Wrath of the Void Strider (35 page)

Hold on
, she thought, and she scanned the camp.  Every kwercian wore a gun, and none of the food was touched.  “Wait,” she hissed as Ajax powered up his heavy blaster.  Her scope trained on the first warrior she had focused on.  He was looking right at her.  With a smile and a wink, he gestured subtly with his hand, and she yelped as the very ground she crouched over reared up.

Constrictor vines surged from the soggy ground, wresting the guns from the strike team, tipping over the heavy blaster.  An instant later, they were all immobilized.  Zerki gasped, clawing at her throat as the wind was choked from her.

Calmly, the kwercian warriors readied their weapons and approached the line of Union soldiers.  A kwercian head burst, a spray of bark and sap, and the lead kwercian gunned Sammie down in response.  “Enough!” he shouted.  “Come on out!  Look, the only thing that’s keeping these vines from tearing your friends apart is me.  You kill me, and they die.  You kill any more of my team, and they die.”  He waved his gun in the direction of overwatch.  “So, come on.  Come on.”

“
Captain
!” gasped Valerie, and she clutched Gavin’s sleeve.  “What do we do?”

Haley said, “We settle in and wait for extraction.”

Gavin shot her a fearsome glare.  “No!  I won’t just sit here and let Zerki die!”

Her eyes sharp, her lips thin, Haley hissed, “That’s exactly what we’re doing!  It’s fucked, I know, but if we give ourselves up, we all die.  Your safety is the overriding primary, Santiago, so calm the
fuck
down!”

The kwercian leader frowned slightly and raised his brows.  “Maybe I’m not making myself clear.”  He pressed his barrel against Fletcher’s head and pulled the trigger.  “Do I have your attention?  I hope so.  You’re running out of friends, and I’m just going to find you, anyway.”  He exhaled impatiently, and the leaves that crowned his head swayed more rapidly.  “Come on!  Please, come out.”

“I have to do something,” whispered Gavin, and he startled to see Haley shove her personal firearm in his face.

“You… will…
not
.”

“Fine,” said the kwercian leader, and he let his gun drop to his side as he gestured upwardly with his arms.  His troops raised their weapons.  They took aim.

“
Stop
!” Gavin shouted, and he stood up.  “Stop!  I’m here.”  He heard the sounds of a struggle at his back.  A blaster popped behind him, and red muzzle flare lit up the sniper’s roost as it accidentally discharged.  He winced, gripping his side as he stepped forward.  A moment later, Valerie scrambled to her feet, panting.  She fell in behind Gavin as he slowly approached the kwercians with his arms up.  Rain washed into a stream of his blood as it ran down from his side.

The kwercian leader smiled, relieved.  “Oh, good, thank you.”  He gestured for them to move closer.

“Release them,” said Gavin, and he stopped.  He coughed and grimaced in pain.

“Why should I do that?”

“Because I did what you asked.  That was the deal.  We show ourselves, and you call off the constrictor vines.”

Grimly amused, the kwercian leader paused before shaking his head overdramatically.  “No, I never said that.  I said I was going to kill all of you.  That’s what I said.”

“With mindless guard plants?”  Gavin rolled his eyes.  “Really?”

“Oh, you prefer to get shot.  Well… plants or guns, plants or guns,” pondered the kwercian leader, and he wagged his head, wearing a wild grin.

Guns
, thought Valerie.

Looking to the constrictor vines, he said something in Kwercian.  The vines released their prisoners, and for a moment, the kwercian leader seemed confused.  He shook it off and barked, “Stand up!”  He waved his rifle in Zerki’s face.  “
I said stand up
!”  He swallowed hard.  “All of you, stand up.  Come on.”

With defiant expressions, the surviving members of the strike team slowly got to their feet.

Gavin closed his eyes, fighting through the pain.  He concentrated on the kwercian warriors.

“Guns,” the leader decided, and looked to his troops.  Muzzle flare lit up the night as machine guns roared.  But they unwittingly fired into a dozen faintly shimmering wells in spacetime.  Bullets traveled along their Mobius paths, exiting from points directly behind the shooters.  In an instant, the kwercian soldiers mowed themselves down.

Only their leader still stood, and he hardly had time to stammer before Zerki lunged, pressing her hand blaster to his head.  “Come on,” he rasped, and she pulled the trigger.

Gavin wanly smiled, and he collapsed.

·· • ··

He regained consciousness inside a tent, in the company of Valerie and Zerki.  Rain pattered on the cloth roof.

“Gavin’s awake,” Zerki whispered.

