Hoei glares back at Davis. "Our friends are out there, and they are coming for us. I'm... just excited to be rescued." It's pretty clear that Hoei is excited to help that rescue (at least what he considers helping).
"Then we're fine, as long as excited is all that you are," Davis says to Hoei.
"They're coming, all right!" shouts one of the orbital refugees whose name neither Davis nor Luis can really remember. N-something? The wild-eyed prisoner expounds his diatribe: "They're gonna kill all of us! I can't - I won't wait here like I'm on some scrofa farm!"
Davis runs over to him and stops right in front of the man. "Hey! No one's going to kill anyone here." Davis looks around at the nervous and anticipatory faces. "Let's all stay cool here, alright?" he shouts to the rest of the dome, then looks back to the panicked man. "Hey, look at me. I didn't catch your name, what is your name?"
Davis has tried to put his best foot forward the entire time. For some of the prisoners, it's worked, perhaps better than expected. For some, like the wild-eyed man now, perhaps it would never be enough. The man screams "Let me OUT of here!!!" and makes a berserk, sloppy grab at Davis. The agent keeps the man from getting any sort of hold, but the two men wrestle back and forth, knocking over a table.
Davis takes the guy's momentum and uses it to slam him to the ground. He tries to pin the man but he's slippery, out of his mind, and has apparently been in a few fights. Davis has got his arm but it's a bad position. He can't lock this guy down, and he needs to stop this before the other prisoners start getting ideas. The wherren are very nervous.
"Zakpabo!" Hale shouts. "Not helping! Not helping!" Arketta pushes Hoei back down in his seat when the Keeper starts to get up. Davis and Zakpabo struggle on the ground, scattering bedrolls and personal effects in their wake, when Davis finally gets Zakpabo under control and in a neck seal. Zak tries to wriggle free, but the agent has him held fast this time.
"Stop! Zakpabo, I'm not going to hurt you!" Davis shouts. "You're safe here! No one here is going to hurt you! Stop!"
The fire in Zakpabo's wild eyes gradually dies out, replaced by defeat. He relaxes, breathing heavily. "Gonna kill us... "
Davis and Luis notice Shenest has curled her knees up to her chest and is sitting like she's pretty scared. She was easily convinced the Imperium would kill her and her team; Zakpabo's rantings clearly aren't helping.
"Are you okay, Zakpabo? Can I let you go now?" Davis asks.
"Yes, yes! Get off me, let me go," he says, near tears.
"Okay, I'm letting you go now," Davis says, and carefully lets him go, and takes a knee next to the distraught man. He looks around the room to see if anyone else is as close to freaking out as Zak was. Davis puts his hand on the man's shoulder. "It's okay, Zakpabo. It's okay, we're not going to hurt you here."
Zakpabo slaps Davis' hand away by way of reply and crawls back from Davis. For what it's worth, none of the others seem quite as fucked up as Zak. Davis does note that Kosai, the one Turai Angel had talked to earlier, seems to have a special gleam in her eyes when Davis catches her looking at him.
Davis stands up and dusts himself off a bit. By this point in time, what little action there was outside has calmed down. "Okay, it sounds like the excitement's over. Everyone good for now?" he asks the room.
A chorus of "yes", some head nods, and silence answers Davis. They seem to get that what just happened wasn't a rescue operation nor a hit squad.
"Okay then!" Davis claps his hands together. "As soon as the all-clear sounds, we'll open the doors back up again." He looks over to Luis. "Maybe you should talk to Shenest, I'll be there in a moment."
Once Luis goes off to talk to the Keeper, Davis walks over and takes a seat next to Kosai. "What's up? I noticed you giving me a look. What's on your mind?"
"Zakpabo overreacted. He should have known he had no chance. No training. Shouldn't have tried to grapple."
Davis smiles. "He's not trained, give the poor guy a break." He extends his hand to shake. "Garrett Davis. You're Kosai, right? Angel's mentioned you."
Kosai doesn't move. Her voice is soft, gravelly, and cold. "He's lucky he didn't get broken. Davis... you're the one in charge."
Davis pulls his hand back and shrugs. "There wasn't a need to hurt him just to get him to stop. And I'd appreciate it if you could make sure that no one retaliates against him." Davis looks over at Zak, still curled up with his face half-hidden behind his knees. "He's been through a lot, no need to make it any worse. He is one of yours, from the orbital, right?"
Kosai looks at Zak a long time. The man's wrestling with fear, fear of what happened in his recent past. Then she looks to Shenest, who's wrestling with the fear of some imagined future doom coming for her. The captive Turai takes a few slow, measured breaths and then she meets Davis' eyes. "Yes. The orbital your Sheen destroyed. Now please understand that I am saying this as nicely as I can. If you say one more word to me, I will kill you. I know I will die either during or after the attempt, and I have made my peace," she says softly. "Get up and walk away." Davis has read a great many people, and from what he can tell, Kosai isn't bluffing just to avoid talking to him. It's not bluster or tough talk. Something happened or something was brought up just now to flip her into this state.
