CHOP Line

by Henry V. O'Neil

  The thought reminded him of the previous morning, when he’d looked in on her sleeping form. There was a lot to admire there, and Mortas lay in his bunk guessing at what Erica looked like naked. The frantic pace of the past months had left no time for romance, even though his troops always seemed able to find willing partners at home base or aboard ship. The long abstinence and nearly constant danger had substantially suppressed his libido, which was quite an accomplishment given his young age and the crude conversations of the infantry. Now he felt the natural stirrings returning.

  The gray stillness shifted for an instant, a half-seen flash of orange, and he sat up in order to look into the main room. The perimeter sensors had been programmed to wake them soundlessly if anything suspicious approached, with a rapid shaking of their bunks that so far had not occurred. Mortas squinted across the space, and finally identified the strange light. A tiny orange circle was flashing on the main control panel, and he quietly climbed out of the bunk.

  His left leg argued with him as he crossed the floor, but he refused to limp. The atrophied muscles strained with the effort, and Jander felt relief when he finally reached the chair. A schematic showed the perimeter sensors were all functioning, and that nothing had disturbed them all night. The orange light kept blinking, though, and he toggled the display to see what the electronic antennae were detecting.

  He could launch a drone if necessary, but decided to stay with the schematic depiction of their surroundings. The shelter appeared as a white rectangle in the center of the display, surrounded by a circle of red dots representing the sensors. That array shrunk in size, and then a small blinking blob appeared to the northeast. He zoomed in on it, and watched it resolve into a pulsing, fan-shaped icon that indicated the sensors were picking up a strange sound.

  Mortas glanced back at the open hatch leading into Varick’s compartment, and decided to use an ear bud so as not to disturb her. Activating the feed from outside, he almost jumped when the sound entered his ear. It was warbling and high-pitched, and he instantly recognized it as the howling of several dogs. The wound in his leg gave a twinge just then, calling up the memory of a different pack of wild creatures, much larger than the ones who lived on this part of Roanum, who had come close to devouring his entire platoon.

  A hand pressed his shoulder, and this time he did jump.

  “Sorry.” Varick was dressed in a loose T-shirt and running shorts. “What are you hearing?”

  Mortas removed the earpiece, and turned up the volume so it filled the darkened room. The mournful voices surrounded them, rising and falling in a canine chorus.

  “I saw a small pack of these things when I was here before. The Sims were filling in the ravines closest to their settlement because the survivors of the assault force were using them. They sent out these two big earth movers, crushing the canyons by rolling along on either side of them, and the noise spooked the dogs. Never heard them howl, though.”

  “That’s probably not a comfortable sound for you, considering.” Varick’s tone was humorous, and her hand was back on his shoulder. Her other hand pointed at his wound. “I mean, a pack of their relatives almost had you for lunch.”

  “Those weren’t dogs. They were wolves. Wolves with armor.”

  “Just kidding around. I keep forgetting you Orphans are sensitive.” Varick squeezed his shoulder, and then released it before walking toward the kitchen. “Time to start the day. You still insisting on that shit field coffee, or you ready to start living like a civilized man again?”

  After scrubbing the dishes and utensils from breakfast, Mortas planned to do an extensive workout of his recovering leg muscles. He turned from the small sink to see Varick standing there in fatigues and torso armor. Her goggles hung from one of her canteens, and she’d taken her Scorpion from the rack.

  “Get your rig on. We’ve got a whole day to kill, and I want to do some sightseeing.”

  Fifteen minutes later the drone was cruising unseen above them, and they were rolling across the plain at a fast clip. Mortas had switched to a two-piece brace with locking hinges that allowed him to bend his leg, and it made the ride immensely more comfortable. The sky’s purple tinge was barely noticeable, and for a moment he imagined himself on Earth, driving around in the desert somewhere. He looked at Erica, and saw a tight smile of enjoyment as she drove. Her hair was just long enough to be tied at the back of her head, and her goggles prevented him from seeing what was holding it in place. The vertical scar stood out on her right cheek, and he felt an impulse to reach out and touch it.

  The sun warmed them both, and soon they hit a stretch of ground with fewer rocks. The drone was sending them imagery from above, scanning for any dangers and also providing notice of the many ravines. It had already mapped out the area around the shelter for quite a distance, and so Varick had selected this route for its speed. The mover roared along, rattling and bouncing on the uneven ground, and Mortas laughed aloud.

  “What was that?” Erica asked cheerfully. “Mr. Gloom ’n’ Doom enjoying himself?”

  “In all my life I would never have imagined being back here, driving around for pleasure.”

  “It’s a crazy war. You gotta grab your fun when you can.”

  She gave him a sly smirk, and it was hard to tell what it meant because of the goggles. He remembered the hand that had lingered on his shoulder that morning, and was about to ask when Erica cut him off.

  “You know, if the alien is telling the truth, there’s a chance the war might actually end.”

  “I can’t imagine what that would be like,” Jan answered. “Not sure what I’d do.”

  “I know what I’d do. Go find a mountaintop on one of the new planets, build a place there, and never come back down.”

  “Really?”

