24. Rules of engagement
The dancing monkey appeared again, replacing the multi-colored maps. However, this time, along with the dancing chimpanzee was a dancing rat and, more importantly, a human voice.
"Hello Rodentia corp, squad Theta. This is Theseus actual. I am acting captain Nathan Sawyer replacing former captain Jon Cassonova, retired. I’m not certain if you know of me or not, but I’ve been catching up on you to the best of my ability. We’ve had a little bit of a major communications fuck-up up here and you guys were left out to dry. Sorry about that. There will be an investigation, but I can say right now that none of it is on the Rodentia corp and it is certainly not on squad Theta. You guys have gone above and beyond what was asked or could have been expected from you and when we get you back I’m going to make certain that all of you, including those you’ve been forced to leave behind, get the honors that you deserve.
"Regarding your exfiltration, your mission parameters have changed. Time limit to exfiltration cut off is extended indefinitely. Priority is no longer stealth, priority is your lives, and the lives of the civilians you are escorting. We are sending in guns to protect you and escort you to exfiltration location. You are to evade and assist your civilians in evading hostile forces until friendlies arrive. And when they do, try not to let the kids shoot them. Simon should be repeating what I say, as is Athena, but I’m sorry to say that it’s all just dancing to me. Good luck, Squad Theta, and godspeed. Utilis Ubique."
That was what the human voice said, and Pleasant Scent was incredibly happy just to hear a human voice. Simon had been great, Simon had given them a purpose and had hopefully saved their lives, but Simon was not a human. The primates and many of the other uplifts liked to pretend that they were all equal, but the Rodentia never forgot two things. One was that, without the humans, there would be no uplifts at all. The other was that the human mind was the standard by which the rest of them were evaluated.
The Rodentia knew that they fell short of that measure. They were unashamed of it. Some had asked the humans to try to equalize the gap between their advanced reasoning and decision making skills, but the humans had always stated that they had ethical concerns with modifying an existing, recognized uplift’s genome beyond the initial standards. The Rodentia were proud to be the first, and the most populous, and the most useful, and so they did not mind not being the smartest. The trusted the humans to do the hard thinking for them, to make the hard decisions, and to make the right decisions.
Having a human in charge was always a morale booster.
Simon and Athena’s dancing rat quickly summarized and paraphrased Nathan’s instructions. Athena in her broken, almost nonsensical way, and Simon with additions like "The hairless ape" or "The talking pig," which were a little confusing but Pleasant Scent realized referred to Nathan.
The new rules of engagement were much better. Pleasant Scent had worried that they would not reach the extraction point in time with the dancers slowing them down, and the predators they had come across had killed two more of the little kips before the kips with weapons had put them down. The weapons the kips had found were too large for the Rodentia to handle themselves, too unwieldy and with too high recoil. Each shot knocked the kip holding the blaster several feet away, and the kips outmassed the Rodentia by at least triple.
Fortunately, the weapons were effective, and the two kips wielding them had defended the gathering multiple times. The predators had simply wandered into range, either not seeing or not caring that they had one of their own weapons trained upon their unprotected flesh.
Unfortunately, they were not very safe. There had been several accidental discharges, leaving behind large holes in floors, walls, and ceilings. Pleasant Scent was just glad that the kips had not killed anyone except for the predators so far. He did not know what he would do if that happened, and he was coming to realize that he did not like being in charge.
"The humans are sending the dogs of war to help us, so we must play keep away with the predators until the dogs arrive," he informed his squad. "The maps are back to showing us the safe rooms, so we will keep moving the dancers into the safest rooms that we can find."
The squad had nothing to say to his orders, and so they began scurrying about to make it so.
A sudden explosion in the wall caught their attention, but it was just the one with the horrible cut on her face having another accident. Pleasant scent was both grateful and worried that she wouldn’t let go of that weapon.
After reevaluating the map for a few moments with the new mission in mind, they realized that they were running through a corridor which would expose them to a large room that was marked as red. The corridor itself was blue, but that could change at any moment, and the dancers were not nearly as quick to respond to changing situations as the Rodentia.
Turning around, Pleasant Scent led the children back into the facility to wait for rescue.
