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TWENTY-­TWO

Med Center

Fort York

2319 Hours Zulu Time

W
e have a problem,” Kiwanuka announced over Sage's comm.

Sage didn't break stride as he entered the med center. Ahead of him, Jahup was sitting on the edge of his bed and looking a little groggy. “We're about to do an op. We don't have time for problems.”

“Noojin is insisting on going along on the raid.”

“No. Bad idea.”

“We're going to have to tranq her to get her to stay here. Or else have a sec team sit on her while we're gone.”

“Either one of those is fine to me. Choose one.”

“I think she needs to go, Sage,” Kiwanuka said.

“I don't.”

Kiwanuka's voice sharpened a little. “You're leading this op, Top, so you hold rank here, but I am acting in an advisory capacity.”

“Wait one.” Sage stopped beside Jahup as Gilbride ran a med unit over him. “How are you feeling?”

“Woozy. My head feels thick.” Jahup narrowed his eyes and raised his voice accusingly. “The doctor told me you were the one who decided to keep me asleep till now.”

“He was,” Gilbride said as he slipped the bioscanner into a thigh pouch on his medsuit.

“I did,” Sage admitted. “There was nothing you could do till now.”

“I could have been talking to Noojin and finding out who those ­people were that nearly killed her.”

“That's already done.”

Jahup stared at Sage in disbelief. “She
told
you?”

“Yes. I need you suited up in the next five minutes if you're going.”

“I'm not going anywhere until I talk to Noojin.”

“That would be fine with me, except your grandmother wants you there when we arrest the ­people who attacked the fort. And she wasn't asking as your grandmother. She was giving orders as the Quass.”

“My grandmother?”

“Soldier, you're a day late and a credit short. You need to pick up the pace if you're coming with me.” Sage turned to Gilbride. “I need the fog out of his head.”

Gilbride nodded. “I thought you were going to say that.” He reached into his thigh pocket and took out a compressed air delivery hypo, dialed in a med and measurement, then pressed the device to Jahup's naked arm.

“Ouch!
Rhaiz
! Warn me before you do that.”

“Trust me,” Gilbride said as he put the device back in his pocket, “it's a lot better if you
don't
know it's coming.” He took out a small flash and shined it into the boy's eyes. “He's perking up now. He'll be good to go by the time you get him suited. The armor will adjust him from there.”

“Follow me,” Sage told Jahup.

“I'm naked! Where are my clothes?”

“Getting cleaned,” Gilbride said. He looked at Sage and offered his hand. “Good luck out there, Top.”

Sage nodded.

“I'm not walking through the fort naked,” Jahup protested.

Sage motioned to a passing female medtech. “I need to borrow your smock.”

The medtech slipped out of her smock. Sage took it, said thank you, and handed it to Jahup, who grabbed it.

The scout shrugged into the garment and had to hurry to catch up with Sage. “We're going after the ­people who attacked Telilu and Noojin?”

“Yes.”

“Who is it?”

Sage handed Jahup his PAD and kept walking. His faceshield showed the preparations being made by the small, handpicked team he had selected.

“I know these ­people.” Jahup sounded confused and disbelieving at the same time.

“Then identifying them will be easier,” Sage said. He went back to Kiwanuka on the comm, looking at her face on the overlay as he made his way down the corridor toward the rendezvous point. Now that things were in motion, it wouldn't take long for word to spread around the fort. The soldiers would know, and so would the civilian workers. “Make your case.”

“Noojin has earned the right to go with us on this,” Kiwanuka said. “She was nearly killed by these ­people. She's had to deal with snitching out her ­people. And she had you bullying her into giving up those names.”

Sage felt a little irritation at the last accusation. “I didn't bully her. I gave her a choice.”

“You put her in a position of emotional distress.”

“She was already there,” Sage argued. “I just pointed it out.”

“You boxed her in and gave her no choice to do anything except what you wanted her to do. That wasn't fair.”

Sage took a breath and reminded himself that everyone needed to be calm before an op like this. “Sergeant Kiwanuka, we're not here to be fair. We're here to be soldiers.”

“So is Noojin. She's been training just like the rest of the Makaum reserve you set up. She wants to participate in tonight's op.”

“She's too involved.” Sage had worked with Noojin. She wasn't as driven as Jahup, but she showed some natural ability in the hardsuit. The HUD interface was more difficult for her, but the physical capacity was there.

