by Greg Dragon
“There are six men with rifles,” Odam said. “They are wicked men. Killers. They will not stop if we don’t fight them.”
Cilas signaled for Raileo to cross to the other side. Then when he saw that Odam wasn’t moving, he jabbed his finger to the west, where several boulders formed an ideal hiding place. The teen made to argue but checked himself after Cilas stomped his foot. When he ran off, the lieutenant motioned to Quentin and Helga, and the pair joined him near the edge of the cliff.
There they each reached inside of their packs and pulled out their chosen weapons. Helga grabbed her pistol, a heavy hitting piece, one that she had been awarded for her action on the moon of Dyn. It was her favorite weapon, black with her initials engraved on the barrel, not to mention it had the most comfortable grip.
Quentin and Cilas both grabbed knives, and Helga saw Raileo duck down behind some bushes. Helga tucked the pistol in the small of her back and squatted down to play in the water.
There was a sound behind them as their pursuers finally emerged, and a short Meluvian walked up to them, followed by several armed men. They were all dressed in black, and Helga recognized their pants since they were the same kind she wore.
They would have come from the supplies Wolf had stolen, and there was a very good chance that this man knew who they were. The short man said something in a language that Helga couldn’t understand. Then he looked around curiously and repeated the phrase.
Helga and Quentin exchanged glances, then shrugged at him helplessly to show that they couldn’t understand. The short man spat, wiped the sweat off his brow, and then forced a smile on his face. Tilting his head as if he knew their secret, he grabbed a taller man’s shoulder and shoved him forward into the water.
“Who you and why you here?” the man said to them.
“We’re on vacation, hiking,” Helga said, smiling. “Looking to experience the Ru’oi Isles.”
“All you need is ask, I show you round, pretty lady,” he said, and Helga struggled against the urge to twist her lips into a sneer. The short man shouted something at him, and the smile fell from his face. “Boss says you don’t look like vacationers, pretty lady. Says give him your backpack so he see.”
This was Cilas’s cue, and he sprang into action. Grabbing the leader in one swift move, he pulled him back into the stream. He held the man in front of him with one arm around his throat, and the other held the knife up with the blade near his face.
“Tell them to stand down or your leader loses an eye,” Cilas said. The translator said something but none of the men moved.
“He’s telling them to shoot you,” called Odam from somewhere in the back, and a bullet rang out, missing him by mere centimeters. Cilas, now livid, shoved the leader back to his men, but he followed the shove with a long step forwards, cutting his throat as he spun into them. Chaos ensued, and Helga dropped to a split, squeezing off several shots, instantly killing one of the men.
Cilas was still going, burying the knife into the bicep of a hairy giant. He dropped to a knee, then swiped the blade across another man’s leg, severing the cords, which caused him to topple, screaming out his death with a bloodcurdling wail.
As the last three made to retaliate, Raileo put a round in one of their heads before making a pincushion out of another. The rocky area was expansive, but there were dead bodies everywhere. In a move to escape, the last man tripped, and Quentin was on him like an angry mountain lion.
He slammed his knife home with a deadly flash of black and within seconds it was over, and Helga balked at what they had done. If Odam, who was not yet a man, had any innocence left in his heart, this massacre at the waterfall would be enough to snuff it out.
“Well, that could have gone smoother,” Quentin said, as he lifted one of the bodies and walked it to the edge. “Water burial or something else, Lieutenant?” he said.
“People drink this water and live off it,” Cilas said. “Let’s take them to that clearing. We’ll dig a shallow pit and burn them.”
9
Very little was said after the bodies were dumped and the fire reduced them to ashes. Anyone who visited the cliff would see the dark blood stains on the rocks, smell the sickening scent of the bodies being burned, and know that something horrible had happened.
The Nighthawks quickened their pace to get out of the area, cutting through high bushes and pushing past another cliff complete with rushing water. Raileo, remembering his first fall, had changed into his boots and even he was quiet as he marched behind Helga.
