by Ken Bebelle
She was pretty sure that if anyone checked at that moment, steam would have been blasting out of her ears. Ace read her better than anyone, making him an invaluable asset when they were in the field, and an insufferable ass the rest of the time.
Minutes ticked away. Sasha tried a breathing exercise, the one she used before rifle practice.
Using a rifle these days with Ripper was a whole different experience. Thousands of rounds fired during a week spent holed up in the firing range, acclimating to the new sensations. Then another week spent firing lefty, to make sure re-learning her right arm hadn’t fucked up the left side. The weight felt different, the kick, her timing - everything felt off. Hell, even getting dressed sometimes felt like someone else had a hand down her pants.
Stanley called it “proprioceptive lag,” The time needed for the chips in the arm to process the sensory input and feed it to her nerves. Stanley insisted that it had been reduced to the millisecond level, so she shouldn’t be perceiving any lag. Sasha liked to insist that the labcoat have his arm amputated and be fitted with his own prosthesis, before he made annoying statements like that.
Six months ago, she was the model soldier, eager to please and fulfill family traditions, stationed in the upper reaches of the Yukon. She flew on helicopter patrol once a day, even after the Ringheads started shooting down anything over 500 feet. God, we were all so naive then. But then, a near-death experience had a way of altering one’s perspective.
Flying out to The Greedle was always an invigorating experience. They flew low and fast over the icy terrain of Greenland, the frigid air whipping by, threatening to suck any of them out of the open doors of the chopper. They'd been en route to the Baffin Island rendezvous point to meet with the Canadian Snowbirds who were coming up from Shearwater.
Going into battle with her brother Victor at the helm of their helicopter had felt good, really good. Like a sign of goods things to come. Stupid.
Their grand plans for a massive joint strike on the Greedle died almost as they left the ground. More Ringhead jumpships than they had ever seen in one place left their attack force a smoking ruin, with broken soldiers scattered about the snowy wasteland.
Sasha had crawled back to the wreck of their helicopter, only to get pinned herself in the tangle of metal. Some rescue. The acrid smell of jet fuel burned her lungs as she struggled to free them both. Through the open door she saw the jumpships, angling towards them. Over the wails of the helicopter warning systems she heard the crackling release of the alien energy weapons, then felt the dull thump of explosions. The Ringheads were reducing the downed aircraft to ash.
Her brother’s muffled last words were drowned out by a roaring blue-white explosion that threw the helicopter into the air.
The panels slid open and Jonesy strode out, Mack right on his heels.
Sasha shook off her dark memories and popped up to follow them. “Hey, Jonesy.”
He nodded at her in greeting, his dark eyes warm, “Sasha.”
She tilted her head at the war room. “Is it true?”
Jonesy kept walking but motioned her to walk with him. “Dunno. Phillips is sending us out because drone intel is weak but it looks like Segovia was hit.”
Shit. That sounds bad. Sasha hadn’t been out there, but it was a popular destination for tourists.
“You think one unit is enough?” Sasha tried to keep her voice casual.
She must have failed because Jonesy laughed outright. “Don’t worry, plenty of Ringheads out there to test your weapons on later.”
Sasha grunted. “Whatever. I’m going to talk to Phillips. Later.”
Jonesy gave her a friendly wave as she headed back to the war room.
By the time she got back into the war room, everyone had cleared out except Alvarez and Phillips. Chairs were scattered pell mell around the large conference table. Behind them several holo monitors floated, displaying ghostly aerial images of a shattered and smoking town. They kept their voices low and Sasha strained to make out what they were saying. As she approached them however, they stopped and Alvarez took a step back from the Colonel.
Sasha tried not to envy Alvarez her greater height. To her credit, Alvarez was always polite, never looming over Sasha. True to the Marine credo, she exhibited unfailing courtesy without actually ranging into friendliness.
Sasha’s eyes swept over the Colonel, trying to read his face. As usual, the older man wore BDUs, a drab olive t-shirt underneath, his homely features settled into stern lines. He still wore his hair high and tight, like he had a standing Monday appointment at the barber shop for the last forty years.
