by Michael Ryan
“Perhaps they hope to pull our offensive forces back to the tri-planets?” Balestain said, more as a musing thought than an actual question. “Still no attacks on Earth?”
“No.” Farrext looked around the room. When his gaze returned to Balestain’s face, he looked him boldly in the eye. “I suspect you know more than you’re willing to admit here, but tell me, General, should I send my family there?”
“It seems the reptiles want that very thing,” Balestain said.
“And?”
“And since when is doing what your enemy wants a good strategy?”
“Golvin, you’re right,” he admitted. “But what? What purpose does it serve?”
“Great minds are working at answering that very question.”
“Meanwhile, we’re out here orbiting an insignificant planet, fighting ground wars…”
Balestain twisted his mouth and spoke in a slightly patronizing tone. “Things are not always what they seem, Colonel.”
“Care to expound on that?” he asked before he could stop himself. “Sorry, General. I forget my place.”
“Do your duty, Alarraje. I can assure you that killing lizards advances our agenda in ways you’d approve of.” Balestain stood.
The colonel rose and extended his hands. “I’m happy to be serving under your command, General.”
“As you were,” Balestain said, politely accepting the formality. He left the officers’ mess and walked briskly to his office. On a whim, he pulled Colonel Farrext’s files on his computer. Switching the colonel from prosaic duties on the Sergeev to a light infantry legion command on the surface of Drekiland, Balestain felt a short-lived satisfaction.
I woke up in a field hospital.
“How long?” I asked. A hazy feeling, like being hungover, clouded my mind.
“Thirty-six hours after we got you, Lieutenant,” a corpsman said. “I’ll find the doctor.”
I tried to recall what had happened. I remembered being in a cross fire and thinking I was about to die. I wondered if maybe I had, but I didn’t think hell included remaining in TCI-Armor and waking in a medical bay. The details were fuzzy, but my mind seemed to want to put Abrel there at the last moment. Perhaps Devil Squad had shown up and saved me.
I supposed I’d find out in time, so I allowed more important questions to occupy my mind.
How badly am I hurt?
What is the status of the battle?
And did my rescuers survive?
I worried briefly about Callie, but I had to believe she was still safely tucked away. To think otherwise would steal away my hopes for the future, the things I was fighting to achieve. In any instant my life could be transmogrified into a personal dystopia, but I’ve found over my many years of soldiering that dwelling on adverse outcomes was counterproductive.
I opened the medical program and scanned. Over the previous forty plus hours I’d been sedated and monitored, and that was about the extent of it. My injuries were limited to soft-tissue damage and not easily diagnosed without moving and putting my body under stress.
“Avery,” a doctor said. The voice coming through my earpiece sounded funny. I opened my suit’s communication program and tried to adjust the sound. A Silver Wire connected my system to a display screen, and the doctor was watching it.
He turned and looked at my faceplate. “Your ears are probably still ringing from the trauma and shock. We can communicate via text-based messaging just as easily. Besides, there’s little to report.”
“My status?” I asked.
“You’re solidly in the yellow, Lieutenant Ford, but I can’t release you for duty.”
“Why not?”
“You require more observation.”
“I have men out there,” I said. “I have duties.”
“Your first duty is to heal.”
“I will…” I ended my complaining because trying to argue with a doctor was fruitless. I’d have to go over his head. Doctors don’t appreciate the jump over their authority, but rank is rank. He’d do as he was told. I merely needed to get a message to the right person. “Thank you, Doc.”
He leaned toward a machine and entered information with one hand.
A moment later my world went black.
Callie wanted news of the battle, but Avery had made her promise not to attempt to communicate. Not that she could get a signal past the wall of rock, even if she wanted to. She shook off her claustrophobia and sat near the Dreki prisoner.
“Polloz,” she said, “come and interpret for me.”
“As you wish, sir,” he said. “What would you like to say?”
“I want to know if all lizards are similar in their hatred for other species.”
Polloz and the guard spoke.
“He won’t tell you anything important, sir,” he finally said. “He laughed when I told him you’d used the word hate. The lizards don’t hate humans, or muldvarps, or the Katashie for that matter. He asked if you hated your food…what is it you eat for breakfast when you can get it? The bellies of a hairless farm creature, I believe.”
“Bacon,” Callie said.
“I’m told the flesh of certain four-legged creatures is quite a delicacy among your species. Muldvarp tastes aren’t completely different, although we prefer smaller, less evolved things, like grubs and insects. The lizards are carnivores as well. Surprisingly, they don’t eat muldvarps or humans. I’m not sure why, actually. Perhaps we don’t taste good. Maybe they view our species as too valuable to eat. I’ve been told it’s rare on Earth for humans to eat particular beasts of burden and creatures you keep as pets. Yet I’m also told the Rhans will eat anything they can kill.”
“I suppose it’s cultural, but what does that have to do with my question?”
“He doesn’t hate you any more than you hate this bacon creature. You simply view it as food. The Drekis view humans as beasts of burden. It’s not hatred that drives them to capture slaves, but utility.”
