It’d feel like I was giving up on ever seeing them again.
“Carrie?” Erisia says. “You okay?”
“We should get to work. Our encampments aren’t going to run themselves.” Hye frowns. I ignore it. “What’s on your to-do list today?”
“Goodwill appearance in Pin Gok City later this morning. For all the good it does.”
“Yeah, I hear that. Well, good luck winning hearts and minds. Noon check-in?”
“Sounds good. Pwamee out.”
“Hauser out.”
***
After checking in with Gaartiin, who is also bored out of his skull, I review all the reports filed yesterday by Grun and Zqurrl and by the support staff, then I read through various communiqués from Kyros Prime. That takes me a good hour or so. I’m on my third cup of dammas when I finally step out of my quarters to conduct my morning inspection of our encampment. This includes making sure all of my people are awake, dressed, and ready for action (or inaction, as the case may be), checking in with the civilian crew, and going over duty rosters and training schedules with Grun and Zqurrl, all before the reps from the World Security Convention —
My God. I’ve traveled to the other side of the Milky Way and joined a galactic peacekeeping force ostensibly to fight a cosmic evil, and what have I become? Middle management. That’s disillusioning.
“Sergeant,” Johr says, coming up on my side.
“Johr.”
“I respectfully request that we do something interesting today.”
“You don’t regard hosting a World Security Convention inspection team interesting?”
“I do not.”
“Then I’ll take your request under advisement.”
“I know what that means. Screw you too, sergeant.”
Let me tell you about Ylena Johr. She’s Drossan, which is one of the more humanlike races. If you saw her on the street, you’d think she had a bit of a sunburn but nothing would immediately tip you off that she wasn’t a local. She’s a hard worker, she’s skilled, she’s fearless, she’s loyal, and is no-nonsense to a fault. She mouths off a little too much for her own good, which is probably why I like her so much.
“Are you being insubordinate, first rank?”
“I am, yes.”
“Carry on, then.”
“Seriously, sergeant, this sit-and-wait routine is a steaming load of jachmund.”
“I don’t disagree, but this is the mission. We sit, we wait, we carry out our boring duties, and we thank whatever gods we might worship that we get to live to do it all again tomorrow. Some of us haven’t been so lucky.”
“Yes, sergeant,” Johr says, sans any sass.
“Carrie! I mean sergeant!” Zqurrl skids to a stop before bowling Johr and me over. His entire body wobbles like a water balloon for a moment, and once it settles, he says, “The World Security Convention envoy is here!”
“But they’re not due for another three hours,” I say. Zqurrl shrugs. “Johr, you wanted to something to do? Go finish my morning rounds.”
“You’re too generous, sergeant,” she drawls.
Zqurrl and I head over to the landing pad we set up for our supply ships and our occasional Han-Yu Seven visitors, but the ship sitting there on extended landing legs is not a standard WSC transport. It’s bulkier, more heavily armored, and has small gun ports visible on every face. It’s also not alone; a dozen or so one-person skycycles hover around the main ship, their engines buzzing keenly, like hornets waiting for the order to swarm.
“That’s a diplomatic transport,” Zqurrl says.
A panel opens up on the transport’s underside, and a platform gently sinks to the ground. A Han-Yu dressed in an outfit that’s a high school band uniform from the waist up and a floral print skirt from the waist down approaches us with an air of ceremony. He stands at an angle so he can see us. The Han-Yu have these goldfish-like heads with big, bulbous eyes on the sides, which means they can’t see anything directly in front of them too well.
“You are the outpost commander,” hye says.
“Sergeant Carrie Hauser,” I say. “This is Wing Sergeant Zqurrl.”
“Hi,” Zqurrl says with a little wave.
“I am Dwin-Tu Fah, loyal shadow to Senator of the Highest Magnitude Chom-Ro Drass. Senator Drass has chosen to personally inspect your encampment. You will accommodate hyer.”
“Of course,” I say. “We welcome the senator gladly, although I’m curious as to why hye’s conducting the inspection hyerself.”
“One moment,” Fah says, spinning on hyer heel and marching back to the ship.
