by Rick Barba
Darox whistled loudly and ran to him.
“Exciting, eh?” said Mahnk.
“Very.”
“Five transports!” said Mahnk with relish. “You will spill much orange blood today, brother.”
“No,” said Darox, grinning. “We will.”
Mahnk stared. “What?”
Darox nodded toward Mox, who was fastening his armor. “Our leader wants a recon team.” He kicked the gear bag out of Mahnk’s hand. “Let’s go.” As another recruit ran past, Darox directed him to grab the bag.
Mahnk laughed loudly. “I am speechless!”
“Good,” said Darox.
They joined the full tactical team at the edge of the clearing. Then Mox led them up a steep slope into a thick stand of pines. Just twenty yards into the trees they hit a devil’s den of overgrown boulders, the bottom of an ancient rockslide.
Darox and Mahnk exchanged a look. They knew this spot well. They’d trained in it for many hours.
“We lure them here,” called Mox. He pointed to a huge toppled tree trunk to the right of the rock spill. “Recon, after you engage, fall back there.” He gave Darox a look. “You will be our flank.”
Darox nodded.
Skirmishers were good fighters at any range. But up close, they were particularly lethal. Compact, hard-hitting shotguns combined with retractable Ripjack razor claws integrated into every Skirmisher’s armored gauntlet. Wildcat trainers had spent countless hours drilling Darox, Mahnk, and the other recruits on the finer points of close quarters combat in tight, complicated spaces.
This jumble of boulders was perfect.
Darox turned and pushed back through the trees to the top of the slope they’d climbed. Recon’s role was to mark enemy numbers, then lure them into the kill zone. Mahnk took up a position a few yards down the tree line.
Three howling ADVENT Troop Transports hovered over the meadow below them, the same meadow where a full forty-hut village had bustled just moments before. The other two transports banked hard left, following the cracked asphalt of Highway 9.
“Familiar sight, isn’t it?” crackled Mahnk.
Darox touched the earpiece of his headset.
“Three birds landing,” he reported. “Two more bearing west.”
In his earpiece, Mox bellowed, “Hotel, you got that?”
Now Darox’s earpiece crackled with the voice of the adjutant, Loka. “Acknowledged,” she replied. “I am patching in the Skinner Hut garrison.”
“This is Skinner Hut,” crackled another voice.
“Two ATTs bearing your way,” reported the adjutant. “Are you ready up there?”
“I would say we are eager.”
Darox heard Mox chuckle over the line.
* * *
Each hulking ADVENT Transport was battleship gray with red light strips highlighting the extended wings. The engine whine was so familiar that Darox actually relaxed a bit; in his ADVENT days, he’d listened hard for that very sound while nervously awaiting evacuation from unfriendly slums and shantytowns.
As each ship neared the ground, its wings flipped up to landing position, revealing a side exit hatch. Each hatch hissed loudly, then slid open to reveal a standard ADVENT peacekeeper squad: one red-helmet officer with a trio of gray-armor troopers. But as these hybrid soldiers hopped from their transports, a Chryssalid suddenly burrowed out of the ground nearby and skittered behind each squad.
“Bugs,” said Mahnk in disgust.
“Marking three Chryssalids,” reported Darox.
In his earpiece, he heard Mox murmur, “Interesting.”
Over the radio, Loka said, “We have not seen bugs up here in ten years.”
During his days in ADVENT operations, Darox had often deployed with alien support units. All of them seemed menacing, but the Chryssalids were the worst. He’d never felt safe with the spiky, slavering monsters on the hunt nearby. Their indiscriminate attacks on innocent civilians had a grisly ferocity. Sometimes they seemed out of control. He’d half expected to get a claw in the back himself.
Now the bugs were the enemy. He found the prospect both chilling and satisfying.
As the ADVENT transports lifted off to hover out of range in overwatch positions, the ground troops began their scan of the meadow. Several units clustered to inspect the circle of flattened grass where the Wildcat command hut had stood. Darox unclipped a frag grenade from his vest and let it fly. The explosion took out two troopers and severely mangled one of the Chryssalids.
