Alien Courage (Rise of the Empress) (48 page)

The Old Warrior slipped quickly and quietly into the
lodge. He had his trader’s axe in his hand as he entered. The grunts and groans
of men fighting filled his ears and he flexed his fingers on his weapon then
gripped it tightly as he raised it above his head. He saw in the dim light
three bodies wreathing in a mass at his feet. He bent down and quickly saw his
own Warriors were on top of someone. He drove his axe downwards towards the
head of man on the bottom just as
Url
drove his thumb
into the throat on the Warrior crushing his windpipe. The Warrior’s head jerked
backwards and made contact with the handle of the axe coming downwards. The axe
head deflected but hit
Url
a sideways blow of great
force stunning him, blood spurted freely from a deep gash on the side of his
head.

The Old Warrior drew the axe high again and placed his
hand on the back of the head of the Warrior who was choking to steady his aim.
As he drew his axe back he hesitated for a moment as he recognised the face
below him, his axe was motionless. At that instant a feeling of fear swept
through him as something moved to his left, and then a savage blow to his head
made him see stars. Blood filled his mouth from his teeth biting into his
tongue but the arrival of the second blow knocked him out cold. He collapsed on
top of the three men.

Cassy drew the wooden stool high once again and
brought it down on the Old Warrior this time hitting him on his shoulder. She
dropped the stool and screamed at him, then kicked him viciously. She suddenly
realised
Url
was buried at the bottom of the pile of
men. She desperately grabbed the arm of the Old Warrior and rolled him off.
With great effort she rolled the other two men off
Url
who was mumbling something incoherent as he kept squeezing the dead man’s
throat.

“Let him go, let him go,” Cassy screamed in a high
pitched voice while she tugged and tugged on his arm. Finally
Url
let go and rolled away from the bodies. He staggered to
his feet but fell to his knees. He saw a small figure against the wall and
strained to focus.

“Deewa,” he said groggily and crawled over and grabbed
her. “We go now!” and with great effort picked her up and threw a skin around
her. He bent down and extracted his knife, wiping it on the dead warrior. He
was unsteady on his feet but saw Cassy standing there panting quickly. “Get
gun,” he said pointing to the floor near the door. Cassy bent down and picked
up the heavy weapon.
Url
staggered through the door
into the short hallway to the outside door. He kicked the door open and
stumbled outside.

The increased light was welcome and
Url
bent down and grabbed a handful of snow and rubbed the wound on his head. The
snow turned crimson, the cold felt refreshing but his head started to spin and
he began to fall. Cassy caught his arm and using his gun to lean on managed to
hold him upright. “You can do it,” Cassy spoke into
Url’s
ear. “We need to go now. Come on.”

Sasra was high above the village and noticed movement
below and immediately saw
Url
and another person in
the open outside the lodges. He realised
Url
was being
held up by someone and he was carrying something.
“Teni!”
Sasra called and ran down the steep slope followed by Teni.

Url
with Cassy’s help staggered across the open area
slowly. A lodge door opened slowly and an old woman looked out. She screamed
and other women appeared to look at the Shihone Warrior. They made their way
out and got closer and closer. One produced a gun and moved towards them. The
one with the gun stopped a short distance from them and pulled the hammer back
struggling to lift the muzzle as she pointed it at
Url
.

“No!” Cassy yelled as she let
Url
go and struggled with a heavy gun she had no idea how to use.

A shot rang, the woman with the gun vibrated briefly;
a look of total surprise spread across her face, and she fell forward into the
snow, dead. Sasra ran across the open area and stopped at
Url’s
side, his gun still smoking. Teni arrived and pointed his gun at the crowd of
women and growled at them. They panicked and ran quickly back to the lodge.

Sasra and Teni each put an arm around
Url
still holding Deewa and supported them as they quickly
made their way towards the cover of the undergrowth. Sasra turned his head and
looked at Cassy carrying
Url’s
gun and trying to keep
up. “Hurry, those people will kill you. We go that way,” Sasra said indicating
the way pointing his gun. Cassy hesitated a moment but ran to the front and
disappeared into the undergrowth. A few wild shots came from the windows and doorways
of the lodge missing them by a wide margin.

---------

Peter stopped and raised his hand straining his neck
to get his head in a better position and his ears out of the wind. He thought
he had heard something a little earlier and now he knew he had heard something
- shots!

“That way!
Be quick, and do not fall behind. I heard shots,”
Peter shouted pointing westwards. Toormis and the Administrator were struggling
through waist deep snow at the bottom of a small gully.

Toormis looked up at Peter standing on a rock looking
west and Peter turned and looked back at him. Peter nodded slightly and shifted
his hand on his gun to get a better grip. An understanding exchanged between
the two veterans as they both realised they were closing in on the enemy.
Toormis turned and took a couple of steps back to the struggling Administrator
and with renewed energy grabbed him and hauled him out of the thick snow. “We
are close; keep your weapon ready and a keen eye.” The Administrator was
breathing heavily but with Toormis’s words quietened his breathing.

The three men quickened their pace and moved with more
certainty. Peter stayed at the pace that Toormis and the Administrator could maintain.
They climbed a rocky slope and relaxed when they reached the top. A vista
presented itself between two mountains and with relief saw it was relatively
flat going for as far as they could see. Fast moving clouds rushed over their
heads as they funnelled into the tunnel between the mountains. Peter looked up
at the sky and started to understand the weather’s behaviour. “It won’t storm
here; the clouds are rushing to storm on the other side of these mountains.”

