“Retrograde to the shuttles immediately, best possible speed, people. I think we’re in the middle of a hornets nest and we need to get out before they see us,” Cain explained, pacing as he worried about his Marines spread out over miles. “Bull, return to my position. We need your help carrying this thing.”
The Marines returned from their inspection of the building. “There is nothing in here that looks like this thing,” Ogden reported.
“Set up outside and watch out for Corporal Bull and his team.” The three men hurried away.
Cain worked his shoulders, feeling more comfortable in the heavy gee. Maybe he was just happy to be leaving.
Retrograde
It took Stinky a long time to rally Corporal Spence and second squad. The team was dog tired and some of the Marines were already asleep. But it didn’t matter. Orders were orders. The reason for the retrograde was sound, and Stinky didn’t want to lose any of the good people around him.
“The humans have it the worst here, sir,” Spence told the lieutenant. “Maybe Wolfoids up front and in the rear. Zisk with us, and Ascenti providing top cover.”
“Good plan, Corporal. Stalker up front with Shady and Tracker in the rear with me. You, Silas, and Zisk stay in the middle and we’ll pace off you.” Stinky waved Spence away. Tobiah trotted off with his human.
“I want to stay with you!” Stalker said in Wolfoid, not using her vocalization device.
“We can’t. You’re the best tracker and I’m responsible for all of us. We have to split up. Just for now, my mate,” Stinky growled and yipped. They nuzzled and Stalker left to find Shady.
***
Bull and the other two Wolfoids dropped to all fours and ran down the open roadway to return, arriving after only a few minutes.
They panted heavily, tongues lolling.
“Did you see anything?” Cain asked when they arrived.
“Nothing. No movement at all. There isn’t even a breeze,” Bull replied.
“I’m glad you’re back,” Cain said, slapping the huge Wolfoid on his heavily muscled shoulder. “We need to haul this pile of garbage back to the shuttle.”
Cain led the three Wolfoids inside and pointed out the bot. Ellie was wrist-deep into the internals, carrying on a conversation with Briz and Jolly simultaneously. The Marines watched, confused as she argued with each of the remote viewers about how what they wanted wasn’t going to work.
“How about we just take that thing back to the ship?” Cain offered. Ellie stopped what she was doing. She had moved the internals around, but not removed anything. The guts of the bot were very much like a human’s organs, but artificial, nothing organic within. Some of the pieces looked like wood. Nothing within the bot looked to be made of metal.
The weapon systems on the top of the bot’s frame didn’t appear to have a separate power source. They were linked to the bot’s guts. Cain couldn’t make heads or tails of any of it. He decided to leave the speculation to the experts, who were already fully engaged in discussing how the bot worked.
“Ogden. See if you can find us a cart or something.” The men conferred before stepping purposefully away.
“How did you know something was off and can you tell going forward?” Cain asked the scruffy orange cat who appeared at his side.
‘It didn’t have anything to do with the bot and everything to do with the stack of mummies upstairs. If the bots catch us in the open, I’m afraid I won’t be able to warn you,’ the ‘cat answered, looking up at Cain with his pupils bigger in the semi-dark of the building’s interior.
“If anything happens to us, take the other ‘cats and survive,” Cain told his friend.
‘Nothing better happen to you, because this place sucks,’ Brutus stated firmly in his thought voice. Brutus strolled toward the front door and waited. Cain walked over and pushed it open a crack. Brutus walked outside after a brief hesitation.
“Good hunting, my friend,” Cain said as the door closed.
Ogden and the others returned pushing a small cart whose wheels screeched with every turn. He held up a finger and they tipped the cart on its side. He spit on the front hub and then the back hub. They turned it the other way and then repeated the process. When they next spun the wheels, there was silence.
With six of them lifting, they manhandled the bot onto the cart. It hung over, but the bulk of the weight was over the wheels. Ogden started to drag it and the other two pushed.
The wheels started squeaking again. Ogden shrugged and kept pulling.
Ellie covered her ears until they got it through the front door and outside.
“So what’s the verdict?” Cain asked.
“Jolly scoured his archives, and there’s never been anything like the technology we have here,” Ellie replied. “So either humanity has made an incredible leap in building a bot force that wiped out the people, or it’s something else.”
Cain filled in his own version of what “something else” meant.
“They invented a technology they couldn’t control. That’s the easy answer, whether it was the self-control not to use such a weapon against their perceived enemies, or the bots gained sentience and unleashed themselves,” Cain said, shrugging a shoulder and nodding. That explanation was easy. He liked easy. “What do you mean by ‘something else’?”
“Aliens, Cain. Briz suggested it, and you know Briz. He was the only one who believed the vines weren’t alien, but not this.”
Cain couldn’t stomach that. He preferred the easy answer. “They lost control of their creation and it killed them all, without mercy. That’s it, nothing else.” he said, signaling that it was time to go. Carnesto ran down the steps and almost face-planted when he hit the bottom.
‘Misjudged that a little,’ he said and trotted past.
