The platoon remained in position atop Mud Humper Hill as best they could until they could be relieved, but the cascading effects from the psychic assault quickly degraded their fighting ability.
Dalime had already directed the medics to take care of the nonresponsive specialist and wounded private first, but after calling for engineers and ordering the sealed opening further secured, he succumbed to his own psychic hangover and his suit's poison-control functions were all that kept him from suffocating on his own vomit until the transport vehicle arrived.
Sergeant Joone and Staff Sgt. Ersor were able to direct the activities for a time after that, clearing away enough of the above-ground structures to support large craft landings, but they too had to be relieved when their orders became too contradictory and dreamlike.
It was well known that this lagging sickness tended to happen in antagonistic interactions with mature natives, and in general, symptoms went away completely after a few days to two weeks. But the attack by Matriarch Prime, as she became designated, had reached almost the entire platoon, rather than one or two. Only the medic officers and reserve combat units weren't feeling it in some fashion. Well, with one exception.
In fact, although he was the first one to resist the Matriarch Prime, Cpl. Justin Bailey also was the only Infantryman who'd been atop of Mud Humper Hill still unaffected by the physical hangover from the cascade assault.
Justin had no explanation for why this would be so, just as later, he had no explanation for his bureaucratic examiners regarding how he'd been able to resist the effects of the Matriarch Prime at all. It was simply what was, and thankfully, to the superiors in his chain of command, Cpl. Bailey's ability to take advantage of this reality where his platoon survived versus other possible outcomes where it did not was seen as a net positive in his favor. So there was talk of a medal.
As the senior-most person in his platoon left able to function, he was also responsible for being present as they started the mission to access the tunnel. It took about an hour for the company-sized relief force to arrive, and another two hours for the combat engineer unit to get to the site with their equipment, but once there, the sappers worked quickly.
Meanwhile, Justin was transported with the rest of Dalime's platoon to a staging base for rest and debriefing. As the sole Infantryman capable of reporting his subjective experience of hilltop confrontation, there was far more debriefing than rest allowed. Justin was able to lie down in a private dark room for sleep, but it felt like he'd just closed his eyes when a technician woke him to send him back to talk to the company commander.
Justin jumped back into his de-weaponized powered suit and trotted his equipment toward a fixed tent he never before thought he'd walk inside. The command center radiated authority and opportunity, but Cpl. Bailey would have avoided it entirely if it meant another few hours of uninterrupted sleep.
Within, in a partial suit colored with tactical camouflage, the company's captain stood, using a communication monocle instead of the helmet under his arm. The holographic projections of those noncommissioned officers physically at the briefing site did not follow his lead, and wore all of their full exoskeleton armor fully attached. But with them was someone in a partial exoskeleton of unconventional design, smoking from a pipe inserted in his helmet's ventilator system. The strange fellow bore no Galactic Federation insignia and his faceplate was completely covered with a grinning white Human skull that had a red flower with a black center over its left eye.
"Cpl. Bailey reporting, sir," Justin said, saluting his officer.
"Welcome back to it, Corporal," Capt. Destin said, returning the salute. He had a thin white mustache that was just as perfect as Justin had been led to believe. The captain looked Justin's suit up and down. "You didn't get enough soldiering for one day yet?"
"Ever'day in the Infantry is another day in paradise, sir," Justin said.
"Spoken like a true corporal," Destin said.
Justin laughed dutifully, as did everyone else on the channel. It wasn't clear if the one in the custom suit did, though. His HUD avatar gave his title as "Gld." and his name as Sekhon but showed a still image of the outside of his mask, rather than a live shot of his face.
"You hear that, space dandy?" Capt. Destin said. "The Corporal who killed the Matriarch Prime is here now."
