14. Nerita

CHAPTER 14

NERITA

T hey say war is Hell. If they’d even been to Horus IV, they’d know the truth.

Even Hell can’t be this bad.

The smell is what gets me the most. On a day like this, when there’s not a trace of wind, it just kind of festers in your nostrils. The stench of ash, the acrid tang of industrial waste, and pervading it al…the putrid sweetness of rotting bodies.

How long ago were these twisted, skeletal ruins a thriving city? Two weeks? Three? Has it been a month yet?

It’s impossible to tell. Standing here near the top of a twisting, half-melted relay tower, I can get a good sense of the landscape. But without access to the Holonet, or any kind of comms thanks to the Ataxian jamming satellites, I don’t even know what day it is.

Thrusting my hand into my pocket, I withdraw my next to useless compad. Without the holonet, it’s basically a big chunk of circuitry, but its most basic offline functions are still available.

I calibrate the pad to record my latest log. I don’t know if anyone will ever find this, or what they’ll think of it if they do. Maybe it’s my virtual gravestone. Hey, I was here, I existed. And then I died because of a war that no living being remembers starting.

I try to compose myself, and thrust thoughts of despair away. If these are the last words anyone will ever know, I don’t want them to be a bunch of panicked bullshit. Guess the gnawing hunger in my belly hasn’t made me lose my ego yet.

“Personal log of Nerita McIntyre, Horus IV refugee, day 16. The date, as always is from the first time I started this log, not the invasion. I don’t know the official time or date, but it’s shortly after dawn. I think the puncture wound in my calf is getting infected. I have no choice but to venture into the ruins and hope I can find medical supplies.”

A deep, throbbing sound makes me scamper back into the deeper shadows of the twisted scaffolding. My hiding place grows darker still as a darkness blots out the meager threads of sunlight penetrating the omnipresent ash cloud covering the sky.

An Alliance Heavy Cruiser, with atmospheric modifications. Ostensibly they would be my allies, being as the IHC has a treaty with the Trident Alliance. But the Alliance troops on Horus have been cut off from supplies and reinforcements for weeks. Many of them have gone feral. I don’t know if I trust them any more than the Ataxians.

And my fellow humans? I trust them the least of all. I don’t even trust the patients in my makeshift clinic. They’re just too weak to present a threat. Yet.

Not for the first time, I consider abandoning them to their fate and saving my own skin. After all if I’d used the last of the antibiotics on myself instead of administering them to that half-dead Odex, I might not have an infection growing in my leg.

The cruiser passes, its thruster array sputtering. They’re low on fuel. Not many flights left in the thing. No way are they getting out of the atmosphere with it.

It disappears out of sight, and I shoulder my pack and step back into the light. With one last glance at the concealed entrance to my clinic, I start picking my way down to ground level.

With about twenty feet to go, a rung twists and snaps off in my hand. Shrieking, I fall backward. I manage to grab a support strut and drag myself back up. God, what if I’d fallen? Even a minor injury like a sprang can be lethal on Horus IV.

I flit from shadow to shadow, never straying too far into the open. The ruined city is mostly silent. But from time to time, you hear brief spurts of weapons fire. Or a long, pointed scream, or the rumble of a collapsing building.

Before the invasion, I downloaded a city map onto my compad. It comes in handy now, sort of. It’s hard to match up the rubble-strewn streets with what I see on my 3D map, but it’s better than nothing.

If my calculations are correct, there should be what’s left of a pharmacy at the end of this block. When I find the store front, there’s a burned out hover tank crashed through the front wall. That doesn’t bode well for any supplies I might find inside.

I approach the tank and squirm through a blasted out access panel. The second I thrust my head inside, the dim light of my compad leading the way, I come face to face with a mouth full of shark like teeth.

A sharpened scream rips from my throat before I slap a hand over my mouth. It’s just a dead body. Another dead body. I’ve seen them a hundred times since the city fell.

This fellow doesn’t even smell bad. He’s just a Vakutan skeleton, all the soft tissue burned away. Unfortunately, to get inside the store, I have to crawl right over him.

A whimper reaches my ears as I clamber over the dead body. It takes me a second to realize it’s me. I’m whimpering in fear. Stupid, the dead can’t hurt me. I need to be more worried about the living.

My knee strikes the vakutan skeleton on the head. The skull comes loose and bounces across the floor of the tank.

“Sorry,” I whisper, hoping my scream and the banging sound don’t draw any attention my way. Whether it’s Ataxians, Alliance soldiers, the IHC, or fellow refugees like myself, such an encounter is not likely to go my way.

Worse, if I’m captured and tortured by the wrong set of people, they’ll find the clinic. The patients are as good as dead if that happens. Fuck me, I’m not even a doctor. Just a medical assistant with a non commissioned civilian contract with the IHC. I’m not supposed to be in a war zone.

But that’s exactly where I am. I finally make it inside the pharmacy. The front ten feet of the store is utterly ruined, blackened by the fire. But it looks like the sprinkler systems kicked in and saved the rest of the store. More importantly, it saved the merchandise.

I skip the weak over the counter remedies and go back to the pharmacist only section. Finding a nano-infused antibiotic serum, I jam its needle into the softest part of my calf. A brief pinch, followed by warmth and a tingling sensation. Yes, it was definitely infected. I hope one dose does the trick, because I need to bring the rest of this back to the clinic.

My search turns up spray on bandages, painkillers, neurological remedies, and dermal regeneration units. I use one of the pharmacy’s branded hover carts to keep my loot together. Some of these places have a mini grocery store. My rumbling belly really hopes this one does, too.

