by Jean Kilczer
“Mount up!” Mack shouted and jumped into the back of the jeep. “It's a trap!”
“Mount up! It's a trap,” echoed through the camp.
I slowed for men who ran and jumped into the jeep, then headed for the trees, afraid that I might be driving right under a nest of the tree fighters.
I heard a scream from the field. Then another.
“They're hitting your men!” I shouted.
Screams trailed us as I plowed between trees. I ventured a quick look back and saw men sprawled on the ground, lit by glowing balls of light thrown from treetops all around us to roll and light the battlefield.
Something fast and heavy pinged off the driver's side of the jeep, right below me. The jeep lifted and bounced back on its wheels.
“What the hell was that?” I asked.
“Slingshot cannons,” Mack replied.
Then we were deep in the woods, past the battle. Flashes of hot light from stinglers and rifles seared the night, setting branches on fire.
I came to a screeching halt. “Get out!” I called. “I'm going back for more men. They're sitting ducks out there.”
No one argued as they piled out of the jeep. Mack stayed put. “I'm coming too,” he said calmly. “You'll need help.”
I swung the jeep around and tore grass and leaves as I headed back to the field. Mack's men were racing for the woods. I heard screams as the tree fighters hit them. One grove of towering pines blazed from beamer blasts and lit the field, making it easy for the tree fighters to target their enemies.
I slammed on the brakes near a fallen soldier. Mack jumped out and dragged him into the jeep without stopping to see if he was still alive. I ducked as a slingshot cannon dug a narrow trench in front of the jeep.
“Go!” Mack called.
The jeep bounced through the trench and I came to a stop near another tag who lay sprawled and unmoving in the dirt.
Mack dragged him into the jeep and we went for a third man who was down.
With him in the jeep, the field was empty and suddenly uncannily quiet. I tore back to the trees where I had emerged. The fighters must've anticipated that and grouped in those branches.
I yelled as a cannon ball pinged off the hood and smashed the windshield to my right.
A flash of light. A burn across my hand on the wheel. I swallowed a scream and plunged the jeep deep into the woods. They must've picked up beam weapons from the fallen soldiers.
Then we were clear of the aliens and heading back to our base.
“You all right?” Mack called from the back.
“Yeah, just creased my hand. You?”
“Fine. But two of these three tags are out the airlock.”
“Dead?”
“That's what I said.”
My right leg began to shake and I couldn't stop it. I grabbed my knee and tried to hold it down. It continued to shake under my hand.
* * *
“We lost five good men tonight,” Big Mack said from where he leaned against a table and surveyed the war room back on base.
I scratched at the bandage on my hand. The nurse had applied a pain deadener to the burn, but it was itchy.
The men were quiet. They looked as bone-weary as I felt. Some had bandages covering wounds.
“Tonight's raid was a disaster,” Big Mack said. “They caught us good with our drawers down.” He nodded toward me. “If it wasn't for Rammis reading their intentions, we would've lost more people.”
The men turned to stare at me. Some clapped. I bit my lip.
“I promised you a reward, Rammis.” Big Mack shifted his weight. “What'll it be?”
“Send my friends back to their homeworlds,” I said.
He scratched his scruffy beard. “Now that's a tall order, considering. I'll make you a deal. They get to live free in the compound, and when my mission is completed and we leave New Terra, I'll see to it that they're taken to their homeworlds. Fair enough?”
I nodded. “One thing. Tonight I helped save lives. Don't ask me to target your enemies so you can exterminate them.”
His jaw tightened. “Suppose,” he said, “we take it one raid at a time and see how things work out?”
“Not good enough, Mack.”
He stared at me. “We'll see. This meeting is adjourned. Rammis, you bunk with the men. Quirrel will show you where.”
Some of the tags who strolled past me put out hands to shake mine and thank me for alerting them of the trap in the enemies' camp. A tall young tag, with a mop of curly dark hair and a chin that receded into his neck, came up to me and extended his hand with a toothy grin. He held a bag in his other hand. “I'm Quirrel. Come with me.”