“Sir. Alvarez.” Sasha greeted the Colonel and then tipped a brief nod to Alvarez.
“Kennedy,” Alvarez responded, her tone curt. Her normally calm demeanor absent, as lines of tension creased her forehead. What the hell was wrong with her? Sasha refrained from rolling her eyes at the reserved lieutenant. She’d wrongly assumed that Alvarez was itching for action too, having been benched out here the longest.
Colonel Phillips swiveled to face Sasha, and his bushy gray eyebrows drew together as his eyes narrowed. He waved his left hand and the holo monitors winked out. “Lt. Kennedy, I don’t recall paging you to the war room.”
“No, sir. Seemed I should check in though. Lots of commotion.” Sasha fished.
He humphed and turned back to Alvarez. “Dismissed, soldier. Go gear up with your unit and start reviewing the terrain maps.”
Alvarez hopped to. “Yes, sir.”
Sasha lifted her face up, schooled her expression to be calm as a glassy lake, waiting for the Colonel to brief her.
“Kennedy, quit it. You’ve got all the subtlety of a two by four.”
Sasha scowled and resumed her normal impatient weight shifting. “Yes, sir. Is it true, sir? Has there been a Ringhead sighting here?”
Phillips glared at her. “Unconfirmed.” Sasha’s face fell and he relented.
“Extensive casualties reported in Segovia, damage levels suggest possible Ringhead incursion but current drone intel is inconclusive.”
“Sir! Requesting change in duty to accompany Alvarez’ unit.” Sasha blurted out.
“Denied. This is recon only, and for Alvarez to look for survivors.” He looked her dead in the eye. “This is not a hunting party.”
Damn. It was like he was scouring the inside of her brain pan and could see every scratch and dent in there.
“Permission to speak freely, sir?”
Phillips sighed and waited a beat. “Granted.”
“If it’s Ringheads, their hunting parties are large and at least two units should go. Also, I’m dying here doing patrol duty.” Honesty compelled Sasha to add the last bit.
Phillips puffed himself up to his full height, which was actually not that much taller than Sasha. It was in fact, one of the many things she liked about him.
“Lieutenant Kennedy. If Gunny has assigned you patrol routes today, you will run those routes today, and run those routes with a smile on your face, is that clear?”
“Crystal, sir,” Sasha braced herself.
“You do not have to remind me what the protocol is if we have Ringheads. I wrote the damn protocol.” Huh. Sasha hadn’t known that little gem.
“We do not have confirmation of Ringheads. For all we know, a damn gas line blew up and killed them all.”
Then Phillips seemed to deflate a little, his arms falling against his barrel chest. “Bottom line, we need your unit here. We’re short on pilots and your unit has Kim. We both know how many good pilots have been lost in the last two years.”
Sasha swallowed, a sudden painful lump in her throat as she thought of Victor again. Her throat felt tight and her voice was raw when she replied. “Understood, sir,” Now her eyes stung and she looked away and blinked rapidly in an attempt to stem the tears that burned back there. Christ, mourning Victor twice in ten minutes. I might as well head back to the fucking shrink.
As if summoned by the very topic of co
nversation, Ace peered into the doorway, the picture of guileless innocence. “Colonel. Lieutenant. Am I interrupting?”
Phillips glanced at the doorway, looking relieved at the chance to give her a moment to recover her wobbly composure. “Lieutenant Kim, you might as well hear it too.”
Ace strode in, his steps confident and sure. Fortune had gifted him with looks, brains, and talent. Good thing he wasn’t an asshole most of the time or Sasha would have to shoot him on principle.
Standing next to Phillips, Ace just barely made the 6’1” cutoff for pilots. He tipped his head in deference to the Colonel and turned to give Sasha a lazy wink.
That sly fuck had probably been listening through by the door the whole time.
“We don’t know what happened in Segovia. Alvarez and her team will handle recon and get us more intel. Ideally, survivors who can confirm it wasn’t Ringheads. In the meantime, I will need your team ready on standby so get through your duties and stay close by. Got it?”
Ace gave an easy nod, “Yes, Colonel.”
“Good. Now get out of my war room.”
