by Elin Wyn
He looked it over and smiled. “What a surprise. The geologist who initially discovered the creature out in the desert works at that lab, as well. Her name is Annie Parker. She’s recently become engaged to one of my strike team leaders.”
“How lovely.” I grinned, not knowing what else to say.
“Good luck in your new position,” General Rouhr said warmly. “I hope we’ll have a reason to contact you soon.”
Rokul
General Rouhr made me fill out an unnecessarily long report covering the events in Rigkon. I left out the part where Tella and I nearly drank ourselves into a stupor and ended up on top of each other in the middle of the outpost’s road.
But I thought about it for far longer than I should have.
Reports are not one of my strong points. I’m not fond of sitting at a desk and spending valuable time transcribing the day's events so they can be filed away and never looked at again. Usually, I could convince Takar to write my reports for me. He’s much better at them. I’d even go as far as to say that he liked them.
Nearly three hours after Rouhr sent me to write up the report, I knocked on his office door.
“Come in,” he called. When he saw it was me, he gave me a smug smile. “Ah, have you finished?”
“Yes, sir.” I placed the datapad on his desk.
“Did you learn anything valuable from this little exercise?” General Rouhr asked.
“You and I both know the answer to that question,” I shrugged. “But I’ll try to think more about consequences. Still think it wouldn’t hurt to at least try a few grenades.”
General Rouhr sighed and shook his head.
“You’re lucky you’re a phenomenal soldier,” he said. “If you weren’t, I’d stick you on one of the ground teams. Dismissed.”
“Sir,” I paused.
“Was there something else?” General Rouhr asked.
“I just wanted to know how Tella, the botanist, settled in,” I said. Even something as simple as saying her name brought everything back. The perfect way she tasted when I kissed her, the feel of her skin.
“Dr. Briar found our current information on the creature in the desert insufficient,” General Rouhr explained. “She explained to me that she can’t tell us anything new without more data. She’s gone to her new position in the same lab where Annie Parker works.”
“Oh.” I didn’t understand why I felt disappointed. True, I looked forward to seeing her around the building, but now that she technically wasn’t my colleague anymore, I didn’t see a reason to keep things professional. “Will she be back?”
“Potentially,” General Rouhr nodded. “She wants to go gather data herself. I’m not willing to risk more lives out in the desert just yet.”
“Wise choice,” I nodded.
“I’m glad you’re behind my decisions.” I didn’t miss the note of sarcasm in his voice.
“That’s all, sir.” I nodded and left the room.
As I walked in no particular direction, I thought about going to Tella’s new place of employment.
I wondered if she’d agree to dinner. Or perhaps we should simply find another bar and have a repeat of last night in Rigkon. I realized that even though it felt like I’d known Tella for a long time, I didn’t truly know her.
It was easy to assume that she’d like to go to a place like the Crooked Swiggen, however, would she choose a place like that if there were more options available?
I’d be the first to admit that I wasn’t an expert when it came to Nyheim’s dining establishments. Takar and I ate at one of three places, all of them cheap, greasy, and nowhere near as good as Snipe’s cooking.
Perhaps I ought to let Tella choose the location.
I’d like to lick anything off her lips at the end of the night. I wanted to run my hands all over her.
I was prepared to go talk to her, revved up with memories of her silky skin, when my comm unit went off.
“Strike Team Two, report to the launch bay. We’re departing immediately,” Karzin’s voice barked at me.
Tella would have to wait.
I rushed to the launch bay. My brother was already there.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“There’s been an attack,” he said.
“What town?” I asked.
“Not a town, an outpost set up for refugees,” he corrected.
“Skrell,” I swore. “So they’re essentially defenseless.”
“All hands accounted for. Let’s move!” Karzin ordered.
Takar and I climbed into our aerial unit as Karzin sent coordinates to our unit’s nav system. Within minutes, we were all airborne, zooming towards the coordinates.
We reached the outpost in under ten minutes. As I prepared to land the unit, I got a glimpse of what we’d be fighting.
A group of at least six sorvuc violently tore at the flimsy structures. People darted everywhere, looking for a safe place to hide. I watched a sorvuc lash out at a human male. It struck him hard. He flew back fifteen feet.
We were ordered to land our aerial units far away from the fighting to prevent any accidental damage, but those people needed help now.
I veered off course, ignoring the shouts of my brother.
“Don’t be stupid, Rokul,” he yelled.
“I’m not!” I shouted back.
I landed the aerial unit right in the middle of the outpost. To my surprise and confusion, the sorvuc didn’t immediately attack us. They were intensely focused on destroying the structures of the outpost.
“Move, now!” I ordered Takar. “Don’t let them destroy anything else. This is all those refugees have.” For once, Takar didn’t argue against my impulsiveness. He fired his blaster, hitting a sorvuc square in the back. It roared in outrage, but didn’t turn its attention to us.
I hadn’t stopped to load up on weapons before reporting to the launch bay. Due to how long the general’s report had taken me, all I had on me was what I’d brought to Rigkon, both my standard issue blasters and a small blade that wouldn’t do much against the thick skin of a sorvuc.
