by Jerry Aubin
“Chief—I can’t fault your anger about what led to your Culling, but I don’t have time for games right now.”
“Well, Boss, I feel like I have all the time in the world. I guess we’ve got ourselves a stalemate.”
The Boss stared at the woman. Imair was amazed by his calm demeanor, especially as compared to his initial reaction upon the woman’s arrival. Finally he spoke.
“A trip back to the Ship along with restoration of rank and position in the Crew. That’s my final offer. Take it or leave it.”
The woman grinned. “That’s exactly what I had in mind, Boss. I’m glad we’ve managed to see things eye-to-eye. You might want to have a seat because you aren’t going to believe what I have to say.” The Boss waved off her suggestion and the woman continued. “Ants showed up one day. We were shocked because we knew the Captain had nuked their continent before settling us. That surprise was nothing compared to what happened next.
“A group of warriors approached and first they killed the handful of idiots who tried to fight them off. Typical ant stuff like we’ve all seen in the training. Fast. Scary. Deadly. But then they herded all of us together and one of them walked up to me and started to speak. I almost fell over. It told me we were being brought back together with our kind. Then we were herded on to a huge ship. A ship! We’ve never seen any technology from the ants, right? We get on this massive transport, and the next thing we know they’re filling it up with gas that knocks us all out cold. I woke up feeling heat on my face and found myself lying in the grass with some new sun shining down on me. That was here, fifteen days ago.”
The Boss stared at her and Imair went slack-jawed in disbelief. Her head spun with the ramifications of what a story like this meant from a reliable witness. Not only were the ants sentient and capable of human speech, but they were also rounding up the Ship’s colonies and consolidating them on this planet for some unknown purpose. She had a million questions but didn’t know where to begin. The Boss finally broke the silence.
“So why did you show up here today?”
“We’ve been staying pretty close to where the ants dumped us. We had all of the food and water we needed, so there wasn’t much interest in exploring. I spotted the smoke from that downed shuttle and set off to check it out. When I spotted the Marines in their armor, I realized it was a landing party and decided to try and talk my way back to the Ship. When I saw it was you, well, it would be impossible to measure my excitement. So what’s your story? When’s the rescue party due with a new shuttle to get us all back up to the Ship?”
The Boss approached Imair, bent over, and spoke softly in her ear.
“Ma’am—I believe we need to fully evaluate the ramifications of this information before we allow anyone else to learn about it. Do you agree?”
Imair nodded and the Boss continued to whisper.
“Give me a few mins alone with the Chief. I need to be certain she doesn’t say anything to anyone, and I don’t think you want to be around.”
Imair stared into the Boss’s eyes. She had guessed what his words were suggesting, and the blankness of his expression confirmed her suspicions. She stood to leave.
“Boss—thanks for the information. I need to check in on our rescue, so I trust you can take care of the Chief without me.”
Imair walked out without so much as a glance backward. She didn’t know what was ahead for all of them based on the new and startling information about the ants, but she knew she definitely wanted nothing to do with what was happening in the building behind her.
36
Well, that certainly changes things.
Imair walked out which meant the Boss was inside alone with the colonist who the Marines had led in a few mins earlier. It had only been a quick glimpse, but Zax swore he recognized the woman’s face. It didn’t make any sense, but he was nearly certain it was the colonial security chief who he and Kalare had delivered a case to on behalf of the Boss years ago. That was obviously impossible, so he kept checking the building entrance to be sure he didn’t miss a chance to get a better look.
“Hey, Zax.”
It was Mase. The boy had gotten a black eye when he and the Major ejected from the destroyed shuttle. He was also walking with a slight limp.
“Wow—it’s great to see you alive, Mase. I’ve been wondering where you were at.”
“The Major and I got checked out by a medic.”
The boy gestured to where Major Eryn was sitting on the ground apart from everyone else near the edge of the building. The woman had her head tilted back to soak in the warmth of the sun. A large bandage had been applied to her face.
“You two are lucky to be alive. That was a crazy crash! Did you get a look at whatever shot the missile at you?”
“That’s the thing, Zax. What I saw—”
Movement on top of one of the buildings closer to the edge of the jungle caught Zax’s attention, and he held up his hand to silence Mase.
“Wait—who is that up there? What are they doing?”
Mase focused on where Zax was pointing. The boy squinted for a sec.
“It looks like that colonist who led us here. The one the Boss gave the goggles to. He’s jumping up and down.”
The hairs on the back of Zax’s neck snapped to attention and, for some unknown reason, he glanced to his left.
Ants!
A dozen red and green warriors were charging toward them in the space between the buildings. All held multiple blades at the ready. Time crawled for Zax and events unfolded in slow motion. He turned to warn the others who relaxed around him. One of the creatures was approaching an unaware Major Eryn.
“Ants! Warriors! All around us!”
After shouting his alert, Zax swung his gaze back in the direction of where the largest group of warriors was bearing down on them. The single ant had indeed grabbed the Major and was dragging her out of sight around the side of the building as she thrashed against its four arms. He screamed again.
“They’ve got the Major!”
