Dandelions: Chapter 7 of 9
Personal Diary of Kevin O' Shea
December 4, 2045
Well, they brought in that Alpha in today. I was one of the fortunate ones who saw it come in, down near Base Two. Dennis brought it in and set in on that old university quadrant as nicely as you please, just like a real bird. Quite a trick, considering he was dealing with several meters of gray-and-black death and hadn't done it for years. Shame he never was able to repair that Alpha of his that got banged up near Refles Point--it would have been a help. Bit of irony, that...
The Protoculture's been stored in places all over, so the enemy can't get a fix on it. I suppose I should say Invid, but then what does that make me? If anyone reads this and finds out, I'll probably be dead by then anyway, so my race is a moot point. Besides, I'm so sick of hiding it... And considering who I know we're up against now--hopefully a human deity or two is willing to intercede. Anyway, back to what's going on.
Matt listened. I'm glad being what I am is of some help, because he now has the place on continual yellow status. People are whining and bitching about it, but tough titty, folks. Shame I can't tell them the reason for it. The raid on the farm wasn't as inconsequential as we thought. Unfortunately, there's been no nearby attacks to keep them on their toes. Doesn't mean anything.
She--or maybe they--is biding her time. I know it. What event's going to trigger her move? This is like chess, but we don't have the luxury of looking down on the board and seing the picture. We're the players and the pieces at the same time. What will we do that can trigger victory--or disaster? The consolation is that they're not any better off in perspective. At least not by much. But they--well, I think they have us well in check.
Let's face it, the loyalists have the upper hand.
I daren't go near the child. I don't know if the spores' effects have worn off, but what if by accident she sees--and starts screaming? The only thing I dread more than dying is seeing the people I've worked with causing it. Ironic, isn't it? So I stay well away. Mandy sees her fairly often, and she hasn't made any comment about Florrie seeing any more weird auras around her, but I'm just too scared to get near, and much, much too guilty. And I would like a lot to just do the things human adults do for children, like playing with them, guiding them, so forth. Funny old thing, being Solugi.
Something's been in the food. Malcolm's gone ballistic over it. It can't be a rat, because of the population of cats around--and it hasn't been crapped in. Just little nibbles. Critter's an awfully dainty eater, for vermin. Good thing not too much food has been lost.
Mandy's gotten better. I can't imagine what happened to her at the farm, but I can try and guess, and if not understand, try and be capable of understanding. At least she no longer gets nightmares--again--but there's a perpertually scared look in her eyes. But at least--I pray--it's not directed at me. It's taken months, but I've finally gotten to her that whatever is this monstrosity of promise and justice is going on, I find it as abhorrent as she does, and suffer the guilt from it to boot. Her opinion is so important to me. And growing increasingly important, as though the opinion of the entire human race regarding me was hers. I just don't know. With Amanda, I head into so much murky water emotionally I just have to stop, which I'm doing.
I have to ask myself for the hundreth time where the Regis figures into this. She's not here in body...I, and every other Solugi, loyalist and rogue, would have felt Her presence if She had been. I suppose that's how She rationalizes the blatant reneging on Her word. But yet there's direction. Belmont pointed that out months ago when he was here, which confirmed Matt's and my suspicions on the pattern of the occupations. But who's running it? The Solugi? The Malorosm? That's another thing I don't know (ye God that pisses the hell out of me!). Perhaps the Regis stratified things so there's a few of them running and directing the occupation and the rest helping. It would explain the hideously powerful Gosu/Gamun/Battloids that have shown up here and there, it's probably being piloted by the occupation heads. The very highest command below Her, just as Lihra, Kharoth, Corg and Sera were in the latter stages of the last occupation?
Or maybe--no, no, that's stupid. Forget that.
Dammit. Here I was going to actually say something intelligent about the day and I've wandered off into the hinterlands of speculation again. Well, I'm going to have to stop anyway. I'm so tired I'm about ready to drop the pen. Digging trenches for security wiring took the tar out of me. So tomorrow--
--Kevin O'Shea , First Scout of Ulm's Elms
PS: Matt, you can still have my Valk model.
oooooooooooooooooooo
"Well, we're going to fly our baby over to that arena shell down south," Dennis confirmed thoughtfully. "It'll make a terrific VTOL hangar bay." He walked around in the dead grass thoughtfully, hood up agains the dry, frigid air, circumnavigating the meters-long bulk of mecha perched in gerwalk on the open, weed-choked quadrant.
The Shadow Alpha was a matte gray-black, a slice of light carved out of the air into a looming, louring form with simultaneous palpable mass and the airy, killing beauty of a sword's edge. Shiroikiku and Gerald had done their work well--there was no obvious sign of the damage that naturally resulted from being half-buried in weeds and dirt for months on end.
Fortunately, the damage had been mostly structural; the power systems were to Sherry's gratitude intact, for reasons she had made known to Dennis earlier. "I've never seen parts to an Alpha quite like these before. Or that worked quite like these, and I had the privledge to see the guts of the prototype Shadows before Reflex. This had to be a new one that the Icarus dumped."
"Interesting. I only piloted the normal types."
"Trust me Lieutenant, this mutha ain't anywhere near normal. I've never seen anything like these systems before. My guess this sucker is a prototype of some sort, because the energy efficiency and the operating systems are so damned advanced it ain't funny. We're not certain just where to begin, even. My bet is that we'd better be Goddamned glad it's almost intact, because an easy bet will get you that there aren't a lot of spare parts in the solar system that'll fit this thing."
"So what does the system difference mean?"
"It's powerful as shit," Sherry said flatly.
Dennis shuddered.
"And we can't really use the fucker much because if it gets hit in an important spot, Lieutenant, it won't be any good to use because of that very fact. I request this is our last-ditch special."
After flying it, Dennis had to silently agree. The thing was a pilot's wet dream when in the cockpit. It also, unfortunately, a resistance leader's potential worst nightmare when in the field.
Matt rubbed his whiskers, hazel eyes running over the curves and angles of the VAF-8. "I can't think of a better place myself, Dennis. At least it'll be out of sight from Invid there. My only worry is the structural damage from that monster hole in the roof. It'll let the thing in and out, but it also might collapse the entire thing on top."
"Them're the breaks. Perhaps there's a way to reinforce it?" Zinnert mused and then regretfully shook his head. "No. No engineers among us, and who'd have the materials anyway? The place is just too enormous." He sighed heavily.
