The Essential Path

Chapter 1
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            When her dog, Ry, tensed and stared at the top of the ridge, Peregrine didn’t need to hear the growl rumbling in his chest. Damn! Peregrine thought. This is just one more reason Katylily ought to be here. She grabbed her rifle and ran up the incline.

            Ry moved into position to guard Peregrine’s flank without direction from her. She left the mule at the edge of the berry patch in the shaded ravine, his velvety nostrils flaring and his long, black ears flicking in the same direction the dog had indicated.

            Nothing moved on this side of the hill. No splash of color was out of place. She heard only the rustle of leaves under her own feet and the call of a bell bird in a distant tree. Whatever bothered Ry’s sense of order had to be on the other side of the ridge.

            The mule would have brayed if it was langers, as unlikely as that was during daylight. So it had to be human. Neighbors would have whistled a signal and hoped she wasn’t there to hear them trespassing on her berry patch. It had to be Dracos – another fine representation of the Draco occupying force, sent by the IPC, Interplanetary Peace Commission, to “quell civil unrest.” Another effing dose of insult, violence and grief to Pathans like Peregrine, fighting to maintain their way of life.

            She reached the crest of the hill and crouched low in the scrub. Draco, no mistake about that from the camouflage uniform and the flash of sunlight off the heavy rifle. Through fifty yards of scattered patches of rhododendron and scrub under the yellow varsh trees, she couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman. Not that it mattered. She scanned the steep slopes of the ravine, searching for the rest of the Dracos. She didn’t see any more soldiers and this one certainly wasn’t trying to stay concealed. 

            What she did see was the flash of sunlight again. A streak of black moving through the brush. The Draco’s rifle swinging round at Ry. Without thinking, she stood and screamed, “Ry, drop!”

            The rifle flared. The dog dropped motionless. Peregrine swung her own rifle up.

            “Oh Jesus God, I’m sorry,” the Draco called, and of all things, dropped his rifle.

            Peregrine kept hers firm against her shoulder. “Stay where you are,” she yelled when the Draco took a step toward Ry.

            “I didn’t know it was a dog,” the man babbled. “I thought it was a langer.”

            She wondered how he could tell it was a dog from the motionless black lying so frighteningly still in the bushes. Then she saw the smoke.

            “Smoldering piles of shit!” she bit off the curse to run zig-zags down the hill. A puff of wind raised orange flame. The Draco’s laser fire had caught a patch of fallen leaves just right and ignited them not five feet away from where Ry lay. The soil was moist underneath, but the leaves on top were dry and the varsh trees could go up easily this time of year.

            “Ry, release.” Peregrine had her eyes on the fire, not on the Draco. Just as she reached the fire and began to grind the burning leaves into the damp humus, she heard Ry growl and her peripheral vision caught him leaping. She looked up. The Draco had broken position and ran toward her, rifle in hand again.

            He paused. Swung his rifle into firing position. Followed the arch of Ry’s leaping body.

            And never fired.

            Ry landed his forepaws square on the man’s chest, knocking him flat. Ry snarled, menacingly quiet. He refused to be distracted by the man’s arm and kept his teeth inches from the man’s throat.

            Peregrine had to swallow hard before she could speak. “Drop the rifle,” she ordered, her voice not betraying the panic she’d felt. Her knees went loose and she took a deep breath to keep the rifle firm against her shoulder.

            To his credit, the man didn’t struggle or yell, but he didn’t release the weapon either. “Ma’am, could you please call the dog off?”

            “Not until you drop the rifle.”

            He let it go. “Should I move my hands away from it?”

            “I wouldn’t move much at all if I were you, boyo,” Peregrine said, kicking the rifle away from his hand. She crouched beside him, getting a good look at his face. He might have been in the Draco squad that had quit her holding just six days ago, but he might not. He was young, mid- to late-twenties, she’d guess. He had dark hair, starting to get that shabby, in the field look. And at least two days’ worth of beard when Draco regulations called for a shave, in the field or not. His nose had never been broken – he wasn’t much of a brawler then. Or he was very good. He was fairly smart about dogs, too, because he watched Ry without challenging the dog with direct eye contact, which wasn’t easy with a muzzleful of teeth so dangerously close to his face. He looked wary, but not panicked.

            “What do you want, Draco?”

            “To breathe?” he wheezed.

            She stepped back. “Ry, back off. Guard close.” The dog backed up to her side, never taking his eyes off his opponent. Ry leaned against her leg and the warmth and strength of his body calmed her.

            The Draco took a deep, gulping breath. “Scat! What’s he weigh, 200 kilos?”

            Peregrine declined to answer.

            “Permission to stand, ma’am?”

            “Don’t make any sudden moves. And don’t even think about reaching for your gun.”

