“Mercy killing,” Jates said softly.
“Oh,” Dave felt vaguely ashamed for some reason. The Verd-kris utterly rejected everything the Kristang warrior caste stood for, but the Verds shared the same genes and the same heritage. It should not have surprised him that the tough Surgun had sympathy for a fellow soldier. “I should have- wait,” he held up a finger for silence. Or as much silence as was possible, given the raucous din of combat going on all around him. “Did you hear that?”
“Hear what, Czajka? I hear a lot of things.”
“Voices,” Dave flattened himself against the side of a building and part of his mind marveled that his skinsuit automatically changed its coloration to match the dingy gray wall. “Human voices,” he added. He used his suit’s acoustic sensors to locate the source of the sound, his visor drew a glowing circle around a drab building adjacent to the alley they were in. Without waiting for a response, he dashed across to the open double doorway, stuck his rifle inside and pulled it back immediately. The rifle’s scope had captured sensor data of the interior, including video and audio.
“Czajka,” Jates arrived behind him, covering the other side of the doorway. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? We don’t have time for this shit.”
“We have time for this,” Dave said as he ducked inside the darkened building. Dark shapes were huddled together inside a large cage that occupied the center of the open space. Humans. His visor helpfully informed him there were seventeen individuals. He instructed his faceplate to go clear and activated lights inside the helmet, so they could see his face. From their general filthiness and worn-out, dirty civilian clothing, he thought they must be Keepers of the Faith, who had left Paradise to continue serving the Kristang. The display also told him the people locked in the cage were fifteen men and two women. One woman stood alone, her arms hugged tightly around herself, withdrawn. Dave had harsh words for the idiots, but what came out of his mouth was “Ok, who ordered the pizza?”
“You are human?” A woman asked in an Indian accent, her knees almost buckling as she clung to a man beside her. The man pulled her to himself protectively. “American?” She asked.
Dave was startled by her question, until he understood she recognized his accented English. “Yeah, American. Dave Czajka,” he pointed to his chest.
“I am Saachi Kumar,” the woman answered. “My, friend, is Ian MacDonald. How are you here?”
“I’m with UNEF and-” Dave began to explain.
“You are slaves here?” Jates interrupted. His own faceplate remained opaque, its chameleonware blending in with the rest of his skinsuit. “You thought drawing attention to yourselves was a good idea?” Jates asked, shaking his head in disgust. “In the middle of a fight?”
“Certainly,” MacDonald pulled Kumar closer to him. “If the attackers were another Kristang clan, they would have no reason to kill us-”
“I would welcome a quick death,” She added fiercely. “Better than what the lizards had planned for us.”
MacDonald continued. “If you were Legion, you are our only chance to get out of here alive. We had nothing to lose.” He kissed the top of her head. “We have nothing to lose.”
“You still took one hell of a risk,” Jates did not look at the huddled Keepers, maintaining an anxious watch on the doorway.
“Wait,” Dave said. “You know about the Legion?”
Kumar nodded. Before she answered, she cast her eyes down at the floor in shame, then lifted her chin defiantly. “The lizards told us about the Legion, that humans and traitor Kristang had come here, to rescue us. We don’t know how much of what we were told is true.”
“We didn’t come here to rescue you,” Dave admitted. “We didn’t even know you were here until after we landed.”
MacDonald spat on the floor. “The lizards told us they brought us here as a lure, as bait to bring Legion boots on the ground, where they could destroy you. I think they told us that to make us feel guilty.”
“Guilty for still being alive,” Kumar’s eyes flashed pure hatred. “We already regret almost everything we’ve done. Do you know what the lizards planned to do with us?”
“Yeah,” Dave decided there was no point dancing around the subject. “They were going to make you fight, in like, gladiator contests. They were doing that to rattle the Legion, hurt our morale, make us break discipline.” He did not add that the plan might have worked, if the Legion had not forced the Kristang to launch their attack early.
“We wouldn’t do it,” now the anger in her eyes was directed at Dave. “You think we are weak, that we’re ignorant. That we’re traitors.”
