“Oh, hell,” I said. “I’ll have to spray the affected areas.”
“With what? They’re resistant to everything but fire, and you’ve only got about twenty minutes to destroy them before they mate and start looking for somewhere to lay eggs.”
“My farm! Are you telling me it’s ruined?”
“Your farm? It goes far wider than that. NJ, Meskilot flies roam for up to a hundred miles in search of the right plant to serve as host for their eggs. I know you chose to live in the ass-end of beyond, but even here there will come a time when the authorities will track the source of the local blight. Track it back to you.”
“All right. Don’t rub it in. They don’t like fire, you say?”
“Right. You’ve got to burn out the infection but…” He looked up at the clouds. “The sky is not kind.”
I saw the black band of the next wave of storm clouds charging toward us from the east. The ground for miles around shimmered with surface water, but it was the run-off from the hills that would soon turn my farm into an island.
“It’s okay,” I said. “Not a problem.”
“Why? What do you have? Homemade napalm?”
“Better than napalm. Follow me.”
I ran for my deck. I still had a few surprises stashed away there, although I had never thought of them as farming tools until now.
— CHAPTER 6 —
I reached the top of the deck tower, drenched by another rain burst that had lasted only a few seconds, but left me so wet I could have dived in the sea and it wouldn’t make me any wetter. We had to move fast before the rain went from bursts to continuous downpour.
I pulled out the concealed ring in the center of the decking – trying not to notice the barbecue had gone out and was presumably beyond repair – and heaved open the trapdoor to the compartment below.
“Bloody hell!” said Silky.
“Bloody hell?” I shook my head. “And, for that matter, the ‘Good gracious, man’ earlier. Who the frakk programmed your translator?”
The cause of the vile alien curse from Silky’s throat was a partially disassembled GX-cannon. This was the kind of infantry support weapon that is designated portable, though not by the poor bastards of the heavy weapons sections who have to carry it around on their backs.
Credit where credit’s due. The alien masters we were bred to fight for, until the Human Legion came along, were great ones for standardizing equipment down to the smallest sub-component. The result? I knew next to nothing about where Silky was born or underwent his training, but I didn’t need to say a word. With the ease of long practice, he helped me open out the tripod and bolt it to the deck, and then he helped assemble the cannon and fit it onto its mounting. Had he served in a heavy weapons squad, same as me?
“You want me to load?” he asked.
“You reckon I’d give you the firing code?” I replied.
“Why not? We are allies now. But I understand you do not trust me yet. I shall load, then. What do you need?”
“Standard plasma rounds. Start at 15% yield, maximum spread.”
“Roger. Fifteen percent yield. Max spread.”
I’d finished the war commanding a heavy weapons squad, and as the weapon powered up it felt like coming home, to a home I hadn’t thought I’d ever miss. I tried to tell myself that what I was feeling was the pleasure at being competent at something… anything… because, let’s face it, on a scale of one to pestilential, my record so far as a farmer was deep into the wrong side of the scale.
I missed my Conteh, but there was a simple AI built into the cannon, a very limited device, but that didn’t matter for this operation. I was shooting at flies, not aerial combat drones jinking at 12 gees.
I let rip a short burst at an area of the Meskilot adults in nearby Zone B. I guess they lit up like tiny incandescent flares, but against the brightness of the plasma flashes, I couldn’t see what effect I was having.
I fired another burst, but concentrated on the mechanism feeding the supply of shells from the ammo box to verify that Silky was monitoring the ammo state. I saw he was ready to activate a fresh ammo box that he had already chain-linked to the first one.
Satisfied that Silky knew what he was doing, I ceased fire to see what devastation I had wreaked among the flies.
I saw a scattering of white ash over scorched ground, a landscape that looked gut-wrenchingly familiar from scores of battlefields on dozens of worlds. And this was Sijambo Farm. My great endeavor. If Silky wasn’t there, I would be weeping by now.
But the cloud of flies looked less dense than before, so I let rip with more plasma shells.
