CHAPTER SIX

Aiden

I ’d never been so glad to see a military base in my life. Well, no, that was probably an exaggeration. But after three solid days of walking – minus the four hours we’d had to seek shelter during a pelting rain storm – seeing the green and grey walls rising out of the jungle was like finding water in a desert.

“Made it,” Nichols announced, throwing his arms wide.

My legs were too sore and the rest of me was too tired to do much celebrating. I concentrated on climbing the slope towards the base, pausing to shoo Vosh and Kade up ahead of me.

Inside, I dropped my pack into one of the storage bays in the transporter docking station and motioned for Kade to do the same, knowing we’d be back to collect them soon enough. Then I led Kade through into the canteen, Kent hot on my heels.

“Kent and I have to go and report to Major Glech,” I told Kade. “She’ll want to know how Hanes and Revier died, and what we can salvage from the cargo. Get something to eat and then wait for me on the observation deck.” I pointed to the wide deck stretching out over the jungle, then nudged him towards the food service area. It was just after midday, but there wasn’t yet much of a line up for lunchtime food. There was a long row of cabinets containing foods from five out of the six species in the Alliance – there was no Sedgeged food, since none of them ever joined the military – though in reality, there was also a fair bit of overlap as to what each species enjoyed. Hopefully Kade would be able to find something amongst all the variety that was suitable for a Vangravian. And on that note, I really should look up their dietary requirements, along with all the other details about Kade that I was going to have to learn.

Predictably, he replied, “Yes, Master,” drawing the curious stares of a couple of soldiers at a nearby table. Fucking hell, I was really going to have to find something else for him to call me. With a nod, I left him there, hoping for the best, while Kent and I headed for Major Glech’s office.

Thankfully, this base was one of the smaller ones, really just a staging post for regional missions, so there was only one hall of offices, with the Major’s right at the far end. The door was open, but I knocked nonetheless.

Glech looked up from her work, her bushy eyebrows registering surprise at our appearance. She was a Derelian, the only one of the six species in the Alliance that wasn’t bipedal. Derelians were short; at full height, she would only have come up to my mid thigh. And they had long, conical bodies with four legs and a bushy tail, then a torso with two arms and a somewhat flattened head. I’d once seen a picture of a centaur, from Earth’s mythology, and it had occurred to me that Derelians were kind of like that, albeit a miniaturised version. They tended to wear shirts on their top halves, but nothing on their bottoms.

Glech’s desk was the same height as all the others in the base, but behind it, she had a raised platform to stand on that put her more or less at head height with me, if I was sitting down. Humans and Denzogals generally made an effort to sit, when talking to a Derelian, to minimise the perceived height difference.

“Come in, come in,” Glech said, tapping a few buttons on her desk to clear away the five or six holographic screens she’d been working on. “Sit down. You must be tired.”

That was one of Glech’s more endearing quirks. She always asked people to sit in her office, as conscious of the height difference as the rest of us, but she always managed to find some reason for offering a chair other than ‘you make me feel short’.

Playing into the ruse, I said, “It’s been a long trek,” as both Kent and I sank into the cushioned chairs. And holy hell, my ass had never been more grateful for a padded seat.

Glech nodded, a frown settling on her face. “I got your transmissions. Sad news.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I replied, not knowing what else to say. I’d sent a couple of coded messages regarding Hanes and Revier’s deaths and the fact that there was cargo to be collected, but we tried to avoid sending detailed messages on active missions, given the ever-present threat of the Geshtoch, or the possibility of other species picking up the information and using it to cause trouble.

“So, let’s start with Hanes and Revier. Tell me everything. How did they die? Are we able to retrieve the bodies?”

“I wouldn’t recommend it, ma’am,” I said. “The area where they were killed is likely to have concealed traps and possibly further explosives.” I detailed the rest of the incident, the approach to the cargo module, the lack of interference from any other species up until that point. The mission until then had been uneventful, with nothing more significant happening than Hanes being bitten by a few swamp flies.

“Revier’s body was largely intact, but Hanes was… in pieces.” There wasn’t really a diplomatic way to say that. “Given the risk of further injury and the length of time since they died, I think retrieval is unrealistic.”

“Hmm.” Glech shook her head slowly. “Unfortunate, but sometimes that’s the way of the world. Fair enough. I’ll note that in my report. Now, what about the main ship? Cargo? Survivors? Salvage?”

