The dense jungles of the world of Verdencia recovered quickly from the wars fought in their midst, soaking up the blood of the dead to feed the new foliage. Only a few rugged survivors were left to remake the planet. This was her world.

The figure of a woman darted from branch to branch with practiced, gymnastic ease, as if she had been born in the cloud-scraping trees. With unequaled grace, she grabbed onto an overhead branch, swung forward, landing squarely on another. As soon as she landed, she sprang forward and grasped another branch. She never faltered, never needed to stop to think. She knew the wood.

Finally she stood fully upright on a branch a hundred feet above the green-carpeted ground. Her breathing was controlled and easy. Her sleeveless jerkin and shorts, crudely sewn from animal skin, were darkened by her sweat. Her long black hair, bound into a tight pony tail, was shining with perspiration. She took off her crudely stitched gloves and walked casually toward the trunk. Hanging in the junction between the trunk and a branch was a bunch of blue and purple fruit. With a bronzed, muscular arm, she unsheathed a silvery knife and cut the stem. She caught the fruit with her three-fingered left hand. Her left hand and arm were covered with pink and puckered scar tissue.

The woman straddled the branch and bit into the soft fruit. Her dark eyes constantly scanned the surrounding curtain of green as a blue river of juice forged a path down her chin. Finished after a few bites, she tossed the remains of the fruit from the tree. It was caught in mid-air by the long claws of a crab-like lizard clinging to the side of the tree.

She leaned back against the fuzzy bark of the tree trunk and released a long sigh as she looked upward at the green sea above her head. A four-winged serpentine creature slithered softly between the branches above her, ignoring her presence. Then she stood up, grabbed her gloves, and jumped to the branch below. She bounded downward from branch to branch until her feet landed on a mottled, moss-covered rock.

She walked down the outcropping to a small stream. A swarm of iridescent insects scattered as she knelt by the water's edge. She splashed the clear water on her face, washing away the indigo blood of the fruit. She tilted her head slightly and looked at the right side of her face in the water. She had a finely chiseled face with dark eyes resting on high cheekbones. She gingerly rubbed a small, healing cut above her eye.

Then she turned her head to regard the other side of her face. The flesh covering her skull was as scarred as the skin on her arms. The left side of her mouth was frozen into a vicious-looking snarl and a few teeth were visible behind the tortured remains of her lips. Her ear was reduced to an unfeatured hole, and a large part of her scalp had been rendered barren by the injury. Her left eye was nearly hidden behind the convoluted flesh, and there was no trace of her eyebrow. A translucent cover of flesh that fluttered when she breathed was all she had for a left nostril.

A deep, resonating howl vibrated through the woods. She stood, turning her head slightly. Then a faint cry for help became audible over the monstrous roar.

"Oh, shit," she said quietly, turning her head in the direction of the noise. She immediately ran into the forest, taking great strides over rocks and roots and deftly slapping away the underbrush. The cries for help were joined by the sounds something large and determined smashing through the forest.

There was a man in a white shirt running desperately through the dense, tangled forest. Although his face was bleeding from several lacerations and his clothing was torn by the greedy hands of the underbrush, he ran with the grim determination of a man with death on his heels. His untrained feet failed him and he fell to the ground. He looked up with eyes brimming with terror and saw the woman running toward him.

The woman stood over him and grabbed a handful of black grains from the small pouch that she carried at her side. Then she froze.

"What are you doing?!" The man screamed. "It's going to kill us!"

A huge, gray-skinned beast with yellow claws longer than a person's arm charged at them. Its roar was almost deafening. Its saliva formed thick, silvery strands that brushed against the ground. The towering creature was barely twenty feet away when the woman flung the grains into its black, hate-filled eyes and gaping mouth. Its low howl turned into a squeal as it stumbled and smashed into a tree. The woman grabbed the man by the shirt and yanked him out of the path of the foundering monster. The creature was trying to wipe the grains out of its eyes with its paws and began to make sneezing noises.

"Come on," the woman said urgently, offering her hand to help the man up.

He was frozen, staring at the ruined side of her face.

"Look, buddy," she said sternly, "I don't plan on being around here when that thing gets that stuff out of its eyes, so COME ON!"

The man hesitated for a second longer, then took her hand and pulled himself to his feet. The woman had to drag the clumsy man behind her. Finally, they reached a huge, round tree with a furrowed trunk. The woman yanked a rope of tangled vines from the trunk and handed it to the man.

"Climb up, now," she said as she turned her attention into the direction of the beast. Its howl began to shake the jungle again. The man grunted and strained but was only able to pull himself three feet off the ground when he dropped back to the ground.

He spoke between labored, wheezy breaths. "I can't...do it."

"Jesus," the woman said disgustedly. She took the rope in her hands. "Grab on," she commanded, "and if you choke me I'll drop your ass."

The man hurriedly stood on his toes and wrapped his slender arms around her shoulders. She grimaced as she pulled the weight of two up the rope. Her arms shook with exertion, but she made constant progress. After a twenty foot climb, the rope ended in a hollow in the tree.

"Climb into it," the woman said through clenched teeth.

The man grasped the lip of the hollow and put his knees on the woman's shoulders. He crawled into the tree and the woman followed him. The hole led to a low-ceilinged circular alcove with rough-hewn walls. A sickly yellowish light from the fungus covering the interior illuminated the alcove. There were a few animal furs lying on the floor in the corner. The man crawled on his belly to the far side of the room and curled into a fetal position on the hides. The sound of his wheezing, rapid breath was trapped and magnified by the walls of the hollow.

The woman remained at the entrance, watching for the predator.

The man cleared the thick mucous out of his burning throat before he spoke. "What...what was that thing?"

"Gray Thrasher," the woman replied not turning around. "They aren't indigenous to this planet. Some moron brought them up from Hades and they adapted well. They usually don't give up this easy. I wonder if...ah. There it is."

The beast appeared in the clearing below the tree. It pressed its nose, located on its chin, to the ground, following their trail. The Thrasher came to the foot of the tree and looked around at the surrounding woods.

"Is it going to get us?" the man asked from his place on the furs, his voice dripping with fear.

"No way. These fucking things are so stupid they never think to look up. You could be hanging right above one and smack it on the head and it'll spin around and never figure out it was you."

"That's because there aren't any trees on Hades," the man said, almost like a robot.

The woman looked at him. Her existing eyebrow knitted. "Right," she said flatly.

The Thrasher released a short "huff" and ambled off into the woods.

"It's amazing the stupid things remember how to breathe..." the woman said quietly as she turned and headed toward the man. "You really shredded yourself up. Bet you ran through a stabber patch."

She reached into a hole in the wooden wall and produced something wrapped tightly in waxy leaves. She peeled away the leaves to reveal a spongy chunk of plant-like tissue. She broke off a piece of the orangish material.

"This is going to sting like a bitch," she said, "but it'll heal you."

His eyes widened slightly as she maneuvered his head with her three-fingered hand. She swabbed the cuts on the man's face and thinly-haired head with the tissue. He winced and inhaled sharply. As she worked, his eyes were locked firmly on the scarred side of her face.

"There's two sides to me you know," she said plainly.

The man's eye jerked immediately to her unblemished face. "I'm...I'm sorry. It's just..." He stopped awkwardly then changed the subject. "I want to thank you for saving my life. That...Thrasher really had me scared."

"I could tell."

"My name's Bryan. Bryan Hill."

"Earther?"

"Yes, I just arrived here three days ago. And if you don't mind me saying so, I didn't have a very good first impression of your homeworld--ow."

"Mm-hm," the woman mumbled as she wiped the blood away from the man's pinched, thin nose.

Bryan's voice became excited as he recounted his trials. "The morning after we arrived--ouch--we were traveling to Demeter when we were ambushed by a bunch of bandits who overwhelmed our escort. I managed to run off in the jung--"

"Why the hell would you want to go to Demeter?"

He stopped for a moment. His eyes had drifted over to her scarred flesh again. "It's the largest city on the planet. Granted, it only has forty-thousand people, but still..."

"Didn't realize it had gotten that big," the woman mumbled.

"Well, there aren't any other cities left, really. All swallowed by the jungle. So anyway, I've been wandering around in this green hell for the last two days--spent last night underneath a rock--and then that thing tries to eat me for lunch and then you save me." He glanced down at his wrist at a band of skin that was paler than the rest of him, and mumbled, "Lost my watch. Uh...by the way, I didn't catch your name..."

"I don't remember tossing it."

"Well I need something to call you. I can't just say 'hey you' all the time." Bryan had given up on trying to keep his eyes from roving to her old wounds. He was now pretending to be keenly interested in the walls of the hollow.

The woman paused. "You can call me Mahkra."

"Mahkra?"

"That's what the crabbies call me."

"Uh...crabbies?"

Finished with his injuries, she walked to the hollow's opening and tossed the bloodied tissues to the ground. Thunder was rumbling in the distance and a wind had picked up. "I'll tell you later. Right now you'd better get some sleep. I want to be sure the Thrasher is gone--and besides--I don't like traveling in the rain."

"Okay," Bryan said. He looked at her face one more time then lied back on the furs and fell asleep immediately.

Mahkra shook her head with a smirk and looked back out at the forest as the rain began to fall.

Mahkra shook Bryan awake. "Come on, it's safe to move now."

Bryan blinked and looked at the black mouth of the hollow. "It's not even light yet!" He glanced at his naked wrist again and grunted with frustration.

"I know. The Thrasher will be asleep."

Bryan crawled to the entrance of the alcove. "Why can't we stay here?"

"I need to get back to my hutch and get some stuff." Then she looked outside. "We know you can't climb up a rope. Can you climb down one?"

Bryan reached out and grabbed the wet, slippery rope. "Uhh..." he said doubtfully.

"Grab on," Mahkra said with a sigh as she put her gloves on. Brian put his arms around her shoulders as she took hold of the rope and slid down. Bryan released a moan through clenched teeth. Mahkra slowed their decent as they reached the ground. "Let's go," she said flatly as she began walking in the darkness.

"Wait..." Bryan pleaded as he stumbled after her. "How can you see anything? There's no light!"

"It takes practice."

"Well, don't you have a light or anything? I'm going to kill myself."

Mahkra grabbed his wrist with her damp gloves and led him forward. "No you won't. Just walk carefully."

"Great," Bryan told himself. "Walk carefully."

A choppy humming began weave its way between the trees as an orangish glow became vaguely visible through the wood. As the light increased, the humming became a tangled bleating from dozens of alien throats.

"What the hell's that?" Bryan asked, swallowing hard.

"Crabbies," Mahkra answered.

"What are they doing?"

"Some kind of religious rite. They burn their dead on big funeral pyres."

"How could they get a fire that size burning? Everything's so wet around here."

Mahkra shrugged. "You can get things burning easy if you know what you're doing."

"Are we in any danger?"

"Nah, they're going to be wrapped up for the rest of the night," she said with confidence. "They wouldn't bother me anyway. We have an...understanding."

"What are they, anyway?"

"The closest things this planet has to a native intelligent race. They're smart, but they're primitive. Some of the first scientists thought they communicated through some sort of telepathy."

"Can they?"

"Nah, it's bullshit. They chatter to each other all the time...verbally."

"You said they named you Mahkra. What does that mean?"

"Fucked if I know," she said with a half smile. "As far as I know it could mean 'bad-assed alien bitch.'"

Bryan laughed softly, then expelled a long breath segmented by shivering.

"Cold?" Mahkra asked.

"Freezing. I thought a jungle world like this would be hot all the time."

"The storm must have brought in a cold front. We're almost there, so don't fall apart on me."

"Okay," Bryan said softly through clenched teeth.

"There," Mahkra said, pointing to the dim outline of a tear-shaped clay mound. "That's where we'll spend the night."

She helped Bryan jump over a steaming brook and led him to the small opening a few feet above the ground.

"Get in and make yourself comfortable. I need to get some fire wood."

Bryan peered into the impenetrable darkness of the hut. "You want me to go in there?"

"Either that or you can wait out here and hope that Thrasher wasn't an insomniac."

"I think I'll go in the hut," Bryan said as he climbed awkwardly into the opening. He reached down gingerly in the darkness, trying to find the floor. He lost his balance and fell, his cheek slapping onto the cold stone floor.

"You okay?" Mahkra asked as Bryan pulled his feet in.

"Yeah, sure."

"I'll be back in a few minutes," Mahkra said. "Just stay there."

Bryan sat quietly in the darkness, moving his hands slowly over the floor surrounding him. It was all flat, solid rock. He looked upward and saw a bit of the navy blue night sky peeking through a hole in the center of the roof. A scrape at the door made him jump.

"Mahkra!" he shouted.

"Yeah, it's me," she said as she clambered into the hut. "No need to freak out."

He waited in silence as Mahkra moved easily through the hut. A few seconds later, a sharp crack echoed in the hut and it was followed by a painful flare of light. Mahkra had broken a furry, round seed in half and flames were rising from the two hemispheres. The small fire illuminated her face from below, making it look even more grotesque. Then she took out her shining knife a cut a ragged-looking branch in half. She touched it to the seeds and the inner bark flared up instantly in a much larger fire. She laid the burning branches in a depression in the center of the hut and began stacking small sticks on the hungry conflagration. "See?" she said. "I told you it wasn't hard."

"Is that how the crabbies do it?" Bryan asked.

"Don't know," Mahkra answered as she laid her gloves next to the fire to dry. "I never asked them." She stood up and walked to the other side of the hut. "Here," she said as she rummaged through a woven basket, "have something to eat." She tossed Bryan a dried, brown thing.

"What is it?"

"Try it. You'll love it."

"That's what my mother always used to say," he said with a sheepish smile.

Mahkra looked up at him as she unrolled animal hides with a slight smile on her uninjured face, then went back to work.

Bryan smelled the food, shrugged, and tore off a piece. He chewed experimentally at first, then took another bite.

"Hey this is pretty good," Bryan said, forcing the food into his cheek as he spoke. "What is it?"

"If I told you, you wouldn't eat it. Believe me."