The next time I paused, Zone B had been cleansed of the flies. My crops had been turned to ash, but that was something I could recover from.
“We did it!” shouted Silky. “We bloody well did it!” Ten minutes earlier I’d nearly killed him, and now his black eyes shone with excitement and was talking like someone from another century and another world. Hell, I think he was looking to high-five.
“We cleared Zone B,” I replied, and it wasn’t just a reluctance to share Silky’s enthusiasm that cast my words in sternness. The maize fields in Zones D, G, and J looked largely unaffected by the infestation, as were the pigs in Zones E and F. That left four more zones to clear, two of which would be tricky because silos, outbuildings, and the farmhouse were in my field of fire. I had no intention of destroying my farm in order to save it.
I switched my aim to the southern end of Zone C, which was a long, narrow stretch that lay farther out from B. I would have to break my fire pattern to avoid the farmhouse. May as well get this over with.
The rain chose that moment to crash down, reducing visibility to three meters.
Silky waved a hand to stop. He was shouting something, but I couldn’t make it out until I pressed my ear warily to his mouth.
“Stop what you’re doing!” he was shouting. “Are you mad? You’ll destroy the farmhouse. The rain…we can’t fire blind.”
“Blind? Who said anything about firing blind? I know every field of fire. Don’t you think I’ve trained for this endlessly? I can do this with my eyes shut. Look!” I did. I shut my eyes. That would show him! It wasn’t entirely bravado either. I really had practiced this. I’d expected the visual obstruction to be smoke from defensive munitions not driving rain, but it amounted to the same thing.
The rain escalated from torrential downpour to whatever term meteorologists use to describe precipitation that’s gone nuclear. Visibility was absolute zero, but I didn’t need eyes. Instead, I selected Bahati, as my most recently deceased ghost, to remote-jack into the GX-cannon’s AI. The gun didn’t acknowledge the link but I ignored it, and used a combination of Bahati’s link and memorized fields of fire to thread Zone C with plasma rounds. I prayed that I was lifting the shells over my farmhouse. I wasn’t emotionally attached to the building, but I really didn’t want to vaporize it before I’d even paid off those expensive new carpets.
When I’d done, I squeezed Silky’s shoulder, and used signals tapped against his head to indicate I wanted to traverse the barrel anticlockwise by 40 degrees. It was time for Zone A.
The alien understood this simple combat language for use when sight and sound were compromised. He shifted to the new line of fire, using feel to keep the feed of shells uninterrupted. I was impressed. He obviously knew his way around a GX-cannon, and I had to fight hard to avoid feeling any kinship with this soldier who had left his post.
But I fought in vain, because as the two of us waged war against the Meskilot infestation, I couldn’t help but wonder.
Why had Silky deserted?
— CHAPTER 7 —
A few days ago, Silky and I had shared a combat experience, fighting side-by-side at the GX-cannon, setting our faces against the lashing storm. Together we had fought… flies.
The experience had felt exhilarating at the time, but in the final analysis, all we had done was some extreme farming. In the rain.
&n
bsp; So why did I feel the pull of comradeship? Why was I so curious to hear Silky’s explanation for deserting?
My ghosts had promised to act as sentinels, warning me against any mind freakery from the alien, but they had been so quiet since that day in the storm, that I wasn’t sure whether my sentries were asleep on duty.
Probably, Silky’s calm competence had sparked memories of real, human, comrades: a case of my mind trying to fit him into a pattern with which it was familiar.
Certainly, I was desperately lonely.
Well, frakk it! I was used to being lonely, and I loathed above all other things the feeling that I was being pressured into anything.
My curiosity to learn more about Silky fought hard against my stubborn refusal to yield to this false sense of comradeship. Curiosity put up a good fight, but was knocked out early in the first round.
Stubbornness it was, then.
And every time Silky told me that I would give him sanctuary – as if I were some mediaeval cathedral – his words felt a little less confident.
I admit it. I enjoyed hearing his confidence in me fail.
