Jeff Kozzi

Chapter 71:  No Reins

Bruel Homestead, Shorns, Intergal 37:3:62198

Blane Kajer stopped, the distress of the homestead obvious to him, although less observant people might not have noticed until closer to the actual damage. He shook his head in performed thoughtlessness and balanced on his left foot as he bent his right knee to support his briefcase. He opened it and removed a long, paper-crammed file from the compartment above his portterm. He closed the briefcase again and resumed his walk, with a few performed looks into the crammed file. The overstuffed bulge of papers rested on its spine in his left hand, the briefcase now swinging in his right.

"It- is- master- Blane." Elodee reported at low volume to Kass.

Kass casually scanned the enforcers. "Try to wake Maych with a low-voltage electric jolt. Blane’ll play our hand, and I have no intention of being held hostage."

"Yes, sir."

"What did he take from the briefcase?" Loson asked Captain Mein.

"It looks like just a file," Mein replied doubtfully. "He’s a slob. Kajerist service would do him good."

"Radio down to Korb. Have him scan for a ‘tron."

"Yessir."

Blane began to whistle. His adrenaline raced. He noticed the imperial crawlers’ one-way treadtracks into the flooded yard. He was ready for them, but he had to find Domenika first. Things were too precarious between Liberators and Kajerists now for him to outright start anything. He’d have to walk into the homestead yard civilly, yet prepared. While patience was a virtue that Blane did not possess, he had not yet reached the phase of his life where he had absolutely none.

"Freeze, Kajer!"

The shout startled him; he almost dropped the file, but gripped it with nail-bitten fingertips. Nearly twenty enforcers surrounding him, weapons drawn. Some of the soldiers were armed with stunguns rather than lasertrons. That observation lent hope that everybody else in the homestead might be alive. Why had neither his mother nor Kass warned them about the attack before it happened?

"Uh, what’s goin’ on?"

"Don’t move," one of the Orfezzin enforcers snapped.

Blane stood frozen, still holding both briefcase and folder as Captain Mein approached.

"Where have you been?" Mein demanded.

"Work," Blane said with a forced serenity. "Mornin’ news’ll be out soon. Why, what’s goin’ on?"

"The grounds were attacked by an unidentified assassin."

Blane’s face lost color. He swallowed after a few vain attempts to speak, then asked, "What happened? Domenika—?"

"Bruel’s daughter is missing. Bruel’s dead."

Sadistically, Blane almost smiled. The news of Mard’s death did something to him. A non-burning warmth spread over the organs within his ribcage. The statement ran through every cell of his body and left a warm tingle behind as if he’d just stepped out from under a shadow into a new light. Even while he looked to the ground as a sign of respect, a new, indescribable feeling of release washed over him. Somewhere in his soul he felt remorse, but sadness did not manifest itself. No joy overcame him, but a far more vague happiness of a man who was finally free of the chains that had reined him in for so long did. Only one certainty subdued him: Mard Bruel had died because he had sheltered Blane.

"Where’s the killer?" he finally asked after a few long seconds of silence. His voice was low and even, perhaps restraint against subconscious betrayal of the feelings he couldn’t name.

"He pursued Bruel’s daughter into the jungle. We’ve dispatched a team."

"I see." Blane felt a shadow of disbelief. Mein was not giving details, and the enforcers had not budged from their collective stance around Blane.

"The Shorlak’s awake!" one of the enforcers assigned to guard Kass, Elodee, and Maycheeliya reported.

"Someone’s approaching from the north! Looks like our assassin—he’s a Blakkarrion!"

Blane raised an eyebrow. He’d imagined the assassin to be of Emperor Kajer’s personal guard. The knowledge of his relation to Kethe and the seeming destiny that someone would eventually come for him had supplied Blane with slight paranoia, perhaps rightfully so. He began to doubt that upon hearing the news that the murderer was Blakkarrion. The alliance between the Kajerists and Blakkarrions was so diminished that no Blakkarrion would be trusted with Kethe’s mission.

Detro Mein turned to the yard. "Surround the Blakkarrion! He’s to report to me!"

