Sir ChickenBurger
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Killer Kittens from Outer Space- Chapter Six
🕑 Added 2024-02-10 05:44:50 +0000 UTCAna (continued)
It didn’t take long for one of the aliens to walk over. Fully suited up with an opaque visored helmet that mirrored Ana’s own, they stood at a height that would have been tall for a human woman, somewhere between Bruiser and Raker’s heights. A single row of breasts and a strange triangular tail-like protrusion on her lower back that was covered in flexible armour and swayed as she walked were the only identifying features that her suit gave away. She certainly wasn’t kespan or any of the other species that Ana had seen around the place.
“I didn’t realise there were humans already serving in the Imperial Forces,” a quizzical voice said from behind the opaque screen of a full-face helmet that closely resembled Ana’s own. “Oh,” she tilted her head as Ana looked her up and down. “Sorry, that was rude of me.”
She pressed a switch on the side of her neck, and the visor changed to transparent glass. Ana blinked. The skin on the woman’s face glistened like exposed muscle in a translucent yellow-green colour, with darker mottled patches on her cheeks and forehead that, on closer inspection, looked almost like chitin or some other kind of natural armour. Large hazel baby-doll eyes blinked back at Ana, set above a nose upon which her nostrils opened and closed like valves as she breathed. Two small whiskery protrusions sat on either side of her mouth, and as Ana watched, they moved, almost like tentacles. She looked like something between a turtle and a snail, but in a way that was oddly beautiful, and Ana couldn’t help but stare.
“I… don’t take this the wrong way, but your skin is fascinating,” Ana replied, entranced by the strange being in front of her. “Are the harder parts calcium? What is your species called? I have lots of questions that we probably don’t have time for.”
“Calcium carbonate, yes,” the snail-like woman replied. “Unfortunately, it is quite brittle. And that makes two of us. With questions, I mean. My species is named Skree by the Imperium, though much is lost in the translation. Our mother tongue is partly scent-based, so I have chosen a name by which other species can refer to me. Private First Class Serienne Vishi, at your service, human.”
“Ana Cardoso,” Ana replied. “Attaché, soon to be Specialist. They’re still trying to work out the hiring process for humans, but I’m one of the first to wear the suit.”
“That’s got to feel strange,” Serienne nodded. “Siding with the aliens, I mean.”
“Human traffickers are human traffickers,” Ana replied. “I’ve gone up against their kind before. The only way to handle them is for the biggest kid on the block to step in. So here I am.”
“A slaver is a slaver,” Serienne agreed. “I hope all the action you find yourself in is so clear cut. We’re tired of being the bad gals here.”
The scared face of a teenager holding a shaking rifle flashed into Ana’s head. She shook it away, and in its place appeared the smiling face of a bearded man she hadn’t seen in fifteen years—her father.
Killed in a crossfire, the neighbours said. Taken from his family by an act of violence committed in the name of some deadbeat gang that hadn’t lasted three months.
She’d been just nine when he died, but she could still hear his voice, one of the last pieces of advice he’d ever given her. They’d passed the scene of a shooting on the way back to their home in Rocinha, and he’d pulled her aside. ‘Minha pequena, listen to me. Sometimes there is no use in holding onto your anger for its own sake. If you let it consume you and give in to evil, you will die angry and alone, with a gun in your hand like the young man on the corner just now. If you want to change the world, do it properly.’
She could have justified her siding with the Imperium that way, but the truth was that there was no future for an ex-military policewoman among the cartel-run dissidents, and she had no other skills. When the Imperium offered her a local representative job, she’d turned it down and asked for a combat role instead.
Sympathisers without guns died. This was much safer.
“Me too,” she said, and Serienne’s facial tentacles wriggled in what her translator informed her was agreement.
“Okay ladies, listen up!” Raker called out, echoed by the other squad leaders. Serienne grinned and turned, waving as she returned to her squad. Raker pulled a small black box out of one of her many pockets, and after pressing a few buttons on it, a projection of an aerial image lit up a nearby wall.
“The hostages have been moved,” she continued. “We’re not sure why, but we’re pretty sure we know where. This compound,” she gestured to a blocky jumble of forested rooftops, “was the original point of interest. Intel from command suggests that they’ve moved the captive men to a building on the far side of the hill.”
She pressed a button, and the vegetation phased out of the picture, leaving only AI compositions of the brick and concrete buildings visible. Tracing a pathway through several alleyways with a clawed finger, Raker continued. “Heat signatures registered by the ISF Den Protector picked up a large number of humans moving from the target building to a new location further north. Analysis suggests that most of those humans were male and moving under duress. Command has outlined some potential plans of attack, but I’m taking suggestions.”
“Speaker,” Singer immediately turned to Ana, cocking her bill to the side. “You know this place and these people better than us. Any thoughts?”
Ana studied the map. The bright white building was the largest in its surroundings, its slab concrete walls sticking out like a sore thumb in the higgledy-piggledy mess of yellow brick slums. Despite its prominence though, it was less defensible than the nest of favela housing the cartels had abandoned. There were at least a dozen approach vectors, and it was on a downhill slope from where the Imperium’s forces now gathered.
She paused. It was a big call.
“Say what’s on your mind, Speaker.” Raker prompted, and Ana frowned in thought.
“A hostage surrender,” Ana started hesitantly. “To buy time for the fighters to escape. Or a trap, but that’s less likely.”
“Why is that less likely?” Raker asked bluntly. “I’d like to be sure we aren’t about to get our tails blown off if we walk in there.”
