by Dan Davis
Before they left, Fury ignited the incendiaries and they filled the interior of the entry vehicle with a fire hot enough to melt much of the interior. If the Hex found the ship, the intention was that they would not be able to tell what had been inside. Even if they could tell people had been inside, ideally they would not know how many humans they were hunting. It was hoped they would also be unable to discern that one of the entry chairs was made for a wheelhunter.
Whatever edge they could get, Ram would welcome, though it seemed redundant now. They were not supposed to be discovered at such a low altitude. They had been supposedly flying over wilderness uninhabited by either people or Hex, and yet they had been hit by a focused energy weapon powerful enough to bring them down.
“What hit us?” Stirling asked as they started to move off. They could speak using their encrypted comms implants that could be boosted by their combat suits so the team would always be in range, within reason.
“That was undoubtedly a Hex weapon,” Red said. His suit covered him like a second skin but with thick armor panels covering his central hub and other key parts of his wheelhunter anatomy.
“Obviously it was a Hex weapon,” Stirling said. “What’s it doing up here? There’s nothing up here, is there?”
“Automated?” Fury suggested.
Cooper replied. “I heard they have mobile units all over, focused on subversion and psyops and the like.”
“But subverting who? There’s no towns up here. Just trees and bears.”
“Whoever they are, there’s a good chance they’re coming this way so let’s get moving. And stay ready.”
“I ain’t getting taken alive,” Flores muttered. “No way.”
“None of us are,” Ram said. “But let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. Hurry up now.”
Ram’s team had barely entered the trees when a proximity alert sounded.
“Something’s coming,” Cooper said, pointing out across the lake, into the air.
“Find cover,” Ram snapped and jogged deeper into the forest, away from the quietly burning dropship. His suit beeped a warning and highlighted the approaching aircraft before it appeared above the trees on the other side of the lake.
It was moving slowly, the engines emitting a blue light in the darkness that reflected off the surface of the lake as it flew over. Ram crouched behind the trunk of a large tree that was hardly wider than he was and watched.
It was not an especially large aircraft but it had a bulbous body between the stubby wings and their engines. For a moment, he thought the enemy vessel was going to pass over the lake without stopping but at the last moment it swerved towards them and descended over the water near the shore.
“Shit, they’re landing,” Flores said. “Orders, sir?”
“Be ready,” Ram signaled to his team. “But hold your fire.”
“We can get the drop on them, sir,” Stirling muttered.
Ram knew that was true. But engaging in a firefight could endanger the entire mission, even if they won it. All it would take would be one of the aliens to send a message confirming human ground forces were in the area and they might be swarmed with enemy reinforcements.
“Hold your fire,” Ram repeated.
The craft hovered and came down at the shoreline on the other side of their burning vehicle. Wisps of smoke drifted from the open hatch and no doubt the infrared poured out with it like a beacon. Ram cursed himself for giving the order to burn the ship. Should have left it, he thought. They might have missed it otherwise.
Movement at the ship.
The view was obscured by half a dozen tree trunks but Ram just made out the swirling mass of flailing legs of the small group of aliens approaching his downed dropship.
Since waking from his 26 years in stasis and during his two weeks of prep for the mission, he had learned about the Hex. UNOP classified the species as hexadecapodiformes on account of their sixteen legs, which looked for all the world like long, spindly but stiff tentacles that held the body—the thorax— aloft so the top of it was 3 meters above the ground. Their bodies were encased in almost-spherical suits, much of which was transparent and Ram could make out some of the creatures’ exoskeleton within. Some of the dark-clad legs held weapons or carried other devices or reached out to touch the surface of their dropship.
Two of the legs were in fact tentacles, or arms, with long, thin blades along the inner part that they used for close quarters slicing. Two more tentacles were armed with spikes that injected highly concentrated alkaline chemicals that burned and poisoned humans. The final pair of unique arms were prehensile and grasping which they used for operating their weapons and other equipment. All could be used for locomotion if necessary. With their bulbous thorax on top, they looked to be top-heavy and faintly ridiculous. It was theorized that the species had evolved in a waterlogged, swamp-like environment of some kind but they seemed to get around perfectly well on dry land, too.
