Pledge Allegiance (10 page)

I
t was decided
that Morrow would land the
Finch
on the surface of Savarea. That would take her out of orbit for when Everson’s ships arrived and would also mean we could make a quick getaway from Savarea if we needed to. Morrow wouldn’t have to wait for the shuttle to return before leaving the area. We’d be on board the
Finch
as soon as our mission was over.

As we descended through the planet’s atmosphere and I sat in the landing bay with the others, I checked my weapons, including the three grenades I’d taken from the armory. I had no idea how many grenades it would take to destroy a mysterious Outsider machine but three seemed like a good number. Besides, Sumiko had three as well in case we needed more.

I looked at the people around me. They were good people, skilled crew members. I had to find a way to clear their names with the Imperium. I owed them that.

We descended through the cloud layer into brilliant sunshine. It shafted in through the bay doors, reflecting off the steel floor, the shuttles, and
Doragon
.

“Get ready to disembark,” I said. “Once we hit the ground, we need to move swiftly to the temple and attack with speed and aggression.”

Two of Hart’s soldiers, Palmer and Simmons, came over to Sumiko and me. They were the two men we were taking into the temple with us. Hart climbed into the tank while the rest of his men joined Baltimore, ready for action.

We touched down gently, Morrow seemingly able to land the
Finch
on the rubble-strewn road as if it were a sheet of smooth glass, without so much as a bump.

“Let’s go!” I ordered, making my way to the open bay doors with Sumiko, Simmons, and Palmer.

When we exited the
Finch
, the heat of the day struck us. It was slightly cooler in the jungle, beneath the shade of the canopy, but by the time we reached the temple, I was covered in sweat.

My team sneaked along the tree line around the clearing to a position near the temple doorway. There was still a line of lizards being herded inside by soldiers and I hoped that when all hell broke loose, those soldiers would move away from the temple entrance to join the fight.

Sumiko, Palmer, and Simmons crouched in the undergrowth behind me, waiting for my signal to advance toward the doorway.

The Overseer stood on the platform hundreds of feet above us, at the top of the temple steps, watching the proceedings with cruel interest.

A sudden flurry of energy bolts cracked through the air at the northern edge of the clearing. The bright blue bolts shot out from the trees, cutting down surprised Imperium soldiers.

One of the soldiers shouted, “We’re under attack!” at the same moment as
Doragon
rolled into the clearing and fired her main gun. The long gun barrel recoiled as it released a glowing blue shell toward a group of soldiers. When it hit, the shell exploded with a brilliant radiance, expending enough energy to kill everyone within a thirty-foot radius. At least a dozen soldiers were blown to pieces.

I turned my attention back to the doorway. The soldiers there were hesitant, some looking up at the Overseer for orders.

“Get them,” he bellowed, pointing a huge finger at the area where a skirmish was developing. Some of the Imperium soldiers were firing at
Doragon
while others were firing into the trees where Baltimore’s team was positioned.

The soldiers at the doorway, three of them in all, turned to join the fray. As soon as their attention was diverted from their prisoners, the lizard-men fought back. Swinging their chained arms at their captors’ heads, they attempted to pummel open the soldiers’ battle armor.

Three more soldiers came out of the doorway, along with the lizard-men they’d been ushering into the temple.

I looked up at the platform to see where the Overseer’s attention was focused, but he wasn’t there.

“Let’s go,” I whispered to my team over my shoulder before breaking cover and making a dash for the doorway. They followed.

Ahead of us, a savage battle to the death was developing between the lizard-men and the six soldiers. Two of the soldiers began firing at the prisoners. Their shots were panicked and wild but I saw three lizards go down, almost cut in half by the blasters.

I looked at Sumiko. “Take out those two.”

She nodded and fired her crossbow. She didn’t stop running and barely took aim yet her first bolt flew true, slicing into the throat of one of the soldiers. He clawed at the air as if struggling to get more of it into his lungs and fell to the ground, dropping his blaster.

