The Siege of New Terra (Star Sojourner Book 7) (24 page)

“Ah, let's go!” Mack ordered. I heard footsteps receding.

One of the children coughed.

The footsteps stopped. I held my breath.

“What was that?” Mack asked.

No answer.

“Did any of you think to see if there's a doorway in the rock?”

Again no answer.

“Well, fucking do it!” Mack bellowed. “What am I paying you for? Tempest!”

“Yeah, boss?”

“Check it out!”

I heard scraping as they probed the solid walls.

“Never mind!” Mack's tone sounded disgusted.

The splashing footsteps resumed. I dared not wipe the sweat that dripped into my eyes.

Then the child coughed again.

“Up there, you idiots!” Mack said.

“Attack!” I called. “It's our only chance. Their beam weapons aren't working! Go!”

But I was wrong. The rifles were working, only too well as the mercs fired at Orghes who leaped down and landed on the enemies' backs like the tree dwellers they were.

Screams on both sides.

Mack saw me and lowered his rifle. “Get back,” he told his men. “Come on, Rammis. I want you myself, and I don't figure to make it an easy death.”

Suddenly, I felt fear slide away as anger rose like mental bile. Suddenly, I didn't care if I died trying to kill this murdering monster.

I threw myself at him. He sidestepped and I landed in the water. The mercs and Orghes were fighting in hand to hand combat, and the Orghes were about four times stronger.

Mack slammed his foot on my chest to hold me underwater. I grabbed his ankle and twisted. He crashed down and landed on top of me. I tried to roll him off, but it was like rolling a bull. I saw him draw back a fist and I hit him in the groin with my knee. He howled but the fist came down anyway.

Pain flashed through my head. His face above me blurred. I gritted my teeth against the throbbing inside my skull, grasped a rock beneath me and swung it against his head.

He grimaced. Drool ran down his mouth, but he lifted me and slammed me back down. The tunnel jiggled and went dark. I blinked and forced myself to stay awake.

An Orghe hit Mack hard in the ribs and he rolled off me. I staggered to my feet and kicked him in the stomach. He groaned, but he got up, grabbed me and slammed me against the wall. My knees were weak. I leaned against the wall to stay on my feet. I would've fallen, but he picked me up over his shoulder and spun around with a war cry. I held onto his shirt. I knew he intended to throw me. I knew I couldn't stop him. He flung me. I landed hard in water and scraped myself on pebbles. I tried to get up, but I fell back down. Mack was a blur as he approached me with a knife. I couldn't raise my arms.

“I'm going to carve you up like a turkey,” he growled, grabbed my jacket and lifted me, “only slower.” He raised the knife.

Was that Galrin behind him?

Galrin grabbed Mack's neck in his thick, long-fingered hand and yanked him up.

“Stay out of this!” Mack called.

“Not for your life!” Galrin clutched Mack's wrist and slowly brought the knife up to Mack's face.

“Get him!” Mack called to his men, but the Orghes were keeping them busy.

“This,” Galrin said, and drew back his lips, “is for my sister Aura and my mother, murdered by your hand.” He ripped the knife from Big Mack's hands, clasped Mack's other wrist in a steel grip, and brought the knife close to Mack's face.

I shuddered and staggered to my feet. “Don't do it, Galrin,” I gasped.

“Oh, but I must, Terran breth. The souls of my sister and my mother cry out to me every night for revenge.”

I turned my head as he thrust the knife into Mack's eye and the brain behind it.

Mack's shriek vibrated down the tunnel. He collapsed and lay twitching. I couldn't look at him as I walked past his body, with the hilt of the knife rammed into his head.

“We're through!” Tempest put up his hands. “Goddammit, we're through!” Like androids turned off, the remaining mercs backed away from the Orghes.

Tempest walked to Mack's body and nudged him. “We're finished here.” He turned to the mercs. “We'll get no creds for this job. He should've just killed Rammis, the damn fool.” He hooked his thumbs in his belt and let out a breath. “All this work for nothing.” He kicked Mack's body. “Let's go, tags. I'll make a better boss than the Big Mack ever did.”

I leaned against the wall.

“We'll meet again someday, Rammis.” Tempest brushed by me.

I wiped my bloody face on a sleeve. “I'm looking forward to it.”

“Always the smartass.” He turned and walked down the tunnel. His remaining men followed.

I put out a hand to shake with Galrin. He looked at it. “What am I supposed to do with that, my Terran breth?”

I put the hand on his shoulder. “Probably just wipe your hand across your eyes.”

A group of Orghe warriors led by Sunrai inspected Mack's base camp after the
Sword
lifted off-planet. There wasn't much left behind, until they discovered Wygrum and Furro's heads rammed onto bloody stakes.

Oldore decided to designate the camp Forbidden Ground as a place of evil.

Trumbril and Grothe, who recuperated quickly with Bat's help and the natural healing power of the tough Kubraens, would head back to planet Halcyon and their Kubraish people. I asked Trumbril to say hello to my old friend, Briertrush.

I had grown attached to the gentle, noble Orghe people and it would not be easy to say goodbye when the WCIA starship landed to pick us up.

Joe intended to visit some old friends in Alpha's government and twist a few arms to have New Terra declared an Alliance world. Invasion of any island would be met with a swift reprisal by Alliance forces.

It was chilly, pre-dawn, when I walked to Zik's cell in a stone hut to ask if he wanted a message sent to someone on his homeworld.

He didn't.

“Why did you do it, Zik?” I asked him through the bars."

