Desolate Tides (Earth Exiles Book 5) Read online

  Durzai nodded, “They will be collected today. If they don’t bring them to me, I will collect.”

  “Make sure you take the rest of our soldiers with you. I don’t want them to get the idea that they can default on their obligations.”

  Durzai inclined his head toward Matki, “As you wish.”

  Matki turned to Durzai, “Make sure you collect everything, and I mean, everything, today. Tomorrow, we will return everything to the ones who lost.”

  Durzai frowned, “why are we going to do that?”

  Matki motioned toward the area where the tents were, “I have to bring us together, not separate us. Today, I collect their losses from the bets made against me, and it teaches them that I am not to be trifled with. Tomorrow, I give them back their losses as gifts, and I show them that I am magnanimous in victory.”

  Durzai nodded, “You are wiser than I, Matki Awrani.”

  A twinkle appeared in Matki’s eye, “From what your wife tells me, that’s not hard to accomplish.”

  Durzai laughed, and clapped Matki on his shoulder, “Too true, old friend, too true. Now, go get that cut stitched up, and let Balia know that you’re still alive.”

  Matki and Durzai shook hands. With that, Matki knew Durzai would take care of everything. He turned to walk with Jendi to the area where the Emurecuns were. When they were close, they saw Desci waiting. Desci’s eyes grew wide when he saw the blood on Matki.

  Matki yelled at him, “Go get your mother.”

  Desci nodded somberly and turned and was quickly gone from sight, his skinny little legs pumping hard as he ran. As Matki reached the head of the trail, he saw Balia and Desci running toward him.

  Matki reached out to hug her as soon as she was close, but she tsked and slapped his hand away, “You’ll get my clothes bloody. Let me see the cut. Lift up your arm.”

  Matki knew better than to argue. Jendi and Desci tried to hide their smiles, but they were unsuccessful.

  “What are you two grinning about,” he asked them, which made them smile even bigger.

  The arm went up, and he hissed as stiff fingers probed the wound.

  “A little muscular damage, but not much. Still, it’s going to take a little while before you aren’t stiff. I’ll get Joel to take a look at it and see if he agrees with me.”

  Matki smiled, “I’m going to start calling you doctor.”

  Balia stepped back, “You would do better to pay attention to your daughter. Joan and Joel have been teaching her the basics about being something called an ‘emergency medical technician.’ Joel thinks that she will be a doctor someday.”

  Matki frowned, “I didn’t know she was even interested.”

  Balia’s eyebrow shot up, “You’d know more if you weren’t traipsing around trying to save the world single handedly. How did your scheme work?”

  Matki shrugged, “I’ve delayed our destruction by one more day. I have no doubt that some other emergency will pop up tomorrow.”

  Jendi looked confused, “Wait, what? Mom did you know what he was going to do?”

  Matki answered, “Yes, she knew. Balia knows all my plans. I don’t keep anything from your mother.”

  Jendi looked at Balia, “Then why did you send me down to him?”

  Matki stopped and turned to Jendi, “It was necessary.” Jendi stopped to face his father, and Balia stood close to Matki. Desci stood quietly, wondering what was going on.

  “Necessary for what?” Jendi asked.

  Balia stepped forward, and placed her hand on his cheek, “To sell the story.”

  Jendi was shocked, “You sent me down there for that?”

  Balia nodded. She looked up at Matki and then turned back to Jendi, “If you’re going to get mad, you need to get mad at me, not your father.”

  “Why?”

  Balia sighed, “Your father came up with the original plan. It was a good plan, but it had one flaw. It depended on whether Joacar and his cronies believed it. I didn’t think that they’d believe it with just Matki and Durzai trying to sell it. It needed believability, and you were the one that could convince them that it was the truth.”

  Jendi stepped back, tears welling up into his eyes, “You don’t trust me? You couldn’t trust that I wouldn’t tell them.”

  Matki tried to put his hand on Jendi’s shoulder, but Jendi slapped the hand away, stepping back further, anger on his face.

