Nilo has his helmet back on and is stacked on the opposite side of the door, waiting for it to hiss open so he can go through the clearing exercises. He probably spent a lot of credits learning how to do it to Legion standards, so I don’t want to keep him from making use of it for too long. But there are some things I need to know first. Things that would have been covered in a proper planning session, if this outfit ever bothered with them.
“We’re ready, Nilo. Who is waiting for us on the other side?”
“Possibly zhee. Possibly no one. The idea was to get in and neutralize the comm room before they had a chance to let the zhee running things from Subiyook know who was attacking them. It’s critical they don’t know it’s us.”
I grab a fragger from my rig. “You toss one in too. Then we take the room.”
Nilo hesitates.
“Is there something we need to recover in there? A reason we can’t use these?”
“No. I don’t think so. Maybe, but…”
I frown. “I’m gonna throw these in unless you tell me I can’t.”
“Do it.”
“Ooah.”
Nilo sounds like he smiles when he says, “KTF, right?”
“Don’t push it,” I say.
The door quietly slides open and the two of us toss in our fraggers and pop back out of the threshold, hugging the wall as the grenades do their dual-detonation and each send a pair of tight, concentric blasts of shrapnel into the room.
I turn the corner and move smoothly into the room, my nostrils filling with an acrid mixture of burning circuitry, ozone, and donk musk. Nilo is right behind me.
The room is small. Just a polished table for holoprojections in the middle and a far wall taken up by a complex comm array. Some of the shrapnel from the grenades has left holes in the holoscreens, which are relaying a recording of fighting elsewhere in the compound. Thin tendrils of smoke wisp up from a ruined console—like one of the fraggers landed on it before blowing up. Something full of wires pops and sends a shower of sparks down on top of the mane of an old-looking donk in pristine white robes—the room’s only survivor.
The old donk ignores the electronic embers choking out in his silver-streaked mane. There’s a workstation between him and me, and I can tell he’s kneeling, his head and shoulders just at the console level. The donk is randomly pressing buttons on the console and braying in his zhee language—like he knows what the comm station is for but not how to use it.
“This is Kobb Sepped,” Winters says over comm.
The old donk seems oblivious to our being in the room, despite the loud greetings we sent in ahead of us. He’s still pressing that console and calling as I move in, rifle pressed into my shoulder and ready.
His robes seem whiter than what is possible. Not stained by sweat, smoke, or sand. But when I swing around the work station obstructing my full view, I see seeping stains of red marring the pristine robes. His lower half was peppered with shrapnel from the fraggers and he’s bleeding at a pretty good clip. Probably got an artery nicked. Maybe lacerations down into his guts or organs. Donks bleed pretty bad if you hit their liver or kidneys.
It’s clear that unless this group got a message off before we stormed the castle, the old donk isn’t getting through now. Probably he just fell back here in an attempt to stay safe, not figuring that his attackers would have Dark Ops level slicer boxes to get past the doors.
“What do you want me to do with him?” I ask Nilo. Maybe capturing a high value target like this was Hopper’s objective.
“Oh, you’re still in charge of this team,” the kid says, sounding almost like he’s surprised I’d consult him. “So, however you’d normally handle something like this as team leader, Carter.”
I want to say that, as team leader, I don’t know how to handle this because I was never briefed on the totality of the mission—there was no redundancy or fail-safe. A big error. But then, I can see from the holoscreens that Hopper and his team are trying to fight off a large concentration of donks now that Lash and Easy have set up a cross fire, hammering the zhee attackers in their flanks. That’s ultimately where I need to be. Hauling a bleeding old zhee isn’t going to get me there any quicker.
I also get the sense that Nilo is testing me here. Like he doesn’t actually care, but wants to see what I’ll do.
“Roger,” I say, and put two blaster bolts into the donk’s back and another in his head once he’s down. “Let’s rejoin with the rest of the team.”
The kid jumps at the suddenness of the blasts, but quickly recovers himself.
