Mitsu's next coherent thought, after recognizing the flek, was that more of them would come through, or perhaps had already, and were skulking about in the shadows beyond this chamber. These caverns could already be teeming with them. She had to destroy the grid before this world was overrun. Then she had to notify Heyoka and Dennehy.
Flash. Already, the strobing light was burned into her optic nerves so that she saw it even with her eyes closed. Something seemed to lurk in the spaces between each burst, sinister and fierce, waiting to pounce. Flash.
Ears ringing from the ever-rising hum, she glided forward, pistol trained on the flek. She had trouble following the creature's movements between one flare and the next. Flash. It was like seeing a holo with strips cut out of each scene so that a portion of the visual information was missing. As far as she could tell, though, the flek wasn't armed. She should take it captive after she'd destroyed the grid. Flash.
No, kill it! her mind insisted. There's no point in hauling it back to the surface. Flek never talk! They just turn themselves off, when they're captured, so all you have left is a corpse! It's not worth the risk!
She fired. Flash. Melted compound burst from the wall to the right; she'd missed, and badly. Her target jerked back, then disappeared into the passage beyond. She would have to go in after it.
Flash. Her heart thudded against her chest and she felt sick. Finish the job, she told herself and willed her hands to stop shaking. Blast the crystals, then take care of the flek. There was no time to go back and receive orders. Flash. No time.
She leveled the pistol, tried to squeeze the trigger, but could not. Had the safety reengaged? She checked. Flash. The indicator light glimmered green: Safety off. She raised the pistol and sighted in on one of the shimmering columns. It was so beautiful, like a shaft of living blue light, flowing from the floor almost all the way up to the ceiling. Flash. What right had something so menacing to also be beautiful? The breath rasped in and out of her straining lungs; her throat constricted and her vision tunneled in. She braced her firing hand with the other, which shook just as badly. It doesn't have to be neat, she told herself. Just do it!
The pistol bucked and she stumbled back. Flash. A puddle of slag appeared in the white building compound of the opposite wall, far to the left of the crystalline column at which she'd been aiming. She stared down at her hand. She was an expert marksman, ranked close to the top in her training class. True, she'd been out of action for most of the past year, but even a two-year-old couldn't have missed at that range!
Flash. She raised her hand and fired again. Her arm swung wide and the shot melted the cave floor, sending drops of molten stone flying. She threw the pistol away and sank to her knees, head spinning.
This was her worst nightmare. She wasn't in control. Something lurking deep inside would not let her do this, some part she thought she'd eradicated through months of excruciating therapy. They insisted she'd plumbed the depths of what the flek had done to her, but it had all been a lie. Flash. She was never going to be her old self again, never wear a Ranger uniform and return to battle alongside her mates. She was damaged goods, tainted, unfit for human or hrinnti company, unable even to trust herself.
Flash. She glanced over at the tunnel where the enemy had fled. At least she could track the bastards and ascertain if Montrose and Onopa were still alive. Even if she was unable to kill flek, she might be able to do that much.
Her useless sidearm lay on the floor, the metal shimmering in the fierce blueness. She stowed it in her holster so that she could pass it on to someone who still had all her marbles, someone who would be able to use it to annihilate flek as it was intended.
Heyoka guarded the cavern entrance after Dennehy and the three human recruits returned to base camp. The heat settled around him like a smothering blanket, so that his fur seemed thick with it, while, overhead, unfamiliar stars paraded slowly across the green-black sky. A night creature squalled in the nearby rain forest and he shivered.
This world was far from Old Earth, where he'd been raised, and even farther from Anktan. He thought of the ongoing battle that raged out there in the depths of space where night always prevailed, the alien worlds transformed beyond all recognition because flek preferred their planets blistering hot, their atmosphere toxic and laced with heavy metals.
Kei had every right to resent being kept out of that battle. He resented it himself. Too much was at stake for the hrinn to go on playing at war. They were extraordinary warriors, when you took into consideration their obvious physical advantages combined with the ability to blueshift. Humanity should accept them as they were, and not insist on pointless rules and military courtesies, but he could see now he was never going to convince High Command of that.
He bent forward and sampled the air emerging from the vine-obscured hole. The vines quivered at his nearness. Mitsu's scent lingered, along with the rest, but it was all stale. Something must have gone wrong. No matter what it might have cost, he should never have let her go down there alone. Being a civilian was far better than being dead.
