“Go on, Walker. I don’t have all day,” he said gruffly.
“I asked the captain to approve a mission.”
“The one with the ferals.” Hadings nodded without looking up from the magazine. “He told me about it. I have to say I agree with him; it’s a damned stupid idea.”
“Sir, I don’t think-”
Hadings stood, instantly silencing Ethan. “I didn’t finish, Walker. It’s a damned stupid idea, but it’s also an idea.” He looked around the camp, his gaze coming to rest again on Ethan. “I’d say we’re all out of good ideas, so a stupid one might just be our last shot. Take two soldiers, and make one of them Winters. I want results by tomorrow.”
Slightly stunned by Hadings’ approval, Ethan took a moment to salute him before heading away in search of Mason.
*
Though hesitant, Mason eventually agreed to accompany them on their “stroll into the maw of death,” as he put it. Within the hour they were trekking into the forest. The brush closed in around them, and the hush of isolation fell over the group.
They journeyed for two hours before Mason decided to break the silence. “So. Been mulling it over, and I have a question for you, Rebecca.”
Ethan almost missed a step, his gut telling him exactly what the question was. Rebecca said nothing, but Mason wasn’t waiting for her permission to continue.
“You know that Wraith Ford was going on about? I think he was right.”
“Why would you think that?” Ethan said, trying to sound casual. He didn’t know exactly why he still worried about Rebecca’s secret; they had come far enough that it didn’t seem to matter anymore. Evidently, Rebecca was of a similar mind.
“Stop wondering, Sergeant,” she interrupted, torpedoing Ethan’s attempt to conceal her identity. “I’m the Wraith.”
Mason paused momentarily, letting the news sink in, then resumed his pace. “Thought so,” he said simply. “Take it you knew, Ethan?”
“Yeah. Sorry. Orders.” Ethan looked away from Mason. The sergeant was one of Ethan’s closest friends, and it had hurt him to keep the secret for so long. Nevertheless, a wave of relief washed over him now that the secret was out. Mason redirected his attention to the Wraith.
“So what are you here for?”
“Reconnaissance,” Rebecca answered vaguely.
“And you haven’t kicked the Naldím’s collective ass back into space by now because…” Mason prompted.
“Classified,” Rebecca said, “but we’re going to finish this. Soon.” Ethan chanced a glance in her direction. Their eyes locked. “The orders aren’t worth it anymore.” With that, Rebecca fell silent, quickening her stride until she had disappeared from view. Mason and Ethan watched her go, both pondering their own weary thoughts.
The Ferals
“The information aboard their ship is nothing remarkable. Most of it we already knew.”
“Transmit all of it. I don’t want to leave a single word unanalyzed.”
“Of course. The shields will be down for the duration of the transmission. I would recommend we occupy the Humans while it’s working.”
“There will be no need. The Humans are finished. They will barely last a moon’s turn in that forest. Nature is on our side here.”
They walked another three hours before the terrain began to look familiar, and another half hour before they reached the cave Waffle had originally led them to.
“Thirty-two heat signatures,” Rebecca whispered as the trio approached the cavernous mouth, donning their helmets in preparation to face the darkness.
From inside a mesh pouch on Ethan’s hip, Waffle chittered excitedly after having been silent the entire journey. Before Ethan could suppress the sudden doubt that overcame him, Waffle leapt from his pack and sprinted into the cavern. There was no time to waste; even with nightvision, they would lose Waffle in the network of tunnels in a matter of seconds. Ethan dashed after his charge, slinging his rifle over his shoulder and flipping to infrared on his helmet.
The small glowing shape that was Waffle’s infrared signature darted around the dim cave with frenzied haste, making squeaky calls into the void. Several other amorphous signatures passed in front of Ethan’s field of vision, but they were in and out of sight too quickly to indentify. So Ethan kept running.
After a long and winding chase, Waffle came to rest in a large domed cavern, the trio hot on his heels. There were no heat signatures other than theirs, but as Ethan flipped through his other vision modes, it dawned on him that the room was some sort of dumping ground. Hundreds of torn carcasses were strewn across the floor, blood dribbling into the depressed center where it pooled.
