From: "BKWillis"
Subject: Desert of Fear (new installment 2/2)
Date: 30 April 2002 03:03

(continued from previous post)



"The flights are returning, Majesty," the young officer reported.  Her name
was Rhanda and it was her first time addressing the High Priestess in person;
her nervousness showed in the slight break in her voice.  "Kynar reports that
his squadron pursued the enemy into North Rim territory but was repulsed with
losses by the North Rim aerial sentries.  He states his loss at two killed
and three wounded and claims a dozen or more Rimmer casualties."

Shanneril sat, fuming.  She knew Kynar well enough to mentally divide his
claim by five.  The groundhogs didn't have all that much air power and a
dozen losses would've caused them to pull back, not the Skyborn.  Reading
between the lines, it was yet another humiliating defeat to cap off a long
day of them.  First sedition amongst the civilians, then the Servii beasts
raiding the very heart of her city and stealing her captive from her own
inner sanctum, and now a shameful defeat at the hands of a bunch of filthy,
dirt- grubbing exiles.  The thought of it all made her blood boil.

"Majesty?" Rhanda asked quietly.  "Do you have any orders for me to relay?"

The High Priestess held up a hand, still thinking.  The only possible reason
for these failures was complacence, complacence and sloth at the command
levels.  Such events would have been unthinkable in her mother's time and
considered mere diseased fantasy in her grandmother's.  And such things would
not be tolerated in the reign of High Priestess Shanneril, either.  The
guilty must be punished, the faults corrected, and glory restored to the
Skyborn, rulers of their world!

Siharal would have to go, of course.  Indeed, he was already an irrelevance,
and seemed to know it.  She glanced at him as he hovered about near the
communications center, pacing and wooden-faced.  He was a broken reed now,
the disgrace of defeat seeming to poison the very air around him.  The troops
around him seemed to sense it as well, passing him by without acknowledgment.
No, neither she nor the troops nor Avis City itself had any confidence the
Captain of the Guard any longer.  But, who to replace him with?

Skyborn Temple Guard officers led from the front and they had paid a bitter
price for it this day.  Treskin and Lanyra were dead, shot down in the raid
on the Council chamber.  Nellis was in Medical with three bullets in his leg.
Shaldwyn had a knife wound in the stomach.  Telmund and Ahrie were both among
the many missing from the battle in the sub-cellars and were presumed dead.
And of the ranking officers still active, Neeva and Edmar both lacked
experience, while Kynar could be considered part of the problem.  That left
the possibility of raising someone untried from amongst the lesser officers.
Or...

"Lady Kali!"

The redhead turned as the High Priestess called out her name.  "Yes,
Majesty?" she asked, meeting her eyes.

"I wish to discuss something with you."

Kali walked slowly over, her hands clasped behind her, expression neutral.
"Yes?"

The two women locked gazes, a hint of tension in the air between them.  "Lady
Kali," Shanneril went on, "I take it from our earlier conversations with the
Overworld renegade Cain that the two of you have some past involvement
together." She smiled slightly as the redhead's face darkened.  "If so, it
follows that you would know his mind and his ways better than anyone else,
correct?"

Kali nodded.  "That's so.  It's why I was sent to aid you."

"And you have previous military and command experience?"

A smirk spread over the Regulator's face.  "A couple of centuries' worth,"
she deadpanned.  "Do you want advice?"

"No.  I would like for you to take over command of the Temple Guard."

The room went quiet as several of the troopers turned to look.  Siharal
stared for a moment, then strode briskly out the door.

"That's quite an offer, Majesty," Kali said, playing the dutiful subordinate
again.  "Are you sure about this?"

"I have no one else who is both qualified and capable, Overworlder.  It is my
wish that you do this, with the sole condition that young Rhanda here..." She
indicated the slight young subaltern.  "...be your liaison with me.  Will you
do this, Lady Kali?"

