You, Blue Bug!
Robert Walton
Robert Walton’s novella Vienna Station won the Galaxy prize, and his novel Dawn Drums won both the Tony Hillerman best fiction award and first place in the Arizona Authors 2014 competition. Most recently, his story “Suka Blat” was published “Alternative Truths,” an anthology of protest literature. Visit him online at http://chaosgatebook.wordpress.com/
In the beginning, life crawled out of primordial slime.
Before that, there was God and his assistant, First Sergeant Morales.
“Lance Corporal Hicks!”
I blinked. Morales’s torpedo-like nose was inches from my face. “Yes, First Sergeant.”
“You are to hold this position until I relieve you. Is that clear?”
“Crystal, First Sergeant.”
“I hope so because, if you don’t, there will be hell to pay.” Morales turned abruptly, walked away, and then paused, looking over her shoulder, black eyes glittering, “Then you will have to deal with me.”
I watched her broad back disappear in the brush at the rear of the weapons pit. I sighed and glanced around my home for the immediate future. The pit was oval-shaped, ten meters in length, and four in width, with a rampart facing the expected direction of attack. Also, most importantly, there was a shield generator at its exact center. Once turned on, this would provide me with a roof impenetrable by anything short of an intermediate range missile.
Weapons? I am not without lethal options. Aside from my AR 35 battle rifle, I control remote single use mortars, two machine gun-bots, shaped charge missiles, a mini-tank, and an MAB drone.
Enemies? Katmandu is the second planet the bug-aliens have invaded. They overwhelmed Billie Holiday — no survivors. We think they are most like spiders — seven legs, multiple eyes, segmented exoskeletons two meters long — though biological details are few. They apparently eat their own dead and wounded, so we’ve retrieved no specimens.
Our mission? The plan is to evacuate all civilians before the alien forces reach critical mass and attack. Politicians want to negotiate if they can figure out a way to communicate. That’s fine by me though above my pay grade. Most of 3rd battalion, 1st Star-Marines — Companies A, B and D — are rounding up all civilians in the colony area and loading them into transports. Company C, my company, is their shield. We are to stand between the evacuees and the spiders until further notice. Whoopie.
“Chucky Nine to Chucky seven, come in.”
I activated my throat mike, “Go ahead, Chucky Nine.”
“Are we going to get our butts kicked out here, Hicks?”
“Negative.” Chucky Nine is my next-door neighbor, Private Patel, a very enthusiastic, if sometimes nervous, Marine. Her weapons pit is thirty yards to my left. I added, “Hope for the best. . .”
“Plan for the worst,” she answered cheerily.
“And when the worst’s big, ugly brother shows up?”
“Innovate!”
“Affirmative.” I sighed and took a deep breath of Katmandu air, savoring its spice — something like cinnamon only fresher. Too bad we’re leaving the place for good in a few hours.
I glanced at Patel’s pit. She’s not visible, her armor’s reflective camo doing its job, just like mine.
Though our home planets are dozens of light years apart, we are much alike, raised in similar neighborhoods — poor, crime-infested, drug-ridden, futureless. The Corps. offered us clarity, discipline, and service to something bigger than ourselves. We both needed a mission, so here we are. Don’t get me wrong. She’s happy in her hole and I’m happy in mine. We live to protect.
“Chucky Seven, I’ve got movement in the tree line.”
I increased the magnification on my helmet’s visor. The trees here are tall and golden, something like sycamores in autumn. A shadow flickered among their trunks. “Got it.” A half dozen blunt torpedoes pushed away from the trees.
“This must be the worst’s big, ugly brother,” Patel murmured.
“Panzer pods,” I grimaced.
“How many?” Patel asked.
“Six is all I see.” I adjusted the visor for a passive range assessment.
“Lasers or mortars?”
“Three of each.” The estimated range flashed in the upper corner of my visor, eight hundred and fourteen meters, “Sergeant Morales told us to watch out for these things.”
“Did she say what to do about them?”
I did not reply.
“I guess that’s where the innovate part comes in,” Patel continued, “Infantry swarms?”
“None yet.” The pods crept forward, sensor stalks questing. I pondered our options.
“Why aren’t they shooting?” Patel queried.
“They know we’re around, but they aren’t sure exactly where.” I took a deep breath. “We’ll take them on with the missiles.”