Davis nods and stands up. He starts to walk away, then turns around and looks at Zak. His face is heavy with the guilt of what had happened on the orbital. "I know we can't fix what happened up there, that there's nothing that could take that back. If there's anything I can do for you, tell me." He sighs. "What they did to you was wrong. I'm sorry." He says all that to Zak, but loudly enough that Kosai can hear him. He looks back to Kosai.
Davis gets a smirk from Kosai, but her murderous eyes keep boring straight at him. Technically he didn't say anything to her, so technically there's an out for her that doesn't involve attempted murder. Kosai takes the out and remains sitting. Davis nods to Kosai, and walks over to Luis and Shenest.
Shenest is rattled. She's trying to get herself back under control when Luis, and then Davis, approach her. Arketta and the wherren guards remain vigilant, but they too aren't quite as on edge. Luis steps up and asks, "You all right?"
"Do I look all right?" Shenest answers. "What the hell is going on out there?"
Davis gets on the radio. "Captain Verrill, got a status report for us in here?"
"We've got a live prisoner," Hugh radios back. "He's scared and very, very orange. Where do you want him?"
"Put him in one of the habs until he calms down. We'll talk to him once everything's setled."
"Got it. How's your situation?"
"Calming down. Radio me when we're all clear."
"You got it."
"A couple of Wherren armed with spears and no plan being used to test our perimeter," Luis says. "They've set off a few of the paint mines, don't know if we caught them or drove them off, but either way this is just a skirmish at the moment." He grimaces, "Not something I like. These Wherren aren't armed or trained enough to be more than cannon fodder, and they're just being tossed at us so whoever's in charge out there can assess our defenses without risking anyone they actually care about."
Shenest nods, and gives no indication of either agreeing or disagreeing with the morality of cannon fodder. "Do you think...whatever this... this siege is, that it will last?" Hale, who's just within earshot, frowns and shakes his head when he hears the update about wherren cannon fodder.
Davis clenches his jaw at the report of Wherren sacrifice charges. "It sounds like they're just finishing checking the perimeter and that things will quiet back down for now," Davis says. "But this won't be the last attack, I'm sure."
"Of course not," Hale interjects. "I assume you had people patrolling the camp? You heard from them?"
"Haven't heard anything either way," Davis says. "We'll have to see what happens next."
Running into the jungle after Kang and his wherren patrol is not the first thing that gets signed off on. First, the team waits a few minutes for any additional contacts. Waiting, especially in a situation like this, doesn't come easy. Banur, the wherren appointed warboss while Hiigra's off gathering support, has a team of four other warriors ready to go almost immediately. The missing wherren aren't just tribemates; they're brothers and fathers and sons to the warriors still in the camp. You feel a little dirty when you see the natives' concern. Specialist Kang was the new guy, and you never get that attached to the new guy. It's not like it was Semo off in the jungle not answering his radio. But it's still a shitty feeling if you think about it.
Cowboy's tasked with launching a flare once there's been no contacts and still no response from Kang's radio or vox. The flare's red glow cascades off the little mist that's toughing it out under the afternoon sun but only serves to scatter some curious animals. A Toucan Sam flaps skyward out of the trees and a family of quarlox, small six-legged scavengers, darts into the clearing and back out into the brush again.
Hugh turns the search & rescue over to Angel. The Delta waves Banur and his braves over and the search team heads into the jungle, moving low and fast in a wedge. Like anything else in Whiirr's teal rainforest, it doesn't take long for Angel and the wherren to disappear from view. Their rustling soon dissipates as well.
---
Angel breaks through the layer of secondary growth that borders the camp treeline. Before taking over the camp, Angel and the team had to watch out for wildlife, but not since that first night with the Khiraba tracker had Angel felt that the jungle is no longer his friend. He's intruding on someone else's turf now. He sees quickly-muted hints of fear in his wherren allies' fur even as it shifts colors against the background.
Kang's patrol is easy enough to find; just look for the swath of orange paint. Unfortunately, it's bad news. Kang and his three wherren are dead. One of the wherren wails in despair and loss, and rushes over to his brother's corpse. Banur tries not to look, but Angel can see the anger in his fur. Angel stays alert, but walks a circuit around the skirmish site, looking for what happened. It looks like the orange wherren was being chased. His footprints in the soft soil are long and deep. He tripped the marker claymore, and then Kang's team moved to intercept. The wherren who were chasing Chester the Cheeto arrested their headlong pursuit and ambushed Kang's patrol. Angel heard it when it happened, and matching that up to what he sees now, well, it was over quick. The three wherren have been stripped of their tech; whatever radios, voxes, or rifles they had, they're gone. Their killers left their spears and left the bodies where they lay. It looks like one wherren must have been killed outright. The other two have vicious spear wounds to their heads that have the precision of a coup de gras.
