Folctha Colony, Cimbrean, The Far Reaches.
Powell heard the starship arrive long before Saunders made his usual commotion; the ship had come in fast and powerful, filling the air with a rolling thunder that echoed through the surrounding forests and sent alien birds into alien sky. Saunders was returning in a hurry, so the news probably wasn’t good, and by the time Powell had found him he was holding Lance Corporal Danny Michael in an arm lock and whispering sweet fookin’ nothings into his ear while Corporal Paul Richard just stood around holding his fookin’ dick.
Powell approached the trio, by now a spectacle for the colonists, with a fairly restrained expression of being completely pissed off, striding over into their view as he demanded to know what the fook they thought they were doing.
Saunders released the man as soon as he heard Powell’s voice, turning to face him with a fiercely present look in his eyes. There was focus there, with anger driving it, and Powell realised he’d have to step carefully until it passed. “Looking for you, Powell,” he replied. “Got a spare minute to deal with another lifetime of bullshit?”
“More bad fookin’ news,” Powell breathed, having expected as much and still finding himself irritated at the man’s glib insubordination in spite of having expected that as well. To calm himself he had to remind himself that this was a man who had stripped down an alien cloaking system and had provided humanity with basic notes on how it seemed to function, thus proving himself useful even if he was as fookin’ shitful as a man could be. “Fookin’ wonderful. Yeah, I’ve got a spare minute.”
They stepped into the office Powell had reserved for himself, closing the door to hide their conversation away from the colonial rumourmongers; the things that were already circulating were bad enough without the truth getting out there. Powell took his seat, knowing he’d prefer to be seated for what was to come if Saunders was being even half-serious, and looked up at the man. “Start talkin’, Saunders.”
Saunders briefed him. Properly briefed him, his voice more level than it ever had been. The story was typically insane—a bat-girl trapped in a ping-pong ball sized computer, and what he’d learned from her. It wasn’t something that Powell would normally have believed, because who would really have thought that some fook’ed up alien version of the Matrix could actually exist? Saunders believed it, though, and more impressively when he glanced at Michael and Richard, they nodded slowly from behind Saunders’ eyeline.
Accepting that also meant that accepting the kind of headache Saunders had been promising; taking a man captive was one thing, but taking his mind was quite another, and presented the kind of security risks he’d have preferred stayed in science fiction.
Saunders finished his explanation by stating his intention to leave as soon as he possibly could. “Spot can fly,” he said, apparently having named his ship like he’d have named a dog, “Even if she’s not pretty, and I’ve got things I need to protect.”
“Don’t forget our deal,” Powell reminded him. “Good faith.”
Saunders nodded. “I’m going to need guns. Guns and ammunition.”
That was more than Powell was willing to simply give away, even in return for Saunders fulfilling their agreement. He’d have to be just as mad as Saunders to start handing over firearms. “I’m not handing over weapons to a crazy man without a good fookin’ reason,” he said. “Quid pro quo, remember?”
“Then I might have something you find useful,” Saunders returned with a smile. “I can build you a scanner that will let you know if hunters are in the system, cloaked or not. Then you won’t be caught with your fucking pants down.”
That was exactly the sort of thing he should have been offering for free, but Powell held his tongue. There was no need to antagonise the man when simply trading away a single weapon and some ammunition would provide him with more of a return on investment than he had believed possible. The Hunters represented a serious threat to the colony, and any way they could reduce that threat was worth the risk. Besides, had he been in Saunders’ situation he’d have done the same, reserving a bartering chip just in case. He’d have reserved several, in fact, which naturally made him suspect that Saunders had done so too.
It was becoming clear that, bug-fuck though he might be, Saunders was going to be an asset. Albeit, one that would need careful handling at arms’ length.
The man may have succeeded in restoring one of the ruined ships to life, but Powell thought he would wait until he produced what he promised. “If you can build us that,” Powell promised, “I’ll make sure you get what you asked for.”
Scotch Creek Extraterrestrial Research Facility, British Columbia, Canada, Earth
If you’re interested, the escape pod is probably still where I left it, somewhere in the Monongahela national forest. I walked until I found a road, hitch-hiked to Charlottesville. Hvek and Twanri had assured me that I would be amply rewarded for my service, and they had not lied—the Swiss bank account they had made me memorise the details of contained a lavish supply of funds, more than enough to pick a town at random on the map and work my way here by Greyhound.
Most went on this apartment, and on reinforcing it. The rest… keeps me alive, so I can tell my story.
The only reason I tell it to you now, Mr. Jenkins, is because, as you say, entering this room has probably already doomed you. I hope at least that the knowledge of WHO is going to kill you brings you some comfort.
Folctha colony, Cimbrean, The Far Reaches
Back on Earth, much thought and theorycrafting had gone into the problem of supplying the soldiers for the possibility of shipboard combat, where a stray bullet could mean fatal decompression, even with the damage control fields. Options had been considered up to and including reviving kinetic pulse weaponry, but with the tactical environment now apparently including things that were similarly tough to humanity—not to mention other humans—that project had been abandoned. Again.
