by Baen Books
“Thomas!” Erita said, taking a step back with her eyes wide. Whether or not she was feigning shock I could not quite discern. “You are not thinking of taking revenge upon Xan because you lost the last round, are you?”
“Not at all,” I said, assuming a bored expression that was no more genuine than hers. “I have had as much fun as I can handle. I prefer to limit my pursuits to ones more worthy of my time. Besides, I believe that the Nikplig police would like to see the back of us, as helpful as we have just been.”
Erita rolled this truth over in her mind.
“True,” she admitted.
“You win,” Nell said, throwing up her hands. “You can have Melusine. You’re getting to be just as elderly as she is. With an attitude like that you might as well give yourself over to becoming a useful member of society.”
“Perish the thought!” I exclaimed, stung at the insult. It had come a little too close to a truth I would not admit even to her. “Come on, then! I will race you home. I’ll show you who is getting elderly.”
Picket Ship
by Brad R. Torgersen
The seven-man picket ship bucked and slewed wildly as it flew through thick, turbulent air. Tall spires—the trunks of temperate marshland trees—whipped past the forward canopy while Chief Warrant Officer Amelia Schumann fought for control. Computerized alarm bells screamed in her ears. There had been too much battle damage. Coming down from orbit had made things worse. Schumann slammed her throttles wide open, pulling the control stick into her stomach and willing the vessel to gain altitude.
No good. The little spacecraft shuddered horribly. Piece by ragged piece, chunks of the starboard retractable aero wing peeled off. The control surfaces of the tail planes also remained frozen—their power leads cut by hostile fire.
A large hill loomed in the distance. It was all Amelia could do to nudge the nose of her vessel a few centimeters to port, hoping desperately to avoid the bluff.
Too little, too late.
The belly of the picket ship caromed off the top of the hill, sending it ass-over-teakettles, to come crashing into the middle of the huge trees on the other side. Chief Schumann screamed, every muscle in her body clenching up—waiting for the end to come. Branches and leaves smashed through the ruined canopy, whipping the cockpit and tearing viciously at her flight armor.
Cloudy water suddenly flooded the cockpit and immersed Amelia’s helmet as she hung upside down in her seat. The flight armor should have sealed tight to the helmet when the cockpit was compromised, but something was wrong. Water began to flow around Amelia’s scalp, reaching upwards to cover her eyes, then her nose. Amelia screamed and fought with the restraints of her seat as the water flooded her sinuses, cut off her air supply: stinking, choking, killing. Schumann writhed and banged back and forth in her seat, the straps holding her in a death grip as her wrecked spacecraft sank, sank, sank—
#
Amelia suddenly blinked. She was awake. There was complete silence, save for the sound of warbling insects. Not precisely Earth crickets, but similar. The bright stars of night filled Amelia’s vision. Sweat dripped off her face, and her throat felt ragged. There was a firm grip on her right hand and she realized that she was shaking.
“Are you all right, ma’am?” said a concerned, deep voice.
Ladd, Amelia thought with a sigh. Thank God!
“I . . . I think I’m okay,” she whispered hoarsely.
Sergeant Warner Ladd held a canteen to Amelia’s lips, and she found herself greedily gulping at a stream of lukewarm, clean water.
“You were dreaming,” Ladd said, deadpan.
Amelia sat slowly upright, becoming aware of the other Fleet soldiers who surrounded her. They were barely visible in the night light, but they were there, watching.
The tension was palpable. Amelia could feel their uneasy contempt. For her. For putting them all in this predicament. Instead of being well on their way back to Sol System—to warn Earth—they were now grounded. Unable to complete their primary mission. And in serious jeapordy of getting killed. This wasn’t what they’d trained for. This wasn’t how the war was supposed to go.
Amelia almost laughed at the absurdity of her thoughts. War. What did any of them really know about fighting? She was an astronaut, after all. And the others were technicians of one kind or another. Their rank had been largely thrust upon them when the mantis aliens had crushed the human colony known as Marvelous. A lone starship—fleeing in the wake of Marvelous’s destruction—had managed to warn Earth. And Earth had slapped together a hasty defense.
