Malthana Blues
Bone shifted and crunched to make the ganger's ugly face deform even further, cheek caving as his eyes rolled in his head. He dropped gracelessly. The man groaned once and lay still among the wreckage of what had been a table. The word BITCH had been impressed into his forehead, chin and across both cheeks in twisted flesh. Studying it for a moment, the black vixen snorted and stepped over the comatose body, boots crunching broken glass underneath to the tune of the bar's conversations quickly resuming. She dumped herself onto a stool, paying no mind to the thug who was sagging into the counter, head surrounded by the scarlet shards and brownish puddle that had once been his drink.
"Y'know 'dat table and glasses're gettin' put on ya tab, right?"
She waved a hand, dismissing that as the Zillar bartender refilled her glass. He knew she couldn't pay, but he also knew better than to force the issue. Things tended to happen to people who tried to force issues with the kitsune who they called Yo. Violent things. Watching the swill pour into her cup, she slowly removed the stained brass knuckles, right hand first, then left. A blood cloth made for a katana appeared out of her back pocket and she began to clean them, lovingly going over each letter. The U was traced and padded at by deceptively delicate fingers, soaking up the ichor that covered it, along with the R and the Y-O-'S that made up one half of the knuckle, and the B-I-T-C-H for the other. The lettering was oddly shaped to get all of it onto the space provided, but the knuckles themselves were well-made and the vixen never parted with them.
Behind her shapes were moving, either friends of the gangers edging in to collect them or possibly opportunists looking to strip whatever they could off the bodies. They moved warily, and she could feel their eyes on her when her ears swiveled in their direction, but she ignored them. None of the Greali rogues would bother her ever again. Curling her tail around, she used the limb to lift her cup up to her muzzle, drinking deeply. She wasn't drunk yet, but she wished she was.
"Your handiwork, I take it?"
The corpse toppled out of its seat with the scrape of glass and a thud and another kitsune slid in beside her. Where she wore her typical tight-fitting trousers and an A-shirt he was better dressed in a blend of furred leather and strategically positioned ceramic plates for an outfit that was both warm and protective. Under the bronzed skins and ebony armor the tod himself was a handsome silver-gray with confident orange eyes. He wore a Sennai Clydesdale heavy pistol on one hip but neither of his hands strayed near it as he brushed the glass off the bar to sprinkle onto the dead man. In moments he had a drink in hand.
Finished with her knuckles, she inspected them a final time before sliding each weapon into a front pocket. "Not really."
"Come on, Yo," he laughed. "Six men dead and you with blood on your knuckles and you're not claiming you did it?"
"They committed suicide."
"Oh yeah? And what led them to do that?"
"That one jostled me," the vixen named Yo kicked at the body. "Then he jostled his head into the counter."
"And the rest of them just jostled their faces into your knucks, huh?"
"Yup. Ask anyone here."
He made a show of looking around, ears perked. "This lot all look like the kind of upstanding people I would trust with suicide details," he said as one of the shapes behind them knelt down over a body with a pair of pliers.
Her drink was already empty. Sighing, Yo pulled out a roll of gauze and started to wrap her knuckles, watching the off-white stain itself red where she was bleeding through the fur. "What do you want, Uruk?"
"Hey, is that any way to treat an old friend?"
"I seem to remember you leaving me high and dry during that scheme of yours out on Benedict," she turned and finally looked at him without stopping the wrapping. "I almost did time for that after you fucked up the ledgers. Easy money, you said. Nobody ever looks into those little coastal hotels, you said. It'll be like a vacation, you said. And there I am, bent over a squad car with a Silarian cop shoving her fingers up my ass."
"Well that sounds like a vacation to me-"
"Fuck you." Having wrapped the one hand, she flexed her fingers and started on the other. "I'm lucky they let me out on probation. Meanwhile you're way the fuck off somewhere else, spending that money. So no, we're not friends."
"Alright, alright. Business associates, then?"
"You still haven't told me what you want."
"I just wanted to know how you're doing. As a concerned
business associate."
"I was a security type for a Boolean merchie out of Rennas until a week ago. Fool decided he didn't want to put me down on his expense report, so he left me here for the last leg home, with no pay. If there's any justice in the universe he's getting skull-fucked by pirates right now."
"You've always had a way with words, Yo," Uruk was grinning. He was always smiling, even at things that weren't funny. "So you're stranded."
"Do I look like I've got a thruster hidden up my ass?"
"No, but I like the look of what you did to those guys," he jerked a thumb over his shoulder and leaned in. "I've gotten a small team together to go planetside. We're looking for a bit of equipment from the Dan War, and we've managed to narrow it down to a pretty small area. I've got a good pilot, a guide, a veteran who knows what we're looking for, somebody to handle all the heavy lifting and a guard, and myself of course, but we could use somebody else on security. I don't know this girl real well, see, but I know you, Yo. You can fuck shit up."
Yo tapped her claws on the bar counter, for once ignoring the alcohol in front of her. The crack of pliers fitting themselves around a tooth made her ears flick. "And you're not going to just up and scram on this one."
"I've sunk a good bit of credits into this. Already got a buyer lined up and everything. Just have to find the damn things."
She grunted. "So what's the catch?"
