Bones of Empire (36 page)

The sun was low in the western sky by then, so the monuments threw long, hard shadows to the east as they followed a gently curving road past a family of nearly identical tombs and up over a rise. That was where six fire-blackened depressions came into view. A metal platform stood above each.

As the car turned in front of them, Cato saw that the first fire pit was empty, but smoke continued to drift away from the second, indicating that a cremation had taken place only a few hours earlier. The driver, who was a member of the undertaker's guild, brought the car to a gentle stop in front of the fifth pit, and that was where Cato, Shani, and Alamy got out.

A man-sized bundle could be seen resting on the metal platform that spanned the depression. Keen's body was wrapped in crimson cloth to symbolize his membership in the 3rd Legion. It wasn't much as honors went, but the only recognition that Cato could muster given the nature of the situation.

The Flame Master was waiting for them. He was a big man, with a considerable paunch and a suitably long face. “Greetings,” he said, as the mourners came forward to meet him. “Please accept my condolences regarding your loss.”

That's what the man
said
. What he felt was a sense of boredom, which though understandable, was somewhat off-putting nevertheless. “We're ready,” the Flame Master continued hopefully. “Will one of you say some words? Or should we light the pyre?”

Cato took note of the “we,” saw motion down in the fire-blackened pit, and realized that what looked like a living scarecrow was making final adjustments to the pile of neatly stacked wood. He was dressed in raggedy black clothes and was clearly the person who did most of the work. “No,” Cato replied. “Don't light it yet. I'll say a few words.”

The Flame Master nodded respectfully, turned, and waddled away. Then, once he was out of earshot, the man turned to watch the informal ceremony. Cato could “feel” the weight of the man's stare as well as his growing impatience. That made Cato angry, and he sought to clear his mind by taking a moment to look around.

The graveyard had been carved out of raw jungle hundreds of years before. The edge of the verdant maze was about five hundred feet away. And now, having received less attention since the Vords' takeover, it was creeping steadily inward.

The jungle lacked the means to express emotions, but the creatures who lived in it could, and Cato was aware of the eternal tension that existed between hunters and their prey. At that range, it came across as a nonspecific buzz.

Cato knew that he was stalling, as if putting off the moment when he said good-bye to Keen would somehow forestall the other man's death. But it was too late for that because Keen was gone, and no one could bring him back.

Cato cleared his throat as both Shani and Alamy bowed their heads. “I didn't know Keen all that well,” he began. “But I know he was willing to volunteer for a mission he didn't entirely understand. And I know that he gave it his very best, and when he was killed, it was in the line of duty, as part of an effort to protect the Empire.”

Alamy was crying by then, and tears rolled down her cheeks as she held hands with Shani. “So,” Cato continued, “Corporal Keen deserves our respect and that of every Imperial citizen. We'll miss him.”

And with that he came to attention. Shani did likewise, and both of them saluted Keen as the Flame Master gave a signal to his assistant. The scarecrow had lit thousands of such fires in his time and knew exactly what to do. The blowtorch hissed as he turned on the small fuel tank. A single spark from his igniter produced a pencil-shaped blue flame. Then he circled the pile of wood while pausing occasionally to make sure that the pyre burned evenly. The Flame Master would be very unhappy if stray body parts fell free of the platform. Not because it did any harm but because most people found such sights disturbing and wouldn't tip if arms or legs were left over.

Then it was time for the scarecrow to back up the duracrete slope and out of the pit, as flames shot up through the metal framework to embrace the tightly wrapped corpse, making it disappear. There was a loud crackling noise, followed by intermittent
pop
s when bits of fat exploded, and a throaty roar as a column of smoke rose to merge with the quickly darkening sky. Cato completed the salute, and Shani did likewise, as Alamy made use of a handkerchief to wipe her tears away. And that was when the Rahati assassins struck.

