Savage World

by Jennifer Slusher

  Not for the first time, Tom found himself thinking she was far, far out of his league. She was a classical beauty, with thick dark hair and tawny skin, courtesy of her Hispanic mother. Him? He was a colony mug, straight from the loins of Aussie miners. She'd gone to the Academy, become a pilot, whereas he'd earned his bars through a field promotion.

  She belonged in the beautiful sky and he belonged on the plain old dirty ground.

  Snorting, Tom shook his head. Fuck me. One kiss (and what a fucking kiss…) and he was waxing poetic like one of those wig-wearing poofters in a Shakespearean play.

  Wolfing down the last of his protein bar (which tasted nothing like snags and mash, despite the label's declaration), he stowed the wrapper in his kit and got to his feet, confident no one would disturb it if he left it behind. He'd found something odd in the ground behind the pyramids and wanted to run it by Jules. It was the least he could do for the trust she'd shown in him.

  She hadn't questioned him earlier when he took them to DEFCON 1 even though she was perfectly within her rights to do so. He was acting on instinct and wondered if Jules's own instincts trusted he knew what he was doing. Someone had once told him that flying any aircraft was 10% skill, 25% guts, 60% instinct, and 5% luck. Tom could see that. You couldn't pilot those Zephyrs for long if you didn't have some sort of superior intuition.

  Over the years, he'd flown with blokes who could pull a ship out of the atmosphere when everyone else thought they were going to fry, without breaking a sweat. Jules was the same.

  “Relax, Marine. This is my thing.”

  Fucking hell, it was. She took the damaged Firefly off the cliff and let the bloody thing plunge into the ravine, pulling up only when they had mere meters between them and the water. Throughout the dive, she stayed cool as a cucumber, which only made him grit his teeth harder and suck it up. It was sheer will power that kept him from fainting when his stomach ploughed into his throat.

  And he thought he had balls. All the skirmishes and full out firefights. The extractions to get negotiators out of mining riots and facing down mutinous colonists… yeah, he had brass ones all right, but Jules? Hers were made of fucking diamonds!

  The joy on her face when she flew made him sad she wasn't still zipping about in a Zephyr. She was right, flying really was her thing. Being the Captain of the Ruthie was a waste of her talent. Then again, he hadn't expected to like being an officer, let alone in charge of the Ruthie's contingent. He'd never intended to wear officer's bars, just like she'd probably never intended captaining an entire ship.

  Whole new world, Tommy, he told himself. Everyone's adapting.

  “Hullo,” he said, by way of announcing himself as he approached the table. When she glanced up, he couldn't help but smile.

  “You weren't eaten, awesome,” Jules grinned, scooting over to make room for him at the table. “We were just reviewing the drone map,” she said, with more warmth than she'd addressed anyone else.

  “Yeah? Good, because I have something to add it,” Tom began, tugging his slate from a pocket to show her the pictures he'd taken.

  Before he could get even one open, an excited 'Captain!!' rang out, drawing his attention to Dr. Nordin who'd just emerged from one of the side rooms. “Oh, Major! There you are! Come! You both need to see this!” she said breathlessly, motioning excitedly.

  Glancing at her, Tom turned back to Jules. Her warmth was gone, with the facade of Captain Curran in its place. “After you.”

  * * *

  By the time they joined her, Nordin was standing under the massive spiral stair while a trio of squints hovered nearby.

  “What have you got, Samara?” Jules prompted, crossing her arms over her chest.

  “I believe we have made an amazing discovery, about the crater,” the woman began, stepping back to show off one of the many friezes in the building. From top to bottom, pictographs and symbols filled the stone. “As we suspected, this is a historical record of sorts. Corporal Richards was correct in her assumption the artefact she found was depicting an image of the dominant life form. Their language is a mixture of symbols and pictograms, bearing similarities to Sumerian cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphics. It's given us a snapshot of their culture and history.”

