Understand?”

At one time Marcos would have resented the childish warning. But the horror over his burns was still reflected in the crew’s expressions. They probably thought he was about to die, right there in the street. Without wasting more time, he cuddled Una close and led the way.

Their search led them back through the streets, toward Forrell’s residence.

As the enforcers dug through rubble, finding only bodies, it became clear that anyone who had survived had run into the hillsides and away from any standing buildings.

They were about to move to another street when Una jumped from Marcos’s arms and ran to the demolished entrance of the governor’s residence. Limaxian remains were strewn about the foyer, as indicated by slug body parts that didn’t remotely resemble any humanoid colonists. Persistently, Una circled the charred body parts and growled. Suddenly she stopped, lifted her head, and ran excitedly into the smoldering, upright support frames that were still falling.

Marcos ran after her, even as Darius shouted for him not to.

Una’s sharp barking alerted him to a pile of boulders and steel that was strewn where the foyer would have been. He knelt beside Una. She dug furiously at a pile of hot debris, even though her little paws were being burned. He pulled her against him to keep her from further harming herself. But even as he picked her up, she grabbed at something with her mouth.

Up from the ash came one garment: a very small, tattered brown glove.

He’d have recognized it as he’d have known his own uniform gauntlet from dozens of others.

Everything faded around him. He heard Una whimpering loudly as she nuzzled the glove. If there was any uncertainty about who’d owned it, the pup removed all doubt.

“I shouldn’t have left her,” he bitterly whispered. “I shouldn’t have left … ”

“You’ve had enough,” Darius gently told him as he stepped around spot fires, put his arms around his sibling, and led Marcos out of the building.

Marcos didn’t resist his brother’s help this time.

And when they were standing outside the debris and on the street again, Una jumped from Marcos’s arms, stood in front of them, and faced the building. Her sudden movement surprised everyone into stillness, as did the low, soulful howl she emitted. The pup stared into the remains of the building as she howled a heart-wrenchingly sad tone not even the hardest heart could misunderstand. She was mourning someone she’d lost.

“Let’s get you to the
Titan
,” Darius softly urged.

• • •

As med-techs hovered around him making comments and completing tests, Marcos woodenly listened to Darius’s debriefing regarding the immediate future of Delta Seven and its inhabitants. He tried to say something that’d sound intelligent; anything that would make it appear as though he was listening. But his heart hurt too badly.

How could she have come so close to rescue only to die in the last hours? After all her efforts to survive, he’d gotten her killed. Her death was his fault. He’d promised to get her to freedom. He should never have left her side. She’d wanted to come with him; he hadn’t let her.

He’d barely managed to describe the cave location so that Forrell could be arrested. The words came, though he didn’t know how. Duty made him respond even as pain demanded his silence.

“Marcos … I have to get a lot of Limaxians in stasis cells where they’ll do no harm on the journey home. What’s left of their ships will have to be destroyed.” Darius moved closer and spoke more softly. “You’ve done your job. You’ve been through far more than duty demanded. I just thank the Creator that I had a bad feeling about this mission and came after you sooner than we’d planned.” He paused for a long moment before adding. “Whoever this woman was … we’ll talk later,” he finished as he patted his brother on the shoulder. “Stay here in my quarters for now.”

A few med-techs, summoned to check his immediate status, drifted away. They muttered something about putting him in an incubation unit so his body’s own, enhanced immune system could put him back to normal. What did any of that matter?

Eventually, he put Una on the floor and simply stood there. He couldn’t decide what to do or where to make his body move. Eventually, the need to relieve himself made him shuffle toward Darius’s bathroom.

He passed his hand over the computer relay, and the lights went on. There, for the first time, he saw his image very clearly. A large mirror stretched from the deck to the overhead, making his entire form quite viewable.

There’d been nothing more than reflective surfaces of old pots and pans in the cave. Now, he saw why others on the ship had gasped in repulsion. The disfigurement was terrible. Assuming he’d heard them correctly, the med-techs kept saying he’d heal. But would he?

He slowly put a hand to the mirror and leaned forward. “That’s not me,” he softly murmured. “I’m not in there anymore. That man burned away. That shallow, self-centered bastard doesn’t exist. And the one who should have survived … the truly pure soul who should have lived … she’s … she’s … ” His words trailed away.

He stood there because of Nova.

As he slowly undressed and saw the rest of the damage done to his body, he couldn’t believe she’d ever let him touch her. He was monstrous. Some of the damage wasn’t healed as well as he’d thought. He just couldn’t feel it anymore.