“The cartels here are a bit like a government,” Ana explained. “They get away with this, with taking men because it serves the interests of their community. If Command is right and the men are still in there… then they probably won’t risk killing them all. It’s a bad look, it would open them up to challenge and make it harder for them to manage any future victims. There would be in-fighting.”
“Probably?”
“Probably,” Ana replied, getting irritated now. “Anger changes people, and humans can be irrational. The men also aren’t really from here, so there’s a chance they’ll just say, ‘fuck it’ and kill them all. It’s hard to be sure.”
Raker paused in thought, her tail swishing from side to side. Then she nodded.
“Wait here,” she said and then walked quickly back over to the other squad leaders, signalling them as she approached. They spoke briefly, and one of the other NCOs turned away to call Command. After another minute or so of discussion, Raker returned.
“Command has confirmed groups of armed insurgents leaving the area, the hostages aren’t with them,” Raker informed them. “Unless they’ve been moved underground, they are still in place. It lines up with your thinking Speaker. I’ve talked it out with the other squads, and we’ll be sending a smaller team than planned. “Myself, Bruiser, Speaker and Specialist Krikmi,” she nodded at one of the duradians who inclined her head slightly. “As well as a small contingent of volunteers from the other two squads.”
Singer clicked her bill in disapproval, “Ma’am—”
“Save it Singer. You know why I can’t take you. Fighting low-tech species planetside is one thing, waltzing into a potential trap with eyes wide open is another. We’ve had enough diplomatic incidents for one induction.”
Singer’s bill clicked again, but she backed down. “Yes ma’am.”
“Prep your gear ladies; we leave in five.”
---
Almost an hour later, Ana was staring at a locked door at the entrance to the white brick building that their intelligence had identified as the hostages' location. They’d moved slowly and carefully, wary of potential ambush, but while they’d attracted plenty of attention from the windows of the nearby houses, they’d gone unchallenged. Now it was time to find out if her hunch had been correct.
“Krikmi. Check the door.” Raker’s voice buzzed through her communicator, and the duradian procured a narrow wand from her side. Standing at 45 degrees from the door, she slid it beneath, then spent a moment reviewing the information that was fed through to her helmet.
“No sign of traps or hostages ma’am,” the lizard woman reported, and Ana’s shoulders untightened by a fraction.
“Blow it.”
Krikmi placed two rectangular charges on the wall and then stepped back, motioning to the rest of the squad to follow suit. Once they were stacked up and in position, she nodded.
“Do it.” Raker prompted.
BANG!
Ana had been part of a few breaching teams in her time with the military, but nothing she’d ever seen rivalled the precision of the Imperial troops as their helmets’ vision filtered out the blinding smoke and dust and provided recommended movement patterns based on an immediate scan of the room. There was no one on the other side of the door, and after clearing any other potential hiding spaces, they moved on to the next room.
And the next. And the next.
They climbed the stairs, kicking in doors in turn as they went. By the time they reached the third storey, Ana was starting to doubt the intel they’d received, but when they came to the furthest room from the staircase, Krikmi took one look at the results from her scan and held up a padded hand.
“Registering multiple life forms on the other side of this door ma’am,” she said. “They appear to be the hostages.”
Ana’s heart soared, but Krikmi wasn’t finished. “There’s also…” she added, turning the long stick in her scaled grip, “something attached to the door handle. A wire.”
“Then we’re not using the door.” Raker didn’t waste time walking across to a narrow window at the end of the hall that was barred from the outside. “Bruiser?”
“Gladly ma’am.” The massive ursinian joined her at the window, then cocked back a fist. Glass shattered, metal screeched, and the hydraulic potentiators in her wrist hissed as she smashed through the window with a wild haymaker, blowing the metal cage clean off the side of the building and leaving the corridor open to the outside air.
“Specialist Krikmi,” Raker prompted, and the duradian strode up to the opening, placing her suction-cup-like fingers against the wall and hoisting herself up onto it. Before Ana’s eyes, the lizard woman’s skin adopted the characteristics of the white concrete beneath her, and she crawled sideways along the wall and out through the narrow opening, quickly disappearing from sight.
Absolutely terrifying, Ana couldn’t help but think to herself. Imagine believing you had a shot against shock troops like that.
“The window to the room is also barred,” the duradian’s voice spoke through the squad channel. “There’s a curtain up on the inside, too; I have no visual.”
“Come back then, I want us stacked up,” Raker ordered, before turning to the ursinian in the group. “Everyone away from that door. Bruiser, I want a visual on the inside of that room. Open a hole in the wall.”
“Yes ma’am,” The bear-dog placed her hands on the opposite wall of the corridor and reared one leg, then slammed it back in an explosive donkey-kick that shook the whole building, sending bricks flying and dust tumbling down from the ceiling. When she pulled her foot back, it left a hole the size of a medium saucepan in the wall. A commotion started up on the other side, muffled yells and coughs.
Men’s voices. Ana wasn’t sure how long it had been since she heard a man speak in person.
She peered through the hole, careful not to expose too much of her helmeted head, and wide terrified eyes stared back.
There were easily twenty or thirty men crammed into the small room, their hands and feet chained to the walls and to each other with handcuffs. When Bruiser grabbed at the sides of the hole to tear it wider, Ana was grateful that her helmet filtered the incoming air, because the inside of the room was a mess of grimy bodies. The steam of sweat and piss rolled off the men like a damp fog.
“De mal a pior” one of the men who’d managed to free the cloth gag from his mouth said. “Invasoras.”
“Speaker,” Raker looked over at Ana. “Tell them we’re here to get them home.”
