Life Sentence (Forlani Saga Book 1) Read online

  “We’re coming up on the Local site. If we can catch them by surprise, we should be able to kill several in the initial barrage, then the rest when they flee -- and Locals usually do flee when they get hit by focus fire. Be prepared for them to bound off in all directions. We’ll have to dismount and walk through the grass as softly as possible to ensure a successful ambush. The damn rain is making the thallops too jumpy, and there’s a good chance they’ll give our position away. Our mankiller will dispose of any hosts we find already onsite. Dismount and prepare to move in!”

  As the men moved forwards towards the Local gathering, Klein realized that Cashman’s instinct had been correct; the thallops were nervously pacing around and snorting, and they likely would have fled the area if not for their control collars preventing them from running far from their riders. Through the sounds of thunder and rain, Klein could hear the rhythmic droning of the Locals growing louder as the kill team inched closer and closer. Most of the sounds tended to blend together, like an insect’s buzzing call, but Klein could distinctly make out two recurring phrases in the Locals’ cries that sounded almost like words-mahorshuvash. The words seemed to come either at the end or the beginning of crying sequences, and increased in volume and clarity each time the Locals spoke them. The rhythm and structure of the cries reminded Klein of a religious ceremony, and he began to wonder if the Locals were merely creatures driven solely by instinct or if they possessed some unknown level of sentience, even sapient intelligence. The thought of interrupting a religious ceremony briefly sent a chill down Klein’s spine, but he reassured himself with the knowledge that the Locals had never before shown any capacity for anything resembling language or sentient behavior. Maybe it’s just a mass mating, like some types of insects have, Klein though as they crouched down prior to attack.

  The men were standing in two horizontal rows, one behind the other. Cashman was standing behind them and would make a chopping motion with his hand to tell them to fire at will. He raised his hand into the air, beginning the motion.

  Mahorshuvash….

  His arm was in a vertical position over his head now.

  Mahorshuvash…

  His hand wavered for a second, then began to fall.

  MAHOR SHUVASH!

  Cashman’s hand silently slashed through the air in a fraction of a second, and the men poked their weapons through the grass and opened fire.

  Klein first realized that something was very wrong when he saw no hosts -- human, thallop, or any other life form the Locals typically utilized, amidst the mass of Locals. In the split second he saw the site before the first shot was fired, he was able to make out a few other details. The Locals were standing in a circular pattern, there was a particularly large Local with red hind legs at the farthest point away from where they were breaking through, and in the center of the circle, there were three ancient Locals lying on their backs, with ossified joints and glaucous eyes. The chanting and droning stopped immediately as the colonists crashed through the grass and opened fire, replaced with a stunned silence of horror.

  The first rocket, judging from the trajectory -- Klein guessed it came from Tarkington’s Kikkonnen -- smashed into the large Local with red hind legs, reducing it to a burning, screaming ruin. Another rocket slammed into one of the ancient Locals in the center of the circle. The creature died making a guttural noise that sounded to Klein like some kind of barbaric curse. More rockets from the initial barrage smashed through the circle, flinging the Locals in multiple directions.

  Then, in a fraction of a second, the screeching began.

  After all his time on Domremy, Klein had never heard a Local screech before. He had only heard the typical buzzing noises that the made for the most part, along with the droning rhythms of the ceremony his crew had just interrupted. A Local’s screech did not sound anything like these more typical noises. It was like a combination of metal shearing on metal and a cat’s nails scraping against a chalkboard. It was a sound to provoke agony and fear in the listener, a Mobius strip of sonic pain that seemed to come out of nowhere and continue endlessly. It was not a sound of hunger, mating, pleasure, or any singular aspect of existence an organism could feel. It was a sound that meant one thing.

  War.

  The counterattack was as swift as it was deadly. Most of the men had barely had time to reload before the Locals charged their formation. Schaller, one of Cashman’s most trusted men, was one of the first to go down, first tackled to the ground and then shredded into a gory mass of flesh by an enraged Local. Mutombo, a veteran of the Pan-Central African wars, died in the blink of an eye, decapitated by a Local’s forelimb. Bulgakov, former inmate of the Russian Federation‘s most dreaded prison, died in agony as a Local speared through his stomach and lifted him off the ground.