"You're probably right," he admitted.

"You'll sleep here," Mahkra said, motioning to a thick hide. "Tomorrow we're going to see about getting you to Demeter."

"How far is it from here?" he asked as he crawled onto the hide.

"About a three day walk through the jungle."

"Three days?"

"But I think I can get you there in two," she said as she sat down on some furs a few feet from his.

Bryan pulled a thin fur around him as he lied down. "Thanks for everything." He looked at his wrist again and sighed.

Mahkra nodded.

After a few minutes of silence, Bryan looked up her. The uneven light of the fire danced on the unscarred side of her face.

"That knife you have," he began, "that's army issue isn't it?"

She nodded.

"Did you fight in the war? Is that how you got...hurt?"

She spoke flatly and unemotionally. "My unit was wiped out. The few of us who survived were captured. This," she motioned to her eclipsed scars with her left hand, "is the result of a bunch of barbarians wanting to see if they could make a Ca--" she stopped, then continued in the same tone of voice, "soldier scream. I managed to escape, but no one else was as lucky."

"What happened to them? Did they get brought up on war crimes?"

"They didn't live long after I ripped out their intestines."

"Oh," he said as he lied back down. "I'm sorry."

"Go to sleep. You're going to need it in the morning."

A shard of sunlight from the orange Verdencian sun shined directly on Bryan's face. He rubbed his eyes and climbed to his knees stiffly. Mahkra was gone. The dying embers in the center of the hut were smoking weakly. There were three purplish fruits lying on a broad leaf beside him, as well as a clay bowl of water. He eagerly grabbed the fruit and ate hungrily until only three yellow pits were left. He raised the bowl to his lips and drank loudly. Finally he wiped his mouth and headed for the opening.

He squinted his eyes against the sun, although very little managed to find its way through the maze of leaves to the ground. His eyes widened a little when he saw Mahkra bathing with her back to him in a small pool of water. He watched the exquisitely carved bone and muscle structure of her tanned back and shoulders of the right side of her body. He also looked at the same features hidden under a mass of twisted, sickly-pink skin on the left side of her body. Some fingers of scar tissue reached as far as her spine and hip. Both of her hands slid down the length of her hair, squeezing the water from it. The two hands looked like they should not have belonged to the same race, let alone the same person. Her wet hair made her missing ear and damaged scalp all the more prominent. She moved to get out of the water, and Bryan quickly pulled his head back into the hut.

Mahkra threw a glance back at the hut before she was fully standing, then climbed out of the pool. She quickly put on and laced her leather clothing. She walked toward the hut and looked through the entrance. Bryan had taken his shirt off and was gently touching the cuts on his thinly muscled body.

"How was breakfast?" she asked.

Bryan started slightly, even though she had spoken softly. "Oh, fine." He looked at his wrist and then waved his hand with frustration. "Do you have any idea what time it is?"

"Sometime in the morning," she said sarcastically. "I don't have too many clocks lying around."

"Sorry. Reflex."

"How do you feel?"

"My legs are strained like hell and these cuts are a little sore, but I guess I'm not too bad."

Mahkra nodded. "We're going to have to get going in a little bit if we're going to get some transportation before nightfall."

"Where are we going?"

"To a friend of mine. I'm going out to scout around. I'll be back soon. There's a pool outside if you want to wash up." She tossed him a small pouch. "If any predators show up, throw this black stuff in their faces and run back in here. And whatever you do, don't wander off. Got it?"

Bryan had opened the pouched and sniffed the contents. His eyes began tearing profusely. "Sure...got it...ow, God that stuff stinks."

Mahkra turned away and walked into the wood with a faint smile on her face. She retraced the trail they had taken to the hollow. Standing at the base of the tree, she looked down the ruined and obvious trail of the Thrasher. She walked nonchalantly through the woods, stepping on and over the mottled green shell of a slimy, multi-legged creature in spite of its hissing complaints.

A flash of gold in the underbrush caught her eye. She crouched down and sifted through the labyrinth of roots and weeds until her hand closed around something cold and metallic. She pulled Bryan's watch from the ground. Its broken band was swinging impotently.

Then a rhythmic, almost melodious humming, subtly unlike that of the night before, filled the air. Mahkra stood upright and looked in the direction of the hut. "Oh, shit," she said quietly. She began to run.

Bryan was whistling as he tried to scrub the blood stains from his tattered shirt. His pants were lying in a heap near the mouth of the pool and his underwear was laid out on a rock, drying.

When the humming reached him, his whistling trailed off into a few isolated notes and then stopped. He froze, listening. His gazed darted to every tree in the surrounding forest. The humming got louder. He dried his hands on his pants and reached for the pouch Mahkra had given him. He held it tightly as he looked around himself. The humming sounded like it was right on top of him.

He almost dropped the bag in the pool when he saw a swaying, pale figure walk slowly from behind the hut. Then another appeared from the woods. And another. He was surrounded. Each creature had a white exoskeleton with a green hue and was almost as tall as he was. Their bodies were shaped like those of centaurs, with erect chest and sholders atop an arthropoidal base. They had four segmented legs and two large arms that had crab-like pincers on the ends. They all had smaller arms with fingers tucked against their chests as well. A pair of constantly moving mandibles were located below these arms. Between their "shoulders" was a black lump with filaments waving gently in the air. As he watched, lumps stretched themselves into a club shape, allowing the flagella to spread out farther. They began to approach him. They had no visible means of making the humming.

"Where are their faces?" he asked himself through clenched teeth as he took out a handful of the black powder.

Then one creature advanced from the circle of aliens. It had streaks and designs painted in blue and black on its skeleton. It was holding two long poles of wood in its pincers. It approached him. The other creatures began chanting "Mahkra" with the same monotonous resonance.

Bryan pulled his arm back to throw the powder at the creature when something caught his arm.

"What--" he half-shouted as he turned to look behind him. It was Mahkra.

"I'll handle this," she said calmly.

"How--" Bryan looked back at the ring of creatures. "How did you get past them?"

"They let me pass. By the way," she said, pulling something from her belt and pressing into Bryan's hand with her three fingers, "found your watch." She stepped over the brook as Bryan stared at his watch.

The painted creature, over six feet tall, tossed Mahkra one of the poles and released a shrill whistle. Mahkra stood half-crouched with the staff in front of her. The creature did the same, stalking forward cautiously. Suddenly it lunged forward and attacked Mahkra with the pole. The two moved with dizzying speed, the clattering of the blurred poles became a nearly solid sound. With lightning quickness, the creature attempted to sweep Mahkra's legs out from under her. She jumped over its attack and slammed her pole into its side, sending it off-balance. A split second later she clubbed it in the black mass where its head should have been. It was squealing when Mahkra swept its legs and sent it to the ground.

She stepped back, still holding her staff. The alien's small arms were rubbing its black "head" as a green fluid spurt from its mouth. Another alien took a few steps forward. This one was paler than the others and had an old crack in its exoskeleton that looked like a dark green bolt of lightning across its nearly white chest. It held a pole with various bones suspended from the end. It released a few chattering noises. Two more creatures approached. One held a large pouch of animal skin and laid at it Mahkra's feet, mixing her name with its clicking, humming language. The other creature helped the defeated one to its feet and supported it as it stumbled away. The ring of creatures melted into the jungle. The one with the bone-pole left last and the chattering of the bones was the last sound they heard.

"That was easy," Mahkra as she kneeled and opened the bag.

"What...what were those?" Bryan asked, his voice tremulous.

"Crabbies," Mahkra said simply.

"What was that all about?"

"Don't know," she said as she pulled a clay vase from the bag. "Every now and then they send some big bastard to fight me." She tipped the vase over and dozens of shining, multi-colored stones rained down on her three-fingered hand. "When they lose, they give me a gift of some kind." She set the vase aside and continued to search through the bag.

"What do they do when they win?"

Mahkra looked at him with a grin. "Don't know. They haven't won yet."

"Was that related to that thing last night?"

"Doubt it. There isn't any pattern that I can tell." She pulled out a tusk of a Thrasher with a figure that looked an awful lot like her carved into it. The figure looked like it was standing with the sun on its palm. She raised her eyebrow. "This is neat," she mumbled.

"Can we get going soon?" Bryan asked plaintively.

She looked him in the eyes. "I think you'd better get dressed first."

"Good idea," he said sheepishly as he crouched back into the water.

Mahkra walked back into her hut, dragging the bag with her. She walked to a low-ceilinged corner of the hut and pulled back a large, coarse hide. Underneath it were two rusting steel strongboxes. She opened one to reveal hundreds of sparkling gemstones. She poured the contents of the vase into the box and closed it. Inside the other box were variously shaped pieces of bone, wood, stone, and metal, all with her likeness carved into them. All were crudely done, but showed steady effort. She gently laid the tusk into the box, in a small space between a piece of obsidian and an ornate clay vase.

She covered the boxes with the skin, grabbed a rolled-up cloak, and walked toward the exit. Bryan had just finished putting on his shirt.

"Ready to go?" she asked.

"I guess so. Where are we going?"

She pointed straight ahead. "That way."

Bryan hurriedly put on his shoes and jogged after her as she disappeared into the jungle.

Mahkra led him through the woods, helping him over obstacles and across streams, but few words were exchanged. Bryan was looking all around at the towering trees while Mahkra stared straight ahead with her perpetual half snarl and her cloak under her arm.

"Jeez my hand is itching," Bryan said.

Mahkra stopped and turned around. "Let me see it," she said. She held it up with her three-fingered hand as she rubbed the inflammation with the other. She lifted her fingers to her nose and sniffed. "This is the hand you were holding the powder in, wasn't it?"

"Yeah."

"You want to get rid of that stuff as soon as you can, or it'll irritate any part of you it touches."

"Thanks for telling me."

Mahkra wandered away, her eyes searching the ground. She reached down and pulled up a plant with brownish, jagged leaves. "Rub the juice from this on your hand and it'll get better."

"Thanks," he said, taking the plant.

"You haven't been out in the woods much, have you?" Mahkra asked as they continued walking.

"Nope. I live in the Monongahela Metroplex. The closest thing I've seen to a forest are the botanical gardens they got, and they don't compare with this."

"How are things on Earth?"

"Better. Things are getting reorganized and they're talking about expanding outward to try to reestablish contact with all the worlds that were abandoned because of the war--those that still have people, that is."

"Why'd they send you here for, then?"

Bryan shrugged and said, "I'm part of a surveying crew. I'm basically here to take a census and see about reestablishing contact with Earth."

"I'll bet that you'll find the people here more than happy to oblige."

Bryan stopped, looking upward at the canopy. "Whoa," he said simply.

Mahkra followed his gaze. The tattered green foliage was blocked out by a massive black shape suspended in the trees. "That's the fuselage of a fighter shot down during the war." She squinted. "Looks like an F-1017."

"How the hell can you tell?" Bryan said.

The glare from the sky made the features of the derilect craft diffiicult to see.

"I know this stuff."

"Wow," Bryan said as they kept on walking. "I didn't think there was much fighting here."

"There wasn't. There was just one assault on the garrison forces and they both pretty much blew the hell out of each other. When the smoke cleared, the guys in charge had found greener pastures to fight in and both sides found themselves isolated."

Bryan shok his head. "I'm just impressed that the trees caught the fighter like they did and held it."

Mahkra looked at him. "They didn't catch it, they grew up under it. There are even tanks up in the trees."

Bryan looked back up at the artifact with renewed awe.

After a few more hours of walking, Bryan appeared on the edge of collapse. His hair and shirt were soaked with sweat and his breathing was labored. There were only a few beads of sweat on Mahkra's back and face. Bryan did not complain, though, until they reached the top of a hill and saw nothing but trees in front of them.

"How can you stand this heat?!" he demanded loudly. He looked at his wrist, and with a frustrated sigh, took his watch out of his pocket. "We've been walking for five hours straight, I'm starving, thirsty, and my legs and feet are killing me and this was a brand new watchband. Can't we take a rest?"

"Look out to the side there," Mahkra said patiently, pointing at an obtuse angle from where they were standing. "Do you see those green squares that are lighter than the trees?"

Bryan squinted. "Yeah? So?"

"Those are farms. We're going to one of them. It's just another mile, so hang in there."

The orange sun had already painted the sky a deep shade of magenta by the time the trees finally gave way to a plowed field.

"Finally!" Bryan exclaimed as he hobbled out of the line of trees.

Beyond the field was a fence enclosing a pasture with several bipedal, bird-like animals. Behind that was a gray, aging house. A man was barely visible moving around in the pre-evening twilight dumping buckets of feed over the rail.

Mahkra shielded her eyes against the sun and squinted at the figure.

"Who's that?" Bryan asked. He was looking at the scarred side of her face and unable to see her smile of recognition.

"HEY FAT FUCK!" She shouted. "Hold this," she said to Bryan as she shoved her cloak into his arms. She walked quickly toward the man as Bryan struggled to keep up.

"Is that you, bitch from hell?" A deep voice hollered back. The man dropped the bucket and began to jog toward them. As they drew closer, Mahkra's gait through the waist-high, purple-dappled crops also broke into a jog. Bryan released a plaintive moan as he forced himself into a hobbling, uneven run.

The man was huge. He was well over six feet tall and thickly muscled. He had a thick beard and mustache walking the tightrope between blonde and gray. The little bit of hair he had left on his head was swept back over his shoulders.

When the two met, they embraced, the man picking her up and spinning. "How's my little Mahkra?" he said when he put her down. Then he put his hands under arms and lifted her up. "Still light, I see."

"Maybe," Mahkra said. Then she lifted the man and said through clenched teeth, "But a lot stronger."

"OK, I believe you," the man said laughing. "Now put me down before your spine telescopes."

She looked at Bryan. "Bryan, this is Scott, an old friend. Scott, this is Bryan, some guy I met running around in the woods as if he had good sense."

"Pleased to meet you Bryan," Scott said as he extended a beefy hand.

Bryan returned the gesture. "Same here," he said between raspy breaths.

