- The screaming started before the rifle's report came back from the far edge of the clearing ㅡ an undulating howl from one then two then four dozen bony blue chests standing in the rain.
From every direction, Mechanized Infantrymen stalked out of the jungle's edge in fireteams of three and four, weapons at the ready but pointed at no native combatant in particular. The infantry fired no more warning shots for the Jenecio villagers, who until then had been armed for hacking away at the hungry jungle's encroach. Corporal Justin Bailey pushed his team forward, into the natives.
"Drop the kutt-kutts! Hands up! Drop the kutt-kutts!" Cpl. Bailey said, amplifying his voice through his exoskeleton's external speakers. A psychic emitter broadcasted ersatz emotional commands to go along with the audible Galactic Standard pidgin. At intervals around the village, other fireteams in the platoon were doing the same, but the hairless man-children gripped tightly their stone hand-axes and carbon-fiber machetes even as they joined in the synchronous wail.
Bailey checked his heads up display to see if any emotional cascading was being broadcast back at the infantry. Unmanned gyros skittered in esoteric patterns within high fog, keeping redundant watch on the activities below.
Sergeant Burl Joone ordered Bailey's fireteam to ignore the infantish males as a threat and continue into the village on the hill. Bailey acknowledged the order, and brought his three infantrymen into his command channel.
"Leave 'em: onward and upward we go," Cpl. Bailey said. Two of his privates reacted immediately, but the newest addition to the platoon Bailey had to grab physically and shove to get moving. "Come on Private Marquez, you stupid shit."
Those in full powered-exoskeletons like the corporal took gigantic strides directly over the burning ditch encircling the base of the hill. Infantry in partial suits, like the rest of Cpl. Bailey's team, had to douse sections with retardant gel before they crossed.
On opposite sides of hill base, an earthen embankment provided a path over the flaming trench separating the Mechanized Infantry from its hill-village target. Specialists in partial suits sprinted across these, then raced up the muddy, bare terraces of the Jenecio settlement, past the stilted huts drying freshly dead plant matter, and toward the inhabited structures.
More blue males appeared farther up the muddy hill, coming out of small doorways dug almost invisibly into the earth itself. Working their way up as pairs alternating odds and evens, the partial-suited infantry forced the males to the sloppy soil at gunpoint, tying their wrists together behind them with himpy thermoplastic binds. The slow but steady, better armed and armored full exoskeletons made up the difference shortly and passed their swifter brethren on the ascent. Only at the very crest of the hill did any significant structures mark the village, and Cpl. Bailey aimed his team for the most ornate of the complex, decorated with spiral columns of painted skulls on every side. He took it for a temple.
He didn't need to go inside to complete the primary objective. The local Matriarch waited at the hill top, flanked by eight female-transitioning hermaphrodites and three smaller completed females nearby. The triad were adorned with horns that seemed typical of past village leaders Bailey had seen, but this largest, uber-Matriarch's antlered headdress far exceeded any he'd yet seen, branching into uncountable points. If he looked too closely, they seemed to be ever-growing in detail at the tips. He tried not to look too closely.
She had no firearm or cutting tool, and no place to hide one. She was naked except for the antlered headdress, two ceremonial claws on her left hand, and twisting black tattoos that weren't especially intricate, but ㅡ like the horn tips ㅡ seemed to move upon her skin the more you looked at them. Upon replay of the visual recording, the effect could be revealed as no more than an optical or more likely psychic illusion, but in the moment it was as real as reality could be.
Justin was less than 20 barefoot paces away from the ad hoc delegation awaiting him, and that about 50 paces from the temple, but he wasn't authorized to initiate diplomatic contact. He kept his team well behind him, making two available to the adjacent squad leader. Sergeant Joone arrived at the hilltop with a pair of fireteams shortly.
Joone brought himself within 10 paces of the group. The uber Matriarch was a giant, but even her antlers didn't reach any higher than the chestpiece of a full Federation exoskeleton.
"Ladies," Joone said through the comms channel as well as audibly. "We appreciate you extending your hospitality to us on this beautiful day. This will all go a bit quicker and kindlier, though, if you'd have a chat with your malelings and get them to hush."
