Friends are everywhere, you just have to stick out your hand to a stranger and suddenly you have one.
Polian Sanctuary - Unknown Location - Unknown Territory
OCCUPATION: DAY ONE-FIFTY-EIGHT
The birds exploded from the canopy of trees above them, squawking and cooing as a monkey in the trees calling out and echoing through the trees. The sound of insects chirping and buzzing was constant.
Lauren crouched on top of a moss covered rock, feeling the rain soaking through her dirty fatigues as she kept watch. slapped the small biting fly that was gnawing on her neck , her hands nervous on the Pulse Rifle as she scanned the trees and underbrush for any of the myriad of dangers that lurked out there amidst the jungle hell.
Below her, nestled in a cleft in the rocks, Doctor Roberts slumbered, her only companion since they had been trapped there five months before. Well, her only companion with the exception of the Polians, and the damnable monkeys that stole anything they could get their hands on.
"Coffee?" Roberts called, obviously awake.
Lauren turned a little. "Powdered crap isn't coffee," she said gruffly. "Whenever I drink it I feel like I want to spit it off the edge of the damn island."
"Beats a caffeine headache," Roberts responded, shaking the thermos she had scavenged from one of the desks in the Black Tower, effective for keeping the coffee hot when they set out to explore the island around them. She poured a cup and held it up for Lauren.
Lauren grudgingly accepted, cupping her hands around it as she stared wistfully into the trees. "We should head back today, sleep in a bed."
"I thought you were queen of the jungle?" Roberts answered, sipping straight from the thermos, eyeing the rain that fell down over her expedition hat. "I feel it too, the call of a bed and a chance to sleep without a rock digging into my back."
"Yeah," Lauren agreed, sipping her coffee, claimed from one of the many vending machines in the tower once the real percolator stuff had finally run out a month ago.
Their foraging expeditions had ranged further and further from the tower when the realization that they needed food had set in. They steered clear of the ruins that seemed to be the Polians' favourite domain and stuck to the forests. They'd managed to cover about half of the island, nowhere close to the giant mushroom grove at the far end, and their reward had been un-ripened fruit, the occasional berry and, of course, monkey meat.
"We're not going to survive here very long are we?" Roberts asked, reading Lauren's worried expression.
"We wouldn't have survived much longer on Karin," Lauren replied bitterly. "We'll find a way, we've made it this far and there's two of us. I think we'll be okay..."
"You're a lousy liar." Roberts stood up, taking back the other cup and sealing the thermos again. "I might try to work on the FTL transmitter in the tower again..."
"It's on the upper floors." Lauren hopped down from her rock, slinging her rifle. "Be careful trying to climb past the hole..."
The Black Tower hadn't fared so well after the Gorean destroyer had blown a hole three quarters of the way up it, a gaping wound of melted steel and concrete that made any ascent up towards the FTL transmitter on the roof dangerous.
"It's not the hole I'm worried about," Roberts answered truthfully. "It's the fact that I have no clue where we are, even if I could call for help... I don't know where to call them to. There're no stars at night."
"Outer rim of the galaxy probably," Lauren mused. They'd had the exact same conversation before, each knowing their lines and repeating them by rote. But at least it was some means of communication, they were marooned, alone. All they really had was each other, and their ghosts.
"Could we surrender to the Polians?" Roberts asked seriously, gathering her pack and sweeping a few things into it. "Plead to their compassionate side?"
Lauren looked grim. "Every time we run across them they shoot at us, we can't get close enough to talk. Though I have a feeling they're watching everything we do. They know we're trapped here, and I don't think they care."
She led the way down the hillside, picking her way to the game trail they'd been following, at one time a road. Another life, another era for the world. Like the strange ruins that Lauren had seen, and Doctor Roberts had identified. Kule mushrooms, Polian terraces and Peligian structures. And now the Black Tower.
They'd been walking for hours, returning the way they'd come, their packs laden with the fruits of their labours the day before, when Lauren heard it. A faint clicking that was familiar to her ears, a memory of time spent around...
