The Mongrel: A Military Sci-Fi Series (Hunter's Moon Book 1)

by Walt Robillard

  Kel moved forward to the doctor. “Is he in danger?”

  “The worms have never been dangerous to something in the pods. Healing. They derive sustenance through the process. His vital signs are strong and getting stronger. I've never seen them heal so quickly or act in this manner. Wait...” The doctor began to cycle through various screens on the pad. When the pad couldn't switch fast enough, she brought the information to the air in as holograms. Data streamed through her furious displays like debris caught in a tornado. She got to one screen, whisking the rest away and took a tentative step back. “Not possible.”

  Each word was punctuated by a ragged breath escaping a stunned mouth. Kel and Yuzheff looked on as if the expression on her face would give them any answer. A large tremor shook the entire mesa, dropping small stones in a shower of dust and surface dirt. The assembled crowd gasped.

  There was quiet for the briefest of moments as if the world at large was holding its breath to see what would happen next. Then the vibrations started, building into a low hum. A voice surrounded the crowd and filled the mesa. It was a deep thrum, like the monks from some ancient monastery weaving a tale from their ancient throat songs. A grating trumpeting sound filled the ancient structures and then evaporated into nothing.

  Fearful chatter spread through the crowd. Some fled the mesa entirely, preferring the windswept grass. Some dropped in place, hugging loved ones tight. Kel looked to his old friend. “You ever hear anything like that?”

  He shook his head from shoulder to shoulder. His countenance was of someone who had just seen an old legend made real. It was a look of confusion mixed with wonder. Had the men of Old Sol seen a dinosaur, they might have worn the same look Yuzheff had now.

  Another rumble shook the mesa. The sounds that followed were different from the hum. It was more of a tone, soft at first. The volume grew until every space of the mesa was filled with its music. It rose and dipped. In some spaces, it was whistle-like, and in others, an aria from an opera not sung in recent memory. Almost everyone in the crowd stood transfixed. It was the folk who had fled to the grasses, returning to hear the music, that brought everyone's attention back to the pit.

  Lasher rose from the soil. Bits of dirt and herbs as well as the shiny rainbow-hued mucus fell from him. He wore several medical sensor pods glued to his skin in addition to a mask to cover his face, allowing him to breathe while buried alive. He was kneeling, still partially covered up to his thighs. Slowly, the nose tips of the worms poked their pointed heads from the soil. A multitude of the creatures formed a perfect circle around the former patient.

  The eel-like worms, a dark black with a purplish hue, turned gray the longer they remained above the soil. When they were almost white, their skins cracked. Something inside the worm peeled away the carcass, every bit something new shedding an old form. They had the appearance of worm-like wasps. They were slender, with six dexterous legs that struggled to take their first moments to stand.

  As strength built, each spread gossamer wings, which shrugged off the last bits of its transformation. The wings burst into a ghostly fire, which lit the chamber. More groans of wonder and speculation filled the crowd. The doctor, who was the sole person on the top of the pods, dropped her slate to the ground and followed it to her knees. Tears streamed down her face, highlighted by the ghostly fire of the winged worms.

  As the phantom fliers took to the air, they swarmed about Lasher. The light surrounding him built when more of the flaming insects tamed the sky, creating a halo around the man they had just healed. Blue light, tinged with flecks of orange, filled the chasm, the ethereal song building into an amazing chorus. It was beautiful and haunting. Every mouth that witnessed the spectacle was open, every eye at the very least ringed in tears.

  Sudden darkness engulfed the mesa. The song had halted. Lights slowly came back on. Lasher was alone on top of the healing pit. The doctor remained motionless a few meters away from him. The shed worm skins still ringed where he knelt. Those who were curious enough to move closer could see scores of the worms jumping the divide to go back to their separate pods.

  Lasher opened his eyes. They were yellow, tinged with red, glowing in the gloom. He looked at the doctor.

  She managed to gasp, “Are they awake?”

  Lasher nodded.

  “Did you speak to them?”

  Lasher's voice came through speakers in the mask. The digital echo combined with the strange hue in his eyes gave his answer the gravity of a runaway truck. “Yes.”