"No alternative, though," Ulm said disgustedly, walking over and running a gloved hand over the sleek metal of the Alpha's leg. "God, but I don't want to risk it. There's not near enough Shadows on Earth, and anything like this..." He shook his head. "Who'd ever heard of one with two seats and that kind of equipment?"
"Recon was Corporal Doi's guess."
"I'd say so." Ulm stepped back. "She is a sexy little thing, though?"
"Thought 'shes' weren't your interest." Zinnert drawled. Ulm blinked and mock-glared as he realized his second's joke.
"I meant the Alpha, Dennis."
Dennis looked transparently innocent and fought with the smirk trying to yank a corner of his mouth.
"Dennis, being a smart-ass really isn't you. The First Scout, Doi, Wilson, and the rest are bad enough. If you start, I'm going to have to do drastic things."
" I take it that you'll stick with the arena, Lieutenant?"
"Yeah, whatever."
oooooooooooooooooooo
"I'm freezing," the gray bundle hunched next to one of the three stoves commented. Malcolm shugged and nonchalantly walked around her, directing the KP detail.
"So why're you griping to me?"
"You're the closest one. God, I could kill a cup of tea right now."
"Over there."
"That ain't tea, that's sludge. I'm not gonna befoul the vodka by pouring it into that."
"That's what you're gonna get until I can get some more leaves, Gwennie."
"Don't call me that."
"Sorry."
"No you ain't."
"Nope, I guess I'm not," Malcolm grinned, teeth white against his face.
The pallid, delicate face below scowled, the amber eyes narrowing under the shocking, none-too-clean blaze of hair.
"Jerk," she said shortly, then rose, the loose padded gray mottle of her uniform not concealing the rigidity of her figure. Malcolm looked after her, frowning. His expression remained pensive as he begain to wipe the batter-choked ranges clean.
He shook his head.
"Smart move, bud," he told himself ruefully.
Then again, anything he might have done could have set her off. The effects of the raid on her had not been positive. The changes in her personality had made her difficult to get along with.
No, he amended. Not changes. He had seen such effects--similar ones, at any rate--on his elder sister, the day she had finally arrived to join the Elms.
It had not been a welcome meeting, although he loved her. The fact she was there was proof that their mother had finally died from the cancer consuming her ovaries, and that Miranda was free from having to care for her.
The surface convivality had fallen, replaced by the despair that had been underneath ever since she had come home from out east, a tattered refugee from the wreckage of the Invid invasion, a student now forever denied her study. There had been nothing left for her then, except to fight, and most likely die.
No wonder she had taken to O'Shea and Pierson so well, he thought. They seem to have had no connections to civillian normalcy themselves.
In Gwen's case, the superficial insouciance had been torn away from her personality, showing the true nature underneath. Malcolm was certain he did not like it. Nihilism was not the word to describe it, nor was furtiveness. The nightmares were apparenly not half of the scars that had been left by her experiences. If being an Invid prisoner did that to one, Malcolm wanted to make certain he killed himself beforehand.
He sighed, eye flicking over to the entraceway through which she had exited, and continued cleaning up after breakfast.
oooooooooooooooooooo
Something in me
Dark and sticky
All this time is getting strong
The way I'm dealing
With this feeling
Can't go on like this too long
Peter Gabriel, "Digging in the Dirt"
Gwen walked stiffly away, the tight, hot feeling gripping her ribcage refusing to release its hold. She knew her reaction had been totally irrational--hell, Malcolm was like that all the time, but the anger refused to let go.
Anger and despair. She wanted to strike out, and yet she did not care. What was the point? Her captivity all those years ago had taught her some lessons best left unlearned; that no such thing as justice existed, that the strongest survived and the weaker got the end of the shaft, that life was hell and death's oblivion the best reward.
Another drink, another man, because they expected it, wanted it, and another high-ranking lay, just to prove she could do it, just to prove if nothing else, she had that much control over what happened. And the next resistance group was always ready to have her shooting. She had conveniently excluded the fact from the Elms that the Louisville Sluggers had thrown her out because the CO's girlfriend had taken extreme exception to Gwendolyn's taking him elsewhere--she smiled bitterly--for "talks."
At least Kevin had had aesthetic appeal and seemed--shit--to be a nice guy. She most certainly would not have minded his interest. Even despite the covert signals from his middle-aged angler boyfriend were that Kevin wasn't inclined... She had seen enough indications in her time with the Elms that it was at least partly a lie on O'Shea's part. She had started again, hope giving her impeteus.
So why didn't he oblige? Damn him, damn him to hell, and that little blond slut he favored. He could at least give her the courtesy of proving that her blood-earned view of the world was still intact.
Her anger reaching a peak, she randomly kicked the next object that came up. Unfortunately, the metal bench had a catastrophic effect even through the heavy toe of her field boot.
Limping and cursing, she continued outside, the tone of her thoughts going from murky dark gray to something very nearly black.
oooooooooooooooooooo
"I just LOVE it when she kicks Han in the ass down that chute," Gerald said dreamily, his purple-higlighted brown hair hanging in his eyes. He was busy digesting his breakfast and had decided to watch a portion of his favorite movie trilogy. "Just makes me feel so much better."
"So you like dominant women, huh?" quipped a voice from a bundle of beanbags. Gerald took his attention from the TV screen long enough to give it a dirty look.
"Bite me."
"Nope."
"The good part's coming up."
Kevin's head poked up from where he was lying and began to study the screen.
After a while, he said thoughtfully. "You know, these trilogy things... You know Sherry's animes..."
"You mean the one with the guy that turns into the girl?"
"That and the chick that went around chasing this guy because she'd been imprisoned. You know. The chick with the electroshock hair and bad temper."
"Huh? What about--you forgot the one with the pervert and the girl with the horns."
"Yeah."
Gerald rolled it over in his food and fatigue-clouded mind. He was drowsy, and was not exactly at his most lucid. "You know...suppose he--the guy with all the fiancees..."
"Which guy? There's the one with all the female roomies from other planets. And then the other guy in the female dorm. And.... " Kevin trailed off. "The Japanese have hangups, don't they."
"Thassa one. The alien girlfriend's. Not the other guy. Sorry. Suppose there was like," his mind churned, "suppose he was the son of the first guy."
"You mean his grandpa's a panda?"
