by Richard Fox
“But he didn’t,” King said.
“I appreciate your analysis. I’ve made my decision,” Hoffman said.
“Yes, sir.”
“Put Garrison on point for a while. I’m tired of hearing him complain,” Hoffman said.
“It’s not that cold,” King said as he went to give Corporal Garrison the news.
“Without armor, I bet it’s really cold. Check on his shoulder and his armor integrity.”
“Yes, sir.”
Hoffman watched the gunnery sergeant and thanked the Saint, not for the first time, that the hard-faced man was on his team. He’d poached King from a rival officer, Lieutenant Masterson, after the two had a falling out. Masterson hadn’t taken well to the ego bruising and had been icy towards Hoffman until the mission to rescue a Dotari fleet in deep space. Hoffman’s last memory of Masterson was the other Marine’s body tortured and transformed by the Xaros drone on the Kid’ran’s Gift. It was a bad way to die and made Hoffman remember Masterson differently than he might have otherwise.
He checked his team’s IR pings, noting Garrison was moving forward by the book. He hadn’t complained about his broken arm or dislocated shoulder since the legionnaire had reset his shoulder. He saved his complaining for nature and the inherent unfairness of the universe.
King assumed the rearguard position, maintaining visual contact with Hoffman at all times.
Opal led Medvedev and Masha on a carbon-fiber line. Hoffman hung back just far enough that Masha had to turn her head to see exactly where he was walking.
“Got something, sir,” Garrison said.
Hoffman moved to join him, crouching behind a cluster of lichen- and snow-covered rocks.
Garrison pointed, moving his hand slowly to avoid attracting attention of diligent countersurveillance.
“What am I looking at?”
“Wait a minute…there…coming out from those trees,” Garrison said.
Humanoid shapes with wide shoulders and ice-crusted fur marched parallel to a partially frozen river. He saw weapons—long rifles carried by the barrel—and large packs strapped across their lower backs. Hoffman zoomed in. The aliens had dark-gray skin and blunt muzzles for mouths, red eyes, and upturned noses. Facial hair crowded their faces, giving them an almost simian appearance.
Hoffman took a screen grab and sent it to Masha’s and Medvedev’s visors. “What kind of Kesaht are these?”
“Rakka,” Masha said. “Dumber than a bag of hammers, but they’re stronger than they look.”
“Uh, no. These yahoos don’t look like a crack fighting force. Are those…rifles? Like with rifling in the barrels and smokeless powder?” Garrison asked.
“Slug throwers,” Medvedev said. “Chemical propellant. Nowhere as efficient as gauss weapons, but a lucky hit can get through your armor. They’re effective when massed against a target.” He ran a hand down his side, as if remembering an old wound.
“Looks like the Kesaht made some improvements to old Rakka weaponry,” Garrison said. “Lots of nasty-looking knives in their kit, some on long bone handles or poles. Plenty of glyphs drawn onto their armor. Not a lot of uniformity…By the Saint! What is that thing?” Garrison asked as he crouched against a rock and brought his rifle to his shoulder.
Hoffman opened his IR comms. “Take cover. We have hostiles about a thousand meters out. King, make sure our prisoners understand these baddies are not their friends unless they like monsters.”
“Received and understood,” King said.
“I’m moving closer for a better look,” Hoffman said. “Cover me.”
He backed away from Garrison’s hiding place, crept around it, and continued down the trail to a new observation point. He logged the location in his computer and aimed his rifle scope toward the advancing army moving in and out of the trees.
A new alien towered over the Rakka, its centaur-like body moving through the snow and kicking up puffs of snow with each step. It carried a long rifle tipped with a serrated bayonet. Thick hair was tied into a braid held tight with silver ribbons. Fog wafted from its squat face with each breath, and tusks curved up from the lower lip and jaw.
“Is that thing part horse?” Garrison asked.
“Looks like it,” Hoffman answered. “That must be the Sanheel. The officer caste. Fall back to the others. We need to get through this area before they reach it.”
