by Jim C. Hines
* * *
WOLF STOPPED AT THE top of a hill and stared out at the rising sun. “The sky is orange. Why the depths is the sky orange?”
“Atmospheric scattering.” Rubin’s voice over the comm sounded far more awake and alert than Wolf felt . . . possibly because Rubin got to hang back at camp while Wolf scouted the surrounding area for ferals or other threats. “The same thing happens on any planet with a decent atmosphere.”
“I knew that. But this is Earth. The sky’s supposed to be blue.”
They’d stopped an hour earlier, a few kilometers out from their goal. Monroe was still wobbly, and Mops was hoping a rest would help his brain reboot. Wolf had volunteered to patrol the area. Her body might be exhausted, but her mind was too wired for sleep. This was Earth, home to humanity and countless other threats.
Wolf imagined how she’d casually mention their time on Earth the next time they stopped at a neutral station. “Oh, it’s not so bad. I had to punch a crocodile and an electric eel, but the sunrises were amazing.”
So far, though, she’d seen none of Earth’s fearsome wildlife. Neither had Rubin, who was keeping watch back at camp. “I don’t like this, Rubin.”
“I’ve counted more than a hundred things you don’t like since I joined the Pufferfish,” Rubin replied. “Could you please specify?”
“Smart-ass.” Wolf chuckled. “Where are all the ferals? Between the woods and the ruins, there’s plenty of shelter. They’ve got water, animals to eat . . . this place should support a good-sized pack. They should have come out by now, with us intruding on their territory and all. You sure there aren’t any back there?”
“Everything’s quiet. Mostly. Did you know Prodryans snore?”
Wolf checked her path and location. She’d been keeping to a one-kilometer radius from the old train cars where the others had taken shelter for the day. She turned left and started downhill. “Hey, what’s going on with you and Kumar?”
A pause. “Nothing. Kumar is on the Pufferfish, while I’m down here.”
“You know what I mean.” Or maybe she didn’t. This was Rubin, after all. The woman was tough as Nusuran teeth, but it always felt like part of her mind was elsewhere. “I saw that hug before we left. How long have you two been a thing?”
“Sanjeev raised the possibility of a romantic relationship three and a half months ago. I explained I was uninterested in a sexual relationship, but I’ve enjoyed the romance and his companionship.”
Before Wolf could ask more, a dark shape jostled through the branches up ahead. She brought her rifle to her shoulder. “I’ve got movement.”
“What size?”
“Too small to be a feral.” Wolf stopped behind a thick tree to replay and study the image on her visor. “Cancel that. Looks like a dead tree branch snapped and fell. The whole damn planet’s falling apart.”
“Death is natural. Especially during the cold season on Earth.”
Wolf kept walking. How the depths was she hiking around the worst planet in the galaxy, and the only thing she’d fought so far was boredom? “You ever think about what it would take to really clean this place up? Make Earth livable again?”
“Livable for whom? Most of Earth’s wildlife is doing better now than when humans were dominant. According to Krakau survey reports, the feral population has stabilized. If the humans of the EMC decide we want our own planet, it might be easier to find another one to colonize.”
The morning sky had faded to pink, transforming clouds to ribbons of red. “Wouldn’t that be something? Our own planet. Not that the Krakau would ever let us.” Her visor highlighted an anomaly in the snow. “Hold on.”
“Another branch?”
“Not this time.” Wolf zoomed in on what appeared to be tracks. “Looks like footprints near the river. Could be human.”
“You’ve been walking for an hour. You might have crossed your own path.”
“How incompetent do you think I am?” Before Rubin could answer, Wolf brought up a map of her route on the visor, overlaying it with the tracks. The two paths didn’t intersect. “Someone else has been here.”
“Do you need backup? Ferals have been known to ambush prey.”