            He moved slowly, but easily, twitching his uniform into place in what Peregrine figured was an unconscious motion. The Dracos called the uniform fabric ‘smartwear’ because even though it snugged up tight against the body, it was supposed to move with a soldier, giving him maximum flexibility and still some measure of body armor protection. It wouldn’t even occur to this Draco how just the sight of his armored and camouflaged shirt with its ridiculous blue and white shoulder patches triggered a flood of acid in her stomach. He’d never know how the smell of boot polish, gun oil and sweat evoked memories of Dracos driving away everyone she loved. But Ry sensed it and his hackles rose beneath her fingers.

            When the Draco pulled his shoulders back, Peregrine was surprised he wasn’t taller. She had been around enough Dracos to expect them all to loom over her, but this one wasn’t much taller than she was.

            “You’re not from Alpha or Beta, are you?” Draco officers were always from Alpha or Beta. Ordinary troopers like this one could be from any planet in the Collective.

            “No ma’am. You know I could have shot both you and the dog while you were distracted.”

            Peregrine didn’t answer, just stood easy with her rifle loose and ready in her hands.

            “I’m just saying, if I wanted to harm you, I could’ve. And I could have shot the dog before he reached me, instead of letting him tackle me.”

            “Yes, that is the one defining characteristic of Dracos we all talk about -- how restrained you all are.”

            “I’m not, I don’t,” he stammered, then paused. “I don’t expect you’ll believe it, but I’m not like other Dracos.”

            Peregrine didn’t have time to waste discussing the relative merits of Dracos. “Where’s the rest of your plague?”

            “My what?”

            “A murder of crows, a mob of langers, a plague of dragons. Your patrol, squad, whatever the hell you call the rest of your group. Where are they?”

            “Oh. I don’t know. I’m a little lost,” he added sheepishly.

            She was skeptical on general principle.  Never distill past the spring equinox. Never poke a langer. Never trust a Draco. Lost, my fat aunt’s ass.

            “Ry, perimeter.” With a wave of her hand, she sent the big black dog out to verify the Draco’s statement. The Draco shifted his weight as if he was about to say something. She cut him off. “Where’s your GPS?”

            “Only officers and non-coms have those. And they don’t work most of the time anyway. Captains all say the GPS will be functional soon, that you Omegans can’t have put that many satellite hunters into space. But the non-coms all say the effing GPS is a piece of shit. Pardon, ma’am.”

            Peregrine shook her head. He apologized about a couple of swear words, but he’d say ‘Omegans’ instead of ‘Pathans,’ referring to the planet by its original designation as Alpha Omega, and not even know how offensive it was. He doesn’t know better, she had to admit. He doesn’t know because he can’t find the Path, and he can’t find the Path because he doesn’t respect Path.

             She watched him closely, shifting her gaze for only a second to check Ry’s progress. When Ry headed back through the yellow scrub toward her, she cradled the rifle and asked, “When was the last time you saw your plague?”

            “Early this morning.”

            How lost could anyone get in five or six hours? Factoring in that he was a Draco, she had to admit that he could manage to get himself good and lost in that time. It wasn’t comforting news. The rest of the Draco plague could show up any minute looking for this one. But Ry’s tail arched over his back, waving slowly, and he wouldn’t be relaxed if he scented or sensed other strangers. So they might be miles away, even back at the PC, that ugly mass of plasteel that had swallowed the old city of Crystal Springs and was now known as the Crystal River Population Center.

            She jerked her head in the direction he’d come from. “You’re on my holding. Get off.”

            “Your holding? Oh, you mean you have a contract.”

            Peregrine’s eyes narrowed. “You haven’t been on Path long, have you, boyo? This is my family’s holding. It’s been our holding for seven generations. A damned Draco contract doesn’t mean langer shit to me. This land is my responsibility.”

            Peregrine stepped closer. “The only thing your damned contract means is that military personnel aren’t supposed to be here without written orders approved by an IPC judge to investigate matters that may be of legitimate military concern. You’re military,” she jabbed the butt of her rifle hard in his ribs. He kept his hands spread away from his body and took a step backwards. “Without approved orders,” she jabbed again. “So you can get the hell,” Jab. “Off my holding,” Jab. “Now.” Jab.

            “The thing is, ma’am, not only am I lost,” he took a deep breath. “I’m a deserter. I’m looking for sanctuary.”

            Peregrine’s eyes popped wide and she snorted in disbelief.

            The Draco talked fast. “I overheard the officers talking. Last year squads helped out at two or three holdings. But this year, each squad is doing only one and then patrolling for deserters and information about the underground that helps enlisteds like me.”

            Peregrine lowered the rifle and laughed out loud. “How stupid do you think we are? That we’d risk our lives helping Dracos? Invest time and energy developing some kind of underground for you? And assuming we’d take that risk and make that investment, we’d just show any old Draco wandering in the woods how it all works?”        