The Fleet: a drafted amalgam of existing civilian and military personnel matched with existing ships and space stations.
Dozens of little vessels like the one Amelia had flown—and lost—were hastily constructed, and posted in orbit around every human world. So that if the aliens struck again . . .
That the mantes had attacked New America meant that they might be striking elsewhere too. It was the job of the picket ships to send word of attack, while the bigger ships took the fight to the enemy. And gave Earth—and the other worlds under Fleet’s protection—enough time to prepare a response.
But the space surrounding New America had been quickly flooded with enemy ships. The few missiles Amelia had managed to fire, had died impotently against what she could only describe as translucent energy shielding.
There’d been almost no chance for escape.
Which didn’t make Amelia feel any better. She was the pilot. It had been her job to make a quick exit. She’d acted too slowly. The jump apparatus could not be operated in close proximity to a gravity well as deep as that of New America. When a mantis missile had proximity detonated near her spacecraft . . .
Amelia wiped at her eyes.
“Ma’am, I think we should pick up and move on,” Ladd said. “The mantes have no doubt been searching for us since we left the crash site, and that muffled scream you just let out will act like a beacon for any mantis within a thousand meters.”
Ladd’s voice held no hint of emotion. To Amelia, his manner was relieving and infuriating at the same time. The rest of the crew blamed Amelia for what she had done to them, so why not Ladd? She almost wished he would simply chew her out for her mistake. She deserved it. Yet, he remained nonplused and professional—the picture of a model NCO.
“You’re right again, Ladd. I . . . I’m sorry.” Amelia said. “We should get away from this place. And try another call to the Aegean.”
Ladd voiced agreement, and Amelia levered herself off the root bed she had been sleeping on. Then she dropped into the hip-deep water that surrounded her. The wetlands were humid, and cool, and it was only the vacuum-capable combat armor—worn by all—that kept them from falling prey to hypothermia. Amelia shouldered her compact pilot’s rifle by its sling, and followed Ladd as he waded his way back to where the other five survivors of the crash were huddled amongst the trees.
#
It moved over the water with its siblings—the many acting in unison, to almost form a single entity. Like wolves following the trail of their prey, they hunted, tracing the taste of machine oils, metal, and human flesh. The creature—using the sensory capacity infused by its saucer-shaped, biomechanical carriage—surmised that its tactical group had indeed discovered the location of the crashed hostile spaceship.
The mantis group leader’s orders had been clear: exterminate all humans. This order had come from the very top. The Queen Mother was very angry that such a prime, vital planet as this one had been violated by the presence of the soft, bipedal aliens. It was an affront to mantis supremacy in the galaxy.
Human intelligence was dangerous. Much too random. In mantis society, every individual knew his or her place from the moment awareness was attained. The humans, meanwhile, were messy. Disorganized. They built haphazardly, they lived haphazardly, they were stupid, and they were in the way. So, the Queen Mother’s forces came to this world—which would make an excellent future mantis colony, by the looks o
f it—to cleanse, and to prepare the way.
The tactical group found the human crash site.
Like the insects that they were, the mantes swarmed over the ship, probing for any signs of life. The scent of humans was still strong in the area, but there was no sign that the human crew had loitered. They’d fled further into the wetlands. Either towards what they thought would be safety, or away from pursuit. The group leader surmised that it mattered not. His force was good. If the crashed human ship was any indication, the fugitive crew numbered few. And the mantes could glide through the trees with ease, while the clumsy humans slogged.
When eventually the tactical group caught up with its prey, the humans would be no contest.
Signalling for his troops to follow, the group leader hurried off.