Female Jenecio had no concept of external language, but Joone seemed to have a knack for communicating his public thoughts clearly enough. He also hadn't yet suffered a sudden bout of epilepsy from any of his interactions, and there wasn't much more one could ask of a noncommissioned diplomat in times like these.
"WHY | IS | HE | COME," one of the smaller females said. Or seemed to. With the exception of the largest Matriarch, all of their mouths had been moving, but the words hadn't arrived in Justin's head in sync with any of their lips.
"That's a question above my pay grade, mam," Joone said, tapping his right shoulder armor with two gauntleted fingers of his left hand. "But my first lieutenant is going be up this way presently to answer your questions, and I guarantee if you can't get your folk quieted by time he steps his boot up here, we're going to have to try our own selves. And our way isn't likely to be as subtle or pleasant as I imagine yours is."
They didn't respond aloud, but something of a conference seemed to take place, and again with the exception of the largest Matriarch, they began to sing. Each did three or four notes at once as they sung a few bars, and the self-harmony was repeated by hermaphroditic echoists. The closest males facedown in mud took up the song next, and on down till finally by those on the far side of the fire pit who'd been engaged in hacking to maintain the clearing. In unison, they stopped.
"Thank you, ladies," Sgt. Joone said. He relayed the information to his staff sergeant, who was back with the first lieutenant and a reserve squad. The staff sergeant gave Joone updated instructions. "Now, to make things a bit simpler and help us be less antsy, we also request that you help us get all of your men-folk up here and gathered in that temple. Do you think that's manageable?"
One of the smaller females pointed her clawed finger at Joone. At the same time, the many-horned Matriarch subtly adjusted her posture to be better aligned with Justin, and he thought he could feel her milky-gray stare physically probing through his armor and into his face. Sgt. Joone noticed something, too, but Justin sent a "No Worries" in his direction to be passed up and down chain of command.
Joone pointed a mechanical finger toward the sky.
"Ladies, with all respect due to you that my mind can comprehend, you'll want to keep this chat of ours civil, before and while my lieutenant gets here to parley," Joone said. "Those drones aren't as receptive to your wiles as my corporal and I are. And I'd surely hate for anyone to misinterpret a misfortunate aneurysm on my part as malice on yours."
The buzzing in Justin's sinuses receded.
THE | CHILD | IS | TAKEN | TO | SAFETY, said all-and-one of the three smaller Jenecio females.
The rain had turned into a downpour, but otherwise the march up the terraced hill proceeded without difficulty. The Mechanized Infantry platoon watched to make certain none of the emaciated, loin-clothed males made any attempt to slip away or reacquire their dropped weapons. But free or shackled, each and all tramped to the top of the settlement and into the largest structure. As they passed close by the macabre columns, Justin realized the skulls were all of a size at least as large as the three fully grown females present. Until now, he'd never seen more than two grown females together at the same time. He tried to estimate the number of generations thus involved in its construction and failed. It was not the sort of mystery worth pondering now.
Sgt. Joone's face appeared in Justin's heads up display. The edge of a scar running from the left side of Joone's chin was visible in the comms image. It ran down to his hip, but even in jest, no one ever made fun of his discolored torso. All veterans knew what he'd done to lose it, and what it had taken for him to rejoin his comrades.
"First Lieutenant Dalime is on his way to the apex. In your esteemed diplomatic opinion, corporal, is he going to be safe, or right fucked?" Joone asked.
"There was a weirdness in my head earlier, sir, but once you nudged their mem'ry of the drones, I stopped cascading," Justin reported. "I think you, or even I, could relay the lieutenant's designs on this here shithole adequately. But if he is solid sold on doin it hisself…"
"He is, corporal. Keep your eye on the horniest one. If you feel any sort of cascade start again, put her down quick, and beyond that we'll have to hope we don't get reduced to mere reptilian functions up top."
"Sir, yes sir."
"And I know you can talk nearly right, but goddamned Bailey if I don't prefer when you get all folksy on us."
"Yassir. I ain't mean no offendin," Justin said, and gave the unofficial HUD wink in place of an official salute.
"There it is," Joone said, returning the wink. "Eyes and ears, corporal."
