by Ivan Cat
"All I smell is burning plasteel," said Hagan.
"No, not that." The corporal sniffed. "This smoke smells acrid. There's something else, though. Something ... rotten."
Patton inhaled deeply, drawing air over the olfactory organs in the roof of his mouth. He smelled it too. And it wasn't the clogged turbine grate (that smelled sweet). He tossed it and, crouching low, followed the faint, foul odor up a small rise. At a hand signal from Jott, Second Team followed. Humans and domestic alike froze as they reached, and looked over, the crest.
"Sweet mother of Scourge," Jott gasped.
"Fuck me for living too long," groaned Hagan.
"Report," Halifax's voice commanded in their headsets. "Corporal Jott, report."
None of the humans in Second Team could find words.
"Patton," Halifax said, "what do you see?"
Patton rumbled quietly into his microphone, searching his memory for an appropriate historical incident that would convey what he saw. "Urrkurrkurrk," he finally decided, "Vlad Tepes at Tirgoviste."
Colonel Halifax's blocky figure turned immediately in the command skimmer and he gestured at its driver. The vehicle whined to life, accelerated forward, and nosed up beside Second Team's skimmer with a soft thump. Halifax hopped out and hurried up to join Patton and the squad. Tesla followed.
"What's going on here...?" Tesla began, his voice falling off when he saw what Halifax and the other speechless Guards saw.
Patton was padding down the far side of the rise into a clearing recently cut from dense jungle. Sap dripped from bitten-off stalks and stumps. A turpentine smell assailed the olfactory organs in his snout, but there was another assailing smell, the rotten one Jott had smelled near the wreckage. A cloying, festering-sickness smell. And it was much stronger.
In the center of the clearing, impaled on six vertical poles, were the members of Deep Recon 8. Narrow poles disappeared between human legs and rammed out of up-thrust human mouths. Clouds of buzzers swarmed hungrily at the fluids oozing from the bodies.
Patton had never seen anything like it. Four men and two women. Naked. Their suffering displayed for all to see in vivid detail.
Halifax, Tesla, and the Guards stumbled down the slope behind Patton, ashen-faced.
"Blessed be the Body Pure," Tesla murmured.
"At least they went fast," Halifax said, attempting to sound calm and controlled.
Keeping a wary eye on surrounding jungle—where any number of Ferals could be hiding, camouflaged, motionless, and undetectable, even to him—Patton looked closer at the impaling poles. They were grown out of a species of plant commonly used by domestics to form hedges or living walls back at the Enclave. The delicate green leaves with serrated edges and purple mottling were easily identifiable, but what jumped out with awful clarity was the realization that the humans of Recon 8 had not been impaled on the poles—the living skewers had been force-grown through their internal passages. Shoots pressed out overtaxed nostrils and tear ducts. Green tendrils bulged translucent under fingernails and slithered out ear canals. Vegetable creepers stretched urinary tracts and distended sexual organs, pulling faces into expressions of frozen agony. Halifax was wrong. The squad's passing had been slow. And it had been recent. The telltale bruising of Scourge had not yet begun to appear on the tortured bodies.
In view of the looks of horror on Second Team's faces, Patton decided it would be better to tell Halifax those details later.
Hagan's voice cracked in the heavy silence. "Why did they do that? Ferals never did that before!"
"What does it mean?" another Guard asked fearfully.
"Savages!" Tesla spat, shaking. His pulse-rifle fell to the ends of a shoulder strap as he stacked his fists and pressed them to his lips. "Blessed be the Body Pure, blessed be the Body Pure...."
Patton touched the base of a pole. His thumb pads detected bumps where immune venom had been injected to stimulate growth; the Ferals had done a masterful job, growing the torture garden so accurately. Saddened, Patton reached up and touched the human impaled on that pole.
The human blinked.
"Oh shit!" exclaimed Jott.
"They're not dead!" cried Hagan. "Look they're breathing!"
"Corpsman!" Halifax hissed into his comset. "Up here, now!"
A medic jumped ashore from the command skimmer and jogged up the slope.
The impaled humans' chests heaved, ever so slightly, each breath, each blink, each swallow a living torture, a swollen-from-the-inside-out agony. Skin, still warm twitched under Patton's fingers. Bulging eyes, choked by green tendrils between muscle and lid, strained to look down, pleading.