“Well tossed!” shouted Mahnk with glee as he opened fire with his shotgun.
Their concentrated fire took out one of the ADVENT officers, another trooper, and the wounded bug. But once the nearest officers marked their positions, the return mag-rifle fire got hot fast. Darox and Mahnk withdrew through the trees to the rockslide and took cover behind the fallen trunk as Mox had ordered.
* * *
ADVENT Troopers were conceived as urban shock troops, trained primarily as riot-control police. Their gear and tactics were suited to the orderly geometry of the New Cities, not the wild tangle of alpine forests. The units that rushed aggressively up the slope and into the trees seemed woefully unprepared for the Skirmisher ambush that awaited them.
Both remaining ADVENT officers fell in the first Kal-7 salvo from Mox and his Wildcat team. The suddenly leaderless troopers scattered into the rocky den, taking up largely indefensible positions that were easily flanked. Only the two remaining Chryssalids moved with any sort of tactical intelligence. But another frag grenade flushed one insectoid out of cover into shotgun range; the other bug died trying to burrow behind a boulder, unaware that two Skirmisher warriors hunkered in an open rock chimney just behind it.
The battle lasted mere minutes, and it was a thing of beauty to watch. Darox and Mahnk didn’t have to fire a single shot, much less defend the flank. They marveled as Mox and the Wildcat crew shattered the hapless assault quickly and efficiently. One of the trainers even managed to flank and stun two enemy troopers, then jam PRF electrode needles into the backs of their heads to ablate the neurochips. If they survived this crude field procedure, the troopers would soon become new Skirmisher recruits.
Mahnk stepped out of cover. “That was certainly invigorating!” he said.
“Impressive,” agreed Darox.
Voices crackled in his earpiece. From the sound of it, the other two ADVENT transports that veered west up the Glacier Creek route had fared even worse than their mates. Skirmishers based at Skinner Hut, part of the old Tenth Mountain Division network of shelters, caught the ADVENT and their Chryssalids in a nasty crossfire between the cliff walls in nearby Hagerman Pass.
“I believe the human term for this is a ‘turkey shoot,’ ” reported the Skinner Hut squad leader over the radio.
“Survivors?” asked Mox.
“None, sir, unfortunately. No recruits.”
Mox’s adjutant, Loka, broke into the frequency. “All five transports just hightailed home,” she reported.
Hearing this, Mahnk grunted and looked at Darox. “How does ADVENT know so fast?”
“Psionics,” said Darox. He tapped the back of his head. “Brain chip goes cold, the Network Tower instantly knows you are dead.”
“And then they just fly away,” said Mahnk in disgust, arcing his hand through the air. “Leaving you behind like a piece of garbage tossed out the hatch.” He stared angrily at one of the Chryssalid corpses. “Almost makes me feel bad for this abomination.”
“I hope it died in agony, feeling alone and betrayed,” said Darox.
Mahnk slowly smiled. “You hate bugs,” he said.
“I hate aliens.”
“But you are half alien.”
“I hate that half.”
Mahnk guffawed. “Me too, brother!”
* * *
The team began stripping the enemy dead of their ammo, equipment, and other items. As usual, they found no intel: no maps, orders, field reports, nothing. ADVENT troops never carried such
items, not even the officers. All strategic directives came psionically from ADVENT central command.
Mox suddenly burst through a pine shrub stand.
“Leave it!” he called.
Something about his tone made Darox look up. Mox was staring at him, darkly.
“Darox,” he said. His voice was tense.
“Yes, sir?”
Mox motioned him over. Then the Skirmisher leader led him through a gulley to a barely visible trailhead off the old highway. Waiting there were the two Kestrel clan members he’d seen at the ceremony. Mox introduced them: Koros and Rika. Both looked grim and edgy.
“Our camp has gone silent,” said Rika.
“Radio silence?” asked Darox.
Rika shook her head. “Total silence,” she said. “They are not responding to anything.”
Koros said, “Not even tap code.”
Skirmisher sites often went radio silent when ADVENT patrols with high psionics were in the area. Instead of radio chatter, they relied on a simple code of mike tapping that could be disguised as the popping of random radio static.
