The eternity of being about to die ended in a metallic noise, the wheeze of cloth against cloth, and a jolt nearly as violent as the one that had flung them from the station.
“What? What was that?!” he asked.
He hadn’t thought to press the button on the communicator, but now WARHORSE’s voice came through to him from outside the bag, slightly muffled but no more than that. They had atmosphere. “Parachute. Worst part’s over, compadre, we’re almost down safe. You okay?”
“What’s left of me is doing fine.”
“Bueno. Last hit coming up in three…two…”
Regaari grimaced as there was a thump and several jolts, before the human fell down backwards, careful to let Regaari fall on top rather than the other way round.
There were some more metallic clinks, a rustling of fabric, and then the top of his bag tore off. WARHORSE looked in. “You okay?” he asked.
Regaari climbed out of the bag as best he could with only one paw and collapsed on his back, gulping like a stranded fish. “I never want to do anything like that ever again.” he stated.
WARHORSE just lay beside him and chuckled. The chuckle turned into a laugh and he surged to his feet and ripped off the helmet and mask of his pressure suit, revealing a stubbly fuzz of head-hair on deep nut-coloured skin. Still laughing he threw the helmet high into the air, shrugged off the parachute harness and rucksack, and then spread his arms and howled.
The noise was agony, a primal roar of defiance aimed at the universe which impaled Regaari’s sensitive ears and straight through into the pain centers of his brain. WARHORSE seemed to have gone mad, jumping and swearing and punching the air, always returning to that same “WOOO!” sound. Regaari watched in alarm as the human did a double backflip in what must, to him, have been extremely low gravity, then stooped, ripped a stone from the turf that was as big as Regaari’s head and threw it hard at a nearby tree before collapsing, giggling, on his back.
The stone hit the tree with such incredible force that it lodged in the wood.
A second later, creaking, crackling, hissing and groaning, the tree fell over.
WARHORSE’s laughter died and he sat up. “Jeez.” he said. “Did I do that?”
Regaari scowled at him. “This is the only known class two planet. You’re a native of a class twelve. You could probably ruin this planet’s whole biosphere just by breathing on it, if you aren’t careful.”
WARHORSE blinked at him then stood up. “Didn’t catch one word of that, man.” he looked around “Where the fuck is my helmet?”
Regaari picked it up and offered it to him, feeling his arm wobble from the weight.
“Thanks, man.” WARHORSE wriggled it back onto his head, muttering angrily to himself. “Fucking amateur, Arés, don’t be stupid…Never remove your helmet, dumbass.”
“I said.” Regaari repeated, when it was back on and the translator was working again “That we’re standing on the only known class two planet in this galaxy, and you’re from a Class twelve. You could do serious harm if you’re not careful.”
“Shit.” WARHORSE nodded agreement. “You’re right. Sorry.”
“You’d better not do that either, or you’ll definitely kill this world.” Regaari added.
“I know man, I live on Cimbrean.” WARHORSE told him, twisting the helmet back and forth until it was firmly in place and the docking collar re-engaged with a solid ‘snap!’
He checked it was seated properly by throwing his head back and forth a bit and wriggling his shoulders. “Thanks for the reminder, though.”
“How heavy IS that helmet?” Regaari asked.
“Twenty-five pounds base weight.” WARHORSE replied, “Which, yeah. Sucks.”
He rearranged some of his equipment and shrugged the ruck on again as if it was nothing, causing Regaari’s boggling over the helmet to intensify. He’d experienced for himself just how strong Xiù had been, but between the stone, that rucksack, and the easy way he had carried Regaari himself and all that other gear back on the station, it was plain that WARHORSE vastly outstripped her.
The human pressed firmly on the side of his helmet. “STAINLESS, WARHORSE.” he announced. “Arrived DZ, one healthy ET in tow, I’m at, uh…” he checked the device in his hand and reeled off a string of numbers. “Seeking cover and awaiting orders.”
There was silence for a few seconds and then –
“WARHORSE, STAINLESS. I have your DZ. Seek cover, rest up. Turn to tac-net three niner four Tango November Juliet and await further. Out.”
