“Holy shit,” Dave was shaking from the adrenaline surge, looking down in disbelief. The object was the blood-and-gore-splattered upper chest, neck and helmet of a Kristang warrior, with its face resting right on his crotch. The helmet was cracked open, its faceplate missing, and lizard blood was staining Dave’s pants.
Jates leaned over to look at the distorted face inside the helmet, then at Dave. “I think he likes you. You two lovebirds want some privacy?”
“Ah!” Dave kicked and pushed the dead warrior away. “Get that thing off me!”
The Surgun shook his head slowly, sadly. “Czajka, I have heard of some truly weird fetishes, but-”
“Not funny!” Dave laughed hysterically. “Ok, it’s, that was kind of funny,” he admitted. Eyeclicking to the common circuit, he cautiously called out. “Hey, who’s out there? Anyone out there?”
The reply was muffled and distorted.
“I didn’t understand that,” Dave said louder, his ears still ringing from the gunfire. “Say again, who is there?”
“Pone. See!”
Dave shook his head, trying to get his hearing to work. “Wait. Pone? Cornpone? Jesse?”
“In the flesh, man,” the sergeant from Arkansas announced as he limped into the gap between the truck and the wall, wearing a skinsuit with hands held high. “How you doin’?”
Before Dave could reply, another figure in a skinsuit stepped into view. “Hello Sergeant Ski,” Nert said gleefully, waving a hand in enthusiastic greeting. “We are here to rescue you.”
“You?” Dave gasped. “The two of you did all that?”
“Nah,” Jesse jerked a thumb back over one shoulder, as two hulking armored beetles carrying heavy weapons came up behind the human. “We brought some new friends along. These guys really know how to party.”
“Jeraptha?” Dave’s jaw dropped. “But, why, how- How did you get the Jeraptha to, to-” he sputtered to a stop, speechless.
Jesse popped open his visor and grinned, holding up his hands. “Man,” he shook his head slowly. “You are NOT gonna believe this.”
Ten minutes later, escorted out of the combat zone by two squads of the very keyed-up and anxious Jeraptha Rapid Assault Team, Dave, Jesse, Nert and Jates huddled behind a collapsed wall while the group waited for a Jeraptha transport to approach. A pair of evil-looking Jeraptha gunships circled the area, occasionally blasting something on the ground. Dave was still bewildered, flinching when the Jeraptha soldiers cut loose on some perceived danger, which apparently meant anything from a leaf blowing in the breeze to a shadow moving. The Jeraptha were not taking any risks with their precious charges, namely Jesse and more importantly Dave himself.
Crouched down while waiting, Dave had his faceplate open and comms turned off so he could speak privately with Jesse. “You told them I am an expert on fantasy sports? Have you lost your freakin’ mind?”
“First, you are welcome for me saving your sorry ass, even though you forgot to thank me,” Jesse sniffed. “Second, you are an expert compared to me, and the Jeraptha don’t know squat about it. So, to them, you are the galaxy’s leading authority on the subject.”
“Jesus, what a mess. Seriously, the beetles,” Dave glanced around to check if any of the hulking insect warriors were listening. “They never heard of fantasy sports?”
“Nope. Surprised the hell out of me,” Jesse agreed. “I guess we humans got something to be proud of, huh?”
“Clue me in about this, Colter,” Jates leaned in closer. “You create fake teams that don’t play real games, and you pretend all of it is real? And human adults spend hundreds of hours doing this?”
“Well, uh,” Jesse shifted uncomfortably. “When you say it that way, it sounds silly.”
“Right,” Jates cocked his head. “The way I said it, that is what makes it silly.”
“It doesn’t matter what we think,” Jesse lowered his voice. “The beetles think this is the greatest thing like, ever. You should have seen them on that ship while I was explaining it. I thought they were gonna pass out from ecstasy. It was like they was at one of those religious revivals where people start shaking and talking in tongues or whatever. Anyways, we got an ace up our sleeves, and we’re gonna cash it in for all the chips we can get.”
“Ok, I’ll play along. But, you know, we need to find a real expert for them, or they’re gonna get pissed at us real quick.”