They were also deadly and no human on record had survived a hand-to-hand combat with a hex.
“Four hex at the ship,” Stirling said, his voice a whisper but loud inside Ram’s head. “Shall we engage, sir?”
“No,” Ram said, hoping it was the right call. “Hold.”
Red’s voice came through in response. “We must destroy the Great Enemy before they find us,” he said, his artificially produced voice lacking in nuance. Ram was not sure if Red was afraid or angry.
“Hold your position or I’ll destroy you,” Ram muttered. “Stay off comms.”
Their communications technology encrypted the content of their conversations and Ram had been assured the enemy would find it difficult to detect the low power, short-range signals and would be entirely unable to pinpoint their location if they did. But Ram found it hard to believe and so he preferred they speak as little as possible.
Ram watched as the aliens examined the burning vehicle and peered into the furnace that was the interior. The Hex seemed to look around, each clutching their weapons low in their two grasping arms before advancing to the edge of the trees.
Do you have anything like trees on your homeworld, you bastards? Ram thought. Or is it all swamps and weeds and mud?
Ram stayed still but he clutched his rifle close and felt his massive heart thumping in his chest, certain that he would have to fight his way out. One of the aliens glided forward, its long tentacles undulating beneath it.
“I have a clear shot,” Flores said.
“Hold,” Ram hissed. “Stay off comms.”
“What’s that?” Stirling muttered. “By the ship.” He put a marker on the target on the AugHud and the tiny icon pinged in Ram’s vision but the target itself was hidden behind a trunk.
“Don’t have a visual,” Ram whispered. “What is the—” The target moved into view and Ram broke off in stunned silence. “Is that… a human?”
Behind the Hex, tiny in comparison, a human stood looking up at the ship. He wore long white robes with a circular black emblem on the front. On his head he wore a white headdress flowing down past his shoulders. He looked almost like a Catholic priest or an Arab in traditional dress but whatever he was wearing it looked utterly out of place in the cold darkness of a North American night surrounded by giant, freakish aliens. But Ram suspected he knew who the man was. At least, what he was.
A collaborator.
His team had been briefed aboard the Hereward regarding the Hex’s conquest of Earth. Ram had listened in horror to the computer relaying the battles in orbit and on the surface as the aliens overran the military forces of every country. Millions had been killed in the fighting but it seemed as though the Hex were not interested in wiping humans out. They were content to let hundreds of millions starve in the chaos but they did not want the human species to disappear. Far from it, by all accounts.
UNOP was convinced the Hex wanted converts.
Once the conquests had been completed, the Hex began abducting humans in their thousands. At first, no doubt it was purely a
matter of scientific study and most abductees were subjected to horrific mutilations as the Hex scientists took people apart to see how they worked. A few resistance fighters attempted rescues but these were largely in vain and all that got out permanently was information. Soon, the Hex investigations developed into attempts at communication with the abductees so they could master the various languages of humanity and also to understand the diverse cultures across the planet. And according to the reports sent off Earth, the Hex had used this knowledge to win humans over to their side through indoctrination.
“The simplest way to think of it,” Lt. Commander Xenakis had said over dinner in the mess just three days before, “is forced conversions. Or reeducation camps.”
“What, like a Hex religion?” Ram said, his mouth full of tofu pieces.
“Some might say that but who knows how the Hex think? They don’t even have brains like us, how can we hope to understand what religion is like for them? But sure, it’s like they don’t just want our people to betray humanity, they want us to think as they do.”
Private Cooper spoke from down the bench without looking up from his meal. “They worship the Orbs.”
Kat pointed at him. “We don’t know that.”