WARHORSE grunted and looked around, scanning the horizon with those predator’s eyes. “There.” he pointed. Regaari squinted, and could see the shimmer of water cascading down a rocky outcrop, carving a little tree-haunted valley.
“How far is that?” he asked.
“Eh, three clicks or so. I jog further than that before breakfast.”
“Ah, yes. Human endurance running.” Regaari sighed. “I’m going to slow you down, aren’t I?”
“Nah, man. Climb on.”
Regaari flattened his ears disbelievingly. “You can’t be serious.”
“Gravity this low, I need something to weigh me down” WARHORSE replied. “Besides, what do you mass, like ninety pounds? I could lift you one-handed in twice this gravity, no problem.”
The translator fed him a Gaori measurement that sounded about right, so he nodded, imitating the gesture he’d often seen Xiù use. WARHORSE just returned the gesture and waved a hand towards the pack on his shoulders.
Regaari paused, then twitched his whiskers resignedly and did as the human suggested, clambering up the bag to sit atop it. It wasn’t dignified, but WARHORSE didn’t appear to notice the extra weight.
“Man, we should put a machine gun up there for you or something.” he chuckled.
“How about optics, or that map of yours?” Regaari suggested.
“Good thinking. Binos are in that front pocket there.” WARHORSE handed up the map device. It was alarmingly short on detail, and Regaari said so. WARHORSE just nodded. “Relax, intel’s got our back. We’ll have a better map pretty soon.”
They headed out. WARHORSE quickly settled into a steady rhythm of big, long bounding strides that ate up the ground, and just kept going. It wasn’t quite running, so much as a vigorous, fast march, and it was deceptive. Regaari wouldn’t have guessed they were moving very fast, but when he glanced behind them he saw that their landing site was already distant, and receding.
He played with the ‘binos’, adjusting their width, having to set them to their widest to fit his own face, but once he did so and toyed with the wheel on top and its functions, he swiftly got the hang of it. It was…strange, handling a piece of human technology, made by humans for human use. It certainly didn’t feel like a lower-tech species’ gear, either. It may have lacked a few of the advanced features that he’d have found in a Gaoian equivalent, but optically it was superb. The only real burr in his fur that he could find to complain about was their heaviness.
WARHORSE wasn’t even breathing heavily when they stopped again.
Regaari chittered a little on a surge of cynicism. Their resting spot was as stereotypical of a low-class world as could be—a gentle glade fed by a clean bubbling stream with a pool in which slender, silver little fish were undulating. Idyllic.
WARHORSE ignored it. Instead he let Regaari off his back and shucked off the ruck, before examining the dressing on Regaari’s arm. “Any pain or itching?” he asked.
“No. But it feels like the paw is still there.” Regaari said. It was a strange sensation, he could still “grip” and move his “fingers” but of course nothing happened except that what was left of the muscle sheath in his forearm twitched pathetically as it tried to flex and twist to pull on the now-absent tendons of his now-absent paw.
He sat down and stared at the dressing as WARHORSE made a satisfied noise and pottered about, setting up a basic camp.
“You okay?” he was asked after a while. Regaari chirruped a bitter little laugh.
“I’m supposed to be one of the elite.” he said. “Clan Whitecrest, foremost commandos and security specialists of the whole Gaoian species, but next to the Hunters I may as well be a cub. Next to you…”
WARHORSE had set up next to the pool and was digging through his bag. “Nah, man. You’re a fucking badass.” he replied.
“What was that expression? Pull the other one. Only, please don’t because I’d like to get off this planet with at least three whole limbs.”
“Totally serious, compadre. What did you do to that hunter? Clawed out two eyes and spat in the third? And that was a fuckin’ Alpha. You’ve got spirit, bro.”
Regaari snorted. “Spirit doesn’t count. Only results matter.” he snapped, dismissively.
“You got the result, though.” WARHORSE said. When Regaari twitched a disbelieving ear at him, he nodded insistently. “Seriously. You’re alive. You held out long enough for the cavalry to reach you and you saw that son of a bitch dead. Result.”
