by Nic Plume
"What’s your problem with him?" Nitus caught up to Leer as they assumed their previous marching order, with Taylor and Mica in the lead and Tonee on drag.
"He’s an asshole," Leer replied. "Don’t know why they let him bully them like that."
Nitus looked at him. "Maybe to them, he’s a good leader."
Leer mulled Nitus’ words over for some time before falling back to walk beside Tonee.
"Why do you follow him?" he asked the larger man.
"He knows what he’s doing."
"Really? Seems to me like we’re following his whims."
"You don’t know him. While he has his quirks, I do trust his judgement."
"Even if he doesn’t trust yours?"
Tonee studied him. "Trust is earned through deeds, not sentiment. And reciprocation shouldn’t be a prerequisite."
"But it helps when it goes both ways."
"Yes, it does."
They walked in silence for a few minutes.
"So, you think he’s a good leader," Leer pressed.
"I didn’t say that."
"But you still follow him."
"Just because I know when to follow him, doesn’t automatically make him a good leader."
Nitus turned to look at them. "It makes you a good follower. Dad says, to be a good leader you need to be a good follower."
"And he’s right, but in our job everyone has a specific set of skills, and situational need determines who calls the shots."
"That’s not how the military works," Leer argued. "They have one person in charge, usually the highest-ranking one."
"In the regular forces that’s correct, but the SF is different. Our commanding officers know when to allow the person with the skill set best suited for the job at hand to take the lead. And right now, that’s Taylor."
"So, he’s not in charge."
"Actually, he is." Tonee smiled at Leer’s attempt to undercut Taylor’s authority. "We’re the same rank, so we each could claim the title, but he’s leading right now so that puts him in charge."
"But, what if you don’t agree with his decision?"
"Again, I trust his judgement."
Leer fell silent.
The buildings around them continued to tighten until multistory, multi-housing monstrosities lined the street from intersection to intersection, with not one bush or tree in evidence. The ground level held storefronts interspersed with people- or vehicle-sized entrances that might give access to the upper floors or inner regions of the blocky buildings. Alleys and hidden byways that led to back doors, service entrances, and interior courtyards riddled the area.
Kaydeen was still trying to figure out how Mica told the cut-throughs from the dead ends when Taylor raised his closed fist and pushed Mica against the wall behind him. Taylor glanced into the courtyard ahead and then motioned Salayla and Kaydeen forward. They slid up to him and peered around the corner. Two Tinareean Guard mercs were trying to open a door. Beside them was a cart filled with expensive-looking electronics.
"Looters," Taylor whispered, "and distracted. Sal, you’re with me. Kay, cover us."
Salayla and Taylor crept across the courtyard. A few meters from the men, Salayla stepped into the open. Her hips swayed with each twisting footfall as the fluid motions of her body funneled all attention to her chest and backside. Kaydeen had seen her in action many times, and her mind always conjured a picture of a predatory feline in heat.
“Hey boys.” Salayla’s voice dripped with sensuality. “What’cha doin?”
The two men flung around in surprise, bringing their rifles to bear. Or, at least, trying to. The one who had been actively working on the door, was fumbling to slide his rifle from his shoulder. The other one was more successful—he did have his rifle in hand after all. Neither succeeded. The moment their gaze locked on her seductive prowl, the men froze as they tried to process the unexpected vision in front of them. Taylor shot from cover. He grabbed the rifle of the first man as he pivoted into a roundabout kick into the face of the second and then continued to roll over the first man’s back without releasing the weapon. Since the sudden attack caused the man to tighten his grip, he was pulled around backwards and off his feet. Taylor twisted the rifle from his grip, shot the first man in the chest, and then slammed the rifle’s butt into the head of the second. The fight was over before Kaydeen had fully registered Taylor’s motions. Salayla shot a glance at Taylor and then to Kaydeen as if she was asking her to verify Taylor’s unexpected speed.
As Salayla and Taylor appropriated the downed men’s weapons and other useful equipment, Kaydeen motioned the others forward and took the teens across the courtyard, while Tonee helped to hide the bodies in a nearby dumpster.