“Ma’am,” he said so that only she could hear him. She turned around slightly so that he knew that she heard. “Ma’am, did you feel like schtill after your first kill in the field?”
The question came from a place of pain, and Helga recognized the guilt he was feeling. He had shot two men, not Geralos, but men, and as she fought against her own guilt, she couldn’t imagine what he was going through in that instance.
“My first kill was a lizard, and it wasn’t guilt I felt, but elation. Those Kuans we killed, they came to rob us and take our lives, Lei. If we hadn’t acted, then it would be the four of us in that grave … maybe five, since the kid revealed himself. It was self-defense, Nighthawk, rest easy.”
“I know that, ma’am, but it’s really eating at me something fierce.”
Helga turned on him. “Listen. You are on this team, so you’re one of us now. This is why you did BLAST, and this is why you’re out here. If you thought that being an ESO was all about shiny armor and fast chiern from grunts, then you were wrong. It’s all about the suck. That guilt you feel, it’s just another challenge, and I need you to go at it the way you stepped up and shot those two thypes. You performed admirably back there, no hesitation, and you did what needed to be done. That’s why the lieutenant chose you, and that’s why you’re here, but don’t go thinking it gets easier. They built this team to have us do some thyped up things.”
With that she jogged back to Quentin with the young man close behind. She hoped that he would focus on her compliment since nothing she said could help him with the guilt. Killing was different with everybody and Cilas had told her that it was a coin-toss when it came to newbies in the field.
Raileo Lei was a fighter, and this was evidenced by his quickness to shoot, but was his heart too tender for the job? Could he live through the things that Nighthawks witnessed on every mission? Time would tell, but she hoped that he was strong. They had already lost Brise due to his inability to deal with the trauma.
Brise Sol was her friend, and he too would act whenever the rest of them needed him, but he was passionate and sensitive, and it had eaten him up in the end. She wondered where he was now, hoping the answer wasn’t a hub. Maybe he joined a mercenary unit, she thought, and is aiding the war effort elsewhere.
It would be a shame for all that training to be wasted on a civilian life inside of a hub. Brise was a brilliant engineer, and was decent in a gunfight. She missed his off-color humor and the little chats they would have.
“Is the pup okay?” Quentin said, as they passed the shores of a river rushing loudly along.
“Having to kill people who aren’t the Geralos is proving to be complicated for him,” Helga said. “Oh, and watch the pup stuff. I’m younger than you think.”
“Reputation will always override your age, young Ate. Lei is untested, so he’s just a pup.”
“He’ll be alright with time, I hope. Just needs to find a way to live with himself,” she said. “As you know, that’s its own journey unless you’re a psychopath that enjoys this schtill. It took me months and it still bothers me. Even now I can’t stand silence because of the thoughts inside my head. Guess I haven’t overcome my schtill, but I challenge anyone to go through what we went through and come out any better than I did. The lieutenant though, he’s a block of ice. This is business as usual to someone like him. To be honest with you, I know that Cilas has a heart, so it’s a mystery for me as to how he does this.�
��
Odam stopped them at the edge of the river where a waterfall splashed down from a wall of rocks bordered by the trees. It was beautifully serene, with no other people about, and the pounding drone of the water was a welcoming massage on Helga’s mind. “We’ve walked for four hours, so this is a good time to rest,” the young man said. “We have another two hours before we reach the beach.”
Removing the backpack and peeling off her boots and socks, Helga waded into the water, which was pleasantly cold. It was a hot day and she was soaked with sweat and blood, so she looked back at the three men and saw that they too were removing their clothes.
It still made her anxious to be the sole woman in a company of men, especially one as powerful as the relative stranger, Quentin Tutt. He reminded her of one of the Nighthawks that had died back on Dyn, a big man by the name of Cage Hem. Tutt, like Cage was a quick giant who was as wise as he was vicious, and this made her a bit intimidated of him.
