The Naldím did not just die. Ethan watched with surprise and disgust as, at the point of impact, they began to burn, their skin slowly sizzling into nothingness. They writhed in pain, screaming horribly, as their skin disappeared and their organs began to dissolve. After a horribly long moment, there was nothing left but a mass of charred skeletons.
“Holy shit,” Mason breathed. The sound of a weapon being charged behind him startled him back into the reality of his own peril. Ethan turned to find himself looking down the barrel of a Naldím rifle.
“Drop weapons,” one of them snarled. Ethan looked to Mason for instruction, but it was Rebecca who took charge.
“Do as he says,” she whispered. She slowly removed her pistol from its holster and placed it next to her rifle on the ground, keeping eye contact with the Naldím the entire time. Ethan imitated her, his own eyes trained on the gun pointed at his head. Having seen what the weapons had just done to the other Naldím, he was not keen on giving his captors a reason to use it on him.
As soon as the last weapon touched the ground, two Naldím moved forward to bind them and haul them to their feet.
“Tleth, shli’esy,” the alien grunted, shoving Ethan forward. He began to walk, following behind the first Naldím but making sure to stay as close as possible to Rebecca. He had a feeling that if any of them were to get the group out of this, it would be her.
*
There was no daring escape or sudden heroics by Rebecca -- or any of them -- as they trudged through the forest, being picked clean of their possessions by the Naldím as they went.
Some of the Naldím seemed curious about the humans and their gear, eyeing them and fiddling with their stolen technology, while the leader and those closest to him were clearly repulsed by their existence.
Ethan watched the Naldím with similar interest. The harnesses he had noticed before were, he reasoned, bionic enhancements, which explained how the hunting party was able to keep up with the Cobra while on foot. Along with the harness, each Naldím also wore a wrist-mounted device that extended to, and latched onto, their palms. At times, those aliens holding weapons would lock the handles of their guns into the device, and it would begin to hum. Ethan assumed it was some sort of charging mechanism.
Ethan glanced at his compatriots, finding each of them reacting uniquely to their sudden captivity. Mason was steely-eyed, focused very intently on the ground in front of him. He was uncharacteristically hard to read. Rebecca, meanwhile, was conspicuously searching for an escape route. Ethan felt obliged to do the same, but his general ignorance of marine combat maneuvers made him quite certain that he would not be the one who spotted an opportunity. He decided, instead, to keep an eye on Rebecca in case she made a move.
Kyle was silent as well. Ford was the only one actively struggling, purposefully tripping into the Naldím, spitting at them, and slinging curses with the fluency of a sailor. Ethan found the Naldím remarkably long-suffering toward the old cowboy despite their utter hatred of him and his kind. It made Ethan wonder what use they had for the squad that prevented them from executing them on the spot.
The Naldím stopped the procession after an hour of forced marching. They seemed not at all fatigued, and immediately set about making a camp. Ethan noted they were very careful to avoid disrupting the nature around them. Whether it was strategic or out of reverence, Ethan did not know. But he felt a fleeting respect for them. Then he remembered what utter lack of mercy they had shown the paler Naldím, and lost all decent human feelings for them.
Ethan and Omicron squad were tied to stakes in the middle of the campsite, the Naldím that spoke Common set to guard them. The alien eyed each of them in turn, occasionally snorting or making an odd buzzing noise. It was Ford who first decided to talk back at him.
“Are you having a fit or something?” he asked, after the third time the Naldím buzzed at him.
The alien cocked his head. “I revel in your frailty,” he expounded in a throaty voice. He stood and walked around to Kyle, jabbing a finger at him. “This one is fit as a warrior, at least as much as humans can be. But you, shli’esy – you are old. My parents’ parents are less aged than you, and have already been sent to the pits.”
“You’re not really the family type, huh?” Ford said, a hint of malice tainting his sarcasm. The Naldím stared at him blankly, prompting an explanation. “You hate your parents,” he over-enunciated, as if speaking to a child particularly hard of hearing.