"Work with me, willya? And like, the chick with the horns, you know, was his kid. The second guy's. And that cursed water had something to do with it all. Big fuckin' comedy epic. Be great. Woudn't even have to worry about copyrights anymore. Just dub over the Japanese with our dialogue."
"'Drop your panties, Sir William?'" Kevin quoted.
"In yer dreams. Oh. We'd take fuckin' forever to get over with the last one, but the audience wouldn't care, cause we'd get em hooked. Make a lot of money, man..."
"Yeah," the scout mused.
Gerald blinked, his sanity reasserting itself. "Nah, he said gloomily. "It'd never work."
"O'Shea!" Ulm's voice shouted out in the hall. "Wherever you are, report."
Kevin muttered a curse and heaved himself upright from his semiliquified position in the beanbags. "Shit."
"Ooh," Gerald said sweetly. "He wants you, Kevvy-boy." The half-Zentraedi snickered as the scout gave Gerald his opinion with an extended middle finger as he left, then immediately returned his attention to the screen. The movie was reaching another good part.
oooooooooooooooooooo
Kevin resignedly followed Matt's retreating back to the conference room on the other side of the hall, in the storage room in the back of an old storefront. Pillages from elsewhere in Base One had made the place a bit cozy.
"What you want, Lieutenant?"
Ulm sighed and closed the door behind them. Kevin first thought the room was empty until he saw the figure drinking opaque tea, dirty boots up on the couch. She acknowledged with a nod while slurping the stuff.
"Insurance, Kev. Reason why Mandy's here is that she's the only one who you can tell without letting anything too untoward slip or any questions being raised."
"Run this by me again?"
Amanda paused in slurping. "I dunno. Apparently because I'm the only other who knows you're--what you are." She still not say the word. "So you can tell me whatever you need to tell me in case one of you buys it."
"Or namely, Kev, why you know what you know about the charming lady we met at the farm a couple weeks ago."
The Solugi started. "Oh, that. Why didn't you say so in the first place, Matt?"
"Well, uh---" Mandy looked on, her green eyes beginning to twinkle. "Jeez."
Ulm scratched his head. "I think--"
"I think six and a half years of this damn charade is beginning to tell on us," Kevin sighed. "Yeah, this is important. Amanda, it's not just human versus Invid anymore. It's gotten a bit personal. I know the Invid you went up against at that farm.
"Her name's Oryo'i." The glottal stop was slight. "Her ID colors are dark gray, vemillion, and carmine, not that that means much to anyone except a fellow Solugi Invid or a human, and she's what roughly translates in human terms as an upper-ranking princess or royaltly, but not high-high royalty like Sera was for instance. She was transmuted to the human form a month or so before I was, or a month before Reflex Point. She's never been very flashy. She was more a supporting cast type in the last war, and the way things look she's playing the same part in this one. She's very good at the arts of war, but not spectacular. Nearly enough to do for Matt though." Kevin shivered. "Nonetheless, knowing she's in our area scares the crap out of me."
"If--why?" Amanda's eyes were narrowed, all the humor gone out.
Kevin stared at her solemnly. "Because, Mandy, what people fail to see--human or Invid--is that it's not the ones who make the most noise who are the most dangerous. The really dangerous ones are the ones you overlook. Don't look at the plasma cannon, watch out for the slug in the back, sort of thing."
"So you're trying to say is that even though she's not among the Invid running the operation, she's still bad news?"
Kevin plopped down on the couch next to her as Matt looked on. "Oh yes. And she's extremely intelligent as well. It's just that nobody notices. I... before..." He trailed off, not willing to admit there was a before, "I--managed to notice. She's too bright to admit or demonstrate being so, because she knows it'll target her by the humans. And she's aware of the fact that a good plan of occupation is far more effective in the long run than simply going out and wiping out a few dozen enemy the way most Invid like to do. She's a creative thinker, and also completely loyal to the Invid cause. The two traits together are quite rare."
"Why is that?"
He smiled at her sadly, and then she understood.
"Why else do you think I'm talking to you now, instead of being on that side?" Amanda swallowed, recognizing the enormity of the question. "And back on the subject of Oryo'i, now that we've pissed her off, with that combination of traits--I'll bet you my lunch she'll start thinking of some very interesting ways to find out and deal with us. And the worst part, she'll go about it quietly and thoroughly until it's too late."
Matt said, "Amanda, you need to know about this. If Kev or I or both of us get killed, you'll be the only one who knows how dangerous our situation is with this person in the area. Since if Kevin--" he trailed off, "the entire point of the charade'll be moot, so you can then tell the others."
Amanda looked off to the other side of the wall. "If you say so."
oooooooooooooooooooo
The greatest single defining characteristic of the land surrounding the bases in the ruins of the blasted city in the old Protected Zone was: flat.
Except for trees, buildings, the crater lake, and a few artificial rises created by the highway contractors of the last century, the area had about as much distinguishing topography as did a pancake. It was not the sort of land layout that facilitiated hiding. It had been a major worry for the Elms ever since they had arrived all those months ago.
It was also a source of great frustration for the enemy.
The sole pillar of alloy flicked light as it took a hesitating step to the shadow of another building, then it paused again, as lifeless as the building itself. In the shade and in the weak light of the half-hearted December morning, the body disappeared, while accents stood out like flame.
After several minutes of making certain there was no observation, the sensor array between the shoulders pivoted, searching.
Where was the last movement it had seen?
I am getting close now... she thought. The fingers/ claws of the mecha flexed in anticipation and nervousness. She constantly kept an eye on her instruments. This cursed lack of any real cover meant that on the first sign of approaching enemy mecha she would have to hide before their sensors picked her up. If they should notice her around.... The idea of half a lunar cycle's dilligent night-and-day searching undone, perhaps permanently, was unthinkable. And this close...
Her opredti sensors had been notifying her of the presence of fuel cells in several scattered sites. Now she had to find which of them hid the resistance.
I want to know. I have to know...
Bringing a convoy of underlings out here would have only dramatically increased chances of being seen, so only she stalked in the shadows, power at the barest minimum to ensure movement and function of instruments. After all, a trahl got into areas that the larger and stronger could not go. It was working so far.
So had the manipulation into letting her stay down south...a play on his ego here, some reverse psychology there, and a fine glaze of surface submissivness over all. He never thought to read any further underneath.
He might have been quite startled if he had.
I am going to find out if it's the last thing...
