by Mark Wandrey
“Try to concentrate on one spot,” he said, but a rocket shot by him and detonated, killing two of his troopers. Not only had another huge marine mammal surfaced, it was walking up the landing on massive mechanical legs! “They can come on land!” he said in shock.
The armored monster snapped its jaws, revealing rows of silver daggers. A pair of articulated arms tipped with razor-sharp claws gestured at them, seemingly saying, “Come to me.” His men threw their weapons over the barrier and raised their hands. The beast looked disappointed.
* * *
Terry walked out of the water in the submarine dock, the last place he’d been in Templemer as they’d fled five days prior. Bodies of dead Selroth littered the deck. A couple still twitched. He carried his laser weapon in both hands as his armor-clad feet clanked against the carved stone decking. Katrina and Colin were right behind him.
Kray and his mate Ulybka stood next to a group of Selroth prisoners. The KilSha’s powered armor moved them on powerful robot legs, which served double duty as manipulators if necessary. Terry suspected the aliens had been more than shocked when five tons of cetacean had walked out of the water in gleaming armor. Ulybka’s armor was discolored in places from laser hits, though none of them had penetrated the armor.
“They surrendered,” Kray told him as he approached.
The Selroth looked at the KilSha in shock.
“They speak?” the alien said, his bubbling/gulping language instantly translated by Terry’s pinplants.
“Yes, of course,” he said. “Meet the KilSha, our friends and allies.”
“There is no race called KilSha,” the Selroth said.
Wikiwiki and Toba walked out of the water, their own armor performing the same feat as the KilSha’s to let them move on land. “Those are BotSha,” he told the Selroth.
“Did you, did you uplift those creatures?” the alien stammered. Terry just stared at him through the armored glass of his Konar. “That’s illegal!”
“What are you talking about?” Katrina asked him.
“Uplifting lower races is illegal by Union law, you stupid Human.”
“Do not speak to them like that,” Kray snarled, his voice amplified by his sonar with enough intensity to knock the five surviving Selroth backward. They crawled backward until the wall stopped them.
“What are we going to do with them?” Colin asked.
“Kill them,” Wikiwiki said. “Just like they killed all your dudes.”
“No,” Terry said. “Not yet, anyway.” He looked at the first Selroth who’d spoken. “You the leader?”
“My commander is dead, so I’m in charge.”
“You have a ship in orbit?” The alien didn’t respond. “Kray, convince him to talk.”
Kray directed a sonar beam at the Selroth, who jerked in surprise. The attack pulsed over and over, slowly increased in intensity. The Selroth jerked as its armor began to vibrate, then crack. Terry held up a hand, and the attack stopped.
“Feel like talking?”
“Yes,” the alien said. “We have a merc cruiser in orbit.”
Terry nodded. “Thank you. I’ll have more questions for you. For now, stay here and don’t cause any trouble.” The alien looked at the two KilSha in powered armor and slowly nodded. “Good boy, or whatever you are.” He turned and walked back toward the dock. Their submarine was surfacing. Onboard would be all the children, what was left of Dan, and Taiki’s body. His teeth ground together as he considered killing the Selroth.
“You wouldn’t have let Kray kill it, would you?” Katrina asked.
“Why not?” Colin asked and looked at the sub. “I don’t think Taiki would have a problem with it.”
“I don’t know,” Terry said and shrugged, his armor perfectly duplicating the movements. “The other BotSha are sweeping the facility looking for any surviving crabs or Selroth?” He’d been too busy with Kray and the Selroth to keep in touch directly.
“Yeah,” Katrina said. “They found a couple, but they were confused. The huge crab Kray killed outside was their boss; now the others don’t know what to do.”
He nodded. The file he had on the Xiq’tal confirmed the information. Leaderless, the crabs were clueless. They could also be unpredictable. “Are they killing them?”
“Yes,” Katrina said in an emotionless voice. “Needed to be done.”
They walked out of the docking bay, through the airlock, and into the dome. Everything looked so familiar. Had it really been just five days? It was disconcerting. A pair of armored BotSha walked by on their robotic limbs. They were chatting like a pair of guys heading out to surf, but they were talking about how fun it was to kill the Xiq’tal, and hoping there were more. Behind them was the mural Terry had helped paint of a shining dome under the water where orcas and dolphins played.
A tear rolled down his cheek, and he shook his head angrily. There was no place for regret in his world. Not anymore.
“Are you okay?” Katrina asked.
“Yeah, I suppose,” Terry said. She stepped next to him and slipped her armored hand into his.
“We’ll get through this,” she said. “Somehow.”
Colin put his hand on Terry’s shoulder. “We saved the kids,” he said.
Terry pointed at the BotSha walking into a building, lasers at the ready. “At what cost?”
“Terry, dude!”
“What’s going on, Ihu?” Terry asked, responding to the call sent through their linked pinplants.
“Come to the moon pool, man, right away!”
All three of them ran on their power-assisted legs, far faster than they would have been able to without, reaching the door to the moon pool in just seconds. They had to wait for a second as the lock cycled before they could go inside. He was expecting to find a bunch of dead Xiq’tal, or maybe a holdout group of Selroth. The inside door opened, and they moved in, weapons at the ready, to find a crowd of people.