  He needed to see this? A bunch of scribbles? Unless there was a way to detour the sky crabs or a record that The Purple People Eater had devoured the previous population, he didn't see why he had to be here. His annoyance must have telegraphed because the next thing he knew, Jules's elbow 'accidentally' thumped his bicep. Tom cleared his throat, shooting her a raised eyebrow as the doctor turned her back to them to point out some important squiggle.

  Biting her lip to keep from laughing, Jules cleared her throat. “I'm sorry, but you mentioned the crater?” she asked simply.

  Soldiers, Nordin sighed inwardly. “Yes, of course,” she nodded and then gestured for them to bend over a little, so they could see the symbols for themselves. “They charted significant events in their history. The first planting, the construction of the city and this temple, and so on, but down here…” she pointed to a specific set of images and symbols, fingers just brushing against the stone.

  Tom bent over and reminded himself to thank Jules later for cutting off the woman before she went into the history of the first circumcision or whatever. Not that he wasn't interested in the history of these people. He was. But now was not the time for superfluous information. That gnawing in his gut was growing and Tom was bracing himself for the worst when it finally manifested itself.

  Staring at the pictogram she was pointing at, Tom saw it revealed the faded depiction of Babel's first people, paying homage to what appeared to be some type of stellar body, a meteor or possibly a comet, in the night sky. Doubled over in reverence as the elliptical object with the flowing tail flew above their heads, their heads were bowed in worship. Even if he wasn't a student of history, the scene was clear, something had come down from space and most likely created Lorio's crater.

  But that was not the worst of it.

  It was the last pictogram on the column. There were no further depictions of what came after the object's arrival in Babel. Unlike the column on the other side of the altar, filled with writing and symbols from floor to ceiling, there was nothing recorded after, as if its scribes had nothing left to say. History seemed to have come to an abrupt halt.

  “That's it?” Tom looked up at both women in question.

  “Correct,” Nordin nodded, staring at both officers solemnly.

  Jules frowned at the blank space and then the round object, dropping down to one knee to inspect the drawing.

  Tom might not be an astronomer, but he knew impact craters. “Lorio's crater isn't big enough to wipe anybody out. It probably caused a little bit of a mess but not enough to wipe them out.”

  “Agreed,” Nordin said, motioning one of the squints behind her to join them. “This is Vadim, my glyph specialist, and he has a theory on the pictographs,” she said, motioning the young man forward.

  With permission given, the slight young man picked up the conversation.

  “Our carbon dating puts this last set of pictograms at 300 years. I believe that these,” he said, indicating all but the last set, “were meticulously done by someone with time, superior skill and proper carving tools. These… Excuse me, Captain,” he said, indicating the ones in front of Jules. “I believe these were done in haste. Look at the letters and you will see they are different than the others. They were not rounded out or sanded. The glyphs themselves are not carved as deeply as the others. That indicates that either they did not have the proper tools or…”

  “…or they ran out of time.” Nordin concluded and raised a hand to the temple around her. “I believe sentient life began here but abruptly halted, never allowed to spread across the rest of the planet.”

  Keeping an ear on the conversation, Jules studied the images. There were two, one with the meteor coming down and one with it on the ground. Around it, people were bo
wed before it, hands in the air offering what looked like welcome gifts.

  From the young Shark's description, Lorio hadn't really fallen into the crater as much as he'd tumbled down an incline. Jules turned her attention back to the meteor, pressing her fingers against the outline. Earlier, this same thing had earned her a decent lecture from Dr. Nordin about skin oils, ancient rock, and something. Something, something…

  To be honest, Jules had zoned out.

  She tilted her head this way and that, automatically processing the trajectories, the speeds and the impact, compared to what Lorio described. Her fingers crept over the image until she'd found a straight line. Man, what she wouldn't give for a piece of paper and a pencil. Carefully, Jules dragged her finger around the line and froze.

  “It wasn't a meteor,” she looked over her shoulder at Tom, motioning him forward.

  Tom shot her a look immediately. There it was. Four little words that made everything fall into place. It wasn't a meteor.

