Chapter 5: 5. Preparations

Luke gave instructions to his second in command and sent him down to Deck 30 to audit the Harvest preparations. The tallies from the other saucers had not all arrived. This really bothered Luke. He had made first contact already. The asteroid was turning on this. The other representatives had one week to hammer out the rest of the details on this Harvest. It should have been done a hundred rotations ago.

“I think I need a few rotations of rest and relaxation on Deck 131,” he announced to the empty corridor, referencing a different ship famed for its luxurious resorts.

It was quite by accident that he sighted his sister seated in an arboretum beyond the passage he currently stood in. He had not expected to find her here, and he started to hail her, but he sensed something amiss. She was a warrior to her core, and her mind was usually unnaturally alert. She should have already sensed him and greeted him. It was strange that she had not. Something was distracting her, and it intrigued him.

He walked quietly down the hall toward the large arboretum and took a seat on a bench behind a low wall of hedges some hundred feet off. It was considered rude to eavesdrop on another's private thoughts. Still, he softly pushed his mind out toward her to see what so distracted her. She was his sibling. That allowed him the occasional egregious moments of trespass exempt of reprisal. He just had to be careful, or she would tell their mom on him. He tiptoed toward her mind with his own.

He glanced about the park to see if anyone else was about who might betray the fact that he was spying on his sister. There were a few campers a quarter mile off, but that was all he saw. He was alone for the most part surrounded by 50-foot-tall trees and the numerous human sculpture that dotted the arboretum. Sometimes, he would flinch with guilt mistaking one of the thousands of statues populating the park as a real person. He realized this was just a trick of a guilty conscience.

He began spying out the statues in his vicinity and wondered at their makers. Each was an heirloom brought along by a colonist harvested from other worlds. They were a sentimental sort. Luke had found that the most interesting characteristic of all in the colonists he had met. They formed the most peculiar attachments to the things they owned. It was allowed, of course. Luke, however, had been trying for decades to replicate this level of intimacy with something he owned. He had a sock he liked more than the rest, but he doubted that was the same as what the colonists had.

He looked about the park and breathed deeply the scents of the soil and plant life. Somewhere off to his left an artificial breeze had been kicked up to rustle the leaves and flex the trees to keep them strong. This arboretum was the closest one to the Hall of Khans—a name given it by one of the first colonists ever reaped. He had seen a lot of the other parks on the ship, and he had always thought this one to be the nicest.

He glanced toward the Hall of Khans. The name was a little fancy for Luke's taste. It was just the auditorium where the ambassadors and political dignitaries met to commune with one another in private. The room was shielded to block the probing thoughts of those not privy to the discussions within. He liked to go there when it was not in use and sit so he could relax and be absolutely alone. Privacy: an oddity in his world.

A wall of white noise flared to life, drawing him back to the present and pressing his mind away. I'm telling mom, Leia threatened suddenly. He smirked.

You seemed distracted. I was curious. He felt a flush of guilt and embarrassment from her—even through the white noise. That made him even more curious.

How was the council meeting? she asked.

As you would expect. They're all promising results and few are delivering. A third of the ships have yet to audit their resources and report back their projected tallies. It's a pain in the . . . he left off the graphic for her benefit. Until they get me those numbers, I don't know how many of the colonists we can take on.

How many do you think we can manage? she asked absently. She was still distracted.

With the numbers tallied so far—about two thirds of the nations—we can comfortably handle 1.2 billion of them, he replied, shamefacedly.

I wish we could take them all, Leia whispered. It seems wrong to leave them behind.

We could have once, but the last drift changed all that. We can only take what we can take, he said. We're not responsible for this. The Drifters are. They fled. The blood of the colonists we leave behind isn't on our hands. It’s on the hands of those who broke away. The Drifters killed these people. Not us.

Maybe they'll be passed over, Leia suggested hopefully.

They would be the first colony to manage that. The conversation had grown somber and dark. Luke did not like talking about what was coming—what was following. It was like a blade hanging over his neck, waiting to drop. Maybe those we leave behind will get lucky. There has to be a first time for everything. He did not sound convinced.

Yeah, Leia whispered, not believing it for a moment.

Sorry for the thought sniffing. It won't happen again. He got up to leave.

I'm still telling mom, Leia said, flooding his mind with mirth. He chuckled softly and walked off, leaving her to her thoughts.

She followed him with her mind and lost him when he returned to the empty Hall of Khans. His mind vanished behind the shielding built into the walls and ceiling of the chamber. She scanned the park and determined that she was unobserved. She was wrong.

