By Other Means Page 6

  The armor-clad figure pressed forward until the sea of grass parted like waves breaking against the bow of a ship. Visibility was less than a few inches, fostering a complex feeling of concealed safety and overt vulnerability as his passage created a hole in the surrounding landscape.

  Navigating by landmarks was impossible, yet the scouts pressed on, guided only by the down-view overlay, which gave them an approximation of their position. As with all things deemed vital to the cause, both sides in the conflict had electronically fought for control of the orbiting constellation of LandNav satellites, ultimately rendering the system virtually useless. So it was the suit’s digital compass, in sync with the transponder they had set up back at the insertion point that guided them this night.

  “Slow it down,” another spoke directly into his mind, the tone was flavored by the adrenaline-fueled tension of the moment.

  The scouts had been moving at a trot since leaving the bushes at the edge of the tree line. Without responding the one in the lead down-shifted into a walk and focused on the map. Its scale indicated that they were about twenty yards from the parameter roadway, heading straight for a rock outcropping.

  The sound of his breath opening and closing the suit’s air handling system was almost drowned out by the background noise of the winds dancing across the field, whipping the grasses, and creating a white nose reminiscent of falling rain.

  Glancing over toward his comrade, there—superimposed against the wall of foliage—was a green, rounded-point triangle, topped with the letters RWL. Its relative size indicated that the scout was less than five yards away. The sight of his teammate’s icon was reassuring; it added a physical presence beyond just the comm traffic, and the voices in his head.

  “I’m telling you,” his comrade continued the conversation they’d started earlier, “she was up all day and night screaming and demanding my attentions.” A feeling of being tired washed across the electronic commune.

  “And…?” asked Ke’Se, trying to keep his amusement from being conveyed.

  “And so I did as nature intended,” replied Ra’Ewl with a hint of pride. “But in truth, there’s only so much enthusiasm before all that biting and scratching gets old.”

  “You’re a spaz for complaining,” responded Ke’Se. “So, no nap then?”

  The very top of the rock outcropping came into view, less as an image, and more of a void punched out of the starry sky.

  “Just what we had on the flight in.” Ra’Ewl slowed and then took up a position at the foot of the rock. Its surface was almost smooth from weathering, but at least this facing sloped up to its summit at a traversable angle.

  “Going right,” stated Ke’Se as he crouched for a slow pass along the side of the rock. Now just a yard from the cleared edge of the grasses, he went down onto his belly. He spied the world through the last few inches of cover.

  “Clear?” asked Ra’Ewl impatiently as he revved up for the leap.

  “Standby.” Ke’Se crawled forward and gently pushed his head through the grass, opening up the field of view to his helmet-mounted scope. To his front was a swath of crushed stones that had been used to stabilize and defoliate the ground around the roadways. With a slow pan of his head, he scanned the area for any immediate threats.

  “You’re good to go.”

  “Going up,” Ra’Ewl communed with an accompanying hooff over the comm as he leaped. The jump brought him to just below the grass tops. Gaining purchase on the rock took a little more than just the traction pads on his boots. With a snap he deployed the fighting claws, and pressed hard against his toes. At a measured pace—as laid down by eons of evolution—he moved slowly toward the crest.

  Feeling more like a gecko climbing out onto a rock to sun himself than a predator on the hunt, Ra’Ewl settled onto the high point and waited for the suit’s equivalent of chromatophores to shift into a dark gray. “I AM…the rock,” he communed with a sense of playfulness.

  After another quick sweep, Ke’Se pivoted to look up at Ra’Ewl, whose green icon floated ethereally at the back of his helmet. Despite the carapace plates that made him look like a child’s toy robot, there was still no mistaking that he was fifteen pounds worth of cat, stuffed into AS’Is (Allied Standard Issue) body armor.

  Although spawned from a thousand generations of domestic house cats, nature was no longer in the driver’s seats. As the end product of the animal- experimentation phase for the Synaptic Interface—direct mind–machine communications, or commune—Doctor Jonathan Parr’s feline lab rats took on an unexpected life of their own, as comrade-in-arms with their bygone tormentors.

