by Chris Hechtl
“You care. You pretend you don't but you do. We know you too well. You just don't want to admit it,” Eggbert said.
“So? Are you going?” Osbert demanded. When Eggbert's face fell and his ears went flat, Osbert sniffed in triumph. “See? Now who's the coward?” he demanded.
“They have a weight limit. I've exceeded my body mass index. I'm also being treated for diabetes,” the other cat admitted, looking away. Osbert stopped what he was doing and eyed him in surprise. Eggbert put up a restraining hand. “It's nothing serious; I am undergoing treatment to repair the pancreas and to remove the excess weight. Until I do I can't join though.”
“Oh.”
The more he thought about it, the more he wanted to know why. He'd always imagined going to Earth, or better yet, Mars. Mars was a fresh world, remade. Earth was old, filled with furless humans who had polluted its air and water.
Now they had done so even worse. So why go? He decided to go find out.
<>V<>
“So, you are doing this. I had to see it for myself to believe,” a familiar high-pitched voice said. Tumagar turned until he localized the source. “Up here bristle lips,” the voice said again. He finally localized the cat on his left.
Snarf was above him, looking down from a perch on a shipping container. He could see the glowing eyes in the dark. “I didn't think you'd understand,” the Walrus said, going back to work, prepping his gear. He was allowed the one carry on, so he had to get it packed just right. Getting his rather bulky clothes to fit in was a pain in the ass. He wasn't certain what uniforms he should bring or his gear, so he'd brought everything.
“Seriously, what do you owe them?”
“I don't. I'm not doing it for them, or not just for them.”
“Future debt?” Snarf demanded, jumping down to a smaller container. When Tumagar bent over to finish strapping his boots on, the cat jumped to his back, then off before he could complain.
The cat turned in place, and then looked up at him. “This is a mistake.”
“It is my mistake to make,” he rumbled. “There are many down there who need help. There are many here who need leaders to show them the way. I am one.”
“You think so,” the cat replied. “The humans won't accept you. Mark my words,” he yowled, washing a paw, and then scrubbing behind one of his long tufted ears.
“You won't see any of my kind with you. Fools all of you,” Snarf stated.
“I don't know. We shall see,” Tumagar said, finishing up with his kit. He zipped it shut with difficulty and then shouldered the bag.
“Last call for flight Baker-114,” the intercom squawked.
The Walrus looked up. “That's my flight.”
“Go then. See if I care,” the cat said, flitting his tail as he turned away.
“I'll miss you too, you old flea bag,” the walrus teased as he got in line. It was a long line; dozens of bioforms were in it. He wasn't surprised; a lot of people had volunteered to help.
“I … whatever,” Snarf growled, padding away. He gave Tumagar one last look over his shoulder before he had to dodge a running pair of humans. “Watch it!” he growled. One of the humans turned in surprise, nearly tripping over his own feet, but his partner caught him and kept him moving to the line.
When he boarded the shuttle, he was amused that his bulk filled two seats. He'd been guided to a seat across from another large bioform; this one was further down the row and some sort of feline. Apparently Snarf was wrong in thinking not many would join the cause. “I hope you are worth the weight. They are liable to put you on a diet groundside,” a human said, eying him.
Tumagar waved a flippered hand. “A lot of what I am is muscle.”
“If you say so,” he said, turning back to the screen-wall. Mars was already getting bigger.
“What's going on? I thought we were headed to a ship?” another human asked.
“Boy, you are out of the loop,” the first guy said, shaking his head. He looked over to a group of dogs then to Tumagar. He jerked his chin to the image of the planet. “We're going to Mars. Scuttlebutt said they want us to train together before we head to Earth.”
“I've already been trained. We all have. Why waste time? People are dying, man!”
Tumagar's bristly whiskers twitched as he focused on the human. With that eagerness, he wasn't so sure the young man was trained and disciplined. Perhaps their side trip was necessary. They most likely included old salts like him to ride herd and show the noobs the ropes. At least, he hoped so; if they expected him to jog for their sick amusement, they were going to be in for a rude awakening.