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"Rules of engagement are as follows; Lethal force authorized against Jurassians for the purposes of protecting Aurealian civilians and the Rodentia corps. Reasonable attempts to limit casualties to Jurassians are to be made, but the priority is the Aurealians and our friends in the field. Damage to the facility is permissible. If they shoot at you, you are authorized to return fire with up to lethal force with maximum consideration going to the protection of Aurealian civilians. Do you have any questions, commandos?"
"What is liquid soap and why is liquid soap?" Wizard asked, because he was Wizard. Neither Rusty nor Wizard actually understood the joke, but they understood why Wizard made it.
"I’m sending your squad because you’re the best we have, and we all know it. You’re commandos, but you’ll be paying cavalry here. Get in there as fast as you can and save the day. Lucy of heavy team will follow. You are to coordinate with her, and with Simon who has suborned control of the facility, but you are not to wait for them. Rodentia squad Theta has already suffered casualties, as have the Aurealian civilians. Hopefully, we can get there in time to prevent things from getting any worse. Canine Commando Team Gama-three actual, Rodentia is pack. Aurealian civilians are pack . Pack protects pack."
"Pack protects pack!" the commandos echoed back. Their equipment was being secured and checked by the automated armory robots, and a countdown to "Go!" was ticking by in a hologram in the center of the room. Once the last of the checks on their gear was performed, it began clicking down from three.
"Go!" was called, and the Commandos were on the planet’s surface. They knew what to do, and immediately began running towards the entrance of the cloning facility from their insertion point, less than a hundred meters away.
The doors opened for them along the way. Sometimes they came across Jurassians, and those Jurassians were immediately put down. Nonlethals – lethal force was authorized but ROE said reasonable attempts to avoid it must be made unless friendly forces or the civilians were in danger.
The commando’s tactical load out had changed significantly. They were now equipped with less anti-vehicle weaponry, with more antipersonnel. Wizard retained his plasma lance, while the rest had more reliance on the foam rounds and shock lances than before. Two of their members wore grenade launchers, one equipped to fire a rotation of smoke and flash-bang, the other equipped to kill. Each commando had a primary coil-gun – subsonic but lethal – attached to either a shoulder, a hip, or under their chest.
They had come to save lives, not to take them, but they came ready for anything. They were assuming that the Jurassians were not planning on making things easy for them.
The facility was large, and the floor-plan twisting and complicated. It had taken the Rodentia hours to map it, but with their work – and with Simon’s – it took the commandos only moments to arrive in the area where their charges were sheltering.
Rusty had only just burst through the door when, a blast of condensed plasma around a magnetic core the size of a ball bearing, moving at twice the speed of sound, impacted against his helmet. The blast caught him by surprise and, although the impact and subsequent explosion of the plasma hurt and disoriented him, it was within tolerance for his armor. Quickly realizing what was happening as his team came under fire, he retreated back the way they had come, as did the rest of Commando Team Gamma-3.
"Athena, priority message to Simon. The Aurealians are shooting at us. Tell them we are friendly. Send message marked urgent, deliver immediately, override all privacy and do not disturb measures."
"Message sent," Athena answered promptly. Then, a moment later, "Message from Simon. Shit, sorry, I wasn’t expecting that. I’m working on it, but there’s like six translation programs I need to run in order to talk to these guys. They don’t speak slash sing the same dialect as the Aurealians we have data for. I’m working on it now. Fortunately they had a lexicon I was able to rip from the dungeon they were being kept in, but the levels of compatibility I have to go through in order to make text understood are frustratingly complex. Everything was about science, it wasn’t easy to make a general use human-to-Aurealian dictionary. There, you should be able to hear it now. Let it repeat a few times and wait until they start singing it back. Then you should be good."
Rusty waited on the far side of the door, listening carefully to the sharp music coming from the other side. He knew it was not Simon’s fault that he had been shot. It was not the new pack leader, Nathan Sawyer’s fault either. Nor was it even the Aurealian who had shot him. This was an emergency operation performed at the last moment with no time to plan or prepare. If it was anyone’s fault, it was the previous pack leader’s fault for failing to foresee it, a fact which Rusty did not like but forced himself to acknowledge.
Long moments passed, and slowly the music on the other side of the door changed as more voices began to sing with the music from the speakers the Rodentia carried.
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