Donner ducked out of the tent before Drelloc could ask him what he had meant and quickly made his way to the far side of the boulder they had used for that night’s shelter. After a second to empty his bladder against a convenient scrub brush, Donner made his way over to the small handful of stones he had used to anchor the tarp down against the everpresent wind of Minasdee.
Untying them only took seconds as he had not used tight knots. It hadn’t been that big of a concern to him that they stay secure for a long time. They had only needed to last over the single night after all. He kicked the stones back into the shadow of the rock as each was liberated from their coils. Soon he was done and heading back towards the camp after having tossed the small topes back over the top of the toppled monolith.
He watched the alien from the corner of his vision as he worked on a quick and hearty breakfast of rehydrated MREs. Drelloc was still struggling a bit with the ropes, but she had folded the tarp much quicker and neater than he could have managed. Those incredibly dexterous hands of hers made short work of it and not for the first time he found himself wondering what it would be like to have two extra arms. Hell why stop there, the vinarfel had ten arms, and fifty-some-odd legs as well to boot.
He chuckled at the thought. What a terrible monstrosity he would be if he had anywhere near that many. He checked the temperature of the water for the second packet and then finished up, pouring the scalding water into the small pouch and sealing it off with a vigorous shake. The electric heater was coming incredibly handy, he was once more grateful that she had managed to get the survival duffel before the Valor had exploded. He was not sure why Lady Luck had led him down this particular path, but he was in a way grateful for the experience.
As soon as he thought it he cursed himself though. He had lost all his squadmates to this ranxshit mission, and the only people that he had to blame was the woman struggling with the last of the ropes in front of him. But as he watched her he found he could not remain mad.
From what she had alluded to, this entire escort mission was not her idea and that made it a bit easier to forgive her for the disaster it had become. All in all he found himself torn between his newfound feelings for her and his guilt for being the only survivor of the terrible calamity that had decimated his fellow soldiers.
He picked up the two packets after he finished clearing away the rest of the kitchen supplies before walking over and handing her one, they would need to get moving soon if they wanted to avoid the hottest part of the day later. They finished their meal in contented silence, only the sound of their vigorous chewing punctuating the steady breeze that whipped through their camp.
Donner stood and looked around before reaching out for Drelloc’s trash. She looked at him curiously till she understood and he packed it up in a side pocket of the duffel. The world was suffering enough from the war without their litter cluttering things up on top of it.
“I feel much better than I did yesterday morning.” She said, causing him to turn his head to look at her curiously. “I am still very sore, and in many places I didn’t even know I could get sore. But I don't feel so.. untuned? Is that the right way to say it?” She seemed at a loss for words.
Donner hefted the duffel and his rifle before answering. He let out a heavy sigh as the weight settled firmly upon his shoulders. “Well I suppose if you are anything like me, you are building new muscles. This usually takes a while to really start having an effect, but you should notice some pretty immediate results when doing any kind of prolonged strenuous activity.” He watched as she made a gesture he was unfamiliar with. He supposed from the context that it could have meant anything from disbelief to puzzlement. But it flashed by before he had the chance to ask properly. He just suited himself by nodding at her.
He shifted and then glanced out into the near distance. He checked his wrist worn assistant and then nodded in the direction they needed to tread. “We need to make another five kilometers before midday. If we keep focused I think we should be able to make it with little issue.”
Drelloc hopped from foot to foot as she responded sullenly, “And here I was hoping that we would need to swim today.”
He understood her sullen attitude, but he also knew that dwelling on the negative would drain both of their morale. He needed to make sure he kept her focused on their goals, not just the next step in their admittedly half-assed plan.
He started to walk, pausing for only a moment to let her catch up to him. Once more he was struck by her strange and frankly rather alien gait. The way all four legs seemed to move independently of each other and yet she remained both sure footed and steady. He glanced away before the slightly confusing display made him lose his own footing.