Sekhon took the pipe away from his mask and white smoke poured out the ventilation exhaust, disappearing from the hologram just as it left the suit. His black and gray armor was entirely a custom job, nothing in common with standard Federation equipment or guidelines. The leg chassis had been cut short to below the hip, but it was extended around front to form a cage down to the knee. The spine portion did the same for the ribs and the arms had a cage to the elbow. His flexible underarmor was black, but the surface of the armor plates themselves were a mosaic of shifting black and gray dots, intermittently confusing the hologram recorder so that pieces of him winked in and out of the projection in Capt. Destin's tent. In a private message, Justin confirmed that unlike the Matriarch, this was a real effect, not psychic.
"Oh, we are so very delighted to hear that," Sekhon said, his voice also noisy somehow, garbled or full of static despite coming through clearly. "He's going under with the Happy Few then?"
Justin started to compose a message on the private channel with his superior, but Destin answered it ahead of time.
"Cpl. Bailey is here in an advisory role, only, Guildsman Sekhon," Destin said. "He has made personal contact with the Jenecio, including some of those that escaped. He is a valuable resource we're making available to your guild's needs as a courtesy.
"Ah. Thank you, but we were well-satisfied with his written report," Sekhon said, voice hissing. "I'm sorry you had to call up one of your brave Infantrymen just to waste his time."
"I was ordered to make the corporal available to you for a briefing, so that's what I'm going to do. You have 15 minutes to talk with him as you care to, and you are going to talk with him. Is that clear?"
"Of course, Captain," Sekhon crackled. "Will it bother you if I open a private channel with the corporal for his briefing? You'll certainly have more questions for him later, but we might speak more freely if it's off the record."
"I'm that imposing, huh?" Destin said, then on their own line he asked Justin, "Any objections?"
"Not if it pleases you, sir," Justin said. "But I don't rightly know much about how to talk to private contractors, sir."
"For the purposes of this mission, treat Guildsman Sekhon like a specialist squad leader. If you think the conversation is veering into anything untoward, you just patch me in, and I'll take care of you. Sound good?"
"Sir, yes, sir."
"All right. Guildsman: he's all yours."
As Destin began to question them about the excavation progress, the numerous little faces of the company's command disappeared on Cpl. Bailey's heads up display, replaced by the icon of a large skull and its flowery eye floating over the holographic projection of the matching mask of the bounty hunter. Justin ran a search on the icon to try to find out the meaning.
"You a colonist shit-kicker, huh?" Sekhon's voice asked, a bit less garbled than before.
"That's one of the nicer things I been called, yassir," Justin answered. "But I never have been especially inclined on that account to takin' any kinda shit off folks I don't know. Sir."
"Oh, don't worry bout sirrin' me. If I sounded like I was teasin' too rough, maybe it's just I'm too used to the assholes I keep quarters with. I'm from the boonies my own self, is why I'm given to ask you regarding that." Sekhon gave a static laughed. "Funny thing how you start tryin' to sound like yer from no place at all, then they place you, find you folksy, and you start to sound like a caricature for they sake. I can let the vocoder smooth out all my inflections when I'm makin' public speech, but I 'spose that ain't an option fer you, is it?"
"Could be. Is that wherefore you wanted conversate at me? Reminiscing bout the old country and how we funny talk and such?"
"Nah. Curiosity, more it," Sekhon said. "I seen all about how you put down one of them brain-funny ladies. Ever'body froze up till bang! bang! you shot her down. Gen-u-ine hero, I hear tell."
"Yeah. I did that. Ain't never been confused with somebody lucky, but I reckon it fits here."
"Ain't no luck to keepin' on keepin' on. One day the scissor sisters is gonna clip yer thread and that's that. Till then, you fated to keep livin' and breathin'." Justin gave the equivalent of a shrug for polite disagreement. Sekhon continued. "So, what took you off the farm, or ranch, or mineshaft to join up with our dear Federation's Infantry, riskin' and limb for strangers who don't want you?"
"Other than that gumment money, of course?"
"Course."
'I had a phobia I'd end up dyin' the same place I was squirted out onto. Rank cowardice drove me here, and I ain't felt afeared of it in some time."
Sekhon grunted. "You oughta reign in that wild optimism, corporal."
