Warrior's Valor Read online

  “Are you saying that developers are defying Cormanian laws and working underneath us to create a foundation for a new tiered city?” Emeron stared at Dwyn, uncertain what to think. Surely she was merely making an educated guess.

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

  “And how would they achieve that?” Emeron brushed off her hands on her pants. “You couldn’t hide a tiered city right in the Disi-Disi forest.”

  “Oh, so you’re under the impression that someone trying to break Cormanian law is doing this?” Dwyn wrinkled her nose, and her expression showed clearly her disdain and cynicism. “The Cormanian government is actually our prime suspect. They could easily tunnel into the forest from outside, working in secret.”

  “That’s ridiculous. Why would the Cormanian government give you and your organization permission to investigate, if they were the guilty party?” Emeron was angry now.

  “Two reasons. Some people among your rulers possibly aren’t happy with these covert incursions of the Thousand Year Pact. Also, the Cormanian government initially denied my organization the right to investigate. Eventually, they had to concede, much to their annoyance, when the chairman of the SC Council intervened.” Dwyn shrugged. “Proves very handy to have connections in high places.”

  Flabbergasted and annoyed at Dwyn’s deductions, which seemed maddeningly plausible, Emeron thought of something acerbic to say. “I am here to uphold the law and to keep you safe. I personally think you are in more danger of being sued for spreading false allegations than anything else, but—”

  The air filled with a bright green light and the unmistakable scent of plasma-pulse fire. The air crackled, and Emeron reacted instantly. “Down!” She threw herself on top of Dwyn, knocking her sideways to the ground. “Keep your head low.” She pulled her sidearm and pressed the sensor, setting it to kill. “Who the hell is firing on us?”

  She glanced around and spotted something moving to their left. Two round objects hurled through the sky, which she recognized as floater bots. Law-Enforcement Command used them for surveillance. The first one twirled and emitted a plasma-pulse beam continuously, hitting tree trunks and shrubbery. Smoke billowed from the scorched plants. She yanked her communicator from her shoulder pad to her lips.

  “D’Artansis to Mogghy. We’re under attack. Where are you?”

  “Mogghy here. We’re five minutes behind you.”

  “So far no individuals, only floater bots.”

  “We see a few here too. They haven’t engaged us in combat.”

  “They might. Use caution.” Emeron tucked Dwyn under her arm, shielding her as she pulled her beneath a massive tree as the bots circled the clearing. She was infuriated that she hadn’t seen this attack coming.

  “What’s going on?” Dwyn gasped, peering through the dense branches.

  “Floater bots. Someone’s monitoring us.”

  “I’d say they’re doing more than that. Watch out.” Dwyn tugged Emeron toward her as one of the metal orbs hovered closer, its luminescent green rays scorching everything in its path.

  “Shh.” Emeron allowed herself to be pulled back. “Their audio sensors might pick up our location.”

  “Are they operating automatically, or are they remote controlled?” Dwyn whispered.

  “You tell me. From the way they’re moving, I’d say they’re fully automatic.” The bots swept back and forth throughout the clearing, farther and farther from where they hid. Emeron let a few seconds pass after the bots were out of sight, then took a careful step out from under the tree.

  Suddenly a movement to her left flickered at the outer perimeter of her field of vision. Emeron grabbed her plasma-pulse laser weapon and took aim, but too late. A bright, green ray pierced the air, and she heard, more than felt, it singe her left arm. Next, something incredibly forceful hit her lower abdomen. She landed on her back on the ground. The force of the impact created a vacuum in her lungs and she struggled to gasp for air.

  “Geoschad jam, Padmas. Geoschad, Padmas Briijn.” I am sorry, Grandmother. Sorry, Grandmother Briijn.

  The words tumbled over her stiff lips like a prayer before she attempted to raise her weapon again. When her arm failed a second time, she knew she wouldn’t make it. Her life-journey would end in this place, forsaken by all deities.

  Chapter Six

  “Emeron.” Dwyn watched in horror as the blast threw Emeron halfway across the clearing. As she darted toward Emeron’s dropped weapon and grabbed it with sweaty hands, she dared to glance at the motionless body in the grass. Breathing. Good.