I followed him to one of the low, long wooden structures.
“A bunkhouse,” he announced and led me inside where nine men were already undressing and crawling under covers on the bunks. I went to an empty one and wearily pulled off my boots and got out of my pants.
“Wait,” Quirrel said as I was about to lie down. He held the bag open for me. “Is this what you requested from the cook?”
“What?” I reached inside and pulled out a cannoli. “Quirrel,” I said and took a bite, “you just made my day. Now how about a stingler? Can you swing that?”
He chuckled. “Only if it's a pastry shaped like a stingler.”
“Yeah. Thanks anyway.”
“Goodnight.” He turned on a heel and went to another empty bunk.
I ate the three cannoli and lay back on the bunk. Spirit? Spirit!
Do not disturb, as you Terrans say.
Was it a female of your species?
Oh, yes. I named her Silva.
I'm glad for you. For both of you. I just want to know–
Thank you. Now may we have some privacy?
Sure. Just want to know where my team is on the planet. That's all. My tel power doesn't extend far enough to locate them. C'mon, Spirit, just a short time out. If she loves you, she'll wait. You waited for her for decades, right? So where's my team?
You're not going to like it.
Try me.
They're with the Orghes.
Is that the alien race? The one Mack calls the orangutans?
It is…yes, Silva, I'm coming, my lovely.
Where are they?
Who?
My team, Spirit!
Oh. Do you have a compass?
I think I can get one.
Due south, perhaps fifty miles. I will teach you all that you require to know, my lovely.
What? I asked.
Not you, Terran!
Can you send me an image of their camp?
It is a village, well-guarded. The only reason they took in your Terran friends was because they had a starship.
I'll bring them a hovair, if I can.
Wear a wreath of sumbra leaves upon your brain cage.
What for?
Can you not make these leaps yourself, Jules? It means you come in peace. No, dear, I was not raising my thoughts at you.
What do sumbra leaves look like? I asked.
Oh, anything green!
Is that a conifer or a deciduous tree… or is it a plant?
Bear thee bells! He broke the link.
That's fair thee well, doofus, I sent into the void.
* * *
The next morning, under a drizzly sky, I attended the burial held for the five fallen comrades in a small cemetery outside the fence.
Mack looked genuinely distraught by the loss of his mercenaries. More than once I saw him brush tears from his eyes as their minister gave the eulogy. I wondered if Mac expected to take part in the extermination of an entire race of people without losing some of his own men. I shook my head sadly. For the lives lost, but more for the mindset that could cry for friends but could see no moral issue with genocide. How closely did Mac operate, I wondered, with other mercenary forces spread out on the other islands?
With the funeral over, we filed into the mess hall for breakfast. The men were silent and gri
m. I sipped a cup of coffee, then got up and left. I had other plans than letting Mack lead me around by a ring in my nose.
The field was empty, with everyone at breakfast. I strolled toward the two hovairs, housed in an open hangar, then moved quickly inside the hangar and tried the main hatch of one hovair. Locked, dammit! With my eye on the hangar entrance, I tried the other hovair. Also locked.
A mechanic, his belly bulging inside greasy coveralls, ducked under the vehicle and approached me, wiping his hands on a dirty cloth. A short tag with a square face, he flipped back straight brown hair and stared up at me. “Looking for anything in particular?” He took a comlink from his pocket.
“Just checking out the vehicles. Think I can borrow a jeep? I'd like to, uh, do some fishing.”
“Fishing?” His lip curled in a smirk and he turned on the comlink. “The only water around here, tag, is what we haul in from a small pond in the mountains.”
“Oh, I didn't know that.” I leaned against the hovair in a passive stance, my thumbs hooked in my pants pockets, formed a red coil in my mind and spun it faster. My head grew hot. I smiled at the mechanic and threw the message: Give me the comlink. Now! You are weary from your work. You need sleep.