"What about you, dandy? How'd you get yerself out here?"
"What, you mean did I watch too many holovids 'bout bounty hunters, melt my brain and figure I oughta become one myself?"
"Holovids? Shee-it, you fancy. We was happy when we got to go into town and watch wallscreens. Naw, I meant how'd you get here. I don't get to pick where I go or why, but you couldn't pay me enough to go under there and chase claws with no more'n three for backup." Justin checked Sekhon's mission log. "Four trips into the tunnels already, back on Secura IV and a bug stomp on Lux Minor, too. You must be richer'n hell."
"Nah. I wouldn't 'xactly say my bank account is on the positive side of the real number line. But you do this sorta work and savings accounts and investments with 25-year yields ain't exactly the top consideration in yer worries."
"Livin' big, huh?"
"Only way to live. One pair-claw is about a month's wage for you, right?" Sekhon asked, counting on his fingers for effect. Justin nodded. "If I get 16 pair planetside here, that'll be just enough to cover my interest payment." Sekhon laughed again. "Debt collectors real badasses till they hear you is used to collecting space lice as trophies. Then they get all quiet and negotiable."
"If it's bad as you say, I don't get how you go down into them tunnels time after time."
"Well, I do a couple more and I can retire. Have this on yer resume, whoo-ee, and private security firms do come out the ass tryin' sign you up. Like they can smell the prestige of you. Pay off all yer debts, even. That the real bounty gettin hunted."
"But still," Justin pointed out, "you gotta make yerself go under twice more."
"Yeah. 'Course, there's a trick to helpin' it. As with ever'thing. You ever heard of sallright?"
"That shit you chew on or smoke when you bored?"
"No, that shit you needle up when you know you gonna die or be tortured to death." Sekhon tapped his helmet. "We gots little head bombs if'n we get captured by Pirates down below, but the Buggers know all about that. Pirates steal federals, see? Love to. Carry 'em underground for a snack. Disable the weapons system but leave the tracker on so you know where you need come down to find 'em. You wanna go under, pull out yer friend. Know you got to. That's why sometimes they even leave the comms system on. Whole time, they want you to hear it. Days and days it go on. Days and days. But they too deep. Can't do nothin' once they grabbed.
"We take the sallright fore we go in so we don't feel nothing at all fer a while," Sekhon continued. "If we can blow they head off for 'em, we do that when they snatched. But if not, we let the sallright keep 'em happy till they bleed out. No screams."
"Is that what the poppy flower for?" Justin said. "The one over yer eye on the facemask?"
"So they say on the Lattice, apparently. But I also hear tell the skull is 'cause ever'body happy in death or some shit, and here I always figured it was on account of our masks'd look a lot less imposing with the flower only."
Justin didn't laugh, but made sure his face acknowledged the joke.
"Don't think I ain't enjoyed tryin' outfolksy each other, but you are gonna' be going under soon, and you ain't yet asked me a thing about the Matriarchs you goin' after."
"I read your report. It don't make a lick of sense, but I read it and watched the viddies. Three scary mind-power ladies ran into a major artery of a Space Pirate tunnel more'n six hours ago. Corporal, I'd bet anything that if they ain't already dead, they been wishin' they was a long time now." A thought seemed to come to Sekhon. " 'Course, if you wanted to make it inarestin'..."
This time Justin did laugh. He checked what area the Mechanized Infantry had designated for Sekhon's guild. The Happy Few auxiliaries were indeed using the same staging base as Justin's regular company.
"There's only two kinds of days in the Infantry, and this'n was interestin' enough already. But I tell you what: if you in a state for drinkin' and don't mind takin' advantage of a poor ol' Mechanized Infantryman, I'll buy a round for you and yer folk if you find proof yer quarry is dead."
"Shit, the rest of them bastards didn't have to put up with talkin' to yer sorry ass. I come back up and have any clues 'bout them fugitives, you buy me the four rounds you was offerin."
"Sounds fair," Justin said, but already Sekhon had switched back to the command channel. Justin followed.
