Transition of Order

by P. R. Adams

Shaking his head against a sluggishness that told him he’d pushed himself too hard, Rimes sat up. Every joint, every bruise, every inch of his body ached worse than when he’d fallen asleep. The stims and painkillers had worn off, and the raw signals from his nerves were reaching his brain, bringing complaints too-long ignored. It took some effort, but he finally stood and worked his way to Munoz’s side.

  “There.” Munoz pointed back along the trail they’d taken.

  Rimes brought his BAS up. Seven and a half kilometers out, too far away for detailed data, he saw it: movement. It was easy enough to figure out who it was. “Wake the others. Get them moving.”

  “What about her?”

  Munoz’s face gave no indication he meant anything more with the question than what it sounded like on its face.

  Rimes considered Andrea. “She goes with you.”

  Munoz turned to go.

  Rimes grabbed Munoz’s arm. “She’s a prisoner.”

  “I know, Sir.”

  “She was…“ Rimes wasn’t sure what, exactly, to ask. “Was she…?”

  Munoz frowned. “What happens in space stays in space, Captain.” After a moment, he laughed, teeth pale against the shadows of his face. “Just fucking with you, Sir. It wasn’t anything. She was just trying to stay warm.”

  Rimes nodded, relieved. “Better hurry.”

  He scanned the distance to the genies. They were moving fast but not as fast as he’d imagined. It occurred to him that they were just as likely to be operating without food as his team was. Where his team had brought energy bars with them as a normal precaution, it would make sense for the genies to have traveled as light as possible. He doubted they could even have conceived of the idea that killing a handful of humans would take more than a few hours, so why would they carry food with them? And even if their ships had carried food, would they have spent the time to try to retrieve it from the wreck?

  They’re too different to even try to guess.

  He studied them for a moment, counting fifteen. That seemed to be the entire group. Many of them had been wounded in previous engagements. They have to be slowing down. They have to be.

  Someone yawned behind him; he turned and saw Meyers. His breath was wicked. They were all a mess, each barely able to handle his or her own presence. Survive this, and it’s a long, hot shower, the best food they have onboard the Valdez, and two days of uninterrupted sleep. I promise.

  “That’s them.” Meyers watched the approaching forms for a moment. “Looks like they’re dragging too.”

  “Get everyone stimmed up: painkillers, anti-inflammatories. You need to be out of here in five minutes. Leave Kershaw.”

  Meyers nodded. “You going to slow them down?”

  “Yeah. I’ll need whatever Sung can spare from his little black bag.”

  Ten minutes later, Rimes was positioned atop a hill nearly five hundred meters closer to the oncoming genies. It was the only decent cover between them and the camp, where Kershaw was waiting. Once again, Rimes had buried himself in the sand. He was counting on the telepaths being at least aware of Kershaw’s presence for the plan to have any real chance of working. Regardless, options were limited against the genies.

  At first, the genies didn’t change their pace, and Rimes felt panic building. They were apparently oblivious to the threat Kershaw posed. He scanned the horizon in a one hundred eighty degree arc but couldn’t see any movement.

  “Kershaw, do a three-sixty.”

  “Roger that.”

  A minute passed. Two.

  “Nothing, Captain. Just our team heading out.”

  “Some—” Rimes’s breath caught. The genies had come to a stop at just under two-and-a-half klicks. He wondered if that was the range of the pushers, or if they simply couldn’t run full out and keep their awareness up. “Okay. Hold position. They’ve stopped. I count two…three. They’re sending three shooters for you.”

  “I feel special.” Kershaw laughed nervously.

  “When this starts up, you go. Don’t wait for me.”

  “Yes, Sir.” Kershaw sounded relieved. “We’ll meet up with you later. Y’know, Captain Rimes, this is the kind of shit I signed up for.”

  “Stay focused on your mission: guard duty. Don’t give them a chance of finding me in your thoughts. This is going to be tough enough as it is.” Rimes appreciated the risk he was exposing Kershaw to. There was no guarantee the approaching genies could actually be stopped. If they took Rimes out, Kershaw wouldn’t get far.

