by Richard Fox
“Surgical scars to the base of the skull,” Shor said. “Looks only a few years old.”
“Consistent with the other specimens, the foreign object was likely introduced after maturity,” Accorso said. “Now that we’ve got a clear look, perhaps an ultrasound?”
He picked up a wand and pressed it against the bare flesh. Sound pulses formed a 3-D image on a handheld screen. A dense mass was attached to the banshee’s brain stem, its tendrils woven into the brain and spinal column.
“What do you think?” Accorso asked.
“I think brain surgery on a Dotok with such highly modified physiology is a mistake,” she said.
The banshee quivered and let out a low moan. One of the crewmen fumbled with his carbine as the other raised a hammer.
“Settle down, boys. I’ve had patients sing an opera while they’ve been under,” Accorso said. “Normally,” he said to Shor, “I’d agree with you. But … needs must.” He picked up a sonic scalpel and cut an incision across the mass at the base of the skull. Gray blood seeped from the wound.
Shor and Accorso spent the next ten minutes exposing the nodule, an oblong lump of gray metal with swirls and fractals dancing across its surface.
“Looks like a Xaros drone,” Accorso thought out loud. “Let’s remove it. Tray,” Shor gave Accorso a dirty look.
“I am the doctor and expert in Dotok physiology and neurology. You hold the tray.” She elbowed Accorso aside and picked up a set of pliers. “The wires can remain. I’m cutting away the Xaros device.” She snipped a wire where it connected to the device. Nothing happened for a moment, then the cut wire disintegrated. The banshee grunted.
“That was unexpected,” she said.
“Suggest you hurry.”
Shor snipped the rest of the wires with the same effect. She lifted up the device with the edge of the pliers.
“There’s a mass of wires attached to the brain stem. Angle it up so I can remove them,” Shor said. Accorso lifted the device with the edge of a pair of clamps and Shor cut away the remaining wires.
Accorso grabbed the device with the clamps and transferred it to a metal tray. He spun away from the surgical table and examined it beneath a light.
“Hello, my darling. What have we here?” Accorso watched as the patterns along the surface shifted…then went still. A burning ember crept across the surface as the device broke apart and collapsed into ash.
“No, no, no! God damn it!” Accorso slammed the empty tray to the deck and mashed it with his foot.
The monitoring equipment buzzed and a double chime sounded.
“Blood pressure fading, neural activity just went off the charts,” Shor said. “I think we’re losing her.”
“Gohrnah,” said the banshee.
Shor ran to the other side of the table and ripped her mask off.
“Gohrnah,” it said again.
“Is it…talking?” Accorso asked.
“It’s an old dialect, but I understand. It’s ‘help.’ She’s asking for help.” Shor touched the banshee’s face and spoke words Accorso’s translator didn’t recognize.
The banshee spoke again, guttural words that reverberated off the walls. Its speech trailed away as Shor, tears in her eyes, nodded furiously.
Flat lines cut across the monitoring display and stayed steady. Accorso switched it off.
Shor closed the banshee’s eyes and pressed two fingers to her lips. “We are less without you, old mother.”
“What did she say?”
“She spoke of a vile stone, an old story from Dotari Prime. A noorla lived inside a mountain and used its powers to force a city to do horrible things. Then…she asked to be forgiven. Asked me to pray at a shrine to lessen the weight of sins she’d carry to heaven.”
“The captain will want to know about this ‘vile stone.’” He opened the door back to the med bay. “You coming?”
“I must stay with her for a while, until her spirit has left,” Shor said. She folded her arms across the banshee’s chest and laid her head against the armor.
****
Cortaro limped down the stone walkway, carefully measuring each step with his prosthetic. His peg had a nasty habit of jamming into the nooks and crannies of the cobblestone surface, twisting it against the tender stump of what remained of his leg. There were times he could almost feel his missing foot, a phantom pain the doctor swore was a good thing, it meant his body would accept a vat grown replacement easier.
