Bellator: An Anthology of Warriors of Space & Magic Read online

  Then again, maybe it was Russell’s own people who were the creative ones, given the look of the room. The lights were dim, but comfortable. Homey, even. There were no torture devices, unless the sal soldier standing on-guard was considered one. Russell didn’t. Even humans had a soldier in the room before questioning.

  “You should drink something, Lieutenant.” The sal guard’s voice made Russell’s stomach rumble. It sounded like the final roll of thunder, even with the translator implants.

  He recalled attempting to learn their language when he first enlisted. Two weeks in, and he realized he’d be better off “cheating.” The lieutenant shifted his gaze from the tall creature. The roof was high, about four meters. The guard took three quarters of it. He was lean, like a sprinter. The sal blinked at Russell with those large, black eyes reminding him of a deer or giraffe back on Earth. The back of his head spread out like a triangle, and his face was almost human, beyond the beak-like snout.

  The guard tapped his blue tail on the floor as he crossed his arms. Maybe he was getting impatient. Two years ago, Russell would’ve been startled by how “human” the sal were, but now he knew better. They weren’t human, just sentient. They were people.

  Russell grabbed the cup of water placed on the table and gulped. The chill went down his throat and erupted in his stomach. Refreshing. He tried to relax, easing back in his seat. He then leaned forward, placing his elbows on the table when that didn’t help.

  The wall in front of him split in half, and two sals came in with a woman. The table vibrated a little and stretched out, making room for the extra bodies. More chairs appeared on the other side of it, and the three sat down, with the woman sitting in the middle.

  “Dismissed,” the woman told the sal guard.

  He saluted her, pounding his chest twice before taking his leave. Russell rubbed his hands on top of the table, not daring to make eye contact with anyone in front of him.

  “Lieutenant Ortega,” the woman said. “This is Lord Mi and Chief Maelip. They’re here to report your debrief to their council. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir, Captain,” Russell said, his eyes still down.

  The sal on the left – Lord Mi – whispered something into Captain Buchannan’s ear.

  She nodded once before giving Russell her attention again. “We want to remind you that you’re not under arrest, only being questioned. What you tell us at the end of this will determine where you go from here. If arrested, we have agreed to let the sal take you into custody, where you will then be obligated to follow their laws and customs. Understood?”

  “Understood, ma’am.”

  “Good.” Buchannan placed her hands on top of the table. “Then please, tell me what in God’s name happened out there.”

  Russell took note of Maelip first. The sal chief’s posture indicated he was out for blood, though the other one – the higher-up – didn’t seem as biased. The lieutenant gazed at the light above his head. It should’ve warmed him some, but the metal around the room answered to the snow outside. He still hadn’t adjusted to the extreme weather the planet had. Days were as hot as summer near Earth’s equator, but the nights were as cold as the arctic.

  Russell scooted his chair forward with his one good leg, and cleared his throat. “We took the southern road leading to the city of Mifo. We started our march at 0530 hours this morning, so we were only twenty-one klicks outside of town, having covered good ground on foot…”

  * * *

  5 hours ago...

  The dirt road leading to Mifo was still damp from the prior night’s snow. The air was now muggy and thick, every inhale heavy, as the white blanket had turned into moisture throughout the humid day. The dense forest the troops passed through didn’t offer any break from the sun, in spite the heavy leaves on the tall trees; they were too far from the road to provide any shade during the early noon hours.

  “You’re serious, aren’t you?” Russell said. “You’re always telling me how much better your sports are, and you don’t have anything remotely similar to golf?”

  Mat, a sal Russell had nicknamed from “Matellizu,” swatted a bug off his ear using his tail. “You’re trying to make hitting a ball into a hole sound elaborate, Ortega. No one would have even scraped an arm by the end of the day.”

  “It’s a gentleman’s sport.”

  “And the two of us have already ‘discussed’ our diverse perspectives in regards to displaying acts of ‘chivalry’.”

