Deathangel

by Kevin Ikenberry

  Adela frowned at Katya. “What does that mean?”

  “Her translator is broken.” Katya said. “But I think that she’s asking you to check her babies.”

  “They’re not human!” Adela hissed.

  “But you’re a pediatric nurse,” Katya said. She smiled at the alien. “She will check.”

  “Zzzzz thank zzzzz you.”

  Adela took off her gloves and pushed her hood away from her face as Katya unslung the satchel from her shoulders and set it beside the door. She watched Adela step up to the small Veetanho. The new mother stepped away and Adela looked down into the bassinet. The two older Veetanho climbed away quickly, moving with the unstable grace of toddlers toward the protective legs of their mother. Each of them, both girls if Katya’s recognition skills were on point, peered out from behind their mother like every child she’d ever seen on Earth—human or animal.

  Katya smiled at them, hoping it was friendly enough, but the little ones stared agape up at her. She looked at the mother whose face was composed, yet cautious. Katya drew a slow, quiet breath and prepared to speak when Adela’s voice snapped.

  “Get me the survival kit, Katya! Now!” Adela looked over her shoulder. “One of the babies is hypoxic. Not breathing well at all.”

  Katya moved quickly to the pack still hanging from Adela’s back. She dug blindly for the plastic first aid kit and pulled it out. Instinctively, she grabbed a small coil of tubing and emergency shears to create an expedient tracheotomy kit. Stepping up to the bassinet, she saw five small, dark pink babies curled against each other for warmth. The sixth, in Adela’s hand, coughed and squeaked with a whimper before settling down.

  Adela looked over and snorted. “The blanket, Katya. Wrap all of them up.”

  “And that one?” Katya dug back into the kit, found the small wrapper for the Mylar emergency blanket and handed it to Adela over her right shoulder.

  “A mouthful of mucus. Extracted it with my little finger. She’s fine,” Adela said taking the blanket. “Four boys and two girls.”

  There was a familiar sound behind them. The mother Veentaho sighed and raised a tiny paw to her chest. “Thank zzzzz you.”

  Adela spoke softly. “I’ve never held a Veetanho before. They are beautiful.”

  “My name zzzzz Reecha,” the Veetanho said. “You zzzzz stay warm zzzzz here. Cold zzzzz kill.”

  “Thank you,” Katya smiled. “Are you lost?”

  “Like zzzzz you. Hunting zzzzz storm came zzzzz give birth.” Reecha said. The two children left her legs and carefully walked around the narrow container’s floor space. Katya felt herself warming and tugged off her jacket. She turned toward the door in time to see one of the two little females peeling back the diplomatic seal on the satchel and peering inside.

  * * *

  Aboard the Independence

  Snowmass

  “Ready for drop,” Jimmy said into his helmet’s boom microphone. For the last eighteen months, he’d served as everything aboard the Independence from galley assistant to junior navigator. He’d joined the crew to see the galaxy and found his jack-of-all-trades mentality either rubbed experienced crews the wrong way or they loved him like a family member. His first two postings had been far from the family-type experience, but his arrival on the Independence six months before changed everything.

  After meeting the median score for his year-group in the VOWS, Jimmy hadn’t thought much about joining the mercenary units of Earth. In the years after the alpha contracts, only a few really amounted to much, and while the work was lucrative, it was dangerous and often involved fighting someone else’s little war. A few of his friends returned to Earth with their accounts bursting with credits. Most of his friends had not returned at all. Even the ones who survived their first or second missions realized they were more lucky than good. Almost all of them returned to their units for the third time with a palpable reluctance. By then he’d made up his mind. Determined to make his own way, he’d traded everything he owned for a posting with Carthage Shipping and never looked back.

  “Roger, Alpha One.” Yerkes said in his ears. The older man was more than a captain. He’d become the mentor Jimmy never had. “You be careful out there, son.”

  “I will, Captain. What’s my time hack?”

  “Nav says you’ve got about ninety seconds to sweep the area and get back before we have to boost. We don’t have the fuel to linger.”

  Jimmy grinned. “And it’s colder than a witch’s teat out here. I don’t want to be out much longer than that.”

