by Mark Wandrey
They were still a hundred meters away several hours before nightfall. The sensors showed the Rasa were starting to move around while still staying near camp.
"Okay," she told them as they gathered inside a partially crumbled building, "Encircle their camp. This will take all hands armed." Pip looked nervous and Aaron put a big hand on his shoulder. Pip nodded and seemed to take strength from the gesture.
“Attacking is against the ROE,” Cherise whispered to Minu.
“We don't have to attack if they surrender,” Minu replied. Cherise nodded her head and they all readied weapons then spread out to encircle the apparently unaware Rasa.
Minu ended up closest to Gregg as they slid from cover to cover like ghosts. Each of them stayed close enough to the others to maintain visual thus avoiding use of the radios. Their equipment was not very advanced and thus easier to detect. Plus radios were made on Bellatrix and had their advantages and disadvantages. Minu crawled through some rubble and propped her rifle onto a partially collapsed wall. The scope glowed red and was nearly invisible in the waning sunlight. She leaned so close her eyelashes brushed the glass. There was one of the Rasa, its faces vaguely reminiscent of a miniature kloth as it went about some task. A large piece of meat was skewered and cooking over an open fire. Minu sniffed the air and picked up the faintest hint of cooking meat and strange spices.
Minu looked over to Gregg, now in a similar position fifty meter away. She flashed a sign asking what he saw. Gregg used index and middle finger to point at his eyes, then gestured across the landscape before him. Making a V with the same two fingers, he stood them on the palm of his hand and then held out his first three fingers. He could see three aliens from where he was. Minu nodded and signaled for him to get reports from the others then checked her view again while she waited. Another pair of Rasa was visible moving around. She craned her neck and got Luke's attention. He used to same hand signals to indicate he saw four aliens, and nothing more. The sun was continuing to lower in the sky; soon the Rasa would be much more active. One moved over to the food and sniffed at it. Despite the lack of facial muscles Minu thought it looked pleased at the odors of the cooking meat. A long forked tongue shot out for a taste and this time she heard it's hiss of pleasure at it licked some of the dripping grease. Why would they bring fresh meat on a mission? Minu wondered. Maybe something required for their metabolism? She looked up and saw that Gregg was watching her. He indicated looking, pointed toward the others in her team and gave a negative head shake. No one could see their missing member.
Minu held up a flattened hand so he could see. She made a low sweeping motion, first to the left then to the right, then held up two fingers. Have two scouts move in closer from both sides, she instructed. Gregg acknowledged with a fist nod and then relayed the orders. She returned to her scope. The Rasa were gathering by the cook fire and were now using long slim bladed knives to carve off pieces of meat. She could see it was still partially raw as they dug into the meal. It reminded her how long it had been since they'd eaten more than preserved ration packs, and scant amounts of that. They wrapped the meat around their blades and tore chunks from it with sharp teeth, swallowing the flesh whole. Minu's stomach grumbled and her annoyance grew. If they didn't have William, where the hell was he? Hiding somewhere, no doubt.
Gregg motioned to get her attention. He signed that they'd found something, then patted his hat, backpack, gun, and boot. He made motions with his fingers of walking around to the far side of the camp. Minu tried to figure out the situation. Had they stripped him and tied him up somewhere they couldn't see? Another lizard made an appearance and helped itself to the food. She needed to give more detailed orders so she pulled out her computer and started typing. A moment later she held it up for him to see. Gregg pulled out his own and she sent a coded message. It was a risky move being this close to the aliens. Should any of the Rasa be watching their computers closely they would see the transmission. Even if they did they would have no idea where the transmission came from, or what it said. It was a risk she was willing to take.
First she asked what they'd found. Luke reported that he'd seen a Chosen pack on the far side of the square, and that's all. Did the Rasa have scramblers that could disrupt their life sensors? She had no idea. Either way caution demanded she bide her time so Minu ordered them to hold positions and wait for dark. They’d lose some advantage but once the Rasa began moving about maybe they'd send a team out in to the town and one of her team could sneak in close enough to look for where they were holding William. With luck they could free him, cause a diversion, and make a run for the nearby portal. Minu could see its pearly opal surface glowing just past the Rasa and their camp, its offer of escape and home almost taunting her with its closeness.
All six Rasa were up now as the sun fell still lower in the sky. The smells of cooking meat drifted in the air and made Minu once again think of her empty stomach and how much the whole situation sucked. Why had William been stupid enough to get himself caught? Why hadn't he radioed that he was in trouble? Why wasn't she dropping off the cache back home and working on solving the mystery of where her father disappeared too while having a big dinner? Her eye returned to the scope.
The meat on the skewer was almost gone. With all the Rasa team now awake the cook went to get more meat. Minu let her view wander to the individuals, trying to puzzle out what their responsibilities might be in an alien analogy of her own team. It helped take her mind off her stomach and the general predicament the team was in.