"Willingly." Rhulshun strode proudly to Mein and the group that surrounded Blane. He eyed Blane as a starving man would eye a yuun yet to be skinned, deboned, and filleted.

The look gave Blane a shiver. He assumed that the Kajerists and the Blakkarrion were in concert; strained as the political relationship had become, they were still allies. Whether or not they worked together, Blane counted both as enemies. He figured Elodee to be deactivated or destroyed, and knew that Maycheeliya had recently gained consciousness. He did not yet know of Kass’ presence. He didn’t want to think of how Rhulshun’s solitary return imported on Domenika’s fate.

"Cuff Kajer," Mein ordered. Behind him, Rhulshun cocked his head. The bone plates of his face and jaw separated in a victorious smile.

One of the enforcers moved toward Blane, holstering his lasertron and withdrawing alloyed shackles from his belt.

Blane let the Temmin approach. The tendrils at her shoulders jerked in nervous motion, tapping against the bone shell that covered her forearms. Blane’s heart, pumping more and more adrenaline, felt ready to burst. The time for action came when the enforcer ordered him to drop his briefcase and file.

Blane swung. The briefcase that held his treasured portterm arced in a parabola from its starting point at Blane’s knee to the Temmin’s blunt reptilian snout. He released it. Both case and enforcer fell back. Blane shoved his hands together. When he disjoined them, his right hand held a firm grip on the Chrid and the left threw the papers aside.

The Chrid hummed to life, for the first time in actual combat while in Blane’s possession. No laser blade formed. For all appearances, the Chrid was simply a top-heavy brass rod, of no significance to anyone who did not recognize it as the half-scepter of Shalhoon. The scepter energized at his mental command. He felt somehow linked to the Chrid, or that it was linked to him, as if made for him, and this moment. The energies the scepter commanded were under his mental control: a dangerous weapon to a self-doubting, angry young man such as Blane, yet one that provided a kriip’s width of accuracy.

He’d only intentionally fired it once before, and had cleanly sawed a tree with a thin ray of energy that perfectly matched the proportions of the tree trunk. No one in the area had ever seen anything like the felled tree before. The curiosity factor had supplied Blane with a curious article for the Shalen Sheet, his own private joke that he hadn’t even shared with Domenika, in fear that she would tell someone who would tell someone. The local Shorlaks would turn their outrage of the tree-sacrilege on him if they knew. He had confessed his deed to only one person, the one he trusted without reserve: Kass Kolten.

Blane had been something of an idealist, always hoping that the words he wrote could be his personal mode of combat in lieu of physical battle. He’d written often of the politics of the war, avoiding only reference to Kethe Kajer and the Kajerists by name in a half-ass effort to keep his byline from too closely matching the subject of the article. He theorized often, searching for possible solutions to the nearly twenty-year conflict, sometimes seeming pro-Liberator, sometimes pro-Kajerist. Those articles fostered uncertainties regarding Blane Kajer’s sympathies in the war, and the letters page demonstrated considerable public outrage to the man who came to be regarded as writing from the shadows of neutrality. Blane Kajer the journalist was feared because he seemed to put too much thought into ending the war, because one column seemed to blatantly contradict another, because his surname matched the emperor’s (childhood acquaintances had thrown accusations that the name change was a form of sensationalism), and perhaps mostly because he was a free thinker on a world so used to order: first the Shorlaks’ rigid religion, then the colonists’ puritanism, and after eighteen-plus years, the Kajerists’ imperial overlordship. Participation in a medium that could present new ideas and influence people’s lives for the better appealed to Blane more than any other aspect of his chosen career. For two years he’d held the ideal that he could help save the galaxy peacefully, and prevent further tragedies such as the ones that had befallen so many families, including his own.

That ideal suddenly seemed wrong. Blane realized how much he’d failed to change anything, that life was too short to allow the atrocities of the war to continue without fighting gun to gun, sword to sword, world to world, face to face. He could either hide in the shadows and let others control him and other victims, or he could cut the reins of fear, insecurity, peace and hope. For the first time he felt capable of standing up and openly fighting. Despite his leadership of the Shorns Liberators, Mard had always avoided battle. Blane had found his new calling, the base of all the roles he would play throughout his life, whether he be aggressor, victim, fool or king from circumstance to circumstance. Reined in his whole life, by Mard’s beatings, Veronika’s lies, Haarl’s seemingly empty promises, Domenika’s desire for peaceful quietude in their secret relationship, and his own insecurities, Blane Kajer now stood free. Something snapped within him and brought all the anger and anxiety and fear and frustration out of the shadows and into the light for all to see.

