The Eve of War Page 7

  Weasel let out a long whistle, but Magnus detected the faintest waver in it. This warehouse rat was no trained warrior, just someone’s hired scum ball picked off the street and handed a blaster and a regular plate of scrap.

  “With what?” Weasel said. “How you gettin’ down from your tree, monkey man?”

  Awen laughed. “Monkey man!”

  Weasel turned toward her. Magnus had to keep his attention away from Awen. “Hey, Weasel, can you help me out here?”

  Weasel’s head whipped around. “What’d you call me, buckethead?”

  Struck a nerve, Magnus thought. “Weasel. Wait, that’s not your name? ’Cause your boys have been calling you that behind your back ever since I woke up.”

  Weasel shot the big one a glance. “Uh-uh,” Turtle said, waving him off. “I swears I didn’t call you nothing. Swears!”

  Weasel looked back at Magnus and took a step toward him. “Nice try, buckethead. I see what you’re trying to do.”

  “And what’s that, Weasel?”

  “Stop calling me that!”

  One more step.

  “Weird,” Magnus noted as if talking to himself. “Maybe his mother’s name is Weasel.”

  That was all it took. Weasel raised a blaster and took another step. Magnus swung his legs out, twisted the blaster out of the man’s fingers with his boots, and scissor clamped the man between his knees. His body’s weight reversed directions and pulled Weasel off his feet. The man expelled a gasp of air as Magnus’s thighs squeezed his body like a vise. Magnus heard his armor’s servos kick in, and more pressure was added, snapping a rib. Weasel yelped.

  “I’m going to crush you now,” Magnus said.

  “No, you’re not,” came a booming voice from outside the cell. The man’s presence was so commanding that Weasel stopped fighting for his life and strained to look at the imposing figure at the door and the dozen or more armed men who accompanied him.

  “And you would be…?” Magnus asked, still squeezing Weasel.

  “The name’s Abimbola,” the man said, taking a stride into the cell, followed by a few of his entourage. “And I own this establishment. Which means no one crushes anyone here unless I approve of it.”

  Magnus was instantly impressed with Abimbola’s presence. Unlike the prison rats, this man was an impressive hulk of muscle and bone. Magnus guessed he was Miblimbian, since he was almost as big as a Jujari. Bright-blue eyes contrasted with his black-skinned head, and a cliché scar ran the length of the right side of his face from neck to temple. He wore a similar patchwork of discarded plate armor as the other men but chose to keep his tattooed arms bare to the shoulder. A bandolier of frag grenades wrapped his chest, and an old bowie knife in its worn-out sheath was strapped to his thigh.

  He was a warrior—one with a code. That was something Magnus always respected, even if the person was on the other side of the battlefield. He despised people who fought merely for fighting’s sake. Theirs was a desperate need for validation and identity manifested in a power trip—usually a reckless one. War never told people who they were, only what they were capable of. In contrast, Marines who understood the warrior ethos, regardless of their creed, knew what it meant to fight sacrificially. They took lives so others could go on living their own. That was who true warriors were.

  “And do you approve?” Magnus asked, nodding at Weasel.

  “Normally, yes,” said Abimbola. “But today is the twenty-first day in the cycle, and that’s a lucky number for me. So if you crush him, I’ll have to crush you.” Abimbola clucked his tongue and shrugged his shoulders. “Shame.”

  “Hmm. Getting crushed wasn’t on my to-do list this morning. Fair enough.” Magnus let Weasel fall to the ground, and the little man gasped for breath as he scrambled along the concrete.

  Abimbola nodded. “Thank you. Now, to what do we owe the honor of finding a Repub Marine and a Luma in our fair city?”

  “Your city?”

  “I’ve adopted it,” Abimbola replied, snapping his fingers. Turtle leaned outside, grabbed a chair, and placed it behind his leader. Abimbola sat, elbows on his knees, fingers interlaced, the chair audibly straining under his weight. “My own city was… dismantled. I’ve relocated for a time.”