The peg jabbed in to a puddle and slipped. Cortaro went wheeling forward and would have fallen, had Steuben not grabbed him by the shoulder to steady him.
“Are you OK?” Steuben asked.
“No, Steuben, someone blew my leg off and now I’m trying to get around like a damned cripple,” Cortaro said. He tightened the strap lashing his prosthetic to his flesh and blood and continued down the road.
“I’m the one who shot your leg. Did you forget?”
“No—I,” he pointed a knife hand at Steuben. “Are you messing with me?”
“This topic does not seem to be one that strikes much humor with you.”
Cortaro continued on, taking longer steps that Steuben had no trouble keeping pace with. Dotok soldiers and human Marines worked together along the eastern walls, setting spikes and welded together cross beams from cannibalized star ships and bolting them to the road.
Steuben grabbed a Dotok by shoulder and pointed to the roll of wire in the Dotok’s trembling hands, “Do not run wires until after the obstacles are set. Keep our lanes of retreat open until we are done with the eastern approaches.”
The Dotok nodded his head rapidly and dropped the wire at his feet.
“You scare them,” Cortaro said.
“How? I am only here to help and I am most pleasant to be around,” Steuben said. He stretched out his jaw, distending it and revealing double rows of needle sharp teeth.
Cortaro looked across the barren expanse toward the east. A haze of dust proceeding the approaching storm would, according to the Dotok, last for hours and leave a fog of disturbed dust in its wake. The haze would conceal the approaching banshee swarm until they were within a few kilometers of the city. Cortaro liked knowing exactly how much time he had left, the longer he had between spotting the banshees and the first banshees to the wall, the better he’d feel.
The gunnery sergeant leaned over the outer wall and saw a Marine anchored against the rocks.
“Pavel, are you done yet?” Cortaro called out to the Marine.
“Few more charges on this section, Gunney. Give me another twenty minutes,” Pavel yelled back.
Cortaro turned around and surveyed the defenses. The roadways from the still intact outer walls leading to the Canticle of Reason were almost full of welded crossbeams, thin wires ran between most of the obstacles, meant to disrupt advancing banshees. Work crews hung against the inner honeycomb walls, drilling into the massive bricks. Banks of gremlin mortar launchers were deployed at the intersections, their top covers removed.
“Steuben, explain to me again how blowing up the city is the best way to defend it?” Cortaro said.
“We’re abandoning this city, not defending it. Every brick is a potential weapon against our enemy, the Dotok understand this,” Steuben said. “There is little point in leaving anything viable to our enemy as we retreat.”
“Marines don’t retreat, Steuben. We just advance in a different direction,” Cortaro said.
“That sounds like a rationalization to mitigate a tactical shortcoming.”
Cortaro’s face turned red as he queued up a number of insults he’d normally use on army soldiers who’d dare make similar remarks when his gauntlet computers beeped with a priority message.
“Hale’s Mule is coming back, and he’s got civilians with them? Odd. Let’s go get him up to speed,” Cortaro said.
****
Cortaro looked away from the landing Mule as its turbofans blew hot air and dust around him. The ramp lowered, and the civilians packed
inside almost spilled out. Dotok soldiers ran up the ramp and tried to yell directions over the din of the engines.
“There’s no way,” Cortaro said to Steuben, “there’s no way the lieutenant’s in there.”
Un’qu ran around a corner and bumped into Cortaro, not evening offering an apology as he went straight to the civilians. He took a worn photograph from his pocket and held it up to the civilians, all of whom shook their heads at the photo.
Orozco opened the hatch on the bottom turret and stood up. He waved to Cortaro, desperate for his attention.
“Some answers, at least,” Cortaro said. He and Steuben tried to get past the civilians.
“Thank you!” an old female Dotok clasped Cortaro’s hands and pressed them to her forehead. “When can you go back for my grandchildren? They’re still with their mother.”
“Soon as we can miss, excuse us,” Cortaro pulled his hands away, unsure of what he’d just promised.
