CROSS FIRE

by Fonda Lee

  Soldier Gur paused and dipped his fins. “That is a reasonable demand.”

  After a moment of consideration, the Rii Hunter’s voice blared out again from the platform. “Soldiers and Earth creatures able to collect dead.”

  Cass spoke up as soon as the translation ended. “Zun Werth, I’ll go.”

  Donovan gaped at her, then quickly stepped up beside his erze mate. “I’ll go too, zun.”

  As the sun rose, they traveled in three skimmercars behind the scrambling Rii vehicle as it led them back toward the center of the Round. The familiar silhouette of the Towers was marred by the deflated shape of the alien spore vessel clinging like a gooey, sagging bubble to the side of the tallest spire.

  “They’re designed to conform to whatever surface they land on,” Soldier Wylt said, noticing Donovan, Cass, and the third human in the car, Zachariah, staring out the window at the remains of the thing. “Spores spread the invading footprint as wide as possible. Makes it difficult to intercept all the exiting troops. They only have basic navigation and transmission—no engines, no life support—and once they land, they disintegrate. The Hunters inside know they’re on a one-way trip.”

  “Leave the humans alone, Wylt.” Soldier Wiest held the skimmercar to a crawl behind the scrambler. “I doubt they want to hear you blather any more than we do, but they can’t tell you to break your fins.”

  “We don’t mind,” Donovan said. He, Cass, and Zach were sitting on the floor at the back of the skimmercar. There were no seats; unlike SecPac’s vehicles, this one wasn’t designed for humans. Donovan glanced back out the window. The spore looked as if it had melted further in just a few minutes.

  “Hunters taking the Towers.” Wiv, the third Soldier in the car, whistled and made a profane fin movement.

  The skimmercar stopped. In the light of morning, the scene of carnage in the streets around the Towers was even worse to behold than it had been in the dark. Donovan saw human and zhree bloodstains, chunks of debris, twisted metal remains of skimmercars, and scattered corpses and body parts of both species. The Soldiers and the soldiers-in-erze fell silent in the car. Donovan was struck by the overwhelming desire not to open the door. Cass gripped his hand in mutual support.

  Wiest opened the skimmercar and began unrolling wide body bags on the street. “These should fit humans as well.”

  Still holding Cass’s hand, Donovan made himself get out of the car. As the three Soldiers moved off, Donovan glanced toward the Rii scrambler parked by the entrance of the Towers. The Hunters were disembarking, jumping fifteen feet from the carrier platform and landing as if it were nothing. Amid the mottled hulls, Donovan caught a glimpse of several striped ones. The Hunters escorted Soldier Gur and his retinue inside the Towers and they disappeared from view.

  What was going to happen in there? What would Soldier Gur and the leader of the Rii Hunters talk about? Donovan turned away; it seemed pointless to speculate. He had always thought of his father as a powerful man who wielded a position of global influence. That seemed almost laughable now; Prime Liaison Angela DeGarmo was nowhere to be seen. The other individuals who had always held highest authority in Donovan’s world—Administrator Seir, Soldier Werth, Commander Tate—they were not here either. The fate of the planet was being decided by outside forces far beyond anything he’d ever known.

  We’ve lost Earth.

  Oddly, that dark realization made it a little easier to get on with the task of finding and collecting the bodies of dead comrades. At least they had died quickly and suddenly, as soldiers who’d lived their lives in erze and given them in battle. They wouldn’t be around to see whatever madness came next. It was a tiny comfort to Donovan, but it was something.

  When they found Leon, it was less horrific than Donovan had expected. Cass had already closed his eyes, and so long as Donovan kept his gaze fixed firmly on his friend’s peaceful face, he could almost handle it. It was only when he had to lift the severed lower half of Leon’s body into the black bag that his gorge rose. Donovan knelt by the side of the street and retched into the grass, then wiped his watering eyes.

  “Sorry,” he said to Cass. When he turned back around, she’d already sealed the body bag up to Leon’s chest. She tucked the corner of his protruding coil-bound sketchbook under his uniform jacket and crossed her partner’s arms over his chest, placing one of his hands over the square bulge.

  Cass pressed her lips to Leon’s brow, tears running off her chin onto her erze mate’s pale face. “Wherever you’ve gone, partner, make some glorious art.” She closed the bag over his head.