Even with the rain coming down steadily, the fire trench was well-made and had plenty of fuel under it. Twenty minutes after the start of the raid, the clearing outside of the village was appreciably smaller than it had been, but in places where adventurous vines tried to traverse the flames, there was only burning.
First Lt. Rory Dalime ascended, preceded by three of his support staff. He had shifted out of tactical camouflage into the colors of official Federation blue with silver shrikes inset. As he joined the platoon now arranged around the hillcrest, his exoskeleton loomed over the next largest as much as the Matriarch did over her kin.
"Greetings, Matriarch," Dalime said, ignoring the other three mature females as he took a knee toward the largest. "We apologize for our intrusion today, but we have something very important to talk to you about."
With Dalime present, the platoon had its telepathic barriers fully engaged. Dalime relayed her statement to all of his officers, and they to their subordinates.
THEY | APPROACH | SPEAKING | FALSE
"The truth is that there has been an unusual amount of Space Pirate activity near your village. That along with the abundance of martial adults here," he added, acknowledging the other females and hermaphrodites with a gesture, "is reason to make us uneasy just now."
WE | GO | BE | WITH | OUR | CHILD
The largest Matriarch made no movement but the others peeled away smoothly to join the malelings inside the skull temple. Dalime sent a quick text order for everyone to hold their fire. Right outside the temple, two full exoskeletons stood facing the entrance with another four partial suits nearby. Checking the squad's visual recording feed, Justin saw most of the village's population lay within their field of view inside the building.
WHAT | ARE | PIRATE | TO | WE, the Matriarch asked.
"Pirates are genocidal butchers," Justin heard Dalime say, through Sgt. Joone's comms channel. "Somewhere nearby, we know they have an underground hub. They've been using it to resupply and attack our forward operating bases, but so far, none of your villages. That won't last forever."
It was possible this response had been scrubbed and edited for re-transmit, but Justin assumed the slight delay was purely technical.
WHAT | ARE | WE | TO | PIRATE
"No matter what their promises now, one day they'll be the death of you."
HERE | THEY | BRING | DEATH | TO | WE, she said, spreading her arms wide.
"The Federation is no threat to you so long as you're honest and have nothing to hide," Dalime said. "But if you continue to collude with pirates, now or in the future, we'll have to consider you the same as them."
WE | WILL | SAVE | WE
"The best way to save those you love is to trust and deal honestly with us. But if you continue to try to hide your entanglement with the Space Pirates," Dalime used his suit to make an exaggerated shrug, "collateral damage is unavoidable."
Justin began to notice a difference between what his visual was telling him in coordinates and what his eyes did. He tried to warn Dalime, Joone, even the gyros, but every time he did, it was like waking up from a dream, and in each higher waking, he was still standing dumbfounded, doing nothing, like everyone else.
WE | HAVE | SEEN | WHAT | IS | WILL | BE
The Matriarch was both standing where she had been and approaching Justin directly. He later learned everyone else on the hilltop had the experience of seeing her approach them as well.
WE | KNOW | THEY | DESPAIR
Justin knew that his heart should be pounding, that his sympathetic nervous system should be sympathetic to what was going on around him. But he was as happy and at peace as he'd ever been, and his only thoughts were that this would be the perfect place to die. Jenny and Samantha Bailey would be fine without him. They would be taken care of. His pension would do that. He'd be remembered fondly by everyone. He'd be a hero to them.
The Matriarch was close enough to touch him now but put her hand not just on his exoskeleton: she continued through it. Her fingers tickled the stubble on his face. He felt them caress his tongue, then she was inside him everywhere. The claws on her nails scraped at his spine, and he hoped he was dying, that this is how he might die.
Then her hand stopped, pulled back as if burned.
NO | NO
She was inside his helmet with him, and her face, once impassive, became a mask of misery. She wailed, mouth moving independently of the thoughts that struck his brain as cinderblocks rather than ideas.
NOT | THIS | THERE | STILL | IS | MORE | WHO | WILL | WHO | WHO
Justin's life flashed before his eyes, or rather, his perception of life flashed before hers. Every petty triumph and small conceit, every failure and embarrassment. He saw himself as she saw him, a mote among the whole cosmos across all time, notable not even in wretchedness. But there was a great fire coming to burn, and his shadow stood in the way to stop it.