“No problem, brother, I got us covered,” Jesse winked. “I told the beetles they also need to secure Diego.”
“Who is ‘Diego’?” Jates asked.
“Diego Sanchez,” Dave explained. “He was a Radio Operator in our unit when we were in Nigeria. That’s, uh, a war zone on Earth, back before Columbus Day. He came to Paradise with us and got reassigned to carrying a rifle, because the Kristang didn’t allow us lowly humans to screw with the communications gear they gave us. Point is, Diego is a fanatic about fantasy sports, he ran a league for the whole 10th Division. He was even into really obscure stuff like fantasy college football-”
“Including college hockey,” Jesse shook his head. “Who follows college hockey?”
“Diego did. And he scraped together enough people to make a league. Man, the beetles are gonna love Diego.”
Jesse shrugged. “What I hope is that Diego loves them.”
Emily Perkins anxiously waited for the Jeraptha transport to land in a clearing near the launcher complex. The Legion had been startled by the arrival of a Jeraptha fast battleship, though less startled than the Kristang on and around Fresno, who were keeping their heads down and cowering in fear. When the powerful, advanced-technology warship arrived, it disabled a Kristang frigate that had just concluded a raid on Legion positions. Because Legion forces were so dispersed to avoid providing a target for orbital bombardment, the frigate killed only seven humans, while exposing itself to substantial danger.
The frigate had not counted on one potential danger being a Jeraptha warship. Shortly after the angry battleship disabled the frigate and ordered it to hold its current altitude, the Beat-Down conducted a railgun strike on a large underground Kristang weapons bunker that the Legion wasn’t aware even existed. That bunker was now a deep crater, that would become a lake when the nearby river filled it with water.
After stating that a Jeraptha admiral wished to speak with Legion leadership, mostly with the Commissioner and his staff, the beetles had not responded to Legion attempts at communication, other than to say they were busy and the Legion should stay out of their way.
The transport was proceeded by a pair of gunships that screamed in low, scanning the area, then climbing to orbit the landing zone and provide fire support if needed. The transport then came in fast, so fast that Emily and the people near her ducked down, fearing a crash. At the last moment, thrusters on the transport’s nose and leading surfaces fired hard, bringing it to an abrupt halt in mid-air before it slammed to the ground. A ramp was already open and two armor-clad beetles ran out, sweeping the landing zone with their weapons while the assembled humans got shakily back to their feet, holding hands above their heads.
The two beetle warriors on the ground gave an All Clear signal and down the ramp trotted first Surgun Jates, then Jesse Colter and finally Nert Dandurf, all wearing Ruhar skinsuits with the faceplates open. Jesse looked around, saw Perkins and snapped a quick salute as he limped slowly toward her. Behind them, the transport took off with a roar and a swirling gust of wind. The two beetle soldiers remained on the ground behind Jesse, clearly providing protection for the human sergeant.
“Sergeant Colter,” Perkins beamed. “I see you got your shopping list taken care of.”
“Uh, yeah, and I didn’t need to, you know, pay for anything,” he looked from Jates to Nert then back at Perkins.
“You didn’t have to give them,” she licked her lips uncertainly. “Anything of value?”
“Oh,” Jesse’s grin stretched his face ear to ear. “We humans are giving them something that is totally priceless beyo
nd measure.”
Perkins pulled her head up skeptically, fearing what promises her sergeant might have given away. “What is that?”
“Like I told Dave,” Jesse shook his head. “Ma’am, you are not going to believe this.”
She in fact did not believe it, not at first. Until she decided that, considering that she was in an Alien Legion on a faraway planet, an alien species getting excited about fantasy sports was really not all that unusual. She sent Jesse off to brief General Ross in person, before the Jeraptha admiral arrived in roughly fifteen minutes. The two beetle warriors escorted Jesse, one in front and one behind the sergeant.
While walking back toward her temporary office inside the Launcher complex, she turned to Jates. “Your raid was successful, thank you, Surgun. You took a lot of pressure off. It was touch and go here for a while. Too long. We lost comms just before the raid, what happened to you?”
“Our day was,” Jates paused to consider his words. “Interesting. I have never been rescued by a Jeraptha assault team before.”