“What?” he said, stopping and lowering his weapon.
“Terry?”
His armored head turned at the sound, and he saw his mom moving to the front of the group. “God, Terry, is that you?”
“Mom?” At a mental command, his helmet split open and pivoted up. “How?”
Doc appeared and shook his head. “Jesus Christ, kid,” he gestured at the three armored teenagers. “How? What?”
The armor opened, and he climbed out the egress point in the rear. Coming around the armor, he grabbed his mom and hugged her as hard as he could. She cried on his shoulder, and he did the same in her hair. “You’re alive,” he said over and over. Katrina was with her mom and dad, and so was Colin, though they were still in their armor for some reason. Everyone was there, the entire colony. They’d all survived.
“Bodacious,” Ihu said, and used his robotic manipulator to flip Terry a recognizable shaka.
“How are you all alive?” he asked Doc, who nodded in approval. His mercs were examining the empty armor, and in particular, the laser carbine it still held.
“Backup power room under the moon pool,” Doc said. “We only found it the day of the attack.” He shrugged. “It wasn’t even on the maps. We were rushing everyone who couldn’t fight down here when they blew the dome. Barely got the door closed in time. Me and the guys were just trying to figure out how to make a break out when the shooting started.”
Terry nodded. “I can’t believe you’re alive. I have so much to tell you!”
“I bet,” Tina said from next to Terry’s empty Konar. “But maybe you should put some pants on before we talk about this?” It was only then that Terry remembered they had to be naked in the armor for them to work properly. Tina raised an eyebrow and nodded in appreciation. “Not bad, kid. Not bad at all.”
* * * * *
Epilogue
Templemer, Planet Hoarfrost, Lupasha System, Coro Region, Tolo Arm
December 25th, 2038
Terry watched the younger children singing a Christmas carol on the stage with a small smile on his face. Dr. O
rsage was still working with them on therapy sessions. Despite none of their parents actually dying, the battles and watching Dan being tortured had left scars that had yet to heal. They might never completely heal, Orsage said. Time would tell.
Katrina squeezed his hand, and Terry smiled at her. He’d been careful with her after the events back in May. Part of him wanted to do things with her, but part of him wasn’t ready for those things. He’d turned 14 back in October. He felt like he was 40. His mom and Doc, on the other side of Katrina, watched the kids’ performance and clapped at the end.
The children began another song. Terry’s smile faded as he looked up and saw the KilSha watching from outside the dome. Some of the BotSha were there, too, but most of them were still off on their last mission. The ones who remained were pregnant and getting ready to have their own families. The anti-fertility drugs had been stopped right after the battle, at their insistence. Breeding had commenced in the pod with embarrassing regularity.
The mission was with the KilSha on their seemingly never-ending search for Shool. Terry had thought that, after they’d been uplifted, the KilSha would give up their quest to meet god in the cold depths of Hoarfrost. Nothing could be further from the truth. Along with the other modifications to the former orcas and bottlenoses, they now could dive deeper and return quickly, without ill effects.
The KilSha watched the performance silently, without moving so much as a centimeter. They seemed to be completely engrossed in the proceedings. They wore their Konar, as they usually did. The armor was quite comfortable, and Terry wore his whenever he went out, as well. The BotSha mostly weren’t wearing theirs, as they said the armor was uncomfortable when they were pregnant.
“Do you want to listen, too?” He sent the question through his pinplants to the KilSha and BotSha in general.
“Yes!” Pōkole replied right away. “Yes, yes, please!”
“That would be rad, dude,” Wikiwiki replied. Terry had been surprised to find out she was pregnant at the time of the fight and had never considered whether to participate.
Terry set his pinplants to record and relay, and the cetaceans listened to a bunch of children singing Jingle Bells. He looked up and saw the half dozen BotSha bobbing their heads in time with the song, and chuckled.
“What?” Katrina asked. Terry tilted his head up. She followed his gaze and chuckled. The BotSha were singing along, and Terry added her to the channel.
“What are you two laughing about?” Doc asked, leaning over Terry’s mom to stage-whisper at him.
“The BotSha are singing Jingle Bells,” Terry said and pointed at the cetacean audience.
“How do you know they’re singing?” his mom asked.
Terry reached up and touched the external connection on his pinplants. She blanched and looked away. Like the little kids, his mom hadn’t quite come to grips with the events of the Selroth invasion.
He recognized Kray in the group of KilSha; he was noticeably bigger, and his dorsal fin had a particular curl to it. Shortly after the battle, he’d asked Kray about the name KilSha. The Caretaker had said that an uplifted race’s name came from their species name with “Sha” added to the end, by some tradition.
“You should have been OrcSha,” he told Kray.
“We know, but we chose to use Killer Whale instead. KilSha.”
“Why?”
“Because we like to kill.” He’d have sworn the whale was smiling when he said it.
