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Beacons of Light
Copyright (c) 1995, L. Shawn Aiken
All rights reserved
Beacons of Light
by L. Shawn Aiken
The ebon craft burst forth from nowhere, literally, but did not
disturb the velvety curtain of stars draped behind it. From its
womb sprang seven silvery children that plunged toward the bright
orb swirling nearby.
One hesitated briefly, rejecting the ever present tendrils of
force. Instead, it fell forever around the planet, carefully
watching the other six as they began to sparkle with ions.
The ebon craft lurched and drug itself out of the gravity well,
then vanished, returning to the nothingness which had spawned it.
Brenn watched the star-like sparks dance above the biomass
reactor as if somehow they were the real stars with their proper
motions advanced a million-fold. The simple arrangement of stone
and wood was far from efficient, but at least it warmed half of his
cloaked body. Regretfully, his backside was frozen in the crisp
night air.
Beyond the fire sat his wife, suckling their bald child while
her deep green eyes watched him like a cat. *She is too young,*
Brenn thought, *her skin too soft, her mind too new. Slypha does
not deserve to be away from her family, up here, with the beasts.
And me.*
Her large green eyes caught his, and she smiled. Brenn sighed
and smiled back.
"The beasts are quiet," he said. Her smiled faded.
"Perhaps they think the storm will miss us," she removed the
child from her breast and snuggled him tightly. "It's late. It's
been so long. I feel ready. Let's go to bed."
Brenn stood up and stretched his legs. The flickering fire
light caught the grey streaks in his beard. "Let me check on the
boy first. I think he's asleep."
Slypha walked to him and kissed him on the cheek, her eyes
sparkling. "Must you call him a boy still? Phenris has gone
through the change."
"Men do not sleep while watching beasts." They smiled in unison,
for they both knew Brenn had his surrendered his watch many times to
the sandman.
He turned and stepped into the dark of night. *I am too old,*
he sighed to himself. *My joints creak. My hair has shifted from
my head to inappropriate parts of my body. I am too old to be with
her.*
The forest gave way to clearing and the rumbling of snoring
beasts. Brenn was sure one of the snores belonged to Phenris, but
sound alone could not distinguish them. Then another sound came.
An old sound. One that he had not heard in three decades, and not
hoped to hear again. A beeping.
He glanced at the culprit, the chronometer strapped to his
wrist. The signal. Brenn glanced up at the heavens. Bright lights
shone down. Foreign constellation made familiar over thirty-six
years, girdled by two shadows. The eastern shadows were the spiky
teeth of the Ramphast Mountains. The west was more nebulous, a thin
line over the flat lands. The coming storm.
Between the two a fiery streak, followed by another, and
another. Six in all. They did not fade like falling stars, but
stayed bright as they disappeared behind the clouds.
Brenn slumped to the ground. Why had they taken so long? And
why now? Wouldn't some earlier time have done? When his bones did
not creak and his hair was still stable? Why had they not come when
he had been ready?
The lightning crackled down like a witch's hand, briefly
illuminating the humanoid figure running quietly through the
rain-soaked streets. It's strides were long. It's leaps longer.
But no one was awake to see. No one oohed and ahed. No one bowed
down to the power of Akhenaton.
He broke a sweat in the confines of the suit, away from the
chilly air, as he bounded across the Square of Freedom to the
presidential palace. One guard had time to widen his eyes before
the meter long razor slaughtered the lot. But the splatter of blood
failed to stain Akhenaton, for he crashed ten meters up into a third
story window.
A figure cowered in the silk sheets of the canopied bed, amidst
the finely carved bas-reliefs on the walls and the cherubs looking
down from the vaulted ceiling. Akhenaton opened a link to the
satellite floating above and stepped toward the trembling figure.
"President Cambridge of the Free World of Charadri, I bring you
a gift from the Emperors of the Triad," his voiced boomed out of the
metal and ceramic suit of armor. "You may broadcast a word to those
you offended with treason."
The figure stopped shaking and sat up. A wise-looking man, but
confused. "You have no right . . ."
Electric sparks bluer than sapphires shot from Akhenaton's arm,
striking the president full force in the chest. He erupted into
flames, squealing.
"Just one word, dear President," Akhenaton said as he cut the
link. Movement. His sensors detected movement. A woman by the
door, paralyzed with fear.
A burst of blue light reduced the president's wife to ashes.
Noise. Beyond the door. In the hall. He jumped into it.
A short person. A child. In bootied blue pajamas. Clutching a
stuffed creature from beyond the Human Zone. The offspring of
Cambridge. Akhenaton aimed and fired.
Brenn looked back through the veil of rain and waited for Slypha
to catch up. She sloshed through the mud, the baby's pannier
strapped to her back and a useless umbrella sticking up through the
wooden frame.
He reached his hand out to help her, but she brushed past him
roughly.
"Sylph!" he sucked his boots out of the mud. His son whined at
him from her back.
