by Rod Carstens
“I say we head off for the admin building. We’re all supposed to take it anyway,” Weening suggested.
“Sounds like a plan,” Basso chimed in her calm voice. Nothing shook her. She was the best sniper in the battalion. “I need to get up in that tower.”
“Lead on,” Mara, her spotter, said.
“I got point,” Nani said.
The four bounded toward the administration building with Nani in the lead. Without having to organize, the other three fell in behind her, Weening on her left and Mara on her right with Basso in the center of the wedge. They were not taking much fire. Most of the fighting seemed to be concentrated around the repair shop to their right and ahead of them behind the administration building. That firefight had to be her platoon. They were in the shit and she was just getting her bearings.
She needed to move. Just as she was within one big bound of the administration building, a group of armored hybrids burst out of the doors, running toward the firefight to their right. The hybrids had not seen their little group. To Nani’s left was a large piece of earthmoving equipment that could provide good cover. Nani bounded over and landed by it. The other three landed around her. Nani put her .48 to her shoulder and opened fire with the others. They caught the hybrids from the side and rear. Two went down, but the others turned toward them and charged, firing their weapons from the hip.
There had to be at least ten of them, and they were moving fast. Nani continued to slowly and carefully put three-round bursts into the faceplates of the hybrids. Each time she hit one, its head was thrown back and it dropped in its tracks. Weening and the others were doing the same, until the last one fell and was still. Nani stood up and was about to take the lead again when something emerged from the administration building. It was huge, with black armor and a massive weapon that looked like an overgrown rail. It saw them and headed in their direction. It was incredibly fast for something so big.
Nani realized with a start that it was a Xotoli, the first one she had seen. The videos of the ones she had seen in training did not do them justice, they were truly intimidating in real life. She hesitated then she and the others fired almost as one. The rounds from the rails bounced off the armor, throwing a shower of sparks and surrounding the Xotoli with an orange halo. The rounds were not slowing it down. It was moving toward them so fast that after only one burst it was almost on top of them. Nani heard the cough on Basso’s .50 caliber snipers rifle. The Xotoli took the round in the chest and was thrown back. It staggered and almost fell. It regained it's feet, turned, and started to run toward them again.
What could take a rail .50 and still get up? Nani thought.
“You stupid fuck, you should have stayed down!” Basso said.
Her rifle coughed again and again. This time the Xotoli went down. Basso had calmly just blown the legs off the Xotoli. It still tried to crawl forward, using its huge long arms to pull its body. There was no quit in that fucking alien, Nani had to give it that. The .48s still bounced off, Nani hoped they might distract it. They waited for Basso to kill the thing. She blew one arm off at the shoulder, then the other off at the elbow. The Xotoli squirmed around on the ground, obviously suffering.
“That's for what you did on 703,” Basso said, her voice cold.
“You going to finish the thing?” Nani asked.
“Goddamnit, Basso! We don’t know what it’s capable of! Now kill it so we can move!” Weening barked.
Nani heard Basso exhale over the radio before she pulled the trigger and blew the Xotoli’s head off with a carefully aimed round to its thin neck. Nani took the point and bounded toward the administration building. She was careful not to get too close to the Xotoli. She heard an explosion just behind them as she made her next bound.
“What was that?” Nani said, still moving.
“Basso finished it off with a grenade as she went by,” Weening replied.
“Remind me not get her pissed at me,” Nani said.
“You should try being her spotter,” Mara chimed in. He sounded proud of her, not afraid.
The three made it to the administration building, where they halted.
“I need to get to my platoon,” Nani said.
“Roger that. I need to hook up with my own,” Weening said.
“Yeah, and we need to get up in that control tower,” Mara said.
“I think we head up to the roof together and then we can go our separate ways to our own units,” Nani suggested. Glancing at her heads-up, she could see her platoon symbol just past the administration building. They weren’t moving, which had to mean they were in a firefight. She needed to get over there.
Nani bounded to the roof with the rest close behind her. There was nothing, but she could see a firefight on the hangar's roof that was her platoon’s initial objected. She leaped to that edge of the building then onto Hangar Two’s roof to join the fight.
Lyten System
Rift
Internal Security Headquarters
Commanding Officer’s Office
Istas sat across from Netis in the Rift Security general’s large, well-appointed office. They both sat in comfortable chairs. Istas was smoking and watching Netis, who was sitting on a large couch across from Istas. Istas had instructed that she be cleaned and bandaged before the interrogation. She wore an ill-fitting, smart-fabric prisoner’s uniform. Should she try any sudden movements, the fabric would immediately constrict and immobilize her. Istas had no fear that would be needed, but security had insisted and she had relented.
“This is more comfortable, don’t you think?” Istas finally said. “Did they take good care of you? Treat your wounds?”
“Yes. Yes it is. But I don’t understand. Why are you treating me this way?”
“There is no reason to treat you otherwise, dear.”