Like a child spying on its parents, she crept stealthily from the ship. She let her mind fall back into the atmosphere of the world below. She did not have to search for him. The trail of his thoughts was easy to follow, and she sniffed them out like a hound. He was like a freaking child with his thoughts. There was no control or reservation. Everything he thought was there to see. He was the most open person she had ever met.

She was furious the first time he imagined her. She had almost lobotomized him on the spot. The second time, she knew he was playing with his newfound ability. The moment she decided to leave though, his thoughts changed. Even though they did not know one another, he was sorry to see her go. With his sorrow, came his true thoughts. The sincerity of his admiration struck her. No one up here was ever that honest with her. Everything was politics and guarded thoughts. No one was ever privy to another's entire mind. Those she lived among greedily hid themselves behind walls of white noise and revealed only what they wanted others to see. He was not like that. Yes, he was vulgar, crude, smelly, not very handsome, uncultured, and not all that bright, but he was sincere. That blinded her to most of the rest.

She was getting close and slowed her mind. She did not want him to know she was mentally sniffing him. She was a hypocrite. She knew it. With the colonials, she felt free to plunder their minds. It was like searching out lost and abandoned living quarters when you’re young for exploration. It was the adventure of children, and she felt the same way with the colonists. Their minds were open and unlocked. It is not breaking in if they leave them open, she told herself.

She slowly pushed herself into his mind. He was asleep and he was dreaming now. Before her brother had distracted her, she had been watching in amazement as this colonist imagined her and him entwined one with the other sharing a moment of intimacy. What the colonist did not realize was that she had taken the place of the construct he had created. She had felt his fingers on her skin, and she had liked it. He had been so gentle. Her brother's intrusion had really pissed her off more than she would have ever admitted to her brother or herself.

She did not know what to make of his dreams though. They were not what she had expected. She wanted to see more of him being gentle, more of him and her being intimate. What she saw was not what she expected. I was so not what she had expected and to such an extent, all her discipline went out the window and she blurted out the only thing she could think to say.

What the fuck?

She had not meant to let that thought sift into the mind of the colonist. She had just wanted to watch unobserved. Leia quickly retreated off a short distance, keeping herself small and hoping he would not see her. A flush of embarrassment colored her cheeks a hundred miles away.

The man upon which she mentally spied did not seem to notice her presence. His thoughts were fuzzier than before and scattered, which made his dream seem that much more bizarre. What had surprised her were the rotting men in the dream. A flood of rotting men was breaking into a decrepit woodland domicile. The colonist dreaming about them was eagerly cutting off their heads and shooting lead projectiles through their chests.

Beside him, glittering like starlight with her sword in her hand, was his dream version of her. She was fighting the rotting people with him at his side. It was the warrior in Leia, but she could not help being critical of her dream incarnation. His version of her was clumsy with a sword. Many of her strikes left her exposed after. There was no way the real Leia would ever make mistakes so blatant. The real Leia felt irked by the colonist's inaccurate representation of her, but the more she watched, the more interesting it all became. She thought the guy sick for fantasizing like this, but the longer she observed the pair in combat, the more excited she became. She was not sure why, but it looked fun, and she felt an overwhelming desire to join the fight.

Hey, she called, pushing into his mind then suddenly retreating. She felt embarrassed and even nervous, like a child breaking a parental rule on a dare.

He looked over at her, his left hand cutting down rotting man while his rifle rested on his shoulder. He raised the gun and wagged it at her in greeting, then absently shot another rotting man stumbling toward him.

You'llerrr misssen all da frun, he told her, slurring his thoughts. He pointed toward a boarded-up window behind her. She turned just in time to see rotting men suddenly knock the boards away. The maimed men tumbled through and awkwardly rose. She studied them curiously. They were not very fast and had little tactile dexterity. The men were clumsy. The closest one lunged at her unexpectedly, grappling with her while it tried to tear out her throat with its rotten putrid teeth.

It took her by surprise. Watching him and his version of her, they had never let the rotting men get that close. She understood the threat they posed and why he was fighting them. A moment later, she understood what this dream was. She did not know who the rotting men were, but she understood the purpose of the dream. It was an endless wave attack where one could unremorsefully destroy an army of aberrations deserving of death. It was a guiltless festival of carnage and death.

With the realization came action. She deftly twisted the wrist of the rotting man grappling with her and pulled his arm out wide, then delivered a hard uppercut with the heel of her free hand. Her opponent's head snapped up and its jaw broke with a satisfying crack. She let go its wrist in that moment so she could seize its head in one hand and chin in the other. She snapped its neck with a quick twist then faded back so she had room to draw her sword. She knew it was not actually there, but in the dream it felt right. She smiled at the familiar feel of its hilt in her palm. She ripped the sword free and brought it out wide in a hissing whistle before slashing across then back and up. The next rotting man approaching her literally flew apart as a result.

