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  “Held her breath until she suffocated?”

  “No. I had a cousin who used to do that when she tried to get her way. She only held her breath till she passed out. Then she started breathing again. She stopped trying that when she turned seven.” Pingasa pointed to the prisoner on the other side of the one-way transplas. “But this one, she could have swallowed her own tongue.”

  “Have you ever met someone who swallowed his or her own tongue?” Culpepper asked.

  “Of course not. They would be dead. How could I meet a dead person?”

  “I meant before he or she swallowed his or her tongue.”

  Kiwanuka breathed out. “Do you two want to knock off the chatter?”

  “Sure thing, Staff Sergeant,” Pingasa agreed.

  Culpepper grunted.

  “We were just thinking out loud,” Pingasa went on.

  “Maybe you could think in a more productive manner,” Kiwanuka suggested.

  “Knowing whether or not the prisoner is dead is important,” Culpepper said.

  “She’s alive. Check your HUD. Gilbride’s got her bio info streaming from the bracelet on her arm.”

  Pingasa lifted his helmet and glanced at it, then he smiled. “She’s alive!”

  Culpepper cracked up and the two high-fived.

  “Seriously?” Kiwanuka asked, only mildly irritated. She’d seen the two soldiers in action during the raid on Cheapdock for the weapons that had been stashed there. Based on what she’d seen, she’d assigned them to the present operation.

  Pingasa shrugged. “Waiting gets boring. If we had something to do, it might not be so bad.”

  “You’ve got plenty to do,” Kiwanuka said. “If this op goes badly, you’re going to be assigned to the mess hall for a month.”

  “It won’t go badly,” Culpepper said nonchalantly. “The drone link and the crawler are prepped and ready to go. We’re just waiting on you.”

  “We’ve done this before,” Pingasa added.

  “Normally it ends with us dropping some really incendiary packages on a target.”

  Pingasa yawned. “And we didn’t have to wait too long to do that. Not like this.”

  “If this goes wrong and we lose tech support,” Kiwanuka said, “I want the two of you to have eyes on her. So you can find her again.”

  “We won’t lose her,” Culpepper said. “I mean, how could you lose a Voreusk? There aren’t that many of them on Makaum. Matter of fact, I think this is the only one I’ve seen.”

  “If you thought you’d seen another one,” Pingasa agreed, “how would you know? I mean, there are those feathers, but they all have those.”

  “We could ask one of the Lemylians,” Culpepper said. “I hear they go for Voreusks.”

  Pingasa smiled at his reflection in the transplas. “That’s because once the romance is over, they eat them. One of them told me they taste like chicken.”

  Culpepper snorted. “Puts a new spin on dinner and vid.”

  “I think I liked the two of you better when you were blowing things up and breaking into security systems,” Kiwanuka said.

  “That’s where we shine,” Culpepper agreed.

  “This is not a problem,” Pingasa said.

  Kiwanuka unfolded her arms and handed her weapons to Culpepper. Going in unarmed to a hostile interrogation was standard procedure. “It better not be. I’m going in.”

  Pingasa handed over a small computer chip that looked like the head of a pin. “Just plant this on her the first chance you get.”

  Kiwanuka took the small device. “She’s supposed to be tech savvy. She’s going to find it.”

  “That does not matter,” Pingasa told her seriously. “By the time she does find it, the damage will have been done.” He gave her a thumbs-up and a confident smile.

  Once she entered the interrogation room, Kiwanuka heard soft snoring and realized that Darrantia was asleep. According to the intel she had on the criminal, Darrantia wasn’t going to be easy to impress.

  Approaching the table, Kiwanuka kicked one of the legs. Since it was welded to the floor, the table didn’t budge, but the ringing thud was loud enough to awaken the prisoner. Darrantia opened one eye and gazed at Kiwanuka. Judging from the cloudy, confused look, she had really been asleep.

  “You again,” Darrantia complained. “I still have that headache I told you about. You can’t just hold me here without treating me. I’ve got rights. Get me a cell and an analgesic and send me away. I can sleep more comfortably there.”

  Without a word, Kiwanuka sat in the chair across from the criminal and took out a small vial of analgesics Gilbride had given her. She plopped the vial down on the table between them.