The fact was, the only weaponry that could reliably hurt humans, or anything that had the ability to stand up to a human in combat, was also dangerous to starships and there was no way around that.
Unless—and Legsy was shamelessly self-congratulatory about this—you gave up on relying on the gun to be everything at once, and took a look at the ammo instead. Starships meant corridors. Corridors meant shotguns. Shotguns meant buckshot and slugs for dealing with humans, birdshot for the squishy ones. Problem solved. The smaller pellets of birdshot would have a much lower chance of damaging a starship, but were still devastating to alien flesh, and if you came across anything tougher, you just needed to use different ammo. Problem fucking solved.
The rest had involved persuading the mission planners to furnish their armory with magazine-fed SPAS-15s, which could rapidly change ammo types in response to a shifting tactical situation, rather than tube-fed M1014s which were a little less flexible. That had been easy once Powell had been convinced to back his towering celtic gun-nut comrade. Predicting the need to possibly arm the civilian colonists, the soldiers had arrived with more than they themselves could possibly use, and “losing” one of the shotguns to “Operational circumstances” seemed only reasonable considering how well Saunders had held up his end of the bargain. It went down on the paperwork as having been dismantled for spare parts, and the ammo was written off to “water damage”.
Powell entered the tent that served as the camp’s armoury in time to hear Legsy ask “Watcha think, boy, reckon that’ll do?” as he handed the gun over.
Adrian Saunders looked like a hundred Christmases had all arrived at once, and held the gun like it was the most wonderful thing he had ever laid hands or eyes on. Then, seeing Powell enter, he tried to sober his expression a little. “I…uh…yeah. Yeah, that’ll do.” he said, unconvincingly.
Legsy grinned, handed over the ammunition and then busied himself with cleaning the Minimi that was his own weapon of choice.
“The new sensors are up.” Powell said. “And a fook of a lot better than the old ones. I might just have been wrong about you being a waste of good calories.”
Adrian dodged the apology. “Jen could have told you that.” He replied.
The man still nettled Powell, for all that he’d proven his obvious worth as an engineer and an expert in alien technology. He’d obviously started out as a stubborn bastard, and his experiences had only driven him further into his intransigent shell, even if he put up a smokescreen of flippant no-fucks-given attitude to cover it.
“Jen thinks you’re dead.” he said. “Not a lot of point going into the skills and talents of a fookin’ dead man, is there?
Really, he should just stop poking. Saunders was badly damaged—best to just get on with it. He exercised some willpower and resolved to stick to the facts from now on and leave his opinions out of it. Saunders might be a danger to the colony, but he’d proven he was a useful risk, and probably not worth antagonising.
“Might have been worth knowing you on top of a fuckload of salvageable alien tech though, wouldn’t it?”
Powell wanted to point out that the only man on the planet—the only man in the whole human race as far as he knew—that could even have identified the technology as being still salvageable and in working condition was Adrian himself. Jen had her own set of skills, a sharp mind and was a quick study, but she hadn’t once shown anything more than a working, user-level knowledge of alien technology.
He stuck to his resolution though and didn’t rise to it.
“Your ship ready?”
“Yep. Spot’s all ready to go, provisions are all loaded… Just need to hump the artillery here and I’m done mate.”
Powell didn’t comment that Saunders was holding a bag full of shotgun shells as if it were his cricketing gear, without appearing to be really conscious of it. Even in Cimbrean’s low gravity, that was an indication of the “Alien Mutant Juice” marinating his tissues.
“Good. Right now, according to those fancy sensors you set up, you’ve got a clear sky. No warp signatures within range and that’s… what, a couple parsecs or so?”
“About that.” Saunders agreed.
“So, you’ve got a clear run to get out of here without telling the galaxy about it, and there’s no guarantee that’s going to be true tomorrow. So, would you mind awfully-”
”-fucking off?” Adrian finished, interrupting him with a grin. “Too bad, I’ll miss the food here mate.”
Powell snorted, and extended a hand. After a moment’s hesitation, Saunders shook it.
“Just try not to get killed you crazy fookin’ prick.” he said.
Adrian grinned. “So far so good.”
Scotch Creek Extraterrestrial Research Facility, British Columbia, Canada, Earth
”…That’s a brutal story, eh?”
“And Terri Boone died after hearing it, Martin.”
“Just playing Devil’s Advocate here, Kevin but… that doesn’t necessarily suggest there’s an alien conspiracy involved.”
“Fuck devil’s advocate. Do you want to go extinct?”
”…No.”
“Neither do I.”
Kevin Jenkins put his phone away, expression grim. “If I’m wrong and Singh is just a crazy hermit, oh well. Sorry to have wasted the loonies, man.”
He leaned forward. “But if I’m right then one of these fuckers could be on Earth right now, looking for an opening. With stakes that high, I think maybe we should take this ‘Hierarchy’ business seriously.” he said. “Don’t you?”