MUST | WE | BE | LET | DIE | FOR | THE | ONE | WHO | SAVES | ALL
And then he realized he had control of all of his faculties once again, so he forced his right index finger toward the firing position, aimed his rifle, and pulled the trigger at the figure that still existed where she'd been standing the whole time, except turned facing him instead of Dalime. The result of his action put a small hole in the Matriarch's forehead, while leaving very little of the back of her head intact. She stayed upright, though, and her mouth continued to move for what seemed like several minutes afterward, filling Justin's brain with images and understanding stretching infinitely. But on the objective records of the mission, the whole incident ㅡ Dalime's silence to Justin's action ㅡ had taken less than five seconds.
Immediately after Justin blew out the back of her head, others in the vicinity were able to open fire as well, mutilating the Matriarch beyond recognition as a humanoid.
"I think we got our answer," Sgt. Burl Joone slurred, himself recovering unsteadily. He gave the order to his squad. "Waste those bitches in the hut, and right fucking now, gentlemen."
Justin had been included in this order, but he wasn't able to respond. He stood as he was, words and images bouncing around in his head and his own thoughts with them.
But for those who did respond, the skull temple was something out of a horrovid. Already, all the man-children were dead. The unfeeling recording from the Infantrymen's visual feed revealed the malelings had killed each other through mutual strangulation and then blunt force throughout the talk. The whole violent spectacle took place in full view of the Infantry guards, but they hadn't witnessed anything notable as it was happening in real time.
Justin continued to stare at the dead Matriarch, because everything and nothing made sense as an echo of the moment they'd shared. So he heard, but didn't react to, the eight transitioning females who held off the Infantrymen trying to gain entry to the temple. The three mature females escaped down into the hidden entrance of a tunnel within the hill. The transitioning females made one specialist catatonic and crippled a private from the waist down before being lit on fire from aerial bombardment and shot to death as they ran out of the flaming building.
Corporal Justin Bailey barely heard the explosions at the time, and he didn't notice at all that Pvt. Marquez had put out the fire near the tunnel entrance and pursuing the escaped Matriarchs down inside it. Technically, Marquez was still in the service of another fireteam and its corporal, but Bailey didn't do anything to try to restrain the kid. Why in the fuck he went all gung-ho, nobody ever figured out. Could have been making up for being too slow earlier, could have been combat rage from watching comrades go down right next to him, or he could have just been plain stupid. The report chalked it up to an effect of emotional cascading, but even idiot Infantrymen had to be recovered.
Joone shed his full exoskeleton for a partial one to lead the retrieval team underground. He took only volunteers to chase after three fully grown Matriarchs, each capable of taking an egg beater to all of their gray matter, as Joone made a point to remind them. Marquez's commanding corporal and a veteran specialist asked to be part of the unit and Joone added them to it, but held off on the last spot.
"You want in on this one, corporal?" Joone asked Bailey on a private channel. "He's still one of yours, after all."
"I think maybe I should go talk to my father about destiny," Justin said. He was still looking at the giant Matriach's corpse.
"Cpl. Bailey?"
"It's somethin' about birds and dragons. I saw it, and it made sense, but-"
"Bailey!"
Everything drained away, and Justin was himself again. He looked at the scar on Joone's face, and knew he'd have to sort out the most important thing that had happened in his life so far, but later.
"Sir, I'm still tryin shake the cobwebs off. I can take point. If anybody got to get blasted first, it ought to be the feller with the least goin' on upstairs, sir."
"Haw haw, fuck you, corporal," Joone said. "You're a mess. Stay as you are till a medic can get to you."
"Sgt. Joone's retrieval team is cancelled," 1st Lt. Dalime broke in on the general channel. Then just to Joone and Bailey. "Corporal, I want you to try to call Private Marquez yourself. If he doesn't acknowledge you in 30 seconds, we send in drones and seal the entrance tight."
"Sir, yes, sir," Bailey said. He was about to request an explanation for abandoning an Infantryman to the Jenecio, but then he saw what Marquez's video feed. It glowed green from the bioluminescence of a long vine growing along the ceiling. Further ahead, the small shadows of gangly, moving shapes blocked out the light where they intersected it briefly. There weren't any Matriarchs in sight.