He moves to the comm console, legs spread wide in order to stand above the dead zhee lying at his feet without actually standing on the donk. “Just gotta make sure we’re not in for any complications.”
Nilo pries off a smoking panel that has a two centimeter shrapnel hole, revealing a thick clump of wiring. He pulls out a feather chip and affixes it to the conduit and then, while still on our two-line channel, calls Brisco.
“Brisk,” he says, obviously wanting me to hear the conversation. Maybe to keep me at ease about not going to help immediately, maybe just to draw me in closer to knowing why we’ve been doing all this. “I got a data phantom tapped to the relay conduit. What’s it say?”
“Hang tight, Nee,” Brisco says, and I wonder if my team are the only ones who didn’t know that the big boss was riding with us.
No, that’s silly. Surber knew. Brisco—maybe he’s a friend of the kid’s from back when he was doing whatever it is that got him his fortune. Something to do with how the Republic credit-chain worked. You forget. It’s a big galaxy with a lot of poor and a lot of rich. And the only rich ones you know about are the ones who became rich so they could get some fame to go with it. Nilo isn’t that type.
But I don’t think anyone else knew.
“We’re supposed to keep this quiet about you, I’m guessing?” I say.
“About me what?” Nilo asks.
“You being a rich kid with a trust fund that wanted to play merc and bought all the best tools for the job—Winters—only, surprise, you’re the guy running this show.”
I hear Nilo laugh gently over the comm. “Lots of capable people are running this show. You can’t get anything significant accomplished if you run it all. But I’m the guy with the vision. And yes, keep this quiet for now.”
“The others,” I say, thinking of Lash, Lana, and Easy. “They might tell Alpha.”
“They won’t.”
“Well, I dunno…” I say, not seeing how Nilo can be so sure of that. At the very least they’ll tell Abers. Or Abers will ask why his debts are paid and his paycheck got so large.
“You got them something they didn’t know they could have, Carter,” Nilo says, drumming his fingers against the smoking console, waiting for Brisco to get back word of whether the mission was compromised. “It was always there for the taking—a man sets his own worth. But most people in the galaxy don’t know that. And they don’t believe it when they see the proof in others.”
“Okay… but Easy has a big mouth.”
“You knew it, Carter. Deep down. It’s what I like about you. Deep down, you know how the galaxy works. You brought your team along for the ride and didn’t leave them in the dust. I like that about you, too. But they don’t know why they all just experienced such good luck. That’s what they’ll call it. Now, if it happened to someone else, they would respond by being jealous, by getting angry at the person. But since it’s happened to them… they’ll be scared.”
“Scared?”
That doesn’t make much sense.
“Winters—I mean, Mr. Nilo—I’m feeling a lot of things right now but scared isn’t one of them. Most of it involves what it’ll feel like to tell my wife the debts are all paid. That and how I imagine she’ll thank me when I get back home.”
Nilo laughs again. “Call me
Nee or Nilo. But you’re not hearing me, Carter. I know you’re not scared. But they are. I know people. I know how the galaxy works. You’ve finally sailed into the horizon and you know the truth. All of this—everything—is right there for the taking. That’s exciting, not scary.”
Except when he puts it that way, it does feel a little frightening. All I wanted was to make life easier for my family. And so why do I feel like I’m now on a ride that I can’t get off. Ever.
Brisco’s voice joins the conversation. “And we’re clear. Last transmission was two hours before the assault began. Routine check.”
“Great,” Nilo says. “Thanks, Brisk.”
“You got it, bud.”
Nilo nods at me and we start to move for the door.
“Should we torch this place?” I ask.
Nilo shakes his head. “No. We’ll burn it all down after we’re finished.”
The blaster fire has died down significantly. We move out of the comm room and into the anteroom when I hear the shuffling of feet outside. I can’t make out who they belong to, but I don’t think they’re human. Running on training that has long since become instinct, I raise my fist to tell Nilo to stop. I creep forward to the doorway, lean against its frame, take a peek into the hall, then duck back inside.
