by Richard Fox
“I’ll go. He’s hurt,” Masako said.
“Roland consistently scores higher than you on all movement-to-contact exercises,” Cha’ril said. “Your marksmanship skills are better than his. Our chance of survival is better with you on overwatch.”
“And here I was thinking you were starting to like me,” Roland said.
Cha’ril took in several snorts of air, almost like the staccato purr of a cat.
“Are you…laughing?” Roland asked.
“Not the time.” Cha’ril shook her head. “If we have to retreat, return to the oasis where we found Roland. Let’s go.”
Roland followed her through the tall grass, crawling on his hands and knees through the mud and rising to a low crouch when the grass was high enough.
Cha’ril stopped and sank low.
“What?” Roland whispered.
“To the right, fence line.” She pointed with her pistol.
He craned his neck up, bringing his eyes just above the swaying grass. An enormous quadruped Toth with thick arms and a scarred snout that looked like it could take off Roland’s head with a single bite marched toward the town. Six human prisoners followed, all bound at the hands. Ropes hewn from strips of tree bark led from their restraints to the larger Toth’s hand.
Smaller Toth menials ran around the warrior, ducking between its limbs without any hint of worry at being crushed. They snapped at the prisoners, shouting high-pitched expletives in English.
“What are they going to do to them?” Roland asked.
“The Toth are carnivores,” she said. “Why keep them alive when they could escape or fight back?”
“Just because they look like predators doesn’t mean they only care about eating,” he said. “Maybe they want to trade hostages for a ship. Get back to their home world.”
“Then this is not the time for bravery,” she said. “Wait for them to start negotiations, we link up with whoever comes and provide intelligence.”
“Then Bob’s your uncle,” Roland said.
“Bob?”
One of the tall garage doors opened, and a thing of nightmares came out—a tank full of bubbling liquid carried on a mechanical body with four legs, a disembodied brain and sinuous nervous system floating within.
The Toth gave off an ululating cry that sent a chill down Roland’s spine.
The prisoners tried to run, but the warrior yanked them all off their feet with a single tug of their ropes. The menials fell on the prisoners, punching and kicking them.
“By the old ones, that’s an overlord,” Cha’ril said.
“What the hell is it doing here?” Roland pressed his thumb against the side of his pistol and a bolt cycled into the chamber.
A mechanical arm extended from beneath the overlord’s tank, the spiked tip reaching toward the prisoners as the menials dragged them, kicking and screaming, into the town.
“My father…he said that the overlords fed on neural energy,” Cha’ril said. “The Toth are hungry.”
“I really don’t want to find out how they eat neural energy, but I’m not sure we even have enough bullets for them all.” Roland tried to count the menials, but they swarmed around the prisoners like flies around a rotting corpse.
“The small ones are cowards. Shoot the big ones and the rest will scatter.” Cha’ril extended her pistol through the blowing grass toward the Toth.
The warrior tossed a prisoner to the ground in front of the overlord. One of the arms grabbed the man by the neck and hoisted him into the air.
“Aim dead center,” Roland said as he aimed at the overlord. Nerve tendrils caressed the inside of the tank as the man struggled in the overlord’s grasp.
They fired their pistols within an instant of each other. Twin spider webs broke out across the overlord’s tank and it stumbled back toward the open garage. The prisoner fell free and scrambled away.
The Toth warrior leaped between the two and the overlord.
“Think he saw us?” Roland asked, just before the warrior pointed into the grass and bellowed a command. The smaller aliens raced toward them.
“Definitely saw us,” Cha’ril said.
“Bounding retreat, ten meters, you first.” Roland stood up and fired at the approaching disturbances in the grass marking the Toth approach. A menial leaped into the air when struck, its snout biting at the wound along its flank.
As Cha’ril ran back toward Aignar and Masako, Roland let off two shots toward a rustle in the grass and earned a screech. He heard Cha’ril’s pistol snapping and he took the cue to retreat.
Grass swished across his legs and thighs as he ran. There was a growl from behind, and a Toth leaped up and slammed into his back. Roland went face-first into the ground, his face scraping over pebbles before he slid to a stop.
