Gateways #6: Cold Wars Read online

  “You will really do it?” she asked wonderingly. “Our son means that much to you?”

  “Do you really have to ask that? Or are you simply looking to me to affirm that which you already know?”

  She laughed at that. “The latter, I imagine. I suppose I’m just that transparent. If I were any more so, you’d be able to see right through me.”

  “That would be most unfortunate, considering that I am quite pleased with what I am seeing now.”

  “Oh, are you?” said the Zarna teasingly, even as she arched her back and pressed her nude body against his, bringing the sensitive spine ridges within easy reach of his hand. She brought her lips down on his exposed belly, which she knew he liked.

  He smiled and moaned softly even as he said, “Tomorrow is going to begin a new and extraordinary day in the history of Aeron.”

  “I have a suggestion,” she said, lifting her lips momentarily. “How would it be if we made a little history of our own tonight?”

  “Such as . . . endurance records?”

  “I was thinking that very thing.”

  He moved against her, wanting her, needing her, hiding well his nervousness over the prospect of turning over the ultimate authority on Aeron but—at the same time—not regretting it for so much as an instant.

  So involved with one another were they that, at first, they didn’t notice the crackling in the air. But then it caught their attention, and the Zarn sat up, drawing his dressing gown tightly around him even as he tried to locate the source of the sound. “I have never heard anything like that before. . . .” he said, looking to the Zarna for confirmation. She shook her head, similarly befuddled.

  Then the noise, which had seemed to be coming from everywhere, abruptly coalesced into one section of the room, approximately ten feet away. The air rippled and the Zarn and Zarna gaped as, incredibly, a hole appeared to open up right there in front of them. It seemed about seven feet across, rippling, and although it was still possible to see the opposite side of the chamber through the hole, the distortion of the air itself gave it an opaque look.

  All of it happened within seconds, and even as the Zarn shouted for his guards, even as he heard the comforting pounding of feet toward the doors of the bedchamber, the center of the hole darkened, and armed and armored men charged through. There were ten, no, fifteen of them, maybe more, and the sigil painted on the armor could not have been more familiar to the Zarn. Serpent-like creatures intertwined with one another, heads back and ready to spear each other with jagged fangs.

  “Markanians!” he shouted, clearly still not believing what he was seeing. The Zarna looked back and forth frantically between the intruders and her husband, even as she gathered the sheet around herself.

  The soldiers, adjusting to the dimness of the room, turned and trained their sights on the Zarn. Their helmets were all-encompassing, obscuring their features and making them seem that much more formidable. The Zarn, for his part, was startled but unafraid. “How did you get here?” he demanded. “What is this . . . this bizarre gateway that brought you here? You will depart immediately; I will not tolerate this—”

  He got no further. The foremost Markanians extended their armored fists, and there was just enough time to see the glinting barrels mounted on them. Then they roared to life even as they spit out death. The pulse blasts hammered into the Zarn, sending him flying off his feet, the screeching weapons-fire drowning out the screeching of the Zarna. The Zarn slammed against the far wall and was grotesquely supported there a moment, several feet off the ground, by nothing except the sustained impact of the shots that were pounding his helpless body. It had taken mere seconds for his white dressing gown to become thick with blackness. They continued to fire, following his body down as it slid to the ground, turning it into a mass of flesh and bone and sinew that was barely recognizable as anything sentient, much less something that had until moments before been the supreme ruler of the world.

  The main chamber door was locked and was bending inward under the pummeling of the guards outside. The Zarna leaped off the bed, blanket still around her, lunging for the door to open it. It was happening so quickly, so quickly, that the Zarna thought for a moment that it was all a dream. That she had unknowingly slid back into slumber, and a nightmare was playing itself out for her. This belief sustained itself for exactly as long as it took the Markanians to train their weaponry upon her and rip her to pieces. The sheet slipped away, but it didn’t matter as the blasts shredded her lovely body, which seemed to explode upon the blasts’ impact. She wanted to scream Not my children, leave my children alone! And perhaps somewhere in her head she did so with such force and gusto that she actually thought she’d said it. But she hadn’t. Instead, all that emerged from her throat was a muted, vague mewling sound. She tried to crawl over to her husband, everything else forgotten—her own life, her children, all of it. The only thing she was thinking at that point was how much she wanted to touch his hand one final time. Then she heard one final shriek of blaster fire that seemed concentrated on her head, and oblivion claimed her.