  Donovan was numb by the time they were finished. After Leon, his stomach and his mind seemed to take a trip away from the rest of his body, and he’d been able to gather Tennyson, Lucius, and about ten others in a kind of purposeful haze, executing his task as a respectful duty without thinking about the loss of each person. Zach, who’d been close to Lucius, broke down at one point and had to step away but came back after a short while. Cass had no grief left to give and was the most efficient of them all, arranging the bodies carefully in the open trailer that had been hitched to the skimmercar. Zhree bodies on one side, humans on the other.

  At first, the Soldiers and the soldiers-in-erze handled their own, but after a while, the distinction vanished under the unspoken but shared desire to get the job over with. Donovan helped bundle and carry the legs of a dead Soldier while Wylt hefted the torso end.

  “We can’t even send them off properly,” Wylt said sadly. The zhree usually atomized their dead from the sacred sanctuary in the highest part of the Towers.

  “Rest well until the coming of the Highest State of Erze,” Soldier Wiv murmured, touching each enclosed body that was delivered to the trailer.

  They received word from the second skimmercar on the other side of the Round that it too was finally done. The sun had climbed high into a cloudless sky. Whatever medicine Therrid had given Donovan in the hospital had taken away the pain in his swollen shoulder for several hours, but now it returned, repaying him for his overexertion with a vengeance that made him want to whimper. He, Cass, and Zach sat on the ground against the shaded side of the skimmercar, exhausted and sharing a canteen of water. The Soldiers stood together some distance away, conversing in low voices. The Round was eerily quiet.

  Finally, Soldier Gur and his Soldiers emerged from the Towers, escorted by six Hunters. The group paused; words were exchanged. Donovan could hear the scratchy translation machine but could not make out anything that was being said. The Hunter addressing Gur was huge, the largest zhree Donovan had ever seen—taller than a man, with eyes the size of tennis balls and strikingly contrasted light and dark mottled patterning on his hull. Soldier Gur looked small next to him. The Hunter spoke in rapid clicks, then dipped his fins to Gur. The Soldier dipped his own fins in reply and brought his armor partway down—a wary but respectful handshake, as far as zhree niceties were concerned. It seemed an agreement of some sort had been reached.

  “I don’t like the look of this,” Soldier Wylt muttered.

  Once they were back at the field camp at SecPac Central Command, Soldier Gur crossed the lawn and was met by Administrator Seir. Donovan jogged after them at a distance, trying to keep them in sight and wanting to listen to whatever Gur was going to say, but he needn’t have bothered. The old Soldier declared, “Administrator Seir, gather the rest of the zhree zun at once and prepare a transmission back to Kreet. I have important news to share.”

  Within minutes, Gur was ringed by all the erze leaders, who’d been summoned from inside the Comm Hub building. Administrator Seir and Soldier Werth seemed to suspect what was coming, but the others—Merchant Hess, Nurse Thet, Builder Dor, and the rest—were shifting their fins and murmuring nervously. Beyond them, Werth’s Soldiers and some Nurses pressed in as close as decorum permitted to hear what would be said. Donovan and Cass slipped in behind the tall figure of Commander Tate. Most of the other SecPac officers appeared to have left; Tate, Donovan, and Cass w
ere among the few humans still present.

  Soldier Gur raised one limb and tapped it on the ground for attention. “An agreement has been reached with the Rii. There will be no further hostilities over Earth. All Mur colonists will be permitted to leave the planet unharmed, beginning with an immediate withdrawal of Soldiers and followed by an orderly evacuation of all civilian erze and their selected humans, within half an orbital cycle.”

  “Half a year?” trilled Scientist Laah. “We thought we’d have more—”

  “In exchange for peacefully surrendering this star system on an accelerated schedule,” Soldier Gur went on, ignoring him, “the Rii of Chi’tok have agreed to lift their blockade of light-plus transfer points in the Siryean corridor, as well as recognize Mur sovereignty and uncontested mining rights in the Danushian sector.” Soldier Gur’s normally stiff fins riffled in satisfaction. “A more than fair trade, considering the commercial and military value of both those concessions.”

  Gur’s announcement was met with initial silence. Builder Dor spoke first. “We won’t be reclaiming the Towers, then. The lives of those who died defending them last night were wasted.”