Kang, on the other hand, is a different matter. He's been stabbed repeatedly and from various directions. Likely the enemy wherren fell upon him first. Then they took Kang's vest, weapons, pack, and head.
Angel frowns. He follows wherren tracks from this ambush site around to where the second marker claymore went off, then follows the return trail a little past where the blood from Kang's severed head stops. He figures they sent one of their number closer in to get a look after the ambush and that's when he tripped the second paint mine. From the trail the attackers left on their way out, it looks like there were four of them.
Once the search team returns with what's left of the patrol and the prisoners quiet down to a manageable level, Davis excuses himself and looks for where the wherren have the orange wherren captive. A warrior heading back to his foxhole from Hab Two sees Davis and with a grin, points to Hab Two. Davis enters and sees the young orange wherren. He's sitting at one of the long tables, hungrily scarfing down a bowl of autochef... experiment. The shaman has the wrap off Chester's left arm and is looking at a nasty laceration. The shaman finishes chewing something as Davis approaches and stuffs the mealy gunk into the orange alien's arm wound. Chester winces but it doesn't stop him from finishing his bowl of slop and quaffing a second bowl of water. A third wherren, tall and thin, stands protectively beside the orange wherren and picks curiously at the orange paint. It's quick-drying and doesn't come off easily, so for the forseeable future it looks like Chester is going to remain a Cheeto.
"Davis!" calls the shaman. "This is Karon," he motions to the tall wherren, "And this brave warrior is his son, Joxur. Joxur has come a long way with grave news." "Is your son all right, Karon?" Davis asks. "And what is the news?"
Karon signs back, "He will be all right now."
Joxur puts down the empty water bowl in the meantime and climbs up so he's sitting on the tabletop but facing Davis. "I went south with Hiigra's second group, the ones who were going to spread your truths to -" and here Joxur makes an unintelligible and unrepeatable (by humans) series of sounds that Davis knows represents the closest village to the south, Village 481. "We were close - we could just see their cooking fires when the gods found us. They had an army of Chosen with them. I ran, so did several others, but I do not know if any others escaped or where they might be now. I ran... I do not know how long. I would hide, and the Chosen would find me, and I would run again. I laid traps, and fashioned weapons, and I thought I had lost them. I ran for the camp with them close behind, and then I hit... whatever painted me orange." "An army of Chosen? How many?" Davis asks.
Joxur shrugs with his good arm. "I am not sure. We were in the jungle and it seemed like they were all around us. More than the warriors here. I only got away because I ran as soon as I saw the gods. My group were not warriors... Father and the other braves were here."
Davis looks over to one of the other Wherren standing guard. "Could you bring Hale in here? He knows more about this than I do." He turns back to Joxur. "Were they wearing armor like they usually do? The bright silver plating?"
Joxur shakes his head. "No. Some were as ghosts. I only knew they were there because they shot some of us that ran. Some wore hairless suits, some gray, some black. I could hear the one in black shouting at us that ran, calling us back. We did not turn back, and that is when the ghosts shot at us."
"Hm," Davis says, and waits for Hale to be brought in.
---
There's a little commotion among the prisoners when two wherren leave with Hale. "Where are they taking him?" demands one of Hale's Turai of Luis. "He didn't do anything wrong!"
"And we're not doing anything to him," Luis says quickly, "Davis is just having him go to Hab Two to answer a few questions and see if we can work out more information about what's going on." Luis' prior rapport with the Keepers is enough for the Turai to trust him here, and the Imperial accepts Luis' answer for the time being.
---
Hale, accompanied by two guards, enters the cool and dry mess hall a minute or two later. The shaman has started first aid on Joxur's head wound in the meantime. It looks like the orange guy got clobbered with a spear-haft in addition to his arm wound. Joxur's telling the story - in between grunts of pain at the shaman's "help" - of how he actually leapt off a waterfall to escape his pursuers.
"Have you started color-coding your wherren, Davis?" Hale asks as he enters.
"Just a little something non-lethal we cooked up," Davis says. "Joxur, tell Hale here about what happened when you encountered the other tribe and the Imperials." Joxur repeats his story and Hale nods.
"Sounds like your guys got nabbed to me," Hale says.
"Yeah, but by who?" Davis asks. "Who wears the grey or the black uniforms?"
"Uniforms..." Hale muses. "Look, I'll puzzle this out with you, but I want access to that autochef for a few minutes first. I'm sick of those meat crackers your people think pass for food."
Davis stands up. "All yours, Hale," he says, and follows him into the kitchen. Hale doesn't waste time in preparing some sort of taco cake thing that smells pretty good. He sits down with it and doesn't bother with silverware.
"All right!" Hale sprays. "Well, considering we were the only ones I knew about who were stationed here, they're probably crashlanders from the orbital. So, they're probably not uniforms... Cheddar here probably saw emergency skinsuits."
"What about all the Chosen?" Davis asks. "Hiigra's village was one of the biggest around here, and he only had five. Joxur says he saw a lot more than that."