  Kel turned to Yuzheff. “What just happened?”

  Yuzheff was panting and sweating. He faced his friend, the same look of wonder on his face. “A reckoning.”

  Fifteen

  “TFO Lead to Striker Leader.”

  “Go for Striker Lead.”

  The Battle-net squelched as the Tactical Flight Operations Leader relayed his information. “This is TFO, we have DZ Hot Plate on scope. ETA to drop, ten mikes. How copy?”

  “Good copy. Striker Lead, out.” Captain Gerard sat inside one of the lancer armored personnel carriers, currently being dragged along the sky. The APCs had the appearance of armored boats, held aloft by repulsors on the belly. The ventral repuslors were armored, to prevent mines and improvised explosives from knocking them out. While the main body was covered with a hybrid alloy of Resicarbon and Duradium, the ARC-Bulldog was also equipped with repulsor reactive armor. This assumed that any munitions, short of air-to-surface types, penetrated the high yield deflector screens. The vehicle was finished off with a remote-operated, turret-mounted, twenty-five millimeter blaster cannon as well as a missile pod launcher.

  The captain stared at the targeting data for the hot drop he and his men were about to perform. A hot drop was a type of air assault operation in which vehicles such as the MXT-31 Condor Sky-Lifter were used to drop a payload of vehicles close to the ground. Repulsors on the tanks would be spun up to maximum before the drop and would bounce the vehicle until it stabilized. Even at high speed, the repulsors would easily compensate for the roughly ten-meter fall. The Condors would then hard climb to cloud cover, returning to their point of origin.

  Gerard looked at the various screens floating around his HUD. Retinal tracking within the helmet caught him looking at a flashing light to his right. A quick blink with his right eye highlighted the symbol. A message appeared above the symbol. “Incoming Call – Answer – Decline?”

  “Captain Gerard, this is Lieutenant Tom Surran from the FOX-MIKE Intel Service, attached to Delta-Hotel 2-9. We have your deployment zone marked. Three-sixty is up and locked. We have advised TFO Lead to alter approach due to debris on station. Adjust flight time back two mikes.”

  “Roger Out.” Facial tracking in the captain's skid lid registered a muscular twitch of the face, indicating the captain wanted that particular screen closed, ending the call. A new screen with contacts spun up and highlighted Striker-Heavy, the company first sergeant. “Striker Lead to Striker Heavy.”

  Another squelch broke through the various feeds of the helmet heads-up-display. A voice-only signal bar launched and barked, “Go for Heavy.”

  “Adjusting time hack for two mikes down. Alternate route due to debris on the field. Hard lock-down in five. How copy?”

  The first sergeant understood immediately. His men had five more minutes of wiggle time before they would lock into their crash harnesses to go for the air assault. He preferred air assaults to airborne operations, where he would drop from higher altitudes. He hated acting like a piñata, hoping folks shooting blindly into the air wouldn't get a whack at him or his men. “Good copy, Striker Lead. Heavy, out.”

  Another ping entered the captain’s HUD from the left. He twitched his facial muscles to acknowledge it. As he read the tracking data, he didn't understand exactly what he was seeing. He cycled back to the FIS officer. “Delta Hotel 2-9, this is Striker Lead.”

  Tom came onto the Battle-net. “Striker Lead, this is Delta Hotel 2-9, send traffic. Over.”

>   Gerard rolled his eyes. He could tell this LT had very little by way of field time. He loved the radio too much. Most lancers, and even most troopers from the Force Majeure, disliked talking on the radio. Radio jargon combined with tracking down call signs and colorfully detailed identifiers took time away from the work of being a lancer or trooper. While the flow of information was necessary, on-board cryptography and the heavily protected Battle-net meant that one could speak normally if they wanted to. Unfortunately, Central Command continued to insist on communicating like this. It sounded good in books, comics, and holos about military operations. Real troopers thought of it like shaving. It was a pain to do but got the desired result.

  “2-9, our GSS has picked up an unidentified victor moving to you at two-seven-one, near ground level. You have any skiffs out?”

  There was silence from the other side of the call. No doubt, Tom was checking vehicle and personnel status. A moment passed. “We have no victor authorized off station. The only vehicle that went out...”

