“Sometimes,” I say, “us foreigners bring the big die to you koobs just fine.”
The koob bends down and examines Skagga’s face, then spits onto one of the corpse’s hazed eyes. He peers into the rest of the truck.
“Big die,” he says.
“Sitizt’ka,” I say, thankful I was listening well enough to Surber’s cultural lesson to remember the name for this little ritual. I adjust my crotch.
The big koob begins to unleash an echoing, croaky laugh. He grabs himself where I assume his fertilization pouch is stored. “Sitizt’ka.”
12
We wait at the truck for hours. The sun dips low in the evening, ushering in the cool of the Kublaren night we’ve all grown accustomed to. Out on the coast, near the big cities, the nights are pleasant. A relief. But inland… you won’t exactly freeze to death, but you’ll for sure be shivering if you aren’t prepared.
“This is gonna sound stupid,” Easy says, “but I’m glad Surber brought us these koob robes because my arms are freezing.”
“That’s on you,” I say. “Should’ve packed an overnight kit in your ruck.”
“Yeah, but we wasn’t supposed to be overnight,” Easy protests, holding his hands to a fire the koobs graciously set up for us in a big steel drum.
Ever since I showed their boss man our handiwork, we’ve all been cool. Our two sides keep to themselves, but it’s friendly enough.
“That’s a garbage answer,” Lana says. “Be ready.”
“Okay, but technically I’m correct. We were supposed to bunk in our own beds tonight, not stand guard over a buncha dead koobs on top of a mountain.”
The job we were assigned to was supposed to be daytime work. Out in the desert. Hot and sweaty. Plan was to load up the koobs and make for the compound. But things change. And it’s a little disconcerting to me that Easy didn’t feel the need to be ready for it. That’s sure not the way it would have been in the marines.
“Lesson learned,” I say, glancing over my shoulder at the sound of repulsors moving up the mountainside. “This job can be mundane, but we’re professionals and professionals should know better.”
“Yes, sir,” Easy says, playing up as if he’s sad to be told off. He adds, a bit more soberly, “Won’t happen again, Carter.”
I nod.
“Big ol’ repulsor van is moving this way,” Abers says. He’s watching through his spotting scope. “Black-out windows. No obvious markings.”
“Koobs?” I ask.
“Rig looks too nice for koobs.”
I key in my comm and go for command. “Brisco, this is Carter. How copy?”
“Hey, Carter,” Brisco replies, still completely disinterested in following any semblance of comm protocol or discipline. “What’s up?”
“Do you have eyes on us right now? We’ve spotted a repulsor-powered van, white, newer model, moving up the road to our location.”
There’s a pause.
“Uh, no visuals. Sorry. It’s okay.”
“Say again?”
“That van is probably us. Our guys. Don’t know who else it would be. It’s okay.”
Not in the mood to explain to Brisco how much of a problem words like “don’t know,” and “probably” are, I just end the transmission. “Copy. Carter out.”
“What’d they say?” Lashley asks.
I make sure the big man can see my sarcastic frown. “That it’s more of our guys… probably.”
“We have a lot of guns up here,” Lana says, moving away from the fire drum and behind the partial cover of our truck. She has her blaster in her hands. “That van doesn’t look like it can hold enough people to overpower us when you factor in our koob buddies.”
Easy primes his N-6. “Unless they’re just driving close enough to blow everything up.”
That’s a pleasant thought.
Abers is in the shadows, looking through the scope on his N-18. The van isn’t speeding, but usually the suicide-bomber types don’t make it obvious until the last second. A van roaring up the mountain would have been noticed and more than likely taken out below. At the very least called in to alert the Pekk chieftain’s men. But all those koobs are acting like nothing is going on at all.
Maybe it is a friendly like Brisco said, and we’re the only ones who didn’t get the memo. But that’s not something I’m willing to gamble on.
“I got a shot on where the driver should be,” Abers says. “Just say the word.”