#
Amelia could almost sense the enemy lurking out beyond the farthest trees, waiting for the chance to spring and pull her human crew to pieces with their serrated forelimbs. Grainy digital camera footage from the ship that had fled Marvelous told the story: the mantis aliens were carnivorous beasts. With bulbous insect like eyes, and fearsome beaks filled with terrible teeth that vibrated when the aliens were aggressive. Or feeding. The footage seemed to indicate that there was little difference, once battle was joined. And those flying saucers the aliens rode on . . . nightmarish!
Still, while the company was true, hope flickered like a candle.
Amelia watched Sergant Ladd’s back, and wondered about the man. He had served ten years in the United State Army, and fought in no human wars of which she was aware. Yet being pressed into Fleet service seemed to make no difference to him. He knew his job, and he knew his people, and he didn’t seem to worry about that which didn’t need worrying about.
Which just made Amelia’s guilt worse. The crew were clearly Ladd’s to command. Not hers. Oh, there had always been a degree of deference. But Amelia was only a Chief by accident: utility pilots of all description being accorded the middle-step rank of Warrant Officer in Fleet’s laddered heirarchy. If Amelia flew the ship, Ladd clearly drove the men. Each of whom regarded the sergeant with trusting eyes.
For Amelia, there were only wary glances.
She kept her eyes forward and pushed through the knee-high water. New America’s alien trees began to thin out, and the remnants of the picket ship’s crew soon found themselves in a wide, shallow patch of marsh which was only ankle deep.
Overhead, the bright stars sparkled and danced. But the eastern horizon was just becoming visible as dawn approached. Little lights maneuvered crazily in the sky overhead. Occasionally one of them would flare brightly, and die. Loud booms sounded in the distance—explosions from the mantis planetary invasion? The nearest city was over a hundred kilometers off. Perhaps other human craft had crashed? The bigger Fleet ships had numerous escape pods . . .
Amelia stopped, and called everyone to a halt. Ladd didn’t need to be told what to do. He hastily erected their portable emergency satellite dish. He tapped a few codes into the wrist key pad on his left arm and waited for his armor’s internal communications computer to uplink to any of the human-made ships that should have been in orbit. The Aegean was the newest, largest, and theoretically toughest. If any Fleet ship would be giving it back to the enemy, it would be the Aegean. Alien shields, or no alien shields.
There was a long pause, followed by static in the crew’s ears
“Awwww, man!” Specialist Shaw drawled with much displeasure.
“We be effed,” came the voice of Corporal Powell, a heavy weapons engineer who knew a picket ship’s missile bays like the back of his hand—and was the only troop large and muscular enough to tote their single squad weapon through the uneven, flooded terrain of the wetlands.
A cacophony of groupwide bitching suddenly errupted. Ladd tried to interject, but the crew had had enough, and were jawing at full steam, drowning out the Sergeant’s baritone barking. A day and a night of forced marching had rubbed nerves raw. Men went chest to chest. Somebody shoved somebody else.
That did it. They were ingnoring the sergeant, dogpiling like children, splashing and shouting and filling the air with profanity.
Amelia tried to drown out the noise with her own sullen thoughts, but it was impossible. Even if there was no contact with Fleet in orbit, they still had to find a way to evade detection. Get back to civilization. Find a way to make a difference.
A hot spark of anger suddenly flared up within Amelia. Maybe it was the deep exhaustion, or the sudden hopelessness, or the bitter resentment at her own guilty self pity that caused her to snap.
“Have you lost your minds?” she bawled. “Do you really want to draw them down on top of us, like hawks on a pack of rats?”
The crew, not used to taking sharp orders from their young Warrant Officer pilot, froze in place.
“Keep your effing mouths shut!” Amelia barked. “The next person that says a single word is getting my boot in his balls!”
Amelia’s chest heaved with anger as she spat her last words. And, for the first time, something barely approaching respect appeared in the eyes of the crew. Also appearing for the first time was a slight smile on the lips of Sergeant Ladd.
“Sergeant?” Amelia finally said, motioning a palm to Ladd as she plodded back over and retrived the satellite unit from its watery perch.
