The scans warned us that the natives were exploring our shuttle right now. One hundred and sixty people are turning everything we threw at «Persia» upside down. At the same time, they have no idea what surprise we left for them. These are the last moments of their lives.
I turned off the glitchy stream of recording from the shuttle's surveillance cameras on the glasses and turned to the sapper, giving him one single, but clear order:
"Press."
"Yes, sir."
A sapper named Mshkhan answered and pressed a button on the tablet, activating the detonator. Through the noise of the downpour, a distant clap was heard that echoed through this jungle. It is obvious to everyone that it was an explosion and it was much more powerful than anyone could have imagined. None of the natives could have survived after him, even that damn native Saint Yasmi if she had fled there.
Meanwhile, we were hiding inside the trunk of a huge tree after a recent battle, trying to collect our thoughts and get rid of the apathy that had washed over us after the loss of most of the combined platoon. The losses were too great to enjoy the victory.
“Well.”
Will rose to his feet and drank some water from the flask, covering the neck with his palm so that the toxic water that dripped inside the tree trunk would not seep in.
“There's no turning back now.”
No one answered Will about this. Now was not the time for jokes when so many people had died. There are a little more than two dozen of us left, including soldiers from my platoon, as well as the miraculously surviving Sigrun, Fred, Stern and the fugitive natives.
I don’t even know what Leo will do when he finds a blown up shuttle and hundreds of scattered bodies of natives in the area. We need to meet him much earlier than he has time to return to the shuttle, otherwise his entire journey back will be in vain. I wouldn’t want him and his guys to die, or maybe already...
«He couldn't die.»
I assured myself, shaking my head, driving away these thoughts.
And also Ashwani, I cannot leave here until I am completely convinced of his death. For me, he is still a missing person, but for others, or rather many of us, he is completely non-existent. I hope at least I won’t forget him, but I’m already starting to doubt that. I don't think I remember his face anymore.
«Crap! How is this possible?»
I wondered, leaning my forehead against a tree trunk.
We had to hide the bodies of our brothers in arms under the roots of trees, take away their shoulder straps and supplies. We cannot even bury them properly, because we are not able to spend our precious time on this.
They all died just like John, burned alive from the inside. Almost all of them burned at once, which was why they heard something like an explosion, and apparently they were set on fire one after another. It's just some kind of madness.
"Boris?"
I heard a woman's voice with a strange accent. Pale-skinned, dark-haired Alza came up to me with an expression of fear on her face, wrapped in a light ship's jacket, a hat and a camouflage raincoat on top, like the rest of the natives.
She saw our faces and was most likely very worried about what happened. The native fugitives survived and were protected by Itami. They watched from the front rows as our soldiers burned alive. There was not a living place left of our guys, revealing a flooded, burnt grove with black soot and a terrible stench in the air.
Seeing Alza, I wanted to be angry at these natives because our people died instead of them, but with my mind I understood that this was not a reason to pour out my negative emotions on them, but I was still angry and at the same time very saddened happened. It was as if the hope of returning home eluded us and we were doomed to die here.
And then I remembered John’s notorious question: “Boris, what should I do?” He didn’t show it either before or after these words, but with these words he told me that he didn’t know what to do, that he was scared and now I felt exactly the same as him, if not worse.
«Really... what should I do?»
I already asked myself.
“Well... now you’re in charge.”
Will patted me on the shoulder with a sad smile on his face.
“Although if you don’t want to, I’ll be ready to lead the platoon.”
"Shut up, Will."
Anzhey said hissingly.
"I'm just kidding."
Will waved his hands.
“I’m sure Boris knows what to do. After all, John promoted you in rank. He trusted, if not you, then your skills... I mean, you're reliable. So, will you lead us?”
"I can't."
I said sadly, hanging my head out loud, barely finding the words.
"I just…"
"Boris,"
Forn, who was sitting to my right and checking his assault rifle, turned to me.
“We are soldiers, we need orders, we cannot do otherwise. Therefore, lead us, at least order us your whims, but do not leave us idle. John didn’t run away from his responsibilities when almost the entire shuttle died and Uwon didn’t run away either, so don’t you run away either. Just be yourself and give orders, that will be enough.”