"Why?" Slyph hissed as her head spun toward him. He blinked to
force the rain from his eyes. *She's too young to go through this,*
he thought as he examined the way her wet hair hung to her face in
swirls.
"It is not a thing to talk about. Just believe that it is
necessary," he coughed up the words.
"What about Phenris?" she asked. "He's too young to herd the
beasts by himself!"
He sighed, remembering how, months ago, she had argued that her
nephew was old enough to follow them into the hills. "He'll be
okay. I have to get you back to the village."
"Why?" she yelled over the thunder. "Why must you leave?"
"Look!" he pointed to a strange metal scaffolding looming above
the trees. "The microwave tower. We are almost there. Let's get
you too your mother's before it get's dark!"
He knew they would make it to the village of Psittac long before
night fall, but he wanted to be well away from there before anything
might happen. They continued to slosh through the mud, their boots
slurping and sucking, and the baby randomly wailing.
The rain had died down, only dribbling from the sky, as they
entered the wooden village, biomass reactors churning dark smoke
through chimneys into the sky.
Brenn did not stay long at the Dowager's home, only taking time
to change his clothes and give his wife a brief farewell. He wanted
to stay longer, but knew that Slyph would probably find some way of
coaxing him into staying the night.
He did not leave rustic Psittac immediately. Through the mist
he trudged up the hill to the microwave station to see Slyph's
sister. With a few bangs on the metal door, Neridia opened the door
and a blast of electrically heated air greeted him.
"Thank God you are here," she said, pulling him into the room
full of lights and banks of switches. She was older than Slyph by a
few years, but with golden hair and brown eyes - a product of the
Dowager's first marriage. She sat him down at the console and
nervously poured him a steaming cup of bark juice.
"What is going on?" Brenn asked, tapping several consoles in
hopes that their numbers would change. They did not.
"It's a blackout," she nervously fretted over the consoles,
readjusting what he had touched. "At least that's what Eshan at the
Black River relay said just before he went off. Eshan also said to
initiate the civil defense plan. I've looked through the manuals.
There is nothing about a plan like that. He also said there was an
attack on the capital. Interstellar missiles, he said he heard.
You were a warrior. What does it mean?" Her brow knotted and she
looked at him, until she realized he was not looking at her.
Somewhere else. Somewhere but nowhere. She took a deep breath and
stood in front of him.
"Brenn?" she said.
"They are not missiles, they are people," he looked up at her
and gulped his juice. "The Beacons. They are here." He stood up
and set down his drink. "Inside of drop pods."
"An invasion." she said.
"Sort of." he replied, and went to the door.
"Wait!" she ran after him, "What about the defense plan? You
were a warrior. You know what to do. Please help us."
"I'll do what I can," he opened the metal door and rain splashed
at his foot. "But I can't do it here."
"But what do *we* do?" she asked.
"There is nothing you can do. Not against the Beacons, anyway."
Brenn slammed the door behind him and crept down the hill, wrapping
his cloak around his tired bones.
A different microwave tower, this one much taller, loomed far
above on the top of the craggy peak of Mount Ptilogon. *I shouldn't
have looked at it,* Brenn thought as he stumbled and fell off the
path. He clambered back on it, careful not to catch a glimpse at
the green valley below, and continued through the mud.
A muscle between his rib cage and his shoulder throbbed.
Thirty-six years ago he could have pulled himself up the cliff with
no problem. But then again, thirty-six years ago he wouldn't have
stumbled.
The path widened out. It was a eerie sight, even to one who had
seen it before. All of those toad trees with their green, knobby
bark. And the way they swayed back and forth. Springy. Totally
unlike real trees. They were, by definition, alien.
Brenn began to walk through the toad tree grove, toward a
boulder. It was a large boulder, about the size of a man. He
lifted it. The fiberglass shell lifted easily, exposing a parabolic
dish spinning slowly about a base.
He crouched down, his knees popping, and removed a panel. Data
flashed across the screen and he sighed. Everything checked out.
They had come. With several button punches the dish stopped
spinning and zeroed in on the tower.
Blackness. Nothing. No transmission. He leaned back and sat
in the mud. The eastern continent beyond the mountains was under
blackout as well.
His backside was no longer just cold, but wet. And muddy. A
cold wind whisked up his cloak as he stood up. His knees popped.
His shoulder ached. Brenn swore he could feel his arteries
hardening. *I'm too old for this. If they would have only come
later. When I am dead and buried. Then I would be prepared.*
Slyph's round face flashed before him. She was still a baby.
He had no right to marry her. *Things are all backward here, on
this planet a thousand light years from nowhere.*
He looked started again through the mud and quickly came to the
cave. It was still there after all of these years. A big gaping
maw cut in solid rock by the trickling of water. He could feel the
water in his boot and on his backside. Bits of him were being
eroded too.