I recalled the kodanos corpse I’d found in the forest before I rescued Tella.
Looking back on it, I felt certain that Tella had something to do with the dead kodanos. I distinctly remembered the dead kodanos had one shattered leg.
“Shoot for the legs!” I instructed Takar. “If we immobilize them, we can take them down.”
“The blasters are hardly effective,” he called back. “Shoot the same one as I am.” Together, Takar and I fired a few blaster shots into the left leg of the closest sorvuc. Finally, its leg splintered messily. When it took its next step, it lost its balance and fell to the ground. Now, we had their attention.
The rest of my strike team appeared out of the forest. One look at Karzin told me he was furious. I’d deal with that later.
“Shoot at the legs!” I called to Karzin and the others. “Once they’re down, leave them. We can pick them off after.”
“Do as he says,” Karzin backed me up.
Perhaps I wouldn’t get placed on probation again after all. The sorvuc abandoned their quest to destroy all of the structures in the outpost. Now their goal was to destroy us. They weren’t graceful creatures. Evading them wasn’t a challenge.
As I dodged and fired my blaster, I recalled everything I’d learned about sorvuc since arriving on this planet. One thing stuck out as unusual to me. I’d never seen more than one sorvuc at the same time. To see six all at once was surprising.
Perhaps I’d bring it up to Tella before I asked her to dinner. She’d like to know about that, I’d bet.
When the last sorvuc fell, writhing on the ground in outrage, we each took a sorvuc and put it out of its misery. Karzin took down two.
“Locate civilians. Assess injuries. Survey damage,” Karzin ordered. I nodded and the strike team fanned out. I went straight to the human male that I’d seen struck by the sorvuc. He was still breathing, half unconscious, and his leg wa
s most certainly broken.
“I’ve got a serious injury,” I called to Karzin.
“I’ll call Evie and ask her to dispatch an emergency evac vehicle. Locate others,” Karzin ordered. Instead, I knelt down beside the human male.
“Can you understand me?” I asked. His eyelids kept fluttering. He couldn’t manage to keep them open or keep them shut. That didn’t appear to be a good sign, but I still didn’t know much about human bodies. Their immune strength, pain tolerance, and general resilience varied considerably from person to person.
I was certain this human had suffered a blow to the head. I remember Evie saying that humans that have received a blow to the head should not be allowed to fall asleep.
“Open your eyes,” I ordered the human male. He tried to keep them open. Every time they started to flutter closed again, I barked another order. It wasn’t the best way to deal with the situation, but it was working. From the sound of my voice alone, he was likely too afraid to disobey. If it kept him alive, I’d live with that.
Within an hour, Evie’s emergency evacuation transport units arrived. They landed beside my aerial unit. Trained medical professionals poured out of the evac units. I stepped back and allowed them to do their work.
Karzin stood in the center of the activity, watching everything with a critical eye.
“How bad is it?” I asked him.
“You’d have a better idea of that if you’d followed orders,” he said reproachfully.
“I didn’t think the human I found would survive if he was left alone,” I replied.
“For a change, that’s an acceptable reason,” he nodded. “No deaths, nine major injuries, and thirty minor injuries. Most of the structures serving as temporary homes were damaged. The central structures took less damage.”
“Why did they do this?” I wondered out loud.
“They’re aggressive sentient trees that have given us trouble on more than one occasion. Are you surprised?” Karzin laughed without humor.
I wanted to tell him that this attack seemed different, but I wasn’t sure how to put it into words. Before I could say anything, he spoke again.
“You broke protocol,” he said.
“I know.”
“I’m going to have to report that to the general,” he said.
“I know,” I repeated.
“I realize that if you hadn’t, more damage would’ve been done to the outpost and the civilians. I’ll include that in my report,” Karzin said.
“I’d appreciate that.”
Once the emergency medical team loaded all of the injured civilians onto the evac transport units, Karzin addressed the remaining, uninjured civilians.
“You are all welcome to go to Nyheim for temporary shelter while this outpost is being rebuilt,” he told them. Most of them were still in shock and didn’t react. A handful of emergency medical responders stayed behind to assist them to the city.
As I climbed back into my aerial unit, Takar spoke up.
“You’re in deep skrell, you know that?”
“I’m aware.”
I was equally aware I probably wasn’t going on any dates any time soon.
Tella
I’d been here for less than a day and I was already feeling twitchy and restless. Apparently, Bea, the botanist before me, wasn’t a popular woman. To put it simply, she annoyed the crap out of everyone on her floor. Everyone on Bea’s old floor was so concerned that I would be annoying that I was assigned to a different lab station on a different floor.
Whoever Bea was, she’d manage to convince everyone in the building that all botanists were chatty, nosy, and pushy.
Thanks, Bea.
My new lab station was in the farthest corner of the room, facing a wall. If I wanted to look out a window, I’d have to crane my neck at an uncomfortable angle. Not that the view was great in the first place. The single wall sporting windows faced the side of another beat-up building in the middle of being repaired.