"Bet you guys are starved. We were about five minutes away from eating dinner, so you're just in time."

"Yeah, we've been walking since this morning," Bryan said.

Scott looked at Mahkra with a broad smile. "Never could take it easy on the greenhorns, could you?"

"It makes them tough," Mahkra said.

"Where do you two know each other from?" Bryan asked.

Scott raised an eyebrow, "That's kind of a long story. Let's just say that I didn't like taking orders from someone who was younger than me. We parted ways for awhile after she got promoted to a different unit but we ended up being thrown back together here, right in the worst fighting of the war. Couldn't tell by the way this planet soaks up blood though..."

"How are the kids?" Mahkra asked.

"Susan and Tommy are getting big...and do you know Janice?"

"Who?"

"That's what I thought. We had another one since you've been here last. She's a handful."

"That's great, Scott. How's Sally?"

Scott's face darkened a little. "Right after we had Janice she...caught the rot. Died a little bit after."

"God, I'm sorry, Scott."

Scott shook his head and held onto his smile, though it looked more strained. "That was years ago. Let's eat now." He opened the creaking screen door and held it for Mahkra and Bryan. The interior was dimly lit by a few lamps and the unsteady light from a steel stove. There was a pot boiling on the top, releasing an aromatic steam.

"Something smells good..." Bryan commented.

"No electricity anymore?" Mahkra asked.

"Not since they shut down the Cyrennaica power plant. Just about everybody but us is living in Demeter now, so they're the only ones getting any power." Then he raised his voice. "Susan, Tommy, Janice! Come here! We got company!"

The sounds of running feet sounded through the house. Then three children, dressed in threadbare oversized clothing, appeared with broad smiles on their faces. When they saw Mahkra, their smiles vanished. The youngest, a girl around five years old with straight light hair, began to cry and ran away. The remaining two, a freckled boy with red wispy hair in his early teens and a girl with curly brown hair only slightly older were standing uncertainly, torn between the instinct to run and the need for politeness that had been ingrained into them.

"That was Janice," Scott said apologetically. "Susan, Tommy, you remember aunt Mahkra, don't you?"

"Sure," Susan said, bouncing slightly on the balls of her feet.

"Hiya," Tommy said, trying to force a smile.

"It's been a long time since I've seen you guys," Mahkra said with a pained smile.

"And this is Mahkra's friend Bryan," Scott said, pointing to him.

Bryan grinned and waved.

Susan made a jerky and half-hearted wave and Tommy managed to force a "Hello." Both were trying hard to look everywhere but at Mahkra.

"Uh, dad?" Tommy asked timidly. "We were going to eat in our room. We were reading. Is that okay?"

"Sure," he said with a faint smile.

As they left, Susan threw one last, disgusted glance at Mahkra's face before she disappeared.

"I'm sorry," Scott said.

"It's been a long time," Mahkra said with a half-hearted smile.

"I'm going to go check on Janice. You guys can help yourselves to the food. There are bowls right over on the counter." Scott turned and followed his children.

Mahkra looked down at the floor with tightly closed eyes.

Bryan put his hand on her good shoulder. "Hey, don't worry about it," he said softly. "They're just kids."

"Yeah," she said, throwing him a sharp glance. "They can't hide what they're thinking as well as adults." She shrugged off his hand and poured herself some of the reddish stew from the pot. Bryan did the same. They sat across from each other without speaking but eating quickly. Bryan had begun his second bowl by the time Scott returned.

"How is it?" he asked.

"Very good," Bryan said. Mahkra looked up and nodded.

"So, Bryan," Scott said as he poured himself a bowl, "where're you from?"

Bryan glanced up at Mahkra and answered, "Earth."

"Earth?" Scott answered incredulously. "What about the war?"

"The war's been over for a couple of years now. Things have been reorganizing since then."

"Who won?" Scott asked as he sat down. "We haven't had any off-world news for years."

"Well, nobody won, really. Both sides pretty much wiped themselves out. I guess everybody forgot what they were fighting for and decided to call it quits. I'm not really up on the politics of it."

"So what's the new government like?"

"All I know is that it seems to be working well. The elections went smoothly for the legislature and there haven't been any problems with it. We've been trying to rebuild Earth and reestablish contact with all the lost worlds."

"What are you doing here all by yourself?" Scott asked.

"I was supposed to be taking a census of the inhabitants of this planet, and I was just part of a team. There were other guys who were supposed to be taking care of all the technical political things. Then we got ambushed by a bunch of rather well-armed bandits and as far as I know I'm the only one who got away."

"Where did your starship land?" Scott asked. "I didn't think we had any functioning bases anymore."

"Tell me about it. We had to land about twenty miles away from Demeter in what I guess was the old Sargasso dock. We almost didn't land in one piece, I'll tell you that."

"What are you going to do in Demeter without any help?"

"I have no idea," Bryan said, shrugging. "I'll have to talk to whoever's in charge. I'm sure that they'll want to save this planet as much as we do. So far every planet we've been to has accepted offer to join the confederacy, so I don't see why this one should be any different."

"Well, I wish you the best of luck," Scott said, "for all of our sakes. Life sure has taken a nose dive around here since we lost contact with Earth."

"By the way," Bryan said. "Is there any way I could borrow any clothes off of you?" He motioned to his own tattered clothing. "This probably makes a lousy first impression."

Scott walked out onto the dark, slouching veranda looking over the fields. He looked out of the night enshrouded pasture and the black line of the jungle. Verdencia's two crescent moons looked back at him like lazy, tired eyes as thousands of stars peppered the blanket of the night, forming unnamed constellations. A wooden creaking to his right made him spin around.

"Did you think that I would split back into the jungle leaving you stuck with Bryan?" Mahkra asked, barely visible in the shadow. She was sitting in a buckled, black wooden chair with her feet propped up on the rail of the veranda. The few weak splinters of light that fought through the shuttered windows illuminated a few isolated spots on her head and arm.

"Wouldn't have surprised me," Scott said, pulling up a chair beside her. It groaned ominously as he sat in it. "I noticed you didn't seem particularly interested in what's going on back on Earth."

"Who cares? It's the same shit. Only the years and the names change."

"That's kind of overly-cynical, don't you think? I've never understood why you felt better with things that eat people as opposed to the people themselves."

"The predators are more humane," Mahkra said flatly. "After what I saw in the war, atrocities committed by them and us, and the way things degenerated around here, I just wanted to get as far away from people as possible."

"Well what about us? You used to visit us at least once a year."

Mahkra shrugged. "You lose track of time in the jungle. I had honestly just never thought of it." Then her tone changed. "I'm really sorry about Sally, Scott. I should have been here."

Scott shookl his head. "Don't worry about it. You had no way of knowing. You really should get out of that jungle, though. It'll kill you sooner or later."

"And do what? The few jobs that would take me I wouldn't touch with somebody else's 10 foot pole."

"I don't know, anything. Jesus, what if you fell from a tree and broke your back? What if the crabbies got the better of you? Anything could happen. I was wondering if you had died since you hadn't come back for so long."

Mahkra shrugged. "I'd rather be killed by the jungle than die at the hands of Dorloch's thugs. How's the old asshole doing, anyway? Still got this planet by the balls?"

"Dorloch's dead. That's something else that happened right after you left. He was murdered as an 'enemy of the people.' The new guy's called Lord Strak, and he's as much of a petty dictator as Dorloch ever was."

"It amazes me that people would rather live like cattle and be ruled than rule themselves," Mahkra said. "Like I said, it's the same old shit."

Scott shrugged. "Well, some people just aren't cut out for life in...well, for life in general, I guess."

"Are you safe here?"

"Pretty much," Scott said. "Occasionally fancy-looking guys come here from Demeter to trade with us, but besides that and the occasional beasty that needs to be dealt with, there aren't any problems at all."

"What about the bandits Bryan mentioned?"

Scott shrugged again. "I've never seen them. They might be scavengers living around Sargasso, but they've never shown up around here."

"How are things in Demeter?" Mahkra asked as she scanned the field.

"I haven't been there for years, since the Cyrennaica plant broke down and every living person tried to pack into Demeter. From what I've heard from others, though, it's pretty damn bad. They're living off of algae fields and everything generally sucks. I suspect that they'll be orgasming with joy when they see Bryan."

"That's what I'm hoping," Mahkra said quietly as a group of shining, balloon-like creatures floated over the field.

"It shouldn't be a problem."

Mahkra grunted.

"What's wrong?" Scott asked, wiping his cheeks.

"Well, to be blunt, it's just that Bryan's such a bereaucratic dumbass. I don't think that he really has a clue how to deal with people, and it's more than possible that Strak will not be receptive to giving up his stranglehold."

"Well, what can he do?" Scott asked. "Earth's got the technology to get here, so they've certainly got the technology to blow his ass away if he resists."

"From what I gathered from Bryan," she said doubtfully, "the universe has turned to peace and love for a solution to all the universe's problems. If this Strak guy has any brain at all he'll set himself up to be the good guy nad manage to stay in power."

"Well I don't know that Strak's a bad guy as such," Scott said cautiously. "I really can't say what kind of leader he is..."

"Oh, come on, Scott," Mahkra said irritably. "He had the balls to knock off Dorloch. How much of a nice guy can he possibly be?"

Scott stroked his beard softly. "So what are you going to do?"

Mahkra sighed. "I don't know. I was kind of hoping that you'd have some suggestions."

"You asking me for suggestions?" Scott asked with a grin that was barely visible. "This is a red letter day." Then he turned serious. "I really don't think you have much of a choice. Bryan has to get back in contact with a ship if there's in in orbit. Maybe you can educate him a little on the way there. Of course," he added, "we're assuming that Demeter even has a transmitter."

"True," she answered, "but even if it doesn't, Demeter is the first place they'll go to. It's the only place to go to on this planet."

They were both silent for a moment. From deep within the black sea of the forest a desperate shriek sliced through the still night air. A fraction of a second later its cry was cut off abruptly and the heavy curtain of silence fell again.

Then Scott stood up. The chair groaned in relief. "Well, I'm going to bed. There's a couch in there that's a lot more comfortable than that old chair."

Mahkra shook her head. "Wouldn't be able sleep on anything soft. This is fine."

Scott half-smiled and turned to walk into the house. He stopped abruptly and turned looked at Mahkra. The yellow lamplight made a half moon out of his face. "I'm old," he said. "I've experienced enough to last for lifetimes. But my kids--they can only choose between living here their entire lives with only each other or live in Demeter, suffering under Strak. They need more than that." He turned and walked into the house.

Mahkra looked out over the night shrouded field as a shooting star died a spectacular death. The only sound was the orchestra of the nocturnal fauna.

Mahkra rolled the white, gelatinous spheres on her plate absent mindedly. Scott looked back from the stove.

"You know." he said. "I yell at the kids for playing with their food."

Mahkra looked up. "Huh?"

"Didn't you get enough sleep last night?"

"No I slept fine. I'm just...thinking that's all."

"What did you decide to do?"

She looked up at him. "I guess we have an appointment with the devil."

Scott nodded.

Tommy walked into the room, squinting and rubbing his eyes. When he saw Mahkra sitting at the table, his step faltered. He continued toward the table, muttered a "good morning" and sat down with a vacant chair between himself and Mahkra. Susan came next. When she saw Mahkra she froze. She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again.

"Dad," she finally said. "Can I eat breakfast in my room?"

"No," he said. "We're eating as a family, with our guests."

"But I...have stuff I want to do--"

"You're eating here, at the table or not at all," Scott said more firmly.

"It doesn't matter Scott," Mahkra said quietly.

"It does matter. Now Susan, sit down and eat your breakfast."

Susan hesitated, then obeyed, sitting down opposite from Mahkra. She threw a few hostile glances at Mahkra as she ate quickly. Tommy paid more attention to his food.

Janice was the last one to walk into the kitchen, dragging a worn, ragged doll behind her. She looked at Mahkra, her index finger rubbing her bottom incisors contemplatively, and then climbed up into the chair next to her.

Mahkra looked at her and smiled, "Good morning, Janice," she said.

Janice did not answer, but watched her intently. Finally, Janice looked down at her own left hand counted off her fingers. "One...two...three...four." Then she lightly touched each of the fingers on Mahkra's left hand. "One...two...three." Then she looked up at Mahkra. "How come I got more fingers than you?"

Mahkra looked up at Scott and then back at Janice. "Well...a long time ago I got burned and one of my fingers didn't heal right so it...fell off."

"Did it hurt?"

"A little bit, but it's okay now."

Janice tapped the table where Mahkra's finger would have been. "You don't have your teeny. Do you wish you had one?"

Mahkra smiled and waved at Janice with the little finger on her right hand. "Don't worry. I still have one."

Janice looked at her own hands, then back and Mahkra with a big smile. "I got TWO!" She giggled a little. "How did you get burned?" she asked.

Mahkra opened her mouth and stopped.

"Janice," Scott said, "why don't you wake up Bryan? He's in my bed."

"Okay." Janice said. She climbed down from the chair and ran out of the room.

"When you two are finished eating," he said to Susan and Tommy, "saddle up a couple of squawkers for Mahkra and Bryan."

Susan immediately said "Done!", stood up, and walked out the door.

Tommy glanced upward at Mahkra with an apologetic shrug.

An uneasy silence hung in the room until a couple of voices traveled into the air.

"Come on, daddy says you have to eat breakfast."

"It's too early for this. What's for breakfast, anyway?"

"Eggs."

Janice came back into the room with a very disheveled Bryan in tow. He was wearing a white shirt and brown pants donated by Scott. They were several sizes too big for him. He sat down heavily. "Mornin' all," he said through a throat coated with phlegm. He cleared his throat loudly. He began to roll up the cuffs of the pants that reached well over his feet. "Thanks for the clothes, Scott."

"Here are your eggs," Scott said with a broad smile on his face.

Bryan looked at the small white balls on his plate and he mouthed the word "Eggs". "What do these taste like?" he asked as he tentatively picked up the coarse wooden spoon.

"Try it," Scott said as he sat down with his plate. "You'll love it."

