Prophecy of Tears: CH4: Naj-Zero

Naj Zero - part 2

It was full dark before the yappers decided we'd filled quota, so we finished up under the white glare of paratorches.

Three big cargo trucks arrived to haul us home, snow crunching under their armor-plated wheels like old bones. We climbed in too exhausted to talk. Even though we packed in there tighter than a sandraker's backside, nobody complained. The press of bodies kept everyone warm and held up anyone who dozed off. Just the end of another joy-filled day on Ymir.

A light strip running along the ceiling produced just enough light for me to see. I put my back to the wall in case the Pig made a move. I figured I wouldn't have to wait long. He'd want to stuff my little rebellion before it caught on. Tradition and training drummed into us that only cowards or fools let themselves be taken alive. Being prisoners of war meant we were honor-wrecked, so we left our juice back on Shek Two and slogged through each day like half-frozen rats waiting for death. Honorless bottom-feeders like the Shank Pig flat-out preyed on this attitude, and nobody gave enough of a damn to fight back.

Until me.

I'd always gone my own way, which made me a minor discipline problem off and on ever since my first day at the barracks. Chalk it up to my parents raising me with a more individual idea of honor, not the "Tribe and Chapter" line fed to the average Blood Eagle. Whatever it was that made me different, the dishonor of being a prisoner didn't hit me as hard as the sheer butt-freezing monotony. Ymir was like an endless hiss of radio static. The Starwolf girl, on the other hand, hit me like a dose of sunshine.

I tried to picture her smile as I jounced along in the truck, but the memory was already blurred, thanks to a few hundred swipes of my ice axe into Ymir's cold white carcass.

Raw God, that scared me. Getting killed or crippled by the Pig didn't seem that bad all of a sudden. It wasn't the prospect of splitting up ice and sucking down CRAP for the rest of my life, it was the fear I'd forget there was anything else. Right then, I'd have sold my soul for a week on a Charybdis beach drinking Narheli Jinn-Kickers, diving for dragonpearls, and scoping fems.

To make matters worse, my knuckles hurt. One thing they don't show in the thrill vids is how much a punch out tears up your hands, and I wished I hadn't whopped the Pig so carelessly. I should have known better, given my martial arts training, but it'd been a long time since I thought to use it.

A hollow twist in my stomach reminded me I was hungry. After busting hump in the cold all day, we scarfed up whatever the yappers shoved at us. Bland as it was, CRAP was heaven at the end of a shift. The same hunger rode in the faces around me, and I hated it. But there I was, slobbering at the thought of a plateful of hot, shapeless glop and a cup of oily fish-flavored tea I wouldn't have fed to my dog a couple of months back.

Like I said, Ymir froze a man's soul.

Someone pushed up next to me and adrenaline exploded into my limbs. I spun around with fists up, ready to block an attack and respond in kind.

"Hey, hey, ease it! I'm a friend!"

A wiry little guy grinned up at me from under a scalp frosted with red peachfuzz. He rolled up his sleeve and displayed his forearm tats. "Jerolt Kath, Fifth Support Talon, Air Tac," he said. "Warnom 'Swoop.'"

The tats looked OK, and he looked too small and smart to be the kind of hardcase the Pig hunkered with. We both relaxed, and he withdrew his arm.

"Danior Najrasami," I said. "Shining Fist Talon, warnom 'Naj-Zero.' Just Naj to most. What gives?"

Swoop's grin stretched out like a monkey's mouth. I saw admiration in his eyes. "Well, um… Naj. Standing up to those dirtbags earlier. Star-hot. Thought maybe you want someone to watch your six."

"You sure you want that action?"

"Had enough feeding my honor to those scrof!"

"Yeh-yeh. I scan that, brah." If he was any help, I'd be surprised. Techs didn't have the infighting skills of warriors, but I wasn't going to turn away any offers, truth be told.

I smiled and clapped him on the arm. "Thanks, Swoop. Honored." Damn if that monkey grin didn't get bigger.

He turned out to be a bright knob on turbogravs, so we spent the rest of the trip jawing about repellors and electron gradients and stuff that went way past my training. I just flew the starkissin' things. If I had any special talent that kept me in the Order, that was it. Flying. I mean, I was pretty all-around good in armor, infighting, and shooting stuff, but put me in something that ran fast and high, and I was in my sweet spot.

Ever since the war with the Starwolf heated up, the Sirdar-Prime worked us hard. Stab here, feint here. We tore the yappers up good. Unfortunately, it didn't take a hyperphysics specialist to see we were wolf chow unless the other Orders stepped up. The yappers were tough enough that when they had the numbers, they gave as good as they got.

And they had a lot more than they needed. Every day I watched shuttles moving, hardshell and softshell troops moving around. The yappers were going to hit us with everything they had.

The trucks stopped, and our guards herded us out. Home sweet home was a cluster of prefab barracks tossed on the ice a klick or so from a yapper town. Around us, autoturrets and laser fences reminded us of the limits of Starwolf hospitality. We headed for the boxy mess hall to get our evening ration of delicious CRAP. Swoop stuck with me.

"Yo, Naj," he hissed. "Something's up."

"What?"

"The Pig. See him?"