“You’re just trying to pep me up.” Regaari told him.
WARHORSE nodded. “‘Course I am. Best way to do that’s with the truth, though. You’re still kicking, it’s not, and the difference was you going down swinging. Spirit gets results, man.”
Regaari sat silently and watched. The human soon made a satisfied noise and pulled out a handful of flat brown packs of some kind, and scooped up some water from the pool in a little bottle. There was a pump of some kind in the bottle’s end, and after a few enthusiastic strokes of that, the water was forced back out through the filter nozzle.
“Are you… filtering and purifying that?” Regaari asked. “This is a class two planet, you don’t need to.”
“Basic survival rule where I’m from, never trust the water.”
“We’re not on where you’re from.”
WARHORSE paused, then shrugged. “Eh, a good habit’s a good habit.” He held up the little brown packages from the ruck. “Hungry?”
“You’re eating now? We only just landed.”
“Every chance I get. Never know when the next opportunity’s going to arrive in a situation like this.”
“But how are you going to cook it without a fire? If you build one, won’t the Hunters–”
“Relax, we got that covered. Besides, there’s a long way to go ahead of us, I’m going to need the nutrition, whereas the Hunters only might come looking for us.”
“Oh. Well, I do like human food…”
“Eh, this is just an MRE, not fine dining. Kind of the tastier alternative to those ration balls.” WARHORSE said, opening the package and tipping most of the contents out onto his lap. He tipped a little sachet of white powder into his bottle and shook it, turning the water a vivid pink, then took off his breathing mask and sipped it.
“What’s that?” Regaari asked.
“Juice. Electrolytes, sugar, hydration.” WARHORSE sipped again and licked his lips, frowning. “Supposedly it tastes like cherry.”
“Supposedly?”
“Look, you want one of these to try? Because I can eat whatever’s too much for you.”
”…If it’s safe.”
“It’s all been treated with gamma radiation man. Totally sterile, I promise.”
“Then…yes please.”
WARHORSE nodded and examined the available options, “…I warn you man, this shit’s…this is the high-performance version, it’s meant to get a fuckload of energy into me first and foremost. The culinary experience is, like, a distant second.” he pointed out.
“I’ll try it anyway. You’re right, nutrition in a situation like this is important.”
WARHORSE nodded, and stuffed the rest of the MREs back into his pack. “Damn right.” He ripped the top off a couple of transparent plastic bags, slipped the unappetizing green pouches of food inside, and then added a little water before returning the bags to their cardboard box and leaning them against a rock. Within seconds, steam was rising from the boxes.
“How does that work?” Regaari asked.
“Chemical reaction.”
“Clever.” Regaari commented. “No flame, no smoke, minimal heat signature.”
“That’s the idea.” WARHORSE agreed.
Regaari watched him cook, silently calculating how to eat his meal one-pawed. His nose twitched involuntarily when WARHORSE kneaded a little sachet and then spread the off-white paste it contained onto his dry crackers—the scent thus unleashed was creamy and rich, hinting that his dismissive assessment of the meal’s quality had probably been unfair.
Sadly, when Regaari sampled the crackers while waiting for the main course to be ready he was sorely disappointed, and WARHORSE was right—while the beverage was clearly supposed to taste like fruit, what it mostly tasted of was chemistry.
“What’s this?” he asked, opening and sniffing it. The scent was pungent and sugary.
”’s called a HOOAH! bar.” WARHORSE said. “I wouldn’t, man, that thing’s got, like, a thousand calories in it.”
The translator paused while translating that figure, and Regaari could see why. It must have been doing an internal error-check to make sure there wasn’t some mistake. That was half a week’s nutritional intake for a Gaoian male. “That many?”
“Yep.” WARHORSE took the bar off him and bit into it, chewing vigorously. “Giveff your jaw a workout, too.” he added, around the mouthful.
“Exactly how many calories do you need?” Regaari asked.
“Me, on a light day? At least ten thousand or so.” WARHORSE replied. “But this is gonna be a really active day, so…a lot more. Anyway, main should be ready.”