At the back of the audience, the 11 surviving Selroth were sitting uncomfortably on chairs, pointedly ignoring the goings on. They were basically permanent prisoners. After Terry had explained about the law against uplifting, and Doc had verified it through the GalNet, it had been agreed that the Selroth couldn’t go home, and the grownups couldn’t bring themselves to kill them outright. They were also a little horrified that the BotSha really, really, wanted to kill the aliens.
The Selroth were being cooperative in getting the habitat fully operational. In exchange for their cooperation, they were given a large amount of freedom and good treatment. They refused to go anywhere near the cetaceans, in a mixture of fear and revulsion.
Terry, Colin, and Katrina, along with Doc and his crew, rode the shuttle up to the Selroth’s ship in orbit and took it from them. Terry and his people did most of the work. Their Konar easily handled the pressure differential they needed to maintain to avoid ill effects. The mercs had to wear clunky pressure suits, and ended up being little more than observers. Four of the 11 Selroth were the surviving crew. Terry’s mother had nearly freaked out when he got back in his Konar armor and went with Doc. They’d taken two of the BotSha, because the former bottlenose dolphins had insisted.
There really wasn’t a fight; the Selroth hadn’t been expecting an attack from their own shuttle. Afterward, Doc’s people treated Terry, Collin, and Katrina differently. They’d exchange a nod with him when they walked by. Sometimes at meal time, they’d lift a glass in his or his friends’ direction. He’d asked Doc about it once.
“We’re part of the same club,” he’d said. “You’re too damned young, but you’re one of us now.”
They’d flown the ship to the Lupasha Independent Trading Station, where Doc registered the Selroth’s ship as a war prize, so it now belonged to them. They returned afterward and parked the ship in orbit. The BotSha spent the whole time with Tina, examining the ship’s nav computer and talking among themselves. When asked what the BotSha were up to, they weren’t interested in sharing. However, they’d been excited at whatever they’d found.
After the concert, the Selroth returned to their quarters, while the Humans went to the mess hall for cake and ice cream. Terry enjoyed seeing everyone so happy. Dan was moving around like nothing had happened with his metallic blue artificial feet and hands. The Caretaker had fixed him up and given him pinplants, as well.
The Caretaker had said it would give pinplants to anyone who wanted them. Doc and his people were planning on it before they went out on contract in March. Terry thought they were probably working up the nerve to undergo the procedure. Regardless of what they’d said, it was obvious the mercs didn’t trust the Caretaker. Despite that mistrust, they’d discussed Konar for them, and discarded the idea.
“What do you think would be the reaction if we went out on contract wearing those technological marvels?”
“I don’t know,” Terry said.
“Sure you do. They’d want to know where we got them. They’d really want to know.”
That made sense, of course. Technology was power, and nothing like the Konar existed in the galaxy. Nothing the Humans had encountered in the current era, anyway. Everywhere he looked, the people of Templemer were happy, or at least content. Maybe it was enough.
“We going to the Caretaker as planned?” Doc asked him over vanilla ice cream.
“You bet,” Terry replied. He knew Doc wanted to try to get the Caretaker to follow his orders again. It hadn’t worked yet, and wouldn’t work ever. For whatever reason, it only listened to Terry, Colin, or Katrina. Terry seemed to be the one it listened to first, as well. The leader. “You know it wants to see the newborn BotSha, right?”
“Yeah,” Doc said. “The moms are fine with it.”
Terry nodded. He’d seen the ultrasound of Wikiwiki’s baby, done by Dr. Jaehnig. The baby’s pectoral fins had fingers. The Caretaker had altered the bottlenoses’ DNA. Hula was only four months pregnant, too soon for a good ultrasound on a KilSha. Terry knew what it would show; the same as the BotSha, maybe even more advanced.
As the Christmas celebration was breaking up, Terry found a minute alone with just his mom and Doc. “I wanted to tell you something,” he said to his mother. She looked at him expectantly. “I’m going with Doc and Last Call on contract.” Her mouth dropped open. “Colin and Katrina are going too. They’re telling their parents right now.”
“You can’t!” she said, looking at Doc for support and, to her horror, finding none. “You’re only 14 years old.
”
“And I was 13 when I led the assault that killed the Xiq’tal and Selroth.”
She teared up and looked away.
“It’s a different world,” Doc said.
“I don’t like this world,” she said and looked at her son. “Things are too black and white for my liking.”
They left the mess hall for the walk back to their apartment, the one Doc now shared after he and Terry’s mom were married a month ago. It was a quiet walk, each of them lost in their own thoughts. Terry’s thoughts were closer to his own person. Because, if the Caretaker had altered the orcas to KilSha, and the bottlenose dolphins to BotSha, what had they done to him and his friends? Maybe he’d ask the machine. Maybe it might answer.
# # # # #
About Mark Wandrey
Living life as a full time RV traveler with his wife Joy, Mark Wandrey is a bestselling author who has been creating new worlds since he was old enough to write. A three-time Dragon Award finalist, Mark has written dozens of books and short stories, and is working on more all the time. A prolific world builder, he created the wildly popular Four Horsemen Universe, as well as the Earth Song series, and Turning Point, a zombie apocalypse series. His favorite medium is Military Sci-fi but he’s always up to a new challenge.
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