Was Once a Hero

chapter Eleven





The shuttles climbed to five thousand meters over the weather, heading out to sea at four hundred knots. On the flight deck, Fenaday tried to calm his speeding heart. Mourner came up and made him sit while she used a regenerator to close the cuts on his face and reduce the worst of the bruising. Fury cast him sidelong glances as they climbed for altitude.

“Bernard,” Fenaday said, turning to the radio operator after Mourner finished, “call Sidhe. Find out how widespread the storms over both Gigor and Duna’s home are.”

“Aye, sir.” She called up to the ship. The answer came back in seconds. “Both storms were small, sudden and very local. The one at Gigor dissipated shortly after we left. The one at Duna’s continues.”

“I see,” he said grimly. “Call Mr. Duna up to the cockpit.”

The old Enshari appeared, quickly flanked by a worried Telisan.

“Your planet seems to be haunted, Mr. Duna,” Fenaday began. “Storms and now apparitions seem to be plaguing us. What do you make of these phenomena?”

“I truly do not know, Captain,” Duna answered. “Enshar’s atmosphere, stirred by its powerful sun, is well known for storms. This is especially true in the spring, and it is now mid-spring on Enshar. Our violent weather is one of the reasons life on Enshar developed with a predilection for burrowing.”

“There was that burning electrical smell,” Shasti said, “just before the attack.” As usual she managed to arrive unobserved.

How the hell does someone so big manage to do that? Fenaday wondered.

“It could well have been the computer,” Telisan countered, “damaged as it was.”

“Could have,” she said, clearly unconvinced.

“That’s all,” said Fenaday, eyeing Duna and Telisan.

After they left the deck, Shasti turned to him, keeping her head near his so their voices wouldn’t carry. “Do we head up to the ship?”

He shook his head. “Without a proper launch window the shuttles could exhaust weeks’ worth of atmospheric operation and still not reach a stable orbit. There’s little chance of arranging an orbital window to Sidhe inside of twenty-four hours. Shuttles and ship have changed their positions relative to each other too much. We need a place to hole up till you and I decide what to do next.”

“And them?” she said with a slight inclination of her head in the direction Duna and Telisan had gone.

“They know, or suspect, more than they’re telling,” he replied. “Watch them.”

She nodded and slipped away, leaving the small flight cabin to Fenaday, Bernard and Fury.

“Updated forecast from the ship,” Bernard said. “Big storm front ahead, looks natural though. Meteorology on Sidhe says it has been there for days.”

“We’ll have to chance it,” Fenaday decided. “Even with our reactor drives we can’t keep flying forever. Find me a nice island, something with no habitations on it.”

Fury checked the shuttle’s computer and triangulated with the frigate. She pointed to the map display on her flight panel. “An island suitable for our purposes is about two hour’s flight at cruising speed. It will get us down and in cover by nightfall.”

“Shape course for the island,” he ordered. “Bernard, alert the other shuttles.”

After two hours of flying over the featureless ocean, Fury pointed over the shuttle’s blunt nose. “Land ho.”

Fenaday looked out to see a large island, divided by low hills and windswept on the deep ocean side. After circling the area, Fenaday decided on a clearing on the lee side. A small forest offered cover there, though the trees were short and scrubby compared to those by Duna’s home.

The shuttles landed in their usual defensive triangle. This time there was less of a casual air as the troops piled out, accompanied by the robots. Gray clouds heavy with rain scudded over their landing site. Shasti and Fenaday stepped out as the shuttle ramps went down onto stony soil. The smell of ocean greeted them, along with a cool breeze.

“Looks like New Eire, or pictures I’ve seen of Connemara,” Fenaday said.

“Be a bitch to dig in with all this rock,” Shasti said, looking around the landing sight.

He glanced up at Shasti, as the wind stirred her tied-back hair. She so rarely sees the beauty, he thought. I wonder why? What sort of life did she lead before I knew her?

Shasti flicked her mike switch. “Rigg, Mmok, Rask,” she said. “We’re going to fortify the encampment tonight. I want barrier wire strung, floodlights placed, directional claymore mines and the crab robot guns sited.

“Mmok, get your utility robots to dig firing slits and foxholes. Human guards will accompany HCRs on regular patrols.”

“Acknowledged,” Rigg said.

“Yeah,” came Mmok’s raspy voice. “I’m going to send Airbot to scout the rest of the island before the storm. It’s an experimental model with a limited charge and requires a lot of my attention, so I’ll have to ground it at night.”