Bryan looked at him with a confounded look on his face. Mahkra had to put her hand over her mouth to stifle the laughter.

"Haven't you ever eaten eggs before?" Tommy asked.

"Uh, yeah," Bryan answered as he scrutinized one on his spoon. "Just...not this kind." He closed his eyes, shoved it in his mouth and swallowed almost immediately. "Well, that wasn't too bad."

Janice laughed at his expressions.

"I might as well help Susan with those squawkers," Tommy said. He put his plate and spoon in the sink and walked out the door.

"So what's on the agenda for today?" Bryan asked.

"We're going to Demeter," Mahkra answered. "If we ride the squawkers we should get there by about mid-day."

"Uh, what are squawkers, or don't I want to know?"

"Did you see those big birds on the way in?"

"Mm-hm," Bryan answered as he forced down another egg.

"Those are them.

"I've never even ridden a horse, let alone a bird," Bryan said.

Mahkra shrugged. "It's not that hard. I haven't ridden one in...for a while. You should only get thrown seven or eight times before you get the hang of it."

"Great."

"Well," Scott said, "as soon as you guys are done we can go out and teach him how to ride."

"I'm done," Bryan said.

Mahkra picked up her cloak and said, "Let's get going then."

The three of them filed out the door and walked down a dirt path to the stables. Two towering, black and green-feathered birds stood tethered the to a six-foot high fence as Tommy and Susan tied on their saddles and harnesses. They had large, blunt beaks and made constant soft cooing sounds.

"I take it those are the squawkers," Bryan said. "They sound pretty quiet to me."

"That's because it isn't mating season," Scott answered. "When they get squawking, you can't even hear yourself think."

"How the heck am I supposed to get on?" Bryan asked.

"Tommy and Susan will show you. Hey guys," Scott called to his children, "help Bryan to get on the squawker and take him for a few laps around the pen."

"Okay," Tommy answered.

Bryan looked at Mahkra then squeezed between the rails of the fence and walked cautiously toward the smaller squawker. Mahkra and Scott leaned on the fence, watching Bryan and the squawker get acquainted.

"I need you to do me a favor, Scott," Mahkra said.

"What?"

"I need you to ride out toward Sargasso along the old road."

"What did you have in mind?"

"Well, I was hoping that you could find the place where Bryan was ambushed and see what you can find."

"There isn't going to be much left," Scott said doubtfully. "The bandits would have stripped everything clean."

"I know, but it won't hurt to try."

A commotion in the pen yanked their attention back to Bryan. One of the squawkers tried to bite Bryan's mount. The squawker jumped sideways to avoid the bite. Bryan lost his balance and fell heavily into the mud. He sat up quickly and waved to Mahkra and Scott. "I'm alright," he shouted as he stood back up.

"Anyway," Mahkra continued, turning back to Scott, "just be careful."

Scott grunted. "Don't worry about me. You're going to have your own hands full."

"What do you mean?"

Scott motioned at Bryan with a smirk.

"We'll manage," Mahkra said firmly.

Scott shrugged. "I know."

"By the way," Mahkra said, changing the subject, "do you still have the...stuff?"

"Yep. Kept it safe and hidden, even when I thought you were dead."

"Good. I just might end up needing it again."

Scott raised his eyebrows. "How much trouble are you planning on causing?"

"As much as I get," Mahkra said simply. "Gotta plan on the contingencies. Well, looks like Bryan's more or less got the squawkers figured out. Better get going."

"Take care of yourself," Scott said as Mahkra squeezed between the rails.

Mahkra easily leapt astride her squawker. "I plan on it," she said to Scott. "Let's go, Bryan."

Scott opened the gate and Mahkra quickly maneuvered her squawker around and rode it out.

"C'mon you stupid bird," Bryan said, bouncing up and down in his saddle. "Move!"

"Say 'giddy up," Scott said with a wide grin.

"Giddy up?" Br'yan asked. The bird immediately moved forward at a trot, nearly sending Bryan into the mud again. "How do you get them to stop?"

"You won't have to worry about that until you get to Demeter."

"Terrific," Bryan said as his squawker trotted beside Mahkra's and stopped voluntarily, nearly unseating him. "Damn pillow-filler factories..." he muttered.

"Your squawker'll probably follow mine on its own, since they like to keep together," she said.

"Hey, how come the trails keep clear of trees and stuff?" Bryan said, looking down at the sparsely covered dirt of the trail.

"Ever heard of Triptophyl?"

"Uh..."

"Ultra-powerful planticide. They mixed it in with the dirt when they first colonized this world fifty years ago to clear space for roads. The only reason there's any growth at all is because the rain cleansed the top of the soil. Anything that has roots of any depth gets killed."

"I think I'm finally geting the hang of these squawker things."

"You feel good enough to gallop?"

"Gallop?" Bryan said nervously.

Mahkra looked at him with a grin and her squawker began loping toward the line of trees. Bryan grabbed a fistful of feathers with one hand and held tightly to the reins with the other as his squawker followed suit and began running toward a narrow trail overgrown with tall grass and roots. The birds ran deftly over the tortured road as Bryan hung on for dear life.

After a period of hard riding, Mahkra pulled back on the reins, bringing the squawkers to a walk. Their mouths were open and their green tongues hung from their mouths. They were breathing heavily.

"We have to let them rest for a little while," Mahkra said.

"You have no idea how glad I am to hear that," Bryan said as he stood up in the stirrups. "This kills your butt."

"You get used to it," Mahkra said.

They were silent for a few minutes, then Bryan spoke hesitantly. "Mahkra, can I ask you a personal question?"

"Sure," she answered. "I might even answer."

"Well the...uh...people who burned you. You said they wanted to make a soldier scream. If you don't mind me asking, did they?"

"Nope."

Bryan nodded and fell silent. A few more minutes passed, and Mahkra again pushed the squawkers into a gallop.

Scott's squawker trotted nonchalantly down the road to Sargasso. Its rider was more cautious. Cradling an old rifle in his arms, and glanced around the dark trees.

The trail was deeply rutted by fairly recent tracks. Several vehicles had torn up the pioneer plant growth over wide swaths of the road. The jungle was silent now, except for the continuous buzzing of insects and the occasional squawk of a larger denizen of the jungle.

Scott yanked back hard on the reins. In front of him were the water-stained metallic remains of two vehicles. He froze, listening and watching for any sign of Strak's thugs. The only movement was a cyclone of insects buzzing in a small beam of sunlight that had breached the canopy.

Scott dismounted and moved forward, clutching his rifle tightly. As he approached, he could see the vehicles more clearly. One was a black, rusted, patchwork buggy. The other looked newer. It was a tracked all-terrain vehicle. Its body was painted white with to the words "Terran Confederation" emblazoned in blue on the side. Dozens of star-shaped blaster marks and hundreds of indentations from bullets marred its pristine condition. There was a skeleton in a tattered and stained gray uniform lying halfway out of the hatch in the top. The vehicle did not look armed.

As Scott moved closer, more bleached skeletons began to surface from the sea of green. One had a large jagged hole in its head. Another's sternum was shattered. A few were wearing some sort of battle armor that was slowly decaying in the jungle climate.

Scott examined the buggy first. It was undamaged, although it was in a poor state of repair. There was a serviceable chain gun mounted on the top. The driver's bones were distributed between the seat and the floor. He picked up the skull from the jumbled remains. He inadvertently broke a few of the fragile bones, spilling squirming hordes of black, now-homeless bone worms onto the floor of the vehicle. Scott's lip curled in disgust. He held the skull gingerly, since he could see movement through the empty eye sockets. There was a gash on the top of the skull, like a bladed weapon had impaled it. He tossed the skull back into the jeep. It shattered, sending a few dozen rat-like, multi-legged creatures scurried for cover. He turned the ignition key an immediately heard the engine begin to hum. His eyebrows knitted and he shut it off. He walked away shaking his head.

Scott climbed up on the Earther vehicle. Its armor was strong enough to stop the bullets from the chain guns, but the rail guns the bandits used punched right through it. There were no external weapons. Scott tried to push the skeleton out of the entrance hatch. The body separated, the legs falling back into the vehicle while the rest rolled down the side, raining the ground with bits of bone and worms.

Scott carefully climbed down the small ladder into the vehicle. He covered his nose and winced in disgust as he took his first breath of the thick air, dripping with humidity and the stench of death. There was an inch of black water on the floor of the vehicle. Drowning worms and fragments of bone bobbed on the water. Beams of light reaching through the half dozen jagged rail gun holes illuminated the interior. There was a gray and bloated body lying on its stomach in front of the controls. A railgun had blasted through the armor right in front of it. All that remained of its head was its jagged, oozing base. The pale skin rippled and writhed with the millions of worms that had infested the corpse. The body had not been stripped clean because the ratty scavengers either could not get into the vehicle or were afraid to.

Scott tried not to look at the body as he scanned the interior of the vehicle. There were a dozen seats lined up for passengers, as well as weapon holds. Half of the guns were still sitting on the walls, unused. The controls were sophisticated and largely intact. He stepped carefully over the corpse and examined the console.

Scott accidentally touched one of the buttons and the entire panel came alive with lights. There were warning lights everywhere. "HULL BREACHED", "PRIMARY POWER SOURCE DAMAGED", and "ENGINE INOPERABLE" were the most obvious. He examined a diagnostic list of the vehicle's systems. "This baby isn't going anywhere," he mumbled.

Scott grunted and looked around. The thugs had not stripped it. They had not even taken the rifles. He shrugged and began gathering the weapons. With some difficulty he managed to climb the ladder with his arms full of rifles. He climbed down the vehicle and threw the guns into the buggy. He began walking back for another load when his squawker made a soft cooing noise and began to pace nervously. Scott grabbed its reigns and tied it to the buggy's rusted frame. Then a humming noise weaved its way into the clearing. He froze, staring at the woods.

At first only shadows moved between the trees. Then the shadows gained form as they moved from the jungle to the trail. He threw a glance behind him and saw the dark forms emerging from the other side of the trail as well. Scott was surrounded by crabbies. They were holding wooden staffs with wicked hooked blades on either end in their clawed hands. Scott's squawker was pulling frantically at the reins, rocking the buggy.

"Hey look," Scott said, backing away. "I don't want any trouble."

The crabbies advanced, their weapons ready.

"What would Mahkra do at a time like this?" he said to himself.

The crabbies stopped. Their black "heads" extended upward, spreading the filaments in the air. After a few seconds, they began backing away.

Scott watched them as they disappeared back into the woods, dumbfounded. He stood unmoving long after the humming had completely faded. His squawker calmed down and began snapping at the insects buzzing through the air. Scott shook his head and climbed back into the vehicle to gather more weapons.

After a few more trips, Scott had stacked over twenty rifles and pistols as well as a box of grenades into the bandit's buggy. He climbed one more time into the vehicle to see if there anything he missed when a static hiss made him jump. He spun around and saw a portable transmitter strapped to a shelf. He had bumped the power switch while he was scouring the vehicle for weapons. He lifted the heavy, bulky instrument up and climbed through the hatch with it with it. He placed the transmitter on the hood of the buggy. He took one more look around at the dark trees before examining the machine.

Scott looked at it for a moment, pressing buttons and experimenting. Suddenly a small receiving dish unfolded from closed compartment and pointed skyward. Scott heard a jumble of voices swimming in the sea of static. He tried to tune some of them out. The machine whirred and vibrated, then he clearly heard a voice reading off a list of numbers.

He pushed the transmit button. "Hello? Can anyone read me?"

The voice reading the numbers continued without a hitch. Scott switched channels and continued to try to transmit. After the fourth attempt, he noticed a small, unobtrusive message on the device that red "Insert Transmission Code".

Scott slumped. "Fuck," he said quietly

The squawkers ambled down the rutted road to Demeter.

"We should be in Demeter pretty soon," Mahkra said.

"Okay," Bryan answered, pulling his watch out of his pocket. The mud on his borrowed clothes had dried and was beginning to flake off. The dust left in the fabric mixed with Bryan's sweat. "Man, it's hot!"

"So what do you plan to say to the guy sin charge when we get to Demeter?" Mahkra asked, ignoring his exclamation.

Bryan shrugged. "I guess I'll just explain the situation to them. I mean, I would think that it would be pretty clear to them the benefits of getting back in touch with Earth."

"How do you plan on incorporating them into your Confederation if they agree?"

"That's not really my field...I don't know the politics of it."

"Just keep this in mind," Mahkra said gravely. "The guy in charge of Demeter used to be a person named Hardrix Dorloch, and old general who grabbed control after we were laeft on our own. He was a total shithead, using an army of thugs to keep himself in absolute control by killing dissidents, terrorizing the populace, the standard stuff. Are you with me?"

"Yeah..." Bryan said slowly.

Mahkra continued. "A few years ago, he was ousted by someone who likes to call himself Lord Strak. I seriously doubt that this person is any better than Dorloch."

"So whay are you telling me this?"

"Odds are, Lord Strak will try to be your best friend. He'll try to show you just what a swell guy he really is so he'll get to stay in control of his little fiefdom. Just don't forget who you're talking to."

"This is not what I wen to school for," Bryan said bitterly.

Mahkra threw him an amused glance and forced the squawkers back into a gallop. After a few more minutes of riding, the dense wood and undergrowth abruptly gave way to plowed, muddy fields. There were people milling around in the saturated fields, skimming the green slime from the surface of the water. In the center of the fields, still almost a mile away, was a gray jumble of leaning, decaying buildings.

Mahkra pulled back on the reins quickly. "This place is a lot bigger than I remember it. A lot shittier, too. I see they still got the refinery going," she said pointing to a smokestack. "That's how they're still fueling their buggies."

"How long has it been since you've been here?" Bryan asked, looking with disgust at the filth around him.

Mahkra unrolled the hooded cloak and wrapped it around herself. "Since the last time I saw Scott." She drove her heels into the side of her squawker and it moved forward at a hopping trot.

"What's that green stuff?" Bryan asked.