Uruk gave that razor grin she knew so well. "Just a little thing called the Danaversian Civil War. They don't really bother this station, they're more interested in the even bigger shithole down planetside. Fuck if I know why, but there's two clans down there duking it out, and this isn't Republic-sanctioned space. If we go down there then we're on our own, no rescue if we get into trouble. And from what I've heard they're still taking prisoners. For the flesh market, you know."
"How the hell is this worth it?"
"Well, for one, we're going down to a part of the planet with no big military bases, outside of the war zones. Very isolated. For another..." He named a figure.
Yo stared at him. "That's how much the buyer's taking the stuff for?"
"That's how much your take would be. After a seven-way split. More or less."
Inhaling, she blew out through her snout and drained her glass in one gulp. She still wasn't drunk, or at least not drunk enough to fool herself into thinking that this was a good idea. But she looked back at him. "Deal. I'd punch the Empress in the tits for that kind of money."
Uruk grinned. "I'll see you in docking bay 94."
----
The bay was a sorry affair. Cramped, dimly-lit and with a deck that was scraped and burned from many drunken and inexpert landings, it hardly looked enough for the average drone, never mind an entire starship. But there was a ship there, and a half dozen people besides. Uruk greeted her with a wave of a hand. "Yo! C'mon over, I want to introduce you to the team before we get started."
Padding over, she twitched her nose at the strong smell of coolant but didn't say anything, regarding the group through narrow yellow eyes. It seemed the tod had his pick of all sorts from across AXIS space, as he usually did. A Zillar in a flight suit was leaning against the starship and reading diagnostics off a wrist computer while an Alversian woman with deep, golden mocha skin stood politely from a crate and gave a little bow that Yo nodded at. A painfully thin man with almond-shaped eyes looked over his shoulder at her as he carried a space heater from the hanger and up the ramp of the ship. Off to one side a third kitsune with bone-white fur and a
wakazashi sword at his waist shared a bottle of port over a barrel with a Setulanite woman dressed in bronze power armor who's skin shone like obsidian off a shaved head.
"Everyone, last-minute addition and old friend Yo," Uruk introduced her. Aside from the Alversian woman the stares were none too kind. Doubtless nobody liked the idea of getting their payoff reduced by her presence. Well, they could kiss her's. The Zillar was openly glaring, and Yo scowled right back.
Uruk must have caught the exchange, because he indicated the alien first. "This is Graham Kader. He's the pilot for our little expedition. The ship's his, the
Mani Clipper." The
ship was an ugly thing, boxy, off-white and stained with graffiti, and her owner wasn't much different. Graham was more lanky than boxy and his scales were gray, but what were visible was covered in tattoos ranging from a targeting reticle on the back of his head to a Steel Yard ganger tattoo of a bloody knife curving up from his collar and he shared the
Mani Clipper's looks. His greeting was a sneer, and Yo's smile bared her teeth.
As the pilot went back to his computer Uruk nodded to the attractive Alversian. "And that's Necole Jammer. She'll be our guide. It's pretty mountainous down there, but she grew up out on Pascen as a tour guide so rock climbing's her thing." The woman was still smiling, not in Uruk's way but with genuine cheer as if she was just happy to be here, and even her nod to Yo was warm. She could see how Necole would be been popular with tourists, if only for the opportunity to watch her stretch her long limbs above them. Still, she had to wonder what would make a woman like that leave a comfortable life on Pascen to come all the way out to the armpit that was Malthana.
"Charmed," Necole said, crossing the hanger to shake her hand. She smelled of cinnamon.
"Sure."
"Nolan Hartjen," their leader said as the man came around the corner of the
Mani Clipper's loading ramp. "Our roustabout. Picked him up off Ferra out of a crowd of people wanting work. Wanting a ticket off-world, more like. Don't mind him, he doesn't talk much on account of getting his tongue taken by a Terminus type at some point." Nolan was ignoring them as he picked up the crate that Necole had been sitting on and carried it away. Uruk pointed out the band that the Ferran was wearing on one wrist independent of his jumpsuit. "He's got a little text-to-speech job if you really need to talk to him, but mostly just tell him what to do and he'll do it."
"Gotcha."
"Over there is Numiya." The kitsune looked up from his conversation with the Setulanite, ears perking. "Six years in the Alversian People's Army in the 610th Guard, that one. Knows a thing or two about most everything, especially the Dan War. If Necole gets us to it, he'll be able to actually find the thing." Like most Xiscapians Numiya was short, and Yo had a few inches on him. He was wearing a suit of light security armor overlaid with a cloak that was hanging over his back like a cape, and she could see that the interior was lined with pockets. The ex-soldier nodded to her and she nodded back, one warrior to another.
"Last one's Maris Sladek. She's the other guard for the lot of us. Not been in any wars she cares to tell me about, so I don't ask where she got that power armor from." Indeed, the suit was scuffed and charred, no doubt having seen its share of action, and there were burn marks where the insignia would have been. Maris herself looked entirely unscathed, and eyes so brown they were black looked Yo up and down, measuring the sable vixen up. An enormous shotgun was strapped to her back.
"I passed her over when I was scouting this place out for you, Uruk," the Setulanite said, taking a swing of port before handing it back to Numiya. "Didn't think splattering a man's brains all over his boots was the kind of skillset we needed."
"You might thank me for the support if the Dans find us." The kitsune looked back to Yo. "So that's them. Any questions?"
"When do we get started?"