He swallowed a swig of water from his waterpack, the water was still a little cool from last night’s chill air and the cool liquid helped to ease the soreness in his throat. He had expected their ordeal last night to bring them closer, but if anything she was feeling a little more aloof than the night before. An undeniable tension had arisen between them, it had started the day before but had increased threefold overnight.
Donner glanced towards the alien woman again, trying to be as casual as possible. One of her many eyes seemed to be fixed on him, the bright red eye flicking away as he saw it. Had he just imagined it? He was driving himself crazy thinking about it.
Surely she must feel something for him, she had acted in a manner that suggested it. But then again she hadn't said anything concrete, and neither had he. Maybe she was simply waiting for him to make the first move. Was her species more or less assertive as females, he just didn’t know.
He almost fell flat on his face as his preoccupied mind missed an ancient dried root on the ground. As his foot hit it he yelled out and stumbled forwards, he managed to catch himself on a nearby boulder.
Drelloc rushed to his side and reached out but stopped before touching him, her arms pulling back as he stood up wincing. “Are you alright, Donner! I.. good.” She cut herself off.
He rubbed his shoulder painfully, at least one muscle in it had been wrenched painfully as he had stopped his fall. He nodded to Drelloc, “Yes, thank you. We need to be careful up ahead, let's take a short break.”
She nodded silently and scuttled a half a meter away before settling down to the rapidly heating earth. She rubbed her arms and seemed content to simply observe her surroundings. Donner gave a small sigh, here it was again. That strange tension, almost as if a frozen cord was wrapped around them. They couldn't get too close together, neither could they move far apart without being pulled together again.
It was near maddening so he did the only thing he could think of. He pulled out the small piece of wood again and started to whittle at it carefully. He had always gone back to his age old hobby when his nerves started to betray him, the slow methodical maneuvers of the blade as it coaxed the form hidden amongst the grain served to calm his mind like nothing else. He supposed it had something to do with past trauma and suppressed childhood memories. Or so the shrinks said.
He heard a scuffling noise but didn't look up from his work, choosing rather to remain fully absorbed in the process. His deft strokes carved out several deep channels in the rectangular blank and then linked the channels together in several key places. The form he sought beginning to take shape.
Before he did any more work on it he closed his knife with a snap causing Drelloc, who had in the intervening time scooted much closer, to jump to a standing position with a small yelp of surprise.
He pocketed the small piece of wood and rubbed his hands together. He gave her a look and then spoke, “Alright, good enough. Okay, the plan is to cut through the leftmost side of the beachhead zone. It's a dangerous area so you need to keep your wits about you.”
Before he could say more she rattled off, “Diamonomolecular razor wire, duracrete pitfalls, unexploded munitions, biological contaminants, toxic mires, artillery craters filled with razor sharp shrapnel, mine fields, underground tunnels and the still burning wrecks of downed assault dropships.. to name a few.” She smiled, her eyes crinkling in that manner he was beginning to recognise.
He nodded. “Yeah, stuff like that. How did you..”
Drelloc looked at him and waved a few arms in that same old way. “I may not be a field agent, but data collection and battlefield intelligence is my specialty. And I have quite a bit of accumulated data on no man's land.”
Donner nodded. “Okay. Good. Well, stick close then. You can read all you want about punji-pits and shell craters, but it won't give you the hands-on experience you need to avoid them properly. He smiled slightly as she nodded with her hands, her eyes maintaining that sheer focus that he sometimes found alluring and other times so unsettling.
Turning back towards the land in front of them he could just make out the first few dark wisps of smoke on the horizon. A bad sign that they were headed in the right direction.
***********
Drelloc was fuming inside. What was she doing, why couldn't she just tell the man what she felt?
But what did she feel? She didn't even know what to tell herself, much less the focus of her fascination. She knew that what she was feeling was some form of physical and emotional attraction, he made her feel safe. Safe in a way that she had never felt before. He had also helped her to finally come to terms with her other selves and reached balance in life that she had been lacking for as long as she could remember.
