by Mark Wandrey
Minu dove at the door, forcing it open with a shoulder, then hit the floor in a roll, her pistol held in both hands. She came up in a crouch, her body coiled like a spring. Hoping to confuse any enemy, Gregg came in the other door at the same time. The room was empty.
The building was nearly intact, inside and out. Remnants of shelves lined the walls, full of rotting books and other unknown items. If this was the cache, it was as well-hidden as the location. After sweeping the room with the life sensors on their weapons, Minu and Gregg gave the all clear. The others joined them.
“Well, this was another colossal waste of time,” William groaned. Minu resisted the urge to shoot him, which wasn’t easy considering she still had her gun out and ready. Instead, she nodded to Chester and Cherise. This was their part of the operation.
Creating a cache was basic training for logistics specialists. Finding them could be a bit more complicated. While humans followed rules when establishing a cache, those rules allowed a great deal of individuality and flexibility depending on the terrain, contents, and situation. It took them almost an hour to find it.
“Bingo,” Chester and Cherise said at the same time. The others gathered around a big pile of power cords, their insulators cracked and peeling, and their metallic connectors heavily corroded.
“That’s it?” William said.
“Will you shut up?” Minu snapped. William turned red and clamped his jaws shut. “How can you tell?” she asked.
“Option two,” Cherise said.
Chester nodded and continued. “Make an unexpected collection of improbable articles.” Minu looked around the building. It looked like it had once been a library or book store. What it didn’t have anywhere was electrical devices. The pile of power cords didn’t make sense. “Very hurried, though,” Chester said.
“Why do you say that?” Minu asked.
“They didn’t bother making a hidey hole or anything.” He knelt and began shifting the pile. Under the cords were two plastic cases clearly marked “Samples” in English.
“Good job, let’s get the hell off this rock,” Minu said. For the first time, William whole-heartedly agreed with her.
“Team, come in!” Pip said over the radio. He sounded very excited.
“Go ahead,” Minu said.
“The portal monitors just went nuts.”
“Shit,” Minu said and grabbed her tablet. She linked it with the monitor’s channel and opened a window. The portal, shimmering brightly in the evening darkness, was obviously active. The others looked over her shoulder and watched as a pair of small, stooped figures, wearing dull armor and carrying deadly looking weapons, scurried through. Their triangular heads held steady as their turreted eyes swiveled around independently, taking in the surroundings.
“Rasa,” Aaron said, putting a name to the alien species. Minu recognized the name. They were low in the hierarchy of the Concordia (though not as low as humans) but made up for their status with tenacity and aggressiveness. A reptilian species, they were well known for their scrounging skills.
“Back to camp, quickly,” she said. As she ran, she saw four more Rasa skitter through. “Things just got a lot more complicated.”
* * * * *
Chapter 6
September 18th, 515 AE
Galactic Frontier, Planet GBX49881, Ruins
Minu kept her tablet in one hand as they raced through the wreckage. She had one salvage case over her shoulder; Cherise had the other. Minu’s case wasn’t physically heavy, but the emotional baggage it carried weighed on her heart.
The Rasa deployed just as she would have. Three of them established a perimeter, a pair used sensor equipment, and the leader watched. “They’re going to find the monitor,” she said a second before a sensor operator pointed a claw right at her. One of the aliens skittered into view, both eye turrets fixed as if staring at her, and she shivered. A moment later, it reached out and the image went dead. If they’d been T’Chillen or Mok-Tok, they would’ve destroyed the camera. The Rasa were much more frugal; the equipment was now theirs. She made a mental note to see if it was worth the effort to put self-destruct charges on such devices.
“We’re blind,” she told the others when they paused. “Stay alert so we don’t get flanked.”
“What about the robot we found?” William asked, “Send it out to keep an eye on them.”
“No,” Minu answered.
“Why, because it might have a secret note from daddy?”
“No, asshole, because it might have intel buried in the memory that Pip couldn’t coax out.” William mumbled something and looked away. “Pip, how are you coming?”
“Camp is almost packed,” he replied, out of breath. She hoped he could do the job; he wasn’t the fittest team member.
“Great! ETA is five minutes.”
“I’ll be ready,” he said with conviction.
With two of her scouts in front and two behind, weapons out and ready, Minu crossed the avenue with Cherise and Chester. “Isn’t there usually an inventory of a cache?” Minu asked Chester who was closest to her.
“Usually, but as hastily as they dropped this one, I’m not surprised there isn’t. Why?”
“It doesn’t make any sense that they sent a team of this size. Two logistics people suggests a large cache, or something bulky.” She looked down at the case she carried and shook her head. “I wonder if the Rasa already nabbed most of the cache and are coming back for the rest?”
“The room looked undisturbed,” Cherise said, having overheard the last of the conversation. They were a couple of buildings away from their camp, waiting, while the scouts checked the last of the route. “No, this is all that was there.”
“Clear,” Gregg said in her ear, and they ran again. As Minu entered the small open area of their camp, Pip was struggling to get his pack onto his shoulders. The other packs sat against a crumbling wall, and she could see no trace of anyone having camped there.