  From his perch, Ra’Ewl could see the town’s parameter roadway, with its long, curving arc and accompanying sidewalk. There were no lights to be seen, only the myriad of road-designating phosphorescent reflectors giving up their stored energy to the night.

  The town of Stratford was typical for Demeter, a bullseye layout with a series of concentric circular roadways and spoke avenues, dividing up lots. At its apex was the Administrative Centre, which housed everything that an isolated town of two thousand projected residents might need.

  “Raul what is your position?” came over the comm in a slight Scottish accent.

  Ra’Ewl’s tail twitched at the thought of making mischief. “Standing on a rock,” he replied over the comm via the commune, and then turned to look down at his fellow scout.

  There was a pause. “Aye. Echo status?” replied the voice from his helmet’s speakers, asking if they had spotted any sign of the enemy, or Echo, from the phonetic alphabet.

  “Still looking for those bad-guys.” Both he and Ke’Se started to chirp with laughter.

  Yet another pause. “Raul. Kizzy. Maintain comm procedures,” instructed the voice. The letters OWN shown on the squad-ban display.

  Ra’Ewl did a quick front stretch, and then reared up into a sitting position, all the time scanning for movement.

  This isn’t the first time Corporal Owens has expected us to play like soldiers, thought Ra’Ewl to himself. Being an expatriate of the Dominion, only Owens knew why he’d chosen to fighting under Allied Military authority.

  “Owens, the bad-guys can’t pick up our comm traffic, and even if they could, they don’t have the Pacscomp to translate it. That’s why they’re all hot-and-heavy to try and get their hands on one.”

  “Aye, I’ve been told all that, but I’m sure Donitz felt the same way about Enigma,” quipped Owens. “So if you two are through pissing about, I need you to move onto the objective.”

  “Who’s Donuts?” asked Ke’Se.

  “Haven’t a clue.” Ra’Ewl leaped from the rock. “On the move.”

  The outermost ringed streets of Stratford were nothing more than a flattened bit of land, with yellow boundary lines and brass benchmarks proclaiming their future address. Many of the lots already had their poured foundation slabs and adjoining utilities trenches running out to the street. Just ahead, a picket of landscaping trees marked the boundary to the completed section of the town.

  Ra’Ewl swung left at a trot, following the tree line with Ke’Se in tow. Through the thicket of screening foliage laid the boxy, two-story prefab buildings that were predominately used across the planet. No doubt each had been adorned by their owners to express their own personal idioms, but here in the dark they where all just oppressive, monolithic structures seemingly devoid of life.

  “Ra’Ewl!” communed Ke’Se, with a sense of discovery.

  The Parr looked back toward the construction zone. One of the slabs had a large piece missing next to a wide depression. As they approached, the ground they covered was awash in a spray of dirt and shattered bits of concrete.

  “This is it?” asked Ke’Se.

  Ra’Ewl had already turned and was looking about for others. “Yeah I think so; it looks like two more over this way,” he replied before heading off.

  It took them a few minutes to arrive at the third hole; this one was in a patch of open ground. Ra�
��Ewl estimated that the crater was about two and a half yards across and a foot deep. He then noticed that Ke’Se wasn’t looking at the crater, but back toward the house.

  Ke’Se purred with fascination at a tree between him and the building. To say the tree was broken would have been an understatement. The crown had been blown off, leaving foot-long splinters sticking up at odd angles. The upper portion now sat on the ground, resting against the bole of the tree.

  “Fell short,” commented Ke’Se as he moved in for a closer look.

  Ra’Ewl suddenly felt a need to get to higher ground, but the best he could do was a nearby pallet of building materials. It was piled high with polymer sacks, many of which were torn open and had hemorrhaged their contents. They were filled with some form of granular material. With a dash and a leap he landed on top and gave a good hard look about.

  “Owens, from Ra’Ewl,” he communed; now watching Ke’Se as he moved behind the devastated tree, to be replaced by just his floating icon.

  “Owens, go ahead, Raul.” the letters OWN brighten on the Parr’s display.