“That thing reminds me of Gunney King in a way. Mean and ugly,” Garrison said. He lowered his rifle scope, checked his immediate area, and hustled back to King and the others. “Moving.”
“Covering,” Hoffman said. When he rejoined his team, Opal had packed Medvedev and Masha beneath his large body. King squatted over them as well, hiding their heat signatures.
“Their gear looks like garbage,” King said. “On the IR, I don’t see any hotspots of battery packs. They’re out here in these conditions without heat systems. I thought I was cold…”
“Cold doesn’t seem to be slowing them down too much,” Hoffman said. “Let’s tighten up the order of march and be prepared to hide our principals at a moment’s notice. The enemy is moving this way. We need to be through this part of the pass before they get here. King, you’re back on point. Let’s move.”
King set an aggressive pace. Opal let out more line and jogged behind Medvedev and Masha. Hoffman followed. The prisoners kept a decent pace, which told him they definitely did not want to be found by the Kesaht. If there was an Ibarran force out there, he was pretty sure Masha would have developed all manner of cramps and twisted ankles to slow them all down. Garrison brought up the rear and talked too much on the IR.
“All clear back here. No ice barbarians or centaurs with freakishly deadly spear-swords,” Garrison said.
“How’s your arm?” Hoffman panted, checking his tactical display as well as the visual position of each team member and his own footing frequently.
“Hurts like hell. Thanks for asking.”
They ran, climbed, and hiked in silence for a while. Clouds pushed snow across the sky and threatened to dump it on them. Crescent fighters patrolled distant mountains. Hoffman saw flashes of battle from Koensuu City. He pushed closer to Masha.
“This is an invasion,” he said.
“What were you expecting? A snatch-and-grab raid?”
“What are they here for? They can land troops. They could probably smash Koensuu City like they did Pohja Base,” he said, nearly slipping on an angled stone in the trail.
“The Kesaht hate all humans. Ibarran and Terran,” she said. “They act like we’re some sort of xenocidal species bent on galactic extermination. Like we’re the same as the Xaros. From the Toth’s point of view…I can see how they can make that case.”
“You Ibarrans have never tried to reason with them?” Hoffman asked. “Explain who the Toth were and why they were—”
“Annihilated?” Masha asked with a snort. “Just how do we sugarcoat that? A Toth overlord tells a race that knows nothing of the Ember War how humans drove his species to the edge of extinction, and that we’re probably coming for them next. What would happen to the galactic opinion of Navarre—and Earth—if word got out about what we did to the Toth at the end of the war? I don’t think even the Dotari know all the details of what happened. No, we’re not going to throw our hands up and claim this is all some horrible misunderstanding.”
“You’re saying Earth deserves to fight the Kesaht?”
“Last time I checked, the galaxy isn’t fair,” she said. “Wasn’t fair when the Xaros wiped out the solar system. Now the Kesaht are a problem. I doubt things will be all rainbows and kittens in the future.”
Hoffman let the conversation drop as they sprinted across a clearing, on the other side of which were a herd of the moose like the creatures the wolves fed on. They bolted away from Hoffman and his Strike Marines.
“That was subtle,” Garrison said.
“Nothing to be done for it,” King said. “I’m going to run ahead and make sure the Rakka d
on’t have a scout element ahead of them.”
King called back a short time later. “The Rakka vanguard is moving fast. Better start looking for someplace to hide. I’ll slip off the trail and try to rejoin you when I can.”
“You heard him. Let’s make ourselves invisible.” Hoffman ran his Marines and the prisoners into the snow disturbed by the native moose, mingling their tracks with the moose tracks, and then directed his team into the snowbanks where the creatures had nuzzled for food frozen to the ground.
Masha raised her tied hands in front of her and clapped her fingertips. “Oh goody! This is where I see the Terran Strike Marine cloaking technology.”
Hoffman grunted. “Opal, put her on the ground and cover her. She’s the principal. Medvedev doesn’t matter except for exposing the rest of us.”
