The Vixen War Bride

by Thomas Doscher

  Still…

  He looked up at the top of the cliff, searching for familiar silhouettes. Scanning the rocks and the nearby trees, his face scrunched up in frustration as a concrete answer continued to elude him.

  As if he had read the captain’s mind, Ramirez, who had been looking through the sniper scope on his rifle, lowered the weapon and shook his head. “No sign of sentries or look-outs,” he said. “But with Tod you’d never know they were there until the shooting started.”

  Ben growled to himself. Ramirez was right. If he sent his people out there into that field they could be cut to pieces before anyone could return fire. He looked back at the panicked vixen behind him, and his mind went back to his earlier thoughts about her riding in the turret.

  They could send Alacea out first and ask the sentries to come out.

  It’s such a dick-move, though, he thought. He had no idea how jumpy the Va’Shen up there might be… assuming they were there at all, and he had no way of knowing for sure.

  He felt rather than saw movement to his right and turned his head to find Burgers moving swiftly and silently up to him. He hadn’t even known the NCO had stepped away.

  “I have our guys split up left and right in cover in the tree-line,” he told Ben. “Still no movement.”

  Ben took a breath and nodded. He was glad he had Baird. He was the kind of NCO that knew what had to be done and just did it without waiting for someone to make the decision for him.

  Thinking that, Ben realized the longer he waited, the more likely it would be that someone else would push the events forward, and that wouldn’t necessarily be a good spot to be in.

  Without a word, he stepped forward toward the grass and out of the trees.

  “Sir!” Burgers hissed.

  Ben turned and held a hand up, telling the others to hold position before moving forward again into the grass. When he was certain he was in full view of anyone up in the rocks above, he stopped and waited.

  “What the Hell is he doing?!” Patricia, kneeling on the Ranger’s right, whispered to Ramirez in shock. “He’s using himself as bait!”

  Ramirez, unsure of what to say but certain that if he had done something like this the captain would tear him a new one, cleared his throat. “It’s an old Ranger trick,” he whispered back.

  Patricia looked at him incredulously. “A trick?” she repeated.

  “Yeah,” Ramirez told her, trying to sound confident in his answer. “It’s called a… uh… a ‘trick-or-treat,’” he went on, gaining more confidence in his answer as he went on. “You walk out there and announce yourself and you either get a treat… no one’s there… or you get a trick… which is bullets.”

  “Isn’t that dangerous?” Patricia pointed out.

  Ramirez cleared his throat again and shook his head. “Nah… Captain knows what he’s doing.”

  At this time Burgers had come around and come up to Ramirez’s left side. “What the Hell is he doing?” he hissed. “He’s gonna get himself killed!”

  Patricia looked at Ramirez with an accusatory glare. “Trick-or-treat, huh?” she whispered, smacking him on the back of his helmet.

  On Patricia’s right, Alacea simply watched the alien overlord as he stood in the clearing, challenging the Va’Shen Huntresses with his mere presence. She knew it was likely they were around, and their skill with a bow was a step above anything she had ever seen. If they were there, they could kill him as casually as eating lunch.

  Ben looked at his cheap analog watch and then back up at the cliffs. After another minute, he turned back and tromped toward the others.

  “Let’s check it out,” Ben said casually as if nothing had happened. “Get Petty Officer Mulroney up here. He’s with us. Baird, Ramirez, you too.” A Ranger went into the trees to find the SeaBee.

  “What about the girl?” Burgers asked.

  “Her too,” he said. “She might be our foot in the door. Everyone else hold here and keep an eye out.”

  “Sir, you asked for me?” a stocky blond man in a set of camouflage Navy fatigues asked as he stepped up.

  “Yeah, you come with us. We have a cave in. I want you to take a look.”

  “Aye aye, Sir.”

  “Okay,” Ben said, dropping his assault pack. “Drop your gear. Nice and slow. Weapons only. That’s a lot of open ground. Someone starts shooting, we run like hell back here. Got it?”