“I don’t-” Dave began to say, then bit off the rest of what was going to be an apology. Why was he apologizing to stupid Keepers? Fuck them.
“We would never betray our people, our oaths to protect humanity,” Kumar looked around, and the other Keepers, despite their evident fear, nodded solemn agreement. “The lizards can’t make us fight. We, all of us, vowed we wouldn’t fight, no matter what they did to us.”
Dave was skeptical. “You were going to just let them kill you?”
“We were going to die anyway,” MacDonald acknowledged. “Our dignity, what little we have, is all we have left. Until-”
“Less talking, more shooting,” Jates barked from near the doorway. “Czajka, we don’t have time for this.”
“Yeah we do,” Dave decided with a sudden insight. “Our part of the mission is to create a distraction, right?” He turned back to the Keepers. “Any of you want a chance to kill lizards?”
“Hell, yes,” Kumar breathed, smacking a fist into her palm. The others surged toward the fence eagerly.
“What are you thinking, Czajka?” Jates asked warily.
“I’m thinking,” Dave slung his rifle and pulled a plasma cutting torch from his belt, “that a dozen humans running around with rifles is a great big distraction.”
“There is an armory for the guards,” MacDonald pointed excitedly as Dave sliced through the heavy lock. “Behind that door.”
“Great,” Dave grunted. “Jates, can you-”
“Already on it,” the Surgun raced across to the heavy door, and pulled out his own plasma cutter. Dave noticed the Verd-kris was holding the torch with one hand, and his rifle in the other. “Czajka, how much do you trust these people?”
“You mean,” Dave saw the wisdom of having his rifle ready, so he switched the torch to his left hand and tried to hold his rifle awkwardly.
“I can cut through the gate,” MacDonald said, somewhat annoyed. “You should watch the door.”
“Huh? Oh, yeah, good idea.” Dave turned the plasma torch off, then dropped it on the other side of the gate, where MacDonald picked it up and immediately resumed cutting through the lock mechanism. Without having to work on getting the Keepers free, Dave hurried to the door and looked through his rifle’s scope. Holding the muzzle just inside the door, he extended the scope forward, the thin mechanism projecting out of the building and giving him a view to both sides. There was movement in the distance to the left, but nothing close. “We’re still clear out here,” he decided. He could see far enough that it would take even a warrior in powered armor several seconds to reach the doorway, and the enemy would be exposed during that time. “How long to get through that door?”
“Too long,” Jates swiveled his head between MacDonald and his own cutting torch. “This is an armored door.”
“Crap,” Dave grimaced. That door was heavy, he could see it was made of some dense composite. Jates was right, they would be there until dawn if- “Hey! Did you try hacking the mechanism?”
“What?”
“Let me try, you cover the door,” Dave ran toward the armored door so fast, he grunted when he slammed a shoulder into it. “Go,” he waved to Jates, “I got this.”
Jates just shook his head, disdainful of the human’s stupidity. But he also slapped the torch back on his belt and dashed to take up a watch on the exterior doorway
. “Czajka, if you don’t have that door open in-”
“Yeah, I know.” Dave muttered, concentrating on his immediate problem. He was guessing, and hoping, the door lock mechanism was not a high-security device. In its current use, it only needed to secure the inner part of the building from primitive humans. He took another item off his belt and pressed it to the keypad beside the armored door. Eyeclicking through a menu, he instructed the device to hack into the lock mechanism. It was a longshot, he knew, if-
Click.
There was an audible and rather ordinary sound as the lock released, and the heavy door swung open by itself. Behind Dave, the Keepers roared a cheer and he waved a hand to quiet them.
“Czajka, how did you-”
“Ask and ye shall receive,” Dave was too keyed-up with nervous energy to think of anything more clever to say.
Jates, of course, did not get the Biblical reference, and he had been looking outside while Dave hacked into the lock mechanism, so he had no idea what happened. “You asked the door to open? How did that-”
“Clean livin’ and a heart that is pure,” Dave explained as he squeezed through as the heavy door continued to swing open.