The ceiling lights were too yellow, as if they were trying to mimic sunlight and failed horribly. The building did have a cooling system, but in my little corner, I couldn’t feel it. I felt like I’d been stuffed in a box and I hated it. There wasn’t even a balcony I could step onto to get a quick breath of fresh air.
I tried telling myself that I simply needed to get used to my new surroundings, but I knew myself. This kind of environment was not one where I thrived. My element was out in the field studying live specimens first hand.
As I took some time to acquaint myself with the console system, my mind wandered to Rokul.
I preferred solitude when I worked, but it was never a smart idea to go out into the field alone. I hadn’t anticipated Gille’s job to be as dangerous as it was, so I hadn’t hired a mercenary to accompany me. I hated working with mercenaries. They were impatient, had no respect for the environment around them, and tended to be full of themselves.
Rokul possessed all of those traits, yet I didn’t despise him. In fact, if I were to take another field assignment, I would ask him to join me before I went to a mercenary. I thought about how he’d killed the Helmria Ithalma. Yes, I was pissed about it since the flower was so rare, but if he hadn’t killed it, it certainly would’ve killed us.
I felt guilty for leaving General Rouhr’s building without saying goodbye to Rokul, but I didn’t know where he was or how to find him. If I did manage to find him, I wouldn’t have known what to say.
It was fun getting drunk with you, I’ll see you later?
Sorry you had to retrieve me as part of your punishment, let’s hang out sometime?
Yeah, those both sounded incredibly stupid in my head and would’ve sounded even stupider out loud. Maybe it was for the best that I hadn’t seen him before I left.
“Are you the new botanist?” A woman’s voice startled me out of my thoughts. A petite woman around my age with pin-straight red hair smiled at me.
“Yes,” I nodded. “My name’s Tella Briar.” I extended a hand and she shook it.
“Annie Parker,” she replied. “I’m a geologist.” I recognized her name.
“You’re the one who took those soil samples, aren’t you?” I asked. “The ones for the weird plant out in the desert.”
“That’s right.” She looked surprised that I would know that for a moment before realization took over her expression. “Are you Leena Dewitt’s friend? She mentioned she was reaching out to a botanist contact of hers.”
“Yes, that’s me,” I replied.
“So, you’ve seen all the data on that thing in the desert,” she prompted.
“I have.” I didn’t want to tell her that I found her data insufficient for my work. That wasn’t a good way to make friends.
“Why aren’t you working in General Rouhr’s building?” she asked, tilting her head to one side. “I would think he’d want you working around the clock to figure out what that plant is.”
“I was there earlier,” I replied. It seemed that there was no getting around it. “Leena showed me all the information on the creature. Unfortunately, it didn’t tell me very much. The best I could do was confirm what everyone already knows about it.”
“I see,” Annie frowned. She didn’t look angry, just disappointed. “When I compiled the information, I knew it wouldn’t be very helpful. Since it’s a new species, I knew you’d need to collect your own data to help General Rouhr.”
“Exactly.” I breathed a sigh of relief. “I really want to help, so I gave Rouhr my information here so he could contact me if he decides to let me go out to the crater myself. Until then, I’m going to start my work here.”
“I’m glad to have you,” Annie grinned. “The last botanist was-”
“Annoying?” I said before she could finish her thought.
“Thanks for not making me say it out loud,” she chuckled. “Bea was an interesting character, to say the least.”
“So I’ve heard,” I grimaced. “She’s left me notes to continue her last p
roject. I haven’t read them yet, but there are nearly twenty pages of material.”
“That sounds like Bea,” Annie replied. “She’s probably included a few personal anecdotes in those notes.”
“I hope she’s an entertaining writer,” I laughed. “I’ll be reading these for a while.”
“I’m at the station near the windows if you need anything,” Annie offered kindly.
“I’m jealous,” I replied. “How does one get a station by a window?”
“I was at the one you’re at now until I started working with General Rouhr,” Annie replied.
“I hope General Rouhr calls me in soon so I can get a better station,” I joked.
Annie smiled before returning to her own work. I picked up the datapad left for me by Bea. After fifteen minutes of reading, I came to the conclusion that her notes were ninety percent tangents and personal stories.
From what I gathered, Bea was about to start monitoring the current populations of sentient plant species. The odd part was she wasn’t planning any field expeditions to gather her own data. Bea planned to compile data from other botanists’ field research. I laughed out loud when I saw that one of my previous studies was on her list.
With nothing else to do, I turned to my console and picked up where she’d left off. Bea had gathered a list of studies, but hadn’t actually compiled anything. Additionally, she was short about eight studies if she wanted to get an accurate reflection of the current sentient plant population.
My study was included in the list of studies that had measured the population before the Xathi invasion. It was the studies done after the Xathi invasion that were seriously lacking. The other botanists on this world were probably in the same shape I was. Expeditions were going to be difficult to get underway.
However, now that I had this lab at my disposal, perhaps the manager would agree to allocate some funds to further my study. I could ask Rokul to join me. The idea brought a smile to my face.
The lab was run by a woman called Dr. Madriana Hines. Aside from introducing myself to her earlier today, I had yet to have a conversation with the woman.
