“You have a friend in Tier One?” asked Thandi’s other fire team member, Beydaan Burale, who had caught sight of the note.

“No, Bibi, it’s that other FNG, Kayla Barnes,” corrected Lyna, “She’s been on the ground since the start of this thing—she’s Calderan and they wanted some local knowledge.”

The other Ranger nodded. “Oh, yes, of course,” she replied and fell silent.

“Seems like a big operation,” Thandi said.

Lyna nodded, her eyes flashing. “I hear this one’s going to be serious. A real stand-up fight.”

Ray agreed. “I saw them dragging that body off the drop ship the other day. Nasty looking thing. Obviously not bullet proof, though.”

“It will depend on their tactics,” Bibi cautioned. “Let’s not jump to any conclusions.”

“What do you think it would feel like to get hit by one of those bone spikes? The tips looked nasty sharp,” Lyna asked, addressing no one in particular.

Thandi thought they looked like spears, then immediately shut the image away.

“Not much different than being shot,” Bibi replied with confidence. “They may have more mass than a bullet, but their momentum would drive them straight through you.” She spoke quietly, but with a detached, analytical tone.

As Thandi had gotten to know her over the last several weeks, she thought that the woman was the last person she would have expected to find in a Ranger battalion—much less with the aggressive Vipers. She never spoke unless she had something important to contribute, and when not in a gym or working with the squad was usually to be found hidden in a quiet corner with a book.

“You’ll be picking yourself up off the floor,” Tian Bao argued. “The things are an inch wide and more than a foot long. All that mass travelling at high speed—talk about stopping power.”

“No Tian, I just explained why that is wrong,” Bibi replied patiently. “There is no transfer of momentum. You would have a big messy wound, but it would probably be survivable if it doesn’t hit a vital organ.”

“You’re not accounting for hydrostatic shock, though.”

“Because it is a pseudo-scientific concept that doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.”

“How strong do you think they are?” Thandi interrupted. The pair had a habit of filling the squad’s downtime with endless arguments.

“Big, nanite enhanced muscles?” Tian smiled. “Probably could rip you in half if you give them the opportunity. Don’t give them the opportunity.”

Lyna sighed. “It’s always some eldritch horror bent on killing us all. Why can’t we meet nice aliens for a change?”

“They’re not aliens,” Bibi corrected. “They are transformed humans.”

“Okay, fine, but you get what I mean. I’m waiting for the day we can meet another intelligent species and just… hang out or whatever. You know? Talk about our similarities and differences, and what we’ve learned about the universe.”

“Not in this quadrant,” Tian cut in, her eyes gleaming. “Everything out there wants to kill you, so get ready to destroy it with fire.”

Lyna gave a tight smile. “When we make first contact, I’m going to make sure that you are on desk duty somewhere.”

Tian raised an eyebrow. “Why would you assume that an intelligent species doesn’t have something to gain by hurting you? That’s a dangerous philosophy.”

“But you have to express vulnerability in order to establish trust.”

“Uh… okay, maybe. But that doesn’t mean you have to actually be vulnerable. Experience has taught us to protect ourselves first and foremost.”

“Bibi, what do you think?” Lyna asked.

The Ranger thought for a moment. “I think that our experience has been biased, and selected for violence.”

“Huh?”

“The Jotnar are extinct—the only technology they left behind had to be rugged and sophisticated enough to have survived millennia, and that usually means war machines. I don’t think we should take that as a reflection on what the rest of their society was like.”

“Sorry, you’re talking about the genocidal warrior race whose abandoned weapons regularly kill us, right?” Tian said with a grin.

Bibi raised a finger. “The human race experienced periods of devastating conflict—world wars that killed millions and levelled entire countries. And yet you wouldn’t hesitate to walk into a bar on Caldera and order a drink.”

“Because we know how we work, I guess,” Lyna said with a nod. “Interests, agendas, and customs—figure those out and you can get along with anyone.”

“Exactly, and I don’t think it would have been any different with the Jotnar,” Bibi said. “Just because their political class got caught up in something they couldn’t control, doesn’t mean that most of them weren’t decent beings.”

“Uhuh, sure,” Tian said. “But when blue tentacle creature rocks up in his spaceship, my hand is resting on my sidearm. And if he’s really intelligent, he’ll understand the reason for that.”

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Lyna grabbed an apple off her tray. “Thandi, take a side here,” she ordered, before taking a bite.

Thandi, who had been trying desperately to think of something interesting to add, flustered under the suddenly cold and expectant gazes of the rest of her squad. “Uh… God loves all creatures equally.”

“That’s a textbook response,” Lyna scolded. “Tell me something I haven’t heard before.”

Thandi thought quickly. “I agree with Tian. Just and peaceful beings may exist, but so does evil. To quote John, ‘And He did not need anyone to bear witness concerning man, for He Himself knew what was in human nature.’ If there are intelligent aliens,” she concluded, “then however nice they may generally be, some of them will be criminals or psychopaths.”

Lyna nodded. “That’s some three-thousand-year-old wisdom right there. Of course, you’re assuming that aliens are the same as humans, which is speciesism, xenophobia, and probably racist.”

Tian shook her head. “What a bigot. Are all new recruits so ignorant these days?”

Thandi returned the smirks with a tight smile and reminded herself that she would have to suffer at least a year of this kind of teasing before she would get any respect.

Once the conversation died down, she began drumming her fingers on the table, trying to imagine how she should paint her hypothetical future sports car on Tyr. That problem occupied her for a few minutes, but then her mind began to wander again.

“Uh Ray, how come you’re called Ray?” she asked. “Isn’t your middle name Rai?”

