by Jay Korza
Cueball had four arms, no neck, three eyes—one of which was capable of sonar and thermal vision, and muscles with their own muscles. His flesh and organs were just as vulnerable to edged and ballistic weapons as anyone else’s. But without showing any signs of slowing down, he could take as many punches and kicks as were thrown at him from any number of people.
Cueball’s fighting ability was superb and that really pissed the team off because they couldn’t beat him. But they also embraced the opportunity to learn more about the fighting styles and abilities of their most lethal foes.
Cueball walked over to a table, grabbed a bucket of water and drank. Between lengthy gulps, he offered, “The problem with your fighting styles is that you are still trying to hurt me. You will lose doing that because you cannot hurt me. I have no pain receptors on the exterior portions of my skin. I keep telling you this but you keep trying.”
Seth wiped his bloody face with a towel. He made a mental note to have Reaper look at his nose and eye later. “When we spar without weapons, we are not trying to beat you. We know we can’t beat you in a stand-up fight without severely injuring or killing you. The whole point is for us to learn your weaknesses, your blind spots, and your fighting style. So when we go into battle against your brothers, and we have weapons, we will be better prepared to use them. The problem is you don’t know how to spar in a platoon-friendly fashion.”
“And there’s like six broken noses to prove it.” Bloom held his nose as one of those six.
Cueball shrugged his lower arms. “I fight how I fight. You are getting better, though. Does anyone want to go again?”
“We are done for the day.” Daria stepped in. “I already have enough people to tend to tonight as it is. Reaper is almost done with Snake. I’m taking the three other broken noses with me back to the medical tent. Everyone else needs to stretch out, drink lots of water, and eat a lot of protein tonight.”
“Yes, Doc,” several people said in unison.
As Seth leaned his back up against a rock, he saw Nitaha sneaking up on Cueball. The juvenile Shirka sprung at Cueball’s lower right arm and latched on with her sharp teeth and dug her claws into his torso.
Cueball whipped his lower arm around while he grabbed at the cub with his right upper arm. Nitaha released her bite and rode Cueball’s whipping motion so it brought her around his arm and into the air above his head.
Cueball tried to duck out of the way but Nitaha landed on his shoulders, her arms around his neck; she placed one clawed paw against his throat, showing she had the upper hand.
As deadly and fearsome as Cueball was, and as much as he liked to portray his outward appearance of someone who never showed mercy, he had a major soft spot for the Shirka cub. Cueball never came close to hurting Nitaha and was almost as nurturing towards her as Seth was. Cueball had taken the orphan under his wing. The symbolism was not lost on the rest of the team.
Nitaha jumped off Cueball and rushed over to Seth, running on all fours. She was at a middle stage in her development, trying to find the right time to become the fully bipedal person she was meant to be.
When she did stand up, she was four foot ten inches tall. She still had most of her tail; it wouldn’t fully absorb into her spinal column until about a year after she became bipedal full-time. She was still on the skinny side at one hundred and ten pounds, but growing fast.
Seth braced himself for the imminent impact as his adopted daughter ran towards him. Nitaha skidded at just the right moment and landed in Seth’s lap without too much force. Seth wrapped his arms around her and she nuzzled into his chest.
“You know, one day Cueball might actually fight back.” Seth scratched her behind the ears.
Despite Nitaha being a sentient being, Seth still had a hard time not treating her like a really smart canine. Fang told him not to worry about it; he didn’t see Seth doing anything that most Shirka parents didn’t do themselves. They did evolve from pack animals that closely resembled wolves from Earth, not only in physical appearance but social customs and mannerisms as well.
Cueball wiped the blood from the fresh wounds Nitaha inflicted. “I fight her as I fight anyone else.” A small lie. “The difference is, she doesn’t hold back and doesn’t worry about hurting me. That’s why she does better against me than any of you do.”
“I fight better than Father.” Nitaha laughed. Her mixture of Shirka and human laughter made an odd sound that always made everyone around her laugh.
“Yes, we’ll see about that tomorrow, my daughter.” Seth had her on a rigorous training schedule that included academics and combat training.
“I go Uncle Fang?” she asked. Her English was far from perfect but at less than a year old, she already spoke as well as a five-year-old human child.
Seth shook his head. “No, Nitaha. It should be—Do I go with Uncle Fang today?”
She squared her shoulders up and sat like a proper lady. She liked to show Seth that she could play the part of a human daughter. “Do I go with Uncle Fang today?”
“Yes, you do. Today is Shirka studies day. Tomorrow is science class with Emily, logistics with Snake, and then tactics with me.”
Fang came over and growled something in their native tongue. Nitaha stood and changed her posture to show Fang she could also be an intimidating Shirka warrior. He snarled his approval and the two headed away from the camp, into the forest to start their training day.
“She looks bigger every day.” Emily sidled up to Seth.
“At least human kids stay kids for a while. I think I’m already freaking out about empty nest syndrome.”
“At least you don’t have to worry about her dating. Fang is the only viable candidate around and he’s already spoken for by Huj’pa’ul.”
“Thank God for small favors, right? How is she doing anyway? Have you heard from her?”