Blaster fire erupted all around Zax and the charging ants fell in a heap before any threw a blade. No sooner had that happened, than multiple groups of the aliens began to emerge from every direction. This only led to a further intensification of the blaster fire directed at them.
Zax scanned the area in a frenzy trying to identify the location of the blasters, but it was impossible to know for sure. The invisible Marines were staying on the move to prevent anyone from tracking their position. What was clear, though, was that it was not some small handful of Marines in ChamWare guarding the Boss. There were at least two dozen blasters laying down sufficient fire to keep the aliens at bay. Sergeant Bailee was suddenly at Zax’s side.
“Up against the building, cadet!”
Zax fought the urge to grab his blaster from the kit bag he had dumped in a heap along with all of the other Crew from Flight. Instead, he listened to the Marine and put his faith in the safety of a solid structure at his back and a ring of covering fire from the best Marines on the Ship—the Boss’s personal protection detail. He was too afraid to take his eyes off the charging aliens, so he scampered backwards toward the building instead. Zax experienced a small moment of relief a sec later when Major Eryn came running back around the building free of her alien captor. She beat him to the building and slammed her back against it in a spot right next to Imair.
Zax’s hand was extended behind him to feel for the building as he got closer and it instead found someone’s leg. He turned and met the gaze of the Boss. The man reached out and pulled him by the shoulder up against the building next to him. There was no sign of the colonist the Omega had been with inside the building. Bailee arrived and the Boss peppered him with questions.
“How the hell did this many show up without warning, Sergeant? Where’s Charlie Company? How did they let all these ants inside our perimeter?”
“Major Odon insists his Marines had a tight cordon and there’s no way they came past them, sir. The
y’re jumping into ChamWare so they can join the fight.”
“What’s the plan?”
“We’re still working on it, sir.”
“They just keep charging without throwing their blades. It’s like they’re trying to overwhelm us rather than kill us.”
Zax had noticed the same thing about the aliens’ pattern. Bailee replied.
“We can keep mowing them down like this for a while, but eventually we’re going to run out of ammo.” The Sergeant closed his eyes for a moment and then reopened them. “Charlie Company is on the way. We’re going to form a gauntlet that lets us get out of the colony and back into the jungle, so we can make a dash for the colonists’ cave system. We can defend that entrance a lot easier than all of this space, and if it gets bad enough we can use explosives to seal the bugs out altogether.”
While they waited for the Marines to arrive, the sights of the battle drove Zax’s fear and agitation ever higher. The impossibly fast, scurrying movements of the creatures triggered a deep revulsion within him, but his eyes remained locked on the horrifying scene out of morbid curiosity. Wave after wave of the aliens charged at the Crew’s invisible ring of protection only to be taken down by the Marine’s precision blaster fire. The next line of ants would grab their fallen comrades and pull them away to clear the path for the group who replaced them from behind. It was a relentless and never-ending pattern, and Zax became increasingly hopeless about their prospects.
The Boss jerked suddenly against him, and Zax discovered the man had craned his body to get a better view around the side of the building. He followed the Omega’s gaze and a moment later witnessed a miraculous sight. A formation of fighters from the Ship was coming in fast and low toward the colony. Right behind them was a shuttle! The Boss pointed and called out.
“Bailee—look!”
The Sergeant turned and a tight smile formed on his mouth. “Well, that certainly changes things.” He closed his eyes and then reopened them. “New plan. Charlie Company is making their way around to the landing pad. Boss—call those fighters in to provide covering fire and tell them to keep the ants at bay so we can join the Marines for extraction.”
“Roger that, Sergeant.”
Twenty secs later the cacophony of blaster fire was replaced by something that made Zax’s ears hurt worse even as it warmed his heart. The fighters hovered over their position and unleashed volley after volley from their ion cannons at the charging ants. The aliens kept coming, but the intense wall of heavy fighter ordnance slowly pushed them back further and further. Bailee called out to everyone above the din.
“Leave everything behind and get to the landing pad. Now!”
Zax didn’t need to be told twice. He tucked his head and ran. The shuttle finished its descent as he reached the pad and the ramp at its rear opened and discharged a phalanx of Marines. They waved everyone onboard, and Zax kept running full speed up into the belly of the spacecraft. He was soon joined by Kalare and Aleron and then Mase and Major Eryn and finally Imair and Rege along with the rest of the Flight group. The Boss and Bailee stood by the entrance with Major Odon, and Zax assumed they were counting heads as the ChamWare-clad Marines invisibly hustled up the ramp. After a min the two Marines each gave the Boss a thumbs up, the Omega closed his eyes, and the ramp started to close.
Zax scrambled to a window to get a look outside the craft as they lifted off. The fighters were still hovering on station, but their cannons had gone quiet as the ants acted as if they had declared a retreat. The shuttle climbed higher, and Zax caught a glimpse of a solitary human scampering over the terrain toward the jungle. The colonist stopped and gawked up at the shuttle for moment before resuming the course which had him disappear a few secs later under the dense tree canopy. Zax imagined the stories the boy would share when he returned to his people in their caves, and the vision brought a smile to his face. He only hoped the actions of the Crew in drawing the ants back to the human continent had not doomed their colonists’ descendants to extinction.