"Joxur also ran off as soon as he saw Imperials. I can only work with the info I've got, and I don't know why he'd say he saw that many Chosen."
"Any reason you can think of why they'd shoot at them after they ran off? Or why they tried to lure them in in the first place?"
Hale turns and regards Joxur. "You run when see gods?"
Joxur nods. "Gods tell you stop?" The wherren nods again. "You no stop, you keep run?" Another nod.
"And then they opened fire," Hale says to Davis. "Sounds like standard procedure to me. Sounds like they even gave 'em a few extra chances to turn around."
"It's standard procedure to fire on unarmed people running away?" Davis asks.
Hale laughs bitterly. "Just a difference in terminology. Your 'running away' is 'disobeying'; 'firing on unarmed people' is 'smiting'. You and I both know neither of us like that, but there it is."
"Jesus," Davis says. "Okay, so, people from the orbital, a whole bunch of Chosen." He looks back to Joxur. "What did the Chosen or the Imperials say when they saw you? Or when you were running off? Did they tell you anything besides just 'come here'?"
Joxur thinks back hard. "They... The Chosen met us near our destination. We greeted each other, they asked us from where we came. We told them, and then the gods appeared and told us to put down our weapons. You said they were false, so I ran. I did not know what else to do. I was in the back of the group, so I had a headstart."
"Do you know what happened to the others?" Davis asks.
Joxur shakes his head, and the shaman and Karon share grim looks. "I do not know, but I knew I had to escape them and make it here, to tell you. So you could save them. You are powerful, more powerful than the other gods. That is why the chief sides with you."
Joxur's plea even affects Hale. The Imperial "hehs", following it with, "Welcome to godhood, Davis." Hale doesn't say it as sarcastically as he could have.
Davis was looking at Hale's meal with interest before, but he's definitely not hungry anymore. "They're dead, aren't they," Davis says to Hale.
"Maybe. I can't say. It depends on who's in charge."
"Smiting the disobedient," Davis says, and shakes his head. He thinks for a second. "Do you know the vox codes to each village? Or are they in the comm room computer?"
Hale shakes his head. "I don't know if they're even in the comm room system. This is a research outpost, we didn't handle Chosen. I suppose they would be, but I don't know."
Davis nods. "Well, let's go check it out." He stands up, walks over next to Joxur and puts his hand on the Wherren's shoulder. "We will do whatever we can to rescue them, Joxur. We don't leave our people behind."
Davis returns to the dome with Hale in tow. Swims-the-Black and the shaman accompany them. The prisoners have calmed down quite a bit since their initial misgivings about Hale's field trip, and Luis has kept them from getting too antsy. Davis unlocks the comm room stairwell and he and his entourage head upstairs. It takes some doing, but Davis manages to find Village 481's vox code - the signal that alerts a village's shaman that the Imperium is preparing for a tribute - and determines that 481 is within range of the dome transmitter.
"You know shaman voxes are locked down, right?" Hale states. "They can't respond."
"They're locked down to the Wherren," Davis says, "not the Imperials. If they're there, they should be able to get in." Davis inputs the code to 481's vox. "Worst case scenario, we try the vox we gave the party we sent to 481. I'd just prefer to use the direct line."
He opens the vox connection. "Hello out there," Davis says. "Anyone listening on this channel?" The vox signal is sending correctly, but there's no response. Uunfortunately it doesn't indicate whether the Imperials near Village 481 have the vox in question and aren't answering, or if the village is fine and their shaman can't reply due to the lockout. Many voxes have holos or cameras built in, but trying to connect to a remote vox and turn on that camera when the vox is locked down like it is is beyond Davis' ability.
"Damn, we're gonna need Luis up here for this," Davis says.
"What are you trying to do?" Hale asks.
"His vox," Davis says, motioning towards the Shaman, "has a camera in it, and I think a holo, too. If we can turn on their shaman's vox remotely, maybe we can get someone's attention or at least figure out what the Hell is going on over there."
Luckily, what is beyond Davis' ability is not beyond Luis' myriad skills. The holos aren't used often, if at all, but the functionality is there, and Luis cracks the vox security after a few minutes. The backdoor feed from the camera shows a black skinsuit, its male wearer concealed by the suit's sunvisor, fiddling with the vox for a few moments before they get it to turn off.
"Okay, that's really not good," Davis says. "Is there any reason to take a shaman's vox away?"
"Remember what I said about 'disobeying' and 'smiting'?" Hale replies. "They can just ask for it."
"Yeah, but why would they bother?" Davis says. "Fine, let's try the other vox." He digs in a vest pocket and pulls out the notebook he put the vox codes for their setup in, and enters the code for the 481 party. "Hello? Anyone listening to this vox?"
---
"Don't answer it!" Manus hisses at the dropchief. Arpana frowns behind his visor and bends closer to the Samal.
