02
“We shootin’?” Abers asks.
He’s already got some unlucky koob lined up in his sights. The discipline of snipers has always impressed me. The way Abers can lie perfectly still on the super-heated roof of the truck…
That’s not for me. I like to get in close. Remember how I said I’m willing to drop credits on my kit? Well, most of that goes to Mel S. She’s my shotgun, a special piece of mayhem I picked up at a Night Market toward the end of my time in the Legion. Well, until I re-upped to help Legion Commander Chhun drop Utopion. But that was more of a volunteer thing.
Mel S.—as opposed to Mel R., my rifle—is a combination ion blaster and slug thrower. It hurls big ol’ .70 cal turbined sabot slugs that bust through just about anything organic or machine. Great for killing biologics and even better for killing bots.
Plus, the thing has that sexy intimidation factor that makes people think twice about going a round with you. That’s what I’m hoping happens when these koobs come to town.
“Negative, Abers,” I call out, hoisting Mel S. onto my shoulder. “Control wants us to stand by in case these koobs are the ones we’re trying to make friends with.”
“Trying to make friends with any koobs is a bad idea,” Easy mumbles, holding his N-6 at the ready.
Lana has a sweet-looking sub-machine blaster. It’s light and easy on the charge pack. Great up close. Lousy for anything at range. I hear her say, “And yet here we are…”
Here we are. Five humans on a world notorious for hating everything that isn’t Kublaren. But from what I can gather, it’s that ingrained hatred for all the other species in the galaxy that Big Nee is looking to take advantage of.
Most koobs’ll tell you they only want to be left alone. Seeing one off Kublar is rare, though it’s gotten more common as the coastal cities controlled by the Pashta’k tribe have gotten more Republicized (is that a word?) in the years since the Koob Civil War.
Those big-city koobs are getting a taste for credits and the Republic’s standard of living. And all the trouble that comes with it.
“Wisdom of buddying up with the koobs aside,” I say, “let’s stay frosty and be ready to KTF if it comes down to that.”
The koob convoy keeps rolling forward. I can see the sun’s glint off the windshields. There’s a mounted .50 cal machine gun on the back of the thing, but no one seems to be on it at the moment. I count five trucks in all.
I’m really hoping Command identifies these guys, finds out they’re from some other, less important tribe, and then sends a missile into the middle of the column.
I’m hoping. But it ain’t happening.
“Why we gotta KTF, man?” Abers says from the top of the truck.
“Yeah,” Easy chimes in. “You’re the only legionnaire here. Lana is a basic—”
“Army,” interrupted Lana. “And my unit folded into the New Legion, thank you very much. So technically—”
“Still a basic,” Abers calls out from behind his scope. “The kid ain’t nothin’. Just a trust fund and a bunch of tactical training. No heart.”
“I got plenty heart,” Winters says. “I just wasn’t dumb enough to join the military, is all.”
“Ha!” Abers laughs. “And Lashley—man, what are you, Lashley?”
Everyone waits to see if the big man is willing to divulge his secrets. But he only grunts, holding onto his SAB as though it were as light as a simulation prop. I knew leejes who kept arm augments in their armor to hoist those things around.
Not Lashley. I think he could shoot two at the same time.
He’s gotta be Legion, right? Who else would be so hardcore?
“Button it up, guys,” I say. The convoy is getting close enough that I want everyone alert and only talking through the comms if it relates to the situation at hand. That doesn’t stop me from getting the final word in. “Stay frosty. KTF. Or, whatever inspirational phrase you hullbusters have. ‘Save me some crayons,’ I dunno.”
“You son-of-a—” Abers starts to say before the lead koob truck starts laying on its horn.
Lana steps up next to me. “Do they want us to get out of the way… or?”
I shrug my shoulders and stand my ground along with Lana up front. Koobs don’t much care if you’re male or female, unlike the zhee. But they do watch intently for signs of weakness.