  So Abimbola was either a refugee or a convict. Sensing he shouldn’t press the matter, Magnus decided to offer some information, since Abimbola had revealed a sliver of his own. “Well, I was going to say that the Republic wanted to purchase some large plots of real estate to turn into resorts, but we both know that would sound slightly suspicious,” he said, eliciting a half smile from Abimbola. “Instead, this lady here got herself on the wrong side of a negotiation, and the Corps asked if I’d look in on her.” Magnus looked at Awen, but she’d passed out.

  “I see,” Abimbola said. “And that has nothing to do with the mwadim’s doghouse going up in flames, does it?”

  “I told them not to play with fire.”

  “Yes.” Abimbola nodded. “One’s tendency is to get burned.” He pursed his large lips and sat back. “And her? What was she doing all the way out here on Oorajee? I didn’t realize the Luma were in the market for vacation properties.”

  Before Magnus could reply, Weasel pulled something from his pocket. “She had this on her, boss.” He handed him a silver metal cylinder marred with soot and dried blood.

  “A Jujari stardrive?” Abimbola said, flipping the object in the air and catching it. “Expensive little sucker. And”—he glanced at the indicators—“locked up tight too.”

  “It’s not going to be your shade of lipstick, I’m afraid,” Magnus said.

  “Open it, sir! Let’s see what’s on it,” Weasel said gleefully.

  Abimbola looked at Weasel and shook his head. “It’s a stardrive. The only person who’s opening this,” he said, tipping his chin at Awen, “is her.”

  Despite their aggressive nature and often backward culture, the Jujari still managed to give the galaxy several technological achievements, the stardrive being one of the most significant. The cylindrical devices were not only imprinted with the owner’s DNA, but a small neural program in them required a brainwave match. This meant that in order to unlock the device, the owner had to recall the memory of when he or she had been imprinted. The neural software could also detect coercion, so there was no forcing anyone to open one. It was one of the few things in the galaxy that was truly tamperproof, which made it the preferred choice of smugglers, traders, and elitists for high-end data storage.

  “You don’t happen to know how she got this or what’s on it, do you?” asked Abimbola.

  “It might be unsightly holo-vids of Weasel here,” Magnus replied, trying to be helpful, “but I heard those were banned in most parts of the sector.” That produced a small smile from Abimbola and a loud expletive from Weasel.

  “Well, judging by the look of her, she’s not going to remember how she got this anytime soon.” Abimbola sighed and placed the stardrive in his pocket. Then he locked eyes with Magnus. Magnus couldn’t tell if the man was waiting for him to offer more information, deciding whether to let them go, or choosing how to kill them. “Well,” the giant of a man finally said, clapping his hands together and rising, “if that’s all, I’ll let the boys kill you now.”

  Kill us? Perfect.

  Abimbola must have seen Magnus look over at Awen, because he added, “Oh, not you as in both of you—just you.” He pointed at Magnus. “She’s coming with me.”

  “The last one run out on you?” Magnus quipped.

  Abimbola smiled. “This one’s going to be worth a lot of credits to somebody. Stardrives don’t just hitch rides on nobodies.”

  “Monkeys!” Awen suddenly yelled out, startling herself awake.

  Abimbola’s eyes went wide. “I thought you said she was brain-dead?” Abimbola said to Weasel. “What’s this? This is not brain-dead.”

  “We drugged her, boss,” Weasel said. “Just like you told us to do with Luma. Got her necklace for you too. She’s
Luma all right.” He handed Abimbola the leather cord and gold medallion.

  “You’re all so cute!” Awen exclaimed. “I want to take you home.”

  “See,” Weasel continued. “I meant she’s brain-dead, like, her brain is broken. You know, crazy. She’s talking all crazy and stuff.”

  Abimbola looked from Weasel back to Awen. “How much did you give her?”

  “Twice what you said. Figured this one was probably dangerous, with a soldier like that protecting her and being way out—”

  “Got it,” Abimbola said, raising a hand. He walked over to Awen.

  “You’re not going to want to touch her,” Magnus said. “She’s highly allergic to people touching her.”

  Abimbola paused. “So protective for a Marine. If only you all were.” The man turned to Awen. “What’s your name?”

  “That’s not a hard question,” she slurred. “My name’s Awen. Next question.”

  “Where’d you get this?” He held up the stardrive.