For that alone the man deserved her gratitude, and a medal. But for saving her life multiple times on top of that.. She shook an arm that he couldn't see. The need to express herself was powerful enough that she couldn't fully contain it.
She had also not failed to notice that he had been eating all of the rations she had expressed her dislike of. They had stopped for lunch and she had once more been given a chicken dish, this one had been called spicy chicken alfredo with brawklun. She had quite enjoyed it, especially the strange reddish chunks of vegetable.
When she looked back over at the human he was once more carving that small piece of wood. She didn't fully understand its purpose, she had gathered that it was a form of catharsis for him, but as to its deeper meaning she was as of yet unenlightened. He had mentioned something about his father making carvings for his siblings as a child, but she didn't quite understand the appeal.
Maybe it wasn't about logic she realised. Maybe it was simply a means of pushing the world away for a few precious minutes. She herself liked to read as a manner of destressing from the world. Great works by famous writers such as Ineen Aldrop and Jaclin Forrester came to mind.
Drelloc stepped over another large rock and observed her surroundings. She felt one of her eyes focus on Donner and did her best to draw it away, but part of her just kept on moving it back towards him. She brushed herself off with two arms as she tried to regain a little of her internal composure. She needed to pay attention to their surroundings as he had warned, they were coming up on dangerous territory.
Indeed the curls of drifting smoke drew nearer with every step and she was beginning to detect something foul upon the wind. Donner had given her a level four multispecies respirator almost half an hour ago, the contraption strapping over her mouth and helping to filter the air. Her gills were still exposed on the underside of her head, but she did her best to keep them closed. Both as protection from the growing heat of the day as well as to protect them from potential irritants.
Minasdee didn't rain much, the entire world being covered in arid scrubland and low grasslands near the poles. As such the toxins of war were never washed away, instead they simply got concentrated by the heat and wind till there were places on the planet as dangerous as any radiological disaster site.
She knew that Donner was keeping an eye out for such pitfalls. She watched as the human swept around in front of them with a small multitector tool, likely looking out for just such kinds of hotspots and poor air pockets. The last thing they needed was to stumble into some noxious cloud of synthetic plastic degrading bacteria or something similarly nasty.
Biological weapons without limited lifespans or kill switches were prohibited for use in conflict by both sides as per the codes of war. But this war had seen the rules stretched to the breaking point on both sides. She herself had been disgusted to learn of the events that had happened in the Karax system. Union sources vehemently denied involvement in the tragedy that had seen the destruction of an entire world without a trace. But the Rebels had evidence to strongly suggest that they had nothing to do with it.
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She only knew that the Union Science Division was running top secret experiments out of there, but that was the extent of her knowledge. For all she knew the Union had been responsible for the deaths of those millions. And if that were true then part of her would not even have been surprised.
She grimaced, her mouth twitching under the respirator she wore. Those at the top would do anything to maintain their status. She had found evidence of other things, things she dared not even think of lest they detect her in a lie during one of the UIA’s monthly loyalty inspections.
She was about to ask for them to take a short breather when Donner stopped suddenly, she didn't quite get the memo and took another step before she was grabbed and halted by the man forcefully.
She gulped in indignation as he hauled her backwards another step. “Hey, what's the big idea..” He shushed her loudly and pointed ahead.
She looked and then froze. The ground in front of them was glass smooth and perfectly uniform in color. Out of the corner of her eye she had not even noticed the difference, but now that he had pointed it out it seemed startlingly out of place.
Donner leaned down and picked up a small stone from the ground. He gave her a pointed look and then tossed it. It sailed through the air before landing square in the muck with a loud ‘Ploop!’ before sinking completely out of sight, barely a blemish on the surface of the quagmire to even show that it had gone in.