A cool draft of air fluttered about him in the darkness. He dug
through his pockets and flicked on the retrieved torch. Glistening
sparkles danced before him. Some from water dripping off
stalactites. Some from the fools' gold that infested Mount
Ptilogon.
He stepped deeper into the pit, down a natural staircase
lovingly caressed for millennia by water trickling from above.
There was a flutter of something that the bioengineers had meant to
eradicate, but couldn't. Just like the herd beasts. Whatever it
was would probably have been good eating, but his mind was not on
food. He had to get past the balcony in one piece.
It dropped off before him, into the darkness below. It seemed
to Brenn that it had changed. It was more slippery. Smoother. And
there was less of a ledge. Three decades of trickle had eaten away
the footholds leading down to the floor, perhaps some twenty meters
below. And the torch refused to light up what was below.
He knelt and banged the torch against the floor. The beam
wavered, but refused to spit out more light. Geological processes
had cut him off from his buried treasure. But something fell loose
in his mind. It rattled about, then he remembered.
The rope! It had to be around somewhere. He began looking
around at the boulders on the stone balcony. How many years ago had
he fastened it? Too many. But he had. Around a boulder. On top
of the balcony. But where?
There! He saw it and grabbed it up. It crumbled into his hand.
Dust. Clogging up the torches beam. *Damn surplus. Hemp? He said
it was plastiweave. Bastard.*
Brenn made a mental note to demand a refund from the weasely
trader. But he crumpled up the note and threw it away. The trader
was probably dead by now and his sons were cheating other, younger
customers.
"If the emperor can't go to the sun, bring the sun to the
emperor," Brenn muttered to himself. Could it hear him? Would it
still respond?
"Tighra!" he yelled into the darkness as he perched on the edge.
"Tighra! Activate!"
Amidst the echoes he though he heard something. Something down
below. A muffled hum?
"Turn on your God damned lights, Tighra!"
The immense cavern burst with light, blinding him.
"Down down down, tone it down!" He carefully unshielded his eyes
with his arm.
There it was, glowing it all it's glory. A bulky humanoid
figure, twenty meters below, forty out. Black stripes played about
on it's glowing apricot skin.
"Tighra unit on," a voice boomed. "One point one nine to the
ninth power second since last activation, Commander Brenn Ortiz, CTM
7789-007."
"Brenn Kschted, actually. I got married."
"Congratulations, Commander," boomed the emotionless voice.
Brenn started to tell it he wasn't a Commander anymore, but who knew
how the software would respond then.
"Diagnostic?"
"Urgent repairs needed. Priority level. Suggest going to
nearest shipyard for repairs."
"I know that!" Brenn yelled. "I knew that three god damned
decades ago. Can you move?"
The suit paused for a moment. "Diagnostic reports fifty percent
chance of movement capabilities, with a plus or minus fifty percent
error."
Brenn shook his head. One day he would find the technician who
wrote diagnostic programs and . . . *That's odd,* he thought.
- It's been a while since I imagined hurting anyone.*
Images flashed before him. Beautiful orange explosions searing
flesh and bone. Horrified faces screaming for mercy. The darkness
of space and dehumidified, crumbling corpses who turned to dust just
like the rope.
"Move your leg!" he yelled down to it. Tighra, a machine that
cost more than the entire planet was worth, completed the first step
of the hokey-pokey flawlessly.
"Good. Now get the weapons pack. Attach it to your chest.
Then jump up here and let me take a look at you."
Tighra lurched forward. Dust spilled off from its head and
shoulders. It quickly found a metallic case and slapped it to its
chest. It hung there immovable with a magnetic seal.
Then suddenly the machine bounded up the cliff, but not quite.
It missed the top and hurtled downward, barely catching itself,
hanging on with two fingers of one hand.
"Jesus," Brenn muttered as it slowly pulled itself up and
crawled toward him. "Stand up, Tighra, and turn off your skin
lights. Just the top will do."
The cavern dimmed appreciable and he looked over the mechanical
entity. Under the patchy layer of dust he could see the blast
marks, the twisted bits of metal, and the ruined left hand.
"Servo mechanisms in the left leg failed," it commented. "Test
leap indicated seventy percent of systems operating at forty
percent. Unit is beyond repair. Suggest entire Tighra unit be sent
to the nearest military scrap heap and disposed of by qualified
personnel."
"That's a pretty high regard you have for yourself," Brenn
detached the case and set it down on the ground. "Is the grenade
launcher still working?"
"Shall I test it?"
"No," his eyes widened. Not in here. You'd bring the whole
cave down. Just a diagnostic."
There was a brief pause. He opened the case. Wrapped in foam
were five grenade, as well as some spare parts and a radio. Four of
the grenades had red bands around them, one with green. He
carefully pulled it out.
"Launcher unit seventy percent reliable, plus or minus ten
percent."
"Can you handle this? I picked it up long after I stashed you
in here. After the war," he held the green tear-shaped object
before its sensor.
"Affirmative. But caution, Tighra unit is not reliable.
