Chapter Seven
YLOGH, BD+56 2966 TWO (“TURKH’SAAR”)
As Yaargraukh led the way down from the roof of the half-finished building and activated the camera in his dioptiscope, the survivors of Second Troop emerged from their hidden positions throughout Ylogh to fire at the approaching human rotary-wings.
The enemy’s response was immediate. Machine guns peppered every window, every scrap of cover from which they had drawn fire. The narrower rotary-wing that had disappeared behind the far treeline rose into sight again, accompanied by another of the same type. And still further back, one that was much larger and thicker hove up into view, its rotors sending out a heavy bass thrupp-thrupp-thrupp like the drum that was said to announce the return of the ghostly Ancestral Host at the Final Battle.
Reaching the ground floor, Yaargraukh and the other three Warriors prepared to spread out, but had to leap back against the wall of the building they had just exited. The second scout car from First Troop swung past in a blast of sand and grit, the driver swerving when he saw them at the last moment. The Warrior manning the pintle-mounted eight-millimeter tri-barrel peered through the mist, clearly recognized Yaargraukh, opened his mouth to shout in the driver’s ear—
A distant sputter of heavy machine guns cut through the sound of the approaching rotary-wings. The driver’s head went sideways on his shoulders as if it had been slapped by a pile-driver. Bullets punched through the right side of the vehicle and flattened the front tire, the self-sealing compounds unable to compensate for the multiple punctures. The driverless scout car lurched heavily; the sudden resistance of the naked wheel against the ground brought the rear of the vehicle up at the same moment it started slewing sideways. It flipped into a short barrel-roll, ejecting the gunner before it came to rest on its side in a cloud of dust. The driver was a mangled body still strapped into his seat; the gunner was motionless, blood gushing out of an almost severed leg at a rate that assured exsanguination within the minute.
One of the big flying tanks growled overhead, elevating sharply to pull away from any possible ground fire.
“Our Warriors will be slaughtered if we cannot cover their retreat with heavy weapons,” Yaargraukh muttered. “Ezzraamar, Squad Leader; you will spread the orders to flee and hide. Kaazhkul, you will assist me in securing the necessary weapon.”
A Warrior with a splinted leg stepped out of a rooftop shed fifty meters north of them. He raised a disposable rocket launcher to his rounded shoulder, began tracking the large attack rotary that had passed them—
Yaargraukh waved Ezzraamar and the junior officer on their respective ways, hooked a claw at Kaazhkul to follow, hoped against hope that the Warrior’s rocket would find its target—
Out on the flatland, notched in a pair of rock spurs that emerged like gray teeth two hundred yards from the edge of town, there was a brief sparkle: a muzzle flash or the glint of a scope. The Warrior with the rocket staggered. Yaargraukh detected a quick, cyclic arm motion out in the rocks; probably a sniper working the bolt on a rifle. Best move while his attention was riveted elsewhere.
He gestured sharply to Kaazhkul and, sprinting low, led him back to the shed where they had hidden the command car. Yaargraukh pulled open one of the doors; the driver rushed through. As the sound of the rotary faded, Yaargraukh heard another small, spiteful crack from the direction of the rocks. The Warrior with the rocket, who had swayed back into a steady position, went limp and fell over, the launcher clattering as it rolled down a pile of rubble.
Yaargraukh stepped into the shed, closed the door. “Dismount the tri-barrel,” he said.
Kaazhkul promptly lifted the weapon off its pintle mount. Yaargraukh lifted out the ammo-cassettes by their shoulder straps and helped settle them on Kaazhkul’s broad back.
“Where shall we set up, Flag Leader?” the driver asked.
“Close by,” Yaargraukh answered. “We must act swiftly if we are to take the attackers’ attention off our Warriors.” It wasn’t much of a plan, but in a scenario as desperate as theirs, there was neither sufficient time nor information to optimize their actions. They would be lucky to be set up and commence firing before they were overwhelmed, judging from the approaching roar of a rotary.
“They are upon us,” Kaazhkul said loudly, striving to be heard above the thunder of the human engines.
“But they will not land right away. They will send down three or four rapellers to clear and secure their landing zone against ambush, if they follow their customary doctrine.” Yaargraukh took the heavy gatling gun from Kaazhkul, looped the straps and brace over his left arm. “Can you carry my scattergun?”
“Of course, Scion. But should I not bear the tri-barrel, as it will attract enemy—?”
“No. I will wield it.” Yaargraukh leaped down from the rear deck of the command car, made for the side exit of the shed. “We must move quickly, if we—”
The side door flew open. Two humans entered, alert for hidden enemies—and stood, stunned, when they saw those enemies standing directly in front of them, overburdened and as surprised as they were.
The lead human—who was wearing what looked like a towel wrapped around his head—brought up his weapon first, largely because Kaazhkul was struggling to carry his own twelve-millimeter assault rifle, Yaargraukh’s short-barreled scattergun, and several ammunition cassettes for the eight-millimeter tri-barrel. The human’s weapon began a staccato barking as the driver moved to get in front of his commander, who had no ready access to a personal weapon.