He looked up and saw his pistol just out of reach. Stretching out, he missed it completely as a Toth took him by the ankle and dragged him backwards. Roland dug his fingers into the ground, but the Toth that had him was strong and determined. Wet earth came loose beneath his hands, providing no anchor.
Gauss bullets snapped overhead. Roland’s panic grew as he was certain whoever was shooting certainly couldn’t see him in the grass. He came to a stop, snatched up a rock and rolled over, only to find a shadow looming over him. The Toth warrior slammed a massive paw around Roland’s head, shutting off the rest of the world but for a smell of spoiled milk off the alien’s flesh.
The warrior lifted him up and clutched him under an arm. Roland felt the alien’s body heat, the smell of old dough from its palm nearly smothering him as it carried him away.
All of a sudden, Roland fell to a concrete floor, gasping for air. He lay on his stomach, looking at the warrior’s clawed feet. Turning his head, he saw the overlord’s mechanical legs, then a metal claw clamped down on his shoulder and lifted him up.
The overlord’s brain floated in the cracked tank, fluid seeping from the bullet impacts and dribbling down the side.
“Hello…meat,” came from the base of the tank. “How many are you?”
“Hundreds. We’ve got this whole town surrounded. You give up now and maybe we’ll let you catch a ride back to your favorite fish tank,” Roland said.
The grip on his shoulder tightened like a vice. Pain wracked his face, but he didn’t scream.
A spike rose in front of Roland’s face. It split open and tiny tendrils reached out, caressing his forehead.
“True mind…true body,” the overlord said, its nerve endings rubbing together, “a treat I’ve not had in years. Maybe just a taste, yes? Know the truth before I send my thralls out to find the rest. A feast for the Toth. Your mind for me. Your body for them. Or tell me how many you are and where they’re hiding. I’ll spare you if it brings me more sustenance.”
Roland swung his feet back and kicked the tank.
“You will get nothing from me!”
The spike inched closer to Roland’s face. He spat on the tank…and the Toth froze. The bubbles in the tank slowed, and every last twitching nerve ending stopped in place. The claw opened and Roland fell to the ground in a heap.
The warrior behind him also locked in place.
Roland crawled toward a door to the side of the overlord and felt a hand on his shoulder. He shouted, struck out…and hit nothing.
Light wavered, running in a rainbow sheen down a humanoid shape. Tongea materialized out of thin air.
“Candidate Shaw, this training exercise is over,” the Maori said.
Roland rolled onto his back and propped himself up on his elbows. He looked from the overlord to the cadre several times.
“Android replicas,” Tongea said. “There are no real Toth on Earth. You’re safe.”
Roland felt every last scrape and bruise budding around his shoulder. Groaning, he got to his feet, favoring one side of his body.
“What…what was all this about?” he asked.
“There are medical personnel waiting for you behind that door.” Tongea pointed beh
ind Roland. “Your exercise is over. Candidate Cha’ril has been ‘captured’ and will be here in a few minutes. You need to be out of sight.”
Roland felt anger building in his chest. That the cadre would dump him into the wilderness with no warning and send him through this sort of a wringer…his trust in them felt betrayed. He reached his good hand toward the nubs on the back of his neck, the urge to remove them and toss them at Tongea’s tattooed face almost overwhelming.
He touched the nubs, then let his hand fall.
Tongea reached out and touched him on the shoulder. The older man’s face cracked a slight smile, and he gave Roland a nod.
“Is that iron I see in you?” the cadre asked.
“If you call pissed off, in pain and confused ‘iron,’ then yes, sir.”
“See the docs. Hurry.” Tongea touched his gauntlet screen and a cloak field enveloped him.
Roland stepped through the doorway and saw Gideon standing in front of a bank of monitors. Screens showed a struggling Dotari as Toth dragged her into the building, an empty firehouse. The other cadre gave Roland a dispassionate glance, then turned his attention back to the screens.