"Taïrian?" she asked quizzically, pushing Doctor Roberts down as she crouched, peering through the underbrush towards a path further down the hills, towards the lone figure picking his way along. Rain obscured everything as it began to storm in earnest.
She shifted the sights of the rifle up to her eye as she zoomed in on him, the Taïrian styled hat, the robes.
"Who is it?" Roberts whispered, pulling out her binoculars and trying to see for herself. "Looks human."
"Wouldn't be the first," Lauren replied quietly. "Marty reported there was a human in the Polian camps... though I thought he said younger."
"Robes are Polian style," Roberts mused, "though the hat's definitely Taïrian, worn by gondoliers in the underground canals... the staffs..."
"Yeah?" Lauren urged, curious now about this newcomer.
"Looks like a piece of wood," Roberts answered with a shrug, "I can't tell who it is or more about ethnicity from this angle, not with the hat."
The figure walked steadily and with a sense of direction, turning off one path and onto another. Lauren gave Roberts a nudge, indicating they should follow, perhaps learning more. Both women slid down the muddy embankment and jogged after him, trying to keep tack of the figure as it walked.
The forest around them changed subtly as the rain poured down, chilling them both. And it quickly became obvious to Lauren that the person ahead knew they were following. Strides seemed to slow when they struggled, allowing them to keep up with him. Lauren eased the safety off of her rifle, tightening her grip as she continued along, worry tickling her mind.
The figure emerged from the edge of the jungle into a crumbling Polian plaza. The concentric circle of tiered homes cut into the rock was typical of Polian architecture, building down into the earth rather than up above it. The jungle had overgrown everything, tree roots spilling down over worn stonework, splitting it open as they had grown over millennia. The decay was just nature's way of reclaiming what was rightfully hers, and Lauren felt the awesome majesty of a place abandoned to her.
The stranger was gone, but Lauren stopped in awe, looking towards the crashed Polian starship sitting in the centre of the plaza; thousands of years dead, it was mostly a skeletal carcass. Bones bleached white and overgrown with moss, it was still readily identifiable. Lauren breathed a puzzled sigh. Why had the stranger brought them there?
"He could have gone into one of the houses," Roberts surmised, pointing towards the darkened doorways cut into the rocks and adorned with carvings around their frames.
"He wanted us to see the ship," Lauren said, turning and picking her way across uneven flagstones, climbing around the skeleton and looking at the corroded metal that had formed the internal structure. Techno-organic, she remembered from her time commanding a captured one after her desperate escape from Lex Talionis.
Roberts looked around her, kneeling down to pick through the grasses at her feet, pulling up junk. "Nothing useful, it'd take some time for me to try and..." She stopped, brushing again with her hands. She pulled a pair of flat black crystals out of the grass. "U-ahct," she said, sounding excited.
"Polian PDAs?" Lauren asked, vaguely remembering that the engineer on the Polian Gunship had mentioned them.
"Sort of an all in one tool," Roberts answered. "I studied one for R..."
"Remember the rule," Lauren said with a tight expression. "We don't say that name..."
Roberts grinned, part of their truce pact after arriving on the Sanctuary island together was that they never say Rikard's name. Too many bad memories involved. "Old whatzit had one."
Lauren couldn't help herself, she laughed.
"What's so funny?" Roberts asked, running her finger down the side of the U-ahct, trying to get it to initialize.
"Never thought of him as old whatzit before." She sat down in the shade of one of the skeletal support struts. "Can you get it to work, and what will it do?"
"For a start," Roberts said with a smile, "it'll help us find food, keep track of the Polians, and if we're really, really lucky, maybe help us get the hell off of this floating rock."
Lauren smiled. "Well thank you, Mister Hat," she said, looking at the shadowy doorways for their oddly-dressed benefactor.
Cell - Unknown Location - Gorean Occupied Karin
OCCUPATION: DAY ONE-FIFTY-EIGHT
The cool cloth on his face caused his eyes to snap open again. It took a moment for him to realize where he was. Struggling to sit upright, he stared at the large Taïrian sitting over him tending to him patiently.