The redhead bowed, concealing her triumphant smile.  "It would be my pleasure
to aid the Skyborn in any way I can, Majesty..."

----

"Hey, Fangs, Khaagron said you--" The words died in Babydoll's throat.  "Holy
shit!"

Bella lay stretched on her back in the shadows, her breath coming in short,
painful gasps.  The bodice of her dress had been unlaced and pulled slightly
open and the hem pulled up to her knees.  But what caused Babydoll's sudden
shock was the mass of oozing blisters that covered her exposed flesh.  The
vampire girl's face, chest, arms, and calves were a swollen mess that
trickled blood onto the brittle straw beneath her.  She turned to face
Babydoll, her left eye swollen shut and her right barely open and watering.
There was a flickering of red in the iris that made Babydoll take a step
back.

"Jesus Christ, Bella..." she breathed.

Bella coughed a short, fragile laugh.  "Lovely, aren't I?" she wheezed, then
gasped as a spasm racked her body.  "Oh!  It hurts!" She beat feebly at the
floor, then groaned as the pain passed.

Babydoll sank to the floor beside her, uncertain what to do.  "Smeg, Fangs.
Are you...  going to make it?"

"I'll live," the vampire answered simply.  "It's just that...  healing from
sunlight...  hurts like a mad bitch..." She panted a little and turned her
head to look at Babydoll again.  "Hate to ask, but...  I need your help...
to get through it..."

"More blood?" Babydoll asked, her revulsion clear on her face.

"No.  Not that.  But the pain...  makes it easy...  for Old Harry...  to come
in..." She ground her teeth as one of the blisters on her chest split and
began to bleed.

"Old Harry?" Babydoll wondered if the girl was just raving.  "Who's that?"

Bella coughed lightly, spitting flecks of crimson.  "He makes me...  what I
am.  Makes me...  lose myself.  Need your help...  Ooohh!"

Babydoll hadn't a clue what the girl was talking about, but she wanted to
humor her.  "Okay," she said soothingly, looking down at the severed braid in
her hand.  "Just tell me what to do."

"Just...  talk to me..."

"What about?"

"Doesn't matter!" Bella grated, her fingers clutching at the floor.
"Anything!" The pain faded again and she went on in a choking whisper, "Just
make me think about something...  aside from the pain.  That way...  I can
keep Old Harry out.  I can...  stay in control.  Please, Pigtails!  Just
talk..."

"Um, okay..." Babydoll fumbled for words for a moment, her mind blank.
"Lovely weather we're having!  Thought about where you're going on vacation?
How about that Terranova gravball team?  Ah, shit, Bella..."

"Please, Pigtails...  keep talking..."

"Yeah, but what about?" the blonde demanded.  "Oh, uh, yeah.  You can't call
me 'Pigtails' anymore.  'Cause I don't have 'em now.  Funny, ain't it?  I've
had these long braids for as long as I can remember, sort of a trademark
thing, I guess.  I didn't even think anything about them until that redheaded
psycho-bitch up in Avis City shot one off and then I chopped the other just
now."

"Can't see much...  but thought you...  looked different," Bella hissed.

"Yeah.  I just sawed the damn thing off, 'cause I'd look pretty silly with
one pigtail, you know.  Now, I'm kind of glad to be rid of them, though I'm
not sure why.  See?" She held the clipped braid up close to the vampire's
ruined face.

"I see," gasped Bella.  She stretched out her hand.  "May I have it?"

"Gonna make a voodoo doll of me?" Babydoll quipped, then felt a small pang as
Bella's face fell slightly.  "Yeah, if you want it, sure." She laid the
pigtail in Bella's palm and was surprised when the vampire clasped it tightly
to her, a small hint of a smile appearing beneath the blisters.

"That makes it better," Bella breathed cryptically, her fist tight around the
yellow-blonde hair.  "But still talk."