“Affirmative.”
“Target the three on the left and I’ll take the ones on the right. Fire on my count. Three, two, one . . .” I thumbed the remote weapons tab on my left wrist. Four missiles, each a bit longer than my arm, blasted out of a concealed battery two hundred meters behind my pit. Riding white-hot exhausts, they slammed into the panzer pods, obliterating one in a flash of green flame and wounding a second. The third was hit, but the missile bounced off its crocodile hide armor in a shower of white-hot sparks.
The undamaged panzer in front of me, mortar-armed, belched green flame. Cluster munitions rained down on my first launcher, churning the ground it occupied into a hash of chopped grass and mud.
Fortunately, my second launcher was only a hundred yards behind me. I targeted both the mortar panzer and its unmoving but intact companion. My rockets screamed over my head and buried themselves in both pods, turning them into scrap and boiling smoke.
I looked to my left. Patel’s panzers were burning. “Chucky Nine, come in.”
“Go ahead, Chucky Seven.”
“Good shooting.”
“Roger that,” Patel paused. “Here come the swarms.”
Hundreds of blue aliens scuttled out of the woods into open ground. “Machine guns for the front ranks. Mortars on the tree line.”
“Roger.”
“Wait for it.” The aliens reached their burning panzers. “Now!”
I triggered both the auto-guns and the mortars. As my first rounds hit their front ranks, suppressive fire erupted from the trees. Heavy projectiles thudded into the berm in front of me and reduced my right side Vulcan minigun to smoking fragments.
Four of my HE mortar shells burst among the trees, quickly followed by four more. Tree trunks launched into the air, flipped upside down and thudded down on spider weapons. The suppressive fire stopped.
“Damn,” Patel’s voice sounded in my ears. “Those things are fast.”
I checked my front. Spiders scuttled toward me, thirty meters and closing. “Alamo, Patel.”
“Not mini-tanks?” she asked.
“No time. Alamo, now!”
“This is survivable, right?”
“We’ll find out.”
I dropped into my hole as I spoke, sliding its hatch over my head until the lock clicked. Alamo holes — marine-sized, armored ceramic tubes dug three meters into the ground — were designed as last stand survivability refuges, hermetically sealed and shock absorbent. I hoped so because I was about to create a death zone.
I counted slowly to five, imagining blue legs scrabbling into my pit and out the other side. When I reached five, I activated my MAB drone. It buzzed into the air, tugging a fifty- kilogram cartridge beneath it. When it reached a height of thirty meters above my hole, a modest charge burst the cartridge, scattering a mixture of TBX explosive and powdered aluminum. A second charge then ignited the MAB — Mother of All Bombs.
The spiders never had a chance. An expanding cloud of sun-hot gas engulfed them, consumed them, and spread to the fringes of the forest. I missed that part, but the blast wave shook my Alamo hole like a rat in a terrier’s mouth. A minute or two after the shaking stopped, I parted my womb of protective foam, disengaged the hatch’s locking clamps, and pushed it open.
Dust, destruction and death greeted me. The tree line was now a wasteland, blackened branches reaching to the sky like burnt fingers.
“Chucky Nine, come in.”
“Go ahead, Chucky Seven.”
“You okay, Patel?”
“It smells like fried chicken.”
“Say again?”
“Something,” she hesitated, “something smells like street food from my old ‘hood.”
“I don’t know about the fried chicken,” I surveyed the acres of scorched and mangled blue spiders in front of my pit. “but that MAB worked pretty well.”
Something moved.
I aimed my weapon, as yet unfired, without thinking. The Marine-Corps AR-35 is technically a long gun, though it’s intended for close work, one hundred meters and in. It fires four-millimeter flechettes at hyper-sonic speeds, and — on full auto — can empty a five hundred round magazine in twenty seconds. My default setting is for ten-round bursts. Ten flechettes will finish off anybody who isn’t wearing serious armor.
The creature five meters in front of me wore no armor. It was otter-sized, blue with golden stripes and vaguely furry. It looked too pretty to shoot, though every marine knows nothing is too pretty to shoot.
Three big, luminous eyes stared at me. The small, blue-lipped mouth below them opened, “Don’t shoot.”
Wow. I took a deep breath, “Are you talking to me?”
“Chucky Seven, say again?” Patel asked.
