The Siege of New Terra (Star Sojourner Book 7) (23 page)

Please hang in there, Jules. We're coming.

“What?” I lifted my head from the cold ground, under the overhang. “Sophia? What did you say? Is that you, Sophia?” Or did I dream it?

The rocks were cool, a campfire burning down. The night was black as the devil's own heart. Clouds scudded past my camp, torn by the peak, shredding stars as they swept by. A wanton wind rampaged across the shelf and lifted snow to swirl into my camp, sizzling and bubbling, cooling the rocks further. Smoke got into my throat and I coughed. I looked at my hands. I was no longer shivering.
Well, that's good,
I thought.

I fumbled for the stingler, finally grasped it in two hands, torched the rocks until they glowed red-hot, and moved closer to them. Was I too hot? Maybe I should take off my jacket, but I couldn't find the zipper. The hell with it. What I really needed was sleep. I laid down on the ice and closed my eyes.
Please hang in there, Jules, we're coming.

If winter comes…
The wolves of winter howled outside my camp, chewing ice and hurling it at me.

“Jules!”

More dreams. I closed my eyes and sighed. “To sleep, perhaps to dream, on a mountaintop, where conscience has turned me into a coward.”

“Jules!”

I sat up. “What, dammit?”

“It's me, Bat. And Galrin and Sunrai are with me.”

“And this is a dream.” I lay back down.

“OK, bubba, it's a dream. I've got some nice warm clothes for you. Here, dream
these
on.” He took off my wet jacket and sleeved on a heavy warm jacket with fur inside, and closed the wooden clasps down the front.

“Is this real animal skin and fur?” I asked.

He nodded. “Wild drak.”

“I can't wear real animal skin and fur!”

“Oh yes you can. Stand up.”

“Why?” They pulled me to my feet and Bat took off my pants.

“I need those,” I objected. My legs are cold."

“I'll just bet. These pants are stiff with ice.” He put my feet into heavy furred pants, pulled them up and tied the clasps in front.

“Hey! Watch that,” I said.

“OK.”

Galrin slipped furry shoes on my feet and heavy gloves on my hands. Bat shoved a furred hat on my head and tied it under my chin.

Galrin picked up my stingler.

“That's mine,” I said.

“I will hold it for you.”

“Come.” Sunrai yanked on my arm. “Your mate is waiting at the bottom of the mountain.”

“What's she doing down there?” I asked.

Bat shook his head.

I staggered forward, with the ground shifting. “I think it's an earthquake.” They steadied me as we walked to the edge of the shelf. “Are we all going to jump off the cliff? Galrin! I forgive you.”

“Thank you,” he said.

“We have a better idea,” Sunrai told me.

During the climb down, with Sunrai and Galrin lowering Bat and me on ropes while they clung to holds I didn't even see, my body warmed and my memory and reason returned. The Orghes were primates, after all, and a mountain was no more difficult for them to climb than swinging from high tree branches.

“Jules!” I heard Sophia call before we reached the waiting group, just dark shadows hidden by swirling snow and night.

“Sophia,” I whispered.

“Slow down!” Bat called to her. “No sudden moves, Soph. He has hypothermia. It's not good to jolt–”

She threw herself at me and landed on top as we both went down. “I thought I lost you!” She hugged me. “Oh, baby. My love. My life. I thought I
lost
you.” She rested her head on my chest and I wrapped my arms around her.

Huff bounded over and circled us, as though seeking an opening. I reached out to him and he licked my gloved hand.

“My liver is in joy!” he said.

“Mine, too,” I told him.

“Don't ever do this to me again,” Sophia said. “I couldn't stand it again!”

I kissed her cold lips. Mine were colder, and she clung to me. “I can't either,” I said, and held her tightly against me.

“You two lovebirds better mount up,” Bat said. “We got to get y'all to a warm fire back in the village.”

I stood up as Joe and Chancey came to my side.

“Welcome back, son.” Joe hugged me. “Bat! I hope to hell you've got an extra heart in your black bag, 'cause I'm going to need it before
this
mission is over.”

Chancey grinned as he walked with me to a drak and helped me mount. “I shoulda known it'd take more than a night in subzero weather to grow you a couple o' horns and a tail.”