“I would make that same argument about Jahup.”

And you would probably be right.
Sage looked at the boy walking at his side. Jahup walked with purpose now that the stim had cleared his mind of the leftover sleep meds.

“Jahup is going along at the insistence of Quass Leghef,” Sage said.

“To take the edge off of his feelings. Sure, I get that. But if anyone needs some get-­back here, it's Noojin. You made her feel helpless. And she probably saved the lives of those soldiers this morning.”

And that was another truth. Kiwanuka wasn't pulling any punches. Sage respected that about the woman. He would have done the same thing. He'd known the two of them might bond while Kiwanuka was watching over Noojin.

The girl wasn't from a world where litigators handled things. She was from Makaum, where ­people took care of their own needs. She did need to come if she wanted to. Sometimes he outsmarted himself.

“How is she in an AKTIVsuit?” Sage asked. “I haven't seen her latest drills.”

“The reports are on your PAD,” Kiwanuka replied. “She's good.”

“She'll be your responsibility, Sergeant.”

“That's fine with me. She's spent more time in the jungle fighting for her life than most of the soldiers we have here. I don't doubt that if things go sideways she'll stick. She managed to warn those soldiers this morning, and get herself and Jahup's little sister to safety before we killed her.”

“You've made your case.”

“I just wanted to make certain we were clear.”

“Crystal,” Sage said. “Get her suited up and meet us out front. If you're late, we're leaving without you.”

“We're already suited up and waiting for you, Top.”

Of course you are.

Fort York

2352 Hours Zulu Time

Eight soldiers, including Kiwanuka and Noojin, stood out in front of the motor pool when Sage arrived with Jahup. Noojin's hardsuit was the smallest among them. She stood to one side with her arms crossed, her Roley hanging over one shoulder and a Birkeland shoved into the hip holster. Sage couldn't see through the faceshield, but he could recognize by her body language that she was angry.

Beside Sage, Jahup was gesturing forcefully with one hand. Knowing what was going on, Sage overrode the private comm link between the two Makaum reserves.

“—­should have told me,” Jahup was saying at the same time Noojin was saying, “—­same way you could have told me where you went with your
lobufa
when you left the fort.”

Sage couldn't remember exactly, but he thought
lobufa
was a crush or a new love.

“I told you,” Jahup argued, “I was under orders to—­”

“I was being held in an ‘interview' room,” Noojin responded.

“Enough,” Sage ordered. “This stops now or you're both staying here. Do you read me?”

“Yes, Top,” Jahup said.

“Yes,” Noojin answered.

Neither reply was heartfelt, but Sage wasn't going to put up with distractions. “Those ­people this morning meant business. You're wearing hardsuits tonight. Everyone is going to think you're one of us, and they aren't going to hesitate about shooting you if that's where this goes.”

Sage climbed into the passenger seat of one of the crawlers. The vehicle had six wheels and comfortably sat six passengers with full gear on. It had armor all the way around, bulletproof and beamproof windows, and a pop-­up mini-­turret particle-­charge cannon. They were designed for fast-­strike situations.

Jahup and Noojin stopped beside Sage's crawler for just a moment. Jahup plastered a stick-­on replica of the Makaum flag onto Noojin's back. The red flag featured an
ypheynte
, an insect built along the lines of a Terran dragonfly, over a green disk that represented Makaum and the Quass. The
ypheynte's
segmented wings glistened like jewels.

Sage had never figured out why the
ypheynte
was so important to the Makaum ­people.

Noojin turned around to put one of the flags on Jahup's back.

“Those are going to make you stick out,” Sage said.

“You need us to be identified,” Jahup said. “Otherwise the ­people we meet tonight will think it's just the Army taking the ambushers down. You don't want them to think that.”

“Many of our ­people want peace,” Noojin added. “They need to know that peace can still exist.” She pointed to symbols in the upper right corner of the flag. “That is Ja­hup's name, and it lists him as a hunter. They will know us.”

Kiwanuka cut in on a private comm channel. “They're right, Top. With them accompanying us and easily identifiable, the innocents may get out of the way faster.”

Jahup joined Sage in the seat that had been left in that crawler while Noojin joined Kiwanuka.