Yaargraukh tossed the tri-barrel aside, started reaching for his shortsword, realized that Kaazhkul was already falling backward; his armor had not absorbed every round of the long burst that had been fired by the human’s AK-47.
—an AK-47: one of the invaders’ preferred weapons—and a weapon which cannot possibly be on Turkh’saar.
Yaargraukh dove for the scattergun tumbling from the driver’s nerveless hand. He caught the weapon, spun it around to get his quadrilaterally arrayed digits on the pistol grip—
—as the towel-hatted human tried to track Yaargraukh with the barrel of his stuttering gun. Which abruptly fell silent: out of ammunition. Meanwhile, the other human was pushing around his comrade, bringing up a heavy-framed submachine gun with a large drum magazine—
—just as one of Yaargraukh’s thumbs flicked off the safety, the opposed digit pushed the scattergun’s setting to full automatic, and the calar claw hooked behind the grip to steady it. His fourth and final opposable thumb slipped into the trigger guard and squeezed.
The twenty-four-millimeter autoshotgun sprayed out a hail of .28 caliber balls as its muzzle swept across the two human torsos at a range of three meters. The one in the lead—already slapping another magazine into the AK-47—shuddered, his chest suddenly pocked by red eruptions. The other one’s entire torso was riddled, and the small, thick man staggered back under the impact: not a common effect when hit by gunfire, but he had been hit by a blizzard of at least fifty projectiles. The human sprawled back out the door into the rotor-churned dust.
Yaargraukh scrambled to his feet, already resolved to abandoning the tri-barrel. Although he might be able to carry, fire, and even load it, the weapon was dangerously cumbersome unless a Warrior stood at least two-and-a-half meters and had a heavy build. Yaargraukh just barely topped two meters, and had a typical Upland rover’s build: leaner, less top-heavy. And now that he was on his own, he would not be able to carry enough ammunition to mount a meaningful counterattack.
His only remaining option was to follow his own orders—run and hide—and the only weapon that made sense in the tight quarters of Ylogh was the scattergun. Holding it at the ready, Yaargraukh sprinted out the door behind the command car, crouched over for speed, his tail up for stability and balance.
He emerged into a street swirling with dust. One rotary-wing—vaguely familiar from his study of human military history—was descending to the ground not more than thirty meters to the north. Another, different model rotary had already landed further to the south; the whole vehicle was shimmying as the pilot pulsed its engines in preparation for a rapid lift back into the sky. The last of its soldiers were leaping out into the spirals of dust and taking up their spots in a defensive perimeter. In another few moments, the air would clear, the humans would be oriented—and Yaargraukh would be detected.
The only nearby cover was the partially completed building from which he had watched the attack begin. He darted toward it through swirling veils of grit and sand. A rifle spat several times, perhaps at him, perhaps not.
He plunged into the darkness of the building, sprinted for the other end, cautiously leaned out the doorway that overlooked the eastern perimeter of Ylogh: no humans or Hkh’Rkh in sight. He heard some of his own force’s weapons, but every time they spoke, there was an answering chorus of large-caliber automatic fire: support from the perimeter-circling rotaries. He scanned for shelter, for a hiding spot further beyond the humans’ expanding tactical footprint. There were a few storage sheds, a prefabricated office module which served as a community affairs building, and the town’s herpeculture refectory and refinery. Yes, that.
He stepped into the street, crouched low, looked for humans: none visible, but he could hear their voices, drawing closer even as the gunfire tapered off. He sprinted across the street, raced through the door into the refectory.
Once inside, he rose slightly to increase his speed; the long, narrow tables of the dining chamber flashed past on either side of him. He leaped the serving counter at a bound, bashed through the plastic pleating hanging between the eating and preparation facilities.
He looked around quickly; it was functionally identical to every other herpeculture refectory on Turkh’saar. Cookers and cupboards lined the wall which separated this preparation chamber from the dining hall, along with sinks for washing utensils and trenchers. Beyond them was a broad walkway with separation tables placed at regular intervals. And further still, near the far wall, were the herpeculture tanks themselves.
Yaargraukh recoiled at the sight of them. Herpeculture was the euphemism by which Turkh’saar colonists referred to their primary source of protein: worms. Sometimes this meant eating local worms themselves, but that was not the most frequent source of nourishment.
Turkh’saar’s most plentiful indigenous creatures were worms that were thoroughly infused with the local plant life’s toxins. However, they were also a preferred food source for various larger worms that did not retain, but excreted the toxins. Those larger worms, although only marginally edible, were raised in bulk to feed palatable local eels and a few species of fish which had been successfully transplanted from Rkh’yaa.
The steps whereby these processes were carried out was anything but pleasing to the snout. The local worms were rank to begin with. But when raised by the thousands in vats filled with the swamp algae and wastes upon which they subsisted, they were revolting in the extreme. The tubs in which they were separated and then reduced to mush or pellet-feed were even more vile.
The edible worm tanks were, on the other hand, somewhat less odorous and markedly safer, so it was toward one of them that Yaargraukh now headed. Even so, he would have been happier facing machine guns at point-blank range. That, however, held out no chance of survival. The tanks, on the other hand, did.