"Algae," Mahkra answered. "The people eat it. No doubt Strak and his goons get all the good food. They probably trade with Scott and the outlying farmers while the people get squat."

They walked in silence down the raised trail that cut the swamp-like fields in half. The muddy, broken people looked at them with dead, uninterested eyes and then returned to their work. Trudging in mud up to their knees, the people lifted fistfuls of algae and dropped it into the dirty sacks that were slung over their backs. Water dripped from the sack as it was strained from the algae, soaking the clothing of the workers.

"How can you feed forty thousand people with this muck?" Bryan asked incredulously.

"You can't," Mahkra said, her face shrouded in shadow by the cloak. She also kept her scarred hand wrapped in the skin. "That's another way Strak probably keeps control."

"Does he want them all to die?"

"I doubt that he cares. Those who are loyal and work hard get the most food. Those who don't starve."

"Why don't they rebel?"

"They don't have any weapons. Even if they did, what would they rebel for? As far as they know, Demeter is the last safe haven in the universe. Of course, if someone could convince them that there was somewhere else to go..." She looked at Bryan from beneath the hood.

Bryan opened his mouth to speak when his eyes moved from Mahkra to the field behind her. "Oh, God," he said quietly.

A muddy, blackened hand was protruding from the mud near the road, rigor mortis freezing it in a position of reaching for the sky.

Mahkra grunted. "They probably use all the people who die--or they kill--as fertilizer for the fields."

"And people work out there, stepping on those dead bodies all the time?" Bryan asked, turning pale.

Mahkra shrugged. "It's that or starve."

Bryan rubbed the sweat off his face shaking his head.

"Don't get sickened yet," Mahkra said. "We're almost in the city."

The towering sky scrapers that were once the pride of Verdencia were reduced to little more than their superstructure. Their windows were gone and some of their external walls had long since crumbled to dust. The movements of the people who lived in the crowded unsheltered rooms of the buildings were easily visible. There were a few massive smokestacks scattered through out the city vomiting smoke into the air.

On the outskirts of the city were small huts made of sticks and mud. There were no furnishings beyond threadbare floormats lined up in each one. From one of these hovels, two men were carrying a stiff, bone-thin young woman on a makeshift stretcher. Her mouth was open slightly and her dried eyes stared upward at nothing. The grim-faced men carried her toward the fields as a grieving older woman followed them.

As they rode into town, the stench of misery and decay nearly overcame Bryan. There was a mangy dog gnawing on the remains of a body left by the side of the road. Here was a spot of cracked pavement with a starburst of dried blood where someone had fallen from the skeletal skyscrapers. There were crowds of defeated, skinny people standing in a slowly moving line with clay bowls where a fat man was dumping handfuls of the algae into the people's bowls with his dirty hands. After they got their ration of the slime, they filed back into the dark, overcrowded buildings.

Three men in brown, unstained clothes with body armor strapped haphazardly to whatever body part it would fit swaggered down the road. One of them, dressed in an almost complete suit of white, new body armor shoved an old man out of his way, onto the ground. The group was laughing and smiling.

"Mahkra," Bryan whispered. "That man--the big one--he has body armor from my escort."

Mahkra's eyes narrowed. The armor had a blue "TC" written on the breastplate. "Are you sure?"

"Positive," Bryan said, fear creeping into his voice.

"Do you recognize him?"

Bryan shook his head. "It all happened too fast. I didn't see any faces clearly, but that is definitely our armor." He looked at Mahkra. "Does that mean what I think it means?"

Suddenly the soldier in the white armor saw the two of them astride their squawkers and formed a twisted smile on his bristly face. He said something to his two companions and the three of them began walking toward them.

"Shit," Mahkra mumbled. "Looks like you're about to get your diversion."

"My what?" Bryan asked, his voice stiff with anxiety.

"Your diversion to get the fuck out of here."

Bryan looked at her, eyes wide.

"Hey there," the armored man said with a wide, toothy smile. "We don't see to many birds around here any more," he said, suggestively putting his hand on Mahkra's calf, "and the feathered thing ain't bad eith--"

Before he could finish, Mahkra kicked him viciously, sending three of his front teeth flying. He fell on the ground with a muffled scream, blood pouring from his mouth. Mahkra tore off her cloak, and the other two men stared at her, open-mouthed. She jumped off of the squawker and whipped out her knife. "Get out of here!" she shouted as she charged at the two men. One pulled out a pistol and she immediately kicked it out of his hand and stabbed him in the chest. As he sank to the ground with blood spurting from the wound, the other pulled out a long serrated sabre. The man in the Earther armor was running away.

Bryan looked at her fighting, then back at the line of people who were cowering against the walls, watching the fight. "People of Verdencia," he began awkwardly, but became more forceful as he spoke. "The war is over! Earth still exists! I was an Earther sent here to reestablish contact, but bandits under the command of your Lord Strak ambushed us. We wish to bring this planet back to prosperity, but we need your help to rise up and defeat Strak!"

Mahkra had her knee on the back of the last one of Strak's men and had stabbed him three times before she looked up a Brian. "What the fuck are you doing?" she shouted.

Bryan looked at her blankly. "I'm doing what you told me to!" he answered defensively.

"Run!" she shouted, walking toward his squawker. "Fuck that shit! Just get the fuck out of here!"

Bryan began to protest. "What about--"

"GO!" Mahkra shouted as she punched his squawker in the rump. The bird screeched and began galloping away, her own following. Mahkra did not watch them go. She concentrated on the five soldiers bearing down on her. Two had their pistols pointing skyward while three more kept theirs holstered, but brandished long sabres instead.

"Give it up, freak," one of the soldiers shouted as they approached, "and we'll kill you quick."

From the masses of empty, skeletal faces cowering in the buildings, someone rasped "Run." Mahkra turned her head and saw a bony woman with ice blue eyes daring to stand apart rest of the bystanders crouched in the shadows of the building. "Run." She said again, a little louder. Mahkra's unscarred face gave her a smile while her other side continued to snarl angrily.

The soldiers were a few yards away and closing fast. With a blinding motion, she grabbed a handful of the black powder in the pouch at her belt and flung it in the faces of her assailants. Three of them fell, the other two stumbled to a stop. They tried desperately to rub the irritants from their eyes. One of the soldiers on the ground had inhaled the black cloud and was choking violently as the powder scorched his lungs.

Mahkra strolled casually up to one of the men and wrenched the pistol out of his hand. She sent a gauss bolt through his head, ending his suffering. She did the same to the other four. She dropped the used pistol and grabbed two fresh guns from the corpses' holsters.

Thus armed, she turned to the amazed faces staring at her. "Which way to the fuel dump?" she asked urgently.

Several shaky fingers pointed down the street to a featureless warehouse. She looked back toward the now distant jungle. She could barely see the two bouncing squawkers disappearing down the trail. Then she turned and ran toward the dump.

Empty-eyed faces watched her with amazement as she rushed down the broken street with a pistol in each hand. There were no guards standing at the entrance, but she was cautious anyway. She peeked into the door and saw rows of rusting metal barrels and tanks. A large sign repainted several times with different colors screamed "NO SMOKING" in a perverse rainbow of color. With both of her pistols pointed forward, she stalked into the room. The air stank strongly of fuel, but was utterly noiseless. A crane with rounded clampers waited idly in the corner.

Suddenly gunfire echoed through the warehouse. She immediately fell to the ground as bullets punched holes in the barrels around her. The thick, blue fuel began to ooze from the wounded barrels. Mahkra crawled between two blocks of the barrels to get out of the line of fire. The pungent odor of the azure sludge was becoming unbearable. She pulled herself into a crouching position and glanced around the barrels. There were three soldiers standing at the entrance blazing away with their rifles.

"Stupid," she said to herself with a smile. She poked one of her pistols around the barrel and pulled the trigger. It buzzed then clicked. Nothing else. "Shit," she muttered as she aimed the other one. The trigger of this one was loose. "SHIT!" She looked to the rear of the dump. There was a small door, but she would have to run over twenty feet through the center of the warehouse to reach it.

Then the firing stopped. She heard muttering and clicking of metal against metal. They were reloading. Without hesitation, she got up and ran for the rear door. The floor was slippery with the leaking fuel, but she managed to keep her footing.

"Shoot her! Shoot her!" she heard someone behind her shout.

Mahkra meant to jump between another row of barrels, but on the slippery floor, she ended up crashing awkwardly through the door as they began to fire. She tumbled out on the dirt as the door was riddled with holes. She looked around quickly to see if anyone was waiting near the rear exit, then got up quickly and ran.

"Get behind cover!" she shouted to the destitute people milling around on the street. They looked at her, not understanding. She stopped in the middle of the street and cut open a fireseed with her knife. Just as the flames began to burn in the seed, she clamped it shut with her fingers and held it, ready to throw. She waited.

Finally, one of the soldiers pushed open the door, gasping for breath. She threw the seed without hesitation and turned and ran. The side broke in half and two tiny stars arced toward the fuel dump, leaving a small trail of white smoke behind them. The man was raising his rifle when the burning seeds struck the cloud of gases from the dump. It exploded just as Mahkra dove underneath a carriage heaped with algae. Screams punctuated the ear-splitting detonation. Flaming shards of metal rained down on the carriage.

After a few seconds, Mahkra climbed out from underneath the carriage and looked at her handiwork. Flames were reaching high into the sky, shedding blistering heat even where she was standing. She smiled to herself. "There's your getaway, Bryan," she said out loud. Then she heard the screeching of tires and more gunfire.

To her right, an asymmetrical improvised buggy swerved around the warehouse's wreckage. There was a chain-gun mounted on the passenger side and a man behind it bringing her into its sights. To her left was a squad of soldiers running at her, firing their rifles. "Shit," she said. She pivoted and ran into a narrow alley between two of the decaying sky scrapers. Gauss bolts shattered the brittle concrete behind her. As she turned a corner at the end of the alley, she looked back and saw the foot soldiers chasing her. She ran through the rubbish-strewn alley deftly.

Suddenly a hand grabbed her arm and yanked her into a dark, jagged hole in the wall. A hand clamped over her mouth as she was dragged back into the darkness. Mahkra twisted her body and swept her assailant's knees with her shin, sending the person sprawling on the ground. Mahkra grabbed the figure by the throat and raised her bloody knife. In the poor light, she could just make out the face of the blue-eyed woman.

"Don't kill me!" the woman said. "I can get you out of here!"

Mahkra released her warily. The woman stood up quickly. "Follow me." She led Mahkra to a small, square hole in the wall. "Go in there."

Mahkra looked at her doubtfully.

"Hurry! They'll be here any second!"

Mahkra crawled through the hole into a dark room with a cold earthen floor. The woman crawled in after her. She pushed a heavy stone back into place to conceal the hole.

"Follow me," the woman said as she began to climb up the ladder. "By the way," she said as she called over her shoulder, "I'm Lin."

Mahkra did not answer.

The two emerged at the bottom of an elevator shaft of a decaying building. Lin squeezed through the half-open elevator doors. Mahkra did the same and followed her up a flight of stairs. Skeletal faces with a glimmer of hope shining in their sallow eyes stared at her from the doors on every floor. As she climbed, the staircases below her filled with people who watched her ascent.

They were muttering to each other busily. "Earth...war's over...still exists...killed them all...blew it up...no weapons...free from Strak...Earther..."

They climbed to the thirty-first floor. Lin was rasping for breath while Mahkra had not even begun to exert herself.

"Come on," Lin said with a weak smile. "This is where I live." She pushed open the blackened door from the stairwell. The door led to a long hallway with open doors on each wall down its entire length. The walls were covered with grime from the hundreds of people packed on the floor. A fresh wind blowing down the hall could not completely blow away the scent of decay. Faces watched her from the open doors as Lin led her down the hall. Mahkra's hand instinctively caressed the hilt of her knife.

Finally Lin stopped at a door and motioned Mahkra to enter. The room was large. The carpeting was caked with dirt and it was completely unfurnished. The wall facing the city had completely fallen away long ago, allowing an unobstructed view of the cityscape. Mahkra walked toward it slowly, resting her left hand on a rusted steel beam. The black smoke from the fire she had caused moved on its pilgrimage skyward, though the fire itself was out of her view. She could see the fields stretching past the ocean of gray and could barely make out the line of the forest in the midday haze. After a few minutes, Mahkra looked behind her and saw Lin standing by the door with a small, skinny child and others crowded behind her.

"You have to help us, Earther." She said. "You've seen how we live. Strak won't be happy until he's killed us all. Please..."

Mahkra turned and looked back at the city. After a moment she said, "I should have stopped this at Dorloch. I should have shot that fucker down and slaughtered his supporters while I had the chance. While he was weak. Instead I blamed everyone--all of you--for what happened to me." She looked down at her three-fingered hand and clenched it into a fist. "I wanted to vanish into the forest and never have to look at another human face as long as I lived. Then that dumb bastard stumbles into my life..." She turned around, looking at the group of people. "Yes, I'll help you, but I can't wipe out Strak and his cronies by myself. You have to help."

"We can't fight," someone behind Lin said plaintively. "We don't have any weapons."

Suddenly someone down the hall called, "Strak's men are coming!"

All of the people who had been standing respectfully at the doorway poured into the room. They quickly spread dirty mats across the floor.

Lin pointed up to the ceiling where a few white, fibrous tiles were still in place between the rafters and the room. "Quick! Climb up there and hide."

Mahkra easily jumped, grabbed a hold of a support beam, and pulled herself up into the ceiling. She climbed over a panel and watched as the room's inhabitants sat on the grimy mats and tried to act as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening.

Two men in patchwork armor burst into the room. The taller one had a broken-tipped sabre and the other a rifle.

"Where is that half-faced freak?" The tall one asked.

This was met with general murmuring and Lin spoke up and said, "Who?"

The short one pointed his rifle at the group. "Don't fuck with us, or we'll blow you all away!"

Then the other grabbed the boy sitting next to Lin and put his knife to the boy's throat. "Tell us where the freak is and we won't cut your little kid's head off."