“Be advised,” I say into the all-squad comm. “Koobs are in the temple.”
“Roger that,” Easy says in reply. “They’re here, too. Helping us mop up the last of the zhee. We’re good, Carter.”
Nilo is at my side now.
“I’ll call out our position,” I say. “Hopefully they speak Standard. I don’t want to get through all this just to be shot by our allies.”
But then Nilo yells something out in Kublaren. There’s a throaty, clicking reply and then Nilo steps out of the door, gesturing for me to follow. I do.
There’s a squad of nine koobs with blaster rifles slung around their shoulders. They’re standing still, looking at Nilo with their three-fingered hands pressed together at the palm. Their airsacs are half-inflated.
Nilo says something else in koob and the Kublaren beings, croaking and clicking, let their sacs deflate as they move on.
“What’s up with that?” I ask.
“Oh,” Nilo says as we move into the temple proper, stepping over dead zhee in the process. “That’s just how the koobs show honor to an allied chieftain.”
I look around, expecting to see another koob behind us.
Nilo has his helmet off, clipping it to his rig. “That’s the other thing we were doing in that meeting, Carter. We’re an official tribe of Kublar now. The galaxy is as wide-open as it’s ever been since before the Savage Wars. We’re sailing for new horizons.”
I find Abers outside the compound in the main courtyard. He’s waiting next to the truck we’d filled with dead koobs.
Immediately Abers’s eyes go wide. “Carter—where’s the team?”
“It’s all right. They’re fine. We just got separated inside. They’re cleaning up now and should be out soon. How did you make out?”
Abers nods at the piles of dead spread throughout the compound. Dead donks are everywhere, bleeding into the sand. Those still whinnying with pain having their throats cut out by koobs wielding those incredibly sharp black stone knives. There are no small number of dead koobs littering the area either. But these are being pulled out and loaded onto covered sleds by their Kublaren allies, and the wounded are being given medical attention.
“Mister Surber had me set up to support the koob assault,” Abers says. “It was a fight, Carter. Koobs don’t play. Neither did the zhee, though. I dusted maybe ten before things got too mixed up for me to shoot safe, and then I dropped a half dozen more zhee trying to fire from the parapets or towers.”
“Good work,” I say, glancing back at Nilo.
He’s just standing there, helmet back on, acting the same as he did as Winters. I guess he’s not looking to bring Abers in on things. At least not yet. And while I’m not scared, I’m not wanting to bring it up, either.
“Here comes ya boy,” Abers said, pointing to my left.
I turn and see Hopper and what’s left of his team walking up. They’re all covered with grime and sweat. I’m no spring nectarn, but I can tell that I look to be in much better shape than they are. I see Lash, Lana, and Easy trailing Alpha Team, some koobs walking along as well.
“No, no, Carter,” Hopper says as he approaches. “No need to hurry up and bail me out. You just stand here and cool off. We’re good.”
He doesn’t mean anything by it. This is just the way we say hello.
“I gave you half of my team already,” I say. “Somebody had to finish all the objectives since Alpha wasn’t up to the task.”
Hopper looks down at the mention of his team. I see that he’s missing about three men and immediately feel regret for the barb. It’s how we do it, but sometimes, it still hurts.
“How bad?” I ask.
“Lost three. Kevin Meier, Alistair Rooney, and Theron Whittle.”
I didn’t know any of the guys.
“Sorry, Hopper.”
“It’s the life we live.”
My team rolls in subdued, probably sensing the weight that’s settled in over us all. Easy exchanges a bro-hug with Abers and the two begin talking quietly. Lash is surveying the battlefield, nodding approvingly. Lana starts looking me over, making sure her patch-job from earlier is still good. Her hands are covered in blood, and I imagine she did what she could for Hopper’s team.