Crossing to the closest, he grabbed several of the large-gauge hoses used for cleaning and filtration, then a handful of heavy latex workgloves from a nearby tray. He closed the slide of his scattergun, sleeved one glove over its muzzle, used another to tie the first tight against the barrel. The gun at the ready, he slipped into the tank. But slowly. His volume, added to its contents, might cause it to overflow.
Fortunately, the water was already low. Unfortunately, it was also cold. The first attack on Ylogh had knocked out the power, so the tanks’ heaters had been off for the better part of a day. It also meant the filters had stopped operating, so the water was already becoming foul and slimy. On the other hand, it also made the plexiglass-sided tank murkier, which was good for hiding.
Yaargraukh grabbed the sensor float, slipped an auxiliary water hose through one of its four retaining clips. One end thus held above the level of the water, he fixed the plastic tube’s other end over his snout, cinching it firmly in place by using a shorter length of hose and a latex glove to fashion a rough tourniquet for further tightening, in case liquid started leaking in.
Running one last tube from the surface directly into the long, rough audial canal that was his outer ear, Yaargraukh submerged and tested his makeshift snorkel apparatus. Although the tube smelled faintly of bleach, it presented no danger or discomfort; Rkh’yaa was a harsh homeworld, a highly volcanic planet where sulfur compounds were common and other more immediately poisonous gases had to be tolerated if a species was to survive.
Yaargraukh sank to the bottom of the tank quickly. Not only did his armor and gear weigh him down, but his body had much less natural buoyancy than a human’s.
Hkh’Rkh tended to avoid water, particularly full immersion. It was not part of their evolutionary legacy and they were poorly adapted to it. Their bodies were ill-shaped for swimming and if their lungs were not filled with air, they sank like stones. But Yaargraukh had been determined to learn the ways of humans, since they were his particular topic of study.
Accordingly, he had accustomed himself to immersion in water and attained some swimming skill. This had prompted many alarmed stares and partially heard slurs about the eccentric scholar whose actions revealed that New Family scions were not merely barbarous, they weren’t fully Hkh’Rkh. Their deranged actions—like Yaargraukh’s self-immersion in water—proved it.
Yaargraukh pushed himself closer to the edge of the tank so that he might watch for the inevitable human sweeper team. Not too close, though: if he put his long head too near the plexiglass sides, he could misgauge the distance and bump against it. If so, a human might notice the perturbation in the otherwise uniform mass of worms that filled the steel-framed reservoir—and if that happened, it was his death.
As Yaargraukh waited in the dark water, and felt the worms begin writhing their way inside his armor and across his heavy hide, he finally had the luxury of a few moments to ponder why the humans had baited his forces into Ylogh with the apparent intent of splitting them.
Could that mud-packed moron Jrekhalkar be correct? Could they have been after me? But why? And if that was their purpose, how could they be sure not to kill me in these attacks?
Unless, of course, they were not after me personally, but simply determined that they needed to capture a military officer for interrogation. Which would be difficult, since it seems they have not yet learned our language.
But…I have been signalling to them in their language. And just because they did not answer did not mean they were not listening. It simply means that they were not willing to talk to me—at least not over the radio.
The pieces fell into place. From their perspective, the Hkh’Rkh who had been signalling to them was their best—possibly only—source of useful intelligence. And since he spoke their language, they reasonably deduced that he would be better educated and at least somewhat familiar with their culture. What more enticing target could they have been given?
But in order to get information without imparting any in return, they had to secure that target, control it without destroying it. Which, in turn, explained why they had been so atypically skittish in their attacks on Ylogh, why they had taken such extraordinary measures to split Yaargraukh’s forces, to avoid destroying the primary source of radio transmissions: they needed to separate his Warriors into such small groups that, in the end, it would be almost as easy to subdue them as kill them. And so, gave them the best chance of capturing the one Hkh’Rkh who spoke their language.
Yaargraukh kept watch between the steel bands that braced the plexiglass against the outward pressure of the water, but was only half aware of what he saw. If only his critics from the Clanhall in Iarzut’thruk were here. If only they had seen the human attack, had watched those small yet lethal bipeds leaning far out of the open sides of their rotary-wings, eager to get on the ground. They did not exult in battle the way Hkh’Rkh did, but once they were committed to it…
Yaargraukh had seen considerable action against insurgents in the jungles of Java. The great majority of the Indonesians had been highly motivated, many of them startlingly savage. But they did not work together like these attackers did. These humans were more akin to the elite units that seized the Arat Kur headquarters in Jakarta after the final bombardment subsided, their shadowy silhouettes pressing stubbornly closer, their advances swift and tightly coordinated. Unlike his Warriors’ excited eagerness for battle, the humans’ elite teams waged war like quietly furious automatons. Indeed, the anger they held in check was the engine that drove them on their relentless errands of death to invaders and collaborators alike.
Yaargraukh was recalling how the insurgents dispatched traitors with knives rather than guns when the back door to the loading bay—the one door he could not see—opened with a sharp crash.