That light cast new evidence of himself as well. He’d never been satisfied with his life, or with himself, and this dissatisfaction suddenly appeared as something changeable, something dependent on his own strength of will.

Blane spotlighted the premier of his new self with brilliant energy that flashed from the cupped end of the Chrid and slammed into the human, Mulsek, and Shorlak who were retargeting him. All three fell simultaneously.

Mein waved his fist in the air while Rhulshun ducked for cover. "Fools! Shoot to kill!" He was about to issue another order, as if the Kajerists needed specific instruction to defend themselves. Mein’s voice died when he heard frantic shouts from across the yard. He spun in response to the commotion. He saw several of his soldiers fall back under the initial burst of Elodee’s wave disruptor and saw "Bernie Nordrider" tackle a Qualmloid enforcer while Elodee’s laser knife utility cut through the Shorlak’s shackles.

Blane backed away from the enforcers with another furious blast from the Chrid that killed three more enforcers, another Mulsek, another human, and a Noshinsi. In final impulse of hir nerves, the Mulsek’s metamorphic torso bubbled then closed around the clear burnhole. "Where’s Domenika?!"

Kass knocked the Qualmloid into the mud with a solid punch and wrestled away the Qualmloid’s lasertron. He instantly spun. A single blast ripped through the throat of the Temmin who had tried to cuff Blane. Kass pivoted again on the foot that held the Qualmloid in the mud. His shot down the Jopnoite enforcer who reentered the yard from the east. He spun yet again and landed a laser between the eyes of the Qualmloid who had formerly owned the gun that he now employed with ferocity that belied the true gentleness in the boy’s soul.

"Nordrider, stop!" Mein shouted. The words were his last command as he was decapacitated by a wide, thin ray of energy from the Chrid.

Blane ran through the yard, exhibiting his home-field advantage. He recognized Kass’ alias. "Kass, I’m coming!"

"Odee, cover me! And use the lasers!" Kass sprang to Maycheeliya’s aide. The Shorlak held his head in his boney, multi-jointed hands. "Come on, Maych."

"Kassidi, I’m still dizzy."

"We’ll deal with it. Deep breaths. Keep your head down."

Blane bound over the wreckage of the yard. Ominous orange Chrid-bursts killed the Mulsek and Orfezzin who targeted Kass and Maycheeliya. "Where’s Dom?!"

"Kay’s with her!" Kass shouted above the sounds of battle. He shot down a Drooth. The mammalian’s wide bill splintered as the laser burned through it on path to the Droooth’s throat.

"Where the hell’s se?!" Blane released another burst of energy, this time in the form of three blue fireballs that reduced another Mulsek, a Jopnoite, and a Noshinsi into smoldering corpses in the mud.

"North!" Kass shot down another two Qualmloids with steady aim. He blindly called to Maycheeliya, who gripped a Kajerist lasertron with discomfort. "Use the thing, Maych! It’s them or us!"

Two of the remaining thirteen enforcers fell under Elodee’s computerized targeting systems.

Maycheeliya impulsively did as he was ordered, not presently questioning Kass’ age or authority. He missed. Despite his standing with the Shorns Liberators, he’d never been a soldier, only a medic.

Of the eleven enforcers remaining, two Qualmloids scrambled back into the driver’s seats of the imperial crawlers. They had been among the first to ever have seen the Chrid wielded in combat; the sheer destructive power that Blane commanded frightened both. What they’d failed to consider was that if the Chrid’s released energies could so effectively and brutally slay and maim their fellow enforcers, it possessed sufficient power to decimate the crawlers. Blane sent a massive fireball at both crawlers. His aim true, both crawlers detonated with the force of his blast. Officers Loson and Korb screamed in the burning wreckage.

