by Martin H.
As Kell had explained as they were inbound to the world Lyrptod, the Zmnyl-grar qert-dra, as the Blackstars were known in Qian, had a name that could be read two ways. The black star emblazoned on the shoulders of their armor was an emblem feared in the Commonwealth, but in Qian the name could also be read to mean black hole. Recruits for that unit came mostly from Ward worlds, and while the Qian used them to show the worlds that they valued their contributions, there was little doubt that the Blackstars were held in contempt by their Qian commanders.
Qian pride concerning their warrior tradition contributed heavily to this view, and was the source of Sara’s being tossed into a mission before she even had time to unpack her belongings from the trip to join her unit. While Qian workers and the female leaders were all heavily augmented, Qian warriors were not. They were bred true and quite formidable, with those belonging to the Guards being of the highest caliber.
Sara, on the other hand, was what was colloquially referred to on Terra as a “graft.”
Genetic engineering on Terra had eliminated genetic disease, but environmental factors and spontaneous mutations meant children were still born with defects.
These children were sold to corporations who then treated them and trained them, selling their contracts to companies or governments who needed their skills.
Nas-toyashü Corporation had used her in its Rota program, making her into a warrior. Test scores short-listed her for liaison with the Commonwealth and landed her the place in the Blacks tars.
“Well, we’re here, lass, because we’re expected to handle this problem with some delicacy.” Kell laughed lightly, a sound which seemed natural within the violet jungle.
Lyrptod, when surveyed initially, had fallen into the Ward world class. The humanoid indigs had a tech level equivalent to the settlers who formed the United States, though explosives development had not occurred. They lived in a theocracy that preached pacifism and salvation from the stars, so when the Qian came down, they were welcomed. The Commonwealth quarantined the world, which was located back a bit from the Zsytzü frontier, leaving it open only to scientific teams studying the flora and fauna.
No one was quite certain when the Zeez inserted a team, but scattered sightings were reported back to the Commonwealth. Kell and his team were dispatched to Lyrptod to figure out why the Zeez were there while their insertion ship, the Chzrin, orbited the planet. They’d established a base camp in the vicinity of a number of sightings and engaged on patrols for a week without incident.
Given the nature of the world, and its location, the Zsytzü presence posed little threat to the Commonwealth, but the nature of interstellar warfare demanded some sort of response. Because space had few natural features that barred hyperspace travel, frontiers didn’t really exist. The only way you could hit an enemy was to land on a world where you knew he had a presence. Learning why the Zeez were in Lyrptod could help determine other potential targets, or if they would be coming back in force. If so, scattered forces could be gathered to hurt them.
“Delicacy, yes, sir.” She resisted the temptation to sling her weapon over her shoulder. “I know it’s a natural preserve. I’m surprised you didn’t have us collect up our shells.”
“Saw you getting that flechette, lass. Good enough for me, though the skulls and their think-team would probably like more policing of the battlefield.” He stretched his arms out to the sides and let his gloved fingers play over velvety ferns. “The point about the Zeez and war being a game for them is this: a lot of their objectives don’t seem to make a lot of sense for the Qian. For example, why they would send a team here is baffling, so we get to deal with it. I’m not thinking we’re going to be finding out what they are up to, and the Qian wouldn’t understand it if we did. We get rid of them and we’ll have done our job.”
Sara rolled the flechette needle between her fingers and thumb. “You’re not expecting another ambush right now because of why, then?”
“It’s the focus thing: the juniors handle a couple orders at a time. Shifting them between attack and run modes takes a bit of transition, which is why they tend not to retreat.”
He jerked a thumb back toward the ambush site. “In past incidents they’ve fired upon indigs in the jungle, driving them off. I’m thinking their current orders are such that they engage briefly and scarper. There may be one out there watching us, but they’re not going to hit us, not right now. We killed one of them, so that will take a new plan, and the Primary will be wanting to think on it a while.”
“I understand the logic, but is that a safe assumption to make?”