A pair of medics sat Roland down on a bench. One pressed a hypo against his neck and the pain over much of his body subsided. Another, a rather pretty woman with blue eyes and a kind smile, gave him a cup of juice and patted him on the cheek.
“Hello, Digger,” she said, “bloody ace out there. We’ll have you topped off with the bottler meds and then she’ll be apples. No worries, eh?”
“Miss, I have no idea what you just said, but I’m okay with it.” Roland kicked back the last of the juice and wondered if Jerry was having an easier time in the Marines.
Chapter 11
Roland strode through the hallway of the Fort Sydney transient barracks in his physical training shorts and T-shirt, his wet flip-flops squeaking against the linoleum floors. Carrying a towel on his shoulder, he relished the feeling of his skin recovering from a too-hot shower. As he shouldered his way into his assigned room, he scrubbed the towel over his face and head.
“Aignar, you’re full of crap. The water doesn’t spin the other way going down the drain just because we’re in Australia.” He removed his towel and found Cha’ril and Aignar staring at him, Aignar wearing knee-length jeans and a bowling shirt, Cha’ril in a flower-print blouse and loose pants.
“What gives?” Roland asked.
“Our shuttle back to Knox was delayed,” Aignar said. “Typhoon over Okinawa. We got ourselves a six-hour pass. Just have to be back in the barracks by midnight.”
“So we can just…walk out of here? Go looking around Sydney and do whatever we want? No cadre?”
“That’s what a pass means, Roland. The leash is off. Let’s go be adults.”
Roland raised his arms over his head then flexed into a crab pose.
“Whoo!” Roland clapped his hands, then went to high-five Cha’ril. She looked at his palm, then to Aignar.
“You said he’d do this.” Cha’ril clicked her beak.
“Where are we going to go? To eat? Do they have beer in Australia? Legal age is eighteen down here, right? What am I going to wear?”
“I secured outerwear for you,” Cha’ril said, pointing to a plastic-wrapped bundle on Roland’s bed. “I cross-referenced popular fashion with the seasonal data and camera footage from the target neighborhood for us to better assimilate.”
Roland took out a pair of shorts and a button shirt.
“Wait, what’s she talking about?” Roland asked.
“She wants to go to a local hotspot that’s not in any of the guides,” Aignar said. “The place is also on the list of off-limits establishments—well, it’s the only off-limits establishment in the whole city for military.”
“Being ‘off-limits’ sounds like we’d get into even more trouble for sneaking in there. Why are we—no, you—taking this risk? Let’s all go anyplace else,” Roland said.
“If challenged, we are going to Papa Sam’s Pizzeria,” the Dotari said. “It is across the street and is well-known for using kangaroo-meat sausage as a topping. One of us—I suggest you, Roland—will confuse the street address, giving us plausible deniability for being at Bloke’s Bar and Grill.”
“Do you understand the difference between plausible deniability and conspiracy?” Roland asked. “Don’t do this. Seriously.”
Aignar rolled his eyes.
“Masako is coming with us.”
“Oh…well, OK then.” Roland unfolded the shorts, then looked at Cha’ril. “You mind? A little privacy.”
“Are you ashamed of nudity?” the alien asked. “Masako has no issue with disrobing while I’m in the room with her.”
“She’s a girl and so are you,” Roland sputtered. “Just turn around. Cover your eyes. Something.”
“Wait…is it true that your genitals are outside your body?” she asked.
“I am not having this conversation with you, Cha’ril.” Roland waved a finger in the air. “Not now. Not ever.”
Aignar let off his monotone laugh and slapped his knee.
Cha’ril buried her eyes into the crook of her arm.
Roland swapped out his shirt.
“Cha’ril, how do you think you’re going to blend in like you mentioned earlier? I thought the only Dotari on Earth were at the embassy in Phoenix,” he said.
“Dotari Marines practice orbital jumps from the nearby spaceport,” she said. Roland took off his PT shorts and bent over to pick up the bottoms Cha’ril had chosen for him.
“Hey, guys!” Masako burst into the room and got an eyeful of Roland’s bare backside.
As Masako slammed the door, Roland looked up at Aignar, who was laughing so hard that he had to hold on to the wall for support. Roland, his face beet-red, quickly put his shorts on.