The Naldím ignored the slight. “They serve a higher purpose in the pits than they would elsewhere,” he said mildly.
“I’ll just go ahead and take your word for it, then,” Ford said. “I’m not about to have a philosophical debate with a walking freak show.”
The Naldím stared at him for a second more, then buzzed again. After a moment of silence, Mason chose to speak.
“How do you know Imperial Common?” he asked. The Naldím hesitated before answering, as thrown off by Mason’s conversational tone as Ethan was.
“We have been watching you for longer than you know, van’va. We have watched and we have learned.”
“But why do you bother? You don’t seem to like us too much.”
“Because for every detail we learn about your kind, we understand you better. To know your language is to know your nature.”
Mason cocked an eyebrow. “And what do you know?”
The Naldím looked him dead in the eye, buzzing slightly again. “That you are a pox upon this galaxy. A horde of vermin to be put down. And we are the exterminators.”
The Master
“We have five Humans in captivity. They were being hunted by the Others, and both fell into our trap. One of the Others’ own Masters was killed.”
“Have its head brought to me. It deserves a place in our hall.”
“And the Humans?”
“Keep one alive for questioning – the one with the weakest will. Kill the rest.”
A gut-wrenching noise, halfway between a scream and the Naldím’s annoying buzz, yanked Ethan out of a fitful sleep. He jumped into consciousness, the bindings on his wrists chaffing painfully.
“What’s going on?” he slurred, blinking rapidly. Ford’s blurry figure next to him nodded towards a cluster of Naldím. Crowded as they were, it was difficult to make out what they were watching, but it seemed that several of them were fighting some hulking mass. It slowly dawned on Ethan that the gargantuan beast was a Naldím like the large one they had seen in the cave. For a moment he thought they were working to bring him down as they had with the other, but the more he watched, the less the struggle looked like a fight, and more like a dance.
It was graceful and flawless; the large one moved with lightning speed and fluidity, but for all his strength, he didn’t look intent on injuring his opponents. Furthermore, Ethan came to recognize the sound that woke him as the Naldím cheering, and soon after noticed one of them beating a stick against a nearby tree in a steady beat.
“They’re dancing,” Rebecca explained from behind, just as Ethan came to the same conclusion. “Or, rather, they’re performing a choreographed fight.”
“Why?” Ford asked. He wasn’t nearly as mesmerized as Ethan was by the show.
“Entertainment?” Rebecca guessed.
“The ancient Japanese did the same thing,” Kyle put in from behind. Ethan turned to see him stretching, barely able to view the action. “Well, it wasn’t quite so brutal.” Ethan looked back at the dance, where the large Naldím had just hurled one of his attackers into a tree. The victim acted unfazed, however, and charged back into the fray.
“What the hell’s a Japanese?” Ford grunted.
“From Earth,” Kyle said. “They were the ones who made my sword.”
“The sword you never use? These guys look like they enjoy getting all close and personal, Yosh. Why don’t you try it out on them?”
Kyle wrestled with his cuffs. “Free us and I’ll gladly do so.”
“About that – does an
yone have a plan?” Ford looked hopefully at Rebecca first, then to Mason. “Mason, you got anything? Sarge.”
“He’s asleep,” Kyle snapped. “One of the guards beat him pretty bad last night.”
“What’d they do that for?” Ethan wondered.
“Because they wanted to,” Kyle commented plainly. They settled into silence, the comment making them realize with finality just how hopeless their situation was.
After another hour of fighting, the Naldím dispersed, the heat of the fight instantly dissipating. Ethan watched the lead Naldím closely, waiting for him to approach and condemn them, but it was the large one that chose to speak to them today.
He lumbered over to them, his head scraping the branches above. When he reached them, he stood in silence, staring them down and making a daunting impression on his captives. The noise of his approach woke Mason, who sidled as far as he could around to face his enemy.
The Naldím slowly looked at each one of them in turn. Finally, he addressed Rebecca. “You,” he hissed, his voice impossibly low and gravelly, “You are not… right. What are you?”