“Sure we do,” Cooper said, looking up and chewing slowly. “Red told me. The Wheelhunter rebels told UNOP all about it. I know you don’t believe them but we’ve got no reason to doubt it’s the truth. The Hex worship the Orb stations, they have been trying to conquer the Wheelhunters for decades and they’ve indoctrinated them too and now they want us to worship the Orbs, too. That’s what their religion is. And that’s what the human traitors worship. The Orb Builders are their gods.”
“It might not have a spiritual component,” Kat said, shrugging. “It might just be political, you know? Cultural. We don’t really understand it yet. What’s the difference, anyway? It’s all the same bullshit.”
“But there are traitors on Earth?” Ram said. “Collaborators, I mean. Humans who work for the Hex? What do we do if we meet one?”
“I know what I’m going to do,” Cooper said, pointing his fork like a rifle and sighting down it. “Pop every traitor bastard I see.”
Crouching behind the tree in the darkness, Ram glanced at Cooper and hoped he would hold his fire.
“Be ready,” Ram whispered. “Wait for my order.”
The robed figure called out to the Hex soldiers who stopped and returned to his side like four gigantic, skeletal squids, surrounding him and seeming to look down. He spoke rapidly to them and then strode away, back to his aircraft. The Hex appeared to turn back to the woods, as if they were looking into the darkness and their stalk-like legs jittered and moved them forward a few meters.
“This is it,” Stirling muttered.
Ram placed his finger on the fire button.
Although there was as yet no set doctrine around engagement with the Hex, Ram’s team’s briefing had suggested that shooting the legs would bring them down and immobilize them. Other battlefield reports they had been provided with said that the Hex combat suits protected the legs against most ballistic and laser weapons and even with ten wounded legs they could still advance rapidly and kill the humans firing on them. On the other hand, the armor protecting their spherical thorax was also resistant to damage so it was unknown what the best engagement to
I guess we’ll find out, Ram thought, sighting on the center of the thorax.
But the Hex stopped, then drifted away and followed the human collaborator toward their ship.
“Are they leaving?” Stirling muttered. “They can’t be leaving.”
“Should we attack, sir?” Flores asked.
“We cannot allow them to leave, Lieutenant Seti,” Red said. “We must destroy them now, while we have the chance. Their aircraft are quite powerful in the air.”
Ram considered it. The idea was appealing. They might have the advantage in firepower and numbers for the moment. On the other hand, the aliens might rush through the fire, as they were prone to doing when outgunned and the hex soldiers were tall and strong and deadly at close range. But so was Ram and to a lesser extent Stirling.
Despite all the unknowns, with the amount of firepower in his team’s hands they could perhaps bring down the hex soldiers in a few seconds. And the human collaborator would be no trouble.
Against the idea was that Ram did not have all the facts. How many more hex were on the craft? What weapons did that craft have? Was it armed with the weapon that had brought down their dropship? Could his team’s weapons damage the hex craft? They had grenade launchers, AP ammunition, and other options that could deliver enormous destruction.
“Sir?” Fury said. “Going to lose the shot.”
Even with so much unknown, Ram wanted to try it. He wanted to kill at least a few of the aliens who had invaded Earth and they were right there while he had his finger on the fire button. At his word, his team would unleash hell on them.
But the mission was all important.
Attacking and destroying the enemy might help him complete his mission but if they got away, he had exposed his team and the Hex leadership, wherever they were, would know precisely what they were looking for. As it stood, all they would know now was that a human aircraft was shot down and destroyed by fire. There was a chance the Hex and the collaborator believed any occupants had died in the crash. It was quite possible they did not know their vehicle had come from orbit at all and instead believed it to be a local aircraft.
All in all, the risks outweighed the rewards.
“Hold fire and hold position,” Ram said. “We’re on a tight clock and we’re already behind schedule.”
As he spoke, the Hex aircraft powered up and rose into the darkness, engines whirring. It rotated and headed northeast, away from the mission objective. Watching it go, they collectively sighed in relief.