Daksha swam to the door that Cain held open. The major took a deep breath and coughed, the fresh air fighting its way past all the dust he’d inhaled. He tried not to think about what the dust was made of in a sealed building filled with corpses.
***
The humans’ bodies failed them less than an hour into their return trip. The going had been slow, and then Spence collapsed. His legs spasmed and quivered with his complete loss of control.
“Halt!” Stinky called over the communication system. “Set up a perimeter right and left.”
Stinky and Tracker dragged the humans to the side of the road and put them under a tree.
“We’re down hard, Major. The humans cannot continue. No idea when we’ll be able to move. I estimate that we’re only a quarter of the way back to our shuttle. Damn!” Stinky wasn’t happy with the situation.
He was feeling the effects, too. They’d been planet-side for less than eight hours, and he had not had a break.
“This is it, people. This is where we hole up. Stalker, find us a defensible position where we can disappear from view, the closer the better.”
“On it,” she replied instantly. He watched her disappear off the road and into the brush. Shady slunk to the side and leaned against a tree, bracing his lightning spear as if it was too heavy to carry.
Stinky had a hard time holding his head upright. He was on all fours and his head hung toward the ground. He struggled to stand upright on his back legs and made it only because of his spear. He used it like the third leg of a tripod, hanging onto it with two hands and leaning against it. He looked around him, but gave up because he wasn’t willing to move.
‘Ascenti, can you hear me?’ he asked using his neural implant.
‘Roger,’ the Hawkoid replied.
‘Tight circles around our pos, keep a watch if you would. We are like the walking dead down here,’ Stinky shared.
Ascenti had been perched in a tree, watching the squad depart. He knew they were pulling back, but wasn’t sure how one bot could cause the major to call for a full retreat. Bots could live for thousands of years. Finding one that was operational after a mere hundred years wasn’t just possible, they should have thought it likely.
&nb
sp; The Hawkoid conceded that Cain knew things that he didn’t and that the Marines’ lives were always of equal importance to the mission. Maybe he’d learned what he needed and the mission was accomplished. The major would never senselessly expose the Cygnus Marines to danger.
Ascenti liked the open skies and the freedom to soar. He understood that was his hesitation regarding a rapid return to the shuttle and the spaceship.
He wondered where they’d go. It would take a couple more days before the shuttles had recharged their systems sufficiently to return to space.
The Hawkoid soared low, flying at head height as he passed down the road, then he climbed slowly, majestically, banking sharply and passing down the side closest to the biggest building in the area. Ascenti stretched his wings and beat the air to pick up speed.
He reveled in the high-speed passes. High to low, low to high, he flew around the squad’s position. He climbed higher and higher and then dove, angling his wings backward to cut down on drag. It had been too long since he stretched his wings fully.
He raced past the tall building. Six stories up, a window shattered and laser beam lashed out, but he was too fast and jerked at the first sound of broken glass. He twisted his body downward, staying close to the building until he turned the corner and flew up a side road.
‘Taking fire from an upper story of the building. I think it was one of the major’s bots,’ Ascenti reported, no longer questioning the major’s motives.
He stayed away from the front of the building as he climbed higher and higher. Ascenti caught sight of a window shattering out the back side and a bot jabbing its weapons through and firing. The Hawkoid was fast, but the bot’s aim was true.
The beam sliced through the Hawkoid’s wing, cutting half of it off. He lost all lift on that side and started spinning downward, gaining speed as he descended. He cried out in pain, shrieking as he fell.
***
Cain listened helplessly as the Hawkoid lost all coherence over the neural implant. Then his input went silent.
“What a crap sandwich,” Cain mumbled through gritted teeth. He looked at the sky, knowing that the Hawkoid would not appear. The trees were vivid green with brown highlights. The bushes had berries and flowers. He hadn’t noticed before how beautiful it was on this planet.
It was a paradise that was trying to suck the life from them.
“Let’s get this thing back to the shuttle, then we form a rescue party and go get our Marine,” he growled.
‘Jolly, what’s the status on recharging the cells to fire the shuttle?’ Cain asked.
‘It will be another sixty hours before the tanks will be filled to the point where the shuttles can return to The Olive Branch. Private Ascenti is severely injured, but alive.’
“Damn!” Cain said aloud, then keyed the system attached to his collar. “Report, Stinky,” Cain said, inadvertently using the Wolfoid’s nickname over the platoon-wide system.
“We are under cover in the street out front of the building in which the bot is located,” Stinky whispered. “Our intent is to shelter in place until nightfall, and then return to the shuttle under cover of darkness. First order of business is that Stalker and I will find Ascenti.”
Cain didn’t want his people exposed, but the immediate recovery of the injured Marine could mean the difference between the private living or dying. There was no other choice.
“Proceed,” Cain said feeling the burden of leadership weighing him down as much as Heimdall’s gravity.
***
Stalker crawled through the underbrush as close to the building as possible. Stinky peered from under the tree, through its leaves to see any sign that the bot was near a window.
He couldn’t see anything, no matter how much he craned his neck and twisted his head. Stalker waved to Black Leaper from the bushes. He dropped to his belly and crawled agonizingly slowly until he was under cover with her.
