True Son (6 page)

The upside to three days of driving was the time it gave Gevri to get his team in the right state of mind, which was crucial. He sensed that his archons were reluctant about the attack on Deliverance, and that had to be dealt with. “Great leaders are comfortable with conflict,” his father always said, “not because we enjoy it, but because we are eager to get beyond it.” And that is exactly what Gevri needed to do right now. Face the conflict head-on so he could get beyond it.

“Listen,” Gevri said. “I think I know what’s bothering you about the next mission. You likely heard about some of the tricks the Nathanites pulled on us when we attempted to attack their city. Let’s get one thing straight: they do not have dominion, or ‘psi.’ They used tricks to fool us, to frighten us. But that’s not going to happen again.”

“How can you be sure they don’t have psi?” said Saunch.

“Yens still has powers,” Wendomer added. “They say he’s the True Son.”

Gevri grimaced and ran his fingers over his stubbly hair. “First of all, the person who came to Kanjai and pretended to be Yens is not the True Son. His name is Taemon. He lied to you about who he was. He lied to us all.

“Second, there is no such thing as a True Son. All of that is taken from old legends — legends that no one in the Republik believes anymore. It’s another trick, don’t you see? A trick to make people afraid. We’re not falling for it.”

Gevri paused, wishing they would meet his gaze. Some looked at their feet; some looked out the back of the vehicle. Gevri continued anyway. “Let me tell you what really happened. This Nathanite named Taemon came to the Republik. I know at least some of you met him while he was here, but I spent a lot of time with him. I went to Deliverance. I was there for most of a day. I know the truth. Taemon is the only one with any power. And remember, their power is not exactly like dominion. They call it psi, and it works a little differently. When archons exercise dominion, they use their hands and their voices as outward signs of the invisible power they are using. Let me tell you, psi doesn’t work that way. It’s sneaky. No hand movements. No voice signals. You can’t tell who is doing what. That makes it easy to fake.”

Saunch nodded slowly. “I remember Yens — I mean Taemon — talking about hand movements. He said they weren’t necessary.”

Gevri paused. Taemon had spent only three days in the archon facility, but it was impossible to know how much of his poison had infected them. “Believe me when I tell you,” Gevri continued, “that Taemon was just as sneaky as all of the Nathanites. He came to spy on us. Not to make friends, not to help, not to teach. He came to find out what our army was all about so the Nathanites could beat us when the time came. Now he’s going to find out what we’re really capable of.”

He paused again, this time to let the truth sink in.

Neeza raised her head and looked timidly at Gevri. “I thought he came to look for his da.”

“Where did you hear that?” Gevri heard his words coming fast and loud. He took a deep breath. He needed to remove emotions from the equation and use logic and reasoning. “The prisoner he said he was looking for wasn’t his da at all. This whole thing was a scheme for gathering information about the Republik.”

Neeza looked down again and hunched her shoulders.

He took a breath and again willed himself to speak calmly. “The Nathanites are the enemy, just as much as the Nau are.”

“But —” Neeza began.

“They’re not the same as the Nau,” Berliott blurted out.

Pik nodded. “After all, they used to be Republikites.”

“Exactly,” Gevri said. “They’re traitors. They turned their backs on the Republik. That makes them worse.”

“But can’t we just talk to them?” Neeza said. “Do we really have to go to war against them?”

The look on her face tugged at Gevri’s heart. She should be home, playing fox-and-goose and begging for one more samkin. But ever since General Sarin had selected her for training, the army was the closest thing to her home, and the archons were the closest thing to her family. Gevri tried to speak as gently as he could manage. “Talking things out with liars doesn’t work, Neeza. You can’t believe anything they say. Promises and agreements mean nothing to them.”

A bump in the road gave them a jolt, and everyone had to shift back into a comfortable position. Gevri paused and searched the young faces of his unit. Did they trust him? Were they united? “My father’s plan is the only way. We have to eliminate this threat, or they will team up with the Nau. Just think, if the Nau —”

The hum of the tires changed its pitch. They were slowing down. “Hold on a second.”

