05 - Regal Rodents

Civir's cackles were madder than laughs in an asylum. The soldiers down below, engaged in wicked combat, fighting to win, and to give no ground. And fiercely did the fight, and deliberately did they kill these... new, bizarre creatures who'd come to invade. Those soldiers – his soldiers – moved with purpose and precision.

Civir observed every moment of the firefight, waiting for the moment to arrive. It wasn't long until it did.

“And lo!” he yelled, “Paradise, eyes closed!” With both thumbs, he pressed the eighth switch. “Behold! All their dreams – untold!”

Five hundred feet away the wire of his detonator sparked a bomb in an alleyway down below him, triggering a blinding blast that spread twice the width of a normal road. In the press of a single switch nine soldiers' lives ended in a blaze of inglorious fire and radiation. But, as war would have it, their lives mattered little to the ender. They were enemy soldiers of the worst kind: Alien soldiers – intelligent animals.

“Memories, buried deep – unfold... and so into nightmare, go...” Civir prayed, softer than a whisper to himself.

The shockwave rattled his boots upon the balcony, displaced his other detonators and knocked off an entire portion of a wall from some nearby shop; under which another bomb had been hidden. It was not the force of the impact that killed his enemies, though. Their suits were far too strong for that, and he was a quick learner.

When the invasion began, Civir quickly figured out that very few of the enemy's more dangerous machines were automatic, and that it was the aliens themselves who somehow controlled them. Which targets to engage first became clear as time went on, as did which types of the machines to bring down the fastest. He even learned how to identify the leader of an enemy group.

What killed them was far more delighting to him. It was the heat. It was the fire. The searing white flames reached temperatures beyond that needed to burn alive whatever creatures sat inside those suits. In the interest of good measure, though, Civir clenched his fist, tightening his grip on the handle of his gauntlet-mounted emitter and he fired beams of microwaves down at them. He did not stop until he was absolutely sure that they were all thoroughly dead.

“I've suffered enough of your kind. Now suffer mine,” he mumbled.

It was not the first time the assortment of creatures attacked his convoy by 'sneaking' into an alleyway on their 'open' flank. And it wouldn't be the last. There was no finer tactic, in his view, nor one as amusing. Leaving one side open on purpose, but laced with basic, non-computerized explosives that took more time to detect than scanners and combat allowed. Their preparations and scouting may have slowed their journey, but very much increased the amount of aliens he and his solders killed.

“Baron!” One of his subordinates on the streets below him screamed, “Bombers, on high!”

“Good!” Civir yelled back, “The avian are lighter and poorly protected! Their ground forces' shots are loud, but that's! About! It!” He punched down three more switches, sending explosions and dust across their twisted battleground; safe from his troops, but not from theirs.

Most of the tanks in Civir's convoy aimed their barrels upwards, directing waves of heat at a legion in the air. Wings with plumes from black to gold approached and flapped through clouds of smoke. Exoskeletal armor covered them, armed them, left them light enough to still fly. Robots split away from the formation to flank. Everyone was under fire, and most all were returning it.

On the ground as well his soldiers flooded the streets with lethal amounts of radiation, burning whatever enemies they could, and further deterring them with heat, sparks and the fires thereof.

They are an odd breed of invaders, he thought. All geared-up and ready for ballistics, chemicals and bio-weapons, but little else.

Civir stood pretty much in plain sight upon half a broken balcony overlooking the street. He fired the microwave cannon mounted on his gauntlet into the air, burning targets one after another. He also kept an eye on the streets and alleys, always ready to press another switch and detonate another bomb wherever he needed an explosion. Civir had twelve tanks and nearly fifty soldiers under his command, but most of his own soldiers were preoccupied with the protection of the civilians.