  A humming, screeching sound behind her made her swivel and raise the plasma-pulse weapon. Her fingers slipped on the controls. Frantically, she managed to aim the weapon toward the closest bot—there were four—and shoot. The plasma-pulse reverberated through the heavy firearm and pierced the air with a distinct hum. She kept her trembling fingers on the firing controls as she clutched the weapon hard to keep it level.

  Dwyn squinted at the closest bot. It approached her on a steady trajectory and at first she thought she’d missed. Her heart beat furiously and sweat poured into her eyes, but she refused to blink it away, scared to let the machine out of her sight for a nanosecond. Suddenly it veered to the left and spun into a sapling. Smoke billowed from its openings and loose components cascaded in a circle around it.

  The next bot fired at her and Dwyn ducked, then lost her balance and fell to her knees next to Emeron. She risked another glance at the still body. Barely noticeable movements betrayed life in Emeron.

  “Hey, Emeron, can you hear me?” Dwyn yelled, hoping Emeron was coming to. She fired at the second bot repeatedly and watched it veer off and out of sight. It didn’t reappear, and she hoped she’d taken it out.

  “I could use some help here,” Dwyn shouted, but Emeron didn’t respond. Her heart raced even faster. Was Emeron seriously or, worse, terminally injured?

  She blazed repeatedly at the bots, hitting two more and transforming them into a cloud of smoke. A whining sound made her look up to her left. A fifth bot approached much faster than the others, and she knew, as she moved, that she couldn’t shoot quickly enough at this much-larger one. Red beams crackled repeatedly around her, and she acted without thinking. She threw herself sideways on top of Emeron and aimed above them, but missed.

  A roar near the smoking bots startled her and apparently the large one as well, which turned and directed its green scanning rays against this new threat. Rumbling loudly, Mogghy ran into the clearing, hoisting a shoulder-held plasma-pulse field weapon. “Over here, you piece of shit.” He fired and the impact tossed the large bot backward. It tumbled to the ground and rolled into thick shrubbery, where it exploded in a gush of sparks and metal parts.

  “Mogghy. Emeron’s hurt.” Dwyn crawled off the bleeding woman beneath her and looked in horror at the wounds in her lower abdomen and left arm.

  “Let me see. We have to get out of here. Whoever sent those damn bots has more up their sleeve.” Mogghy kneeled next to Emeron and pulled out a medical scanner. Running it along her, he sighed deeply. “Thank the stars. The pulse wasn’t deep enough to do any real damage. No head trauma either.”

  “But she’s unconscious.”

  Emeron’s husky voice startled them both. “Not anymore. You’re sitting on my hand, Dwyn.”

  She shifted hurriedly. “Sorry. How are you feeling?” She bent over Emeron and met her eyes. Emeron looked a little dazed, but she managed to sound as sarcastic as usual, which was probably a reassuring sign.

  “Sore. Mogghy. Make me well.” Emeron grimaced and shifted on the ground. “And let me sit up…oh.” She fumbled to get an elbow underneath herself, but only managed to sway to the side and land with her head on Dwyn’s lap.

  Dwyn instinctively wrapped her arms loosely around Emeron. “Hold on to me while he treats you. It won’t take long.”

  “Get on with it then, Mogghy,” Emeron muttered, turning her head toward Dwyn’s stomach. “And make it quick.�
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  “Yes, ma’am. Good to see you so chipper.” Mogghy winked at Dwyn as he pulled out another medical instrument. “You may feel a slight tingle. Tell me if it starts burning or hurting.”

  “All right, all right. I know how it feels to have a wound closed. Just do it. Hurry.”

  Mogghy sighed and ran the instrument over the wounded area in Emeron’s abdomen. “Have you seen this procedure before?” he asked Dwyn. “It’s the latest SC-issued derma fuser.”

  “I’ve seen older versions of a derma fuser, but nothing like this. Can you show me how it’s done? Next time, you may not be around.”