“Don't bitch at me! I'm just the messenger,” the first guy said shaking his head. “And don't try to bitch on the net either,” he said, putting a hand up. “Wi-Fi is out. So are the radio telemetry. Nothing but audio is passed on those channels now. The damn virus can get in too easily.”
“Shit.”
“We're going to integrate since we obviously haven't met. Get our acts together, see who knows what, shake down, whatever you want to call it?” Tumagar asked. The first human nodded. He had a shock of bright curly red hair on the top of his head.
“Now you are catching on,” he said. “I'm just out of the loop on them,” he said, jerking his thumb to the dogs.
The Doberman turned to him. “We will get job done. Try to keep up,” Ace said, eying him coldly. He went back to staring at the lone cat in their midst. Seeing a lionoid bothered him. The humans had promised that the dogs would come next. The lionoid smelled all wrong though. He smelled of both human and cat, which didn't make sense. He lifted his chin to sniff again. When the lion's glittering gaze focused on him, he abruptly looked away.
The human blinked. “Well! I'll be damned,” he said slowly.
“That doesn't come until later,” James McGillicutty muttered from the opposite side of the shuttle bay. He exchanged a look with Ace then closed his golden eyes. “When they drop us onto Hell or at least what's left of Earth.”
<>V<>
James tried to sleep, but the scent of the dogs bothered him too much. That and the stares, they haunted him even with his eyes closed. He wasn't sure if they wanted some sort of dog versus cat thing to go on. He didn't care. He was here, like them, to do a mission. They needed to get with the program.
He needed to focus on anything other than his stomach. He'd forgotten that part, forgotten the vertigo of weightlessness, the nausea that came with it. Closing his eyes and meditating helped a bit. He wished … oh how he wished! He so wished he'd remembered his Dramamine.
Well, he had to put up with it, so the best way was to focus his mind elsewhere and ride through it. He did his best to focus on the future, what was in store for him and his fellow misfits.
He estimated they would be run through some sort of abbreviated boot camp to assess their skills, break them down so they will be willing to take orders, then build them up to make certain they were physically fit to handle the demanding environment and trained to handle what was to come.
Mentally demanding, physically … he hoped they were up for it.
He felt the shuttle hit some turbulence going down and then it smoothed out. After a few minutes, he got tired of trying to nap so he used his implants to pull up a game on his HUD. He played clock until the pilot announced over the radio that they were about to land. Good.
<>V<>
“It's a good crop—a good initial crop,” Roman said, eying the group. His counterpart Choji Asazi seemed indifferent. The other man was a bit big, like a sumo wrestler. Roman knew most of it was pure muscle. He was also a bit of a character or looked the part with his bandana and his long scarf.
“Indeed,” Choji finally rumbled, eyes crinkled so you could barely see them. The bag of snacks he carried with him crinkled as he dipped a meaty paw in to get some more. “We will need to take the raw iron and forge them into a proper blade.”
“Actually, I was thinking we would need to forge them into the hammer and to
ngs that will eventually forge the blade myself,” Roman said looking away. If he shielded his eyes just right, he could see the primitive boot camp the MFI had built off in the distance, about four kilometers away. “And they aren't raw. Many have decades of experience in security.”
“Then they have a lot to unlearn. Fighting on the ground is not as easy as some think,” the Mars Federal Investigation assistant director stated. “We shall not need police work.”
Roman snorted. Choji wasn't about to admit his error, not that he expected him to. They had a history; he knew the MFI top to bottom. They both knew where many of each other's bodies were buried. In some cases literally. “I know. So we focus on survival, search and rescue, and fighting.”
“The most on fighting and survival I am afraid. By the time they arrive, very few who are trapped will be alive if any.”
