Starchild exile, p.31
Starchild- Exile, page 31
“This is Private Tarklefter from logistics.”
“Yeah, I want a vitality on Kalhette Whitesun.”
“Yes, sir.”
Benton again waited, tapping his prism impatiently against his thigh. Mortars exploded in the distance.
Finally, the voice came back on: “Her vitality is affirmative. She’s still alive!”
“Thank you!” Finally some good news. He let a tentative smile cross his face as he punched more keys. “Kalhette, this is Benton. Where are you?”
No response.
Maybe her comms was broken. Or maybe she was lying somewhere unconscious and vulnerable.
He ran down the slope in a crouch. “Blackserpent, she’s still alive in there!”
“Better get her out quick then. I told you the dropships are leaving.”
“Blackserpent!”
The rogue officer faced Benton with defiance.
Benton had nothing to say. These were volunteers, here by their own volition. They weren’t his slaves. How could he contradict their choice?
He shook his head with despair.
Even if she awoke and came right now, it would take her some time to muster the energy to surge back through the Athenaeum wall. It would take too long. And maybe it was worse. Maybe she was injured in there. He had no way to get to her though. There was nothing he could do.
Even if he could convince Blackserpent to leave a dropship behind, the perimeter they held would collapse. Benton’s fireteam would be overwhelmed, and the PSD wouldn’t throw her into prison this time. It would be execution. He tapped a few more keys on his wrist. “This is General Xylander. May I speak with Lord Admiral Dray? He isn’t? Well, where is he? Okay. Well… have him contact me when he’s back.”
A boom of a different sort sounded, and Benton slammed on his helmet.
Boom.
It came again and again. The redhelms were using frag cannons, which fired shrapnel at blazing hot speeds. The metal shards glowed red as they cut flashing arcs across a backdrop of twilight clouds.
Benton scooted next to Liink in the mud and shouted over the battle sounds: “Do you think you could lead our fireteam out the sozo on the same route the Bloods came in?”
Liink shook his head. “No, sir. It’s not possible. They were already increasing the number of troops as we fled the sabotage, and without the element of surprise—it just wouldn’t work.”
Benton nodded silently.
“If you want to try it, Abii, I will gladly follow you, and I would die if necessary.”
Benton smiled sadly. “Thank you, Liink. Maybe we can find another option.”
But there wasn’t another option.
The Nightwatchmen were Kalhette’s only chance of escaping the sozo alive, and they were leaving right now.
She wasn’t going to make it out in time.
26. Her Call to Arms
Kalh’s fingers flinched.
The Witch Hunter gripped her around the neck, shoving her face into the floor.
She’d been shot with a stun blast.
But her muscles were still working. At least to a degree.
Maybe he’d missed his aim.
Maybe he’d been so worried about hitting his merciless comrade that he’d fired wide.
She thought of the people who’d been hit peripherally in the conference room back on Sream. The edges of the stun blast had dropped them too, but maybe the effects didn’t last as long.
She clenched her hand into a fist.
She drew on the power of sacredspark, and the music crescendoed within her, filling her whole being with light, which flowed out through her eyes.
Although her face pointed down, she could see the Witch Hunter behind her, dressed in his matte white armor. She could even sense his grimace through the helmet over his face, and his surprise when her eyes began to shine on the floor.
With two hands against the ground, she pressed with all her might. The movement was so explosive it threw her captor back.
She reached for her prism lying on the floor and jerked at empty air.
The handle flipped toward her.
The Witch Hunter raised his rifle.
Her blade roared to life, shining brilliant light across the scene.
She chopped at the rifle, cutting off the barrel.
This movement had such force that the inertia pulled her body in a twirl, and she let it drag her around, pirouetting forward so that when she completed the spin, she hacked into the Witch Hunter’s side, cutting into him.
In a cry of pain, he collapsed on the floor.
Before she had any time to assess the damage, the miin came at her from behind. He aimed a blow at her back that should’ve meant the end.
Only the Song poured so powerfully through her that she saw the attack ahead of time in her mind’s eye.
Without looking, she bent forward.
The miin’s blade cut across her armor. The heat of the glancing blow stabbed into her flesh, but the damage largely missed.
She spun, bringing a cutting slash at her enemy.
He tried to dodge back out of the way and nearly did.
Except his lower arm, still recovering from his backswing, didn’t quite make it.
Her fiery psykatana cut through his flesh and bone.
He roared in excruciating pain.
Before his prism even had time to clatter on the floor, she raised two hands and pushed mightily at the air, so close to her enemy that her fingers almost touched him. Kinotic light blasted out from her like an anthem.
The impact hit his neck and head.
He flew backward and hit the comms dashboard with a bang.
It left a sideways crater in the equipment.
The miin slid off and fell to the floor with thud. Now with only five limbs, he lay there in silence, his mouth open, eyes closed, not moving except for the motion of his breathing, which expanded across his torso in silent waves.
Kalh’s rage nudged at her to finish him.
Something else told her not to heed that murderous spirit.