Kent and I filled her in on that part, with Kent disagreeing with my assessment of the situation several times, until eventually, Glech interrupted him. “I will be expecting a full written report from both of you,” she said sternly, “and you can detail any differences of opinion in the reports. For now, I just want the bare facts. Is there cargo to retrieve, and are there threats on the ground to hamper retrieval?”

“As far as we’re aware, the Culrads left the area and have no further hostile intentions towards us,” I replied. “They took the cargo that was most important to them, and we agreed to a rudimentary truce. The retrieval team should use caution, but we’re not anticipating any significant threats. We didn’t encounter any Geshtoch at any point in the mission.” Thanks to the cargo netting and the locator beacon, the transporter would be able to send down a cable to link to the crates and haul them up without having to land anywhere. My team had left another similar pickup earlier in our trek, and Kent’s team had found viable cargo at two other locations. Our total haul included food, medical supplies and a small crate of electronic equipment, as well as a small earthmover that would help with our terraforming efforts. Plus, of course, there was Kade. If you could count him as cargo.

“Thank you, gentlemen,” Glech said, pulling up a screen and typing notes rapidly. “I’ll have a transporter sent out first thing in the morning. And now, just because I know HQ is going to ask questions about it, Hill, can you tell me why you allowed Culrads to make off with three crates of resenia stone?”

“Because I was attempting to protect my team from further hostilities by negotiating a reasonable truce with them. They’d already killed two of my team, and were entirely prepared to continue fighting us in order to get what they wanted.”

“He did it because he had a bleeding heart moment over a non-Alliance colony in a far flung region of the galaxy,” Kent bit out.

Glech levelled a stern glare at him. “As I said before, you can detail any differences of opinion you have in your reports. Thank you, Kent, that will be all. Hill, I’d like you to stay for a moment longer. ”

“Ma’am,” Kent said, standing up and saluting. He left the room and Glech waited until his footsteps had retreated down the hall. I knew what she was going to say next, and I wasn’t looking forward to it.

“So,” she said, clasping her hands together in a deliberate display of patience. “Tell me about this Vangravian.”

“I know how bad it looks,” I started, having already given her the bare bones of my discovery of Kade in our previous conversation. “I was too distracted by the Culrads to realise what was in the crate, and by the time I figured it out, it was too late. But respectfully, ma’am, even if I had realised earlier, I don’t see that there would have been any other option. If I’d left him there, he’d have starved to death, or died of heat stroke when the cooling systems cut out. The way I see it-”

“Oh, save it,” Glech interrupted me, and I expected to get a right telling off for being so careless. But instead, what she said next surprised me. “The Rendol Parliament insists that slavery is illegal – which is a stance I thoroughly agree with, by the way – but every time a Vangravian ends up on our planet, they still find it in their hearts to issue them with a residency pass and register them as dependants of their owners. They have to maintain a harsh stance on it to avoid people actively buying Vangravians, but they’re not stupid. They know as well as anyone else that the imprinting is irreversible.” It was telling that she steadfastly referred to Kade as a Vangravian, rather than a dimari. Was that an indication of the Alliance’s political stance, or her own personal beliefs?

“And they’re also aware that until we get a proper defence system surrounding the Rendol wormhole, we’re going to keep getting Eumadian ships making unauthorised jumps through our system because it cuts weeks off their trade route through the Helix Nebula. And for as long as the Eumadians keep pissing off the other species in this region, we’re going to keep getting damaged craft showing up and dumping their cargo on Rendol 4. That’s a problem for the Parliament to solve, not the military, and certainly not our civilians.”

She sighed and typed a few more notes on her screen. “HQ is going to make a fuss about this, but my advice is to keep your head down and wait for it to blow over. Try and be reasonably discreet about Kade’s existence for the next couple of weeks – no point poking the bear – but in the end, they’ll let you keep him. I’ll try and throw my support behind you in my report, but there’s always a lot of politics to these sorts of incidents, so I can’t guarantee how effective that will be.”

“I appreciate the effort, ma’am,” I said, thankful that she was taking a more reasonable view of the whole thing.

“I’ll let you and the rest of the team know when we’ve got a funeral planned for Hanes and Revier. You’re heading back to the Hon base now? ”

“Yes, ma’am. I’m at the end of my rotation, so I’m due for some time off.”

“I should be so lucky,” Glech griped. “Best of luck, then. And I’ll get this report finished and sent off to Colonel Henderson as soon as possible, so he’ll at least have an hour or two to calm down before you get there.”