He keyed her com code, but there was no answer. The night breeze, redolent of the sea, blew his ruff back the wrong way as he got to his feet and paced, trying to work out his next move. Even though the noise would make it hellish for a hrinn down there, he couldn't wait for the investigative team to arrive. By the time they got here, nothing would be left to find but her dead body.
His com crackled. "Blackeagle?"
"Yes?"
"Dennehy here. I just had an update from the ship. The front at Bala Cithni has collapsed. The Fourth Fleet has received orders to fall back to Sigur Prime."
"But—" Heyoka's mind whirled with the implications. "That would leave Aldus and Maennar Three unprotected, as well as—"
"Oleaaka," Dennehy finished. "The shuttle crew is going through their preflight checks. We have to be ready to evacuate in two hours in order to board the Marion before it leaves orbit."
Heyoka threw back his head, stared up at the stars. It would take him at least thirty minutes to make his way back to camp from this point. That left very little time to find his squad.
"Any sign of your people?"
"No, sir," Heyoka said. "I'm going in after them."
"Permission denied!" Dennehy barked. "I'm not losing you too. Return to camp. We'll make every effort to contact them. If we can't, they'll have to survive on their own until we can swing back this way."
That meant his troops would be trapped behind the lines, Heyoka thought numbly. As Rangers, they were trained to make the best of a situation like this, but the last time the flek had held this world, they'd set their environmental engines into action and wreaked havoc upon the local ecology. Five of the six islands still were uninhabitable, even after all these years. If the flek came back and tried again, this time they would most likely succeed.
"Yes, sir, I'll find them," he said into the com, as though reception had been poor and he'd misunderstood, then switched off. Even so, he could almost hear Dennehy's splutter of indignation at the other end.
No matter. He wasn't about to desert his troops. He'd rather die first. The fierce hrinnti other inside his head approved. They were huntmates. Such could never be abandoned without losing honor. But then, he thought, it was always on the side of action over prudent restraint. Perhaps he should listen to it more often.
He climbed down the ladder and headed into the tunnel. They might all get out of here in one piece, if he hurried.
Aliki Onopa scrambled higher and higher up the loose rock of a cliff face until her pursuers fell back. The laka were of a burly body type, their trunks reminiscent of a chunky pony still bred on her home world, Kalana Colony, though the ponies, of course, lacked the four arms. They couldn't have negotiated this type of terrain either.
After she ascended out of reach, they milled around below at the foot of the cliff and watched her with those unnerving pale eyes. Climbing, apparently, was not one of their skills. Unfortunately, they had caught up with Montrose, though she had hopes that he was still alive; she'd heard him swearing a blue streak as they'd carried him off.
At the top, she pulled herself up onto the long, wiry grass, then sat on her heels. A strand of her long black hair came loose in the breeze and played around her face. She brushed it back impatiently. The night was longer on this world than Kalana. According to her internal clock, it felt close to dawn, but that was still at least a good six hours off. She keyed her com to ask for orders. It crackled ominously. Perhaps the satellite was down, or perhaps it would function if she put more distance between herself and the flek grid.
She weighed her options—return to camp and report to Blackeagle, or follow Montrose, either to release him, if opportunity arose, or pinpoint his location for later retrieval. Both options had strengths and weaknesses. After a moment's reflection, she decided to track Montrose. It might be difficult to find him later, and the natives were obviously not as harmless as everyone had supposed. After all, they had routed the flek all those years ago. There might just be more to them than HQ realized.
According to the briefings, the sole laka habitation on this island lay northwest of the flek ruins. She slipped into the trees, knife drawn, using the scant starlight to navigate around the cliff and work her way back down. The dark spine of the mountains loomed behind her, while before her the moon-silvered sea glittered an opalescent blue-white all the way to the horizon. Unfamiliar night-blooming flowers had opened fleshy white petals and were emitting a cloying sweet scent.
Onopa wiped at her eyes, which were beginning to tear. She must be allergic to this stuff. She detoured around another bed, then spotted a faint trail which led in the right direction. Perhaps the laka and Montrose had already come this way. She—
A bright light flared less than twenty feet away, and she thought for a moment she had found the rest of the squad. But this light was an intense emerald green, where coldlanterns would have been white, and this was brighter than a hundred coldlanterns anyway. She shaded her dazzled eyes. "Blackeagle?"