I was enjoying it so much, that I was almost sorry when I looked out of the farmhouse window one morning at breakfast, and saw that the sea of glistening mud that had stretched to the horizon the night before, had now dried.
“It’s time,” I said. “Roads will be open, stores will be stocked. I need to get to town for fresh supplies. You’re coming too.”
“Is that… wise… NJ?”
The words coming out of the alien’s translation speaker sounded normal, but were separated by long hesitations. I looked back at Silky, who was sitting at the kitchen table, and saw that within their sooty smudges his eyes were struggling to focus.
“I don’t… feel… Well.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I reassured him with a friendly smile. “Don’t worry your fishy little head, because I looked your species up, and was careful to give you a safe form of sedative. Just enough to keep you out of trouble until we get near town. By the time you wake, I’ll have strapped explosives to your legs. Try to remember I told you that, because I don’t wish to set them off. If you run, I will liquidize your legs.”
Silky’s head was lolling, but with a great effort he lifted his gaze to me and spoke clearly. “I trust you, NJ. You won’t… won’t turn me in. We will make the perfect…team.”
I shook my head as the alien slumped over my kitchen table, tipping the contents of his bowl of hot porridge over my clean floor.
“That’s where you’re wrong, fish boy. I already have two exes in my head telling me what I will and will not be doing. If you think I’ve room for someone else to do the same, you’re even madder than I am.”
I cuffed him to the chair, just to be on the safe side, and debated whether I had time to clear away the breakfast things before loading up the truck.
— CHAPTER 8 —
We pulled up at the CDF security barrier on the eastern approach to Dulnthorpe and got out of the truck to follow the new security protocols. I suppose it made sense – and this was, after all, the same Civilian Defense Force in which I served as a reservist – but that didn’t stop me muttering about this being a pain in the ass, a curtailment of my hard-won liberties, as I slowly brought out my rifle from behind the driver’s seat, and lifted the pistol from my belt holster. They were only my out-and-about small caliber slug throwers, the kind of thing that would have been familiar to my Earthly ancestors back in the days before they developed the kind of technology that attracted outside interest. But these days, even civilian-spec guns weren’t allowed inside town, not since the craze for violent crime currently sweeping the planet.
“Who’s your friend?” asked the CDF guard as she tagged my surrendered weapons, and handed me my physical receipt. “For that matter, what is it?”
She strode up to Silky and gestured for him to draw back the deep hood obscuring his face in shadow. She raised an eyebrow when his head lumps came into view, in all their rubbery alien glory. “No,” she said, shaking her head, “I’ve never seen your sort before.” She threw a suspicious glance my way. “What is it? And why does it have explosives strapped around its ankles?”
“A Nanasyne,” I replied.
“Hey, NJ!” called a friendly voice from within, followed by the form of Corporal Antonio Braench. Like the private who had taken my guns, he wore a helmet and lightweight armor in the CDF’s colors of black with red facings on collars and cuffs. Unlike the private’s well-worn gear, it looked to me as if there had been a fresh supply of uniforms, and Tony had scored a few sets for himself. Corporal Braench had a lifetime’s experience of looking after himself first, but he usually looked out for his friends second. Tony was a good guy, and his broad smile was genuine… until he caught sight of Silky. Then the smile left his eyes, and his body subtly shifted into the kind of loose stance that left you ready to react to any physical threat. He nodded at Silky. “Not the sort of company you usually keep, NJ.”
I shrugged. “You got me there, Tony. An unwelcome houseguest who stayed over while I was flooded out.”
“You want me to take it off your hands?” offered Tony.
I looked at Silky, who was standing there like he was on parade, not rising to the bait of being talked about as if he wasn’t there. I didn’t know if he was acting dumb, dignified, hatching some devious plan, or simply so alien that my attempts to understand him made me the stupid one in this encounter.
I opted for dignified, not because I thought it particularly likely, but it made me look best. “No problem, Tony. I can look after him.”