“I was counting on wings and a halo.”

He shoved my foot into a stirrup. “Never happen.”

Oldore reached up and shook my hand. “Is this the gesture for a warm greeting back to the living, my Terran breth?”

I smiled. “It is, Senior Breth Oldore.” I looked around. “It still feels like a dream.”

On the way to the village, Sophia explained about the damaged hovair. She refused to leave my side, even when I dismounted to pee behind a tree.

“People are going to talk.” I grinned.

She touched my cheek and ran her gloved fingers across my lips. “If it were warmer, I'd give them something to talk about.”

We had reached the top of the hill overlooking the dark village in the valley below when the attack came.

Jeep lights suddenly flashed on like a necklace encircling the village. Grotesque shadows flitted through the night as Orghes jumped up and raced for cover against hot blue beams that seared the darkness.

Screams of wounded Orghes mixed with war cries from the attacking mercs, designed to throw the people into mass confusion.

“Get behind the jeeps!” Joe shouted to our group. “They won't expect an attack from the rear.”

“Sophia! Take cover,” I yelled. “You too, Huff.” I raced my drak behind a jeep and fired into it, sweeping the hot beam in an arc across the open vehicle.

Men threw up their arms and shrieked. One leaped out and fired wildly as he crouched in front of the stalled jeep.

I jumped off the drak, flattened myself on the ground, and fired under the jeep.

The merc screamed and tried to crawl away with a bloody stump for a leg. I fired at his head for a coup de grâce. He jerked and lay still. Smoke rose from his scorched skull.
Have a good trip,
I sent.

I crawled to the side of the jeep, using weeds for cover. A wounded merc peered over the back as my frightened drak trotted away into darkness. The merc must've thought I was still mounted. He fired at the retreating animal and missed. The drak honked and galloped away.

I stood up quickly, my heart beating as though it had wings for flight, and raked the merc's chest. He gurgled out a cry and slid to the floorboard. Two others in the jeep were dead.

I still felt weak from my bout with the cold as I dragged the bloody bodies out of the jeep, tore off my jacket and hat, and donned the jacket and hat of a tall dead merc. No matter the jacket was bloodstained. It was hard to see that in the dark, and this was their uniform. Now I had to fear my own people shooting me as the enemy.

The jeeps drove into the village, targeting screaming mercs.

“The fucking slimetrolls!” I whispered through teeth as I watched a woman with a child clasped to her breast go down and lie still. The child wailed and crawled back to his mother.

I screeched to a stop beside them, scooped up the crying child, and put him in the passenger seat.

Sunrai, on his powerful war steed, charged a jeep in a wild ride, hooting as he closed with the vehicle. One of the mercs saw him and swung his rifle to aim. I held my breath as Sunrai leaped on the merc and bit into his neck. The man collapsed silently and pitched forward under Sunrai's weight, slamming into the driver. The jeep fishtailed. Sunrai leaped out before it rolled.

I drove toward them as three mercs scrambled out of the overturned vehicle

“Sunrai, it's me, Jules!” I fired at a merc who was lifting his rifle from the ground to target Sunrai. I hit his arm and he dropped the rifle. I would've let him live. He was pretty helpless without the jeep, but Sunrai threw himself on the man and bit his neck. A dark stream spurted from the torn throat and my stomach turned.

“C'mon, Sunrai,” I called.

He loped to the jeep and sprang into it. “Watch out,” I said as he almost landed on the child.

I turned the vehicle to engage another jeep when the
Sword of Terror
rose up over the tree line, a behemoth that blocked out the moon and darkened the land even further.

“Uh oh,” I said.

Sunrai picked up the child and hooted softly to him.

“You have to get out,” I told him, “with the child. As long as the mercs think I'm one of them, I can fight them from this jeep.”

He grunted, held the child against his chest and leaped out. I saw him head for the cliff face. The child would be safe in there, as safe as anywhere.

The dead and dying were all around me, Orghes and mercs. With Joe, Chancey, and Galrin attacking from behind with beam rifles, Mack must be losing more men than he thought possible.

I turned the jeep toward a merc vehicle that was chasing down a group of screaming Orghe women.
Let's see if I can even the odds, scuds,
I thought.