"Soon as we're all loaded up," he glanced over at Graham. "How we looking?"
"Nolan just put the last crate in. We're good to go."
"Alright," Uruk clapped his hands together. "All aboard, everyone. It's time to go make some money."
----
Malthana was getting bigger on the scopes as they fell away from the identically-named station. Increasing its size didn't make the planet look any better. Swirling gray clouds flared with lightning as storms the size of continents rotated their way across its face, occasionally parting to give glimpse to the barren surface below. It was as inhospitable as Uruk had described, all jagged mountains and ravines going deeper than the highest summit that looked black even from orbit. Why anyone was fighting over it, Yo couldn't guess.
The vixen was sitting in what passed for the common room of the
Mani Clipper, looking over the cold-weather gear that Uruk had provided for her. It was a bulky thing that came with its own skinsuit designed to trap heat, keep out moisture and have a water and windproof shell, and that was just the innermost layer. Another had a water reclamation system integrated ("We'll be drinking our own sweat and piss" muttered Graham) while the boots and gloves were heated and had retractable climbing claws. The full face mask had a heater as well, with a full uplinked HUD on its polarized, no-fog goggles. Most of the size came from the hooded parka that went on top, which had its own thermal dampening suite and could be folded out into a cold-weather sleeping bag. It also floated, though she had no idea why that would be necessary up in the mountains.
She'd been just about to start when the hatch hissed open and Necole stepped through. Glancing at her, Yo let her gaze linger for a moment before looking back down at the thing she was expected to wear. "Coffee?" the Alversian offered, holding out a mug to her. Nose twitching, she glanced at it, tail curling. The woman gave an earnest smile.
"Did you put a shot in it?"
"A shot?"
"Of alcohol. That's a no," she waved it away and pulled her shirt over her head. They didn't have enough space to give her a cabin to change in, but she didn't care. Necole quickly averted her eyes and sat down in the alcove by the observation window, which was really just a camera monitor put up on the wall. Ship designers usually didn't like cutting holes in their hulls unless they absolutely had to. Kicking off her boots and stepping out of her pants, Yo looked over her shoulder. The guide was staring down at Malthana as it steadily got bigger and bigger.
"Have you ever been here before?" she asked without looking at her.
"No." Pulling the skinsuit tight on her body, she looked down at it. Like most skinsuits it lived up to its name, clamping as closely as a second layer of skin, but it completely negated the chill of the common room. That was something.
Apparently a little put off, Necole waited before trying again. "Uruk said you killed six men on the station. Beat their heads in just for bumping you."
"Uruk's a scoundrel, a rake and a con artist. You shouldn't believe everything he says."
"So you didn't?" When Yo looked over she could see that the dark-skinned woman's eyes were wide in the reflection of the screen.
"It was eight. There were two before them. And the bump was intentional."
"Oh." She paused. "I never understood that. Why bumping someone could start a bar fight."
"It's not just in bars," Yo pulled her gloves on. "People can disrespect you anywhere."
"But what if it's accidental?"
"Then I expect an apology."
"Did he apologize to you?"
"He tried, after a bit. It's hard to say much when you've lost all your teeth."
She went quiet, sipping at her coffee. Pulling the parka on, the Xiscapian looked at her again. She was still watching Malthana, so obviously out of her element. For a moment she felt sorry for her. But she'd signed up for this gig, and if it all went according to plan the woman would be walking away with enough cash to live on for at least a year, even in a place like Pascen.
"You said Uruk's not to be trusted," she said finally. "Have you known him long?"
"A fair while. We were brother and sister, once." Yo could see in the reflection that Necole didn't understand, but she didn't care to explain. "And you can trust him. To a point. He'll do what's best for Uruk."
Malthana had grown to fill the screen now, all of their vision taken up by the gray, storm-wracked world. Necole had put her coffee down. Having pulled her boots on, Yo was fully dressed, and she stood there watching the girl for a moment. She was quite young, she realized, younger than anyone else on this crazy trip. The question passed through her mind again, and she figured it out.
He got her between the sheets. Small surprise, that: he was as much a womanizer as he was a grifter, and his tongue was just as silver when he was using it for things other than talking.
"We hit planetside in five," Graham's voice came over the intercom.
Yo turned away. "You'd better get suited up."
The seven of them trooped down a ramp into a howling maelstrom of snow and ice. There was just enough visibility for Yo to see across the compound that the ship had landed in, seeming hemmed in by walls of gray. It didn't help that the buildings themselves were gray, consisting of four towers that formed the perimeter of the base that had a gnarled, almost twisted look to them, as if they were rocky spires that had sprouted tree-like from the ground. Between them sat several long buildings painted in a mottled gray and brown, including one with enormous hanger doors, all with snow piled high around them. No lights burned in any of the windows.
Stopping short, she glanced back at her companions. It was difficult to tell each one apart under their heavy clothing and blank visors, which one was Uruk and which one was Numiya, or whether the one in back was Nolan or the short (for an Alversian) Necole. Maris was the only one who really stuck out, thanks to both her armor and the sheer size of the woman coupled with the shotgun she gripped. Similarly it was impossible to read their expressions, but more than one body tensed. They, like her, recognized this place for what it was.
"A Danaversian base," Maris growled.
"Don't worry, there's no frogs here," Uruk was leading the way. "Abandoned a long time ago. Fill 'em in, Numiya."