Istas saw Netis react to the term of endearment. She knew that pheromones were temporary unless she followed them up with actions, so her cigarette contained additives to interact with the pheromones to keep those feelings of wanting to please active enough to shape her behaviors. It was an old Anjin trick to use on targets that you could not sleep with right away or when you were interrogating someone you did not want to use torture on. Istas had used it several times with great success. “I have a lot of questions. First, how many hybrids are embedded, and where are they?”
Netis frowned before answering. One of the residual effects of the pheromones was that the subject continued to want to please the one who released them. So Netis not only wanted to cooperate with the interrogation, she would now want to please Istas with her answers. Properly used, the pheromones were one of the best weapons an Anjin had at their disposal for any number of purposes.
“I don’t know. I didn’t know either of the other team members before they attacked. Not in the EEOC on Rift nor the other day. We don’t communicate prior to fulfilling our assignments. We’re compartmentalized.”
“I was afraid of that. It is very good tradecraft. What you do not know you cannot divulge. How do they communicate with you?”
“In emails. A visual technique.”
“What do they know about the next operation?” Istas asked.
“I don’t know. As far as I can tell they only know what we all know—that something is up. It’s hard to hide the number of ships, troops, and supplies here. Everyone on Rift knows something is in the wind, but no one knows what.”
“Do you think the timing of your mission had anything to do with the timing of the operation?”
Netis frowned before she answered. “We all knew it was the final run-through, so we knew that it wouldn’t be long before the operation kicked off. But the email only gives me a target, not a reason. The other operator was a civilian tech, so everyone must know something is up.”
“Are there more hybrids in the Confederation military?”
“I don’t know. All I know is the earliest of us were given military covers. I don’t know about the ones after me. I.…”
Netis hesitated but didn’t say anything.
“What?” Istas said.
“It’s only a guess.”
“Guesses are good sometimes.”
“I don’t think many more after the first teams were military. It took us a very long time to train and then to work our way into the positions in the military they wanted us to have. They knew that none of us could pass the Legion selection back then, and I suspect it is the same now for the marines. It would have been too hard to hide our abilities. We’d have shown ourselves at some point during the process. Now that I have been among humans for this long, it’s much easier to see how a hybrid could have slipped into the corporations. So I’m guessing that most after me were given civilian covers.”
Istas sat back and took a drag on her cigarette before she said anything.
“The military is a very specific and demanding cultural environment to slip into unnoticed. I should know—I have assumed many identities over the years. A military cover is the toughest unless you’re very experienced. So I think your guess is a very good one. That would also explain why they left you in place after the first assassination attempt.”
Istas paused then said.
“Can you recognize another hybrid by sight?”
“No, not unless they want to be recognized. We are taught never to contact another embed unless ordered.”
“Could you if you tried?”
Netis frowned and thought before she answered. “Possibly, but I doubt it.”
The most obvious and easiest use of her new asset had just vanished, Istas thought.
“All right then, let’s get to your history. What can you tell me about your childhood memories?”
Netis paused before she answered. “I was one of the first generations, from the Originals.”
“The Originals?”
“The very first group of humans used for breeding.”
“Go on.”
“They had been taken as children. The Xotoli let them grow up almost like in a zoo. They simply watched them and their social interactions. They wanted to understand what humans were and how they acted. Once the Originals reached breeding age, the Xotoli began to take eggs and add sperm to them. They fertilized the eggs in vitro then began introducing Xotoli DNA until they created the hybrids they wanted.”
Istas had seen and done many things that would be considered terrible by someone without her training, but what the Xotoli did to these babies made her shiver. She had seen the videos from 703. She could imagine just how many iterations the Xotoli would have had to go through before they got the mixture right.
“What happened to the hybrids that didn’t…work?” Istas asked.
Without an emotion crossing her face, Netis said, matter-of-factly. “They were disposed of. Once they were able to produce the hybrids they wanted, the Xotoli gave them when they were still babies back to the Originals to raise. I was in the first batch of hybrids. So I had an Original mother and father who raised me until I was seven. Then I was taken away from them and given to my Xotoli parents.”
Netis paused. It was the first time Istas could tell that the memories she was reliving were difficult. Istas reached over and gently touched her arm. She controlled the pheromones, but still released enough for Netis to want to continue.
“Go on.”
“They…well, they were not like my human parents. It was their job to bring out the Xotoli in me and teach me their ways. Their ways were very brutal. They beat me almost every day. I was sent to a special school with other hybrids. We were beaten there too if we did not learn our lessons. There were tests every six months…the tests were, uh, considered very important. If you did not pass, then…well, you were disposed of.”
“What do you mean?”
“If you were in class with the one who failed, then as a class you had to kill them. We would form a circle and beat them until they were dead. At first, before we grew our claws and strength, we used clubs. After that we had to use our hands.”