“Agreed,” Shasti said.

On their own the crew began to gather wood for a series of cheery blazes using the cargo robots and their cutters to fell trees. The clearing teams opened up fire-lanes. For those who had not seen the Shellycoat, the evening acquired something of a holiday air, despite the tense precautions.

Shasti and Fenaday walked the perimeter, checking the defenses.

“What’s the plan?” she asked when they were out of earshot of the others.

“Simple,” he replied. “Break contact with the enemy, bunker up and regroup. We need time to assess what we’ve found, or what’s found us. I’m going to call a war council at sunset. I need to find out where the diverse parts of my ‘command’ stand.”

“I’ll make preparations,” she said.

He smiled. “I count on it.”

*****

All the factions gathered on the open rear ramp of the Pooka just after sunset. The shuttles’ lights on their lowest setting and a nearby campfire provided soft illumination though there were still banners of light from the sunset on the clouds above them. Shasti quietly arranged to have her trouble squad nearby. Fenaday knew the others would take similar precautions. There was no way of telling how much of what they thought secret reached Mmok’s ears through his web of robots and electronics.

Rigg showed up with Rask. Mmok brought Magenta, who wore one of the local white flowers in her polymer hair. Fury, Karass and Nusam, the shuttle pilots, followed them over. Johan Gunnar poured coffee all around before retiring to the side of the shuttle to watch. The crowd of people stood in a semi-circle facing the shuttle, looking at either Fenaday or Duna. Shasti perched on a shuttle engine, a carbine resting on her thighs. Telisan sat near the fire and stared into it.

Without preamble, Fenaday launched the question. “Mr. Duna, today we got a small glimpse of what happened here nearly three years ago. It wasn’t pretty. I suspect you know more about this apparition than you’ve told us.”

The group stirred. Shasti quelled it with a cold stare. It always amazed Fenaday how her beautiful face could generate so much menace without a trace of expression on it. It felt like having a loaded weapon track over you.

Duna looked steadily at him. “Captain,” he said, equally formal, “if I told you an army from the Atlantis of Earth’s legends had overwhelmed my people, would you not think me mad? In truth, did you not think I was mad when we first met? I had suspicions of what might have occurred. These suspicions made me doubt my own sanity. The truth is—I feared to confide my thoughts to your government or anyone else. It would have given them the edge they needed to deny my quest and destroy the last hope of my people.”

“Good counterattack,” Fenaday said coldly. “However, we are here now and I want to know what you know—all of it—and I want it now. What attacked us at your home?”

“A thing indeed,” Duna responded, stepping up onto a broad flat rock as if it were a podium. “A creature, if creature it is, from the stories used to frighten naughty children. It is, well, the word won’t translate into your language. An analogy would be to the demons and spirits of Earth mythology. They are creatures of air, taking their physical form from whatever lies around them.”

“That thing that attacked us,” Shasti said, “was real.”

“Let me begin at the beginning,” Duna said. He seemed to draw comfort from sliding into a scholarly role. “We Enshari are an old race, compared to most others. We are very long-lived. Our history is so lengthy it can literally be the study of a lifetime. There are seven thousand years or so of well-recorded history in Earth’s China. Is that not so, Mr. Li?”

Li, looking surprised at being addressed, nodded from the shadows where he and the other trouble team members waited. “That’s what Mom used to say.”

“The cave drawings of your ancestors are about fifty thousand years old, Captain,” Duna continued. “Our recorded history dates back a hundred ninety thousand years and our prehistory goes back further still.

“My specialty is the study of that pre-history. What we call the ‘Unearthing’. It was the time we left burrows and caves and began to build towns and cities. We developed science at an astonishing rate compared to the other species of the Confederacy, and there are schools that contend we did not make that leap by ourselves, that we were helped by a beneficent alien race. I am one of those partisans.

“At the time of the ‘Helpers,’ as we call them, my people were primitive; little better than savages. The highest society was the kingdom of Barjan. It was pre-technic but had developed some science and writing.

“The most ancient records we have, which are themselves copies many thousands of years removed from the originals, and hence less reliable, tell of a terrible war of gods and demons fought on Enshar. Much of our race perished at the hands of such demons, or in the storms they raised.

“Then came the others, the Helpers. They destroyed or chained the demons and storm monsters, seizing their leader. Legend has it that the chief among the storm gods, for whom we have no name, was chained in the depths of the Barjan Mountains. What we now call the Barjan Deep.”

