by Jean Kilczer
I was dizzy and trembling with fear as she curled her tongue around my left arm and drew it against her teeth. I screamed as skin was torn off my wrist. She flicked it into her mouth.
Help me! I sent in a daze.
A low growl. A flash of fur. Something big and white slammed into the monster's neck. She staggered sideways but maintained her balance.
Huff!
“Oh my God! Huff!”
He growled deep in his throat. His lips drew back. His sharp teeth punctured her mantle and dug in. He shook his head like a predator breaking the back of its prey. The monster keened as he ripped loose a chunk of flesh. Yellow liquid spurted from a deep hole in her mantle. Her tentacle spasmed around my chest, then released me as she fought Huff. I slid down her mantle, clawing at it to break my fall, then jumped to the floor.
I searched frantically through the furry carpet, pushing aside dead fetuses, and found my knife. Huff 's arms and legs were wrapped around the BEM's mantle. He ripped at her throat. Her tentacles flailed and beat at him. Fully formed babies and fetuses rolled out from her rear vent.
I ripped at her soft underbelly, beneath the mantle, where organs protruded. She roared, deeper than I'd ever heard a BEM scream, and twisted around to get at me. But Huff threw himself on her back and his weight brought her down to within my reach. I clutched the knife in both hands, lifted it and plunged it into her chest, where her heart should be, if she had one. Her tentacles waved futilely in an attempt to keep her torturers at bay.
She spasmed and Huff was thrown off her body. He rolled, got to all fours and sprang onto her side, while weakened tentacles lashed at him. Her yellow blood formed puddles in the soft carpet. Eggs slid out of her ripped belly.
I backed off, knowing she'd been dealt a lethal blow. But Huff attacked with a ferocity that frightened me. He clamped down on her neck, and hit an artery. Yellow fluid spurted. Huff and I were covered with it.
A sudden mindlink blasted through my thoughts. A red, yawning mouth. A gateway to a black pit. A spiraling down, like a throat to hell. I drew in a breath and tried to break the link. This was a state of geth I'd never encountered.
Great Mind?
I felt His presence, but not the soothing hand that led the dead to new lifebinds. This was a vengeful god, angered by the depth of evil in the BEM creature.
I tried to break the link. Bountiful clung to it to hold herself to life. She was dragging me down with her into the pit.
“Great Mind!” I shuddered. Huff' threw his arms around me and held me close to his broad chest.
I felt Great Mind turn to me. The tel link with Bountiful snapped like a broken cord and her kwaii plummeted into the black pit. I got to my feet and leaned against Huff.
“Come, Jules Terran friend,” he whispered, “this river has the smell of death and the Ten Gods turn their snouts away. Your Terran friends wonder where inside you went.”
“Uh, oh. I was supposed to stay in touch on the comlink.” I looked around at the squirming babies. The fetuses and eggs were already dead, but some of the fully formed babies were alive and moving toward their dead mother. “You go, Huff.” My wrist had stopped bleeding, but the flesh was raw. “I want to get these kids into the cubicles and give them their feeding tubes.” I picked up one. “Give them a fighting chance, you know?” The baby curled against my hands.
Huff looked at me, shook his head, and carefully picked up a baby and put him inside a cubicle. I showed him how to insert the feeding tube as I'd seen a helper do when I threw my kwaii inside the BEM ship.
Together we placed perhaps fifteen babies into cubicles, inserted feeding tubes in their mouths, and snapped the covers shut.
I wiped sweat from my forehead. “Let's go, Huff. Wolfie's not going to be too happy with me. He ordered me to stay on the dune.”
“I like Wolfie least of all your friends.”
“Friends? I don't think he has any.”
I leaned against Huff as we started through the dark tunnel, past Older Brother's body and out into the driving rain. I needed a shower bad, but not like this.
The horses were tied to blackened posts that jutted from the sand. I saw Chancey, Reika, Bat, and Wolfie striding out of the mist. Wolfie shoved Reika aside and strode up to me.
Here it comes, I thought.