Between a small rock and leaning the bag against what remained of his left forearm, Regaari was able to hold it steady enough to poke at it with the spoon. While it certainly looked appetising enough, his nose was practically being overwhelmed by the rich scent. He tried it.
One mouthful was enough. “Great…Father Fyu!” he coughed.
WARHORSE just laughed. “You okay?”
“It’s like eating a candle!”
“Like I said, man. Performance first, pleasant eating experience second. Don’t worry, you gave it a pretty good go for an ET.” he said, ripping his own bag open and mixing in the contents of a tiny glass bottle of red sauce.
Regaari licked the sauce out of his fur, regaining his composure. “ET?”
“Extra-Terrestrial. It’s a friendly way of saying ‘non-human’.”
“You have other ways?”
“Sure. ‘ET’ is friendly, ‘non-human’ is all formal and proper, and ‘xeno’ is an insult.”
WARHORSE inhaled most of his meal in three efficient scoops. “Ffo–thiff human friend off yourff.” he said, around the mouthful, before swallowing. “Joo?”
“Close enough.”
“How’d you meet? There’s not a lot of us out here. She an abductee?”
Regaari made an affirmative ducking nod. “Yes, about…eleven Gaori years ago now, one of our settler transports was raided by mercenaries working for an–” he raised his paws and made a ‘finger quotes’ gesture that Xiù had been fond of, only realising that the effect was spoiled a little by his missing paw after he’d done it. ”‘Unauthorized researcher’.”
He snorted. “So the Corti Directorate claims, anyway. They killed all the males and abducted the females and cubs.”
WARHORSE’s expression darkened, even as he leaned over and stole Regaari’s leftovers. “Coño de madre.” he snarled. The translator didn’t seem to have a readily available equivalent, but the intent was clear.
“Shoo was picked up separately, but kept in the same holding cell.” Regaari continued. “Thanks to her, they were able to escape.”
“Where do you come in?”
“There was…political fallout. Ayma—the leader of the abducted females—fought fang and claw to get Shoo adopted into the Clan of Females. Most of the other females sided with her, of course, but some of the male clans…”
“Yeah?” WARHORSE took another mouthful “I thought you guyff mofftly went along with the Femaleff?”
Regaari chittered. “I thought ‘you guys’ were dangerous disease-ridden predators?” he countered. “Granted, many of the clans are ruled more by their testicles than by their brains, but the females don’t hold absolute power, just a strong influence. They may hold the veto, but they still want to mate as much as the males do.”
WARHORSE chuckled again. “Yeah, that sounds about right.” he agreed. “What did you think?”
“I didn’t. I was too focused on the blow to my career.”
“Your career?”
Regaari made an uncomfortable noise. “It’s…complicated.”
“I’m a medic, compadre. I can handle complicated.”
Regaari wobbled his head sideways in a ‘fair enough’ gesture. “I…had some disagreements with the clan.” he said. “This was early in our negotiations with the Dominion, and I was part of the inquiry into the missing transports. We had all of the circumstantial evidence we could have wanted that proved there were Dominion species involved, and that this ‘unauthorized’ researcher was anything but, but nothing concrete. Meanwhile, I found out that the Whitecrest Clan—and several other powerful Clans—were all preparing as if our membership of the Dominion was a foregone conclusion. Buying shares and equipment, training and indoctrinating our new Brothers a certain way, that kind of thing.”
“You suspected corruption in your own ranks?” WARHORSE guessed.
“No. I wasn’t so cynical back then. I was appalled, of course. As far as I was concerned, even circumstantial evidence that the Dominion was involved in our transports going missing—and complacency is collusion, as far as I’m concerned—was reason enough to abandon the negotiations on the spot and approach the Celzi Alliance. Of course, now I know that the Alliance is just as bad, but…”
He shook himself. “…Rather than discussing the matter with some of my more seasoned Brothers, I took it straight to one of the Fathers, convinced that it was an honest oversight, and that when they saw the evidence we had gathered, the mistake would be corrected.”
“Bad move?”