  “Been out here five years. I’ve seen as much of humans and Sims and everything else as I’m ever going to want. I haven’t directed anything about my own life for so long that I’m not sure I remember how.”

  “You volunteered for the Banshees, and you made it through their training. No one told you to do that.”

  The goggles flashed as they turned to regard him. Despite the bouncing of the mover’s tires, Mortas thought he saw Varick’s head tilted slightly, as if she were studying him.

  “You’re thinking about your sister, aren’t you? In Banshee Basic.”

  “I got my officer training as a university student, so I didn’t do Basic. We had a modified version one summer, but it didn’t sound much like what my troops went through.”

  “Ours is a lot different from all of that. Lots of physical stuff, of course—you need toned muscles to operate an armored suit. The activators take their cues from muscular movement, so the more defined the sinew, the more specific the action. They’ll really put some definition in her.”

  “She’s always been in excellent shape, so that shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “It’s a problem for everybody. There’s only so many push-ups and sit-ups you can do, and they push you past that. But the real game is mental. The Banshee cadre know what the trainees are expecting, so their regimen is built on doing the opposite. Almost no yelling, and they go out of their way to explain every task. It’s easy to tune out a situation that’s completely unreasonable. But when there’s just enough sanity to it, that’s when it really messes with your head—you can’t get a fix on what’s happening, no matter how hard you try.”

  “Sounds like you had a good time.”

  The goggles came around again, the mouth open in protest, but then she identified the sarcasm.

  “Oh fuck you, Lieutenant.”

  They both laughed as the mover jumped over a small rise in the ground.

  “Looks like the Glory Corps did a pretty thorough job the second time they hit this place. Although I’m not sure why they destroyed this.” Jander stood on a small, grassy hill with Varick. Not far below them, a wide creek flowed through the twisted wreckage of a small bridge.

  “Twelfth Corps
’s commander was really embarrassed when his first strike failed. I was doing my palace guard thing at the time, so I heard him railing away. He didn’t believe the stories about the mud munitions.”

  “They put a battalion of armor and APCs down, plus a company of walking infantry. The whole thing went to pieces when the Sims turned the ground to mud. They didn’t even send the follow-on waves down.”

  “You learned that from the crazy major?”

  “Yes.” Mortas was surprised not to feel alarm. Despite his successful service since then, he’d suppressed the memories of the encounter with the soldiers from the doomed assault. The words came out easily, and he felt another weight being taken from his shoulders. “He and his senior-most NCO described it in detail. It was chaos.”

  “You never told anyone you linked up with friendlies?”

  “We were with them for a little more than an hour, counting walking time. They were set up in a bad position, and hadn’t moved in days. Sam showed up while we were there, and killed them all except for Major Shalley.” The confession flowed easily, and he could almost see the words blowing away in the breeze.

  “He followed me and Cranther, who was badly wounded, and was getting ready to shoot me when Cranther killed him. He died of his wounds right after that. We were near a creek, and I put Shalley’s body where the snakes could get it. I needed to distract them while I picked up enough rocks to cover Cranther. You can understand why I didn’t share that part of the story.”

  “The alien wasn’t with you?”

  “No, or Gorman either. We got separated during the attack.”

  “If the alien ever brings it up again, deny killing the major. It—and the earlier version of it—wasn’t there. You and your group got chased away when the Sims attacked, so you can’t get charged with desertion. And whatever you do, don’t ever tell a living soul you fed that guy’s body to the snakes.”

  “Thank you. I’ve been carrying that around for a long time. I was questioned over and over, after they burned up the alien. I buried that story as deep as I could.”

  “You were right to do that. The people in the Twelfth Corps HQ were a ruthless bunch.”

  “So what happened to you? After the alien got roasted.”

  “Command went completely nuts. They’d spent so much time and money building their little hiding place, and here it was infiltrated by something they’d never seen before. For all they knew, there were more of them already on station. They locked the entire place down, which was lucky because I was with my platoon.

  “That’s when the loudspeaker started calling out names. One at a time, and then about twenty minutes later they’d call another. We were supposed to ditch everything and walk to the sick bay, naked, to be scanned. You couldn’t help noticing that they started with the lowest ranks.” Varick’s face turned ashen. “I had no idea if they were killing every one of them, but after that decon tube bonfire I wasn’t taking any chances. So I refused to send any of my people, when they called the first one.”

  “I bet they didn’t like that.”

  “Yeah. But they had no choice; my ladies and I were suited up and armed. So they sent a medical team in with a portable scanner, and one by one we took off the armor and got cleared.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “A mad bug out. There was no reason for it, but the general decided the station had been compromised. If the Sims didn’t know there was something hidden in that rock before then, they sure figured it out while we were leaving. Place was surrounded with a cordon of warships, and then a convoy of transports came in. When I climbed out of my Transit Tube, they told me I was no longer in command of my platoon.”

  “That’s what happened? They put you in a staff job because you wouldn’t serve up your people?”

  “That’s not how they saw it.”

  “And you’ve been stuck there ever since.”

  “Despite the best efforts of Banshee command. That’s why, when your stepmother’s people approached me, I made them promise to spring me—regardless of how this turns out.”