Perkins was intensely interested in how the Jeraptha operated as infantry. “What was that like?”
Jates shrugged and looked at Nert. “I did not actually witness the attack. Cadet Dandurf and Sergeant Colter accompanied the Jeraptha.”
“Nert?” Perkin prompted the cadet.
Nert tilted his head and a shudder of horror shook his shoulders. “Colonel Perkins, have you ever seen an assault team of extremely pissed off beetles in action?”
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
The arrival of the Jeraptha ship prevented both Kristang and Ruhar ships from approaching Fresno, with Admiral Tashallo having declared a No-Fly zone within six point three lightseconds of that troubled world. Emily Perkins was, however, dismayed that having a massive Jeraptha battleship looming overhead did not actually end all the fighting on the surface. Tashallo’s main concern was investigating the heinous perfidy of Glabosor and anyone else who had rigged, or known about the rigging, of the situation on Fresno. The admiral was fuming, to the point of demanding that Commissioner Yusafft surrender the culprits to the Jeraptha for prosecution, ignoring the protocol that the Ruhar government had the right to prosecute their own citizens first. The Commissioner’s decision to hand over the local Glabosor officials may have been influenced by Jeraptha gunships buzzing around his headquarters like angry hornets. While the Glabosor employees protested loudly that their rights were being trampled, Yusafft declared that because the planet was still under martial law, he could do whatever he thought best. The Ruhar federal government lodged a formal protest because they had to, although no one wanted the Glabosor officials coming to the Ruhar homeworld for a drawn-out trial that would keep the scandal fresh in the public’s mind for way too long.
Regardless, Yusafft was terrified when he learned that he was also considered a suspect by the enraged Jeraptha, and he was taken into custody along with the Glabosor officials.
With Yusafft out of communication aboard the I Am Aching To Give Somebody A Beat-Down And Today Is YOUR Lucky Day, command of the Legion fell to a Ruhar staff officer who proved to be intelligent, clear-headed and determined not to lose the brief advantage the Legion had. His determination to win the fight on the surface might have been inspired by Tashallo’s threat, that anyone not fighting to the best of their ability would also be considered a suspect in the odious crimes committed against the Jeraptha people. With neither side having close-space support, and the Jeraptha refusing to intervene, the fighting was confined within the envelope defined by the surface to the upper edge of the atmosphere. The Kristang had an overwhelming advantage in manpower, weapons, ammunitions and other vital supplies. They also had a four-to-one advantage in combat aircraft, and a fourteen-to-one advantage in ground combat vehicles.
The situation appeared hopeless and not at all what Perkins hoped when the Beat-Down jumped into orbit. The Legion had only two factors working in their favor. First, Commissioner Yusafft and his flunkies had been removed from the command hierarchy, allowing critical decisions to be made by people who actually, you know, knew what they were doing. The second factor in the Legion’s favor was that they were fighting the Kristang.
As soon as the fighting started, even before the raid on the Swift Arrow clan citadel, part of the Kristang combat effort had been diverted to fighting each other. All the happy bullshit about clans coming together to fight against a common enemy went out the window when the shooting started, and warrior caste hotheads saw an opportunity to settle scores. An after-action analysis determined that sixty percent of Kristang casualties, and eighty percent of their combat aircraft lost, was from friendly fire. That was even before the Swift Arrow clan leadership was decapitated, and the Beat-Down arrived to loom over everyone’s heads in low orbit.
With Yusafft no longer in the loop, the commanders of the Ruhar, Verd-kris and UNEF forces agreed their priority must be getting the enemy to kill each other, so most units went into a defensive posture, while commando groups were sent out to sow chaos and confusion in the enemy ranks. Kristang clans and subclans that had actually been concentrating on fighting the Legion, soon discovered they had apparently been stabbed in the back by other clans. By the fifth day after the Beat-Down arrived, the Legion offered a general cease-fire and it was eagerly accepted by the Kristang, who were too busy killing each other to waste time engaging the Legion anyway.
“This doesn’t feel safe,” Derek looked up at the sky from under the portside engine of the Buzzard.