“I know,” Roman said sadly. He looked away as the troops unloaded and formed themselves up into a gaggle. They were aligned by species he noted. The individuals that seemed to be on their own stood out, on the outskirts of the group. “Are the facilities ready?” he asked as the wind picked up. Mars was far from a shirt-sleeve environment. It was bitter cold at night. In some ways it was a perfect training ground for the group, the new military, whatever they ended up calling it.
“Indeed. It is rough, but we will make do. We will learn from them. In some ways the teachers will be learning as much as the students,” Choji stated in a bass voice.
“Agreed,” Roman said. “And these will go on to teach others,” he said as Choji's volunteers joined his security volunteers.
<>V<>
Unlike the others, Doctor Harper Collins knew what they were most likely getting into. He'd been a big fan of post apocalyptic games for over two decades. He'd been sobered by how a nuclear winter would devastate a planet. It would definitely put global warming in check with the soot in the air and plunging temperatures. From what he'd heard, over four hundred nuclear weapons, most in the five- to ten-megaton range had gone off on the planet. That would have wrung the planet like a bell causing earthquakes worldwide.
The massive firestorms would have burned off a lot of the ozone as well. Which meant anyone outside would be in for a shock despite the cloud cover. Without the ozone the survivors would be vulnerable to ultraviolet radiation from the sun. All sorts of nasty skin cancers would start to crop up on people, even those who had been far from any sort of fallout.
He was one of the rare people in the group—a Neochimp doctor, not a security guard. He had immediately stepped up because he had to help. He couldn't sit back in his nice warm office and let others die. He couldn't live with the dreams and nightmares that would instill in his psyche.
He sniffed as he looked from the dogs to the Walrus to the cat. He recognized a few of them—Ace for instance, the Doberman who had put himself in charge of his canine brothers and sisters. He nodded to Ace, but the dog didn't return the nod, just looked away. Duncan looked his way, flicked his ears, and then twitched his tail. Harper smiled ever so slightly and went back to surveying the rest of the group.
James was a good guy but weird. He was born a human but to change oneself like that? He shook his head slightly. Still, it might come in handy, Harper mused.
There had been four shuttle flights landing at the same time for a total of one hundred and sixteen people. Seventy of their number were human. There were thirty-six apes counting himself, he noted, counting noses and body types. Most were chimps, but there were six male gorillas. He only saw the one orangutan. He was fairly confident that most of the apes were males like himself. In fact … his eyes surveyed the group again, checking them. Yep, he thought, there were a total of twenty girls in the group; the rest were all guys. Apparently the ladies who had stayed behind knew something he didn't.
Another hundred locals were there, milling about insolently, studying their spacer counterparts and making cracks about them just loud enough for a few of the sharp-eared spacers to overhear. Ace growled softly, eying the humans. Harper looked them over too but then looked away. Just about all of the Martians were humans of one genotype or another. A few were chimeras like James but not many.
Harper's eyes surveyed the Lagroose spacers once more. He finally saw a hand wave and locked onto the signal and then traced the hello wave down to see Paul Branson's familiar face. That made the Neochimp crack a smile in return. At least he had another familiar face in the group, a beer buddy. He nodded to him. The human nodded back, then went back to chatting with the bored looking redhead standing next to him.
Harper snorted. Trust Paul to hit on any lady nearby. And … he shot Paul another look just in time to see the red head sniff and move slightly away. Trust Paul to strike out too. Typical. The Earth was in the shitter, and Paul only thought with his second head. Typical Paul.
He shook his head until he felt a sharp elbow in his side. He looked up to see another familiar face, Dau 'chickadee' Mauer. “Hey, gal pal,” he said, face splitting in a welcoming smile.
“Hey to you too, Doc. I didn't think you were up for this,” she said, indicating the troop. “I mean, running around getting shot at isn't your thing,” she said, taking her earrings off.
Harper blinked. “You really think we're going to get shot at?” he asked, brown eyes wide.
Dau shot him a pitying look. “What do you think?”