  “You wearing the full exposure suit this time?”

  On his last excursion, looking over wreckage on a small moon called Pavonis, he’d worn only the exterior suit and left the thermal inner lining behind. He’d returned with blue fingers and toes to the constant ribbing of the bridge crew. “I’m not making that mistake twice, sir.”

  “That’s good, Jimmy,” Yerkes chuckled. “I got two credits in the pool on you not forgetting your underwear this time.”

  Jimmy flushed but laughed. “Safest bet you’ve ever made, boss.”

  “Drop in five seconds. The target is bearing 2-1-0 at three kilometers. Any closer and we risk the same type of missile fire that took out the medical transport,” Yerkes said. “Release…now!”

  The flyer dropped off its external mount. Cold air swirled around the open cockpit and seeped into his suit seals at the wrist, ankles, and neck. It wasn’t enough to worry about, but it reminded him to move quickly as the ducted blades bit into the air. Jimmy had control of the aero surfaces and pivoted the flyer’s nose to the target azimuth. The low clouds with a bright starry sky above gave him a sense of the horizon. In the distance, he could make out a thin wisp of smoke.

  “Thermals,” he said, and the visor in his helmet pivoted from a visual spectrum view of the surrounding terrain to an infrared scan. He added a digitized terrain map to the display for good measure. Target fixation was the fastest way to fly into the ground. The wreckage of the dropship showed up a brilliant white in the display, but not as hot as he thought it would be.

  Too damned cold out here. With his left thumb never leaving the flyer’s throttle, Jimmy zoomed in on the source but lost all resolution. If there were people alive down there, they’d be huddled near the warm wreckage. Until he got closer, there was no way he’d be able to see them.

  “Indy, Alpha One. Initial scan is negative. Moving to investigate and timer is set.”

  “Alpha One, you have eighty-nine seconds,” Yerkes replied. “Move your ass, kid.”

  Jimmy pitched the nose down and dropped the flyer to just above the white pointed tips of the massive gnarled trees. As the flyer accelerated, he opened up his longer ranger sensors and the v-dar immediately pinged movement in the distance.

  “Indy, I’m guessing that anything I’m seeing out to the south side of that big ridge isn’t friendly?”

  “What have you got, Jimmy?” Yerkes responded. “Seventy-two seconds to lift.”

  A five second scan of the activity told him there was a company of Veetanho infantry moving toward the crash site. Jimmy mashed the throttle forward to the stops, full military power, and raced between the treetops. The distance to the crash site ticked down and Jimmy decelerated and brought the nose of the flyer up. Over the shattered fuselage, he saw the fires were low and smoldering more than furiously burning. The surrounding trees were clear of snow and the ground near the wreckage looked decidedly barer than the forest itself. There were no lifeforms moving. He swept the area with a synthetic aperture radar looking for changes in the terrain. Dialing up the resolution, he found what he’d hoped to see.

  Footprints.

  “Indy, I’ve got tracks. Unknown number of survivors moved northeast of the site into the forest. I’m following. Looks like the Veetanho have sent a search party, too.”

  “You’ve got sixty seconds to lift.”

  Jimmy swung the flyer to follow the tracks and inched the throttled forward, sweeping
the terrain ahead as he did. His confidence grew, and he kept pushing the throttle quadrant forward. He did the math in his head as he followed the tracks.

  Twenty seconds to the Independence. Ten seconds to load. Thirty seconds to positively identify survivors and the temperature is what? He glanced at the display. Fuck. Minus eleven Celsius.

  “Indy, I’ve got tracks but cannot positively identify.” Jimmy said. “I’m going to follow them. Boost to orbit. I’ll get a ride up.”

  There was no response for five seconds. Out of the forest a clearing appeared, and in the middle of the clearing lay the wreckage of an orbit drop. He’d seen it before, a few times actually. Human companies got lazy when they deorbited equipment. It was far easier to drop it, come what may, than to actually land and have to burn precious fuel and time escaping a planet’s gravity well. The Independence was a small freighter with excellent power plants, but she had to ascend to orbit virtually empty.

  “Like hell you will, Jimmy,” Yerkes snapped. “We’re boosting for orbit. We’ll go around once and drop a ship to get you or your body. You hear me?”