But Stirling was not happy.
“Might be a trick,” he said, watching the distant blue lights disappear beyond the treetop horizon. “Waiting for us to move so they can follow us. Remember the exobiology briefings? The Hex see movement.”
“We all see movement,” Ram said. “Come on, we have somewhere to be.”
3.
“We are sixty-eight klicks straight from the objective and we’ll need to cover more than that to yomp around these lakes and that gorge,” Stirling said.
“And we’ll need to add a few doglegs along our route in case we are being tracked,” Ram said, speaking to the whole team. “Where possible, we’ll keep beneath the tree cover.”
Cooper snorted and muttered. “Like the Hex can’t sense us through the trees.”
“They couldn’t see us just now,” Ram replied. “And we really don’t know what their sensor capability is, do we? In space, it’s no better than ours and it may be worse. Anyway, between us and the objective it’s mostly tree cover anyway so we’ll just be mindful to avoid clearings and lake shores, okay?” His team replied in the affirmative. “Alright, Flores, you take point. We’ll all keep to twenty-meter spacing.”
“Twenty?” Flores said.
“Ah,” Stirling cut in. “Further than standard, sir?”
“The most common Hex trooper propelled grenade has a twenty-meter blast radius, isn’t that right, Fury?”
“Mmm,” she said. “About right, sir.”
Cooper snorted. “But it’s about providing effective support to your teammates in an enemy contact, Rama, not surviving—”
“Hey,” Stirling snapped. “You call your Lieutenant sir.”
Cooper hesitated but only for a moment. “Of course. Sorry, sir.”
“It would make sense, sir,” Red said, his massive, strange wheel-like body lurking at a distance with his twin weapons pointing up. “If we committed to destroying every enemy that we see on sight. The Great Enemy does not—”
It was obvious that his team did not yet fully respect him or his command, despite rank, prior achievements, and the brief two weeks of preparation for t
he mission. But that was to be expected. As long as none of them did anything outright insubordinate, he could avoid butting heads. He hoped Stirling could do that for him.
“Listen, everybody,” Ram said. “Our objective is to gain entry to Outpost Omega, retrieve the weapon, and carry it to the launch site. One of us needs to trigger the intercept programs on the computer but that is all. Our individual survival is not necessarily important. If one of us is hit, wounded, or cannot continue for some reason, we will do what we can but the mission comes first. All of us understand that, don’t we?” They said that they did and Ram continued. “If we come into contact with the enemy, we will not engage unless we have to. As much as we want to kill them, we’re not here for revenge against the Hex and not even the collaborators. All that matters now is reaching the objective and getting the weapon to the launch site and then to rendezvous with the Hereward. Now, Cooper? Leave a drone here to keep watch on the crash site in case they return. Leave another every ten klicks on our route, do you have enough for that? Alright, Flores, lead the way. Twenty-meter spacing.”
“Twenty-meters, yes, sir.”
They marched through the trees in the darkness, the world seemingly illuminated and enhanced by the sensors of his armor and the augmentations to his physiology.
I am on Earth.
It was a strange thought. And it was strange that it should be so strange. But Ram had not been on his home planet for a long time, both subjectively and objectively. Even when he had been, Ram had not left his home for years. Only in his childhood was it that he had traveled through the teeming streets of Mumbai along with millions of other residents through the dust, the stench, and the choking pollution of the foul air.
A handful of times, he had vacationed outside the city with his mother and father. Often, his father had delighted in pointing out the buildings that had been originally built by the British, much to Ram’s irritation and his mother’s great embarrassment. But Rama had never much enjoyed being out, away from home. Already in his childhood he was massive, taller than most adults, including his father, and growing increasingly obese. He told himself that seeing people’s contempt and revulsion never bothered him but the truth was he hated them for noticing and he hated himself for being the object of their derision. Being outside could be all very well but it was nothing like being at home or being in Avar.