  Matki’s smile turned into a frown, “Don’t be a child, Jendi. Of course, I trust you, but your emotions had to be genuine.”

  Jendi was still angry, “you lied to me!”

  Matki had enough, and pointed at his son’s chest, “Stop it! You keep saying you’re a man, now prove it! You want to be a soldier? Well here’s where you start being one. This wasn’t about me, or you. It was about protecting your brother,” Matki pointed at Desci, “Your sister, and Balia, your mother.”

  Jendi looked at his little brother, his face conflicted.

  Matki pointed back where they’d come from, “Our enemies were going to come to our tents in the night, and cut our throats while we slept. Yes, I used you, and I would do so again if it meant that our family lives. I will do anything, anything to make sure this family survives. Do you understand me?”

  Jendi nodded, still upset that they hadn’t confided in him. Matki turned to motion for Balia to continue up the path. She turned and started walking, Desci close beside her, still confused about what had transpired. Matki followed her, and Jendi brought up the rear, quiet, afraid to broach the subject again.

  Jendi knew why and appreciated what his mother and father had done and the reason they had done it. Still, he felt betrayed that they hadn’t trusted him. He looked up to see Desci skipping along next to Balia, and that raised his spirits, but not by much.

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  Matki squatted in the darkness next to a tree. It had been a few days since the fight with Cadwai and Joacar’s death, and on the surface it looked like Matki had a complete victory. They’d collected the iron that had been wagered. Matki had been a rich man for a day, the knives, implements, and tents piling up next to his own. Then they had all been returned as a gift from Matki. When people asked what they owed him, he replied, “Nothing at all.”

  They had been puzzled by it at first, but then some of the wives came by and thanked him for the gesture. The men were different, though. They watched him, non-committal, emotionless, giving nothing away. That worried Matki.

  Durzai’s single comment bothered Matki as well.

  “Possibly.”

  That stuck in his mind. He contemplated the problem from different angles, trying to figure out what the next emergency might be, constantly worried about his family.

  That’s why he was out here, in the dark, waiting.

  Matki was used to waiting. Being able to wait quietly when something was hunting you was the difference between life and death. It was the same when you were hunting someone.

  He heard them long before he saw them. He knew who they were. Gegit, Cadwai, and Santhit, another warrior from the Althus tribe, walked through the trees toward Matki’s tent. Matki could have taken them unaware, and their lives would have faded away without knowing that Matki had killed them. Matki stood up and moved away from the tree, “Where are you going?”

  They turned toward him, startled. When they saw he was alone, they relaxed. Cadwai pointed his knife at Matki, “I’m going to kill you.”

  Matki smirked, “I’ve heard that before.”

  Gegit spoke, “You may be able to best one man, but you’ll never take all three of us.”

  Matki nodded, “That’s true. But I’m not the one you need to worry about.”

  Joacar’s trade knife went through the small of Cadwai’s back and the tip ripped through the front of his belly. The blade twisted and slide horizontal to rip out of the side of his torso. Gegit and Santhit stared in horror, realizing that the strongest man in the trio had just been killed. Gegit
turned to look back at Matki just in time for Matki’s knife to rip through his throat. He dropped his knife and pressed his hands against his neck in a futile effort to keep his life from gushing out. With two down, Matki turned to Santhit, who suddenly realized that he was a dead man. Santhit turned to run, but he wasn’t as quick as Matki. Matki jumped over the bodies and wrapped his left arm around Santhit’s neck as slashed down on Santhit’s arm, severing muscle and tendon, his knife falling from his now useless hand.

  Santhit tried to say something, but whatever it was turned into grunts of pain as Matki slammed his knife repeatedly into Santhit’s back. Matki dropped the now dying man, and then slit his throat.

  Matki turned back to look at the figure standing over Cadwai, who was whimpering, trying to stuff his organs back into his abdomen. Matki pointed at Cadwai, “Finish it.”

  Jendi leaned over and slit Cadwai’s throat. The arterial spray painted Jendi with Cadwai’s blood even as he tried to leap back out of the way.