“I’m good.” Wolf pushed her visor up and back, until it rested on the rear of her helmet. Shifting her rifle to her left hand, she retrieved her monocle and clicked it into place over her eye. Once it powered up, she said, “Display helmet visual feed on monocle. Upper quadrant.”
The top quarter of her monocle display changed to show a hundred-and-eighty-degree view of the area behind her.
“Invert.”
Ground and sky flipped into their proper positions.
“What are you doing?” asked Rubin.
“Old infantry trick.” Wolf turned her head to and fro. “Reverse the visor and feed it to your monocle to get almost a full three-sixty view. Eyes in the back of your head.”
“I thought you were rejected from the infantry. Multiple times.”
“Go drown yourself.” Wolf started down the hill toward the tracks. “I’ve been reading some post-combat reports. Picked up a few things.”
The tracks intersected the river, then angled away again. Wolf knelt in the snow. She couldn’t make out any details, but each print was roughly the same size and shape as her own. No distinct toeprints—whoever this was, they’d been wearing shoes. “Definitely human. Could be our runaway. I’m going to follow, see if I can find ’em.”
“I’ll wake the captain?”
“Let me see what this is, first.” Wolf stared at the ground, trying to decide which direction the human had been going. It wasn’t like footprints stamped nice, legible arrows into the snow and dirt.
A spot of red caught her eye. She spied several more leading away from the river, alongside the footprints. The red stopped about twenty meters away. Wolf crouched to pick up a small object. She grimaced when she realized what she was holding. “Hey, Rubin. If you were eating a rodent, would you eat the head first or last?”
“Not first. Start with the softest and most nutritious parts, which would probably be the internal organs. Getting to the brain would be more work, like shelling a Tjikko nut.”
“It worries me that you didn’t have to think about it.” Wolf looked back at the trail. Assuming the human had been eating as they walked, this was where they’d finished their meal and discarded the head, which meant the human was walking away from the river. “Thanks.”
The trail veered first left, then right. Whoever or whatever it was, they didn’t seem to have any specific destination. Or maybe they were drunk. After ten minutes or so, the tracks straightened, heading toward what looked like a toppled signal tower. Vines and moss had begun to overtake the crisscrossed metal beams.
Wolf dropped into a crouch, bringing up her rifle until the crosshairs locked onto a slender figure inside the cage of the tower. “Found them.”
“Are they alone?” asked Rubin.
“Looks that way.” Wolf squinted, trying to shut out the distraction of the visor’s visual feed from behind. “This might be our runaway human. They’re wearing clothing, furs of some kind. I’m going to make contact.”
“We don’t know what the Krakau taught them,” Rubin reminded her. “They might not even speak Human.”
That was a good point, but there was only one way to find out. Wolf crept closer.
“Would this be a better time to wake Captain Adamopoulos?”
Wolf checked her monocle. The doubled vision of her visor feed was starting to make her head ache. “I’m more than a kilometer out from camp. By the time anyone got here, the human might have run off again. Don’t worry, I’ve got this.”
Diplomacy had never been one of Wolf’s strengths, but what the hell. With less than fifty meters now separating her from the human, she waved a hand and called out, “Hey there. Nice furs.�
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The human hunched their shoulders but didn’t otherwise react. They continued to watch Wolf approach.
“My name’s Wolf. Me and my friends are here to help you. Do you understand?” When the human didn’t move, Wolf raised her voice. “Do. You. Understand?”
“What are you doing?” asked Rubin.
“Trying to communicate. Shut up.” Wolf could make out additional details now. The human wore a simple fur robe and crude leather shoes. They—he, rather—had neglected to close said robe. “Hey, what color is natural human blood supposed to be?”
“Bright red.”
Wolf focused on the long gash across the human’s chest, and the thick, dark blood dripping down his skin. “This isn’t our guy. It’s a damn feral.”
“You said they were wearing clothes.”
“Maybe he got cold.”
The feral’s lips pulled back to reveal stained, crooked teeth. He squeezed between metal beams and trudged toward Wolf.