  At that precise moment, the doors to the imperial bedchamber were smashed open, splintering upon the impact of the guards’ bodies. There were three of them, and they had pump-action pulsers under their arms. But they were clad in light armor, largely ceremonial in nature, and they stood no chance against Markanian shock troops outfitted in heavyduty battlewear. Plus they were frozen in shock for crucial seconds as they beheld the horrific scene awaiting them: the shattered bodies of the Zarn and Zarna upon the ground, blood everywhere, and the assassins who somehow had managed to slip past the mansion’s security systems as if they simply weren’t there.

  They brought their pulsers to bear, even managed to get off a couple of shots, although all they did was glance harmlessly off the Markanian armor. The Markanians, for their part, only required seconds more to dispatch the Aeron guards than they had needed to murder the Zarn and his wife.

  The lead Markanian wasted no time. “There will be more, and they won’t be as easy as these were,” he said. “Don’t get cocky. Let’s finish this and leave.”

  The Zarnon was up and out of bed, hearing the shots, looking around in confusion. He was a young man, slim, with coiled muscles, and normally a look of quiet intelligence, which had—in this case—been replaced by a look of barely controlled panic.

  Then the door to his chambers was blasted open and he lost control of the panic, along with several bodily functions. He did not, however, have to live long in that disgrace, as the Markanians cut him down where he stood.

  Kreb and Toran, the twin boys just in their teens, huddled on a bed, clutching each other. There was a scrabbling under their bed, and Kreb hissed at the source of the noise. “Stay under there!”

  “Come here, too!” came back the female voice from beneath. “There’s . . . there’s shooting and killing all over—! Can’t you hear—?”

  “We don’t run, Tsana,” said Toran firmly. “You stay there. No matter what happens, don’t make a—”

  The door burst open. The boys looked startled, then relaxed for an instant . . . and then two precisely placed blasts hammered through their faces. They pitched backward off the bed and lay silent.

  Moments later, quick footsteps moved away from the room . . . and from under the bed scrambled a young and terrified girl. She knew she should have stayed under the bed . . . but thick liquid was dripping down and coalescing under it, and she knew what that liquid was, and she’d rather die than huddle in a pool of her brothers’ blood.

  Her mind already shutting down at all she had seen, Tsana staggered away.

  The Markanians burst apart several more doors, killed several retainers and a clothier who had the misfortune to be a guest for the night, and then blasted open yet another room to see a teenaged girl clambering out the window. She was halfway out, and froze, the wind whipping her long hair, and there was quiet pleading in her eyes, but it was clear from the set of her mouth that not a
word of begging for her life was going to emerge from between her lips. She wore a thigh-cut nightgown that revealed muscular legs. The lead Markanian took a step forward, tilting his head slightly, assessing her.

  “You look like your mother,” he said at last.

  “Did you kill her, too?” The question was asked flatly, without emotion.

  He saw no reason to sugarcoat it at this point. “Yes. And now we’re going to kill you.”

  Her face hardened and the pleading vanished from her eyes, to be replaced by utter contempt. “No, you won’t,” she informed them. She turned quickly, thrust outward with those muscular legs, and vanished from the window. The Markanians dashed across the room, their heavy boots cracking the delicate tiling, and they looked out and down. The young woman was lying in the courtyard eighty feet below, dark liquid pooling beneath her, her body twisted in such a way that it was clear, even from up there, that she had not survived the fall. Nor, obviously, had she expected to.

  “She wished to die on her own terms,” muttered the lead Markanian. “Something to be said for that.”