Valerie brightened as she knelt beside him.  “Thank God,” she breathed.

“Hi, Valerie,” he said, and he wore a sleepy smile.

“How do you feel?”

He snickered.  “Oh, never better.  Actually, I feel like I’ve got really bad gas.”  He winced as he prodded his bandages.  “It’s freezing in here.  Where are we?”

Zerki stepped into view.  “The Thayless Estate.  Brucker doubled back and stormed the grounds after the kwercian hostiles were neutralized.  As it turns out, they were transporting a couple crates of brilly leaves.  Do you know what those are?”

“Not a clue.”

“Brilly trees are semi-intelligent, and they’re extremely endangered.  It’s no surprise there’s a preserve on this very planet that’s been set aside for them.”  She checked his dressings.  “I forget what planet they’re native to, but their leaves are highly prized for their medicinal and narcotic properties.  They were heavily forested for decades before the Union took action.”

Turning to Valerie, she quietly noted, “We need to change these soon.  He’s bleeding though.”

Valerie nodded and rummaged through a medical kit.  “Just a sec.”

“Bleeding through?” Gavin asked.  “I thought Haley shot me with a blaster.”

“She grazed you,” Zerki explained.  “No cauterizing.”

He puffed his cheeks.  “Awesome.  How is she, by the way?”

Valerie pursed her lips as she retrieved gauze and tape.  “I let her live.”

Amused, Zerki said, “Anyway, Brucker’s here, pressing his advantage.  If you don’t mind, I’m going to step out for a few and see what trouble I can get into.”

“After we change his bandages,” Valerie added.

“Right.”  Zerki smiled.  “After we change your bandages.”

It wasn’t long before Zerki emerged from the triage tent and found her way to Brucker’s side.  His surviving teammates held the kwercians of House Thayless at gunpoint.  Ashley Fenmore, the acting head of the family, had insisted the brilly leaves were to be milled into medicine earmarked for Hygeia, a planet badly in need of relief from a deadly Canten’s flu pandemic.

“Where’s your mill?” Brucker demanded.

“It’s en route,” Ashley insisted.  “It’ll be here tomorrow, I swear!”

Zerki scoffed.  “Liar.  You run a protection racket.  I haven’t had the chance to dig deep, but I’m certain we’ll find that most of your money comes from drug sales.”

“Captain Ibarra, is it?” he began with a supplicating smile, and he gracefully extended a branchlike arm, turning up his curled fingers as he slinked close.  Entranced, she followed his movements.  “Root-prefect Ashley Fenmore, emissary of the Exalted Chancellor Rowan Fenmore du Quagbrae.  It’s an honor to make your acquaintance.”  Bedecked in leafy white robes, the edges crafted of finest sculpted ivy, he sported an upswept crescent of braided vines upon his shoulders and a flowing suit of woven silver.  Upon the smooth bark of his nose, he wore a topaz monocle framed in platinum.  His bark was rich brown and luxurious in appearance, and his facial branches had been expertly trimmed, shaped to match his humanoid contours precisely.

“You’re in my space.”  She ignored his offered hand.

Stricken, he withdrew his gesture and folded into himself.  “You’re right.  Most of our money does come from drug sales, but not the illicit kind.  There are so many colonies in our Grand Union that suffer so badly!  Is the life of these trees and shrubs worth more than a man’s?  We harvest these things and make drugs that can help.  Drugs that can only be made here on K’n-yal.”

“You’re a living saint,” Zerki seethed.  “I might be tempted to believe you if you hadn’t issued a kill-on-sight order to your poachers.”

“I’m telling the truth!”  Ashley cowered before Zerki, grimacing as if she was about to strike him.  “Please believe me.  We’re deeply sorry for the lives you lost.  I grieve for them as sincerely as I do the men I lost.  It was a tragic misunderstanding.”

Zerki balled her fists, resisting the urge to backhand the kwercian noble.  “Screw it,” she muttered and let her hand fly on its own.

Ashley yelped, and tears flowed from his umber eyes.  “Please stop!  I only want to help!”

“Easy, tiger,” said Brucker, and he grabbed Zerki’s fist, lowering it firmly.

Haley leaned close and whispered in his ear.  He nodded as she straightened.  “Listen up, Fenmore.  We’ll give you the benefit of the doubt, but until your mill arrives and we can verify your claims, you’re all my prisoners.  Got that?  You’ll be confined to the lobby, all of you.”

“That’s more than fair,” said Ashley, and he wiped at his eyes.