“Excellent job,” Aaron said and slapped him on the back.
“Awesome,” Minu agreed. Pip tried to look hurt that they’d had any doubt.
“I know my job,” he said. Minu could see the barest hint of a smile. It was Pip’s first field operation, too, and he wanted to succeed as much as the rest.
“Everyone get it together,” Minu told them, “quickly.”
“Rasa scout inbound,” Luke announced. Minu had seen him go off to watch the eastern approach, in the direction of the portal.
“They’ve spotted us,” Minu told them. “Let’s fall back and give them some space.”
“Why are we backing off?” William demanded. He held his weapon with white knuckled intensity. “There’s only six of them, and they don’t know how many we are. We can take them.”
“That isn’t how we operate,” she told him. “The three Rs and the ROE make it clear.”
“That only applies to higher-order species,” he persisted.
“It applies to any situation involving an alien species where blatant aggression is not displayed,” she snapped, quoting directly from the training manuals. “If they’re not shooting at us, we withdraw.”
“How are we going to get out of here if they control the portal?”
“We wait.” William looked mutinous and turned to the others for support, but found none, even from the two he’d worked with before.
“She’s right,” Luke said. Chester nodded.
“Damn right,” Cherise said, getting angry. “What the fuck is your problem, anyway?” she demanded “You’ve been riding Minu’s ass since we got here. You think you can do better?”
“Maybe I can,” he said, his voice lacking the full bluster of his attitude.
“Too bad you don’t have the scores to back up that bravado,” Pip pointed out. Minu felt like hugging him. “Only one in twenty Chosen have the test scores to be command.”
“Yeah, mister genius? Care to tell us how you know that? And while you’re at it, can you explain why you’re not in
command?”
“Sure, I’ll explain. I scored off the scale in every area except field work. No big surprise there. Despite my low score, they offered me command, and I turned it down.”
William snorted. “Sure, you did.”
Cherise had finally had enough. With a blinding fast leg sweep, she knocked William to the ground. He stared up at her in surprise. “Tell him why you turned it down,” she said to Pip.
“Because I wouldn’t have time to concentrate on tech and science. As much as command appealed to my vainer side, I realized I would be a bigger asset to the Chosen as the technological visionary I know I will become.”
“Now,” Minu said, gently making Cherise take her foot off William’s stomach, “if we’re done explaining ourselves, maybe we can move before the Rasa arrive and alter the tactical situation.”
She didn’t wait for William’s answer; instead, she headed west at a trot, followed closely by the others. “Take the rear,” she ordered William over the radio. He spat and hissed in anger but fell in line as they moved away from the center of the city.
Minu kept them moving at a ground-chewing pace the Rasa couldn’t match. They’d prowled the time-worn city for many days and knew the lay of the land. The city began to give way to more open spaces, making the going riskier. But the farther they got from the city center, the more likely it was the Rasa would abandon their pursuit.
“They’ve given up,” William said.
Minu stopped next to an old vehicle-servicing station and grabbed her binoculars. She could see William crouched behind the rusted hulk of a ground transport with a frame that looked like a decomposed monster melting into the ground. He was using his portable life sensor, scanning back and forth along their path. The device possessed a very limited range, so she didn’t bother checking hers. If the Rasa were out of his range, they were surely out of hers. “Have they stopped, or are they turning around?”
“They’ve stopped,” he said. She saw him look at her and say something off-radio. She didn’t have to guess what it was.
“They’re probably trying to figure out if we have anything worth chasing us for,” Gregg said from a few meters away. Minu nodded.
“Fall back to our position,” she ordered William.
“But I won’t be able to sense them anymore.”
“And they’ll lose you, too,” she said, frustrated at having to explain every order. “Rasa are all about the easy score; if they have to follow us for a couple of kilometers, they’ll give up.”
He didn’t argue further. She saw him store his sensor and run toward her in a crouch. Minu raised her weapon and covered his back. Nothing appeared. When he reached her, he again swept the area. “No sign of them,” he reported, sounding disappointed she’d been right.
“All right everyone, let’s pull out about a kilometer and start circling back.”
As they hiked away from the city, it became clear the landscape wasn’t as flat as it had appeared. In fact, the town was situated in the center of a wide depression about five kilometers across. It reminded Minu of a meteor crater. Taking advantage of the low rim, they crossed over and used it for cover as they circled. The team made steady progress as the blazing sun slowly climbed over the horizon.
The landscape on the other side of the rim was also arid, but more stark and expansive without the crumbling buildings. Only the rare clump of stunted plant life broke up the monotonous stretch of brownish sand. They passed a road and then a second as they emerged from the crater and headed off toward the horizon.
“In the great barrier desert on Bellatrix, sand would have buried these roads ages ago,” Cherise noted. A slight wind stirred a tiny bit of dust, then fell away. “Of course, there are almost constant sand storms that move the landscape around.”