  Everyone else dropped their packs, and Ben started down the hill, Alacea stepping in front of him. She waved her hands and called out to the cliff, prompting Ben to nearly have a heart attack.

  “She’s just saying it’s her and that it’s safe!” Patricia told him.

  “Will you tell her to shut up!?” Ben demanded harshly. He still didn’t know the difference between “It’s okay, were safe!” and “Shoot the humans!” Until then he didn’t want any potentially unsafe chats.

  Patricia called to the fox woman.

  Alacea turned back to them and the fur on her ears stiffened in embarrassment, realizing that she must have startled them with her sudden, helpful outburst. She bowed her head and fell into step behind and to Ben’s left.

  The six of them walked slowly toward the base of the landslide, trying their hardest to look casual and non-threatening… or as non-threatening as a bunch of armed soldiers could, anyway.

  When they got to the bottom of the slide, they stopped, Burgers and Ramirez pointing their weapons in to the left and right, scanning the cliff, the trees, the rocks, anywhere that might conceal a sniper.

  “Anything?” Ben asked, his own weapon pointed at the top of the cliff.

  “Nothing,” Burgers replied.

  “Clear left,” Ramirez threw in.

  “Okay, Mulroney on me, the rest of you stay here and watch the exit,” he ordered. “Let’s go, Mulroney.”

  Together, the two of them started to climb up the pile of loose rock and dirt toward the top of the slide. The angle wasn’t too steep, and the two had no problem scrabbling up the side to the one meter by one meter hole at the top. Ben motioned for the SeaBee to stand to the far side of it while he took the other. Checking the entrance for signs of traps or sabotage. The last thing he wanted was the rest of the mountain falling down on top of them.

  Mulroney knelt next to the small cave entrance and studied it as much as possible without exposing his head to whoever might be looking back from inside.

  “I don’t see anything,” Mulroney whispered to him. “No wires or other evidence of explosives. No glass.”

  Ben bit his lip and knelt next to the hole.

  Screw it, he thought, and brought his head down in front of the hole. He clicked on his flashlight and pointed it inside, illuminating a tunnel that ran off into the darkness.

  But no one shot him in the face, so… there was that.

  “What do you think?” he asked Mulroney.

  The sailor was looking at the small rock arch that used to be the top of a ten-meter high tunnel. It was still solid. Looking up, he saw the mawing cavity in the cliff about thirty feet above them that once held the dirt they were standing on.

  “I think we’re okay,” he said. “As long as we don’t go blowing stuff up and putting people up top.”

  “Gentle touch, huh?” Ben asked.

  Mulroney nodded. “I wouldn’t want earth movers up here,” he said. “But luckily we don’t have that problem.” He grinned.

  “Can we dig it out enough to get people out without bringing the place down?” Ben asked.

  “I think so. I’d rather have another way in, though.”

  Ben nodded and turned, and the two slid down the side of the landslide until they were face-to-face with the others.

  “Alacea, is there another way in there?” he asked as he dusted himself off.

  The fox priestess waited for the translation and answered. de.>

  “She says she doesn’t know.”

  “Great,” Ben muttered. “We need to make contact with them.”

  Burgers nodded in the direction of the tunnel. “Maybe a little guy could get through that tunnel to the other side, see if anyone is still there.”

  Ben grunted. “Tunnel rat, huh?” he asked. He chewed his lip nervously. He hated the idea of putting one of his people at risk, but he didn’t dare send Alacea. If anything happened to her before they made contact, the Va’Shen were likely to respond unkindly. It looked almost big enough for him, but if it narrowed inside by even a few inches he’d get stuck. “A little guy could do it,” he agreed.

  “Yeah,” Burgers reiterated. “A little guy.”

  Almost as one, every head turned to Ramirez, who, at five-five was shorter and much thinner than the rest of them.

  Ramirez looked from side to side at each of them. His face scrunched up in annoyance. He unslung his sniper rifle and started to unzip his tactical vest. “You guys suck,” he said in annoyed defeat. He handed Patricia his rifle and vest, who looked like someone had just tossed a newborn into her arms.