The power under Blane’s command also stunned Kass. He watched after the two flaming crawlers for a brief second, then resumed his part in the combat with another lethal blast into the faceplate of the Orfezzin who had fired on Elodee.

Elodee shot a Temmin and a Drooth. The latter’s bill snapped shut in a single death throe. Blane turned back to the yard and slew two Jadanni among the now-panicked troops. Their pale yellow skin smoked and blackened as their bodies’ dismembered parts heaped into the mud. Kass shot down another Jadanni and shouted, "Blane, the other crawler! Left!"

Blane spun, as if throwing momentum into the fireball that slammed into the leftmost crawler of the two remaining. The Shorns darkness momentarily diminished as the crawler flared into a huge blaze then settled back down to a smaller heap of burning rubble.

"Blane!"

He responded to Maycheeliya’s shout instinctively. He pivoted at the hips with the Chrid flaring. His heart surged in recognized ignorance of the threat’s angle and trajectory. A wall of blue-white energy sparked from the Chrid’s cupped end and surrounded Blane protectively. The shots from two enforcers phased harmlessly into the dissimilar energy. Elodee targeted one of Blane’s attackers, and Maycheeliya the other. Both shots burst into the Drooth and the Orfezzin accurately.

The last enforcer dropped his lasertron and bolted from the remaining crawler, easterly into the jungle. Blane raised the Chrid to fire on the fleeing Shorlak, but Maycheeliya jumped from the mud to his feet.

"Blane, no! He’s unarmed!!"

"He’s a Kajerist and prob’ly has a comm!" Blane argued through clenched teeth.

Kass slid between Blane and Maycheeliya. "Kajerist command was notified as soon as the crawlers went up. Might as well let him go."

Blane nodded curtly, listening to his younger companion where he wouldn’t hear the older. "Where’s Dom an’ Emkay?"

"North. Let’s take the crawler."

Maycheeliya jabbed a bony finger into the yard. "Mard’s body!"

Blane’s teeth ground tighter in incomprehension against Maycheeliya’s concerns. "He’s dead, Maych! There’s hope for Domenika!"

Maycheeliya was a pious soul. The thought that his friend’s corpse should remain unattended chilled his shell-encased spine and his soul. "Elodee and I—"

"My- programming- clearly- indicates- that- my- prime- duty- is- to- first- safeguard- the- welfare- of- Miss- Domenika."

Maycheeliya looked painfully between Elodee and the yard. "Mard is your owner!"

"Master- Bruel- is- deceased. My- programming clearly- indicates- that- I- must- now- dedicate- myself- to- safeguard- the- welfare- of- Miss- Domenika."

"Sacrilege!"

Blane jabbed to the crawler with his thumb. "We’re goin’. You can stay with us or you can stay here with the dead an’ maybe join’m."

Breath wheezed between Maycheeliya’s jagged teeth. The thought of remaining alone in the yard of corpses with more Kajerists certainly on their way visibly frightened him. "I’ll go with you. But we must come back here!"

Blane turned towards the crawler, his imagination running rampant with fear for Domenika. Elodee followed him wordlessly. "We’ll come back," Kass promised the Shorlak.

"You’re a good boy, Kassidi," Maycheeliya said, discarding the Kajerist lasertron and retrieving his riot rifle from its resting place in the mud.

There was no shout of "Forget something?!" as the Blakkarrion shoulderwhip whistled through the flickering darkness. Elodee saved Blane with a quick burst of hir wave disruptor that struck Blane in the back and threw him face-first into the mud. Rhulshun’s shoulderwhip slashed through the air, landing cleanly between Blane’s two bootprints in the mud.

"Odee?!" Blane rolled to his feet, facing his companions and the towering Blakkarrion. "Oh!"

Rhulshun snapped both shoulder whips. He entwined the sekbot, and, with more strength in the thin coils than any of the four Liberators would have anticipated, threw Elodee at Kass and Maycheeliya. Kass kicked at the Shorlak’s multi-jointed leg. Maycheeliya tripped, and Kass folded over him. Elodee soared over their heads.

