Infinity Squad

by Shuvom Ghose

  I exhaled. Himenez walked to the door, then looked back at me expectantly.

  "Thank you?" I said.

  He gave me a slight nod. "As I said, Lieutenant Forrest, I haven't quite figured you out. Your squad records the most enemy kills while using the least cloned bodies, which is admirable. However, there are many inconsistencies in your Squad's actions that I will be looking into over the coming days."

  My throat started feeling tight again.

  "But I believe you are intelligent, and I will need intelligent officers to move to the next phase of this war."

  "Next phase?"

  He rapped on the door to summon the guard. "They say generals always fight the last war, and your Oakley is no different. These short, half-day patrols, cycling back and forth to this base to eat and sleep do not take full advantage of the buffering band technology. It is inefficient," he sniffed, as if that was the worst thing imaginable.

  "And what's the alternative? Carpet bombing?"

  He sniffed again. "That is even more inefficient for the dollar-to-kill ratio. No, imagine your squad being dropped into a sector and killing all the enemy in your path, without stopping to eat or sleep or tend to its wounded. Continuing forward non-stop until your bodies physically dropped dead from exhaustion. And then, new clones being helicoptered to where the patrol died, picking up the weapons from your dead bodies and continuing the battle, without pause. As many times as it takes to kill every spider on this planet." The guard opened the door. "That is the efficient, modern way to conduct a war, and that is what I have been sent here to effect." And then he stepped out.

  Holy fuck.

  As Himenez had predicted, the inquiry was inconclusive, with Zazlu, Butcher, Juan and Jinx all testifying that Hector threw himself out, Samson having to admit Hector was acting somewhat strangely beforehand, and Hector seething with anger at me, but having no real evidence to present. At the bureaucrat’s recommendation, I was reinstated back to command of Infinity Squad with a detailed record of the incident filed in my personnel folder. So was Hector, back to Immortal Squad.

  And that was only one of the things I had to worry about right now.

  "He's smarter than Hughes and more patient than Oakley," I whispered to Zaz and Butcher the second I got them alone in our barracks. "Himenez is going to be a problem. He's going to start looking into everything. We need to clean up our loose ends, now."

  "What are we going to do about Hector?" Ann-Marie asked.

  "I don't know. He must have been thinking of the slugs and the caves when he died, so the thought or memory or something followed him into his new body."

  "I meant, what are we going to do about him thinking you murdered him? He could take you out right here on base, he's so angry."

  I shook my head. "I don't know."

  "And what are we going to do about Three-Spot?" Zazlu asked. "He's getting weaker and we've lost our link to Red-Stripe. We can't warn them of patrols."

  "I don't know. Himenez will be watching us too closely. And you should hear what he has planned for our pa-"

  "And what about the brain slugs?" Butcher added. "We can't let them near the base! If there's anything on this planet that needs to be made extinct, it's them."

  I was about to yell but then I forced myself to exhale.

  Then inhale.

  Ridley had been adamant that a leader of a squad, like the captain of a battleship, should never say 'I don't know'. And now I was seeing why.

  I held up my hands to calm my Lieutenants down. "What we need," I said, "is a plan."

  We gathered Steve and all the privates together and told them to go back to wearing their buffering bands and sidearms at all times, no exceptions. We also told them to never go into those three caves southwest of the valley, no matter what anyone, including Zazlu, Butcher or myself, said after this point. We also told them to never be alone with any member of Immortal Squad, and never to be outnumbered by them in the common areas. And, in a stunning break from the past, we told them why.

  We didn't tell them everything, but we told them about the brain slugs and how they hunted, and what it would mean if the slugs got on base or, god forbid, through the wormgate. We also told them about Hector's 'accident', and why the Immortals may want to kill us. And we told them about Himenez.

  I sent Steve off to find ways to counter a brain slug infection, or even remove it. I sent Zazlu away with orders to clean up any evidence of his black market customers, suppliers, accomplices, bribers and bribees. I told Ann-Marie to start finding out anything she could about Himenez, covertly, and I told Juan to have Dakota get information out of Himenez, overtly. I had a feeling the bureaucrat would be seeing a lot of Dakota's legs in the near future. And, just on the off chance, just as a back-up, I had Grimstone start making helmets.