  Russell chuckled. “Yeah, like the fact that no one even uses that word in the 24th century anymore.”

  “Just because a general consensus in your society omitted a word from its everyday vocabulary doesn’t mean it no longer exists.”

  “Preach, Reverend,” one of the many soldiers in the platoon hollered from behind.

  Everyone who heard him laughed, human and sal alike. The platoon was a typical one, consisting of thirty aliens and seventy humans. Fifty years ago, this would’ve been a different scenario. Instead of humanity and sal, it would’ve been humanity against sal. Russell remembered reading and watching old sci-fi stories, displaying what his ancestors imagined First Contact would be like. He was impressed by how accurate some of the old storytellers were in the 20th and 21st century, considering how primitive they were. In their tales, one party – usually the more technologically advanced –would put up a nice front, hiding its diabolical intentions. The less-advanced side – that usually being the humans – had to settle for fundamental tricks and antics to win the day. He loved those stories. There was something a tad, dare he say it, romantic about them.

  The real story to the human race’s first greet with another sentient civilization was close, though the old story-tellers never did ask what would happen if the new race was neither more or less advanced. It was a bit of a shame, truth be told, considering two forces being on the same level of the playing field made for a far more dynamic situation.

  The Sol System Alliance was still a bit new to the whole faster-than-light routine, only being a few decades behind the sal. Both races had their eyes on a dynamic garden planet, similar to Earth, when they first met. Given the knives hiding behind their backs were roughly the same size, nobody could help but play nice in the end.

  So, here Russell was. The product of a fifty-year “friendship.” If anything, humans and sal were now putting up some true effort, for the most part. That “most part” was why he was over seventy parsecs from his colony home on Mars.

  There were plenty of rebellious folk who still believed in the old ways, and had plenty of means to show their disapproval. Russell recalled such people being called “terrorists” centuries ago. Now they were just called rebels, though he always thought rebels could be considered noble at times. Part of his lineage even descended from such people, long before Earth became unified.

  “I hate this system. I don’t care what anybody says, but this star is nothing like the one we left last week. I might as well be cooking underneath the one back home when it’s up.”

  Mat shrugged. “It’s not that bad. Grow some scales and you’ll see it differently.”

  “Yeah. I placed my order online weeks ago.”

  The sal didn’t respond. His lower beak shifted from side to side.

  Russell rubbed his forehead. “Kidding. I didn’t mean that literally.”

  “You have to remember sal options are a bit more…accommodating.” Mat extended his right arm; it had an assault gauntlet strapped on, similar in design to Russell’s and the other human marines.

  Mat’s weapon melded away into a tiny bracelet, revealing white markings on the sal’s blue skin.

  Russell studied the tattoo. It looked tribal, a series of squares with two dots in the center. “Okay, so you got some ink online. Big deal. We can do that too.”

  “Can you get it installed the instant you hit your buy indicator?”

  Russell waved his arms in the air. “Ooh. Aren’t we fancy? So, what does it mean?”

 
; “I don’t know. I just liked the look of it.”

  “Are you serious? That’s like me telling a foreign person to write ‘Courage’ in their characters without looking the symbol up on the net first.”

  “If it turns out to have a meaning that I don’t like, I’ll just get it removed. It’s not that hard.”

  Russell checked behind him to see how the others were doing. Everyone was too busy talking to care about the situation up ahead. Then again, it really wasn’t much of a situation to begin with.

  Joint aerial support secured the city two nights ago. While Mifo was bombarded by missiles, bombs, and lasers, he and the rest of the platoon partied hard one town away. He felt a bit bad for the people living in the city. They probably knew the next shell was going to be theirs. Fortunately, the following-up report indicated there weren’t any civilian casualties.

  Russell, of course, wasn’t impressed by that, even in such a densely-populated city. Eight million resided, eight million remained. Would anyone expect anything less? Today’s weapons could knock a mosquito off a child’s ear five kilometers out, and the kid wouldn’t even know it. Why did people bother with drones and missiles back in the day when there was no guarantee of avoiding collateral damage? War had always been a mess, sure, but did it have to be so barbaric back then?