  “We’re on station. Negative contacts. There are three confirmed hits and a possible tree burst. The craters are the right size for the enemy’s eighty-ones.” he reported.

  “Understood, what did they hit?”

  Ra’Ewl had another quick look. “Nothing. They landed in the construction zone back behind the first street of houses.” Ke’Se’s icon was receding, heading off toward the nearby house. Ra’Ewl was anxious to join him.

  “Roger that.”

  Ra’Ewl leaped from the pallet and darted off. “Owens, we say ‘acknowledged’ in this cat’s Army,” he communed, knowing that it would annoy Owens to be caught making such a simple mistake.

  “Acknowledged,” the human said in a taut tone. “Keep me informed. ETA about fifteen minutes, Owens out.”

  As Ra’Ewl cleared the trees, he saw that Ke’Se had crossed the backyard and was now just outside the building. Crouched down, he used the thickness of the back deck for cover. The storm door’s clear, polycarbonate panels were fractured, and the inner door lay open and at an angle.

  Ke’Se briefly looked over as Ra’Ewl settled in next to him. “I’m getting a glow on thermal from somewhere near to front,” reported Ke’Se. His display was showing him the world from his scope’s far-infrared pickups. Everything was painted in shades of cold blue to white hot; the interior of the house was awash in warm colors reflected off numerous surfaces; it looked very much like a room lit by a fireplace.

  “Big or little?” asked Ra’Ewl, as he slowly moved off toward the left side of the house.

  Ke’Se checked the color-coded thermal key at the bottom of his display. “Maybe around eighty degrees ambient, it’s hard to tell without line of sight. Whatever it is, it’s small.” he added.

  “Like a monkey-boy has his helmet off?” Ra’Ewl was now just under a large picture window that faced out onto what appeared to be the homeowner’s garden project. The cleared ground was edged with a continuous strip of black plastic, while underneath the window lay a neatly stacked pile of rock pavers.

  “I don’t think so; it’s bigger than that.”

  Checking that the pavers screened him from the street, Ra’Ewl stretched up his full length; he was just short of being able to look into the window. “Okay, be ready to run if someone spots me,” he communed, almost excited by the possibility.

  “Acknowledged.” Ke’Se backed up so he could get a running start into his turn.

  “Suit, scope up,” Ra’Ewl commanded. A small insert window opened on his display. Its round image was almost fish-eyed, and clearly in motion. At the end of its extension, the flexible scope stood a foot over his head, and parroted the movements of the helmet.

  The space was a living room, decorated in a modular, out-of-the-catalog style, with two couches forming an el near the window. Across the room was a theater display, its flat-panel screen gouged and the frame missing pieces.

  Tilting his head, he scanned the area along the floor in front of the seating area. There, partially covered by the far edge of the couch, sat a child, it was doubled over as if resting its head on its knees.

  “Shit!” communed Ra’Ewl conveying a feeling of annoyance.

  “Big shit or little shit?” misconstrued Ke’Se. Ra’Ewl ignored his attempt at being a smartass.

  “Suit, scope down.” The scout was on the move even before the scope locked safe into its housing. “Back door, we’re going in.”

  Ke’Se was standing to one side as Ra’Ewl reached the storm door. Standing up on his hid legs and grabbing the knob with both paws, Ra’Ewl gave it a twist and reared back. As the door gapped, Ke’Se intervened and shoved it open with his body.

  Cautiously, Ke’Se peered around the edge of the inner door. Nothing had changed. They entered the room slowly; its floor was covered in rough tiles and was lined with counter tops and appliances. To the right was a staircase.

  “Check the second floor,” ordered Ra’Ewl.

  As Ke’Se went for the stairs, the hot spot came into view through a myriad of chair and table legs.

  Ra’Ewl could feel his comrade’s concern. “Go check for bad-guys,” he ordered.

  Quietly Ke’Se climbed the stairs as Ra’Ewl lowered himself into a stalk, and moved to get a better look. It seemed that he had been too distracted by the sight of the child to see the truth of the situation. Lying there, just on the other side of the dinning room table separating the living room from the kitchen, was a body. Ra’Ewl didn’t bother with a biometric scan, if the human had been among the living Ke’Se would have seen that on thermal. “Anything?”