Babydoll paused, feeling as if she were missing something, but not sure what.
"I don't know what to say," she said quite honestly.  "Conversation's never
been my strong point."

"Tell a story, then."

"A story?"

"You're a mercenary...  been around.  You must...  know some stories, right?"

"Well..." The blonde considered for a moment, fingering the ragged ends of
her hair.  "I could tell you about...  this girl that I used to know."

Bella nodded faintly as she began to shudder, another blister splitting open
on her cheek.

"There was this girl, see?  Her name was Mary Rokossovsky, but nobody called
her that.  They called her by a nickname that her Dad gave her when she was
just a sprat, but that's not really important.  Anyway, Mary grew up in a
system called the Back Doubles.  Nice place, if you're a cow.  Two
terraformed planets and nothing on 'em but cows and cornfields and serious
dullness as far as the eye can see.  Mary's family had a big dairy farm,
which was good since they had eleven kids to support.

"Mary was a middle child and tended to get kind of lost in the shuffle
sometimes at home and at school.  She was good-looking, but not the prettiest
around, and she was bright, but not the smartest, and she was quick and
strong and healthy just like every other farm girl.

"The one thing Mary had was ambition.  But in a place like the Back Doubles,
there's not much opportunity to move up in the world and what few chances
there are go to the prettiest and smartest and richest, none of which Mary
was.  But Mary still had dreams of making it big someday, of being rich and
powerful and having everybody know who she was.  And if she couldn't fulfill
those dreams in the Back Doubles, well then she'd just have to go off into
the great wide Galaxy where she could.  That was when Mary started listening
to the recruiters from the corporation mercs who'd been coming around.

"The Corpers would throw out this big spiel about all the adventure and
excitement that was just waiting for anybody with the right talents out there
in the Corporate Wars on the Frontier.  You could wear a spiffy uniform, be a
hero, be famous, make your fortune, and all that good shit.  And Mary
listened to 'em, right, 'cause they were talking exactly what she wanted to
hear.  So, she goes down and gets tested and this stiff from ECI says that
she'd be the perfect recruit, just sign here and since you're just sixteen
have your parents sign _there_ and you're in, kid.

"So, Mary goes and shows her Dad this contract, and he hits the smegging
roof.  Says no daughter of _his_ is gonna be a hired thug renting herself
out.  Says he raised her better than that and that there's no way he's gonna
let her become a 'gun whore'.  Those were his exact words, 'gun whore'.
Well, anyway, he yells and she yells back and eventually Mary just grabs her
stuff, forges her parents' names on the contract, and runs off to the ECI
office to be shipped off for training.  She never looked back.

"ECI.  Enright Consolidated Industries.  They own so much shit around the
Frontier, I think even they don't know what all's theirs.  But ECI has got
competitors who are nearly as big, and all of 'em are trying to grab as much
goodie as they can on the Frontier, so they all have these private armies who
guard their own claims, their mines and bases and crap like that, and try to
snag property from their rivals, pull 'dirty tricks', and that sort of stuff.
It's a low- level war, basically, and they're all constantly on the prowl for
more soldiers.  That's what Mary was stepping into.

"So she goes off to this little basecamp on some backwater mining planet that
ECI owns, and they put her through what they call 'training'.  It's about
one-third physical conditioning and one-third combat training and one-third
brainwashing.  'Cause they've got their profit margin to look out for, right,
and it's cheaper to just imprint whatever knowledge you want your soldiers to
have directly onto their brains rather than pay a bunch of instructors.  So
they just cram all kind of military knowledge in there, everything from
strategy and tactics to demolitions to fighter piloting and then have her
practice it a few times to make sure it took.  Which ain't so bad, but that
wasn't all they crammed in there.  They made _changes_ while they were at it,
minimizing things they didn't think she'd need, like fear and conscience, and
amping up the things they wanted her to have, like loyalty and persistence.
But she didn't complain, 'cause that was what she wanted, or thought she
wanted.