Drelloc shuddered and stepped back a pace. She hadn’t even seen the danger. Once more she owed the tall human her life. She gestured to the deadly morass before them, “we need to find another way around. What about that?” She gestured towards what looked to be a collapsed trenchworks nearby. The wooden gangplanks that allowed for passage over the flooded mire were still in place.
Donner gave her a nod. “Okay, but I am going first. If anything happens to me I want you to trek south. There should be another way around that will add a day or two to the journey.” He paused and then unslung the duffel from his back. “Here, take this Drelloc. You need to make it back to base.”
She grabbed it with three arms and then slung it over her shoulders as Donner walked out onto the gangplank. It seemed to wobble slightly but held firm as he stepped across the wide quagmire filled trench. She slowly and gingerly followed suit, her body rebelling against her by trembling in mild fear. The thought of that dark mass consuming her, of her mouth and eyes filling with cloying toxic mud, it shook her in a way that she was scarcely willing to admit to even herself.
She crossed the patch without incident and lept into Donner’s outstretched arm. Her body pressing into his for a brief moment as he steadied her. Was it simply her imagination or did he linger close to her for longer than was necessary. Almost too quick to notice he stepped away.
“We need to move faster. I don't want to be caught in this hellhole when night falls. Sleeping in a mask is uncomfortable at the best of times, and these are far from ideal circumstances.”
She gestured in an understanding manner. She couldn't exactly smell the area around her in the same manner that he could, but her receptors were picking up many decidedly unpleasant notes drifting through the fetid air of the debris riddled battlefield. She followed him slowly, making sure to match his every step. They would be through this nightmare soon enough, she screwed several eyes shut, for once not wanting to be able to observe the entirety of her surroundings. Instead she decided to focus on Donner’s back, the man leading her inexorably through the choking bog.
**********
The going was slow and tedious, Donner making sure to use the multitector and his assistant to their fullest effect. Steering their path as far from the worst of the irradiated zones where the charred remains of armoured vehicles lay. The ground was soft, clay and sand left over from the construction of the subterranean fortifications that had made up the first lines of defense.
He shook his head and tried to ignore the scaling sun that beat relentlessly upon his back. He spared a glance at his companion, the razah’voolian woman teetering along behind him. Her strange alien form no longer quite so unfamiliar in his mind, he couldn't help but give her a reassuring smile and was pleased to see the skin around her secondary eyes crease in return. Her own version of the gesture.
He suppressed a cough and shook his head. The damn gas mask was supposed to be fog-proof, but he found that the eye pieces kept misting with his labored breathing. He swore quietly under his breath and then stopped dead, his body tensing.
Directly in front of them was a deep impact crater, the trench having smashed asunder by the impact of some manner of dropship. What had gotten his attention however were the multitude of screaming corpses that littered the ground around the site. Their bodies were charred, rotting flesh sloughing from shattered bone in the algae filled slime at the bottom of the hole.
He felt his gorge rise and had to double over, he had seen death before. Many times in fact, he was a soldier. But to imagine the manner in which these doomed soul’s had died, screaming in agony as the burning fuel of their wrecked ship drowned them in toxic vapors. He shuddered, his eyes screwing shut at the horror of it.
He felt a trio of arms on his back after a moment, not condescending or pushing. But gentle, comforting. He heard a soft whisper, Drelloc speaking in reverence at her witness of the sight. “There is no compensation for their deaths. But we can at least make sure they are avenged, when this war is over they will be buried with honor Donner. It is the least they are owed for their sacrifice.”
He knew the words were meant to sooth him, but he felt a white hot anger in his heart as she spoke them. He stood slowly, a fist raised hateful to the sky as he raged, “What’s the point of it all! We die like znots in a box for the honor of gutless cowards and corrupt politicians!” Once more he was comforted by a pair of arms on his shoulders. He stifled a sob that tried to tear its way from his breast and looked down at one of her hands.
She seemed to hesitate and then released him. “I understand Donner. I truly do, but things won't change while the war yet rages. We need to keep moving, as you said. Please.”