He pushed my shoulder. “How come you're still here?”
“What?” I wiped water from my face and glanced at Chancey.
He shrugged.
“I told you,” Wolfie said with his narrow lips twisted, “if you're gone when I get back, you'd better stay gone.” He hit my shoulder again.
This time I knocked his hand off. But I stepped back as he raised his rifle.
“Whoa!” Chancey came between us. “Man, you got a screw loose under that helmet, or what?” he told Wolfie.
“Move out of the way, soldier,” Wolfie said. “He willfully disobeyed the command of his superior officer during a time of war, and he struck a superior officer.”
I heard Huff growl.
Chancey held his ground. “You ever hear o' fragging, officer?”
Christ and Buddha!“I can't believe this,” I muttered. I survived almost being eaten alive by Bountiful, and Wolfie wanted to execute me? Now Chancey was threatening him with murder. “Wait a minute!” I said and went around Chancey. “Wait a minute. We killed Bountiful in there. Doesn't that count for something, Captain?” I told Wolfie.
His lips drew back into a tight smile and he lowered his rifle. “Nice. I was just going to scare the shit out of superstar,” he told Chancey. “Put the fear of God into him so he learns to follow fucking orders!”
I saw Chancey's shoulders relax. Huff sat down.
“You got her?” Reika said. “You killed Bountiful?”
I nodded. “Huff got her.” Rain beat on my raw wrist. I pulled my sleeve over the cut.
“Damn,” Chancey said. “Good going, Huff.”
Huff nodded. “It was good. And I was going because she was going to eat my Jules friend.”
Chancey glanced at me. “Remind me to treat you right, bro. I wouldn't want the fur ball chasing after me.”
“And remember it,” I said.
Bat came over and looked at my wrist. “Did Bountiful do that?”
“She did.”
“Is that when Huff killed her?”
I nodded.
Bat went for his med kit.
Suppose we get out of the rain?" I suggested. The bedroll I'd spread over Asil's back was dripping rainwater. “The horses, too.”
We went into the ruins and found an area still covered by the broken roof. We left puddles wherever we walked. I slid the dripping bedroll off Asil and patted his wet neck. “How you doing, Prince?”
Chancey, Wolfie and Reika went through the side passage to see Bountiful's body.
“Here,” Bat said to me, “Let me bandage your wrist.”
I sat down with my arm on my upraised knee and leaned my head back.
“That must've been some fight.” Bat grinned. “Sorry I missed it, Bubba.”
“Don't be,” I told him wearily. “It brought me to the gates of Hell. If it wasn't for Huff, I'd have gone through.”
"He's a good friend. Bat chuckled.
“What?”
“Well, more like an other, I'm thinking.”
I glanced at Huff and smiled. He was lying down, his head between those massive front paws, watching us. “Yeah, he coddles me like a mother.” I leaned my head back against the wall and sighed.
“What's troubling you?” Bat asked as he taped the bandage.
“I've killed so many BEMs, and even that Denebrian traitor. Now I helped kill one of their All Mothers.”
“You figure you had a choice?”
“Maybe not. But it weighs heavily.”
Bat closed his med kit. “If you take action, Jules, you're bound to have some regrets.” He stood up. “An' you take action, my friend.”
“It's disturbing, though, to have
killed so many.”
“Suppose you consider that the good you did outweighs the bad?”
I smiled. “Thanks, Doc.”
“You'll get my bill in the mail.”
I laid down on the wet, sandy floor. Huff came and curled up beside me. I stroked his back.
Chancey shook his head as the three of them returned. “Man!” he said to Huff. “Remind me not to tangle with your cub!”
Huff lifted his head. “I will remind you.”
Reika slid me a look. I closed my eyes, rubbed out a hole in the sand for my shoulder, and fell asleep.
A warm, wet lick across my cheek. “What, Huff?” I wiped my cheek on my sleeve.
“The sun is up in the sky. Your Terran friends want to go now.”
“Oh.” I yawned, stretched, and rolled toward him. “Did I thank you yet for saving my life?”
“I don't think so.”