Emily had kept in contact with Huj’pa’ul since they met at the Detrill shipyards. She thought it would be a good idea to have a female Shirka to talk to in case Emily needed to have any female-specific talks with Nitaha. Huj’pa’ul was more than willing to help out if she was needed for anything.
“Her team is doing well. They have had several disruption missions against the warriors and the Cherta. They haven’t lost any of their family so far—a few close calls and a couple of pretty bad injuries, though. She talks to Fang more than me. I’m sure he knows more about what’s going on with them.”
“Nitaha has had one video call with Huj’pa’ul but she wasn’t interested in it at all. Huj’pa’ul wasn’t offended and said that most Shirka cubs weren’t interested in people they couldn’t smell in person. Video calls are generally a waste of time with the young ones.”
“She is taking pretty well to her new name.”
“She loves it!” Seth had been very worried about coming up with a name for her. “Stroth said it’s a part of one of the oldest memories his grandfather passed down to him. It was the name of a warrior woman who stood in battle with Stroth’s ancestors millennia ago. She was fierce, loyal, and dedicated.”
“It’s amazing the way the Detrill can pass on actual memories to their own kind. How the memories become a part of the receiver’s own neural pathways, to be passed on again.” Emily had always wanted to learn more about the process and she had been extensively questioning Stroth about it.
“It is pretty cool. But one thing he told me was the memories can actually be altered by the sender and the receiver. It’s just like an oral history being passed down. The speaker may leave a detail out accidentally, or emphasize a part they find more interesting or important. The receiver may not hear everything correctly, or misunderstand something, or whatever. But in the end, the Detrill memories that are passed down aren’t always intact or accurate.”
“We talked about that also. Based on the information we’ve found so far, the Detrill were brought into the old Nortes empire to replace a race of beings that had worked closely with the Cherta. I asked him why the Detrill di
dn’t know about the Cherta if their ancestors had been alive in the same time frame. Wouldn’t their memories get passed down and include some information about the Cherta?
“Stroth said he had also been thinking about that and had some theories that he needed to check in to. But so far, he hasn’t been able to come up with a good reason for that discrepancy.”
Seth had had similar questions but never asked. “Well, at any rate, I knew Nitaha was the right name for my cub when Stroth shared his grandfather’s memory with me. Not the actual memory, mind you—they can’t transfer memories to other races—but he was able to let me feel the emotion behind the memory of the name and what it means to his family. It was so powerful on so many levels, I knew it was the right name for her.”
“I am so happy for you, Seth.” Emily took his hand in hers. “You are such a great father to her. Just think, this is great practice for when you have your own someday.” Emily kissed him on the cheek and walked away as her words set in.
“What just happened?” Seth said to no one in particular.
“I think you just got claimed. Or at least your future was. Claimed and planned in about ten seconds,” Surgeon teased his friend.
~
Three hours later, Seth was going over their current tactical situation. The team was on a moon that orbited a gas giant in a binary system. The moon overflowed with plant and animal life, but nothing sentient as far as Emily could tell.
The landscape was a mix of several Earth analogs and it didn’t fit any of them precisely. Tall trees formed small patches of forest jungles that were only two to three square kilometers. Then there were rolling hills and grasslands between the forest jungles, with some swampland mixed in.
It was like walking through a golf course in the Scottish Highlands and then running into the Florida Everglades, continuing on to Yellowstone and the Amazon blended together.
The animal life was just as diverse. That made great hunting for Fang and Nitaha. Their hunting also meant the team didn’t have to eat the MREs. That made a lot of people happy.
This was the team’s fifth stop so far in their journey of following the Cherta mission. Seth thought the Cherta might be on to them because the trail was getting harder and harder to track. He feared they might lose them altogether within the next couple of stops.
Emily believed she was making a lot of progress in understanding what had happened to the Cherta at the beginning of the rise of the Nortes Empire. But she still didn’t understand why the Cherta were now tracing their ancestral steps back to the beginning. What were they looking for? How would it help them? What could be so important to look for when they were in the middle of two wars?
These were the questions that they needed to answer, and fast. But now more than ever, Emily and Seth knew their mission was of the utmost importance. The questions and their implications were too big to ignore, even if they didn’t know ultimately what they were going to learn at the end of their quest.
Seth was reading some new information when Scan commed him.
“Captain. Something is wrong with Nitaha. You need to get to the main courtyard now.”
Seth had never felt his heart sink as low as it had in that very moment. He was sure it skipped at least five beats before he could talk. “I’m on my way! What’s going on?”
“I don’t know.” Even through the commlink, Seth could tell Scan was breathing hard. “I’m picking her up empathically. She’s in a lot of distress. I don’t sense that she’s injured, but she’s running full speed back to the compound and she’s scared and excited out of her mind. She’s purposely screaming at me emotionally to get my attention.”
Seth couldn’t help but smile a little bit. His girl was in danger but she kept her wits about her and let the group know through Scan’s empathic ability that something was wrong. She was warning them and giving the team time to get ready for whatever was happening. He was very proud of his daughter in that moment.
“And sir,” Scan added, “Fang isn’t with her.”
“Shit.”