"This was an air defense base during the Thirteenth Danaversian War, under House Traditus," the kitsune explained, voice Alversian accented. "At the end of the Thirteenth they started the civil war by rejecting the treaty with AXIS and declaring Emperor Chankost XI a heretic. House Guppuran invaded Malthana against them and Traditus evacuated this station to bring its troops and elite Congar fighters to the front. We're interested in this place because of what it did during the war." He pointed up at the closest tower. "Those used to house surface-to-air missile platforms."
By that point they'd trudged through the snow to the first building and Yo was relieved to get inside. Even with the hood up, mask on and thermals operating the wind was frigid, and the walls made it bearable as they all piled through the door. It was hardly warmer inside than out excepting for the wind, with the interior dark and dry as the shadows of rushing snow played across the floor through the windows. As her eyes adjusted she saw that they'd come into a foyer area with a barracks just beyond. A large, empty room with nothing in it but a bare armory locker in the back was to their left, followed by a passageway down the middle while the right was full of drained pools in the floor.
"What kind of weapons did they store here, tank cannons?" Maris was looking at the locker. "That locker looks big enough for a body or two."
"Anti-air missile launchers. Big ones."
"Are those Dan hatcheries?" Graham had flipped up his mask to look the other way, but he looked like he was considering pulling it back down again at the sight.
"Relaxation pools," Numiya was already walking down the hall. "Strictly for officers. Probably kept them to get in quickly after being outside, I doubt this climate agrees with them. They'd let their personal slaves wash them down in swamp water, pick the parasites off them and massage them. Their C.O. might even have had a Danaversian female to tend to him, if he was strong and lucky."
Necole laughed. "It's like a spa for frogs."
"This will be our base for the duration," Uruk was saying. "Nolan, get the generator out of the
Clipper, we need some heat in here. Everyone else, bed down wherever you feel like. Numiya says this place was made for a company-sized force so there's plenty of room." The kitsune himself disappeared through a side door, and when she glanced through Yo say he'd claimed a vast officer's quarters for himself.
After putting her duffel down in one of the spare quarters Yo found Numiya in what passed for the kitchen of the barracks. It took her a moment to realize that all the dusty glass tanks must have once held whatever creatures the Danaversians ate for food. The kitsune was rooting around under a counter, stacking packs of some sort of stringy, deep green plant onto one of the tables. "Kelpi," he explained, coming up with another package. "Danaversian field rations. It's actually quite good in a stew."
"You never finished telling us why this place is so important."
He stood, folding his parka in his arms. "You would be the only one who hasn't gotten the full story by now. This is the base that shot down an Alversian transport during the closing days of the war. It was extracting a group of Black Falcons who'd just assassinated a Traditus admiral to keep his task force paralyzed here. The base detected it leaving and hit it with a volley of missiles, and it crash-landed on the summit of this mountain. The naval flotilla backing them up managed to rescue the survivors and recover the dead, but they couldn't collect all of their equipment. Uruk got a lead on some of their weapons that never made it back. It's here somewhere, and he wants to find it."
"Black Falcons..." Yo folded her arms. The Black Falcons were the People's Republic elite special operations unit, on the level of Setulanite Ghosts or Xiscapian Ascians. It was said that there was only about two hundred of them at any given time in the entire nation. The idea of facing one of them would give even her pause. "They never came back?"
"Too badly needed elsewhere. They probably figured that it was all lost, and the Danaversians have no idea that there's anything here. But we do."
There was a footfall and Uruk stepped inside. He jerked his head at Yo. With a nod to Numiya, she followed her old business associate back to his room.
"Glass of ocean wine?" he asked once the door had shut, holding up a sea-green bottle.
"Trying to poison me? Stuff tastes like pond scum. I don't know how Numiya even eats that kelpi shit."
"It's awful, but I'm saving all the good stuff for the end," he laughed and tossed the bottle aside to shatter in the garbage hole. Most of the room had recesses for storage rather than furniture, cubbies cut out of the walls and spaces with empty racks that had no doubt been for weapons. The bed looked and smelled like it was made of moss. Tail swishing, Yo stepped over to look at one of the things that had been left behind, a cup that looked like it had been made out of a Danaversian's skull with opals shoved into the various holes. She couldn't decide if this had been an honored enemy or a particularly foolish subordinate.
"I bet they left in a hurry. I wouldn't leave something like this behind."
"You want it? Take it. I'll buy something a lot prettier when this is through."
She put the skull under one arm and turned around. "Numiya was good enough to fill me in. Unlike you."
"Hey, I've filled you in plenty of times."
Yo was unamused. "On what this whole thing is about. So you can save your breath. Thanks for the cup." She made for the door.
"It's not that." He smiled, shaking his head. "I did some poking around on Graham's ship. Turns out he's been talking with some friends in the Talon Band. They're a local pirate group, Zillar, connected with Shadow Cell." Shadow Cell was part terrorist group, part spy ring, working on behalf of the Zillar Stratocracy. "Needless to say, they've taken an interest in what's going on down here."
Turning around, she scowled. "I knew I didn't like that one. When are they coming?"
"From what Graham suggested they're going to wait until they know we have the weapons, then swoop down and grab them. Off our dead bodies, if we're lucky."
She cracked her knuckles. "Want me to kill him?"