Rhulshun turned on Blane even before he had fully released Elodee. He fired a hasty round of lasers at the human. Blane raised another shield of Chrid-energy, hoping it would prove powerful enough to absorb the force of the blasts from Rhulshun’s PLK.

Rhulshun leaped, to avoid the blasts fired by both Maycheeliya and Kass and to get closer to Blane with a new vantage point. Blane jumped back instinctively, but hit his hand on the crawler’s tread-wheel. The shock of the jolt caused him to drop the Chrid.

Rhulshun saw his best opportunity. He slashed both shoulderwhips at Blane.

Again, a hasty pulse of Elodee’s wave disruptor saved Blane, but this time Elodee projected a field of force in front of the human, repelling the Blakkarrion’s whips.

Off-balanced but not defeated, Rhulshun swore to himself. He loosened two concussion grenades from his bandolier and tossed them at the three foes to his left. Kass and Maycheeliya dove for cover while Elodee thrust the grenades away from hir comrades with two well-placed bursts of hir wave disruptor. Rhulshun whipped hastily between Blane and the Chrid to thwart the human’s efforts in regaining his fallen weapon. Blane vaulted backwards, again slamming into the crawler.

Rhulshun smiled as Blane huffed. His left whip snapped again, but this time it twisted around the Chrid’s hilt. He drew the weapon to his body, and took it with a firm hold in his right hand. If Rhulshun didn’t just secretly keep the weapon for his own use, Tsaan would reward him favorably. With a half of the world’s scepter in his possession, no one could thwart Tsaan’s bid for Shalhoon’s throne.

Blane gasped.

Rhulshun smiled. Then, in a quicksilver motion, the Blakkarrion spun toward Elodee, Kass, and Maycheeliya, the Chrid’s cupped end glistening in the firelight of the burning crawlers.

"Miss!" Blane screamed to distract Rhulshun.

Rhulshun willed the release of massive energies at Elodee, Kass, and Maycheeliya. The three targets counted themselves as dead even before the blast reached them. Enraged, Blane leaped at Rhulshun.

Blane tackled Rhulshun with enough force to knock back the alien, four times his own weight.

Rhulshun threw Blane aside as the Chrid’s offense slammed into the mud around Kass, Maycheeliya and Elodee without touching any of them. Rhulshun had always prided himself on his accuracy with any weapon. His enraged bellow thundered through the burning yard. "I missed?!!"

Blane knew the risk held placed himself in, but considered his friends’ lives worth it. He hadn’t seen the Chrid’s flare strike; Rhulshun’s gasp was his only confirmation of what Blane insisted to himself he wouldn’t let happen. His success failed to diminish his fear of proximity to a Blakkarrion. Blane knew that the merest pinprick, any cut strong enough to draw the slightest trace of blood, was enough to introduce a lethal dose of venom. Despite the danger of this ploy, Blane proceeded with courage and a consciously unrecognized faith in his comrades.

The sheer stupidity (or bravado) of his opponent amazed Rhulshun. He realized why Tsaan had ordered this one dead, beyond the youth’s birthright: he was that insane kind of dangerous. Rhulshun recognized Blane as a warrior of instinct, perhaps aided by successful dumb luck, who reined no conscious thoughts to his actions, but did what felt right according to gut feeling. All at once Rhulshun felt rushed, that he was wrong to categorize the target as an easy mark simply because he was human.

Blane had entwined himself around Rhulshun, a move that, when taken in addition to their constant motion, prevented any of his three allies from shooting the Blakkarrion. Even Elodee’s computerized targeting could not ensure striking Rhulshun without hitting Blane. The two writhed and struggled as Rhulshun tried to shed his unwanted passenger.

Blane was not without some subconscious plan, as he proved by drawing Rhulshun’s sheathed dagger and planting the blade into the Blakkarrion’s side to the hilt.

Rhulshun coiled his whips. Elodee discharged hir wave disruptor above Rhulshun’s head, preventing the Blakkarrion from snapping his whips into himself, thus into Blane.

The sight of freely-flowing Blakkarrion blood triggered another concern. "Is their blood poison, or jus’ the whips?"

Rhulshun reached for the dagger. "Everything!"