“Gunney,” Orozco said. “The lieutenant’s trying to be a hero again. He’s got a whole column of refugees and he’s walking them to some old landing zone.”
“Please tell me they’re on the right side of the nuke,” Cortaro said.
“Nope,” Orozco looked at the timer on his gauntlet, “he’ll be locked in that valley with all those banshees in another thirty seconds.”
Cortaro rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I thought Hale had outgrown all the gung-ho butter bar nonsense.”
“Excuse me,” Un’qu came up the ramp, holding the picture toward Orozco like it was a talisman. “You were at Usonvi, right? Did you see these them? My wife and newborn son?”
Orozco looked carefully, then shook his head. “But there were a lot of people there, sir. I really didn’t get much of a look at anyone.”
Un’qu tucked the photo back into his uniform. He nodded slowly and turned away.
“Hey, you know the lieutenant, right?” Orozco asked. “If there’s a way to get them out, he’ll find it. We’re Marines, we don’t leave anyone behind if there’s a chance they’re still alive.”
Un’qu glanced over his shoulder, then left.
“Pilot!” Cortaro yelled. “Turn and burn, you need to get back there ASAP.”
Jorgen came around from the cockpit, his flight gloves off and the zipper of his suit half way down his chest.
“Gunney, no one’s going anywhere in that soup,” Jorgen said. He pointed behind Cortaro.
A wall of sand stretched across the horizon, rolling towards them like a tidal wave.
Bells clanged throughout the city, warning of more than just an impending sand storm.
CHAPTER 12
The refugees from Usonvi took shelter in the shadow of a small hill. A dry riverbed, nothing but a wide swath of sand and silt, cut into the side of the hill. Millennia of erosion from when the riverbed carried water had worn into the side of the rock, cutting a path through and creating an overhang in the rock, like a cave with only one side.
The adults sat in tight circles, letting their children loose to play within the makeshift corrals. What little food and water they had, they shared with each other.
Hale, standing guard at one end of the overhang, checked the timer on his gauntlet. The nuclear demolition of Ghostwind Pass was two minutes away. He turned his attention back to the route they’d come from, eyes scanning for any sign of the tide of banshees headed in their direction.
“Sir,” Torni said, trotting up to him, “the civilians know the nuke’s coming. It’s still the end of the world, but the quake we’re about to feel isn’t it.”
“Good work, how’re they doing?”
“Better. I told them to eat the food they were carrying for the highers. It should give them more strength to get the last couple miles,” she said.
“Any trouble?”
“No, Nil’jo’s decided to stop bitching and start brooding, which is fine by me.”
A cold mass of air blew into their shelter. Children cried and went running for their parents. Dotok wrapped their robes around the children and sat them between their legs. The sky darkened as a roiling mass of snow and dust blew across the top of the canyon. A thick fog descended into the canyon, like a cloud was charging straight for them.
A whistle blew twice. “Storm!” Nil’jo shouted. He repeated the whistle and the warning once more before Standish yanked the whistle from the Chosen’s mouth and proceeded to lecture him on noise discipline. The banshees could’ve heard that whistle.
The storm cloud hit the ground and enveloped them all like fog. Fine dust and particulate snow and ice struck Hale’s armor with the sound of a rain shower against glass.
“Great…a mud storm,” Standish said over the IR as his next words washed out in the interference.
Hale called out to Bailey, Yarrow and Standish; the three marines emerged from the blowing dust seconds later.
“Try to form a line at the edge of the overhang,” Hale said. “I don’t want anyone wandering off in this mess.”
“Don’t think that’ll be a problem, look,” Bailey said.
The Dotok were still in their circles, hunkered against one another. Children poked at the robes covering them, but none tried to get free.
“I don’t think this is their first rodeo,” Standish said. A windblown pebble bounced off his helmet.
The ground quaked and Hale had to grab on to Torni to keep his balance. A clash of thunder announced the detonation of the nuclear device. A constant tremor kept up for almost a minute as the sound of a distant avalanche rumbled through their shelter.