“Correct.” The woman smiled at her from across the table. “It’s because I’m a ray of sunshine in your life.”

Thandi laughed as Ray pulled her hair aside, exposing her neck. “See that scar?” she pointed.

“Yeah—looks nasty.”

“That’s where a battle laser—we call them ‘ray guns’—nearly sliced my head off. Yeah, that was a fun day.”

Thandi snapped her mouth shut as Kes came over to join them.

“How are you doing, Khawula?” the squad leader asked.

“Good, Corporal,” Thandi lied.

“Great. Listen, I know we’ve been giving you a hard time, but that’s because I can see the potential in you, and I want to get the best out of you. Jokes aside, I am genuinely pleased that we got two obviously scrappy girls like you and Barnes.

“Thanks, Corporal.”

“When we get down there and it kicks off, you are basically going to be useless for the first hour—that’s fine. You’re just going to be overloaded with noise and confusion. Don’t sweat it. Your job is not to kill anything or be a hero—it’s to support the squad and not do anything stupid.

“Okay.”

“You follow your training, and you do exactly what I tell you, when I tell you. You’ll do just fine, okay?”

“Yeah, okay.” Thandi nodded, conscious that she had nothing else to offer than meek acknowledgement.

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Ray reassured her. “New Rangers are customarily prohibited from getting wounded until they have experienced at least one squad level night out in a major city, where they will undergo humiliation from excessive alcohol consumption, and failed attempts to flirt with boys. Or girls. Or farm animals.”

“I’m actually okay with guys,” Thandi said.

“No—you were okay with guys when you were a civilian. Now you bench half a ton, you shoot bad guys in the face, and you jump out of perfectly good dropships. Be advised, your social skills have declined significantly.”

“Okay.”

“Girls, I got the word,” Kes continued. “The Raiders are going in tonight, so jump off time is expected tomorrow, around twenty-three hundred local time, which is twelve-hundred shipboard time.”

Lyna cursed and fiddled with her watch. “Off by an hour,” she explained.

“All of you know that this platoon has a stellar record, which is in a large part due to the efforts of our officers,” Kes said. “They’ve pushed us hard, and it has produced results. Okay, we’re a Viper short, but you’ve all seen how hard Thandi has been working to get herself up to speed. She’s obviously good people.” She patted Thandi on the back, and the others nodded respectfully.

“So, we don’t need to worry. Out of all the Vipers, we’re the fangs; we produce the venom. We’re going to get down there and do what needs to be done to protect the innocent people being targeted by these scumbag terrorists.”

The others nodded calmly.

“Go spend as much time as you can with the sand table—write your letters, get your affairs in order. Aguilar will address the company at zero-seven hundred, suit up at zero-eight hundred. Any questions?”

There were none, and Kes left them to their own devices.

“That sucks,” Ray said, and Lyna grunted in agreement.

Thandi raised her eyebrows.

“She gave us a pep talk, which means she’s worried,” Ray explained.

Thandi did her best to remain as nonchalant as the others, even though her heart was thumping out a fast rhythm, while her mind swam with a million questions. She kept quiet, trying to re-focus on her sports car, when she caught Ray’s eye again.

“Thandi, whatever happens down that, just make sure you remember one thing.” Ray’s tone was suddenly serious.

“What’s that?”

“Switching to your pistol is always faster than reloading.” She winked, then laughed at Thandi’s confused expression.

Kayla squeezed gingerly into her combat suit, wishing she had had more time to wear it in. The tight joints felt restrictive, making some of her movements awkward, but there was nothing she could do other than embrace the discomfort. When the suit was on, with the helmet locked and sealed around her head, she draped her tactical rig over her chest, secured her sidearm holster to her leg, and began slotting magazines and grenades into the appropriate pouches.

She and the other Raiders had spent the last few hours laying out all their gear, loading magazines with ammunition and running system checks on their helmet vizors. Then a ‘gear up’ call had echoed around the workshop, and it was time to get ready.

When she had finished, Kayla checked everything again. Then a third time, then a fourth. She couldn’t shake the almost addictive impulse and could barely think straight as adrenaline hummed through her system.

Where was her knife, she asked herself—where was the toggle for the helmet’s night vision and infra-red capable face plate? Which was the fragmentation grenade, and which was smoke? Was that an unused pouch on her webbing, and should she fill it with another mag, or a spare flashlight? Then she felt like she had to go to the bathroom every twenty minutes, and this was even more embarrassing since the Raiders around her appeared completely calm and focused. Their cheerful humor and irreverent comments had disappeared, replaced by steely determination.

As she slung her rifle, Urtiga came over to check her thoroughly, and Kayla stared in fascination at her combat suit. Unlike Kayla’s Ranger suit, the Raiders used adaptive camouflage. Now activated, smears and splotches of color were forming almost imperceptibly slowly to imitate the workshop’s grey, angular forms.

“Invert your magazines, top down,” Urtiga advised. “That way you can just pull and flip, and slot them in. Got it?”

“Yes… um, thanks,” Kayla stammered.

“The game tonight is stalking; we pass like shadows.”

“No problem.”

“You’ll stay in the back, you’ll follow Masey and do everything she tells you to do and nothing else. I mean that with one hundred percent severity, Kayla.”

“Yes, Sergeant,” Kayla said, hoping her genuine sincerity wouldn’t be taken as sarcasm.

Urtiga nodded and they bumped fists. Kayla, heartbeat thudding so loud she could hear it, tried to stop obsessing over her every movement. They piled up their backpacks, made heavier by the inclusion of the seismic mapping spikes that had been distributed to the teams, and sat down to wait outside the workshop, in the warm rays of the setting sun.