"Lin," the child said tearfully. "Help me."

"We don't know who you're talking about!" Lin shouted. "Please don't hurt my boy."

"Last chance, bitch," the man said as he began to slide the knife over the boy's throat, drawing a trickle of blood. The boy screamed. The short man laughed. Lin begged them to stop.

Mahkra dropped down behind the man with the rifle. He swung around quickly to bring the rifle to bear, but she easily slapped the barrel aside with her left hand and drove her knife into his chest, ripping a gaping wound that covered her arm with blood. The man's eyes widened as he sank to his knees. Mahkra wrenched the rifle out of his hands as he fell on his face and pointed at the thug with the knife. The blade was pressed against the boy's throat.

"Put down that gun or the kid gets it!" he shouted. "Drop it no--" His sentence became a shriek of pain as a bolt from Mahkra's rifle ripped through his elbow. His dangling forearm was only connected by a narrow strip of skin.

Mahkra walked up to him, grabbed him by the collar and belt, and lifted him over her head. She looked up at him as droplets of blood showered her face. "Can you fly, you bastard?"

He did not answer. He only stared down at her with wide, fearful eyes. She walked to the edge of the floor and without any further ceremony threw him down to the streets below. He did not scream.

Mahkra turned back to the stunned faces. Lin was hugging the boy and holding a dirty rag on his wound. She looked at her with tears coming from her icy eyes. The blood on Mahkra's face and arms made her look more horrific.

"You have no choice but to fight," she said the them. "Weapons or no weapons. If you don't, they'll eventually kill you all. Most of their guns don't work anyway. That and they're incredibly stupid. I killed twelve of them today. You can do it."

"How?" a man with no leg below his knee asked.

"With whatever you have. Clubs, rocks, or fists."

The sound of gunfire and screaming echoed through the building. Mahkra jogged toward the door and looked down the hall. She turned back the room of the living dead.

"Don't do anything now. Just lay low and spread the word that Strak dies today. When I get back, I need you all to help me wipe Strak out!" She nearly shouted the last part, her eyes gleaming with a nearly fanatical fire.

"How will we know when you've come back?" Lin asked.

"You'll know." With that, she looked both ways down the hall and ran toward the stairs. She kicked open the door and swung her rifle around in all directions, ready to fire. The stairwell was empty. She hurried down the stairs. When she reached the landing of the twentieth floor, she found herself face to face with a noseless soldier as he entered the landing. He raised his rifle, but she was faster. The gauss bolts at close range ripped gaping holes into his body and he fell backward in a spray of blood and organs. She continued down the stairs, taking three at a time.

Finally, she reached the last flight of stairs, her breath heavy. She peered down into the lobby of the building and saw several soldiers milling around. She smiled to herself and aimed the rifle. It fired twice, reducing one thug's head to a puff of red vapor, before stopping with a loud "snap".

"SHIT!" she hissed. Then the surviving soldiers saw her crouched on the staircase and opened fire from the hip. She was showered with pulverized plaster and shattered wood as she climbed back up to the second floor landing. She kicked open the door and ran into the first room she came to.

Inside the people were huddling in a corner fearfully. She glanced at them then ran toward the exterior wall. The facade of this part of the building was still intact, and Mahkra looked through the large glassless window. She looked down at the cracked and buckled sidewalk a story below her. Behind her she heard the door to the stairs kicked open. Then she saw one of Strak's buggies cruising down the road, the chain gunner swerving the massive weapon from one side of the road to the other, hunting for her. Mahkra took out her knife as she climbed out on the ledge. The men in the topless buggy didn't see her. "Dumb fuckers never know to look up," she said quietly.

She waited, crouched and tense as the vehicle approached sluggishly. Suddenly, someone behind her shouted "There she is!"

Mahkra jumped a split second before bullets turned the window ledge to dust. She landed on the hood of the buggy hard, bending the welded and re-welded metal downward. The driver was too surprised to swerve and she stood up and slammed her foot into his face, snapping his head backward. The gunner turned the gun in her direction, firing a continual stream of bullets. She easily ducked and moved around the tripod to stab the man in the knee. He shouted and fell off the back of the buggy.

She looked back and saw that the vehicle was drifting of the road into a building as the driver nursed his bleeding face in his hands. Mahkra reached over the driver and turned the steering wheel so that the buggy was pointing straight again. Then she lifted the man out of the driver seat and tossed him out onto the road. Mahkra grabbed the chain gun and showered both wounded thugs with bullets. She jumped into the driver's seat and hit the gas. The buggy lurched forward just as soldiers began running out of the building she had just escaped.

She sped down the buckled pavement, the chain gun flopping madly. Ahead of her she saw the buildings give way to the uniform brown and green of the algae fields.

"I'll be back, fuckers!" she shouted as she left Demeter behind her. Soon the dark trees of the jungle hung over her again. The wind whipping across her face dried and peeled away the blood of the soldier she had killed. Her broad smile faded somewhat when she noticed the fresh tire tracks on the trail. When she reached the halfway mark to Scott's farm, she slammed the brakes and brought the buggy to a fishtailing halt.

Lying on the side of the road was a squawker. Deep red blood was oozing through a hole in its head. It was still breathing weakly, even as sharp nosed carapaced creatures burrowed into its dying flesh. There was no sign of the other squawker. Next to the squawker she found a watch. Bryan's watch.

"GODDAMMIT!" she shouted to the trees. Then she walked back over the buggy and kicked in the side, denting the sheet metal. She walked forward a few yards to trace the tire tracks. One pair of tracks turned around clumsily on the narrow road and headed back to Demeter. The other did not.

"Scott," Mahkra whispered. She ran back to her stolen buggy and continued to speed down the trail. Her teeth were clenched together as the vehicle bounced down the road and she patted the steering wheel with the palm of her hand tensely. Then she saw something else by the side of the road. She slowed down as she passed it.

It was another one of Strak's buggies. It had collided with a huge, ancient tree. The driver and one passenger had been horribly mutilated, more so than the crash could have done. She regarded the wreck as she drove past, then turned her eyes back to the trail. She relaxed a little when she saw that the fresh tracks stopped at the destroyed vehicle, but she did not slow down.

Finally the jungle opened up to the well-kept fields and battered house of Scott's farm. She saw a row of squawkers tethered and saddled outside his house as well as one of Strak's vehicles. There were twenty people in old, makeshift clothing standing in a loose group with rifles slung over their shoulders. When Mahkra burst into the clearing, someone shouted "Incoming!" and they all turned and pointed their rifles at her. Mahkra hit the brakes hard, causing the buggy to slide on the loose ground.

Scott came running out of the house, dressed in ancient, battle-worn armor. "Put those guns down," he shouted. "That's Mahkra!" The people lowered their weapons sheepishly as Scott ran over to Mahkra.

"Jesus I'm glad to see you," he said, out of breath. When he saw all the dried blood on her face and arms, he inhaled sharply. "What the hell happened?"

"They've got Bryan," she said flatly as she climbed out of the buggy and walked briskly toward the house.

"I figured they would," Scott answered, still gulping for air. "Strak was responsible for the ambush."

Mahkra stopped and looked at him. "How the hell did you find that out?"

"I found he wreckage where Bryan and his buddies got wiped out. The tracks from the bandits led right out of Demeter and somebody told me that Strak uses buggies that looks just like these. I found a whole bunch of weapons, though, " he motioned toward the rag tag group of people, "and a portable transmitter. I've been listening to uncoded communications from the Earther vessel in orbit."

"They're that close?! Hell they could send down more marines, anything!"

"But they won't. They're sounding all confused like they've ever been in this situation before, and we can't transmit to them."

"Why the fuck not?!"

"You can't transmit without a specific code that presumably Bryan knows."

"Jesus Christ," Mahkra said, barely contianing her burning frustration, "we could have had this whole mess wrapped up right here and instead I hand-deliver Bryan to them!"

"It gets worse," Scott said hesitantly.

"How could it possibly get any worse?"

"You were right about Strak having a transmitter of his own."

"At least I was right about one thing," Mahkra said quietly.

Scott continued. "He's been talking to the Earther ship, setting himself up as the good guy trying to run a lawless planet. Just a little bit ago he was saying that he had managed to rescue one last survivor of the surveying crew. When the Earther ship asked for the person's name and code, Strak said that the Earther, Bryan I presumed, was unconscious because of injuries."

Mahkra's voice became heavy. "So now Strak's got the inside track on us." Mahkra rubbed her face with her good hand. "God, I fucked this up."

As they approached the house, the people gathered around regarded Mahkra with heavy eyes. They were all, even the women, heavy set with large muscles and sun-wrinkled skin. They had proud, stern faces that had seen much hardship. A few wore battered body armor similar to Scott's.

"Who are they?" Mahkra asked quietly, barely moving her lips.

"The last people on the world who haven't been driven into Demeter. Mostly ex-military people who've been making a living farming. I fought with and against most of these people."

Mahkra looked them over, and then walked into Scott's house. "Yeah, I guess they'll do good enough for an army."

"I wasn't sure whether it would be a good idea to chase you right away after I found the transmitter, so I drove around in that buggy I found and gathered everybody up. Got the guns from the Earther ATV, too. By the way," he said hesitantly, "I think I found something out about the crabbies..."

"Save it," Mahkra said as she walked into the house. "Where's my stuff?"

"Right over there," he said, motioning with his head.

Mahkra followed his gaze to a large, dented metal box sitting next to a hole torn up from the floor boards. She knelt next to it and lifted the lid. Flakes of rust fell from the creaking hinges.

Lying on top was a color photograph framed in chipped wood turned black with age. In the picture were two rows of recruits for a newly formed elite unit. Her unit. She was standing unscarred in the center of the second row, the commanding officer, with an arrogant smirk on her face. The soldiers kneeling in the front were holding the unit's war banner. None of the smiles on that picture were innocent; they had all seen the fury and madness of war. Now they were all dead. All but one. Mahkra stroked her fingertips over the glass, creating dark streaks in the thin film of dust. Then she set the photograph down on the floor.

Beneath the photograph was the same folded war banner that appeared in the picture. It was folded so that only the red field of the flag showed. Mahkra gently unfolded it. There was a dark bloodstain splashed on it and there were multiple tears and burns, but the center insignia was untarnished. It depicted a skull on a sea of red impaled on a black sword with a wreath of fire curling up the blade like a vine. Mahkra sniffed and wiped her eyes on the back of her hand. Then she laid the banner on top of the photograph.

She looked back into the box. "Does all this still work?" she asked unevenly.

Scott smiled. "I've maintained it. It's all loaded up and ready to go." Then his tone changed. "Question: Why are you so interested in taking Strak down all of the sudden? Not that I mind, but you disappear into the jungle for God know how long and then you come back dragging a bureaucrat in tow and play Mahkra the Liberator. What's up with that?"

Mahkra drummed her fingertips against the box's edge. "I don't know," she said finally. "I guess time really does heal all wounds."

A bucket full of icy water ripped Bryan out of his injury-induced slumber. Blood was dripping from his mouth and nose, and his eyes were nearly swollen shut. He was firmly tied to a wooden chair.

"Alright, you Earther fuck," the man said as he dropped the bucket. His fists were speckled with Bryan's blood. "We'll start from the top. How much manpower does Earth have at its disposal?"

"Just your mom," Bryan answered.

The man punched him in the stomach, almost knocking the chair backwards. Bryan coughed weakly, unable to draw a breath.

"Who was that freak who escorted you here, and where is she now?"

Bryan began fading out of conciousness.

The man grabbed him by his hair and pulled his head up.

"Do you want to end up like your other Earther friend," the man said, motioning to the cold and stiff body that Bryan had recognized as one of the people on the expedition, "or are you going to cooperate?"

Bryan spit a globe of blood-laden spit into the man's eyes. The man stumbled backward, wiping his face. Bryan gave him a bloody smile. The man whirled around and kicked him full in the face, tipping the chair over and dumping him on the ground. The man lifted the chair back up.

"What is your identification code for communications?"

"I'd tell you," Bryan said, gasping for breath, "but you can't count that high without taking off your mittens."

The man's lips curled into a snarl and he punched Bryan in the nose, breaking it. He punched him again. And again.

Then the door opened behind him and someone else entered behind him. "That's enough, Jagr," the authoritative voice said.

"Lord Strak!" Jagr said, sounding surprised. "The prisoner was just about to give in. Just give me two more--"

Bryan strained to open his eyes to see the person behind all of this. Strak had dark hair, combed straight back and a clean-shaven face. His eyes were dark and his skin was smooth. He was under six feet tall and of slight build, but he seemed to emanate authority. He was wearing a cloud-white shirt and black pants and was accompanied by two grim-face bodyguards with large rifles.

"I said give your knuckles a rest," he said firmly.

"Yes, sir," Jagr said as he walked quickly from the room, wiping Bryan's blood from his hands.

Strak turned to his bodyguards. "Wait outside."

Without responding, they turned on their heels and walked out the large steel door, slamming it shut behind them.

Strak turned and looked at Bryan. Bryan stared back through swollen eyes, breathing loudly through his clenched teeth.

Strak immediately walked behind him and untied the ropes. Bryan did not move. "Here," Strak said, offering Bryan a handkerchief.

Again Bryan did not move.

"Take it," he encouraged.

Bryan stiffly moved a hand and tentatively took the handkerchief.

Strak rubbed his fingers straight back through his hair with a sigh. Then he pulled up a chair and sat in front of Bryan. He spoke softly.

"How do you begin to apologize for something like this? I swear, I didn't know they took you prisoner. As soon as I found out, I came down. They're such a degenerate bunch of..." Strak looked behind him at the door with a touch of nervousness on his face.

"Listen," he said in a conspiratorial tone, "you may think that I have control around here, but I really don't. Running things around here..it's like trying to harness a tidal wave. It's all I can do to keep these barbarians from tearing this city apart."

"So you round everybody up in Demeter and crowd them into decaying buildings," Bryan said bitterly through puffy lips. "You're a philanthropist all over."