A racking cough ripped its way out of the young Lieutenant as he curled up from the cot, shuddering as he hacked up something dark and vile from the depths of his lungs, falling back to the worn blankets again as the fit subsided.
"Capitano," Alessandro smiled thinly, half closing his eyes, "I am a sorry I have not come to get you out."
Shale's heavy brow lifted a fraction in amusement as he wiped the spittle from Alessandro's lips.
Alessandro settled in and relaxed, feeling his aching muscles revel in the spartan comfort of the cot. It was pure luxury compared to the dank hole he had lived in for the past few months, and the blankets swaddling him were warm against the coming cold.
"Where are we?" Alessandro asked, glancing around him again at the carved and worked stone.
Shale shrugged.
Alessandro blinked once, "I guess that is an answer," he replied, lying back against the pillows and drifting back into sleep.
He woke again, feeling himself being lifted, Shale carrying him towards the door. The Gorean guards were standing in rigid positions, dressed in their powered armour and heavily armed. They weren't taking any chances, staying back from the Taïrian warrior, keeping weapons trained for any indication of trouble.
Alessandro coughed again, feeling like a child in Shale's arms. The large creature was led through the halls of the subterranean structure, finally up and out into the brilliant daylight. A crisp Karin summer day, the large topless trucks sat purring. Human workers drove them, guarded by a Gorean resting just behind the cab, claws ready to dispatch the driver should there be any attempt at trouble.
Shale lowered Alessandro to the floor of the truck, pausing long enough to slip Alessandro's dog tags from about his neck. His nose testing the air.
The Gorean clambered aboard the truck, issuing orders for the Taïrian to sit down. They waved their weapons futilely as Shale growled at them, turning and advancing on them threateningly. It took the guards by surprise, their fan like spines rising as they hissed at each other. They reached forward and trained their plasma weapons on the large Taïrian, trying to force him to sit down.
Shale batted one of the weapons away with a swift blow of his clawed paws, his other snatching a hold of the powered armour of the guard, hauling him closer towards him, the Gorean guard snapping its jaws as it bawled forth a challenging roar.
Shale blared a gigantic roar in response, the depth and the volume of it stifled the Gorean's, the wildness of it echoed off of the Karin mountains around them, peeling like thunder.
Alessandro smiled faintly. "His is bigger than yours," he coughed as he watched Shale bare his teeth and loom over the smaller Gorean, his eyes wild. The smaller lizard scrabbled more desperately now, the other Gorean Guards laughing at their fellow's plight...
The third roar shrieked with a ferocity that caused even Shale's ears to plaster back against his head, looking up towards the edge of the small prison camp to where the full Gorean uncoiled to its full height, the massive claws bracing as it moved with a serpentine grace across the muddy field, dwarfing the truck, the Taïrian and the Lesser Gorean.
It arched its neck, drawing back its lips from its long fangs, the drool sliding down one of the massive incisors as it braced a claw on the edge of the truck. Shale's eyes widened as he tilted his head up to look at the massive, red-scaled creature, it's hood extended easily three times as big as Xanatos' had been. It was still small by High Gorean standards.
Shale released the Lesser Gorean, gently setting it back down on the edge of the truck and sitting down as well, obedient in the face of something so large. The High Gorean settled back onto its tail, coiling back as it settled.
"That is better, Captain." The High Gorean spoke with a cultured edge to its voice. "I would rather not eat you. There is no need for that at this juncture, not when we would be better served as allies." He glanced down at the bundled Kardiac Lieutenant. "We have more in common than you think, Captain. I look forward to your time in my camp; it shall be enlightening I am sure." He slipped back a few feet, motioning to the driver. "Go."
The driver started the truck, turning the wheel as its tires spun. Gaining purchase at last, it roared away from the massive alien creature and bounced down a muddy track towards a paved section of road.
Shale's whiskers twitched as he leaned back against the raised wooden side of the truck, allowing the dog tags to slip from his fingers and land in the mud.