“Oh, boy,” Zqurrl says.
“What?” I say.
“Did you see how Fah was standing? With hyer left side facing us? That’s a sign of — well, not contempt. Hye’s telling us hye doesn’t think much of us and we have yet to earn hyer respect.”
“Great,” I say, catching Zqurrl’s meaning.
The Han-Yus are divided into castes, each with their own set of specific protocols and social niceties. The inspection team is made up of lower- to middle-caste Han-Yus, who are generally more casual. The higher caste Han-Yus, however, are big on their particular protocols, and it takes me a minute to recall all the proper behaviors I have to observe if I want to stay on their good side.
“When we meet the senator, we bow to the right — our, not hyers,” I say, “and we don’t address hyer directly until hye allows it. Until then, everything will go through hyer loyal shadow. Is that right?”
“Uh-huh,” Zqurrl says.
Fah returns with Senator Drass, who’s a little taller than Fah and has what I think might be a collection of medals across the breast of hyer jacket, but otherwise Fah and Drass are identical in appearance. Both of them angle themselves to present their left sides to us.
“Senator of the Highest Magnitude Chom-Ro Drass,” Fah says.
“Senator,” I say to Fah with a bow to the right (mine, not hyers). “We’re honored by your visit, if a little surprised.”
“They are honored by your visit, senator, if a little surprised,” Fah says to Drass. Oh, that’s going to get old real fast.
“I wished to see this base for myself,” Drass says.
“The senator wished to see this base for hyerself,” Fah says.
Yep, already old.
“Would the senator care for a tour of our encampment?” I offer through Fah. Hye relays the suggestion to Drass, who accepts.
For the next hour or so we wander around the camp, showing the senator everything from my quarters down to the base’s reclamation center where dirty water, garbage, waste, et cetera, are processed and recycled — all the while trailed by hyer flying hornet death squad. The senator asks a lot of questions about the base, its personnel, our daily duties — nothing too probing but there’s a distinct undercurrent of guarded suspicion.
The senator confirms it when hye says, “Your base seems innocent enough,” with an emphasis on seems.
“Your base seems innocent enough,” Fah repeats, without the telling inflection.
“Senator, if you have any issues or concerns, perhaps it would serve both our interests better if we spoke about them openly, directly, and honestly,” I say.
“Senator,” Fah begins. Drass cuts hyer off with a gesture. Fah bows with a lean to the right and steps back.
“Very well, then. Let us be, as you say, open, direct, and honest,” Drass says right to me. “Your presence here is unwelcome. People are ill at ease, to put it mildly.”
“Why is that, senator?”
“The answer to that is rather obvious. The Alliance has established multiple military outposts on Han-Yu Seven. The Vanguard patrol our cities, interview our people as if they are under suspicion...”
“Senator, I think you’re mischaracterizing our activities here somewhat,” I say as gently as possible. “It’s not our intent to make your people feel anxious or under scrutiny.”
“Intent and impact are not always the same.”
Okay, hye’s got me there. Perception is reality, and challenging hyer perceptions isn’t going to score me any brownie points, so in the interest of diplomacy I need to put Argumentative Carrie on the bench for a little while and trot out Cooperative Carrie.
“You’re right,” I say, “and I apologize. We came here in the interest of strengthening the Alliance’s relationship with Han-Yu Seven and —”
“I thought you came here in the interest of uncovering evidence our government was colluding with the Black End.”
“That isn’t our primary mission.”
“But it is part of your purpose here, is it not?”
“No,” Zqurrl says.
“Wing sergeant,” I say. Zqurrl shrinks. “Yes, senator, it is, but I hope you can appreciate our position. Weeks ago, the Black End succeeded in executing a devastating attack against Kyros Prime, and we’re convinced they’re gearing up for something even bigger. We need to find out what that is, which means we need to investigate every lead we come across, no matter how dubious it might be. And I shouldn’t need to remind you that Han-Yu Seven has expressed pro-Black End sentiments in the past.”
Senator Drass stiffens and lets out an indignant snort. “I believe our attitudes toward the Black End have been, as you said, sergeant, mischaracterized.”