Donner stood, his hands shaking and his vision a bit grey. He took a deep shuddering breath, the rage simmering just under the surface. He shouldn't be mad at her, she had nothing to do with the war and his own current sorry situation on a backwater planet with no backup. No, he needed to direct his anger towards the real assholes in charge.
He nodded his head and turned to look at Drelloc. She took an uncertain looking step back as he let out the breath he had been holding explosively and gestured towards the left. “We can move around the.. wreckage. We should be able to make better time once we reach the secondary lines, they were less damaged in this area if memory serves.”
He turned from her before she could speak and started to pick his way across the edge of the hole, skirting the crater so as to not have to cross back into the mud that lay to either side. This took them deeper into the hostile territory of the wrecked defense line.
Donner scanned the ground with his eyes as his other senses remained on high alert. He might not have the same constant all around peripheral vision that Drelloc had, but from what he had read as a younger man humans had exceptional binocular vision for an omnivorous species. The yeown had better vision in the dark and the slaaveth could see further under the water, but these specialties were outmatched in broad daylight on land.
He saw something that made his heart freeze and threw out an arm in the universal motion for halt. In front of them was a series of small impact craters, several of which had small fins protruding from them. They were unexploded bomblets from some manner of cluster munitions, incredibly dangerous as they may still be live.
He gestured to them and commented, “Unexploded bombs ahead. We need to find another way, it's far too dangerous to risk weaving through. A single vibration may be all that they require to detonate. He and Drelloc turned and made their way across a nearby spit of land that jutted out into the crater strewn no man’s land between trenchworks.
The going was slow, every step fraught with peril, every breath labored by the knowledge of the terrible danger that lay all around. Donner could feel the stress as it tensed his muscles and froze the blood to ice in his veins. He stumbled and nearly fell, catching himself against a metal spar that jutted from the dry, cracked mud. Looking back towards what had caught his foot he swallowed heavily, jutting from the ground was the barely recognisable form of a heavy machine gun. The boxy shape rusted and looking completely ruined.
He checked his surroundings and then noted that Drelloc was stumbling slightly as well, he leaned against the metal bar and motioned for her to halt.
He nodded and then rested his hands on his knees. “Let’s take a second to breathe.”
She made a tired looking gesture, part affirmative and slightly worried. The way her blood red eyes seemed to take in everything made him acutely aware of the awful situation they were immersed in. He felt the urge to reach out to her, to steady and comfort her, but he stopped himself. He was her guardian, her protector. He couldn't be more than that, not without getting too closely involved emotionally.
He shut his eyes and tried to block out the moaning of the wind as it blew steadily over the area. It reminded him of the sounds that the old factory near to his childhood home made, the groaning of large things rubbing together. He smiled slightly, the memories of his childhood managing to bring a small measure of comfort to his ailing soul. After another few minutes he had them move out once more, he honestly felt a little bit better now and it manifested as a little extra pep in his step. His stride was a bit more assured, though he still kept vigilant of their surroundings.
He slowed as they neared another smouldering wreck, the burnt out hull of an armoured vehicle causing his multitector to spike. The rapid clicking screeching danger signals at him as a gust of wind blew some of the thin white smoke their way. Even months later the tank was still hot, likely due to some manner of low level fission reactions taking place in its ruptured promethium powercells.
He nodded to Drelloc and they made their way around the hulk. Its thick metal plates twisted by the impact of something that had nearly turned it inside out. Likely some manner of very large orbital or long range bombardment judging by the vitrified looking soil that spread from under its twisted form.
“This way, quickly. That thing is pretty hot still.” He gestured to Drelloc who followed along behind him, her pace definitely a little slower than it had been earlier. She was getting tired, he needed to find a safe place to rest more substantially.
He looked around but saw nothing but more destitute cratered landscape, overflowing with pitfalls and discarded detritus of battle. More than a few rotten bodies littered the space as well, neither side willing to brave the toxic swamps to bury their disgraced dead.
