by Mark Wandrey
"Yeah, mister genius? Care to tell all of us how you know that? And while you're at it you can explain why you're not in command yourself?"
"Sure, I'll explain. I scored off the scale in every area except field work. Yeah, yeah, big surprise there. Despite that low score they offered me command, and I turned it down."
William snorted. "Sure you did."
Cherise had finally had enough. With a blinding fast leg sweep William was lying on the ground and staring up at her in surprise. "Tell him why you turned it down," she said to Pip.
"Because I wouldn't have time to concentrate on tech and science. As much as command appealed to my vainer side, I realized I would be a bigger asset to the Chosen as the true technological visionary I know I will become."
"Now," Minu said as she gently made Cherise back away from where she'd stood with her foot on William's stomach, "if we're all done explaining ourselves to one of our scouts, maybe we can move before the Rasa show up and alter the tactical situation?"
She didn't wait for his answer, which she knew wouldn't be worth the time he took to think of it; instead she headed off to the west at a trot followed closely by the others. "Take the rear," she ordered William over the radio. Though he spat and hissed in anger, he still fell in line as they moved away from the center of the city.
Minu kept them moving at a ground-chewing pace the Rasa couldn't match. They’d prowled the time worn city for many days and knew the lay of the land. The city began to slowly thin giving way to more and more open spaces making the going more risky. But the farther they got form the city center, the more likely the Rasa would abandon their pursuit.
"They've given up," William said from the rear.
Minu stopped next to what might once have been a vehicle servicing station and grabbed her binoculars. She could see William crouched behind the rusted hulk of a ground transport, its frame looking like a decomposed monster melting into the ground. He was using his portable life sensor, scanning back and forth along their path. The device possessed a very limited range so she didn't bother checking hers. If the Rasa were out of range for him they were surely out of range where she stood. "Have they just stopped, or are they turning around?"
"They've stopped," he admitted. She could see him look back at her and say something with the radio off. She didn't have to guess what that might be.
"Probably trying to figure out if we have anything worth chasing us over," Gregg said from a few meters away. Minu nodded her head.
"Fall back to our position," she ordered William.
"But I won't be able to sense them any more."
"And they will lose you too," she said, really getting frustrated at explaining every order. "Rasa are all about the easy score, if they have to follow us for a couple kilometers they'll give up."
He didn't try arguing further, instead she saw him store his sensor and take off toward her at a crouching run. Minu raised her weapon and covered his back as he approached. Nothing appeared as he made her cover. After a second he lifted the sensor again and swept. "No sign of them," he reported, almost sounding disappointed to admit she'd been right.
"Alright everyone, let’s pull out about a kilometer and start circling back."
As they hiked away from the city it became clear the landscape wasn't as flat as it appeared. In fact the town was situated in the center of a wide depression which reminded Minu of a shallow meteor crater about five kilometers across and nearly flat. Taking advantage of the low rim of the crater, they crossed over and used it for cover as they circled. The team made steady progress as the blazing sun slowly climbed over the horizon.
The landscape on the other side was very similar in its aridness, but more stark and expansive minus the crumbling buildings. Only the rare clump of stunted plant life broke up the monotonous stretch of brownish sand. They passed first one road then another as it emerged from the crater and headed off toward the horizon.
"In the great barrier desert on Bellatrix these roads would have been buried ages ago," Cherise noted. A slight wind stirred a tiny bit of dust then fell away. "Of course there are almost constant sand storms to move the landscape around."
"Everything about this world speaks of decay," Minu said. The others agreed, even William. "I wonder if this is what a dying planet looks like?"
"There is still oxygen," Pip pointed out, "so there is a functioning ecosphere somewhere."
When they were about a quarter of the way around the perimeter of the crater, Cherise stopped and shaded her eyes. The sun had risen in the direction she was looking and something caught her attention. "There is something out that way," she said.
"Let me see," Luke said and reached for his binoculars.