  “I didn’t know monkeys wore lipstick!”

  “Told you it wasn’t your shade,” Magnus said.

  Abimbola shook his head. “This is going nowhere.” He produced a small syringe from a compartment in his pants, removed the cap, and stuck Awen in the side of the neck.

  “You just made a big mistake, buddy,” Magnus said, jerking the chains around his wrists.

  “Easy, Marine. Stand down. This is just something to bring her back.”

  Awen winced then took several deep breaths. “Wait… where am I?”

  • • •

  Awen’s head hurt. Come to think of it, her entire body hurt. And it was getting worse by the second. She blinked several times and noticed an enormous warrior standing in front of her, holding a syringe. She panicked and tried to move away, realizing immediately that her hands were bound overhead. Her attempt at movement brought on a new wave of pain in her wrists and shoulders.

  “Where am I?” she said for the second or third time—she couldn’t be sure. Awen glanced over and saw the lieutenant hanging about two meters away. “Lieutenant! What—”

  “Welcome back,” the large man in front of her said. “You’ve been out for some time.” Awen blinked at him, faint memories of trees and monkeys swirling in her aching head. “Who are you? Why are you doing this?”

  “It’s temporary, I can assure you, miss…?”

  “Temporary because you’re planning on killing us or temporary because you’re ready to let us go now?” She reached out to the Unity. It was time to get out of here. “Because I can assure you that by the time you—” Awen broke the sentence off as a wave of pain severed her concentration from the cosmos.

  The warrior wiggled the syringe. “Interesting stuff, isn’t it? Brings you back from oblivion but makes it very hard to stay focused. Which, for a woman of your talents, means it’s harder for you to do all those marvelous things you do.”

  “So,” Awen said, squinting, “what’s next? Torture? Isolation? Interrogation?”

  “A woman who likes to get straight to the point. I like that. First, allow me to introduce myself. Name’s Abimbola.”

  “His city got blown up,” Magnus added. “That and a bad hair day make him a special brand of pissed off.”

  Abimbola tilted his head, raised an eyebrow, and nodded. “That’s not too far from the truth. As for you”—he stepped closer to Awen—“I plan on collecting the ransom on your head.”

  “There’s a ransom for me?”

  “Not yet, but once I let the proper channels know you’re alive and have escaped that ugly scene at the mwadim’s tent, I suspect more than a few parties will pay a lot of credits for you.”

  “And him?” Awen asked, indicating Magnus.

  “Him?” Abimbola looked to the Marine. “Why do you even care about him? Isn’t he just the Republic’s hired gun who’s supposed to watch your back while you’re… what was it again?”

  “Browsing for a vacation home,” Magnus offered.

  Abimbola smiled. “How entertaining.” He looked back at Awen. “Trouble is, I really don’t have the fondest feelings for Republic gunslingers. Something about them just makes me feel—oh, I don’t know… like I was stabbed in the back. No, no. That metaphor is too subtle. Perhaps stabbed in the face.” Abimbola indicated his facial scar, making a grand gesture of tracing the entire length with a fingertip. “So when I say I really don’t have the fondest feelings, I do mean really.”

  “Then, you’re going to kill him.”

  Abimbola clucked, nodding as if remorseful. “That is about the measure of it, yes.”

  “I see.” Awen tried again to reach to the Unity but gasped as a fresh wave of pain crashed against her head.

  “I suppose you do have at least a little power in this situation, however,” he added, “though it probably doesn’t seem very enabling.”

  “How’s that?”

  “I’m going to let you decide how this buckethead dies. Blaster bolt to the head,” he said, making a pistol out of his fingers and placing it beside his own temple, “or something slower. And before you answer, I feel obligated to tell you that bucketheads killed a lot of the people I loved, so when I say that I can kill him slowly, I do mean that I’ve perfected ways to draw out suffering over several years.”

  “Ooo, he has! He has!” Turtle boomed. “Show her the room.”

  “Perhaps later,” Abimbola said. “Let’s give her a choice first.”

  “And what if I don’t want to play your game?” Awen asked.

  “Then I’ll play one of my own.” The giant discarded the syringe and produced a poker chip from his pocket. “We’ll flip for it. Credit symbol, I kill him quickly. But house side up? Your friend will wish you’d chosen for him.”

