The next morning, just before dawn, Zeer got up with an uneasy feeling. As he dressed for the morning call to Worship, the whole town was rocked by a series of explosions. Zeer rushed out to the veranda.
Lines of the Guardians were coming out of the doors of the barracks and setting up a defensive perimeter around the Rectory. The new Captain came running up to Zeer still buttoning her uniform, "Father.., please go back inside."
"No, mon Capitaine.., Now what was her name again? Oh, yes, Tarwan Kirat. I am going to my office."
She got a very firm look on her face, "Cardinal...uhhh... your Grace... you gotta get inside..."
"No, I will not! Look! The Ssarrians! I gotta get to their Nest!"
"Sir! Please! I must insist that you return to the safety of the Rectory! Its blaster proof walls are built for just such a need!"
"Wrong! I must get out there." He pointed to the smoke on the horizon.
"Please cooperate, Sir... at least until we know what is going on."
"My dear Capitaine, I know what is going on. We are under attack. I am the First Citizen. I must be at the front. "
A Huey class flitter with Tristan, Jim and several rifle patrols landed on the hard packed area in front of the Rectory.
Sheel jumped from the side port. Zeer could see more soldiers climbing on board. Bent over, she ran to where Zeer was standing on the veranda's edge. Zeer yelled over the whine of the huey, "Good, you're here, Sheel. Now, we can go."
Troops were pouring into the sides and taking flight seats. "We’re goin’, Sir, but you are most definitely NOT!"
"Sheel, I am the first Citizen and I must insist..."
"Command..." said a radio tacked to her shoulder strap.
She ignored him, pushing a button on the side, "Go ahead!"
"The first legion has arrived at the battle scene. They are engaging pirate cruisers by the Ssarrian nest. Three uglies have lifted off, and our flitters are giving chase. We can’t catch them. They’re too fast, and they’re headed for space."
Zeer got in Sheel’s face, "Now, lissen here, Girlee...I was a gunner when you was a dream in yer daddy’s eye."
"Preacher man...I love you to pieces, but I will hog tie you and stuff you in a closet ta keep you safe, now git off my boat! We gotta go!"
She looked past Zeer, staring menacingly at the new Capitaine. "Cap'n Kirat, if you wish to keep them shiny new bars, you will escort the First Citizen, Cardinal MacTarn, back into the safety of his home." She looked firmly at Zeer, "Carry him if you have to...now, move!" She ran back to the flitter and jumped in as it took off.
"Yes, Ma'am." The new Capitain saluted then turned toward her new charge. She looked up into his face firmly, "Well, Cardinal, Sir, you heard the Colonel..." She motioned with one thumb to two burly Triandese Seargents. They each, gently but firmly, took an elbow and hauled him back into the Rectory.
Once inside, Zeer tried again, "Capitain, you don't understand. I need to go."
The new Captain just shrugged and spoke to him firmly in the back of his mind, "And...I NEED you safe, and I NEED ta do me job! You are the most important person on this planet! You heard the Colonel's orders. I guard you, but I work for her."
"Well I AM the First Citizen! I outrank her, and I 'm giving you new orders." He strode to his comm center, "Base...this is the First Citizen. Have my flitter brought up...NOW!"
"I am sorry, your Grace...all vehicles are at the fire fight."
"GET...ME...ONE!"
Sheel cut in the transmission, "Preacherman, are you tryin' ta anger me, boy?”
"If necessary, Madame. I should be there, and you know it. You are stretching my patience. I am the First Citizen and, as such, your superior officer."
"Now...calm down, Preacher man...You ARE the civil authority here, BUT, this here is a military situation. That means that I outrank ever' body! Got It?"
"But...but..."
"No buts, old friend, you know that I'm right."
"I guess..."
"That bein' said, we have swept the area and all attackers are gone or dead. So, out of the goodness of my heart, I will return your flitter. But, I'll warn ya, it's bad out here... "
"Thank you very much! I shall see that fer meself!"
The second sun was just coming to full circle above the horizon when Zeer's flitter appeared in the sky. Impatiently, Zeer watched it grow.
Paris walked up behind him and hugged him, "I dinna hear the thump, thumps, Preacher man..."
Zeer suddenly realized then that he no longer heard them either. "Aye, Lassie... the smoke's clearin', too..." They watched as the cloud of smoke spread to wider whisps whipped by the valley winds.
He checked the timepiece on his wrist. "Dang... seems like it takin' all day..."
"Aye...but, fer truth, it's been less than an hour..."
"Da', where ye been?"
“I hitched a ride wi' a nice Par Cat sergeant. We got a few shots in at the Pirates. They run skeert. We're flyin' towards ye right now..."
"Good!"
"Aye, I think she likes me..."
"Right..." He looked around. One of the new Brothers was ringing the bell to call the prayer vigil for the few faithful who hadn't headed for the Ssarrian nest.