Nothing but quiet around, with no indication save the omnipresent hum of the sensors as they noted and detected locations of opredti in the area. There was one less than five hundred yards away. She ignored it. That wasn't her objective at any rate.
She forced the sensors to focus further out, reading other deposits. It would figure that at one of the largest the human gadflies would be hiding.
Hrmm, wait... She drew nearly all of her available power to the sensor--there, on the very limits of her perception to the north, there was something...
What? She started, surprise jerking away her concentration. She rerouted power to pure visuals, swiftly retreating into the shadows of the naked trees and the building they shadowed. There was movement, large movement. A flick between distant buildings, then another. She finally focused in far enough--no protoculure radiation to help, but it did not matter much. They were getting closer.
It was the first indication of human activity she had seen in the day or so since she had flown in low from the east.
At last she could make it out clearly, and her breathing picked up.
Two humans on Terran vehicles/ mecha moving south in roughly her direction, hooded against the deepening chill of the year, but with streamers of loose hair occasionally flying out. Bleeping, the Gamun's sensors moved in.
She blinked incredulously, then a growl rose in her throat.
Oh, she felt she knew them quite well. The yellow and fiery red hair was not easily forgotten, considering they'd had the audacity to thwart her of her execution of their nonetheless pointlessly heroic companion that while ago.
The sensor eye inperceptibly pivoted, tracking the trail they made.
oooooooooooooooooooo
"Gotta be there by 1030 hours," Mandy noted, her eyes flicking to her watch. Gwendolyn did not acknowledge the comment even with a shrug. "Do you suppose their ammo inventory is OK?"
Gwen still refused to answer. Biting her lip, Amanda turned back to the road, releasing her gnaw on her lower lip when a jolt almost made her bite through it.
Bravely continuing, Amanda noted, "I certainly hope so. I 'spect Terre Haute'll get pissy at us with us begging stuff off them when they need it."
When this still received no response, Amanda swallowed and sighed, turning with her companion onto the road that led southward to Base Two, the rather smaller, more cramped, and less well-appointed of the encampments the Elms had set up. She was privately wondering about the wisdom of Dennis's pairing her with the redhead in order to go down and help take inventory on Base Two's millitary hardware.
Kevin had tiredly noted to her in the past couple of days Gwen had redoubled her advances after several months of inactivity. However, he had noted that there was something in them that turned him off, even as the prior ones had done terrible things to his composure. The vindictiveness he had noted in them was enough to prompt Amanda to walk in whenever Gwen looked as though she were making another play. This was probably the reason why Mandy was being given the silent treatment.
("I suppose if nothing else this proves I...uh am...inclined." he had said, as embarrassed as he had ever been. This statement had caused Amanda to start noodling over things that she eventually had to leave off because the implications were too unnerving.)
Gwen suddenly swerved, throwing Mandy off her rhythm. "Hey watch it!"
Gwen, her lip curled, turned back a look on her that even through the goggles made Amanda's stomach turn. She had not seen so much venom in a single expression before.
"What'd I do?" Amanda said to herself, forgetting the tactical net was still open.
She finally had a response: a contemptuous snort.
Amanda tightened her mouth and continued onward.
The hairs on the back of her neck prickled. This was nothing new; she had been paranoid for over a year now, and especially in the past few weeks. But little things were bothering her, particularly with Gwendolyn's obstinacy. Of course, with her nerves rubbed as raw as they were, anything was setting her off. She hoped that once they got to Base Two she'd be able to get away from Gwen for at least a while.
oooooooooooooooooooo
Don't talk back
just drive the car
Shut your mouth
I know what you are
Don't say nothing
keep your hands on the wheel
Don't turn around
this is for real
--Peter Gabriel, "Digging in the Dirt"
"What'd you do', you little tramp? Gwen seethed. What'd you think you did? Probably bonking His Holiness' buddy on the sly, the rottin' liar. What's wrong with me? Sure didn't stop the Sluggers' CO from eating his cake, now did it?
Red around the edges of her vision, Rutherford ruthlessly accelerated, ignoring potential potholes, worked up into such an emotional frenzy that for the first few seconds she didn't notice the tell tale hum and whoosh coming from up ahead.
Then she saw.
And smiled.
oooooooooooooooooooo
Amanda was confused enough that for a second she did not comprehend when the
Cyclone up ahead suddenly made a screaming ninety degree turn and went down an entirely different street.
"What? Gwen, what's--" There was no response over the tac net. Dammit, she had let her attention slip. She began to survey the surrounding area, but it was not until she saw the shadow darkening the ground that she looked up.
For a frozen instant, she was caught, moth in a flame. Then she twisted the gas and howled down the highway with both engine and voice, even as the clamping, arm-long alloy digits closed on the spot where she had been.
"GWEN!" she screamed, as the Invid mecha flipped over in midair and roared after her. If Rutherford could squeeze off a shot, it might be enough to distract the Assault Battloid overhead long enough so that Amanda could execute mode transition. It was too close, getting closer, and it took far too long to shift in close quarters. She would be dead before the first two seconds. In the icy prelude to true terror, she managed to accelerate to full speed, switching on the protoculture engines, but the Invid battloid's jets laughed at it.
"Gwen, help me, damn you!"
No help came.
Desperately, Amanda executed a tight 180, knee shrieking across cracked pavement, and for a moment disoriented the alien.
Its pilot watched detachedly at the desperately speeding human. Why doesn't her companion aid her? Is it some sort of ruse? A disquieting thought crept into her mind. Perhaps their companions may be waiting. (There had been some horror stories circulated on how the humans sometimes interrogated Solugi captives.)
Her brow furrowed. Well, if that's the case...
Amanda crouched over the bike. One last possible chance...if she could only switch modes, then things might be a bit more equal. A gamble but the only one she had left... Pray to God if he were watching that she had time to spare after throwing the Invid off.
She flipped the mode transition switch.
The bike rocketed up, the Forager's front farings splitting and rising, as she herself rose. For a panicky second she thought she might make it.
But then there was yet another jerk, and she kept rising. She did not need to see the vermillion fingers of the Assault Battloid lapped full around her waist to know, and she screamed once; a shrill ulutation of surprise, terror, and despair.
The thrusters boomed on with bone-shattering force, squeezing the breath out of her. Then the G-forces slapped into her, and into merciful blackness.