“Everything about this world speaks of decay,” Minu said. The others agreed, even William. “I wonder if this is what a dying planet looks like?”
“There’s still oxygen,” Pip pointed out, “so there’s a functioning ecosphere somewhere.”
When they were about a quarter of the way around the perimeter of the crater, Cherise stopped and shaded her eyes. “There’s something that way,” she said.
“Let me see,” Luke said and reached for his binoculars.
“No,” Cherise said and put a restraining hand on the binoculars before he could raise them. “The sun could blind you.”
“How can you see, then?” William asked.
“She grew up in the desert,” Minu said. Unlike William, she trusted her teammates and didn’t need everything explained. “What do you think it is?”
“It looks like some buildings, maybe huts, about two kilometers away. There might be a fire burning.”
“Habitation? Can we be sure once the sun’s up more?”
“No, it’s a trick of the rising sun that lets us see at all from this distance. Heat’s curving the light along the horizon. It is fading, even now.”
“Are you certain about what you’re seeing?” Minu asked.
“Positive.”
“Okay, let’s go.”
“What?!” William exclaimed.
Aaron looked at her, flexing his muscled hands as if strangling the uncooperative boy. Minu shook her head slightly before speaking. “It’s only two kilometers or so. We have enough water for a day or two. We can scout those buildings and be back by nightfall. The Rasa will probably be done by then, and we can go home. If they scout the edge of the crater, we’ll be out of range.”
“What if they’re not done when we get back? What if they move in for good?”
“We’ll deal with that if, and when, it happens.”
“I’m not walking through kilometers of desert to investigate some old power station or farm house.”
Minu just about lost it. Something inside her said this was neither the time or place, or the proper way, to respond to the insubordinate scout. The angry little girl locked in the deep recesses of her mind wanted to pound the petulant bastard. She turned and looked in the opposite direction. She knew everyone was looking at her and William, waiting to see what would happen. She wasn’t worried about her friends’ views of her leadership. But details of whatever happened on this mission would certainly make it back to the commanders through the other three. At the least, getting the best of her would embolden William, and he’d brag incessantly when they got home. What would my father do? The answer came in a flash.
“No problem,” she said with a grin.
“Really? About time you start listening to me.”
“Right, you stay here by yourself and observe the town. We are going to investigate those structures.”
“You’re leaving me here? No way, I’m going with you.”
“No, you’re not. Staying here was your idea. I’m ordering you to stay and watch the town. Do I make myself perfectly clear?” She couldn’t have spelled it out better if she’d written it down, and by stating it in front of the others, she’d done the next best thing. He had little choice, just as he’d left her with little choice for dealing with his insurrection.
“Yes, sir,” he said through clenched teeth.
“Do I look like I have a penis?”
“No!” he sputtered.
“Then you can call me ma’am or commander, whichever makes you happy.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, heaping as much scorn on the last word as possible.
“Good, about time you start listening to me.” Minu wondered if he’d break a tooth as she turned and led the others into the wasteland.
“Well played, boss,” Gregg said and patted her on the back.
“Good job,” Cherise agreed.
“He can’t help being an asshole,” Chester said as they walked.
“He could if he tried,” Luke said.
“I don’t think he has the mentality to be a Chosen,” Pip said.
“You’re no daisy yourself, sometimes,” Minu pointed out. Her friends chuckled, and Pip ground his teeth, then
laughed. Soon, they were all laughing out loud. Behind them, William watched them retreat through hate-filled eyes. The temperature was quickly climbing, and he wasn’t looking forward to the next few hours. A few minutes later he realized they hadn’t left him any water.
* * *
The desert heat made the town they’d left behind shimmer and disappear like a mirage. Minu only breathed through her nose, as she’d learned in desert survival training. “Only tiny amounts of water,” she reminded them as they walked. Cherise nodded in assent, making Minu glad she was along. Cherise and Gregg’s extensive desert experience was proving invaluable, yet again.
“At least there are no Kloth,” Gregg said.
While the heat was extreme, the terrain was not. Light sand drifting over rocky soil made for an easy march. They drew closer to the building, and the details became clearer.
“The buildings look better than I expected,” Pip said as he looked through his binoculars.
“Maybe they’re the remnants of a spaceport or portal complex,” Luke suggested.
“Or heavy industry,” Chester further speculated.
“Either way, we’ll know shortly,” Minu said and kept them going. She didn’t think there would be much more to see than the now invisible town, but reconnaissance was part of their mission. The Chosen maintained extensive files on all the worlds they visited, and those files included the kind of intel she was gathering. As they began to see more with their bare eyes, it became clear that first impressions were not always the right ones.
“What the hell?” Gregg said suddenly and pointed, “I just saw movement!”
“Down,” Minu ordered, kneeling. Gregg, Aaron and Luke readied their rifles, and she took out her more powerful rifle scope to look. Gregg was right; several beings were moving among the buildings. The structures resembled simpler versions of the crumbled ruins in the town. She saw no sign of defensive emplacements. “A squatter’s settlement?”
