Old Guard Bolos Book #5

One

The truck was actually nothing more than a large wagon, coming up no higher on Jask than his stomach. But it had a motor and could go almost anywhere on voice command. It slowly climbed over rocks and bumps in the trail, using its balloon tires to keep its bed level.

Jask watched for a moment, then went forward, whistling as he went. Bessy went everywhere with him.

Around him the mountains of Delas's southern continent towered into the sky with rocky peaks that seldom lost their snow. It was a harsh area, with angry storms and little food. Valley walls were steep, often too steep for even Jask to climb, let alone Bessy. And the valley floors were often covered in brush and trees too thick for either of them to get through.

This was also an area behind Kezdai lines. The Kezdai had swept through and over the area during the first invasion. Many Delas survivors of the invasion had taken refuge in the mountains, hiding in mine shafts and small camps scattered among the rocks and trees in the steep valleys. Most of them felt they were only waiting for the moment the Kezdai found it convenient to come and wipe them out.

A large group of the refugees in this area, a few hundred or so total, clustered in a mine camp called Rockgate. But not Jask Morton. He very seldom went into Rockgate. He didn't trust all the people and the way they looked at him.

Jask was the son of geologist parents. He and his parents had been in the mountains during the invasion, studying the planet's crust for the mining corporations. His parents had hidden him deep in an old mine on the side of a steep valley when a Kezdai patrol approached. They had never returned to get him, so Jask had climbed out two days later and found them dead. Jask, being old enough to survive on his own, had lived in the mining camp ever since.

The camp was built around a research shaft that plunged deep under the mountain. Along the shaft, long side shafts and laser carved chambers housed scientific equipment. One side chamber was walled up, though, the opening filled with rocks lifted there by Jask's hands. On it was a hand-painted sign that read "my mom and dad." It was where Jask had buried them.

As Jask reached the top of the pass, he stopped under a tree and looked back at Bessy. The afternoon sun was warm and he used the time to take a drink. His dad had always told him to drink plenty of water when he was hiking and Jask had never forgotten that instruction. Bessy even carried extra water for him so he would never run out.

Down the trail about fifty steps the little truck with no cab or seat was making its way just fine. Jask knew it would. It was smart.

In the bed of the truck was the stuff he'd found at an old cabin down in the valley. A bunch of pots and pans, some wire, lots of really great things that might come in handy some day. He'd tied and taped all the stuff in Bessy, and so far Bessy hadn't lost any of it, even over the roughest spots in the trail.

"Come on, Bessy," Jask said as the truck got closer. "We need to get going. You know we have a job to do."

"Hey, Jask!" A voice rang out over the valley.

Jask stopped and turned. Mr. Donavon, a nice old guy from Rockgate, was standing on the far hill, farther away than Jask could throw a rock. It was the third time this month that Jask had seen Mr. Donavon this far from Rockgate, hunting for food.

Mr. Donavan held up a dead seyzarr, a big crablike creature that Jask stayed away from at all costs. It was about the size of a small cat. Jask hated seyzarr. They were just too dangerous for his liking, but it looked as if Mr. Donavan had managed to kill one.

"Good soup tonight," Mr. Donavan shouted. "You should come eat with us."

"No, thanks," Jask shouted back. "I need to keep looking for the falling star."

Donavan shook his head and put the seyzarr back in his bag. "Jask," he shouted, "you have to stop living in your dream world. You shouldn't be out here by yourself. There are some kids your age in town that you could play with."

"I don't play no more," Jask said. "Got to find that falling star."

He turned and started over the ridge.

"I sure could use some help from that mule of yours," Mr. Donavan yelled. "This thing is heavy!"

Jesk stopped and turned back to face Mr. Donavan. "Bessy isn't a mule," he shouted. "Bessy is a Bolo."

Then following Bessy, he turned his back on Mr. Donavan and went over the hill, headed toward where he thought the falling star might be.

* * *

* * *

According to the stories she was told as a child, Kevv went into the sky to save the homeworld from the Sun-eater, and he sacrificed himself so his wife could live to give birth to the original bloodlines of the Kezdai.

Vatsha remembered those simpler childhood days, and standing here, she could almost imagine she was back on the homeworld at night, looking up at the sky. Even the air was scented with tangy night-moss and sweet oil-vine. This is what power buys, comfort such as this, even in the cold of space. She could only hope that her brother did not lose this for both of them.

She made her way back along the spine of her brother's yacht to his private apartments. The ship had been redecorated since she had last been here, another of her brother's little extravagances. Rich tapestries hung on the walls, and abstract statues in rare nickel and silver sat in alcoves every few spans along the hallway.