From these few encouraging words from the Martian I could only remain silent. I was surprised by what I heard. They all looked at me with the hope that I would not let them down, but I could not guarantee this to them and they knew it too. Even though I thought about these words, I took them into account.
«Soldiers need a commander, someone who will lead them into battle and at the same time, someone who will educate them, punish them and reward them. Can I be that kind of person? Apparently I am forced to become such a person, but I am still not born to be a leader. I'll need help. Because... I'm afraid.»
After much thought, I clenched my fists and replied:
"Fine. Then listen to my first order. We rest for another half hour and continue our journey east. Questions?"
"No, sir!"
The whole platoon sang under the rain.
“Well, good.”
I answered and sighed and continued to rest, trying to move away from the depressive thoughts that enveloped me.
Honestly, I could use some sleep to put my mind in order, but now we don’t have time for that. We need to go further east and leave the lands of this Empire if we were in it. And while I was resting, I thought about something:
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“Where did these natives even come from?”
I asked the question out loud.
“Like out of thin air.”
Sigrun commented that she came to us after going for the surviving electronics on the bodies of our dead guys.
“It’s not normal for a scan to suddenly pick up thousands of targets. Visually and biometrically there were two hundred of them, but suddenly there were many more of them, almost five times.”
"Really."
Fred said that he was surprisingly able to survive despite being surrounded by fire.
“Uwon didn’t realize it either when he watched the fight. Reminds me of teleportation, but I don't think the natives have this technology. Even the Pantorians barely used it.”
“And that’s not the only weird thing.”
Esko said, looking sternly at the senior medic.
“Somehow you survived. You were with Uwon, you were practically at the epicenter. So tell me, how did this happen?”
All eyes were focused on Fred and indeed he was able to survive despite the fact that he was close enough to Uwon, almost right next to him and he was in the middle of that nightmare. How did he manage to survive that horror?
This time he didn't throw up his hands and instead made a very bold assumption:
“I think this native Yasmi spared me.”
"Spared?"
I asked with doubt in my voice.
"What makes you think so?"
“I think she did it because I patched her up before the interrogation.”
The senior medic suggested.
“No matter how wild this planet is, you shouldn’t assume that they can’t have any morals.”
"Wait. Did you see what she did?
Will asked already.
“How did she kill everyone?”
Fred looked exhausted, probably because Will had forced him to remember unpleasant moments that the senior medic had witnessed. Despite this, Fred pulled himself together and replied:
“She was saying something in her language, strange words, and then Uwon suddenly... screamed like that... and instantly caught fire, and then everyone else. The fire spread to bushes and trees. She herself quickly ran away... I was in a stupor. A fire quickly broke out around me, and I only managed to run for cover, away from the fire. Almost swallowed toxic water. I couldn’t... I couldn’t save anyone then... why am I needed here then?”
The stern and very confident senior medic Fred was revealing his weaknesses to everyone around him right now. Previously, he seemed to me a cynical and indifferent person, but now he was very vulnerable and saddened. It seems that he was worried that he could not save anyone, or rather few, and blamed himself for not being able to do anything, and I understand him well.
«So that's why he spent time in the laboratory. I thought he was a mad scientist.»
I chuckled to myself, but didn’t show it on my face.
"Enough about the bad stuff."
I said, rising to my feet.
“We will have time to discuss this. First, let's decide what to do next. Do we continue to go east or are there better options?”
The fighters became thoughtful after my words and one of them, named Kobe, made a very bold proposal, which made my jaw drop.
"Let's go to the Empire."
Said the dark-skinned earthling.
"What?"
I heard someone's dissatisfied exclamation.
"Why?"
Fred asked the fighter sternly.
"As far as I understand."
Kobe answered.
“Humans live in the Empire. I think they are descendants of colonists from the golden era of colonization. You can easily join their society if you have sufficient knowledge of their language.”
“As if you know what language they speak,”
Forn voiced doubtfully.
"In Latin."
Said Kobe.
"…, Maybe,…"
«In Latin?»
