Weapons of War (20 page)

"Is that what Gr'el told you?"

"Yes, Dahm."

"How do you know he isn't lying?"

"It is not my place to judge the words of the Si'dahm, Dahm."

Tea'va paused. What if Gr'el wasn't lying? Certainly, he had sent a report to Rorn'el before the battle, and would send another soon. Had the Domo'dahm ordered this? Was he trying to ruin him and keep him from power?

No. The Domo'dahm had always supported him. Rorn'el knew that he was the superior pur'dahm. It was up to him to prove it.
 

Still, it was possible the Domo'dahm was trying to entice him with this thing. To test his willingness to please him by breeding.

He had no desire to please him.

"Stand up, Mother," Tea'va said.
 

The clone stood.
 

"Follow me."

The hatch to Tea'va's quarters slid open. He allowed the Mother to enter behind him as he approached his regeneration chamber and began tapping on the surface to program it.
 

He could see the Mother in the reflection as he did. One hand was reaching for the strap of her dress because she thought that was why he had brought her in. The other was reaching beneath. Disgusting.

He didn't want to see her human flesh or the ways she might try to entice him. He turned quickly, reaching out and grabbing her hand. She screeched in fear as he tightened his grip on her wrist, pulling her arms away from her body.

A plasma knife fell from her grip and clattered onto the floor.

Tea'va's eyes narrowed. What was this?

She lashed out at him, her foot catching him in the knee, buckling it and forcing him to fall. He loosened his grip on her to catch himself, and she slipped back, ducking down to grab the knife.

"Did Gr'el send you to kill me?" he asked, recovering and moving out of range of her reach. He didn't fear the clone now that the element of surprise had been lost. He was a pur'dahm, the ability to defend himself part of the implanted knowledge that he had been created with.
 

She didn't speak. She lunged forward with surprising speed, picking up the knife on the way. She swung it at him, forcing him to move to the side, nearly killed because he wasn't taking the threat seriously enough.

Why would he? Mothers weren't programmed to fight. They held only one purpose for being, one that had yet to be fulfilled.
 

At least, that was how it was supposed to be.

He got his arms up in time to block her next attack, batting the hand with the knife aside. She came at him ferociously; her lips split into a mad grin. He moved backward, circling the regeneration chamber.

"How did Gr'el do this?" Tea'va asked out loud. It was more than her ability to fight. She wasn't sick either. Unless...

She rushed him again, the knife darting toward his throat, his chest, his gut. He slapped each attack aside, a greater concern rising in the back of his mind.

Could it be? Was it possible? And right under his view?

The Mother lurched forward again. He caught her wrist this time, holding on and pushing her back. The force sent her to the floor, and he fell on top of her, the knife positioned between them.

If it were true, it wasn't a new plan. Perhaps he wasn't even the original target. If not, then who?

The Domo'dahm, of course. Tea'va almost laughed at the thought. He wasn't the only one with designs on breaking tradition, on stealing rulership instead of earning it through succession.

The Mother's arms were more powerful than normal, and in his weakened state, he found her strength almost equal to his. He struggled against her, pushing the knife down toward her ever so slowly. She didn't lose the grin while he did.
 

His anger flowed, and with one last burst of fury, he sank the plasma knife into her chest. The force buried it so deep his hand began to press into the wound. He released the knife, staring down at her while she died.

He got to his feet, still shaking with anger. Gr'el had forfeited his life by sending an assassin to kill him. He didn't care if the Domo'dahm found out. He didn't care if all of the bek'hai armies came to capture him. He had taken the game and made it personal. Was his disdain so great?

He stumbled away from the body toward the wall, opening the compartment that held his plasma gun. He needed to calm himself and be careful. If his hypothesis was correct, Gr'el had done more than betray him.

He had betrayed the Domo'dahm as well and created his own army of clones.

Tea'va didn't rush right to the bridge to confront his Si'dahm. He also didn't report anything out of the ordinary regarding the Mother. Instead, he dressed her wound to prevent her from bleeding and then moved her body to his bed. He considered removing her clothing before positioning her to look as if she were sleeping, but couldn't bring himself to do it. He hated the thought that anyone should come upon her like this and guess at what he had done.
 

As if he were so weak.

When that was done, he dressed in a skin-tight gori'shah suit beneath his official robes, mounting the plasma gun in a holster there, within easy reach of his hand. He looked longingly at the regeneration chamber before leaving his quarters. He could survive a few more days without. The risk was too great to ignore.

Then he moved out into the corridor, scanning for others as he did. He didn't want to be seen if he could avoid it, especially by the lor'hai. He was no longer sure who he could trust.

Could he trust anyone?

He considered Zoelle. She had tried to help him. She had tried to warn him. If he hadn't pressed the attack, it would have been more difficult for Gr'el to move forward with his plan. At the same time, he had entrusted her with relaying anything she heard about Gr'el's designs to him, and she had said nothing.
 

Did that make her a friend or a foe?
 

He couldn't assume anyone was a friend. He had been foolish enough already. He had to stop looking to others and tackle this concern on his own. First, he had to know if his theory was correct.