  The surprise attack had not scattered the Locals, making them the easy prey Cashman had planned. Instead, it had resulted in a massive, swarming attack, uniting the Locals into one brutal charge that overwhelmed the first row of humans. Cashman realized that his remaining men, one of them only a mankiller with a gun too low-caliber to hurt a Local, could not possibly drive off the Local assault. It was time to give the order to run.

  “Cease fire and retreat! Get back to the thallops and get out of here ASAP!” Cashman yelled as he began running. The remaining four men’s retreat was a disorganized rout with no covering fire, no clear view through the tall grass, and no semblance of tactics other than running as fast as possible. Driven by the maddest animal fear, their responses to the situation varied wildly. Tarkington held up his heavy Kikkonnen, trying to see if he could protect himself during his dash, whereas Klein immediately threw down his M221 and raced to the thallops as fast as he possibly could. Cashman’s façade of supreme control had cracked, his face marked by rage and fear as he threw down his Kikkonnen and adopted Klein’s tactics. The three men heard one agonized scream behind them, informing them that Radford, one of their men from the second row, had been caught and ripped to shreds by the Locals.

  “We’re nearly there,” Cashman yelled to Tarkington. “Just drop your damn gun and run for it!”

  A Local leapt out of the grass and slashed deep into Klein’s leg. He fell to the ground, defiantly roaring at the Local even as it prepared to butcher him with its forelimbs. A rocket from Tarkington’s Kikkonnen sent the Local careening to the ground to die in a pool of its own blood. As Klein tried to stagger to his feet, wincing in pain, he watched as another Local flew up over the top of the grass and leapt onto Tarkington, pinning him to the ground. Cashman ran up to Klein, propping him up by the shoulder.

  Klein could barely tell what was happening around him, as he felt pain shudder through his body. He tried to move his remaining good leg in sync with Cashman’s, but could feel himself growing weak with blood loss. Adrenaline and fear surged through him, eclipsing any sadness he felt over the death of Tarkington. Finally, they reached the area where the thallops had been left. Cashman jerked on his thallop’s reigns, ordering it down onto its knees, and slumped Klein across its back. Then he mounted another thallop and galloped away, leading Klein’s animal, as fast as the thallops could carry them. Klein fell into unconsciousness as his thallop fled across the plains.

  When his eyes opened again, he was in a dimly lit cave, and he saw Cashman crouched near him holding a flashlight and a medkit. He could feel a liquid, burning pain and his injured leg could barely move.

  “Pretty bad wound you got there. Might get infected if it doesn’t get treated,” Cashman said in a monotone. “I got a medkit here if you need it…but you’ll have to tell me a few things.”

  Shit…Cashman, what do you want to know? You have my files from Stafford Station, you have my conviction record from Earth…what else do you need? I’m a mankiller. None of us get picked for this position because we have a clean record. Just use the medkit on this wound and be done with it.”

  “I’m not interested in your court case or your record here, Klein. I’m interested in what
you did before you got into the criminal justice system. Every time I’ve asked I’ve always gotten a ‘not now’ or ‘I don’t want to talk about it’. You’re gonna tell me exactly why you’re here now, or you ain’t gettin’ anything from the medkit.”

  Klein held out as long as he possibly could. The dull, throbbing pain in his wounded leg grew worse and worse as time passed and Cashman patiently waited. Cashman gave him everything he needed – food, rations, water, even a Somega when he tried to sleep the pain away – but not the medkit. To his chagrin, Klein found himself developing a splitting headache, a possible side effect of his wound’s infection. After suffering for what seemed like an eternity, Klein finally called Cashman over to him.

  “Cashman…I’m willing to talk. I’ll tell everything. Just give me the medkit.”

  And Klein explained how he fell into the criminal justice system.