He moved to the oversized legionnaire and pointed at the ground. “Get down and get small. Garrison and I will cover you with our suits and try to act as a heat shield.” He made adjustments on his arm-sleeve screen. “Match your temperature to the snow.”
“You think the Kesaht cannon fodder is equipped with thermal tech?” Medvedev asked.
“I’m not taking chances.” Hoffman checked his team to make sure everyone was in place, then dusted himself with snow and activated his suit’s cloak. The power drain spiked as the armor cooled itself and threw up a short-range holo field that blended him into the snowbank. His visor cut out all color and he held very still as cold leached into his body.
From somewhere out of view, King whispered over the IR comms. “They are right on top of you.”
“What’s your status?” Hoffman spoke quietly inside his helmet and tried not to breathe. His teeth chattered as the cold from the ground seeped straight through his armor and all the layers of insulation that protected him. “We’re short-staffed, Gunney. Don’t get seen.”
“I’m in a better position than you are. Trust me.”
Garrison’s voice waved through Hoffman’s internal helmet speakers. “I bet Gunney’s warm.”
Hoffman watched boots stomping across his limited field of vision. After a time, he saw the strange hooves of the Sanheel creature. He assumed it was an officer or some type of battlefield commander, maybe a slave driver of some sort. It stopped, shuffled sideways, then studied the snowy meadow.
Rakka scouts grunted and argued with him.
“They’re pointing to where the Koen-moose herd scattered to,” King said.
Garrison stage-whispered, trusting his helmet to conceal his words. “I bet you can eat them.”
“There is something wrong with your breacher,” Masha said.
“Not the Sanheel, the moose,” Garrison said.
Garrison and the rest of the team went silent as the column of Rakka foot soldiers stopped. The Sanheel shouted an order. The Rakka unlimbered medium-length pole arms with bone handles and wide blades that curved backwards near the tip. They poked the butt-end of their weapons into snowdrifts and tangles of winter vegetation.
Hoffman bit down hard but couldn’t stop his teeth chattering. A pair of Rakka loomed over him, turning this way and that and complaining to their leaders. One jabbed his pole arm violently into the ground in a near-random pattern.
Hoffman felt like every one of the enemy should be staring at him. His body trembled. His teeth wouldn’t stop their protestations of the cold weather. He peered through his darkened visor and resisted the temptation to wipe snow away from the lenses. Seen from this vantage point, the Rakka and the Sanheel officer looked like giants from a child’s fairytale.
“King…what is our…status?” Hoffman asked.
“Looks like they’re on the move again. Hold on a bit longer,” King said. “I’ll make a note that your tactic for concealing prisoners seemed to work.”
“The prisoners are glad not to be caught but ready to get up before they are crushed,” Masha said. “And…further abused…with hypothermia…”
Hoffman waited until he hadn’t seen any feet or other enemy body parts for a full minute, then five, then ten. “King, report.”
A pause.
“They’re into the woods and headed up the trail we came down. It won’t take them long to figure out which way we went. My recommendation is to haul ass but stay low,” King said.
“You heard the man. Let’s move out.” Hoffman came slowly to his feet, scanned the clearing, then hustled his team toward the trees where King waited.
“Ahhhhh,” groaned Garrison. “I think my nipples stuck to the inside of my armor.”
“Nipples no stick,” Opal said.
“What about you, Lieutenant?” Masha said. “You have anything stick where it shouldn’t?”
“Less talk, more evading the enemy,” Hoffman said. “King, you got us a hide spot?”
“A little farther and we can take a break. I’m setting up an OP on the next ridgeline. We’re above the clearing in the rivers that feed it now,” King said.
“We’re en route,” Hoffman said as he looked around at his team. No one looked happy or comfortable. He could see Masha trembling in her environment suit. Above them, the heavy gray clouds finally let loose and dumped thick curtains of snow on them.
Hoffman once again pointed his rifle scope at the enemy. “There will be more patrols.”