Sage figured they were all right about the situation and identification, but he couldn't help knowing that unique look might come back around to bite them. There was a reason soldiers all dressed the same, and it wasn't just so they could identify each other. It was also so they looked the same to opposition.

“Colonel Halladay,” Sage called over the comm.

“Here, Top.” Halladay sounded a little anxious, and part of that was because he'd guaranteed General Whitcomb there would be no fallout. Sage had gathered from Halladay's attitude after talking to the general that Whitcomb wasn't a big supporter of the operation. Still, the Quass had “requested” intervention, and that had gone through channels as well.

“We are go,” Sage said.

“Then roll. Blue Jay Twelve and Blue Jay Fourteen are with you.”

At the other end of the fort, two fully armed jumpcopters lit up their drives and ascended into the dark sky, standing out only briefly against the largest moon before rising into the clouds.

“Roger that, Top,” a woman's voice said. The comm link confirmed her as one of the jumpcopter pilots. “This is Blue Jay Twelve, and we'll be standing by.”

“We appreciate the support, Blue Jay Twelve.” Sage pointed toward the gates and the crawler pilot sped into motion. Now that they were moving, some of the tension that Sage felt started to drain away.

 

TWENTY-­THREE

Tanasam's House of Luck!

Makaum Sprawl

6019 Akej (Phrenorian Prime)

I
n addition to the large casino that had set up shop on Makaum, smaller clubs had been established as well. These were designed for the criminals because they had money to spend. Some of the proprietors of the big casinos owned dives too, in an effort to get all the creds they could.

Some of those dives were merely fronts for other businesses.

Zhoh walked in the shadows that lay across the narrow, rutted dirt road. The roads in Old Makaum neighborhoods were covered with moss, though many of the downtown areas had plascrete or were now worn down to hard-­packed earth.

This road had been put in by offworlders too cheap to provide either a covering or improvement. Every time the rains came, more of the road washed away. Even now sewage drained down open ditches to great ponds that had been dug into low spots in the surrounding terrain. Not even Makaum's voracious jungle tried to reclaim the area.

The passersby wandered in twos or threes and wore cast-­off clothing and ragged bits of cloth. Most of them were offworlders who had gotten trapped, either by a vice or by bad luck, on the planet, or they were beings who operated much as the
krayari
did, picking up enough bits and pieces of garbage to keep them going. Occasionally they would attack a being smaller or weaker or alone and take what they wanted. Some of them begged for food and credits and medicine. Both genders sold themselves to get whatever fix they needed.

A few of them were Makaum.

Zhoh stared at the low-­tech sign that hung in front of Tanasam's House of Luck! The identification was an icon of a blue robot from
Ytasi
, a holo game that consisted of combat between two robotic armies. Players and onlookers wagered on the turn-­by-­turn play of the game.

Vines and shrubs scaled the casino's earthen walls. Construction cost of the structure had been minimal. Whoever had built it had simply cut chunks of earth with a vibro-­shovel, stood them up, and chem-­sealed the surface with a thin layer of plascrete to make it more durable. Most of the buildings along the road were the same, but some of them were merely large tents made of a variety of materials.

A being wrapped in rags reached from one of the narrow alleys and grabbed Mato's ankle. It was so shrouded in cloth and so disease-­ridden that Zhoh could not determine the gender. The stench was so bad that even that made determination impossible.

It pleaded in a raspy voice and looked up at him with its one good eye.

Mato stopped, looked around, and reached down for a broken branch almost two meters in length and at least five centimeters thick. With an economy of movement, he rammed the branch through the being's head, putting it out of its misery. It only squeaked a little, shivered, and was still.

Still using the branch, Mato shoved the body deeper into the alley, withdrew the makeshift weapon, and tossed it into the darkness as well. He cursed as he cleaned his exoskeleton with a handful of dirt.

“Someone should go through here and eradicate these worthless beings,” Mato snarled. “They suck up resources and do nothing to give back to anyone. They don't even make worthwhile slaves. You can't teach them anything.”

As they continued forward, two other beings dressed in rags quickly drew back into the shadows away from Mato.

“They can be taught,” Zhoh commented. “With just one lesson, you have taught them to fear you.”

“That is something that should not have to be taught. I am Phrenorian.” Mato slid a hand over his Kimer pistol. “I have to wonder,
triarr
, if the Hoblei woman has tried to send us to our doom by giving us the name of this place.”

“You are concerned?”