“Keep your distance,” Wolf said sharply. “Rubin, what if this is the guy we saw, but he reverted? Maybe Sage’s cure is only temporary.”
“We have no idea what we’re dealing with,” said Rubin. “Anything’s possible.”
Aside from that single gash, Wolf didn’t see any wounds or old scars. Nor did he have the half-starved, emaciated appearance of most ferals in the wild. “I’m bringing him in.”
She adjusted the firing mode of her rifle to a low-power energy blast. It should be enough to take down a feral without killing him. Wolf could truss him up with sealing tape and drag him back to their temporary base.
The feral stumbled closer, one arm outstretched. His guttural groans raised the hairs on Wolf’s neck. Just as Wolf was about to squeeze the trigger, the feral froze. His groans grew louder, more insistent.
“That’s right,” said Wolf. “Take a good look. When you wake up, tell all your feral friends not to mess with . . . Aw, crap.”
“What’s happening?” asked Rubin.
She’d gotten too damn focused on bringing down this one feral. She split her attention between her target and the rear feed from her visor. “I’ve got something sneaking up behind me.”
“I’m on my way.”
Relief flushed through her as she spotted the source of the movement that had spooked her. “Belay that. It’s just an animal. A cat, maybe? It looks angry, but it’s too small to be any threat. I probably stepped on its nest or something.”
“I don’t think cats make nests.”
“Whatever. This feral’s spooked. I need to bring him down before he bolts.”
“Are you sure about this?” asked Rubin.
“If I let him go, who knows whether we’ll be able to find him again.” The feral retreated a step. “It’s just one scared feral. Trust me, I’ve got this.”
* * *
Mops stood with arms folded, watching on her visor as the blip representing Wolf approached their makeshift shelter.
“The important thing is she’s all right,” said Monroe as he attached a food tube to his feeding port.
“For now.”
They sat in the open doorway of an old passenger train car: Monroe on the top step, Mops on the bottom. The train had been gutted long ago, and the windows were cracked and broken, but much of the steel structure had survived. They’d sprayed the entire car down with pest repellant to clear out insects and small rodents.
“I had to throw Wolf into the brig four times while she was working for me,” said Mops. “Fighting, ignoring orders . . . I thought she’d finally left that shit behind.”
“She’s had four good months,” Monroe pointed out. “Everyone screws up sometimes.”
“The worst that happened when she screwed up on SHS was a burst pipe or a leaky toilet,” Mops snapped. “She went after a feral on her own. She could have been killed.”
“But she wasn’t. Between the humiliation of what happened and the chewing out you’re gonna give her when she gets back, maybe she’ll think twice next time.”
“I’d be happy if she’d think once.” Mops stood and began to pace. She’d sent Rubin to catch some rest. Mops had gotten less than an hour of sleep before Rubin woke her, but she wouldn’t be able to relax until she burned off this energy. “How the depths am I supposed to keep her alive?”
“Is that what you’re so pissed off about?”
“I’ve got a list, but it’s near the top.” She sat back down and began inspecting her pistol. “Wolf’s impulsive. Rubin’s overprotective, likely to walk right into the line of fire if she thinks it will help the team.”
“Don’t forget me.” Monroe tapped the side of his head. “I’m lopsided until I get this damn implant recalibrated.”
She slid the magazine free. It registered full: forty-five small, spherical slugs packed into place. A battery along the front edge provided power for twenty-seven electrical jolts. Next, she freed the primary power pack from beneath the barrel. This was the heaviest part of the weapon, spinning up the miniature acceleration rings within the barrel that fired the slugs. It registered a ninety-seven percent charge, good enough for well over a thousand shots. “This planet is where we died, Monroe. This reprieve some of us got from the Krakau, this life between human and feral, it can’t last.”
“That’s what I’ve always appreciated about you,” said Monroe. “Your eternal optimism.”