When they continued, they had added an L-slugger and a laser carbine, two power packs for each, two belts with an assortment of pouches, six rations, and two first aid blow-out kits to their equipment list.
They gave a wide berth to the next group of Tinaree Guard, eight men guarding a roadblock, by backtracking multiple blocks and entering a village the city had grown around. It was opulent with old, luxuriously-adorned houses and peppered with small plazas and parks. Streets became tight, at times no more than arms’ width wide, and wove around structures and in and out of plazas and courtyards as if the roadway had been an afterthought. The neat, linear construction of the rest of the city was nonexistent here. Houses were built in all directions as if expansions were added as the need arose and positioned in whatever direction was available at the time, often over roadways and on top of other houses. It was hard to tell where one building ended and another began.
Where previously they’d been concerned about the squared-off alleys and roads not offering enough cover, now they had the problem of not being able to see far enough ahead.
Their progress slowed considerably as the team hung back to give Taylor a chance to scout. He would jog ahead and scan the diverse alcoves, side alleys, and courtyards while they slowly caught up. Then he’d verify their direction with Mica before jogging ahead again. Tonee stayed farther back and scanned the windows and doors for snipers and other surprises.
Taylor suddenly stopped, pushed himself into the corner of a small archway, and motioned them to stay back. Through the archway, the alley opened into a plaza with a central square bordered by trees and shrubs. Taylor signaled for Mica to find a different route. Mica shook his head. This was the central square to which all the village’s streets led. To reach the other side of the village, you had to cross the square. Taylor shook his head and signaled that they had to find another way—a Traverse patrol occupied the square.
Mica considered for a moment, nodded, and waved them to follow. They backtracked a hundred meters and then turned left. Weaving through even tighter alleys, some of which Kaydeen would’ve considered private entryways or hallways—or even maintenance shafts, had they been on a ship—they crossed to another roadway that also led to the square. They did this twice more, cutting in between or behind houses, using passages barely wide enough to fit them. They hopped from street to street, slowly circling the central square. Mica approached a gap intended for water drainage from the rooftops—not human access—when Taylor motioned for Salayla to take the lead while he went to verify the Traverse patrol’s location.
Salayla slipped between the walls. Mica, Nitus, and Tonee, who barely fit, followed. Leer was next in line, but turned to follow Taylor instead. Kaydeen grabbed his arm, but he twisted out of her grasp. As he reached the corner, Taylor motioned for him to turn around. Leer shook his head and looked into the square. His back stiffened, and he turned to Taylor. They exchanged words. Taylor shook his head and turned to leave. Leer watched him for a moment, shrugged, and walked into the square. Taylor cursed silently and followed him. Kaydeen ran after them. She was about five meters from the end of the alley when the blast from a discharging bolter echoed off the walls.
She skidded to a stop and glanced into the square. Taylor lay on his side about twenty m
eters away in front of another alley. A Traverse soldier marched toward him, aiming a plasma bolter, first down the alley and then at Taylor. A second Traverse stood within the greenery, partially hidden by a tree, covering his partner. Readying her laser carbine, Kaydeen stepped around the corner, aimed, nailed the first Traverse in the throat, and then adjusted her aim toward the second Traverse. He stepped from behind the tree. She shot and hit his chest—his armor absorbed the energy.
Laser-absorbing armor. These guys aren’t regular Traverse. Spec-ops or, considering his size, possibly shock troopers. No wonder Taylor wanted to skirt them.
She rolled back around the corner into the alley, barely avoiding a return salvo from his bolter. A sizzling sound drew her attention to the small impact crater the bolter had created in the stone masonry across from her. Steam rose as a thick gel-like substance oozed down the wall, slowly carving a furrow into the stone. Plasma. She needed to get to Taylor. If a plasma slug hit him, it was eating him alive.
She glanced back into the square. The second Traverse was gone. He’d either ducked behind the tree or into the alley past Taylor, which was probably where Leer was.