"Yes, the corporal was very helpful, sir," Sekhon was saying. "I'm ready to muster my squad if your engineers are ready to blow the last bit of the tunnel for us."
"That's fine, guildsman," Capt. Destin said. "I'll pass word to the sappers. Will you need a moment to yourselves before you go under?"
"That would be most kind, sir."
"As you would then."
Sekhon exited the eye of the holorecorder but invited Justin back to their private channel. He sought and received approval from the captain to join the bounty hunter there, but when Justin made the switch, there were three more flower skull icons waiting, along with an embedded flat-video feed offered to him. Justin hesitated but didn't ask permission this time before accepting. When he stretched the window larger to include more of his HUD's vision, wriggling vegetation filled the entire circumference except for three skull icons connected to fattening triangle graphics. It wasn't until the pipe entered at the bottom that Justin recognized the camera lens was connected to Sekhon's suit.
"Time marches on, and now so do you," Justin heard Sekhon say. "Move your asses."
"I do want to live forever though," one of the identical flowered skulls on Justin's HUD said, this one's voice stitched together by automation from multiple people and sentences. The bounty hunter connected to the voice sauntered out of jungle growth. He wore a layer of black underarmor stretched over the rest of his equipment so it was difficult where one piece started or finished. The name on the HUD said "Gld. Feric".
Feric reached the clearing and gestured to Sekhon to pass the smoking pipe over, but the pipe was sent the other way, to another flowered skull just arrived whose armor and exoskeleton struts were covered in brown feathers. Something about this one, identified as "Gld. Farrah", held Justin's attention, despite being no more gaudy than any others except that the helmet front was beak shaped.
"It's like ants in my lungs," Farrah said after a puff, transmitted voice that of a Human child, no older than 8. The gender was indistinguishable. "There's fire ants in my blood, you saucy bitch."
The remaining squad member, arriving last, had underarmor, fixed plates, and exoskeleton that all combined to form one pattern of red musculature. He was named "Gld. Plys". Other than their faceplates having skulls and a red flower over one eye, the four shared nothing in common in their powered armor's design.
"Only bitches be bitchin'," Sekhon said. "You all ready for me to make the proper call, then?"
"Aye," Feric said.
"Aye," Farrah said.
"Aye," Plys said.
Justin still said nothing. Sekhon momentarily left the private channel, and Justin followed.
"Do any volunteer to go below with us to the land of the dead?" Sekhon turned and his gray gauntlets spread out to envelop everyone nearby, engineers and regular infantry both. After a few seconds, he pointed the fingers straight at the ground. It looked like part of a routine performance. "So, it's just we Happy Few."
Sekhon came back to the private channel. The four flower skulls stood up and faced one another. They covered their faceplate's right eye with one hand, leaving only the red flower showing, then in tandem seemed to be jolted by something and subsequently relax.
"Is everyone Happy now?" Sekhon asked.
They all began giggling, separate modulations twisting their voices.
"Yes, yes, yes, yes," the bounty hunter in the muscle suit said. His voice was all from one person, but repurposed, and hopped in tone from syllable to syllable. "Farrah is happy, happy, happy."
"Then let's go," Sekhon said. He dropped down into the trench and began walking into the tunnel. The other three followed close behind, and after they went into the tunnel, the last engineers exited, carrying a spool of unspooling detonation wire up above the trench.
"See you on the other side corporal," Sekhon said, cutting the feed.
"We're ready, Boss man, oh we're ready, ooh," Sekhon said over the general channel, then chortled. Justin saw the captain give the OK to the engineers, and a moment after that, the ground shook from the tactical explosion, blowing the last bit of the way into the pirate tunnel.
"God I hate working with bounty hunters," Capt. Destin said over the command comms channel. Justin would have felt good about being considered worthy of inclusion if he hadn't been so relieved to be above ground.
A few hours later, Justin was in attendance as they all arrived back at the forward operating base. Or most of all of them did.
