The Tetra War

by Michael Ryan

  “It’s not the animals’ fault, Avery. It’s just instinct.”

  “Um, okay. If you say so.”

  “Come on. Smile,” she teased.

  “We have forty more minutes to kill. Let’s go across the street, eat some ice cream, and pretend we aren’t soldiers.”

  “You think they’ll have real strawberries?”

  “Of course. I saw a sign,” I said.

  “I don’t want to be late.”

  “I’ll keep an eye on the time.” I took her hand and escorted her out of the building.

  It was stifling hot on the street. We walked with the crowds, thousands and thousands of people, most of them locals who were barely wearing clothing and speaking in a strange dialect – a pidgin version of Common English that also included a few Spanish and Guritain words. Street merchants shouted offers for everything from kitchen gadgets to young prostitutes of various genders. Preachers belted out sermons. Monks prayed and chanted. Hucksters offered drugs, illegal weapons, stolen goods, pirated everything.

  “Fuckstab!” someone yelled at us from a broken window on a passing bus.

  “What’d he just shout?” Callie asked.

  I scowled. “You don’t want to know.”

  “I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t want to know.”

  “Yeah, okay,” I said. “But let’s order ice cream first.”

  “You’re dodging.”

  I nodded, my expression impassive. “No question. You still want strawberry?”

  “Unless they have real vanilla.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Nobody here has real vanilla.”

  “Okay, strawberry.”

  I ordered a single serving for Callie and a double scoop for myself. Mint chocolate chip over mango sorbet.

  “That’s gross,” she said.

  “It’s my favorite.”

  She took a taste of hers and made a face. “This isn’t real strawberry,” she groaned.

  “Live with it,” I said. “At least it’s cold and refre–”

  A powerful explosion blew out all the bottom-floor windows in a building a block away. People around us were screaming and holding their ears, some clutching silver crosses suspended from their necks on lanyards and beaded necklaces. Smoke belched from the building façade, and several wounded bystanders staggered aimlessly, their clothes filthy and blood streaming down their faces.

  I pulled Callie into an alcove. “Get down!” I shouted, and threw myself to the ground. She followed me after tossing her ice cream.

  “Damn thing wasn’t real,” she said. “I told you I wanted real strawberries.”

  I eyed her in disbelief. “You did notice the bomb, right?”

  She pursed her lips. “Yeah, sure. These things happen here all the time. I keep forgetting you’re not from a big city, Avery.”

  “This is normal?”

  “Hold one,” she said, glancing down the street. “And stay down. Any moment the local MPs will show up, and they rarely miss an opportunity to fire off their weapons. I think it’s sexual frustration.”

  “What happens then?”

  “The cops will usually use the opportunity to kill a few dozen homeless squatters or some vendor who’s behind on his debts. Later, on the nightly news, the reports will say, ‘Terrorists kill dozens in downtown attack.’ Don’t worry, we’re in uniform, and they’re highly unlikely to fire at us. Trust me, they don’t want to deal with the paperwork involved in shooting a soldier.”

  I appraised her for a long beat. “You grew up around here?”

  “Twelve blocks to the north.”

  “Hell.”

  She shook her head. “No, Mexico City.”

  Her smile changed to a frown, and I followed her stare out into the street.

  Two tall men with spiked batons were stepping over the wounded and heading directly toward us. Each wore a mask and dark clothing. It wasn’t possible to identify their race, or even their species, although they weren’t tall enough to be Guritains. We might have been in uniform, but we were unarmed, and I was painfully aware of how vulnerable we were.

  “Callie, you need to run,” I said. “I’ll keep them occupied.”

  “I’m not leaving you,” she hissed. “Here.” She handed me a retractable knife.

  “You brought a knife?”

  “I brought two because I remembered this morning that you’re not from around here.” She held out her hand, pushed a button, and a bluish double-edged ceramic blade shot out of a black molded handle. “Pay attention.”

  I held the knife in my right hand and released the blade. The bluish hue was a coating. “Is this what I think it is?”