“And you?”
The muldvarp made a weird sound. Callie thought it was perhaps his laughter, but she didn’t want to know. He shook his head and said, “I don’t know if you’ll understand. My species is pragmatic, so our war with the lizards was ended with an agreement. The powerful nations on my home world profit from the sale of slaves. The Grems profit by avoiding war. Everyone is happy.”
“Except the slaves, no?” Callie asked.
“I’m treated well,” he answered. “Or I was. Now I’m a prisoner to the tri-planet clans. It remains to be seen if your command is harsher to me than the Grems were. What I think you fail to realize is that my family, as much as they might miss me, is happy living in peace.”
“I don’t think humans would accept that arrangement.”
“No, perhaps not. But there are more than only humans in your coalition. The purvasts and the talarrstans…”
“I don’t think…perhaps you’re right.” Callie turned towards the lizard. “Ask him if he knows how many lizards will have to die before the cost to harvest from the tri-planets is too much.” Her question was rhetorical, so she stood and walked away before it was interpreted.
Callie sought out the three Katash mothers.
She watched them suckle their infants and wondered if death was preferable to being a slave.
Stretching her muscles inside the TCI-Armor suit, the irony of the thought amused her.
Abrel and Mallsin were detached from Devil, Dragon, and Elefant Squads.
The soldiers were folded into an existing heavy armor unit, but Abrel and Mallsin were ordered to report to HQ command. They caught a transport heli into the mountains and waited in a field-constructed command center for seven hours.
“This is almost as torturous as sitting in the Biragon during a torrential downpour,” Mallsin said.
“Almost,” Abrel said absentmindedly.
“Have you paid any attention to anything I’ve said today?” she asked.
“Sorry, I’m distracted. I’ve been thinking abou
t Avery and what the reason might be that our prisoners, or the slaves we rescued, triggered a full-scale war in a meaningless valley on a mostly barren planet.”
“You’re overthinking,” she said.
“I don’t think so. Why would the lizards bring thousands of infantry here to be slaughtered in an attempt to recapture a hundred slaves? It doesn’t make sense.”
Mallsin thought for a moment. “Future deterrent?”
“I can’t see that.”
“Maybe you’re trying to make sense out of things that make no sense?” she asked.
Abrel stood and stretched his arms. “I know I’m just a cog in a killing machine, but I like to have at least reasonable lies to tell myself. There’s a reason why Avery’s sat-comm burst triggered two armies to show up here. Maybe we’ll never know what that reason is, but I know there must be one. I want to be able to tell myself it’s a good one, but my faith in justifications has been worn thin.”
“I’m concentrating on the fact that we’ll be helping to rescue Callie,” Mallsin stated. “I think that’s a good cause.”
“Okay,” Abrel said. “I can get behind that. But that doesn’t mean I’m not curious about the big picture.”
“Curiosity can get you killed,” a strange voice said, breaking into the comm they had assumed was private.
“Who is this?” Abrel asked.
“It’s Major General Cullisizzst,” the voice said. “Please pass through the door marked number twenty-seven and take a right turn down the hallway. You’ll find my office at the end. My name’s on the door. Don’t bother knocking.”
“Sir,” Abrel said.
“They can break into private comms here?” Mallsin said.
“You’re surprised?”
“I guess not, but Golvin,” she said. “I thought we had a little privacy.”
The pair made their way to the general’s office. An aide directed them to be seated in chairs designed to hold the weight of TCI-Armored soldiers. “That will be all, Corporal West,” the general said.
“Sir,” he answered, and closed the door behind him as he left.
The general was dressed in combat gear and light armor. He lit a Chemecko cigarette and sat. “If you weren’t suited, soldiers,” he said, “I’d offer you one of these beauties.” He blew a stream of blue-tinted smoke. “Nothing like things from home to help remind us why we fight.”
“Yes, sir,” Abrel said.
“You’re here informally,” he said. “We’re off the record.”
A pop-up in Abrel’s display screen notified him that his system’s recording devices had been disabled.
“Sir,” Mallsin said in a tone that conveyed a request for permission to speak.
“Go,” the general said.
“My understanding of article thirty-two, subsection–”
He held up his hand and said, “Hold it there. Technically, you’re correct. But I’m working for General Balestain. You understand what that means?”
“He does whatever he wants,” Mallsin acknowledged.
“That’s one way to look at it,” Cullisizzst said. “A better way to see it is that the general does whatever it takes to accomplish missions. A successful mission is but a brushstroke on the canvas of a future masterpiece.”
“Sir,” Abrel said, “my partner gets anxious over unusual situations. Please continue with your briefing with my apologies for her interruption.”
“Don’t patronize me,” she said.
“Soldiers,” the officer said, “please. There’s nothing nefarious here. The general mentioned that I should remind you both of his previous interest in your careers.”
“Yes, sir,” Abrel said. “We haven’t forgotten why we’re here.”
“Is this about Callie?” Mallsin asked.
“Partially,” he answered. “I’d like to hear about the prisoners, in particular, those called Katash.”