  Klein’s job as a career civil service worker for the Treasury department of Düsseldorf always seemed an ill match for him. It consisted of day after day of hunching over a keyboard and peering over endless stats and flow charts depicting how public works projects, public/private partnerships and corporate ventures impacted the city’s finances. Most of the time very little was revealed in terms of new information; for the most part, his job was to double check analyses that had already happened and verify their accuracy, passing the reports on to his superiors. Sometimes, Klein even felt nostalgic for his grueling years in the German Marines that got him the job in the first place; at least in that job, it felt like things were actually happening. He was nearly finished with his afternoon shift and was drinking a cup of coffee in his cubicle, he saw an unusual project appear on the list of approved programs…

  “Project Kinderaugen.” Listed as a “project to better verify the security and well-being of Germany’s children,” Klein could find no details on what the project actually did or what it was supposed to accomplish. Even stranger, the project seemed to have no recommended budget. Its budget was simply whatever the city put into it, with no warnings of going over budget or notifications of surpluses. Buried near the end of the report, Project Kinderaugen seemed to have been strategically positioned to be passed over by and forgotten about by a weary employee. Klein’s curiosity gnawed at him and he went to ask his boss, Mr. Achenbach, about why this particular project was had such unique accounting standards.

  “Achenbach, there’s something I think you need to see here…”

  “Okay, but make it quick. Only 15 minutes left till the end of our shift.”

  “I found something strange near the end of this list…it’s listed as a corporate project called ‘Kinderaugen’. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything come through the Treasury that has no recommended budget or specified limits. I don’t think I can approve this in good faith unless I have more specifics.”

  Achenbach sighed. “Oh, the Kinderaugen thing. Someone must have not entered the full data in for that one correctly. I’ll just finish that one myself, since I have access to all the files. You’ve nearly finished the rest of this set of projects and then you can go home. Tie it all up done by the end of shift.”

  Although Klein still had his reservations about Kinderaugen, he also knew how important punctuality was on his job reviews. “Sure. I’ll go finish the rest,” he said as he left Achenbach’s room and went back to his cubicle. The remains of the assignment were uneventful, with nothing eye-catching to distract Klein from finishing it on time. Once the last fifteen minutes were up, Klein left the office and got on a bus to go back to his apartment. He slowly became more relaxed on the bus ride, the bizarre discovery of Kinderaugen receding into the distance of his memories as the street lights and shops of Düsseldorf passed by. As the bus stopped near his apartment, Klein quickly walked out amidst the crowd leaving at the stop.

  An old man walking next to Klein suddenly fell to the ground, clutching his shoulder in agony. There was no sound of gunfire, but Klein’s military expertise had taught him that snipers often used silencers for their rifles. Klein’s mind, dulled by the rhythms of civilian life mere seconds ago, transformed back into the mind of a soldier as adrenaline surged through it. As the other people in the crowd leaving the bus began to become panicked and disoriented from fear, scattering in an ungainly mob, Klein sprinted for the door to his apartment complex. He had no weapon and no idea where the sniper was shooting from, and could only hope to be safe in his room. He rushed into the building and ran up the stairs to his one room apartment. Klein felt a very slight sense of relief that there was no one at the door or inside the room waiting to shoot him, as he had been worried that the assassin had an accomplice waiting to kill him. After an hour crouched behind the couch with a gun in his hand, Klein began to relax slightly and sat down, turning the TV on to the Local news. A report about the shooting at the bus stop was currently airing.

  “Michael Schneider, a retired banker and resident of Düsseldorf, was shot in the shoulder today as he and a crowd of passengers were exiting from a bus. He is currently at a city hospital in stable condition. No suspects have yet been identified.”

  As the news shifted from coverage of the shooting to discussions on the weather and celebrity fashions, Klein began to think over the events in his head. There was one shot, and it hit Snyder in the shoulder. He could’ve been aiming for that man or me -- I can’t be sure, since we were standing so close together. I’ll take a couple days of sick leave and then report back to work. But I’m not going to make the mistake of going unarmed while I think the sniper is still out there.

