Satan's Forge (Star Sojourner Book 5) (22 page)

For the next half hour, Sarge and Chancey slipped through the batches of rifles. We hid as patrols passed by. Finally, we had all the weapons inside the fence.

“Chancey,” I said as he crawled through the hole, “the slaves sleep three to a hovel. I figure there's about three hundred of them in all. One rifle per hovel should be about right.”

He nodded. “You're running the show, Superstar.”

We dragged four batches to the first hovel.

“Jules!” a Kubraen slave crawled out when he heard us untie them. “Lord Jules.” He put his hands together.

“We're here to help free you, brother,” I told him. “Let's get inside.” We pulled the rifles in after us. The small room held a thick smell of molasses, the natural Kubraen body aroma. I'd been hoping we'd meet BEMs first, a more warlike race. The Kubraen people are peaceful and passive by nature. They detest weapons.

Two other Kubraens stirred and sat up. “Lord Jules,” they whispered.

“We're here to help free you,” I said again. “But you're going to have to help yourselves.” I tried to hand a rifle to the oldest, by his gray bumpy skin ridges. He let it drop to the clay floor. “If you want to protect yourself and your brothers,” I tapped the rifle, “you'll have to use this to destroy the overlords!”

He stared at the rifle and shook his head.

“It can't be helped, brother,” I said. “I don't wish to kill either, but Great Mind will see to their kwaiis. Once this dirty work is done, your people will be free to return to their homes on Halcyon.”

He hesitated and looked at his two companions.

“We have no time,” I said, thinking of the dead guards.

“Kubraen, I,” the old one recited. “Kubraen I. We kill no sentient beings.”

“Oh great!” Chancey shook his head disgustedly.

“There's just a handful of us,” I told the Kubraen. “We can't do this alone.” I shoved the rifle back into his hands. He let it drop again.

“Don't think of it as killing guards,” I insisted. “Think of it as saving your people from torture and death.”

The young male, golden-skinned, with yellow eyes and spiky hair as dark as syrup, picked up the rifle. “Venerable Ganswythe,” he told the old one, “even Star Speaker would pardon the killing of enemies if it meant saving our people.”

The second companion, also young, a tawny-skinned female with puckered whip scars on her shoulders, eyes like a fawn's, and ginger-colored hair, nodded agreement.

“I am close to geth state,” Ganswythe whispered, meaning death. “I am concerned that Great Mind will find fault with me.”

I looked at Chancey and sat back. “I'll put in a good word with Him,” I told Ganswythe.

“You are a telpath, Lord Jules of the Terran race,” Ganswythe said, “friend to Great Briertrush. Will you surely do what you say?”

“On my honor, venerable Ganswythe.”

He took the rifle from the young male's hands and Chancey showed him how to use it. The old one wiped a tear. “Great Mind, I am become a killer of people.”

“A savior,” I said.

I told the two companions to pass the word to wait for Sarge's signal. “Those who don't have rifles must hang back and pick them up from the fallen.” I bit my lip as they glanced at each other. “I'm sorry, my brother and sister, but that's the reality. Now take these four rifles and distribute them to your Kubraen brothers in other hovels. Tell them to wait for the signal, and spread out as you come out firing.” I looked from the young Kubraen male to the woman. “Will you do that?”

“It is no sin, venerable Father,” the woman told Ganswythe, “to die for our people. Lord Jules almost gave his life to show us the honor that waits in defiance.” She touched the gland on her neck to signify her sacred loyalty to this cause. “Our children will recite this day's events around the clan fires.”

Ganswythe sighed and touched his neck. “Now the old learn from the young.”

“You'll all be remembered for this day's deeds,” I said and touched my neck.

The woman smiled at that. No gland.

“Yeah.” Chancey smirked. “And by the way, tags, remember when the fireworks start, spread out and take cover. You fire from there, you got that? Pass the word.” That was Chancey's mantra as we distributed the rifles. Too bad the people didn't listen in the battle to come.

The fly in the ointment was Mack and his renegades. If they were in on this, the slaves might take them for Terran friends. I was glad Sarge convinced me to wear a leather vest, pants, and the crooked arrow necklace. It was his signature uniform and I hadn't seen any of Mack's men wearing them. We explained that to the Kubraens and told them to pass on the information.

