Satan's Forge (Star Sojourner Book 5) (16 page)

Joe chuckled. “It's about time. Way past time, in fact.”

“Why are they cutting off your fur?” Huff asked me. “Is it Terran shedding time? Why are you tied, Jules friend?”

I saw the fur rise on his neck and back. “It's OK, Huff. Really! It's OK. This is a Terran ritual at shedding time.”

His fur flattened again.

Sophia ran the comb through my hair and began to cut the back. “It's time for him to grow a new coat, Huff.”

“Not so short!” I said as my neck suddenly felt cold.

“It's either this, Babe, or a permanent. You were beginning to look like Hoag the Barbarian.”

I could've conjured a tel coil that would've affected them all, being so close. I could've forced them to cut their own hair or each other's. But these were my friends, and my love.

“Save the rope,” Chancey said and chuckled, “for the next time he needs a haircut.”

The crotes!
I thought.

* * *

Sophia, Chancey, Joe, Huff and I sat with Big Sarge's band while he briefed the men. All bantering had been dropped as they stood or sat, listening quietly to their roles in the coming night's mission.

Big Sarge leaned back on the tailgate of his lead vehicle and stroked his mustache. “We go in as soon as it gets dark. That'll give us the whole night to complete our operation, if need be. We hit them fast, and we run. When they think we've retreated and they relax…” He turned and picked up an armed air beetle from the trunk. “We hit them again.”

I was familiar with the mechanical bug from my team's raid on the BEM's HQ on planet Denebria. They were equipped with cameras and could be guided to fly over an enemy position, target it and hit it with an explosive. A neat little package I didn't mind paying for.

Sarge put down the beetle and folded his muscular arms. “We won't let the bastards sleep, rest, or organize. They'll think they're surrounded by a superior force. That's it, boys.” He lifted off the tailgate. “You all know your part in this mission. Break up into your two and three-man cells and go over the details again with your teams.” He waved for me to come closer.

I did, followed by Sophia and Huff.

“Is this your team?” Sarge said and smirked. “Jules, I'd prefer that you wait in our next camp with the non-combatants.”

The non-combatants were Sophia, Huff, and Bat. “You told us yourself, Sarge,” I said, “in a small guerrilla band, every soldier is vital. I've got a stake in this.”

Sarge stared as Sophia took my arm, and sucked a tooth. “As long as you understand that we'll be hanging onto their belts and nobody's going back for a comrade in trouble. Can't afford it.”

I looked around.
Hanging onto their belts?
I thought.

“What the Sarge is saying,” a soldier offered, "is that we'll be so close to them they can't shoot at us without hitting each other.

“Suppose I hang back,” I told Sarge, “and, if my tel powers can help facilitate the mission, I'll be there to assist you.”

“We're the underdogs here,” Sarge said, “outnumbered about three to one. This is strictly hit and run. If you can't run, you'll be left behind. I won't lose more men to save one life. Is that understood?”

“I'll accept that,” I said, and felt Sophia clutch my arm tighter.

He nodded. “Your call.”

There was little said as the men quietly prepared for battle. I had the impression that each man was confident and proficient.

“I think you picked the right people,” I told Chancey. “I'm glad they're on our side.”

“Big Sarge and his tags are the best hired guns around the known star systems,” Chancey said as we walked back to Bat. “The tag handpicks all his people.”

Later, we sat, engrossed in our own thoughts, and ate a quiet supper. Then it was time for Sophia, Bat, and Huff to be driven to our next camp where they would wait for our return, further up in the mountains, in thick conifers.

I walked hand in hand with Sophia into the woods. She embraced me and I felt a welling of love as I held her slim, trembling body against me. I kissed her cheek gently and she sighed.

The night was warm, and rich with the smell of plant life.

“There's no use telling you to be careful,” she said with her head against my chest.

I kissed her hair. “I'll be careful.”

She shook her head.

“I will!” I smiled as I took her face between my hands. “I promise.” I kissed her lightly.

“You don't know how to be careful.”

I pressed her head against my chest and looked at the two moons winking behind scudding black clouds. Birdlike creatures chirped as they found branches to roost in for the night.