37
None of this is getting us anywhere.
As happy as he was to be on a shuttle making its way back to the Ship, the Boss fumed about many of the preceding events. He was surrounded by the senior leadership who had filled the compartment for a debrief. Imair sat across from him, and Sergeant Bailee occupied the chair next to her. Rege leaned up against the bulkhead while Major Odon paced back and forth. Major Eryn was the only one of the bunch who did not appear agitated but instead watched the rest of them with detached bemusement. The Boss assumed she must still be in shock from the crash.
The connection to the Ship went through, and the Mini-Boss materialized on the screen. She saluted the Boss and spoke.
“It’s good to see you, sir. Didn’t expect to ever do so again.”
“I’m curious about that, Mini-Boss. I left you with explicit orders that the Ship was to continue onwards without us if we didn’t catch you at the rendezvous point. I never said anything about launching a rescue mission.”
“My apologies, Boss. I relayed your instructions to the civilians exactly as ordered but was overruled. They told me they had explicit instructions from President Imair to attempt a rescue at all costs if the need for one arose. They refused any guidance to the contrary, so I put together the plan. Thankfully, the unknown aliens were gone when we jumped back into the system. I’m guessing all of the torpedoes we launched at them earlier dissuaded them from sticking around. We maintained comms blackout until we had you in visual because we didn’t want to risk surprise encounters if anyone detected our signals. The vids I saw from the shuttle made it look like we got there just in time.”
The Boss was taken by surprise to hear about Imair’s orders. He turned to her.
“Madam President—I’m impressed that you left instructions regarding a rescue with your staff before we departed the Ship.”
“Thanks, Boss, but I actually didn’t. I reached out to them when we learned the Ship was under attack.”
“I’m confused, ma’am. I was with you when that information came in. You were never with our comms person from that point forward.”
“I’m sorry, Boss, but I thought you knew. I got Plugged In.”
The Boss was shocked but fought to maintain a neutral appearance. It was bad enough he was unable to block Imair from communicating with Alpha, but now she had the capability to do so at will and from anywhere. Imair’s expression made it clear she knew the Boss would be surprised by the news and suggested she was enjoying his discomfort. Rege appeared positively giddy at the amount of tension in the compartment, and Bailee scrutinized the odious civilian through narrowed eyes. Odon had stopped his pacing and was muttering something that reflected his negative opinion about civilians having Plugs. The Boss wanted to explore this development further, but he put it aside to wait for a better time. He turned back to the screen.
“Thanks for the recap, Mini-Boss. I appreciate you getting us off that rock.”
The Boss cut the connection to the Ship and weighed how best to proceed. Imair spoke while he was still formulating his thoughts.
“Major Odon—Your Marines were on guard. How is it that we found ourselves overrun by those bugs with the only warning coming from a cadet?”
The Marine was visibly shocked to have such a direct, public rebuke from Imair, and his cheeks filled with color as his fists clenched. The Boss jumped in to defuse the situation.
“Major—what the President is trying to understand is how you believe the ants were able to evade your perimeter.”
The Marine remained red-faced as he replied. “We had a complete 360-degree view around the colony, and there was zero notice of the ants approaching. It was as if they materialized out of thin air. The only thing I can think of is that they were somehow hiding in one of the buildings that we didn’t check and clear completely.”
Rege guffawed. “Hiding in a building? Did you see how many of those creatures were coming at us? It must have been thousands. Admi
t it—one of your guards was asleep at her post. The aliens found the weak spot and came marching right in under your nose.”
The Marine charged at the civilian and got within centimeters of his face. Spittle flew as he screamed his reply, but Rege did not flinch.
“Asleep? I’ve been over the vids from all of our helmet cams, and it’s clear we remained alert at all times. Our perimeter was intact and never violated. You don’t have the slightest clue what you’re talking about, but if you’d like to step outside the compartment I’d be happy to educate you.”
Rege started to move until the Boss yelled even louder than Odon had.
“Stand down, civilian! You too, Major! None of this is getting us anywhere. Clearly there’s something about the bugs’ abilities that has changed, and I want all of your vids handed over to the exobiology unit for immediate and priority review. As often as we encounter them, we’d better understand the ants’ new capabilities before we get caught by surprise again.”
“I agree, Boss.” Imair paused and then continued. “I doubt we’ll be back down on a planet with any ants at this point, but we should definitely try to be better prepared if it happens. Let’s forget about them for a min, though, and talk about whatever aliens attacked the Ship and destroyed our shuttles. Do we think that was the ants finally revealing their technological abilities?”
“I don’t believe that’s the right conclusion, Madam President. If it was the ants’ spacecraft up there, they would have stuck around once we left. Right? Why would they leave after scaring us off with all of their colonists still down on the planet? We surely wouldn’t.”
“Well, Boss, that isn’t entirely true, now is it? We’re leaving our colonists behind after an encounter with some aliens.”
The Boss grimaced. “I think you know what I meant, ma’am. I need some time to review all of our data so I can be better prepared to answer your questions. May I be dismissed, and we can continue this discussion once we are back on the Ship?”