"So Mary gets trained up and turned into this gung-ho battle machine.  And
ECI gives her a uniform and a gun and some bonus credits and off she goes to
make herself famous in the Corporate Wars.  Which she does, after a fashion.
She gets good at what she does -- maybe she has natural talent, who knows --
and is pretty soon in demand.  She's quick and she's ruthless and she can
handle nearly anything.  She has a reputation before too long, as somebody
not to be crossed and who can get the dirtiest jobs done.  ECI has her pull
off some ore hijackings, an assassination or two, rapid-reaction assaults,
some pretty chancy stuff.

"Then one day, an operation gets seriously FUBAR and Mary's whole unit gets
wiped out, all because some idiot pen-pushers back at Corporate got their
schedules crossed-up.  And then she meets these other people, who are
fighting a whole different war, and she decides what the Hell, she may as
well go help them fight their war, instead." Babydoll stopped and blew out a
long breath.  "And that's the last I know of her," she finished.  She looked
over to see Bella regarding her intently through her swollen eyes and was
relieved to see that the redness had mostly faded from them.

"Why do you...  think Mary joined those...  other people?" Bella asked,
coughing.

Babydoll shrugged.  "I don't think she really knew at the time.  Maybe she
liked the guy.  Maybe she was just looking for a better cause than increasing
the gross margin.  Maybe she thought she could make her dreams come true that
way, get rich and famous.  Maybe all that." She shrugged again.  "If I knew,
I'd tell."

"Do you think...  she's glad she did it?"

The blonde pondered for a moment, then nodded.  "Yeah, Fangs.  I think she's
glad she met them."

"That's good." Bella coughed again, then closed her eyes and lay her head
back, Babydoll's braid still clutched tightly to her.  "I hope Mary...  gets
a happy ending," she sighed, a faint hint of a smile on her lips.

Impelled by some odd whim, Babydoll reached out a hand and smoothed down the
vampire's dishevelled curls.  "Me too, Fangs," she whispered.  "Me too..."

----

"So, you wanted to talk, Pereska?"

"That I do, Overworlder." He motioned Cain into the small cottage, then
dismissed the escorting sentries with a gesture.

Once the two men were alone, Pereska grabbed a stoppered jug from beside the
hearth and thumped it down on the table along with a pair of clay cups.  He
then took a seat on one side of the table and indicated that Cain should take
the one opposite.

"Buying me a drink?" the Time Lord chuckled, sitting.  "I didn't think our
relationship had progressed to that point, Pereska."

"Don't taunt me, Overworlder," the other spat.  "I want information and I
can't torture it out of you, so this is the next best way."

"And why should I tell you anything, friend Pereska?"

"Because I'm giving your group time to tend your wounded and letting you lay
up on our land, when I could just as easily escort you off straightaway and
be done with you." Pereska poured the two cups full as he spoke, the liquor
clear and thin and rather pungent.

Cain took up a cup, downed it all in one gulp, then held his cup out for
more.  "This stuff is utterly vile," he said, nodding at the jug.  "I like
it.  So, what do you want to know?"

"Two things, Overworlder.  First, our scouts spotted a major movement of
Servii troops toward the Vale this morning.  What is your connection with
that?"

Cain's eye widened and he nearly choked on his second cup of liquor.  "Toward
the Vale, you say?"

"Indeed.  Several warbands, it appeared."

Cain sagged back in his chair.  "Cruk.  Wish I'd known they were gonna do
that.  This complicates things for me." He faced Pereska directly, staring
him in the eyes.  "We aren't connected to any Servii troop movements, as far
as I know.  I wish we were, but we're not."

Pereska sipped at his cup, not really believing him but not prepared to press
it too hard.  "Second question, then." He leaned on the table, his gaze
intense.  "And answer me truthfully on this, Overworlder, on your honor as a
warrior.  What do you know of my nephew Prak...?"

--