The Blood Empress (15 page)

"I've never see a beneet this large before. Surely they won't attack until it passes," Kevern said.

His second agreed. "It would be suicide to attack before the storm. We would both be caught in it for who knows how long, my Lord and my Empress."

Kevern took a mic from the panel before him and keyed it.

"This is Lord Kevern. Begin storm preparations and hold your positions until further notice."

He released the mic button and stood back up through the hatch where he came in. Turning to the far horizon he could see the storm gathering. Dark black clouds were marching forward without a care in the universe.

"Captain, alert the transports. We may only get a few more loads off world before the storm hits."

"Ka, My Lord," the captain said from below.

Kevern watched the latest transport ascend into the starry night. Somewhere off into the distance was the resistance army just waiting to attack. They would be even more exposed to the storm than his own men, who were hunkered down in bunkers and armor.

Kevern suddenly realized that an attack was eminent. He slid back down, barking orders to his captain.

"Alert the line, expect an attack right before the storm. Halt the evacuation."

"Ka, My Lord."

As the man relayed his wishes, Kevern spun the turret around facing the storm and locked in a visual of the horizon. No targets presented themselves to him but he knew in his gut they were out there, waiting.

He had recalled a conversation with his son Tarse when he was a minor. They were standing on a sandstone wall that looked out over the city as a massive sand storm approached.

"Na, the skies are always clear before a storm. Don't you think that would be a good time to attack our enemies?"

"Nobody fights in a beneet son. The desert itself cowers before such storms. Wise men take shelter and live to fight another day."

Tarse looked away from his father with piercing green eyes and a blowing tuft of black hair on his head as the winds picked up.

Kevern pushed away the targeting device angrily. Tarse had run away before a storm on the eve of his coming of age ceremony and Kevern had never seen him again.

***

The Kastra defenses were preparing to hunker down for the beneet when the word came down to prepare for an immediate attack. Bunker doors were left open and storm shields were not activated. Troops sat at the ready, weapons pointed into the mouth of a rising cloud of dust. The stars above began to wink out as the storm approached.

Kevern ordered the area before the storm probed with infra-red, movement and visual detectors. But nothing seemed out of the ordinary. It was as if their enemy had better sense than to attack before a sand storm.

Standing on a parapet with a trooper scanning the diminishing horizon he could see no movement. Was his instinct wrong? Were they simply not out there and all of his preparation for naught? His eyes twitched as the wind picked up and cut into his face with a fine, almost invisible stream of dust particles.

He lowered his sand goggles and attached the breather around his mouth and nose. It didn't mater if he was wrong or not - his troops were ready for battle, and could hunker down when the winds became unbearable.

Three fourths of the night sky was blotted out by the approaching storm as he climbed down from the parapet and made his way back into the command bunker. The wind was howling now as it pushed him down the stairs. Flashes of lightning lit up the fortifications for brief seconds. Long enough to see that they were ready to fight, he hoped.

***

Tarse and Verrad were still lying prone on the desert floor as the storm raged above them. They had deployed ground sails that blossomed out before them and gently started to drag them along the ground. The sails were designed to be invisible to the Kastra defenses, foiling both infra-red and visual detection.

Thousands of soldiers, both Benzotii and Votainion were deploying similar sails and moving forward towards the Kastra defenses. Verrad watched the ground slip by at an increasingly incredible speed. It was flat and he was tossed around very little as he slid along with all the others. The noise was their only tell but the winds and thunder overpowered even that.

The simple brilliance of the charge amazed him. Never in a million years would he have ever imagined such an attack. Either they were going to be seen and cut down or they would emerge from the darkness en-mass and completely surprise their enemy.

The buffeting sails were no taller than a man and just wide enough to hide a soldier lying prone behind them. They were wearing goggles and breathers to protect their eyes and lungs from the stinging sands that seemed to bite into their backs as the fierce winds dragged them faster and faster across the open desert.

Verrad could see the Empress, cutting out ahead of him, her smaller form letting her speed faster over the desert flats. As long as he kept her in sight, he was okay with her being in on the attack. Surprise would be sudden and their chances of overpowering the enemy lines greater.

As they approached the plascrete walls of the outer defenses to the capital, Verrad soon realized that they were not hunkering down out of sight as Tarse had predicted. They were in their fighting positions but they had no idea how many combatants were already inside their lines of fire.

Tarse rolled over enough to raise his arm high. It was the signal to begin the transition out of the sails. The same arm was raised all along the sled line. Both Benzotii and Votainion warriors passing on the signal.

Verrad put both hands on his tension lines and prepared to cut them. The sails would carry on forward, startling the enemy as they smothered them, allowing the attackers to shoot first.

Tarse brought his knees forward on the thin sled and was preparing to cut his line. Empress Nykostra was already upright, following a line of Benzotii warriors.

Verrad saw the growing walls in front of him and waited patiently for the ones ahead of him to cut their sails. The wind howled and pushed the first wave of rebel soldiers up the sand sloped walls of the fortress. Sails spread out and smothered the enemy soldiers as the Benzotii's opened fire on them. By the time Verrad's sail was cut, he was flung over the walls and into the enemy's secondary defenses. Muzzle flashes and cries of battle ensued as the fight escalated.

Nykostra found herself flying through the thick air and slamming into a wall harder than she would have liked. She felt the pain in her ribs as she slid down behind the secondary line of defenses. Startled Kastra soldiers raised their weapons to shoot her but she had already drawn her falchion from its sheath behind her back. Two quick swipes left a soldier with bloody stumps for arms. She back swung the nearest one and nearly sliced off his head. He fell screaming to the sandy ground. The third tried to duck her next blow but instead lost his head.