  “And for that as well!” said the trooper right behind him, pointing. Then they all saw it: a squad of Aerons, charging across the courtyard, and, unlike the palace guards, these were clearly from some sort of standing army. They were heavily armed and outnumbered the Markanians by at least three to one.

  “Time to leave,” said the leader.

  But the trooper behind him was hesitant. “I think there was one more,” he said. “We might not have gotten the entire family.”

  “I said it was time to leave, Pmarr,” the leader repeated, more forcefully this time.

  “But we might not have gotten all of them! I think there are others—”

  “Our intelligence on the matter is uncertain at best. We were fortunate that the plans of the mansion were as accurate as they were, or we wouldn’t have gotten this far.” His voice rising in anger, he said, “We need to keep our priorities in order. Now come along!”

  He did not stand there and debate it further with Pmarr, for the soldiers below had entered the building and even now their footsteps could be heard echoing up the steps. The Markanians bolted back down the corridor, not even glancing at the destruction they had left in their wake. The floor was littered with shards of doors smashed open, and pieces of the wall carved out by blasts littered the floor. They all crunched underfoot as the Markanians passed.

  But as they approached the former chambers of the Zarn and Zarna, Pmarr slowed. “What do you think you’re doing!” shouted the leader.

  “I thought I saw someone behind us. . . .”

  “Yes! The damned soldiers! Now get to the Gateway! I told you, we need to keep our priorities in order!”

  “I think it was something else,” Pmarr insisted. “Smaller . . . a child . . .”

  “Leave him!”

  “I think it was a girl. . . .”

  “Leave her, then! Our job here is done—!”

  “Not while even one of the imperials lives!” Pmarr shot back hotly. He yanked off his helmet and faced the leader. His skin was mottled blue, as was typical for his race, and his crescent-shaped eyes blinked furiously sideways. His hair was thin, gold strands that almost looked like a skeletal hand spread across the top of his head. “That was the plan! Perhaps you have lost sight of that fact, but I have not! It will not take long to—”

  “It will take just long enough to get someone killed. One of the goals of this endeavor was to subject our people to minimum risk . . . even fools such as you, Pmarr! And I have spent more than enough time here talking about it! Now come!”

  He did not hesitate, but instead crowded in with the others to the bedchamber. “Pmarr!” he shouted over his shoulder. “We are not going to wait for you! We are not going to hold the Gateway open! You come now, or you do not come at all!”

  Pmarr started to turn toward the bedchamber, toward the glowing escape-way through which the other Markanians were dashing. Each time one would pass through, the Gateway would glow slightly and emit a little hum of energy, as if it was cheerfully consuming those passing through instead of simply transporting them back to their point of origin. And then he saw it again—the small form at the end of the corridor. A girl, yes, definitely a girl, and he took a few steps toward her. She was staring at him in wonder, as if she couldn’t quite believe that she was seeing what she was seeing. The fact that he was about to kill her didn’t even seem to register. The child appeared to be in shock. Well, that was hardly surprising, what with her entire family dying around her. The fortunate thing was that she wasn’t going to have to be in shock for very long.

  He started to raise his gauntlet blaster, and suddenly, from down the corridor, there was the high-pitched whine of an Aeron weapon. A split-second later, a glowing ball of light came from behind the girl, miraculously bypassing her and homing straight in on Pmarr like a lethal sprite. He tried to run, his bravado suddenly disappearing as his jeopardy became far more real to him, but it was too late. The energy ball grazed the corridor slightly, ricocheting off it to gain speed and power, and then smashed into his upper thigh. He felt the impact even through his battle armor. He staggered, dragging the numbed leg, and then a second blast whipped around the corridor and slammed into him in nearly the exact same place as the first one. The thigh armor cracked, and so did Pmarr’s upper thigh bone, and he went down with an outraged screech.