“That’s the name I heard your friend Creda say,” Fenaday interrupted.

“Just so,” Duna agreed. “The story is that the Chief Demon was one of the Helpers turned to evil; or perhaps something created by them. The Helpers could not, or would not, destroy it. They pursued the demon from a distant land, in long running battles. Legend says that they did not intend for Barjan to become a battleground and they sorrowed for it. In penance, the Helpers taught the Enshari science and technology, turning our face outward to the stars. Then they left. Within a few hundred years, we broke out into space.

“No record survives of what the Helpers actually looked like. Apparently, they manifested themselves as giant Enshari, though we doubt this was their real appearance.”

Silence fell, broken only by the sounds of sea. Camp lanterns and the lights of the shuttles themselves began supplanting twilight as the sun disappeared.

“You believe this tale?” Gunnar laughed.

Fenaday glared at him and started to speak.

Shasti preceded him. “Quiet, Johan,” she said softly. The big man subsided.

“No,” Duna replied politely, “not in the literal sense. It is one of the creation myths of my people and not an uncommon one among the seven races. We think of it as a tale for children, or a fable, like your Noah’s Ark.

“Many of my colleagues thought me a fool for studying it. They claimed the leap to the stars is simply an example of Enshari superiority. The tales were mere monster stories, perhaps like those you cited, Mr. Connery. What did you call the thing?”

Connery looked back at the Enshari. “The one most like your monster is a Shellycoat. It’s a Sidhe, an Elf, like the ones all our ships are named for. The Pooka was a horse you rode to your death, the Banshee’s wail foretold doom, and the Shellycoat would form out of anything near a stream bed.”

“Very similar,” Duna said. “Perhaps we will use that for a translation and call them Shellycoats.”

“I remember the stories,” Fenaday added, “though the Shellycoats from those legends were more mischievous then deadly. They were also called Bogles. I thought it was a Scottish legend.”

“I’m Scots on my mother’s side,” Connery confessed.

“We won’t hold that against you,” Fenaday said, drawing a quick nervous laugh.

“Whatever we call them,” Fenaday said, turning back to Duna, “what the hell made you think this had something to do with now?”

“A few weeks before the disaster,” Duna replied, pacing on the broad rock, his hands clasped behind his back, “I was at the University on Denla. I received a communication chip from my old friend, Unam Bela, an associate of Creda’s. He told me that Creda had called him to the site of a new municipal construction in Barjan. City planners decided to ignore the old tradition about not digging in the Barjan Deep. The work uncovered many old artifacts, but recently at the deepest levels, they uncovered fragments of ancient metal, an alloy of an unfamiliar type. MRI and sonic scanners revealed a sub-cavern below. He was going to join Creda on the dig. The disaster occurred two weeks later.”

Duna stopped pacing for a few seconds. “I did not believe it myself at first. Like most, I thought the Conchirri engineered it somehow. Gradually, I began to wonder if there could be something in the old tales of an evil buried in Barjan Deep. After I discussed my thoughts with a few of my fellow survivors, I became so discouraged that I told no one but Telisan here. I swore him to secrecy long before we met you, Captain.”

Fenaday looked at Telisan. The Denlenn did not meet his eyes, but said, “I have carried the burden of two secrets; this and my knowledge of the zone of death. I no longer bear either weight but feel no lighter.” He threw a small log on the fire, as if it mirrored the disturbance in his soul, it cast a shower of sparks upward.

His head came up and he looked squarely at Fenaday. Light from the camp lights flared in his alien eyes. “I fear I have not fully kept my oath to serve you as I served the captain of the Empress Aran. You may have my resignation if you wish.”

“I’ll take it under advisement,” Fenaday said, expressionless.

“So where does that leave us?” Mmok interrupted.

“Pulling out,” Fenaday said. “We’ve landed on Enshar, survived, gathered more information than has been learned before. We are even on the scoreboard, actually one up. I don’t want to give whatever the hell is down here the chance to start a tally. I think it’s time for the Confederacy to take over.”

“With respect, Captain,” Duna protested, “everything we have learned here has been transmitted to the starship and the satellites. And what is it we know? An inimical force haunts Enshar. It hates my kind but doesn’t care who else it kills.”

“It’s confined to Enshar,” Fenaday said, leaning back on the shuttle and crossing his arms.

“Do you know that, Captain?” Duna asked. “Will you chance that the creature will never get off my world? It came from outside, if the legends are true. And you met one of those legends today.