“I think it worked,” Standish said.
“We’re all kinds of screwed if the birds don’t come back for us,” Yarrow said. “There’ll be radiation from that nuke. Not much for us in our suits, but all of them are unprotected.”
“And the civvies are down to almost nothing for food or water,” Torni said. “Not as much of a concern. I figure the banshees will kill us all before we starve, or die of rad poisoning.”
“We can treat radiation exposure on the Breit,” Hale said. “This mission’s a bit of a Hail Mary. Thank you all for being with me.”
“No place I’d rather be,” Torni said. “This is something I can feel proud of—better than sitting back on Earth for the next fourteen years, waiting around for the Xaros to show up again.”
“Sir,” Standish raised a hand, “do you think we’ll ever get to go someplace nice? Anthalas was this big swamp full of corpses and giant lizards trying to eat us. This place is about as pleasant as taking a shower with a sand blaster, plus monsters. Just once I want the Corps to send us to someplace pleasant…maybe with a bunch of Polynesian women that want to rub our feet and feed us grapes.”
“Don’t tell me you believe the legend,” Bailey said with a shake of her head.
“What legend?” Yarrow asked.
“It’s not a legend. The Island of Fiki-Fiki is a real place,” Standish said. “My father heard about it from a cellmate whose uncle was best friends with someone who was there.”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” Yarrow said.
“Listen up, new guy. Not every Marine gets to hear about the island of Fiki-Fiki. When the Chinese blew that big EMP over the Pacific and knocked out every ship in the fleet, an American torpedo boat went adrift and ended up on an uncharted island in the South Pacific. The natives hadn’t seen a Westerner since the Second World War and thought the crew of that torpedo boat were gods come to walk the Earth. Those sailors sat out the rest of the war, had like a dozen wives each and their own little island kingdom…until they were ‘rescued.’ Then they had a party with the five years of back pay.”
“No way,” Yarrow said, awe in his voice.
“It’s a myth to get stupid Marines to re-enlist for float assignments,” Torni said. “Don’t believe it.”
“We don’t have to go to the island of Fiki-Fiki, sir,” Standish said. “Maybe we drop on someplace that has a forecast of partly cloudy inst
ead of mud storms and a ninety-five percent chance of genocide. I’d like to believe that there are some nice places in the galaxy, that not everything is horror and murder.”
“Maybe once the Xaros are gone,” Hale said, “we can use the Crucible to find someplace reasonably nice.” Wind buffeted the Marines. Hale turned around and looked into the storm. “But not today.”
****
Orozco tested his anchors hold against the deck plates for the umpteenth time. His boots were locked tight, still. Same as they’d been for the past two hours. He brushed sand away from his Gustav and stared at the blank bulkhead in front of him.
Waiting. He hated waiting.
“So, I said to the guy ‘How do you know there’s no teeth in there?’” Lance Corporal Rock said. Another Marine, Sergeant Holt, chuckled at the punchline. Each heavy gunner Marine was anchored to the deck, their Gustav’s primed and ready for a fight that could start at any moment. Each hated waiting a little more than the next.
A text message came across Orozco’s gauntlet.
“All right, stow it,” Orozco said. “Sentries report movement out beyond the wall.”
“They going to tell us when this fight starts?” Rock asked.
“Just wait to hear the shooting, that’s a pretty good clue,” Holt said.
“What part of ‘stow it’ wasn’t in English?” Orozco snapped. “Remember the plan. We provide covering fire for the front lines as they fall back. Soon as the first hostile gets to the road in front of us, we un-ass this position and fall back to the next one. Got it?”
“Sure, Sarge. Who came up with this plan? Gunney, or that big ugly you’ve been palling around with?” Holt asked.
“Which one do you want to look in the eye and say ‘your plan sucks’?”
“I didn’t say it sucked,” Holt said sheepishly. “Just curious is all.”
“Devastators, this is Gunney. You ready?” Cortaro asked over the IR.
“Hey, IR’s back up,” Rock said.