“Pure bullshit,” Jates grunted. “You!” he shouted as MacDonald triumphantly cut through the gate, and the Keepers cheered. “Stay right where you are.”
“We are your people,” Kumar protested.
Jates made his helmet faceplate go clear, and activated lights inside so his face was visible.
The Keepers jerked back in horror, hanging onto each other. Their worst fears were confirmed. It had all been a cruel joke. The Kristang had only let them think they could dare have hope.
“Ok, we got,” Dave halted as he came through the door with an armload of rifles. “What’s going on?”
“You are Kristang!” Kumar shouted accusingly, her fists balled up with rage.
“What?” Dave was confused until he saw Jates. “No, no,” he opened the helmet’s faceplate, realizing the Keepers thought they had been seeing a false image. “I’m human, see? Sergeant Dave Czajka, used to be with the Tenth Infantry, US Army,” he realized that was not the time to explain that he was now a military contractor. “Surgun Jates here, is, uh, did the lizards tell you about the Verd-kris?”
“Verd who?” MacDonald relaxed only slightly.
“Never mind. Not all Kristang are like the warrior caste,” Dave said quickly, aware they needed to move quickly. “The Verds are part of the Legion, they, uh,” he did not want to use the word ‘serve’, “they are allied with the Ruhar, like UNEF is. They’re on our side. Except for me, this whole raiding force is Verd-kris commandos. And they are kicking ass!”
The Keepers looked at each other and spoke excitedly. When MacDonald spoke, the question was not what Dave expected. “UNEF still exists? Why? The mission of the Expeditionary Force is over.”
“Uh, I,” Dave rolled his eyes. “We are part of the Alien Legion now, working for the Ruhar. Look, assholes,” he let his frustration show. Setting down the four rifles he carried, he jerked a thumb back over his shoulder. “Through that door is an armory,” really it was simply a set of lockers. “There are more rifles, grenades, some ballistic armor. Not any powered suits,” he added then realized the Keepers would have no idea how to use them anyway. “Anyone who wants to kill lizards, go help yourself. Surgun Jates and I are outa here, we have a mission. If you’re still alive and you see other people in Ruhar skinsuits,” he tapped his chest, “bugging out, that’s your cue to run like hell.” He did not like the idea of unprotected humans fighting armor-suited Kristang. It would be a one-sided slaughter, and would not accomplish much more than creating a minor distraction. The Keepers had thoroughly fucked themselves, but they were human, and they now desperately regretted leaving the Expeditionary Force. He had an idea. “Listen, your best bet is to just get out of this compound. You can help us by making noise, then getting out of here. The Kristang will have to send people to track you, that draws them away from us, got it?”
“Understood,” Kumar paused at the door to the armory, eager to get more weapons. Others had already squeezed past her. “We will do what we can.”
“I’ll get word to the Legion if I can, to pick you up. No promises,” Dave added.
She walked forward before Dave finished talking, bending down to pick up a rifle. She hefted it in her hands, checking the weight and balance, then ejected the magazine to check it. Slapping the magazine back in, she pointed the muzzle at the floor. “This will do nicely. Sergeant,” there were tears in her eyes. “Thank you.”
“Czajka!” Jates called from the outer door. “Move your ass!”
Dave turned to run, then hesitated. He snapped a salute to the assembled Keepers. To the people. The humans, just like him. “Good hunting. Except, do not shoot anyone in a skinsuit. And, good luck.”
“Vaya con dios, Sergeant,” one of the Keepers in the back replied softly, then Dave was gone, running on the heels of Jates.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
“Hold,” Dave said in a breathless whisper. Breathless because they had been running for their lives, since the commando leader had declared the objective achieved and ordered everyone to proceed as best they could to one of the evac points. Whisper because instinct told him to be quiet, though no enemy could hear if he shouted inside the well-insulated skinsuit helmet. “Surgun, hold a sec.”