“Up to now,” I said, “I didn't have a reason to come home.” I shrugged. “Nobody burning a candle in the window for me.”

She looked up, her eyes shimmering with tears in moonlight. “I would wait for you,” she whispered, “for the rest of my life.”

I hugged her close. “Let's hope it won't be that long.”

“Jules!” Big Sarge called.

“Time for you to leave,” I told her and brushed dark curls off her face.

“Remember,” she said, “when you're in the middle of the battle, and you want to go that extra mile to help your team, that I'll be waiting for you to come back to me.”

“Jules, dammit!” Big Sarge called.

“We're on our way,” I called back.

We walked hand in hand out of the woods. Sophia mounted Stormy. Huff and Bat were already in a vehicle that would take them to our next campsite. Huff turned and looked at me. He had wanted to come on the raid, but his Vegan sensibilities just weren't appropriate for the fast commands and responses of a guerrilla unit.

He raised a furry paw. I raised a hand and held it there as the vehicle pulled away, with Sophia riding beside it. She looked back once, and then they were out of sight. I listened to the whine of the engine fade into the woods and wondered if I'd ever see them again.

* * *

Night fell like a curtain that hid our teams in its folds as we crouched behind trees and bushes surrounding the lit mine. Joe was beside me as I scanned the compound from a distance through night-vis graphoculars.

The slaves were still at work at this late hour. The sound of pick axes smashing crusted salt, the squeak of cart wheels being pulled by straining ponies, the shouted orders and snaps of whips, echoed through the woods.

High in the tower, the lit window shone like a beacon lighting hell. I pictured Boss Slade, hunched over a ledger scribbled in blood, counting his money. I wanted to tel-probe the bastard. He was a sensitive. I wanted him to know that we were coming for him. But I dared not alert him to the raid.

The teams were in their positions, close to the fences, just waiting for Big Sarge's order to fire simultaneously, making it look as though a large force was softening them up for an all-out invasion. Not tonight. This was the first hit and run, then hit again strategy.

“He runs a brutal ship,” Joe said.

“The time is ripe for a mutiny, Joe.”

As though on cue, I saw the blue beams of laser rifles flash into the mine from all sides. I bit my lip as I watched guards scream and go down. Others ran for cover. The big roof-mounted lasers, and the one set high on a stone stanchion in the middle of the compound, swung in different directions, searching. But there was no target for them to train their fire on.

Slaves ran to the safety of their hovels and crawled inside. Guards fired from cover. I knew that by then, the men were already in different positions.

“Let's go,” Joe said as a flare signal announced the retreat back to our vehicles. Our ride pulled up, and Joe and I scrambled into the back seats.

The driver maneuvered on the only road, a dirt path that led to the mine. He stopped and two men jumped into the open trunk. Our three other vehicles met us there in single file and we waited, our weapons pointed at the mine's front gate.

“Here they come,” one of the men said as the gate swung open and a convoy of land vehicles sped down the road, headlights bouncing, spotlights sweeping the trees.

My heart pounded as they approached us, but the four vehicles remained idling.

Then I saw why. As the convoy nailed us in its lights, a tree crashed down across the road between us. Then another hit the ground next to it.

The men in the rear of our vehicle threw out sharp, twisted spikes that would cause flats on any vehicle that made it around the trees. So we were bait. But why didn't the drivers take off?

Guards poured out of the convoy and ran to the downed trees, shouting and cursing. They could cut those trunks quickly with hot laser beams. Why were we still here?

My answer came quickly as blue laser flashes from both sides of the woods hit guards and sent them screaming into the dirt road. More guards were hit as they raced back to vehicles and I remembered what Big Sarge had said during briefing. “We can't afford to take prisoners.” This was all-out annihilation. I closed my eyes and wondered if Azut was among them.

Four of our men raced out of the woods, jumped into the vehicles, and we took off.

“Score one for us,” I whispered to Joe. But there was no satisfaction in my heart for the death of the guards.

“The game's just beginning,” he said.

As we rounded a turn, the two men in the back opened large containers and poured a thick liquid onto the road behind us.

“If they make it this far,” one of them said and laughed harshly, “they'll be careening into trees.”