  Awen swallowed. She considered the man’s poker chip and the possibility that maybe, if he was a gambling man, he was bluffing. He might want something else. “So, what do you want from me?” She dreaded the answer that awaited her. She knew what happened to women who got lost on these off-world hellholes.

  “Clever girl.” Abimbola pulled a small cylinder from behind his back. Awen’s head hurt, but she recognized it from the mwadim. “You see, I really want to know what’s on this stardrive. And I mean really. Unfortunately for me, however, you’re the only person who can access it. So—”

  “So I open it for you, and you kill him quickly.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Here’s my counter,” Awen said. “I open it for you, and you let him go, then you collect the bounty on me.”

  “Awen, no!” Magnus yelled.

  “Strange,” Abimbola said. “And unnecessarily reckless, nearsighted, and stupid. Though I’m not sure that—”

  “You’re not sure which you want more: to quench your insatiable curiosity about just what’s on that stardrive or to extract a little more blood from one more buckethead because you have a deep-seated vengeance complex, probably from when you were a boy. Am I right?”

  Abimbola stared at her. Awen noticed the faintest tic in the corner of his mouth. Gotcha, she thought.

  “And what if I refuse your counter? I feel you’re a little short on leverage.”

  “You can refuse, of course,” Awen said. “And in that case, I’ll have no other option than to use my remaining power to kill both the buckethead and myself. No amount of your little medication can prevent me from suicide.”

  “Suicide that also kills him?” Abimbola laughed.

  Awen looked at him deadpan. “You’ve never seen a Luma go nova, have you.”

  “Ha! No. And I don’t believe it. You’re bluffing.”

  Awen took a deep breath and then forced all her energy into her next few words, knowing they could very well be her last. “Abimbola, I swear on the graves of my descendants that I, Awen dau Lothlinium of the Order of the Luma, will sever my connection with this realm of the cosmos and take every one of you with me. You messed with the wrong woman today.”

  Abimbola bl
anched and took a step back, the poker chip clattering to the floor. He looked as if he’d just seen a ghost. “What did… what did you say your name is?”

  Chapter 10

  Awen and Magnus sat behind Abimbola and Berouth, his driver and second in charge, as the dune skiff raced away from the outskirts of Oosafar. The vehicle’s headlights rose and fell along rippling ridges of sand like searchlights sweeping ocean waves for wreckage. Cold desert air whipped at Awen’s hair as she sat wrapped in a traditional cooshra, while Magnus enjoyed the comfort of his helmet and MAR30 again.

  “We’re almost there,” Abimbola yelled over his shoulder. He tapped the nav screen that glowed on the dash. “Another four clicks.”

  Magnus could hardly believe the turn of events that had led to this moment. One minute they were strung up, Awen bargaining for their lives, and the next, they were being escorted to a rendezvous point by the warlord himself. She saved us, Magnus thought with a growing sense of irony and… What? his gut asked him. Admiration?

  He remained on high alert as they careened over the dunes, but the undulating movement combined with the skiff’s low hum lulled him into a reflective state. Not for the first time, he wondered who’d planted the explosives in the mwadim’s tent. The Jujari could have had a hand in it; factions within the dogs’ political structure were just as likely as with any other species. Maybe more, given their ruthless pack mentality. Still, something this calculated didn’t fit their MO, or what little he knew of it. The attack was brazen, yes. But it was also pristine. Maniacal was a better word, a study in controlled slaughter.

  The first explosion was disruptive, shocking the room into chaos, killing as many stationary targets as possible. It sent the message that security had been breached and put everyone in a panic. The second explosion, caused by ordnance that wasn’t set off by the first blast, was meant to insult—if you weren’t dead yet, that was your chance to die. But the third was pure evil. For anyone left who was stumbling or crawling their way to an escape—and Magnus had seen more than a few nonmilitary victims crawling toward the windows—the third blast was meant to maim, shatter, and humiliate. It said, We’ve been expecting you; we’ve been watching you. You’re not safe, and no one is getting out alive. Magnus wondered if the Republic was behind it then scolded himself for even considering that.