A door slammed open on a balcony above, immediately followed by an L-slugger staccato of thuds. The Traverse staggered from behind the tree, laser slugs hammering his chest. The bolts did no damage since his armor absorbed the energy, but their concentrated impact force kept him distracted enough for Tonee to charge him from the other alley. He barreled into the guy at full speed, throwing him to the ground in the center of the square and flinging his weapon wide. The Traverse rolled over his shoulder and came back to his feet, ready to meet Tonee head-on. The Traverse’s armor absorbed some of the damage Tonee dealt him, but it also slowed him down. The two collided again.
Kaydeen ran to Taylor. He grimaced in pain, grasping his blood-soaked abdomen. She knelt and tore his hands and shirt out of the way while doing her best to ignore the fight behind her. Leer sat in the alley, wide eyes darting from Taylor to the dead Traverse to the ongoing fight. She yelled at him to get the blow-out kit. He didn’t move. The wound was jagged and ugly, and pink foam bubbled to its surface. Salayla dropped from the balcony and ran past her. Kaydeen plunged two fingers into the wound. Taylor screamed and convulsed. She shoved him back down while yelling at Leer. "I need that blow-out kit!"
Her fingers burned. The plasma spreading into the wound was eating at her skin. How much time had elapsed since he’d been hit? The slug was designed to push its contents into the wound over a period of sixty seconds. The expelled plasma reacted with oxygen in the blood, expanding as it ate away the flesh. If the slug emptied too fast, most of the expanding plasma would outpace the cavity created and be pushed out of the wound. The intent was to keep the plasma confined in the body for full effect.
A hologram of a body with an empty upper chest cavity flashed into her mind. It had been the result of one plasma slug entering the man’s chest between the third and fourth rib. "That’s why you wear armor," the instructor had said at the time, "and make sure it’s correctly sealed."
Well, they didn’t have armor. But unlike that poor guy’s medic, she was able to reach the slug and get it out. She only needed to find it.
"You are not dying today," she whispered through clenched teeth and pushed past Taylor’s convulsing muscles.
Mica fell to his knees by Taylor’s head and grabbed his shoulders, holding him down so she could work.
"Where’s the blow-out kit?" Nitus asked.
He had dropped to his knees beside Mica and was reaching for her backpack.
She shook her head. "Not mine. His." She nodded toward the Traverse lying on the ground. "Check his leg pockets."
Nitus scampered to the body.
Taylor’s hot, viscous flesh pressed against her burning fingers, but with Mica restraining him, it didn’t impede her probing. She pushed deeper and finally felt the pain of the slug’s hard metal pushing into the raw nerves of her fingers. She grabbed it, removed it, and then plunged her hand back into the wound.
Salayla appeared beside Kaydeen with the blow-out kit as she pulled out her cupped fingers again. White gelatinous plasma intermingled with red gore. Good, it hadn’t yet expanded to its foamy consistency. She tossed it aside and plunged her fingers back in.
Salayla pulled out the neutralizer and opened it. Kaydeen pulled out another glob of plasma and then spread the wound open with her burning fingers.
"Pour it in."
Salayla did as instructed. Tonee appeared with another blow-out kit and handed Salayla another neutralizer. Kaydeen pulled her fingers out of the wound, let Salayla rinse them with neutralizer, and then instructed her to shove the rim of the bottle into the wound. She sat back and pulled a wound wrap from one of the open kits. She could barely grasp it. She fought down the tremors, willing the adrenaline to continue to course through her a while longer, and wrapped her fingers. Taylor had stopped screaming, she wasn’t sure when. She checked his vitals with her good hand, pulled the painkillers from the blow-out kits, and injected one into her hand and the other into Taylor’s neck.
Still fighting the tremors, she grabbed the other blow-out kit, removed the neutralizer bottle from Taylor’s wound, and with Salayla’s help wrapped his abdomen.
"We need to find a medical facility." She sat back and breathed in deeply, looking around.