Civir couldn't simply hide and hope that nobody would die, that was no solution. He had to make sure that they did not. That was his main reason for choosing the narrower tiers, where no ships of any formidable size could maneuver. The open areas along his path were minimal, and even the birds had troubles flying. He, the tanks, and a few other soldiers all fired at the aliens, effectively committing avicide. One by one they dropped from the sky, some flailing and flapping in insane spasms, trading flight for the fall. Death came to too many too quick. Orders to scatter, retreat and regroup had to be issued, and soon were. Each side realized that there would be no retaliation, nor another attack. Civir wasn't going to assault anything, not with what he had. But he and his forces had every advantage along his desired path. They could hold any position with the ferocity of a last stand, and had done so many times. But again, neither side needed that. Attacking his convoy led to more deaths than his group was worth.

Off and away the remaining birds vanished behind the tiers, and the stray projectiles and bomblets came less and less. Soon, they stopped altogether. Civir wouldn't be forced into a bad situation. Those under his command won the streets and cleared the buildings of enemy forces, but only a handful felt it a worthy time to rejoice.

The birds could not cope in the confines of the tier they were on, nor the ones nearby – not with their tanks to contend with as well.

“Flittering to litted tallow towers burns the wings of lesser beings,” he laughed, clicking the communicator on his chest. “Keep leery,” he ordered, “Check the tanks and expect another attack. Bombing us will not work – they know that now, so expect a full ground assault or an ambush. And keep from any long views. The last thing you need to see now are distant tiers.”

He looked down from the balcony, past the dirt, blood and miscellaneous grime. On the streets below him were all of his soldiers, all of the tanks and a handful of military cargo carriers. They had seen better days. Some of the infantry were too scared to do anything other than cower behind the hard steel of the tanks, trying to console themselves with memories of better times. He couldn't blame them, but was thankful they were a minority. Civir hadn't seen so bloodthirsty a force, or such planned brutality against civilians. Not in over forty years. Ironic, he thought, to be on the receiving end.

There were so few people left alive under his rule compared from when he started, which was both a boon and a burden. During the last attack he'd lost another five soldiers, four tanks, and nearly twenty civilians – idiots all. The untrained, unwashed, unoathed, uncouth mob had made attempts to flee from the combat, unperturbed by what happened to everyone else who'd tried to run. Still somehow there were those convinced that it was a good idea. There were still around a hundred unarmed people under his protection, most of whom were in the transports. The people were nothing but useless cargo, valueless, purposeless. More would certainly die, seeing how urban warfare and tier-to-tier combat was not Civir's forte, and some of the civilians were losing faith in his ability to protect them. They were beginning to act even dumber than usual. “More will run...”

Due to the sheer number of the men, women and children Civir's convoy had to protect, they were forced to stop all too often to make sure they all had food and that they had proper wound treatment. The haltings were a constant hassle to him and a strain on his soldiers, especially with their dwindling supplies and the constant complaining from the very same benighted, ungrateful hoi polloi he was duty-bound to defend.

Civir sat down upon the grime and hung his legs over the side of the tall balcony and combed through his dark-green hair with his swirly-patterned, blue-tattooed fingers. He sighed, thought briefly of their rather unlikely odds to escape the planet, and then pressed his communicator.

“Oben? Plon? Do you still live?” Civir asked, sniffing the air with his ratty nose as his ears twitched in expectation. His communicator chirped as the replies came.

“Oben here,” said a voice, young and frightened.

“Plon here,” said another. He was older, stern, but tired and almost bored with manning the defenses.

“Meet me abaft,” Civir ordered. “The tunnels must be mine-laden. We don't want them using the roads to sneak tanks behind us. And we've to see about getting the water running. I'll not hear the mewling of small folk.”

“By our oath, Baron, we're on our way,” Oben replied.

Civir shook his head and scratched the tips of his ears, flustered from what his own oath brought. The motion gave him a headache, however, only sending his thoughts into a more painful flurry. “Stop it!” he demanded.

Once Civir got a bearing on himself he pulled his legs from over the ledge, dusted himself off and neutralized all the triggers of his bombs. After contending with the wires he carried himself down the balcony stairs and onto the street. The dust had mostly cleared, but the air still tasted of blood, smoke and powdered rock.