“Chucky Nine, hold one. I may have a prisoner.” I studied the creature. It had no visible weapons and the pouch it had strapped to its back didn’t look threatening. Most importantly, it didn’t look like a spider.
It spoke again, “I care for the fallen.”
“You’re a medic?”
“I tend to both wounded and dead.”
I pointed to a dead spider near my feet, its body ripped open by the MAB’s blast wave. “You don’t look like one of them.”
“Not my species.”
I nod, “What is your species?”
The three big eyes went opaque for a few seconds. Then it spoke, “You have no name for us. My purpose here, one we share with hundreds of other species, heal when I can and offer solace when I can’t. You may call me Conflict-healer.”
“All right, Connie, how do you come to speak English?”
“Connie?”
“It’s what I’m going to call you.”
“Ah, a personal designator — I understand.”
“Great. Now tell me how you understand English.”
The blue lips compressed before Connie continued, “We monitor electro-magnetic waves from myriad star systems and record all transmissions. There are many cultures, many languages in our data banks.”
“How many?”
“One million, two hundred thousand, four hundred and seventy-two.”
“That’s a lot.”
“Only a fraction of all we suspect exist in our galaxy.” Connie’s big eyes gazed at me earnestly. “I may switch to Spanish or Cantonese if either is more convenient for you.”
“English is fine.”
Connie took a step closer, still meeting my eyes. “May I begin my work?”
“What is it that you do?”
“After violence, we treat the wounded,” Connie looked away, gazing over the acres of dead spiders, “and preserve what can’t be healed. This slaughter is unacceptable to us.”
“It’s unacceptable to us, too.”
Connie’s disturbingly penetrating gaze settled on me. “Truly?”
“Yes.” I lowered my weapon. “Do you speak the spiders’ language.”
“I do.”
“Can you make our intentions clear to them?”
“I can.” Connie studied me intensely for a long moment, “What are your intentions?”
“We’re evacuating all humans from this planet. We wish to leave without further loss of life and negotiate some way to end the violence between our species.”
“I will convey your intentions,” she turned, “after I’ve completed recovery of remains.”
“Sure. Go for it.”
Connie shucked off the small pack on her back, opened it, positioning it in the air in front of her. It floated, seemingly weightless.
“Say,” I asked, “is that some sort of pack?”
“It can function as such,” Connie nodded. The pack grew four slender arms ending in pincers. “It is actually a quantum portal leading to an alternate dimension, one we use for storage.”
The pack floated away, its arms plucking up dead spiders and placing them within the pack’s now capacious opening. Connie continued, “I sheltered in it from your explosive devices.”
I watched the pack traverse the battlefield, gathering spider husks at a steady but swift rate. “How many are you going to retrieve?”
“All of them.”
“All?”
“Life’s essence is precious. Nothing may be wasted.”
I pondered this thought as Connie’s pack expanded to the size of an M-7500 tank and sprouted dozens more arms, all busy. It crossed the battlefield at a brisk walking pace, never pausing, then turned and came back. The First Sergeant checked in at that point.
“Chucky Four to Chucky Seven, come in.”
“Chucky Four, go ahead.”
“Chucky Nine told me you have a prisoner?”
“Not exactly.”
Morales was silent for several seconds, “Explain.”
“She’s a different species, some sort of medic, First Sergeant.”
“Did she surrender?”
“No.”
“Shoot her.”
“Uh,” I hesitated, “she might be able to care for the wounded.”
“There are wounded?”
“None that I’ve seen,” I sighed. The amazing backpack was approaching the tree line. “Right now, she’s collecting dead spiders.”
“Why?”
“Unknown, First Sergeant.”
“Shoot her.”
I swallowed, “She’s down range, in the trees. I don’t have a good shot without exiting my pit.”
“BS — shoot her, Hicks.”
The Marine Corps is all about chain of command, orders. Most are routine. A few are puzzling. Even fewer seem absolutely stupid, but I’ve obeyed them all — until this one.
“Hicks?”
“Firing now.” I aimed my M9 at the tree skeletons to my right and released a ten-round burst, obliterating some charred upper branches.
“That take care of the problem?”
“Yes, First Sergeant.”
“Wait ten mikes. If you’re clear fall back, combat withdrawal. Clear?”
“Clear, First Sergeant.”
