[05] Elite: Reclamation (9 page)

‘Well I’d be disappointed if you didn’t,’ the conductor replied. ‘But you’ll have to wait your turn.’

‘You defy the Senator of Chione?’ Algreb said, rising to his full height.

The conductor reached up to his face and pulled off a tight fitting mask, discarding it to reveal a narrow drawn face underneath. Kahina gasped at the strange purple birthmark that stretched across the man’s face.

‘I do indeed.’

‘Reclamists,’ Kahina whispered to herself. ‘Vargo …’

‘This is my world, Senator. Time for you and yours to return it.’

‘The Empire will not let this go unpunished …’ Algreb began. ‘Kill me and you sign your own death warrant.’

‘A risk I’m happy to take.’

Vargo raised the gun and fired at the Senator. Algreb was flung backwards by the force of the blast, cannoning backwards into his chair. Vargo didn’t stop, but kept firing again and again until the Senator’s chest was a bloody mess of torn flesh and tattered clothing. He signalled with his other hand.

Silence fell again, punctuated only by the sobbing gasps of Algreb’s wife. Her cries turned to hysteria and then a high pitched scream.

‘Oh be quiet, woman …’

Vargo raised his gun and fired again. She joined her husband in oblivion.

This was too much for the maids behind Kahina. At least one of them panicked; screaming and running for the exit. Gunfire was the result. The first was slain and then the others were shot down in quick succession.

‘Kill the rest of them!’ Vargo shouted over the din.

‘No!’ Kahina leapt from under the table, pulling her ornamental sword from her waist and striking at the feet of the nearest Reclamist. Blood splashed, he yelled and went down hard, his foot severed at the ankle. Kahina grabbed his gun and struck him around the head, before turning the gun on the others. With the gun in her left hand and the sword in her right she pulled the trigger.

Noise and harshness of a type she’d never imagined rose around her. She’d never fired live rounds before. The gun was designed for two-handed hold and was almost wrenched from her grasp. Her aim was wild. It was enough though; the Reclamists dove for cover amidst the ornate dining tables. A chandelier shattered and fell, adding to the confusion.

Kahina motioned to her two sisters who ran behind her as she overturned tables and fled towards the rear of the room, where a smaller pair of doors led out to the foyer, all the time firing wildly with the gun.

‘Stop them!’ Vargo yelled.

Kahina reached the door, pushed Corine through it and fired again, causing her pursuers to dive to the floor once more. Tala was not far behind. Kahina saw one of the Reclamists aiming at them and turned her weapon on him.

The gun spat once and then stopped, clicking impotently. Kahina realised it was empty. She had no idea how to reload it. The Reclamists smiled, took aim and fired. Kahina instinctively pulled back as bullets splintered the panelling around the doorway. Tala screamed.

Kahina felt a splash of warmth across her face. Blood. For an instant she thought she’d been shot, but a ghastly gurgling noise from before her turned her attention to Tala. Blood was spurting and gushing from a horrifying wound in her neck. More bullets flew around Kahina, one slicing through the skin on her outstretched arm as she made a desperate grasp towards her sister. Tala collapsed to the floor, blood spurting from her lifeless body. The empty gun spun from Kahina’s hand as bullets ricocheted off it.

The pain galvanised her to action and she fled, slamming the heavy doors closed behind her. Bullets peppered the door, sending more splinters flying.

Corine was outside, standing still, her face shocked and blank, blooding streaming from a myriad of small cuts.

‘Run!’ Kahina yelled. ‘Upstairs!’

Corine didn’t move, so Kahina grabbed her by the wrist and yanked her along up the grand staircase. They’d made the first balcony when the Reclamists emerged from the hall, looked quickly around and spotted them fleeing along the landing at the top of the stairs.

‘Up there!’

Bullets cracked and shattered the delicately wrought marble balustrade and the window behind them, but Kahina, still pulling Corine behind her, managed to gain the safety of the passageway.

Corine stumbled and would have fallen, but Kahina did not let go of her, pulling her upright and down the passage at breakneck speed. They turned the corner as more bullets hissed through the air, running into the east wing of the palace. Kahina made a final turn into Corine’s bedroom. She locked the door behind her and then ran to the windows.

‘Who are they? Why are they doing this?’ Corine’s voice was shrill and high.