  “And here I was thinking you wanted to finally meet me.”

  “Hey, you didn’t even send me a thank you for the knife.”

  Jander squatted down with effort, just to stretch out his muscles, but the lower view of the bridge brought more memories. “I used that knife to kill one of the Sims sentries, right over there. First time I ever killed anything.”

  “Not easy, doing it up close.”

  “I really fucked it up, too. Lucky for me he was too startled to get a round off. He was just some poor colony militia guy, walking a post. It’s always bothered me.”

  “When you fight in an armored suit, it goes from long-range to right-here really fast. One moment you’re directing rockets and artillery while running forward, the next you’re blasting away at figures you can barely make out, and then you’re passing right through them. You can do a lot of damage just swinging the arms on a suit; in Basic they show you how to use it like a battering ram. It’s pretty gross when you clean your armor later on.”

  Mortas stood up, and they both went silent. The wind played across the water, making the grass sway, and he looked down at the creek. He wondered if their presence, too far back for the snakes to get near them, had attracted the predators anyway. Dark images passed through his mind, flailing muscles and gaping mouths full of teeth.

  “You think there’s any chance that the alien is telling the truth?” he asked.

  “Given its past behavior, no. But so far everything it’s told us makes sense. It explains why the Sims act the way they do, even if that’s all based on a lie their creators buried in their brains.”

  “I’m having a hard time with that part. The thing says its people are researchers. For a species that knows so much about the Sims, how can they know nothing about their creators?”

  “I was thinking about that.” Varick spoke with eagerness. “Could that be the alien’s real motive? If it arranges a truce between us and the Sims, the things making the Sims aren’t going to be happy. Maybe this is all some ploy by the aliens, to smoke out the Sims’ creators.”

  “If that’s true, it would make us every bit the pawns that the Sims are. There’s a bigger game here.” Jan nodded, pleased to hear a theory that supported his distrust of the Amelia-thing. “You’re really good at this.”

  “It fits, doesn’t it? From what we know so far?”

  “I think it does.” Jan turned away from the bridge and looked at the mover. “Maybe we should push on that a little, when we see our friend tonight.”

  “This is insane. You’re insane.” Mortas spoke under his breath, standing next to an Erica Varick clad in a blue swimsuit provided by the Holy Whisper. She had just emerged from the settlement, with a large white towel draped over her shoulders. A line of young men and women, also wearing swimming gear, waited near the edge of the river where the barrier prevented the snakes from approaching.

  “This is how they end their workday. They invited me, and we’re trying to make friends. Since your injury won’t let you participate, it has to be me.” Varick waved at Felicity, who beckoned from the riverbank. “Besides, it’s hot as hell out here and our friend hasn’t shown up yet. I’m taking a dip.”

  “My injury isn’t keeping me out of there. My common sense is.”

  Elder Paul approached, also dressed to enter the water. The waiting Whisperers all turned in his direction, and he called out to them. “All clear. Go ahead.”

  With a series of happy whoops, the line ran straight into the river. The bank sloped down gently, and the tall barrier was very much in evidence, but Mortas simply couldn’t watch them go in. He turned away, about to warn Varick to reconsider, but she was already racing after the others. Elder Paul came up next to him.

  “We’ve been doing this almost every day since we erected the fence. I always check the sensors myself, to ensure the barrier’s integrity, and I’ve got good people monitoring the alarms and
the underwater video. Just in case, we’ve got concussion grenades and long shock-staves ready. She’s perfectly safe.”

  “Some of those monsters are twenty feet long, and they go crazy when food’s nearby. One of these days, a big one is going to smash right through that mesh. And his buddies will be right behind him.” Jander’s heart thudded loudly while he watched the swimmers thrashing around. He couldn’t stop the words. “You’re gonna feel like shit when that happens, Elder.”

  The water churned with all the bouncing, kicking, and swimming, while happy cries carried across the air. In the middle of it, Erica exchanged splashes with an unidentified Whisperer, both of them laughing. Elder Paul stepped in closer.

  “You’ve lost people in the war, haven’t you? Soldiers under your command?”

  “I lost people right here. And later. So you can bet I don’t take any stupid chances with their lives.”

  “I understand. This is the second settlement I’ve supervised, and so far I’ve been lucky. But I have had to send bodies home, so in a way I can relate to your burden.”

  “It’s not a burden.”

  “That’s what it turns into, if you never lay it down.” Elder Paul gave him a brilliant smile as he hung his towel on Jander’s shoulder. He spoke while walking backward toward the water. “Oh, and we’ve got a series of smaller barriers upstream and down, just to keep the big snakes from building up a head of steam.”

  With a high-pitched yelp, he turned and ran straight into the tumult.

  “Elder Paul said you were on Fractus.” A slightly overweight Whisperer named Nibbit spoke to Jander across the table. “Can you tell us what it was like?”

  Mortas signaled for him to wait while he swallowed. The alien hadn’t arrived yet, and so he and Varick had been invited to dinner. The food was quite good, and all around them was the sound of talking, joking, and eating. Erica was seated at a different table, and the colonists clearly found her comments entertaining. The disturbing swimming party had ended without incident, and he’d managed to set it aside.