“The Father I approached was one of the…hmm…quiet conspirators. Not one of the obvious beneficiaries of the deal, but still very much involved, and who stood to gain.”
“What happened?”
“He promoted me.”
WARHORSE paused in pouring the last of the gravy into his mouth. “Come again?”
“To the rank of Whitecrest attaché to the Mother-Supreme, part of her executive staff and, if need be, her bodyguard. A prestigious career move, on the face of it. The reality…” he sniffed.
WARHORSE just sat and listened, so Regaari pressed on. “The reality was I was now not involved in the investigation, was no longer part of the Clan’s decision-making process, was a pariah in the inner circle and, though I theoretically had the ear of the Mother-Supreme, actually using it might have been seen as meddling in Female affairs, which would have politically and reproductively ruined me.”
“They de-clawed you.”
Regaari winced. The turn of phrase was intimately disturbing for Gaoians. “That’s an…accurate description.” he conceded.
WARHORSE nodded his understanding, starting in on the second HOOAH! bar. Regaari shook his head in disbelief. “What do you have in there? A black hole?”
“So what happened?” WARHORSE asked, ignoring the jab.
Regaari grinned, emulating the human gesture. “Shoo did.”
Date Point: ten years earlier, 12d AV
Yei Wa City, Wi Ko Yun province, Gao
“So why are you bringing this to me, and what is it?”
Kinoro’s ears swiveled uncertainty. “Security footage from the Corti facility those females escaped from.” he said. Regaari’s own ears signaled his skepticism.
“I’m not involved in the investigation any more, remember?” he pointed out. “Father Taaru saw to that.”
“This is…relevant. We may need you to, ah, influence the Mother-Supreme.”
Regaari’s ears flattened. “This footage had better give me a compelling reason to do so.” he said.
“You’ve heard that the leader of these escapees, Ayma, is petitioning to have the alien recognised as a Sister?”
Regaari ducked his head. “Yes.”
“This is footage of that alien in combat.”
They watched it. The alien was very definitely alien-—long of limb, compact of body, and remarkably poised, but it wasn’t until she almost ripped one of the Locayl jailers in half that the source of that poise became apparent.
“So strong.“” he muttered, watching as the alien darted across the room and practically flattened the second Locayl.
“We’re still working on theories as to how biology like that is possible.” Kinoro told him.
Regaari watched as the footage cut to the alien female cutting a swathe through an assorted grab-bag of the galaxy’s mercenaries. “What’s the best one?”
“I’d bet five years of celibacy that the Dominion’s assertions that deathworlds can’t support intelligent life is wrong.” Kinoro replied.
“Plausible.” Regaari conceded.
“And terrifying.” Kinoro continued. “If I’m right then that… thing …is a bomb waiting to explode.”
“Is she? Look here, she’s fighting d ifferently now that she’s figured out the strength disparity.” Regaari slowed down the footage to point out the subtle changes in the alien’s fighting style. “Wounding, rather than killing. Showing restraint, despite not having a good reason to.”
“I’m sure its compassion will be a great comfort when the deathworld plagues it undoubtedly carries get loose on Gao and kill millions of our people.” Kinoro sniped. “Billions, perhaps.”
“Have any of the females shown signs of infection?”
”…No. None.”
“Then you know what I see, Brother? I see a poor pre-contact life form, who-knows-how-far from home and probably feeling very confused right now.” Regaari looked his Brother in the eye. “And I intend to say as much to the Mother-Supreme.”
“You’d defy our clan Fathers a second time?”
“What will they do, crown me the Emperor of Gao and call it a punishment?” Regaari scoffed.
Kirono growled. There was a flash of teeth before he restrained himself—in older and less civilized times, that would have inevitably led to a snapping, claw-bearing fight. “Your own Brothers and Fathers…” he began–
“Are wrong, Brother.” Regaari interrupted, ejecting the little crystalline data wafer that Kirono had brought him, and pocketing it. “I’m loyal to the clan, but that doesn’t mean I have to agree with the Fathers automatically.”
“You DO have to obey their orders, though.”
Regaari’s ears pricked. “They’re ordering me to influence her?” he asked.
