A Warrior's Sacrifice (10 page)

The dead Ot's body moved. Corwin's pistol flew back into his hand. With a kick, he sent the corpse rolling away, revealing the dazed Human underneath; a Human who was
not
associated with the Quislings.

Through the haze of smoke in the air, the blood in his eyes, the light reflected off the burning trees and vehicles, the man saw the Maharatha. He started to crawl away on his hands and knees.

Corwin grabbed him by the collar of his jacket and lifted him off his feet like a dog lifts her pup. Something big and black slipped from the man's hands and rolled, stopping itself on Corwin's armored foot. Ignoring the grapefruit-sized object, Corwin focused on the man struggling to free himself.

"Who are you?" Corwin asked. A small part of Corwin's mind noticed the difference in his own voice. He'd heard it projected through his suit's external speakers before, but it sounded stranger this time — hollow, almost robotic.

The man squirmed harder and clamped his mouth shut with both hands.

"Who are you?" Corwin said with a shake.

"A-Auta, sir. A Republic Citizen," he said through gritted teeth. "Thank the First Exiles you saved me! They were going to t-turn me into their slave!"

Corwin forced his voice to relax. "A Republic Citizen, you say?" He set the man down and straightened his coat. "My apologies, Citizen. You were lucky indeed." Corwin bent down and scooped up the object that had rolled into his foot.

"I am Void Commander Shura," Corwin said, stowing the orb in a pouch at his hip. He looked in Chahal's direction. "Take care of Auta's injury." Turning back to Auta, Corwin said, "I'm going to continue my search of the area as she tends to you. Have a seat, relax. Your troubles are over."

With a mental command, Corwin switched to a Void-only com channel. "Give him a shot of some sort and get a tracker into him."

"What are we going to do with him?" Kai asked. "He's not what he says he is."

Corwin climbed atop the wreckage of a truck; he tried to ignore the bodies still inside. "Mayor Yanmao warned me that…" Corwin looked at his Voidmates, nodded. "He warned me that the Ashi-Kage was at work in the area. Auta might lead us to them."

Kai growled into the com.

"The Ashi-Kage isn't our mission," Phae said.

"Yes, I know that," Corwin said with more snap than he'd intended. "But here we find a Citizen passing
something
to the Quislings, who we also know to be working with the Choxen. I want to know why." He patted the sphere in his pocket.

"Besides," Corwin glanced at the cage of Quisling children, "I want to be thorough, understood?"

"Aye, sir," Phae said.

From her medic kit, Chahal pulled a hypodermic gun and loaded a half tube of nanite trackers along with a tube of sedative. She held it to Auta's jugular, cooing, "This will take the edge off. Soon you'll be back in bed, with nothing to worry about."

With a hiss, the hypogun sent the medicine and nanites flooding into his system. The nanites would disperse throughout Auta's system to avoid detection, but they would join together at random intervals just long enough to send out a tracking pulse.

Auta drifted off to sleep, a smile of relief creeping across his lips.

CHAPTER TEN

It was dawn by the time the Maharatha returned to the small city, the summer sun illuminating the sky and treetops in reds and oranges. Even at the early hour, the city's denizens were awake and active, as all in frontier cities are. Farmers shouldered packs and tools, and weary soldiers changed shifts, eager to eat and drink and sleep. Yet they all paused to watch as the tired Void dismounted from their Wei transports and limped to the infirmary.

There were the visible signs that told the story of their evening exploits. Leaf litter stuck to the mud on their boots, alien blood spattered across their weapons and armor. Most of the city had heard about their part in the rescue of the settlement, of how nightfall had brought with it the Quisling raiders, and how the night had then birthed their saviors, the Maharatha, who fought the enemy and chased them into the woods. Those things were part of what the citizens saw now, but there was something more about the Maharatha that hadn't been there before.

Now they were blooded. Proven. They had engaged Humanity's enemies, fought, been injured by, and killed them. Combat had changed the Void. Though stumbling from exhaustion and pain, they walked with their heads high, emboldened in the way that only combat outside of the practice grounds and training halls could provide.