“Of pestilence and plague, yes. These beings can be carrying any number of things.”

“Disease is not a problem for us. We are too different from these.”

“I hope so. Still, the sooner we are gone from this place, the happier I will be.”

“It won't be long.” Zhoh stopped under the casino's sign and peered at the casino.

The carbo-­alloy door hung from simple hinges and opened easily. The sonics inside that were there to keep the local wildlife out were turned on so high that Zhoh felt uncomfortable entering the building. His insides shook and shivered as he continued through the door, and a pair of small lizards raced across the floor. Zhoh had barely enough room to stand under the low ceiling.

Small flocks of insects hovered around the chem-­candles that hung on the wall and from the split logs that supported the roof that had been made the same way as the walls. The plascrete fixative that caked the walls, ceiling, and floor glistened in places and looked dull in others. Many branches and shrubs had torn through the walls and had been hacked off by sharp instruments. Other growth had small leaves that showed they'd come through recently.

Tables scattered around the room were covered with card games, dice games, and holo projectors. Stacks of chips stood on a few of the tables and bright blue and red robots battled each other in games of
Ytasi
. The crowd noise brayed loudly inside the room. Human, humanoid, and other beings celebrated or wailed over the way the cards fell or the dice rolled or the combat sequences in
Ytasi
worked out.

The stink that lay over the casino was oppressive, filled with the thick odor of human and humanoid sweat, smoke from various plant and chem products that provided hallucinogens, and alcohol.

Zhoh was certain he had been in worse places on other planets, but he could not remember at the moment where that might have been. The players and guests of the establishment took him in, as well as Mato and the three warriors who accompanied them. Two other warriors stood outside the casino to assure a way out when the time came.

Scanning the room, Zhoh spotted the being he was looking for at one of the
Ytasi
tables. A large group had gathered there, and that was where most of the cheers and curses flew from.

Erque Ettor sat against the back wall of the building in the corner. He was from one of the Vorough clans, gypsies who hauled cargo from planet to planet. Some of them worked Makaum, hauling oxygen and water to miners working the asteroid belt out near Lodestone.

Ettor was a tall, skinny being with pale white skin and arms and legs that looked too long and too frail. His clothing colors reflected those of his clan, bright and colorful and in layers. Voroughans were known as gluttons and loved to eat. Since they lived in space and generally didn't spend any time in anything more than .3 gravity, none of them could afford to put on weight because their muscles and bones wouldn't support them on a planet with a standard gravity. Makaum was .8 gravity, so being onplanet had to be painful for the being.

Of course, Ettor was dirtside to make a profit, and part of those profits was funneling into General Rangha's accounts.

Zhoh crossed the room and beings stepped back from him, giving him room. As he neared the table, the final battle started. Robot warriors sped across the holo battlefield and went to pieces when hit by missiles, sniper fire, and land mines.

Ettor's opponent was a scruffy human with long hair and a beard. He wore an old Rodine Corp jacket and the patches indicated he worked on shuttle engines. He was missing a thumb and two fingers on his left hand, and the left side of his face was a mass of burn scarring that pulled at the corner of his mouth.

When the last of the blue robots flew into pieces, the human cursed loudly and kicked the table.

“Don't be a sore loser, Bill,” Ettor said while laughing at the other being's expense. “You can work off your debt by fixing my shuttle engines.”

The human got up from the table and walked to the bar. “Stand me a beer, Erque. You've got all my credits.”

Ettor called for the bartender's attention and confirmed the order. He locked his pale silver eyes on Zhoh. “Do you fancy a game?”

“I do.” Zhoh sat in the chair on the other side of the holo table. Those beings closest to him backed away, but that might have been because of Mato's presence as well. The other three Phrenorian warriors spread out around the room.

“It will cost you a hundred credits to play me.”

The stakes were more than the last player had had showing on the table. Zhoh took a credstick from his Kimer pistol holster and slotted it in the table.

Ettor waved a hand through the holo field and the robot warrior pieces lit up on the screen. “Did you bring your own cheering section,
doqua
?” The term was Voroughan clanspeak and loosely translated to “friend.”

“I did.”

“You're the challenger, so I get to pick the armament.” Ettor made his selection quickly and a stockpile of bows and arrows, swords, and spears showed up on the holo. There was enough of each weapon to arm each warrior. “You pick the terrain.”