“Rebecca Winters, corporal, GI-five-oh-oh-seven-three,” she stated. Ford sniggered in the background.
“What are you?” the Naldím repeated.
“Don’t antagonize him. They already hate our guts,” Mason whispered through gritted teeth.
“Can’t make it much worse, then,” Rebecca shot back. “I’m an Imperial Marine. I’m a human, and was born on the Belt in twenty-three-fifteen,” she said in answer to the monster.
“N’vovank shli’esy,” the Naldím grunted irritably. He whipped around to Ethan, pointing an accusing finger. “You come with me,” he spat. Reaching a massive claw behind Ethan’s back, he undid the bindings and hauled Ethan to his feet.
Mason struggled with his own cuffs. “No, take me! Leave him alone!” he shouted. “I’m the sergeant! You want to kill someone, kill someone important.”
“Nice,” Ford jested, although he, too, was now trying to break free. Mason shot a vicious look at him.
The Naldím watched them wriggle helplessly, buzzing like his colleagues. “Yes,” he said finally, “this one will live. The rest of you will die.” He threw a look at a cluster of Naldím hunters nearby. They approached, and at his signal, raised their weapons at Omicron squad.
A sudden, guttural roar announced the presence of a Cobra that came tearing out of the brush, crashing through the firing squad and leaving them flattened. The rear gunner opened fire on the large Naldím. He dropped Ethan and took the full force of the attack with ease. Before he could retaliate, however, another Cobra shot into the clearing, hitting him head-on and sandwiching him between its grill and a massive tree.
Six more Cobras darted into the fray, coming from every direction and killing without mercy. An oversized squad of marines approached from above, falling out of the trees and opening fire in every direction.
Ethan scrambled away from the recovering monster, grabbing a Naldím rifle as it fell and taking aim. He fired, but the beast shrugged off the blow.
“Walker!” Ford barked from behind. Ethan whipped around to see another Naldím advancing toward the prisoners. Ethan lobbed a shrieking energy bolt at him, this time doing damage. The enemy shrieked in horrid pain, melting away as the cave-dwelling Naldím had done under a similar torrent of fire. Suddenly feeling extremely sick, Ethan dropped the gun and moved to free Omicron.
There was only time to free Rebecca before the monstrous Naldím was on them again. Ethan fell to the side, scrambling to unshackle his friends, and Rebecca took charge of the fight, nimbly darting around the Naldím and grabbing the gun Ethan had dropped in his haste. She fired shot after shot, narrowly missing his head, and those that landed seemed to have little effect beyond aggravating the giant.
By the time Rebecca considered her endeavor pointless, the rest of Omicron squad was free. They grabbed weapons from wherever they could and immediately turned to target the monstrosity.
The Naldím paused, halfway through a motion to attack, and looked around. His comrades had been scattered. It was eerily silent now. Those few Naldím who had survived the massacre had disappeared into the darkness, and the Cobras had shot off in pursuit. Now there was only the monster, facing down the barrels of four of his own weapons.
“Your call, hotshot,” Ford growled at the Naldím. The beast narrowed his eyes back at him.
“This force was but an inkling of the vast armies to come,” he snarled, razor teeth quivering with anger inside his gills. “This unhallowed martyrdom will not go unpunished.”
“Thanks for the warning, mister thesaurus,” Mason chuckled mirthlessly. He nodded at the Naldím, and addressed the squad. “Waste him.”
Before they could fire, the beast barreled forward, slamming Mason and Ford against the surrounding trees as he plowed through. He was gone before anyone could take the shot.
“Damn,” Mason breathed, rubbing his ribs as he recovered from the attack.
“Yeah, would’ve made a helluva trophy,” Ford agreed.
“We’re not going to catch him now,” Rebecca put in. “We need to get back to the ship.”
The rumble of Cobras returned to the clearing, and a moment later the squad was loaded onto a medical trailer. Ethan was surprised to see Captain Rhodes waiting for them inside.