"No, he still might have his uses. And I'm not sure that he doesn't have other friends."
"What do you mean?"
"I already told you I don't know that Maris woman. She insisted on coming out to Malthana beforehand, supposedly to scout it out. That's a lot of time and money spend for a merc just to see that a shithole is a shithole. Even Necole is a little off."
"I think she's realizing she just made a mistake in coming here."
"I didn't actually think she'd follow me." There was almost a pained look in his eyes. "One night I joked that she should come on the expedition, seeing how there's only one rock-hard thing I know how to deal with. Might break my neck otherwise. But she liked the idea, and I couldn't say no. But she's no merc or smuggler or whatever the rest of us are."
"You're worried she might sell us out. Tell the cops or something."
Uruk gave her a look. "I'm worried that she'll get hurt. But...yeah, that too. She's in way over her head, and she might try to get out of it."
"Do you trust
anyone you hired?"
"Numiya's just after what's his. Apparently he did time plus a dishonorable discharge for shooting some Ferran officer in the face when he was with the 610th. Lost all his benefits and pension. Hell if I can tell what Nolan's ever thinking. But he's got that starved, gaunt look I've only ever seen from desperate men. So I trust a sniper ex-con, a hungry, angry man and a homicidal thug of a business associate as much as you can trust any of those people."
Yo smiled. "You find the best people, Uruk."
"Don't remind me. Look, all I'm telling you is, watch your back. I'm pretty sure half of them would push you over a cliff to get a bigger share of the money, and the other half wouldn't stop them."
"I'll be careful." She opened the door.
"Good. I need somebody I can count on to be a vengeful, bloody bitch on
my side. We move at dawn."
----
It was still snowing lightly when they set out the next morning. With much of the fog gone Yo could see that the base was set on a cliff, with steep slopes above and below. Mountains rose up all around, peaking further than she could see, and they didn't seem to have bases so much as they faded into chasms below. "We are astride infinity," Necole said, and the vixen just rolled her eyes. All she saw was death. One misplaced foot or hand and no one would ever find the bodies.
"We can't risk a big heat signature that the Dans might pick up, so we're on foot," Uruk said as they gathered at the bottom of the slope. "Necole estimates fifteen hours to the crash site if all goes well."
"You should probably let me stay with the ship," Graham told him. "You guys might need a speedy pickup if something goes wrong up there."
"If something goes wrong then we come back down the same way we went up, one way or another." Uruk's mask was down, but Yo knew he was grinning. "You bring the ship up there and they will know, I guarantee it. It'll all be for nothing if we bring them down on us."
"At least let me pick you all up once you have the stuff. Save you a climb back down."
"Doesn't change a thing. The buyer's meeting us at the base and they won't like it if we bring a patrol of frogs as a welcoming gift."
The Zillar shifted where he stood. "I'm not afraid of no Dans."
"Y'know, the way you talk, it's almost like you don't want to make the climb with us. You know something we don't, Graham?" The tod's tone was light, but Yo smelled the knifepoint there.
"Fine." Graham knew when he was defeated. "But don't complain to me on the way back down."
"Don't worry about it."
The incline was steep but it was level enough for them to at least trudge up the mountain's face. There was nothing but endless white interspersed with gray rock here and there, without so much as a dead tree to compete with the cold emptiness. For what seemed like the hundredth time, Yo wondered why anyone would bother fighting over it all when the whole planet seemed to be this way. She tuned her commlink to Numiya. "What do the clans want with this place anyway? I've never seen a freighter go either way in orbit so I don't think it's resources."
"It's not. Malthana was strategically valuable once, when there were fleets stationed here. The civil war knocked those out. Now I think the clans are just fighting to save face. Retreat isn't the Danaversian way, so they'll keep throwing armies at each other until one of them can't anymore. It doesn't matter that this place is worthless."
"Fuck's sake."
"As long as they don't bother us I don't give a damn what they do," Uruk broke in.
They came to their first real obstacle soon enough. The icy wall seemed to loom suddenly out of the gray, stretching upwards at an angle until its heights were lost in the fog, craggy and pockmarked by untold millennia of storms. Necole took the lead readily enough, stepping up to examine the rock face. "Climbable," she announced after a moment. "You all need to follow my lead like we're going in single file. Put your hands where my hands go and your feet where my feet go, nowhere else. It's going to be slippery, but our climbing claws should help and there's plenty of hand and footholds, so we're lucky in that. Don't be afraid to stop if the wind feels too strong or if you get tired. Better delayed than dead."
The Alversian started up first, a coil of rope, hammer and a bag of pitons on her waist. Maris went after her, then Uruk, Numiya, Nolan, Graham and finally Yo. Watching the Zillar grunt and grumble his way up above her, she imitated him as he was copying everyone up to Necole, hands where he put them and feet the same. It seemed like they'd only climbed a few feet before the wind tore at them, howling and lashing like it was screaming at their intrusion, and she was forced to stop as Graham clung to the side of the mountain, cursing Uruk and Necole and all the rest. Those bitter blasts of air cut right through her despite all the heating technology, and it wasn't long before she was swearing at him herself, wishing he'd move if only so she could work a heat back up.