Entering combat is not suggested."
"I know how you feel," Brenn popped open the tube connected to
the left forearm. The grenade clip was still half full. Just like
that day long ago. He carefully slipped the green grenade at the
bottom of the clip. Two reds, and a green. He slammed the lid
down.
"Okay, I want you to pop your head open so I can crawl in. And
Tighra, I order you not to do a med scan of me. I *order* you."
"You are fatigued, Commander Kschted," the suit chimed. Brenn's
lungs were burning. Spasms raced up and down his spine. And he had
just walked a little under a kilometer.
"I *told* you no med scan!" he hissed between clenched teeth.
Armor wasn't as easy as everyone thought. A warrior couldn't just
sit in it and have it walk around for you. The legs still moved.
The arms still moved. And the suit, left to its own, would pop the
wearer's limbs out of joint. One *had* to move with it.
"Request initiation of muscle relaxant injection," it said.
"No!" he hissed. "Not yet. I'll be needing all of it for
later." His eyes swirled, but not only from the pain. The
heads-up-display was driving him mad. He was not used to the three
hundred and sixty degree display. It seemed everything was in front
of him - including the bits that were receding behind him.
"Gimme a shot," Brenn finally broke down as he passed a ridge.
"A little one. Analgesic or something." He felt the pressure at the
base of his neck as the drug was injected. "Hey, Tighra, what's the
shelf life of analgesic? I mean, does it break down into any other
chemical components? Like some kind of neurotoxin?"
"That information is not available in my databanks."
Brenn took a deep breath. Perhaps it would be all over now.
Done in by his own suit. Then it hit.
"Ah," he gurgled. Thirty-six years without so much as an
aspirin. He felt good. Almost high. The aches had drifted away
like the dust falling off of the suit. But then he remembered.
Everything felt ten times worse after the drugs wore off.
"No more med scans unless it's an emergency," he told the
machine.
"Your body is eliciting danger signs right now," the suit said.
"I mean, don't poke around with my body unless I'm unconscious
or my arm is ripped off. Okay?"
"Okay, Commander Kschted."
Brenn huffed and puffed away from the mountain. His popping
joints were outmatched by the squeaks and groans coming from the
suit. *We should both be retired, living on some zero-gee station
somewhere. Me and Tighra floating around a breakfast table, sipping
tea from little baggies. Or he could sip silicon gel. Or
whatever.* Brenn stopped thinking a moment, and came up with the
conclusion that it wasn't just ordinary aspirin coursing through his
veins.
"You suck," he said a they stumbled into the green valley.
"I said, you suck." Then he remembered. Suits weren't designed
to respond to insults. Something the technicians thought up. It
was suppose to keep the warriors out of trouble. But there was a
way around it.
"You suck, do you hear? You suck."
"I hear you." Brenn smiled and they began going up the far side
of the valley. As the drug began to wear off, they clambered up a
hill and took up position.
Brenn adjusted the HUD to small field magnification and zoomed
in on a nearby mountain. It's peak was taller than Mount Ptilogon,
put with a more gentle slope. Snow sparkled at it's summit, and he
zoomed in on it.
IR was useless, so he changed to visual. There it was. The
chalet. Or what was left of it. His mind drifted back to when he
had first arrived . . .
"Christ it's hot. Tig, dehumidifier on full," Brenn had always
hated the fact that while in a suit you couldn't just wipe the sweat
from your forehead.
"Cancel that," a voice crackled in his ear. He turned to
Akhenaton, trailing him several paced.
"Sir, if I'm going to do point, I should at least be able to
see," he waved his arms about. Akhenaton stopped, along with the
four other Beacons behind him.
"Thermals must remain low. Your power plant is almost visible,"
Akhenaton replied calmly.
"I'm sweating like a swine. Can't I just open my visor. There
is snow all over the place. Can't I just pour a handful of snow on
my face?"
"Unexceptable, Commander." Akhenaton signalled with his hands to
end the conversation. Brenn opened his mouth, then shut it. They
continued on up the mountain towards the chalet.
Of course they weren't supposed to be anywhere near mountains.
They were supposed to be near the shore, bolstering the ground
troops. Four years of fighting and the Corian Triad was actually on
the defensive. Triad troops were being slaughtered left and right
by farm girls and back water bureaucrats. The real problem was that
the same thing was happening on seventeen planets in this sector
alone. Something had to be done.
So it was, or rather, it was not done. The fly boys up in
darkie-darkie land miscalculated and sent the Beacons of Light, the
most skilled and heavily equipped Corian foot soldiers, straight
into a mountain, a thousand klicks away from where they could do any
good. And with the EMP satellites in orbit, no one could get a
message through and have the fly boys executed.
So they had to walk. But for some reason the commander wanted
to walk straight up a mountain to investigate a chalet they had seen
some kilometers back. *Of all the stupid, idiotic things . . .*
Brenn grumbled in thought, because the Akhenaton could hear
everything he said.