The gray and orange Invid mecha rose, and began to curl away to the northeast. It was gone to sight in minutes.
Below, safely sheltered in a building shell, a mounted figure on a Cyclone watched it depart.
oooooooooooooooooooo
It continued to stare for some minutes, stock still, seemingly lost in some bemusement. Then, unaffected, it began to start up its engines again.
Or seemingly unaffected.
As the fingers reached the ignition, they suddenly began to tremble. Abruptly, the tremble convulsed into convulsive shudders, as though consumed with a raging fever. Bonelessly, the figure slumped from the mecha, ignoring how it crashed only a couple inches from her leg.
The hands suddenly ripped off the helmet, releasing a cascade of copper hair. Shaking, she stared at the ground. Suddenly, the figure groaned, and then began to retch repeatedly.
When there was nothing left to bring up, the hands reached up and half-heartedly wiped the mouth. Then she looked up, revealing the gray countenance of a woman, sobbing, all malice gone, curdled with sickness and self-loathing.
"God, God, what have I done?" Gwendolyn Rutherford wept.
oooooooooooooooooooo
Miranda sat on a overstuffed couch, toying with a braid and watching Florence Henderson vigorously color a yellowing book with a box of crayons at her feet. The little girl's technique was interesting, her main modus operandi attacking the pages with layer after layer of bright yellow with little discretion for where the lines actually were.
The crayon broke and Florence pouted, before grabbing a purple stick and repeating the process in another section of the page. Miranda smiled. Florrie certainly had recovered quite well from her imprisonment, only occasionally--Miranda's coffee-colored eyes clouded--waking up in the night crying for her mother.
Of course, there were still the times the child stared off into empty space...
"What're you drawing, sweetie?"
"A big FLOWER!" Florence shouted enthusiastically, happily ignoring that whatever the page contained--in this case a horse in a field--it was hardly flowerlike. "An' a sun. An ' grass."
"How about brown?" Miranda asked, indicating the drawing of the horse with a toe.
Florence gave her an indignant look. "Flowers aren't brown."
Miranda was about to convince her that maybe horse-shaped flowers were when suddenly Florence gasped and went white, her sky-blue eyes wide under her cropped brown ringlets. Miranda propelled herself onto the floor--the child was having another of her fits.
"Florrie? Florrie, hon, wake up!"
For another minute, the girl stared, oblivious, then huge tears formed in her eyes.
"Florrie, what is it!"
Trembling with sobs, the child said. "I'm scared! Something real bad happened, 'Randa." The sluices opened and she began to cry for real, incoherent with whatever was possessing her.
Miranda held her close, her dark eyes wide with confusion, doubt, and fear.
oooooooooooooooooooo
"Nothing new, right?" Matt asked, sitting uncomfortably on the back of the comm room couch and looking over at the recruit manning it. She shook her head.
"No sir. Not a peep. It's been like this all day." She did not go into the fact the nearby groups had not been active ever since the return from the protoculture raid. Behind them, another Elm wandered through the doorway, a half-full glass of opaque tea in his hand. "The Riders checked in, and that's it. Nobody got wiped out or anything. Sir."
Matt shrugged and rose from his seat. "Well, if that's the case..."
"Alert all personnel!" Matt bolted upright. The radar array worker's voice brought the PA to life "A lone bogie has just been spotted in the second quadrant, moving away to the northeast. Believed Invid; turn all protoculture radiation off--repeat, turn all protoculture radiation off!"
"What?" Ulm said, not very intelligently. There was a sudden gasp from the comm worker, and she whirled back to the set, opening a channel.
The voice that screamed at them in sick terror was unmistakably Gwen's.
"Goddammit, Base One, are you readin' me? This is Rutherford down at Base Two! We were attacked by a Marauder--it got Pierson! Are you--"
There was a crash from behind him; the initial shock was so much it took a second for Ulm to turn and see the cause.
First Scout O'Shea was standing there, hand loosened, mouth open, azure eyes wide and blank with shock and beginning devastation. The remains of his glass was in shards on the floor and splattered all over his boots.
He had done precisely the same thing in late 2039: while he had been washing the dishes, the ham radio had suddenly crackled, "There was a reported sighting of a Shock Trooper..."
In a detached way, Matt was grateful that the glass had not cut Kevin's hands this time.
They stared at each other in the face of the tragedy, one unspoken phrase passing between them.
She's made her move.
oooooooooooooooooooo
"...We can't just let her get tortured to death!" Shiroikiku angrily insisted, her face red with repressed emotion. "What kind of people would we be?" Frustrated, she brought both fists down on the table with a hollow boom, startling all the core leaders there. His own face tight, Malcolm rested his hands on her shoulders in comfort.
Matt stared at the table, his face white under his stubble. He did not raise his eyes. His voice sounded as though it were being dragged from him. "Corporal Doi--from a rational standpoint, she's--one person. The Elms is forty-nine people. Endangering them, just for her sake..."
"If she's--interrogated into telling where we are, Matt, we're in deep shit all the same," Gerald Wilson pointed out, folding his thick arms over his chest as he leaned on Frederick's chair. Bohms, white around the nostrils, did not seem to notice.
"So there!" Doi shouted, bolting upright and jabbing a finger, her cheeks a good match for her hair dye. "We're fucked if we do and fucked if we don't. Personally, I'd rather get wasted trying to save Amanda rather than let her die before we buy it."
Ulm's logic warred with his heart at every word. "But, you see, if we move ASAP, we can save lives..."
"If we move ASAP, we're allowing her to die the same way every other damn Elm has." Matt winced visibly. "I thought we were better than the Invid in that respect."
God, Sherry, Matt thought, don't make this harder than it is for me.
He tried not to look down the table at the slumped, green-jacketed figure between the Altman siblings, or at the greenish tint in the red-haired woman's face. Gwen still had not stopped shaking ever since her blazing journey from Base Two twenty minutes ago, when the emergency meeting had convened. They were still at a standstill.
Privately, Ulm was proud at their loyalty, when it was not killing him.
Dennis spoke up from his end of the table, his voice crisp and his eyes worried. "It's too dangerous. We can't afford to risk any more personnel getting killed. Do you have any idea how well-guarded any hive they took her to will be? They have to know we might try to get her out."
Ulm was thinking precisely the same thing, for different reasons. From what Kevin had told him of Oryo'i, it was likely she had taken Pierson as a bait for the rest. Had she simply wanted to get out quietly with no notice, it was certainly in her power to do so.