A hand reached out of the light and seized her left wrist. She slashed at it with her knife, but then another hand grabbed her and squeezed hard enough to make her drop the weapon. "Who are you?" She had an impression of pink eyes watching her from a mauve face. "I just want my companion back," she said. "Then we'll leave. We don't want to hurt anyone."
The light, she saw, now that her eyes were adjusting, was cast by a huge tree. Tiny ovals of green light shifted with the breeze. Had they hung lanterns of some sort? If so, why so many and how had they lit them all at once? This world had no tech. She squinted, trying to make out the source.
A soft alien voice murmured. Another answered, its tone sharp, as though the two argued. Sweat rolled down Onopa's back. She wrenched at her imprisoned wrists. If she could just reach her holstered pistol. Damn! She could have used a translator unit at the moment, but this had been just a training exercise, and the laka were supposed to be reclusive.
She dropped to her knees in the sandy grass to make herself as unthreatening as possible. The imprisoning hands held on, but she could see a bit more through the glare now, enough to know that it was the leaves themselves which were emitting the light, not lanterns or candles. "Montrose?"
"Onop—" His answer was abruptly cut off.
She struggled back onto her feet and was jerked forward, into the light and a warm tangle of laka bodies. They had a distinctive odor, not unpleasant, but she knew she would never forget it after this night. "Let me go!" she said as they hustled her into the trees. "No one will—"
She tripped on something and hit her head against an unseen trunk. The blow stunned her and she sagged in her captors' grip. They didn't even seem to notice and Onopa lapsed into foggy semiconsciousness as they dragged her away.
Mitsu emerged up out of the cavern entrance onto the side of a hill. The air was deliciously fresh after the dry staleness of the cave. Black rocks tumbled about made it all the harder to see, but it was obvious this had been recently excavated. None of the squad were in evidence. If they'd come through here, they must have gone back to camp.
As she probably should. There was little she could accomplish by herself now, except recon. But then the flek who had come through the grid would be free to lose themselves in the dense forest and mountains. On Anktan, she had been duped into fighting for them. At least this time she could lay down her life trying to prevent the loss of this world.
She swept the loose dirt around the rocks with her coldlantern and found it had been literally trampled, both by human boots and nonhuman feet. Clever bastards! They must have surprised Montrose and Onopa just outside the cave, overcome them and then dragged the bodies off, though there was no sign of blood. She stared off into the darkness, where green-black sky met the solid onyx of mountains at the horizon. The tracks leading away were quite clear. They obviously thought so little of their enemy they weren't even trying to hide.
Maybe the flek thought they had overcome all resistance in this area and were just doing a quick reconnoiter before returning through the grid. If that were true, then her best course would be to wait here for them to come back.
But the very thought of passively skulking on the hillside made her break out in a cold sweat. She had to do something, anything, follow them and kill their prisoners with her own gun before the enemy had the chance to go to work on them. They would be far better off dead. What the flek did to their captives was unspeakable.
When Heyoka knew, he would go after them too, she thought. He would never stop until he roasted them all to ashes, then counted the bodies twice. The memory of her abortive attempt to destroy the crystals flashed through her mind and she flinched. Don't think about that! she told herself. If you do, you won't be able to do what has to be done.
She set off into the darkness, pausing every few steps to check with the coldlantern and make sure she didn't lose the trail.
Fifteen minutes later, she glimpsed a blaze of light on the hillside, above and to the right of her. She crept forward, using stands of trees for cover. Her head ached, where she'd laid it open earlier, and her ribs protested at being abused again so soon.
Voices rose and fell, pitched too low for humans. She couldn't make out the words, but the cadence sounded flekish all right. She knew High-Flek only too well. It seemed to have been burned into her brain. She eased through the shadows, hoping her quarry didn't have better night vision than humans.
A human voice broke into the stream of alien words. Her heart raced. So at least one of the squad was still alive. She eased her pistol into her right hand, unslung her rifle from her shoulder and carried it in her left.
The timbre of the voices shifted, higher, more agitated. She fired a green laser bolt into the sky, low enough to show them that she meant business. "You are without function or purpose!" she called out in High-Flek. "Destroy yourselves immediately!" Then she changed position to prevent them from pinpointing her location.
The voices cut off so that she could hear the distant roar of the sea and nothing more. The green light, which seemed to be emanating from a large tree, faded abruptly, and she was left in total darkness.
This was stupid. She needed backup. She keyed her com. "Heyoka?" A muted crackle was all that answered.
