A Warrior's Sacrifice (31 page)

Hadil nodded, rubbing her chin. "I assume also that the Commander and the, and Phae were lovers?"

"More than that, from what I overheard," Kai said.

"Am I to fill that role too?"

Sexual relations between all members of a Void was a Republic norm, with new members, men and women, inserting themselves into the complex emotional-sexual framework as well as supplying their combat skills. The way she asked the question indicated she wasn't thrilled about the task, but she would do what her punishment and the nature of the job dictated.

"Absolutely not," Chahal said, pointing. "It will tear him apart right now."

Hadil was equal amounts surprised and relieved. "Commander Shura is … an interesting man," she said at last.

Kai snorted a laugh, a low roll of thunder. "He is plagued by self-doubt and guilt. Do what he says and keep yourself alive."

A knock on the door, and Corwin stuck his head in. "Let's go."

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Their next mission was a simple thing, what amounted to the assault and destruction of a forward Choxen outpost 150 kilometers west-northwest of the western most outskirts of New Detroit. It took a day to gather the intel and another few hours to requisition the soldiers they needed. The second day, at the head of some hundred Tercio, Corwin led the attack.

The Choxen never stood a chance. After the Republic troops had overrun the Choxen defenses, a hack of their computers revealed another half dozen
unknown
outposts in the area. They were the forward feelers from the substantial Choxen base centered in old Grand Rapids, which had been lost fifty years before during the Choxen counterattack.

For another week Corwin led his soldiers from outpost to outpost, each one buried underground, hidden deep in forests, or within the wreckage of decaying, preinvasion cities and towns.

At the beginning, resistance was minimal — the Choxen had little warning or time to prepare — but as the days wore on, the enemy entrenched themselves. Corwin's losses mounted — all Tercio — but men and women nonetheless, with names that Corwin didn't try to learn and faces he tried to forget.

Corwin was dreng with his soldiers, never using them as cannon-fodder but never caring for their lives either. It was their job, after all, and he let their deaths roll off him like the summer rain slid off his armor.

Corwin and his Void received a full day of leave after they returned to New Detroit — a reward for a job well done. The next day, they were briefed and sent out again, and when they'd completed that mission, they were sent out yet again. Days flowed into weeks, and when they were fortunate enough to be in the wilderness for their missions, as opposed to the rusted carcasses of ancient cities, they saw the leaves change, the grasses die, the plants wither. They watched winter arrive and with it the cold and accompanying ice and snow that marked the midwest and east of Normerica.

Far to the north, where the snow-covered land gave way to barren ice and rock and frost-tipped waves, Corwin pulled the trigger. A gush of red skewed across the white, melting and steaming as the Choxen died. He fired again and again from his ambush position under and between large gray-brown rocks.

Those that remained in the patrol, the cold, weary, frostbitten clones with their same faces but differing scars, fired back at random. It was useless; by the time they'd realized their compatriot's death, the other three Maharatha, also hidden about the landscape, had opened fire and killed those that remained.

It's better that they died like this
, Corwin thought as he advanced to check the steaming bodies. They'd been pushed out from their stronghold in the far northeast corner of Normerica, where that great axe head of peninsula jutted out into the Atlantic Ocean and formed the eastern edge of Hudson Bay.

Corwin kicked at the bodies, firing his pistol into the face of one whose eyes still twitched despite holes in chest and torso. These were the last of the refugees that had fled their base's destruction. The four Maharatha had hounded them for the last month, their team of four whittling down a party of 500 strong. And now they were dead. One more "Mission Complete" in Corwin's file.

He was tired, and despite his suit's homeostatic temperature control, chilled. It was in his bones, the cold, a dull throb that couldn't be abated or warmed away. And it only seemed to grow worse here as he stared out across the dead bodies of his enemies at the ice-laden water's edge. Three small rocky islands lay out ahead, and as he looked, a sudden shift of the atmosphere brought a shadow looming in the distance beyond them like a big brother standing guard beyond the three: Baffin Island.

On each of these small plots of land that grew only ice and flightless birds, and the larger one behind, enemies dwelled. Soon they would be the last of the enemy-controlled lands on Earth. A ghost's memory of a smile tried to lift the corners of Corwin's mouth. It was uncomfortable.

Corwin turned away. Those islands weren't his concern at the moment. They would wait for another soldier to lead his or her people into death.

With a thought, Corwin called his CO at the Oniwabanshu.

"Yes?" his CO answered.

"Mission complete."

"Fine. Get back, get food and rest, then report to me at 0800 hours two days from now."

"Sir." Corwin waved his rifle to his hiding Void. They came up out of the snow, scrambled out from under boulders, and joined Corwin for the ninety kilometer jog to the nearest Republic encampment.

It wasn't cold in New Detroit, no, in fact, it was hot. Corwin stepped from the barracks and began sweating under his arms and behind his knees. It was the ion shield's fault; it kept all the heat from the people and industry trapped inside its protective bubble. Instead of the winter that raged around the rest of the northern hemisphere, it was a constant seventy-five and humid. Things became more temperate the farther from the city center one went, and occasionally a cold wind would blow into the city's outskirts, snaking down streets and alleys, a frigid blast from nature's ventilation system.

It might even smell better,
Corwin thought. It always smelled when he came back from a mission: Human stink. He wrinkled his nose and his frown deepened. They'd returned to New Detroit and their quarters just thirteen hours before, and after a much-needed shower, hit their bunks for some equally needed sleep.

Despite the constant heat, the cold hadn't left. He still felt that freezing ache down in his core. Maybe it would never leave. That thought brought him up fast, his feet stumbling over themselves as his brain and body forgot what they were doing. No, he decided, he just needed time to warm up. Maybe in the spring things would be better.