I was surprised.
"Wait. Why do you think so?"
Fred asked.
“Their words are completely different from the Latin language.”
“Have you studied Latin?”
I asked the senior medic, to which Fred just snorted in response.
"Certainly. This is important knowledge gained from the institute. And I’ll tell you what, the words of the natives are completely different from the Latin words.”
“Languages evolve faster than people.”
Said Kobe.
“Their words changed, but the structure of the Latin language remained the same and was mixed with other languages.”
"This isn't funny, Kobe."
Will crossed his arms.
“I may have done poorly at school, but I don’t remember from lectures that thousands of years ago there was a country that sent a colony ship with Latin-speaking people. All golden era colonists spoke either English or one of the European languages. Well, some of them spoke Asian. Then, even before the “Great Hopeless”, there was not a single country left where Latin was spoken. So what makes you think these natives speak Latin?”
"Remember the Pantorians."
Kobe said and we all screwed up our faces at the mention of those old bastards.
“They actually spoke Esperanto, or rather not even Esperanto, but a dialect of it, calling it the Pantora language. The same people from Earth, but speaking a different language and distorting it beyond recognition. These people most likely did the same thing, but it seems that for some reason they degenerated.”
«It is possible that their colony ship crashed and they were forced to sacrifice their technological advantage for the sake of survival. This has happened many times when the Republic has found lost colonies that have lagged behind in development for one reason or another.»
I added silently, taking Kobe’s words into account, but a question immediately arose in my mind.
“So what makes you think that we should go to the Empire? We don’t speak Latin, and if only you know it, then what’s the point? Moreover, we had an unsuccessful first contact and the government of this Empire most likely knows that we can hide among them.”
Kobe pursed his lips at my words. Apparently he had nothing to answer on this score.
"Interesting."
Esko thought about it.
“If the ancient colonists speak Latin, what language do our fugitives speak?”
Now the eyes were focused on the fugitive natives. They themselves were a little shocked by twenty pairs of glances in their direction, and they were clearly thinking about what they had done wrong.
"Are we doing wrong?"
Ripun asked.
"No."
Itami calmed them down.
"Curiosity."
"Curiosity."
Ripun repeated and nodded in understanding.
"I don't know."
Meanwhile Kobe answered.
“Even though I studied the ancient languages of the earth, their speech is completely unfamiliar to me.”
“Yes, they are not people at all.”
Fred added.
“At least they and those natives are not related species. They may be the indigenous inhabitants of this planet or, like the ancient colonists, they crashed on it and degraded to the level of the pre-space era of the fourth type.”
“How ridiculous this is.”
Said Anzhey.
“We people are killing each other here, and these natives, whoever they are, are just watching it, taking advantage of us.”
"They don't take advantage of us."
Esko objected.
"They helped us and even fought on our side."
“The circumstances just turned out that way.”
Anzhey continued to grumble.
"Everyone keep quiet."
I ordered seriously and everyone suddenly shut up, giving me the necessary time to think.
«Go to the Empire? Our task is to reunite with the army, but before that we must unite with Leo’s platoon. Meanwhile, the planet will slowly die due to the collapse of «Zeus». If we go to the Empire and hide there, we will only waste our already limited time and witness the death of an entire civilization. Alas, this is not our concern. In this Empire we will only waste time.»
“Then we will head east as planned.”
I stated. Maybe someone could object to me on this matter, but everyone knew that my decision was final. The shuttle was no longer a suitable place to wait out a catastrophe on a planetary scale; we needed to leave immediately, which we would eventually do.
“I hope everyone remembers the outdoor survival courses.”
Will grinned, twirling the plasma cutter in his hands.
“I don’t remember.”
“Are you serious.”
Someone said it and we all laughed. After a long rest, we finally packed our things and moved through the thicket to the east. By this point, it seemed like it was already night, and we activated the dim flashlights on our foreheads to light our way.
We moved in a line, carefully choosing our path. We checked the topography with goggles and looked for hills so as not to drown in the mud. It is still unknown how soon we will leave this forest and reach our destination, but I hope that we will get out of here safe and sound.