  Matki turned and stared at another in the darkness, “Did you see?”

  Durzai came out of the trees, “Yes, I saw. Jendi took Cadwai’s life. I will tell everyone what I saw.”

  Matki walked over and put his hand on Jendi’s shoulder, “Clean your knife before you put it back in the sheath.”

  He spat on the corpse that used to be Cadwai. He turned to Durzai, “Make sure you tell them that Cadwai died breaking his oath.”

  Durzai nodded, “It will be done.”

  Jendi looked at his father, “I would do anything to protect our family.”

  Matki nodded, “I know you would.”

  They turned and walked up the trail, Matki’s arm around Jendi’s shoulder, headed home. Matki wasn’t satisfied, though. Walleg wasn’t among the dead.

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  Chapter Six

  Fancheion’s shoulders slumped, his fists clenched, beak chattering, fury blazing in his eyes. The scene was horrific. Charred corpses at one end of the box canyon were juxtaposed with the shredded corpses closer to the opening of the canyon. The smell of burnt flesh mixed with the iron smell of blood coating the canyon floor. Blood, flesh, and carbon mixed with rivulets of water flowing past his feet.

  The men wouldn’t come close to their Shomcuer, afraid that his wraith would translate to their deaths. They all knew what the death of Taectis meant. They knew the oaths that bound Shaedur to Shomcuer. They knew that their war here was not over, but that it had just begun.

  Through gritted teeth, he stilled his chattering beak and asked, “Has anyone found her?”

  Nobody spoke, not wanting to draw his attention.

  Anger overwhelmed him. “Has anyone found her!” he screamed, spittle flying from his mouth.”

  He pointed at one of the young officers, “You will answer me! Has anyone found her?”

  The young officer was unhappy that he’d attracted Fancheion’s attention, “No, Shomcuer, no one has found her.”

  Bile coated Fancheion’s mouth as he asked his next question, “And where is the commander on the ground? Where is Kraduer?”

  Once again, there was no answer. Fancheion could only hope that the man had suffered greatly when he died. It was painfully obvious that a trap had been laid, one that Kraduer had led Taectis into. If that vile man had still been alive, he would have endured a thousand days of torture before Fancheion would allow him to die.

  Fancheion looked at the shredded bodies, knowing that if her corpse was among them, his men would would have found her immediately. He looked past the shredded corpses to the charred remains. He started forward, walking around the bodies, through the muck of entrails and gobbets of flesh and bone. His men cautiously walked behind him.

  As he walked, he took in the pattern of the dead. The crushed bodies close to the entrance of the box canyon showed where the battle had started. Next, he looked at the shredded corpses, ripped apart by flaming iron pellets as they’d tried to fight the robots attacking them. Then the greatest destruction had occurred when his men tried to get to the anti-armor weapons. It looked like one blew apart and caused a chain reaction in the others. Any soldier left who survived the initial onslaught was quickly cut down as he tried to stand and fight.

  He walked past the edge of burnt soldiers and scorched earth, walking out into the middle of the charred bodies, stopping when he reached the center. Around him, bodies were twisted into a rictus of unimaginable pain. He’d seen it before, and he knew what happened when a plasma cloud engulfed the body. The plasma torched the skin, superheated the fluids in the eyes, and followed the path of oxygen through the nostrils and mouth into the lungs, burning the victim from inside out. This was where she’d died, trying to rally the men in a counter attack against the robots.

  He’d been preparing a sweep of the woods behind operational lines when he heard that there was more fighting in the canyons. When he found out that Taectis was here, he’d sent every man forward to find her and save her. The robots fought and then retreated back through the canyons. Now, looking down in the muck, he easily found their trail through the torched bodies, crushed corpses marking their path. He followed that path with his eyes as it went through the charred remains and then dug into the slope of the mountain in front of him.

  He pointed, speaking calmly, his mind on his prey, “Where does that go?”

  “Into the mountains, Shomcuer.”

  He closed his eyes slowly, as if in pain, then slowly reopened them, “I know that. My question is, why are my men not following that trail?”