"You know, Tighra, we didn't even know if we were in hostile
territory or not," Brenn scanned the chalet closely. From what he
could tell, the roof had caved in. At least half of the supports
had collapsed. Time had taken it's toll on the building. Just like
Tighra. Just like him.
"Energy surge directly ahead," the machine's cold voice informed
him.
"What?"
A blue arc of light gracefully flew from the mountain, across
the valley, and incinerate a pine tree two meters away.
"Jesus Christ! Fire!" Brenn yelled.
"Please be specific," The suit replied. "Nothing is within
degraded weapons range."
"I see you," a voice crackled in his ear. It was Akhenaton.
Brenn's eyes widened.
"Thermals, Tig, thermals! Drop 'em!" Brenn cried, and began to
run.
"Please be more specific."
Another blue arc lashed out, ripping in two the tree that he had
been diving for. He hit the ground with his shoulder and bright
sparks dashed before his eyes.
Brenn shook his head to clear it. He was lying face to the
ground next to a burning tree.
"Thermals! Don't exhaust the heat, Tig!" he moaned.
"Ports sealed." Brenn did not argue as he felt pressure on his
neck.
"What was that blue streak? A particle beam?"
"That information is not in my data banks," Tighra told him. Of
course. They must have improved the suits and invented new weapons.
What in the hell was he up against? And there were six of them!
"I knew you'd come back, Tighra," the voice crackled it his ear.
For a moment Brenn wondered why Akhenaton was talking to his suit.
Then he remembered. Call names. In Akhenaton's eyes, or rather, in
Captain Harmsworth's, he was still called by his suit's name.
"I knew you would too . . ." he cut himself off, almost saying
'sir'.
"Teredo is here as well. We have some unfinished business."
"Hey Tighra, it's me," an asian voice said. "It's time, you
know. Meet us at the site and we can finish this."
"I swear it looks like a ski lodge, boss," Teredo accented voice
hissed into Brenn's ear as he peeked over the snow bank.
"I'm picking up about ten people all moving around on the upper floor,"
Brenn sunk back down and turned to the squatting Beacons. "What's a
ski lodge?"
"I thought you were from Switzerland, Tig," Teredo said.
"I was born there, but I went to school at Ishtar South. What's
a ski lodge?"
"Cut the chatter," Ahkhenaton ordered. "That building may be an
enemy outpost."
"A ski lodge is where you strap plastic panels to your feet and
slide down the side of a snowy mountain." Teredo continued.
"Sounds pretty stupid to me," Brenn chuckled. "Besides,
Switzerland hasn't had snow in two centuries."
"Will you two shut up?" Ahkhenaton yelled. "Tighra, do a scan
under it. See if it has any lower levels."
"Yes sir," Brenn stood up. It would take the sensors two
minutes to pierce all of that granite. He looked at the chalet as
sweat poured down his face. Snow in Switzerland? Ha. That was
like saying it rained in Central America. Ludicrous proposition.
"Sir," Brenn spoke with his back to the commander, "I take it we
are going to kill everyone and secure the building?"
"Yes."
"After that can we toss Teredo off the mountain strapped to a
piece of plastic?"
Before Akhenaton could get everyone to quit laughing, Brenn
spotted somthing on the corner of his screen.
"Uh, sir, something's coming. It's hugging the terrain at 100
meters."
"What is it?"
"Uh, Tig says it's a L-53 troop transport. No markings. No
ident signal." Brenn saw the white speck grow on his monitor.
"Looks to be headed this way. Oh. It's armed."
"Who the hell could it be?" Teredo voiced.
"No respectable pilot would strip Triad symbolds off a vehicle,"
the commander said. "It's got to be those bastard rebels. We're in
luck, men and women, we've stumbled across the enemy."
"Lemme shoot it, boss," Teredo said.
"No, Tighra can have that honor."
"Thanks," Brenn charged up his left arm and let loose with a
particle beam. It was a direct hit, sending the flaming transport
hurtling into the valley floor.
"Tighra," Teredo's voice echoed Brenn's ear canal. It was
getting hot. His heat throbbed. His shoulder ached. And his groin
was hurting in places it hadn't hurt since Slyph had been able to
have sex.
"Tighra. You can't hide. The boss still has your ident signal.
Don't you remeber?"
Christ, Brenn screamed at himself, staring up at the cloudy sky.
- I would have been safer leaving the suit where it was. They might
have never found me.*
He started to tell Tighra to get up, but closed his mouth. It
would be stupid to let Akhenaton listen in on everything was doing,
so he stretched his neck out and poked several pressure sensors with
his chin. The suit slowly stood up and his eyes flooded with tears.
"Why the site?" he gasped as another squirt of pain killers
flooded his system.
"Everything must be coordinated properly," Akhenaton said
coldly. It was that same statement that had initialized the
massacre of the embryos on Brakor. Two thousand vat babies
destroyed. The memory jarred something in him. Had he really
killed them? For thirty six years he thought he had remembered.