He kept moving along the side of this new embankment, trying to find a place where they could at least pause to hunker down without seemingly absorbing pollutants or stray radiation. He scrambled up a crater in the earthen wall while motioning for Drelloc to stay put.
Donner reached the top without incident and ducked under a stray loop of razorwire to get his bearings again. He noted with relief that they were nearly through. The Beachhead was wide, extending for dozens of kilometers both to the north and south, but it was not terribly deep. They had nearly pushed through, only a few hundred more meters of twisted and collapsed earthworks and they would be free of its ilk. And good thing too, it was starting to get late in the day, the oppressive sun was dipping towards the horizon like some great glowing eye and he could feel the heat slowly leaching out of the planet’s atmosphere. The lack of greenhouse gasses and cloud cover making the planet radiate off most of the day’s heat relatively fast.
Donner looked around quickly, trying to assess the best route to safety. It looked like they could keep moving along the embankment for another few meters and then push through a breach close to the wreckage of another dropship. From there it was a relatively straight shot to safety.
He scrambled down the wall and looked at her, “We are close. Another few hundred meters Drelloc. You can do this.”
She made an unknowable gesture and seemed to slump slightly. Donner twitched, wanting to comfort her but not knowing how. After a moment of indecision he decided to risk it and reached out, placing a firm hand on one of her shoulders.
Drelloc looked up at his touch, her smaller secondary eyes widening slightly, the crinkling of the skin around them forming a strange expression he couldn't decipher. She made another gesture with two of her arms while a third reached up to cover his hand with one of her own. Her skin was warm, the surface of it much softer than it looked given the grey wrinkled texture of it. They stood like that for another moment, Donner feeling as though something unspoken had just passed between them. An understanding of sorts.
He nodded and turned, not wanting her to see the rising color in his cheeks as they burned slightly. She had given him that look again, the one she had given him the night before. When she had brushed his hair. He cleared his throat, he was a man. He wasn’t about to admit to himself that just her touch had made his knees grow weak and his heart race like they never had before.
Donner picked up the pace slightly, not in anger, but in desperation. He needed to get her out of here and to safety, the thought of anything happening to her. It didn't bear thinking about.
They moved quickly over the embankment and down the other side, Donner making sure to scan the area for any threats or danger. It wouldn't have been the first old battlefield he had been forced to scramble through, though this one was by far one of the most dangerous he had yet to encounter. The pitfalls, the mud traps and toxic fumes all combined to make the whole place a definite deathtrap for the unwary. Luckily the planet of Minasdee didn't seem to have much in the way of scavengers.
He perked up, he could see the end ahead, not more than seventy meters away there was a gap in the rusting razor wire and cratered trenches that led to firmer ground. He glanced at Drelloc, the razah’vool woman was flagging. Her strength all but spent but he saw her eyes smile as he looked at her.
“Are we.. nearly there?” She panted through her respirator, the slightly muffled sound of her voice still making him smile.
He turned to look forwards again and skirted what looked like a ruptured powercell on the dry ground. “Yes, not much longer. We are going to rest just at the top of that hill, you see it ahead?” He made a wide gesture forwards.
Drelloc started to speak, but her voice was cut off by a subtle noise followed by a sharp inhale from her. He froze as the distinct sound rattled through the still air.
Click!
‘No, nonono..’ He thought silently as he slowly turned around. His fears were realised as he looked back and saw her standing perfectly still, all four arms up and on her head in some gesture of terror or despair. For under one of her suited feet was a buried and dirt covered disk. The shape of the land mine was just barely apparent through the growing dusk.
Donner doubled over as if he had been punched in the gut, the feeling of horror that permeated his middle nearly crippling in its intensity.
He felt a single tear tear its way from the corner of his eye as Drelloc spoke, her wavering voice full of fatigue and fear. “Donner, what do I do?”