  “They can’t, Shomcuer. The hot springs are there. It’s too hot for a man to follow them. He would quickly die.”

  Fancheion studied the side of the hill, silent cursing the fact that he didn’t have Cree robots to send in after them. Tendrils of fog writhed down the mountain and then turned into drops as soon as it cooled.

  “I assume that the hot springs don’t stretch across the entire mountain.”

  Once again, a voice from behind him answered, “No Shomcuer. In fact, they stop at about 1000 meters above us.”

  Fancheion nodded, “I assumed that it has to end somewhere, which means, unless they want to stay in there and starve, eventually, they’ll need to come out. Which means we can track them, and find them. If we can do that, we can trap them, and kill them.” He paused, considering his next order, “I want teams with anti-armor guns all through the mountains. I want mortars up there with them. I want prepared target areas on kill zones. Have the analysts scour the imagery and find all the trails that those robots could use. I want to put teams in strategic locations to intercept them. I want them found, I want them stopped. If you can bring them to me alive, I’ll give you a 500-platinum bonus. Don’t risk your teams, though. Dead is just as good as alive. Make sure that our blocking teams on the other side of the mountain range are still in place.”

  When he finished talking, he didn’t hear any movement behind him. He twisted around, his hands arcing into claws as he screamed, “Now! Gods damn you, now!”

  His men scattered, leaving him alone to contemplate the loss of Taectis. He didn’t know who had done this, but his soul wouldn’t rest until he’d destroyed them. He looked down at the bodies surrounding him.

  Then a thought came to him, “If they’re robots, why are they trying to escape? Why not just kill more of his soldiers until they were destroyed?”

  That thought was quickly replaced by another. “I don’t even have a body to bury,” he softly murmured.

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  “Jennifer.”

  “Yes, what is it, Geonti?”

  “I need to stop and make water.”

  Rieci and Geonti didn’t have on the mech uniform that Jennifer was wearing. If she urinated, gravity would move the urine out of the suit via the tube in the uniform. They didn’t have that option. If they urinated, then the urine would stay inside the mech. Luckily, they’d moved high enoug
h into the steaming geysers that even the heavy MASERs couldn’t reach them. It was touch and go at the lower altitudes, but she thought they’d be safe at this altitude. Random shots peppered the slopes below them, causing the ground to explode wherever the shots hit. The only thing she was worried about among the geysers were the mortars. It would take time for the green soldiers to move their mortars forward, though.

  “Alright, let me do a recon, find a place for us to stop. We can use this break to redistribute all the supplies. But, if we stop, I don’t want to leave the cover of the geysers until nightfall.”

  Jennifer heard what she thought was a grunt. She smiled. Neither Rieci nor Geonti were familiar with the mechs, and they’d heard Mike and the team talk on the radio, but they most certainly didn’t understand the need for acknowledging messages.

  “Geonti, if you understand me, please reply with the word ‘roger.”

  There was a small pause, and then she heard Geonti slowly reply, “Roger, Jennifer.”

  “Ai, did you hear me?” Jennifer asked.

  “Of course I did, Jennifer. I hear everything you say inside me.”

  Jennifer reflected on Ai’s reply. “That wasn’t creepy at all,” she thought, “At least it didn’t call me Dave.”

  “Okay, Ai, I need a location where we can climb out of the mechs. Temperatures need to be lower than 44 degrees Celsius, and far enough away from geothermal activity that we won’t accidently be injured by superheated water. Can you do a thermal scan and find me a place like that?”

  Ai paused, “Yes, I believe I can.” He paused, doing the required scan, “There is an area to the south that seems to have less geothermal activity.”

  “Is there still going to be overhead concealment?” Jen asked.

  “There should be sufficient cover. There is more geothermal activity higher up on the slope. The fog should still supply plenty of cover.”

  “Alright, take us there.”

  Ai turned all three suits to the south, running parallel with the face of the mountain. Twenty minutes later, they arrived in a stable region with less geothermal activity.