Abrel began talking. He explained all that he’d observed during their time with the freed slaves and their prisoners. He told the general about capturing the Dreki guard, and that he’d decided to keep the four pekasmoks alive. When he was done, the general asked Mallsin if she had anything to add to Abrel’s observations.
“I was surprised how human they seemed,” she said. “I couldn’t interact very easily with the Katash women, but I was compelled inside…it’s a woman thing, I think. I’m sorry, General. That sounds evasive, but I can’t put my feelings into words. I’m not human, so maybe that’s the cause. I don’t know.”
“I see,” the officer said. He pulled a heavy drag from his cigarette and sighed after he exhaled. “Did you recognize anything about their language?”
“It sounded strange, sir. No different than listening to any of the odd-sounding tongues of Earth or Talamz. Or even from Purvas. I don’t speak Tedesconian. It too sounds strange.”
“But human languages sound human, and Purvastian languages sound…well, like they’re from Purvas. Don’t you find that to be true?”
“Yes. Maybe,” she said. “I don’t know if I’d thought about it too much before. Are you asking if I think the Katashie are from Earth?”
“No,” he said. “I am not.”
“Sir, may I pose a question about the muldvarps?” Abrel asked.
“Go.”
“I was interrogated on behalf of the lizards by one of the rodent aliens,” he said.
“I read the reports.”
“Are they allies or not?”
“Of the lizards? No. More like reluctant servants. From what we’ve determined, in any case. The muldvarp Golonist has been cooperative, but we haven’t been able to verify the veracity of his claims. He may or may not have a reason to invent stories. This is, as I’m sure you’ve already concluded, one of the reasons the prisoners you captured are so vitally important.”
“Can’t you get your prize off the planet right now?” Mallsin asked.
The general gave a slight smile. “And rescue your friend sooner than later?”
“Yes,” Mallsin admitted.
“Avery’s decision to trap them inside a mountain was a good one. As of now, the Drekis can easily destroy craft trying to leave the planet. Retrieval boats are too vulnerable. Command has decided it’s worth fighting this out. We’re here until we defeat the lizards. We are either getting those former captives, the prisoners, and your friend off the planet, or none of us is leaving.”
Abrel sat forward. “General, since we’re off the record, can you tell us what is so important?”
“Specifically? No. Off the record and generally…what intel about the lizards do we most wish we had?”
Mallsin broke into their dialogue. “The location of their home world, sir.”
“Exactly,” he said. “Dismissed, Sergeants. See Major Olenvester on your way out.”
They waited four hours before the major could see them. When he was finally available, their meeting lasted thirty seconds.
“I’m transferring you to the Twenty-Eighth. They’ve got a sniper company that’s short. Dismissed.”
The specific and official orders were transferred via messaging.
Upon looking at the pop-up, Mallsin said, “They made us wait for this?”
“It’s the army,” Abrel said. “Come on; we aren’t required to report until morning. Command always has better food in the mess hall.”
“You’re in a suit, Abrel.”
“I can still look,” he said.
“You’re incorrigible.”
“What in Golvin does that even mean?”
“Look it up; you’ve got a Common English dictionary.”
“You sound like Callie.”
“She’s on my mind,” Mallsin admitted.
“It’s not like English is my native tongue.”
“Nope, mine either. But that doesn’t mean I don’t like to study so I don’t sound illiterate.”
“You think the Katashie sounded like they originally came from Earth?”
“
I don’t know, Abrel. Sometimes I think you sound like an alien.”
“Women.”
“Asshole.”
When I regained consciousness again, I pulled out the Silver Wire that connected my suit to the monitor.
I wasn’t going to let anyone dose me with sedatives again.
An alarm sounded.
I ignored it.
A medical tech showed up. “Lieutenant, sir,” she said, “you can’t do that.”
The field hospital was crowded. I heard screams and the chaotic sounds of medical staff and equipment as they tried to save the limbs and lives of the wounded. I swung my legs to the floor and stood. My body ached. “I can and I did,” I said. “But thank you for your concern.”
<
I silenced my system notifications and walked. It hurt like hell with each step until the nano-pharma kicked in. Turning off notifications and allowing painkillers to numb injuries was a good way to cause permanent damage to your body. But I was in a war zone. I was likely to die before having to worry about bad knees or old-man back problems, so I figured I’d live dangerously by ignoring doctor’s orders.
Being outranked and commanded to remain in the hospital was a possibility, so I ducked out as fast as I could and made a beeline dash to the first command administration field office I could find.
I gave my information to a private, who spent several minutes typing information into a computer.
“I can’t seem…” she mused.
“It’s F-O-R-D,” I said to the young woman, who looked all of seventeen.
“I can’t…wait a minute,” she said. “My system is down again. You’ll have to take a seat.”
I looked for a chair capable of accommodating TCI-Armor, but there weren’t any. “There are no chairs in here.”
“Oh, I know,” she declared. “But I’ve been instructed to offer those waiting for service a seat.”
“But there are no seats.”