His hand wavered over the link, prepared to punch in a code.
I strengthened the probe, and targeted his cortex, that wrinkled gray matter that makes decisions, besides its other duties. You don't need the comlink, I sent. Give it to me.
He hesitated. His eyes glazed over and he swayed.
Give me the comlink!
He plunked the comlink into my outstretched hand. “I don't need this,” he mumbled.
Where is the key to access the hovair?
“The key…locked away. Locked away safe. In a safe.”
What safe? Where?
“In Big Mack's private safe. In his office.” His eyelids fluttered. His mouth went slack. His head tilted to one side. “I have to get back to work,” he slurred. “But I'm so tired.”
The keys to the jeeps. Where are they?
He rubbed his eyes and yawned. “You want to requisition a jeep?”
Yeah. Where are they?
He waved sleepily to a wall board with keys on hooks.
I went there, grabbed a key marked J, and slipped into a jeep. You're so tired, I sent to the mechanic as I turned on the engine. Sleep now. You need sleep.
He slid to the floor and began to snore.
“Sweet dreams.” I started the jeep. The green light flashed on. Fully charged.
“Now where are you headed, Rammis?” Big Mack came around the hovair, followed by two of his men. “You just can't stay put, can you?” He came up to the jeep and gripped the door.
“Where would I go?” I asked. “I just…just wanted to see the sights. These mountains, you know, they remind me of my home state, Colorado.”
“Colorado.” Mack smiled. “Shut it off and get out,” he said amiably. “I just can't trust you.” He glanced at the sleeping mechanic and raised his bushy brows. “You have a dangerous mind. It's back to the cell, compadre.”
“Now wait a minute, Mac.”
He grabbed my jacket. “Get out!”
“OK! I'm coming.” I turned the door handle and slammed him hard with the open door.
He fell back, howling, and curled into a fetal position on the grimy floor with both hands on his crotch.
One of the tags jumped over the passenger door and made a grab for me. I yanked his stingler from its holster and slammed his head with it. He whimpered and I felt his body go limp. I threw him back out. The other tag stood, spread-eagled, in front of the jeep, aiming his stingler.
“Stop!” he yelled, “or I'll fire!”
I hit the gas and he jumped aside.
“Get that son of a bitch!” Big Mac grated. “I want his ass!”
I stayed low in the seat as I tore out of the hangar, and threw the comlink on the ground. Even when turned off, they could track me by it. My scalp tingled with the dispersed beam from the stingler. I raced across the field, headed for the gate, staying low, and closed my eyes as I smashed through it. Splintered wood and ripped wire sailed through the air. Alarm sirens wailed behind me as I left the dirt road and took to the woods.
I have a lousy sense of direction, but I thought I was headed south. I reached over and rummaged through the console compartment. My hand closed on a round instrument. Please, Great Mind, let it be a compass.
I opened my hand as I bounced between trees. “Thank you, Lord!” I said when I saw the compass I held. Uh oh. I'd been heading east. I turned south.
I stayed to the cover of trees and drove a circuitous route. It wasn't long before I heard the whine of hovairs behind me and the growl of land vehicles.
The forest was thick with towering conifers that formed a canopy overhead. I glanced up when I heard a hovair fly by and skinned a tree trunk with the jeep. It lifted to two wheels, then bounced back on all four.
Sooner or later they would track me down, either by air or land. I needed a hideout until dark.
A large brown animal, elk-like, with a unicorn horn, leaped out of the brush, panicked, his eyes showing whites, and ran into my path. I swerved to miss him, slammed into a sapling and careened over it. The jeep was hung up on the split trunk and entangled branches. Its rear tires smoked. I threw it into reverse and tore ruts in the ground as I tried to back it out. I was losing precious time.
“C'mon, dammit!” I muttered and rammed the jeep into full forward. Tires ripped the torn sapling. The jeep's whine lowered to a growl as it forced a path through splintered trunk and branches.