“Yes, sir!” Ace looped his arm around Sasha’s shoulders, turned her toward the panels and steered her out. “C’mon, Tiny. You better check your weapons locker or Jonesy’s gonna take all your stuff.”
Sasha scowled and ducked under Ace’s arm. “Liar. He modifies his own. If anything’s missing, I’m checking your locker.”
Three
Blow This Joint
O'Neill gestured into the kitchen, breaking her thoughts. “LT, if they set these up, they’re coming back.” Cam nodded. She could feel his urgency in his gruff voice, and see his tension in the way his webbing stretched tight between nervous fingers. Shit. We need to get out of here.
“I’m going to report in to the Colonel. Garcia, set charges.”
Her own hands trembled with surging adrenaline and she balled them into fists. Luckily she wasn’t setting the explosives, “Magic Hands” Garcia would take care of that. She didn’t like staying here any longer, but their mission was to check for survivors, survey the wreckage, and report back. They were only half done.
“We’re going to finish fast and get out. I want four teams of two, a quick scan for survivors. Set explosives on any alien tech you find, comms on open frequency. Jonesy, take Campbell and check the perimeter. Mack, you’re with me.”
Taking his cue from her, O’Neill barked into his comm, “Garcia and Burke, take the upstairs even floors, Cho, you’re with me on odd floors. Let’s make it quick, but don’t be stupid. Stay loose and remember: we’re looking for survivors.”
Cam patched her comms back to base. “Centcom, this is Alvarez. Are you seeing all this?”
A sedate female voice replied. The speaker sounded bored. Landau. “Your uplink is five by five, Lieutenant. We are assessing the situation presently. What is your sitrep on civilian survivors?”
“None located so far. Drone intel is spotty, we are searching room to room.”
Landau spoke quietly to someone else.
“Understood. Lieutenant Alvarez, Colonel Philips has given the order to decon the entire area. Your team will finish their search and exfil in ten minutes.”
Anger flushed up Cam’s neck. “Did you not see the alien ice maker on our video? We need to get a squint team down here!”
Landau’s voice never rose above her librarian’s pitch. “You have ten minutes, Lieutenant. Get your team out.”
A new surge of adrenaline poured over her. Cam stalked out of the kitchen, Mack’s tall form falling in behind her. They both scanned the remainder of the luggage storage areas when Cam remembered the Inn contained a wine cellar. She hunted for the private stairwell, the seconds ticking by hearing the breath and stomp of boots in her ear as the rest of her team performed their own search.
“Is that it?” Mack asked, pointing to a door half concealed under a set of stairs. She slowed as they approached the door. Through her lens she scanned for heat signatures. In the cool of the cellar, three human signs of life lit up brightly in her thermals. Thank God.
Cam signaled Mack to take the other side of the door and he waited on her command. She drew her sidearm and swept her rifle around her body so she could use her free hand.
She nodded at Mack and he pulled open the heavy wooden door, the two of them flowing into the room with practiced ease. He went high, she went low, the familiar cadence of combat ingrained into their muscles. Her eyes scanned left to right, then back, finding no one but three trembling humans.
A woman stood at the bottom of the stairs, an arm raised to shield her eyes against the light. She held a large barrel screw in one hand, and was dressed in dark slacks and a vest over a crisp white blouse. Maybe she was the sommelier. Behind her huddled two teenage busboys, their forms obscured by the darkness of the cellar.
Cam disengaged her face shield, stepping forward and holstering her sidearm. “I’m Lieutenant Camila Alvarez, this is Lance Corporal Tim McKenzie. We’re here to get you out.”
The woman dropped her makeshift weapon, breathing a huge sigh of relief, her legs shaking. Petite, late forties. She pulled her long brown hair out into a ponytail and twisted it into a makeshift bun with quick efficient movements. She waved her hand, and two boys dressed in kitchen garb emerged from the darkness behind her. “I’m Rosie. This is Julio and Miguel.” She turned to the two young busboys, speaking to them in rapid-fire Spanish. They nodded, keeping their heads down and avoiding looking at anyone.