“I hope so, lass.” Kell winked at her. “Since I’m last in line here, likely I’ll be the one they fry first.”
Up ahead, the Bouganshi crouched at a point about ten meters back from where the trail opened onto a meadow. The stream which had been running through the ravine to their right bled down and out into a marshy area on the edge of a lake. The grasses in the meadow rose to hip height and had gone from a lavender to a bright golden color, contrasting beautifully with the lush purple jungle and violet-tinged waters of the lake.
Sara took that whole vista in with a glance, then focused on a tree near the lake edge.
She felt fairly certain, based on its dark gray trunk, that it was dead, but the branches were not bare, clawing at the sky. Instead they were covered with blue foliage, iridescent in nature, that fluttered with a breeze that neither rippled the water nor rustled the grasses.
She smiled. “That tree is covered with butterflies.”
“Or the nearest evolutionary equivalent, yes.”
Bragb cast a glance back at Kell. “Not fair. To you, if it lives in water, it is a ‘trout.’
‘
The team leader sniffed and raised his chin. “Fish are noble creatures, not bugs.
Evolution being what it is, there are plenty of fish around. Probably some in that lake.”
Sara chuckled lightly. “Can we go down there?”
The Bouganshi nodded. “Seems safe.”
“Sure. If they’re watching us, give them something to watch.” Kell came up and sidled around Bragb, then led the way down the trail. It wound its way down a steep hillside, then along a high patch of ground that bordered the swamp. Nearing the lake he slowed and looked for a dry path toward the shore.
“Bragb, you watch our backtrail. Lieutenant, if you want, you can recon the bugtree.”
“And you will survey the trout population?” Sara shook her head as she pushed the flechette through the strap on her LNT-87, keeping the steel needle in place. “And then come back here fishing sometime?”
Kell crouched at the shore and peered into the murky water for a moment, then turned to look at her. “Lieutenant, if you’d done the study of Lyrptod…”
“If I’d had the time to study the data…”
“… you’d know there is nothing of commercial value to exploit here, and you’d know that taking wildlife without a study-permit is quite illegal.” He shrugged. “Of course, an informal scientific survey, well, now, that couldn’t be consi…”
The water boiled in a rush of bubbles as a huge, mottled gray-and-purple creature lunged up and out at Kell. Its leathery flesh, though glistening with water, had the same armor plates grown into it as the Bouganshi’s skin did. The beast’s mouth flashed open, white peg teeth contrasting with light blue flesh, then snapped down.
The creature caught Kell by surprise, closing its mouth over him, leaving his legs kicking and arms waving as it raised its maw and tried to choke him down.
Sara’s carbine came up instantly and she emptied a clip at the beast. She sprayed her fire over the water, aiming at its midsection, churning the water into froth, but not stop-ping the monster from sliding back beneath the surface. Her empty clip hit the ground and another had been slapped home in an eye blink, which was just enough time for her to realize gunfire wasn’t going to stop the thing.
Before she could cast her weapon aside, Bragb came o
n a sprint and hurled himself into the lake. With a glittering silver, crook-bladed knife in one hand and freed of his cannon and its bulky ammo pack, the hulking alien splashed down noisily, spraying water everywhere. He sank from sight for a second, then his right hand rose with the dagger and fell. Once, twice, then too many times for her to count. A black stain filled the water. The creature’s flat tail lashed, breaking the surface, then Bragb came up, gasping. Water cascaded from him, then he went down again.
A heartbeat later he came up and coughed, once, hard, then struggled to the shore.
He had the creature’s tail in one hand and dragged the thing from the lake. Ragged gashes had been opened along its twelve-meter-long spine-not all of them made by the knife-and the rhythmic little gnashing of its teeth indicated it wasn’t quite dead yet.
That didn’t stop the Bouganshi, who contemptuously spat out a hunk of green meat.