“What if there are others out there? This one must have been in a weakened state. Else, why do we live? Now is our chance to try and destroy this enemy, to free Enshar and give my people a chance for survival.”

“I vote we stay,” Mourner said, obviously moved by Duna’s speech. “I know the whole medical staff is with me.” Behind her, Dr. N’deba nodded. A few others murmured assent.

“This isn’t a democracy, and you don’t get a vote,” Fenaday snapped. “We have a contract, Duna.”

“You may be the Captain, Fenaday,” Mmok said, “but you’re not the owner. You know Mandela’s conditions. You pull out now, and he is not going to regard that as fulfillment of the bargain. What good does Duna’s agreement do you without Mandela’s?”

“Some of us have orders in such an event,” Rigg said reluctantly, and evidently surprising Mmok. Mmok looked displeased, but said nothing.

“Do not threaten the captain,” Telisan rapped.

“Whose side are you on?” Mmok said.

“I wish to stay,” Telisan said. “To defeat this evil that has very nearly murdered a race. My life is sworn to this purpose, and I will use every honorable means to stay. But do not threaten the captain, or my hand is against you.”

Fenaday felt the situation slipping from his control. Shasti coiled, cat-like, on the wing next to him. He could see the other HCRs in the dimness beyond the shuttles. Shasti’s trouble team stirred as well. Some additional LF troops, sensing the trouble, looked warily at the ASATs near them. The situation headed for explosion.

“Captain,” Duna said in calm, measured and pleasant tones, “may I make a suggestion?”

Fenaday nodded warily.

“We are fortified in a strong position here. Let us sleep on it, as you humans say. Perhaps the sun will bring us new counsel and wisdom.”

Fenaday looked around, as if weighing the odds. The old Enshari had been a politician, and he was providing Fenaday with a way out. Clearly he could not force the expedition off-world just now. Perhaps he could at least engineer a temporary retreat to the Sidhe.

“Very well,” Fenaday said. Tension in the area collapsed visibly, hands slid off weapons, and people breathed again. “We don’t have a good launch window till mid-morning anyway. We could make a low orbit tonight, but there’d be risks.

“When we reconvene in the morning, we’ll consider a temporary pull back to the ship, while we figure what’s going on. I don’t think that’s unreasonable,” he added, pleased to get a few spontaneous nods.

“Shasti, Telisan and Duna, please stay. Everyone else, dismissed.”

The others drifted off. Mmok looked unhappy about not staying, but he’d probably bug them anyway.

Duna studied the human. “Captain,” he said slowly, “you may have a political future yourself. All you intended was a temporary retreat. Very clever. Advance a proposition you cannot defend and replace it with one more reasonable.”

Fenaday yawned. “It also served to clarify the sides.” He looked up at Telisan, “So, whose side are you on?”

“I gave you my word,” Telisan said, his face drawn and tight. “So long as you got us to Enshar and made no move against the personal safety of my patron, I am your officer.”

“You disagreed with me a minute ago,” Fenaday said.

“Forgive me,” Telisan said, “but I hate ambiguity. I disagreed but made it clear that I am your man. I will follow your orders, even if it means killing.”

“Yes,” Fenaday said, more gently. “Thank you, Mr. Telisan. As regards the matter of your resignation, can I rely on your giving me fair warning if I encroach on your oath to Duna?”

“Yes,” Telisan said, clipped and tense.

“I believe you,” Fenaday said. “Please retain your commission.”

“I also believe you,” Shasti added, to everyone’s surprise.

Telisan nodded, evidently not trusting himself to speak and looking almost weak with relief.

“Poor Telisan,” Duna said, his fur rippling with anxiety. “It is I who did this to you. Blame me for any failure you feel there has been, Captain.”

“We all do what we have to do, Duna,” Fenaday said, “and justify it later. No one is pure here. At least I can understand and admire your motives; that’s more than I can say for most people.”

“Well, perhaps you can start calling me Belwin then,” Duna said, hopping off of his rock podium.

Fenaday smiled. It was almost impossible not to like Duna, despite the predicament. “Good night, Belwin.”

“Good night, Captain,” Duna turned and walked out of the lantern light.

“I’ll take first watch,” Telisan offered. “I am too keyed up for sleep.” He nodded to Fenaday and also vanished into the dark.

Fenaday turned to Shasti, anxious for her assessment.

“Do you have another chocolate bar?” she asked.