Smoke drifted over the killing field. Nothing else moved. I lowered my weapon.
Patel gently spoke my name, “David?”
“Yeah?”
“You missed.”
I did not reply.
“On purpose,” she sighed, “you’re in for a world of hurt when the First Sergeant figures it out.”
Connie interrupted, somehow speaking over our squad net, “Will you face a reprimand for not shooting me?”
I nodded, “more than that.”
Patel added, “a dishonorable discharge and a few years in the brig, I’m guessing.”
“The order was wrong, Patel.” I raised my visor and wiped sweat from my eyebrows. “Connie might be able to save a lot of lives by getting word to the spiders. If she does, I can live with a couple of years behind bars.”
“Right,” Patel said.
Connie added, “You speak like a conflict-healer.”
I chuckled, “Nobody has ever called a Marine that, I’m betting.”
Still pondering my dim future, Patel said, “It might help if you tell her to save bodies for the intel geeks to study.”
“I save them all,” Connie spoke to her. “All will be available for you to study if you will please return them to me.”
Connie’s pack floated toward us, shrinking as it came, job done. “Connie?” I asked.
“Yes, Corporal Chucky Seven David Hicks?”
I laughed for the first time in hours, laughed until my stomach hurt and tears came.
Connie looked at me with what could only be perplexity. “That is not your personal designator?”
“Nope,” I shook my head, “call me Corporal Hicks.”
“You wish to ask me something?”
“Do you have access to our computer net?”
“I do.”
“Everything?”
“I have added all of human history to my data banks
I gazed into Connie’s eyes, clear and midnight blue, “explain to me again what you’re doing here and why?”
“Of course,” Connie squatted on two very short hind legs. “My kind seek conflicts and find ways to mitigate them.”
“Diplomats?”
“Arbiters — this word in your language embraces much of what we do.”
I nodded, “Arbiters?”
“We arbiters seek Galactic peace for all. Earlier, you offered to help.”
I chuckled, “Galactic peace is above my pay grade.”
“I don’t comprehend.”
“I don’t have the power to negotiate with the spiders or anyone else. I’m just a grunt.”
Connie’s eyes stared at the sky behind me as she sat frozen for a long moment. “Fascinating — I’ve reviewed Marine Corps history. You are at the bottom of a rigid hierarchy.
“Close.”
“Peace seems to be your concern. Is it not?”
I sighed, “Don’t get me wrong, Connie. I’m all for peace — every marine is — but we’re sent to places that aren’t peaceful to protect those who can’t protect themselves.”
“I see that.”
I shrugged, “There are people above me in the hierarchy who can make peace, especially if you help them communicate with the spiders. Will you?”
“The spiders, as you call them, are a unique problem. Theirs is a hive mind and its focus is very narrow.”
“Yeah, we noticed.”
“It will be difficult to sway them, but it is possible.” Connie stood, “Other arbiters will join me in the effort. Please contact a member of your hierarchy,
Corporal Hicks, and we shall work our way upward to find someone who will secure peace.”
I smiled, “Step one is on the way.”
“Excellent.”
*
Step one arrive shortly. Eyes glinting, Sergeant Morales leaned forward until our noses again nearly touched. “Hicks, you disobeyed my order.”
Behind her, a cluster of arbiters — several dozens of them, long, short, winged, fuzzy and tall — watched us attentively.
“These creatures pose an undetermined threat to our mission, Hicks.”
“First Sergeant,” I interceded, “they’re no threat, though I don’t doubt they could be formidable. For one thing, they seem to go wherever they wish instantaneously without using starships. They also have access to other dimensions.”
“Weapons?”
“None.”
Morales snarled, “None that you know of!”
“Sergeant, I believe they desperately want the spiders to quit killing us and for us to quit killing them. They want to help us make that happen.”
“Alright,” Morales stood back, breathing heavily. “I’ll kick this upstairs. You and your squad will remain here . . .” she paused, “with your new friends. Keep them from causing me any trouble, Corporal Hicks.”
“Yes, First Sergeant.”
“I mean it!” She leaned close again, “Your future depends on it.”
“Aye, aye,” I gulped.
Morales whirled, facing Connie and her companions. “You, blue bug!”
Connie blinked, “Yes, First Sergeant.”