He was certain Kevin was wishing he had never given those hints and influenced Matthew's decision.
I'm sorry, Kev. You don't know how sorry, as he watched the motionless scout.
And speaking of which, how had Gwen known precisely what direction the Invid was going with Amanda? That precison should have been going into her attempting to shoot the Invid mecha down.
Miranda and Fred seemed to be incapable of speaking; he from naked fury, she from an inner war as violent as his. Miranda, after all, was one of Amanda's oldest friends.
Zinnert sighed. "Let's put it to a vote. Aye means we send a party after, Nay means we spend our energy moving."
Seconding, Matt hoped privately for an illogical turn.
Stomach churning, Matt said, "Nay," turning his eyes from Kevin's look of betrayal..
"Nay," Zinnert said.
"Aye," Shiroikiku barked.
"Nay," Gerald said reluctantly. Spitting out his decision, Fred managed, "Aye."
Malcolm: "Nay." He dropped his eyes from Sherry's.
Gwen: "Aye." She stared straight ahead, reddened eyes fixed.
Kevin startled, his eyes lost. "Aye," he whispered.
Only Miranda was left to break the deadlock. Swallowing repeatedly, she looked around the table, in the back of her mind playing that unnerving coincidence with Florence.
Her voice barely audible: "Nay."
Kevin jerked, his eyes horrified. "Miranda--"
"Don't tell me!" she barked. Her composure broke, and tears trickled down her ashen cheeks. "I know, Kevin, I know."
"Why? Dammit, Miranda, why??"
"God, Kevin, I care about her as much as you do. But--but--God help me--they're right."
His voice a croak, Matt said. "Four aye, five nay. Tell the others to start moving procedures."
oooooooooooooooooooo
Maybe it would help if I went and killed myself now, Kevin thought abstractedly as the rest began to file out. He certainly felt dead already. As though they belonged to another creature, he watched his limp hands loosely interlocked down between his knees. A walking corpse, that's what I am. A living lie living in order to fight another lie.
It was bad as it was, trembling with fear everytime he thought he had drawn his own blood in public, compounded by the crushing weight of six years of facade. But now...he could not conceive of life without...
"O'Shea, I'm sorry." The second commander's shadow eclipsed the flourescent lights. "I know you were her friend."
"Is that supposed to make me feel better, Dennis?" Kevin asked in a monotone. "Go away, that might help. I'm half-inclined to give it a shot anyway."
"Kevin, there's no logical way we can get inside an Invid hive, get her, and get out alive without dragging the hive's forces after us. We would endanger the entire group for the sake of one person. We don't even know which hive she was taken to."
"Make a guess," Kevin snapped, some expression returning to the dead voice. "There was a process of elimination the last I knew."
Zinnert ignored his obvious lead into making Dennis state that the nearest one in that direction was a satellite hive near the major one at the old city of Lafayette. It was a fifty-fifty guess where Amanda was being held--if she were still alive, that was.
"Look, O'Shea, she was a soldier, as are you, as am I--"
"You speak like she were already dead, " Kevin said thickly. Dennis did not answer save for the smallest of flinches when the scout met his eyes, but the phrase was clear: she may as well be dead.
Dennis continued again. "Kevin--" The scout's bleak eyes blinked when the CO used his first name, "she knew the risks when she signed on."
Kevin managed to pull himself out of the nauseating swirl of memories that came up with that statement, with remembering it was his own covert intervention and training for Mandy that allowed her to join, allowed her to be in this situation. Through the crushing guilt, he snarled, life truly coming back, "Dennis, she was stripped of everything she had loved by the Invid, marched like an animal, and forced to run like prey. She didn't have a single goddamned alternative left. You have the nerve to call that a choice? My God! And you think she didn't know the risks of not signing on?"
Dennis winced visibly this time. "Touche, Kevin. It's just that I've--you've been doing this so long--" He awkwardly trailed off, noticing no reaction.
"And you sure as hell have seemed to forget quite a few others haven't. It ain't the same war the Elms drew up the charter for, Dennis Zinnert, and I ought to know."
Dennis sighed. "Yes, you're right. It isn't the same war. It's gotten a lot uglier, a lot filthier, and a lot more desperate. We need every person we can get, Kevin. Trying to rescue her would end up killing more people. I can't tell you how sorry I am, but that's the cost of this war."
In retrospect, this statement was exactly the wrong thing for Dennis to say.
"THE COST OF THIS WAR?!!" Kevin roared in his face as the black and purple stars faded from Dennis' vision. The scout slammed the lieutenant's shoulders back onto the ground as he kneeled on Zinnert's chest. "The cost of this war?" In a distant way, Dennis noted Kevin's eyes were so dilated with the sudden surge that had knocked him down that only the thinnest of rims circled the pupil.
Suddenly, Dennis was yanked by the collar of his uniform, staring into O'Shea's maddened features. The scout's voice came in a gutteral hiss.
"Let me tell you, Dennis, you haven't the slightest idea of what those costs are. You've been so damned busy for six and a half years playing savior to the planet that you don't even know the people you're saving.
"The costs of this war was a nice guy I tried to discuss Talmudic literature and history with--remember Evan Blume? He liked canned peaches and poached eggs. There's your cost. The cost of this was a woman driven crazy by Flower spores and dying like a dog in an Invid slave farm, leaving a little girl orphaned. The cost of this war was Henrietta Dalby, whose only mistake was to stumble a little too close to a hidden Attack Scout. I don't remember too much of her, but I know she liked potted flowers, especially petunias. And the cost of this war was the systematic destruction of an entire town for slave labor and making parents watch as Enforcers shot their little girls and boys down--because they were inconvenient, Zinnert. You're always blabbing on what the Regent did to the population of Karbarra, can't you see this? Let's not get into Raymond Thieu--if he hadn't come along, we wouldn't have a Shadow Alpha now, would we?"
"I think I once read something about some Russian dicatator saying one death was a tragedy and a million a statistic. Well, looks like he was right in your case."
"Kevin--" Dennis hazarded. Kevin wasn't listening, the repressed frustration of years spilling out.