“Looks like a nexacor hive,” Mason whispered. His helmet captured the sound, denying it the opportunity to betray their position, but Ethan still fliched. The sudden comment did nothing to help his nerves. The sight of so many grizzled animal corpses made him realize how poorly prepared they were to face an onslaught of manic feral Naldím.
Something moved on the far side of the room, and Ethan caught a glimpse of heat emanating from the flesh-covered walls. “We should get out of here,” he said, his voice far smaller than expected.
“Yeah. No kidding,” Mason agreed. He kept his rifle up, backing towards the entrance.
“Wait,” Rebecca hissed. She grabbed Ethan by the shoulder. “You’ve come too far now.” Ethan wrested himself from her grip, but stood his ground. He looked for the source of heat again. A small animal, no larger than Waffle, cautiously emerged from within a bloody ribcage on the opposite wall. Then another appeared, to the squad’s right, similarly sized and shaped. A dozen more sprouted from the carcasses like mushrooms, surrounding the three humans but doing nothing to confront them.
Waffle chattered at them, and – to Ethan’s relief and amazement – they replied. Several of the animals hopped down from their perches to greet Waffle, revealing themselves to be of the same species. Ethan knelt in the dirt beside Waffle, extending his hand slowly toward the nearest creature. It mimicked the gesture, and just as it reached out to touch him, a shout rang out through the hall.
Ethan bolted upright, backed by Rebecca and Mason who had trained their rifles on a tunnel opposite the one they had just come through. A Naldím -- thinner, shorter, and paler than those on the surface -- appeared on the threshold. It ripped a jagged rib from the nearest carcass and brandished it furiously.
Ready to accept that his plan was a failure, Ethan unslung his rifle and prepared to fire, just as Waffle leapt between the feral Naldím and Ethan. He barked frantically, sounding completely unlike himself, and it gave the Naldím pause. He lowered his makeshift weapon, though only a few centimeters, and shot scrutinizing glances between the humans and their pet. Only when Waffle finished his display did the Naldím retort, roaring with flared gills directly at the animal. Waffle scurried behind Ethan’s leg for cover, and Ethan again prepared to fight.
But the Naldím’s weapon clattered to the floor. The feral approached the humans with an air of peaceful curiosity.
His gills shuddered as he spoke in a guttural, choppy language. It sounded little like the elegant musings of the space-faring Naldím, and Ethan’s helmet-mounted translator wasn’t making any sense of it. He looked over his shoulder at Rebecca and Mason.
“Don’t look at me,” Mason said. “Just trying to uncrap my pants over here.”
“Rebecca?”
“It sounds like Naldím,” Rebecca observed, “but barely. It’s a dialect consistent with separatory degradation over a hundred years or so.”
“So can you speak it?”
“No. But he should understand the civilized dialect.”
Ethan looked from Rebecca to the Naldím, who was waiting with inexplicable patience for the pair to finish. “You want to talk to him?” Ethan offered.
Rebecca shook her head. “It’s your op.”
Given Rebecca’s extensive skill set, Ethan would have supposed she would make a better envoy. But his friends
hip with Waffle had labeled him alpha of the group, so he set to work.
Extracting a tablet from his pack, Ethan brought up a helmet cam feed from his first encounter with the ferals, depicting the Naldím slaughtering them at the mouth of the cave. The feral watched the video in digust, snarling as he flicked the screen with a talon-like nail.
“Okay, that’s a start,” Ethan breathed. He switched the video out for another, this one from one of the ill-fated patrols that had been sent out in the early days of the attack. The Naldím once again tore through the group, and the feral hissed at the display.
Ethan looked back to Rebecca. “How do you say ‘bad’? In Naldím, I mean.”
“N’vam.”
Ethan pointed to the Naldím in the video. “N’vam,” he said.
The feral locked eyes with him. “N’vohm’oc,” he growled.
“’The worst’, more or less,” Rebecca translated.
“What’s the word for ‘help’?” Ethan asked.