Tanks of red rolled past him with soldiers walking beside them, each saluting in respect or at least recognition of his position. But whenever civilians caught his eye they would lower their heads or look away, pretending not to see him. They were afraid, but not of him. They seemed to treat him as an annoyance to be avoided.

“Thankless, oxygen-thieving mouth-breathers,” he mumbled. Every single non-combatant among them owed their lives to Civir and his soldiers, but they were hardly ever thanked for their protection, as if safety (in whatever degree) was simply owed them. Never mind that it was for them that the soldiers were even still there. Never mind that without Civir and his men they would all be dead.

No, to the ignorant citizenship, those with power plot and never do enough, do we? But the fact that they themselves do not think and do not do much of anything means nothing to them!

The very thought of what they were burned an angry headache right in the front of his skull. By military-aristocratic law Civir had the power to choose the daughter, or daughters of any man who's life he'd saved via military intervention. The reasons he had for never exploiting that power were many. He was older now, and never even cared when he was younger. But overall it was a tie between how much time it would waste, and because he'd seen more interesting and attractive organisms swimming in the city's sewage systems. He pondered it for a moment, though, and found one above all: The thought of his own wanton lust helping to spread their sense-starved genes to new generations was sickening. He had to protect them out of nothing but his position. Were he anyone else, Civir would gladly send them all to die, or gather them in one spot and leave them with a bomb.

As he walked down the alleyways he passed many of his soldiers – with a few civilians – who were ripping alien novelties off the suites of dead invaders.

“Leave anything that resembles a can or a bottle!” he knew he had to shout. “Some of them are explosives. Make sure everyone is aware of that, least a fool'll fall dead.”

“Yes, Baron,” a soldier acknowledged. Whoever he was, Civir had no doubts that the message would get passed on. Even his newly loyal-oathed quickly learned to fear the bombs of Civir, and all would heed such a warning from him. He continued past the rear guard where he was met by Oben and Plon. As ordered, they had been waiting for him at the end of the derelict street.

The two of them were rather unremarkable wua'qua soldiers, both wearing armor as basic as could be. The only reason Civir asked for them in particular was because he could recall their names from having overheard a painfully boring conversation. They, like most under Civir's command, were each wearing two weaponized gauntlets instead of the standard and 'safer' singular. Plon's mounted cannons were different, one shot directed bolts of electricity – only good against the invader's machines and birds – while the other was mounted with a standard high-power microwave cannon. Oben's armor was slightly more advanced, and entirely heat-proof. His gauntlets were both flamethrowers. Oben needed to be well protected from his own weapons, because they, like Civir's bombs, burned with a white flame, making direct exposure to them instantly fatal. Even with his helmet he could never look directly at the flames for very long.

Between Oben and Plon there sat a large crate marked with the official crest of Civir's house, depicting a lit candle in the shape of a tower; the flame of the wick sparking as would a fuse. And in the crate were a large number of high-quality, but entirely improvised explosive mines based on designs created by the baron himself.

“That's more than enough,” Civir said, “You two keep me covered, I'll drag the box. Set your visors for organics and automatons only, and stay sharp regardless.”

All of their enemies looked like machines at first glance, except...

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

Civir shuddered thinking about those creepy fucking birds.

Most all were just armored creatures, but every fight made use of smaller automatons. Civir grabbed the crate by its handle and began to drag it down the road towards the tunnel. He didn't want to completely destroy the long underpass in case other survivors decided to pass onto or off of the tier. He did, however, want to make sure that nothing big would get through.

With Oben and Plon as his escorts, Civir brought the crate all the way to the entrance of the tunnel, a considerable distance from the convoy. Before he could even grab a mine, Plon shouted, “There!”

Like the rats they were they scattered from the open and took cover behind a large, bombed-off section of the nearest building.

“What's there?!” Oben yelled.

“It was short,” Plon explained, “it-”

A red burst of light shattered through their cover, and struck Plon in the head. His skull exploded, sending what was left of his tongue, eyes, brain, hair and teeth onto Civir and Oben.