She started to rush the next of the rotting men when something soft touched her mind. She knew the touch. Someone was trying to sniff her thoughts. She turned and fled back to her body, drawing her mind back as quickly as she could, cursing herself for a fool. Two times in under an hour. The colonist was proving a dangerous distraction.

She sat absolutely still upon returning to herself and scanned the area with her mind. There were campers a long way off but no one close. Yet, she knew that feel. Someone had been scanning the park, and they were trying to be stealthy about it. That only ever boded ill in her experience. She found no one near at hand in the arboretum and rose to her feet to see if her eyes could find what her mind had missed.

There was no one, and her thoughts went back to her brother and wondered if he had tried again. Her top lip drew back into an irritated sneer. If he had pulled her away again just to irritate her, she would do more than tell their mom. She had been having fun for once. She sent her thoughts out ahead and down the hall past the Hall of Khans. There was nobody there. She drew her sword as a precaution and looked at the door. She wanted to confront him about sniffing her thoughts again, but she was not sure if she should.

On one hand, she was afraid of adding to her brother's level of distress. The success of the Harvest rested firmly on him. Its success or failure would be his as well. This could ruin him if it all went wrong. And on the other hand, if he was not the one sniffing her thoughts, then she would be admitting that once again she had allowed someone to take her unawares. It was an embarrassing thing to admit. She stood there weighing the pros and cons of confronting him. The final factor to consider though was that if it was not him, then someone else had been spying on her. Despite her concerns about her brother's wellbeing and her own embarrassment, if a threat existed, she needed to know about it and she needed to know immediately.

You are reading story Croatoan, Earth: The Saga Begins at novel35.com

It was almost as if someone were responding to her need to know as something heavy slammed into the wall from inside the council chamber, rattling the door before her. Her indecision vanished. She kicked open the auditorium door and came in with her side arm drawn and her sword ready, low, and leading.

There was no pause in her entrance. She did not stop to take in the sight with her eyes. Her mind flooded the room in search of targets. She found six minds down below, one of them was her brother. He was grappling with one of the men, trying to keep the man's sword out of his throat.

The moment her eyes touched the charcoal armor, she knew they were all worthy of death. They all had to die. She ran down the steps toward the floor of the auditorium where the orators were supposed to stand, snapping off three quick shots. There was no streak of light like the colonists pretended there to be in their movies. There was a high-pitched ping and a hole laced with fire appeared in the two of the assassins and the podium next to a third. She was lining up another shot on the man she missed when something heavy ricocheted off her armor. It was shank of metal—probably a blade—but it had glanced off her shoulder plate breaking two links of her armor in the process. Her wound was a small harmless laceration.

She slapped the control plate on her chest to activate her armor and threw herself down the stairs, twisting around in mid-air. It saved her life. The blade that had struck her had come from near the doorway she just come through. A sixth assassin was coming to his feet. She realized even as he fired his side arm at her, that he was the heavy thing that had hit the wall a moment before, courtesy of her brother no doubt. Another assassin screamed as he too was hurtled end over end into the wall to her right. Her brother was fighting back.

The sixth man fired two shots at her. One left a burning ring in the steps between her knees, and the other left a trail of burning rings through the backs of the stadium seating to her left. He had missed. She did not. She fired off four shots. Four rings of fire suddenly appeared in the man. Three in his chest and one where his face had been. She rolled backwards as she landed, flipping over and onto her feet with her back to the two men still standing.

She knew one of the remaining two had broken off his attack on her brother in hopes of taking her unawares, but she sensed him. She did not bother turning to face him. Instead, she touched a button on the hilt of her sword, and her sword’s blade suddenly shot backward into the hilt and out the other side. With the sword reversed in her grip, she held firm and locked her elbow to her side to brace for the impact as the assassin behind her impaled himself on her blade. She did not savor the kill. She hit the button again and her grip reversed yet again and just in time for her to blade to bear once more. She brought it down on the neck of the mortally wounded man, taking his head.

The assassin struggling with Luke had her brother on the floor with his blade in the air. She brought her sidearm up to end the man, but a ring of fire appeared in its side, severing the barrel and breech.

She threw herself sidelong and to her right, rolling as she landed. She pressed another button her hilt and held it. Six inches of her sword hilt, split off and raced to the other end of her blade, stopping nine inches shy of the end. She released the button as she came out of her roll and the short section of hilt and exposed blade dropped from the end of the blade. She caught the freshly crafted dagger it as it fell free from the rest of the blade.