"Khhhhhhhhll mmmhhhhhh," the human gurgled.
Patton tilted his head quizzically.
Halifax stepped closer, trying to hide the horror on his face. He spoke quietly. "What was that, son?"
"Khhlllllll mhhheeeeeee."
No one within earshot misunderstood that time.
The corpsman arrived. Behind a mask of detached medical proficiency, he touched, prodded, observed.
"Can we save them?" Halifax asked.
The corpsman shook his head furtively. "Incinerods?"
Halifax nodded, thumbing off his mauler's safety. "Go back to the skimmers, sir," he said to Tesla. "The men need you there."
Patton's color faded as he realized what was about to happen. The recon team could not be saved; they must be put out of their misery. That was why Halifax tried to shoo Tesla away.
The Prime Consul also understood. "No," he said, standing his ground and clutching his pulse-rifle in sweaty palms. "Can't leave, Colonel. Burden of command. No easy outs. Not now, not ever."
The corpsman pulled six thick, palm-sized disks out of his pack and stuck them onto the impaled Guards' abdomens.
Hagan shook his head violently. "No, no. This isn't right. We've got to get them down. We've got to take them back!"
"Do you want to leave them for the worms, private?" Corporal Jott barked.
"But they're not dead!" Hagan blubbered on. "They're alive!" He turned to Halifax. "Those aren't just some pieces of meat, sir. Those are our guys!"
"I know, soldier," Halifax said. "I know."
Patton saw that the young, tortured bodies upset Halifax far more than probably most humans or domestics could tell. Halifax knew every one of his humans by name. On the first pole, that was Bryn, son of the best lieutenant Halifax ever had. Then privates Knaefer and Swasin. And there was Knute, who always told stories that made humans laugh. Lastly, Nance, the human with long, shiny hair which still gleamed in the sun despite the fact that the playful spark was gone from her eyes. Patton had seen Halifax train them all personally, giving them every shred of knowledge in his old head, wracking his brains late at night trying to think up better battle drills, better recon formations, anything to keep them alive just one day, one hour longer. Halifax had no mate, so no children of his own, except these Guards.
Hagan persisted, "We got to cut them down and take them back..."
A blood-curdling howl cut the Guard's words short. A battle cry of massed Feral voices rose up and gave challenge from the jungle around them. It was as Patton had feared: the enemy had been hiding motionless and invisible all along. He could hear the rumble of many paws in the undergrowth now—many, many paws.
Guards manning heavy weapons swiveled around in the skimmers.
"Trouble in the east grid!"
"Scourge almighty! The whole shore's alive!"
The edge of the circular lagoon shimmered like heat waves over water, thousands and thousands of stampeding heat waves. That's what the humans saw. What Patton saw was a horde of four-legged, Feral-shaped blurs closing in on the humans from all sides.
"Trap! Trap!" Patton howled.
"Set those incinerods!" Halifax barked.
The corpsman flipped safety catches on the thick disks and activated red arming timers.
"Withdraw!" Halifax bellowed, springing into action. As the rest of the humans fell bac
k, he fired well-placed shots at the impaled humans. Flechettes enveloped in kinetic plasma impacted, transferring energy on contact. Heads and chests exploded.
True to his words, Tesla did not run. His pulse-rifle sang out. Krak! Krak!
It was all over in five heartbeats. The recon team suffered no more. Incinerods ignited. Concentrated heat shot out, enveloping the lifeless forms. Soon there would be nothing but ashes.
"Heavy weapons fire at will!" Halifax ordered, turning his back on the carnage and running with the other humans.
The heavy gunners needed no encouragement. Pulse-cannons chattered. Chuk-kuk-kuk-kuk-kuk! Recoil rocked the skimmers, agitating water around their hulls. Heat-wave silhouettes exploded along the shore like sacks of congealed blood.
It was a drop in the bucket. A tidal wave of Ferals rushed at the torture garden and wrecked skimmer. Running, Patton could see the Feral forms more clearly than the humans, how fast they were moving and how close they were getting, so he knew there was little time to get to the skimmers, but he was careful not to outpace Halifax and Tesla.
Second Team laid cover fire of their own as they skidded back down the swampy ground toward safety. Tesla slipped. Halifax and Patton pulled him up as the Ferals bore down.