  Neither would the others.

  The moving forms eventually took on intermittent red outlines as they reached the edge of the BAS’s full functionality range. The outlines became persistent. At two hundred fifty meters, Rimes was looking at the genies’ faces, visible through their transparent faceplates. He walked his sights from one to the other, finally settling on his best chance of success.

  They were belly crawling in a wide wedge—two men, one woman, each armed with a scoped assault rifle. If they spotted him, the genies would have superior range and firepower. One of the men had the point, the other the left wing. Rimes could see damage to both the woman and the wingman’s armor, and the wingman sported what appeared to be bloodstains and a bulge indicating a possible bandage. He seemed to be laboring to keep up with the other two.

  Rimes sighted in on the woman’s head. It was the smallest target of the three. She was eight meters back from the point man, so once the gunfire started, she’d be the hardest to hit. He mentally traced a line from her to the point man to the wounded wingman.

  One, two, three.

  At one hundred twenty meters, Rimes pulled the trigger. The woman’s head rocked back slightly and blood spurted through her faceplate. Rimes tracked across to the lead genie, who was already on his knees. Rimes sent three rounds into the genie’s chest, knocking him backwards. Rimes tracked his vision across the area to locate the third genie.

  The genie was sprinting toward Rimes with impressive speed, despite the injuries, assault rifle at the ready.

  Rimes sighted on the sprinting wingman.

  Bullets kicked up a spray of sand in front of Rimes, obscuring his sights; the wingman had a damned good idea where Rimes was.

  At eighty meters, Rimes fired and missed.

  The wingman let off another burst and a bullet bounced off Rimes’s right shoulder, momentarily numbing his arm. Rimes flexed, then he rolled his shoulder, willing the sensation to return. The wingman was at the base of the hill, thirty meters away, hunched low to the ground, a minimal target, still running.

  A stolen glance and Rimes could see the rest of the genies were moving in at a full sprint. He cursed and sighted in on the wingman as he topped the hill, assault rifle drawn up to fire.

  Rimes sent a three-round burst into the wingman’s midsection. Blood misted momentarily, but the wingman squeezed off a burst of his own. One round hit Rimes in his back, another in his butt. Rimes bit down hard and fired again, this time sending three rounds into the wingman’s face.

  The wingman collapsed, blood gushing from his shattered faceplate.

  Growling in pain, Rimes crawled forward, abandoning what protection the sand had provided, and grabbed the wingman’s assault rifle. He brought the rifle up to sight on the other two shooters. The woman was down, the point man was trying to retreat. Rimes fired into the point man’s legs; he collapsed and grabbed at the back of his right thigh.

  Across Rimes’s display, red circles closed. With the point man’s collapse, their movement slowed; they were belly crawling now. Rimes ran his fingers over the spots where the bullets had hit him. The impact points were tender but his fingers came away without blood. His armor had held.

  He edged toward the nearby dead genie and retrieved a magazine from a pouch. A quick reload and Rimes edged backwards and to his right.

  He brought the assault rifle up to sight in on the closest form, spotting a genie just in time to duck as a hail of bullets buried themselves in the sand a few centimet
ers away. Rimes edged back another meter.

  It was going to be extremely hard sighting in on the genies, but they would have an even harder time sighting in on him.

  Rimes closed his eyes and tried to find a calm place to focus. He had the high ground. He had cover. Each minute tying the genies down was another minute for the others to open their lead.

  He took a deep, slow breath.

  Again, he brought the assault rifle up. He scanned the sandy plain for the genie who’d shot at him, finding him as the genie once more lined up his sights to fire. Rimes calmly squeezed off a shot and the genie twitched, his own shot going wide.

  Rimes scanned to the next closest red circle. He found his target, but she was crawling backward.

  He held his fire.

  He checked the BAS display. The genies were falling back. Most were running, a few were crawling, but they were all moving away.

  Rimes relaxed. He realized he was shaking.

  No fear? Really? He laughed to himself.