"Look," Strak said defensively. "If they weren't in Demeter all the bandits would cut them to ribbons. I had to protect them. Better crowded than dead."

Bryan tentatively dabbed his crooked nose with the handkerchief. He looked at the corpse lying in the corner. Its dead, glazed eyes looked back at him from a torn and broken face.

"That's why I need you," Strak continued. "If I had the support of Earth, I could drive out the bandits and make this city prosperous again. All I need is their support. I need them to know that I'm on their side for the people of Verdencia."

"Just as long as you get to stay in charge, right?" Bryan said bitterly.

"Just until we can create a democracy. They people need time to recover..."

"Bullshit," Bryan said. "You're a third-rate petty dictator and that's all you'll ever be. That's all you aspire to. If we help you out, you'll say 'Thanks, suckers," and it'll be business as usual. And if you are sincere, you won't mind explaining that to the invasion force that'll come here and wipe you out."

Strak looked at him impassively.

"Is this what you told that guy?" Bryan continued, motioning toward the body with his head. "Wouldn't he convert? I'm sorry mister Strak, but I just get the impression that you're really not a very nice person."

Strak stood up. "You just picked the wrong side, Earther," he hissed as he walked toward the door. He opened it up and Jagr was standing there expectantly. "Make him a 'friend'. No holds barred"

Jagr looked at Bryan and grinned, slapping his fist in his palm.

"Mahkra," Bryan whispered.

"So what's the plan?" A husky white-haired woman asked as Scott walked back out through the door.

Scott shrugged. "Go in there shooting and kill anybody who tries to kill us."

"Not much of a plan," she said doubtfully.

"Look," Scott said, "Mahkra waxed a dozen of them without any guns at all. She says that they're basically just a bunch of thugs without training or common sense. On top of that, half of their guns don't work, and they just carry them around for show."

"That may be so," a bald-headed man said, "but, Jesus, there's got to be over a thousand of them and there are only...twenty of us. Even if they came at us naked with their bare hands they'd still wipe us out."

This was met by a general murmuring in the group.

"Chuck's right," the woman said. "We can't beat them all. When you said we was goin' to take out Strak, I thought you meant some kinda ambush, not an invasion of the fuckin' city."

"But Mahkra says that the people there will come in on your side when you start shooting," Scott answered.

"Bullshit," someone else in the small crowd shouted. "Those city slickers ain't got no soul left. They'll just sit there and watch us get slaughtered."

"Think about your children!" Scott said, growing desperate. "Don't they deserve a better future that this?"

"My kids need parents," the woman said bitterly. "So do yours."

Then Mahkra walked heavily out of the house. She was encased completely in her body armor. The bulky slate-gray metal shell added four inches to her height, making her bigger than Scott. A heavy propulsion unit was fastened to the suit's back. The helmet's opaque visor was up, and Mahkra's face was illuminated by lime-green lights under her chin. The black impaled skull of her unit was emblazoned across the armor's breastplate. The eyes of the small army widened.

"You didn't say she was a Carcosan Ranger," the woman said in awe. "That changes everything."

"Jesus," a suddenly pale man said. "A Carcosan Ranger. If you do half of what you guys did to my unit at the Sargasso port, we can't lose."

Scott turned back to them with a smile. "So are you in?"

"Just say the word," a young blonde-haired man said.

"Alright," Scott said, slapping his hands together. "Everybody load up!" He turned to Mahkra, who was standing motionless on the porch. "You okay? The joints haven't fused, have they?"

"I feel...great," she said softly. "I forgot what it was like to wear this armor."

"Hope you didn't forget how to fight in it."

Mahkra smiled slightly. "Not a chance. By the way, if I don't make it out of there, give this to Bryan." She handed him something hard wrapped tightly in leather and tape.

"You'll make it out fine, but I'll keep it safe for you."

A cold, humid wind swept over the field, making the crops undulate like an ocean. Black storm clouds were moving over the sky, threatening to swallow the afternoon sun.

"Storm coming in," Scott observed.

Mahkra looked at the advancing front. "Good."

The small armada of two buggies and fifteen squawkers came to a stop on the edge of the swamp surrounding Demeter. The squawkers were exhausted, breathing loudly and staggering. There was no one in the fields as the storm clouds swept across the sky, glazing the ground with an ominous shadow.

Mahkra was standing a few yards in front of the buggies, looking at the city gates through her binoculars. She adjusted the sights to observe infrared. "Only two sentries standing at the gate," she said loudly to Scott waiting in the buggy behind her. "Lots of people behind them though, looks like their in line for their algae." Then she saw the rifles of the sentries release a burst of heat, and she saw the people in the line fall. "Oh, God."

"What is it?" Scott asked.

"That's not a ration line," Mahkra said as she ran back to the buggy, making heavy footprints in the soft ground. "It's a firing squad. Let's move out!"

"We can't!" A dark-skinned man protested. "The squawkers need to rest. We pushed 'em way to hard gettin' here."

"How long will it take for them to be rested enough?"

"'Bout fifteen minutes."

"Fuck the squawkers, people are dying!"

Scott put a hand on Mahkra's metal encased arm. "She's right. The squawkers will never make the sprint to the city."

Mahkra's armored fingers clanked loudly as she drummed them on the barrel of the chain gun. "Alright," she said after a few seconds of contemplation. "Scott, you and Chuck drive the buggies into the city and keep reinforcements away from the entrance. Do you two remember what I told you about operating chain guns?" she asked the two people standing behind the large guns.

The dark-skinned young woman standing next to Mahkra nodded with a determined look in her large eyes. The other gunner, a toothless old man, shouted, "'Ell yeah! It'll be just like the good ol' days!"

"Alright," Mahkra said. "The rest of you get there as soon as you can. Stay in groups of three and shoot only hostiles. We need the civilians' support. Most of their guns don't work, but don't take any chances. Spread out and wreak havoc. Same goes for the buggies once the squawkers are inside the city. And Scott, keep that transmitter safe."

"What will you be doing?" He asked.

Mahkra flipped the silvery visor down, covering her face. "Trust me. Now let's move out!"

The vehicle's wheels spun as they clawed for a grip on the muddy ground and lurched forward. Mahkra held on with one hand as the city quickly approached them. When the two-man firing squad came into view, she immediately trained the rifle that was set into her armor's forearm on them. They had just lined up another row of doomed people on the pitted and blood splattered wall when Mahkra's bolts splattered gouts of their own blood on the pavement. The people who had been seconds away from execution watched the two buggies and the armored figure with open mouths.

Mahkra walked over to the people. "Strak," she shouted over the rising wind. "Where is he? And where is the Earther?"

One of the people pointed with a quivering finger toward the center of the city. "He lives in the big black building right in the center square. The Earther's probably there, too."

Mahkra looked back to Scott. "When the squawkers get here, I need you to fire a flare and come down this road to pick me up. If Bryan's still alive, we've got to get to him." With that, she turned and began running down the road.

"Spread the word people," Scott said to the stunned civilians. "The last Carcosan Ranger is about to kick Strak's ass."

Running was difficult in a battlesuit. Sweat was saturating Mahkra's hair by the time she passed the black and smoldering remains of the fuel dump. Her propulsion unit had only a limited amount of fuel, and she had to conserve it for when she would need it most. A display on her visor suddenly lit up, warning her of approaching hostiles. She only had to worry about one of them, though.

She spun around and saw a buggy charging down the road, its rail gun firing armor-piercing shells into the buildings behind her. She aimed her left hand at it and fired a single micro-missile. With a smoky hiss, the missile covered the distance between them in a split second and engulfed the vehicle, driver and all, in an orange fireball.

Bullets ricocheted off her back. Again she turned and saw three soldiers, one with a rifle and the other two with knives, racing toward her. She nonchalantly killed all three with a burst from her own rifle.

She stopped and looked up at the building she had taken refuge in only a few hours earlier. The biomechanics of the suit responded immediately and the boosters fired, lifting her up into the air. After a few seconds of ascent, she landed gracefully on the thirty-first floor.

There were only a handful of people cowering in the corner of the room. There were three bodies on the ground, in addition to the thug she had killed earlier.

She looked up at the people. "What happened here? Where's Lin?"

The one-legged man recognized her. "You--you're that woman who was here earlier--who said she'd come back!"

She flipped up her visor. "Yeah, I'm here. Now what's going on?"

The man spoke excitedly like a child. "Well, right after you left, a couple of Strak's soldiers came around question and shooting people but we wouldn't take it! We ganged up on 'em and killed 'em and took their guns!"

"Where is everybody now?"

"They're out doin' what you tol' 'em to do. They're out tellin' everybody what's gonna happen like prophets o' God."

"Did Lin go with them?"

"Yeah. And she took a rifle, too."

"Well spread the word," Mahkra said as she walked back toward the cityscape. "I'm back." She flipped down her visor and jumped off the ledge. Her jet pack kicked in automatically and she used it to travel the remaining ten stories to the top of the building. She stood on the roof and scanned the cityscape with her binoculars as the stinking wind screamed around her. Distant flashes of lightning illuminated the city with very brief blankets of light. The streets were empty except for a few red and yellow spots rushing around. She also spotted the large black building in the center of town. She looked back at the entrance where Scott was stationed and identified the two buggies waiting at the entrance. She saw three men on foot charge them, but the attackers were quickly cut down by the chain guns. She looked beyond that to the trail and saw the squawkers finally rested and advancing toward the city. "Here comes the cavalry," she said as she flipped her visor back down. She jumped off the ledge and her propulsion units gave her a gentle landing on the streets below. She continued her run down the road.

"Where are they?" she hissed in frustration as she ran another block without encountering any of Strak's soldiers. She looked up at the buildings above her and saw lines of faces staring down at her. She put her head down and pressed on looking for targets.

Then a flare lit up the moist skies with its sickly yellow light. Mahkra stopped running, allowing herself to catch her breath. A minute later, Scott's buggy came tearing up the road. The gunner was crouching, clinging to the gun's tripod to avoid being thrown off.

"I thought this was going to be hard!" Scott said with a broad smile as he came to a screeching stop.

"That's what scares me," Mahkra said as she climbed on the back and grabbed the tripod as well. "Take us to Strak's house."

The buggy lurched forward, bouncing wildly on the uneven road. Behind them, the streets filled with inquisitive civilians. After a tense but uneventful five minutes, the crumbling and dejected buildings receded to reveal a shining black complex in the center of a well-kept square.

"This is it," Scott shouted.

"Stop the car," Mahkra yelled.

Scott brought the buggy to a gentle rolling stop a hundred feet from the building. Nothing moved. Mahkra scanned it with her binoculars. There were no signs of activity at all.

"Jesus," Scott said. "Where the hell did Strak get the material to build this?"

"Damn building's probably electronically shielded," she said as she leaped from the vehicle and stalked forward. She had cleared half the distance between the buggy and the building without incident.

"It looks deserted," Scott called.

Suddenly part of the building's exterior wall fell away and three buggies roared out of the hidden garage, their chain guns blazing. Hordes of footsoldiers followed, screaming like banshees. Mahkra reflexively fired a missile into the center vehicle, destroying it and sending one of the others plowing into the building, shattering the fragile, electronically shielded ceramic walls. Scott's gunner peppered the surviving buggy with bolts.

"Get out of here!" Mahkra shouted as she poured bullets into the advancing line with her rifle.

Scott's gunner had done her part by shredding the last buggy with her chain gun. Scot turned the vehicle around and sped off down the road, the gunner firing behind her.

Hundreds of gauss bolts bounced off of Mahkra's armor as the attacking thugs climbed over the dead bodies of their comrades to get to her. Those who were without rifles either charging with sabres or ripping the guns out of the hands of their dead friends. Then the "LOW AMMO" button began flashing in Mahkra's helmet.

"Shit," she said as she stopped firing. Then long, sharp blades shot out of her armor's elbows and above her hands. "Come on, motherfuckers!" she screamed as the tidal wave of bodies crashed down on her.

"Dammit, Scott!" the gunner said as he made a hard screeching stop.

"Sorry," he said. Then he stood up in his seat. "Don't shoot Jack!" he shouted to the three people mounted on the squawkers. "It's me!"

Jack, a man with a thick beard and an ancient cowboy hat, lowered his rifle. "Where the hell are the bad guys? We're as nervous as hell with nothing happening."

"They are ALL in the center of town, in a big black building. Mahkra's fighting them. You gotta get there as soon as you can and help her out."

"Sure thing," he said. "Lead the way."

"I can't, I gotta find the others."

Jack put his hands on his hips. "Then how the hell are we supposed to find them?" he asked.

"We'll take you there," a voice said from behind them.

Scott had not noticed the large crowd of dirty, bony people gathering behind them with myriad improvised weapons. He looked at them for a moment.

"Okay, but hurry!" he said as he sped away.

Mahkra was standing on a small mountain of bodies. Her armor was drenched red in the blood of the hordes she was battling in hand to hand combat. She slashed them, crushed them, and stabbed them, but they kept coming like a nest of angry ants. Their sabres and fists could not hope to break through her armor, but they did not care. Their eyes were blazing with fanatical fury and they would not be denied.

Her breathing was labored and she was dripping with the sweat of exertion. She could barely see out of her visor because of the blood and bits of flesh. Mahkra could not defeat them all. Her "CLOSE PROXIMITY" warning light had been flashing for an eternity. From a small opening in the blood on her visor, she saw a crowd charging down the road toward her. More of them. "Oh, God," she said through a parched throat.

Then she felt bullets pelting her armor again. With a groan born of exhaustion and the unwillingness to give in, she stabbed her blades through one of her sea of assailants, lifted him in the air with one hydraulically strengthened arm, and tossed him away like a rag doll. Then her proximity warning light turned off. All she could see was a red blur, but she could hear gunfire and shouts all around her. She dared to flip open her visor to see what was going on.

There were dozens of torn and mangled bodies under her feet. She looked up at the black building. She had managed to hold her ground in spite of the desperate melee. Then she looked around her. Strak's men were now battling with the civilians. The skeletal faces were brimming with rage and determination. The farmers-turned-calvary waded through the melee on their squawkers firing their rifles down into the sea of grappling, pushing, stabbing bodies.