“Right,” Ladd growled low and strong. “You people heard the chief.”
Amelia continued. “We’re still Fleet. We can’t accomplish our primary mission. But maybe we can do something else constructive. Those lights moving in orbit tell me that somebody is still fighting. We should see if we can too. We’re all from Earth, I know, and this isn’t our world, really. But for hell’s sake, as long as we’re stuck here, we should defend it like it is Earth! Because if we don’t, then what we’re seeing above us might soon be replayed in Earth’s night skies. Do we want mantis ships dropping down over New York or Hong Kong or Paris?”
The crew muttered negatives.
“Then let’s get moving,” Ladd said. “And keep an effing lid on it.”
Amelia was already heading away from the group, her back ramrod straight in disgust, her legs making strong, swirling strides through the muck and water. Adrenaline warred with hesitation. Anger brought with it a certain bravado, that would drain away very quickly. She’d surprised them. She wouldn’t be able to surprise them again. Her only choice was to try to prove to them—and to herself—that they still had value as soldiers. That they could make the mantis aliens pay for daring to attack another human world.
One by one, the others fell in line, Ladd hauling up the rear.
They slog-marched for almost an hour, nobody saying much, eyes and ears wide open, looking for any hint of trouble. The sky grew brighter and brighter, until the first rays began to peak over the far horizon. The mantes could be anywhere in this morass, waiting to spring. That much was certain. But the crew was small, and if they put their minds to it, they could move quickly when they wanted to.
Eventually, Ladd called for a break. None of them had rested much during the night. All eyes were growing dim and weary.
Amelia clutched her pilot’s rifle tightly and continued to brood, standing in the water, until the strong, gauntlet-clad hand of Sergeant Ladd gripped her shoulder. She turned her head and found herself face to face with the older man.
“That was a good thing you did back there,” Ladd said warmly, a smile on his face. “I was wondering when you were going to pull yourself out of your sulking.”
“I only wish I felt as strong as I talked,” Amelia replied glumly, eyes avoiding Ladd’s smiling face. “Christ, Sergeant, I don’t know what the hell I’m doing here.”
“Listen,” Ladd pulled her, “I know you feel like scum for what happened. You were muttering every detail in your dreams. But these guys are starting to get a different angle on you. And frankly, so am I.”
“Thanks, Sergeant,” Amelia replied honestly.
“Right,” Ladd sai
d, squeezed her shoulder again, then dropped back into the group. Amelia watched him go, a silent thank you in her mind.
#
The scent was hot.
The mantes and their group leader slipped easily through the trees to the clear patch of shallows where the human smell was strongest. Here, the bipedal aliens—with their clumsy weapons and cheap, artificial carapaces—had stopped for some purpose. The group leader swept outward from the middle of the shallows, seeking the new direction of the trail, and quickly found what he wanted. An unvoiced computer message flowed from the group leader’s disc, and that message was heard by the others. The command simply said, follow me! And the horde of praying mantis like cyborg creatures shot forward into the trees once again, sensing that their quarry was not far away.
The group leader eventually dispatched a scout to snoop ahead—the scout’s natural pedator’s senses combining with his artificial carriage-enabled awareness to ferret out the humans. It wouldn’t be long now. The group leader wondered what it would be like to kill one of the aliens. Mantes had done it before, on other worlds. Long ago. Would humans die easily? Or die hard?
The group leader grew anxious to find out.
#
Private Wang Li had relieved his comrade at the rear of the little column, and slogged through the water, grunting at the weight of his automatic rifle and cursing the partly cloudy sky. Though Li dreaded the thought of face-to-beak combat—for which he’d received what he considered was minimal training—he also hated the never-ending anticipation. Waiting was always the worst part of anything unpleasant.
Then, unexpectedly, Wang got his wish. Looking over his shoulder, he realized he was staring at one of the enemy. The creature had maneuvered stealthily through the trees, using its flying saucer to stay above the water, such that nothing was heard. Until now, suddenly, it was too late.