“Not yet,” I reply and then step out into the middle of road, walking a few steps down the slope as the van glides toward me.
The vehicle’s headlights fill up my vision almost entirely, so that I have to squint and cast my eyes to the side to even get a hint of my surroundings, which are limited to the brightened street in front of me and the darkness of the night surrounding the boxy shape of the sled itself behind those blinding lamps. Still, I don’t let on. Don’t raise a hand to cover the glare. I know my team has eyes on the situation. Right now is about taking control of the situation.
I hear the repulsors cycle down as the vehicle comes to a stop, but those lights are still on high. The passenger door swings open and I can hear feet hitting the ground.
“Is this where we gotta park, Carter?”
I let my posture relax a bit. The lights on the van go out.
“Yeah, Hopper. I know you usually take a handicap slot, but this’ll have to do. How you been?”
“All good, brother. About to be a whole lot better, though.”
Chris Hopper is a former marine. Part of SOAR—Special Orbital Assault Regiment. They’re as high-speed as the hull busters get, them and the Recons. Not Legion, but damn close. They just can’t hump the armor is all.
Or at least, that’s my opinion.
Hopper, like me, is in charge of a combat team here on Kublar. We met in the services of Big Nee and hit it off during those periods of downtime at the compound. I’m happy enough to see him, but it’s unusual for the execs to put two teams together like this.
“Nice robe, by the way,” Hopper adds as he comes around the front of the sled.
“Thanks. Got it on sale.”
By now my team has relaxed and is sauntering down to my position, leaving Lana at the truck. Lash, Easy, and Abers begin mingling with Hopper’s team as they disembark from the van.
“Damn,” says one of Hopper’s guys, a former legionnaire. “Y’all are bathed in koob blood. Must’ve done some KTF today, huh?”
“More like WTF,” Easy says, shaking his head. “Surber had us on body detail all day long from some nasty-ass koob slaughter. Got ’em loaded in that truck.”
“Oh yeah?” the other contractor says. “Was it by the pashtarq flats?”
“You know it?” I ask.
“Hell yeah we know it. We’re the guys that dusted all those koobs!”
I can see the smiles of satisfaction on Hopper’s team. They did the KTF. We did the cleanup. And I can feel the frustration in my team. That’s not how we want to be used by the execs.
Hopper must see the annoyance in my face. He slaps my arm. “Cheer up, Carter. We can’t all be KTF-ing-sexual-tyrannasquids. And somebody’s gotta clean up the mess.”
“Nice to know Big Nee trusts us to clear corpses,” I say.
Hopper shakes his head. “We both know that my team had the easy job. More fun, but it was the easy work. If Surber had you clean up instead of letting those bones bleach, it’s because he trusted your team to get it done right.”
“Or because he hates us,” Easy chimes in.
Abers sniffs in the cold air. “I hear that.”
“What else is new?” I ask, thankful for the chance to have some interaction now that the night has dragged on so long. Surber, Winters, and the koobs are probably passed out inside, sleeping it all off until the morning.
<
br /> “Just livin’ the dream,” Hopper replies, turning to his boys with a crooked smile on his face. “Set up an ambush on some donks not far from here. One of those biker groups that go out from the temple and shake down villages. Get that ‘make us ignore you’ credit from the locals too far away from Pekk to do anything about it. Dusted maybe ten. Brisco says a few got through to your team, though.”
“We dusted ’em,” I say, feeling a little relieved that we got to take in some of the action.
“Lousy ambush,” Lash says. Not like he’s trying to start a fight, more like he’s offering his professional opinion as a former whatever (I still think he’s Legion). “None of ’em should’ve squirted through.”
Hopper shrugs. “They were flying like rho-bats out of the nine hells once they saw what happened to the lead elements. How you doin’, Lashley?”
“I’m pissed off is how I’m doing, because there’s work being done and I ain’t doin’ it. Didn’t come to this rock to not fight.”
“I hear that, too,” says Abers.