“Well…no…Not ordering as such…” Kirono backpedalled, and with good reason. The whole clan’s mating fitness would suffer if the Females felt that Giymuy was being bullied by the Whitecrests.
“Then I shall use my best discretion and judgement.” Regaari asserted. “Just as the Fathers trained me to.”
Date Point: 10y AV
Planet Garden, Capitol System, Dominion Space
“You fought back.” WARHORSE observed.
“You’re damn right I did.” Regaari said, spitting the English word. He couldn’t see WARHORSE’s mouth any more—the human had replaced his breathing mask and was reclining against a rock, but he saw the way the skin around his eyes and face stretched and wrinkled. There was a smile under that mask.
“Dude, you’re fuckin’ scrappy, I like it!”
Regaari didn’t get the chance to respond, as the radio chose that moment to flare.
“Operation NOVA HOUND, STAINLESS. Our Evac’s arranged, see your tablets for RP Alpha. You have five hours to get there. Individual orders follow.” there was a pause then: “WARHORSE, STAINLESS. Your route to RP Alpha takes you near THOR’s projected LZ, and I can’t raise him. Determine his status.”
WARHORSE nodded, though of course his commander couldn’t see it. “STAINLESS, WARHORSE.” he replied. “Orders received and understood. Out.”
The second the link was cut, he swore, loudly: “Me cago en Dios!”
Regaari scrambled to his feet as WARHORSE lurched upright. “Is that…?”
“I fucking pray his radio’s just out.” WARHORSE replied. He scowled at the intel tablet, looked around to get his bearings, then grabbed the ruck. He’d diligently re-packed it after they were done eating, and Regaari winced at the sheer weight of it as the human shrugged it on before stooping and offering him two linked hands for a step. “climb on.”
Regaari didn’t argue. Wherever ‘RP Alpha’ was, it was nowhere nearby and he would just need to rely on WARHORSE’s strength and endurance if he was ever to get out from under a thundercloud of Hunters. WARHORSE handed him the binoculars and intel tablet as soon as he was settled.
“Keep me on course.” he said.
HMS Violent, Capitol System
Commodore William Caruthers
“You’re certain they’re after you, STAINLESS?”
There was a delay in the response. With the strike team having made an exoatmospheric exit from the station and abandoned the rescue operation, the fleet and spaceplanes had scattered to extreme distance and gone dark. In practical terms, with each one being most likely alone inside a radius of several light seconds, they were impossible to find. Violent was nearly six light seconds from the planet now, and that meant plenty of time to wait for the photons of their conversation to wing their way back and forth.
“Completely, sir.” Powell’s voice was low-resolution and distorted by distance and the audio compression, but perfectly intelligible. “The weapons they fired at me looked like a ripoff of that Irbzy-whatever stun gun, but they were aiming the lethal stuff at the lads. They’ve got me pegged for a commander, and they want to know what I know.”
“We’re prioritizing your extraction.” Caruthers decided. “The Yanks are at DEFCON two right now, with the armour the Hunters seem to be using right now it’s the only sure way to secure orbital supremacy long enough to extract you. STAINLESS, your men are secondary to the objective of preventing your knowledge from falling into enemy hands. We cannot afford to give them any more inspiration.”
He counted out twelve seconds under his breath.
“Understood completely, Commodore. I also recommend that we ready an RFG strike to my suit beacon should my vitals show I’ve been incapacitated.”
Caruthers turned to Violent’s captain and raised a finger with a nod, indicating that it should be made so.
“We’ll go at fourteen hundred hours as per your recommendation.” he said. “Good hunting.”
Planet Garden, Capitol System, Dominion Space
Regaari
“There. I see…” Regaari worked the focusing control as best he could one-pawed. “It’s hard to tell. A dark patch that shouldn’t be there, that way.”
WARHORSE glanced up, and corrected his course, puffing like some ancient steam contraption from Gao’s early industrial era.
Regaari lost sight of the anomaly as the terrain dipped, and when WARHORSE pistoned up the rise on the far side of that dip, Regaari nearly fell off him because the human stopped dead.