I patted his shoulder. “Thank you, my good friend.”
“You are welcome for this, my good Jules friend.”
I got up. I was sandy, sticky with Bountiful's dried blood, wet, smelly, and itchy all over.
“I don't care how cold that stream is,” I told Chancey as we saddled the horses, “I'm jumping in.”
“Be right behind you, superstar,” Chancey mounted.
“You think the Alliance fleet has caught up to the invasion force?” I asked.
He shrugged. “We'll find out.”
We rode west, toward our cliff hideout and Joe. The sun dried my clothes, but they smelled and stuck.
“There,” I said and pointed to a pond. It was just a broadening in the narrow swift-running stream.
“Last one in's a rotten Squasher Troad.” Chancey galloped toward the pond. He had learned to ride during our mission. I wondered how he'd feel about giving up the bay gelding to go back to Earth. I patted Asil's neck. I had all intentions of taking him with me. Lisa, I thought and smiled. It wouldn't be long until I saw my little girl again.
I stripped off my clothes and jumped into the cold water. “Shit!” I yelled, before I even hit. Reika glanced at me. I turned away and used sand to wash off the grime and BEM blood, to scrub my hair. It was over between us. I felt nothing when I looked at her. Somewhere in that alluring feminine body was a hard core that could kill without feeling or remorse, and could determine that sapient aliens weren't as good as humans.
I washed my clothes and put them on wet.
Bat came over with his med kit. “Gotta redo the bandage all over again, Bubba, unless you're jumping back in for a swim?”
“No. Go 'head.” I extended my left arm.
“You're going to have to tell us just what happened in that chamber with Bountiful,” he said as he wrapped my wrist.
“Huff was the real superstar.”
He looked up. “I saw the yellow BEM blood on his snout.”
“Don't ever cross him, Bat. I mean it.”
He grinned. “It's not in my nature.”
“No, it's not. You're a good man.”
He chuckled. “I work at it.”
We walked to the horses together.
The hot afternoon sun dried my back and thighs as we rode toward the cliffs.
“Hey, Joseph of Earth!” I called into our hideout and dismounted. “Come on out and smell the roses.”
Joe came out grinning. His color looked good and he walked with his old military stride. “You're all here.” He came up to me. “What happened to your wrist?”
“Long story, Joe.”
We unsaddled the horses and tethered them under the trees near the stream, in the patch of good grass.
“Is there any coffee left?” I asked Joe as we entered the hideout. “Man, I'm hungry.”
“I squeezed out a last pot,” he said, “but no more food.”
Joe had a fire going. I took off my wet pants, sweater, socks, and jacket, and spread them out near the hot rocks. So did the others while Joe reheated the coffee and brought it to us.
The aroma and taste, were soothing. “Wish you could have some, Huff,” I said.
“Oh no.” He licked his lips. “But I dream of roasted eyeballs.”
“Oh.” I sipped coffee.
It was too late to travel to Northwestern Village. It would be dark when we arrived. If the BEMs had taken over the town, we'd be at a disadvantage against their eyesight in the dark.
We stayed the night in the hideout. I didn't realize how tired I was until I laid down, wrapped in Joe's offered blanket, with Huff curled beside me.
“Ah,” I heard Chancey say, “the superstar's sleeping with his teddy bear.”
I like Chancey, you know, but one of these days we're going to tangle.
Next morning, as a blazing desert sun carved crimson light and deep gullies of shadow across the dunes, we headed toward the Village. My stomach growled its discontent. But there was no way we could eat this alien vegetation. I would've been happy to have corn bread and pumpkin cakes again.
I shook my head as a thick column of black smoke rose above the location of the village.
Chancey lifted in the stirrups. “Those mother fuckers are burning down the village!”
“Rape, murder, pillage,” Joe said.
“Maybe not rape,” I offered and tightened my jaw. “But food for the table.”
“What's that!” Reika pointed upward.
High in the southeastern sky, the sun glinted off a fleet of ships headed northwest. I looked at Joe.