* * *
James waited until the truck had left and the High Gorean had returned to his own transport. Slipping from the shadows of the rocks, he bounded from one to another, careful to avoid the mud, balancing precariously as he reached down, closing his hand over the discarded tags, lifting them up and staring after the truck. It had taken him months to track Shale down, but he realized the message the Taïrian had left for him.
He turned his head northwards, bouncing again back to the shadows of the highlands, heading towards a place where he could deliver the message.
HMS Lex Talionis - Tempus System - Imperial Territory
OCCUPATION: DAY ONE-SIXTY
Galadriel was unnerved by the presence of the Amsus. The soldiers were everywhere in the main holds of the ship, armed and waiting for something as the Lex Talionis outfitted them. It was as if he expected a coming battle and had filled his marine barracks with soldiers he could easily control. But still, Galadriel didn't feel comfortable anywhere near them. They were still the enemy, and that forced her to keep to the upper decks where they seldom went.
There were, however, darker things that lurked in the upper decks. The predatory mech from Parkins Industrial skulked about, a mechanical hunter that Lex allowed to prowl about fulfilling his more animalistic desires. She was coming to learn that the A.I. was a true split personality.
Of course, the Templar Mech Rikard had lovingly described as Johnny the Homicidal Maniac was a constant presence, shadowing her at times as if keeping an eye on her for the master program. He didn't attempt to hide that he was doing it. His face unmasked; he watched and waited for her to make a mistake, a justifiable excuse for him to end her life.
There were three others akin to Johnny, but strangely it was Johnny that she saw the most. It was as if the others blended together, while he alone stood out. She guessed it was the continued wearing of the Templar gear, mocking her, that caused her to notice him more. That, or Lex was deliberately baiting her.
She ignored it, poring over the historical files in the shipboard library. Looking for some hint as to the purpose behind their pilgrimage. But the answers she sought remained elusive amidst the Gnostic, archaic religious texts that filled the bookshelves she had access too.
It was, surprisingly, the non-religious books that gave her a glimmering hint. She traced her way through photographic files of the Templar order, bland expressionless faces that blurred into the same person. Like they had been deliberately cut from the pattern with little variation. That didn't surprise her, though she had been raised with an appreciation of multiculturalism that had been ingrained into her on Tempus. She could readily see that such had not always been the case. The Italian bloodlines seemed to hold all the positions of power in the old order of things.
It had been the images of Kardiac that had first caught her attention. Most of what she had seen on Tempus had been the sanitized images fit for children's textbooks or essays expounding his brilliance. Few actually showed the man that he had been.
She sat, looking at a series of images of him; it was the same man from who Lex had patterned his holographic image. She called up one on the screen before her, a young man standing behind his father, Kardiac Strathcona. There was a pride on his face to be behind one of the founding Highlords of the Empire.
Galadriel paused at that, thinking. A man both deified and vilified across the galaxy had a family. She wondered how different was it from her own. Kardiac had been a boy; true, a child of privilege born of privilege into a new era of mankind, but a child none the less. How much of that boy was echoed in the hologram, in Johnny, or in the hound? How much of him was in Lex?
She called up another image; it showed the Bishop Lamont upon the day of Kardiac's rise to Highlord status, placing the great coat, symbol of the Council, upon his shoulders. Crowning their king. He had still been their man at that point, rising to be head of the Templar order. Young and energetic, he was the pattern of their future.
The next image was of him upon Ascension Day, the man standing in a crowd at the foot of the dais. VonGrippen was present; she noted his face was ashen, troubled. It contrasted with the adulation and admiration in Kardiac's eyes. It showed the symmetry of the two men, and highlighted their contrasts. Night and day, a holy warrior and a scholarly knight, arrayed on opposite sides of a schism that was to tear the Empire apart.
She changed the image again, stopping as she recognized the baton in his hand. It was an image of a man surveying his troops, and the edge that she had come to recognize in Lex Talionis was definitely mirrored in Kardiac's eyes. The dawning of the new order, the rise of the Bishops' council and the eradication of sin. It was the man who had penned the Templar's Edict, the man that had become the second Imperial Warlord and prosecuted the Bishops' agenda.