She led the way, wedged against the lower wall of the building, ducking beneath branches that grew tightly against the windows. Stalker covered the ground quickly, reaching the corner, turning, and continuing along the side of the building in the same way.
Leaper was a bigger Wolfoid, so his harness caught branches more often, slowing him. He forced his way through and started making noise. Stalker waited and signaled for him to be quiet. He motioned back that she needed to slow down. She waved and turned her attention forward, quickly disappearing.
‘Jolly, can you lead us to Ascenti?’ Stinky asked using his neural implant.
‘Yes. Follow Stalker as I’m guiding her. It should only take you a few minutes to reach him,’ Jolly replied reassuringly.
Stalker waited at the far corner of the building. There was an open space they needed to cross. On the other side, a stand of trees stood tall. Beyond that was where Ascenti had fallen.
Jolly said the Hawkoid was still alive.
Time was of the essence.
When Leaper reached Stalker, she pointed with her spear where she intended to go. “We go together, keeping our distance. In case it fires, one of us will reach the other side,” she whispered.
Stinky pulled her close to lick the side of her face and nibble on her ear. She giggled.
He knew she was right. “We run like the wind,” he encouraged her, feeling the weight of the world squashing him into the dirt. On that day, he had summoned his strength, time and again. He’d never driven his body this hard against such a relentless enemy.
Gravity was sapping his energy, and he was almost finished. He didn’t know where Stalker’s reserve came from, but she looked healthy, fresh even.
He didn’t ask as he didn’t want to appear weak before his mate, and he wouldn’t be able to face the major if he failed to bring Ascenti home.
What Black Leaper didn’t realize was that Stalker was exhausted, too, and only wanted to lay down and sleep. Leaper’s presence gave her strength and an injured Cygnus Marine needed them.
“Three, two, one,” Stinky counted down. The two Wolfoids ran as fast as their bodies would carry them, across the broken pavement and into the woods. On the other side of a large tree, they converged behind the trunk and stood up, leaning against it for support as their chests screamed for more air.
Stinky’s head rolled to the side and he looked at Stalker. “That was anti-climactic,” he managed to say.
She only nodded, then activated her neural implant. ‘Which way, Jolly?’ she asked.
He gave them a bearing. They dropped to all fours and started walking. The shade was pleasant and even without a breeze, it was cool enough. The Wolfoids were hot because of their hair and how hard their bodies worked to acclimate to Heimdall’s heavy gravity.
Jolly vectored them to the place where they expected to find the Hawkoid, but there was nothing. ‘Jolly, we don’t see anything,’ Leaper told the AI.
Stalker looked up and pointed. Ascenti was wedged in the branches, disheveled and unconscious.
Stinky followed her gaze. “Oh, no,” he said, the feeling of helplessness crushed the life from him.
Wolfoids couldn’t climb trees.
“Major Cain, we have a problem,” Stinky started. His vocalization device reflected his defeat. “Ascenti is about ten meters in the air, stuck among the branches, and Stalker and I can’t get to him.”
Let the War Start Here
Cain clamped his eyes closed when he heard the frustration in Stinky’s voice. He hung his head and looked into the elevations of growth covering the ruins beyond. In there, his people were trapped. His friends were worn down.
And he felt as helpless as they did.
“I may be able to help,” Daksha offered, floating peacefully next to Cain.
The major looked at him, but didn’t ask.
“With my stalwart helper, we will recover our friend and meet you at the shuttle,” Daksha suggested, his vocalization device reflecting hope, but not joy.
“It’s my job to protect you, Master Daksha, not put you at gre
ater risk,” Cain argued.
“Understood. I’ll work with Jolly and he’ll direct me right to our Hawkoid. We’ll get him out of the tree. It’ll be okay, but I had best get going. Time is not on our side.” The Tortoid turned and swam away. The kitten was sitting, but leaning forward and intently looking ahead.
“Lieutenant Leaper, Commander Daksha is on his way to you. Dig in and wait for him, and then bring all of our people home,” Cain said softly into the communication device on his collar.
“Shady and Tracker. Are you two upright?” Cain asked.
“Private Shades Racer here, sir. Spence, Silas, and Zisk are out. Silent Tracker is resting while I remain on watch. We are under cover and sheltering in place until nightfall. Talking about nightfall, when the hell is that coming? This could be the longest day of my life,” Shady signed off without using the procedures they’d copied from the archives.
“It’ll be a while still, Shady. Stay frosty, Marine, and stay down! Have Corporal Spence check in when he wakes up. Out here.”
“Tactical formation,” he said in a low voice, pointing where he wanted his people. Bull on point, the other Wolfoids covering the flanks, the three human Marines pushing and pulling the cart with the bot, and Cain and Ellie bringing up the rear.
Cain signaled that it was time to go. Bull jogged ahead to give himself space. The screech from the tortured cart wheels echoed down the street despite the amount of foliage to dampen the sound.
Cygnus Arrives: Humanity Returns Home (Cygnus Space Opera Book 3) Page 9