The Siege of New Terra (Star Sojourner Book 7) (6 page)

I gazed out a window. Beyond the dirt field and the wire fence, a thick forest laced rolling hills. The trees were also Earth-like, green, lush, and towering, with needles like Earth's conifers. A thick carpet of grass stretched uphill until it was lost in the darkness of woods. I looked up at silver-rimmed cumuli clouds, creamy puffs that seemed to be lit from within as they drifted lazily in an emerald sky. If I didn't know better, I'd think I was in my home state of Colorado.

Big Mack tapped the table to get my attention. “That's why we call it New Terra,” he said, “Goldilocks for short. It's just right, isn't it? Always within the life zone for its entire orbit.”

And why,
I thought,
the islands that made up this sea world were so coveted by Terran colonists that they could find excuses to annihilate the civilized natives of the planet.

The cook brought a tray to our table and set dishes before Mack and me.

Mack nodded at my meal. Steak, mashed potatoes, a green salad, a slice of mud pie and coffee.

“Yum,” he said. “Your favorite, and it's mock. There are no cattle-like animals on New Terra. I suspect the colonists will bring them along once we announce the Day of Land Grab.”

“When the last of the natives are gone?” I asked.

“That's right! When the last Orang is dead and buried. Is
that
what you wanted to hear? We offered them relocation on one of the Northern islands, but they refused to go.”

“Imagine that,” I said. “Stubborn bastards.”

“You're a wise ass, Rammis.”

I was hungry and the smells made me drool. “I'll eat when my friends are fed,” I said.

Mack leaned forward and folded his arms on the table. “Give me your word that you'll cooperate and aid us in our mission, and your friends will feast on foods to suit their alien palettes.”

“You should know I can't do that.” I glanced around. Many of the men had stopped eating and were watching us.

“How would you like to be fed intravenously?” Mack asked.

“I guess I couldn't stop you,” though the thought of a needle made me shiver, “but that doesn't mean I'd cooperate.”

His eye twitched. I'd seen it before in him, a sign of stress. “Then what will it take?”

“Nothing you can offer. I think you wasted good creds buying me on the block. Suppose you sell me to some other planet that can use a tel's abilities for a purpose other than exterminating a race of people?”

He sat back and stroked his scruffy beard. “They're not
people
. They're Orangs, nothin' but a bunch o' tree-swinging monkeys!”

“Is that why you can't beat them? Maybe they're more guerrillas than monkeys?”

He grabbed my shirt in a swift motion and pulled me closer. The room grew quiet. I smelled tobacco on his breath. His clamped teeth were yellow. “I can fill your days with so much pain you'll beg me to let you cooperate. You'd turn over your own mother and pray for death.”

I gripped his hands, but he held on tight. “What you said about the tel death blow…”

His eyes narrowed.

“I can use it on myself, too.” As I thought about it, I realized that I probably could do just that.

He let go and pushed me back in the chair. “Salo!” he called. “C'mere.”

The cook stopped slicing a brisket and came around the counter, wiping his hands on a dishtowel. “Yeah, boss?” His pale eyes were wide. His soft jowls shook as he talked. His hands trembled on the towel.

“Bring the prisoners some food. Two Denebs. Two Kubs, and a BEM. Can you suit them with the sous chef?”

Salo nodded. “Right away, boss.” He hurried back around the counter as though it were a protective barrier, hit his broad hip on the jutting corner, yelped, and turned on the sous chef.

Big Mack folded his arms across his chest and nodded at my dishes.

I cut a piece of steak and ate it. “Yum. My compliments to the chef. He wouldn't happen to have cannoli?”

“What the hell's cannoli?”

“Never mind.”

I couldn't help a slight smile as I ate. I had turned this meal from defeat into a small success and my companions would be taken care of.

It was night. I was asleep on a bunk, alone in a locked cell, when four guards came to the barred door. I got up quickly as one unlocked it and turned on the light. I squinted at them. Big Mack was being careful not to leave me alone with fewer than four. I was ready to try my tel power on three minds at once, though that was always a stretch. Four was beyond me.