"No," Cherise said and put a restraining hand on the binocular before he could raise them, "the sun could blind you."
"How can you see then?" William asked.
"She grew up in the desert," Minu said without knowing the answer. Unlike William, she trusted her team mates and didn't need everything explained. "What do you think it is?"
"It looks like some buildings, maybe huts, about two kilometers away. There might be a fire going."
"Habitation? Will we be able to be sure when the sun is up more?"
"No, it is a trick of the rising sun that lets us see at all from this distance. Heat is curving the light along the horizon. It is fading even now."
"Are you certain of what you are seeing?" Minu asked carefully.
"Positive."
"Okay then, let’s go."
"What?!" William exclaimed.
Aaron looked at her, flexing his muscled hands as if he was strangling the uncooperative boy. Minu shook her head slightly before speaking. Aaron looked pained and nodded his head. "Look, it's only two kilometers or so. We have enough water for a day or two. We can scout those buildings out and head back by night. The Rasa will probably be done by then and we can go home. If they scout the edge of the crater we'll be nowhere in range."
"What if they're not done when we get back, what if they are here to move in for good?"
"Then we deal with that when the time comes."
"I'm not walking through kilometers of desert to investigate some old power station or farm house."
Minu just about lost it then and there. Something inside her said this wasn't the time and place or the proper way to respond to the insubordinate scout. An angry little girl locked in the deep recesses of her mind wanted to pound the petulant bastard. She turned around and looked in the opposite direction. She knew everyone was looking between her and William to see how it came out. She wasn't worried about how this affected her leadership with her friends. But whatever happened on this mission would certainly make it back to the commanders through the other three. At the least if he got the better of her William would be further emboldened and then brag about it all over the place when they got home. What would my father do? The answer came in a flash.
"Okay, no problem," she said with a grin.
"Really? About time you start listening to me."
"Right, you stay here by yourself and observe the town. We are going to investigate those structures."
"You're leaving me here? No way, I'm going with you."
"No you're not. Staying here was your idea. I'm ordering you to stay here and watch the town. Do I make myself perfectly clear?" She couldn't have spelled it out better if she'd written it down, and by stating it that way in front of all the others she'd done the next best thing. He had little choice now, same as how he'd left her with little choice in how to deal with his insurrection.
"Yes sir," he said through clenched teeth.
"Do I look like I have a penis?"
"No!" he sputtered.
"Then you can call me Ma'am, or commander. Whatever makes you happy."
"Yes, ma'am," he said, heaping as much scorn on the last word as possible.
"Good, about time you start listening to me." Minu wondered if he would break a tooth as she turned and led the oth
ers into the wastes.
"Well played boss," Gregg said and patted her on the back.
"Good job," Cherise agreed.
"He can't help being an asshole," Chester said as they walked.
"He could if he tried," Luke said.
"I don't think he has the mentality to be a Chosen," Pip said.
"You're no daisy yourself sometimes," Minu pointed out. Her friends chuckled and he ground his teeth, the broke out in a laugh. Soon they were all laughing out loud. Behind them, William watched their laughing backs retreat through hate filled eyes. Sitting on the edge of the crater the temperature was quickly climbing and he did not look forward to the next few hours. It got worse a few minutes later when he realized they hadn’t left any water.
The desert heat made the town they left behind seem to shimmer and disappear like a mirage. Minu made sure to only breathe through her nose, as she’d been taught in desert survival training. "Only tiny amounts of water," she reminded them as they walked. Cherise gave her a little nod that made Minu glad she was along. Cherise and Gregg’s extensive desert experience was proving invaluable yet again.
“At least there are no kloth,” Gregg said.
While the heat was extreme, the terrain was not. Light sand drifting over rocky soil made for an easy march. The distant building got closer then began to resolve some detail.
As they walked and the sun climbed safely above the horizon Pip took a look through his binoculars. "The buildings look better than I'd expect," he told them.