"Dammit!" She wriggled into a better position, trying to get some idea of where the flek had gone. "Heyoka! I've found them!"
"Mitsu?" the com said faintly in Heyoka's voice.
"Get a fix on me," she said. "The flek have come through and taken Montrose and Onopa. I tracked them this far, but I'll have to wait for dawn to do anymore."
"Flek? Are you sure?" he said. "You've actually seen them?"
"Damn straight!"
"But I went down in the cave long enough to check the grid myself," he said. "I nearly burst my eardrums, but I didn't see anyone or anything."
She swallowed hard. "Look, I know a flek when I see one."
"It doesn't matter," he said. "I'm up here just outside the original entrance now, waiting, and we've all been ordered back to the ship. We have less than an hour before the shuttle lifts."
"I can't go back," she said, "not with flek here. You get someone down there to destroy those crystals before a whole flek division comes through."
"The front has shifted. Flek are sweeping back this way," Heyoka said and she heard the urgency in his voice. "Down here or up there in orbit, it doesn't make any difference now. They're going to be all over the place. We have to evacuate. Return to camp and that's an order!"
"What about Montrose and Onopa?"
"I'll handle it," he said. And then she knew, from the telltale catch in his voice, the second of hesitation. He had no intention of being on that shuttle himself. He would never abandon his command.
"Okay, then," she said and stared up at the night sky, the pinprick stars, indifferent and remote. "I'll head back, but don't wait for me."
"Mitsu," he said, "I want you on that shuttle!"
"I know." She removed the com button from her collar and stuffed it into her pocket. Heart racing, she pulled her knees up under her chin, braced her back against a tree trunk, and settled in to wait for dawn.
Night climbers chittered softly in the surrounding trees, and as always, in the background, was the insistent voice of the distant sea. The ground was damp and the smell of rain rode on the wind.
She had wanted things, herself, lots of times over the years, and hardly any of them ever came to pass. Life, it seemed, was shot through with disappointment. No one ever got her way. She understood that now.
Out of boredom, Kei was wrestling with Bey, humanstyle, just outside the camp when Major Dennehy came and stood over them. Kei looked up from the ground where he had his huntmate pinned. Bey stiffened with Kei's unsheathed claws pricking at his throat.
"Attention!" Dennehy was in no mood for horseplay.
The two hrinn untangled themselves and regained their feet, both saluting, Bey more quickly than Kei.
"The Confederation front at Bala Cithni has collapsed." Dennehy's hands were locked behind his back. "The flek have broken through and are sweeping this way."
An eager snarl escaped Kei. "Good! The pattern is making itself known. We will finally get to fight!"
"I don't know anything about so-called `patterns,' " Dennehy said. "But when you get to fight, it won't be here. We don't have enough men or equipment to make any sort of stand. We're evacuating in an hour. Private Bey, you will be in charge of the packing detail. Gather up the tents and foodstuffs so we'll be ready when the shuttle lands. It's best for the laka if we don't leave anything behind to make it look as though they collaborated with us."
Kei's ears flattened. "I am Leader!"
"No, what you are is insubordinate!" The gray-haired, stocky human whirled upon him, staring dangerously directly into his eyes. "You don't have the self-discipline to be a leader of any sort! Put yourself on report, then get busy and break down this camp!"
For a breath, Dennehy's life hung in the balance. Kei's claws ached to rip the human officer's throat out. He was short and soft, as well as old and slow. On Anktan, the old always fell to the young and fit, once superior experience no longer outweighed strength, and this would be the work of but a moment. Then the man turned and stalked away. Kei snarled with frustration.
Bey's ears flattened. "I will never understand humans. The enemy is coming here—to us—and they want to run away?"
"They do fight sometimes," Kei said. "I have seen the recordings and the Black/on/black has related many tales of battle."
Two of the humans, as well as Mitsu, were still down in the tunnels. The other three had come back with Dennehy. Besides them, only the six hrinnti trainees, the med, and the major were left in camp.
"Find Naxk, Visht, and the others," Kei said, assuming leadership, because, no matter what the major said, he was still biggest and strongest. He would be Leader until one of the others Challenged and bested him. "Have them pack up the camp, as ordered." He swiveled his head, sampling the Oleaakan wind. "I will find the Black/on/black and reason with him. He must make the major understand. Why should we leave this world when the time to fight has finally arrived?"