"Some of their natives clearly managed to escape. Nothing has the codes to the shaman voxes except the orbital and the outpost. The orbital's gone, and they hold the outpost."
"Exactly my point, Arpana," Manus curses. "I should have smashed that handheld as soon as we confiscated it."
"And my point as well, Samal. We know it is the Talons trying to contact their little lost spinks. I think it's best to keep a line of communication open," the Expansion official replies. "Feel them out, get an idea of where their heads are at."
Manus acquiesces. "Just do it out of the beasts' earshot. And keep it on that handheld. Don't patch it into your suit."
---
Davis is about to give up when the line picks up. *Hello, and a very fine afternoon to you, whoever you are.*
Davis snaps upright. "Hello," he says. "This is Garrett Davis. Who am I speaking to?"
*Oh, Garrett, you have been a busy little Talon of the Tainted Mother. You have deluded these poor wherren into turning away from their gods. You have put their souls in jeopardy, but these natives are not the sinners here. My Emperor will forgive them - and all who might foolishly decide the ways of the evil and duplicitous Narsai tribe are worth following - if they repent their transgressions and pledge their loyalty once more to the People's Emperor. Many wherren from 815 have already been welcomed back to the fold, Garrett. I would appreciate it if you communicated my offer to the wherren you have led astray.*
"I'll see about that," Davis says. "I doubt they would appreciate the beamer fire and axe blades that seem to go along with your offer, though. Tell me, did you leave any of Hiigra's people alive at all?"
There's a pause where Davis imagines his new friend shouting out "Who's Hiigra?" and getting an answer before responding. *As I said, Garrett, my Emperor is forgiving of those who truly repent their sins. Some of the wherren were not willing to listen to reason, and they are being watched very carefully, but I am confident they will come around. I do regret that you indoctrinated some villagers so completely that they fled instead of seeing reason. They were corrupted and had to be pacified, and their needless deaths I place squarely upon your head.*
"Can we talk to the village shaman or chief?" Davis asks. "Just to get verification that Hiigra's people are being treated well. We tried contacting them, but we couldn't get a response, and I think they couldn't figure out how to work the holo feed."
*We can't have you spying on us,* the man says. *481's shaman no longer needs that talisman. His gods are right here, walking beside him.*
"No spying," Davis says. "Just a simple statement from him is all I want, then we can go right back to talking."
Another decidedly less-cultured voice interrupts the transmission. *Tell you what, we'll bring him right over.* The vox goes dead.
---
Manus shuts off the confiscated vox and hands it back to Arpana. "I think that's as flowery as we're going to get right now. We're done talking, chief."
---
Davis checks the comm panel, which says the connection has been cut. He looks up at Swims and the Shaman. "Okay, that's not very good."
Morale seems to take a hit across the camp after the barely-could-be-called-a-skirmish. Four men down with no retribution and no pursuit, plus the capture and unknown final fate of the group of wherren sent to Village 481 weighs heavy on the wherren warriors. While the tribesmen are still committed to their freedom, they are scared for their loved ones. Doubt creeps in. Many try to hide their fear, but it cannot help but show in their movements and on their hides.
Zaef is still scanning the treeline from his foxhole. The rebel's in one of the more-finished emplacements; it has enough room for him and a wherren named Sajuuk (whom Kang jokingly referred to as Zaef's "battle buddy"). Sajuuk's vigilance wanes after a few minutes, and he busies himself with propping up more sheaves of the tall grass for camouflage around the dugout.
"I hope your masters do not send us out on another patrol," Sajuuk says. "That's akwhela bomba," which Zaef has come to equate most closely with the Earth term "That's some bullshit right there."
---
Cowboy's battle buddy tenses when Angel's team brings out the dead patrol. "Why do we sit here doing nothing?" the warrior, Mola, growlsigns. "If you are more powerful than the false gods, I have yet to see it," he grumbles.
Cowboy's battle buddy tenses when Angel's team brings out the dead patrol. "Why do we sit here doing nothing?" the warrior, Mola, growlsigns. "If you are more powerful than the false gods, I have yet to see it," he grumbles.
Cowboy nods at Mola's statement.
"I tend to agree with you, but we're on the defensive. Here we are strong. It does you and my tribe no good to send out more patrols. Our ancient shamans and clansmen before me and my friends taught our people temperance in the face of adversity. While it is by nature to strike out against this dishonorable acts that the false gods have committed, we must strive for moderation in action, thought, and restraint. By staying here, we have the advantage of improving our situation on our terms. Going out there (pointing toward the treeline)...all we are faced with is doing battle on the false god's terms. We will make the false gods pay for what they did...it is only a matter of time. Until then, we stay strong and prepare to not give the false god's efforts any further success."
"So you advise we wait?" Mola replies. "If that is your counsel, I will accept it as wisdom and will trust it will lead us to victory. What will happen to the false gods when they truly join battle here? Will your shaman, Davis, put them in the dome like the others? Will he coddle them like the other false gods?"