The tie was broken by the urgency at hand—the people of Solace awaited the rest of her broadcast.
If it wasn’t too late.
And if she hadn’t destroyed the machine in her ferocity.
Her blade vanished, and she quickly attached the prism back to her belt.
The chair had gone flying in the fight, so she stood over the mic and tapped it. The light was off.
If only Benton were here. He’d know how to fix it.
She glanced around the floor and then darted for her dropped comms.
“Benton, it’s Kalh. Are you there?”
The silence echoed in the massive stone building.
This always happened to her. She had the worst luck with tech: first the broadcast system and now her personal comms. “Benton, I need help fixing the mic.” She turned away and gave a forlorn look toward the broken glass wall and said to herself, “I haven’t finished the broadcast…”
She frowned and looked at the board and the damage she’d done. Maybe there was another port. Maybe there was another console.
She’d just have to figure it out.
People needed to hear her message.
The Witch Hunter moaned, dying but not yet dead. She heard his cry for help but had to ignore it. The miin remained unconscious.
After some time, she got the green light on the mic glowing again. She tapped the filter twice and heard the feedback thump back.
She’d done it!
She retraced the steps to get the broadcast activated again. Still standing, she put her hands on the desktop and leaned down to the microphone.
“This is Kalhette Whitesun, and what you heard from that voice moments ago was yet another lie told to you in order to keep you in submission.
“But I won’t lie to you.”
She paused and inhaled through her nose.
“The truth is, our success depends on you.
“And so, beneath the rays of an eternal twilight, I ask you—I call on you, the people of Solace—to rise up. Now is our chance to unite. Citizens and clansmen, miina and humans and all who hear my voice, to everyone with a stake in personal freedom, I plead: Join with us. United we will strike against the PSD and gain our liberty.
“But I’m not talking about some ambiguous other who might also be listening. It depends on you. You. I am speaking to you. You must stand. You must use your divine initiative to seize your own freedom.
“This is your call to arms. Gather yourselves and head to the nearest armory where you will receive your marching orders.”
She paused for a moment and took a deep breath. It all seemed surreal. She glared at the mic and leaned toward it. She had one more thing to say.
“And now I speak briefly to the Congress of the PSD, to President Taiberos, and to the redhelm troops occupying our planet. I have something to tell you too. We will honor the white flag. Stand down and you will not be harmed. We do not wish for violence.
“We have only one demand: our liberty. Nothing more and nothing less.
“But you, our tyrants, upon hearing our past pleas, have gripped your power more tightly. You’ve controlled our arms and spied on us in the name of safety. You’ve kept us subservient. But now we declare our liberty. This is our firmest desire and our deepest right—to make our own choices. You would deny us this right. You would keep us trapped, governed by your will and not our own.”
She paused to breathe in deeply, and her armor rose and fell. She peered with the most earnest gaze.
“You’ve called us traitors. Are we traitors for throwing off shackles? No. If we submitted any longer to your rule, we’d be traitors to ourselves. You say independence means betraying our government. You forget that your power comes from us. And we, the citizens, have expressed a desire for independence. Independence! We no longer consent to your governance. So now we fight!”
She bowed her head and stared, till her eyes turned into glowing lights, which cast their luminescence onto the microphone.
“And if we die, we die. But live or die, we make our stand!”
27. Scorched
Benton smiled both in his heart and on his face.
She was okay.
Kalhette was okay.
For now.
He pressed a finger to his helmet. “Blackserpent, are you planning to delay your withdrawal now?”
“No.”
“But you heard her voice! She’s alive!” Benton felt desperate. He needed Blackserpent to change his mind.
“Every moment we wait takes a higher toll on my men. We’ve already lost too many. You tell her to hurry up. We’re not waiting.”
Benton did not reply. Instead, he switched his comms channel. “Kalhette, this is Benton. Do you copy?” He waited a few moments and then added, “If you can hear me, you need to hurry. Your time is up.”
He started calculating how long it might take before she got out here. Even if she had no more delays, no encounters with redhelms, she had quite a bit of building to wander through. Once she reached the wall, she’d still have to take the time to calm down and make the surge, and she was surely exhausted. It would not be quick.
So it was too late.
The Nightwatchment had almost withdrawn to the dropships. It was a matter of sequels till they left, and yet she might need half an isochron.
Then an idea hit him.
An idea which might work, but which was too underhanded to be proud of.
Benton looked up at his aide-de-camp. “Dr. Warnur, I want you to go over to Blackserpent and keep me updated on his progress.”
“Yes, sir.” Dr. Warnur immediately darted off through the mud. That left one less set of eyes on what Benton was about to do.
He rushed back up the hill.
Laserfire crossed overhead. He stopped before he reached the Athenaeum—he stopped at the dropships. They were the same model Skyreacher had Liink destroy on Toar. At the time, Benton had thought it a rather childish thing for Skyreacher to do, but maybe the Song had meant for it to be.
Concussions sounded in the background, pulsing through his chest.
Lasers screamed at various pitches.