Tonee stood at the entrance of the alley holding Leer on his toes by the front of his shirt, probably giving the boy a piece of his mind. Judging by Leer’s facial expression, it wasn’t a nice piece. Nitus was further down the alley, leaning into an alcove and making retching sounds. Above him was a ladder connecting to a row of balconies an arm’s width or two apart from each other. The balcony closest to the square had a small metal table jammed against the metal railing. Not a door slamming open, then, but a table slamming on its side. She looked at Salayla beside her.
"He isn’t yet stable."
Salayla studied her. "How about you?"
"I’ll be fine. The painkiller is kicking in."
"Doctor Mitalius’ office isn’t far from here," Nitus informed them as he stepped out of the alley. His face was pale with a tinge of green, but the boy held it together. "He’s a doctor and with the Resistance. I don’t know if he’s there, but his office has all kinds of medical equipment."
"I don’t need the doctor, only the supplies." Kaydeen looked at Tonee. "Can you carry Taylor?"
Tonee’s shirt was torn, his lip bloodied, and his face bruised, but he moved fine. His opponent, brains scattered across the pavement, looked much worse.
Tonee nodded.
He picked up Taylor’s pack and threw it at Leer. "You carry that."
Not waiting for an answer, he shrugged on his pack and then had Mica and Salayla help him settle Taylor’s limp form over his shoulders.
20
Dr. Mitalius
Salayla took the lead with Nitus, scouting ahead like Taylor had done, although nowhere near as thorough. Five minutes later, they were back in the symmetrical roadways and blocks of the rest of the city.
Where the village had been deserted and the previous part of the city had lived in fear, this section didn’t have a care in the world.
Didn’t these people know there was a war going on? That their planet was under attack?
People and vehicles mingled and hurried up and down the street, going about their business as if they didn’t hear the rumbling and shooting in the distance.
Salayla waited for an opening and then waved everybody across the thoroughfare and into the side street Nitus pointed out. This one was emptier, but they still encountered people moving around. After roughly two hundred meters, Nitus turned into a deserted alley. He approached a door and waved his hand over its control panel. The door slid open without delay. Inside was a short landing with stairs leading up and down. Salayla motioned for Nitus to wait with the others and slipped into the building.
Kaydeen leaned against the wall and scanne
d the alley. It was dark and quiet, but clean. The distant rumble of war sounded the intimate drums of gunfire and explosions, but this place was still untouched, like the people they’d passed.
Salayla stuck her head out and waved them inside. Nitus ran up the short flight of stairs and banged on the door on the first landing. Salayla went past him and halfway up the next flight of stairs while Kaydeen stayed by the door they’d entered and kept an eye on the stairs leading to the basement. Tonee stood halfway up the steps behind Mica and Leer, who had followed Nitus onto the landing. Holding Taylor’s arm and leg with one hand, he pulled the pistol from his belt and held it by his leg.
The door slid open to reveal a disheveled, middle-aged stalk of a man inside a small foyer. A blue headband wrapped around his forehead, keeping his brown curls in check and out of his face. He wore hiking boots, cargo pants and a loose button-up shirt with sleeves rolled up over his elbows. His outstretched arm disappeared behind the doorjamb, right where Kaydeen would expect to find the door’s control panel. He nodded at the teens but studied the others with narrowed eyes.
"What are you doing here, boys?" His eyes hovered on the stairs leading to the next floor, probably on Salayla’s rifle.
"We need your help, Dr. Mitalius," Nitus explained, then stepped aside and pointed at Taylor’s limp form. "Taylor was shot."
Dr. Mitalius started forward but thought better of it and, without moving his hand from the wall, leaned to look down the stairs. His gaze went to Taylor’s form on Tonee’s shoulders, then down Tonee’s body to the hand holding the pistol, and finally past him to Kaydeen and the laser rifle she held at the ready. She lowered the barrel toward the floor and gave him her warmest smile.
Mitalius rubbed his hand over the stubble on his chin and then looked at Mica. "Are these the people you told your parents about last spring?"
Mica looked at him in surprise. "They told you about that? Then why—"
Mitalius raised his hand to stop him. "Are they?"