The flame-thrower mounted on the command skimmer opened up with a throaty roar, spitting high-pressure gouts of fire. Burning, shrieking arcs of Ferals held the rest of their kind back long enough for the humans to pile into the waiting vehicles. Turbines thrummed as they backed away from shore.
"Head count!" Halifax roared.
"All present and accounted for!" Jott called from Second Team's skimmer.
Halifax slapped his driver on the back. "Hit it!"
Turbines whined. The skimmers turned, spraying rooster-tails of water and accelerating across the donut-hole lagoon.
Patton turned to face the strange grumbling sound behind him.
It was Tesla, eyes looking bloodshot. "I warned them," he said to no one in particular. "I warned them, but they didn't listen. We'll see how they vote next time."
The skimmers crossed the lake rapidly.
"Patton," Halifax demanded, pointing at the jagged inlet that had brought them in from the ocean. "What do you see?"
"Lots of Ferals."
The jungle on either side of the inlet crawled with shimmering movement.
"Reload," Halifax ordered the Guardsmen. He swapped out his own mauler clips.
Pulse-cannons hammered as the skimmers slowed to negotiate the waterway in single file. A wash of saltwater spray hit Halifax and Patton as their skimmer fell last in line behind Second Team's skimmer. Drivers swerved around shallows and snags. Individual Guardsmen fired at blurred shapes rushing through the dense foliage along the banks. Focusing on the blurry aliens hurt their human eyes. It was impossible for them to follow such a target for long in the confusion. The flame-thrower had better results igniting huge sections of greenery as the skimmers passed.
Motion overhead caught Patton's eye.
"Look up," he warned. "Look up!"
A pair of sky-colored silhouettes launched from the overhanging canopy. Halifax swung his pistol to bear and blasted, clouds of flechettes hit the silhouettes in mid-jump. Gray Ferals congealed out of nothingness as their glowbuds flared and went dead. The skimmer lurched as limp bodies slammed onto the left wing and splashed into the water. The open ocean was just a couple hundred yards away, but the number of Ferals was chilling. Patton had heard Halifax talking about attacking hordes during the Ferals Wars, but, in all the missions he had accompanied Halifax on, Patton had never seen so many.
"There! There!" Patton pointed at more falling blurs.
Tesla's rifle spat death, but one Feral made it through, landing aft in the skimmer as its bondmate exploded from a well-aimed pulse-rifle shot. The survivor wheeled, half its glowbuds dimming with loss and rage, and it shredded three men, including the driver, before Halifax shot it point-blank in the head. The skimmer fish-tailed, skipping over a submerged snag. The flame-thrower operator swung helplessly on the end of her heavy weapon. Guards in the other skimmers ducked to avoid indiscriminate gouts of napalm.
Covered in human and Feral ichor, Tesla flung the dead driver from the controls and took over.
"Shoot the treetops!" Halifax ordered.
Pulse-cannons blasted the jungle canopy, mowing off clouds of leaves and atomizing blood from hidden Ferals. The suicide attacks diminished.
Tesla drove like a madman, following the first two skimmers down the inlet.
"Taking fire!" someone yelled from ahead.
Suddenly, a hail of projectiles enveloped the lead skimmer. Pat-ton looked up. Undaunted by the carnage of human weaponry, shimmering aliens hurled fist-sized objects from the trees, the shore, everywhere.
Patton could barely see the lead skimmer through the barrage. The skimmer's turbine pod, mounted on a raised strut at its rear, began to shake, torquing the vehicle over. It rose up on one wing. The driver tried to recover, but the engine cowl suddenly exploded. Shattered turbine blades sliced through soft human tissue and hard machine hull mercilessly. The remains of the skimmer cartwheeled, flinging hapless Guards into the air. Some landed on shore, their bodies crushed by impact and then torn to pieces by Ferals. Others plummeted into silvery waters. Sharkworms, attracted by all the vibration on the water, feasted upon them.
Unable to stop, Second Team's skimmer plunged into the deadly barrage. All too soon, its turbine began to shake with unbalanced gyroscopic motion.
"Your screens don't work," Tesla shouted at his military commander.
"I don't understand," Halifax yelled back between shots of his pistol. "We tested against objects much larger than those!"
Second Team's skimmer began to heel over like the first, but its driver had the foresight to cut power before catastrophe struck. The vehicle nosed down into the water, slowing drastically and drifting near the dangerous banks of the inlet.