            “I know you have to be careful, ma’am.” He spread his hands, palms up, appealing. “Maybe there isn’t any underground at all, maybe that’s just talk. But there’s plenty like me, who’d be happy to go away and leave you in peace if you’d help us.”

            Peregrine leaned forward, resting her hands on the rifle barrel. “Did you ever hear the story of the woman who found a snake freezing on the road? She felt sorry for it, so she picked it up and brought it home. She made a box for it by the fire. The snake got warm, slithered out of the box and bit the woman. As she lay there dying, she said to the snake ‘How could you bite me? I saved your life.’ And the snake said ‘You knew I was a snake when you brought me home.’

            “A dragon is just a snake that has eaten too many fools,” Peregrine observed. “You really expect me to invite you in to sit by the fire, little snake?” In a flash, Peregrine swung the rifle up and pointed it at the Draco’s belly.

            There was a flash of dismay on his face before the soldier’s flat expression returned. She hadn’t really noticed how much human emotion he’d been showing until it disappeared now.

            “You could be arrested for pointing a weapon at me,” he said quietly.

            She snorted. What this one didn’t know was that Commander Tsuma and the rest of the high ranking Dracos at the Crystal River PC had a vested interest in keeping the Bird Distillery running and she was the only one left to do that. All she had to do to stay in business was make sure they never tweaked to the fact that she was far more desperate to keep her distillery running than they were. Or that things were dangerously close to falling apart if her daughter didn’t show up soon.

            “Hell boyo, I could shoot you and leave your body for the langers to dispose of. Or I could tie you to a tree and let the langers do my killing for me.”

            She’d never killed anyone and she certainly couldn’t kill even a Draco as cavalierly as she described. Nor could any Pathan kill a Draco without serious consequences, if the killing could be traced. An officer would laugh at her empty threats. But it never hurt to put a little fear into the rank-and-file troopers whenever possible.

            This trooper didn’t respond. Peregrine pulled the rifle to her shoulder, watching him carefully. He returned her gaze without challenging or flinching.

            She lowered the rifle marginally. “Go on back to your plague and tell them you got lost in the woods.”

            “You’d just let me walk away, wander around lost?”

            “Your being lost is not my concern.”

            “It is if a patrol comes looking for me and I tell them you’re part of the underground.” He sounded more desperate than threatening. Peregrine refrained from laughing.

            “I’ve got nothing to hide from Draco patrols.”

            He barked out a challenging “Ha. Then why did you come charging over that hill? You could’ve just kept hidden.”

            “I wasn’t hiding. I’m dispersing langers.”

            “Alone?” He was still challenging, but on the wrong track. If he knew enough to fill a thimble, he’d have challenged her claim that she was dispersing langers when there wasn’t a whiff of their rank stink in the air and during daylight on a bright and sunny day. Of course, you’ve have an advantage over the photosensitive predators during the day, if you could find them. Everyone knew you had a better chance of finding a Draco’s heart than a langer in sunshine.

            The Draco bounced with nervous energy that triggered a twitch down Peregrine’s spine. She calculated that desperate and young was often a fatal combination and she was going to make sure that any casualties were on his side. She waved him further away from his rifle lying on the ground.

            “What makes you think I’m alone, boyo? Or that I can’t handle a mob of langers or a plague of Dracos if I have to? This is my holding.” She moved the balls of her feet, shaking the nervousness down her calves, through her soles, grounding herself and breathing in confidence from the trees surrounding her and the solid ground supporting her. “I’m in the place Path wants me to be. I’m of the Path and on the Path. I go where Path directs me and do what Path wants me to do.” She sidestepped and bent to retrieve his rifle, never taking her eyes off him.

            “I could help. I could help you hunt langers.”

            “Idiot. You don’t hunt langers; langers hunt you. And I’m not about to show you how I encourage langers to break into smaller mobs and spread into other woods.”

            She shook her head and cursed again the whole series of choices and events that left her alone to hold and keep the Bird distillery intact. If her sister Merganser hadn’t attracted attention from some dangerously high-placed Dracos nearly twenty years ago, it wouldn’t be such a risk to be a member of the Bird Family. If it wasn’t such a risk, Peregrine wouldn’t have agreed with her ex to disguise their daughter’s lineage and Katylily would be here where she ought to be now. And if Peregrine’s mother hadn’t extracted a promise from Peregrine before she disappeared to rescue Merganser, Peregrine wouldn’t feel torn between trying to keep her daughter safe and honoring the promise to keep Bird Distillery running no matter what.

            Well, if the dog hadn’t stopped to chase the rabbit, as her grandfather often said, though he never said what would have happened if the dog hadn’t chased the rabbit. Maybe that was point. That there was no knowing what would have happened if. She couldn’t torture herself with what ifs – it was hard enough just dealing with what was. She was here now and the problem in front of her was a stray Draco.

            “You are a damned inconvenient rabbit, you know that, Draco?”