“C'mon,” a lanky guard said as the door creaked open.

I hesitated. “Where are we going?”

“You'll find out when we get there.”

“Take your jacket,” another guard said softly. “The nights are cold.”

I put it on and let them escort me into the hall. I paused by the next cell, where my five alien companions were being held. They came to the bars.

“Have they fed you tags?” I asked.

They nodded, all but Zik, who made a circle with a clawed tentacle. I took it for a “yes.”

Furro, one of the two Denebs, tall, light-boned and flat-chested, with a high, plated forehead, grasped the bars with reedy, brown-skinned hands. “Are they caring for you, cousin?” he asked me in a lilting tone.

“So far, cous',” I said.

“Let's go,” a stocky guard told me.

I heard the whine and growl of engines before they opened the outer door. Frosty air struck my face. I zipped my jacket.

In the blackness of night, I watched vague shapes of military vehicles that moved across the grounds. Their headlights raked dirt as they formed a column. The familiar smell of electrical equipment whirring within the engines drifted on winds generated by attack hovairs that circled above us.

I was led to a large jeep where two stiff, glowing flags sporting the pirates' Jolly Roger jutting from front fenders.

“The flag jeep?” I asked.

“Just get in the back,” the stocky guard ordered.

“What?” I said. “No gun?”

“Just get in!” He slapped my shoulder.

I swung into the rear seat.

The driver, his face hidden by night, with two tags seated beside him, turned his head. “Strap in,” he said. "It's going to be a rough ride.

I did.

Would they trust me with just three tags? I could only hope so.

I formed a tel coil as the driver headed for a tall building, and threw the probe in a wide radius as I searched for my team. My limit was about fifteen miles, but all I picked up were the minds of animals as they stirred and trotted off into deep woods for the night's hunt.

Once we were past the outer gate, I would try for a tel-link on the three tags and direct them to stop the jeep, leave their weapons behind and get out.

It was a nice plan, until the jeep pulled up at the entrance of the tall building and Big Mack emerged and slid into the jeep beside me.

He was silent and grim as the driver took us to the head of the column and drove through the open gate and onto a dirt road between trees. The column followed.

“Do your job tonight,” Mack told me, “and you'll be rewarded for it.”

“What might the job be?” I asked.

He put on leather gloves, unholstered his stingler and checked it. The charge light was green. “You'll find out on a need to know basis.”

“Is this a night foray or will we meet up with other companies?” I fingered the seat belt.

“Going someplace?” he asked, strapped himself in, leaned back, and closed his eyes. “You're a real pain in the ass, Rammis.”

I sat back. “I didn't ask for this gig.”

* * *

“Where the hell's the village?” Mack said as we topped a hill about an hour later.

Glowing ashes of dying campfires, perhaps cook fires, dotted a flat plain below.

We drove down, past stacks of wood and a few smashed earthen pots. Red nutshells, larger than any I'd seen on Terra, lay cracked open and empty in small heaps beside bare branches with a few leaves still attached. I got out of the jeep and studied a stack of animal bones. A strange skull, about the size of an elk's, bore a single horn protruding between the eye sockets. The whitened bone was smashed on both sides of the brain cavity. I looked around in the dark campsite. A powerful weapon had done this work. I caught my breath at the shake of a high branch. Leaves fluttered down. Something large had leaped from that sturdy tree. A lookout?

I closed my eyes and formed a tel coil, then threw it toward the tree and probed.

My mind dipped into a black well of fear and anger.
Glowick,
I caught,
they are right below us! Many of them.

I see them, Sonrai, like a horde of festers spreading into our home with murder in their vile minds! Are our people in position around the camp with their weapons, Sonrai?

They are, Glowick, and prepared to attack the festers from all sides.

“Uh, oh.” I backed toward the jeep, my heart drumming. “Uh oh.”

“What?” Big Mack asked. “What are you catching?”