  Darrantia flexed her arms. “How am I supposed to take those?”

  Picking up the vial, Kiwanuka unsealed it and shook out the oblong green tabs. “I’m not freeing your hands. How many?”

  Darrantia cocked her narrow head and peered closely at the pills with one eye. “Prescription or over-the-counter stuff?”

  “I got them from the med center.” That was the truth. One of Gilbride’s techs had supplied her with the pills, including the one that now housed Pingasa’s microchip. The tracker would pass through the alien’s system, but there would be enough time for what they wanted to do. “They’re not max strength, but they should get the job done.”

  Darrantia sat up straight. “You did a job on my head. You got any water? I don’t do so good with dry pills.”

  Kiwanuka took a water bulb from her belt and held it in one hand, the vial of pills in the other. “I’m still not freeing your hands.”

  Darrantia cursed. At least, that’s what Kiwanuka thought her prisoner did. The tone was right but the words were unfamiliar to her. “Gimme four.”

  The Voreusk opened her beak and turned her head so she could keep one eye on Kiwanuka. After her captor rolled the pills into her beak, she swallowed, then gulped water from the bulb.

  Leaning back, Darrantia belched contentedly. “Do I get my jail cell now?”

  Kiwanuka put the water bulb away and turned her attention to her PAD, pulling up the questions she’d already asked and starting in on them again. “No.”

  Darrantia closed her eyes and went back to sleep. Or feigned it. Kiwanuka wasn’t certain.

  Pingasa contacted her over the comm. “All good here, Staff Sergeant. Reading the chip five by five.”

  Feeling a little better about things, Kiwanuka kicked one of Darrantia’s thin legs.

  The Voreusk protested with another curse, this time in one of the trade languages and easily understandable. Kiwanuka chose not to be offended, though if Darrantia hadn’t been handcuffed, she would have knocked the female on her feathered derrière.

  “I’m not going to talk to you,” Darrantia said.

  Kiwanuka stared at her. “That’s fine. I’m required by my commanding officer to go over these questions, so we’re going to do that. And while I do, both of us are going to be awake.”

  Sighing in displeasure, Darrantia adjusted herself in the chair. “Sure. It’s your party.”

  Kiwanuka asked her first question. Darrantia ignored it. Kiwanuka kicked her in the shin.

  Darrantia tried to fold her legs under her chair and couldn’t. “I’m not going to answer questions. I told you that.”

  Kiwanuka smiled sweetly. “That’s fine. All I need is a verbal response to let the colonel know I’m trying.”

  “You’re a—owwwww!” Darrantia folded her injured leg in and tried to protect it with the other one.

  “You’re going to remain polite, or you’re going to have to be carried to the holding center.”

  “I hate you.”

  Kiwanuka nodded. “Hating’s allowed.” She moved on to the next question without missing a beat. She wanted to spend enough time to make everything believable.

  Otherwise Darrantia wouldn’t buy into the escape Kiwanuka had planned.

  SEVENTEEN

  A-Pakeb Node

  Int
erstellar Communications

  Makaum

  27435 Akej (Phrenorian Prime)

  Pride swelled inside Zhoh as he surveyed the death arena that had been marked off by a floating array of spinning dynint crystals in the center of one of the domes in the research center. When activated, the crystals would circle the Ale’ory, the field of honor where the Hutamah challenge would be decided, and any combatant who stepped outside of the ring would be hit with an electrical charge.

  Only a short time ago, the large room had held research equipment for investigating Makaum’s flora and fauna. During their tenure onplanet, the research division had unearthed several substances that could be rendered into bioweapons.

  Such research was illegal, as was stockpiling munitions made from them, but Zhoh had done exactly that. His storehouse wasn’t nearly the size of the one Rangha had put together in his Yeraf River stronghold.

  Zhoh had plans for that stronghold’s inventory, and it would spell doom for any resistance on Makaum.

  Colonel Echcha Ler’eti stepped onto the Ale’ory first, as was his right as the ranking officer. He carried a braest in his right primary and had an arhwat strapped to his left. Throwing daggers hung in a sash over one of his shoulders; the sash was secured to a belt at his waist that supported a patimong.