Bragb flipped the creature onto its back, then stabbed his knife in near the hindmost of the three pairs of legs and cut along up toward the middle. The wound gaped and verdant guts came pouring out, along with the distended gray sack that was the monster’s stomach. Another slash opened it. The Bouganshi reached in and dragged Kell from the stomach, sliding his slime-covered body onto the golden grasses.
Sara dropped to her knees and swiped a hand across Kell’s lips, then opened his mouth, cleared it with a finger, and lifted up on his neck to open his airway. She pinched his nose shut, then covered his mouth with hers and breathed.
One breath, two, and a third. She shook off a glove and felt his throat for a pulse.
He had one, good and strong. She started to breathe for him again, but he pushed her away, rolled onto his side and puked. He sucked in a loud noisy breath, then coughed and vomited again. He tried to come up on all fours, but abandoned the effort and stayed down on his right side.
“You okay, sir? Anything broken? Bragb?”
Kell weakly waved a hand.
The Bouganshi, sitting with his knees drawn up against his chest, shook his head.
“Fine.” He stared at the dark stains on his knife, then glanced at the dead monster, and nodded to himself. “Tastes foul.”
Sara swallowed a comment about how she would have thought it would have tasted like chicken, uncertain if Bragb’s command of Terran would have let him follow the joke. She retreated to her carbine, picked it up and turned to face back toward the woods. “Nothing from the jungle.”
“Good. Last thing I’m wanting to be hearing is Zsytzü laughter.” Kell rolled onto his belly and came up on his elbows. “My helmet must still be in there. Be a good lad and fetch it for me, will you, Bragb?”
“Fetched you. On your own for equipment.”
Kell sighed. “Guess I won’t smell any worse for digging around in there, eh?” He heaved himself up and knelt for a moment, swaying slightly. “And thanks to the both of you for saving me. When it bit, it crushed my armor down, costing me my wind.
Not that there was much to breathe in there anyway.”
He crawled over to the creature and reached a hand into the slit through which he had emerged. He felt around, then smiled and pulled out a thirty-centimeter-long, finned thing. “See, they do have trout here.”
Bragb snorted a laugh, then leaned away as Kell flung the fish out into the lake.
“Bolts food whole, lets it digest. Such creatures exist on Bougan.”
“On Terra they’re known as crocodiles.” Sara smiled as one of the butterflies landed by the barrel of her weapon. “Stories tell of their stomachs being full of undigested junk.”
“I’m thinking I’ll ignore that insult, thank you.” Kell winked at her, then pulled his helmet free with a wet sucking sound. He turned it over and a slime soup of fish, his combat glasses, and a tangled clump of fibers drained down into a puddle. He looked down at it and his smile abruptly died. “This isn’t good, not at all.”
She frowned. “What’s the matter?”
“I’ll be able to tell for sure, back at camp, but I’m thinking this knot of wires here, it’s Zsytzü in nature.” He spat to the side. “Seems I wasn’t the only Xeno this beastie welcomed to Lyrptod. Unless I miss my guess, the last was the Primary leading our little team of Zeez.”
The hike back to their base camp was remarkable in only one way. While Bragb and Sara were both quite content to have Kell at the back of their formation because of his stench, the butterflies must have thought the crocslime was pure ambrosia. They fluttered and flickered at him, trailing in his wake like ion exhaust from a fighter. With each fern frond that brushed him, a few of the insects would stop and feast on the transferred slime. Kell wiped off as much of it as he could, casting leaves aside to distract them. Even so, by the time they had reached the camp, two dozen still orbited him like little moons.
Their base camp was nothing worthy of holoing home about. They’d established it on a little wooded knoll, stringing a tarp between trees to make a shelter. They’d set up a couple of small camp tables, their perimeter warning gear, a radio and some simple scientific gear. All of it was very compact, and any serious analysis would require liaising with the scientific teams to the north. Still, the camp was dry and had access to a nearby stream for water, so it suited their needs very well.
While Kell stripped naked and cleaned himself up as best he could, Bragb studied the wire harness taken from the beast, as well as the device sliced from the Zsytzü junior they’d killed. As best he could determine, the two devices seemed to be of similar manufacture, apparently confirming Kell’s guess as to the source of the wire from the monster’s gullet.