“Blind them, and run!” Civir yelled.

Oben sprayed white flames into the air to keep the enemy from seeing them flee, which failed. Two more shots came from far down the road. One perfectly landed in Oben's heart, and just after that, another hit Civir in one of his knees, crippled in one shot. As anyone would, he still tried to get away, crawling ever forward, but knowing that there wasn't any point. His enemy obviously knew what it was doing. It was just outside of the range of their scanners. It could have easily killed him, too, but the bullet in his knee was clearly smaller than what had killed his men, seeing that he still had two legs.

He looked behind him as he tried to escape, and then he saw it.

An invader.

It was a horrifying sight for him to behold. A short insect completely covered in mechanical armor. If he didn't know any better he'd have assumed that it was just another machine, like the one floating beside it. Civir knew that he would be unable to point his microwave-cannon at either the bug or the robot before being killed, and if he called for help, it would be able to kill him and leave before anyone arrived. Civir had been in enough battles to know the face of death. He stopped crawling and gasped in pain, just before rolling over to face the bug.

It slowly approached him, and Civir kept his arms down in the hopes of buying himself some more time amongst the living. The urge to try to shoot it was a hard one to ignore, but his senses prevailed. That would mean immediate death. It skittered up to him and stuck the barrel of its weapon in his face. Civir shut his eyes, awaiting the end of all things. It didn't come, however.

The bug held the gun in his face with its two front legs, stood up on its two back legs and untied Civir's gauntlet-cannon with its middle set of legs. Civir opened his eyes again, facing the beetle-like creature.

“Alone, are we?” Civir asked. The bug lowered its gun, and Civir slowly leaned forward, taking off his belt and tying it around the wound on his knee to stop the bleeding. He did not know why, but he knew that he'd just become a prisoner of war. A good talking-to beforehand...

“What do you want?” he asked.

* * *

All that Djhuen heard was a rather musical mixing of sounds: “Be'io b'oni ya'i?”

This was exactly what he'd wanted. Djhuen had deployed five hours earlier than Edith's doomed mix of RB1-3 and the new SER-22 to make his first bit of progress. He wanted to enjoy some unregulated time on the battlefield, and he wanted to actually get something done without anyone getting in the way. Once Edith and her new squadmates land his job would be to scout ahead for them. But they weren't yet deployed. Without a squad to impede him, Djhuen got as close as he could to a staserian, a living one, and he'd made sure that it was one of relative importance. Importance would equal knowledge, usually.

During the firefight that he'd been watching unfold, Djhuen constantly had this one in his scopes, observing him as the battle went on. At first, he assumed that the staserian was just a fancy-dressed bomb expert, but when this particular staserian would speak, he discovered that he was the conductor of the battle. How lucky he was to have found one with an obvious high-rank.

“Be'io b'oni ya'i...?” the rodent-like alien asked him again. Djhuen tilted his head to one side, causing the creaking sound of chitin-against-chitin. How eerily the staserian resembled humans still amazed him. He could see why humans would call them 'rats,' but this was... eerie.

Why do they look so much alike? he wondered.

He didn't have the time to wonder about the alien too much, though. Djhuen made his combat drone fly in front of the staserian, and then play a recording in front of him. As per his preference, Djheun had always kept recording devices active for both his helmet and his drone. Not for the military, but for himself. He often wants people to know who and what he kills, because to him, war is a bloodsport. But he knew Sol tech inside and out, and didn't always share his footage with all parties concerned.

The recordings he showed to the staserian, however, were not of his past kills. It was something that Djhuen kept as his own little secret, a clear recording of his objective. He'd hidden the footage from everybody; it was too good to show anyone else, he had thought.

* * *

Civir watched the video play out, his face agape at what his eyes were seeing. It was a battle between the invaders and Baron Gokl's personal contingent. In the chaos of it all, there was an odd, wingless, bat-like, lizard creature with red eyes. It killed not only the invaders, but it gunned down many wua'qua as well.

Civir watched all of it from the beginning of the engagement to the very end where it tackled one of the taller aliens, clawing at its head before falling with it, down a full tier.