  Minutes passed. The wounded genie finally began crawling back toward the others. Rimes checked the time that had passed since he’d fired the first shot: eighty-five minutes. He waited until the genie was halfway to the main group, then injected the cocktail Sung had prepared: stims, painkillers, and anti-inflammatories.

  Rimes edged back until he was at the far side of the hill, then he slid down. At the bottom, he stretched his back quickly, straightening once he was sure everything was all right. He checked the time that had passed: ninety-one minutes.

  He sprinted north.

  He’d bought them time, and he’d slowed the genies with more injuries, but he wasn’t sure it would ultimately matter. His team had hit the wall. The genies would catch them, eventually.

  There was nothing he could do to prevent that. Nothing.

  32

  28 October, 2167. Fourth planet of the COROT-7 system.

  * * *

  DESPITE HIS ENVIRONMENT SUIT, Rimes could feel his temperature rising dangerously. The BAS indicated he was holding at thirty-eight point five Celsius. He was roasting on the endless gray-brown sand plains. Although the drugs weren’t killing him, they were enabling him to push his body hard enough that it would fail. His breathing was a roar in the confines of the helmet. He blinked away a torrent of perspiration and checked the time.

  Eighty-six minutes before the sun started to set, assuming it was as predictable as the previous two nights.

  He opened his helmet and slowed to a less-taxing jog, then a few minutes later to a fast walk. He sucked at the air, ignoring its foul smell. He scanned the horizon, spun and checked again. No green in front of him, no red behind him.

  Did I die? Is this some sort of fever dream? How could I get ahead of them so far and not run into my own team?

  With his breathing now even, he sealed his suit again. Diagnostics confirmed everything was functioning. Nonplused, he continued on, paying greater attention to the readings. He was closing in on the twelve klick mark, about what he’d expected from the others before they would stop for a short rest.

  As he approached the edge of a hollow, he began jogging again, hoping to gain ground on his team. He nearly stumbled when he saw Meyers and the others sitting in the center of the hollow some two hundred meters ahead.

  At first, he feared they were a heat-induced hallucination. Not being able to raise them on his earpiece reinforced that fear. Nevertheless, he picked up the pace.

  Watanabe saw him first and began jumping up and down, waving him on, returning to him some of the encouragement and hope he’d had for her. Her black hair bounced around her porcelain face. He blinked slowly and focused on his breathing. The mirage sustained.

  Munoz stepped forward to embrace Rimes in a smothering hug when he reached the group. “Dean said you nailed one of them with a single shot at three hundred meters, Captain! Nice shooting!”

  Meyers extended a hand. “Captain. We weren’t sure what to make of the long delay.”

  Rimes expected them all to collapse into so much sand at any moment; they didn’t. “It looked like they might rush me for a bit.” He looked back at his bootprints. “Actually, for the last half hour, I thought I’d lost you somehow.”

  Meyers followed Rimes’s eyes. “It’s some sort of dead zone. The deeper in we go, the more it affects us. No comms, the BAS is acting up, and Fontana’s on edge.” Meyers dropped his voice to a whisper. “It’s pissing Theroux off. He’s been pouting ever since Fontana started complaining.”

  Rimes examined them again. They were all worn and still showed wounds from the crashes and earlier engagements.

  They were real. He really had found them.

  Theroux seemed smaller, even more sullen than normal. He stared ahead with eyes narrowed to a microscopic slit. Fontana's face took on a pinched, surly resentfulness while watching Theroux. She ran shaking hands through her fine, blonde hair.

  They couldn’t afford petty grievances. Rimes knew he’d have to intervene if things got worse. Everyone appeared as refreshed as he could realistically expect, but he needed to be sure. “How long have you been resting?”

  Meyers focused on his helmet display. “Nearly an hour.”

  “Ten minutes.” Rimes walked to Andrea’s side and dropped the assault rifle. He dropped next to her with a quiet groan and pulled his water container from his environment suit. He held it out to her without a word.

  She took a pull. “Your wrist is healing.”

  “So are your bruises.”