Istas watched Netis closely. It was obvious she was more than a little upset at the memories. That is when she must have first understood she was not like the rest.
“Is this when you realized you were different?”
“Yes, yes it was. I had to do it, or it would be me in the middle of the circle. The other children liked it and looked forward to it. At first it was hard for me, but I eventually learned to let the Xotoli in me take over. To reach down and pull it out. It was in me, but it was not who I was. It was very difficult for me to come to understand that I was capable of the same brutality as the Xotoli.”
Netis looked down at her hands. Her claws emerged. It was almost like she was confirming what she had just said.
Istas leaned close and said quietly, “You are different. You are not like them. As you said, humans have that same capability for savagery, but it’s rare for it to be the driving force in their life. Look at me.”
Netis raised her head.
“I have that same side in me. You saw it when I fought the other hybrid. My training as an Anjin showed that part of myself to me, but I control it. I let it out when I need it. You are the same. You used it to save a life.”
Istas paused before she said, “I can rarely say the same. I’ve used it to take lives many more times than I have to save them. You are not alone in this.”
“Well said, child,” the Mother Anjin said. “They engineered the brutality into them, and we trained our students to find it and use it, then gave them enhancements to accomplish their missions.”
Netis’s eyes searched her face, as if to confirm that Istas was not just saying what she needed to hear.
“You’re telling the truth, aren’t you? I saw you fight in the EEOC. At first I thought you were another hybrid, you were so fast and capable. We are alike.”
“Yes, in many ways we are sisters in the world of violence.”
Netis clutched Istas’s hand for a long moment. Then she actually smiled and said, “I’m not so different from humans, am I?”
When she smiled Istas stared at Netis closely for the first time. She realized that she was very attractive. A dark eyed blonde with an athletic good looks. Her attractiveness could be useful if things played out the way she hoped.
“No, you just know the truth about human nature and have been given the tools to use that part of yourself. I suspect that brutality was one of the first things that the Xotoli noted about the children they kidnapped. They just decided to raise that side of human nature to a new level.”
Netis nodded.
“Now, sister, tell me about the Xotoli.”
1st Raider Battalion
Alpha Company
First Platoon
“Drop, drop, drop!”
Hu watched as the lieutenant was ejected from his seat and Nani followed. His seat moved up into position and ejected him. He was shot out at an angle into the slipstream of the Mike boat. If the pilot was any good, he had his speed in the drop window. Hu’s angle of attack was calculated according to a specific speed and height from the ground. There was a window of adjustment, but it was not that big. If the pilot got it right, Hu would be straightened up into an upright landing position.
This pilot was good. Hu’s body was pushed into a vertical landing position exactly like it was supposed to be. Hu tried not to look at how fast he was dropping toward the ground. If he did, it always scared him. Hu and the rest of the platoon were being thrown at the surface of Chika. The success of the drop depended on the retro rockets on their harnesses to calculate the proper time and height to fire given their speed, drop altitude, and angle of attack. He glanced at his retro-system readout on his heads-up. Everything was in the green.
What wasn’t in the green was all of the ground fire. He seemed to be falling through a multicolored hell of green rail tracers, yellow laser lines, and white plasma streaks. He had never seen so much ground fire in any training exercise or drop before. He had no idea why he wasn’t being
hit.
A plasma streak passed so close to his head that his hair stood on end. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Juglar, who was dropping next to him, simply disappear in orange-colored explosion. One second he was there in his drop position, the next he was gone. Not a trace of him was left. A rail round or something must have hit his grenades.
Hu felt pieces of Juglar’s armor strike his own. He had no time to react. The ground was coming up fast. He glanced at the retro-rocket countdown in his helmet’s heads-up. He and the rest of the Raiders had insisted on one so they didn’t have to hold their breath waiting for the retros to fire, not knowing if the retro was going to fire or not caused more than one bad drop. Somebody would panic and fire it too soon, the retros were designed for a specific height; if you fired it too soon you landed hard and broke things including your neck. His retros had begun the ten-second countdown.
Hu glanced at the ground to see where he was going to land. He was headed for his drop zone—the top of the second hangar in the middle of the V formed by the runways. That was great, but he could see at least a dozen hybrids on the roof, firing at the falling Raiders. He could not adjust his landing point, and he was headed for a group of three hybrids. They weren’t armored up, but they had rails and were firing as fast as they could identify a target. He held his position. He could not go for a weapon until he was down.
Three.
Another hybrid joined the other three, so now there were four. They were firing away from Hu.
Two.
He was fifty feet up.
One.
Fire.
The retros fired the hard blue jets of flame caught the group of four. The hybrids burst into flame. One threw himself on the ground, trying to put the flames out. Another just fell to the ground and burning brightly in the night. The other two turned and tried to run from the flames that were engulfing them. Hu landed. It was a soft one—it felt only as if he had jumped off a table. The retros snapped off his armor and fell to the roof with a metallic thunk.