The command skimmer plunged into the hail. Patton ducked his head down as Feral projectiles pummeled his armored back.
Splat! Plort, bloosh, splutz!
Sweet perfume filled the air as reddish spheroids exploded, spewing stringy, orange goo all over.
"It's fruit!" Halifax exclaimed, incredulous. He wiped sticky strands from his face. "Rotten fruit!"
Tesla jerked the command skimmer's throttle shut as he swerved to miss Second Team's drifting skimmer. Second Team was in big trouble. Ferals were stacking up along the shore. Pairs of Patton's wild brethren sprung at the unmoving vehicle despite withering pulse-cannon fire from its defenders. A wounded Feral made it across, decapitating a young woman before her comrades could thrust their bayonets between its armor plates; the quiver-shivs, which sliced through ceramite like butter, neatly sectioned the angry alien.
"Throw a line!" Halifax commanded as Tesla brought them alongside. A guard in the rear of the command skimmer grabbed a coil of filament and hurled one end across. Corporal Jott jumped out onto the immobilized skimmer's near wing, caught the line and secured it to a towing pintle.
Tesla slammed his throttle full open. The command skimmer's turbine roared, but Ferals aimed a barrage of spheroids at it. The thin skins ruptured on impact. Powerful turbine suction instantly drew the fibrous, fruity strands right through its protective screen. The engine pod began to shake as the tough strands jammed in the blades, throwing the turbine off balance.
Halifax's hand stopped Tesla's from cutting the power. The colonel turned to the flame-thrower gunner. "Fire into the turbine!"
"Sir?" said the shocked gunner.
"Do what I say, soldier! Lower pressure and fire directly into the turbine!"
Confused, the woman spun her heavy weapon around on its swivel, adjusted the weapon's fuel focus and shot a diffused, howling stream of napalm at the turbine intake. The fruit fibers were incinerated. The engine pod ceased shaking as balance returned to the spinning blades. The turbine inhaled the flaming fuel and spit it out in a
long tail. Clouds of black smoke rose from the overrich exhaust mixture and power dropped due to reduced oxygen supply to the turbine, but it was otherwise unaffected. The towline went taught, pulling Second Team's skimmer away from the Feral-choked bank. Second Team ducked as the napalm exhaust tail arced over their heads with every zigzag of Tesla's hands on his controls.
The skimmers picked up speed. Feral bombardment thickened, but the flame-thrower burned away the sticky fibers long before they reached the vulnerable turbine blades. Scattered Ferals began to throw resin rocks, spiked seedpods, anything to hurt the fleeing humans. Sensing victory, the Guards began to cheer.
A camouflaged paw hooked over the edge of the skimmer behind Halifax.
Nobody saw but Patton. And now was the time when Patton showed why he was the only domestic allowed on Guard missions. Pact did not kill Pact. As a domestic, Patton might not know those exact words, but it was something all Khafra felt deep down in their bones. Other domestics would have frozen, torn between defending their bonded human and their instincts. At best they would have hesitated. Patton did not hesitate. As the intruder heaved itself up, drawing its fearsome talons back to swipe Halifax's spine out of his soft human body, Patton charged, hammering Halifax off of his feet. The brunt of the Feral's blow slashed down, gouging deep into Patton's armor. Blood sprayed. Patton yelped.
The Feral froze, its colors jangling in deep-rooted distress— from its own Pact-shall-not-kill-Pact instincts—a second, slashing forearm froze, poised to attack, above its head. The reaction would only last an instant, Patton knew. The Feral would not attempt to harm him again, but it would soon enough take another swipe at the nearby, prostrate form of Halifax.
The Guards, turning, as if in slow motion, could not fire for fear of hitting Patton.
Lowering his head, Patton butted the Feral in the center of its chest. It fell, again as if in slow motion, backward over the wing. Pulse-rifles cracked. Kuk! Kuk! Kuk! Chunks of the Feral's body ripped off, spinning through the air, bouncing off the wing. Kuk! Kuk! Kuk! Nothing larger than a jorjorra melon hit the water. None of the humans saw it, nor did Patton consciously see it, but on a base, instinctive level, Patton absorbed the spectacle of each fragment of the Feral flaring and fading to blank in the horrible display of a Khafra life ending without fulfilling Pact.