  Echcha bowed to the Seraugh, and they responded in kind. Then the colonel turned to Zhoh and beat the braest against his arhwat. The sharp clack! of challenge rang throughout the chamber.

  “Come, then, kalque!” Echcha roared. “Come and let your dishonor at least die a dignified death!”

  Zhoh stepped onto the Ale’ory and the dynint crystals fired with purple electric pulses and whirled into eye-blurring motion. The static charge built up in the air around Zhoh and his blood felt energized.

  Like his opponent, he carried a patimong and arhwat, but instead of the braest, he carried a weduha, a net woven from the sinew of tanck lizards on Phrenoria. Although small, the tanck were venomous and hunted in packs. They were prized for their thick carapaces and dense bones.

  Not many on Phrenoria chose the weduha as a weapon because it took a lot of skill to use. Zhoh had chosen it because it represented the old ways of battling the primordial creatures that still hunted in the seas of his world.

  Zhoh bowed to the War Board, then turned to Echcha. “I stand before you, and, because I respect you as a warrior of our people, I offer you this last chance to stand aside so that I may step into the destiny that calls me.”

  “That will not happen!” Echcha shouted. “If you want that destiny, you will have to walk in your own blood to get it!”

  Silence filled the chamber for a moment, then a chime rang, signaling the start of the match.

  Echcha ran forward, leaped into the air, and drove the braest toward Zhoh’s face. The colonel was faster than Zhoh had expected, and his attack was far more aggressive.

  Zhoh stepped back and batted the three blades to the side with his arhwat. His opponent’s momentum and power drove him back another step and left him off balance. He tried to set himself to counterstrike, but Echcha spun on one foot and kicked out with the other. At the same time his foot battered Zhoh’s chest, Echcha’s tail flicked forward like a dart.

  Twisting at the last moment, Zhoh pulled his head away from the barbed tail. The sharp edges slashed the side of Zhoh’s face. Burning pain from the poison crawled under his damaged hardened outer skin and ate into the flesh beneath.

  He welcomed the pain. Scar tissue was another form of lannig, a way for his body to become harder and stronger. Agony burned out the weaknesses in a warrior.

  Echcha came at him again, more fiercely this time, and Zhoh knew his adversary was afraid he would not have the stamina to last through a prolonged battle. The knowledge made Zhoh more confident.

  Echcha feared him.

  Zhoh reveled in that and let the warrior spirit within him soar. He batted Echcha’s braest to the side with his patimong and turned as it shot past him. He bent his primary and rammed the articulated joint, where his carapace was thickest, into Echcha’s head.

  Dazed and disoriented, Echcha stumbled to the side in an effort to get away. Zhoh pursued his opponent and hammered Echcha’s arhwat with his patimong. The ringing blows echoed in staccato punctuations in the chamber. As Echcha set himself for a third such blow, Zhoh feinted, then shifted and slid the patimong under Echcha’s upraised primary, and sank the point into his adversary’s lower mesosoma.

  Black blood spilled from the wound, but Zhoh knew the blow hadn’t been a fatal one. He yanked on the patimong to free it, but the blade was trapped in his opponent’s exoskeleton. Echcha snared the blade with two of his secondaries and wrapped them around the weapon.

  Echcha drove the braest at Zhoh’s prosoma in an effort to bury the three blades between Zhoh’s six anterior eyes. Abandoning his hold on his patimong, Zhoh threw himself backward and rolled to escape the thrust. One of the sharp blades dug a furrow along his mesosoma and nicked the bottom of his face.

  He landed badly on the metal floor and tried to get to his feet, but Echcha was on him too quickly. Holding the braest in both primaries, the colonel thrust again. Zhoh rolled to get out of the way, but one of the blades ripped into his mesosoma, then tore a large gash in his side as it cut itself free.

  Zhoh screamed in rage and pain as his black blood pumped out of him and ran down his side and leg. But he’d gotten clear and he rolled to his feet.

  Attempting to make the most of his advantage, Echcha turned and thrust again and the patimong in his side wiggled and cut a wider wound. Echcha yelled as agony flared through him, but it didn’t weaken his attack.