  “Looks like something’s up ahead.” Whatever Mat pointed at, Russell couldn’t see.

  “We just did the guessing game a couple of minutes ago, and I already said I owe you a drink. I get it. Sals can see three times further than humans.”

  “I’m serious, Russell. Have a look.”

  Russell switched the visor attached on his helmet to display what the sal saw. A transport was flying down the road. “The hell are they coming from? Mifo shouldn’t have anything coming out of it.”

  “It might be civvies coming to base for some supplies.”

  “Maybe, but I don’t run on assumptions, especially when a hundred people are on my watch.” He motioned everyone off the road as he charged his gauntlet. “Move it, people.”

  “You know, it’s probably just—”

  Russell covered Mat’s beak. “More than likely not, but let’s not jinx it, all right?”

  “Your species is so superstitious. It’s kind of cute.”

  “Just shut up and spot me.” He then headed down the road and grabbed his ear, activating his comm link. “Sergeant Lee, mind if I borrow some tech boots?”

  “Not a problem, LT. Johnson is heading your way.”

  Mat raised a finger to his ear as well. “I’ll get Kepu up here.”

  Another human and sal soldier trotted up to Russell and Mat, moments later. The lieutenant heard four drones swoosh overhead as they marched. He then saw the blue light they emitted before they switched to stealth mode, going invisible. He adjusted his visor, so he could see what the bots saw a little ways ahead. The transport still barreled down the road, leaving dust behind it.

  “They’re moving a bit fast, don’t you think?” he said.

  “Agreed.” Mat’s gauntlet hissed as he readied it.

  “Johnson, shut it down.”

  “Sir.” Johnson pressed a set of buttons strapped around his wrist. He waited, then gave a thumbs up. “Drones will bring it down in a few.”

  Russell’s feed showed sparks coming out of the drones the second they came upon the alien transport. They kept hovering around it, attacking every operating system until the ride came to a halt. It was now in sight.

  No reaction from the transport ever came. The lieutenant eyed Mat, who shrugged. Russell forced a smile, though his gut just told him it was going to be one of those days soldiers dreaded, the sort they had readied themselves for months and years in advance, the sort they hoped would never come.

  “Hold up,” Kepu said. “Movement in the vehicle.”

  Just as Russell checked his drone’s feed again, sals hopped out of the ride and started running towards them. He counted ten of them, all civilian. Even though they were alien, he read the universal expression of fear on all of them.

  “Call the drones back. Something’s wrong.”

  “Do you think the ride’s rigged?” Johnson asked.

  “The bots would’ve detected anything IED-compatible,” Russell insisted.

  The civilians bolted for the soldiers. Protocol mandated to assume any person to be a possible threat, which was why every soldier aimed. That didn’t make it any easier, though.

  “Stunners only,” the lieutenant ordered.

  “Sir,” everyone said.

  Fortunately for Russell, the sals understood what it meant to have a barrel pointed at them, still twenty meters out. The civilians either dropped to the ground, or shot their hands into the air.

  “You grew up on this colony, Kepu,” Johnson said. “Do we need to get a translator?”

  The sal shook his head. “Though I was raised on the other side of the planet, our languages aren’t as diverse as yours. I’ll be able to get the basics.”

  “Then get them over here, hands on their heads, single file,” Mat said.

  “Sir.”

  When they reached the soldiers, Russell could tell the civilians wondered if they were making a mistake. Their large, black eyes darted from side to side, like a deer making sure a bear wasn’t around, as he and the others surrounded them. He hated having to be so forceful with people, but history had shown too many times before that growing a heart for a sad face could prove pricey.

  Kepu nodded at the lieutenant moments later; the people were clean. Russell then tapped Johnson on the shoulder. “Let’s give them some space, so they can get this sorted out. No point in us ‘fleshy folk’ making things more uncomfy.”

