“Would you go fight for, um, dirt?”
“Earth,” Kev corrected him absently and shook his head. “No, Ajik, I don’t think that I would. I'm not really a son or daughter of Earth, not like my Grandparents... or Karen and her father. But I would fight for Dee-Lah-Wah, where I was born, where I helped my grandparents and their fellow Engineers finish bringing it to life. Earth is a word, a fairy tale. Dee-Lah-Wah and the Galactic Conservancy is my home.”
He looked up at the sky again. “But I think that Karen and the Rangers would fight for Earth.”
“Will they fight for the Bluehorn worlds?”
“I don’t know.”
***
The dead Markov soldiers' comm provided them with other information, and was very helpful. The layout of the internment camp, his duty, bulletins. There was even access, through its passwords, to the camps’ systems, if they were willing to risk it. They were. It had cost a life, and they were not about to waste the opportunity.
“The newest arrivals are here,” Karen showed the other Rangers, bringing up a virtual conference space where they could work and still watch all around. They were back to back, resting and eating, preparing. The map of the internment camp showed the two landing zones, typical of the Imperium; never let them pin you down. The whole thing was as decentralized as possible, except that they held the center, and the spoke and wheel plan was like a snowflake. It kept the prisoners separated into five sectors. The other three were the two landing zones with warehouses, and the headquarters, with barracks spread out among the three sectors. Karen was pointing at the northeast, next to the north landing zone. Headquarters was in the southeast, and the second LZ was in the southwest.
“A pie-shape cut in eight sections; that’s pretty typical of them, isn’t it?” Her dad asked OC. The Hunter was having a double helping of grel stew from their rations. He down the cup in one gulp, and wiped his muzzle.
“Yes; base eight numbering system, but, also, for some other reason, they think eight is magical. And, of course it works just like cutting a pie, too, one half, one quarter and one eighth.” He pointed at the section she had highlighted. “We’re close by, at least, on the same side of it, more or less.” He hrummed, like a purr, but also like a growl, considering. “We can attack on the Southeast, but that might telegraph our intentions; they aren’t idiots. What about hitting the landing zones, and headquarters, with a hit and run, once or twice?”
“We fade back, split into two forces, one for them to chase, and then one part of our group goes in for our objective?” Another Ranger said, not sounding very happy.
“Too complicated? Okay, then we hit the HQ, while most of us are going into the newest arrivals section. Find the commandant’s brother and his people, and get as many out of the camp as possible, sound recall, board the runabouts and go.”
“How many?” Karen said slowly.
“Forty-three.”
“No, how many, altogether?”
“Fourteen hundred, give or take. These are their die-hards,” her father said, “The resistance leaders, the military heroes. General Johsay surrendered, rather than scattering and going to ground, on the guarantee that the civilians would get food and medicine.”
“And they were?”
“Yeah, but the Imperium relocated them en mass to one of the heartworlds. Typical of Markov policy. They get broken up into bits and pieces, then offered honorable service as auxiliaries on other fronts.” He shook his head, in wonder. “This is the big time for the Markov, but they are also fighting the Twee, another former ally, plus three other one-world, one-species powers.”
“It’s getting bad, out there…”
“Getting?!”
“Let’s rescue them all,” Karen said suddenly. The other Rangers just looked at her, and her dad shook his head.
“Look, this is all about people the Markov grabbed because they are relatives or friends. Up until now, they have been letting Bluehorns who say they are Conservancy go free, and not leaning on relatives…”
“It’s a slippery slope, yeah, but we can’t just leave these people-“
“We can and we will, because we must,” OC interrupted her. “Just like we must get these people; we cannot let the Markov hurt people for being Conservancy. They will accept our separate status, as before.”
“Or what?”
“You don’t need to know, until you do. Conservancy worlds have left the Conservancy; that is their right, just like every person in the Cee is free to come and go.”
“’Thou shalt not control a person’, right, but what about the Bluehorns? What about the Markov?”