“How so?”
“Because we’re not explicitly allied with the Alliance, some within your Council of Generals have interpreted that to mean we’re sympathetic to the Black End. I don’t deny there are sympathizers here and there, but they hardly represent the Han-Yu Collective’s stance as a whole — which is neutrality.”
“Why is the Collective neutral?” I ask.
“Member worlds are required to make their technological advances open and accessible to all within the Alliance. The Collective is second to none in the field of genetic engineering. We can completely regenerate damaged tissue, from skin cells to brain cells. We’ve eradicated congenital disorders from our species. Why, we could rewrite your DNA from the ground up and transform you into a Han-Yu without any of the side-effects common among inferior genetic manipulation technology.”
“That kind of radical genetic alteration is strictly forbidden by the Kyros Alliance,” I say.
“Precisely. Why should we share science we’d then be barred from freely utilizing? And what would we receive in return that would be worth such a sacrifice?”
I can think of a few reasons, quite a few, but I don’t get a chance to make my case because I suddenly have Erisia shouting in my ear, telling me to get my team in the air, telling me to hurry, please hurry.
You wanted something interesting to happen, Johr? Be careful what you wish for.
“Pin Gok City’s under attack!” Erisia says. “It’s the Black End! It’s Galt!”
TWENTY
I scramble my unit so fast half of them don’t have time to finish getting dressed. Tosser, fresh from the shower, is wearing a bathrobe and a pair of fuzzy booties. I’d laugh if I weren’t so freakin’ terrified.
En route, I call the situation in to Kyros Prime and request additional backup. I may have taken Galt out once, but I’m not about to assume I can pull that trick off twice, especially since it sounds like he has backup of his own.
And boy, does he ever.
Pin Gok City is visible from several miles out thanks to its Great Spire, a tightly packed cluster of skyscrapers far taller than anything on Earth. The tallest of these, located in the dead center of the cluster, is a structure that defies engineering: the Ka No Needle, a four-mile-high tower with an emerald green glasslike exterior that literally sparkles in the morning sun.
Sorry, no, that’s not the sun glinting off the tower; those are flashes of Vanguardian energy blasts.
As we close in, I detect flickers of movement in the form of light and dark streaks, the former of which are my fellow Vanguardians. Not sure what the dark streaks are yet. Let’s find out.
“Incoming, Erisia!” I say. “Sitrep!”
“Unknown number of assorted scrub fighters,” hye says, “but they’re not the problem.”
“Where is Galt?”
The answer comes in the form of a massive fireball bursting through the side of the Ka No Needle. Shards of its glassy green exterior fall like glittering rain to the street below. I get an earful of someone’s dying scream over the comlink.
“Vanguard, pull back!” I shout. “Do not engage Galt! Repeat, do not engage Galt! Let me worry about him. Erisia, focus on clearing the sky. Grun, Zqurrl, I want you down low covering the civilians until Gaartiin’s unit arrives.”
“Sergeant,” Johr says, a protest in her voice.
“Not the time, Ylena. Your job is to save lives, so get to it.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
My unit breaks off and dives into the thick of the city, while I rocket toward the miniature sun that emerges from a smoking, flaming wound in the Ka No Needle. A zap of pure energy won’t do squat, so I unload with force blasts. The sphere of supercharged plasma shudders from the impact.
“Hey, big guy,” I shout. “Remember me?”
The energy envelope fades to reveal a hulking mass of a being with a warthog-like face only an extremely ugly mother could love in teeny-tiny doses. His body is covered in scarred welts, many of which are new additions. Each reddened slash is like a hash mark counting off the number of my comrades he’s killed and violated.
Galt bares a mouthful of crooked, jagged teeth. “Girl,” he rumbles.
“That’s Sergeant Girl Who Kicked Your Ass to you, fugly. You up for a rematch?”
I’m back out over the ocean a heartbeat later, trusting that his taste for Hauser blood will compel him to follow.