  “Here. Feel…” Grabbing Tom's hand, ignoring that he was practically standing on top of her, Jules pressed his fingers against the image. “Look, there's ridges, there's an opening,” she said, the implication crushing her voice to a whisper.

  Without hesitation, Tom traced his fingers along the same path she'd taken. Yes, he did feel the striations and grooves giving the shape more detail. And it made perfect sense. No meteor landed in the middle of a city, without damaging anything. Only God was that precise in his aim and he had better things to do than lob asteroids at developing civilisations. The answer was obvious, and it had taken a pilot to see it.

  Jaw tightening, Tom tapped his link as he squeezed Jules's shoulder. “Gunny, come in.”

  “Gunny here. Go ahead.”

  “I want motion trackers and scanners on,” Tom glanced at Jules, his eyes dark with worry, “We may have sentient company.”

  * * *

  Derick blinked, a chill starting up his spine. “Roger that.”

  Moving off the secure channel, he raised Richards first. “Ren, go to FLIR and Bio-Scan.” Her sniper rifle was connected to her slate, with software to give her a good look over the area she was surveying. “Jazz, Shiny, bio-trackers, confirm.”

  All three replied in the affirmative.

  * * *

  “Should we leave?” Nordin asked the two officers. As much as she wanted to stay, she wasn't a rabid academic with no sense of real world urgency. They'd already lost Olivia, she didn't want to lose anyone else.

  “No,” Tom answered promptly. “There are mulks out there in the woods and if the sky crabs come back, this is probably the best place to be. If there's anything about, we're in a better position to handle it than this lot probably were. Blast rifles are bloody good equalizers. We've only got to hold out until the rescue ship arrives later today.”

  “The Firefly won't survive another attack,” Jules agreed. “And she is no longer capable of breaking atmo. This is shelter; if we need to, we can barricade ourselves inside, right?” she directed to Tom.

  “Definitely. If we need to, we can strip the hull plating off the Firefly and use it to replace the doors. We're not there yet, but we will be able to reinforce any barricades if we have to,” he turned towards the doorway. “Right now, I want a closer look at the crater.”

  * * *

  With sentient life now discovered on this world, Dr. Steven Kim, biochemist and confessed nerd, felt alive for the first time since the Exodus started. Even though the mysterious race might have died out, the fact they existed at all was a tantalising thought to the humans who thought they were alone in the universe only a few short months ago.

  When they had first geared up for this expedition, he'd worried about the inclusion of the Marines or Sharks, whatever they were called now. Too many times, he'd been on so-called scientific expeditions only to have the military stomp in and take over. Before they'd left, Dr. Hall had assured him that wouldn't happen. Now that she was gone (may she rest in peace), he hoped that Dr. Nordin and Luke Rickman wouldn't put the expedition at the mercy of Major Merrick and Captain Curran.

  His task had brought him to the cemetery, along with the requisite Shark guard. The man looked like he belonged on a recruitment poster somewhere. “So where are you from?” he asked the Shark as he calibrated his slate.

  “St. Petersburg, Russia,” Nikolei Lukashenko replied, glancing over at the doctor. His accent was heavy on the hard sounds, despite having spoken English since he was a teenager. “What about you?” Shiny was always telling him he needed to be more sociable.

  “Singapore,” Steven answered, glancing up at his companion. “Unfortunately, there is no town, just a city that's the whole country.” He thought of a joke he'd heard once about it size. It's so small, we can lay wall to wall carpeting from one end of the country to the other! God, he missed it. “Would you like to see what I am doing?” he offered.

  Would he? Nikolei stepped eagerly to the scientist's side. “Of course,” he replied enthusiastically.

  Once upon a time, Nikolei had been a little boy wanting to grow up and dig for mummies and ancient civilizations. Those dreams died when his father did, when he was just seventeen. As the oldest child, he joined the Russian National Army, to help support his mother and siblings. During the Exodus, he'd only managed to find two of his younger siblings.