“We will see.” The other Rangers nodded; obviously they knew things that Karen did not, and she snarled in frustration. She got up and walked off. Her father stood to follow, but OC grabbed his arm and shook his head the human manner. Thomas James Clark sat back down.
“The names of things interest me, Thomas James. Like the way you are named after two apostles, doubting Thomas and James, the fisher of men. It’s strange how I fished you and your daughter out of the ocean, and now the girl-cub fishes Kevin Boyle out of troubled waters…”
TJ just snorted. “It would be no great puzzle if we had drowned, right? No patterns to worry yourself over. Thinking beings are built to notice patterns, connections, even where none exist.”
“But still…”
“Perhaps we are unsinkable? Or, well, you’ve said it before; humans are special.”
OC looked over at the man, and then to where the daughter had gone. Oh yes; they were.
***
Karen was part of the bigger group, tasked with recovering the Bluehorns that they had come for, and her Dad and OC were part of the diversion. She wasn’t sure if that was because of her arm, or her outburst, and she said as much to her Dad, who laughed.
“No, baby-girl, it’s because you do a really good job on rescues. Yeah, I know that’s what we’re all supposed to be about, but you excel. And, also,” He tapped at the air. “Here, we’ve added this one, since he’s here, too, but under another name. We’re going to bend the rules into a pretzel…”
He was a captured soldier, wounded and surrendered on Teljah, one of the daughterworlds. The other name he went by was Anjadin Brooj, Mission Commander Brooj’s son. Karen smiled. “I know a little pest who’s gonna be really happy to see him.”
“Get him out, first, and then plan a homecoming, with carrot cake, whatever, I don’t…” Thomas swallowed. “Take care, daughter. Get in, get them, and get out: no nonsense?”
“Yes, Dad.”
***
They went in halfway from midnight to dawn, well before the next shift change, and well after; the quiet, dragging time. Right before they split up, they got an update. There were no Markov starships currently in orbit, none expected for a day or more, and hopefully no surprises from that quarter. The Bluehorns they wanted were in five groups, and the Commanding Officer was asleep in his apartment just off the center. “No, wait one; he’s not there… something strange. The official log has him off-duty and asleep, but he’s in the sector we’re going into.”
“Interesting; perhaps we should take advantage of this…” Old Complications mused, and then nodded. “Yes, a change of plans.” He pointed at Karen and her Dad. “You two are with me. Karis, you are in charge of the diversion. Go! We three are on the CO.”
The three groups split up at the fence-line, except that OC, Karen and her dad stayed with the group gathering the Bluehorns up, for now. The other group went towards HQ, to give them a little trouble. Karen smiled in the darkness. Monkey-wrenching, if that was even a word, was the second-best thing a Ranger was good at. Gods and Ancestors! There were such a lot of idiots in the wider Galaxy so badly in need of it.
Gathering in the Bluehorns began almost immediately; the inmates had the run of the grounds, except during head counts. If they took a few more than the plan dictated, then that was okay. Most of the volunteers agreed with Karen; they
were Rangers, after all. The three headed straight for the CO, and they found him with another of their missing lambs, one Anjadin Brooj.
***
Commandant Tivern Jeldah, for the Autocrat, looked distastefully away from the interrogation. He drank from a perfectly good imperial-issue canteen (the Autocrat, after a fashion, had given it to him, and that was honor enough and to spare), and poured the remaining water over the bluehorn’s proud young head.
“You’ve lost, son. Accept that, and get on with your new life, as a subject of the glorious Markov Imperium-“
Anjadin Brooj growled, deep in his throat, and spit half a tooth. He glared up at Tivern and wordlessly mouthed ‘No surrender.’
Sentimentality was one of the Markovs' great weaknesses, and the Commandant steeled his hearts against sympathy, even admiration. That would make all of this so much harder, and serve neither of their great species in the end. How could he reach this poor boy, for the Autocrat? What words to bring him around to the truth, as Tivern Jeldah, Markov and Imperial Regular, saw the truth? What he wanted, simply, was for the boy and his kind bring his admirable, stiff-necked and stalwart talents over to serve the Imperium, as they without question should...