  Steve and I were hotly debating the merits of salt bombing the caves when there was a knock at our barracks door. I looked up from the ad-hoc war table we had set up to see Doc Murphy being let in. She noticed all the activity, felt the emotion in the air, and was frowning as she came up to me.

  "Is everything okay? You guys seem so...worried," she said, looking around.

  But that wasn't what I wanted to talk about right now. "Are you wearing make-up?"

  "What? No!" she said, blushing and turning away to pull the collar of her lab coat over her bright, glossy red lips. "Maybe I put something on- I don't remember!"

  "Doc, you look beautiful. I'm flattered."

  "It's not just for you! God! Why do you always make everything so hard-"

  I pulled her close as if we were going to kiss right there and whispered into her ear, tenderly. "Doc. Things are a little tense right now. The boys can't handle anything else and you looked like you had bad news. So I made a joke, for the morale of the squad. Just go with it."

  Her hands were against my chest, her thigh pressed against mine, and my hand felt so right pulling the small of her back to me. Shannon looked up and her breath was hot on my cheek as she spoke. And she wasn't pushing me away.

  "Fine. You're just so hard to read sometimes, Lieutenant. I'm sorry if I misinterpreted your intenti-" And then her eyes got big.

  Now it was my turn to blush. My body was 'reacting' to her presence and she couldn't help but feel it, growing against her leg. "Um, let's go somewhere private, Doc."

  "Let's."

  I ushered her inside the coat closet to some knowing looks and smirks from the privates. She took a step inside and then had to turn immediately, since the closet barely had enough room for both of us to stand. She was pressed up against me again as I stepped in and closed the door, putting us into near darkness.

  "What is this place?"

  I gestured at the clothes hanging everywhere, a motion that brushed my fingertips through her silky red hair in the confined space. "We use it to store extra fatigues back from the laundry. And I think we made Juan and that shy Asian girl from Comms play 'Seven Minutes in Heaven' in here once."

  "And this is your idea of keeping it professional?"

  "We don't have to use all seven minutes, Doc."

  Suddenly, Shannon's Murphy's body was pressing against mine in very interesting ways, arms, thighs, and hair going everywhere. But then I realized she was just trying to get something out of her skirt pocket. She slapped a piece of paper against my chest.

  "The results from your amygdala testing," she said, breathing a little harder. "Seven seems to be your lucky number. Up to three deaths, there seems to be slight but repairable change in the state of your consciousness. That's all the clinical testing on Earth went to, in non-stressful conditions. But after five stressful deaths it gets worse. And after seven deaths, if the trend holds, is where the irreversible changes happen. You can't come back from there. You're a new person. How many deaths are you up to now, Lieutenant?"

  I gulped. God, I couldn't even remember. Maybe the death marks the Immortals wore around their neck weren't a horrible idea.

  I felt her hand touch my chee
k in the darkness. "Hey, hey," she said. "I didn't mean to scare you. You won't be a bad person, just a mix of your original memories and the clone's. Your cognition should remain the same."

  "Should. Thanks. Very comforting, Doc."

  Somehow, in the darkness, my hands found her hips again and rested there, just below her thin waist. That was comforting, actually.

  "Well, it would help if I could get more data,” she said. “But that's not possible now, with the prisoner being shut off, is it?"

  "Not really."

  "And why would you need a Hell-Spider to test your brain functions?"

  I sighed. It was time. "Because they're psychic, Doc. They can read minds and see minds and they can talk between minds just like you and I are talking right now."

  She shoved my hands off of her waist. "Lieutenant Forrest, I swear! I hate it when you make me the butt of your stupid jokes instead of just-"

  "It's the truth, Doc! That's how I could tell you were thinking we were on a date, that day in front of the spider."

  "And I can tell what you're thinking now, Lieutenant!" she scoffed, bumping her hip into my still prominent male reaction. "I don't need to be psychic for that! Let me out of this closet-"

  I grabbed her by the shoulders, firmly. "Doc, I'm dead serious. You can't tell anyone about this. We've been talking to the spiders for a month now. We made friends with them. Even a peace treaty. The brass would hang me as a traitor if you tell anyone."