  “What do you mean, next time?” Emeron said. “It’s not like I have a habit of getting injured—”

  “Thou shall not speak the untruth.” Mogghy moved the instrument in small circles, about one centimeter above the skin. “You set the fuser alignment according to the size of the wound,” he told Dwyn. “The one on the left arm is a five. The one on her abdomen is a twelve. If the wound is deep, rather than wide, like here, you set this control to a slightly higher value. This sterilizes the wound at the same time as you repair it, lessening the risk of infection.” Mogghy closed the wound next to Emeron’s bellybutton, then handed the derma fuser to her. “Here. You do the one on the arm.”

  “What? Oh, stars, I’ll end up with a scar the size of the Maireesian fields.” Emeron shut her eyes.

  “Never mind the commander.” Mogghy grinned. “She always gets cranky when things like this happen.”

  “Mogghy…” Emeron spoke quietly. “Watch it.”

  Mogghy apparently knew when it was time to shut up.

  Dwyn moved the instrument in the same pattern she had observed Mogghy make. Slowly, the wound on Emeron’s arm healed.

  “Good, you’re a natural. It will be red at first, which is normal. Sorry, Commander. No scar to write home about.” Mogghy tucked the derma fuser away. “Let’s get out of here before they send new bots after us.”

  “No. We’re not leaving.” Emeron sat up and then stood, looking pale but in full control of herself. “That’s what the people behind the bots expect us to do. Instead, we’re going to build old-fashioned natural shelters to camouflage us. If we line the shelters with the same type of antisensor sheets we use to cover our vehicles, we can make them practically impenetrable for bot sensors. We’ll be invisible. Find trees no more than two years old, and cut them down. Don’t use your sidearms. They pollute too much. Use the axes in your survival kits.”

  “What about the rules?” Dwyn asked. “We’re not supposed to—”

  “Cut down trees for our own benefit,” Emeron snapped. “We’re saving our lives. That means more than any stuffy old rule.”

  “A rule that I’m sent here to protect.”

  “The rules were meant to keep people from ruining this forest for arbitrary reasons, or for greed. No one expects us to sacrifice our safety for a few trees.”

  Dwyn caught the long tresses of her hair that had escaped the metal-mesh chignon and tucked them back in. “Okay. Let’s get on with it then. I have to protect my samples.”

  “Now there’s an argument I should’ve thought of.”

  Emeron winked, which startled Dwyn into action. She hadn’t expected to see Emeron’s humorous side and was uncertain why such a nice trait in the stern officer would send tingles through her.

  “Don’t worry, Dwyn,” Mogghy said, and smiled broadly. “Oches and I will perform the killing of the trees. You won’t have to sacrifice the little plants yourself.”

  Normally, such a ribbing would have sent Dwyn into a scathing temper tantrum, but Mogghy’s smile was charming, and she suspected she had somehow earned his respect. Most likely for saving his commanding officer. “All right. I’ll mark out the best places to build the shelters.” She tried to sound casual. “I learned this the hard way in the protected rainforest on Earth.”

  “Fine.” Emeron glanced at her chronometer. “We have less than two hours before sundown, and something tells me there might be backup bots not far from here. We better move.” She turned as if to start walking back to the hovercraft. “Hey, Mogghy, nice.” She motioned toward the bots at the other end of the clearing.

  “Those? That wasn’t me. Thank Dwyn.”

  Emeron seemed speechless, then slowly bobbed her head. “I’m impressed. You saved us.”

  “Not really. I mean, not alone. Mogghy is being humble.” Dwyn’s cheeks warmed in the most annoying way. She fiddled with her chignon again, securing it firmer around her hair. “I’ll start clearing some ground over there. There are nine of us, so five shelters, right?”

  “No, just four. You’ll have to bunk with me. And until I can keep a personal eye on you again, take this. You obviously know your way around a weapon. I don’t want you to be without one of your own from now on.” She handed Dwyn a sidearm, smaller than the one she had fired earlier. “It’s my spare.”

  “Oh. Thank you.” Dwyn closed her fingers around the weapon. Emeron was right. She did feel safer, but it wasn’t just because of the plasma-pulse weapon. “I’ll take care of it.”

  “Good.” Emeron’s black eyes drilled into her again. “Let’s get to work.”