It was slow, hard going even so, and they stopped frequently as Necole searched for the safest way through or someone ahead had to take a breather. Clambering up in fits and starts, Yo had to admit that the side of this nameless, Emperor-forsaken mountain wasn't like anything she'd ever seen before. She clambered over tiny shelves that held icicles as big as she was, crawled up the surface of ice sheets so deep and old that their glazed innards were twisted around stones that gleamed and shimmered and once passed beneath a frozen waterfall, a great stream of water suspended in midair as a clear, crystallized arm stretching out from the side of the mountain. It had its perils too: cracks wide enough to swallow a whole arm or leg, jagged outcroppings that had to be scaled to leave her hanging in the air as she pulled herself over them and a nearly constant rain of ice shards and pebbles from the others above. Once someone shouted and she watched a rock the size of her head dislodge itself and tumble past so close she could have touched it, plummeting down into the fog. She never heard it hit bottom.
Her muscles were burning when Numiya called down, and it took her a moment to understand what he was saying. "Halt. Halt. Now. Nobody move." Graham froze above her and she did the same, claws half buried into a plane of ice, ears flicking inside her hood as she looked up. Then she heard it, the high, burbling thrum of thrusters, and even her tail stopped moving, drawn between her legs as she moved only her eyes. The ship appeared out of the fog for just an instant, showing its curved, spiny shape for maybe a second before it was gone, the sound fading as quickly as it had come. For a long, tense moment no one moved, or spoke, or even seemed to breath.
"That was a Congar," Graham said. "Uruk, you fuck, you said there wasn't any frog activity in this area!"
"There isn't. I mean, there's not supposed to be."
"Do they know we're here?" The tinge of fear in Necole's voice was unmistakable.
"Can't be," Numiya was as calm as ever. "If they did they would have blasted us off the mountainside."
"Maybe they were Guppuran?"
"They were. That was their house sigil on the side. They still would have shot at us if they knew. We're here illegally, remember, and Danaversians are known for being the shoot first and never ask questions types. Even the pro-treaty clans."
"Let's keep moving." Uruk sounded as confident as ever, but Yo knew he was shaken. "Thirty six hours, people."
Her HUD told her that it was late afternoon when they finally pulled themselves over a great granite shoulder that stuck out of the side of the mountain, but nothing about her surroundings seemed to have changed. It was still windy, gray and unbearably cold. The shoulder was black and slick and cracked with little ridges and holes, but it was shielded from the wind and it was more-or-less flat, so that was where Uruk called for camp. The seven spread out over the stone, staking their claims to various spots though no one went too far from the center. Even Yo didn't want to be sleeping too close to the edge, and it was warmer when you huddled closer to other bodies.
"We made better time than I thought we would," Necole said as they sat in a close circle, a ring of bulky, faceless ghosts in white. "I thought an uncharted mountain like this and a team of inexperienced climbers would make things slower, but I've gotten to the top of worse than this on Pascen and you lot follow directions better than most of my tourists." Yo reluctantly lifted her mask to get at a nutrient bar, grimacing at the sting of the cold as she wolfed down her meager meal. Uruk had forbidden any kind of heat source from heat lamp to old-fashioned fire. No one else seemed much inclined to talk.
"So we cut down on the time a bit?"
She nodded. "If we keep this up we should hit our destination mid tomorrow morning."
"Right. Well, we couldn't have done it without you, so as far as I'm concerned you should get some rest. Maris, Numiya, you're on first watch. Yo and Nolan, second. Graham and I will take third."
It didn't take long for the those not on watch to climb into their tents and pull their parkas over their heads, Yo included. Inside the tent and under her parka sleeping bag she could almost remember what it felt like to be warm, but as she curled up the kitsune found herself staring into the darkness. The anger that was always with her coiled in her chest, ignoring the cold and the way her muscles ached, and as usual she dealt with it without questioning where it came from. Her hands curled into fists with a nearly inaudible whir of servomotors and she glared at nothing. "I'm not afraid," she said, though she had no idea who she was saying it to.
----
It seemed like just a minute later that she was sitting up without knowing why. The tent flap had lowered, letting in a wave of cutting air, and Maris was framed as a black shape against the outer darkness. She laughed when she saw Yo. "Good instincts. You're up for second watch. Leave a warm spot for me?"
Outside Nolan was already sitting on an upraised stone, staring up the slope, and Yo settled beside the mute Ferran. The anger snapped inside of her again. "Why in all the spawn pits of Danaversia do we need a watch anyway? If it's Congars he's worried about then there's not much we can do. Just warn everyone so we can have enough time to scream before we die." She wished she'd picked up a bottle somewhere.
As if he'd read her thoughts, Nolan held out a small flask. Staring at it, she glanced up at him. The man looked at her, expression unreadable even with his mask open, then turned his dark eyes back up the slope. Taking the flask, Yo tossed her head back, pulled her mask aside and took a swing. It was watery and burned all the way down in the way that only moonshine could, but it made her feel warm. She handed the can back, and he took some himself. She wondered if he liked it because he didn't have a tongue to taste how bad it was.
A minute passed without reaction to her outburst before he turned back. When he "spoke" the voice came from his wrist, synthesized and without emotion. "
Uruk says that you were once in the Syndicate with him," he tapped out.
Ears twitching, she stared at him for a moment. "Yeah," she said finally. "What about it?"
"
Why did you leave?"
Her plume swished within its folds. "Why do you want to know?"
"
I'm considering joining."