"You idiot REF white knights with your idiot idea that this all is a big game of Battleship--oh yeah, that's another game Blume liked--and your bloody going on and on and on about saving the entire Local Group from the Big Bad Bugs, especially while your own race and your birth world is writhing in pain from several alien invasions--at least you can go and separate yourself from the conflict and pat yourself on the back once you're done. These people can't! They have to live with the results, and then have you come in and claim victory for them--it wasn't you that did it! You don't have a stake in this war outside your own life, Zinnert." He no longer knew why he was shouting at the terrified Lieutenant, except that perhaps he could expunge, somehow, the feeling of culpability. "The cost of this war isn't in numbers, buster, and it's shortly going to include someone who is a pretty decent shot and who likes weeds and botany. Okay, you can rant the nine yards about the costs of fucking war, Second Lieutenant Zinnert, but don't go asking ME to save your ass when it comes time, because I'll already be dead, thanks to your counting
costs."
Abruptly, Kevin was on his feet, not quite running, not quite walking out the door, trying to outrun--something.
Zinnert lay back on the floor, gasping, his co-charter's raging countenace imprinted on his retinas and his words in his heart. Instead of calling out on assault, he simply lay there.
"And then they came for me, and there was nobody left to speak out," he murmured bleakly.
oooooooooooooooooooo
Malcolm was following Sherry's rigid back, futilely trying to gain her attention, when Dennis wandered by, his eyes dazed and his usually impeccable uniform wrinkled with deep creases, as though the front had been grabbed in a fist.
"Dennis?" Malcolm asked, momentarily shocked out of his own depression.
"Never mind," Zinnert muttered. Malcolm frowned, and miserably tried to think of what he needed to pack--and if Sherry would ever speak to him again.
oooooooooooooooooooo
The landing bay boomed, then rang with echoes as the jets cut out and the tons-heavy Battloid thudded to the ground. The pilot watched as the Enforcers began to move toward her to begin service to the mecha.
She did one last maneuver: the mecha marched over to a nearby pedestal-like growth, and carefully set the limp form in one hand down onto it. Then she herself opened the hatch and made the Gamun dip, lightly jumping down as the mecha straightened. Raking a hand through ghost-pale hair--she had not felt the armor was necessary for a recon operation, plus it was uncomfortable for her--she walked over and looked down, studying her prize.
Still breathing. Good. She had kept the human out of the worst of the wind of her passage and cut back on speed, and although unconscious, the female was still very much alive and stood to be functional. Oryo'i nodded to herself, then removed the helmet that had protected the human in flight.
As always, Oryo'i continued to be slightly surprised by how much the humans resembled herself. True, it was intentional on the Invid's part, but even several Terran orbits after the fact it was a shock.
Yes, this was certainly the one that had fired on her back at the farm. With a hand, she peeled back an eyelid. The same color of eye, the same pigmentation speckling, the same color of hair, the same scar on the cheek (how had she gotten that?).
Oryo'i smiled.
At last--I ought to have done something to please him. This human should be a valuable tool in finding out at least one human group's locale for elimination--particularly the one that's caused me this recent trouble. However--I should obscure to my lord how I came to know this fact...
She sighed and shrugged, unconsciouly human in her gesture. Even if he does find out the raid, this should make up for it.
Another sigh, then she steeled herself. Patching herself to the hive's Brain, she sent her thoughts out over the miles...
Contact was instantaneous, and irritable.
YOU again! What stupidity are you contacting me on now?
Yes, I, lord. But I hardly think what I am disturbing you on is trifling. You might find this of interest...
She let down her mind, allowing him to probe into her memories and conclusions, quivering slightly with the loss of privacy as she did so. Shkud was not gentle.
For a time, images flickered in her skull, with her as spectator, as Shkud searched. There was a quick, hot spurt of irritation as he found the raid, but she paid no notice, for she was too busy shielding her feelings about him from his regard... Then, a series of mental grunts and mutters as he reacted to the information.
And then, amazingly enough, acquisence, and the beginnings of real pleasure and expectation from her superior's mind. He immediately shut it off, but the quality of it made her shiver. It had been the same satisfaction he had gotten from her demotion, multiplied a thousand times.
Almost, she pitied the human for what was to come. But--for the first time in months, it was not directed at Oryo'i herself. In place of contempt, there was a grudging appreciation.
There was a lengthy mental silence as he appeared to think it over. She had almost thought he'd disconnected, before his thought broke into her mind again.
He actually seemed thoughtful.
Do not kill the human, Oryo'i. Not yet. I--have an interest--in questioning her myself. My own particular skills ought to make it more successful. I will arrive in a while to interrogate her. Until then, hold her in the lower levels for keeping.
Shkud coming here personally? Usually, she came to him, not the other way around.
She wondered. Again, she was getting the impression that there were things he was hiding from her.
But your place, Solugi, is not to know MY thoughts on the subject, but to do what I ask of you. Do you understand? he asked sweetly. She started, not having heard him monitor her, and feeling his pleasure in frightening her, even now. I will be there after night falls. Make sure she is conscious by then.
With that, he broke the connection.
He had not commended her. It was too much to ask, what with hiding the raid from him, and her completely uncondoned searching. And Shkud was what he was.
But things were certainly looking up.
"Place her in the holding pen on the second floor," Oryo'i said to the two Malar that arrived then and prepared to lift the human's limp body. Then she left to attend to her own needs, a suspicious lightening of her mood helping her through her weariness.
oooooooooooooooooooo
Night cloaked Base One with early gloom, doubled now that in fear of being found, they had shut off all unnecessary power, including lighting. The only glow was a halogen lamp flickering along the tiles, breaking the sullenness of the December darkness as the watch surveyed the area..
In the barracks, next to Miranda's bed, a small bundle was on another, smaller bed, with incongruously cheerful pink flowers and butterflies on the spread. The rest of the beds in the room were unoccupied, as their owners were busy helping with the nocturnal moving effort, but in this one, there was a huddle of blankets against the deepening chill.
In it, tear-tracks reddening her face, Florence Henderson had drifed off to an uneasy slumber,
There was a snuffle from underneath the bed, then something pale and fuzzy bounced up, and managed onto the bed. It snuffled around for a minute, inspecting the child's face, then curled up in the hollow of her body.
Florence did not notice, caught in the deepening darkness of her consciousness, the oily tendrils of nightmare beginning to reach for her almost instantly. Behind it lurked the unimaginable horrors only a child's mind could experience in a year's bondage, amplified by the events of the day.