But now it seemed he had only remebered the concept, not the deed
itself. But now he remebered.
He remembered the melting of plastic, the tidal flood of
embryonic fluid, the fire. The screams of an entire planet blasting
through his speakers. And he remembered laughing. Laughing.
The suit was moving but he didn't realize it, walking onward
toward the site. The other two must have been on the other side of
the valley, making the same journey.
His baby's pudgy face flashed before his eyes. Baby Brenn.
Slyph wanted to name him after his great father. She was so
innocent. How could she know? How could she comprehend what he had
done?
It was almost impossible for him, but the dulling drugs seemed
to unravel the strings tieing up the ancient memories. The
slaughter of countless people on countless worlds. How could she
comprehend what he was?
He became aware of the muscles knotted up in his stomach, but
could not feel the pain. It must have been horrific. Brenn gulped
and headed along the gradient. The trees gave way and it came into
view.
Nothing. Flat land. A little stream. Scrub. Mud must have
covered up the debris, just like the garbage in his mind had covered
up the attrocities. *I havn't changed. I've just buried it. I'm
the same person. I can't feel. I can't pity. I'm just like them.*
But as he entered the clearing he saw something that hadn't been
there that day. Something that had been added later. He walked
over to it. A slab of granite. A marker. With words.
"What's that?" Teredo suprised him. They both were standing on
the other side of the clearing upon a sloping rise. Kings of the
hill. Their suits were shinning in all of their glory, a bright sun
on Akhenaton's chest, while Teredo's skin glowed white all over like
luminesent puss.
"Where are the others?" Brenn asked.
"Others?" Teredo laughed. "You killed Sirrocco and Yoicks right
over there," he stretched his arm out to the stream. "Don't you
remeber, Tig?"
Brenn looked and nodded, even though they didn't see it.
Akhenaton spoke up. "And Gyrfalc died honorable on Brakor."
"No he didn't. We all made it off," Brenn stepped away from the
stone.
"There was another insurrection. The planet had to be
eliminated."
"The planet?"
"And Tesla bought it in the Weisa`cker vortex of Beta Pictoris.
A minor revolt that turned into a major one," Teredo chuckled.
"But I saw four others?" Brenn motioned to the sky.
"Stupid boy," Akhenaton said. "Are you so all important to
think that we are irreplaceable. We are just cogs. This business
does not require their presence."
Alarm bells rung in the back of his head. Something was wrong.
Why would he feel that something was wrong? Here he was, ready to
be slaughtered, and suddenly something Akhenaton had said was wrong?
"Why?" his knee began to tremble. "Why not them?" Beacons
rarely split up. They hung together as if they were magnetized.
"Well, you see," Teredo started, "The boss here kinda told
everybody you were dead. Summarily executed."
"Shut up!" Akhenaton barked. "That oversight will soon be
rectifed. Teredo, I give you the honor of killing him."
"Great," Teredo said, begining to walk toward him. "Where do
you want it, Tig, By the rock, in the stream, or in your back?"
"Uh," his heart began to pound. Stimulants screeched into his
neck. The suit knew he was about to die. Why was he having a hard
time beleiving it?
"Uh, waitaminute," Brenn said. "How have the gathagene
treatments worked?"
"What?" Teredo stopped.
"Do you still look young? I mean, I only got one treatment.
Open your visor and let me see."
Teredo started again. "Gosh, Tig, can't you think of anything
original. That's how you got Sirrocco."
The heat was building and his lips were chapping. After the
vehicle went down, nothing had happened at the chalet. No gun
turrets rose from the ground. No missile raced toward the sky and
rained down on them, so Akhenaton set the priority to investigating
the crash site.
They were getting close. A few trees were smoldering. There
was charred bits of things all over. Blackened arms and legs hung
from trees like bizarre fruit. Brenn stumbled over a trunk and came
into the clearing.
Chunks of everything were scattered around. Seat stuffing blew
about, mixing orange into the white snow. Part of a langing strut
was wrapped, like a piece of string, around a tree. And he heard
something. Something moved.
"Sir," he said to Akhenaton, trailing behind. "A person over
there."
"Okay. Teredo, go find the black box. Maybe we can trace this
to the rebel's base. Gyrfalc and Tesla, you come with me to find
what's left of the weapons stores. And Sirrocco and Yoicks, you mop
up the survivors with Tighra.
Brenn looked down at the seat near him. A person was stil
strapped to it. Charred over most of it's body. What looked like a
male. Fifteen or so years old. Brenn had entered the military at
fifteen. They must have been shiping new recruits somewhere.
He leveled his arm and fired the laser. The head popped,
splattering spongy chunks all over. Another semi-intact survivor
behind a panel. Another shot. Another survivor. Another shot.
Sweat was getting ito his eyes.
"Sir," Brenn called out. "The fires around here will cloak us,
won't they? I mean, can't I turn on the air conditioning?" There
was a brief pause.