Sara established contact with the xenobiological survey team to see if they’d had any more Zsytzü sightings in their area. She passed on the story of their encounter with the lake croc, as well as the attraction of the butterflies to the slime. The person at the other end of the radio link seemed less than impressed with the reportage, noted they’d seen no Zeez, and that they’d taken enough samples of the lake monsters and butterflies to last scholars several lifetimes.
Sara switched off the radio as Kell emerged from the camp shower they’d set up.
“The Nobel Committee says it didn’t see anything z-ish today, They weren’t interested by our adventures either.”
He shrugged and pulled a dark jumpsuit from his rucksack, then tossed his towel at the flock of butterflies on his armor. “I’m thinking it’s a pity the Primary didn’t make it out of the belly of the beast. We’d just have to follow the butterflies to the Zeez lair.”
“Yeah, well, about that, to hear the scientists talk, the ‘bluewings’ are not true butterflies, but just gaudy maggot-flies. If we go back to the Zee body or the lake monster, it’ll be flyblown and alive with larvae.” Sitting back, she wove a flechette end over end from index finger to pinkie and back again easily. “I could hear the disgust pouring through the airwaves when I called them butterflies. They have to think we’re just ambulatory laser-artillery.”
“They’re assuming ignorance because of our calling.”
“I know, and I don’t like it. Don’t like being judged because of what folks assume I am.”
“Being a graft, you get a fair amount of that, do you?” Kell pulled on the fresh jumpsuit, then batted at one persistent bluewing. “Look at this one, would you? Go on with you. I’m not dead.”
With a fluid economy Sara came up and out of the chair. She stabbed out with the flechette, piercing the bluewing through the thorax. The insect’s wings,flapped a couple more times, slowing down, then froze in place. Its feet clutched at the needle and its antennae curled in.
Kell had jerked back, but well after she’d stabbed the bug. “Damn, you are fast.”
“Part of being a graft.” She smiled slightly and returned to her seat, holding the bluewing up to study. “When I was a little girl, I used to collect bugs. Always dreamed about discovering some new species or something and having it named after me. All of us in the Rota program knew what we were being
made into, but we all had other interests. The company tolerated it and even encouraged it in case war wasn’t a ‘growth market sector.’ ‘
Kell laughed and the Bouganshi smiled. “Little chance of that, I’m thinking. If you’re wanting to add that one to your collection, we might be able to smuggle it off-world for you.”
She frowned. “If I still had the collection, it would be very tempting. It would be interesting to have something unique in my collection. Problem is I’d have to Mona Lisa it.”
Bragb scratched the side of his domed head. “That expression is unknown.”
Kell raked fingers back through his brown hair. “Famous painting on Earth. It was stolen back a century ago, never recovered. It’s assumed to be in the hands of a private collector. He can’t be showing it to anyone, or letting anyone know he has it, since the reward for its recovery is huge now.”
Sara nodded. “Worse yet, and you know it will happen since the skulls are pulling samples from here, a black market for these things will grow among collectors.
There will be bluewing poachers coming down. Next time we come back, we’ll be fighting folks who did what I just did.”
“Reflexes like yours applied to the problem, and I’m thinking Bragb and I will just sit back and keep score.”
The Bouganshi smiled coldly. “Might hunt lake monsters. Know the bait they like.”
Kell arched an eyebrow at him. “And I’d be thinking, were I you, about what eat them beasts, since you’re just a pair of legs shy of being taken as one.”
Bragb paled slightly. He frowned and narrowed his dark eyes. “Worth consideration.”
“It is, but I’m thinking we’d all be better served if we turn our minds loose on the problem of finding the Zeez.” Kell folded his arms across his chest. “We did okay today, but they could get lucky in a series of running ambushes.”
The Bouganshi pressed fingers together deliberately. “They are not protecting the Primary. What else do they need to hide? Their camp? A recovery craft?”