“I'm worried about those dead guards, Chancey,” I whispered as we crawled to another hovel, dragging the batches of rifles. “Our time might be running out.”

“That's Sarge's decision,” Chancey said. “If the alarms go off, he'll send the signal to attack, night or day.” He knocked on the next hovel. “Hey, anybody home in there?” he whispered.

A Cleocean came out rubbing his six glowing violet eyes. “Is it time to work?” He groaned and blinked his eyes in succession. “Wait! You are Jules the Terran Savior!”

“I don't know about that,” I said.

“Why not, man?” Chancey offered. “Gods usually bring us grief.”

“Can we enter your grotto?” I asked with Cleocean protocol.

“Enter, Lord Jules.”

Chancey and I pulled the rifles inside.

“You brought us weapons!” another Cleocean said.

I looked around and squinted. It seemed the dark hovel was full of violet eyes. “How many are you?” I asked.

“Four adults, and two new fry.”

Damn. Kids complicated things.

In the end, they decided that the only female would stay with the fry, and the other three adults would engage the enemy at Sarge's signal.

“Man, they got eyes!” Chancey whispered to me as he untied a batch of rifles.

“Chancey!” I shook my head at his insult to their customs.

“Yeah, yeah,” he retorted. “Listen, tags. You don't beam nobody wearing this.” He pulled on his leather vest.

We moved to the next hovel, where three Denebrians lay asleep, nestled together. They are a placid, agricultural people, but when we told them why we were there, they proved grateful for the chance to kill their torturers and return to their homeworld.

The BEMs were more than pleased to kill guards, and Mack's men, should they show up, and begged for more rifles. Chancey told them that our supply was limited and they must retrieve the rifles of the fallen.

The tall, rat-like Vermakt people of planet Fartherland were made for war, and were bored when there was peace.

“Do these tags crap in here?” Chancey whispered in my ear as we entered their foul-smelling hovel.

“I don't know, Chancey!”

The Vermakts' snouts twitched and whiskers bristled as we explained the plan to the four tall, bulky inhabitants of the hovel.

“We need four rifles,” one hissed and showed long front teeth.

“We can't afford four,” I said. “You'll have to retrieve the ones…”

The largest of the group, a hulking male, took four rifles and distributed them among his comrades. “You are the slayer of General Rowdinth. Are you not?” he asked me.

I hadn't killed their insane leader myself, but I knew they wouldn't make that distinction. “He destroyed himself from his obsession with power,” I said. “Your people were happy to be rid of him.”

“Not all.” He waved a rat-like claw toward the entrance. “You can go now.”

I looked at Chancey, who was also familiar with this arrogant race.

He shrugged. “I ain't arguing. These tags will be worth twenty Kubraens when the fireworks start.”

Speaking of which. It was still dark when the alarms sounded throughout the compound, a loud wail that heralded
Danger! Under Attack!
I guess the absence of the dead patrol's report was finally noticed. Frightened horses and ponies whinnied from the stables.

I took a deep breath. “Here we go,” I said to Chancey as Sarge's air beetle, the signal packed with explosives, whined by overhead, and erupted like Fourth of July fireworks above the guards' quarters in the tower complex. We grabbed a rifle each and shoved the remaining three into a hovel. I saw Chancey cross himself.

“Great Mind be with me,” I murmured, “and with Ganswythe, the venerable Kubraen. He only does what he must. I ask you to treat his kwaii with kindness. And take care of Chancey, Sophia, Huff, Joe and Bat. Blessed be Great Mind. Oh, and Sarge, and –”

“I hate to interrupt,” Chancey said, “but there's a battle raging out there!”

Around us slaves charged out of their hovels, shrilling, howling, chattering, squeaking, according to their race, and charged the guards, who were mounted and on foot. The guards raced for the protection of the compound and their quarters, firing back as they went. If they made it there, they would slaughter the slaves from cover.

Dawn was parting the veils of night as Chancey and I ran to the cover of water barrels. I heard a series of thunderous explosions and threw myself to the ground behind the barrels. Chancey sprawled beside me. We covered our heads as four air beetles with their complement of explosives smashed into the complex surrounding the tower, before the guards ever reached it. Clay and fibrin rained down. “Sarge must've seen the guards' rush!” I shouted as pieces of clay bounced off my back. I was glad to see the tower still standing, with the slaves on the roof, but the flimsy prison cells, the kitchens, the storehouse, the guards' quarters, were reduced to rubble.