  There was silence for another moment. Gerard looked at the countdown timer in his HUD. He was getting close to the time his men would hard lock into their harnesses and then it would be seven minutes to drop. After listening to an impromptu incident report from Force Commander Hylaeus, he knew things in the area were not only strained, they were damned near unpredictable. He didn't have time to fool with unknowns.

  “2-9?” Silence. “2-9, come in.” More silence.

  As Gerard was going to signal the pilot to wave off, Tom responded, “Striker Lead, this is Delta-Hotel 2-9. We have an incoming XLR skiff at two-seven-seven degrees. This is potentially a hostile force seeking entry into the fort. Can you intercept?”

  “Roger out.” The captain cut the feed.

  Before he could relay orders, the Battle-Net icon for 2-9 resurfaced, forcing a connection. “Striker Lead, this is 2-9. Please confirm intercept.”

  Gerard's jaw clenched. This desk monkey was not only jacked up on proper field radio procedure, if he kept talking, Bravo Company would miss their drop window. “2-9. Roger means I heard everything you said and will take care of it. Out means stop talking.” He shut down the stream and switched back to their Flight Leader. “TFO Lead, this is Striker Lead. Alpha Mike to heading three-four-eight degrees for four minutes, hard burn. Bring us around for descent to nine-four degrees. Sending you new DZ.”

  “On target, Striker Lead. You want even dispersion around that mover we just caught on our scope?”

  “Roger, TFO Lead. Striker Out.”

  The wind felt good on Mara's face. She had worked hard all day long. Thirty-two-hour days made for some long stretches of work to rest. She had been grime covered but had chanced fifteen minutes to shed her armor, bathe in a calm spot in the river, and then continue her mission.

  The sound of the grasses over the repulsors was a spot of calm in the turbulence of the last few days. It was just this morning that Lasher was to be questioned for exacting bloody vengeance against those responsible for his loss. Now, he was a wanted fugitive, responsible for the death of an entire tribe and the death of several lancers. There was also the little matter of a conspiracy to clean up. Mara inhaled the clean air of the steppe as it whipped by her face and tossed her hair. The grass and wind didn't care. She would enjoy this moment of calm, the eye of the storm.

  Sister Leeuwen was ahead of the bodies stacked on the deck of the skiff. Combat skiffs were long enough to accommodate a few squads at a time. The deck was sufficient to hold the bodies of the fallen, stacked as respectfully as they could muster. The sister sat cross legged on the deck. Her robes whipped in the wind, occasionally giving a hint of armor. The scarred protection revealed the life of a Vernai Monk was anything but serene. It was a look she wore well in the front of the skiff, a silent guardian to the dead.

  Her head turned to regard the marshal. “Do you sense that? A branch in the Way.”

  The marshal cursed herself for chancing a moment to live in her own head. Something hostile was lurking around some sinister purpose. She should be channeling the power of the Crucible outward.

  The marshal focused. Somewhere close. In the clouds. A transport held duty, honor, and devotion. There were lancers in the night sky. Lots of them. This had to be the lost lancer company that was supposed to be on duty at the fort. Some of them were new. She could sense their nervousness at their first time riding the mayhem, as combat drops were sometimes called. She could also sense the veterans and their sense of purpose. They were mission-ready.

  It was reaching deep into the Way that she felt it. An old connection to the Crucible. If the analogy of the Crucible held, this was a connection to the oldest parts of the Forge. She brought the skiff to a stop.

  Leeuwen stood. “What is that?”

  “I don't know. It's all around us,” Truveau said.

  Images flashed through the Way. The sight of dying lancers preceded Marshal Ferrand dying in a hail of blaster fire. The Tyth were trampled beneath armored feet surrounded by thunder and chrome. Something stirred in the shadows cast by the fire, scared away by a massive grey lion roaring into the dark. Movement through the earth, like a massive beast tunneling on some unknown purpose, fought for dominance of the vision. Whatever it was, it was old. It burst from the ground into the open blue-green sky, as storm clouds rent the expanse with shivs of greenish lightning.