We look anything but. Lana and I are doing what we can to show we’re good with a little parlay unless they’d prefer getting shot, and Abers’s gun is impossible to miss. Winters, Easy, and Lashley are armed to the ears and set up conspicuously around the truck, ready to use it for cover.
The koob trucks all come to a grinding halt, sending up a cloud of dust. Only two of them are mounted with machine guns, and neither are manned. Or koobed—if that’s even a word.
“Soft contact with the koob force,” I whisper into my comm for Command to hear.
“Yeah, we see it. Still don’t know who they are. Those trucks have any markings?”
The koobs are just sitting inside their trucks, watching. Engines humming.
“Negative,” I say.
“Well, try to find out what tribe they’re from.”
I try to blow out some Kublar dust from my nostrils. “Roger.”
Finally, the passenger side door of the third truck in the column swings open and out steps a koob wearing their traditional robes. He’s more of a mottled brown color, an elder. Probably not the Elder of the tribe, but most likely the one I’ll have to do the talking with.
I wait as the rest of the doors open up and more koobs step out. They’re mostly armed with Savage-era tech. Slug-throwing machine guns and rifles. That’s really all that’s left from that war that can be used by a species lacking a way to re-power the energy weapons. Still can be deadly, though.
A few of them have beat up–looking Republic weapons. And I wonder if those came from the cities, the MCR back in the day, or as salvage from the Battle of Kublar. I try to keep my cool at the thought. Kublar is a… touchy subject for us leejes. Even if we’re no longer active duty.
“Kika,” I say, pretty much exhausting my limited Kublaren vocabulary with the abbreviated greeting. About all else I know is “show me your hands,” “get down,” “which way?” and “don’t move.”
None of those are terribly useful unless I’m clearing a building. But then, the expectation was that I’d be doing more of that and less of this. Whatever this is.
“Kik ke kakay,” responds the frog-like koob elder, his eyes swiveling around as the rest of his warriors gather around him near the trucks. “We may speak Standard. Visit is to you, not you to my tribe.”
I nod. That’s a relief. I see if I can get the info Command wants right off of the starting line. “What tribe are you from, Elder… ?”
“Skagga.” The koob looks around, his purple airsac rapidly inflating as his bulging eyes fall on the contents of the truck. “What tribe is these big die?”
I turn and look at the mound of bodies, not knowing the answer. Desert flies have found the feast and are starting to concentrate over the corpses. Thankfully, Command is listening in and supplies me the answer. Well, an answer anyway.
“Tell him they’re your allies,” Brisco says into my comm. “Members of tribe Innik.”
“These are from tribe Innik,” I say, doing my best to look solemn. “We were assisting them but these were ambushed by zhee marauders. We are to return them to their village.”
All the koobs start inflating their airsacs rapidly at the naming of the zhee. That’s the body language of excitement for their species. The repeated licking of their eyes tips off that the excitement is mixed with anger. Probably about the zhee, but these tribes have some deep rivalries. So it could be about me naming Innik just as well.
“Innik, small tribe,” Skagga says.
I notice the eld
er wiggling his three long fingers, seeking to soothe his tribal warriors.
“Small tribe now, but zhee-kaharak bring big die to many tribes.”
He’s not wrong about that. Since those first junk freighters crash-landed on the planet, the zhee colonists have been steadily expanding their territory and waging small-scale war with the inland tribes. It’s a different story on the coasts, where the former Republic government still has some sway. But out here, it’s open conflict almost every day.
“Well,” I say, half-turning to look at my men. “We’ll need to speed out before the sun really gets cooking.”
I turn and nod at Lana. “She’s a doctor. If any of you need assistance, she has her medical kit with her and would help in the name of friendship.”
Skagga nods, pantomiming the humanoid acknowledgement for our benefit. “This tribe-ah, is strong.”
His koob soldiers croak and click in agreement.
I smile. “Then… the winds brought us to this moment, may the winds send you safely on.”
That’s a Standard translation of an old koob parting phrase. Hopefully it’s not lost on these visitors.