Mox pointed north up the pass.
“Go now,” he said. “Keep the channel open. I will have a support team ready.”
Darox reached over his shoulder and yanked his shotgun from his back-sling. Checking its autoload magazine, he said, “I would like to take my recon partner too.”
Mox narrowed his silver eyes. “What is his name again?”
“Mahnk,” said Darox. “His chip extraction is scheduled for tomorrow.”
Mox nodded. “I suppose he would like to be a Kestrel too,” he said.
“Is that possible?”
Mox just headed back toward the gulley. “I will send him out.”
As Mox disappeared, Darox turned to the others. Both looked at him quizzically. He said, “Mahnk fights hard, and he is a good brother.”
Koros rubbed his cheek. “But is he fast?”
“Fast enough.”
“Good,” said Rika. He could see that she struggled to maintain calm. “We have ten hard miles ahead of us, and we will not wait for him if he lags.”
Darox nodded. “Mahnk will keep up.”
“And what about you?” she asked sharply.
Darox nearly responded with equal sting, but then he saw it in her eyes: Her clan was up there, and they weren’t answering calls.
“You will not lose me,” he said.
* * *
The hike up into the Holy Cross Wilderness was difficult and at times treacherous. But it was stunningly beautiful. As they traversed a granite shelf in Fall Creek Pass to bypass a collapsed switchback trail, Darox gazed out at the postcard vista of wildflower meadows rolling toward Lake Constantine.
He thought, Another ADVENT lie.
In his ADVENT days, Darox had seen the propaganda videos depicting all Wild Lands as devastated, polluted, toxic, and dangerous. But this was pristine country. No sign of the firestorms that had charred the Front Range. Looking back south, he could see the humped snowcap of Mount Massive, second highest peak in the North American Rockies. It was twenty miles away, but it seemed he could reach out and touch it.
Glancing over at Mahnk, he said, “I feel nothing but awe up here.”
Mahnk clung to an outcrop. Kicking for a foothold, he gasped, “Yes, if only one could breathe.”
Darox inhaled deep. “The air is thin,” he agreed. “But clean, brother.”
Grunting, Mahnk swung onto the ledge where Darox stood. He said, “Twelve thousand feet . . . is far too many feet.”
Ahead, Rika and Koros scrambled lightly over a saddle in the ridge and disappeared. Neither had spoken for hours as they pressed ahead urgently, no breaks, eating and drinking on the move. But when Darox crossed the saddle too, he found them crouched in a ravine next to a swirling creek, waiting. Up ahead, water cascaded downhill over a series of boulders and rock steps.
Koros pointed to the top.
“Tuhare Lake is up there,” he said quietly. “Those are its outlet falls.”
Rika gazed grimly up the chute. She said, “The camp is by the feeder stream on the far shore. Or, it was when we left.”
Darox crouched next to her. “Why would ADVENT come way up here?” he asked.
She gave him a fierce look. “I do not know.”
“It makes no sense.”
Koros dipped his green bandana in the creek, wiped his face, and said, “ADVENT would not come here. They have no alpine training.”
Darox said, “Exactly.”
“There was a code orange alert,” said Koros. “Maybe Tashl simply took precautions and decamped to one of the sanctuary caves.”
Rika gave him a fierce look. “But why total silence?” she said.
Koros shrugged. “Let’s go see,” he said.
Darox stood and pulled out his shotgun.
“I will take point,” he said.
When Rika tried to protest, Koros put his big gloved hand on her arm. “Today,” he said, “he is your tactical commander.”
Mahnk stood up. “And tomorrow as well,” he growled.
Koros nodded. “Of course.”
Darox led the way up the steep, twisting trail that rose beside the falls. At the top, they took cover behind a long granite slab. Ahead, Tuhare Lake glittered blue on the treeless alpine terrace, filling a great cirque carved from the ridge. A rock-strewn meadow of yellowing grasses and scrub circled one side; a crumbling cliff face walled off the other side.
On the far shore two hundred meters away sat a small cluster of Skirmisher huts.
Mahnk quickly pulled a scope from his utility pouch and put it to his eye. “Looks undisturbed,” he said.