  The images faded. Both Marshal Truveau and Sister Leeuwen panted. They were on their hands and knees, trying to find balance enough to stand.

  “Did you just have a nightmare cocktail with a migraine chaser?” Mara asked.

  Sister Leeuwen pushed her face outside of the rails of the skiff and emptied the contents of her stomach. She leaned against the rail, panting and tightly shutting her eyes. “I don't understand the reference in your joke. But if you're asking if I was just subjected to a massive wave of power from the Crucible, then yes, I had the cocktail chase.”

  Truveau rolled her eyes. For her, dealing with the Vernai was always an exercise in patience. The monks often lived an ascetic lifestyle. They kept little by way of personal possessions and spent long stretches in meditation on the Way. It was the Temper, an exercise in the Crucible, that honed their skills, which usually ground out their sense of humor.

  As the waves of power faded and reality turned to normal, both women chanced a glance at each other before looking beyond the vehicle. The buzz saw whine of a main drive engine could be heard somewhere in the clouds. It was moving away, leaving the night empty of the artificial sound and replaced by wind and tall grass. The emptiness reminded Truveau of vids from Old Sol she had seen as a child. The game of baseball was famous for its players hitting a ball with a stick. The loud crack of the bat would be followed by a breath of silence before a crowd erupted in cheering or sneering.

  The quiet of the night was broken as an object dropped from the sky, just ahead of the right side of the skiff. An explosion of noise heralded its descent before striking the ground. The high-pitched squeal of the object's repulsor projectors were indicative of the system being cranked to maximum lift. Under normal circumstances, this would cause a repulsor-fitted vehicle to jump. In a controlled drop, the whine preceded a bubble of energetic force, which flattened the grass in a ten-meter radius, bouncing the vehicle several times like the shock absorbers on a wheeled vehicle.

  The vehicles were large and shoebox-shaped, except for a sloped side in the front. A gun cupola on the top of the vehicle swept to the left and locked on to the skiff. As the turret reported, locking on to target by a loud ka-thunk, another high-pitched whine came just ahead of a force bubble, signaling the descent of another hover tank.

  Truveau recognized them immediately. ARC-Bulldog armored personnel carriers. Whining slams came one after another until the steppe appeared littered with the deadly machines. Each vehicle was in view while maintaining a stand-off distance from the skiff. Every few slams came with a buzz-saw roar, another APC-carrier aircraft climbing away from the d
rop zone.

  The eerie display was interrupted by a booming voice over a loudspeaker. “Marshal Truveau. This is Striker Company, 2nd Battalion, 9th Lancer Regiment. Please drop all weapons and stand with your hands held high.”

  Captain Gerard walked from the squad of lancers securing the skiff. A quick motion of his wrist brought First Sergeant Trask within an arm's length. The officer removed his helmet, signaling for his counterpart to do the same.

  “Not trusting the Battle-Net this morning, sir?” The First Sergeant inquired.

  “After talking with our new Marshal friend, I'm not trusting much after listening to their story. What do you make of this, Top?”

  “Other than it seems like those entertainment vids my wife likes, sir. You know the ones where the six-pack abs ends up solving all the galaxy's problems while the rest of us are blissfully unaware?”

  Gerard waggled his head back and forth. He was chewing on his lip as a mental tick to mirror him chewing on this new information. The lancers served at the pleasure of the Marshals Templar and few things were ever easy or straightforward when they were involved. At the direction of the ranking marshal's intel-monkey, they had intercepted the skiff that not only had the recovered bodies of the fallen, but also a member of a Gauntlet Team from San Verone hitching a ride. He wondered what Trask's wife and her vids would have to say about that. “Yeah. That. Top, our forecast just went from hazy to dark and stormy and I'm not liking that dawn is a ways off, if you catch my meaning?”

  “Sir. Caught and returned. Someone managed to mess with our orders from CENTCOM and when we come up for air, we're suddenly drowning in monks and marshals. Same ghost also smoked a whole load of our boys and sent Marshal Ferrand into the dirt. She was good people and one Hells of a smart fighter. We should run slick and silent until we know what we're dealing with. I think we should split the force and come at the fort from different directions.”