  Johnson took three steps back, his eyes still studying the civilians’ movements. Russell, however, knew the local sal were harmless once they started to talk, that consisting of gurgling and mumbling. Their tails said it all; they shifted from side to side with a graceful flow. It meant they were comfortable. No, they were relieved.

  The sal soldiers interrogating them, however, didn’t seem as convinced. Whenever Kepu stopped to explain what the people just said to his fellow sal soldier, Mat struck his tail on the ground, harder than the first, then the second, and third.

  “Are you nervous yet, LT?” Johnson whispered.

  “A little. You?”

  “Are you kidding? Always.”

  The sal chief glanced at the lieutenant, his face disgruntled and helpless. Russell formed a series of the worst possible circumstances in his head, preparing himself for the news. When the sals finished talking, the civilians weren’t as relaxed as before. If anything, that initial comfort must have been cushioning for what had to be irritation. On more than one occasion, Kepu and Mat both reminded the people that they were armed and required a certain amount of personal space by tapping their gauntlets whenever a local wanted to get in their faces. This couldn’t be good.

  Mat approached Russell, leaving Kepu to direct the civvies off the road. He didn’t say a word.

  “We wouldn’t be on this rock if we weren’t bound to get some bad news, chief,” Russell said. “Let me have it.”

  “I really don’t know how to say this, Ortega.”

  “Then just spit it out, Mat. What’s wrong?”

  Mat glanced down the street, toward the city, and rubbed his brows. “Last night’s shelling was ineffective.”

  “What do you mean ineffective?” Johnson said. “They hit the targets, dead on.”

  Mat shook his head. He tapped the ground with his tail before he used it to point down the road. “The rebels baited us with bad info. They weren’t hiding in the buildings and bunkers we had marked. We hit densely-populated civilian landmarks instead.”

  Russell covered his mouth before he swore. He paced back and forth, not knowing if he was more angry or devastated. He folded his lips together as he patted his chest. That worst-case scenario he had thought up, it wasn’t anywhere near as horrid as this.


  Johnson squatted down, folding his hands over his face. Russell overheard Johnson paraphrasing a quote from his book of faith before wiping his eyes.

  Those poor people. No, he needed to calm down. What was done was done. Russell slowed his breaths as he tried to clear his head. Mat patted him on the face, so he could grab hold of his wits.

  “I’m okay.” He looked up at the sky, and kept pacing his breathing as he counted to ten.

  “Would you like to know the estimated casualties?”

  “We’re going to radio back to base and tell them to bring the entire medical force, no matter what the number is, regardless. Do these people know how many enemy forces are still in the city?”

  “They think it’s a flock in size, with more on the way.”

  Johnson stood back up, and groaned. “A flock? That’s twice the size of a full-sized battalion!”

  Russell had already made his decision, the instant he heard the number. They were going to secure the city, whether two thousand-plus rebels liked it or not.

  “The civvies said the enemy has taken the synthetic generators all for themselves,” Kepu added. “All water and other supplies are still down. Whoever’s in charge of the rebels has secured all food and medical supplies for themselves.”

  Russell and Johnson both gripped their gauntlets, ready to fire, when one of the older female sals’ voice went higher. He didn’t know what she was saying, but given the speed in which she said it – that and several males pulling her away from Kepu – indicated she wasn’t too happy with them either.

  Kepu was about to interpret what she said, but Russell waved the notion off. He had an idea what she was yelling. The joint governments and military had promised the people whose ideology said to unite alien races weren’t as powerful as those who spoke with the voice of hope. Then the rebels quickly learned people were bound to listen when they started occupying colonies without warning. And again, the people in charge assured the general public the rebel uprising would never make it so far across space. Yes, Russell had heard the story all too well. He was nine when he first heard that same promise. He was now thirty-three – strapped and armed – still waiting on that assurance to come to fruition, just like everyone else.