 

 

They were led by a man named Kar Hotha. He was a hunter. A man known for his skill in the jungle—which he considered his friend. Like the rest, his face was decorated with death paint, and he was armed with a machine pistol and a razor-sharp bush knife. The idea was to close with the off-worlders quickly and do Rahati's bidding with a minimum of fuss.

It had been Rahati's idea to monitor the daily list of funerals, figure out which was related to the dead police officer, then lie in wait. “They will feel sad,” she had predicted. “So sad that they will focus on little else. That will be your chance.”

And, as with all things, the goddess was correct. Because as the funeral pyre was lit, and the off-worlders said good-bye to their friend, Hotha and his companions had been able to belly crawl to a point within fifty feet of the fire pit. And as the hunter uttered a low whistle, they rose and charged forward.

It was a good plan, and one that would have worked flawlessly had it not been for a sudden shift in the wind that sent a pall of smoke drifting out in front of them. But Hotha had a pretty good idea where his targets were and opened fire on them as he charged into the smoke. The rest of the seven-person team did likewise, which was unfortunate for the Flame Master, who jerked convulsively as he took half a dozen bullets. He then fell, rolling down the slope and into his own fire pit. The flames welcomed him, fed on his flesh, and crackled happily.

 

 

“We're taking fire!” Shani shouted, and grabbed onto Alamy's wrist with one hand as she drew her pistol with the other.

Cato turned toward the car and swore as it pulled away. Was that by design? Or was the driver simply trying to save his ass? There was no way to know. “The headstones!” he shouted. “We need some cover.”

All three ran as the machine pistols rattled, and bullets threw up geysers of dirt all around them. Cato passed between two tombs, circled around behind one, and turned to face his attackers. The Rahaties were free of the smoke by then, still running, and still firing. Or some were anyway, because the fully automatic pistols ate ammo quickly, and a couple of assassins had paused to reload.

Cato took a marksman's stance, chose a target, and squeezed the trigger twice. The pistol jumped in his hands, and the man went down. Then it was time to turn and run as the assassins fired in return. Chips of granite stung the right side of his face as projectiles hit the tomb to his right and bounced away.

The markers, headstones, and tombs were like a vast maze, and as Cato dodged back and forth between them, he took occasional comfort from the distinctive bark of Shani's service pistol and the knowledge that Alamy was with her.

 

 

Shani slipped behind an obelisk-shaped monument, spotted a flash of movement, and fired. She heard someone cry out, smiled grimly, and gestured for Alamy to follow her. The slave obeyed, but as the police officer dashed between a row of identical headstones, she heard Alamy call out and looked back to see that she had fallen. A bullet in the back perhaps? No, the other woman was back on her feet and running again.

Shani rounded a huge piece of statuary and turned to look back. Two men were directly behind Alamy and closing with her. The police officer had a clean shot at one of them. She brought her weapon up, and was about to squeeze off a shot, when something kept her from pulling the trigger. What happened next seemed to occur in slow motion.

As Shani stood and watched, the men caught up with Alamy. One of them grabbed the slave, swore when she turned to claw his face, and hit her with his gun.

Alamy fell, giving Shani a clear shot at
both
assailants. But even though she knew she
should
fire, the police officer couldn't bring herself to do so and knew why. Cato was in love with Alamy even if he wouldn't or couldn't admit it. Which meant that what she wanted most in the world wasn't going to happen. Not so long as the slave was alive.

The first man, the one who had three diagonal scratches across his face, took aim at Alamy. But, when he pulled the trigger, nothing happened. The magazine was empty.

So the man swore, drew his bush knife with the other hand, and raised it high. That was when Shani heard the second assassin say,
“No!”
as he raised his weapon to block the downward stroke.

Then Shani heard the familiar
blam
,
blam
,
blam
of Cato's pistol followed by the sound of his voice. Judging from the strength of it, he wasn't far away. “Shani? Alamy? If you can hear, don't answer. I think five of the bastards are down. Watch yourselves. . . . There are more of them. Two or three at a guess.”