As a target for all sorts of boys in the cadet academy, Helga had grown to be wary of men. If not for Cilas, she would have stayed on the rocks, watching them swim with her finger near the trigger of her pistol. But Cilas was not just a man, he was so much more. She could call him a brother, but her feelings went way beyond that.
He represented a mixture of male figures in her life: brother, father, guardian, and if she was being honest, her biggest crush. Her feelings for him were complicated, but above it all, she was confident that he would give his life to keep her safe. It was his presence that made her comfortable in stripping down to her underclothes. She folded them neatly on a rock and then waded out into the dark, icy pool.
Odam was already in there, scaling the rocks to show off the skills he’d earned living near the water. Cilas and Quentin came in after her and followed Odam up the rocky wall. “Boys,” Helga teased, laughing and shaking her head. “How embarrassing of a report would it be if I have to tell Captain Sho that one of our men died trying to impress me by climbing up a waterfall?”
Cilas answered by doing a somersault off the rocks and making a thunderous splash into the pool. Odam made an attempt to follow him but landed awkwardly on his back. His splash was louder, but it had to be painful, evidenced by the length of time he stayed underwater.
Laughter from behind caused Helga to turn around, alarmed, but she saw that it was Raileo who was on watch, standing guard on the shore. She was pleased to see him laughing after being so distraught over killing those men. He had seemed different, more reflective, and she wondered if he’d ever be the same goof that slept as they dropped on Meluvia.
As a boomer, there was rarely a time when you could find a body of natural water to submerge in. Some ranks used their leave, having stacked up enough credits to make a trip planet-side. They would spend a week on a resort, swim in pools and the ocean if there was one nearby. But for younger Marines and Naval officers, it would take a decade of service to save.
Here she was, at eighteen years of age, swimming in the natural river of an island on Meluvia. It was a priceless luxury for a graduate of the cadet academy. As an ESO she was experiencing something that most of the higher rates could only dream of. Thinking about this made her dip her head below the water, trying her best to soak up every bit of this great experience.
After ten minutes of this and playing water games with the three men, she walked out onto the shore and gestured towards Raileo Lei. She’d caught him staring at her body when he thought she wasn’t looking, and now he was acting as if she wasn’t right in front of him.
“Get yourself wet, Lei. It’s an experience you won’t forget,” she said. The young man nodded quickly and stripped his clothes off, almost falling over from moving too fast. Helga removed her bloody clothes from the rocks and took them to the river. There she soaked and washed them as best she could then lay them out to dry.
When she finally got dressed, she put on camouflage pants and pulled on an olive-colored tank top instead of her standard BDU blouse. She leaned back against the rocks with her pistol in her hand. The suns felt amazing against her skin, toasting her face, shoulders, and arms. Watching the water, she took in the men. This was them at their most relaxed, and she found it interesting and strangely compelling.
Odam’s age was deceiving. She had assumed he was a teen but now she wondered if she had him wrong. He was handsome and obviously strong, but there was a gentle grace to his movement. He looked like a boy playing with men, since the Alliance trio had the bodies that came with ESO training.
Cilas, ever the introvert, swam off by himself to enjoy the water in his own private way. His body was—No, she thought. What are you doing, Nighthawk? He is your leader and mate to your best friend. A noise came from her left and she stood up suddenly, seeing a strange husk on the rocks for the first time.
It appeared to be the discarded shell of something long and segmented, like a giant centipede, but that didn’t make any sense. Whatever it was, it gave her a start, and this was when she remembered that she was on an alien planet whose fauna she barely knew.
“Hey, you all should get out now,” she called, trying not to alarm them, but wary that whatever it was lived inside of the river.
Only Cilas seemed to be hearing her, as the three men were engaged in a wrestling match, trying to dunk one another beneath the water. As he asked her to repeat herself, Helga felt a burning on her wrist and saw that something had latched onto her.