Wasn't it about the time of the War of Ice? She mused on that, noting that all the images that came after that one had Kardiac bearing his baton. The sceptre of his authority, a mark of his prestige.
Why hadn't he had it with him during the Battle of Skyella?
She rubbed her tired eyes, mulling that one over. Rikard had told her the baton had been left behind, and had been captured by the Amsus on Earth. But Kardiac had never returned to Earth after his invasion of the Polian Alliance, he had offered the Imperial surrender and vanished to Yeji-Sola to build the Lex Talionis.
It made no sense to her; there were pictures of Kardiac in the Monastery at Keppe at prayer carrying it. There were some of him carrying it while wandering the botanical gardens on Earth, or in his victorious pose over the ashes of Ararat after he had all but annihilated the Zemûn. Why would he not carry it with him to his expected victory over the Polians at Skyella?
It wasn't an answer, if anything it merely created more questions for her. Ones that might be answered once they reached the nebula. She remembered Darien's reports on the struggles at Skyella, though. Of Major Rousseau's destruction of the Lion's Pride, Kardiac's flagship. It was going to take them a long time to even come close to finding a clue amidst so much ruin.
She rubbed her temples, stretching. She knew that she would have to talk with Rikard at some point. But since the arrival of the Amsus, Rikard had been distant from her, preferring to keep to himself. She wondered if Lex was beginning to draw him in; the mystery over how all of this connected to Peligia was enticing for him. She understood his obsession with it. And she wondered how trapped they both were, in the bosom of a madman's final creation of vengeance.
Main Hall - Imperial Senate Building - Gorean Occupied Karin
OCCUPATION: DAY ONE-SIXTY
She turned her head. "Ahh, and the Pax comes forth at last."
The flickering candles danced as he stood under the lee of the stonework, a long black coat all but masking his form. But to her, his absence of scent was unmistakable. The fact that she knew he was there, and yet her senses belied no such presence told her exactly who he was.
She turned, the gnarled wooden staff ringing as she leaned upon it, hobbling a little closer to the body on the dais. Her nostrils flared as she swept down and across the dais, her fanlike hood of scales flexing as she swayed back and forth.
"I have come to speak to His Watchful Eye," Pax spoke in a voice lined with youth yet edged with the sharpness of a man who had seen the coming and goings of too many seasons of man; her ears could pick up on it and she twitched them, jangling her earrings.
"His Watchful Eye sees all," she answered him, brining her head down in a slight bow and then tilting it up to the upper gallery where the darkness lurked, a single red eye watching the proceedings with interest.
Prince Edward stepped into the pools of light, his blue eyes shone back up through the blond hair hanging about his face, stirred by the constant wind through the chamber, "You know why I have come, as you know who I am."
"I know you better than you know yourself," the shadow spoke at length. "I was there at your births, all of them. I was there at your deaths. And I was there at your transcendences, all-mighty Emperor of Man."
Edward continued to stare upwards, "I have come to give you the first of my warnings," he said in a resolute voice, hard as iron. "Karin is not your world; you will surrender it unto me and leave."
"That is not my decision to make," The shadow answered, "I only watch. The one you must convince is Sal-zÿr, this is his world to do with as he chooses."
"Then I will challenge him for it," Edward stated firmly, "and take it from him."
The shadow roiled as the ancient white wyrm beside him ran her claws down his lifeless body lying upon the dais. "There is no doubt of your great power, Emperor of Man," she said, breaking in. "But the challenge will not work a second time. The covenant between Pax and the Gorean was broken at the time Sal-zÿr chose to invade your world. His actions are not ours..."
"I see," Edward said, walking around his body, staring at it a moment before looking back over his shoulder. "And so you chose to stand by and allow him to act. After all, if he was successful, you gain the Apilon Rift, if he failed you have plausible deniability."
"We are pragmatic enough to see an opportunity when one arises." His Watchful Eye's laughter rolled around the chamber.
"Then there are no rules?" Edward's eyes flashed as he paused to step over the white Wyrm's tail. "I have free licence to deal with Sal-zÿr as I deem fit?"