He pulled a latch on the first dropship, opening the instrument panel. Though the shields were active, they wouldn’t stop an object with such low momentum. He deftly did the trick Nak had taught them. When he finished tinkering with the first dropship, he calmly walked around behind the next one, unnoticed by the pilots sitting inside.
As he rummaged for the correct wires on the third dropship, he felt a cold shadow weighing on his heart. In moments, they would be wreckage, a sacrifice to spare a single human life, but it still seemed underhanded, unscrupulous, wrong. If they could win the war, maybe Benton could find himself in a position to pay Blackserpent back for the damages he was about to cause. That wasn’t the real problem though.
His own words to Private Spooner about slavery echoed in his mind. He was making a choice that would affect each of the Nightwatchmen. They were an elite fighting force, and with the proper motivation they could certainly punch a hole through the sozo on foot, but it would come at a cost, and there would be casualties. If given the choice, some of them might be glad to do it, but he wasn’t giving them the choice. Even if he had the time to try convincing them, he couldn’t risk them choosing not to. He planned to force them, against his deepest moral codes, and people would hate him for it when they found out. The alternative was to sacrifice Kalhette and save his own honor.
He couldn’t do that though.
No, he would take away the choices of dozens of Nightwatchmen.
Some of them would die because of it.
And Kalhette would live.
Dr. Warnur, Private Spooner, and Liink couldn’t see him. No one could. He continued his act in darkness, sabotaging the dropships one by one, and the guilt nagged at his throat.
He stepped away from the last dropship as a massive boom belched from the first one. A round ball of orange flared into the dark twilight. The pilot darted from the cockpit and backed away from his ship, watching with mouth open, eyes wide, and an arm up to block the heat.
Benton retreated down the hill, rejoining the others, and the first pilot trailed after. The other pilots started climbing out to see what happened.
The next went off in the same manner, throwing shrapnel as it combusted. The two ships sent trails of deep black smoke into the sky. The third one exploded as the first Nightwatchmen began to ascend from their retreat. They’d pulled back their perimeter into a tight formation, ready to exit in as close to one group as possible.
As the next several dropships exploded and burned, a few of the soldiers took off their helmets and stared at the spectacle. The rest maintained their relentless focus, keeping the enemy pinned at a distance. Soon all the dropships glowed with fire, and the trails of smoke spread and rose till they all merged together and vanished into the black clouds.
Amid the turmoil, Benton looked across the battlegrounds and locked eyes with Colonel Blackserpent, who crouched not far away. He stared back with deadly rage—a look of murder.
Benton gripped the handle of his psykatana, prepared to defend himself.
Blackserpent didn’t waste a sequel more on his emotions though. He looked away and immediately began commanding his Nightwatchmen to action.
They responded without hesitation, perfect soldiers, shifting their stance from holding ground to conquering at all costs. Their formation moved from a tight semi-circle to that of an arrow. With the bipedal treaders taking point, they punched straight down the hill at the redhelms in a heroic charge.
Benton turned to Liink and the other Bloods. “I’m staying behind to wait for Kalhette. Then we’re going to try to catch up with the Nightwatchmen as they cut their way out of here. You and your brothers are invited to join me if you desire.” He swallowed. Somehow giving them the choice rubbed salt into the wound he’d just inflicted upon himself.
Liink responded with a tone of humble eagerness: “Of course, sir. We’ll come with you.”
Benton led the Bloods and Dr. Warnur back to the hilltop. They hunkered down next to the Athenaeum wall, rifles ready. The heat from the dropships warmed his armor. It seemed the whole battlefield had followed the Nightwatchmen, and the hill got relatively quiet.
The small fireteam waited an eternity, their chance of escape diminishing as the Nightwatchmen got further and further away. Each moment brought them all closer to death. From the hill, they saw the red and blue lasers clash in the distance.
Liink looked up as Benton, and they shared a knowing glance: It might be too late for any of them after all.
Then Kalhette appeared behind them, in the exact place from which she’d left.
It was as if a magician had suddenly torn aside a black veil. She was just suddenly there, leaning forward onto one bent knee, breathing heavily, her shaved head bowed.
“You made it!” Benton exclaimed. He wanted to give her a hug. Instead he just stood there stoically, holding inside all his emotions.
She turned to the side, gasping, and looked up at him with a nod.
“We have to go,” he told her.
“What happened to the dropships?” she panted.
“They were destroyed. We have to get out on foot.”
“How?”
“We’ll follow the trail of the Nightwatchmen.” He pointed down the slope toward the conflict in the distance. It would not be easy to catch up. “Dr. Warnur and Gaiing, help her. I’ll take the lead. Liink, you’re with me. You two take the left. You two on the right. And you three in the rear. I want the rest of you right behind me, pressing to the front. Okay, form up.”
Without waiting for the others, he charged down the hill.
28. Buried
A thrill shot up Nak’s spine.
Kalh’s words echoed in his head:
If we die, we die. But live or die, we make our stand.
The courage behind it gave him chills.
Before, he wasn’t sure he believed in her rebellion. Now, he wasn’t sure he could doubt.