Hopper gives another wide smile. “Something tells me you guys don’t know what’s happening tonight.”
That’s true enough. We don’t.
I take the bait. “What’s happening tonight?”
“As much as I like you personally, Carter, this isn’t a social call. We were mobilized because Surber and the Pekk hoo-ha hammered out some kind of deal.”
“How’s that?”
Hopper shrugs again. “They don’t tell me the details, man. But I know we’ve got an op tonight. My squad and yours.”
I look around at my team, who only hold out their hands. Not that I expected them to have any idea.
“What kind of op, Hopper?”
The smile that forms on the SOAR marine’s face is almost maniacal. “Taking down that zhee temple, bro.”
“Holy sket,” Easy says, and I can tell he’s excited.
I am too.
Those donk scum sacks have been a curse to the indigs and to every other sentient being out here, which includes Big Nee’s operatives and compounds. They’ve raided enough koob settlements that if Hopper hadn’t have told me otherwise, I would have gone to my grave thinking that the dead we picked up earlier today were victims of the zhee who’d moved out here to get away from the relatively restraining hand of the Soob’s local government.
But I’m also concerned. We haven’t been afforded the opportunity to prepare for this op whatsoever. I have a decent kit in my ruck, but that doesn’t mean by any stretch that I’m mission capable. And I’m not sure that any of the other guys are either, especially Easy.
There’s a lot that can go wrong.
We haven’t studied the temple compound—though these are all pretty much built to exacting standards that only vary based on how important the location is deemed to be. Our charge pack supply is okay at best. No explosives. No slicing tech to get us through any sophisticated doors…
“Well,” I say to Hopper, “I hope you’ve got some gear for us in that van because we’re pretty lean at this point.”
Hopper moves to his vehicle, draws a code-gesture with the tip of his finger on the sensor panel, and steps back as the vehicle’s back door lifts open like the back of a combat sled.
I walk around and see crates full of charge packs, weapons, night vision goggles, explosives, fraggers, the sturdy housing of slicer boxes, recon bots… you name it.
Hopper smiles. “Gotcha covered, brother. We’re all set. Just gotta wait for Surber to tell us when to roll.”
I peer over my shoulder, half expecting Surber to be walking in my direction. But all I see are the koobs, who still aren’t paying us any mind. Which tells me they know something is up, too. That they expected Hopper and his team to show up.
So it’s just us who are out of the loop. Again.
Nice.
I take off my cap and grab an NV mask, sliding it over my head and adjusting the synth-strap to get a nice, tight fit over my eyes. This is the one thing I know I’ll need if we truly are going hunting tonight. They fit and look like ski goggles, if you’re familiar with snow sports. Those are big on my planet. Not so much on Kublar, but anyway, that’s how they look.
Everything takes on a mellow green tint that matches the smart-glass they’re made from. These are Legion-grade. Usually that’s just a marketing term used by those arms-related manufacturers who managed to bribe their way or exist far enough from the Republic’s reach to still sell to the galactic Republic.
Again, when there was a Republic.
In this case and with this model, it’s the truth. It’s not a bucket by any stretch, but the tech is similar. It can cycle through low-light night vision, thermal and infrared. It’s stress rated to be able to handle a full-charge blaster bolt fired at two hundred meters and a half-charge bolt fired at fifty meters. Which, as long as only the goggles are hit, is fine. I’d probably still get a good portion of my beard burned off if I get that unlucky.
It’s also rated to withstand a bullet impact from any range beyond twenty-five meters. But if I get shot in the face by a donk rifle with an eight millimeter round… well, at least the goggles will be able to be passed on to the next guy while I lay in a coma waiting for a med bot to pull me back to consciousness.
The point is, Big Nee doesn’t skimp on supplying us with the best when the job calls for it.
I press the sync button on the side of my goggles and then press the same on my rifle’s optics. The two pair and I can see my reticule guides. Right now they’re just arrows on my NV screen indicating that the barrel is pointed up while I look straight ahead. I bring the weapon to my hip, aiming it at an empty section of rock, and see the targeting reticule just fine.