“We're surrounded,” I said, suddenly out of breath. “They're going to attack! Let's get back to the trees.” I ran for the jeep, took the driver's seat and turned on the engine. “This is a trap to catch us out in the open.”

“Mount up!” Mack shouted and jumped into the back of the jeep. “It's a trap!”

“Mount up! It's a trap,” echoed through the camp.

I slowed for men who ran and jumped into the jeep, then headed for the trees, afraid that I might be driving right under a nest of the tree fighters.

I heard a scream from the field. Then another.

“They're hitting your men!” I shouted.

Screams trailed us as I plowed between trees. I ventured a quick look back and saw men sprawled on the ground, lit by glowing balls of light thrown from treetops all around us to roll and light the battlefield.

Something fast and heavy pinged off the driver's side of the jeep, right below me. The jeep lifted and bounced back on its wheels.

“What the hell was that?” I asked.

“Slingshot cannons,” Mack replied.

Then we were deep in the woods, past the battle. Flashes of hot light from stinglers and rifles seared the night, setting branches on fire.

I came to a screeching halt. “Get out!” I called. “I'm going back for more men. They're sitting ducks out there.”

No one argued as they piled out of the jeep. Mack stayed put. “I'm coming too,” he said calmly. “You'll need help.”

I swung the jeep around and tore grass and leaves as I headed back to the field. Mack's men were racing for the woods. I heard screams as the tree fighters hit them. One grove of towering pines blazed from beamer blasts and lit the field, making it easy for the tree fighters to target their enemies.

I slammed on the brakes near a fallen soldier. Mack jumped out and dragged him into the jeep without stopping to see if he was still alive. I ducked as a slingshot cannon dug a narrow trench in front of the jeep.

“Go!” Mack called.

The jeep bounced through the trench and I came to a stop near another tag who lay sprawled and unmoving in the dirt.

Mack dragged him into the jeep and we went for a third man who was down.

With him in the jeep, the field was empty and suddenly uncannily quiet. I tore back to the trees where I had emerged. The fighters must've anticipated that and grouped in those branches.

I yelled as a cannon ball pinged off the hood and smashed the windshield to my right.

A flash of light. A burn across my hand on the wheel. I swallowed a scream and plunged the jeep deep into the woods. They must've picked up beam weapons from the fallen soldiers.

Then we were clear of the aliens and heading back to our base.

“You all right?” Mack called from the back.

“Yeah, just creased my hand. You?”

“Fine. But two of these three tags are out the airlock.”

“Dead?”

“That's what I said.”

My right leg began to shake and I couldn't stop it. I grabbed my knee and tried to hold it down. It continued to shake under my hand.

* * *

“We lost five good men tonight,” Big Mack said from where he leaned against a table and surveyed the war room back on base.

I scratched at the bandage on my hand. The nurse had applied a pain deadener to the burn, but it was itchy.

The men were quiet. They looked as bone-weary as I felt. Some had bandages covering wounds.

“Tonight's raid was a disaster,” Big Mack said. “They caught us good with our drawers down.” He nodded toward me. “If it wasn't for Rammis reading their intentions, we would've lost more people.”

The men turned to stare at me. Some clapped. I bit my lip.

“I promised you a reward, Rammis.” Big Mack shifted his weight. “What'll it be?”

“Send my friends back to their homeworlds,” I said.

He scratched his scruffy beard. “Now that's a tall order, considering. I'll make you a deal. They get to live free in the compound, and when my mission is completed and we leave New Terra, I'll see to it that they're taken to their homeworlds. Fair enough?”

I nodded. “One thing. Tonight I helped
save
lives. Don't ask me to target your enemies so you can exterminate them.”

His jaw tightened. “Suppose,” he said, “we take it one raid at a time and see how things work out?”

“Not good enough, Mack.”

He stared at me. “We'll see. This meeting is adjourned. Rammis, you bunk with the men. Quirrel will show you where.”

Some of the tags who strolled past me put out hands to shake mine and thank me for alerting them of the trap in the enemies' camp. A tall young tag, with a mop of curly dark hair and a chin that receded into his neck, came up to me and extended his hand with a toothy grin. He held a bag in his other hand. “I'm Quirrel. Come with me.”