Kahina ignored her and then jumped onto the furniture below the window. She climbed up to grab the fastening, tightening her hold so she could crank it open.

It refused to move.

Kahina adjusted her grip and tried again.

The bedroom windows were locked and secured. Kahina battered against them impotently with the hilt of her sword, but the windows were blast shielded. They had never been locked before. Someone had planned this down to the last detail. There was no way out. The doors thumped, the Reclamists were on the other side.

 ‘Get away from the door. Get behind me,’ Kahina screeched, looking around and leaping down to the floor. She grabbed the sword whilst motioning at her sister.

Corine ran, but she had not completed more than two steps before the door exploded into fragments, showering them both with flying debris. Kahina shielded her face with an outstretched arm, just able to make out her older sister falling to the bed alongside her. Smoke billowed into the room, obscuring everything for long moments.

Then, aside from the faint clattering as broken wood, glass and metal fastenings fell to the floor, everything became silent.

The Reclamists walked into the bedroom, their footfalls heavy upon the wooden floor. There were three of them; Vargo in front with two behind, flanking him. One was tall and thin, the other thick limbed and stocky. Vargo had an unpleasant looking handgun clenched in his right hand. Kahina stepped back, looking briefly to each side. There was nowhere left to run.

Corine, still bleeding from multiple cuts on her face and arms, tried to stagger up from her position on the bed. Vargo raised his gun.

‘No, please,’ Corine cried. ‘Don’t! I’ll do whatever you want, please don’t ...’

The gun fired once, then again and a third time. It seemed curiously subdued and muffled now. Kahina only just registered the flash from the muzzle and saw the recoil of the mechanism with a strange detached interest. Corine’s body was flung back abruptly to lie prone on the bed, more blood quickly seeping into her white dress. Her face locked in a look of terror.

‘And the last.’ Vargo made a show of reloading his gun as he looked at Kahina. Kahina heard the thick metallic clunk as the gun was primed once more. ‘Still ready to fight I see.’

Kahina stood tall, her fists clenching with the effort of not trembling with fear. Her heart hammered. Sweat drenched her, she felt it trickle down her chest and back, chilling her. She quickly tried to work out whether she could rush Vargo, but the distance was too far, she’d be cut down before she reached him. Better to die with grace.

‘Kill me then, I am not afraid of you.’

She raised the sword she held and pointed the blade towards him.

Vargo chuckled and looked briefly over his shoulder. The taller Reclamist standing behind him was cowled, with his head bowed. ‘You were right Solanac. She does have a modicum of honour. She’s yours.’

Kahina glared as the cowled man stepped forward. She could see a scabbard buckled at his belt, it looked oddly familiar. She frowned, puzzled.

She looked upwards as the man pulled away the cowl revealing a tanned and hairless scalp. A moment later he pulled off a mask supplemented with some kind of mechanism. Thus revealed, the expression on the man’s face was dark and foreboding, the eyes glinting with a deadly intent. Kahina almost dropped her sword in a mixture of bewilderment, betrayal and mounting fury.

Vargo and Mitchell were clearly bewildered too.

‘A Patron …’ Vargo managed.

‘Dalk …’ Kahina’s anguished voice caught in her throat.

‘No longer at your father’s service, young Kahina,’ Dalk replied, easily. ‘And yes, Solanac was a convenient alter ego. I fear the Reclamists might not have been too keen to deal with a Patron from the off.’

Vargo’s face was split by a wide grin of satisfaction.

Kahina cried out in fury, leapt forward and slashed clumsily at Dalk in rage. Vargo stumbled backwards out of range, surprised at her impressive turn of speed. Dalk easily deflected the blow and pushed her backwards. She stumbled back against the bed and her sister’s dead body, almost losing her footing.

‘Murderer!’ she hissed, before coming back to the attack. ‘So you are a traitor then!’

‘I do only what is necessary,’ Dalk replied, watching her carefully as she approached again.

This time her attack was more measured, her skill with the blade more evident. Dalk sidestepped and tried to twist her blade out of her hand, but she had remembered that trick from before. She swung around with a vicious strike that left both swords ringing and notched. Both stepped back and circled each other again.

‘This was my home before it was yours,’ Dalk said, with a deft lunge. Kahina batted his sword away. She struck back and Dalk parried. They resumed their deadly dance.

‘Speak plainly, traitor,’ Kahina snapped. ‘You claimed to be a man of the Empire.’