  It was his last, desperate determination to try and annihilate the child at the far end of the corridor, but then soldiers pounding down the hall toward him blocked her from view. He started to bring his weaponry up, but the lead soldier shouted, “Don’t move!” and Pmarr, much to his own annoyance, complied with the harsh order. He lay there, immobile, already planning what he was going to say when grilled for information. There was no doubt in his mind that he was going to tell them absolutely nothing. The secrets of the Markanians were going to remain secrets with him. Let them do to him what they will; he would not bow nor crumble in the face of adversity.

  The lead soldiers charged into the bedchamber of the Zarn and Zarna, vaulting over the fallen bodies of the palace guards, and Pmarr grinned ruthlessly as he heard the wails and lamentations that issued from within. The Aerons make mewling sounds like so many women, he thought grimly. How they ever stood up to us for any length of time, I haven’t the faintest idea.

  “How did they get in here? How was it possible?!” The soldiers were shouting at one another in utter frustration, and Pmarr understood instantly. The Gateway had closed, leaving no trace of their entrance or exit. He had been left behind. He felt a flash of anger toward his leader, but quickly had to admit that he had brought it upon himself. The simple truth was that he was just going to have to make the best of it.

  The soldiers reemerged, and one of them, who bore markings on his armor that appeared to indicate some sort of higher rank, shouted briskly, “Search the building! See where they’ve gone!”

  “You won’t find them,” Pmarr informed him. He felt proud saying that. He was giving nothing away on that score. He wasn’t going to tell them how he knew that they had disappeared. He wanted to taunt them with the knowledge. Make them aware that no matter how they begged him, or threatened him, or tortured him—yes, even tortured him—no matter what they did, he was going to give them no details into the masterful plan that had allowed the Markanians to lay low their ancient enemy.

  The ranking soldier looked down at him. His helmet encompassed his face completely, as did the Markanian helmet, though the frontpiece was clear. Yet, despite the transparency, most of the commander’s face was cloaked in shadow. Only his eyes were clearly visible, burning with an ominous inner light . . . which would, of course, have frightened Pmarr if he’d been of a mind to be frightened. Which he wasn’t.

  “No, you won’t find them,” Pmarr went on, “no matter where you look, no matter how hard you search. And I will not tell you a thing of how—”

  The commander took
two quick steps forward and kicked Pmarr twice in the face, savagely. The first blow smashed in his nose and cheeks; the second broke his entire lower jaw and knocked out five teeth.

  At that moment, Pmarr suddenly wanted nothing more than to tell the Aerons anything they wanted to know. Unfortunately, the Aerons displayed no interest in anything that Pmarr had to say, nor would he have been capable of communicating, beyond incomprehensible grunts.

  Desperately, Pmarr started to raise his arms, to try and aim the weapons that were atop the gauntlets. He never even saw the slash of the bladed weapon, which had been pulled from its scabbard by the second-in-command (not that Pmarr recognized him as such from his markings). The bladed weapon was customarily utilized only for ceremony, but the second-in-command kept the blade so sharp that any hair that chanced to float across the blade would be neatly bisected.

  It was that sharpness that made the difference as the blade sliced through the air and through Pmarr’s gloved wrists. There was the acrid smell of something burning—circuitry in the gloves—and then Pmarr’s hands fell off. The cut had been so smooth that it was slow to register on him. Once the reality sank in, a good few seconds later, that was when his screaming began.

  The Aerons were not a reticent race, and did not hesitate to express whatever was on their minds. As a result, they went to work on Pmarr with uninhibited gusto. It would have been impossible to say how long he’d actually been dead before they stopped pounding on him, at what point in the battering his soul had actually fled the body. They might have gone on for quite some time longer if a horrified scream hadn’t soared above their shouts of fury and interrupted them at their gory pastime.

  The scream came from within the bedchamber, and several of the soldiers dashed in, realizing even before they got there that they had completely forgotten about the young girl. Instead, they had allowed themselves to be completely caught up in their bloodthirst. The girl, for her part, was standing in the middle of the room, her arms rigidly at her sides, her fists curled into balls, her face ashen. The scream didn’t sound like anything an Aeron female would produce. Instead, it sounded much more like the wounded and horrified howling of a stricken beast.