Finally she reached the portal to his apartment. The mid-caste soldiers guarding the door lowered their beaks as a show of respect, but they kept their green eyes focused on her as a gesture that their respect had limits. Their metal tipped spears crossed in front of her, and their free hands hung close to the hilts of their suriases.

She lifted her head and clicked her beak. "I come to see the Is-Kaldai, brother-of-my-blood."

"What business, my lady?"

Her hand strayed near her own blade, as a gesture of dominance, rather than out of any real possibility of a fight. "Business of the blood, underling, not to be spilled without a fight."

The guard nodded, and the spears parted. "As you wish, my lady."

She walked into the apartment, decorated to look like an opulent long-tent used by their nomadic ancestors. Her brother sat on a large pile of cushions at the far end of the room, a scarlet colored sandcrawler coiled around his neck. The pet took immediate notice of her, hissing and using the grip of its many legs to shift position, but her brother was staring into a holotank, lost in thought. He was large for a Kezdai, powerfully built, if a little past his prime of youth and somewhat soft from easy living.

She bowed her head. "Is-kaldai of the realm, brother of my blood, your sister has returned with news of far places."

He looked up, surprised, his beak hanging open. "Vatsha, you are back from the Human world. I did not expect you so soon. What news from the battlefield?"

"Our forces have regrouped, our lines are solid, but we do not move. Many of the Human creatures have been trapped behind our lines, but they have fled to the mountains and badlands. They are not warriors, probably low caste, and not worth the effort to bloody our blades on right now. They are better suited to living on this foul, wet world than we are. Perhaps they can be employed as mine laborers once the planet is ours."

Rejad hissed in disgust and the sandcrawler scuttled down the front of his blouse and disappeared into the pillows under his legs. "These Humans are disgusting creatures, soft, hairy and weak. They constantly leak water as though it were free. I find it impossible to believe that they have troubled us so, that they have built the great armored machines that keep our armies at bay. Perhaps those are only gifts from a more powerful race."

"Perhaps, my brother, and if so, we do not want to meet them among the dunes."

"Then we should be done with this war before they take notice of us. End it quickly."

She bobbed her head in mock apology. "Pardon, lord, but that is what the last Is-kaldai said before he was called home in disgrace. I am shamed to point out that my lord may not have been assigned here as a sign of good favor with the Mor-verridai."

"The Mor-verridai is a shadow, sister, with no power, and my rivals in the Council will be as well, once I win this war. My predecessors were brave, but not very smart."

"And you are smart, but not very brave?"

His fingers brushed over the hilt of his blade. "Do not trifle with me, sister. Without my Blade of Kevv and its kaleidoscope sensor screen, the recent reversal might have gone much worse."

"I remind my brother, that the kaleidoscope device is my design."

"If I do not make the blade, does not my hand still make it cut? You are a clever female, sister, but it is I who put it into a ship and put it to use."

"And you who nearly had it shot from the sky?"

Rejad was silent for a moment, then made an amused cry. "My sister is ever eager to remind me of my own shortcomings. This is good. I should hear these things occasionally from someone I do not have to kill. But I have nothing to be ashamed of here.

"It matters not if I am here because the Blade of Kevv succeeded, or because it failed. I am here, and I will win. The Blade of Kevv survived and will return, and these clever monkeys will yet fall to it. Speaking of, you have a report on the repairs?"

"Yes, it came by courier pod not two units ago. The hull damage is repaired, and the two damaged turrets are being switched out with units from a conventional cruiser of similar design. The kaleidoscope device is undamaged and ready for use."

She had been saving something. "And better news, the Council has approved the purchase of two more kaleidoscope-equipped cruisers from our shipyards."

Rejad stood quickly. "Glory to the bloodline and our ancestors. That is excellent news."

"Perhaps, but it will be many cycles before the new ships arrive, and the Blade of Kevv was never intended to act alone. It should operate in concert with at least five other ships of its kind. Alone, as we have seen, it is still vulnerable."

Rejad paced the back of the room, stopping to finger a silver bowl worth enough to feed a family of low-bloods for a year. "A blade too precious to be drawn is no blade at all. You are clever, sister, but you do not understand the affairs of the Council. Support for this war grows weak. Too many reputations have been lost, too many bloodlines soured, too many resources wasted. We will have those ships, and more, in time, but we cannot wait. We cannot even wait for the two additional ships. Blade of Kevv must prove its usefulness, without doubt this time, and then the Council will give us that we need."

His hood flared. "We will succeed, and then there will be a dozen ships, and a hundred, and a thousand, and our bloodline will stand six years for every ship."