"Just the whips!" Kass corrected, still holding his lasertron with Rhulshun’s sleek boned head in the scope, not yet daring to shoot. Blane kept writhing, in part supporting himself with a boot in Rhulshun’s belt while he kicked at the Blakkarrion hand reaching for the dagger. He missed and kicked the hilt, twisting the pronged blade in Rhulshun’s organs. Only then, with the reverse-hooked blade inflicting further internal injuries, did Rhulshun realize he’d been stabbed with his own dagger. Rhulshun found his own weapon as haphazard as he’d intended the Chrid to be against Blane.

Without knowing of the blade’s crossed tip, Blane yanked the blade free of its organic sheath when he felt the Blakkarrion’s huge hand engulf his own. Where Rhulshun expected Blane to try keeping the blade imbedded in his gut, the human followed the Blakkarrion’s motion instead of resisting it. A sliver of Rhulshun’s organs glittered in the firelight until it landed in the mud. Rhulshun wailed in agony. He faltered. Blane reinserted the blade higher on the same side of Rhulshun’s torso. Rhulshun cried out again, and sent another flare from the Chrid.

The energy fanned out around them all and dissipated into the treetops. Rhulshun released more, planning to drain the weapon’s presumed reserves. The second ignition came closer to Kass and Maycheeliya, but still missed. The Blakkarrion fired again and again, always without satisfaction. His whips writhed as Elodee’s constant barrage prevented him from extending them enough to whip Blane.

Rhulshun felt himself growing weaker. His own blade was not poisoned. Had the blade that the lighter-haired human previously stabbed him with been tainted? Or had Blane’s stab been lucky enough to pierce his nomril, the organ that converted some body wastes to venom?

"I will succeed!!" he shouted. " I have never failed a contract! I will kill you!!"

Rhulshun released another blast, his most powerful yet. The bloody, corpse-strewn yard illuminated as Rhulshun’s discharge scorched the trees.

"Die!" Rhulshun hissed as Elodee slapped his whips with another wave disruptor discharge.

"Shoot yourself, you friggin’—" Blane growled.

The Chrid’s blast burst in a wide red flame that rose heavenward. In midair it twisted, thinned, changed color from fiery red to pure white, and arced back towards the combatants. It pierced the top of Rhulshun’s shoulder, kriip away from Blane’s hand. The beam angled through Rhulshun’s body and emerged from his hip, kriip away from Blane’s foot.

Blane felt the Blakkarrion tighten around him, but didn’t jump clear as the far more massive alien fell atop his human rider. If not for the softness of the Shorns mud, Blane would have been crushed.

Blane gagged as the last release of Rhulshun’s muscles voided his bladder and bowels. "Kass! Maych! Get him offo’ me!"

"Hold still, Blane," Kass said. "Odee, behead him."

"Kassidi!" Maycheeliya shouted, his beliefs again assaulted by someone he expected only respect from. "Enemy or not, he’s dead!"

Kass turned calmly to the Shorlak. "Blane was his real target, Maych! I’m going to be damn sure that he is dead before Blane gets up in whip range! Behead him, Odee." He paused briefly then added, "The Blakkarrion, not Maych."

Incomprehensive of humor, Elodee monotonously responded with a usual "Yes, sir," and used hir laser saw to decapitate the Blakkarrion. Maycheeliya turned away.

The deed done, Kass stepped forward. He kicked the dismembered part aside, and lifted the body enough for Blane to slide free.

Blane recovered the Chrid, hooked it and Rhulshun’s knife into his belt and immediately rushed back to the crawler. "Dom!"

"Emkay reports that things haven’t changed," Kass said. "But this one’s going to be tricky."

Blane dropped into the driver’s chair. "Why?"

Kass jerked his head in Maycheeliya’s direction. Oblivious to his companions’ conversation and possible new dangers lurking in the woods and jungles, Maycheeliya kicked at the mud with despondent resignation.

"Where is she?" Blane asked as Elodee hovered to the Kajerist transport.

"Where we might not be able to rescue her from—"

"Kass—!"

"I’m not teasing," he whispered. "She’s in the Eye of Kordozza."