Gevri unbuckled his seat belt and stepped into the cab. He kept his voice low. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing to worry about,” the driver answered. “Tire puncture. Have to slow down to fifty, but we can drive another two hundred miles before we have to change it. We’ll reach Fort Limner long before that.”

“Can you tell what caused it?”

“Negative, sir. Could’ve been anything.”

“Which means it could be deliberate. Stay alert, soldier.”

“Yes, sir,” the driver said, nudging his companion awake.

Gevri settled back into his seat with an uneasy feeling. Had the Nau caused the tire puncture? Were they trying to slow the convoy? If they wanted to attack the convoy, they would do it in a straight-up surprise attack: grenade launchers, high-speed rifles, the works. Slowing them down first wouldn’t be necessary. Still, his instincts were telling him that this was no coincidence.

“Pik, have you been studying that Nau handbook of military devices?”

The boy nodded. “Every night, sir.”

“Have you gotten to the tire-puncture devices? Can you remember what they look like?”

“Yes, sir. I think so.”

“I want you to use remote viewing and cast your sight on the road behind us. Go as far back as you can. Any puncture devices back there?”

“I’ll check, sir.” Pik turned and stared through the small window in the back door.

“Cindahad and Berliott, I want you two to use remote viewing to look ahead. Look for anything suspicious, anything that seems unnatural, anything at all.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Anything we can do, sir?” Saunch asked.

“No,” Gevri answered. “Until we know what we’re dealing with, we’ll just have to —”

“Sir,” Berliott blurted out. “I see something! It looks like —”

“Gas!” the driver yelled. Brakes squealed as whiteness billowed around the windows.

“Don’t stop!” Gevri yelled. “Our best chance is to drive through the cloud.”

The vehicle jolted forward. “I can’t see anything, sir!” the driver cried.

“Working on it!” Gevri called on dominion and tried to move the gas away from the front of the vehicle. Gods! Gas was the hardest thing to move with dominion. So dispersed. So flimsy. Nothing to push against. And being inside a moving vehicle didn’t help. They moved through the gas quicker than he could make a connection with it. He created a bubble of clear air traveling along with them, just in front of the windshield. He tried to expand that bubble, but the biggest he could make it was only a few feet.

“Still can’t see, sir!” the driver said, his voice tense.

The transport vehicle bounced crazily, which meant they were no longer on the road. Fortunately, they were surrounded by a field of wheat stubble and so weren’t in danger of crashing. But all the bouncing made it hard to keep the bubble next to the windshield.

“It’s no use!” Cindahad shouted. “The gas cloud is huge.”

“And it’s getting bigger,” Berliott added. “They’ve planted canisters all over. Someone is activating them remotely.”

How could they fight this? Gevri inventoried all the different ways the archons could use dominion, but nothing seemed helpful for the situation. Remote viewing told them what they were up against, but nothing more. Telekinesis was useless when you couldn’t see the thing you were trying to move. He couldn’t think of a way to use psychometry or retrocognition in this scenario.

Thwak. Thwak. Thwak
. Something was striking the armored transportation vehicle. “Cindahad, what’s hitting us?”

“Bullets, sir. From above.”

“Saunch, get the gas masks!” Gevri yelled, and Saunch immediately unbuckled and lurched to the equipment bin. If those bullets pierced the hull of the vehicle, the gas would creep in and disable them. He didn’t know what kind of gas this was, or what effect it had, and he didn’t want to find out.

“How are they shooting at us?” Gevri asked. “Helicopter?”

“No, sir, no helicopter,” Pik said. “Paratroopers are drifting toward us and shooting. I count nine of them.”

Thwak. Thwak
. By now, everyone had on gas masks, including both soldiers.

Gevri took a deep breath through his mask. This was some kind of big operation.
Calm down. Calm down and think clearly. How can the paratroopers aim in this fog?

Gevri hadn’t realized it, but he had linked telepathically with Saunch, because the boy’s voice came clearly into Gevri’s mind:
They must be able to see the movement. Where the fog swirls, that’s where we are
.

Gevri thumbed the radio switch on his gas mask. “Driver, stop the vehicle and kill the engine.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Berliott, let me know when all the paratroopers are on the ground.”