  “Yes. Don’t cut yourself.”

  “I thought that was illegal.”

  “Of course it is,” she said. “Now shut up and try not to let that guy hit you.”

  The blades were laced with an outlawed nerve toxin, a synthetic version of a poison extracted from an octopus common on Purvas. Callie was a planner.

  “You fucking traitors!” the man to the left shouted.

  The second man lunged toward Callie. He expected me to move to my left and assist her, and I nearly fell for the ruse. The first attacker moved swiftly to his right and swung the club in a vicious arc toward my legs. At the last instant I jumped over it and slashed at his arm.

  His scream pierced my inner ear like a train whistle, and he fell to the ground, shaking violently and cursing, white froth foaming from his nose and blood streaming from the corners of his eyes. His partner bashed his skull in with a mercy blow, and he fell silent.

  The surviving attacker switched his attention from me to Callie, who was crouched into a defensive position with her blade extended. “Fuckstab! Bitch-whore-traitor!” he snarled, waving the bloody club at her before giving me the finger. He turned and ran, but Callie was on him before he made it ten meters. She plunged her blade into his back and removed it in a smooth motion. He fell, convulsed, and rolled over. “Kill, kill, kill,” he gurgled, and then stiffened and lay still.

  “Fuck you,” Callie spat.

  “Jesus, Callie, could you show some mercy?”

  “No. Let’s go before more of them show up.”

  I nodded. “What possessed you to bring a blade covered in Chevo?”

  “It’s standard procedure for the locals in these parts,” she answered, taking my arm and tugging. “Come on, we need to get off the street.”

  Local military police arrived in a convoy of open-backed trucks mounted with centrifugal machine guns. The CF guns are silent, but I heard glass breaking and people screaming. Sirens went off around us. Panicked voices shouted. Civilian heli-jets flew overhead – media, I guessed – and then a large TM-HJ14 dropped from the sky and hovered above the crowd.

  The cavalry had arrived.

  The Gurt MPs weren’t as pacifistic as the local cops. They descended from the hovering craft down a cable to the street, weapons at the ready. Someone in the crowd threw a bottle at the troops, and it was answered with four canisters of blister-gas – one of the few legal nerve agents, ironically only if used against your own civilian population.

  “Move!” I shouted. “Before the damn wind changes and we’re stuck spending our vacation in a skin-graft rehab unit.”

  We made it back to the building without injury.

  Major Vistagon welcomed us into his office three hours later.

  “Sit, please,” he said. “I apologize for all the delays.”

  “Understandable, sir,” I said.

  “It’s this damn holiday. It stirs up the” – he waved his arms around – “the detractors.”

  “We got a taste of that, sir,” Callie said.

  “Yes, well, indeed,” he said. He shifted paperwork from one side of his desk to the other and pounded on a Gurt keyboard that used a 56-letter alphabet. “I don’t quite understand human politics and reasoning sometimes. We’ve established a government here with superior force, so there’s really no reason for this street vi
olence. If the Prostosi want to try to take over, they should amass an army and declare war. I don’t get these guerrilla terrorist displays. It’s childish and accomplishes nothing.”

  “Indeed, sir,” I said. “I wish everyone was as logical.”

  He gave me a wan smile. “Yes, well, if that were the case, we’d be out of jobs, wouldn’t we?” He cleared his throat and sat forward, reading from the imbedded desktop screen. “Now, Dunn, Callie, Corporal, let’s see… Oh, you destroyed a TCI-Armor suit in theater, and you’re still – oh, I see. Yes. Okay, well, it’s confirmed.” He pushed buttons on his keyboard and coughed before continuing. “Congratulations. You’re being promoted.”

  That was unexpected.

  “Sir?” I said.

  “Yes, well, everything is in order. You’ll be receiving a packet after you return from leave.”

  “My new fitting?” Callie asked.

  “Yes…yes,” he said, pushing more buttons. “Here.” He handed her a piece of paper. “You’ll find all the necessary information there. Everything is running behind. I’ve also messaged you both, so this entire meeting is mostly ceremony and so forth…” He stood.