“Anyone know what’s next?” Nilo asks.
Hopper shrugs.
I see Easy and Lana exchange a look, but neither of them say anything. And… Nilo is right. They look afraid to.
I can’t see Lash’s face. I can’t imagine him being afraid either, though. He’s unfrightenable (guess that’s a word). But maybe he’s like me and he sees that there’s no sense in spilling the news just to tell it. No gain.
“Here comes Surber,” Lana says. “We’ll all find out soon.”
Surber walks up to us, Errol behind him. He hands Errol his briefcase and puts his hands at his side, hitching his thumbs into a black leather belt.
“Where’s Wick?” I ask.
“Shot in the face,” Surber says as if the words have no meaning. The way you’d talk about someone staying home with an upset stomach. Oh, is that all?
Surber must sense some unease. He recites a poem that I’m not familiar with. “Come, now, we can’t cry for those who die; for we must live while others lie.”
No one says anything, but I don’t think Surber wanted us to. Or that he cares.
“Now then, there isn’t much darkness left and we’ve got a good deal of work to do. All the non-zhee bodies have been pulled out of the temple. I need the koobs in this truck dumped off and spread throughout. Make sure you lay blaster rifles at their sides or nearby.”
I can’t believe I’m hearing this. After a day that started with hefting all these koobs in the sweltering heat, then standing guard for hours in the cold, and finally running through an assault… I just can’t believe Surber is telling us to now unload the bodies.
But this is the job. We get paid to do what we’re told.
I’m about to open my mouth to get my team moving when Surber speaks again.
“Mister Carter, I want you and Winters in my sled. We have things to discuss. The rest of your team can load up on the troop transport idling at the gate.”
I exchange a look with Hopper.
“You heard the man,” I tell Bravo Team. “And I know you don’t have to be told twice to get some chow and start rack ops.”
The men move on, though Lashley stays, examining the carnage of the compound one final time.
“Mister Hopper,” Surber says, “I’ll need you to stay behind to supervise. Our Kublaren allies will d
o the heavy lifting. You can do with your team as you like.”
“Yes, sir,” Hopper says. “Guys, catch up with Bravo and I’ll see you when I get in.”
Hopper’s boys look like they’re torn between sticking it out with their team leader and getting fed and sleep. In the end, hot chow and a pillow win out. They jog to catch up with Bravo.
“See you around, Hopper,” I say.
Surber has left with Errol for his luxury sled and Winters is following. That’s my cue to go home.
“You too, brother,” Hopper says before turning to face the koobs who are already bustling around him, pulling the dead off the truck. “Which one of you koobs speaks Standard?”
I turn and catch up with the team. Errol is holding the door with Surber and Winters already inside.
I nod at the guard, who doesn’t seem bothered at the loss of his counterpart, and then slide in, painfully aware of the amount of dust I’m spreading all over the luxurious interior seating and floors.
The internal temperature is perfect. I feel immediately comfortable. And the seats are so soft I feel as though I could fall asleep. The door closes and all the noise of the temple, the crackle of fires, the hurried croaks of the koobs, it all fades away.
There’s another whump of a door closing, and soon Errol is pulling the sled away from the temple, causing me to rock gently in the soft, warm seat opposite Surber and Nilo.
I yawn in spite of myself.
“Don’t fall asleep yet,” Nilo says, his helmet on the floor between his feet. “We’ve got a lot to talk about.”
I nod. “So those koobs we gathered—we’re going to make it look like they did all this?”
“That’s correct,” Surber says as Nilo smiles.
“That tribe—and the tribe you wiped out after them—they’re allied with the koobs running the Soob.”
I nod. Already seeing where this is going. The koobs of Subiyook City are the Republicized dominant tribe of the galaxy. They’re hated just for that. They’re despised because the other tribes see them as the ones who are harboring and allowing the zhee settlers to encroach on inland Kublar.
Galaxy's Edge: Takeover: Season Two: Book One Page 13