Rebecca shrugged lightly. “I only know the words we got from intercepted comms. They never asked for help.”
“Of course not,” Ethan breathed. “Can you translate for me?” Rebecca nodded. He turned back to the Naldím, speaking slowly. “You want to kill them, I want to kill them. We kill them together.”
The feral paused, either comprehending or considering the words – Ethan couldn’t tell – before speaking in his grinding tongue.
“Rebecca?”
“He said yes. They’ll help us.”
*
For nearly an hour more the Naldím and Ethan coordinated, Rebecca acting as their intermediary, the negotiations prolonged by their limited vocabulary. Eventually, a signal was established that – Ethan hoped – would call the ferals to arms when the time came.
They said their farewells as best they could before setting off, Waffle curled up in Ethan’s pouch, fast asleep. His exhaustion was understandable; Ethan was coming down from the terrifying thrill of it all, as was Mason, who exhibited a feverish shudder as soon as they cleared the caves.
“It’s not right,” he confided on the return journey, “getting that close to the enemy. Makes me uneasy.”
“They’re not the enemy,” Ethan countered.
“Maybe not, but it’s sure hard to tell. Like that saboteur. Never did finish up with that…”
“Don’t worry about him anymore,” Rebecca put in.
Mason gave her a pensive look. “Probably don’t want to know, right?” He sighed. “Either way, it’s better when it’s all straight forward. Just ask Ford. He was in the Frontier Wars, and that… hell, that was worse. Anyone could be a Reb, even civilians. Didn’t know who was going to stab you in the back.”
Too tired to argue, Ethan let Mason stew in his distrust, and lapsed into silence for the remainder of their hike. A long while later they returned to camp, such as it was, and went directly to Hadings. He was understandably surprised.
“Frankly, I suspected they would try to kill you on sight,” he admitted, “so that’s a promising start to a relationship.”
“They know what we’re going through,” Ethan said, “and we know first-hand they’re good in a fight.”
“Relatively,” Rebecca added.
“In any case, keep up the good work,” Hadings said. “And keep them on call. We need to regroup, but we’ll figure something out. It’s not over yet.”
“No, sir,” Ethan said, confidence soaring. For the first time since the Naldím had driven them from Dawn, he felt an inkling of hope. Somehow, sometime, they would win the fight.
Debriefed and dismissed, Ethan, Rebecca, and Mason went in search of Ford and Briggs. Given the disheartening size of the camp, it did not take long.
The pair were huddled around a campfire, engrossed in disassembling Ford’s shotgun. When they saw the trio approaching, they stood to greet them, casually stowing the weapon behind a nearby crate.
“Where’ve you been?” Ford grunted.
“Out,” Mason said. “Didn’t I tell you before we left?”
Ford snorted, spitting his cigar butt into the grass. “You know my brain’s shot. Probably went in one ear and out the other. Anyway, you’ve got to hear what Briggs’ been telling me.”
“Just some new tech from R-and-D,” Briggs said, “back home.”
“We’ve been out here too long,” Ford said. “All these new toys and we could’ve sent the Nellies back to the stone age by now.”
“Nellies?”
“What I’m calling them. The Naldím. We’re at war, Walker. Got to have ourselves a derogatory nickname for the enemy.”
“But what does it mean?”
“Hell if I know. But it sounds good, so I’m keeping it.”
“So what did the captain have you three doing?” Briggs interjected. Ethan glanced at Mason, who gave him the go-ahead.
“We were talking with the ferals.”
Ford, having just produced a fresh cigar, choked slightly. “The who were doing what with what?”
“They’re intelligent,” Ethan said defensively, “and they hate the Naldím as much as we do. They agreed to help.”
“You sure about that?” Briggs asked. “What’d the captain say?”
“Didn’t like it much,” Mason answered. “Take what we can get, though, right?”
“You don’t fight Rebs with other Rebs, Steele,” Ford shot back, his voice flaring slightly. “You blow them all to kingdom come.”
Ethan stepped slowly between them. He could feel Ford’s temper rising. “This isn’t the Frontier, Ford, and they’re not like the other Naldím. They just want to live in peace. Like us.”