The assassin struggling with her brother was between her and the assassin who had shot her side arm. Burning rings were appearing in the furnishings around her. She dodged left and right to avoid being hit and when he stopped to reload, she charged. Flipping the dagger in her hand so that she gripped the blade. She waited until she was a short leap from her brother's attacker and flung the knife at him. She was aiming for the man's stomach. That was the only reason he was able to avoid it.

He broke from his grapple with her brother, twisted away from the path of the blade into a graceful pirouette and fell upon her brother anew with his blade posed to plunge through her brother's chest. She could not stop him. He gripped the hilt in both hands to put all his weight behind it the strike. There was no way to stop him.

She had missed the man grappling with Luke, but he had not been her target. She had expected him to dive away to avoid the thrown dagger. His dodge had been expected, but his recovery not so much. Her dagger was meant for the other man; the one who had destroyed her side arm and was even now frantically struggling to reload his weapon. This man had not expected the throw. He was genuinely surprised when nine inches of nanite steel sprouted from his chest.

He was even more surprised when the nanites broke loose inside him, abandoning the hilt of the knife. They spread through his blood stream, repairing the damage to his chest while simultaneously attacking his nervous system. He toppled over sideways, paralyzed. The hilt of the dagger fell away. The nanites hit his brain before he had even managed to crash to the floor. It would be up to Leia to decide if he ever got up again. For now, he was her captive. She would retrieve him when she was done with his companion.

Leia knew she could not reach her brother before the assassin's blade pierced his heart. Luke must have known that as well, and just moments before, all would have been lost. His attackers had been attacking his mind as a group. They were smothering his thoughts to keep him from focusing the force of his will. With one thrown knife, his sister had remedied this, removing the last obstacle in Luke's way. As the swordsman's blade dived for his heart, Luke's will exploded forth unchallenged.

Off! he roared into the assassin's head. The force of his will flinging the man straight up.

Leia smirked, and raced forward, intending to meet the falling body of the assassin with an upward slice of her blade that would have cut the man in half. The falling man was not incapacitated as she had hoped though. He flicked his sword out wide, deflecting hers away.

Luke was already rolling, even as the man landed. His sister would need room to work. Luke kept rolling and Leia inserted herself between him and his attacker.

Who are you? Leia demanded of the man. The man did not respond. I hope you for your sake, you fight better than your friends. The man’s only reply was a menacing smile.

His skin had been brushed with a film to camouflage its color. She made a study of his face taking note of his long aquiline nose with its broken ridge, his thin lips, and high cheek bones. He had a long neck, narrow shoulders, and dark brown almond eyes. He had traced his eyes with some dark pigmenting pencil and hid his hair beneath a dark wrap of cloth.

He rushed her as she rushed him. Their swords met once, twice, and again. They twisted away from each other, and Leia came back in slashing horizontal, left to right, letting that strike flow into an upward slice that would have split the man from groin to grin if he had held still.

He had not. He fell back before her first strike, rolled left to miss the powerful upper cut, and stabbed out at her with his left. She deflected his blade with a palm strike to the flat of it, ripping her blade sideways in its wake.

The man got his blade back in position to stop her strike, catching it just below his guard. She ripped her blade back the other way, spinning with it into a crouch while holding her blade at the ready should he press his counter. She gripped the hilt of her sword in both hands, tip up and angled out toward him. He had retreated a step and held his blade reversed with the hilt up in front of him and his blade down in a guarded position. They stood like that for several long tense moments. Each was trying to anticipate the other's next move.

You're better than they were, she admitted grudgingly. The man dipped is head slowly to acknowledge her compliment. He said nothing, however. Leia watched the man's left foot slowly shift back and out. She lowered the tip of her blade slowly and raised the hilt and her left elbow in preparation for the attack, but he was not shifting to attack as she had thought. The man's sword never moved, but his free hand did. It quickly darted inside a loose pocket on his battle skirt. When it came out, it was clutching a short, elongated piece of metal as thick as her hand. She did not recognize it, but she knew it could be almost anything. She was ready to deflect it if he threw it at her, and even attempted to attack the man as her brother had done. She summoned her will and put it behind a word.

Die! she commanded. The man flinched then smiled and flicked the metal object away. She brought her blade back before her at the ready, but it was not necessary. The man was not throwing it at her. He had thrown it off to her right. She heard it landed and bounce a couple of times before coming to a rest. She did not look to see what purpose it had served. Not with him. He had probably expected her to look, throwing the device as distraction. She was not taking the bait if that was his ploy. Instead, Leia attacked, rushing him with her sword tip leading.