“Not quite yet, sir. Two more.”

Thwak. Thwak. Thwak
.

Hissssss
.

“They’re coming for us, sir,” the soldier in the passenger seat said.

“Good.” Gevri’s voice echoed in his own ears. “When they get close enough, we’ll have the advantage.” The truth was, he could not think of any advantage when the paratroopers closed in, but it sounded good. Had Saunch’s sensitive telepathic ability allowed him to pick up on that thought? If it did, his face didn’t show it.

“Everyone stay inside,” Gevri said. “There’s no reason for anyone to go with me.”

“But sir —” Saunch began, but Gevri cut him off.

“No reason. What you need to do you can do from inside the vehicle. What I need to do I can only do outside. Keep your gas masks secure and your radios open, everyone. Communication. Unity.” He looked at each pair of eyes staring at him through the visors on their gas masks. “We can get through this.”

As he eased the door open, white tendrils of gas seeped inside. Gevri slid into the milky fog, closed the door softly, and crept to the front of the vehicle. “I need my remote viewers to find those paratroopers and tell me where they are,” Gevri instructed through his radio. “I need direction and I need distance. The front of the vehicle is twelve o’clock. Talk to me.”

Cindahad was the first to respond. “Two paratroopers at one o’clock. Approximately two hundred sixty yards.”

Gevri called on dominion and began to clear the fog away so that he had a clear line of sight. He had to be quick. Once the path was cleared, they would be able to shoot without any trouble. He had to get to their guns before they could react.

He cleared his mind and focused on where he expected those two paratroopers to be. He cleared a little more fog, a little more . . . and there! In an instant, Gevri flung their rifles deep into the fog. Gods, they had sidearms, too! Those, too, disappeared into the fog before the soldiers could fire. The two paratroopers recovered quickly from the surprise and began charging toward Gevri. Predictable. This part was easy enough. Gevri removed their gas masks and sent those into the fog as well. The two Nau soldiers took only a couple more steps, then fell to the ground. Were they dead? Or just unconscious? Gevri did not care to find out.

“Got them,” he radioed back to the other archons. “Find me another. Give me the closest one first.”

This time, Pik answered. “One paratrooper at ten o’clock, one hundred twenty-five yards.”

Gevri disabled the next paratrooper in the same way. Now he knew to get rid of the sidearm and the rifle at the same time. Both guns went flying behind the soldier into the fog, followed by the gas mask.

“One paratrooper at six o’clock, one hundred yards.”

“Two at three o’clock, one hundred fifty yards.”

Gevri took care of the three soldiers handily. The fog swirled back over their motionless bodies. Six soldiers had been immobilized. Three more to go.

“Where’s the next one?” Gevri asked over the radio.

“One paratrooper at eight o’clock, two hundred yards,” Berliott said.

Again, Gevri used dominion to sweep the fog away, clearing a path toward his attacker. “Where is he?” Gevri whispered. “I can’t see him.”

“He’s moving,” Berliott said. “Counterclockwise. To your left.”

Cautiously, Gevri widened the clearing. Still no sign of the paratrooper.

Like a ghost, the Nau paratrooper stepped out of the mist, firing his rifle. Gevri had no time to call on dominion, but he did manage to duck. The bullet glanced off the clasp of his gas mask.

Gevri gasped with relief and wasted no time getting rid of the soldier’s guns. “Got him,” he radioed back. “Two more. Find them for me.”

“Two at five o’clock, two hundred twenty-five yards.”

That’s when his eyes began to sting. He checked his gas mask. The seal was loose. He smelled a sour odor. Like pickles. He tried to fix the seal, but his hands felt numb. And the buckle was busted. That bullet must have hit it. Gods, he hated pickles.

“Sir?” Gevri heard over the radio. “They’re coming in fast. Five o’clock. One hundred yards.”

“I’ll take care of them,” Gevri said, dropping to his knees. He had to hold on long enough to get rid of the guns. Two black shapes appeared against the white fog. But everything was blurry. He couldn’t see the guns.

The blackness around the edges of his vision grew, then the world vanished into a blinding white, and Gevri collapsed.