  *

  Kellen stood by the huge view screen, her arms folded over her chest. Behind her, the mission room at the SC headquarters bustled with activity. She let the background noise filter through her as she focused on the part of space scanned by long-range sensors. Stars glimmered inside the sensor grid, and at any other time, the beauty of outer space would not have been wasted on her. Now, when all she could think about was Armeo and his safety, she wanted to leap right through those sensors and be by his side.

  And then there was Ayahliss, the young woman she and Rae had rescued from an Onotharian asteroid prison. Ayahliss was a remarkable, if a bit unruly and volatile, woman whom Kellen had grown very fond of. She wasn’t sure if her feelings were maternal or sisterly, knowing that Ayahliss had been half-trained in the art of gan’thet fighting, a skill and honor bestowed only upon individuals born to hold the title of Protector of the Realm. For a young, orphaned woman to possess such knowledge surprised but also worried her. It was dangerous to merely know the martial-art technique. If a person were not equally trained in restraint and patience, she could become too dangerous, for the art of gan’thet was as deadly as it was beautiful to watch.

  Kellen had persuaded Rae that they should bring Ayahliss to live with them, and Armeo adored her immediately. Worried, initially, Kellen had watched a special friendship unfold, and before long, she knew that Ayahliss loved the young prince. She made sure he was safe and taught him the dirtier hand-to-hand combat of street fighting. As much as this had appalled Kellen, it had amused, and even impressed, Rae. “You never know when he might need these less ‘classical’ means of self-defense,” Rae had said, and kissed Kellen.

  “Less classical? She teaches him to bite his opponent if all else fails.”

  “That’s what I’d do—if all else failed.” Rae had nudged her wife toward the bed. “And thinking of that, Armeo will be occupied for the next hour or so. Could I interest you in some recreation of our own?”

  Brought back to present time, Kellen blinked at the lights of the Cormanian capital that spread as far as she could see outside the window. She swallowed hard at the bright memory from not so long ago and willed her thoughts to remain in the present. What if they never had the opportunity for some lighthearted banter in the midst of their family again? What if that scum M’Ekar killed Rae’s mother?

  “What’s going on inside that brilliant mind of yours?” Rae’s voice interrupted Kellen’s dark thoughts. “I know that look by now.”

  “I’m trying to convince myself that long-range scanners will pick up their ship’s signature any second. But it will be hours before they reach this point.” Kellen pointed at the star-grid on the screen. “It seems so long. Too long.” Her throat hurt as she spoke.

  “Darling.” Rae spoke mutedly. “
I know.”

  Kellen wished they had been somewhere more private so she could have hugged Rae. Whenever she trembled like this, like a propulsion system ready to hurl a ship into space, it usually helped if Rae held her tight. “It kills me to do nothing.”

  “I know that too. But I have good news, all things considered. Armeo’s vessel has passed the outer marker. No use in standing here, though. They rendezvoused with a caravan of ships from the Guild Nation. They all have cloaking capability.”

  Air gushed from Kellen’s lungs. “He’s safe.”

  “Yes. For now he’s safe, and so are Ayahliss and their escort. ETA is eighteen hours. Why don’t you go get some sleep? You’ll need your strength once they arrive.”

  “And you?”

  “I have to stay here. Father is trying to remain professional and objective, but he… I never thought I’d say that my father looked frail.”

  “Dahlia is a strong, resourceful woman,” Kellen said. “She will prevail.”

  Rae paled a few shades. “I hope so. And I fear her strength too.”

  “You’re afraid she will be tortured because she won’t fold.” Kellen knew firsthand how ruthless M’Ekar was. If the people who had sprung him from captivity were as callous as he was, Dahlia Jacelon would be in deep trouble.

  “We’ll find her before that happens.” Rae squeezed Kellen’s hand stealthily. “For now, they’re too busy running from the SC forces to have time to interrogate her.”

  “Then we have to keep pressuring them, pursuing them.”

  Rae nodded, her eyes slate gray. “I won’t ever stop.”

  Chapter Seven

  The four small shelters beyond the perimeter of the clearing were almost invisible, unless you knew where to look. Emeron nodded approvingly to herself as she inspected her unit’s hard work. They had braided large geshto leaves into the sides and the sloping roofs, together with branches and vines from different trees.