  Zhoh ducked under the three blades and let them slide over his arhwat with a hiss. Stepping in at the same time Echcha came at him, Zhoh slammed the arhwat into his adversary’s face. Echcha rocked back on his heels.

  Moving quickly, Zhoh grabbed the hilt of his patimong, tore it free from the colonel, and opened the wound to at least twenty centimeters. Echcha was bleeding out standing on his feet.

  Zhoh knew he had to win before Echcha died of the wound because he needed to show the Seraugh a decisive victory, not something fortune had granted him. He whipped the weduha forward and snared his opponent’s braest in the tangles.

  Concerned that he would lose his main weapon, Echcha yanked the braest back toward him in an effort to free it. Zhoh charged forward and whipped the braest’s folds again, causing them to wrap over Echcha’s prosoma and trap the weapon against the colonel’s upper body. Both primaries were caught in the folds as well.

  Setting himself, Zhoh pulled his adversary to the side and kicked out to knock Echcha’s feet from under him. The colonel fell hard to the floor and struggled to get free. Before he could, Zhoh dropped on top of him and shoved his face into that of his opponent. His chelicerae darted out and caught Echcha’s face.

  The sudden realization of what was about to befall him triggered a pheromones release from Echcha. His fear smelled invigorating.

  Zhoh’s pedipalps, his smaller mandibles, flicked out and caught hold of those of his opponent and he envenomed the colonel like he would lesser prey or a female he wished to mate with.

  Echcha screamed hoarsely until the poison robbed him of his voice. He shivered and shook and fought, but the venom took over his central nervous system and left him paralyzed.

  Zhoh stood and faced the Seraugh. He was still bleeding from his wounds and his blood pooled over his conquered challenger, but he remained standing.

  “This is my Hutamah!” Zhoh roared. “My honor was challenged! My right to lead warriors into battle was questioned! No more!” He turned his gaze to the other two colonels.

  Nalit Ch’achsam and Warar Tindard stood outside the whirling lines of the crystals as they continued to circle the arena. Even from the distance, Zhoh smelled the fear and horror radiating off them.

  “This is my war to fight!” Zhoh shouted. “I will take Makaum and present it to the Empire!”
He pointed his patimong at the two colonels. “If you choose to stand in my way, I will end you as well!”

  Silence hung over the arena, but Zhoh knew that everyone there could smell Echcha’s terror.

  The circling dynint crystals stopped but spun in their singular orbits on their own axes.

  “Fight me or obey me!” Zhoh said. “If you betray me, I will see you dead and honor stripped from your families!”

  The lieutenant colonels bowed their heads and showed their empty primaries at their sides.

  “General Zhoh,” Nalit and Warar acknowledged in the formal answer. “We live to serve the Phrenorian Empire, and you, who are its weapon.”

  The response was traditional when accepting a new leader, and it sounded like music.

  Feeling a surge of ecstasy at his victory, Zhoh sheathed his patimong and knelt. Carefully, he removed the weduha and cracked Echcha’s exoskeleton with his secondaries. He ripped the scales aside and carved the flesh beneath. Echcha still pulsed with life and the fear stink on him grew stronger.

  Then Zhoh knelt and feasted.

  Belnale and the other members of the Seraugh looked on with approval.

  EIGHTEEN

  Phrenorian Trade Sector

  North Makaum Sprawl

  1718 Hours Zulu Time

  Sage drove the crawler deeper into the no-man’s-land that existed in the uneasy ceasefire between the Phrenorian Empire and the Terran Alliance. Fort York’s soldiers provided policing for eighty percent of the sprawl. Fifty percent of that was where Makaum citizens lived, and an additional thirty percent of the area was where the large corps had set up shops and warehouses. Those corps had leaned on the Terran Alliance for protection and supplemented it with their own squads who guarded corp execs and assets.

  The other twenty percent had been deeded, by contract with the Quass, to the Phrenorians for development. It was an attempt to keep the Phrenorian Empire appeased.

  Sage had given orders that no soldier at Fort York was to step foot into the area because it was one of the most crime-ridden regions in the Makaum sprawl. Before his arrival onplanet, occasionally Terran soldiers who wanted to tempt fate or try exotic contraband went missing or turned up dead.