  Either way, I’ll be going home.

  Jimmy snorted. “Yes, sir. I’ve got the tracks headed into the wreckage pile at your 1-8-5. Do you see it?”

  “Copy, all. We’re relaying the information to New Perth. No acknowledgment of the transmission.”

  They’re not coming.

  He glanced behind him in the open cockpit. There were two survival kits mounted to the cockpit walls. Food and water wouldn’t be an issue. There were limited medical supplies, too, and there were weapons. If the Veetanho were indeed coming, they’d need all three unless they could move quickly.

  “Copy, Indy. I’m landing and pursuing on foot.”

  “Good luck, kid.” Yerkes replied. “We’ll see you on the flip side.”

  Jimmy picked a spot in the clearing about two hundred meters from the wreckage. With his left hand, he retarded the throttle all the way back to idle and adjusted the fans to a vertical landing position. Even before the skids touched the snow, he was powering down the fans and reaching for the survival kits. As the flyer settled into the snow, Jimmy grabbed the kits and a MP-45 pistol strapped to the cockpit wall. He vaulted over the side and intended to slide neatly down the fuselage to his feet until one leg hooked the cockpit rail and spun him sideways halfway down.

  Fuck!

  Jimmy slammed into the snow face first, and one of the survival kits fell on his head for good measure.

  Snow worked under his goggles and onto his cheeks but did little to cool his flushing face. He rolled over in the snow, felt it crunch under his back like it had done a long time ago in North Carolina or Virginia; he couldn’t remember where. He’d been six the first time he’d seen snow. Laying in the snow on a planet light years from Earth, he looked up into the clearing clouds and smiled.

  At least nobody saw me.

  He laughed once and the let it come again. In the corner of his eye, he saw the Independence light her boosters and climb toward orbit. Jimmy watched the bright, bluish-white plumes of exhaust from the mains light up the countryside around him. In the shimmering light, he saw the unmistakable shadow of something approaching.

  Jimmy rolled over to his front, moved into a low crouch, and readied to draw the pistol as a voice called.

  “You okay?”

  He froze. The voice was a woman with an eastern European accent, maybe Russian. “I’m fine.”

  “Who are you and what are you doing here?”

  “I’m here to rescue you,” he said and closed his eyes. Fuck, that was smooth! “I’m from that ship that just launched. I flew down here to get you out.”

  The woman chuckled. “You flew down here and fell out of your ship. Are you sure you can get us out?”

  He blushed furiously but stood up and faced her. He couldn’t make out her features with her heavy exposure suit, but she held an assault rifle at the low-ready and looked as if she could handle it if it became necessary.

  “There’s activity to the south. Could be the Veetanho coming to investigate,” Jimmy said. “We have to get you out of here.”

  The woman shuffled and tipped her head. “Oh, I’m sure they’ll be coming. Let’s get back inside where it’s warm. Just be quiet. Don’t wake the babies.”

  “The what?” Jimmy squinted. “What are you talking about?”

  “Come along, Snowman.” The woman smiled at him and pointed. His exposure suit was covered with fine, powdery snow from head to foot. There was laughter in her voice and Jimmy found himself smiling back as she spoke again. “All your questions will be answered inside where it’s warm and dry. Just don’t wake the babies.”

  * * *

  Container Field

  Snowmass

  When she’d heard the flyer, Katya had shooed the little Veetanho away from the satchel before going outside to investigate. When she returned with the young man, pushing through the door quickly and as quietly as they could, the two older Veetanho children were again playing with the satchel, and she did nothing to stop them. Katya watched the little Veetanho as if everything was in slow-motion. One furry child pitched forward with an excited squeal and nearly fell into the open top of the satchel. Her little arms worked side to side as she pulled hard on something and then popped up, eyes wide and her little mouse-like maw smiling.

  In her paws was a stuffed brown bear. She reached into the satchel and came up with another bear. Her sister squeaked and took one. The two little furry aliens danced across the small room with their prizes. Katya looked up and saw Adela, still cradling a tiny baby Veetanho, watching them with glistening eyes.

  She glanced at her wrist slate: 0034.