“Come on,” Dave looked up from the portside main landing gear bay, where he was working with Irene to replace an actuator. “There’s a ceasefire. We’re safe as we can be on this rock. The Kristang know the beetles upstairs aren’t going to take any crap.”
Derek set down the wrench he had been using and stepped out from under the Buzzard’s wing to peer at the nearly cloudless sky. The massive bulk of the Jeraptha battleship, visible to the naked eye as a bright dot even in daylight, had disappeared over the horizon ten minutes ago and would not be overhead again for more than an hour. “We are only safe when the beetles are above the horizon. Any Kristang ship captain with more bravado than common sense might be tempted to jump in and fire every weapon they’ve got at the Legion while the Beat-Down is on the other side of the planet.”
“The lizards would have to be crazy to do that,” Dave commented, his voice muffled while his head was up inside the bay. “Even if a ship jumped in for a quick raid, and jumped away before the Jeraptha could react, they have to know the beetles will hunt them down.”
“The lizards are crazy,” Derek retorted. “They lost this battle and they know it. Everyone back home on their clan worlds knows it too. The Kristang fear losing face more than they fear death. I can see some ship captain up there deciding it is better to go out in a blaze of glory here, rather than go back home to humiliation.”
“We-” Dave began a reply.
“Hey,” Irene stuck her head out from the other side of the landing gear. “Can we argue about this after we get the bird flightworthy again?”
Derek shrugged and bent down to pick up the wrench. “I’m just saying, I’d feel safer if we were working on the bird inside a hardened shelter, instead of exposed out here.” He waved an arm around at the makeshift airbase, which was mostly a couple acres of matting to keep aircraft from sinking into the equatorial jungle mud near the cargo Launcher. The few hardened aircraft shelters, deep underground near the Launcher, were occupied by fighter-gunships. Their Buzzard, being mostly a transport, did not rate the protection of a shelter.
“I’d feel safer if this thing,” Irene affectionately rapped her knuckles on the composite belly of the aircraft, “could fly away from danger, and fight if we need to. A bird hiding in a shelter is useless to anyone.”
“What’s useless?” Perkins asked as she walked around the back of the Buzzard, with Nert by her side, and Jesse limping along right behind them.
“Morning, Ma’am,” Irene gree
ted the team’s leader. “I was saying that we need to get this thing airworthy again, and not worry about hiding it in a hole somewhere.”
Perkins cocked her head. “Why would we hide it in a hole?”
“I mean a hardened shelter,” Irene explained. “Derek is worried the lizard’s fleet upstairs may try a raid before they bug out of here.”
“Bonsu,” Perkins addressed the pilot, “you know the Jeraptha warned that if one lizard ship steps out of line, the Beat-Down will wipe out every Kristang ship in this system, and beyond. Admiral Tashallo is still pissed about the Ruhar and Kristang conspiring to violate the sacred spirit of wagering.”
Dave chuckled. “I got the feeling what the beetles are really upset about is they hadn’t placed any prop bets on whether the Ruhar would cheat.”
Derek felt a need to defend himself. “It’s not a raid by Kristang starships that worries me,” he explained. “The lizards still have plenty of aircraft and missiles they can use. We know their culture honors the defiant gesture, especially if it’s a suicide attack.” He gestured with the wrench toward the northern horizon, where the cleared free-fire zone around the base gave way to the dark green of thick jungle canopy. “They could just infiltrate a ground team and saturate this whole area with rockets.
“Ah,” Jesse waved a hand to dismiss the pilot’s concerns. “We got that bunch of pussies beat and they know it.”
Perkins bit back a reprimand at the sergeant’s casual language. She knew the healing process of his leg had Colter feeling cranky, even though the powered splint strapped to his leg allowed him to walk with only a slight limp. The Ruhar nanomachines in his blood, modified for human biology, greatly accelerated the healing process but also made his leg maddeningly itchy, and both drained his energy and made him constantly hungry. When Emily, Shauna and Irene had breakfast that morning, Shauna had hinted that only her ‘special physical therapy treatments’ made Jesse tolerable to deal with. So, Perkins cut the sergeant some slack.
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