"The Pax is Gorean, the Pax has liberties to do as he so desires. This is your dominion, he has transgressed against you. Do as you will." His Watchful Eye's red orb slid closed, indicating an end to the audience.
Edward stared across at the female that was in turn watching him. "And what of you, crone?"
She bared her teeth as she withdrew from her examinations. "I see a trial ahead of you, Emperor of Man. But before you can truly face Sal-zÿr, you must come to learn yourself. The ship that will not die is gone from our heavens but is not defeated. And the man that walks in the dawn slumbers on his way to the red dawn. The Road to Peligia is filled with bloodshed and carnage that you are ill equipped for. Can you return there, Pax? Do you have the strength of will to escape your cage of flesh?"
"My will, crone, is that the Gorean never trouble mankind again..." Edward began.
"You will change your tune soon enough," She answered, shaking her staff as she slowly circled him. "You will come to embrace us, to revel in our strength. But that time is distant. For now, your struggles blind you to the future and to the dangers that lie therein. You came here, reckless and alone. A mistake, Pax. We are an ancient race; we remember the Peligians and their war with the Polians. We learned to fight your kind long before you arose to your pinnacle. Sal-zÿr knows of your existence, and he is ready to fight you." She laughed as her sibilant 's's rolled. "Are you ready to fight him? Heed my warning, Emperor of Man; you are not as immortal as you think."
Fort Wallace - South of Karin City - Gorean Occupied Karin
OCCUPATION: DAY ONE-SIXTY
The command bunker was dug into the ground a little ways away from the school. heavy sandbags reinforced it and ominous machinegun nests kept a vigilant eye out for any potential attack.
Inside it was warm. Colonel Mayfair, dressed in a heavy sweater, was sitting in a canvas director's chair, sipping a mug of warm cocoa as he listened to the latest news from what he had absently dubbed the disaster front.
"The main Gorean forces seem to be moving off," Captain Albin reported rigidly. The one-armed Marine had seen his fair share of struggles. Left behind on Karin due to his disability, Mayfair was continuously glad to have a veteran in his command staff.
"They have nothing to keep them here," Mayfair observed. "It's not like Darien to just disappear like that, he must have something up his sleeve."
Masconi seemed unconvinced, standing over by the map table eyeing the distribution of Imperial and Gorean land assets. "Just because the Gorean Armada is leaving doesn't mean Karin's ours again."
"No," Mayfair conceded, "but it does mean we can attempt to regroup and try to push them back. There are things that we could capitalize upon now if we wanted to."
Masconi nodded. "I'll round up the Ice Foxes. If we hit their lines up at the Jengahar Pass we should be able to create a hole for you to relieve the 3rd Armoured Regiment." She pointed to a steep mountain pass that the Imperial tank Regiment had retreated to in the early stages of the invasion. High rock faces had made it impossible for the Gorean to get fliers in and dislodge the Imperials before they had dug in and, with the sheer firepower the Imperial Maser tanks had at their disposal, the Gorean land forces had chosen to blockade the pass, leaving them up there to rot.
Mayfair tapped his mug on the arm of his chair. "If we could take the 3rd and make a push on Cadiz... The Gorean have their primary FTL node located there. If we secure it, we could flood their entire FTL network with static noise, shut down their communications and prevent them from recalling the armada. That should swing things in our favour; combined with my ITE's we'll be able to reach the 7th Division and start a push to clear the Northern Peninsula."
"The Gorean are going to throw everything they have into stopping you," Masconi pointed out. "We don't have Excalibur's dropships, or support fire. We have a few squadrons of fighters, maybe, and the Gorean still have a sizable flier corps. And if they sever the bridge links from here to the Cadiz Township, your big push'll stall."
"You worry about getting me those tanks," Mayfair reassured, "I'll worry about how to use them..." He stopped, realizing that it had been a long time since they had last talked about offensives, too many months of retreats and losses. He gave her a sure smile. "Back to the fight again."
Masconi turned and left, hauling on her cap as she made her way back towards the school. Everything was dark; lights in wartime gave away their position for bombing raids.