“Follow me,” Cam said. “Three survivors located in the wine cellar. We’re headed back to the lobby. Report.” O’Neill and Garcia checked in, indicating they each still had another floor to inspect.
“Jonesy, report,” Silence stretched out. Shit, why isn’t he checking in? “Jeeves, team location report.”
“Scanning.”
Cam took a deep breath and concentrated on the mission objective.
Cam turned to Rosie, “How long were you in there?”
Rosie checked her watch, a delicate antique wristband. “Since this afternoon, maybe three hours. It was after the lunch crowd finished and then Julio and Miguel came with me to finish inventory and stock the new shipments.”
“Where did they come in from?”
Rosie shook her head. “I don’t know. We were just in the hallway and heard screaming so we ran back in here and shut the door.”
Cam thought for a moment. Ringheads used shuttles. They tended to fly in low and have their teams jump in. The aliens were incredibly strong, surviving drops that would kill humans. Despite having advanced technology and presumably FTL, the aliens were savagely primal, seeming to enjoy close contact kills of their human prey. If a jump team did all this damage, where the hell were they? Why destroy the town and then vanish?
Jeeves chimed in. “Lieutenant, Jones and Campbell are no longer moving, they are stopped near the pool on the south side of the building.” What the hell are they doing? Cam knew that with his neural enhancements, Jonesy’s hearing was sharper than all of theirs combined. Had he heard something?
“Jonesy, report,” Silence, where there should be the reassuring baritone of Jonesy’s voice.
She tried to reach the Colonel at Base Camp. “CentCom, this is Alvarez. We have three survivors.”
To Cam’s relief, it wasn’t Landau this time. The Colonel’s gravelly voice echoed in their comms. “Good work, Alvarez.”
“My pointman is checking the perimeter and he isn’t responding.”
“Then find him, Lieutenant. You have ten minutes. Get your butts out of there, ASAP.”
“...Roger that.”
Cam grew antsy in the silence, each second ticking by without response from Jonesy. Why the hell were they by the pool? She got back to O’Neill and Garcia, her tone curt. “Jonesy and Nell are by pool and they’re not moving. We’ve been ordered to head out. Get back here now.”
“On our way,” O’Neill responded.
“Ditto.” Garcia responded.<
br />
Cam punched in her code, her fingers stabbing the staccato sequence into the keys. “Jeeves, Jones and Campbell have not reported in, please confirm their location.”
“They are transmitting from near the pool. I have lifesigns.” The AI responded.
Frustrated now, Cam considered her options. Priority one, get everyone out before the missiles.
Within a minute, O’Neill, Cho, Garcia, and Burke streamed in from the stairwell. Her relief at seeing them didn’t diminish the sick feeling in her gut about Jonesy and Campbell. “Colonel Phillips has ordered us back to base. O’Neill, take the unit and get the civilians back there now. I’m going back for Jonesy and Campbell.”
O’Neill scowled, his craggy features unhappy. “We don’t leave our people behind.”
Cam’s voice lowered in ire, “I’m aware of that, sergeant. I gave you an order. Get the hell out of here. Go.”
O’Neill didn’t move, his face a stubborn mask as he locked eyes with her. Cho and Garcia shuffled their boots, unsure of which way to head. Burke kicked his boot against some bit of detritus on the floor, “Uh, sir, SOP is to blow the hell out of an incursion site.”
Just as Cam was about to tear into O’Neill, Jeeves spoke. “Vitals are declining.”
O’Neill bolted for the French double doors, “There’s no time, LT, let’s git!”
Goddamn him. Cam took off after O’Neill, spitting orders, “On me, fall in and guard the survivors.” Catching up with O’Neill, she shoved him. “Don’t ever pull this shit again.”
He nodded, falling in behind her. “Sorry, LT.” She wasn’t falling for his bullshit meekness but she would deal with his insubordination later.
In the darkness, she picked her way over more corpses in the formerly pristine rose gardens leading to the pool. A high-pitched whine rang out in the night, coming from multiple directions. Just as abruptly, it stopped. Alarmed, the unit members scanned the immediate area, unable to pin down the source. Rosie shivered in fear and huddled close to Cho, breathing heavily.