The man sidestepped her attack and retreated two steps. From the direction of the thrown object, a new sound began. It was the hiss of small machines accompanied by the click and clack of small metallic legs. She had never seen that type of object before, but she had heard of them and cursed. She attacked again, stabbing for the man's heart. Again, he sidestepped and retreated. She repeated the attack, and he repeated his dodge and withdraw.

You think you can make it to the door before I kill you? she asked, thinking this his plan. The assassin smiled. Leia scowled and attacked, but her opponent simply lowered his blade ready to receive her strike. This gave her pause and a moment of doubt, but it did not stop her from seizing the opportunity to end it.

Luke's wail of distress followed her, but too late. No! Luke called, throwing his thought at her in a bid to stop her. The assassin's plan revealed itself a moment later as he released his will in a single focused blast meant to burst her heart.

Her brother was strong, but when he brought his will to bear, it was like being punched. The man she faced was far more disciplined. The force of his will came to bear like a blade. It was narrow and focused. He did not even use a word to focus it. He said nothing. He just threw his entire mind at her and waited for her to die, and she might have if not for her armor. She was not a low-level Watchman. She was an Imperial Knight and was afforded the articles of protection that came with that position. The nanite sword she held and the psionic armor she wore were standard for all Imperial Knights.

She had been trained to ignore the hum of the armor as it sought to match the wavelength of the assassin's psychic assault. It was disorienting but not disabling to her. The plates of armor flexed to deflect the bulk of the blast, splitting the focus and scattering the blast in ambient waves that dissipated into the room. Her head was uncovered, so even with the armor, she felt a wave of force inside her head. It hurt, but it was not debilitating. The pain was worth it though just to see the smug look of satisfaction on the assassin's face slide away as the tip of her blade punched through his armor, heart, and scapula.

Leia smiled back for his benefit and hoped he would live long enough to see it.

No, Luke moaned again.

You can relax. I'm fine, she told him, trying to put his mind at ease.

I'm not—I wasn't warning you, he snapped, looking off into the corner of the room where the assassin she had disabled lay. The man was a bloody mess. Small spidery bots dragging scorpion looking tails crawled all over him, slicing through arteries, and carving off gobbets of meat. Her eyes went to the elongated device. It was just a skeleton now. A frame to which the crab-legged machines had clung. She understood then why her brother had told her no. He was trying to stop her from killing the only man left they could interrogate. She shook her head turned back to Luke.

Oh, she said simply, secretly pleased with her handiwork but disappointed with the outcome. If it makes you feel better, he never would have talked. He was too disciplined to talk. Maybe next time, we'll get lucky.

Luke gave her a flat unfriendly look, but he realized that there would be a next time. There had been a lot of next times since the Drifters left. Next time, she might not be there to save him. Next time, they might succeed.

She strolled over to the mutilated corpse and quickly cleared the biggest of the bots with her sword, stomping on the smaller of them. She turned her armor off and reached down to retrieve the hilt of the dagger she had flung. The blade was missing, having broken up to incapacitate the man. She considered it for a moment, then pressed the end of the hilt against the dead man's chest and pressed the recall switch. The body twitched and spasmed then lay still. When she pulled the hilt away, nine inches of nanite steel slid out behind it, leaving an open wound behind. She reconnected it to her sword and wiped away the blood. The hilt of the dagger reconnected with the sword hilt all on its own. With the blade whole once more, she re-sheathed it and began to search the bodies as her brother called the local security node for assistance.

They sent six this time. She observed, crouching near the last man she had killed. A search of his pockets revealed little. She went body to body discovering nothing to help in identifying who these people worked for or where they came from. She returned to the first body she searched and rubbed at the dark eyeliner, smelling what wiped off. She smeared it on a film and tucked the film away for later investigation.

They're trying to derail the Harvest and slow us down so the others can catch up. They'll send more next time, Luke warned. Leia rose before him, wiping the rest of the assassin's eye liner on her pants.

They send more, then I kill more, she told him defiantly. He did not doubt it. What he doubted was his survival.

You can find story with these keywords: Croatoan, Earth: The Saga Begins, Read Croatoan, Earth: The Saga Begins, Croatoan, Earth: The Saga Begins novel, Croatoan, Earth: The Saga Begins book, Croatoan, Earth: The Saga Begins story, Croatoan, Earth: The Saga Begins full, Croatoan, Earth: The Saga Begins Latest Chapter