His bluntness surprised her. That was unusual for a Ferran. "There's better people to talk to than me. Uruk, for example. He can point you in the right direction."
"
But I know his story. I do not knows yours." Nolan's eyes were black pools. "
If you tell me, I will tell you how I lost my tongue. It is fair."
She hadn't asked, but it was better than just sitting there in silence. "Fine. It's nothing dramatic, though. Too many rules." She shrugged, broad shoulders moving underneath her parka. "I ran with a street gang as a kit, back when there was such a thing as street gangs in the Empire. Before the Syndicate and the cops wiped them out. I crack heads because I'm good at it. But the Syndicate runs itself like a business. It's right in their damn code of conduct. 'Have meetings to resolve conflicts' and 'don't drink too much' and 'be businesslike and personable' and all this other shit. I mean, they say right in the code that if the cops come for you and you can't get away then you give yourself up unless they're trying to kill you. Or the part where you're supposed to hold a legitimate job," she spat. "If I wanted all that shit and a boss I'd go join the military."
"
Did they kick you out?"
"I left before they could. Made sure to keep on good terms with them and all, of course. You don't piss off Syn, at least not in Imperial space, especially not if you had ties to them. They know where you live. So if they need work done I do it, but on my terms, as an Associate. It works."
"
Uruk says they all consider each other brothers and sisters. Like a family."
"I guess. Was never a fan of that ether. Just love and tolerate that fucker in the suit even if you can't stand her stupid face. Fuck her."
"
It is better than most gangs."
She glanced at him. "Like Terminus?"
"
Yes." His fingers stopped for a moment, and he stared up into nothing. "
I was like most Ferrans after the war. Hungry, confused, doing whatever I could to survive. This was in the later days, after the Alversians stopped trying to prop up the provisional government and just annexed the planet. One night I was walking back from the yards when I saw two men loading garbage bags into the back of a van. They were bodies. They saw me, and my hand went to my holster. I had carried a pistol just like everyone else, but this was after the Alversians took over and confiscated all of our guns, so I had nothing. I tried to run, but they chased me down. They cut out my tongue, sliced my hamstrings and left me in the street. I could hear them taking bets on how long I would be able to crawl. I think it went up to fifty Sedar for twenty meters."
Someone brave enough to stop picked me up, or at least that's what the doctors told me. I don't remember. I was in a hospital when I came to. They fixed my legs, but they couldn't do anything about my tongue. The gangers didn't see fit to leave me with it. I left as soon as I could and went to a different city. I couldn't pay the medical bills, and I knew Terminus would be looking for me. Uruk found me at the docks."
Yo was quiet for a long time. "And now you're here."
"
Yes. It got me out of reach of Terminus. And I hope, maybe with the money from this, I can find a replacement for my tongue. I hate speaking like this. But I do want to go home, and I know that the Syndicate is much more powerful than Terminus. Perhaps what I do here will impress them."
She gestured for the flask again, and he handed it over. "If you're fine with rules, why not just go to the Alversians? They've got plenty. Could make you a cop, or even a soldier."
"
Most of the police on Ferra are corrupt. One way or another they die nearly as often as the gangers. And do you think the Alversian military would ever take the likes of me?" He pointed to himself. "
I will have a criminal past now, which they will probably find out about. I don't think I could pass their basic training anyway, with their standards. No. I won't fight for the people who took my own ability to fight for myself away from me. They left me for dead as much as those gangers did."
"If that's how you feel about it." She gave the flask back, but despite her words she could feel that rage that never left where it tightened in her breast. "I could probably put in a good word for you with-"
A scrape of metal on rock from above and Yo's ears twisted at the noise. Sniffing the air, she tensed, one hand pressing her mask down again. Her HUD's sensors found the forms just as her eyes did, highlighting them on infrared: two shapes picking their way down the slope. Nolan was looking at her, unaware, but at least he couldn't shout when she dragged him to the ground beside her. Putting an unnecessary finger to his lips, she narrowed her eyes, never having looked away from the intruders.
There was no mistaking Danaversians. Their size at eight feet high was one thing, and that distinctive iron-black armor marked them for soldiers, as if they could expect to find any other kind of Danaversian. Both had rifles slung across their backs, leaving their hands free to keep their balance as they picked their way down the slope with all the gracelessness expected from the giant amphibians thoroughly out of their element. They hadn't seen them yet, since the little camp had no lights, but sooner or later they'd blunder right into it. Baring her teeth at them, she tapped Nolan.
"I'll take the one on the right, you get the one on the left," she didn't take her eyes off the enemy. "Don't bother trying to take 'em alive."
They'd just gotten level with the camp when she launched herself at the leading alien on the right. Boots slapped against stone and she slammed into him with a yell, putting her shoulder into him with both arms wrapping around his waist. He had three feet and a couple hundred pounds on her, but the Danaversian stumbled back as she drove him, caught off guard. He'd only just gotten his wits about him when she hooked her climbing claws into his gut and thrust up with a bellow, bodily flinging him into the air, and the darkness swallowed him in a second as he went sailing over the edge, scream fading. Blood dripping from her claws, she turned back.