"Negatory. It will waste power. If anyone is hot, just open
your visors."
Five 'thank gods' jammed the transmission frequency. Brenn slid
the opaque shield from his face and breathed the cold air deeply.
And he choked.
"Crap," said Sirrocco next to him. "This stinks. Why can't
people burn clean."
"Bastard rebels stinking up the place," Brenn fired at another
body near a clump of long plastic shards. He made his way slowly
through the mess until he could register no more life. Then he
walked toward Teredo.
He was leaning up against a three meter tall hydrogen cannister
that had somehow survived the crash. Next to him was an orange
cylinder with wires leading toward Teredo's helmet. Akhenaton was
with him.
"Sir, I've accessed the navcom. Looks like they were way off
course."
"Why?"
"Well, we are 900 klicks from any rebel territory that we last
heard about. Dunno why they would penatrate Triad territory this
far. Hold on. I'm patching into the database. Ah. Security
sealed. Lemee break it. There."
"Can you tell the registration?" Akhenaton asked.
"It's owned by the Proconsul Whydt."
"What?" Sirrocco walked up to them.
"It's government property," Teredo looked up at them and smiled.
"Well, it ain't he first time we've accidentally brought down one of
our own."
"What was it's flight path. It's manifest. I've seen no heavy
weapons," Akhenaton said.
"Fuck!" Teredo ripped the wires away and jumped up. "Fuck!" he
walked away from the flight box. "Fuck!"
"What?"
"It was full of kids, headed for the chalet. For a skiing
trip.
"So?"
"They were being evacuated from the capital. The Proconsul
himself chartered the trip. It had his son on board."
Ahkenaton suddenly straightened up.
"Holy shit," Sirrocco said. "Are we in trouble?"
Ahkenaton turned to face them. "We aren't in trouble."
Power surge, Tigrah's monitor read as Brenn watched Teredo point
his arm toward him.
"Stop! Wait!" Brenn yelled, waving his arm. "My laser is
busted. It won't be a fair fight!"
"So?"
"Uh, well . . . don't I deserve a chance? I mean, let's go at
it, hand-to-hand."
"No," he laughed.
Brenn pointed his arm and squeezed, launching the green-stripped
grenade. It elongated as it flew, slapped into Teredo's arm and
wrapped around the particle beam nozzle. Teredo fired, igniting the
explosive.
There was a burst of light and his arm sailed off.
Brenn turned and ran, the radio frequency filled with screaming.
He raced up the incline. His joints were on fire. Unknown liquids
were being pumped into his spine.
*Warning,* read Tighra's display, *you are severely fatigued.
Rest is suggested.*
"No Tig, no! We've got to get back to the cave! Keep running,
even if you break my legs! Keep running!"
Akhenaton watched from on high as Tighra raced up the side of
the valley and into the trees. *He's still got spunk,* he thought,
The eternally young warrior with articficial nanobots coursing
through his arteries walked down the hill toward his fallen
companion. Teredo was twitching a bit. The explosion had done just
enough damage to rip off the arm, not sear the wound. Red blood
pumped out into the muddy earth.
Akhenaton knelt down and slid open Teredo's visor. His eyes
were wide open and his mouth was gasping.
"Sear it, boss, sear it,"
"Sorry," Akhenaton aimed his arm and fired. Teredo's suit
sparked like a metal fork in a microwave oven. Sparks, smoke, and a
final twitch. *At last that mouth will be silent. But there is
still another.*
"No Tig, no! We've got to get back to the cave! Keep running,
even if you break my legs! Keep running!" came through on his
speakers.
*A man who holds some of the highest honors in the Triad, forced
to live in a cave,* Akhenaton shook his head.
But then he though. *No. He is not one to run home from
battle. It's a trap. The cave must be a trap. He intends to lure
me there. He must have enough explosives to bring down the whole
cave and entrap me.* Akhenaton laughed. *He's still up to his old
tricks.*
He started his suit at a mild gait until he picked up the IR
trail. *The idiot is venting all of his heat. Of course, he wants
me to follow it. Right into his cave. The fool will be suprised,
though.* He increased his speed.
The trail wound across the hills, back through the valley, and
up the slopes of an impressive mountain. Strange trees bobed up and
down in a strange rhythm, and then he saw it. The mouth of the
cave. But in front of it was Tighra.
He was on his hands and knees, crawling, grasping, desperately
trying to reach the cave. Akhenaton fired over his head.
"Stand and fight like a man," he yelled. Tighra stopped and
collapsed.
"Why? Why kill me?" Akhenaton heard wheezing sounds. The boy
was in pretty bad shape.
"You killed the Proconsul's son. You are a traitor,"
"But you gave the order," Tighra slowly turned over on his back.
"You forget War Law. You can't blame your sins on me."
"But you are responsible. You gave the order."