He lifted off his cot and came to face me.

“
You
were the one,” I said, “who contacted Big Mack and told him the Orghes weren't poisoned! He would've left New Terra without knowing that they still lived. Why did you
turn
on us?”

“I was never
with
you.”

I stepped back, out of tentacle reach as he clutched the bars. “I did it for the credits! What other reason is there? I was yellow-slimed sick of being a lackey on my own homeworld.” He pointed a tentacle at me. “Big Mack didn't capture me, like you fools who walked into his lair. He
hired
me to infiltrate the slaves, and those stupid tree primates!” A stream of yellow slime slid down his tentacles. “Listen!” He pressed his mantle against the bars. “Big Mack will reward you for freeing me. You're resourceful. You could get me out of here and collect the creds. Don't tell me you couldn't use the creds.”

“Forget it, BEM. Big Mack's history. One of the stupid, tree-climbing Orghe warriors executed him, Orghe style.”

“Come closer.” He extended a tentacle. “I want to tell you something.”

“I don't think so.”

He let the tentacle drop.

“A lot of Oldore's people were killed in that sneak attack,” I said. “Children too! Your fate is in Oldore's hands. If I were you, I'd be writing my will.” I turned and walked down the hall.

“Jules!” he called. “Then kill me yourself, quickly. Don't leave me to the mercy of these slimed-faced animals!”

“It's not my call.” I stopped at the door and turned. “You should have considered the consequences if you were caught as a spy.”

“Jules!” he shouted as I closed the door behind me and walked out into the clean air of a fresh morning.

The team was homeward bound, and I wanted to go with them. I wanted to see Lisa…my little girl, who was taller and prettier every time I made it back to Earth.

I looked at the tent that Sophia and I called home in the Orghe Village and realized that I yearned for a real home, one with a den and a fireplace, like Joe and Abbey's. But what did Sophia have in mind? After all, New Lithnia was her homeworld.

She was still asleep, wrapped in her bedroll, when I entered the tent and quietly lay down beside her.

She rolled toward me and opened her eyes. “Who are you, sir, to invade my boudoir?”

I pulled her closer. “Just a lonely pirate looking for a good time.”

She kissed my cheek. “You've come to the right place. But where's your parrot?” She laid a hand on my crotch. “Oh, he's a big boy, isn't he?”

“You're making him grow by the second.”

“There's room in my bedroll for a beautiful pirate.”

“I keep telling you,
you're
beautiful, not me.” I unzipped her bedroll. Damn! She was naked.

“For your next birthday,” she said, “I will buy you a mirror.” She kissed me full on the lips.

I stared into her dark, slanted, exotic eyes. “I love you, woman.”

She opened the buttons on my shirt. I raised up and she pulled it off.

“I've been waiting a lifetime to hear you say that,” she whispered as I got out of my pants and shorts.

“I've said it before.” I kissed her neck, her breast. “Many times.”

She drew in a breath. “But not enough times. I want to hear it every morning of my life, like an alarm clock.”

I rolled on top of her and she spread her legs. “How about,” I said, “I love you, now get your perfect ass out of bed and make me breakfast. Like that?”

She embraced me and arched her back. “You can do better.”

“How about, keep your sweet derriere in bed and let's go straight to dessert?” I entered her.

“That's better!” she gasped. “Wait a minute.” She raised her head and looked around. “Where's Huff?”

I chuckled. “I locked the door.”

“OK, but what about the windows?”

“I locked those too.” We began to move.

“The fireplace? Oh!” She drew in a breath. “You always wanted a fireplace.”

“I stuffed it with barbed wire.”

“Then concentrate on what you're doing, pirate.”

“I thought I was.”

When our lovemaking was over, she rolled on top of me. “I love you, Mister Rammis.”

I smiled.

She traced a finger over a scar on my arm, then touched another one on my shoulder. “My old warhorse. Why don't you have Bat cover those with new skin?”

“Oh, he'd probably want to give me a shot first.”

She giggled.

“What's so funny, woman?”

“Nothing, dear master.”

She rolled off me and sighed. “Can we go home with the team now?”

“Where's home? New Lithnia, Earth, or somewhere else?”

She laid an arm across my chest. “Home is where you are.”

I pressed her hand to my cheek and stared out the small, plastic tent window.

Dawn was blushing pink across the morning, giving form to crests of high conifers.

“I'd opt for Earth,” I said. “I'd like to see Lisa, and Joe's wife Abbey. She's home and Joe said she's doing great. The whole team, including Huff, is going back to Earth.”

“I thought Huff was anxious to return to his homeworld, Kresthaven?”

“He was, but then he remembered how bored he'd been hunting boney-shatts on the ice of the frozen north seas, and how tired he was of playing blue checkers, their national pastime.”

She laughed. “And they don't have chocolate candy on Kresthaven.”

I kissed her hand. “Actually, some enterprising entrepreneurs opened a fast-food candy store in the north sea.”

“What? On an ice floe?”

“More like a boat, I think.”

She pulled me closer and kissed my nose. “I like sweet things, my chocolate bunny. I'll opt for Earth.”

I embraced her. “I was hoping you'd say that. But first, a short trip to Evrill's homeworld, to plead her case.”

“Yes, we promised her that.”

“And then, home is the hunter,” I murmured, and ran my hands through her thick hair, “home from the hill.”

“And the sailor home from the sea.” She nibbled on my ear. “Want to go for another round?”

“You're killing me, woman.”

END

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The Siege of New Terra
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