The flitter finally settled on the pad. As the dust blew around his robes, Zeer bound inside and tapped the sergeant who was flying it on the shoulder, "Let's go!"
"Aye, aye, your grace..." as she hit the launch throttle. They raced full tilt to the Ssarrian nest, landing on a crushed rice paddy where serious fighting and lots of flitters had landed. Not that it mattered to the dead, but Zeer estimated that 75% of the crop was destroyed.
The first vehicle that he saw was a hospital flitter. He headed for Talia`s nest, running past medics hauling shrouded bodies out of the inner nests. When he got there, he found Sheel leaning on the door post. She put her hand on his chest. "Please don't go in there, Padre." Her eyes were begging him.
He looked up into her eyes. She was stunned. He put his hand on her shoulder and drew her to his chest, patting her back, "My child, you know that I must go in." She dropped her arm and leaned back against the door post.
His dad piped in, "It must be really something to affect her like that.”
"Aye, Dad, she’s pretty tough, usually." He slipped past her. Inside, he saw the medics working on a Ssarrian. He rushed over. It was Talia, barely alive. His hands and feet had been burned off one digit at a time. When Talia saw the Preacherman, he struggled to sit up. The medico's tried to hold him down. He ignored them and spoke over their shoulders to Zeer. His voice was a hoarse whisper, "I have waited for you, Fassser..."
Zeer knelt by the old man, “I am here, Brother.” Wrapping his arm around his friend's shoulders, "Who did this to you, Talia, me friend?"
Talia struggled to breathe. Zeer turned and yelled at the medicos, "Help him... Can't you help him!?! "
"There's naught ta be done, Father. He shoulda died way back."
Talia spoke "It was a tall, red headed devil, Fassser."
"With an eye patch?"
Talia ignored the question, "Fasser, I must have passage for myssself and my family."
Zeer looked around the room. Now that his eyes had adjusted to the gloom, he could see the rest of Talia's family had died defending their nest.
"Aye, me friend..." In a soft, clear tenor, Zeer sang "The Rite of Passage". Talia laid his head back contentedly and died somewhere near the “when I have failed thee…” part.
Zeer found his vision swimming in bitter tears. He looked over his shoulder at the medicos. "Did he say anything else?"
"Nope...nuttin'..." the nearest man said, "He just kept muttering something about a red devil with one eye."
Another one said, "I heard him say that he didn't tell the red devil nothin'...no one told 'em nothin'."
In another corner of the nest, a deputy lifted some knocked over furniture. He stopped and called out to Jim, "Halloo, look at this." Jim and Zeer sloshed over in the th
igh deep water of the inner nest. There on a pile of mud with a strange sight. A fierce struggle had taken place, tearing up the furniture from this side of the room. Jim and the deputy lifted up a turned over table. There they found Talia's wife, Ssateen.
As the pirates had done to Talia, they had been systematically burned off one finger at a time to get her to talk. Her other hand must have worked itself loose from the bindings. She had grabbed her torturer by the throat with her strong, taloned claws, and they had died together.
When the medicos tried to separate Ssateen from her dead attacker, she came apart in two cleanly cut pieces. Even though her victim had burned her torso in half from high up on her right side to low down on her left, she had held on to her prize.
Zeer was stunned. Even with a swollen face and his purple tongue sticking out of his mouth, he knew this face like he knew his own. He leaned back against the table and covered his eyes. "Doggy...Doggy, how could ya do it?”
Little Jim was standing next to him. When he saw Zeer's reaction, he said, "You know this man, Father?"
Images came unbidden. Images poured in from deep forgotten corners of his memory. Memories of Doggy in goal on their futbol team, fighting for and against each other at school, and taking "Combat Skills I & II" together from his Grandfather. Despite himself Zeer cried for this man.
Jim touched his shoulder to get his attention. "I'm sorry, Father, but I have to ask you again, do you know this man?"
Zeer picked up the man’s floppy sailor’s cap and stared at it a tick. He looked up at his friend slowly. "Aye, his name is Douglas "Doggy" MacBride. We were boyhood friends. He served on me brother's ship in the Emerish Wars. He was ma brother’s best friend. If he was here, ma brother was here, too."
"I see..." Jim said softly.
Zeer put his head in his hands on the edge of the pool and cried. The Magi and Sheel came closer. Sheel was crying, as much for herself, as for the Ssarrians. She choked an answer, "Yes, Father. Many of the men we found so far were wearing the green with white stars, the Patch Man's colors."
Zeer threw the cap hard against the wall. "Those are not his colors alone! He is using the flag of the Emerald Planets. I will not stand for that!"
In the corner of his mind, his father raged, "Och! What a disgrace! The blasphemers! Ours was a flag of honor and peace."
Sheel continued, "I'm afraid that's not all of it."
"What could be worse?”
"There are uniform colors from different bands here. We may be facing a major Pirate coallition."
"By the Master's beard, that is bad," said Jim.