Zhoh swept a primary through the holo and went through the menu of available terrains. Mountainous country, swampland, and deserts awaited selection. Zhoh selected an urban area with tall, closely packed buildings.

The computer designated the engagement area, limiting it to a few blocks.

Ettor grinned. “Not many ­people would pick an urban area with archaic weapons like these.”

“I'm fine with blades and bows,” Zhoh replied as Ettor's small army disappeared from the screen. He quickly assembled his own army and placed them in the buildings and on the street.

“I didn't know the Phrenorian military ever fought with bows.” Ettor took a sip from the bottle that sat at his left elbow.

“I have trained to fight with every weapon I have ever encountered.” Zhoh waited, and in his 360-­degree vision, two of the beings standing behind him made small signs to Ettor, who gave no indication that he had seen them, though Zhoh knew the being had.

“This should be interesting then.” Ettor waved a hand through the holo again and part of the battlefield stood revealed. The first turn went to him. Three of his robots armed with bows shot one of Zhoh's captains, which automatically caused a penalty for Zhoh's team.

“I've done most of my fighting in urban areas,” Zhoh said. “I've never lost.”

Ettor smiled. “Maybe your luck will change.” Another battery of robot archers took out another of Zhoh's captains.

“The game could have been a true challenge,” Zhoh said. “I like to play. But I don't like a cheater.”

Ettor frowned. “I'd watch what you say,
doqua
. I'm not just a player in this bar. I own this place.”

Zhoh moved his primary toward the screen, as if he were going to make an adjustment to his pieces, but his lesser hand stole down to free the Kimer from its holster. Aiming on the fly, he shot the two beings standing behind Ettor because both of them doubtlessly had weapons to protect their boss.

Before those bodies could slide down to the floor, Mato and the two other warriors had opened fire as well. Mato blasted both of the beings who had signaled Ettor.

Zhoh stood and shot the being to his left as he drew his
patimong
. The blade sliced the air, then whipped through the segmented thorax of the Gaedghan standing beside the table to the right just as she freed her particle beamer. She fell in pieces.

Ettor got out of his seat, but Zhoh pinned him to the wall between his dead guards by holding the
patimong
to his throat. When he looked around, Zhoh saw that everyone else in the casino was dead.

“What do you want?” Ettor asked. “I don't even know you.”

“You've been doing business with a Hoblei female named Sazuma,” Zhoh said.

“Yes.”

“I want you to tell me about the cargo you recently secured for her. A shipment of weapons.” According to what Sazuma had said, Rangha had put a lot of his credits into a weapons shipment, intending to turn a profit on them by selling them to pro-­Phrenorian Makaum ­people who wanted to arm themselves.

Since the weapons had been black-­market stock robbed from the Pagor System by looters before it fell to the Phrenorians, they had been purchased cheaply enough through the Hoblei female. On Makaum, the weapons would sell for four and five times as much as he had given for them. The Hoblei female had taken a cut of the action and never had to invest a single credit.

Ettor, with his connections among his clansfolk, had arranged the transportation of the weapons to Makaum.

The Voroughan didn't look happy as he considered his options.

Zhoh thrust the
patimong
into Ettor's body, purposefully missing vital organs. Ettor stumbled and would have gone down when his weak muscles betrayed him. Zhoh grabbed the being with his free primary and pressed him back against the bloodstained wall. He left the
patimong
in his side.

“Okay,” Ettor gasped. “Okay. I brought the weapons down, but I don't have them.”

“Where are they?”

“In the old market square. In a unit in Cheapdock. Sazuma arranged for the weapons to be sold to a Makaum man named Roddarsay.”

“Tell me how to find the unit,” Zhoh ordered.

Once Ettor had given up the location of the weapons cache, Zhoh quickly drew the
patimong
from the Voroughan and slammed it back though the being's heart. Ettor gave a last cry of pain just before life left him.

Zhoh paused long enough to clean his sword on the dead being's colorful clothing, then gazed around the casino. He approached the bar and fired a particle-­beam blast into the rows of bottles behind the wooden counter. The alcohol spread quickly as he walked toward the door. Stopping at the entrance, he nodded to Mato, who took out a laser weapon and fired into the pooling alcohol.

Soft blue and yellow flames manifested with a
whumpf
and ran back toward the bar, pushing heat back over Zhoh.