  We jumped to attention and gave the proper Gurt salute for the situation – there are sixteen official salutes and a half-dozen informal ones used among peers.

  Two of them could get you laid…or punched in the face, depending.

  Back in our hotel room, which overlooked a city that was partly beautiful, partly ugly, and a hundred percent intriguing, I smiled at Callie and asked her if she wanted to go out for the night. “We could find a good noodle stand.”

  “No,” she said. “Too much excitement already today. Let’s watch an old movie and chill.”

  “Perfecto-splendid,” I said.

  “You promised to tell me what that guy was yelling from the bus.”

  “Fuckstab,” I said.

  She nodded. “I wasn’t born yesterday, Avery. I know what it means. It’s a curse among the Prostosi – human members of the resistance – and refers to being poked, stabbed, or scratched with an infected instrument.”

  “Infected?”

  “Yeah, infected. It basically means ‘I want you to die like my ancestors did during the plagues.’”

  I nodded. “There’s still a lot of hate and resentment.”

  “Of course.”

  “Let’s see if we can book a flight for the day after you finish measurements and calibrations.” I smiled at her. “Still set on Southern Africa?”

  “Yeah.”

  I used the in-room comp and booked a flight, a tour, and purchased discount tickets to the zoo.

  We watched an old prewar American film about an alien invasion. Not surprisingly, humans won.

  “We’re an optimistic species,” Callie said.

  “An evolutionary trait.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Sure. Those with hope continue fighting.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  You are my battle axe: for with you will I shatter the nation that opposes me.

  ~ Poems of Beelnt, Book of Truth, Index 12:26

  The next few days in Mexico City passed uneventfully. Callie completed measuring and calibrations. We officially accepted our promotions to sergeant and went through a series of oaths, vows, and a short ceremony. I sent an order that would be attached to an outgoing military packet, which would be relayed from ship to ship all the way back to Repairs & Maintenance aboard the Amphoterus, instructing them to upgrade the insignia on our suits. We were released to go on leave, and before the week ended, we found ourselves on a bus leaving Johannesburg, headed to a nature preserve.

  By 2300 HCE, Earth was divided up in several regions under disparate control. Gurita ruled what had once been North and Central America along with parts of South America within a hundred miles of the equator. All of Africa was also Gurita territory, as well as sections of what was once Southeast Asia, including most Pacific Rim countries and islands. Some of these regions were in constant dispute, and most of them were off-limits to visitors.

  Tedesconian territories included the former nations of Europe, which had been under Russian control before the arrival of the Gurts, as well as about half of what had once been India and most of the areas once ruled by the Chinese, including a good part of former Indonesia. They also controlled the parts of Australia near the coasts, although the humans there had formed several fortified strongholds and there was constant internal rebellion.

  Errusiakos controlled the territories that were formerly prewar Russia, Iceland, and Greenland.

  The sections in the extreme north of both continents – what had once been part of the United States, Canada, and Russia, as well as the Arctic – were neutral territory.

  Antarctica was neutral by treaty as well, as were some regions in the lower part of South America.

  Traveling into Errusiakos-controlled areas wasn’t forbidden. They’d remained out of the war and were at peace with both the Gurts and the Teds, but traveling there wasn’t encouraged either. Going into neutral regions was also not against regulations, but vacationing somewhere covered in ice was the last thing on my mind.

  We arrived in Africa and, after a stifling night in our budget hotel, embarked on our first guided tour into the wilds.

  “It’s so beautiful,” Callie said.

  “It is, isn’t it? It’s amazing that nature produced such beautiful things at the same time monsters evolved.”

  “Look!” She pointed from the open-air all-terrain vehicle at a pride of lions sunning by a watering hole.

  “They look like animatronic robots,” a tourist sitting behind us said to his wife.

  “They do not,” his wife replied. “Look closer. They’re real. It said so in the brochure.”

  “I still think we should have gone to New Vegas. We could be watching Gladiators & Lions at the MGM.”