“Does Aignar require medical attention?” Cha’ril asked, her face still buried in her arm.
“That asshole will if he doesn’t stop laughing!”
Aignar tapped his throat microphone and the sound cut off.
A few tepid knocks rapped on the door.
“Come. In.” Roland turned to the door and crossed his arms.
Masako, in a loose skirt and a blouse with rolled-up sleeves, entered, biting her bottom lip and refusing to make eye contact with Roland.
“Are we…ready?” she asked.
“Does Roland still have his genitals on display?” Cha’ril asked.
“Put your arm down,” Roland said, shaking his head. “Let’s just get going.”
****
Bloke’s Bar and Grill sat on a corner next to an industrial recycling center. Puddles from the last rainstorm dotted the sidewalks and streets. Sprinkles flitted through streetlights, and on the holo sign for the bar, the final ‘l’ sputtered on and off.
Music and the clink of beer bottles spilled into the early evening.
A driverless taxi pulled up across the street and the four armor candidates got out. Aignar swiped a credit fob over the taxi’s pay reader as the others formed a loose perimeter around him, all facing out, hands clenched for a fight.
“All of you need to calm down,” Aignar said. “We’re in Sydney, not a VR chamber at Knox.”
A pair of men stumbled out of the bar, each cursing and swinging drunken punches at the other. One took a kick to the stomach and bounced off a parked car, leaving a dent.
“Oi!” A third man ran from the bar, an empty bottle in hand. “That’s my ride, you dick heads!”
The original pair of combatants didn’t seem to notice when the third man jumped into fight, and the brawl continued up the street.
“We’re in a rough part of Sydney,” Aignar said. “Just be polite.”
“Why does it smell like pee out here?” Masako wafted her hand in front of her nose.
“Five and a half hours of our pass left,” Roland said, tapping his watch. “Let’s get in, get out and get somewhere that doesn’t look like it has a medic on staff. You re
ady, Cha’ril?”
The Dotari touched a bulge in her pocket, then furled her quills for a moment. She looked up the road to their departing taxi.
“Perhaps this is a mistake,” she said. “What if we go to the place with congealed mammary gland secretions and mashed fruit pulp? It is Friday. I understand humans enjoy fermented beverages in combination.”
“Pizza and beer can wait,” Aignar said. “You said this was important to you. Time to buck up.”
Cha’ril let off a trill and marched into the bar.
“Roland,” Masako said, grabbing him by the arm, “if anyone asks, you’re my boyfriend. Got it?”
“Can do! Should I…” He lifted an arm to go over her shoulder, but she held up a hand.
“Let’s not complicate this,” she said.
“Right.” His arm fell to his side.
They followed Aignar inside. Almost two dozen patrons, most of them men, crowded around the bar and a dartboard. Roland felt his shoes stick against the floor that looked like it hadn’t been mopped since the place was built. The air smelled of stale beer and vaporizer nicotine steam. Screens on the wall replayed rugby matches from long before the war ended.
A heavyset man in a sleeveless shirt and a two-day beard leaned away from the bar and looked over the new arrivals.
“Hey, Dav-o, looks like we got some lost little sheep come our way.” He stumbled off his bar stool and slapped the tattooed arm of the man next to him. “Should we show ‘em what happens to buggers that don’t know they’re in the wrong paddock?”
“Stop taking the piss, Wayne.” Dav-o said turning around and looking the four over through a black and swollen eye. “They’re looking drier than the Nullarbor desert, even the Dotty one. Let ‘em have a brew.”
“Fair dinkum, they’ll get the Sheila in trouble again,” Wayne said. “Can’t have that mate. This is the only boozer in staggering distance from me yard that doesn’t water down its piss!”
The bartender stood up from behind the bar with a cricket bat in his hand.
“There’s my ‘behave yourself,’” he said. The man’s nose looked like it had been broken several times and an ugly scar ran along his hairline. Taking one look at the four of them, he shook his head, pointed the club at Aignar and waved him over to an open space at the bar.