“You are my prisoner, all those other things, too. Remain with Lance Corporal Hicks and make yourselves useful.” Morales’s eyes squinted nearly shut, “Are we clear, bug
“Crystal.”
Morales turned away, “Carry on.”
Connie straightened. “Semper Fi, First Sergeant!”
Before that, there was God and his assistant, First Sergeant Morales.
“Lance Corporal Hicks!”
I blinked. Morales’s torpedo-like nose was inches from my face. “Yes, First Sergeant.”
“You are to hold this position until I relieve you. Is that clear?”
“Crystal, First Sergeant.”
“I hope so because, if you don’t, there will be hell to pay.” Morales turned abruptly, walked away, and then paused, looking over her shoulder, black eyes glittering, “Then you will have to deal with me.”
I watched her broad back disappear in the brush at the rear of the weapons pit. I sighed and glanced around my home for the immediate future. The pit was oval-shaped, ten meters in length, and four in width, with a rampart facing the expected direction of attack. Also, most importantly, there was a shield generator at its exact center. Once turned on, this would provide me with a roof impenetrable by anything short of an intermediate range missile.
Weapons? I am not without lethal options. Aside from my AR 35 battle rifle, I control remote single use mortars, two machine gun-bots, shaped charge missiles, a mini-tank, and an MAB drone.
Enemies? Katmandu is the second planet the bug-aliens have invaded. They overwhelmed Billie Holiday — no survivors. We think they are most like spiders — seven legs, multiple eyes, segmented exoskeletons two meters long — though biological details are few. They apparently eat their own dead and wounded, so we’ve retrieved no specimens.
Our mission? The plan is to evacuate all civilians before the alien forces reach critical mass and attack. Politicians want to negotiate if they can figure out a way to communicate. That’s fine by me though above my pay grade. Most of 3rd battalion, 1st Star-Marines — Companies A, B and D — are rounding up all civilians in the colony area and loading them into transports. Company C, my company, is their shield. We are to stand between the evacuees and the spiders until further notice. Whoopie.
“Chucky Nine to Chucky seven, come in.”
I activated my throat mike, “Go ahead, Chucky Nine.”
“Are we going to get our butts kicked out here, Hicks?”
“Negative.” Chucky Nine is my next-door neighbor, Private Patel, a very enthusiastic, if sometimes nervous, Marine. Her weapons pit is thirty yards to my left. I added, “Hope for the best. . .”
“Plan for the worst,” she answered cheerily.
“And when the worst’s big, ugly brother shows up?”
“Innovate!”
“Affirmative.” I sighed and took a deep breath of Katmandu air, savoring its spice — something like cinnamon only fresher. Too bad we’re leaving the place for good in a few hours.
I glanced at Patel’s pit. She’s not visible, her armor’s reflective camo doing its job, just like mine.
Though our home planets are dozens of light years apart, we are much alike, raised in similar neighborhoods — poor, crime-infested, drug-ridden, futureless. The Corps. offered us clarity, discipline, and service to something bigger than ourselves. We both needed a mission, so here we are. Don’t get me wrong. She’s happy in her hole and I’m happy in mine. We live to protect.
“Chucky Seven, I’ve got movement in the tree line.”
I increased the magnification on my helmet’s visor. The trees here are tall and golden, something like sycamores in autumn. A shadow flickered among their trunks. “Got it.” A half dozen blunt torpedoes pushed away from the trees.
“This must be the worst’s big, ugly brother,” Patel murmured.
“Panzer pods,” I grimaced.
“How many?” Patel asked.
“Six is all I see.” I adjusted the visor for a passive range assessment.
“Lasers or mortars?”
“Three of each.” The estimated range flashed in the upper corner of my visor, eight hundred and fourteen meters, “Sergeant Morales told us to watch out for these things.”
“Did she say what to do about them?”
I did not reply.
“I guess that’s where the innovate part comes in,” Patel continued, “Infantry swarms?”
“None yet.” The pods crept forward, sensor stalks questing. I pondered our options.
“Why aren’t they shooting?” Patel queried.
“They know we’re around, but they aren’t sure exactly where.” I took a deep breath. “We’ll take them on with the missiles.”
“Affirmative.”
