There was no order, but it would be later remembered who had begun it.
Tavis was the first to rise from his place in the grass, turning dead away from the water he and the squad needed so badly, returning to the path they had just left, retracing the steps which had taken them half the night, leaving the objective, and heading in the opposite direction to seek the brothers who had been lost. It would later be recalled that Mother had given him no cue, and put up no protest, but instead followed as meekly as a subordinate, giving Tavis the lead that was not his to take.
It was when Mother followed Tavis that the others, weary, dejected and more uncertain than ever, rose as one and allowed themselves to be led away from the one thing they wanted more than anything. If not for the monster lurking beneath the surface, it is possible they would not have followed.
Tavis did not move quickly, he had not the energy for it. But he abandoned much of his earlier caution, spending less time looking around, and more time on the move. Some instinct told him that he must hurry. Perhaps it was the sound of animals calling to one another, sending out challenging bellows and shrieks, each of them a potential threat to a lost clone.
The uncertainty which had marked his every hesitating movement up to now was gone. For the first time since the explosion of fire, he knew his place, understood his purpose, and had no doubts. The others could sense it, and rallied to him, each step they took in his wake brought them closer together in purpose, until they as one had decided. If anything stood in their way tonight, they would kill it.
Tonight, there would be no retreat. Tonight, they would perform as they had been created to, even if it was not to fight the enemy they had been designed for.
Tonight, they would fight.
Before, the traveling clones and walked single file, concealing their numbers (or, in this case, their lack of numbers). But they were not traveling now. Fanning out, they covered more ground, made harder targets of themselves, and gave themselves the greatest range of fire without risk of hitting one another. Now they were going on the attack.
Volk had turned back the way he'd come, and his stalker had turned with him, keeping itself to the darkness. He'd caught a glimpse of it. It moved upright, a massive tail balancing its body across sturdy legs, forelimbs terminating in tine-like claws. Of its head he saw nothing, perhaps because it moved so quickly and kept itself low to the ground, letting the grasses conceal it.
Volk had just caught a glimpse of a wicked, slitted eye when a noise disturbed the creature. It departed quickly, vanishing into the night, the last sight of it was a tail tip slapping at the underbrush as it turned.
Standing still and listening, it wasn't long before Volk heard the sound that had disturbed the hunter. He knew the sound at once, but it did not inspire the relief one might have imagined. Rather, he felt threatened. He was in front of the advancing line, not a part of it, and he had seen and experienced firsthand the relentless nature of clones once set on a plan of attack.
Even if they were specifically searching for him, he could easily startle them, and find himself shot. The best thing to do was stand, and be still. Sudden noise or movement could trigger a nervous clone. And one jumpy clone was all it took to cause a cascade effect of blaster fire.
Standing in the trail, in plain view and without cover, went against every instinct in Volk's body. But, for once, he ignored the instincts that typically guided him.
"Freeze!" Volk knew the command was reflexive, a habit drilled into them from their earliest training days.
If you were unsure of your target, you ordered it to remain still, or freeze. That way, you could perhaps prevent a sudden movement of a friendly when you were trying to identify them. This command had probably saved thousands of clone lives. And countless more civilian ones.
Still, Volk resented it, primarily because it was issued by Tavis, but partly because he had already been standing still in plain view. Tavis had not been required to step into his view to identify him. His rational mind knew Tavis had been moving quickly rather than cautiously, and therefore he had left cover before checking the path ahead. He knew, but did not care.
A part of him also raged that it had been Tavis who had found him, even though he had to assume this was on Mother's orders. The mind is not willingly rational, and stress combined with frustration does strange things to it. Even if we order ourselves to be rational, there are times when our minds refuse to listen. For Volk, this was one such time. And, at this time, his mind made a decision: he hated Tavis.
Tavis' next words did nothing to alter that condition.
"Where's Damyu?"