---
As Hale (the coddled false god), and the wherren shaman head back downstairs, Davis (the human "shaman") motions for Swims-the-Black to stay. "Just got one more thing to do," he says, and punches in the vox code for Charlie and Martin. "Charlie, Martin, you guys hearing this? We've got some new information for you."
The transmission is a little crackly, either from distance or possible damage. *What? You consulted your crystal ball and now you know where the bad guys are?*
"Crystal ball, no, bad guys, yes," Davis says. "You guys have the planetary map, right? Village 481." *Huh. Okay, we're on our way.* The Sheen voxes have an odd background noise. A wide range of dense thumps punctuate their transmissions through the static. It's offputting until Davis realizes it must be tree branches buffeting the machines' chassis.
"What's your ETA to the village?" *10-13 hours,* they venture a guess.
"All right, good," Davis says. "They're probably somewhere between the village and the camp at this point, but before you guys move to intercept them, I have something else you might want to do first." *We've got something you might want to do too, but you go first.* comes the response.
Beside Davis, Swims signs silently, "Probably something immature and douchey is about to come across that vox. You should definitely go first."
"We found out about the camp location because one of the wherren from Hiigra's village came barreling back into our camp at full-speed, being chased by some other wherren," Davis says. "He says that when their group made it to 481, they were confronted by an army of Chosen and Imperials. He ran off, but when they got here, these wherren slaughtered Kang and four others, and, well, he says that they started firing into the crowd when they bolted." He sighs. "We need to know if the other villagers are all right, a lot of the wherren here have families that were with that group. Scout the camp first, see what's going on there. If they're still alive, break them out, you're going to need the backup. If not...just report back. Otherwise, try to shadow them, or just intercept when the time is right. We don't need you two getting yourselves killed just to take out a few Wherren and an Imperial or two."
*'Otherwise'? Fuck shadowing, if there's an otherwise we're taking it out of their asses. Any intel on numbers?*
"More than one, less than a million," Davis says. "He was too busy running for his life to notice. By the sounds of it, at least one whole village, plus unknown number of Turai, probably Khiraba." *Khiraba?*
-*Yeah, Khiraba.* It's weird when they talk to each other over the vox. Davis can't tell one from the other. *Awesome.*
"Yeah, yeah, awesome, but you guys also got your shit fucked up by a group of six Turai," Davis says. "This is a bunch of the best assholes the Imperium can put together and a whole shitload of Wherren, so be careful about it. Last thing I want is you two getting blown apart after just taking out a few Wherren. If you gotta go kill them, kill a shitload of the bastards, got it?" *Is that it, mom?*
Davis smiles up at Swims. "The two of you are the biggest pain in the ass I have ever seen," he says, "and after all this tough talk about killing shit, you had better both come back to continue to make my life harder, or I'm gonna think you were full of shit this whole time. There's a time for talking and a time to kill everyone, and if they did kill those wherren, I want you to kill every last one of those Imperials. Got it?"
There's a burst of static that kind of sounds like laughing. *For once, just once, we all want the same thing. Maybe we CAN work together.*
-*Humans and Sheen, in general, you mean.*
-*Oh yes, in general. Not actually Davis.* More mocking static laughter.
"You'll have to make it back, first," Davis says. "Vox back when you get to the village, I'll set this thing to listen on your channel."
Zaef frowns at the word 'masters,' but nods in agreement. "I don't think there will be a need to send out more patrols. The enemy has found us now. It is just a matter of preparing for when they arrive."
"So you advise we wait?" Mola replies. "If that is your counsel, I will accept it as wisdom and will trust it will lead us to victory. What will happen to the false gods when they truly join battle here? Will your shaman, Davis, put them in the dome like the others? Will he coddle them like the other false gods?"
"Yes, the long and short of it...we wait. As for Davis, I hope not. We've done enough coddling lately."
Zaef frowns at the word 'masters,' but nods in agreement. "I don't think there will be a need to send out more patrols. The enemy has found us now. It is just a matter of preparing for when they arrive."
Sajuuk grins - wherren grins are not pretty sights. "Good. I hope they arrive soon, then. I do not like waiting... would rather it be over one way or the other." Zaef thinks back to the cold steel pre-fight chamber in the Arena, and the Gate within it that could open a portal to any battlefield imaginable. He remembers waiting for those glyphs to light up slowly, one after the other.
Quote:
"Yes, the long and short of it...we wait. As for Davis, I hope not. We've done enough coddling lately."
Mola climbs out of the foxhole and offers Cowboy a hairy hand. "If our enemy has hurt my tribesmen that Hiigra sent to the south, I swear to you I will leave none alive."
"Yes, the waiting really is the hardest part. But-" Zaef pulls out the collapsible spade the Narsai have given him and smiles a little. "-we do have something to pass the time." He gets to work on finishing the foxhole.
Mola climbs out of the foxhole and offers Cowboy a hairy hand. "If our enemy has hurt my tribesmen that Hiigra sent to the south, I swear to you I will leave none alive."