The cook was returning to the fire, a large piece of meat held in one clawed hand, one of their long bladed knives in the other. With a sure motion it skewered the meat and placed it over the fire. This was a longer, more intact piece of flesh this time. As the alien started slicing the meat to cook better over the fire it moved and Minu could see that from one end dangled an unmistakably human hand. Shredded flesh and pale white bone protruded from the other end as the skin began to char and burn.
Cherise screamed from the other side of the camp. She'd gotten a good a view as Minu and realized what she was seeing at the same time. Instantly alert the Rasa crouched and turned toward the sound. Minu didn't immediately react, not fully comprehending what she'd seen. The cook took its long knife and turned toward Cherise.
Minu thumbed off the safety without any conscious thought, her eye going to the scope and the cooks head fell into the center of the scope. The Rasa turned toward her, hearing the loud click of her safety coming off. Minu settled the cross hairs on one eye and squeezed the trigger. The crack of the weapon discharging was less satisfactory than the way the Rasa's head exploded from the impact of a hypersonic projectile.
“Kill them all!” she screamed, loud enough for her whole team to hear and not caring if the aliens did or not. Minu picked targets and fired over and over as fast as the weapon would cycle. The entire square erupted in gun fire as the Rasa fell under a withering cross fire. There was a Rasa diving toward a pile of equipment. Minu shot it through a leg, shattering the limb and making it scream in a surprisingly human sound of pain. As it spun around she shot it twice more through the chest before if fell still. Another Rasa was armed, some kind of rifle, and was firing a spray of projectiles toward Cherise. Minu shot it through the back and again through the head as it lay screaming on the ground. She only realizing the weapon was empty after hearing the trigger click over and empty cylinder several times. She dropped the rifle and stood up. Her knife, the one from the Trials, found its way into her hand as she strode toward the camp. Four of the Rasa were very obviously dead, the surviving two were both wounded. One was crawling toward a weapon, the other toward the portal.
Minu marched to the one trying to reach a gun. It spotted her, eyes fixing on her and mouth opening to show rows of razor sharp teeth and a snarl. It drew its long bladed knife they'd used to butcher William and came at Minu, one leg useless. It was still full of fight.
Cherise had been teaching her for over a year now, dozens of
personal sparing matches under her belt. An adolescent woman at the prime of physical condition and fired by rage, she coiled like a steel spring and launched herself. Her cybernetic powered arm held the knife and she used it to bat aside the Rasa's blade as she collided with the alien, her other arm pistoned up and out, catching the Rasa just under the edge of its hard, lizard jaw. A human might have gotten a broken jaw or lost some teeth, the Rasa was just knocked off balance. Seizing the advantage Minu slashed up and in with her blade, unconsciously making the little mental 'push' that made the arm exceed normal human strength. The blade crunched into heavy bone over the alien's chest, mechanical muscles exerted their full massive strength and the blade shattered though bone and organs.
As the Rasa fell dead to the ground Minu spun to look for another target. Gregg, Aaron and Luke all stood over the final Rasa, just a few meters from the portal it lay on its back and held up hands in surrender. Blood poured steadily from a bullet wound in its side.
"Oh, shit, oh shit," Pip said over and over. He was standing nearby holding his rifle in trembling hands.
"Calm down," Luke said, his weapon never wavering from the prone enemy.
“What about this one, boss?” Gregg asked.
Minu walked over and looked down at it. The Rasa stared back in what, fear? Anger? Loathing? She reached under her shirt and flipped on the translator she wore there. “Why did you eat our friend?” she snapped.
The Rasa cocked its head as its own translator hissed and popped. After a moment it spoke, the English coming out of her translator a second later. “We were hungry.”
Minu drew her handgun and fired a single shot; the bullet went in through the Rasa's mouth and blew the back of its head out. The being fell back and jerked wildly as its body tried to come to grips with death.
Pip screamed, a short squawk cut short by Cherise putting a hand over his mouth and hugging him. He shook and cried silently against her. Gregg looked from the macabre scene of the Rasa dying to Minu and shrugged while putting his gun on safety then reloading. Aaron looked at her, his eyes big in shock and a hint of terror. Was it from the recent battle, or what she'd just done? Luke and Chester were moving through the camp, systematically making sure all the Rasa were dead. One round each to the head, where it was necessary.
Pip finally got control of himself and dropped onto a big fallen column, his rifle lying forgotten at his feet. Cherise stood looking at Minu, even in the dwindling light the dark-skinned Desert Tribe girl looked ashen as she crossed to where the cook had done his grisly work. Minu joined her as did the others, one at a time, until they all stood over a bloody blanket covering something. No one wanted to move the blanket so it was Minu who used the tip of her knife to pull the blanket back. A second later she moved it back over William's staring eyes.
"I never thought..." Pip started, then couldn't finish.
"They were just eating him," Cherise said, “like he wasn't even a person.” She looked between them then became violently sick off to the side. There wasn't much to it, unlike the Rasa they had eaten little food over the last couple days.
"To them, we're just another animal," Minu said, emotionally spent. She went to the one she'd killed with her knife and picked up its blade, the one used to butcher a fellow human being. Even though the Rasa weren't the Tog, how could they be so callus with another sentient being? The T'Chillen have done some horrible things to humans when they got their tentacled hands on them, but this? "Pip, has this happened before?"