I followed him to one of the low, long wooden structures.

“A bunkhouse,” he announced and led me inside where nine men were already undressing and crawling under covers on the bunks. I went to an empty one and wearily pulled off my boots and got out of my pants.

“Wait,” Quirrel said as I was about to lie down. He held the bag open for me. “Is this what you requested from the cook?”

“What?” I reached inside and pulled out a cannoli. “Quirrel,” I said and took a bite, “you just made my day. Now how about a stingler? Can you swing that?”

He chuckled. “Only if it's a pastry shaped like a stingler.”

“Yeah. Thanks anyway.”

“Goodnight.” He turned on a heel and went to another empty bunk.

I ate the three cannoli and lay back on the bunk.
Spirit? Spirit!

Do not disturb, as you Terrans say.

Was it a female of your species?

Oh, yes. I named her Silva.

I'm glad for you. For both of you. I just want to know–

Thank you. Now may we have some privacy?

Sure. Just want to know where my team is on the planet. That's all. My tel power doesn't extend far enough to locate them. C'mon, Spirit, just a short time out. If she loves you, she'll wait. You waited for her for decades, right? So where's my team?

You're not going to like it.

Try me.

They're with the Orghes.

Is that the alien race? The one Mack calls the orangutans?

It is…yes, Silva, I'm coming, my lovely.

Where are they?

Who?

My team, Spirit!

Oh. Do you have a compass?

I think I can get one.

Due south, perhaps fifty miles. I will teach you all that you require to know, my lovely.

What?
I asked.

Not you, Terran!

Can you send me an image of their camp?

It is a village, well-guarded. The only reason they took in your Terran friends was because they had a starship.

I'll bring them a hovair, if I can.

Wear a wreath of sumbra leaves upon your brain cage.

What for?

Can you not make these leaps yourself, Jules? It means you come in peace. No, dear, I was not raising my thoughts at you.

What do sumbra leaves look like?
I asked.

Oh, anything green!

Is that a conifer or a deciduous tree… or is it a plant?

Bear thee bells!
He broke the link.

That's fair thee well, doofus,
I sent into the void.

* * *

The next morning, under a drizzly sky, I attended the burial held for the five fallen comrades in a small cemetery outside the fence.

Mack looked genuinely distraught by the loss of his mercenaries. More than once I saw him brush tears from his eyes as their minister gave the eulogy. I wondered if Mac expected to take part in the extermination of an entire race of people without losing some of his own men. I shook my head sadly. For the lives lost, but more for the mindset that could cry for friends but could see no moral issue with genocide. How closely did Mac operate, I wondered, with other mercenary forces spread out on the other islands?

With the funeral over, we filed into the mess hall for breakfast. The men were silent and grim. I sipped a cup of coffee, then got up and left. I had other plans than letting Mack lead me around by a ring in my nose.

The field was empty, with everyone at breakfast. I strolled toward the two hovairs, housed in an open hangar, then moved quickly inside the hangar and tried the main hatch of one hovair. Locked, dammit! With my eye on the hangar entrance, I tried the other hovair. Also locked.

A mechanic, his belly bulging inside greasy coveralls, ducked under the vehicle and approached me, wiping his hands on a dirty cloth. A short tag with a square face, he flipped back straight brown hair and stared up at me. “Looking for anything in particular?” He took a comlink from his pocket.

“Just checking out the vehicles. Think I can borrow a jeep? I'd like to, uh, do some fishing.”

“Fishing?” His lip curled in a smirk and he turned on the comlink. “The only water around here, tag, is what we haul in from a small pond in the mountains.”

“Oh, I didn't know that.” I leaned against the hovair in a passive stance, my thumbs hooked in my pants pockets, formed a red coil in my mind and spun it faster. My head grew hot. I smiled at the mechanic and threw the message:
Give me the comlink. Now! You are weary from your work. You need sleep.