  “Sergeant Ramirez!” Patricia cried suddenly. When he looked up, Patricia bit her lip and said, “Naisho teruda da!”

  Ramirez grinned as he pulled off more of his gear, trying to slim down as much as possible. “What is that? ‘Good luck,’ in Va’shen?” he asked.

  “It means ‘don’t shoot me.’” Patricia told him matter-of-factly.

  The NCO paused and stared at her in stunned silence for a moment before turning to the hill. “Naisho teruda da! Naisho teruda da! Naisho teruda da!” he repeated under his breath, trying to memorize the phrase as he started to climb.

  Ben, Burgers and Mulroney went up with him. He continued reciting the Va’Shen phrase as he went until he got to the top. Ben checked the tunnel with his flashlight again as Ramirez sat down next to the entrance, putting the straps of his headlight over this head.

  “Naisho teruda da. Naisho teruda da,” he whispered. “Okay.”

  Burgers pulled the M-17 pistol from his holster and chambered a round with a metallic click-clack. He de-cocked the weapon and held it out to his friend butt-first. Ramirez took it instinctively and turned to lay down in front of the tunnel, but something stopped him.

  He looked at the pistol in his hand and then up at Ben. After a long pause, he turned the pistol around and offered it to the officer.

  Ben stared at him in confusion, causing Ramirez to speak up.

  “We’re all friends now, right?” he asked quietly, obviously a little concerned about crawling into a spider hole filled with possibly armed Va’Shen without a weapon. But the more he thought about it, the more the move made sense to him. If it were a group of Canadian spelunkers he was trying to rescue, after all, it wouldn’t even occur to him to bring a gun. And if the Va’Shen saw him crawl out into the open, gun in hand, who knows how they might react?

  Ben hated every part of this mission. He took the gun from his sergeant and stuck a finger in his face. “Take a look around and come back out,” he ordered. “No heroics.”

  “You got it, Sir,” Ramirez told him with a smile. He got down onto his belly and started to crawl into the hole, his headlamp lighting the way.

  The Ranger captain stood up and looked at Burgers, who bit his lip in obvious concern.

  Ben really hated every part of this…

  The sound of Ramirez’s breathing echoed through the dark tunnel as he crawled forward. After a few meters, the tunnel had widened slightly, removing some of the claustrophobic feel of the place, but it was still dark and he still had to crawl. The Ranger propelled himself on his elbows and knees, low-crawling like on the live-fire obstacle course back at Fort Accetta. At least the loose rock and soil under him wasn’t mud this time.

  “Hey, Ramirez!” Burgers called to him from behind. “You okay, man?”

  Ramirez muttered a curse and paused to catch his breath. “Oh yeah, it’s freaking awesome in here!” he called back. “Why don’t we crawl through dark scary caves more often?”

  Burgers was nonplussed by the sarcasm. “Okay, as long as you’re having fun.”

  The unlucky soldier cursed again and started crawling. “Frigg’n Burgers,” he muttered. “Just you wait. One day, the captain is gonna need a tall guy for something dangerous, and then it’s all you, buddy…”

  He paused again and turned his head around, letting the headlamp illuminate his surroundings. It was pitch dark in the tunnel, and the lamp only revealed a few feet ahead of him. Ramirez growled as the light started to flicker.

  “You gotta be kidding me,” he grumbled. He reached into his pocket and produced a blue chemlight, cracking the tube with his thumb and shaking it. Holding the light out in front of him, he chewed his lip at the degraded visibility and thought about turning around. “Screw it,” he breathed, pushing forward again.

  “Everything okay down there?” Ben’s voice came from down the tunnel.

  “Yes, Sir,” Ramirez called back. He crawled another few feet. “Just… WHOA!”

  His hand had reached out and hit a lot of inky black nothingness, and before he could pull back and steady himself, the ground he was laying on slipped out from under him, propelling him downward at a steep angle. He cried out as he slid head-first down the loose dirt and gravel, grunting as his shoulder struck the stone ground at the bottom.

  He rolled and landed on his back, the chemlight flung from his hand and skittered to a stop near a wall ten feet away.