Called it. An energy blast like a bolt of lightning brushes past me on the right. I burst and bank simultaneously to come up on Galt’s underside. I throw off a cheap shot, nailing him square in the junk (or where I assume his junk to be), and burst away. He responds with a burst of his own that puts him literally within arm’s reach. A clawed hand the size of a trash can lid lashes out to take my head off, but I burst away, swing around, and tag him in the base of the spine with a full-force concussion blast. Galt yelps, more out of surprise than pain, spins out all too briefly, then loops around for a counterattack. He throws a wild backhand that sends out a searing energy wave. Instead of dodging it, I take a page out of Grun’s playbook. I put everything I have into boosting my aura to maximum strength and then fly straight through the wave — and then straight into Galt, like a human battering ram. He careens out of control.
I’m distantly aware of Gaartiin announcing his arrival, of Erisia putting him and his unit to work taking down the scrub fighters. Good. That leaves me free to focus on keeping Galt off-balance.
I follow at a distance as he plummets toward the ocean and pelt him with concussion blasts to keep the pressure on. Galt has a few fancy tricks up his sleeve, but he’s generally a blunt instrument, all raw force and no finesse, and he doesn’t shrug off non-energy attacks as easily as —
Galt suddenly cuts a right angle and flies away. He’s not ramping up for some big assault on me, he’s...escaping? No, not his style.
Oh, crap. Running isn’t his style but drawing me back toward the densely populated Pin Gok City totally is.
“Heads up, Vanguard!” I say as I give chase. “Galt’s coming your way!”
“I thought you had him!” Johr says.
Maybe I did, probably I didn’t, but it’s irrelevant. He’s in no mood for a fair fight, and by taking this back into the city, he gains the advantage; I can’t cut loose because I actually care about collateral damage, but he doesn’t have any such reservations — a point he proves by blowing one of his own allies out of the sky. The ship spins out and crashes into one of the smaller skyscrapers surrounding the Ka No Needle.
“Carrie,” Erisia says.
“Stick to the plan. Let me handle Galt. I’m the one he wants.”
Unfortunately,
Galt isn’t on-board with my plan. He slaloms through the city on a blind rampage, hurling blasts with reckless abandon. Vanguardians, buildings, Black End ships, civilians on the ground as they run for cover — everything is a fair target. The face of a triangular tower shatters, showering the street below with glass that twinkles in rainbow colors as it falls. A skybridge spanning two skyscrapers rips in half with a scream of rending metal. I hit him over and over, but he shrugs off every blast.
I can’t stop him.
A beam of white light catches Galt off-guard. He reels.
“Erisia, clear out! I told you I got this!” I say.
“You’re not my commander, Fargirl,” hye says, “and no offense, but you need to focus. Galt’s our priority. We take him down, we end this.”
Hye’s right. Galt has the power of twenty-something Vanguardians on his side. I don’t want to put others in crosshairs meant for me, but I can’t take Galt on my own.
“Vanguard, listen up!” I say. “Gaartiin, this is going to get worse before it gets better, so join up with my unit to work defense. Everyone else, hit and run on Galt — and I mean hit and run! Don’t make yourself a target!”
Erisia’s people follow my order to the letter, entering the sphere, taking their shot, and getting out while the getting’s good. Galt’s retaliatory strikes are desperate and wild, like a man swatting at a cloud of gnats swarming around his head. We don’t seem to be wearing him down, but the ploy does succeed in drawing his attention away from Pin Gok City in general.
But again, as soon as we think we have all the answers, Galt changes the question. He suddenly drops like a rock, lands in the middle of an open plaza, and sends out a heavy gravity pulse — the same move I used on Galt to disable him the first time we fought. The area becomes a crater. A statue in the center of the plaza, depicting a Han-Yu in a flowing robe, disintegrates to gravel. A tower sitting at the edge of the G-bomb effect, made entirely of a granite-like material and dotted all up and down its length with porthole windows, trembles as its first two floors crack and splinter.
Erisia and I power dive, bombarding Galt as we descend, laying into him with everything we have. He shrinks under the assault, but he’s holding on, while I’m starting to feel the strain. I knew this would be a war of attrition, but we were supposed to wear him down, not vice-versa.
Action Figures - Issue Seven: The Black End War Page 17