And as almost always happened, just as they touched her, they were brusquely shoved away. Whimpering with relief, the little girl reached for who she knew would be there. Even in her dreams, the arms around her felt warm and real.
"I'm so glad you're here!" she gulped, and hung on, her dream body shivering.
"Aw, Florrie, do you think I wouldn't?" her savior said, picking her up into a solid-feeling lap. "I don't do that."
"But--"
There was a snort. "That time I was being chased by a bunch of bad guys and had to get away, honey. You know."
"But--" The other grew silent, catching the chaos of the child's mood. The shining hair swept down to curtain her face and Florence.
Florence had decided weeks ago that her night-friend was an angel, even without the wings. Maybe she could do something.
"Manda got taken by the monsters!" she wailed suddenly, and began to cry again. Her friend went stiff, then tightened her hold on her girl. "She needs help, bad!"
"What?" The angel's face dropped down to look into the girl's eyes. "Are you sure?"
Sniffling, Florence said so. A decidedly unangelic look was clouding her companion's face. Finally, she said: "Tell me what you know, Florrie."
Incoherently, Florence did so, until the other pieced it together. By the time Florence was done, the woman holding her was subvocalizing words that would have earned her automatic ejection from the heavenly realm.
"You gotta help her!" Florence said again, her blue eyes desperate.
Slowly, the other nodded. Of course she would, Florence thought, a glimmer of hope lifting her spirits. She was an angel after all, wasn't she?
"I have to see what I can do, Florrie. But don't worry, I'll help you. I swear it. Now do you know where you are?"
Nodding solemnly, Florence told her.
In the conscious world, the pollinator yawned deeply, then began to make whistling snores.
oooooooooooooooooooo
O'Shea hadn't been completely right. There had been people that influenced his decision to be here, Dennis thought. He managed to navigate a pothole the size of a tub, then continued his path south, the equipment in his carrier rattling slightly.
For example, there had been this girl, back on Tirol...
Funny how a few years of fighting dimmed some memories and sharpened others.
Now that he remembered about her...
He had been crazy about her. Even though she worked in the med division and he was in the regular army, he'd used every pass he could to see her. The two months he'd gone out with her had been the happiest of his life thus far. She'd had long, golden-brown hair he loved to run his fingers though...
Then she dumped him for some high-class jock with fifty or so Invid kills.
When he tried to ask her why the one time he'd cornered her, she'd hawed and eventually come out with a excuse of "we're not compatible," that sounded a lot like "he wasn't exciting enough."
What else is new? Zinnert thought.
The last he'd heard of her, she and her new beau were squabbling in a high-priced Tiresia resturaunt. The same day, despondent, he had signed up on the Jupiter Division's final push to Reflex Point.
He swerved around another pothole, aiming for the oppressive holed dome he felt more than saw against the gut of a sky that promised acid-cold snow.
If only he could be other than what he was, Dennis thought, perhaps the pain might go away. But he was what he was: not overly handsome, very much deliberate, and all too correct. So correct, in fact, that people tended over him toward the charming ones, the handsome ones, the companionable ones; while he relied on his rules to ease the hollowness inside.
Maybe a little incorrectness would get Dennis, if not love or respect, at least a good epitaph, and maybe the absolution of the guilt that had overcome him after the scalding words O'Shea had spoken earlier that day.
He passed the checkpoint, ID'd himself in, and began to walk through the tunnels of the ruined arena toward the center, and toward the entranceway to the stage area.
Nobody stopped him, the only person present being the guard at the entranceway. The rest, as Zinnert knew, were in the middle of moving preparations even in the wee hours of the morning. They could not risk the possibilitiy of the Invid's finding their location.
Finally, he reached the entranceway he wanted, wheeling his Cyclone through.
The Alpha loomed above him in gerwalk, its configuration allowing for VTOL manuvers through the gaping hole in the west side of the massive concrete dome. The mecha blended in with the darkness even when Zinnert turned on the halogen lantern, its black coloration, like that of the first Shadow designs, making it hard to see. Apparently some smart-aleck genius on Tirol had made his own peculiar homage to the original Shadow Alphas in the design scheme.
Zinnert stared at it a bit, trying not to let his thoughts get the better of him, then began to unload his Cyclone.
It was about twenty minutes before he was done; but at last, he had made all adequate preparations. He tried to get his Battler in the cargo space and already found a Ferret there. He was miffed, but then realized somebody had decided to do their own fitting of the mecha. And, after all, the Ferret was in its way much better suited for what he was thinking.
Shrugging, he climbed up into the front cockpit of the Alpha, seated, and lowered the canopy. It boomed shut, and he sighed.
"What took ya so long?" a voice drawled from behind him.
Zinnert went ballistic.
oooooooooooooooooooo
The first thing she was aware of was the hum; the second was that the floor felt warm for being a floor.
Groggily, she moved a hand, and winced halfheartedly. Her hand, and now that she thought about it, entire body felt as though someone had tried to flay it with a dull butter knife. This ignored the fact that in addition her ribcage hurt with every intake of breath she made. It was probably that which had woken her up.
There was an annoying actinic light off to her left, and aching, she turned her face away. Who was the idiot who'd turned on the flourescents this time of the morning? And why was she on the floor to begin with?
And especially, who had left the vegetable stores out to compost?
Cringing, blinking crusted eyes, she looked up.
The lights off to her left were a retina-aching blue-white series of lines in a rather attractive chessboard pattern, with squares about a foot wide in diameter. On her right was a darkness she took to be a niche or wall. Beyond the luminary chessboard, there was more darkness. She could not tell for certain; as brilliant as the light-grid was, it shed suprisingly little light and only seemed to increase shadows. The floor underneath her hands was, as she had noticed, warm and oddly pliable.
Somebody certainly decorated the place, she thought detachedly. Sherry probably had a field day when I was knocked out after guard duty.
Whimpering, she painfully got her legs underneath her and sat up, raking the tangled mess of her hair out of her eyes. Time to get it trimmed again, she thought. Sore and shaky, she pivoted her head around, looking for a familiar landmark.
She'd been in CVR the last she knew, hadn't she? Why wasn't there any on...
The last dregs of her unconsciousness dribbling away, she began to truly see and remember.
Softly, coldly, the reality settled over her like a blanket of lead, and she began to whimper in helpless fear. Oh, she remembered that smell, out of the haunts of her nightmares, and in daydreams best not described.
She was in the belly of the beast.