The koobs begin croaking and clicking in their own language, and I can see that the elder is taking in whatever it is they’re talking about. He finally holds up a slim, knobby hand and silences his gallery of rough and tumble tribal warriors.
“Kik-ke-kik’ak-taki.”
At Skagga’s command, one of his warriors runs up to his side in that odd, half-lope, half-hop run that the Kublarens do.
Skagga looks at me. “Maybe this one look in-ah you trucka? Innik tribe known to us. Sometime kin. This one look for Kublakaren hatch-kin.”
I don’t really see a way I can refuse without causing some trouble, so I step aside and gesture for the warrior to go ahead. Just because I can’t tell one koob from another doesn’t mean it’s the same for them. Hopefully Command wasn’t just making something up for me to offer to Skagga when they gave me a tribe name.
The koob warrior hops on by, his beat-up N-4 blaster rifle held at the low ready. The thing looks like it passed up its life expectancy about a hundred charge packs ago.
There’s a tension in the air right now. Like all the pleasantries between me and Skagga come down to whatever determination is made in the back of that truck. I know my guys are ready to KTF—or whatever they want to call it—and I can see from their posture that they’re ready to start shooting at a moment’s notice. Their arms are still aimed down or at the side, but they’re held close enough that it would be one clean motion to get them up into firing position. Or they could fire from the hip with a little spray and pray even faster.
I watch as one koob tries to sneak his way toward the back of one of their trucks. Probably positioning himself to get on the technical if things boil over.
“Don’t worry, Carter,” says Easy over the comms. “I see that koob. He’ll be the first one I drop if this gets real.”
I make a small popping sound with my lips to let him know I copy.
The koob warrior is rummaging around the back of the truck for a while before he climbs back out on hands and knees and hops back down to the dust.
“Innik Kublakaren,” he says, and while I don’t speak koob, it’s clear enough that he just confirmed what I’d said previously.
Good job, Brisco. That could have been a lot messier.
“Everything all right?” I ask Skagga.
The Kublaren elder licks his eyes. “Yes. Big die for Innik. No kin of Kepka.”
And with that, the koobs all get back into their trucks and fire up the engines, carefully rolling around us and our truck.
Brisco is back in my ear. “I heard tribe ‘Kepka’. Can you confirm.”
“Affirmative,” I answer.
And then Brisco is on the squad-wide comms. “Terminate those koobs. Don’t let one of them escape.”
Now, we’re paid a substantial salary to do as we’re told. Call us mercs, call us private contractors, but most of us are out here for the money. Or at least I am. There’s no way I could make what I’m making in a year in the civilian world, let alone the Legion.
But there is still a part of me that wants to ask why. Because everything we’re doing is pretty much a mystery. We kill some koobs but not others. I don’t know why. We dust just about every zhee band we come across—that’s a no-brainer. We gather up a bunch of dead koobs killed by who-the-hell-knows and I have no idea why. And now this.
There isn’t any chance for me to voice my curiosity, though. And if there were, it would have been stupid of me to do so. That’s not what they pay me for.
The blaster fire that issues in response to the order from Command is almost instantaneous. Bolt after bolt slams into the caravan of technical trucks, crashing through glass and causing the koobs inside to dance spasmodically in a rave of pain-wracked flailing as their flesh is cooked from the bolts’ heat and torn from the force of the blasts hitting them at range.
Lashley sweeps his SAB across the entire column, doing as much damage to the truck’s ability to get away as he is to the koobs inside. Every time Abers shoots, he blows a fist-sized hole through his target and everything behind it. Lana is already changing charge packs on her sub-compact, and Easy’s moving from target to target like a true rifleman.
Still, some koobs spill from the doors, seeking to put up some resistance. I figure that’s about their only hope, since there’s no way they’ll be able to run across all this desert.
One of them raises an old slug-throwing machine gun with a wooden stock. I send an ionic shotgun blast into him that blows out his chest cavity, sending a spray of phosphorescent yellow blood splattering across the dusty white truck behind him.
Mel S. keeps booming and the koobs keep dropping.