“Ain’t nothing like us,” Ford spat. He dropped his unlit cigar in the dirt and ground it in with his heel. “Dammit, look what you made me do!” he fumed, nearly shouting now. With nothing more to say, he stormed off.
The Vengeant
“Is there word on the Humans?”
“Not yet. Their numbers are dwindling to the point that they disappear more easily into the trees. There was some unusual activity just east of their ship, however.”
“Unusual how?”
“The Others are swarming. There was a squall at the eastern exit. One of our hunters was killed before the party could discourage them.”
“They pose little threat to us, even in a frenzy. Send another patrol that way and ensure they stay in their holes. The rest of the Warriors will locate the Humans.”
Following Ford’s outburst the group was subdued. Briggs excused himself from the awkwardness to confer with Hadings, while Mason stoked the fire and Rebecca stared idly into it.
“You think Ford’s okay?” Ethan finally asked. A sudden pop from the fire threw an ember onto Mason’s boot. He kicked it back into the fire with a frustrated jab.
“Nah,” he said, clearing his throat. “Likes to work through things on his own.”
Ethan looked toward Rebecca, and their eyes met briefly. “You shouldn’t do this sort of thing on your own.”
“We don’t even know what his ‘thing’ is,” Mason argued. “Ford’s got a… rich history. Never know what’s going to set him off.”
Ethan stood, dusting ash off his pants. “I think I do.”
The circle of lean-tos that made up Omicron squad’s sleeping arrangements was quiet, but there was a pair of feet sticking out of one of them. Ethan made a racket on his approach, giving Ford ample warning. The boots retracted and Ford appeared a moment later, stuffing a piece of paper into his pocket. His eyes were red.
“What do you want, Walker?” he said grumpily.
Ethan shrugged nonchalantly, but within, his stomach flipped. He had caught Ford in a vulnerable state, or at least as vulnerable as someone like Ford got, and it made him uneasy. “I just wanted to talk.”
“Ain’t sorry for yelling, if that’s what you mean,” Ford grumbled. He took a seat at the foot of the tree that supported the lean-tos. “Working with the Naldím… it just ain’t right.”
“But you have a bigger stake in it, don’t you?”
“Hell, everyone has a stake in it now, Walker. We’ve lost enough people to give every single one of us a good reason to go kill those bastards.” He paused. “I’ve just got more.”
Ethan took a seat opposite him against a boulder. “You were on Two, weren’t you?” he said quietly. It was little more than an educated guess that Dawn Two had anything to do with it, but his hunch was spot on.
Ford sighed. “Yeah, I was on Two. When did you get on?”
“Four,” Ethan answered.
“So you only read about it. I was there, and dammit if I wasn’t one of the few people that stayed on the ship after we left.”
“What happened?”
“You’ve read the file, right?”
Ethan nodded.
“Well, that file’s bullshit,” Ford said, jabbing a finger at him. “It got one thing right: there were nexacors. ‘Minimal casualties’? ‘Mission unaffected’? Bull-freakin’-shit. People lost things. People lost people.” Ford reached into his pocket and produced the scrap of paper. He handed it to Ethan.
On it was a faded, tattered photo of a family; the father, a younger and cigar-less Ford. There were three children, and a beautiful woman on Ford’s arm.
“I wasn’t military on Two,” Ford explained, staring at the back of the picture as though it might burst into flames. “Came on the Plymouth way back when. We were trying to get away from all that anti-navy scutch after the war. I told them we were starting over. That it’d be better.
“Then the nexacors came floating by right after we settled down, and you can guess what happened next.” Ford took a deep breath before pressing on. Ethan stayed silent; he had a feeling that Ford had needed to unload this baggage for a long time. “They got my girl day after they landed. Had to tell the kids – well there wasn’t no easy way to tell them. It didn’t matter. Before the week was up the bastards got them too. If I hadn’t spent ten years on the Frontier learning how not to get killed, I would’ve gone down with them. Sometimes I wish I had.” Ford cleared his throat, taking a moment. Ethan let him, unsure how he could help, or even if he should.
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