Gritting his teeth, Volk turned his head slightly downward, less in shame and more in a defensive gesture. It was the one thing he did not want to be asked about. Because he had to admit the truth.
"I don't know. He must have gotten lost in the dark," I lost him, Volk did not add.
"Leader, this is Fortune One," Tavis said into his radio, "I've found Actual One. No sign of Actual Four. Say again, Actual One is found, Actual Four still MIA."
Code phrasing was one of those peculiar features of the system that didn't really make much sense. To anyone besides the clones, a clone was a clone was a clone, and none of them had their nicknames on file (nor did they refer to each other by number in the field). Volk found it particularly irritating at this moment. The way it was phrased made it sound like Volk was some lost puppy that needed rescuing, when the fact of the matter was that he'd been doing fine on his own.
Mother acknowledged, and Tavis returned his attention to Volk.
"Why didn't you answer the radio call?"
"I did," Volk snapped, more harshly than intended, but less fiercely than he felt like, "Damned radio's on the fritz. Seems to be working fine now."
Wisely, Tavis decided not to question that. He might have made another blunder in asking how Volk could possibly have let the shiny rookie out of his sight, but something distracted him and he turned his head to the right, listening intently to something Volk hadn't yet heard.
When he did hear it, Volk let out a low growl. The distant snarl-hiss-shriek sounds were made by the lizards. They had found something, and were competing with each other for the prize, as well as calling more of their kind to come and join them for the feeding frenzy.
Volk headed at once towards the sound, instinct driving him as usual. He knew Damyu would not leave the trail for no reason. However, the lizards might have doubled back, and cut Damyu off. The clones did not yet know if the lizards were hunters as well as scavengers, but they did know that the lizards were dangerous to confront, and not in the least afraid of them.
Tavis paused for a beat, his reason slow to catch up with Volk's instinct. He keyed his radio, announcing the change in direction and the reason for doing so. Flanking him on either side, invisible in the tall grass, the clones rotated in their formation and followed Volk towards the sounds.
Barely a hundred yards off the trail, Volk kicked something in the dark. Tavis caught up to him as he stopped to pick it up. It was Damyu's weapon. The two team leaders exchanged a chilling look. No clone in his right mind would ever leave his weapon behind. Not even a rookie would do that. They looked for blood without really thinking about it, and not seeing any only increased their alarm.
As before, the rivalry between them was put on the back burner as they united in a common objective and slipped into behavior and attack patterns that had been trained into them from the time they were small. Shoulder to shoulder, they created the spearhead for this assault. Whatever lay ahead, they would be the first clones to "greet" it with blazing weapons.
Tavis slung Damyu's blaster over his shoulder, securing it out of his way.
It didn't take them long to reach the copse of trees, nor was it difficult to make out the forms of the lizards as they darted in to tear at the object of their interest, and then were beaten back by more dominant members of their own kind. The infighting was fierce, the lizards' claws and muzzles were bloody. Volk was the first to see and identify what they were fighting over.
Immediately, he ran at the lizards, knowing he couldn't shoot into their midst without risk of hitting Damyu. He tackled a lizard standing atop the motionless rookie, slamming his shoulder into its side. The stricken animal snarled and twisted its head to snap at him, and they rolled away into the grass.
Tavis was more practical about it. Volk's unexpected charge had momentarily scattered the lizards, allowing Tavis to get in close and secure a defensive position beside his fallen brother. Almost immediately the lizards were closing in again, but now Tavis had clear shots at them.
At last, there was an enemy he could see, and shoot back at. The battle that followed knew no logic, no reason. It went beyond instinct or experience. It was something like revenge. For being put on this planet with no enemies to fight. For being driven from their post by assailants they had not seen and could not fight back against. For being left out here alone. But it was not truly vengeance that drove home the attack. Inside the clones burned an intense desire to be in the middle of a conflict, to seek out and destroy an enemy. And, at last, here was something not predator or prey, but enemy. The fact that these were scavengers made no difference. The lizards had attacked their brethren. And that made them the enemy.