“Oh, no…”
Humans were so expressive in their grief. He’d seen it with Shoo, and now WARHORSE was projecting his sorrow even through a bulky suit of fully enclosed armour. He sagged for a moment and then pushed forward, until they reached the edge of what was, unmistakably, a fresh crater.
The suit at the bottom of it was effectively intact, though it had been badly ablated by re-entry: blackened, melted and burned away. From the contortion of the limbs and the crushed flatness of the torso, its operator had not survived. WARHORSE sat down with a thump.
Regaari climbed off him, sketched a gesture of respect with his remaining paw, and let WARHORSE grieve. The same shields that had allowed WARHORSE and him to reach the ground safely had plainly failed in THOR’s case, or else never deployed at all. In either scenario, the suit had demonstrated that it was a hideously tough piece of equipment, having reached the ground and still recognisably being the same object. To fall from space and leave an impact crater and STILL be identifiable? Not a pleasant way to die, but as a technical accomplishment it was daunting.
He hadn’t really considered what Deathworlder engineering might accomplish, before. Shoo’s intelligence and insightfulness had been obvious, as had her culinary artistry, but her sheer physicality and intensity had frequently overwhelmed those qualities, with the result that Regaari had simply never turned his thoughts to humans as engineers, builders and inventors.
He was still ruminating on the fallen suit when WARHORSE moved, slowly raising his hand to the communicator on his shoulder.
“STAINLESS,” he said, voice thick with emotion. “WARHORSE. THOR is KIA. EAR field failure.”
”…WARHORSE, STAINLESS. Copy that. Did the field jump array he was carrying survive?”
“Uh…that’s a Negative, STAINLESS.”
“WARHORSE, STAINLESS…Grab a memento, mate. Destroy the suit and continue to RP Alpha. Out.”
WARHORSE stood up again, then stepped down into his fallen comrade’s crater and ripped something from the front of the ruined suit, a patch of some kind. He did something Regaari couldn’t quite see and then stepped back as, again, the suit began to smoke and then burst into seething, angry flames. There wasn’t much left to burn—the destruction was already pretty well total.
WARHORSE sagged, and spoke to the charred thing in the crater. “…Vaya con Dios, brother.”
He knelt and gestured Regaari up onto his back again, checked the intel tablet, turned north, and marched.
WARHORSE was clearly in no mood for talking for most of the remaining distance to RP Alpha, wherever it was, and Regaari let him work in silence. Instead, he pulled out his pulse pistol and, with some difficulty thanks to his missing paw and the human’s steady gait, made a few tricky adjustments that he’d first learned when he was barely out of cubhood.
He was becoming seriously impressed with the medical technology the humans had brought with them. His missing paw should have been a source of debilitating agony. Instead, it was a ghost, a phantom presence on his wrist that felt, when he wasn’t paying attention, like the real thing. If nothing else, the anaesthetic in the dressing was highly effective.
It was probably designed for Deathworlders, he decided. That meant he was trusting the human not to have badly miscalculated and given him an overdose, but he was beginning to seriously trust WARHORSE.
His thoughts were broken by the communicator.
“WARHORSE, LONGLEGS. I have eyes on you, pal, and you’re being stalked.”
Regaari’s fur started crawling instantly and he put a hand to his holster. “Stalked?” he asked.
“Don’t look around.” WARHORSE told him. “LONGLEGS, WARHORSE. Hunter?”
“Reckon so. One of the big fuckers that got STERLING. See that stream to your left? Take a water break, lure it out in the open when it catches up with you.”
WARHORSE looked left, and Regaari did the same. The surface of the stream in question was an invitation all by itself, and he realised he was growing really quite thirsty.
“Will do.” he said. “WARHORSE out.”
They paused. Regaari couldn’t sense anything amiss, but apparently WARHORSE could, because he stood still, listening for a few seconds, then grunted and stooped by the water unclasping his mask.