He grinned broadly, gripped my shoulder and shook it. “The Worlds' Alliance fleet.”
I lowered my head and could not stop tears from sliding past my eyes and down my cheeks. Thank you, Great Mind. I tried not to sob. I wiped my eyes and blinked up, watching the mighty fleet sail by overhead. Huff rose to his hind legs and stared.
Joe took out his comlink and opened it. “This is Captain Joseph Hatch of W-CIA. Do you read, Alliance?”
“Joseph,” the voice came back. “This is Commander Ca Prez of the flagship Star Temple. Are you in Northwestern Village?”
“On our way there, Commander,” Joe said as we gathered around him. “Are the BEMs holding the village?”
“They were,” she said. “We've given them one day to pack their bags and leave. According to their Brother Leader, they're already on their way.”
Joe looked around the group and grinned. “I think our mission is accomplished, boys and girls.”
I thought there would be cheering, but we all just sat quietly on our horses, each with our own thoughts. Only Wolfie looked disturbed. Made for war, I thought. Whatever would he do for fun?
“Are you coming back to Earth with us, son?” Joe asked me.
I nodded. “In time, Joe.”
“Now what?” he asked.
“Something I can't leave unfinished.” I took out my comlink and opened it. “Commander Ca Prez? Are you still there, sir? I mean Madame?”
“Speaking. Is that you, Jules?”
“Yes, Commander.”
“How are you?”
“OK, Madame.”
“I'm glad to hear that,” she said.
We had met briefly, aboard her flagship. She was an Altairian. Not my favorite race of grumpy aliens. But Ca Prez was the exception to the rule. A gentle female with the focused look of an intelligent and capable leader.
“Commander,” I said, “I wonder if I could impose on you for a small favor?”
“After what you and your team accomplished, Jules, your wish is my command.” I heard the chuckle in her voice.
“Well, sir…I mean Madame, there's a bunch of BEM babies Huff and I left inside cubicles back at the BEM HQ in the desert. They're OK for now. But I don't think their feeding tubes will hold out much longer.”
“Are you talking about BEM babies or Denebrians?” she asked.
“BEM babies, Commander Ca Prez. They had no part in this madness.”
“Of course not, Jules. We're in communication with the BEM Brother Leader. I'll relay you
r message to him and give one of their ships time to gather up the children.”
I exhaled a breath. “Thank you, sir! I mean –”
“Why don't you just call her commander?” Joe said.
She laughed. “Never mind. I can send a hovair to pick up your team, if you wish.”
“Well,” I said, “I want to bring my horse back to Earth with me.” I bit my lip. “Is that allowed?”
“Jules, you and your team can probably have just about anything you wish. In fact, I would like to invite all of you aboard my ship for a fine dinner. Afterwards, you will be debriefed.”
“That's great, Commander. There's not much left here for us to eat.”
“If I recall, you are personally partial to mock steak.”
“Mock steak?” I asked incredulously.
“That's what I said. Mashed potatoes.”
“Mashed… Dripping with butter?”
I can arrange that. And a salad. How would that suit you?"
“Oh.” My mouth was watering. “Would you happen to have mud pie, and roasted eyeballs for Huff?”
“Mud pie? Roasted eyeballs. I'll have to ask the chef about that.”
“Commander.”
“I'm still here, Jules.”
“The BEM people are starving on Tau Ceti.”
“Yes. We're aware of that.”
“Is there a way the Worlds Alliance could bring them into the fold?”
“We're working on it, Jules. Anything else you'd like to solve right now?”
“No, that's all.”
“Then I'll be expecting you and your team once your horses are stabled and cared for.”
“Thank you, Commander.”
“Thank you, Jules.”
Joe shook his head. “Can't help wishing my daughter Al had waited one more year for your maverick ass to make it back to Earth.”
I smiled. “She waited too long already, Dad.”
“No.” He sighed. “Not long enough.”
He started toward Northwestern Village.
We followed.
The sun was high in the sky, burning down with warm hands of light on my shoulders.
And, after all, tags, the sun is but a morning star.
END