It took less than a minute for all members of Fortune Actual to flood into the battle. There was no organization and the darkness made it easy to lose track of one another as well as the lizards. As individuals they protected their fallen brother, never pursuing the lizards far or allowing them close in. But as a unit they were not cohesive, or aware of each other. There were gaps in their defense, openings the lizards exploited. And there were a lot of lizards.
Now and then, the lizards would turn on a wounded one in their midst, and the clones might mistake it for one of their brothers and come to its defense, only to break off the attack in bafflement. When Garm's blaster misfired, he shifted to a knife, going for the direct attack as Volk had at the beginning. The flashes of blaster fire destroyed their night vision, and the constant noise of the lizards and blaster fire made it impossible to hear one another.
It was chaos. Complete, total, absolute chaos. What should have been a coherent attack designed to swiftly see off the lizards turned into an all night blood bath. Nobody knew where anyone was, what anybody was doing, or even if the rookie they had come to defend was alive. And the lizards, sensing the lack of organization, persisted far longer than they would have had there been a united defense.
But, at last, just before the first rays of sunlight brought color to the hellish black and white nightmare, the lizards slid back from the battlefield, and settled down to eat their dead, leaving the clones to slowly regroup around their fallen brother. Driving the lizards away completely seemed to be too much effort for them. The unity of the night was lost in the morning's light.
Volk had been the most ferocious among them, and now crouched defensively over Damyu, panting from exertion and observing his brothers' approach through glazed eyes that seemed not to recognize them. But he obviously did, or else he would not have permitted Doc to come near and examine the rookie, who was not only alive, but unharmed by the lizards.
The lizards had been seeking to eat him as prey. Rather than trying to crush bone, as they had when Garm was attacked, they had been trying to tear through the armor to get at the flesh underneath. Tooth and claw marks marred the once sleek white surface of the armor. But it had protected the clone inside.
Even so, it was clear that something was wrong. When Doc turned him on his back, Damyu let out a pained mewl that made the others cringe. It wasn't a sound clones ought to make. It wasn't even a normal cry of pain. Something about it set them on edge. So much so that Caden and Onoff actually drifted a few yards away, in direct response to the unpleasant sound. They didn't know how to respond to it, and so responded by way of avoidance.
Doc quickly determined that Damyu was not responsive, but neither was he dead. Heart rate and breathing were irregular and strained, but present. It was evident that the clone had been poisoned. But how and when, Doc didn't know. And, unfortunately, he had no "poison cure" in his medkit. It was his pronouncement that all they could do was defend their brother, and try to make him comfortable, keep him in the shade, and wait. It was not their strong suit. In fact, training dictated that they leave behind a clone who was incapable of traveling. It was their loyalty that bid them stay.
But even that was conflicted. Thirsty before, they were now desperate. They had to have water soon, or else they would die. But they could not leave Damyu, nor effectively move him.
Exhausted by the night's battle, they panted to get their breath and gazed at the trampled brown grass, now stained with red blood, mostly too tired to think, or to move.
Only Volk seemed sure of himself. It was clear he would not leave Damyu's side, and regarded everything around him as a potential threat, including the clones of his squad. He tensed at their approach, and they each decided not to push their luck, retreating to other patches of shade before the sun rose more fully and the heat of the day truly descended on them.
Neither the squad as a whole nor the individual fireteams regrouped, stringing out among the small group of trees independently, without regard for who was where.
Had Tavis persisted in the leadership role he had taken the night before, it is possible that things might have settled down. But the battle had taken the fire out of him, and he was once more bound by the chain of command, which dictated that Mother should lead them.
Mother, either as a result of exhaustion or horror, had almost entirely shut down. He stared at the plains without seeing them, and did not react to the sounds of his men moving around him.
And that meant, for the time being, there was no leadership.