I’m not a fan of hip-firing with anything, even my shotgun, but a setup like this makes it much easier.
Lastly, I look down the empty road that leads to the lower sections of the Pekk mountain enclave. It’s dark until I switch on the night vision capabilities and then I can see everything clear as daylight… with that same green tint.
But this will do. I can grab anything else after the rest of my team has a shot.
“Get stocked,” I call to my guys (and Lana).
I move back and try to get what intel I can from Hopper while they raid the back of the van like eager kids running to the spire on Unity Day morning to open their presents.
“So the temple… that’s the one twenty clicks west? Where the raiders mobilize from?”
Hopper nods. “Yeah. And about time. Gowan’s team did some recon a few days ago and the donks are building a landing pad.”
“Didn’t think they had ships, man.”
“The way things are going in the Soob, only a matter of time before some old Repub surplus gets ‘sold,’ you know?”
I shake my head. “If the Soob and its House of Reason wannabes had their way, this whole planet would be a new Ankalor.”
“So long as they get theirs,” agrees Hopper. “But that’s not what Big Nee wants and so it’s not what’s gonna happen, brother.”
I nod slowly. Big Nee does seem to have a plan—in general. Sometimes I don’t see how things like today fit in. Hopper’s team killing a bunch of unfriendly koobs and us cleaning them up. But from the beginning, we’ve been told over and again that we’re operating as part of a much larger vision and plan for the future of Kublar and its indigenous people.
I don’t care about the koobs.
But I do sleep a little better knowing that my paycheck is stemming from something that’s pretty much good. If it’s against the zhee, it can’t be all bad, anyway.
Now, you might be the type who is horrified that we’re about to raid a holy zhee temple. And maybe that’s because your experience stems from what the Republic constantly showed you, or you met some zhee who were friendly enough to not want to kill y
ou and eat you. Some of the zhee who left the four worlds as refugees might be that way.
And their temples might be all right.
I wouldn’t really know. I’m not a theologian.
And I’m not here as a missionary or to even talk religion. I don’t care about the zhee gods except to say that they sure seem to demand a lot of suffering from their own adherents and especially from those who don’t worship them. But religion isn’t the point. I didn’t come to Kublar to convert the donks or koobs to Oba. I’m not even an Oba-worshipper. The galaxy would probably call me part of a cult when it comes to my own microscopic faith. That’s to be expected if you espouse any religion when you’ve got a system run by the House of Reason.
But what most of the zhee I’ve ever encountered do, especially out here so close to their home worlds, is hide behind their faith to do some truly wicked things within those temple walls.
Ritualistic torture and honor killing. The thousand cuts thing like what happened to that poor featherhead back when the Legion wiped out Ankalor.
Public rape as entertainment.
Slave markets.
Drug trafficking to fund countless insurgencies.
Mass executions and genocidal purging.
All happening within those towering walls protected by the pure holy warriors outside. Keeping the garbage that happens within hidden from those who shouldn’t know. Who don’t want to know.
That’s the zhee.
And when I was in the Legion, every time we were on a world where the trouble came from the donk mission population—let alone if we were garrisoned on one of the four home worlds—the IEDs that rocked our sleds, the enforcement teams that killed their own for appearing too friendly with the Republic, mutilated their children, left them cripples, abused them, shamed them… all that.
It always originated inside a holy zhee temple.
So when Hopper tells me we’re going to take one down, I’m guessing the plan will be to destroy the shuttle pad they’re building, neither of us has the slightest doubt that we’re doing the right thing.
“We’re good to roll, Carter.”
I look over and see Lana strolling toward me, a pair of stuffed med kits bouncing off of her hips, one on each side, the slings forming an X across her chest. Her waistband is studded with charge packs and I’m pretty sure she’s got some fraggers clipped to her webbing as well.
Galaxy's Edge: Takeover: Season Two: Book One Page 9