  After two uneventful days of watching the news closely to see if Schneider or anyone else was targeted by the sniper, Klein returned to his job, but his former boredom was replaced by a gnawing paranoia about the continued threat of violence and the true nature of Kinderaugen. Even as he worked on the mundane duties of his normal job, information on Kinderaugen remained frustratingly out of reach in any of the databases he was generally allowed to utilize. After a week of finding nothing on Kinderaugen, he decided to ask Achenbach if he had finished filling out the Kinderaugen forms.

  “Hello, Achenbach,” Klein said as he walked into Achenbach’s office. “About that Project Kinderaugen…it’s been a week, and I still haven’t found out whether it got finished or not. I can’t find any further information on it in the database. I feel responsible, since it was assigned to me. What happened to it?”

  “I told you I’d finish Kinderaugen for you, and I did. I did it on Wednesday, while you were out on sick leave. There’s no need for you to be preoccupied with it any further.”

  Klein began to grow frustrated with Achenbach’s obfuscation. “But there wasn’t even a record of it in the expenditures column! Usually, projects are listed there after we finish processing them…”

  Achenbach had an irritated look on his face as he answered Klein. “Look, Project Kinderaugen is a very important priority to us. It’s research that will protect and enrich the lives of children around the world! You have no idea how much this project means to the city of Düsseldorf—not just in terms of the potential employment and financial windfall, but in terms of prestige! This city needs a program like this, and it’s a very high priority that we get it, even if it means not dotting every “I” if it makes our corporate partners happy. So please, stop worrying about Kinderaugen. It’s all been handled. We won’t hold the fact that you didn’t finish this one assignment because you were sick against you.”

  “Thank you for doing this for me. I don’t get sick very often, but when I do, it’s good to know that my superiors won’t hold it against me,” Klein forced himself to say as convincingly as he could. He walked out of Achenbach’s office knowing he could count on no further help from Achenbach in understanding Project Kinderaugen, and considered what to do next as he finished his remaining assignments and decided to stop at a bar on the way home.

  One beer led to another as Klein pondered what to do next about Kinderaugen. He thought about quitting. H
e thought about re-enlisting in the Marines. He thought about getting a flight back to Las Vegas and working as a mercenary in America. The secret war was still going on in Central America and he knew he could hook up with a recruiter who worked around the big Pyramid. A dozen futures, equally bad, ran into each other and blended like cheap paint. It was time to head for the gent’s.

  The lavatory could have served a rifle platoon, but it was empty when Klein went in to enjoy the pause that refreshes. His bladder felt like he had consumed at least a gallon of beer. After a few seconds another fellow came in and strolled up to a urinal a few places away from Klein. He was a tall, lanky guy with an aquiline nose who could easily serve as a model for the adjective “swarthy.” He unzipped loudly and made a big deal about unfurling his private business. Klein decided he felt uneasy about this newcomer and zipped up to make a speedy exit. As the fellow ostentatiously reeled in his extensive privates, he actually blew a kiss at Klein. Klein was about to remark to him that he must be barking up the wrong tree when he noticed what all the machismo was meant to cover up -- a bulge under his jacket. Knowing that as soon as decency had done its duty, the guy would next whip out a pistol, Klein preemptively stepped up and took a swing at him. But he was too slow. The other fellow executed a neat side-step and used a judo move to sling Klein down on the tiles. He was really smiling now, as he had apparently decided to kill Klein without gunfire and slowly advanced to finish him off. Italian, thought Klein, graceful on their feet, deadly in the water, and the commandos all get years of very effective judo training. But I bet he didn’t sit in with the Spatznaz as I did. Recalling what his instructor Voroschenko had taught him during the Herat action, where most duels were fought down on the dusty ground, Klein brought the assassin down with a variation of the old Russian leg drop and then, still spinning on his butt, slipped a knee around his neck and locked in the triangle choke hold. The Italian wasn’t thinking about his package now, as he struggled in vain to breathe and to pump oxygen into his failing brain. In thirty seconds he wasn’t thinking any more at all. Before slipping out and leaving in a hurry, Klein checked to see that he hadn’t just murdered a man strictly on instinct, but the gun was right there under the Italian’s jacket, along with what passed for a badge in the secret police. He walked home as normally as possible, played Scarlatti to calm his nerves and soon fell into a surprisingly deep sleep.