Cowboy thankfully takes the offer.
"I have no doubt of that, mi amigo. By the end of this, I think we'll all have a score to settle with the Khiraba."
Cowboy's words seem to set an ominous tone for the rest of the afternoon and into the evening. The wherren are somber and quiet as they help finish up the foxhole construction and get the three habs "hillbilly armored" with the outpost's storage crates. The sun sinks low and clouds gather, threatening rain again. You're used to the weather now, used to continuous sweat and continuous trips to the habs for fresh water. The water alone is a godsend; sure, you brought the necessary filtration gear but having it all in place for you is a creature comfort you don't normally get while out on a mission.
There's no dinner, not yet. All the wherren are up and about. The few women warriors take over prisoner control, and Semo, Angel, and Zaef end up taking up their slack. It leaves Cowboy and Hugh the only humans outside (although it'd be easy enough to watch the wherren from the comm room or through the dome walls), and what they see is a sizable funeral pyre, large enough for the three dead wherren. The male wherren gather around this roaring fire and the shaman leads them in a series of short, low, slow songs. After the brief ceremony, the ashes and bones are buried at the base of trees just outside the clearing. It's as if the funeral holds off the rain just long enough, for when the last bit of soil is stamped down, a torrential downpour soaks the outpost. The wherren intermingle again, the guards return to their duties in the dome, and dinner is served. Swims-the-Black explains the ceremony succinctly: "New life is the work and duty of women, so then the village men have a duty to the dead. There will be more of these ceremonies before we leave this place, I'm sure."
The rainstorm does not last long, and doesn't bring the choking fog from the previous night. Sleep comes easy; it's been a long day despite being 4 hours shorter than Earth. Arketta stays up a little longer and returns to the dome. It's mostly to keep an eye on Hale as per Davis' suggestion, and she finds the Rav-Turai sitting alone. The rest of his quad have fallen asleep already. The ex-Turai sits down, prompting a shrug of acceptance from Hale.
"I saw you talking with your men earlier," Arketta offers.
Hale shakes his head. "I don't think they're my men. I don't think I can lead them. Their arguments rang as excuses... I... I'm not Turai. I'm just a prisoner. Just some guy."
Arketta tries, "Which arguments?"
"'If we didn't do it, they'd find someone who would'. Take your pick. You've heard them. 'We were following orders'. 'Necessary sacrifices'. 'Acceptable losses'. 'Pacification'. They used that word tonight, you know. I don't think those wherren that chief sent are alive. Why would they do that?"
Arketta doesn't know, and says as much. "I'm on the side that's not into that, you know? This is the best chance you have to leave whatever is haunting you. I don't think you'd have to help us; you could just leave, go live somewhere. Get a dog."
"I'm-" Hale starts angrily. "I'm not a traitor! I'm not you!"
Arketta smiles and tries not to make it seem too 'I told you so'. "Yes you are."
The two Sheen blitz the wherren village. A toppled sapling, uprooted by the machines' charge, careens into the village longhouse. Charlie can't help but fire a few shots skyward in jubilation.
"YEEEAAAAHHH! Get some! Get some!" Get- who ha?"
Martin scans the empty village. "Yep. Looks like they've cleared out."
"Not all of 'em. This looks like someone had one hell of a party."
"All right. I'll check up-trail a bit."
---
As befits the Sheen blunt nature, they don't bother to vox back on Davis' channel. Charlie simply beams himself to the camp (because Martin already had his turn during his shell's repairs) and disseminates their message to all the team's voxes before shooting off back to his shell.
*Wakey wakey, eggs and bakey!* blares the team's voxes. *I made you sad meatsacks a Powerpoint presentation. It's rated M for Mature.*
What follows is optic feed and telemetry from the Sheen. The view shows a wherren village, smaller than 815. There's a large funeral pyre, much larger but the same idea as the one the camp wherren built hours before. The viewpoint switches to the other Sheen's feed and focuses on one manipulator claw as it reaches down and comes back up with a metal casing.
*Ammunition casing, 7.62mm. Markings on the base don't match your gear. There's a lot of shit around here. Beamer craters too.* The view zooms in on a ragged wound blasted into one of the village's stone structures, and then pans to a few more that have burnt and toppled trees.
*There were trace remains in the pyre from wherren, including a bunch of burned... doodads?* Now the screen shows ashy piles with blackened cases and half-melted Imperial trinkets. It's pretty obvious they're the kind of gewgaws that wherren shamans collect. *We recovered a few bullet remains since we were scanning for metal at that point. Martin was curious. They're Imperial alloy, like your armor-piercing rounds.*
* The rain fucked with their tracks but we headed back towards your camp and found this a kilometer or so downtrail.* The feed skips ahead to a jungle scene. The underbrush is stamped flat all around a massive open shallow pit containing the bodies of a great many wherren. The Sheen count off the number of dead, and while it's tragic that it's greater than zero, at least it's lower than the total Hiigra sent to Village 481. There should be 14 still alive somewhere.