The strike team herded the kwercians inside.  Brucker assigned watches, and Zerki stormed off.  Despite the rain, she took a lengthy stroll around the grounds.

Valerie helped Gavin move to a heated geodesic shelter tent, and she zipped closed the door behind her.  She retrieved a dark green sweatshirt and a pair of gray sweatpants that had been vacuum-sealed in plastic.  As Gavin rummaged through his pack, she said, “No peeking,” and shed her soaked camouflage.  Quickly, she changed into dry clothes.  She bundled her gear in a corner and adjusted her pack to serve as a pillow.

At last, Gavin located his sealed sweat clothes.  He set to peeling off his damp shirt and camouflage pants, laying out his dry clothes before changing into them.  Valerie stole a glance as he did so.  “How’d you get the scar?” she asked, taking note of the uneven cord of skin running under his stomach, just above the waistline of his underwear.

With a teasing smile, he answered, “Wrestling sharks.”  He slipped his legs into his sweatpants and stretched wide his shirt before pulling it over his head.  He closed his eyes, enjoying the sensation of dry cotton against his skin.  Gingerly, he tested his wounded side.

“Sharks?”  She snickered.  “It’s okay, you don’t have to tell me.”

Gavin eased down beside her and unrolled his blanket.  “In truth, I don’t remember.  According to the police report, I saved an entire family from a gang of heavily armed thugs, but…”  He gestured getting stabbed.  “They got me.  But really, it wasn’t me.  It was the training.”

Valerie laughed and playfully punched his shoulder.  “Fine, don’t tell me.  I’ll just read your mind and find out the truth.”

“No you won’t.”

“Oh no?”

Gavin shook his head.  “Nope.”

She gazed into his deep, brown eyes.  “And why not?”

“Because you respect me.”

Valerie leaned away, easing onto her back.  “It’s okay.  You don’t have to tell me.”

“That’s so unfair,” he protested.  “Now I have to tell you!”  With raised brows, she held his gaze as he explained.  “When I was twelve, I was obsessed with climbing on the roof of my parents’ cabin and jumping onto this giant tree in the yard.  I was really good at it, too.  Of course, it freaked my parents out, but I kept doing it.”  He exhaled heavily.  “According to them, one day the branch I always landed on just broke.  I fell onto a sprinkler head.”  He lifted his shirt, revealing the scar.  “Not very heroic.”

“According to them?”

He nodded.  “I don’t actually remember.  I must’ve blocked it out.”

She ran her fingertips over his scar, and he shied away, suddenly very ticklish.  “Thanks for telling me.”  She withdrew slightly.  “You know, there’s something really big about you, Gavin.  In that vision I had on Ry’lyeh, I saw you die during the kwercian ambush.  I saw their leader gun you down.  It’s the first time in my life one of my visions has been wrong.”

His shoulders hunched, and he leaned back to sit.  “I don’t feel very big.”  For a drawn moment, he stared at the roof of the tent.  “Ever since I joined the
Shadow
, things have been… I don’t know.  I mean, it’s real, and I know it’s real.  I know what I can do is real, but it doesn’t make any sense!  Why me?  My parents weren’t Navigators.  No one in my family has ever been anything like that.  My dad flies a garbage hauler, and my mom works at the New California City DMV.”  He puffed his cheeks.  “I don’t know what I’m doing.  I just
do
it.”

“You understand it better than you think.”  She sat up on her elbows.

Gavin stared off for a moment.  “Maybe, but why me?  There’s a billion other people who think quicker than me, better than me.”  He laughed dryly.  “I can’t even pass my intro to physics class!”  Downhearted, he looked to Valerie and sighed.

“Don’t drive yourself crazy trying to find that answer.”  She narrowed her gaze as she pondered.  “Why you?  Why does a rose grow from a seed in the ground?  Why does it embrace the sun?  Why does it open its flowers?”  She breathed out.  “Because it’s a rose.  Why can you do what you can do?  Because you’re Gavin Santiago.”

With a grateful smile, he whispered, “Thanks.”

“No problem.”  She closed her eyes and started to relax.

“What were you going to tell me, last night?”

Regarding him with one eye, she said, “Nothing serious, remember?”

“I see how it is.  I tell you my darkest secret, and this is what I get?”

“Yup.”  She pushed against his leg with her foot.  “That’s it.”

“It must’ve been a little bit important, if you thought it was the last thing you were ever going to tell me.”

She closed her eyes and yawned.  “You said it was nothing serious.”

“Taryn was right there!  I didn’t want her to feel bad.”

With a playful smile, she said, “I know.”

He waited expectantly.  “So?”