When Seth reached the courtyard they had been training in earlier, the majority of the team was present. Some were still strapping and buckling gear together; most were ready to go and take care of business. All had their weapons and eagerness ready, though.
“Sitrep.” Seth slowed to a jog and then stopped in front of Surgeon and Scan.
“I’m still feeling her. She should be here in a few seconds. I don’t know if she’s alone or bringing company. But we should be ready to receive enemy contacts when she gets here.”
“Copy that.” Surgeon looked to his team. “You heard the man. Spread out. Give me good coverage around the camp, overlapping fields of fire. Be ready for anything.”
The team got into position just as Nitaha broke through the nearest grove of forest jungle. She ran faster than Seth had ever seen before. She never looked back, so she either knew she wasn’t being followed or if she was, she knew it was pointless to look back: they were either behind her or they weren’t and looking back and slowing down wouldn’t help her.
When she got closer, Seth heard a few guttural barks that he was familiar with. It was from her cub pack’s language, the one all packs develop as cubs before they are picked up by their mothers and taught proper Shirka vocalization. Each cub pack language was unique, a kind of quick shorthand language they developed with one another in order to communicate for the first few months they are in the wild with each other.
Cub pack languages are emotionally based rather than having specific meanings for each sound. Seth recognized her barks as: danger, fight now.
Seth ran towards Nitaha and from behind him heard Surgeon’s disapproval of him breaking cover.
“I don’t think she’s being followed,” Seth defended himself.
Surgeon was only a half-step behind his commanding officer and hoped for both their sakes Seth was properly translating the puppy-barking.
When they reached Nitaha, she was out of breath but uninjured. Her physical and emotional state brought with it difficult to understand broken English. “Father, help. Fang, fight. Soldiers. Who?”
“It’s okay. Take a breath and drink some water.” Seth passed his drinking tube to her and she drank greedily. “Point to where we need to go.”
She shook her head. “Must, follow. No Nitaha, no find.”
“Christ. Fine.” He knew it would be pointless to argue. Even if he did win the argument, he would be losing precious time needed to get to Fang.
Seth opened the squad push. “Someone in the rear run in and grab a rifle and chest harness for Nitaha.”
“Copy,” Seth heard Blaze answer up.
He turned to Nitaha. “You need to be ready to go in three minutes. As soon as your combat gear gets here, we’re moving out.”
“I obey, Father.” Nitaha bowed her head but kept sucking on the drinking tube.
Within minutes, the team had several ground craft loaded with operators and ready to move out. Nitaha was in the lead vehicle with Seth, Surgeon, Scan, and Blaze. The vehicles were useless in the forest jungle patches of land but they could help with the other types of terrain and to set up far-sided ambushes.
Once they started moving, Nitaha had calmed down and caught her breath enough to give a more detailed account of what had happened and what the team was heading into.
“Uncle Fang and I were hunting. High in trees, watching prey. Soldiers, not warriors, not Cherta, scouting through forest.”
“How many?” Surgeon asked.
“Forty?” Nitaha wasn’t sure.
“Keep going,” Seth urged.
“Fang sent me to you. Said he would fight if soldiers got too close. Slow them down.”
When Fang and Nitaha went hunting, Fang insisted on not taking any technology whatsoever, including commlinks. He said it would be detrimental to Nitaha’s natural Shirka development.
As far as the soldiers went, Nitaha said they weren’t Cherta soldiers. But Seth k
new the Cherta had soldiers from many different races across the galaxy and these soldiers just might be a race they hadn’t encountered yet. They’d find out soon enough.
“Our acoustic sensors are picking up a gunfight ahead and to the right. About one kilometer out.” Blaze manned the instrument panel.
Nitaha pointed in that direction anyway, but now they knew Fang had made contact with the enemy.
“All ahead full,” Seth said through the squad push. “I want skimmers three and four to break off and move towards the swamp area south of our target. We’ll continue in from the east, disembark at the edge of the forest jungle and move to contact. You guys come in from your side and ambush.”
“Copy that.”
“Wilco, sir.”
Seth tapped his commlink and switched channels. “Emily, are you getting our updates?”
Emily was back at the base camp, angry she wasn’t with the assaulting force. She understood that she needed to stay behind with a contingent of operators to protect their work in case there was more than one attacking force or Seth’s team failed. The second wasn’t likely or even an option in Emily’s mind.
“Yes, we’re getting them. We have prepped our defenses and Chief has prepared the infirmary.” She paused, sorry she made mention of the infirmary. “If you leave any of those bastards alive, we’ll have a place to take care of them.”
“We’ll keep you updated. See you soon, Mother.”
“Uh, Seth, it sounds real creepy coming from you.”
Seth just laughed and closed the commlink.
“You might just be reinforcing her maternal instincts by using her call sign,” Surgeon said.
Seth looked at him thoughtfully for a moment. “I’m starting to think that’s not a bad thing.”
The two soldiers brought their attention back to the present as their skimmer touched down near the edge of the forest jungle. Distant weapons fire could be heard and that was a good sign. It meant Fang was still alive and harassing the enemy. The fact that there was a lot of gunfire meant he was doing more than just harassing them; he was really kicking their ass.