He made his way down the corridor to the nearest transport beam. Each of the massive Fortresses was a self-sufficient city unto itself, and as a result, the Ishur held a cloning factory buried deep within its bowels. Tea'va was headed there, entering the green light of the beam and sending himself almost instantly down to the lowest part of the vessel.
 

He stepped out and walked down one of the corridors leading out of the transport hub. He was cautious as he did, taking care to keep his steps soft, his attention on all of his surroundings. He was the Dahm of the ship, and would have command over anyone who saw him, but only if they were loyal.
 

Was anyone on the ship loyal?

He had always been mistrustful of the other drumhr. He knew they envied him for his ability to breathe freely in Earth's atmosphere, and for his greater ratio of flesh to bone. He knew they saw him as the future, a future the Domo'dahm claimed to support, even as they vied for the same scraps of power.

He had always hated the lor'hai as well. Especially the un'hai, until Zoelle. She was the first clone he had ever cared for at all. Now he couldn't help but wonder if she had been dishonest with him from the beginning. She had admitted her desire for power to him. Power she had claimed to want to earn from him. What if she were seeking the same from Gr'el instead? Or worse, at the same time? What if she were using them both?

It was as appealing in its deviousness as it was repulsive in its potential. Was a clone capable of such things? If any were, it would be her.

He hated the thought. He hated himself for thinking it, and her for being who and what she was. His anger continued to simmer as he crossed the expanse of the ship.

A group of lor'hai turned the corner ahead of him. He didn't react immediately but then ducked to the side, standing in the shadows along the wall with his head down, looking at his hands as if he were carrying something interesting. He kept his eyes high enough that he could watch the clones as they passed. They didn't so much as look at him. It was the proper action, as he had not addressed them either.

He continued once they were gone, increasing his pace. Gr'el would surely be questioning the fate of his assassin by now. He would likely be seeking a reason to visit Tea'va in his quarters. A reason to find him dead. A task from the Domo'dahm, perhaps? He would not expect that his Mother was still missing, and no answer was forthcoming from Tea'va, the entry to his space barred to the pur'dahm.

He neared the entrance to the facility. It was located in a tall, cavernous space within the ship, adjacent to the laboratories where drumhr and lor'hai science teams worked to improve the compatibility of the genetic splice and to improve the health of the bek'hai. As a starship at war, the Ishur's geneticist population was only a handful, and the cloning facility should have been in hibernation until they needed to bolster their numbers.

He could tell right away that it wasn't sleeping. The facility rose along the frame of the room like a rounded honeycomb, and light was escaping through the thinner areas in the flesh-like wall. The floor vibrated softly from the operation of a segregated power supply. Tea'va hadn't known the Ishur's cloning facility was on separate power. No wonder there had been no noticeable strain on their overall output.

A clone soldier was standing guard near the entrance. There would be no way for Tea'va to enter without passing him. It didn't matter. Now that he had confirmed his suspicion, he needed to shift his focus to the truth that was coming further into clarity.

Gr'el was creating clones behind his back. Zoelle had to know about it and had lied to him. His command and his life were both under threat.
 

He cursed his blindness to the whole thing as he turned around and headed back to the upper part of the ship. He had to hurry and rally the lor'hai and drumhr who would be loyal to their Dahm. He had to stop Gr'el before his was able to solidify his plans. The first wave of clones had no doubt been released after the Ishur had arrived in the Pol'tik system. That was why the Mother had been unaffected by the travel. It meant there were as many as two hundred of them on board, fresh and healthy and under Gr'el's control.

He growled under his breath. It was all falling apart so quickly, so easily. All of his plans were unraveling before he ever had the chance to execute them. Druk to the humans. Druk to Gr'el. Druk to the un'hai, to Zoelle, and to all of the lor'hai.

He touched the pin on his chest, opening a comm channel. The drumhr would be loyal to their Dahm. No amount of empty promises could buy their loyalty.

"This is Dahm Tea'va," he said. "Gi'shah Dahm Vel'ik, what is your status?"

 
He waited through the silence.

"Gi'shah Dahm Vel'ik, status report," he said.

Again, only silence.

He growled again as he reached the transport hub. He turned the corner, heading for the beam and the upper decks of the fortress. He froze when he saw two lor'hai soldiers standing over the body of a third clone. He recognized the dead one as a member of the original crew.

Was he too late?

He grabbed the weapon from beneath his robes, holding it behind him as he approached the clones.

"What is the meaning of this?" he asked.
 

The two clones didn't speak. They each raised a plasma gun toward him and then tumbled over as he shot them in the head.

He didn't step into the beam. He knew now that he was too late. Gr'el had likely made his move at the same time the Mother was attacking him. There was some small satisfaction that his traitorous commander would soon discover that he was still alive, but it was only a small sense.

Just like that, he had lost control of the Ishur.

Donovan didn't bury Diaz, despite Murphy's offer of help from the scavengers they had saved. He burned her instead, building a massive funeral pyre in the center of the destroyed city, right near the church, close to where her grandfather had once lived. He had a feeling she would want it that way, especially knowing that there was no way the bek'hai wouldn't see the smoke. He pictured the rising pillar as a gigantic middle finger, casting its opinion back toward the dark spots in the distance. Diaz would have approved of that.