  "And very convenient, since I can't confirm this myself now with the prisoner."

  "You have to trust me. Please."

  I felt the tension in her shoulders change slightly. But enough. "Very well. For now. Now open the door Lieutenant."

  I squeezed her slim, strong shoulders. "But it hasn't been seven minutes yet."

  "Lieutenant."

  "Okay," I laughed. "But you have to promise me you'll do one little thing for me first."

  I could almost hear her smirk in the darkness. "And what's that?"

  "Talk to our medic Steve about a little thing we call brain slugs."

  That evening, Second Chance Squad killed two Hell-Spiders.

  The news spread through base and Zazlu and I nervously pretended to eat in the cafeteria waiting for them to be cleaned and brought in.

  "Anyone we know?" I whispered as they were hung, trying not to make my attention obvious.

  He was frowning over his plate. "Yellow-Sun. And the other I do not recognize. We had eaten with him once."

  "From an allied clan?"

  "Probably. This patrol was not in the valley, but south, in the grasslands east of the swamp. They were perhaps hunting together."

  I sighed. "Red-Stripe will not be happy."

  Zazlu gave me a fierce look. "He should not be. We are breaking the peace treaty."

  "Well what do you want me to do about it?"

  He just frowned and stared down at his plate, eating.

  "Look, Zaz, we'll stop by Three-Spot on the way back."

  He just grunted at me.

  I finished eating what my knotted stomach would allow and on the way out, we walked by the leader of Second Chance Squad as he stood admiring their skulls. He was a tall blond with a short prison crew-cut, tattoos on both forearms and a nasty scar across his cheek. The nametag on his fatigues said "Grant."

  "Nice job," I said through gritted teeth. I couldn't look up at Yellow-Sun's hanging skull.

  Grant sighed in satisfaction. "We're just trying to do our job, same as you. Get back home as fast as possible."

  That made me pause. "They told me your entire squad was pulled from military prisons. Why the hell would you want to hurry back to that?"

  He smiled at me, his scar rippling. "They promised us full pardons. But only if we won the war against the spiders. Quicker we do that and get back home, the quicker we get back to our lives again."

  Zazlu and I were giving each other a look. "And what was your life, back home, exactly?" he asked.

  "I was a Marine Scout sniper. Two of my boys were Delta Force. A couple British SAS. Got a couple of Navy Seals and West Pointers, too."

  "No fucking way," I said.

  "Hey, if I was being sent on a god-forsaken bug hunt," Grant laughed, "I wanted the best of the best beside me."

  I sized him up, ending my look in his blue eyes. "And what, exactly, were you in prison for?"

  "Hitting a senior officer." And he said it with a smile.

  I saw Hector and Samson lead three other Immortals into the cafeteria, their eyes turning predatory when they saw us. I looked back at Grant, talking as I backed towards a door. "There may be a faster way to get back home and get your pardons, but without all this-" I pointed at Yellow-Sun's skull, "unnecessary bloodshed. We should talk about it sometime."

  Grant gave me a serious look as I was leaving. "We should."

  Zazlu and I discussed Second Chance Squad as we walked to the Holding Area. There was a lot of potential there. I ordered Zazlu to start exploring it.

  The same BlackShirt as before was guarding Three-Spot's room, but Zazlu approached him first, there were smiles, pats on the back, and after something small exchanged hands between Zaz and the guard, we were let in.

  Three-Spot was curled into a tight ball in one corner. And his food bowl was half-empty.

  Oh, Three-Spot, you didn't!

  "It was too cold, Group of Trees." His gravelly voice was weaker than I remembered it. "I could not resist, even though I knew it was poisoned."

  How bad is it?

  "It is moderately painful. But getting worse. I feel my stomach will reject the food and empty itself. Then I will only be forced to eat more."

  Don't eat any more! We'll get you something else!

  Zazlu looked at me. "How?"