She could see the immensity of the camp they'd built up around the school, surrounded by curved, cane-like posts strung with barbed wire. The whole countryside beyond was desolate and it did not even occur to Masconi that it was an effect of winter. She could not imagine this place ever being warm. It just didn't seem right.
She followed a well trodden track up and around to the ramps at the rear of the building, ducking under a partially lowered garage door and into one of the shops.
The light inside was dim and the quiet clicking of a pneumatic drill that had been left on was the only sound that broke the silence. She felt the hairs on the back of her neck began to rise as she reached out to shut it off .
Her pistol was out of her holster in a second and she spun, feeling the sharp connection of another person's hand on her arm, knocking the weapon aside and sweeping her legs out from under her. She crashed into a heap, the gun clattering away.
She rolled up, going for her knife, spying the eyes glittering in the shadows, a familiar look about them.
"Where the hell have you been?" She demanded, releasing her knife and standing upright.
James bounced lightly as he stepped into the light. He looked scruffier than ever, worn and dirty, but the amusement in his eyes was still evident. He shrugged as he bent down to recover her gun, handing it back to her.
She accepted it, gruffly shoving it back into its holster as she stared at him. "You look like crap."
Again James shrugged, scratching his head a moment. He fumbled through a pocket, pulling something on a long chain out and tossing it to her.
She caught it, coiling the chain around her hands as she tried to examine it; a set of Imperial dog tags and a Templar cross, nothing that remarkable. She looked up again at James' waiting face and realized it must hold some kind of significance. Pulling herself closer to the light she squinted, trying to make out the writing punched into it.
Her hand tightened. "Allie..."
James nodded. "Salam, he is alive, for now."
Masconi stared at the cross for a long time, feeling the ball of her emotions rising in her throat. He was alive; they'd all assumed he was dead. She'd attended the memorial service, shed her tears in private. But he was alive.
"Where is he?" she asked, her hand clenching over the tags.
"South of here, in a prison camp, but they were relocating him when I saw him," James reported. "I have given to you, now I want to be returned to the Aga-Khan."
"That... may be difficult," Masconi replied, blinking back her tears and wiping her eyes with the back of a gloved hand. "The Excalibur jumped somewhere, probably to lure the Gorean forces off and give us a break in the fighting. We don't know where she went."
James heaved a long sigh, and Masconi got the impression the assassin-bodyguard was getting quite used to being left behind. "Then I will help you recover him," James said, up nodding to the tags clenched in her hand. "We go." He turned to walk away, Masconi hesitating behind him.
She contemplated how needed she was, weighing it against her family obligations. Allie had been alone, forgotten for months. She couldn't simply abandon him again. And if Darien could leave at will... well, she was the Highlady Kardiac.
"I'm coming," she called, following along behind him, steeling herself for the cold journey ahead.
Special Detention Centre - Karin - Gorean Occupied Territory
OCCUPATION: DAY ONE-SIXTY
The Paddesh waited for the others to leave and then walked over to Alessandro's limp form. He could have killed him. He realized that. All he had to do was order it. He almost had. He knelt down in a fluid movement and untied his hands. He was satisfied, for now.
The Kardiac Lieutenant tried to look up at his captor, but he was unable to raise his head. No matter. The Paddesh gripped him firmly around the waist and lifted him from the floor. For his part, Alessandro did attempt to walk but he couldn't keep his feet beneath him very well. The door to his cell was open, and Paddesh dropped him inside. He rolled onto his stomach, carefully leaving his shattered left hand exposed beside him, and lay still.
Secured to the wall, the Taïrian beast roared in fury, straining against his bonds to reach the crumpled Terran. The Paddesh looked squarely at the frenzied creature.
"I'll have a doctor come look at him this afternoon," he said in a reassuring voice. He felt the beast's anguish and understood the bonds between beings who fought so close together. Then he closed and locked the door. He had to get back to Karin City; there was a disaster brewing on the Northern Peninsula. A devil in the form of a Karin Colonel Mayfair was turning a series of tactical blunders on the part of the Paddesh's subordinates into a push on the Capital.
Sal-zÿr would not be pleased.