Unfortunately, I find no evidence of groceries, but I do find some compensation in the form of the employee break room. Canned and otherwise preserved goods don’t amount to much, but we’ll have dinner tonight, at least.

One thing I don’t find: Potable water. That’s a real problem. We’re going to run out of fresh water by the end of the week, and that’s with strict rationing.

I can’t access the Holonet, but I can pick up some of the short range comm channels the Ataxians and the Alliance use. Neither side is going to back down. Centuries of bitterness and violence have pushed these soldiers to the point where they see no room for compromise, or mercy.

The Ataxians attacked Horus IV because of leaked video of prisoners of war being mistreated and executed without trial. At least, that’s what they claimed. Horus IV’s strategic position on one of the major interstellar pathways is a more likely reason, but it almost doesn’t matter at this point.

What does matter is that neither side is going to give this planet up. Even if they have to destroy it to keep it out of the enemy’s hands, whoever that might be.

Looking at this city, they’re off to a good start on the second part of their plan.

The battery pack on the hover cart gives out, dropping to the floor with a resounding thud. A can of preserved Alzhon calamari rolls out across the floor and thumps against a cracked baseboard.

Cursing, I go to retrieve it. When I pick up the can, the baseboard falls down with a clack. I almost turn away, when something catches my eye: a dimly glowing red light.

Power has been out throughout the city for weeks. So what’s keeping this light on? An independent reactor of some sort? More likely a small generator or battery. Whatever it is, it might give me enough power to run some of the medical devices back at the clinic.

I drop down to my hands and knees and peer into the open panel. Now that I’m down on this level, I can see a small trigger stud beside the glowing red light.

Hesitating, I wonder if I’m about to set something off. Then I figure, it’s not like I can make things much worse.

I push the trigger stud, and the hum of machinery reaches my ears. A four foot section of wall rises up into the ceiling, revealing a chamber beyond. Lights come on, revealing a control panel densely packed with analog buttons and switches.

But it’s the cryo pod that draws my immediate attention. It’s nine feet long, probably designed to hold one of the larger alien races. Someone who wanted to wait out the siege in the relative safety of a cryo pod? That would explain the hidden door.

Only, I don’t think that’s the case. I’ve seen private survivalist prepper cryo pods on the Holonet. They’re far more luxurious than this. This is downright Spartan in its aesthetics, but the console throws me. Most cryo pods are so automated there’s only an off and on switch.

My medical training lets me recognize some of the readouts on the console, but others throw me entirely for a loop. I can tell whoever lies inside the cryopod is in good condition, and could be easily revived.

Bracing myself, I wipe the condensation from the viewing glass near the occupant’s face. Inside, I find a red-scaled Vakutan with the body of a Greek God. His ridged facial features are more symmetrical than most Vakutans I’ve seen, and there’s something else odd, as well. I can’t put my finger on it, but this Vakutan seems eerily familiar. Like a long-forgotten dream.

I could revive him, but why? Another mouth to feed? A soldier might be useful, but he doesn’t even have a weapon or equipment. I think the best thing to do is just to leave him where he is.

Stepping back, I stumble over a piece of machinery and grab wildly for something to catch myself on. Grabbing the cryo pod, I catch my balance and get about halfway through a sigh of relief when--

Resuscitation Protocols Initiated.

“Oh no.” I push buttons and flip switches, but the timer continues to count down. “Oh no, stop, come on, stop.”

It won’t stop. I turn and run, barely remembering to grab my supplies. Behind me, I can hear the automated cryo pod’s voice spewing more statistics, but I can’t quite make out what it’s saying, and I don’t care. I just need to get out of here, fast.

As a testament to my new fear, I don’t even hesitate to scamper over the vakutan skeleton in the hover tank. I shove the pack out ahead of me through the access port, and then wriggle out myself. Panting, I look around for the pack so I can snatch it up and run like Hell back to the clinic.

Instead, my gaze falls on a huge, black boot. I freeze, my heart stopping inside my chest.

“What is it, Hurch?”

I lift my gaze to see a small group of Ataxian soldiers. Four green scaled Grolgath and a hulking Odex with half its fur burned off surround me in a half circle. I have no way to flee. The Grolgath who spoke has a bloody patch over one eye and a scar that makes his face into a perpetual sneer.

“I think it’s a human,” the apparent Hurch answers. He has two red flames on his helmet, so that probably means he’s in charge. The others only have one, except the Odex, who wears no helmet.

“A human? How did it survive?” says another of the Grolgath. “Never mind. Are humans edible? It’s been days since we last had meat.”

I scramble back, my mind giving in to panic. The tank bumps up against me and I have no where else to go. If I try to go through the access portal, they’ll easily catch me.

“You want to eat her?” Hurch’s eyes narrow. His gaze runs slowly over me, head to toe. “That would be a real waste. You know what they say about human girls. They’ll do anything you want, no matter how crazy.”

He moves over and grabs my arm. I scream, and he slaps me across the face. My head snaps to the side, and I taste coppery blood in my mouth. I can’t resist as he tears my jumpsuit open, revealing my black brassiere beneath.

“Shut up, bitch. I’ll show you what that mouth is for--”

Hurch swings the butt of his rifle and cracks him across the back of the head. The Grolgath releases me, grabbing his wounded skull instead as he falls to his knees.

“No rape,” growls. Hurch. “We’re here to kill the enemy. “

Hurch raises his rifle and turns on the laser sight. A red light appears right over my heart.

At least I won’t starve to death.