  They were worlds apart in everything, from physicality to upbringing, but Steven recognized the yearning in the younger man's voice. “Do I see a scientist in you?” he prompted with a knowing grin.

  Nikolei returned the grin, the pink of his cheeks incongruous to his hulking form. “Once, before my father died,” he admitted. “I was the oldest.”

  “Ah. Your family…?”

  “My brother, Andrei and my sister, Irina, are dead”

  What could he say to that? Steven had considered himself one of the lucky ones. Both he and his wife Miranda never had time for children and were together on Ganymede when everything went to hell. Fully prepared to meet their fate together, they'd booked passage on the first ship available, the Outpost and were on their way to Earth when Sol chose to go nova early.

  Their captain, something of an operator by the name of Seth Yukovski, was smart enough to join the ragtag fleet amassing to make the crossing through the Ribbon and even though his ship lacked an Em Drive, one of the capital ships had allowed them to latch on. The small ship was almost ripped to pieces in the journey but reached the other side with few casualties.

  Nikolei pulled his water bottle off his belt. “I have been to Singapore,” he said, effectively changing the subject. “Very nice place. Have you been to Petrograd?”

  Smiling, Steven nodded, a slight smile on his face. “I have, actually; my wife and I honeymooned there, and we took a trip down the Neva River and saw the Winter Palace. It's a beautiful city.”

  “Yes,” Nikolei replied solemnly, sending up a prayer to his long-gone family. He missed the beautiful city and his boisterous family and thinking on it would lead to no good. “So, are you finding anything?” he prompted, shifting to his other foot.

  With Sharks, it was so easy to forget under their armour and guns, they were young men and women with families. Add to that the stress of being a thin blue line between the civilisation and anarchy these last six months and instantly Steven had a new appreciation for these soldiers. He considered apologizing, but the young man was the image of typical Russian stoicism and probably would not appreciate anything seen as pity.

  Instead, Steven focused on the GPR scan results chirping at him. He'd been careful to stand a few feet away from the pellet shaped tombstone, not wanting to disrespect the person interred here. Yet the screen showed nothing beneath them. Not one damn thing.

  “That… is the question,” he replied, brow furrowed as he pushed through the thick vegetation to the next marker. Aiming his slate at it, Steven repeated the scan and frowned again. Nothing. Nada. A few traces of metal but nothing of bio-organic, carbon-based remains.
Quickly, Steven went to the next one. “Hmm. These graves are… empty.”

  Nikolei frowned at that. “What do you mean, empty?” These weren't the great monoliths of the centuries-old cemeteries of his home, but there should have been something.

  “No bodies, no bones,” Kim's concern deepened, and he went to the next grave. When nothing was found, he shook his head and looked up to his escort. “That's the fourth one. This is not normal. I mean, there is evidence of some materials, like metals, but there's nothing else,” Kim replied, shaking his head. “Something was there but it's now gone.”

  “Can you scan the rest?” Nik asked, frowning. That was strange.

  “Yes, of course,” Steven replied and got to work.

  Fifteen minutes later, 'strange' had fully evolved into 'creepy'. Not that Nik believed in things like ghosts and monsters, but when you had an old babushka who told little boys stories of the strigoi, empty graves took on new meaning. “This is the kind of strange thing the Major needs to know about. Excuse me,” Nik activated his link, taking a step away from Kim. “Major Merrick, this is the Ruskie,” he said, using the officer's unoriginal nickname for him. “Dr. Kim has made an interesting observation.”

  “Standby, we're on our way.”

  “You didn't reach out to your Sergeant or your Gunny first?” Wasn't that a breach in protocol? Steven didn't want the Shark getting in trouble for his excitement.

  “Gunny authorized us to contact the Major directly if we found something weird.” Gunny's exact words had been 'fucked up'. Nik gestured to the stones. “This qualifies.”

  * * *

  Tom led the way towards the cemetery, noting pleasantly Jules matched his stride without him adjusting it at all. The thigh muscles… Oi. His conscience slapped him on the back of the head and he forced away all thoughts of tawny skin. Mostly.