  “Not true, Builder,” Soldier Gur scolded. “Only a narrow frontier mentality would suggest the lost lives did not ultimately benefit the Mur Erzen. The resistance demonstrated the strength of the Commonwealth, even so far from Kreet, and placed us in a far better negotiating position.”

  Donovan’s mind stumbled and stuck on Builder Dor’s words. We won’t be reclaiming the Towers. The Towers were the only place with the medical facilities to treat injured exos, and Soldier Gur had just surrendered them for good.

  “Given only six months,” Administrator Seir said slowly, “we will have to leave behind many of our planetary assets and take only what is needed. We will also not have time to oversee transition of key responsibilities to Earth’s human governments.”

  “We’re nowhere near done collecting and preserving genetic samples of all the native plant and animal species,” Scientist Laah exclaimed.

  “Nor have we secured off-world warehousing for algae crops that—”

  “Naturally, we must make trade-offs.” Soldier Gur interrupted Merchant Hess with a sharp fin flick of impatience. “The withdrawal will not be as thorough as we intended, however, with rigorous prioritization, we can accomplish all that is necessary. For example, the total human population taken from Earth will be less than our original plan—closer to fifty or sixty thousand humans instead of the original ninety thousand—but certainly still robust enough for long-term genetic viability.”

  Cass gave Donovan a pale, wide-eyed look. There was a roaring sound building in Donovan’s ears; he found he could barely form words in his own mind. The evacuation plan had been piddling at ninety thousand humans. Fifty thousand was … all that is necessary.

  “I must deliver this news to Kreet immediately,” Soldier Gur finished. “There’s much to be done to prepare for the busy and disruptive times ahead, but I’m confident your famous frontier work ethic will shine through under any form of pressure. I’ll communicate further instructions from the homeworld once I receive them.” Gur gazed out stiffly at the ring of colonists as if daring them to make further comments, but none did. “Go in erze.”

  The zhree dispersed immediately in all directions. Donovan saw a lot of grimly flattened fins, but once a decision was made for the erze, there was no more debate. Soldier Werth strode into the midst of his troops, gathering his subordinates around him. The erze master’s limbs rose and gestured and his fins flashed as he conveyed orders—no doubt handling all the practical considerations of large interstellar troop movements called on short notice. Donovan felt left behind already.

  Commander Tate was exiting the field. Donovan and Cass hurried to catch up with her. “Commander?” Donovan asked. “What do we do now?”

  Tate stopped and glanced at the two young officers with a strangely empty expression. She looked like someone who’d recently spent time sitting in the darkness, reevaluating every moment of her life. “Ma’am?” Donovan realized he was almost begging for Tate to yell orders at him. “What do you want us to do?”

  “Go spend time with loved ones.” Tate turned and began to walk back toward the Comm Hub building, a tall, proud figure cutting a slow, straight line through the field of armored hulls.

  Cass looked bleakly at Donovan. Together, they ran for the garage.

  Jet looked up blearily from Vic’s bedside when Donovan and Cass got back to the hospital and came into the room. The space around Jet’s eyes seemed hollowed out. “She’s not doing too well,” he said hoarsely. “Therrid says the next couple of days are key.”

  Cass squeezed Jet’s shoulder, then sat down on the other side of Vic’s bed. “Hey, Vic, you were going to stay on Earth and be my apocalypse buddy. You can’t ditch, okay?” Cass enfolded Vic’s motionless hand. “I’m not even jealous of your good looks anymore, not with how banged up you are now.”

  Vic’s chest rose and fell in shallow breaths. Her face was as bloodless as chalk. Donovan swallowed thickly. “Has she woken up at all?”

  “For a little while, about a couple of hours ago,” Jet said. “She was pretty out of it. She told me what happened, though.”

  Two SecPac stealthcopters had been deployed to attack the Rii spore vessel. Thad and Vic had been in one of them along with two other soldiers-in-erze and the pilot. Like everyone else, they lost the use of their exocels once they began shooting at the emerging Hunters. The Hunters returned fire; one of them leapt clear across a gap of forty feet and boarded the moving aircraft. The pilot, one of the other exos, and the Hunter itself were killed in the subsequent fighting. Vic grabbed the controls and crash-landed the stealthcopter in one of the Round’s shipyards, barely missing an apartment building on the way down. They lost another man in the crash.