What he did not see was that two sentient, sapient (that is to say, knowing and wise) creatures looked out on the same universe and saw, not the elephant, but tree-trunks, a snake and sails... and one wondered how any good could come of any of this?
That moment passed away, and in the next, the wall between this cell and the service access corridor for the cell block disintegrated with very little fuss- hardly any noise but a blinding light. Then nearly half a dozen stun-darts slammed into Tivern and polled each other, adjusted and pulsed the correct charge, and Tivern fell unconcious.
The Rangers poured into the room. A Grey freed Anjadin, and then saw to the Markov officer.
"He's okay..." the little Ranger trailed off as he turned to the Bluehorn, who had picked up the Commandants' blaster.
"We have no time for this," Old Complications growled.
"Leave me!" Anjadin Brooj cried, pointing the blaster at his former warden, Commandant Tivern Jeldah. "I... I renounce my claim on the Conservancy!"
Ranger Karen Clark smiled. "What if the Cee hasn't given up on you? Your little brother is worried about you..."
Anjadin half-turned to her, shaken, and then spun back at the Markov.
"Gods no!" Karen cried, and threw herself at Anjadin, all caution disregarded, all the way committed and nothing held back for herself. Or for Kevin... Thomas, her father, watched, powerless to stop her.
The blaster bolt took Karen in the heart, ripping through her chest and leaving ruin and cooked meat in its passing. She had a very startled expression on her face as she fell to the floor.
Anjadin looked horrified at the blaster in his hands and then he threw it away. Tivern, conscious once again, made no move for it; the great bulk of Markov Certainty was at a loss; both for words, and shaken in his blind assumption that the blood of heroes ran through his veins and two stout hearts.
"Why? Gods and Ancestors, why?!" he cried in anguish, for the Markov are nothing if not sentimental.
"Ranger," said someone, several some ones, actually. As if that was all that needed to be said. Maybe it was.
Thomas reached his daughter after a seemingly endless time and cradled her. She was surprisingly not yet dead, her eyes wordlessly speaking of the love that would not fade from the worlds. And then she was. He rocked back on his heels.
"Love you, love you..."
Old Complications laid a nightmare paw on the man's shoulder and another on the dead Ranger, looking down on his handiwork. Many, many lifetimes ago he had needed helpers, companions; friends and loved ones. He reached down deep and touched the wellspring of He-Who-Waits.
"I do not accept this," that old one whispered. He looked up and roared. "This must not be!"
"What?"
"Give her to me..."
Thomas looked from the great alien question mark of his life to what remained of his daughter. All that mattered to him in the wider galaxy... and he trusted in Ol' Cee. He passed the body to him.
There was a breeze and fire, cool flames in red, blue, green and yellow... so many colors! And Old Complications breathed in and out, in and out. Matter shifted, flowed. Flesh and bone knitted together and he squeezed his left paw, opened it, closed it again...
Life pulsed at Karens' throat in time to his measure, and she gasped, sucked in one lung-full of air and then another. The sound was so loud in that room, where nobody moved.
"Gods and Ancestors!"
"Yes..." He-Who-Waits said tiredly.
***
Karen had been subdued and quiet the whole way back to Edelweiss. The other Rangers and the rescuees went to Ilshan, but she, her father and Old Complications, plus the Bluehorn youth, had transferred to a disreputable mid-bulk transport at a first Directorate of Transportation Depot. They had it largely to themselves; the Hunter Captain and his motley crew had left them alone, out of respect or deep disinterest, each according to the individual.
The cycle before they were to reach Edelweiss, Karen was grabbing a bite to eat in the mess with just her father. Actually, she pushed her food around, taking an occasional bite, until finally she pushed her plate away. Thomas set his fork down and waited her out, but she stared past him at the graffiti which the crew had scribbled on the bulkhead. It was animated and cycled through a number of cartoons. She seemed to be trying to memorize them. She finally spoke after he had started to eat again.