She replaced the power pack and magazine, then double-checked the readout on her visor. Everything matched up: full load, and ninety-seven percent charge. “This planet messes with your head. Half the time it feels like a homecoming, the other half it’s like visiting your own grave.”
“She’s here.”
Mops stood, turning toward where her visor indicated Wolf was approaching. As Wolf emerged from the trees, a hint of pity mixed with Mops’ anger. Wolf had her visor pushed up, revealing swollen, bloodshot eyes. Dark blood crusted around her nose. Water dripped from her uniform. Her shoulders sank when she spotted Mops waiting. All in all, she looked utterly pathetic.
Mops’ nose wrinkled. Wolf carried a stench like burnt rubber and baked death. She waited silently until Wolf stopped a meter away. “Well?”
Wolf’s eyes were fixed on the rusted wall of the train car. “The feral got away. Sir.”
Mops raised a hand. “Let’s get downwind first, so we don’t disturb the rest of the team. Monroe, stay here and keep an eye on things.”
“Gladly, sir.” Monroe saluted, then waved his hand in front of his nose.
Mops started walking, keeping close to the train. She climbed into another car a short distance back. Most of the seats’ metal frames remained, but the cushioning was long gone, and what plastic remained was brittle and cracked. Mops waited for Wolf to enter, then put a foot on the side of a chair and folded her arms on her knee. “I told you to stay within one kilometer of camp. I remember being quite clear about that.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Just like I was clear that you should alert me or Monroe immediately if you found anything unusual. Doc, could you please replay my orders for us? I want to make sure I didn’t misspeak.”
Wolf’s flush deepened as Doc broadcast every word Mops had said before sending Wolf out on patrol.
“And now the feral—the one you told Rubin might be our target—has escaped,” Mops said when Doc finished.
“Yes, sir.”
“What the hell happened?”
“Technically, ferals aren’t that unusual. Not on Earth, I mean.” Wolf kept her attention on the ground. “I didn’t realize how far I’d gone as I was tracking him. He wasn’t aggressive. I figured I’d shock him, tie him up, and bring him back.”
“Go on.”
“He got agitated. That’s when I saw something moving behind me. I had my visor reversed, feeding into my monocle. Eyes in the back of my
head, you know?”
“And?” Mops prodded.
“It was just an animal. Puny looking thing, black with white stripes. I think it was what the feral was getting worked up about, so I thought I’d scare it off, maybe make it easier to take care of the feral.”
“Based on Wolf’s description, I have a possible identification of the animal,” offered Doc.
“The damned thing blasted me with some kind of chemical weapon,” Wolf continued.
“Identification confirmed.”
Wolf tugged a cleaning rag from her harness and rubbed her face. “By the time my vision cleared, the feral was long gone. I doubled back to a stream and tried to wash off the worst of the stench.”
“What happened to your face?”
“I’d just started back to camp, when I heard branches cracking behind me. I didn’t know what it was, but I wasn’t in the mood, you know? I turned around, and that damned black and white cat was staring at me again. I pulled my baton and charged. Only I still had my visor flipped back. Between the double-vision in my monocle and my eyes being messed up from the spray . . .” She lowered her voice. “I ran into a fucking tree.”
“I’ve downloaded the series of events from Wolf’s visor and monocle if you’d like to watch,” said Doc.
“Later,” Mops whispered, fighting to keep a straight face. “If we were on the Pufferfish, I’d throw you and Rubin both into the brig.”
“Rubin?” For the first time, Wolf looked directly at Mops.
“She should have woken me or Monroe as soon as you saw that feral.”
“It’s not her fault,” said Wolf. “I told her not to—”
“And you think your orders override mine?”
Wolf flinched. “No, sir.”
“I can also present an enhanced version with humorous sound effects.”
Mops pressed her lips together. This proved to be a mistake, since it forced her to breathe through her nose. Once she finished coughing, she straightened and said, “Anything else you’d like to say in your own defense?”