They stepped into the room they used for storage, a three-by-three meter windowless box with a door on one side, armor racks on the other, and shelves and cubbies in between.

"Hold on," Corwin said as he locked the door and did a quick scan of the room with his helmet. Satisfied that everything was in order, he nodded. "For the rest of the time we're in this city, I want us all to stay together — at minimum groups of two."

Chahal, the least injured of the three, removed her suit first. "You really think that's necessary?" she asked as she hung her suit on the rack and attached the nutrient feeds.

"I do. We caught one of them, but who knows what they really have planned."

With her injured arm, Phae couldn't pull herself out of her suit, and she struggled, cursing. Chahal reached out to help, and the suit snapped shut, the vine-like tendrils clawing at each other and scraping Phae's bare skin in haste.

"Ahh, wickt!" Phae shouted, rounding on Chahal, who stepped backwards and put her hands up. "What do you think you're doing?" Phae put her faceplate down to Chahal's nose. "Huh?"

Kai turned, ready to jump in to Chahal's aid, but waited. Even that simple action took effort, and he leaned his weight onto the nearby wall. Corwin sent a mental command for a team of Medics to meet them at their storage room with a litter.

"I'm helping you."

"I don't need your help, or you getting your Exilist hands all over me. Got it?"

"Exilism isn't a disease you catch; it's a heritage, a choice, and a privilege earned
.
" Chahal pushed Phae's helmeted face back. Phae stumbled a couple steps. "And through that choice I have a family who knows and cares who I am."

No one moved. No one breathed. Chahal had been soft-spoken, quiet, and contemplative up until this point. Even when faced with an entire family of slain Exilists, she'd remained stoic and detached. Yet everyone had a breaking point, and Phae and the day's events had pushed her to it.

Phae could have smote Chahal with one armored fist — everyone knew it — but Chahal stood her ground. Phae didn't move. The bruises on Chahal's forearms and neck, the jagged gash along her thigh, were evidence of her sacrifice today, a sacrifice made for the Republic and for her Voidmates. Chahal's eyes glared anger, and hidden underneath and escaping around the edges, pain.

She saw a little of herself reflected in the Exilist's eyes.

"Wickt, fine," Phae said, turning, "no need to get all uptight. You can help if you want." The suit opened again, and Chahal worked the torso open, then the thighs and the calves and boots. Phae pulled her right side out, and Chahal supported on her left. Phae groaned through gritted teeth as she moved her injured arm. Then together they lifted the suit onto the rack and attached the feeds.

Kai was next, and he was flagging. He'd taken the brunt of the fighting, killing half again as many Grunts as the other three. Phae worked one side, Chahal the other. As Kai came loose, Corwin snaked his arm under Kai's uninjured side, across his chest and onto his opposite shoulder, using the suit's musculature to pull him free.

There was no way they could have done it without someone in a suit; Kai was 130 kilos of dead weight. His side, while bandaged, had bled a long time, so much so that blood had run down his leg and pooled in his boot. His suit snapped shut the instant he was free, the force of closure shaking the sneak suit like a marionette.

The three unsuited Maharatha now wore only their torn compression suits.

Corwin was aware of the near nakedness of the women of his Void in an uncomfortable way. He tried as best he could to keep from staring.

A bang at the door. "Check it," Corwin said to Chahal.

She slid the door open a crack. "All clear. Just the Medics."

"Good. Chahal, stay with Kai; Phae and I will follow you soon."

"Sir," Chahal said, sliding the door the rest of the way open.

Corwin deposited Kai onto the stretcher, the motors groaning as they accommodated the Variant's bulk. The Medics jogged off down the hall, one pushing, one scanning Kai. Chahal limped behind, pistol at the ready.

Corwin slid the door closed and locked it again. Phae leaned against the wall beside the door, her right arm folded under her breasts, accentuating them somehow. "All right, Corwin, what's going on? Do you really think that was necessary?"