"Maybe they're the remnants of a space port or portal complex?" Luke suggested.
"Or just heavy industry," Chester further speculated.
"Either way we'll know shortly," Minu said and kept them going. She didn't figure there would be much more to see than the now invisible town, but reconnaissance was part of their mission statement. The Chosen maintained extensive files on all the worlds they visited and those files included the kind of intel she was gathering at that moment. As they began to see more with their bare eyes it became clear first impressions were not always the right ones.
"What the hell?" Gregg said suddenly and pointed, "I just saw movement!"
"Down," Minu ordered and took a knee. Gregg, Aaron and Luke all had rifles out and ready as she took out her more powerful rifle scope to have a look. Gregg had been right; several beings could be seen moving among the buildings. The structures resembled simpler versions of the crumbled ruins of the town. She could see no sign of defensive emplacements. "A squatter’s settlement?"
"That would explain why it is out of view of the town," Pip said, "yet still close enough to the portal for easy access. They wouldn't want anyone from the Concordia finding them without a leasehold."
Minu nodded. While the rules governing colonies was a complicated subject, one thing everyone knew was you didn't settle a world without permission. Bad things could, and usually did happen to you. "Wonder what they will think of some unexpected visitors?" she asked no one in particular.
"Probably not overly welcoming," Pip said, "especially if they are squatters."
"Let’s move in a little closer and get some high resolution shots." The team closed to within two hundred meters away until everyone got a good view of what Cherise spotted earlier. It was a village of less than ten permanent buildings and maybe twice that many tent-like structures. Several dozen small beings that reminded Minu of squirrels were moving about performing unknown tasks. At least one appeared to have a sling full of babies. These beings weren't scouts, they lived here.
"Found them," Pip confirmed a short time later. He'd run the images through the Chosen database of known species using both description and images. Know your enemy. Minu couldn't remember where she'd learned that phrase. Maybe her father? Everyone leaned in to look over Pip's shoulder.
The being shown looked almost identical to those walking around the nearby camp. The major difference was the archive image showed a being bedecked in intricate tool belts festooned with a dazzling array of instruments and apparatus. The new images showed much simpler garb and a mix or technological and handmade tools. Despite the differences, it was obviously a match. "The database is prompting for an English name," Pip told them. It was part of their system to name each newly encountered species. Most of the Concordia names were in script and unpronounceable. Not many Chosen got the privileged.
"You spotted them first," Minu said and patted Gregg on the shoulder, "you have the honor."
"Squeen," he said with a shy smile.
"What the fuck is a squeen?" Aaron blurted. The others just stared at him.
"Okay, I give," Minu said, "Squeen?!"
He looked very embarrassed as he explained. "We use trained squirrels from time to time as distractions for the kloth. They are so fast and climb so quickly they are ideal to bait an angry female away from a clutch of eggs. Anyway, I had one as a pet when I was four. I named him Squeen. My mother thinks I was trying to say squirrel,” he laughed nervously and shrugged, “I guess it stuck."
"How touching," Pip said and fed the information into the computer. "Okay, if we live you get credit for naming the forty-third species humans have encountered. The Squeen."
"Don't sound too confident," Minu said and took another long look at the village. "What does it say about them?"
“Well, it's interesting reading. They don’t have a patron species listed, and the most recent record is fifty thousand years old. At that point they just disappear.”
"No Patron?” Minu wondered. “A bootstrap species?”
"Possible, can’t be sure.”
"So," Minu continued, "if they were never clients, they must have been powerful."
"There's the rub. There just isn’t much detail. Something about a dispute with the Concordia council, then nothing, and I mean nothing at all. Keep in mind this database if far from exhaustive. I can find more when we get back to Bellatrix."
"Do you need anything else here?" Minu asked.
"I don't see that anything can be gained," he said after a moment. "I can find out where they live and what leaseholds they have back home. If they are squatting here, I'm sure the information will be valuable to the Tog."