Corwin waded through the citizens on the sidewalks. They seemed to move slower than usual now, drifting like the ice flows he'd seen yesterday on the ocean's briny waters. Maybe they too were cold despite the warm air and humidity, their bodies and metabolism slowing in response to reduced sunlight or the change in the Earth's axial tilt.

Not that it mattered much. Corwin avoided them like any naval captain avoided icebergs, nodding when greeted by strangers, but overall keeping a harried, "I have some place important to be," look about his face and gait.

Corwin arrived again at his favorite place, his refuge inside the bustling city, though it seemed that the grass was a little more unkempt, browning at the edges; the leafy trees too weren't lush any longer, their own internal timers dropping their leaves. The pine trees were a dusty gray-green.

Corwin peeked his head over the lip of the cave, hoping without sincerity that the moss had recovered in his absence. It had not. Despite Corwin's attempted repairs, the damage done by those rutting wickts had been too much for it to handle. He'd watched as month after month the brown of its minuscule dead leaves spread from the trauma, radiating outward until but a few specks of green were all that remained at the far edge, near where it met the cave's wall.

He sighed, debated, and climbed back down. It was no longer his place; it had been soiled by those Humans who wanted a secret place to wickt.

Maybe that was it for him then. Nothing left but to go join the masses that crowded into bars to eat their gray food-cubes, drink their unfiltered beers, and watch the arena games.

He thought about Phae then — something he tried to avoid now. What would he do if she were still alive?
She
enjoyed doing those things, and he would have done them too if for no other reason than to spend time with her.

Corwin pushed thoughts of Phae from his mind; it wasn't good to dwell like that on things that could never be. That way led to madness.

He shivered as he dressed. There was that cold again.

He shivered again as he jogged from the park, hoping that the exercise and the drink and food that waited for him on the other side would warm him.

Corwin met his Voidmates at a bar awash with off-duty servicemen and women like himself — a mix of Maharatha and Officer-rank Tercio. It was still well before noon, but that never mattered in a city where the lights never went out and the ever-present glow of the ion shield rendered "day" and "night" relative terms.

His Void greeted him with small waves and quiet nods as he passed by to the bar and placed his order. This was, Corwin realized as he took his beer and sat down, only one of a handful of times he'd spent any time with them outside of missions. They watched each other, quiet, awkward for a while, each sipping at a beer and glancing up to the TV set into brackets on the wall.

The TV screen faded from one ending battle and was replaced by a voice-over announcement. "Welcome, Republic Citizens, to the Reenactment of the First Exiles' Fight for Food!" The camera panned over a section of the arena.

It was a postinvasion urban setting, just a few blocks long. Few buildings were fully intact. The roadway that split the area was scorched and pockmarked, with cars and dead bodies strewn about.

The announcer spoke up again. "We'll dive into the action after a brief word from the Oniwabanshu."

The scene cut to a panoramic view of New Detroit, the buildings' domed roofs sparkling in the computer-generated sunlight. "New Detroit. Humanity's greatest Normerican city stands as a bastion of hope against the ruthless Siloth aliens and the Choxen."

The scene cut again, this time to a video of same-faced Choxen raiding and destroying a Republic settlement. Gunfire, screams, and Choxen battle cries echoed from the TV's small, tinny speakers.

In the bar, adrenaline surged, causing hands to fall to sidearms.

"The Warrior Caste fights and dies on the front lines for your protection, for Humanity!" The video changed to show a team of Tercio hacking and blasting their way through Choxen forces. There was no editing, and all the gore of real combat was there — and the deaths on both sides.

Murmurs of appreciation came from the bar crowd, mumbled words giving dreng to the dead and dying on screen.

"But you don't need to be a Warrior to become Drengin! Just ask the star of today's performance: Corrina Tyesva!"

The video faded in on an attractive woman standing in an apartment building. She wore the pressed gray-blue uniform of the Tercio Caste.

"Hi. I'm Corrina Tyesva." She knelt down and put her arms around four children, the oldest no older than six, standing tall and proud in their own small crèche uniforms. The video played a montage as Corrina spoke over top: "When I'm not fighting on the front lines against the Siloth or refining my combat skills in the arena, I spend time with my four beautiful children."

More images danced across the screen: Corrina scraping every last morsel of protein from its container; holding her newly decanted child in her arms — naked to avoid dirtying her clothes; her children standing in the common room, swiping at the air with utensils like they were knives, with Corrina in the foreground teaching them proper cutting techniques.

The video centered on her again, and she smiled. Standing up, she rested a hand on the Iron Womb behind her. "I even have two more on the way! Please, do your part for Humanity." The screen faded to black.

The video of the arena battle started again, centering first on the snarling Choxen, then expanding to bring both sides into view by use of a split screen.

Corwin sighed and looked away. These videos were the wickting worst. It was all propaganda from the Media Subcaste of the Scientist Major Caste, their topics dictated by the Oniwabanshu. This "reenactment" was just a part of a larger series they'd been running since the end of the summer. The series sought to expand the Lore behind the First Exiles' escape into the mountains. They would then recycle scenes from this battle into a documentary that would air a few days from now. The last three documentaries had been focused on the First Exile, played by Corrina; the four before that had looked at Nour and how she had used guile and opportunity to survive in the postinvasion world.

Corwin looked around, watching the bar patrons more than the TV. It was propaganda. They
knew
it was propaganda, yet they watched anyway, and they felt all the emotions they were supposed to feel. They gasped when Corrina and her partner were pinned down behind the burned husk of a car; felt fear and pride as her partner sacrificed himself to save her; cheered as she stormed the enemy positions and overpowered them with the force of her rage; nodded with grim faces as Corrina mourned the loss of her friend.