  “Our people heal quickly.” Andrea rolled her head back and tossed her hair from side to side as a deadly jungle cat might, lolling around, relaxing, ready to hunt. She tilted her head as she studied him. “You killed more of us.”

  Rimes nodded. “It’s like I said, we don’t have a choice. If they pursue us, we have to kill them.”

  “How many are left?”

  “Thirteen. I think.” He thought of giving her a full recounting of what had happened, then thought better of it. Although he was improving in his ability to read people, reading her had proven impossible.

  Andrea glanced at the assault rifle. “That’s Liam’s gun. He fancied himself a marksman.”

  “He was certainly brave.” Rimes’s admiration was sincere. “He charged me, even though he was wounded. Only my armor and the sand protected me.”

  Andrea arched her back, letting her wavy auburn hair brush against him. She looked at him suddenly, checking for a reaction. She smiled and her amber eyes sparkled. “Have you ever thought what it would be like to join us, Rimes? With your prowess, no one would challenge you. You would be a leader of great power, with a large family of your own.”

  A family of my own. So it’s not really one big family. Rimes looked away, amazed at the power of a woman’s beauty. Or his own weakness. “I already have a family.” He projected a photo of Molly and the boys onto his palm for Andrea to see.

  Andrea looked at them, intrigued. “They seem so frail. Your mate is attractive enough, but is the little one a runt?”

  Rimes flushed and shut the image off. She’s never been allowed to work with anything but perfection. He stood and reached down to help her up. “We need to get moving.”

  She pressed herself against his hands and looked up at him. He pulled away and saw the challenge in her eyes. She smiled, and he saw the predator he’d seen in Kleigshoen when she’d pursued him. “My child is healthy and strong. I’ve seen her.”

  A mother? So young. Are they…breeding? “I’ve made mistakes before, Andrea. I won’t make them again.” He extended his hands once more and she allowed him to help her up without further trouble.

  Rimes replaced his water container and moved to the front of the group. He turned and made eye contact with each of them. “We need to press on. If we can manage another five klicks, let’s do it. If we can get more, let’s push for that. While we’re in this dead zone, we’re sitting ducks. So whatever it takes, we need to get it done.”

  The me
ssage seemed to get through to each of them. He kept the pace modest until he thought they’d gone a klick, then he picked things up. The sun was setting by then, and the dead zone only seemed to intensify; he had to put Munoz between Fontana and Theroux.

  Rimes picked up the pace through the next two klicks, then dropped it down again. When they reached the top of a low hill, he called a rest to gauge everyone’s condition.

  Despite the threat posed by operating without their BAS systems, it quickly became apparent that he had no choice but to take a break. Fontana and Watanabe were ready to collapse, and Theroux seemed out of sorts and deeply withdrawn. Even Andrea appeared fatigued.

  Who am I trying to kid? I’m ready to collapse, too.

  Rimes established a watch, taking the first two-hour shift with Kershaw. They passed the first half-hour in silence, watching back along their path with what little light the moons offered. When Rimes found himself struggling to stay awake, he called Kershaw closer.

  “Yeah, Captain?”

  “When the genies were approaching my position this morning, what did you see?”

  Kershaw sniffed and rubbed his nose with a gloved hand. “I didn’t really catch them until you told me they’d sent the shooters, Captain. I mean, the BAS was tracking them, but…“ He shrugged, embarrassed.

  “What about at the shuttle? Did you see anything they did we could take advantage of?”

  “They’re so fast. Everything I did was a reaction, y’know? I’d be fine going one-on-one, but when there’s so many, it’s just a struggle to survive.”

  “But before they were on us, when I was in the sand, what did you see?”

  Kershaw closed his eyes, maybe to remember the moment, maybe just for the peace. Finally, he said, “It wasn’t like watching a human. It was like watching…like a big cat. A tiger or a leopard. I—I wish I could be that graceful and fast. We couldn’t get clean shots.”

  “And they shot past you? They didn’t try to overwhelm you?”

  “No. Sir.” Kershaw opened his eyes and shook away the memory. “They could have, but most ran through the shuttle opening.”