"I'm sure," she agreed, "We can earn some good brownie points, if that is the case." It could be a nice bonus on top of whatever the cache held. She got a few more images through her scope before stowing it away. "Okay, let’s head back. I'm sure William misses us."
"You mostly," Aaron said among general laughter.
"Maybe he's dead of thirst?" Pip suggested, a little too hopefully. When they got back they didn't find him dead. In fact, they didn't find him at all.
"William, report!" Minu snapped over the radio upon finding the spot they'd left him abandoned. Now she was pissed, he'd disobeyed a direct order to hold his post. "Damn it William, you better sound off-" Gregg put a hand on her shoulder. She rounded on him, ready to tear him a new one for wanting her to go easy, then she saw he was pointing. There, a few meters away, was a scattering of spent cartridges of the type the Chosen used in their weapons.
Cherise picked up one and examined the base before nodding her head. "One of ours," she said.
"Scouts, figure out what happened," Minu ordered. Aaron, Gregg and Luke fanned out. It didn't take them long to piece together a story. Luke reported the results.
"He was in a brief fight. He expended a ten round magazine and then stopped firing. Looks like he was carried off into town." They showed her a trail of lizard tracks heading off toward the town. No human prints went in that direction.
"I found a scattering of spent cartridges over there," Aaron said and gestured along the crater rim, “and those were not our ordinance. Gregg found more over in that direction."
"Any sign of wounded on either side?" asked Minu.
"No indications of blood here or in either shooters position," Luke said as he inspected an alien made bullet casing. "Minor wounds can't be ruled out, though."
"How about who shot first?" They
all shrugged. “Why didn't we hear this firefight?”
“Our scout weapons are suppressed,” Gregg told her, “even only a kilometer away it is unlikely we'd here anything much.”
Minu nodded and thought hard. Had William precipitated an incident or was this an unprovoked attack? The answer to that question would spell out her response; she was allowed no latitude for playing it by ear. The ROE were written by the Tog and could not be changed, even at the loss of her entire team. There was a very real chance they would all give their lives as another installment to repay the debt humanity owed its masters, she'd known that from the day she'd signed up to take the Trials.
"What's the call, boss?" Luke asked. Minu saw Cherise give a little grin. It took a little more than a week for the new guys to start calling her that. They all looked at her expectantly and for a moment that sense of panic during the Trials returned. She was backed into a corner and there was no way out. Suddenly the Trials didn't seem quite so harsh or unrealistic.
"We go in and find out what happened to him and if possible, we negotiate his release." She looked down at one of the cache cases she carried and hoped it didn't get to that point.
Chapter 7
September 18th, 515 AE
Galactic Frontier, Planet GBX49881, Ruins
The young Chosen knew the city layout well after their stay, so returning to the town square was easy. In making an action plan, Minu was hoping the Rasa assumed William was a solo scout and after nabbing him they wouldn't continue searching.
"They wouldn't be very smart lizards," Cherise said when Minu confided her theory. "All they had to do was see our tracks leading away toward that village and they'd know better." She was right of course, and Minu agreed. Any of her scouts would have made the same logical conclusion and tracked them further. With their rear guard out of the way, it would have been like shooting howlers in a tree.
As they moved back into the city they proceeded slowly and used life sensors at every corner. Once the Rasa began to show up on the devices, the Chosen would be visible to the enemy as well. Finally as they approached the town square and it's portal, the little blips of life forms appeared. Moving with still more caution they began to circle and evaluate their enemy’s location and number. As block after block slid by the life signs made no move, staying in a small group only a few meters from the portal. Minu began to worry. Was one of the six William? If so that meant there was an extra Rasa skulking around out here. She wished the sensor could differentiate between types of life. The sun was dropping below its zenith and moving toward the horizon. They were all hot, sweaty and tired while the lizards were spending the hottest part of the day relaxing in the open. Minu gave a little smile; this was to her tactical advantage.