  “Thad’s got a punctured lung,” Jet said. “He might not make it.”

  Nurse Therrid came into the room. “You ought to be getting some sleep,” he admonished. “Donovan, you only have two prehensile limbs and that one won’t heal if you don’t rest it.” Therrid touched Vic on the forehead and positioned a medical scanning arm over her. The Nurse looked exhausted—his fins sagged and he couldn’t keep more than two eyes open at a time. One of his limbs crept up and encircled his bulging egg sac.

  “Is there anything else you can do, Nurse Therrid?” Jet pleaded.

  “I wish there was, Vercingetorix,” the Nurse strummed softly. “Some injuries are too severe for even an eighth-generation exocel to handle. If only I had access to the therapy tanks and the nanosurgical tools in the Towers …” He trailed off, then forced his fins more upright. “Tamaravick and Thaddeus are young and strong; we will have to hope for the best.”

  Cass went down the hall to see Thad. Donovan followed Nurse Therrid out of the room. “Zun Therrid,” he said, catching up to the zhree, “Soldier Gur went and negotiated with the leader of the Rii Hunters.” Sickly disbelief rose again in Donovan’s throat. “He gave them Earth. In exchange for some transfer points or mining rights or something. There’s not going to be any counterattack. We’re not going to get back into the Towers.” When Therrid stared steadily at him without responding, Donovan wanted to grab the Nurse and shake him. “All these injured people—you won’t be able to save some of them now, will you?”

  “I’m still going to do the best I can, Donovan. I’ve requested that supplies and equipment be brought in from satellite clinics and other Rounds, but I don’t know how long that will take. As I said, we will have to hope for the best.” Therrid took Donovan by the arm and led him to a bench, easing him down onto it so they were eye to eye. “You need to rest and regain your strength, hatchling. Nurse Thet already informed me of the news and … I …” Therrid’s fins stuttered. “I’ve been told to provide an updated account of which Hardened soldiers-in-erze are still fit for evacuation. You’re not badly wounded. You’ll still be—”

  “You think I
care about being on Soldier Gur’s list anymore?” Donovan yanked his arm out of Therrid’s grip. “Leon’s dead. So’s Tennyson, and Lucius, and erze knows how many other people who were on the roster. Cass wasn’t included to begin with because her exocel doesn’t cover her arm. If Vic and Thad pull through, they probably won’t be in any sort of shape to be deemed worth saving. Scorch erze orders to hell, I’m not evacuating. Not anymore.”

  “Donovan,” Therrid protested in a weakly vibrating voice, “you don’t understand. You can’t stay here with the Rii in control. They’ll … they’ll …”

  “Destroy Earth,” Donovan finished for him. “I know. Soldier Werth told me. He showed me what happened to other planets that the Rii conquered. He wanted me to cooperate, to help convince others in the erze to accept evacuation.”

  “But then you know you can’t possibly affect the outcome! All the humans that stay will be lost.” Therrid began turning on the spot in agitation. “Please don’t be foolish, hatchling. You’ll do far more good for your species by listening to your erze master. You and Vercingetorix—you were two of the first humans I ever met. You’re the reason I came to care for exos. I’ve lost so many already … You have to survive, Donovan. You and the other exos, you’re the best of your kind …”

  “No,” Donovan interjected. “Only on a planet where the zhree decide what makes a better human are we more worthy of saving than other people. And soon, when all of you leave and follow Soldier Gur back to your homeworld, that won’t be the case anymore.”

  “Do you think I want to go?” Therrid trilled in an angry outburst. One of his limbs moved protectively to his egg sac. “But we’re one remote outpost colony. We can’t fight the Rii without military support from Kreet. The decision’s been made. There’s nothing more we can do.”

  “There is.” Donovan glanced down the hall to make sure it was empty but lowered his voice anyway. He really was taking a risk now, but Therrid was the only one who might help him. “So many exos died or were injured yesterday because our exocels stop working if we try to attack zhree. There’s a connection in the brain that controls that reflex. When my father was Prime Liaison, he asked a scientist-in-erze named Vincent Ghosh to investigate it. Dr. Ghosh thought that the connection could be cut or jammed. Soldier Werth said it’s not possible, but it is, isn’t it? The fail-safe can be taken out.”