  The door opened and Inspector General Himenez walked in, smiling, perfectly dressed and shaved as always.

  "Lieutenant Forrest, Lieutenant Mohammed," he said, "I happened to be watching the feed of this room's security cameras from my room and noticed you two enter. So I decided to see what the excitement was about." He smiled at me. "Especially since General Oakley ordered the guards to let no one but the science staff inside."

  I saw Zazlu tense up. We had just burned one of his BlackShirt contacts. That guard wouldn't be doing us any favors again.

  "I was the one that captured this prisoner in the first place," I said. "I wanted to see what they were doing to him."

  Himenez was nodding. "That is understandable. I read the report about his capture during my wormgate trip here. That was quick thinking on your part, with the Halon. I also have been reviewing the recordings of the cameras in this room."

  He put his hands behind his back and stared at Three-Spot. "The way this one holds himself, the way he looks at his food and his visitors, I'm coming to think they're actually far more intelligent than we first believed."

  That sent chills down my spine.

  "Actually, this one just sits motionless, staring at the walls most of the time," I said. "Just like a cow. I wouldn't give him too much credit."

  Himenez nodded, still looking at the spider. "Perhaps." He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "I also noticed that, every few days, these cameras experience a glitch to their audio and video, recording only static for three to five minutes."

  Oh shit.

  "And every time those stretches of static occur," he continued, "you or one of your Infinity Squad Lieutenants have recently passed the security cameras in one of the two halls leading to this room." He turned his smile to me again. "Do you like staring at cows, Lieutenant?"

  Even though my pulse was pounding in my ears, I managed to say, "There are a lot better things to stare at on this side of the base than some spider. That hot blond radio operator, for one."

  The bureaucrat chuckled. "Yes, that is true. I'm having her reassigned to an administrative role back at the Pentagon, by the way. I've concluded she's too much of a distraction to have around a forward operating base." He looked up at the
corners of the room. "I also put in an order to upgrade these cameras. We can't have security systems shorting out at random."

  He indicated the door. "Now, if you don't mind, I'm sure you've got important business to attend. The scientists who will enter in a second do. I've ordered them to accelerate the prisoner's torture schedule. We need to learn much more about this enemy. And how to hurt him."

  The spider's voice entered my head as I was leaving. "Bunch of trees! The Wrestler says he has lightning snakes in his backpack! Could I have them now?"

  No. I'm sorry.

  "Why not? I can smell them!"

  I'm sorry! The third human is an enemy. We cannot act in front of him.

  "But my hunger! The poison!"

  Look, I'm sorry! We'll be back soon.

  With a sick feeling to my stomach, I let Himenez usher us out the door.

  Three hours later, Dakota was shaking her head. "No, I couldn't get a thing out of him. Just some polite, bland answers and after about three minutes he politely ended the interview."

  "What?" Juan scoffed. "Did you do that thing, you know, with your-"

  "Yes, I did the thing," she said, giving her boyfriend a stare as she pulled down the hem of the shortest skirt I had ever seen her wear. "But he didn't look. At all."

  Juan couldn't believe it. "What! Is he gay or something?"

  Dakota's lips were a tight line. "No. He's just very... disciplined."

  I crossed my arms. "Yeah, we're coming to realize that. Butcher, how about you?"

  Dakota was in a short skirt, heels and crisp white dress shirt with a few strategic buttons undone. Next to her stood Ann-Marie, in her usual pressed fatigues, combat boots and semi-auto strapped to her thigh.

  "He's like a boa constrictor," Ann-Marie said. "He's patient, methodical, and he captures his prey by slowly cutting off one asset after another until they make a mistake or suffocate under the pressure. He's been on 22 investigations for the U.N. Security Council and succeeded on all of them. He's a stickler for details and cross-checking records, he has ultimate authority to recommend punishment in any case he brings forward and has recommended multiple life-sentences 5 times. His main goal is to make the execution of the war more efficient, but he has a secondary charge of reducing corruption, and he's free to pursue anyone and any case he finds. He served two years mandatory service in the Spanish army, Logistics and Sniper training, and he has a sister and two nieces back on Earth."