Sumiko had already reloaded and fired at the second soldier. The electrified bolt pierced the soldier’s helmet. He collapsed to the ground, his descent aided by two lizards who began tearing him apart.

The other four soldiers were dead by the time we reached the temple doorway, killed by the prisoners they’d been tormenting only seconds earlier.

A group of lizard-men had armed themselves with weapons from the fallen soldiers and were firing at the men in the northern section of the clearing. That meant the soldiers attacking
Doragon
and Baltimore’s team were being attacked from two sides, pinned down between angry lizards, a tank, and a legionnaire.

The lizard-men let us pass into the temple unhindered, some of them giving us nods of greeting. We had a common enemy and, for now, that made us allies.

When we entered the temple, a dozen of them followed us inside. I stopped and turned to face them. They halted and regarded me with their yellow eyes.

“What are you doing?” I asked. Like all Imperium employees, I had a translator implant in my right ear. It had been put there before my first off-world posting, a tiny chip embedded beneath the skin in my ear canal. When it recognized a language other than English, it translated the words in a voice that was slightly mechanical but got the job done.

I assumed the lizard-men might have something similar since such devices were available all over the galaxy and enabled interplanetary commerce.

One of them came forward and spoke in a language that consisted of hisses and glottal stops. The translator went to work and the mechanical voice in my ear said, “There are some of our kind in this place who are not of our kind any longer. It is only correct that we deal with them ourselves. This is not your burden.”

“All right,” I said, nodding. If they wanted to deal with those of their species who’d been turned into Horde drones, I had no reason to stop them. “But we must be careful. There will be more soldiers in here.”

“Good,” the creature said, his eyes narrowing slightly.

I wondered how long these beings had been prisoners to the Horde, how much pain they had endured, and how many had died. I couldn’t blame them for wanting vengeance.

The inside of the temple was lit with strip lights that had been attached to the stone ceiling. They cast a harsh glow into the wide passageway in which we stood, the light picking out the bas-relief carvings on the stone walls. The scenes depicted a humanoid race hunting animals, feasting, and worshipping their gods. This must be how Savarea had once been, probably a long time ago. This place had been used for worship and had probably brought a community together in their shared beliefs.

Now, the Outsiders had claimed the temple as their own and were using it as part of their plan to rule the galaxy.

I looked over my shoulder at Sumiko, the two soldiers, and the dozen lizard-men. We seemed an unlikely bunch to throw a wrench into the plans of a galactic master race, yet here we were, willing to try.

Ahead, four soldiers appeared. When they saw us, they dropped to firing stances and began shooting. We returned fire, Palmer and Simmons with their blaster rifles, me with my pistol, and Sumiko with her crossbow. She killed two of the four with her deadly aim, and Palmer, Simmons, and myself handled the other two.

We moved forward to the bodies and our lizard companions took the blaster rifles and pistols from the fallen soldiers, arming eight of their number.

The corridor terminated in a huge room that had more bas-relief carvings on the walls, tall pillars supporting the roof high over our heads, and a low stone dais that had probably once been the focus of the worship that took place here in times past but was now the home of a device that looked more organic than machine.

It seemed to be a pod, large enough for a man to fit into, with a hard outer shell over half its surface while the side that faced us seemed to consist of a softer material. It was as if a huge walnut had been cut in half, leaving the inside exposed. But instead of a nut, the pod’s innards contained a gray, fleshy organic material, covered with an opaque milky liquid that formed a dome over the exposed side.

Dead lizard-men lay scattered around the room. I assumed that they had been in line to enter the pod but the soldiers had heard the commotion outside, or received word of it via their comm links, and killed the prisoners before either fleeing deeper into the temple or setting up an ambush for us.

“Be careful,” I told everyone. “There were soldiers in here recently. They may still be around.” Simmons and Palmer began to scout the room warily.

The lizard-men in our party looked at their fallen comrades and began talking amongst themselves. The one I had spoken with to earlier came up to me and said, “We must find those of our kind who have been turned into slaves of the evil ones. We have heard stories of this place. The unfortunate ones are put into cells while the change occurs. We will find those cells and deal with our brothers. Will you destroy this…”—he gestured at the pod—“…thing?”