*We don't know if they're all here. A few were killed by beamers. Some look like they were fighting back, killed in close combat. Spear wounds mostly, some blunt trauma. Most look executed by ghetto-ass spears and hatchets. Fucking animals. Who'd do that to their own kind?* The feed skips a little bit.
The visuals cut to a another dead body, this one half-eaten by scavengers out in the brush. *Found this female a little later. Looked like a hell of a chase.* The feed skips again, this time to the Sheen slowing to a stop from a dead sprint.
*We're within range to send this back, and we're close enough to 'em that we shouldn't have left anything out. Every second we waste recording this shit is a second the fuckers what did this get to keep breathing, and that is unacceptable. By the time you see this, we should be intercepting their rearguard. We're going dark now. We'll vox you better pictures afterwards.* The recording ends.
---
Dawn
Day 3 of Gateway construction
Somewhere between villages 481 and 815
"Someone tell me where the fuck they came from?" Manus exclaims in shock. He angrily shakes a gobbet of bloody wherren flesh off his helmet. "And how the fuck did they get behind us?!" The Khiraba leader racks his scramber's charging handle and nervously searches for any more of the mechanical abominations. To Manus' right, Khalomai lowers his scrambler and swaps it out for his beam rifle. "I don't know, sir, but they were pissed as hell."
How would the Sheen have come up on their flank? Maybe if they knew where they had been the previous day... Manus whirls around and spots Vilos Arpana, who is just now weaving his way back through the crowd of surprised wherren warriors to see where all those explosions came from.
"A moment, please, chief." Manus says, stepping close to Vilos.
"Yes, Samal Ma-ghurk!" Arpana reflexively arcs backward as Manus grabs the chief's neck. The Samal follows the dropchief's movement, forcing him back into a nearby blood-spattered tree.
"You answered that fucking vox," Manus growls, "And they sent Sheen after us. That is why we do not talk to Garrett Davis." Manus punctuates the name with an extra squeeze before releasing Arpana. "Garrett Davis is a fucking Homeworlder. He is crafty, and the men with him - if they are the same men from Aikoro - are deadly. They do not scare, and in return they do not resort to intimidation. They get you talking and then they shove Sheen up your ass."
"Surely they'll negotiate when they learn-"
"When we get there," Manus spits. "When we get there, you can talk all you want if it gets them to free hostages. But right now, Chief, you need to figure out the right way to spin these Sheen against our enemies." Manus turns to his troops. "Oros! Make sure these things are dead, then you and Haris strip 'em for anything we can use."
"Of course." Oros was finally up and about after several days where the Khiraba weren't sure he was going to make it, even with the kauka treatments. The large Rav-Turai was completely hairless now and still had to take frequent rests where the Chosen carried him. Dropchief Arpana claimed it was actually a show of power to the natives, how their gods could return from the dead. Manus just wanted Oros back in the game. He'd need the warrior's skills for what was to come.
Davis is sitting up in the comm room, watching the comings and goings of the morning food rounds of the Imperials and their wherren guards with his own plate of shipchef breakfast when Charlie pops into the systems and his vox goes off. As he watches the video, Davis grips the vox in increasing rage as the Sheen presentation goes on. When it's finished, he gets on his radio. "Swims-the-Black, bring Hale, Shenest and the Shaman up to the comm room, please," he says, every word filled with anger.
Angel is right outside the prisoner area when the vox report comes in. He listens, frowning, and looks back at the captured Imperials - still sitting on the ground, their biggest threat boredom.
Khiraba
Images of smokey server rooms, dead techs and a handful of bloody dogtags. Of desperate fights in rocky ground. He heads back out to the ramshackle fortifications with a plate of food, sliding down into one of the foxholes.
Swims-the-Black and the shaman enter the dome as the prisoners are finishing their morning breakfast of pop-tarts filled with nasty pseudo-meat. Swims simply points to Hale and Shenest and says "You. Upstairs." Hale's Turai comrades give Hale suspicious looks as the Imperial officer exits the dome chamber via the comm room stairwell.
"Good morning," Hale quips as he's escorted into the comm room. "Thank you for bringing us up here. You know how I enjoy you talking at me, especially when I haven't even had time to finish chewing my breakfast." Shenest rolls her eyes at Hale.
"What are we all doing here?" the shaman asks Davis. "You look angry."
---
For the rest of the team, the news from the Sheen is grim but it doesn't change what they have to do. Which, currently, is actually a lot less than the previous few days' backbreaking digging and training. The four foxholes are dug and the habs are "A-Teamed", as Cowboy puts it. There have been no plans to extend any defenses, so simple guard duty appears to be the order of the day. Granted, it's guard duty while waiting for the inevitable flood of murderous wherren who are quite willing to kill their prisoners, but that's a minor issue compared to the fact that you don't have to dig any more holes.
Admiral Duck Sauce