It escaped.

It's loose in the city.

No...

* * *

Nobody really noticed since they were all panicking, but Djhuen kept a cool head, and had been right there when it happened. If he wanted to, he could have tried to shoot the scanner-ghost on several occasions during the first encounter with it. But he didn't want to; and it wouldn't have worked. The creature was new, it was interesting and much like himself, it did not seem to care about being on either side of the conflict.

Djhuen had seen everything, and so he showed the staserian everything. When the recording was over he played it back and paused when the red-eyed monstrosity was in frame. The staserian's face blinked a few times, and it looked beyond frightened.

* * *

Civir considered the possibility that maybe he was hallucinating from the pain in his knee and the fear of the bug, because this couldn't truly be happening.

No... But... That has to be real, he thought. That's Baron Gokl's ceremonial rifle it has, and that building...

The insect suddenly moved the drone closer to Civir's face, hoping to prompt a response. He flinched back a little and then dipped his finger in his blood. On the ground in front of him he drew a little symbol.

* * *

At first, Djhuen thought that the staserian was making the letter 'F,' but instead he drew what looked like two long, twisted and elegant F's, one upside-down over the other.

* * *

Civir looked up at the alien, hoping that it was satisfied. It wasn't, though. It snapped its pincers at him, cuing for Civir to say something.

* * *

The staserian man nodded towards the symbol and hissed a rather unusual word. “Rhet...”

Djhuen knew that it was a name, but a name wasn't good enough for him. Was it the name of this creature or this type of creature? He snapped his pincers again, but in a more threatening way. He needed to know more. The alien winced from Djhuen again, but not quite so much.

* * *

“If information is what you want,” Civir said, “I'll give you a disk. Would you like that, you verminous twit?”

* * *

After yammering some more, it slowly reached into its pocket and carefully pulled out a flat, disk-like object. It pressed a button and activated the device, making it hum on and display holographic letters over it. Djhuen was ready to shoot at the first sign of malicious behavior, but he was fairly confident that the staserian wouldn't do anything stupid. And he was right.

It touched the letters and rearranged them until the device showed a large, red ball floating over it. The wounded human-mouse-thing handed over the device and waited.

Djhuen took the device – mysterious though it was – and waved one of his hands through the holographic red ball. It whisked away like a puff of smoke and turned into what seemed a small gallery. Be it painting or a digital creation, the detail of the images were interesting, but none were actual pictures. One by one he looked them over, every time being completely taken by surprise. The styles varied from childish drawings to tasteful paintings. Every image had the same format. Above the picture was a set of four alien letters, and below it was a single alien letter. And under that was a blurb of alien text either short or long.

“Rhet!” the alien yelled as though Dhjuen only was one of many things harrying him.

It wasn't hard for Djhuen to figure out the meaning of the images, or of the staserian's word. The date came first, then the image, followed by one symbol, and then a brief description. That same symbol which it had drawn in its own blood was the title of every image, and every image was of one thing: A monster, depicted always near a place of death, either hooded or armored. If the creature wasn't shown killing, it was shown feasting on the dead.

Djhuen's antennae twitched, and his drone translated his projected thought.

* * *

“Rat?” the machine's voice said.

Hearing the drone speak for the insect was another surprise to Civir. Still he accepted it with little culture shock and nodded towards the device he'd given to this horrifying insect.

“Rhet,” he confirmed.

The large bug put the device in one of its bags, and then raised its weapon towards Civir. Civir shut his eyes, and heard five shots. Slowly, he dared to opening them again. All of the staserian guns had been destroyed. Civir looked at the bug with astonishment.

“You really are alone,” he said, “and you're really going to leave me alive?”

The bug mimicked his nodding gesture as best it could, pointing Civir in the direction of his convoy. With that, it turned around and walked away. The insect's drone still had its guns fixed on Civir, but only as a precaution, it seemed.