"Aye, lad, but worse, is that I looked fer him over thirty cycles. Now I have just found him, but, now I’m going to have to kill him before he kills us all."
Zac started, "Son, ya canna say that. He's your brother."
"Dad, no brother of mine would do this. This is plain slaughter."
"Aye, I admit that this behavior is just too hard of a pill to swallow, and to think that I searched for him all these cycles, only ta find this."
Jim placed his huge, bearlike arm on Zeer's shoulder. “But, what I can't understand is why would he want to kill all these people?"
Zeer looked around, reached into the water and fished a glowing something off of the muddy floor. It was a small green rock carved into a flower. He handed it to Jim.
Jim looked at it in shock, "Holy fireballs, people. This rock is Verdollium!"
"Aye, lad, the Ssarrians found it just before the cave in. Talia told me about it yesterday. He had hoped ta keep it a secret"
"A secret..."
"Aye, we were trying to keep it a secret to protect ourselves from something just like this. Yesterday, he said that they had been stashing it here. He and his unfortunate wife here were the only people who knew where it was. It’s in the part of the mine that caved in. So far, it had been far too dangerous ta go git it.”
“That’s not much to go on.”
Zeer shook his head, “He told me that it was somewhere in the area of the caved in sections of the old mine. That's all he told me."
"You’re right, Father, that is bad..."
"That's not all, this attack means that somehow, my brother and his pirates know what we know. They attacked this nest to get the secret. Talia died saying that he didn't tell. Our city is in grave danger. As long as they think the Verdollium is here, the pirates will now come after the mine. Right now, I figure they're gathering to strike."
"This story gets worse and worse. We must mobilize immediately." He called into the minicomm on his shoulder, "Sparky?"
A radioman's voice ran up, "Aye, Sir..."
"Is that meeting of the Circle called for one hour?"
“Aye, Mage! All set.”
"Okay! We're coming back."
Zeer went out to his flitter. As he lifted off, Zeer saw what had caused the explosion that had awakened the town. Toma Ssarriss's Nest Guardians, from swamp cover, had led a counter attack against the pirates that had driven them off by blowing up one of their cruisers. All around the burned out wreck were bodies of slain Ssarrians and dead pirates.
Zeer talked into his headpiece. "Little Jim, how did these young Ssarrians put blaster holes like that in a ship?"
"They have access to mining explosives."
Zeer nodded with a crooked smile, "Aye! That would do it."
It looked like a major attack force by the number of landing spots crushed into the fields. A lot of the pirates came here for treasure and, thanks to Toma, would never leave.
Captain Tarwan was waiting by the flitter. "What is it, my dear..?"
She began in a halting tone, "Your Grace...the Ssarrian nest is nearly wiped out...out of seven thousand Ssarrian souls, we can find less than two thousand left alive. Of course, there are twice that number still in the fort waiting to move to the nest."
"Cor blimey! Those poor people will have a lotta work ta do ta get their nest back into shape."
"Yes, your Grace. It is difficult to give full accuracy. The ones left have hidden with their children in the swamp or were mining during the attack. We are still finding stragglers."
"Well, there's hope, then, isn't there." He got into his flitter and motioned to the pilot. As soon as his Guardians were aboard, they took off.
When he could see the fort, Par's voice came to him, "Was it bad, ma sweet?"
"Aye, lass, it could not have been worse. Shannie and his men killed more than three thousand people for a handful of damned Verdollium."
"Won't that satisfy them?”
"It'll probably only serve ta drive them crazier, I'm afraid."
"Won't they go and take their Verdollium?”
"As near as we can tell, they dinna get but a tiny bit. The few stones they did get'll probably only fuel their fever."
"I'm so sorry, darlin."
"Thankee, sweets." Zeer changed mental gears, "Capitain Praseer?"
"Yes, your Grace?"
Do you know what has happened?"
"Yes, Sir.we are plugged in to our brothers and sisters in the defense groups. Paronese comprise most of the First Legion. We were first contact forces at the Nest." Praseer answered sadly, "We remained plugged in all day. It was bloody awful business."
Something tingled in Zeer's mind. Then he knew, "You know why this happened, too, don'tcha?"
"Yes, sir, the Paronese have had possession of these rumors since the cave in. We can’t read Ssarrian minds, so, we had no verification. I was not aware of who knew or the true where abouts of the vein, though."
"I see. `A wise man keeps his own council', sayeth the Word...
“Aye…”
“See you at Circle."
"Yes, sir. On my way! These are troubled times, Father. I may have some good news at the meeting."
"Well, me son, good news will help. Trouble has definitely found us now."
"I am afraid so, Father. After the Circle, I wish to meet with thee at my old office. There are more things that yo
u need to know."
"See you, then.” They both changed wavelengths breaking their connection.
By the time his flitter landed, he could see Sheel and Jim’s Huey just circling to land above him. He waited for them, and they went to the Chamber of the Magi Circle together.
Chapter 19