“Make sure you do, Sergeant Joshua. There’s been too much trouble recently. The police have officially requested the captain backs them up with CDF muscle, and you can imagine how pleased that makes her. Life is complicated enough without you bringing in unwanted houseguests.”
I spread my hands wide. “Relax. Do you really think I’m looking for trouble?”
The private narrowed her eyes. No prize for guessing her answer.
Tony laughed and placed his hand on her shoulder. “That’s NJ McCall, Private. Sergeant Joshua when he’s in uniform. And there ain’t no one in the province less inclined to go looking for trouble. Guy’s practically a hermit, but there’s no one I’d rather have my six when things turn ugly.”
I shrugged away the compliment, and knelt down to unlock Silky’s ankle explosives. When I handed them over, Tony gestured to the private to raise the barrier and waved me on. “Stay safe, NJ.”
I gave a vaguely appreciative grunt and made my way back to the truck, irritated when the alien bumped against me.
“We’re being watched,” he hissed, gesturing behind him with a nod.
I waited until I opened the truck door before risking a glance in the direction Silky had indicated.
Three human men – two of them former Marines, but younger and even uglier than me – were waiting in the line for pedestrian access to town. I didn’t like the way they were staring openly.
You’re right to be worried, said Sanaa, which surprised me because my ghosts had been quiet for days. That’s not idle curiosity, she added, that’s professional observation.
“I’m right, aren’t I?” pressed Silky as soon as I slammed shut the truck door. “They’re watching us.”
“No. No, they’re not,” I replied, driving off. “They’re watching you.”
— CHAPTER 9 —
Dulnthorpe had grown large enough – and, presumably, generated enough tax revenue – to warrant the new CDF security cordon, but the CDF presence had been established for a long while. For all its numerous faults, the Federal Army can think strategically when it wants to, and even when Dulnthorpe had been little more than a strip of bars, flesh shacks, and general stores, the CDF Second Reserve Army had built a compound here large enough to billet an enhanced brigade, although they garrisoned it initially with just a single company.
My company.
I
was obliged to report for duty two weeks in every year, and had always found the CDF compound eerily empty. Unlike so many of the cramped holes that had served as my barracks and troopship berths in the war, many of the compound’s buildings were still wrapped in protective film, in pristine condition because they had never been used.
As Silky and I walked the short distance from the base’s main gate to the registration and administration block, along an avenue lined not with trees but by rows of latrines, the sounds of activity from all directions suggested that today the compound was a hive of activity. Over the years I had developed a finely tuned ear for the various qualities of Army cursing, and even though I couldn’t see the cause of the furor, it carried the flavor of general frakk up, the kind that said no one knew what they were doing, and you had to deploy every resource at your disposal to ensure that when the music stopped, the shit would hit Someone Else’s fan.
“I don’t believe you’re going to go through with this,” said Silky, halting on the threshold of the administration block. “You won’t hand me over. You’ll change your mind.”
I slapped the back of his head, hard enough to let him know how raw he was rubbing my patience, but not so hard that I would need to explain to a judge precisely how trying the alien was and that his death had been an accident. Honestly.
I’d never touched the strands of flesh that hung down his neck before. They felt far more like hair than looked possible, which made them more disgusting to touch than if they had been slimy tentacles covered in suckers.
“Meskilot,” he said. “Just remember, you have secrets too.”
“I know where my duty lies,” I said, walking through into the spacious admin block.
Instantly, I was beset with doubts. “Have you been inside my mind?” I snarled.
“We’ve been through this,” he said. “You have your inner voices alert to me now. I can’t read minds. I can sense moods if I know the person, and maybe I can nudge suggestions into someone’s mind if I work hard. It was exhausting to persuade you to move where I wanted you to go, back when we first met. I was so exhausted by the effort that you managed to beat me in that fight. I was about ready to drop from exhaustion. Do I look like I’m straining with effort now? No, NJ, any doubts are your own.”
After War (Revenge Squad Book 1) Page 5