  “We saw that last year,” she snapped. “How many times can you watch all that same gore?”

  “It’s always randomized,” he observed, and twisted to look at Callie. “You two ever been to New Vegas?”

  I hadn’t been eavesdropping and only realized he was talking to us after Callie nudged me with her elbow.

  “Oh, yes, of course,” I said.

  “Did you see G & L at the Grand?”

  “No, can’t say I have,” I answered, and gestured at Callie. “But I watched a monster cat nearly eat her alive a few weeks ago, so I think I’ve had my fill of that trope.”

  “Really?” the woman asked. “Where did you run into a monster cat?”

  “They must have been visiting Japan,” the man said. “I’ve heard they have some bizarre virtual-reality events.”

  “No, we were on Purvas,” I said.

  “Purvas?” the woman asked. “Really?”

  “You’re soldiers?” the man asked. We were clad in civilian clothes, with no obvious hints of our vocation on display.

  “Yes,” Callie said, “but please, we don’t like to advertise that. We’re on vacation.”

  “What was the cat like?” the husband asked. He extended his hand over the seat back. “By the way, I’m Rodger, and this is Patricia.”

  I took his hand and smiled at his wife. “Big and hungry,” I said to him. “The cat. It was trying to eat Callie because she’d lost her armor.”

  Rodger’s eyes widened. “You’re armored infantry?”

  “Specialized Drop Infantry, yes,” I clarified.

  “Wow. It must be exciting to be a warrior out there, fighting those damn Teds on their own planet.”

  “It’s a job,” I said. “Some days are better than others.”

  “You’re partners, then,” Patricia said matter-of-factly. “Lover-warriors, bonded like doves.”

  “That’s exactly right,” I said. “We’re a team.”

  “We got married a few months ago,” Patricia announced, and leaned over and gave Rodger a kiss on the cheek. “The newest love of my life.”

  “This
is sort of a honeymoon trip,” Rodger explained. “We’re both engineers at Calstorph Tech, and it was hard to schedule time off simultaneously.”

  “But here we are,” she said, kissing him again.

  “Yeah, here we are,” he agreed.

  “Doesn’t Calstorph Tech build parts for space elevators?” Callie asked.

  “Yes, but most of what we do is classified. I work in nanotech, and Patricia works in electrical systems.”

  “Our jobs aren’t as exciting as yours, though,” Patricia added.

  “Yeah, sure, but then you’re not likely to be eaten by a giant cat or a dino-lizard,” Callie parried.

  “You ran into lizards that could eat a human?” Roger seemed fascinated with human versus predator encounters.

  “We were nearly lunch,” I said. “It wasn’t pleasant.”

  “We’re part of the war effort, too,” Patricia said proudly. “It’s supposed to be classified, of course, but it’s public knowledge that Calstorph Tech employees are on Ted-target lists. We get extra pay for that, because we’re considered non-civilian targets.

  “Really?”

  “Sure,” she said. “There’s a ten point five percent bonus for working on any project that’s military related because there’s always the chance you’ll be sitting somewhere, eating a tuna sandwich, and then – bam! – you’re dead.”

  Roger made a face. “It’s not that likely, honey. Really.”

  “Why do you think that?” Callie asked.

  “Simple economics–”

  Patricia interrupted him. “I’m sure they’d rather not be bored by a lecture, Rodger.”

  “No, it’s fascinating,” I said. “Go on.”

  Roger nodded, glanced around, and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial stage whisper. “Our company is a financial target, not a military one. Larger companies, all over the world, and on Purvas, too, want to acquire an interest in CT.”

  “What?” Callie said.

  Roger nodded again, his eyes hooded. “It’s true. There are mutual fund shareholders on Purvas that desperately want CT stock in their portfolio. And of course, many colonists are here for life and keep their funds in Earth markets. It’s hard not to own a major corporation’s stock, and all of them have facilities or subsidiaries across the planet. You don’t think CT, General Petroleum, or even TCI Technologies don’t have facilities and employees on all continents?”