"I was dead, wasn't I?"
Thomas put his fork down. "You were."
"How?!"
When his eyes twinkle and he started to answer, she blurted, "No! I know I stepped in front of that idiot..."
The Bluehorn or the Commandant, Thomas wondered, but did not ask. "Old Complications is... is much more. Much more complicated and older than we ever thought, for one thing. And... whatever he really is, God or legendary Ranger, he brought you back to me." Thomas stared into the middle distance. "I owe him what little sanity I have left, what little peace of mind, or my last breath..."
"What is he?!"
Thomas looked up past her and Karen turned around in her seat. The Hunter Captain was standing in the door of the mess, standing there with Old Complications. The two of them filled that enormous space completely; filled it without even having come in.
"That is a very good question," Old Complications rumbled. He-Who-Waits had long since forgotten the first few lives, but once he had been a hive-mind and not known loneliness, not had any concept of what he had been; profoundly alone. Now he was a mystery, even to himself. "I wish that I had a reasonable answer, but I don't..."
"That's not good enough!"
"No, I don't think so, either," Ol'Cee agreed. The ship captain knelt and half rolled on his back.
"Tester-"
"Don't. I'm a Ranger now."
The Hunter Captain stood and made a motion of negation. "You are the Tester of Worlds. The Tester of the Hunters and their Tester as well..." He pointed at the other two Rangers. Ol'Cee said nothing to this and the starship captain withdrew.
"I don't make a habit of reaching into lives and changing their course-"
"Of course you do! It's why I'm here, and why I'm a Ranger!"
Old Complications blinked, which was a human mannerism. "So I do... and I got you and your father into this, got you killed... along with your romance with that young man, who is also a child-of-my-heart... I could have let that be, and perhaps I should have-"
"No!" Thomas barked. "No," he repeated, much more quietly.
The three were quiet for a time, and the Hunter curled around at the end of their mess table, facing the woman and her father. The floor fitted itself to his great bulk, providing him with a raised platform, a comfy couch.
"How, now that I know why?" Karen whispered.
"No, how is not for you to know," Old Complications told
her. "What will you do with the life you have had restored to you?"
"I can do whatever I want with it?"
"Why not? A gift, freely given, is given. Don't you understand? I'm constantly amazed."
"By what?" The Hunter wasn't sure which one had asked.
"Life is a gift and I enjoy the giving. I try hard not to be selfish and let people live as they would, because being a living God is so inconvenient..."
"The Hunters?" Thomas asked
"Yes, the Hunters. I have used them so badly..."
***
Homecoming was strained and strange. The Rangers hung back as the Brooj family mobbed Anjadin; he was three deep in blue-furred giant horned humanoids. Thomas looked away, his face stark, and then Karen broke away. Thomas put out a hand but let it fall. Ol'Cee put a massive paw on the mans' shoulder.
Kev broke away from the living traffic-jam of Broojs and intercepted Karen. "Are you alright?"
For some reason that struck her as very funny and only the troubled look in his eyes cut her short; stopped her brittle, tinkling laughter that scared her as well.
"Don't worry- you don't need to worry," she said in a rush. "I came back." The doubtful little voice in the back of her mind wondered, 'have you?' and that same question was there in his eyes, and in the slight frown on his face. "I came back!"
"I went away a little farther than I expected, is all. But, after a long journey, a happy homecoming," she babbled, "and there was a thing or two which we needed to settle, isn't there?"
"What happened to you, Karen?"
Karen found that she had a little more courage than she had thought; perhaps courage is a renewable resource... "I got hurt- no. Kev, I was dead, and Old Complications brought me back. He has a technology more advanced than... or maybe magic. He fixed me, like I was broken." She stood up straight suddenly and looked to the Hunter and her father.
"He's been trying to fix us both, for a long time. I, I wouldn't put it past the sneaky old monster, to have set us both up, two humans of an age, alone among other aliens-"
Kev was laughing, and she joined him, but asked, "What are we laughing about?"