Scrambling along the narrow trench she wiped her blade and searched for more enemy soldiers. Two fellow Benzotii warriors flew over her head and bounced off the same wall she had. They slid down, weapons drawn and joined her. They were taller than any Votainion and their scent over powered her senses and caused her head to pound. Or maybe it was the result of the hard impact against the wall, she couldn't tell.

Explosions rumbled from the wall they had just flown over as they headed deeper into the the enemy fortress. A Benzotii took point ahead of her while a second guarded their six. More Kastra loyalists appeared and started shooting at them. Streaks of brilliant yellow light shot past her as she used the body of the Benzotii ahead of her for cover.

The gun fight eventually felled the giant warrior and she went to the ground with it trying to avoid enemy fire. The Benzotii behind her picked her up by the scabbard on her back and carried her in his secondary arm. All the while laying down suppressive fire with the rifle in his main arms.

Nykostra reached down and picked up a rifle from a dead soldier and used it to take out two more before they made it around a corner to relative safety.

The big strong Benzotii set her down and reloaded his rifle. She recognized him in the dim light. He was the one who had offered her food.

"What is your name," she asked.

He looked at her with one head while the other kept its eyes out for more soldiers.

"Testor," he said in nearly flawless Votainion.

"Thank you for saving me back there Testor."

He nodded and handed her a belt of ammunition for her rifle. She didn't really know how to load it. He took the weapon from her, loaded it in seconds, charged it and handed it back to her with a pained look on his toothy faces.

"I should just stick to my blade," Nykostra said.

Testor nodded and then motioned for her to walk behind him as they entered the narrow tunnels that led into the capital. Nykostra took another pill from her container and swallowed it as she followed the hulking alien.

They hadn't gotten far when they encountered resistance again, this time from lightly armed soldiers who were rushing into the front lines to backfill after the initial attack.

Testor blasted away without remorse and more soldiers went down in bloody heaps. Nykostra wondered if killing Votainions was too easy for the average Benzotii warrior or if he had some kind of deep, inner hatred of them. Probably the later, since they had been displaced by the two-armed aliens and forced to live like refugees all across this area of the galaxy.

Unlike Tarse, she had no love for the Benzotii. He was an alien sympathizer who hated what his people had done. Nykostra knew it was the Votainion way and also her way. She was only using them to get her warships and unite her empire. When she had conquered their ancestral homeland, she would no doubt return to this world and retake it.

She was seeing more Benzotii and resistance warriors than Votainion soldiers, the closer they got to the inner parts of the city. Their progress was hampered by the blowing sand and buffeting winds. Nykostra had never seen such powerful winds before. The Voton steppe could become incredibly cold and blustery but never this intense. Micro particles of sand cut into her robes and fought to penetrate her mask and goggles. It also wore down the sandstone and concrete buildings of the city to the point where there were no sharp angles anywhere. Anything with exposed metal was sand blasted down past the bare metal.

The corridors of the city center were vacant now. The only Votainions that had been left behind were the poor and the soldiers. Although the soldiers fought bravely, they were out manned and out gunned by the marauding Benzotii.

Nykostra was to meet up with Verrad and Tarse near the central plaza. As Testor and her broke free into the open area the dark storm cloud had completely covered the city. They took shelter from the blowing sands just inside an arched entryway.

"Your storms are impressive," she said, looking up at the dark, swirling clouds in the sky.

"They have saved our world from intruders like you for many millennium. Our legends foresaw that they would liberate us once again."

Both of his heads were staring at her and then they looked away in unison to the storm.

"Did your legends say that an alien traitor would lead you?"

"No, they said it would be an alien female who would turn away her own people."

Nykostra's jaw fell slack. She felt like he was playing her. Was this some kind of strange Benzotii sense of humor?

The head closest to Nykostra turned to look at her. It spoke in a hushed reverence.

"When we first found you and Captain Verrad in the desert Veasa feared the prophecy was coming true. But I didn't believe her until I learned that you were suffering from my very presence. The alien female who would set us free was said to be weakened from exposure to us. That is when I knew you were the one."

Nykostra looked away to the storm. "What am I called in your prophecy?"

"Storm Rider."

Nykostra looked back to the storm clouds. She didn't believe in alien prophecies. But she understood the value in respecting them if she were to obtain what she needed from them.

***

Tarse and Verrad fought their way through the outer defenses with great speed. Verrad stayed near the seasoned warrior each one helping the other as they shot their way into the capital city. The Resistance fighters easily overran the city defenses and then moved quickly through mostly abandoned corridors leading to the center of the city. Any civilians left on the planet were ignored unless they showed signs of a fight.

The dark storm still howled above them, grounding Kastra fighters and making maneuvering anything larger than a man nearly impossible. Tracked armor stayed in their buttresses and were quickly taken out by the expert Benzotii warriors. Explosions rocked the city in a waves as the last vestiges of the Kastra defenses fell.

Tarse checked in with his Votainion Resistance members and quickly learned their status.

"We have taken back seventy percent of the city. The tunnels are opening a second front near the city center. It's only a mater of time now."

Verrad motioned to the raging storm above, "How much longer will this storm last?"

"No idea. It's the largest beneet we've ever seen. The Benzotii are certain that we are fulfilling a prophecy about their return home. If that is true, then we cannot lose this battle. We are enabling them."

"Does this make you their savior?" Verrad asked.

Tarse frowned. "No. It makes the Empress their savior."

Verrad shook his head. "I don't understand, why her?"

"The Benzotii prophecy tells that they will be lead by an alien ruler and that she will ride a beneet from the desert into the teeth of her own people and drive them back into space."

"You knew about this prophecy didn't you?"

Tarse nodded solemnly.

"When I learned who she was, I used her identity to unify the Benzotii tribes. Without her presence, they would have never attacked. Do you believe in destiny Captain?"

Verrad shook his head slowly and said, "No."