“Target the three on the left and I’ll take the ones on the right. Fire on my count. Three, two, one . . .” I thumbed the remote weapons tab on my left wrist. Four missiles, each a bit longer than my arm, blasted out of a concealed battery two hundred meters behind my pit. Riding white-hot exhausts, they slammed into the panzer pods, obliterating one in a flash of green flame and wounding a second. The third was hit, but the missile bounced off its crocodile hide armor in a shower of white-hot sparks.
The undamaged panzer in front of me, mortar-armed, belched green flame. Cluster munitions rained down on my first launcher, churning the ground it occupied into a hash of chopped grass and mud.
Fortunately, my second launcher was only a hundred yards behind me. I targeted both the mortar panzer and its unmoving but intact companion. My rockets screamed over my head and buried themselves in both pods, turning them into scrap and boiling smoke.
I looked to my left. Patel’s panzers were burning. “Chucky Nine, come in.”
“Go ahead, Chucky Seven.”
“Good shooting.”
“Roger that,” Patel paused. “Here come the swarms.”
Hundreds of blue aliens scuttled out of the woods into open ground. “Machine guns for the front ranks. Mortars on the tree line.”
“Roger.”
“Wait for it.” The aliens reached their burning panzers. “Now!”
I triggered both the auto-guns and the mortars. As my first rounds hit their front ranks, suppressive fire erupted from the trees. Heavy projectiles thudded into the berm in front of me and reduced my right side Vulcan minigun to smoking fragments.
Four of my HE mortar shells burst among the trees, quickly followed by four more. Tree trunks launched into the air, flipped upside down and thudded down on spider weapons. The suppressive fire stopped.
“Damn,” Patel’s voice sounded in my ears. “Those things are fast.”
I checked my front. Spiders scuttled toward me, thirty meters and closing. “Alamo, Patel.”
“Not mini-tanks?” she asked.
“No time. Alamo, now!”
“This is survivable, right?”
“We’ll find out.”
I dropped into my hole as I spoke, sliding its hatch over my head until the lock clicked. Alamo holes — marine-sized, armored ceramic tubes dug three meters into the ground — were designed as last stand survivability refuges, hermetically sealed and shock absorbent. I hoped so because I was about to create a death zone.
I counted slowly to five, imagining blue legs scrabbling into my pit and out the other side. When I reached five, I activated my MAB drone. It buzzed into the air, tugging a fifty- kilogram cartridge beneath it. When it reached a height of thirty meters above my hole, a modest charge burst the cartridge, scattering a mixture of TBX explosive and powdered aluminum. A second charge then ignited the MAB — Mother of All Bombs.
The spiders never had a chance. An expanding cloud of sun-hot gas engulfed them, consumed them, and spread to the fringes of the forest. I missed that part, but the blast wave shook my Alamo hole like a rat in a terrier’s mouth. A minute or two after the shaking stopped, I parted my womb of protective foam, disengaged the hatch’s locking clamps, and pushed it open.
Dust, destruction and death greeted me. The tree line was now a wasteland, blackened branches reaching to the sky like burnt fingers.
“Chucky Nine, come in.”
“Go ahead, Chucky Seven.”
“You okay, Patel?”
“It smells like fried chicken.”
“Say again?”
“Something,” she hesitated, “something smells like street food from my old ‘hood.”
“I don’t know about the fried chicken,” I surveyed the acres of scorched and mangled blue spiders in front of my pit. “but that MAB worked pretty well.”
Something moved.
I aimed my weapon, as yet unfired, without thinking. The Marine-Corps AR-35 is technically a long gun, though it’s intended for close work, one hundred meters and in. It fires four-millimeter flechettes at hyper-sonic speeds, and — on full auto — can empty a five hundred round magazine in twenty seconds. My default setting is for ten-round bursts. Ten flechettes will finish off anybody who isn’t wearing serious armor.
The creature five meters in front of me wore no armor. It was otter-sized, blue with golden stripes and vaguely furry. It looked too pretty to shoot, though every marine knows nothing is too pretty to shoot.
Three big, luminous eyes stared at me. The small, blue-lipped mouth below them opened, “Don’t shoot.”
Wow. I took a deep breath, “Are you talking to me?”
“Chucky Seven, say again?” Patel asked.
“Chucky Nine, hold one. I may have a prisoner.” I studied the creature. It had no visible weapons and the pouch it had strapped to its back didn’t look threatening. Most importantly, it didn’t look like a spider.
It spoke again, “I care for the fallen.”