  Christmas morning.

  Katya walked past the playing little ones and looked inside the diplomatic satchel. There was nothing diplomatic about the cargo. A bottle of scotch shipped from Earth in its classic cardboard tubing, a large jar of olives, and a wheel of a type of cheese she’d never heard of before but that smelled like sweaty feet. There was a small cloth bag in the bottom. Keeping it inside the satchel, Katya worked the drawstrings open and found a handful of ten credit coins.

  Roughly a hundred credits, she thought. Not much on a major planet, but out here it’s a small fortune.

  Katya swept the contents aside and found a small foil-wrapped loaf of bread but no diplomatic cargo. There was a letter, a simple green envelope with the name of the colony leader, Johann Pryce, and the return address for the Dream World Consortium. Deciding to hand deliver the letter, she tucked it inside her own jacket. Looking back at the satchel, she thought about taking the bag of credits, but she left it where it was.

  “What’s in there?” Adela said. “Doesn’t look like anything diplomatic to me.”

  “Me either,” Katya frowned. “I think this was destroyed in the crash, don’t you?”

  Adela smiled and returned her attention to the tiny Veetanho nestled in her arms. “What satchel?”

  “Indeed,” Katya nodded. She looked at the snow-covered form of the flyer pilot. “And who are you, Snowman?”

  “My name’s Jimmy. I’m crew on the freighter Independence. They sent me down to search for survivors and are calling New Perth for rescue.” The young man tugged away his goggles revealing bright blue eyes that startled her. “There’s a group of Veetanho coming from their side of the valley. We need to get your stuff and get out of here now.”

  “We’re not leaving the babies,” Adela said softly.

  Katya nodded. “We stay here. They might be coming to rescue Reecha and her children. They can help us.”

  “They might be coming to kill us.”

  Reecha spoke quickly, but her failing translator could not keep up. “No zzzzz hunting zzzzz lost zzzzz find zzzzz before zzzzz death. You zzzzz friend.”

  A sudden knock came at the container door and Katya shot to her feet. Jimmy looked at her and drew a pistol from his coveralls, but Reecha scurried past them both and shus
hed them with a small digit over her maw in an all-too-human “quiet” gesture.

  Reecha opened the door and the icy breeze flickered the candles. A heavily armed Veetanho female stepped into the container but kept her weapon’s muzzle down. She locked eyes with Katya, Adela, and Jimmy before looking at Reecha. The newcomer did not wear a translator, so one side of the conversation was incoherent and almost inaudible squeaking.

  “No zzzzz safe. Hunt zzzzz long. Could not zzzzz nest,” Reecha said.

  The armed Veetanho looked at Katya and Adela for a long moment and then pointed at them, squeaking a question laced with what sounded like ire.

  Reecha pointed at them. “No zzzzz nurses. He zzzzz pilot.”

  Another series of squeaks. The soldier adjusted her grip on the weapon.

  “Yes zzzzz armed. No zzzzz danger.”

  The leader stepped up to Katya. Despite being only slightly taller than her navel, the little alien dominated the space. She’d never seen such a commanding presence from something so tiny. It squeaked at her imposingly. Katya was caught between fearing for her life and laughing at the absurdity of getting berated by a small furry alien.

  The Veetanho stopped speaking and Reecha translated. “Veeka zzzzz want zzzzz know zzzzz why zzzzz no kill zzzzz us?”

  Katya took a long, slow breath and locked eyes with Adela, and then turned to the imposing Veetanho. “You are not our enemy, Veeka.”

  Reecha translated and the Veetanho’s facial muscles twitched. It didn’t appear satisfied and looked at all three of the humans for a long moment, lingering on Adela.

  “Besides, it’s Christmas,” Adela whispered and looked down at the baby in her arms. “Our most special night of the year.”

  Reecha translated the words to Veeka and then turned to Katya. “What zzzzz Christmas?”

  Katya winced. Whether the Veetanho had religion, or celebrated anything of the sort, was beyond her knowledge. Explaining to an alien felt just as baffling.

  The young man spoke up. “On Earth, many of our kind celebrate the birth of a baby who they believe is the son of God. The creator of our universe.”