“Yes,” I assured him. “I will destroy it.”

“Good.” He took his men over to one of the passageways that ran off the room and disappeared into it.

I unfastened a grenade from my belt and positioned myself behind a pillar with Sumiko. Palmer and Simmons did likewise and I armed the grenade. “Fire in the hole,” I shouted as I tossed it at the pod. I ducked back behind the pillar seconds before the grenade detonated. The air became filled with flesh and ooze and pieces of the pod’s protective shell. I looked out from behind the pillar. Where the pod had been, there was now only a black scorch mark on the dais and a pile of gore and what looked like intestines.

“Morrow, are you getting this?” I asked, making sure my camera was pointing at the mess of flesh.

“Yeah,” he said in my ear. “Maybe you should bring some of that stuff back to the ship so the doctor can examine it.”

I turned to Palmer and Simmons. “Do either of you have a specimen vial?” Specimen vials were standard Imperium issue, carried by most soldiers as part of their kit when they were deployed to planets where there might be an as yet undiscovered species of plant or insect. The specimens were analyzed by Imperium scientists and assessed for usefulness in military applications such as medicine or weaponry.

Most soldiers didn’t bother to stop and pick samples of the local flora but the specimen vials were still part of the standard-issue gear.

Palmer produced a vial from his belt pouch and handed it to me.

I used it to scrape up some of the gore from the stone steps. Then I sealed it tightly and put it into my own belt pouch. If we could learn anything about the Outsiders, anything at all, we’d be one step closer to defeating them. Knowledge was power, especially when you were dealing with a mysterious alien race.

“Our mission is done,” I said. “Let’s get out of here and back to the
Finch
.” I turned toward the corridor by which we’d arrived but stopped before taking a step. I felt something in my brain. Something cold. It was crawling around in there like an insect made of ice, creeping over my thoughts, my memories, my dreams.

“Captain, are you all right?” Sumiko asked, her face worried.

I couldn’t reply, couldn’t speak at all. I wanted to speak to her but I couldn’t form the words in my mind, never mind on my lips. I felt as if I were paralyzed.

Palmer and Simmons must have felt the same way because they’d also stopped in their tracks and their faces bore confused expressions.

Then they raised their blaster rifles, pointing them at each other, and pulled the triggers simultaneously. Their bodies were hurled backward by the almost point-blank energy blasts. They lay on their backs on the temple floor like discarded rag dolls, smoke rising from their fatal wounds.

From behind me, a low laugh filled the air. I was able to turn—or rather I was
allowed
to turn by the icy insect in my skull—and face the source. The Overseer stood before us, his mouth curled into a grin that looked both amused and cruel at the same time.

“You,” he said to me in a deep voice, “are worthless. A murderer of your own people. Saving three of them cannot undo what you did to the rest of your crew. Now, look at yourself. Truly look at your life. An alcoholic, a gambler, a fugitive. What is the point of carrying on? Better to end it now.”

I didn’t want to listen to him but his words felt as if they were coming not only from his mouth but also from within my own mind. It was as if I were thinking exactly what he was saying and that his words were simply a confirmation of my own thoughts. After all, what was the point of carrying on my life? I was responsible for many deaths and now I was on the run from the most powerful force in the galaxy. No one should have to endure that. I could end it here and now.

“But first kill her,” the Overseer said, pointing at Sumiko.

I looked at Sumiko, wondering if she was being told to kill me, just as Simmons and Palmer had been told to kill each other.

But her expression was not one of confusion but of concern for me, her eyes lucid and clear. Then I understood why the Overseer wanted me to kill her before I killed myself.

He couldn’t control her mind.

Sumiko’s life as an onna-bugeisha had taught her mastery over her own thoughts. The Overseer couldn’t break through the barrier that had been erected around her mind by a lifetime of meditation and other mind control practices.

I managed to open my mouth and whisper to Sumiko, “Kill him.”