“You’re a medic?”
“I tend to both wounded and dead.”
I pointed to a dead spider near my feet, its body ripped open by the MAB’s blast wave. “You don’t look like one of them.”
“Not my species.”
I nod, “What is your species?”
The three big eyes went opaque for a few seconds. Then it spoke, “You have no name for us. My purpose here, one we share with hundreds of other species, heal when I can and offer solace when I can’t. You may call me Conflict-healer.”
“All right, Connie, how do you come to speak English?”
“Connie?”
“It’s what I’m going to call you.”
“Ah, a personal designator — I understand.”
“Great. Now tell me how you understand English.”
The blue lips compressed before Connie continued, “We monitor electro-magnetic waves from myriad star systems and record all transmissions. There are many cultures, many languages in our data banks.”
“How many?”
“One million, two hundred thousand, four hundred and seventy-two.”
“That’s a lot.”
“Only a fraction of all we suspect exist in our galaxy.” Connie’s big eyes gazed at me earnestly. “I may switch to Spanish or Cantonese if either is more convenient for you.”
“English is fine.”
Connie took a step closer, still meeting my eyes. “May I begin my work?”
“What is it that you do?”
“After violence, we treat the wounded,” Connie looked away, gazing over the acres of dead spiders, “and preserve what can’t be healed. This slaughter is unacceptable to us.”
“It’s unacceptable to us, too.”
Connie’s disturbingly penetrating gaze settled on me. “Truly?”
“Yes.” I lowered my weapon. “Do you speak the spiders’ language.”
“I do.”
“Can you make our intentions clear to them?”
“I can.” Connie studied me intensely for a long moment, “What are your intentions?”
“We’re evacuating all humans from this planet. We wish to leave without further loss of life and negotiate some way to end the violence between our species.”
“I will convey your intentions,” she turned, “after I’ve completed recovery of remains.”
“Sure. Go for it.”
Connie shucked off the small pack on her back, opened it, positioning it in the air in front of her. It floated, seemingly weightless.
“Say,” I asked, “is that some sort of pack?”
“It can function as such,” Connie nodded. The pack grew four slender arms ending in pincers. “It is actually a quantum portal leading to an alternate dimension, one we use for storage.”
The pack floated away, its arms plucking up dead spiders and placing them within the pack’s now capacious opening. Connie continued, “I sheltered in it from your explosive devices.”
I watched the pack traverse the battlefield, gathering spider husks at a steady but swift rate. “How many are you going to retrieve?”
“All of them.”
“All?”
“Life’s essence is precious. Nothing may be wasted.”
I pondered this thought as Connie’s pack expanded to the size of an M-7500 tank and sprouted dozens more arms, all busy. It crossed the battlefield at a brisk walking pace, never pausing, then turned and came back. The First Sergeant checked in at that point.
“Chucky Four to Chucky Seven, come in.”
“Chucky Four, go ahead.”
“Chucky Nine told me you have a prisoner?”
“Not exactly.”
Morales was silent for several seconds, “Explain.”
“She’s a different species, some sort of medic, First Sergeant.”
“Did she surrender?”
“No.”
“Shoot her.”
“Uh,” I hesitated, “she might be able to care for the wounded.”
“There are wounded?”
“None that I’ve seen,” I sighed. The amazing backpack was approaching the tree line. “Right now, she’s collecting dead spiders.”
“Why?”
“Unknown, First Sergeant.”
“Shoot her.”
I swallowed, “She’s down range, in the trees. I don’t have a good shot without exiting my pit.”
“BS — shoot her, Hicks.”
The Marine Corps is all about chain of command, orders. Most are routine. A few are puzzling. Even fewer seem absolutely stupid, but I’ve obeyed them all — until this one.
“Hicks?”
“Firing now.” I aimed my M9 at the tree skeletons to my right and released a ten-round burst, obliterating some charred upper branches.
“That take care of the problem?”
“Yes, First Sergeant.”
“Wait ten mikes. If you’re clear fall back, combat withdrawal. Clear?”
“Clear, First Sergeant.”
Smoke drifted over the killing field. Nothing else moved. I lowered my weapon.
Patel gently spoke my name, “David?”
“Yeah?”
“You missed.”
I did not reply.
“On purpose,” she sighed, “you’re in for a world of hurt when the First Sergeant figures it out.”