“Good going, Sarge!” I jumped up and ran to the stone retaining wall paralleling the polluted stream, closer to the fray, but Chancey didn't follow. “C'mon!” I called back and ducked behind the wall, then I looked over the top and realized that he wasn't moving. A large chunk of clay lay beside his head. “Oh my God!” I jumped the wall, ran back, and slid down beside him as a hot beam flashed behind me. “Chancey!” Another beam from the rubble raked the barrels. I heard water pour out.

“Chancey.” I rolled him to his back. His eyes were closed but he was breathing. Blood ran from a deep cut on his forehead. “Oh shit!” I pressed both hands over it to stop the flow. Without water in the fibrin barrels, they afforded us no protection. “Chancey! C'mon, man. Come out of it.”

The central stanchion-mounted laser was swinging to aim at the slaves.

“Spread out!” I shouted to them, and wiped my wet, bloody hands on my shirt. “Take cover!” I screamed, braced my rifle on the top of a barrel and aimed at the high, narrow neck of the pyramid-shaped stanchion and fired a continuous beam at a row of rocks.

A ferocious desire for revenge turned the advancing slaves into a mob.
They're going to get slaughtered!
I thought as they ran toward the tower. I concentrated on a few key stones, and burned them with a continuous beam. They began to bubble and burst. “Come on. Come on!” I muttered, waiting for them to fail. The rocks turned molten. They flowed down the stanchion like lava pouring from a volcano.

The weakened peak of the stanchion, with the cannon, broke away. The cannon tumbled down, bouncing off stone with deafening reverberations. The two guards who had manned it rolled and bounced off the broken pyramid. Their screams died before they hit the ground.

Slaves cheered and rushed the retreating guards, who found no cover in the rubble and ran for the tower. I turned to Chancey and pressed the wound again, but blood just seeped now. “Chancey?”

His eyes fluttered and he moaned. I didn't want to leave him there, but if the guards made it to the cover of the tower, they could pick off attackers at will. The two roof-mounted lasers had swung toward the fray and were only awaiting the guards rush into the tower before sweeping the slaves with their powerful beams.

“I'll be back for you, buddy,” I whispered.

His eyes opened to slits and he nodded. “Go get 'em, Super…” But then he was out again.

“Ah, Chancey!”

One of the guard's horses trotted by, wild-eyed, running from the battle. I grabbed his trailing reins and mounted him. With my head low over his shoulder, I raced to the perimeter of the mob. “Don't let them get through the portal,” I shouted. "Destroy the portal. The high window was still lit.

Two men dressed in leathers moved among the advancing slaves. Had Sarge decided to send in his soldiers? Then, with a start, I realized they were Mack's men, disguised as Big Sarge's warriors. One fired at the back of a slave and dropped him in his tracks where others didn't notice.

“You motherless slimeshit!” I muttered. I leaned around my horse's neck and fired my stingler from under it.

I felt a primal satisfaction as the renegade's body dropped, with blood spurting out of his headless neck. Kwaiis were fleeing torn bodies all around me. I threw up my shields at this inner onslaught of frenzied souls looking for an anchor in the void.

Perhaps thirty guards were left when they made it through the portal of the high tower. The cannon laser tilted down and aimed at the slaves, who were bunched together like turkeys.

“Spread out, damn you!” I shouted to them.

But there was no order to the slaves' rush to kill their torturers. The mob mentality had taken over.

Sarge's men fired at the base of the tower from outside the fence, but with so many slaves in the way, they had little chance of hitting the portal.

I heard a whoosh overhead. Our big gun! The missile slammed into the tower just below the roof. I felt sick at heart as I jumped off the horse. How many slaves, tied to the ramparts, were killed as the roof exploded? The rising dust was thick around the tower. It blocked out the morning sky with dirty gray clouds of crushed stone and bits of fibrin. Bodies of slaves and guards littered the ground as the slaves reached the tower. But Slade's office window was still lit. The croteshit must've had Satan on his side because the missile didn't shatter his office floor.

I ran behind the fallen cannon. “Spread out and take cover,” I shouted to the slaves, who were milling around the tower, looking for a way in.

I ducked low as hot blue flashes sprayed off the cannon and over it. The guards were definitely targeting my ass.