“Mookta!” he shouts. “Mookta sitizt’ka!”
The other koobs croak and click, licking their eyes and firing their weapons into the sky. The circle opens up to reveal another Kublaren, down on its spindly knees, three-fingered hands laced at the back of its head. It’s wearing the maroon robes of a tribal elder.
“They seem to like you, Carter,” Lana says, smiling at me from beneath those large-framed sunglasses.
“Let’s see what this is about and then get going. I have a feeling today is gonna be one of those days where we’re constantly running short on time.”
“Mookta!” Pikkek calls again, waving his long arm to bid me to walk with him into the center of the circle by the prisoner. I follow and he gestures at the koob. Up close, I can see he’s older. Definitely an elder.
“Kishi elder?” I ask.
Pikkek lets out a series of clicks and says, “Chief. Big die now.”
That’s just the way things go on Kublar. You get caught by a rival tribe, there are rarely prisoner exchanges. Death is the expectation.
“Okay, well, do what you gotta do and then let’s go, okay, Pikkek?”
“Pikkek… k’kik’k… no mookta. You mookta. You make big die.”
Oh man. Stupid backward customs. And now I’ve got to decide whether trying to explain why I’m generally against executing prisoners is something my conscience requires or if it will jeopardize the alliances Nilo has set up with these inland koob tribes.
I decide to give it a shot, moving in close to Pikkek with the hopes that no one else will hear what I say. His breath stinks like the dredging of a silt river bottom.
“Listen… in my culture, killing prisoners is not okay. Prison. Trial. Then kill them.”
Pikkek nods like he understands but says, “You make big die. Very bad if no. Means no sitizt’ka. K’kik… warriors no fight.”
I sigh and look into Pikkek’s eyes with the hopes that he’d show me some kind of other way through body language. But if he is, I can’t see it. He licks the eyeball I’m staring at and adds, “KTF, Leejonayer.”
In all this time, the captured Kishi chief hasn’t stopped staring at the ground. He seems resigned to his fate and I have to keep this part going. I unholster my blaster pistol, step around Pikkek, and shoot the chief in the head, causing a stream of phosphorescent yellow blood to pump out from the partially cauterized wound and into the dirt.
“Mookta!” cries out Pikkek.
The rest of the koob warriors do the same. In the background the N-50 gunner ignites another piece of unexploded ordnance.
Pikkek holds up two slender fingers. “Mookta. Two!”
The koobs take up this chant. “Mookta two! Mookta two! Mookta two!”
They’re pumping their rifles over their heads, stamping their webbed feet, and firing slug throwers and N-4s into the air with reckless abandon.
Easy strolls over to me, looking amusedly at the celebrating koobs as he passes through their midst. “Damn, Carter. You just went all Goth Sullus on that koob.”
I holster the pistol. “Spare me.”
“You runnin’ for koob president, or…?”
“Pikkek!” I shout, having to yell above the din. “We have to go!”
The Kublaren attaché lets out a sharp hissing whistle as his airsac deflates. He then bellows something in his language that quiets his warriors down, but not by much. They’re still excited, only their enthusiasm has shifted from what I just did to whatever is coming next.
“Short drive, k’kik’k’k,” Pikkek says, hop-walking toward our waiting transport truck. “Then me turn to KTF-ah.”
The koob driver is standing outside the cab, his arms thrusting in the air in alternating jabs… “Mook-ta two!”
He breaks his revelry and hurries back inside to start the rig when he sees us coming this way.
It’s funny. The koobs are mean, sneaky, and violent. But I find myself kind of enjoying the atmosphere for whatever reason. Something about it reminds me of home. Home with the Legion. Just the way things on deployment worked. The way guys would just pull behind something that, to a civilian, would seem terrible.
Like killing an alien chieftain while he’s bound by shooting him between his froggy eyes.
Or like a time back before Article Nineteen. Before Ankalor and all that mess. I remember my platoon was engaged in a firefight with some MCR who had managed to capture a junior House of Reason delegate. Well, delegate-elect. Ran unopposed, handpicked by the senior delegate in that sector. Typical stuff for the most part.
Anyway. He thought he was safe and thought cruising through this city in the mid-core with just a pair of bodyguards and no armored sled or convoy would be fine. Would make him look hardcore. He had been a point in the Marines or something prior to running. And besides, the Legion camp wasn’t far away. So how dangerous was it out there really?
Turned out to be plenty dangerous. Sled gets ambushed at a traffic light. Bodyguards got popped behind the ears and left in the sled. Delegate grabbed and hustled to wherever. Whole thing caught on surveillance, though.
So my platoon is mobilized. Go out and bring him back.
We go screaming into the streets on combat sleds and it isn’t long before we catch up to the MCR. They’re trying to get their prisoner underground or something. Set up a blocking position but we tear right through it. Just mow those mids down, you know?
We break the lines, only more MCR are coming onto the scene and soon we’re pushing forward, running down the rebels who are trying to get away with the delegate but also dealing with some pissants in the back who are sending blaster fire at us and also at their own fleeing lines.
Chaos. But we thrive in chaos.
There was this leej, Scott Wakeman. We called him Raven because he had this badass tattoo of one on his back. Raven drops a knee because he’s got a good shot at one of the MCR who are hustling the delegate away. He squeezes the trigger. N-4 is on burst. The MCR is dusted, but