“That's it?” Civir silently asked, “Is that why they're invading us? Is that all they've come to our space for? Ahhh... To an end with it all! Gone is the house Gokl, long-deserved... I pray the tales of the pain that thing can cause are true, for that folly-finder's sake.”

He lied on his back, thinking of how strange his encounter had just been. That bug knew where his convoy was, so he knew it must have been watching him during the fighting. There seemed to be something more than just xenocide going on here, something that required special attention from professional warriors. The invaders – or maybe only a few of them? – were after a living, breathing, waking nightmare. It was remarkable to him that it had any basis in reality, beyond rumors and hushed conspiracies floated among nobles. But clearly it existed. And of course, Gokl had to have been involved, of all people.

He tapped his communicator.

“I need help,” he said on his convoy's open channel, “I'm down the road, behind the mall and at the south tunnel. You'll need at least two people to carry me...”

There were several replies, but he ignored them all, and simply waited to be taken back, pondering what must be happening. Baron Gokl had something to do with it, and it had something to do with the prison that was reserved for breakers, oath-heathens and rebels; the bug's video proved that.

However, far as he and nearly everyone else knew... that prison was empty.

He didn't have to wait long until twelve soldiers arrived to help him. Two of them picked him up, and the other ten swept the area, checking for the enemy and verifying that Oben and Plon were as dead as they looked.

“I took care of the shooter,” Civir said, “Leave their corpses, get that crate, and fall back. The area is already breached.” They did as he commanded and returned their Baron and his bombs all the way back to the convoy. They carried him Into a cargo transport, plopping him down on a medical cot.

Civir tapped his communicator. “Rear guard, fall back to the convoy. Have all the civies get back into the cargo holders and prepare to move out. We've four tiers to go, and we aren't going to stop until we've reached the fort.”

“Yes, Baron,” replied a random soldier.

Civir tapped his communicator again, but twisted his fingers slightly to change its channel.

“This is Civir, calling to anyone in Lord Jaiti's stronghold.

“Baron!” a loud, boisterous voice yelled over the channel, “I'd surely thought you'd be groveling at my doors by now!”

“My Lord..” Civir said, “we've encountered some rather special trouble.”

“Oh?” Lord Jaiti asked, “And what might that be? You know I cannot risk sending anyone in that direction to help you. These freaks are pressing further and further down the platforms every day, and they're not looking for peace or conversation!”

“I'm sure that you'd – ghe!” One of Civir's soldiers inserted a grabbing utensil into his knee to pull out the bullet. “...I'm sure that you recall the prison you had erected some years ago?”

“Really...?” Lord Jaiti asked, “Really? Really...? You called to discuss my old zoning policy? I'll save you the breath and just admit that it was a mistake on my part, a costly, useless mistake.”

“Haha!” Civir laughed a fake laugh, “I'd agree. All of the time, all of the expense and all of that labor building that miniature fortress. You even appointed Baron Gokl to oversee the inmates.”

“Yes...” sighed Lord Jaiti, “It was a crying shame that he never had a prisoner.”

“Oh yes,” Civir agreed, “No prisoners... other than Rhet.”

For three full minutes, Lord Jaiti did not respond. Civir knew that he was running people out of the room to speak in private, or demanding immediate oaths of silence.

“Have you... found that little bitch?” Jaiti finally responded, his voice laced with ire.

“Bitch?” asked Civir, “Rhet's a female?”

“*It* is an immoral catastrophe! A rancorous leech that sucks the blood from all things founded upon reason! Where did you see it!?”

“I was shown a video of her, my Lord, by an insect – one of the invaders... It was looking for her.”

“It!” Lord Jaiti yelled, “It was looking for it! Never call that thing a 'her.' It is a fucking monster! Pernicious to the most callous of hellions!”

“Lord Jaiti, why... and how was there a-”

“Get here!” Jaiti roared over Civir. “Then we'll talk about it. Until you're here you'd best not dare to even whisper its name!”

Lord Jaiti turned off his communicator.

“Banneret!” he yelled to the door, “Send Baron Civir a task force! Speed their arrival!”