“What is it, Czajka?” Jates pivoted, scanning the area behind Dave with his rifle scope. They were using passive sensors only, active sensors were not needed at all because the enemy pursuing them was hammering away with active sensor sweeps across the spectrum, at full intensity. There was so much electromagnetic energy saturating the area that it was counterproductive, more useful for giving away the enemy’s location than detecting the retreating commandos. Jates’s suit constantly warned him of the risk he had been located, and the suit absorbed sensor sweeps as best it could to avoid betraying his position. The active sensor photons flying around were interfering with each other to the point where any data returned was not only useless, it probably pointed the enemy in the wrong direction.
At first, Jates had felt smugly superior at the enemy’s clumsy tactics and poor discipline. Then an alternative idea had made his blood run cold. Maybe the enemy behind them was using active sensors to flush their quarry into a trap ahead of them. To see which was true, Jates had risked doubling back with Czajka, setting up an ambush of their own. With a pair of rockets and sustained rifle fire, they had cut down four enemy warriors who were all wearing hardshell armor. The only damage to themselves was a hard impact on Jates’s left hip. The kinetic energy of the round had been absorbed by the smart material of the skinsuit, and the force field dissipated the plasma of the round’s explosive charge. Jates was alive and mobile. His hip also hurt like hell, so much that it was distracting him enough that he told Czajka to take point.
Dave had ducked behind a tree when he stopped. He gestured with his rifle, and eyeclicked in his visor to highlight the scene for Jates. “We got company. Keepers.”
“Keepers?” Jates watched the view from Dave’s rifle scope while remaining out of view. The two unofficial commandos were in a patchy forest, along the east side of a ridge that ran roughly north-south. Downhill to the east was a narrow valley with a road, a bridge across a stream, and a cluster of buildings that the map described as a village. The village appeared deserted, no lights were on in the buildings and their suit sensors were not picking up any heat signatures from inside.
They were picking up clear heat signatures from seven humans who were clad in a motley assortment of ballistic armor, and running frantically along the dirt road in the center of the valley. As Jates watched, three of the humans stopped to kneel down and launch rockets at something behind them that Jates could not see. The rockets exploded and the three leapt to their feet to resume running. Their gait was awkward because in addition to rifles, the three carried sacks slung over their shoulders. Whate
ver was in the sacks had to be weapons, for they were heavy enough to slow down the people carrying them. Why would the foolish humans risk-
He got the answer before he finished the thought. One of the overburdened humans stopped, rolling into a muddy ditch beside the road and digging into his sack. The other two spun to urge the man onward, but he waved them away, shouting and gesturing urgently for his companions to run, and they did. The lone man fired a rocket followed by a long stream of rounds on full auto, then dug three more rockets out of the sack, fitting them into the launcher under the rifle’s barrel. He launched the rockets at unseen targets, changed the magazine for a fresh one, and reached for more rockets.
“That man is brave,” Jates admitted reluctantly. “Stupid, but brave.”
“He’s buying time for the others to get away,” Dave’s voice was choked with emotion.
“Us, too,” Jates rose from his concealed position. “Come on, Czajka, move your ass. The enemy will be focused on the fight down there, that gives us cover to get over this ridge.” They needed to get on the west side of the ridge to proceed to the nearest evac point, though that was still thirty kilometers away and they had little hope of evading pursuit that long. Jates’s immediate concern was cresting the ridge before the sun rose, and they were exposed on the skyline.
“No,” Dave protested. “I don’t want to run away. I want to help them.”
“Are you out of your f-” Jates shook his head. “I thought you hated those Keeper morons?”
“I hate them for being stubborn assholes, yeah. Right now, they’re in trouble,” he looked back at his fellow commando. “They’re human. They are one of us. And they’re all going to die unless we can take some of the heat off their trail.”
“I would ask if you have lost your mind, but you never had one. Ah,” he stomped a boot on the ground. “Damn it!”
“There are seven of them, including two women. Females,” Dave emphasized, knowing that was a trigger point for male Verd-kris soldiers.
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