When the medic gyrocopter lander, the bounty hunters stepped off together, covered in dirt, soot, and brown gore. Plys and Feric, in their faux musculature and external underarmor powered suits, respectively, supported Farrah and his bird-inspired exoskeleton as he hopped steadily on one leg.
Farrah had lost his right leg at mid-thigh when they'd stumbled into some invasive fauna in a tertiary artery of the Space Pirate tunnel system. The overdone meat smell from the cauterizing job floated up into Justin's nose. He hadn't thought to have his ventilation system screen out battlefield surgery.
But the Happy Few were safe now, and broadcasting to the general channel again.
"Your trainer kept telling you to lose a few kigs," Plys said, helping to lift Farrah out of the trench to waiting medics, "and I bet you lost 10 right there!"
"No more diet for me! Hee hee!" Farrah laughed, sounding all of 5 years old. He wiggled his stub at the surgeons and descended into another laughing fit. "Ha ha ha, hee hee hee."
Sekhon came out last. He had a layer of grime like the rest but also had a mesh net slung at his side, filled with what he had promised was something interesting for military forensics.
On their own power, the other two intact bounty hunters climbed out of the trench to join the medics for examination. Sekhon went to talk to the captain.
"Sir," Sekhon said. His voice was still full of static, but it sounded tired now.
"Let the medics conduct your team's full debriefing in a moment, Guildsman, but go ahead and tell me about this thing you've found," Destin said.
Sekhon pulled the net off of his hip and opened the top. He reached in and pulled out a slimy, smelly object that he handed to Destin, then another of similar size and shape that he handed to Justin.
"We pulled these out of the lower digestive system of two of the toothy motherfuckers that took a nibble at Farrah," Sekhon said. "They're not human, that I know, but I'm no expert on Jenecio anatomy."
Destin handed the goopy skull in his hand back to Sekhon. The captain waited a good two seconds before wiping the residue on his leg. Justin looked closely at the skull offered to him, imagining that he could see the life of a villager who'd fled the Mechanized Infantry just ahead of bombardment, been scalded by the heat pouring down the tunnel, and in a weakened state, devoured days later. He handed it back as well.
"Sir, it looks right 'bout the size of one our missin' Matriarchs, sir," Justin said to the captain. "But I dunno how you'd prove it came from that hill, sir."
Destin ignored him.
"All right, very good Guildsman. You've earned your bounty for today. Get some rest."
"Sir."
Sekhon saluted but turned and left before Destin could return it. Over at the medic station, someone had thrown a black thermal blanket over Farrah's shoulders to reflect heat back into his body and offset the blood loss.
And with the cloak hiding his shoulders and body, and with the herky jerky manner of his walk, and especially with that bird aesthetic of his powered suit, the image injured Farrah caused something in Justin's head to click. Before he could mention this to anyone, or how light his torso felt, he was back on Kalon.
Everything was brown. It was dusty, the way Kalon had a tendency to be on any day ending in "y". Or no, Justin was dust, and could only see anything at all by striking it, feeling it. He was everything, every granule that ever was, and he knew all of Bieta at once. The city was moving; there were people and transports shuffling everywhere, even overhead.
Justin could feel it and feel the shape of the buildings he wandered in to, but also could feel the way he tasted in someone's mouth if they left it uncovered, and their worries and their purpose. It would all have been overwhelming if he hadn't been everything already, manifested in the dust in particulate.
More than anything that he felt he was and could feel, Justin felt the shapes of two figures sitting outside of the city's largest trading post, crouched and murmuring as they burned incense and watched the people and transports pass. They were cloaked and hooded but their faces had beaks and feathers, and they were in the dust as much as Justin. They did no begging and took no notice of the credits tossed to them as though they were. They had no use for the money. Their search was everything.
Justin felt the Human skin of someone he recalled from some place before, and as he tried to focus his attention on this person, he noticed that it was a boy of maybe nine holding the hand of an adult male of 25 or so. It was Justin's own father and grandfather, he realized. The dust their faces created an image similar to one Justin had seen so many times in his own childhood living room.