Harper felt a bit of a sinking sensation. “I thought I was going to be too busy patching people up to have to deal with that. Can't people get along?”
“It's not the people we have to worry about. Or at least not just them, Doc,” she said, clasping his shoulder and giving it a squeeze. “It's the bots.”
“Oh. Yeah. But won't the EMP take most of them out?”
“Don't count on it, Doc. Just remember to duck, okay?” she said, looking at him again. He nodded as he looked away. He bit his lip. Maybe being a hero wasn't all that it was cracked up to be after all.
<>V<>
Ace wasn't impressed with the group. There were a lot of people there, many humans. Most seemed undisciplined despite their training in security. He kept his canines in line; he lined them up on the line and growled to keep them there. A few whined, ears back but he ignored it. “Eyes front,” he growled as the two humans came over to them. One he knew, the pack leader Roman. The other was big and round, but his scent was unfamiliar.
“On the line,” Roman said in a voice that cut through the chatter. Feet moved as they lined up on the line. “Move, people! We don't have all day! This is grade school shit kiddies!” Roman growled. They got on the line, jostling each other. Those that went to jostle a dog got growled at. A brief show of teeth got them to find another place to stand.
“You all know why we're here, so I'll save you the speeches. We need to get sorted out fast. That means breaking down your expectations, showing you what we think you'll need to know, then making sure you can do the job before we send you out,” Roman said, pacing the line. Expert eyes seemed to be judging them, testing them, testing their will.
“This isn't going to be easy, nor is Earth. Some of you will go there; some will stay here to train the next batch that sign up. Get over your expectations; get over your ego. We're here to do a mission. Lives are on the line. Some of them your own.”
“So much for no speeches,” someone muttered. Roman stopped, turned, and seemed to look for the voice. That got everyone to stand at what they approximated as attention.
“Fine then. We'll cut to the chase. Grab your gear and haul ass to the barracks Assistant Director Asazi was ever so kind as to set up for us,” Roman said, pointing his arm and finger to the distant buildings. “I expect all of you there within the next hour, all of you. Move!” He snarled.
The dogs were first off the line. They had little gear. Ace took charge, getting them to help each other get their packs on, then move out. Since they moved on all fours they quickly left the slow two-legs behind.
“That's showing them,” Hooch sa
id with a bark of a laugh. Copper howled in amused agreement.
“Quiet!” Ace growled, looking back. He could see the Dalmatian medic struggling. “Hooch help Duncan. The rest of you ….” He stopped talking when Copper nearly tripped over his own ears. “Watch where you step, Copper, or I'll dock those damn ears!” Ace snarled. The bloodhound whined. “Keep moving,” Ace growled.
Something told him it was going to be a long difficult day.
“Who put you in charge, Ace?” Chance demanded. Petey nodded in agreement. Caffall nudged Chance in the shoulder to mind his manners.
“Someone has to be,” Ace panted. “Someone has to know what to do. Get over yourself,” he said.
<>V<>
“Now,” Roman said. He hadn't expected the dogs to move out so quickly, so his timing was off. When the explosions went off, well off to the side of their path but close enough to shock and terrorize them, they scattered.
<>V<>
Ace took cover with the others when the loud bang went off. He looked up, and then winced as bits of dirt hit him. “What the hell was that?” Hooch demanded.
“A training round,” Ace replied. He glared in Roman's direction. He looked around to make sure everyone was okay. Copper had wet himself. He snorted and then coughed. He turned about; his count was off. It took him a moment to figure out who was missing. “Where is Chance?” he demanded.
McGruff sniffed the air and then pointed a hand paw to a nearby drainage ditch. “There.”
Ace padded over and then leaned in. His eyes adjusted to the darkness slowly. Hooch got in his light, so he turned and gave him a dirty look. “Sorry,” Hooch mumbled, moving away.
When Ace saw the pit bull, he snorted. Chance was flat on the bottom of the ditch with his paws covering his ears, eyes scrunched tight.