It looked like bone, the same color and texture, but it was a long, segmented worm-like creature with most of its length still hidden in the bush. Helga tried to pull her arm away, but it had looped around her wrist in such a way that she couldn’t move.
The thing felt strong, as if it was anchored on something inside of that bush, and Helga dared not touch it with her other hand. She felt her consciousness waning, as if circulation had suddenly been cut off from her brain. She tried to speak, but couldn’t move, paralyzed by the creature’s venom. The only thought that came as she considered her helplessness was how sad it would be to die here, after everything she’d survived.
Loud splashes came to her ears as the three men came out of the water. Odam, who had sprinted ahead of them, shouted for her to stay still and focus on breathing. Raileo, who brought up the rear, made a beeline for his pack on the rocks.
He grabbed his pistol, knelt and aimed, shot an accurate blast that sliced the creature in two. Black bile exploded everywhere, and Helga collapsed into Odam’s arms. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I would have said something if I knew they were here.”
“Is she alright? What was that thing?” Cilas said, as he knelt next to her and examined her arm. His face looked pained. He really does care, she thought, happy that he was there, touching her arm and being genuinely concerned.
“Brovila, a parasite … they can get as big as a man’s arm and long, very long. The lady got near one of the nests, that’s why it attacked her the way it did. We need to move. There will be more. When we return, I will let the village know so that no one else gets hurt. These things, these brovilas, they are normally not this close to the water. I swim this river all the time and I have never seen one here.”
“How do we get rid of it?” Cilas said.
“We could use fire, but you would need to seek out where the nest is first.”
“Hey, I’m alright,” Helga said, finally sitting up. “Thype. That thing came out of nowh—” She was struck speechless when Odam leaned down and place his lips on her arm where the brovila had apparently bit her. He sucked at the wound and then spat out the blood, which reflected a greenish color when it hit the rocks. Several times he sucked and spat, until he was satisfied that the poison was out.
“You will feel sick, but your body will fight it,” he explained. “Do any of you have any medicine?”
“Here,” Quentin said, bending down to treat and bandage her wound. She hadn’t seen him collect his pack of supplies. There were chunks of time missing, but she saw t
hem all fully dressed, with looks of concern on their faces. She hated this feeling, this helplessness that came with places where there was so much unknown. She thought she knew Meluvia, but these islands hadn’t been covered in her studies in the academy.
When Quentin was finished, she gripped his shoulder and squeezed, then walked over to her pack and hoisted it on to her back. “Well, I think that’s enough fun for one day, what do you all say?”
“I say we’re doubling up on guard duty in these thyping woods,” Cilas said. “Between the bandits and the wildlife, we’re going to get ourselves killed.”
“Nice shooting by the way, Lei,” Helga said, wiping the sweat from her brow. “That was what? Like fifteen meters on a target no bigger than my thumb?”
“Thanks ma’am, but I just reacted,” he said, rubbing bashfully at his head. He would not meet her eyes, no matter how hard he tried, and she wondered if he was still embarrassed at her catching him staring.
“No more breaks,” Cilas said. “No offense, Odam, but I don’t want to spend another day on this island.”
The young man laughed and walked into the bushes, where he found a stick and brought it out. “Come up here, lady,” he said to Helga. “I need to watch you in case I didn’t get all of the poison out. I know the signs, so stay with me, okay? This will be a very long day for you, I’m afraid, so take this stick to help your balance.”
“What other symptoms can I expect?” she said, speeding up to fall in on his flank.
“Labored breathing, the sweats, and you may throw up a couple of times. If you start to see spots, you let me know. It means that your body is working too hard. Are you a Casanian?”
“No, half, on my mother’s side,” she said, impressed that he knew what a Casanian was. “Does that mean that it won’t be as bad?”
“Your other half is Meluvian?” he said, stopping to face her on the trail.
“No, human. Human and Casanian.”
“Then I’m afraid it will be worse since you don’t have our blood.”