We rendezvoused at a pre-determined place in the woods, by a grove of red-leafed trees, to re-group and take stock. Chancey approached us and I grabbed his arm. “Are you all right?”

He nodded, but he looked troubled. “Damn bloody work,” he said.

“Yeah.”

Big Sarge walked among his troops, calling out names. All but two responded. I felt a chill shoot through me as he called out “Priest! Josh!” for the second time. But only the forest creatures of the night answered with cries.

I realized I was squeezing Chancey's arm and let go. Joe shook his head.

“So be it,” Big Sarge said grimly and went to his lead vehicle. “Time for the second engagement.”

We were silent as we climbed into the vehicles and headed back toward the mine.

We left them parked in the woods, just before the wrecked road, and walked in, using the cover of trees.

“Joe,” Big Sarge said, “you and Jules wait here. We'll pick you up on our way out.” He motioned to Chancey. “C'mon.”

“Chancey!” I strode up to him. “Be careful. OK?”

“Hah!” He gripped my shoulder. “Look at this, man,” he said to Joe. “Mister Damn-The-Torpedoes is telling me to be careful.”

Joe nodded. “I'll second that, Chance.”

“OK, boss.” Chancey grinned and followed Sarge to his vehicle.

As the four vehicles pulled away, Joe looked around and shrugged. “Pick a tree you like.”

We sat behind a great-boled spiky tree, and I scanned the mine through the graphoculars. “Wait a minute!” I jumped up and peered through them again.

“What?” Joe got up.

“Oh my God!” The main gate was wide open. In the center of the compound, Priest stood tied to a stake, heaped with branches and logs. The slaves were grouped around the pyre, while guards trained rifles on them. “Oh, no!” I said. “They can't
do
that.”

Joe pulled the graphoculars from my limp hands and peered through them. “Jesus and Mary,” he whispered.

I stared at the mine, my mouth open. “Sarge won't attack? Will he?”

Joe slowly lowered the graphoculars. “He doesn't have a choice. Whenever he attacks, they'll light the fire.”

“No! Not even Slade could do that.”

“What's to stop him?”

I jumped as the first blue flash from our units bounced off a wall, barely missing a guard. “No!”

The guards took refuge behind the encircled slaves. The next laser flash hit a slave who was held by a guard for protection. The slave screamed and went down. He lay writhing on the ground.

I clutched my shirt at my throat, frozen. I had been hit in the side by a hot beam on planet Denebria. I cannot remember such agonizing pain as that wound.

And then, someone lit the pyre and I heard Priest cry out “No. For God's sake. Don't!”

I sank to my knees. “I can't let this happen.” I closed my eyes and imaged the red coil of my tel power. Growing. Spinning wildly. Out of control.
Spirit!
I sent.
Spirit. I need your help. Please! It's not for me.

I know.

I've never killed anyone with tel power. Priest needs your help. We can't let him die this way.

Quiet your mind, Jules,
Spirit sent.
I cannot focus on one human mind alone. Spin the coil of your tel. Let it rise to its full power.

OK. OK.
Priest's screams jarred my concentration, but I spun the coil, giving it my energy, until it felt as though a living creature was sucking my life force.

Now focus the coil,
Spirit sent.

OK.
I concentrated it into a tight funnel.

Flames rose and Priest's screams became shrieks.

Now what?
I cried within my mind.
Spirit?

Throw it at his brain and seek out the core. What you call the brain stem. When you find it, sear it with your tel coil. It will kill him instantly.

Yes,
I sent. I pictured a brain stem within my mind from my studies in biology classes.
Yes. I know what to search for.

I directed the coil at Priest and threw it with all the energy I could gather. Then I sought through his brain for the stem. The image came as a column in his hindbrain. I concentrated the coil down to an intense beam of energy and quickly sliced through the stem.

His shrieks stopped as though a door had been slammed shut, and I knew he was dead. I kept my essence there with him as his kwaii, his spirit, squeezed out of the burning hulk of his body. But the terror and agony still gripped him and he clung to me.

Let go, Priest
, I sent.
Go with Great Mind.

But as his kwaii moved into that frightening void between lifebinds, he clung to me and I felt myself being dragged with him. I tried to break the link, but our kwaiis had intermingled.