Shani opened her mouth to reply but closed it again as the men took the other woman by the arms and jerked her off the ground. Then, dragging her between them, they hauled Alamy away.

THE TRIP FROM THE GRAVEYARD INTO TOWN WAS
both somber and dangerous. Somber because even though Shani had seen the assassins grab Alamy and given chase—she'd been unable to catch up with them as they had disappeared into the night and a maze of headstones. So there was a hole where the bottom of Cato's stomach should have been. And he was so preoccupied by all of the horrible things that could be happening to Alamy that he was barely aware of the fact that people were taking potshots at the Vord vehicle as it wound its way through the city. The aliens had responded to Cato's request for assistance, but the fighting had delayed them, and they had arrived too late to offer anything more than transportation.

The large-caliber bullets made a clanging sound as they struck the truck. The smaller stuff rattled insistently but bounced off the vehicle's armored skin as the turret gunner fired short bursts in response. But then there was a loud
boom
as something big slammed into the truck and threw the Umans against the left side of the passenger compartment. The force of the impact lifted the tires on the right side of vehicle off the ground and nearly tipped it over. “Sonofabitch,” Cato said, as the run-flat tires slammed back down. “What the hell is going on?”

“That's what I've been trying to tell you,” Shani replied irritably as she tightened her harness. “While we were at the graveyard, a Sagathi and a team of Rahati assassins attacked the governmental complex. All of the Umans were killed, but the shifter got away.”

“Naturally,” Cato commented sourly. “Who were they after? The commissioners?”

Shani nodded toward the driver's compartment, where a haughty-looking Vord officer and his Ya were seated on the passenger side. “All I know is what
they
told me . . . but it sounds like there wasn't any objective to speak of. They forced their way in, shot the place up, and got themselves killed.”

“The Umans got killed,” Cato observed grimly. “Our Sagathi friends aren't stupid. You can bet they had a reason. But never mind that . . . Why are people shooting at
us
?”

“It looks like the attack on the government complex brought all sorts of resistance groups out of the woodwork,” Shani replied. “And they're shooting at every Vord they see. This vehicle included.”

Cato's thoughts turned to Governor Arrius and
his
resistance fighters. Were they involved in the fighting? Or were they keeping their powder dry and waiting for a chance to do something meaningful? He feared the first possibility and hoped for the second. Because if Shani and he were to find the Sagathies, they would need more help than the hard-pressed Vords could possibly provide.

The combat car swerved in order to circumvent an improvised roadblock, lurched through a hail of rocks that rattled all around, and bounced over what might have been a Uman body. “We're almost there!” the officer shouted from the front seat. “Get ready to jump.”

So Cato and Shani released their seat belts and positioned themselves next to the side opening. They were ready when the vehicle screeched to a halt. The door slid open, they hopped out, and Cato pushed it closed. Then the combat car was off and running as gunfire echoed throughout the city.

The police officers dashed across the sidewalk to the front door of the apartment building, ran upstairs, and opened the unpainted door. The living room was just as they had left it, which was to say messy, and empty without Alamy.

There was a distinct possibility that the apartment had been bugged by the Vords. So as Cato dropped into a chair, he was careful to keep his voice down. “There's a chance that the Rahaties killed Alamy. But the fact that they took her argues against that. And if she's alive, we're going to need help in order to find her. How many Rahati temples are there anyway? A dozen?
Two
dozen? I don't have a clue. She could be in any one of them—or at some other location.”

“Should we look for Alamy?” Shani inquired innocently. “Or should we look for the shifters? On the theory that if she's alive, they'll be nearby.”

“We'll look for both,” Cato concluded. “And take whatever we get . . .”

He was about to say more, but someone banged on the front door and rattled the knob. The police officers made eye contact, drew their weapons, and took up positions to either side of the doorway. It was Cato who took a peek through the peephole, undid the lock, and pulled the barrier open. It quickly became apparent that Umji had been leaning on the door, as he fell inside.