“Any movement?” asked Darox.
“None. I see no one.”
Rika pointed and said, “The only approach is through the open meadow there.”
“Cover me,” said Darox.
He scrambled from rock to rock through the tall grasses. When he reached a gulley on the far shore, he waved for the others, who followed one at a time. Then Darox led the way up a gentle slope to the camp perimeter.
Both Koros and Rika glanced around, frowning. Nothing stirred. Each of the small, low-slung personal huts had the Kestrel marking over the entry flap. Darox stepped into the nearest one. Its sparse interior was nearly identical to his own back at Wildcat and to every other Skirmisher hut he’d entered over the past months. Inside: two sleeping pallets, two canvas storage pouches, a collapsible solar stove.
The weapon and armor hooks on the wall were empty.
“They left with their combat gear,” said Darox.
Mahnk nodded, glancing around. “Ready to fight,” he said.
Outside, they heard Koros howl.
* * *
He knelt at the entry hatch to the large communal hut used for tribal meals and meetings. Rika sat next to him.
“What is this?” he cried out.
An image had been flash-seared into the Mylar shroud on the exterior wall. It was the silhouette profile of a towering, alien-looking figure—monstrous, open-mouthed, fangs bared, armed with twin swords. Smaller figures surrounded it, slain and falling.
Etched under the image was an ADVENT language phrase that translated to:
YOU BETRAY YOUR OWN CREATION
Darox raised his shotgun and kicked open the hut door to find his tribe.
* * *
All twelve kills were precise and clean.
All suffered deep blade cuts.
All twelve seemed to have fallen with little, if any, struggle.
The bodies were arranged like spokes in a wheel, feet out, heads touching at the hub.
The forehead of each Kestrel corpse was stamped with the ADVENT word for “Traitor” in corrosive ink.
On the wall, written in orange hybrid blood, was another ADVENT phrase that translated to this:
I AM THE ASSASSIN
THE BARTENDER HAD the bottle uncorked before Dr. Marin even reached the barstool. T
he scientist smiled ruefully.
“Thanks, Danny,” he said.
Danny poured the club soda into a tall glass of ice. “Make it a double, doc?”
“Sure,” said Marin. “You only live once.”
He watched Danny fill the glass to the brim, then add a squeeze of lime.
“Straw?” asked Danny.
“Hell no.”
Danny slid the glass forward. He said, “It’s not true, you know.”
“What’s not?” asked Marin, sipping the soda.
“Living only once.”
Marin sighed.
“What, you don’t believe in heaven?” asked Danny.
“I’m a scientist, man. I believe in particles.”
“Particles?”
“Right,” said Marin. He clumped his hands together and then threw them apart. “See? They aggregate, they disaggregate.”
“Yeah?” Danny recorked the soda bottle. “So how do they aggregate into, like, a pony?”
“Gremlins,” said Marin.
Danny snorted a laugh. But then he got serious and said, “Doc, I’m telling you, I’m on my second life. And don’t worry, it ain’t religious.”
Marin nodded. “Is this a story?”
“Possibly.”
“Bartenders are supposed to listen to stories, not tell them.”
“Right. Do you have a story?”
Marin rubbed his cheek, thinking. Then: “No.”
“Then shut up and listen.”
Amused, Marin said, “Okay. Pour yourself a club soda and put it on my tab.”
* * *
His full name was Dr. William Pendleton Marin III.
The Pendleton came from his mother’s side, an obscenely wealthy and politically powerful family in Nebraska until the aliens plasma-bombed Omaha, triggering a holocaust that rivaled the Dresden inferno of World War II.
In 2014, the year the invasion fleet arrived, Marin was fresh out of UC Berkeley with a newly minted PhD in human evolutionary biology. He’d just started postdoctoral work at Harvard when the first extraterrestrial pods hit Vancouver, Beijing, Chicago, and a number of other major cities worldwide.
Academic research collapsed as the incursions spread and became increasingly horrific over the following months. Marin was about to return home to the family compound in Omaha when his old mentor from Berkeley, Dr. Parag Bhandari, called and urged him to interview with an odd, eccentric woman in Washington, DC.