  “Ramirez!” he heard Ben call faintly from the tunnel above. “Ramirez! You okay?!”

  “I’m good!” he called back with a groan, mentally checking himself to see if anything was broken. He felt okay. Reaching into his cargo pocket, he produced another chemlight and cracked it, bathing the area immediately around his supine body in a faint blue glow.

  Illuminated in this glow, directly over his face, was the barrel of a hardlight rifle.

  Chapter 7

  His eyes followed the rifle barrel up to the eyes glaring down at him over the weapon’s sights and the furry fox ears sitting a few inches above them. Ramirez slowly raised his hands over his head and took a deep breath.

  “Naisho…” He paused. “… Dammit,” he muttered, unable to remember the words.

  “Ramirez! What’s going on in there?!” Ben’s voice came again. Ramirez’s eyes went instinctively up to the tunnel and the source of the sound.

  The owner of the rifle saw the subtle move. a soft feminine voice promised him.

  Ramirez didn’t know what she said, but the rifle in his face was a pretty good translator.

  “Okay, as long as you’re having fun,” Burgers said.

  They could hear the faint sounds of grumbling as Ramirez continued down the tunnel. Hearing the sounds of moving rock and dirt, Ben turned and found Alacea and Patricia climbing the hill toward them.

  “She insisted,” Patricia huffed in her defense, gesturing to the fox woman.

  Alacea knelt next to the tunnel entrance and peered inside. she asked.

  “She wants to know if you found them,” Patricia said.

  “Nothing yet,” Ben told her.

  Alacea’s tail drooped as Patricia translated the answer for her. Ben gave it another minute and then called back down the tunnel.

  “Everything okay down there?” he called.

  “Yes, Sir,” he heard from further down the tunnel. “Just… WHOA!”

  Ben jumped as he heard the sound of sliding dirt and rock, and he poked his head into the tunnel. “Ramirez! Ramirez! You okay?!”

  “I’m good,” Ramirez’s voice was faint. Ben breathed a sigh of relief. He waited for Ramirez to elaborate on his situation, but a minute passed without any further sign from the Ranger.

  “Ramirez! What’s going on in there, dammit?!” Ben called.

  Nothing.

  “Dammit!” he cursed
. He rose to his feet and unslung his rifle, handing it to Mulroney, and started stripping off his gear. Knowing what he intended to do, Burgers held out his flashlight. Ben grabbed it with one hand and pulled his M-17 with the other, crouching down and crawling into the tunnel.

  It was a tight fit, but he could just barely make it through. He wiggled like a worm down the tunnel.

  Suddenly, he heard a voice cry out from behind him.

  “Okay,” he said quietly. “So… I’m Ramirez…”

  the voice growled. The tip of the rifle’s barrel poked him in the forehead to serve as the exclamation point.

  The Va’Shen rifleman’s ears turned from side to side, checking her surroundings. she demanded.

  The Ranger tried to stay calm. “No comprende,” he told her slowly. “My name is Ramirez. I’m here to rescue you.” He carefully enunciated each word, hoping maybe the Va’Shen had heard English somewhere before.

  The fox person’s ears twitched, and she looked up at the tunnel entrance. Ramirez’s human ears couldn’t make anything out, but this Va’Shen’s ears had been honed by years of stalking prey. She could hear the scratching of something coming through the tunnel. She took three steps back and raised the rifle, ready to shoot whatever came out.

  Ramirez took a deep breath and prepared to cry out a warning, but before he could, another voice came from the tunnel.

 

  The Va’Shen’s ears shot straight up, and she gasped. she called.

 

  The Va’Shen, Bao Sen, turned her attention back to Ramirez and pointed her rifle at him. she demanded.

  Ramirez kept his hands up and tried to look as unthreatening as possible. “Okay, I don’t understand anything you’re saying, but you’re obviously very upset by it,” he replied.

  Bao Sen replied by jabbing the muzzle of her rifle into his nose.

  The Ranger covered his nose with his hands and gave a cry of pain. “Oh, shit, my snout!”