I looked where he pointed. The Pig approached us, walking next to the line of prisoners shuffling into the mess hall. An expression of pure nasty lit up his mug. Next to him strolled a couple of other scurvs: "Deadboot," a sweetheart famous for his habit of kicking corpses, and "Wrecker," a dirtbag legbreaker who carried a bad rep from Shek Two. These guys had less honor than a sewer leech, which was why they shared slop with the Shank Pig. I felt a stab of apprehension. I'd figured the Pig would wait, but it looked like he was going to jump me right away.

Hunch it, I wasn't backing down. I stepped out of the line and took a fighting stance. The ice was less slick here, better than out on the cutting line. My main advantage over the Pig was speed, so I had to be extra careful. I dug a heel in for better traction and ran through a couple of flick-strike katas to loosen up. Heads turned in the line. The shuffle slowed.

The yapper guards weren't moving. No quota to worry about here. I glanced around. The nearest guard, a big scrof in Scout Armor armor, squatted on one of the towers with his chaingun on his lap, smiling like a tusk-tiger in the aurochs pen. The other guards looked pretty relaxed; some of 'em had lit smoketabs. Oh yeah, they'd be a big help, the yappers. However he'd done it, the Pig had set me up for a public pounding.

"Jet, brah," I told Swoop out of the corner of my mouth. "This ain't your battle."

"Neg that, Naj. I - I got your six." I saw the fear like a shadow on his face, but he stuck.

Pride grabbed me by the heart and squeezed. I straightened and gripped Swoop's shoulder.

"Thou art truly my Brother, Jerolt Kath," I said in the formal cant. "We are One Blood and One Blade, One Kith and One Heart. I swear it unto thee before all our ancestors. I swear it unto thee before all our fallen ghosts."

He looked lance-shocked. Truth to tell, I was too. I'd just declared him my Battle-Brother, one of the most sacred bonds you forged in the B-E. It was the kind of thing you did for someone you owed big, or someone you'd gone through hell with. No long ceremony or hocus-pocus. You just said the ritual phrase and committed your honor and your life. Every Blood Eagle lived by his Word. It was the one cornerstone of honor even I stood by.

"Thanks, Naj," he stammered. "I won't let you down." He stood straighter and recited the lines back to me, and I knew he'd stick. Part of me felt guilty about using the oath, but I knew I meant it. I couldn't let Swoop down now. The cynical voice in my head whispered that the Oath was just a big crutch for pretenders. I throttled it into silence.

The Pig stopped a few meters away and cracked his knuckles. His hands made me think of gloved hams. "Heya, Naj. You and your little friend wanna break?" The scrof laughed like he'd made a fantastic joke, and his breath huffed out in big gouts. Behind him, Deadboot snickered. Wrecker just wiped his nose and stared.

"Don't overwork that snail seed brain of yours, Pig." I shot back.

He scowled at the open use of his less-loved nickname, and it was my turn to laugh. "Raw God, you lost face today, huncher. Even if you beat me, your days as a yapper toad are numbered!"

Deadboot glided a little to the side so one of the camp's arc lamps stretched his shadow right to my feet. "You gonna lose your face, Naj. All over the ice."

"Only if you breathe on me, scrof-eater," I snarled back.

He clammed up. I could take Deadboot, and we both knew it. The Pig was the real problem. He had me in experience, and since I'd caught him off guard earlier, he'd be more careful now. Swoop had heart, but I didn't think he'd hold Deadboot off for more than a minute or two. I was in for a ripping.

Our odds sucked ice, in other words.

Hell with it, this was living. I'd rather go out in a blaze of glory than wait for Ymir to freeze my juice away. I chuckled, suddenly feeling free. My breath flamed silver in the light.

"Luck, Swoop," I said.

"And you, Brother," he replied, sounding steady as stahlplast.

We started circling. Everything was quiet. The guards lounged around with grins on their faces. Our brethren watched with faces of stone. I noticed that big yapper tracking us with tiny movements of his head, and figured he'd patched his armor camera to the local command circuit.

Wonderful. The entire Starwolf army was gonna watch me and Swoop get slaughtered. I wondered if the Wolfgirl was watching. Even if she was, I wondered if she cared. I decided she did, so I could show off for her. Nothing like a fem watching to inspire good old-fashioned bravery.

Time to get focused. My arm was still stiff from our earlier fight, but the katas were loosening it up. I let the familiar motion pull my attention into the right place like a moving meditation. I settled into my ready pose, and smiled to myself as the Pig's eyes narrowed.

He'd taken a hard stance typical of the Blood Eagle. I hadn't. My father practiced an obscure fighting art that was different than the Tai-Kerat taught by the Orders. Mankhat Sra was a fluid, circular school fuzed from a couple Old Earth martial art styles. While I wasn't nearly as good as Dad, I was pretty decent. Winning matches against my Talon comrades kept me in biru money, and I developed a taste for taking down the bigger overconfident guys. Besides, the fluidity of the style's dance-like movements impressed the fems.

I wasn't messing around like amateurs this time, though. I could tell the Pig was in a killing mood, and he had a whole lot of service years on me. Old and crafty took down young and strong all the time. I sure saw it proved enough times. Still, my unorthodox stuff might buy me a little surprise at the right time. If I played my cards right, I might deal out enough hurt to make it through this.

Otherwise, I had no illusions about being on the receiving end of Blood Eagle pain mojo. Whether the Pig succeeded in killing or crippling me, he'd do it as slowly as he could.

Odds were this was gonna hurt.

Bad.

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Naj-Zero

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