"And no one must know that. Such news would have scrapped the
Beacon Project. Loosing this planet almost did that anyway. But we
were succssessful elsewhere and now there are twenty Beacon units
from Persei to Saggittarii. We couldn't loose that merely because I
made a mistake."
With a verbal grunt, Tighra stood up. Ahkenaton powered up his
particle beam.
"I'm an old man. Spare me. I won't tell," he gasped.
"Sorry," Akhenaton fired and the blue arc raced towards Tighra's
chest and struck. It collapsed and shrapnel burst forth from
behind. The scream of a lungless man echoed in Akhenaton's ears,and
the body collapsed.
It was done. Akhenaton turned his weapon's power off. *He's
dead. They are all dead. I am safe.*
Just then came a beeping. From a strange looking boulder. *A
bomb!* He did a scan. Not a bomb. A chonometer. On top of the
boulder. He walked over to it and picked it it with the suits
stubby fingers. Tighra's service piece. With a message blinking.
"Sorry," it read, "couldn't get the message to you sooner. You
see, the watch has been on record. And patched into the satellite
dish under the boulder. What you just said went up to your
superiors. Sorry."
Akhenaton's eyes flashed open wide. "No!" His scream echoed
amongst the stars.
The birds sang merrily in the abnormally warm weather, but he
just didn't feel their joy. He had been betrayed by his own
friends. Now he was stuck on this planet forever. If he dared
venture off, he would be executed by the Triad.
But that didn't matter. The only thing that mattered to him was
Slyph and Brenn Jr. And they were on this planet. But would he
ever see them again.
He shuffled thorugh the mud on his jury-rigged crutches.
Nothing was really borken, but Tighra had told him there were
microscopic cracks all throughout his legs. Poor Tighra. Honorable
to the end. He couldn't even give in a proper burial. A half ton
of high density alloys was just impossible to move.
First he had though of luring Akhenaton into the cave and
blowing it and him up. But that was a stupid thing to do. He had
to see Slyph again. Pain shot through his legs and he coughed
blood. The last of Tighra's pain shots were wearing off. He
moaned, but continued along the trail.
Akhenaton had been furious. From where Brenn was hiding in the
cave, he could have sworn he saw the man was frothing at the mouth.
Of course he had blasted the boulder and dish to tiny bits, but
Brenn didn't need it anyway.
He peered up into the sky above the trees. It wasn't there.
The microwave tower was gone. He increased the pace. The pain was
mind numbing.
The village spread before him. Smoke came from the hill. The
tower was gone. A huge shuttle was in the town square and had
collapsed several buildings in his way. His ears began to burn and
he coughed blood again.
People were screaming. He hobbled down the street.
A huge suit stood before him. It's back was to him. Villagers
were being crowded into the center of the square. Four Beacons were
roughly shoving them. Several houses had been set on fire and a
pile of laser rifles was forming at the other end of the square.
They had found the Dowager's secret stash!
She was there, amongst the screaming people, trying to calm them
down. But where was Slyph? There was a pile of bodies. Men,
mostly. A few women. His stomach turned.
"Move it, peon," a Beacon kicked a boy in the back. There was
an audible crack as his spine snaped. His father ran at the soldier
and burst into flames. Where was Slyph?
An unarmored soldier dashed out of the shuttle and ran to the
Beacon in front of Brenn.
"Sir, his suit has been found on the side of a mountain," Brenn
heart pounded. They knew about him! Where was Slyph?
"Crazy bastard," a laugh came from the suit. "We should have
known he would have run. After that speech he gave to the
satellite."
Brenn gasped. It was Akhenaton! They were looing for him! He
stumbled toward the Beacon and a hand latched around his throat.
"What is it, old man?" the Beacon asked as he lifted him in the
air by his neck. Brenn gurgled and coughed, then fell to the
ground.
"Sir," he gasped. "I have just journeyed over the mountains. I
saw an officer. With no suit. Headed east. There is an abandoned
chalet to the east."
"Hot damn," the Beacon laughed. "All right!" he sceeched, "Load
up the shuttle and let's pick up Ahk. Then we can get off of this
God forsaken rock!"
Within minutes they were gone in a blast of dirt. Brenn layed
in the mud, looking at the shuttle drift away. Where was Slyph?
"You look like a corpse," Nerida said as she and the Dowager ran
up to him.
"Where is Slyph? The baby?" he groaned and tried to sit up.
"Stop your whining," The Dowager turned her cracked face down at
him. "What did you say to that goon?"
"Nothing. Where is Slyph?" tears welled up in his eyes.
"I'm right here. Baby too," Slyph came out from the crowd and
knelt next to him. His eyes widened and he grasped her tightly too
him. The images of horror and war flooded into his mind. Dead men,
dead mothers, dead babies. And he remembered that his long years in
exile had tought him to learn how to make life and love it.
"I'm not too old," he sobbed into her ear.
"Of course you are," she said. "You're as old as the hills.
But I love you anyway."
The End