Mahkra fell to her knees, set apart from the battle by her high ground position on her self-made mountain of the dead and dying. She allowed her self a few moments of rest, then she ripped a piece of clothing from one of the dead and wiped her visor clean. Then she stood up at and fired her rockets, blasting upward toward the building. She deliberately crashed through the brittle walls, rolling on the finely carpeted interior. She got up quickly and looked around.

She was in some sort of office. It was in extreme disarray; papers were thrown everywhere and the desk drawers had been hastily emptied. There were rows of cybernetic computers with head sets for accelerated data transfer and other high tech machines that Mahkra had not seen for years. There was a thin man in an old gray suit staring at her. He was holding a briefcase stuffed with papers. He moved toward the door but Mahkra, even in her armor, was quicker.

She caught him by the collar and slammed him by the wall. "Where is the Earther?" she shouted, bringing her armored face to within a few inches of his.

"I don't know where he is! I swear!"

Mahkra took his hand and with no effort, crushed it. The man shrieked.

"Now are you going to tell me, or should I rip off your jaw, next?"

The man was turning pale. He pointed toward the door. "He's in...the cooler...at the end of the hall."

Mahkra looked back at the office. "Where did all this computer shit come from? Where did you get the material to build this building?"

The man tried ineffectually to push her away. "We've been supplied for years by certain elements in the government," he said between gasps. "It's all in the briefcase. Please..."

"Thank you," she said. Then she tossed him through the hole she had made in the wall. Mahkra moved toward the door, then she looked at the briefcase. She closed it quickly and brought it with her.

As soon as she opened the door, two guards shot her with their rifles at point-blank range. One was hit through the head as the bullets bounced off Mahkra's armor. She slashed the throat of the other with one sweep of her blade. She left the two guards to die in their own blood and stalked down the hall, briefcase in hand. Gunfire began to echo down the hallways.

She kicked open each door as she moved down the hall, gun ready to shoot anyone inside. Some of the rooms were offices in the same disarray as the one she crashed into. Others were unfurnished concrete rooms with a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling and a single chair in the center.

At the end of the hall at the head of a T-junction was a steel door. Mahkra looked quickly down both ways of the T-junction and cautiously opened the door. A gust of cold, foggy air billowed from the room. Hanging in the center of the room by his wrists was Bryan. Mahkra dropped the briefcase and rushed into the room.

Bryan's entire body was bruised or cut. There were two wide electrical burns down his chest. His face was swollen and nose was grotesquely twisted. A small puddle of steaming blood had formed under his body. He was shivering convulsively and was unconscious.

Mahkra flipped up her visor and with one stroke cut him free. She caught him and quickly carried him into the hall. She slammed the door shut and laid Bryan on the carpeted floor. Kneeling over him, she unfastened one of her gloves and stroked Bryan's forehead.

"Come on Bryan," she whispered. "Wake up." She opened a small compartment in her suit and pulled out a syringe filled with an orange liquid. She pulled the cap off with her teeth and administered the shot to Bryan.

His eyebrows went up and he tried to open his eyes. "Who is that?" he asked through chattering teeth. With a groping hand he tried to find a face and found only her armor.

She caught his hand with hers. "Mahkra."

"I've never heard you speak soft before," he said with a puffy, blood-flecked smile.

"What did they do to you?" she asked.

"Everything," he said, "but I never told them the access code, and I never screamed."

"Good job," Mahkra said, squeezing his hand. "God I'm sorry. I never meant for this to happen."

"It's not so bad," Bryan said. "Actually I feel pretty good."

"That's because I just doped your ass up," Mahkra said.

Bryan finally succeeded in opening his eyes a fraction. He immediately saw the symbol on her chest through the blood. He laughed weakly. "You didn't tell me you were a Carcosan Ranger. When we're out of here, I want to hear all the war tales of your unit. You're legendary on Earth, you know. Hell, we can't even make your armor anymore. Lost the technology during the war."

Mahkra smiled. "Later. First we gotta get you out of here."

The sound of running came from the hallway. Mahkra looked up and aimed her forearm rifle. Scott rounded corner in a run.

"Whoa!" Scott said holding up one hand.

Mahkra lowered her gun.

"Son of a bitch!" he said angrily at Bryan's condition. "Those fucking bastards!"

"Hello, Scott," Bryan said. "Sorry I ruined your clothes."

"Mahkra," Scott said, "they got those fucking thugs pumped up so high on Madroot that I'm surprised their brains haven't exploded."

"How's the fight going?" Mahkra asked, sounding concerned.

"Oh, we've got 'em beat, we just have to kill every single fucking one." Scott said. "Okay, we got the Earther and the bad guys on the run. What do we want to do?"

Mahkra thought for a moment. "Let's concentrate on getting the fuck out of here for right now and getting Bryan to that transmitter. Does your ship have marines and medical supplies?"

Bryan nodded as he gingerly assessed the damage to his nose. "We got all that, but it may take 'em a while to get down here."

"Well let's get on it!" Scott said. "We're going to have a lot of wounded people."

"First check this out," Mahkra said as she handed him the breifcase. SHe turned her attention back to administering first aid to Bryan

Scott opened the briefcase and began sifting through the papers. He looked up at Mahkra with astonished eyes. "Do you know what this stuff is?" he said with mixed emotions. "Strak's been in contact with Earth since the war ended!"

"A little bird told me that those files contain the names of the people involved." Mahkra asked.

"He's been conspiring with at least some elements of the Earther government for years! He's probably been working out this plan with them all along." He continued to sift through the papers. "Jesus!"

"What?"

"He's dealing with the specs for your battlesuit! He still had the technology! He must have got it from the rest of your...squad."

Mahkra clenched her teeth tightly. "This isn't over yet. Keep ahold of that stuff. It's evidence."

"Guys," Bryan said, looking up from the keypad, "that's all very interesting, but I'm thinking we should get out of here now." The sounds of gunfire and shouting still reverberated through the building.

As Bryan struggled to get up, the sound of metal clanking against metal came from a bend in the hallway a few yards from them. They all froze and stared at the hallway. Mahkra stood up and walked toward it. She motioned Bryan and Scott to stay quiet.

Mahkra turned the corner quickly. Although she fired immediately, two soldiers were waiting for her with a tripod rail gun. Before the horrified eyes of Scott and Bryan, the shell ripped through Mahkra and smashed into the wall behind her, sending her to the floor. She continued to fire until her bullets were exhausted and her gun was whirring uselessly. Both soldiers were dead by the time her helmet filled with yellow gas from her damaged propulsion pack.

"Mahkra!" Scott shouted.

Scott grabbed Bryan and pulled him against the wall. A man stepped out from behind the corner with a smirk on his face. He looked down at Mahkra as she ripped the helmet off her head, coughing blood.

"My God," Bryan said. "It's Strak."

"I think since you gave me so much trouble," he said to Mahkra, "I'll let you watch your friends die before I kill you."

She reached for him as he walked away and missed, falling heavily to the ground. Her face was contorted with pain.

"Well, well, well," Strak said as he walked with the pistol pointed toward the ceiling. "Looks like in the end everybody gets screwed in this little adventure, doesn't it?" He squatted a few feet from Scott and Bryan, the pistol leveled at Scott's head. "I almost had it made. I almost won. Too bad my people got a little overzealous and killed when I told them to capture. Then those fucking crabbies starting fucking with us again..."

Strak pointed the pistol at Bryan. "And you, you little fuck, should have known better. Can you imagine what would have happened to you if you had cooperated? You'd have been a hero. Now you'll just be a bit of splattered brain on the wall." Then he stood up, his voice rising to an insane shriek. "You fucked up everything. I could have ruled this fucking planet!"

The sound of footsteps broke Strak's concentration. He looked up to see a civilian running toward him with a club, screaming. Strak fired three shots into the woman. shee collapsed to the floor like a deck of cards.

Strak's voice became calm again as he turned his attention back to Bryan and Scott. "Oh well, life's a bitch. Which one of you wants to fill out the second part first?" He still had the gun pointed at Scott. "I think...you."

His hand was yanked away the instant he fired, the bullet flying off down the hall. Mahkra had slipped behind him. The three fingers of her armored left hand crushed Strak's fingers around the gun. He screamed and tried to pull away. With her right hand she grabbed him by the back of the neck and slammed his face into the wall. Then she drove a blade into his back with her left hand. She pulled it out and dragged him back to the center of the hall. His perfect face was covered with blood. He sank to his knees, barely conscious. Mahkra held him upright by his hair.

"You're history, fucker," she hissed. Then she stabbed him in the side of the neck.

Strak fell to the ground, his mouth gaping like a fish out of water as bright red blood squirted from the wound in his neck in time with his heartbeat.

Mahkra staggered forward. "We gotta get out of here," she hissed, as she painfully bent over to retrieve the briefcase.

"Good idea," Scott said as he propped both Mahkra and Bryan on his shoulders. He grimaced as he half-carried both of them out of the stairs.

Mahkra paused to look at the corpse of the woman on the floor.

"Anyone you know?" Scott asked.

"No," Mahkra said simply.

Bryan glanced at Strak as his twitching body died. He smiled.

They moved down the stairs, passing groups of jubilant civilians who were rampaging through the building. When they saw Mahkra's injury, their moods shifted. A few offered to help in any way that they could, but most stood and stared, disbelieving.

"You did good, Bryan," Mahkra said between painful breaths as her own blood trickled down her armor.

"You did great," Bryan answered.

"Will you two shut the fuck up?" Scott said irritably. "There'll be plenty of time to pat each other's backs later."

"No, Scott," Mahkra said. "There won't."

Scott looked at her, then looked down at gaping wound through her stomach and the stream of blood staining her armor. "Let's just concentrate on getting out of here."

The three of them hobbled clear of the building. Scott paused as the carnage of the battle spread out before him. Mahkra lifted her head and Bryan stared wide-eyed. Hundreds of mutilated bodies were tangled in mounds near the entrance of the building. Blood formed small rivers on the streets. Groups of civilians picked through the landscape of death, carrying away the wounded. A solitary squawker, looking like a sole, shell-shocked survivor, wandered aimlessly through the maze of bodies.

When they saw the three survivors stagger out of the building, a small crowd of civilians excitedly gathered around them and helped carry Mahkra and Bryan away from the building. When they saw the seriousness of Mahkra's condition, though, their moods became more subdued.

In the bustle of bodies surrounding the trio, Mahkra managed to separate herself from Bryan and Scott and stagger into a buggy. No one tried to stop her as she drove off.

Bryan looked around, mopping the blood from his face with a cloth now stained crimson. "Where's Mahkra?"

Scott looked at him and started to say something, then stopped.

"Where did she go?" Bryan demanded.

"You don't get better from the kind of wound she got," he said quietly. "She'd have been dead before the medical team got here."

"No," Bryan said as he sank to the ground, putting his face carefully into his hands. "No. We got a great medical team. She'll be alright."

Scott put his hand around his shoulders. "They couldn't get here in time. She knew it was going to happen. That's why she wanted me to give you this." He took the wrapped thing out of his pocket.

Bryan looked at it through tear-bleary eyes and quickly tore it open. It was his watch.

"Oh God," He said unevenly. "I never even knew her real name."

"You know what, Bryan?" Scott said. "I forgot what it was. I guess that Mahkra is what she is."

They hugged.

It began to rain.

Mahkra stumbled out of the vehicle. The rain had washed the blood off her armor. It was now shining like the day she first became a Carcosan Ranger. She looked up at the rain-filled sky and let the rain wash away her tears as well. Clutching the tunnel that the rail gun had bored through her body, she staggered into the forest. She spoke to herself, playing the drill sergeant to her failing body. Time lost all meaning. The sun's passing to the other side of the planet was only noticeable because the clouds became progressively darker. The rain stopped and the clouds eventually dissipated,

Finally she arrived. There, barely visible above the tangled underbrush, were nineteen crudely hewn tombstones wrapped in vines. All bore names, now barely legible because of time and the elements, and all marked the final resting places of the Carcosan Rangers.

Mahkra fell on her back in the wet underbrush. Something soft and warm moved by her ear and scurried off into the night. Her breathing became labored and more rapid as more and more of her lifeblood oozed out of her wounds.

"God," she said weakly, staring up at the few slivers of the new moon that she could see through the trees, "I know that we haven't been on the best of terms and that I've got the blood of many people on my hands, but please grant me an audience before I die." Her face contorted with pain. "Make sure that Lin and her kid come out alright. Help Bryan to get a better job next time around. And please, grant Scott's children the wisdom to make this a good world again, in spite of the fact that people inhabit it. Same goes for all worlds, and all kids." She managed to laugh slightly at the sentimentality. Her breathing became more rapid as she moaned through clenched teeth again. "That's all...I had...to say." A few seconds later she released her final breath and her body relaxed. The last Carcosan Ranger was dead.

Within seconds after she had breathed her last, a humming emanated from the woods. Shadows began to move out of the underbrush toward her body. Crab-like pincers gently lifted her and carried her back into the woods. More shadows joined the funeral procession and the humming increased.

Finally they arrived at a large clearing. The shadows went about collecting wood and had soon built a massive wooden mountain. They then carefully climbed the mountain with the corpse and laid it on the peak. The humming grew louder.

Then the mountain was lit, and the greatest funeral pyre in the history of the forest flared up into a pillar of fire that reached over the trees.

Thousands had come in attendance of the funeral, summoned by the unspoken messages saturating the forest air. The humming soon reached a fevered pitch. The celebration lasted until the sun again climbed over the horizon. [The great goddess of war, Mahkra, had taught them how to fight the ones with the evil minds who had brought such great pain to their own kind. She had gone into the forest of stone and defeated their leader herself. Now she was no longer needed on this world and had moved on to take her place among the stars. Now there would be peace with the soft-skinned children of the sky.

The crabbies gave their thanks to her for gracing their existence.]