“Quiet,” the Administrator said urgently as he saw
movement between the trees below and to the right. Peter and Toormis crouched
and looked intently at where the Administrator was pointing. Suddenly a large
white creature broke cover and stood on his rear legs to smell the air.
Instinctively the three men sank to the ground.

“Has he smelt us?” Toormis said looking at the
enormous size of the Chesapeake bear silhouetted against the green and white
snow covering of the conifers.

“No, look at the way the breeze is blowing down there.
He’s smelt something, probably… wait… Do you smell smoke?” Peter replied
sniffing the air.

“Yes, wood smoke.” Toormis replied.

The Administrator hadn’t taken his eyes of the bear.
He had seen the statues of them but to see one standing on its hind legs a
short distance away and only having a primitive weapon made him involuntarily
back away. “This gun just isn’t big enough,” he whispered.

Peter looked at the Administrator and then the bear.
The bear was a lot closer than he realised but didn’t consider the animal a
threat. He studied the great white creature and admired the strength and power
of it. A picture came to his mind but the bear in it was brown and only half
the size, he tried to remember things but the images just wouldn’t materialise
in his mind. Then, much to his delight a second bear thundered out of the
undergrowth and tackled the one standing and they both rolled down the slope
and crashed into the branches of a tree. The bears rolled around together and
slipped under the branches and disappeared.

Toormis leaned against his gun and shook his head.
“Even the bears have their own female problems,” he said smiling, amazed at the
spectacle of a bear and its mate playing. The Administrator was the only one
not amused.

“Can we go now?” the Administrator said anxiously,
expecting the bears to reappear at any moment.

Peter’s mind focused immediately back on the mission.
“There must be a fire somewhere in there,” he pointed with his gun. “I will
take the lead and Toormis; you keep just within gun range behind me and keep
the same angle so I know where you are. If I stop you stop. I will come to you
unless I signal otherwise.
Drex
you bring up the rear
half the distance Toormis is from me. If we meet up with Cassy and her captors
I will signal and we will make a plan then. If we can, I intend to take a
prisoner. Remember, there are no friends out there,” Peter said and moved off.
He stopped, turned and winked at the Administrator, “bears excluded,” smiled
and ran forward.

“Very funny,” the Administrator mumbled.

The travelling was faster now. The snow was hard
packed and there were many rock and dirt outcrops giving good foot purchase.
Peter kept a good eye on the terrain and realised the ground would soon start
dropping away to the valley floor in front of them. He couldn’t see very far
down the slope so decided he would climb the ridge to his left to get a good
look. He signalled Toormis and the Administrator to come to him.

“I want to climb up there,” he said pointing to
position high to his left, “and get a good look at what’s in front of us before
we go down that slope. You want to come along?”

Both Toormis and the Administrator declined. They both
appreciated the chance to rest and the Administrator still had the bears
clearly in mind. He could see the area around him clearly, where Peter was
going had too much cover.

Toormis and the Administrator sheltered behind the
cover of a rocky outcrop out of the wind. “What do you think Peter meant about
Lord Ambrae and some type of computer program?” Toormis asked the
Administrator.

“Been thinking about that. Does Johe know what Lord
Ambrae would do in an Irrimus emergency?”

Toormis didn’t have that sort of access to Lord
Ambrae’s plans but he did know Lord Ambrae. “All I do know is that Lord Ambrae
would have a contingency plan for every eventuality.”

“Where would an effective place be for a computer
program to launch that would ensure survival under severe threat?” The
Administrator asked but knew the answer. “The Administration of Irrimus,” he
explained to Toormis. “The administration of any organisation is the very
essence of its existence and has all the channels of communication and most
importantly, their contacts, business partners, financial dealings,
institutions and that sort of thing. Johe would have to be aware of that and
possibly may have even suggested some sort of contingency plan to Lord Ambrae.
I’ve heard that T334 pilots can operate on their own within Trigealian
interventional guidelines and an organisation to them is no different than a
single entity. Johe would be aware of Irrimus’s Administrative back up options
of that I have doubt.”

Toormis considered the Administrator’s words. 
“It doesn’t seem likely Peter, Johe or whoever he is would know of a back up
recovery plan for Irrimus in the event of an Intervention of this scale,
surely?”

“Johe is a Trigealian Regimental T334 pilot and has
not spent more than a couple of time frames at home in his whole life but he is
Lord Ambrae’s son. They are permitted to communicate but now Ambrae is dead and
his family has lost everything. I’d say he’s thinking of revenge and all
information from his past will be considered. In other words he’s pissed off.”
The Administrator replied.

“You mean that man up there may have knowledge of how
to disrupt Irrimus’s Administration or maybe recover it... but he’s still a
Trigealian Pilot with all their mind altering rubbish.”

“Too true Toormis but he’s isn’t piloting a T334
anymore is he? And there’s an Earthman involved who, let’s face it, has saved
our lives a couple of times and no offence, but without him I doubt we would
have any chance of recovering Cassy.”

“Yes, he’s quite the soldier.” Toormis admitted.

“Indeed he is,” the Administrator agreed drawing his
knees closer to ward off the cold.