‘Three years ago, your family attacked this moon, wiping out the original settlers ...’

‘They were squatters,’ Kahina fired back.

Dalk’s eyes blazed with fury and he slashed at Kahina. She only managed to block the initial blow and had to duck the second, her wrist twisted painfully by the force of the first blow.

‘They were innocents,’ Dalk seethed. ‘Burnt at your father’s command. Destroyed by your fleet of warships!’

‘We had a claim,’ Kahina’s voice was uncertain, defensive. ‘It was legal, they …’

‘They died because of your father’s lust for money, for a simple grey metal you can dig out of the ground on a hundred other worlds,’ Dalk retorted. Their blades clashed again, the ringing sound of their impact echoing back from the panelled walls. Kahina came face to face with Dalk’s angry visage.

‘Just commoners,’ Kahina shouted back. ‘What did you care for them?’

‘They were my people,’ Dalk said softly, leaning in closely. ‘Simple peace loving folk wanting to be left alone; my friends and my family. And your father butchered them ...’

Kahina’s eyes widened in shock at his words, for a moment she felt a pang of sympathy. In that moment Dalk’s blade slipped under her guard, sliding softly through fabric and skin; then past bone. Kahina gave out a short sharp gasp.

‘Full circle,’ Dalk intoned.

For a moment, all was still.

Kahina’s own sword dropped from her fingers with a crash upon the wooden floor. Burning pain flooded through her chest. She looked down to see the hilt of Dalk’s sword only inches from her breast. After an agonising moment he withdrew the sword, pain convulsed her and she sank to her knees, only dimly conscious of Dalk kneeling down in front of her and taking her roughly by the throat in his other hand.

‘It’s better this way,’ he whispered. She looked up briefly, uncomprehending. Then he let her go.

Blackness crashed in around her vision, she dimly heard laughter, saw the ground tilt upwards and felt the curiously numb impact as she fell sideways, sprawled on the floor.

Then the darkness took her and she knew no more.

***

Dalk wiped the bloodied sword on the edge of his cloak, before carefully returning the blade to its scabbard. Vargo stepped forward and pushed the young woman’s body over with his foot. She rolled onto her back, lifeless, her still open eyes now staring upwards at the ceiling, her expression a frozen tableau of shock and betrayal. A little blood stained her dress, but the wound was small and precise.

‘So falls the last of the Lorens,’ Vargo said. ‘A good death. She retained her honour as you said she would.’

‘They value their tradition most highly,’ Dalk admitted.

‘Still counting yourself as one of them?’ Vargo asked, with a wry grin.

Dalk turned to regard him. ‘I was never one of them. I served them for the purpose of gaining a position whereby I could seek to undermine them. That is all.’

‘And undermine them you did,’ Vargo said, grabbing his arm firmly to congratulate him. ‘There’s a certain charm to this Imperial tradition I’ll admit. Her end will be a story worth telling.’

‘A pointless display of antique weaponry,’ Mitchell sneered. ‘We’re wasting time.’

‘We have a system to claim,’ Vargo acknowledged with a nod.

‘Leave me for a moment,’ Dalk said, turning to face them. ‘I’ll join you shortly.’

‘Why?’ Vargo queried.

‘I taught this one,’ Dalk said, with obvious regret as he regarded Kahina’s body. ‘She was my novice in many ways. In another place and time she would have grown to be a great leader. Alas …’

‘Going soft on us?’ Mitchell jeered. ‘She was the flux-stained offspring of an insane old ‘stard.’

Dalk stiffened, but Vargo held up his hand. ‘Dalk is a traditionalist. We have won, Mitchell. She died well. Let him mark her passing in his own way. He’s earned that.’

Dalk remained motionless as the other two left the shattered bedroom. He stood there, immobile, regarding the cooling bodies of the two sisters. The sounds of Vargo and Mitchell’s footsteps faded out of earshot.

Satisfied they were gone, Dalk knelt down and placed a small rectangular black tab on Kahina’s forehead. As it came in contact with her skin, tiny lights flickered in an ordered sequence upon it, as if calculating some arrangement or taking a measurement. Then they became steady, with the exception of a small number which pulsed in a regular fashion. Dalk straightened and touched a finger to his ear. He looked up as his call was acknowledged.

‘East wing, the eldest daughter’s bedroom. You have only minutes, be quick.’