I found no joy in this killing, but when the merc vehicle hit a young girl and sent her flying over the windshield and rolling to the ground, where she lay still, something inside me more primal than the prefrontals took over. Something with bloody claws.

I swung the jeep and raced toward the merc vehicle. They saw me coming, but thought nothing of an approaching jeep, until I broadsided them at speed and smashed in the driver's door, and the driver. He was part of the vehicle now, but three others were crawling away. I skidded to a stop and raised my rifle. “Going someplace?” I screamed and raked them. I didn't stop until the rifle grew hot. “This is for the girl!” I shouted to the blood and gore on the ground.

The remaining jeeps suddenly turned toward the hill and bounced up it, with the flagship jeep sending out a repeated flashing signal that I assumed meant: RETREAT.

But then I realized what the mercs were up to. This was not a retreat, but a signal to get out of the danger zone. “Oh, no!” I whispered as the
Sword
banked and came in low. “Run,” I yelled to the villagers. “Missiles! Run!”

I tore into the center of the square, slowed and called to the people around me to jump into the jeep. I picked up more as I screeched to stops in front of the
Sword's
nose. Orghes were hanging onto the sides of the jeep as I raced to the cliff.

I heard the deadly whine of an incoming missile, then the explosion in the village. The Orghes holding onto my jeep jumped off and ran into caves in the cracked limestone.

I went back for more. The
Sword's
crew must've figured out that this jeep was driven by the enemy. A missile exploded so close to the front fender, the jeep lifted. But with the weight of the clinging Orghes, it bounced back down, though two dropped off, either wounded or dead.

I got my passengers to the cliff and jumped out with them as
Sword
landed and taxied. I ran inside a narrow cave with the others and heard the explosion. Flying metal pinged off the stone cliff.

“That was too close,” I muttered to an Orghe woman.

Her eyes were wide as she wiped a hand across her face. “Orin was with us.”

Somebody was
, I thought.
Or maybe not!
My rifle's charge light turned red and went out. The
Sword's
ion cannon had shorted the rifle's electrical circuits. None of my friends' beam weapons would work now, but neither would the mercs'.

“This way!” an Orghe man called from the back of the cave. We splashed through a tapered tunnel. Some form of fungi lit the walls with a dull green light. I heard human voices behind us.

“Mercs!” I said.

“Yes,” someone answered.

“Where does this tunnel lead?” I asked the Orghe who guided us as we passed branching tunnels.

“To freedom or death,” he answered in their usual cryptic manner.

“Freedom for us, and death for
them
?” I gestured backward.

“If we are in Orin's Hands.”

“Yeah, I'll bet the mercs have a few gods, too!” I was getting a little tired of leaving everything in the hands of the gods. If they only knew how Great Mind kept hands off.

We came to a dead end.

“What's this?” I pressed the walls, probing for a stone doorway. Where's the exit?"

“I took the wrong turn,” the Orghe said.

“You
what
?”

“I took”

“I heard you!”

“There are five branching tunnels. I took one that led to this dead end.”

“We have to go back and find the right one!”

He grabbed my arm. “It's too late, breth Jules. The enemy is approaching.”

“There must be
something
we can do.”

The people were hooting and crying softly. “We must surrender,” an old woman said. “That is all.”

“I don't think they're taking prisoners, ma'am,” I told her.

The roof was dark and dank. “What's up there?” I asked the guide.

He shrugged.

“Give me a hand up,” I told him. “Hurry!”

He lifted me. I stood on his broad shoulders and felt along the dark crumbly cracks where the roof met the walls.

“Spaces!” I pulled myself onto a shelf. “Get the people up here. Now!”

The guide lifted them and I helped them up. They crawled along the shelf, making room for others. “Be very quiet,” I told them as they came up. Merc voices were getting closer. Footsteps splashed through water.

I yanked the leader up and dragged his feet over the shelf as the mercs emerged into the dead end.

“Goddamn them!” That was Big Mack's voice. “The Orangs must've taken another tunnel. Jules is probably leading them, that slimy slippery son of a diseased gratfulker– He was in the jeep, killing off my people while you morons watched from the ship. I want his ass!”

I breathed with my mouth open to draw in quiet breaths, but I wondered that he couldn't hear my heart begging those fickle gods to release it.