Connie interrupted, somehow speaking over our squad net, “Will you face a reprimand for not shooting me?”
I nodded, “more than that.”
Patel added, “a dishonorable discharge and a few years in the brig, I’m guessing.”
“The order was wrong, Patel.” I raised my visor and wiped sweat from my eyebrows. “Connie might be able to save a lot of lives by getting word to the spiders. If she does, I can live with a couple of years behind bars.”
“Right,” Patel said.
Connie added, “You speak like a conflict-healer.”
I chuckled, “Nobody has ever called a Marine that, I’m betting.”
Still pondering my dim future, Patel said, “It might help if you tell her to save bodies for the intel geeks to study.”
“I save them all,” Connie spoke to her. “All will be available for you to study if you will please return them to me.”
Connie’s pack floated toward us, shrinking as it came, job done. “Connie?” I asked.
“Yes, Corporal Chucky Seven David Hicks?”
I laughed for the first time in hours, laughed until my stomach hurt and tears came.
Connie looked at me with what could only be perplexity. “That is not your personal designator?”
“Nope,” I shook my head, “call me Corporal Hicks.”
“You wish to ask me something?”
“Do you have access to our computer net?”
“I do.”
“Everything?”
“I have added all of human history to my data banks
I gazed into Connie’s eyes, clear and midnight blue, “explain to me again what you’re doing here and why?”
“Of course,” Connie squatted on two very short hind legs. “My kind seek conflicts and find ways to mitigate them.”
“Diplomats?”
“Arbiters — this word in your language embraces much of what we do.”
I nodded, “Arbiters?”
“We arbiters seek Galactic peace for all. Earlier, you offered to help.”
I chuckled, “Galactic peace is above my pay grade.”
“I don’t comprehend.”
“I don’t have the power to negotiate with the spiders or anyone else. I’m just a grunt.”
Connie’s eyes stared at the sky behind me as she sat frozen for a long moment. “Fascinating — I’ve reviewed Marine Corps history. You are at the bottom of a rigid hierarchy.
“Close.”
“Peace seems to be your concern. Is it not?”
I sighed, “Don’t get me wrong, Connie. I’m all for peace — every marine is — but we’re sent to places that aren’t peaceful to protect those who can’t protect themselves.”
“I see that.”
I shrugged, “There are people above me in the hierarchy who can make peace, especially if you help them communicate with the spiders. Will you?”
“The spiders, as you call them, are a unique problem. Theirs is a hive mind and its focus is very narrow.”
“Yeah, we noticed.”
“It will be difficult to sway them, but it is possible.” Connie stood, “Other arbiters will join me in the effort. Please contact a member of your hierarchy,
Corporal Hicks, and we shall work our way upward to find someone who will secure peace.”
I smiled, “Step one is on the way.”
“Excellent.”
*
Step one arrive shortly. Eyes glinting, Sergeant Morales leaned forward until our noses again nearly touched. “Hicks, you disobeyed my order.”
Behind her, a cluster of arbiters — several dozens of them, long, short, winged, fuzzy and tall — watched us attentively.
“These creatures pose an undetermined threat to our mission, Hicks.”
“First Sergeant,” I interceded, “they’re no threat, though I don’t doubt they could be formidable. For one thing, they seem to go wherever they wish instantaneously without using starships. They also have access to other dimensions.”
“Weapons?”
“None.”
Morales snarled, “None that you know of!”
“Sergeant, I believe they desperately want the spiders to quit killing us and for us to quit killing them. They want to help us make that happen.”
“Alright,” Morales stood back, breathing heavily. “I’ll kick this upstairs. You and your squad will remain here . . .” she paused, “with your new friends. Keep them from causing me any trouble, Corporal Hicks.”
“Yes, First Sergeant.”
“I mean it!” She leaned close again, “Your future depends on it.”
“Aye, aye,” I gulped.
Morales whirled, facing Connie and her companions. “You, blue bug!”
Connie blinked, “Yes, First Sergeant.”
“You are my prisoner, all those other things, too. Remain with Lance Corporal Hicks and make yourselves useful.” Morales’s eyes squinted nearly shut, “Are we clear, bug
“Crystal.”
Morales turned away, “Carry on.”
Connie straightened. “Semper Fi, First Sergeant!”