“I wish we hadn’t blown the crash site,” King said. “King for Garrison, could you start an avalanche with your remaining breaching charges?”
“I’m a Strike Marine, Gunney, not an avalanche…planner,” Garrison said. “So, I can do nothing or probably bring down the entire mountain on our heads. Your choice.”
“Let’s hold that in reserve,” Hoffman said.
Chapter 10
“I spy with my little eye…PDF scouts,” Duke whispered.
“I see another big-ass storm brewing,” Booker said, glancing at low-hanging clouds the color of dirty steel. “And a really long drop into an icy river. Have we talked about my fear of heights?”
“You’re not afraid of heights,” Duke said, still watching the PDF scouts creeping near the bridge. “You’re always the first one out when we do high-altitude, low-opening jumps from orbit.”
“True. But I’m really tired of being cold. Getting plunged into glacial flow after falling a hundred meters is not a fantasy of mine.”
“Not glacial.”
“What?”
Duke exhaled, wishing it was time for another dip. “It’s just a river with a lot of snow and ice. The first fjord we crossed was cut out of the mountains by a glacier. Closer to sea level. This is just a river.”
“What are your new friends doing now?”
“Scouting,” Duke said. “Not complete idiots. A little skittish and impatient.”
Duke and Booker watched the PDF scouts creep toward the bridge. Sneaking past them in the woods hadn’t been much of a challenge. In their defense, the young soldiers had been looking for slavering Rakka and eight-foot-tall tusk-faced centaurs. Something was happening. Duke could see their comms specialist bent over a radio.
“I thought comms were down,” Booker said.
“They are. Our PDF friends are freaking out. Probably saw something they didn’t like,” Duke said. “Yep, here they come.”
The young soldiers moved quickly and efficiently. By training standards, their performance was above average. The team leader ordered a bounding overwatch and they moved in pairs. Duke admired their energy, even if it was misplaced.
Booker whispered, “They’re going to squat right on top of us.”
“That’ll make the lesson I’m about to teach them a lot easier,” Duke said.
The PDF scout team reformed and concealed themselves within arm’s reach of Duke and Booker.
“We have to radio this in. The sooner we get to an IR relay, the better,” the squad leader said. “Are you sure you didn’t see more than one vehicle?”
“One Kesaht truck, but I’m pretty sure it was a scout vehicle. We—” The team leader froze and looked aroun
d. “Never mind. Felt like a shadow just walked over my grave.”
Duke’s next movement was deceptively quick. Soundless, the motion looked slower than it was. None of the young men reacted in time. He came to his feet like a mound of snow growing from the forest floor and snatched the team leader’s camouflage rifle from his hand. Quickly, before things could go bad, he held one hand palm out toward the others.
“Settle down there, folks. I’m from the Terran government and I’m here to help,” Duke said.
The squad leader flinched, then recovered. “Shit! You’re that Terran Strike Marine dude. Where’s the hot chick? You know, the good-looking medic.”
Duke flipped open his visor so he could spit. “You’re standing on her.”
The man and his companions laughed nervously.
“No, I’m serious. You’re standing on my partner. Please step away from the Strike Marine medic,” Duke said.
“By the Saint!” The team leader jumped sideways.
Booker came to her feet and sucked in a long breath of air. “Thanks. That was getting uncomfortable. If I’d known he was going to step that direction when you scared the crap out of him, I would’ve moved sooner.”
Duke nodded at the scout leader. “Attend to your team. Tighten up security. It’s been a long couple days and we don’t feel like doing it for you.”
“Yes, sir,” the leader said. He redeployed his unit into defensive positions and chastised them. Duke overheard more than one of them point out that the team leader hadn’t exactly been on the ball this time either.
“Do you think that taught them a lesson or just humiliated them?” Booker asked.
“Little of both. Did you notice how much denethrite they’re carrying?” He watched the PDF soldiers with growing concern. All of them, including the leader, were showing signs of agitation. “What’s the problem?”