The boy and his father were walking to the general store but on the pavement across the street. They were going to negotiate some deal on their latest harvest. They expected to make a great deal of money. Nothing about this would have been at all noticeable, except that there was a glow, a resonance with these two. The two bird people stood up, cloaks billowing, and began to step awkwardly toward the boy and his father, ignoring all else.
Justin could see it, too, and know it, too, and he gave as little mind to the hurtling vehicles as the avian pair did. People shouted at the bird men to get out of the street, but they came straight on without slowing. Instead, as the autos approached the two cloaked figures, the metal and alloy creations slowed as if being submerged in an invisible liquid. The oversized front grill of one such vehicle seemed to tap ever so slightly against the leg of one bird man, but it crumpled back toward its axle.
The driver's body laid into the horn and stayed there. But soon enough, the sound died away. A crowd gathered around the vehicle, but the bird people kept moving until they were in front of the man and his boy. Justin's grandfather and father gaped at the crash, but didn't register the bird folk until the pair was directly in front of them.
"Is this the Savior?" the taller bird asked, looking at Justin's father. The other placed his hand on the top of the boy's head, closing his eyes before answering.
"No, not this one," the shorter one determined. "But his progeny will bring salvation."
The bird men turned away and walked into the dust but then were lost even to Justin.
"He's back," Justin heard with his own ears someone say. When he opened his own eyes, there was no dust anymore, no Bieta, just a blazing sky and a circle of helmets and faces crowded about him. Most of them were medical personnel because he was on his back, lying on muddy camp ground. Under him, he felt sprouts from numerous new-growth vines pushing into his body like tiny people trying to carry him away. What a long way from Kalon this was.
Captain Destin was among the monocle was still in, and his eyes darted to it periodically.
"How are you feeling, corporal?" Destin asked.
"There's a dragon comin, and the birds know it," someone said with Justin's mouth. "But they don't know when 'cause their brain won't tell."
"Corporal."
"The Mother didn't like her fate. That's why they came too early and too late." Justin thought of the top of the hill and the moment the Jenecio had recoiled. "That's what she saw and tried to tell me."
The crowd of faces stopped looking at him and began casting meaningful looks at one another. Nothing verbal passed for Justin's hearing until Destin leaned into his vision.
"Looks like the Matriarch's sickness caught you after all," Destin said. "But the good news is you'll be guarding a very soft bed for a while."
Justin blinked. The dream had faded again, and with it his understanding. The images stayed better this time. His father must have mentioned it once before, told the story in the depths of a deep drunk. Bird people in cloaks, a dust storm, a wreck that left the pedestrian unharmed. Destiny and being passed over.
He swallowed. His throat was suddenly very dry.
"Sir, yes, sir," Justin croaked. Destin turned and stalked off toward his command tent.
A senior medic tried to tell him to stay down to wait for his transportation, but Justin was able to convince them he could stand so long as he allowed himself to be supported by someone in case he suffered another spell. It wasn't until he was again upright that he noticed who had stepped in to take up the job: the armor was a blank, dull white, and instead of a helmet the face was covered with a balaclava that revealed only brown eyes, but the suit's chassis was the same.
"Sekhon?" Justin whispered as he waited for a wheely-bed to come retrieve him.
The bounty hunter chuckled.
"The way you fainted dead away makes a body think you ain't never seen a feller git they leg bit off." Without the suit's modifier, Sekhon's drawl was unmistakable, but though husky, it wasn't as deep as it had been. "My opinion a'you may have dropped a bit. Makes me wonder if'n you still good fer that drink."
Justin looked over at Sekhon in time to see the bounty hunter remove the balaclava to reveal a bare, round face and full pink lips to go with brown eyes that seemed more sparkling now.
"You're a lady," Cpl. Bailey said out loud as he realized it.
"What," Sekhon asked, shaking the sweat out of her nape-length black hair, "did you think the Federation could find men crazy enough to go into an underground Pirate base?"