I was free, but my pursuers were close behind. I cut west, for deeper woods. They must have spread out because I heard a jeep behind me.
I gritted my teeth and purposely drove into a shallow gorge that was thick with bushes. I jumped out, stuffed the compass into my pocket, lasered some bushes at their base with my stingler, and threw them over the jeep. My pursuers were too close to run. I crawled under the warm vehicle and lay panting, my head on mulchy leaves that smelled like home.
When the woods were quiet, I crawled out, brushed myself off, and climbed the side of the gorge. The jeep might well be chipped for location. It would take them awhile to find it without a global positioning system orbiting the planet, but they could triangulate and eventually locate it.
I trotted about a quarter of a mile away from the gorge, found a tree that I could climb from branch to branch, and hid within its crown.
Below me the forest floor was rich with tall grass and wildflowers. A small furry mammal darted to a tree and climbed it. The air smelled bittersweet with the tangy scent of wet foliage. Somewhere, a birdlike creature chirped out a song that probably told other creatures to stay out of his territory. Above my head, silver-rimmed clouds sailed a sapphire sky, riding the wings of a gentle breeze.
I leaned my head back and sighed. Beauty above me, Native American people had said of their lands on Earth, beauty around me. Beauty beneath me. But they had been decimated by the European colonists and their military force, their homes ripped away from them, their land given to settlers, and a conscious effort made to exterminate them. I sighed as I looked around.
Now it was happening again, here.
Chapter Seven
I jumped, and realized I'd fallen asleep. The day was waning. A molten sun burned clouds with rays of fire to the west. I felt stiff from my cramped position as I climbed down the branches and walked slowly back to the gorge, waiting for night to sheath me in its black fold. The forest was coming alive with hunters and prey, chirping and grunting.
If the mercs found the jeep, chances were good the area would be staked out, waiting for me to return.
I took the stingler from my waistband, lifted the jacket hood over my light hair, crouched, and moved stealthily across the leafy floor, avoiding branches and even twigs.
Gone! The jeep was gone. The woods were silent, but I had no doubt that men were positioned around t
he gorge.
I retraced my steps, then turned south. Spirit had said it was fifty miles to the Orghes' Village. I had covered about twenty with the jeep. It would be a long hike, but I had my trusty compass to keep me on course, until…
* * *
Until I came to the top of a cliff about ten miles into my trek. Below, rolling waves broke against the jutting boulders.
“What the hell…” I checked my compass again. It pointed due south, into the mouth of the sea.
Spirit! What were you thinking? Spirit.
I was thinking, Terran, how pleasant it would be if you would grant Silva and I the privacy we crave.
Well, your compass points are screwed. I walked due south and–
Oh. I see. You came to the sea.
Nice that you noticed.
I might have been a trifle off…yes, it's southwest. Just continue west along the coast.
Are you sure this time?
What did you say, dear?
I asked if you were sure.
Not you. Silva, my luscious, just a short interlude. Terrans are a demanding lot, especially this one. West, Jules! As in your Westward go the dragons!
That's–
He broke the link before I could muster a retort.
I walked across a high plains desert through the night and came to an escarpment at daybreak overlooking the Orghes' Village below. I was tired, hungry, but mostly thirsty. My legs burned and I was staggering.
I laid down and studied the village. Simple wooden houses were scattered throughout a flat plain, with mountains looming above eastern woods, and fields of grain to the south. I wondered if it was native or grown from imported seed.
Drying meat and fish hung on racks. Animal skins were stretched out on frames next to stacked dugouts.
It was difficult to make out the individual people, and Chancey had my graphoculars, but as day brightened, the scene below sharpened like a developing photograph of centuries past.
The Orghes were furred beings, ranging from black, to brown, tan, golden, and ivory. They moved with a hunched, swaying gait. I got the impression that they could run on their broad hands and feet, if need be. They wore loin cloths and animal-skin capes that reached to the backs of their knees.