“Glad to see you all made it out in one piece,” the captain said. He motioned to a row of cots bolted to the floor of the trailer. “Take a seat.” As they took their positions, a burly field medic entered the vehicle to examine them and the convoy began to move.
The doctor attended to Mason first, his bleeding head the most visible injury. “Tell me what hurts, guys,” he said, his focus flitting between Mason’s wound and the more trivial injuries scattered across the rest of the squad.
“Sergeant Steele has a broken rib – fifth, on the right – and Walker has a concussion. All four are most likely dehydrated,” Rebecca stated. “I’m fine,” she added, pushing the medic away when he attempted to examine a gash across her hand. He looked rather unsurprised.
“You marines. Stubborn ‘till you die.” He shot a steroid into Mason’s neck and turned to the captain. “They’ll be fine, but we’ll need to run them through the med bay when we get back.”
Rhodes nodded, and the medic set about packing his supplies. “You’ll be officially debriefed when we’re back at the ship,” Rhodes said, directing himself toward the squad, “but while it’s still fresh, is there anything terribly important you might want to mention?”
“There are other Naldím on the planet,” Rebecca said. “More primitive. Cave dwellers. The Naldím from the ship hunt them for sport.”
“So these locals are in the same boat as us,” Rhodes observed. He paused, brow furrowed. “Is there any chance of allying with them?”
“I doubt it. They’re Tier Three intelligence at most.”
“And they tried to kill us,” Ford added.
“Do you have anything else?” Rhodes continued. His gaze panned across the line of marines. “Anything helps.”
“They have leg harnesses of some sort,” Ethan put in. “I clocked them at about fifty kph.”
“Their guns are designed to torture the target,” Kyle added.
Ethan nodded in agreement. “The only thing we saw that could stop a shot was the big one.”
“Big one?” Rhodes asked, perking up.
“A mutant,” Rebecca answered. “He’s their leader, and from what I can tell, they worship him like a demigod. If we kill him, it could lower their morale significantly.”
“Then that’s our primary objective,” Rhodes said simply. He stood and checked the window. They were nearly at the ship. “You five will get a rest period to heal up, but after that, I want you back in the field. If we want to draw this leader into a position where we can kill him, we’re going to have to play along for now.”
Ethan looked up at him, surprised. “With all due respect, sir,
won’t that result in a lot of casualties?”
Rhodes looked grim. “Dozens. But it’ll be far less than what we’ll sustain if we just sit on our asses until they come for us.”
Ethan reluctantly lapsed into silence. With that declaration from the captain, the situation had suddenly taken a depressing turn for the worse. Ethan had served under Rhodes for almost three years, and never had he known the captain to endanger any lives if he could help it. Things had to be far worse than anyone had suspected for Rhodes to consider such extreme measures.
As they disembarked from the trailer, Ethan saw Rebecca discretely pull the captain aside. He hung back, out of sight but just able to hear them.
“I need a double-oh-four,” Rebecca said, dropping her voice low and completely ignoring protocol. Ethan waited for the captain to reprimand her, but his answer failed to deliver.
“Do what you need to, but keep in on the sub-levels,” he said with a heavy sigh.
“I’d give it a month to reach the nest.”
“Don’t assume we have that long. I was serious about not sitting on our asses.”
“I know. It’ll get done.”
There were footsteps, cuing the end of their conversation, and Ethan darted away, quickly rejoining the rest of Omicron squad at the elevator. Rebecca caught up a moment later.
“Sorry,” she said absently, “had to get a bruise looked at.” The squad accepted her excuse, but Ethan kept a close eye on her as they entered the ship, wondering what a double-oh-four could possibly be.
The Range
“I would avoid the Master’s chambers. He is still reeling from his defeat.”
“No. He is plotting. I spoke with him moments ago. This victory for the Humans only strengthens his resolve, as it does mine, and as it should yours.”
Voyager Dawn Page 7