"Huh?"
"Have there been previous incidents of alien species in the Concordia using predation against humans, or any other species?" He looked confused, unable to take his eyes from the bloody blanket. She stepped over and slapped him across the face hard enough to make him gasp. "We're Chosen, damn it, pull yourself together!"
"Sorry," he said, stepping back and putting a hand to his burning cheek.
"Well?"
"I don't know," he admitted, "but I'll find out."
"Good enough. All right, sweep the camp, take everything. Take their gear, especially any detection equipment or computers. Even strip the bodies as well. Then pile them here and burn them."
"What about him?" Chester was looking at the bloody blanket covered remains.
She pulled a poncho from her backpack and tossed it to him. "He goes back with us. We don't leave people behind."
* * *
Minu arrived back on Bellatrix through the portal with her team to the sound of alarms. Maybe it was the fact that they'd come in behind schedule, or that they were carrying a bloody poncho holding the substantially reduced remains of a dead Chosen. Whatever the reason, two dozen heavily armed Chosen appeared almost like magic through doors around the portal courtyard at the Steven’s Pass facility. She didn't even know those doors existed.
They verified the new arrivals were human and stood down just as a medical team was arriving. The Chosen in charge was Michael again. He took Minu aside and quietly questioned her as the remains were reverently loaded onto a gurney and taken away. She followed Michael to begin her debriefing. It would be five days before she saw daylight again.
Dram quickly arrived to lead the debriefing, then was joined by others in the Chosen leadership and eventually Jacob himself. Late in the debriefing Jovich showed up. His familiar, strong presence helped her finish the grisly account as strongly as she'd begun it.
Back in her billet with Cherise she read her own report, compiled from hours of interviews of her and the other surviving team members. Details were inserted from data gathered by Chosen technicians reviewing their recorders and the confiscated Rasa gear. Her performance was summed up in two lines.
"Chosen Commander Minu Alma, five-star, having found herself in a completely unexpected and hostile situation on the neutral frontier world of GBX49881, handled herself with all the professionalism and calm decorum expected of a Chosen. It is thus deemed that her use of deadly force against the Rasa, considering the extremely unusual and provocative nature of the encounter, was completely justifiable, proper, and in keeping with the traditions of the Chosen, and in accord with established rules of engagement."
Other details of the mission were presented in such a sterilized form that it struck Minu as almost flippant. Terms like; "liquidation of alien scouts", "cross species sentient cannibalism", and "inordinately high cost of the cache retrieval." She put aside the report and stared out the small window. The weather at Steven’s Pass was in stark relief to that of GBX49881, here a thick layer of snow lay on the ground and heavy cloud cover obscured the sun. Daytime the temperature reached no more than ten degrees and evenings often plummeting to ten below. All in all, a typical Fall in the Cascade Mountains. She amazed at the effect even one week on another world had on her, and wondered what some of the teams who went for a year at a time experienced. What about the ones that were stationed out world on a permanent basis?
"I've never really known someone who died, except my mom." Minu looked over where Cherise way lying on her bunk staring up at the ceiling. "I mean, I didn't know that boy in the Trials..."
"And you didn't kill him." Minu nodded her head. "Besides, he was a waste of skin. I would have killed him and Ivan, given half the chance." Minu remained silent. "You need to get past that, and what just happened."
"Two people are now dead because of me."
"No, two people are dead despite you." Cherise stared at her until the other girl turned and looked back. "Minu, you're a natural leader. You can make quick, decisive decisions that are more often than not dead on, and you don't let it bother you until later. Like now, as a matter of fact. People follow you because they want to, not because they have to. I saw that in you in this very facility more than a year ago. I said to myself that if I wanted to make Chosen, this girl would take me there. And beyond." Minu snorted. "You didn't bring that fight to us during the Trials, but you did what needed to be done. You didn't allow William to be captured and killed, in fact he put himself in that position by
being insubordinate and a general pain in the ass. You responded in the only way that made sense, and the leadership's report agrees with that."
"Okay, you've made your point. Yes, everyone agrees with you, I'm a great commander and did everything right."
"So what is your problem?"
"People are dead, I was in charge. There is no getting away from that." Minu looked down at the floor and ground her teeth.
"I'm sure your father made the same realization years ago,” Minu's head jerked up to lock eyes with her friend, “about the time Chosen under his command started dying.”
Later in the same meeting room where she'd been told she was to be Chosen there was a much less formal assemblage. Dram and two of others from the Chosen council were going over the after action report with her making sure it was accurate. It was mostly a formality by that point, which was why Minu couldn't understand it taking place in a meeting room and not Dram's office. Dram did most of the talking, the others just listened and made notes.
During a lull in the questions, she decided to jump in. "May I ask a question?"
"Certainly," Dram replied in his deeply rich voice.
"Has the cache I retrieved been evaluated?"
"Actually, yes. We're a little mystified at the contents. The analysis continues."