"Private Marquez you stupid shit," Cpl. Bailey shouted via a direct channel. Bailey saw Marquez slow down, then stop.
"Sir?"
"Do you know where you are, private?" Bailey connected Joone in on his end.
"Sir, I'm in a tunnel pursuing the enemy, sir?"
"No, you're in a tunnel alone and you're gonna back up slow and steady till Sergeant Joone here tells you it's OK to turn around and run up top with as great a haste as you can manage. Do you get me, private?"
"I- sir, yes, sir."
Staff Sgt. Ersor and 1st Lt. Dalime jumped onto the channel with Bailey and Joone. They were all watching Marquez's feed wordlessly. He still didn't seem to realize where he was, and that was good. The Infantryman was steadily retreating back up the path.
A text message from Ersor appeared on Bailey's HUD.
/u did good getting his attn. in yr opinion, how wod he react to seeing what's actually down there in infrared for us?/
/this was his 1st combat XP. so poorly/ Bailey sent back. He was already using past tense for the private.
/we think we saw something on his earlier feed. if we're rite, we may not be able to wait till he comes out/
Bailey acknowledged he'd read the message, but didn't have anything more to offer.
/sgt joone has offered to make the final call, for obv reasons. but i want u to know, if marquez has any chance to survive, its bc of u/
On the feed, Marquez had just left behind him a long straightaway in the tunnel, and he started to go behind the curve.
"All right, private. Turn around and go ahead to start coming toward us fast," Joone said.
Marquez did start to turn, but before he gave his back to the tunnel fully, he seemed to get an idea on his own. He flipped on his infrared filter and gazed down the long path. His heart rate began to go wild, but the rest of him didn't move.
"Latrine duty, private!" Joone yelled at Marquez. "A month of digging latrines if you don't get your sorry ass up here by the time I count to 10."
Muscle memory moved Marquez into action at the threat, and he began to move in earnest back toward the surface.
Bailey couldn't focus on the current action. He rewound the infrared feed to watch the second and a half of footage: floor, walls, and ceiling teeming with a dozen species possessing no obvious purpose to their form but to culminate in fangs or talons or armor or spikes, as was common to the invasive Brinstar ecosystem. He stopped it on one frame in particular that showed behind them all was a bipedal humanoid with a serrated beak, glowing eyes, and a pair of giant pincers. And it was climbing up the tunnel.
That was when Justin knew Marquez would never make it to the surface alive.
"Three survey drones going under, and a combat drone under your direction, Sgt. Joone," Dalime said. "Final authority belongs to me alone. Is everyone clear on that?"
"Sir, yes, sir," those on the command channel answered not quite in unison.
Bailey visually saw the survey drones woosh down into the tunnel, then received the data from their progress as they navigated within it. They had no weapons, but were well-armored and quick. They found Marquez in less than 10 seconds and kept on deeper, avoiding the Brinstar lifeforms to try to get to locate any chambers in the Space Pirate tunnel system below. Cpl. Bailey saw they passed the Space Pirate on the way down. It was gaining on Marquez.
The combat drone was slower and less nimble than its cousins. But Pvt. Marquez scramble-climbed up the tunnel impressively and gasped when the combat drone went under his legs. Joone had said nothing yet. A combat drone had saved his life once. The platoon had pulled him out from a collapsed tunnel in the clutches of a pirate brood, and even after they got him clear, he'd cried and begged the Infantrymen to kill him. That was two years ago.
The Space Pirate appeared in the combat drone's cameras. The drone had limited options for a firefight underground but began to use them, backing up slowly to keep at a distance. An incendiary round did little to slow the pirate, but as one, the Brinstar lifeforms surged toward the source of danger and flames. A rail cannon blew chunks out of the pirate's hardened front carapace, but even carrying holes in its head, neck, and chest, the pirate proceeded. The drone sent a burst of bullets into the Space Pirate's left leg. It dropped but continued up on three limbs almost as quickly, and the swarm of creatures was just behind.
"I advise you blow the drone, sir," Sgt. Joone said.
Dalime said nothing, but the drone dumped its fuel into its weapon systems and detonated. The tunnel collapsed. The hilltop shook and Private Marquez's feed went dark.
"Marquez, you asshole," Cpl. Justin Bailey said, to no one at all.