Corwin pulled at the fissure forming down his back. "If I didn't think it necessary, why would I do it?" If he just kept working, kept his mind focused elsewhere…

"I don't know. You want to be a wickt?" She stepped forward to help, rolling her eyes as Corwin struggled to remove his leg from the suit.

"I hardly think I want to be a two-meter-tall bladed penis." His leg came free. Phae held the suit steady with her good arm.

"A what? No, I don't mean the real thing. I meant to lord over someone else, make them feel inferior."

"I know," Corwin said, the corner of his mouth twitching into half a smile, "I was just being a wickt." He glanced at her, back to the ground.

Phae frowned. "Smiling doesn't suit you."

"I realize." He hung the suit on the rack and attached the feeds. He wanted desperately to dress, to put
anything
on to cover up for their walk down the hall. He couldn't, though; his body was a bloody wreck, and any clothes he put on now would need to be laundered.

As Corwin worked, he felt eyes on him. He looked back over his shoulder. Phae blinked in surprise and looked away.

From his suit Corwin took his pistol and transferred the black orb into a smaller pack he took from a nearby shelf. "We need to get going."

Phae stepped into Corwin's path, fists on hips, and stuck her nose into Corwin's face. "What did Yanmao tell you? Are we really in that much danger here?"

Corwin paused, frowning and working his jaw as he thought over his answer. The heat coming from her body was palpable. She smelled like sweat and Human female. It was hard for him to think.

"The problem," he said at last, pushing her aside, "is that we won't know from which direction the danger comes." He opened the door a crack to look out.

"That's not an answer."

"It is what it is." Corwin slid the door open.

"You're in charge, I guess," Phae said. "Please don't pair me with the Variant."

"You'd rather the Exilist? The Quisling?" Corwin wasn't angry, but the harshness of his voice made Phae cringe.

"Uhh, I'd rather I knew what we were up against."

"Yeah," Corwin said, "me too." They walked in silence a ways, neither filling the dead space between them, nor much caring to.

Three long lights illuminated the blank plasteel walls. Shelves and cupboards along one side held various medicines and dry goods. Surgical tools, arterial faucets, and suturing material lay on the countertop, while machines beeped and chirped as numbers crawled across their screens.

Kai lay on the padded table in the center of the stark medical room, and in any other setting it would look like one of the Choxen genetic labs. Tubes jutted from his injured side, providing a constant flow of nutrients and building materials for the nanites, as well as food and hydration for the rest of his battered body. His ribs were back in place, too; a stronger compression bandage with plasteel supports kept the bones from repuncturing the skin. Though his dark skin was still pale, he'd regained some of his color, and his breathing, while shallow, was at least regular.

The three Medics assigned to tend the Maharatha hovered around Chahal. She lay on a bed beside Kai, her head propped up so she could watch the room. A Medic worked at sealing up the wound on her thigh.

"Any problems?" Corwin asked, looking anywhere but at the girls.

"None at all. Channa and her team are only Tercio Medics, but they are very good."

"You give us dreng, Ma'am," said the lead Medic, Channa. She didn't pause from her work even as she received and acknowledged the high praise.

The other two started scanning Corwin, murmuring to themselves as they took note of his sundry injuries, but he waved them off. "Take care of her first," he said, gesturing in Phae's direction. They shifted their attention.

The Medics ran Phae through a series of exercises and positions to assess the nature and scope of her shoulder damage. Corwin, despite himself, couldn't look away. With a gentle shift of her body, a slight turn of her head, she caught him staring. It was in that moment of surprise that she met his eye.

The look was short, quiet as those things are, but it made promises.

Corwin turned away. He'd seen that glance often enough between the other students of the crèche. Lust. The needs of the body and raging hormones driving the needs and thoughts and attentions of the mind. Corwin knew of that particular drive, but he'd never had occasion for it. He'd dealt with the needs of the flesh himself as they arose, and at first he thought that was all there was to it.