Regaari watched. Where he would have had to lie on his belly to lap at the water—undignified and uncivilised to a modern Gaoian—WARHORSE just carefully put his gun slightly aside, ready to have it up and firing at an instant’s notice, and dipped both hands into the stream to form a shallow bowl, which he raised to his mouth.
“Not filtering it this time?” Regaari asked.
“Appearances.” WARHORSE muttered, not actually drinking the water. He tilted his head slightly. “Hear them?”
“Hear wha-?”
Regaari was interrupted by a pulse round, which glanced off WARHORSE’s upper arm. From the size and sound of it, it had been a heavy pulse, the kind with enough juice to fling humans about and break limbs. Sure enough, even the winging blow spun the bulky Deathworlder around his axis and dropped him sprawling in the local grass-equivalent.
Regaari’s dive for cover saved his life. The bolt aimed at him would have reduced him to a nasty pink paste.
WARHORSE was up, though. Aside from knocking him around a bit, the pulse weapon hadn’t apparently done anything at all to him except make him angry. He returned fire, gun producing a heavy slamming sound that Regaari could feel with each shot as a hammer-blow in his chest. One of the Hunters was torn to bits, dismembered by the firepower that ripped through it.
The other, as ‘LONGLEGS’ had predicted, was one of the big, grotesque, wet-red naked musculature ones, and it was layered in heavy shield emitters that spat and flashed as WARHORSE’s bullets hit home but failed to penetrate.
It lunged forward and WARHORSE took a smart step away as deadly fusion-edged talons raked out, neatly shearing off the end of the gun.
The Hunter was fast, nearly as much so as a human. Two pairs of those fusion claws swiped and slashed, and WARHORSE survived only by throwing himself backwards and then scuttling away on all fours, staggering to his feet to gain distance. The Hunter followed, and that would have been the end of WARHORSE and Regaari both, had a lightning bolt of berserk and mountainous Deathworlder not erupted from among the shrubs without any warning.
The Hunter had just enough time to register the existence of this new threat before it hit home, and after that there was no more Hunter.
“Coulda sworn you did better’n that in training, pal.” the cavalry declared, once the Hunter was in several pieces. Both men extended their gloved hands and bashed them together.
“These ones are gonna be trouble.” WARHORSE replied. “I- LOOK OUT!“
The third Hunter—another big one—had a cloaking device and a plasma gun, and that would have been the end of LONGLEGS and WARHORSE both had Regaari not shot it.
The humans, in fairness, took the way that the beast disintegrated in a horrible slap of wet matter in their stride, and did a thorough check of their surroundings for threats before turning their attention to Regaari, who was licking the burn on his remaining paw and kicking out the grass fire that was threatening to burst up around the glowing puddle that had once been his pulse pistol.
“Fuckin’ ‘ell.” LONGLEGS declared, while WARHORSE scooped up some water and dumped it on the ruined gun, producing a fog bank and an angry hiss. “The fuck was that?”
Regaari licked his burnt paw again. “If you know how to rewire a pulse gun the right way…” he said, then gestured to the nasty mess of former Hunter that was swirling away downstream. “You only get one shot, but better one shot that counts than a thousand that don’t.”
The humans exchanged glances. “I like this one.” WARHORSE said.
“I can see why.” LONGLEGS agreed. “We’d better get moving. They’ll know where their mates were. Our best bet is to get to the RP.”
“Right. Let me just fix his paw. He needs at least one working.” WARHORSE agreed, then turned to Regaari. He grabbed something on his harness and the bag fell off, clearly designed for quick release. “Legsy, If you need ammo, check the pockets on the left side.” he added.
WARHORSE’s thick, armored fingers were strong enough to accidentally crush Regaari’s bones to powder, but his trust in the human medic was well-placed. WARHORSE’s grip was merely firm, and he applied the dressing with paradoxical precision and delicacy while LONGLEGS reported the contact to STAINLESS and grabbed some of the offered ammunition.
The process took only a few seconds before WARHORSE stood and hoisted his bag back on. “Okay, hop up. That’ll do you for now. Let’s go.”
Regaari didn’t argue. Right now, the safest possible place in the universe seemed to be WARHORSE’s shoulders.