Until it’s all finished. And there’s no more movement and we know—instinctively—that all of these kelhorns are long expired. I don’t even need to give an order. We all just stop, one by one.
“Hot momma,” Brisco says into my comm. “I saw the whole thing from the drone feed. You look like a kelhorned action movie star, Carter.”
“How’s the pay in showbiz?” I ask.
“They only want people who pretend to be legionnaires, Carter. Stick with Nilo for the big credits.”
“Copy.” I look over my shoulder to double-check on my team. The koobs didn’t get any shots off that I’m aware of, but you never know until you know. “How’s everybody? You good?”
“I could deal with a whole lot more than that,” Easy says in reply. “All good here, Carter.”
“I’m good,” Abers says. “Don’t tell me a Marine can’t hang with the Legion.”
I won’t tell him, but, no, a Marine can’t hang with a leej. That’s just science.
“Good,” mutters Lashley.
“I’m going to check for survivors,” Lana says, keeping her little subcompact repeating blaster ready.
“Easy, go with her,” I order.
“Roger.”
The two begin moving from truck to truck. And though I doubt anyone would have survived, I keep my eyes open just in case a sneaky koob kept breathing by hugging the floor and getting lucky.
Abers is standing on the top of our truck’s cab. “So what’re we supposed to do with these koobs?”
“Command,” I say into my comm. “What’s the word on the new body count?”
“Yeah,” Brisco says, as though he were just finishing something up before getting to me. “We’re gonna need you to pile these koobs into the truck as well.”
“Not much of them left, Command.”
“Well… that means they’ll be easier to pick up, right?”
I want to argue. It was what happened in the intensity of the firefight that we were selected for. Not the cleanup. I feel like a basic doing all this. But… the pay is
good. And I’ve got a family to support. And then Melanie—my wife—we need this to work out.
“Roger. We’ll get ’em loaded up and then speed back in to staging.”
I can hear Abers swearing somewhere behind me. He overheard what’s coming next.
“Yeah, Carter,” Brisco says from the Command comm room. “That’s probably in flux, too. Check the northwest.”
I move around the truck to get a better view of what he’s talking about. There’s another dust cloud heading my way. Smaller.
“More koobs?” I ask, my adrenaline spiking for another potential showdown. There’s no way we don’t start off fighting if these new koobs roll up seeing a line of shot up trucks with fresh blood spilling out.
“Dude. You wish it was koobs.”
I pull out my macros. It’s just one vehicle. Black. Still shining despite the patina of Kublaren dust.
“I see. Carter out.”
I let out a heavy sigh.
“Guys, we’ve got a visitor from the exec board. I’ll give you one guess.”
Easy answers first. “Don’t tell me it’s Surber.”
I tell him anyway, and listen quietly as everyone swears and kicks dirt. I’ve yet to meet anyone on Kublar who likes Surber.
“Let’s get busy for when he arrives,” I say. “Start loading up these koobs into the truck.”
Begrudgingly, they get to work.
I open the door to the truck that now serves as Skagga’s coffin. He’s leaning back in the passenger seat, one eye still bulging, the other shot out. His blood is pooling on the floorboards. I grab his arm to pull him out of the rig and hear the muscles tear as it rips off into my hands.
I’m just standing there, holding the severed arm and watching as more of that neon yellow blood pours from Skagga’s side. I drop the arm and put my hands on my hips.
This job pays really well.
Ah. Who am I kidding? This sucks.
03
We’ve got all but one truck cleaned out by the time Surber arrives. But we had to sweat like a doro in heat to get it done.
I don’t think this fishy koob-stink is coming off my hands anytime soon, either. And my gloves… forget about it. They’re soaked in koob blood to the point of saturation. I always cut off the end of the glove that covers my index finger because I like to feel the trigger when I squeeze on it. Now that finger looks permanently stained yellow in every fold of skin. My nails are dirty on top and underneath, a mix of Kublaren dust and dried alien blood forming a sort of crust of nastiness.
Galaxy's Edge: Takeover: Season Two: Book One Page 2