Nolan was standing over his Danaversian, a Calidum blaster in one hand. The weapon had left three smoking holes in the amphibian's torso, and Yo saw that the soldier had never even managed to get his rifle unlimbered. Lights flared behind him and they both turned to see Uruk trotting up with a flashlight, the rest of the group not far behind. "Fucking hell," the Xiscapian exclaimed when he saw the corpse. Numiya knelt by the body, checking it while Maris stepped past, looking up the slope. Graham, however, turned to Uruk.
"You said there was no military around here. You said we'd never even see a Dan. What the fuck is this then?" The smuggler kicked the dead Danaversian.
"I don't know." His voice had gone flat. "Nolan, Yo?"
"They came down the incline," the Ferran said. "Yo threw the other one off the mountain."
"They're Traditus," Numiya stood from where he'd been inspecting the trooper.
"You said no Dans, you fucker," Graham stabbed a finger at Uruk's chest, with an edge of hysteria. "You fucking liar. You knew they were going to be here but you came anyway-"
"Yo."
She took Graham by the shoulder. "Get off of me," he tried to shrug her off, and a quick pivot sent the Zillar sprawling onto the rock. Grunting, he rolled onto his side, going to rise and she was there, standing in front of him with her fists balled, past ready. She looked up at Uruk. All it would take was a nod and there'd by a third corpse on the mountain.
But Uruk was looking down at Graham. The others were gathered in a loose circle, looking at one or the other, tense. "I didn't know they would be here. The information I bought was solid. This has to be a recent development, I wouldn't have come otherwise." Shaking his head, he looked around at the others. "But I'm not turning around now. We made it this far. I'm getting what I came for."
"Fuck that," Graham struggled to his feet, though he was watching Yo warily. "I'm getting the hell out of here."
"You think you can climb your way back down and make it out without getting shot down?"
The smuggler deflated almost visibly. "I better be getting a bigger cut for this shit."
"I told you, don't worry about it. You'll get what you're owed." The tod looked past Yo to Numiya. "Go with Necole up the slope. There's bound to be more Dans. I want to know where they are and what they're doing."
"Understood." The old soldier and the Alversian vanished into the darkness.
"You two watch the perimeter," he told Yo and Maris. "If they come down on us I'm not dying without a fight."
But the only ones who came back down were Numiya and Necole, appearing out of the night as suddenly as they'd gone after twenty minutes. "There's a camp of them on a cliff up above," the kitsune said. "Estimate a unit of twenty or so, minus the two dead. They were probably scouting. Most of them look to be asleep, but they've posted sentries."
"What I couldn't figure out is what they're doing here," Necole said. "There's nothing up here except the crash site. Were they looking into it?"
"I doubt it," Uruk said, but Yo smelled the edge there. "Maris, get over here."
Once the Setulanite had joined them he looked between her, Numiya and Yo in turn. "I'm not turning back, so I need to know what our options are for going forward. Can we sneak past them?"
"I doubt it," Numiya shook his head. "The camp takes up most of the slope, and it won't be long before they notice that their scouts haven't returned. They'll be on alert by the time we're ready to move."
"What about fighting our way through?" Yo cracked her knuckles.
"There's only seven of us," Maris pointed out. "Three with real combat ability. I know you and Graham are fair shots and Nolan can handle a blaster, but Necole's dead weight. We've got a shotgun, rifle and a handful of pistols and grenades between us, versus twenty or so of them at least, and if we attacked it would be from uphill. We might kill a good number of them, but they'd overwhelm us."
"Could an ambush work?" Uruk asked. "Hit them once they start moving down the slope?"
"Not much in the way of hiding places. I guess we might be able to get ourselves onto the sides of the shoulder once we knew they were coming, hoist up once they passed and hit them from behind, but that doesn't change the lack of cover up here. They'd shoot us up, or worse close in and then we'd all die."
"Cause an avalanche?" Necole suggested from where she'd been listening in. "I saw them do it in an old Gerral war movie once. Shoot a rifle at a mountain and dislodged a whole sheet of snow to bury the Danaversian army underneath."
"And what about us?" Maris snorted. "It's not like it would just stop when it got to us."
"We could sneak in," Yo nodded to the other two soldiers. "Just the three of us. Kill them all while they're asleep and vulnerable."
"There's four guards though," Numiya looked back up the slope, as if he could see the sentries. "Each of us could take one down silently, but I don't think any of us could get two before they sounded the alarm. Like I said, no cover. As soon as one goes down the others will know unless they're being taken at the same time. Could take somebody else with us, but I don't think anyone else is trained for this kind of sneaking and silent killing." Uruk just shook his head.
"You said there's four of 'em. How are they positioned?" Yo prompted.
"There's one at either side of the cliff and two in the middle," he knelt down and drew a line in the circle, marking the perimeter and where the guards stood along it. "The outer ones are patrolling steadily, but these middle two have a heat lamp they're sharing. It's easy enough to wait until the outer two come into range and hit them, but one or another of the middle two is going to know about it when they and his buddy go down. It only takes one of them to sound the alarm and bring the rest running."
"I can take the middle two."
She couldn't see Numiya's eyes behind the mask, but he was staring along with Maris and Uruk. "Is that a fact?" the black Setulanite demanded.
Yo looked at her. "You want a demonstration, bitch?"
"Just go demonstrate on them," Uruk broke in before things could get ugly. "If Yo says she can then she can. I don't question her when it comes to violence. Just get them out of my way, whatever you have to do."
"They're as good as fucked."