  “Negative. On the move.”

  Ra’Ewl stood up and walked toward the child, swinging wide to avoid the body and the pool of congealed blood that surrounded it. Looking back he could see that Ke’Se had just turned the corner.

  Together they stood in silence and pondered the scene. The child was a small female, dressed in a long-sleeved T-shirt and overalls. Her head rested forward against her knees, and her long hair draped to the sides of her black, rubberized field boots. One arm was up underneath her, holding some form of plush animal, while the other hung down; its hand was gripping the hair of the adult. It too was female.

  “Suit, thermal disengage.” He turned to face Ra’Ewl. “Mom?”

  Ra’Ewl didn’t answer what he felt was obvious. Thing are getting complicated, he thought to himself, as he looked around in the hope that an answer to this problem would just materialize if he looked hard enough.

  In a sense it did; while he was distracted, Ke’Se had moved to within just a foot of the girl and was reaching out to touch her leg.

  “No stop that, bad Parr, don’t…”

  Ke’Se had stop as Ra’Ewl barked the order, but with paw outstretch the scout stood frozen in the moment as the girl looked up. Her eyes were dilated against the darkness, and through his night vision scopes they shown as bright as a cat’s. There was just a momentary pause, as confusion washed across the girl’s tear-stained face and her young mind raced for an answer.

  He had just lowered his arm when tremors shook her body, and the girl screamed. Involuntary he leapt, fling himself back almost a yard. Ke’Se landed with a padded thump, back arched. The commune was now awash with primitive emotions, as the sounds of his hissing and growling flooded the comm.

  Ra’Ewl fought to maintain his composure. “Ke’Se, stand down!” he ordered, while trying to drive across the feeling of being in control.

  Ke’Se wound down as he watched the girl desperately trying to backpedal away from him, only to be stopped by the edge of the couch.

  “Just great, get over here,” demanded Ra’Ewl; the girl’s voice was strained, as if she’d already given as much as she could to the effort. No longer screaming, she trembled with fear, while clutching her stuffed animal.

  As Ke’Se moved passed Ra’Ewl, he pressed himself against his comrade’s side asking for forg
iveness, resulting in a series of thumps as composite plates smacked into each other.

  “What where you thinking?” The tip of Ra’Ewl’s tail flicked with annoyance.

  The image of sitting on the floor and playing with his friend’s children hung in Ke’Se’s mind. “Mac’s kids always liked it when I patted them,” Ke’Se communed defensively. In the early days of the Project, Dr. Parr had isolated and switched off the gene that created the cat’s claws, making his front paws more like prehensile hands, than weapons, and thus safe for playing with children.

  “Yeah, but here and now, all you are is a Jonathan-forsaken monster; just a shadow against the dark.” Ra’Ewl paused, as if hearing his own words being spoken by someone else. “Get out of your suit,” he ordered.

  “What? Are you spazzed?” The very thought clearly panicked Ke’Se.

  “Just do it.” Ra’Ewl looked around to see how much cover they had. The windows had no blinds or curtains, so they must have been the type that electronically went opaque.

  “Why me?” argued Ke’Se, as he assumed the position.

  Ra’Ewl looked for the main controls; odds were they were somewhere near the master’s seat on the couch across from the theater display. He moved with all the stealth he could muster, while watching the girl and hoping that he didn’t frighten her any more than could be helped. “Because, the monkey-boys gave me an AS’Is hair cut to deal with the suit’s tactile contact points, whereas you are still fuzzy,” he communed with a sense of amusement over his partner’s growing distress.

  Lying on his stomach, Ke’Se moved his front paws to either side of his helmet. With a firm push, he depressed the twin latches; the backpack portion of his armor popped opened. Arching his back, he pulled his head free, leaving his helmet still connected to the suit’s neck coupling.

  Over the commune, a wave of disgust hit Ra’Ewl, who was almost to the couch. Turning he could see Ke’Se’s head, but his ears were back and he had one paw over his nose, as he had seen the humans do in such a situation. “The smell…” Ke’Se trailed off.