“Fi, I’m going to get you down. Are you injured?”
“Are they…? Oh, poor Lin. And Pel… she was so young…” A moan left her as tears gathered in her eyes, and unfortunately, Associate Nors didn’t even have basic military training to keep her mind focused. “Fi,” I said, more sharply this time. She was half-hanging from her harness, the right side of the transporter thrust up into the air, and getting her out safely was going to be difficult. “I need you to listen to me. I’m going to undo your harness and lower you down to the bottom corner of the room. But I need you to hold onto the-”
“Are they dead? Oh god, where’s her head!” she wailed. I got my face in front of hers, to try and focus her attention. “Fi, listen!”
“Bidge is alive,” Vosh called from the cockpit. “He’s got a broken arm, but he’s alive.”
“I killed them!” Associate Nors continued to wail, flailing her arms towards her aides’ bodies.
I hoped that Vosh would be able to help the pilot out of the transporter herself – Wasops were strong for their size, after all – while I tried to figureout how to calm Associate Nors down. But before I could make any progress on that front, I heard a yell. “Kade! Get out here!”
That was my master’s voice, and even if that hadn’t been a direct order, I would have dropped what I was doing and gone to his aid. The Geshtoch had already proven themselves to be deadly, and if things were going badly…
I slid down the floor and leapt out through the sliced metal, Associate Nors’ shrill voice calling after me to ask where I was going. A quick look around revealed that my master and Bryce were pinned down, with good cover behind the rocks, but the Geshtoch had started lobbing grenades at them. They were too far away to do any damage yet… but that wouldn’t be the case for long. But if I simply went and joined them, I wouldn’t be able to do any more good than they were doing themselves.
I took a quick glance around, then vaulted back up onto the side of the transporter, racing over the corner that was now the ‘top’, and flattened myself to the metal shell. Here, I had a higher vantage point, and a wider angle of view than my master. I set out the rifle, flipping down the stability stand and lining up a shot to the place I’d last seen one of the Geshtoch.
They were odd looking creatures, like evolution had got halfway through turning them into bipedals and then just given up. They walked on two legs, but with a hunched posture, their arms too long for their bodies, and at times, they reverted to walking a few steps on all fours. Their skin was a pale, blotchy colour, like someone had mixed cream with dirt, and their faces sagged at the sides, wrinkles plentiful in jowls that swayed as they moved. They wore pants, but no shirts or shoes, and according to the files my master had asked me to read, that was normal for them. But for all their primitive looks, they were well known for having access to advanced weapons.
At the same time, though, they weren’t known for having any particularly clever battle strategies. Predictably enough, the Geshtoch I’d pegged popped his head out of cover, and in the half a second between him lifting his arm and lobbing the next grenade, I nailed him between the eyes. He dropped to the ground… and three seconds later, the grenade blew, sending rock shards and body parts flying.
“Nice!” Bryce yelled, from his position behind a reddish boulder. There were only two more targets left now, and I shifted my aim to the right, seeing a flash of movement as another Geshtoch darted between two rocks. He was in safety for the moment, but that meant the second one would be following him, right about…
My finger squeezed the trigger before I actually saw the creature move. It was nothing more than an instinctive sense of timing, built off years of the very best training money could buy. But a split second after I’d fired, asmall figure darted into the gap between the rocks, and a high pitched yelp proved that I’d hit him. Though perhaps I hadn’t killed him.
I heard a guttural cry, and my translator whirred for a second, before spitting out the word, “No!” The last uninjured Geshtoch stood up, hands in the air… though a long gun was still gripped firmly in his right hand. “No!” He yelled again. I had the fleeting thought that if he was going to surrender, he should have put down the gun first. Lining up the shot was easy, as he stepped slowly towards us. But only half a second before I pulled the trigger, Bryce beat me to it, and the single shot sent the Geshtoch dropping to the ground, dead.
I stood up and slithered down off the transporter again. “We’ll go clean this up,” Bryce called over to me, then he and my master began moving towards where the last Geshtoch would be. By the way he kept his stance low and moved cautiously from cover to cover, it was clear that he was aware one of them might still be alive. I decided to leave them to it, knowing there were more problems to deal with inside the transporter.
By the time I got back inside, Vosh had the pilot out of the cockpit and sitting on what was notionally the floor, a metre or two behind the dead bodies. She was strapping a splint to Bidge’s broken arm, while calling soothing words up to Associate Nors, who was still dangling from her seat. I was relieved to see that she hadn’t attempted to remove her own harness, but whether that was a good thing or not really depended on whether she’d consciously chosen to wait for help, or was simply too shocked to even try to get herself out.
“Fi? How are you doing?” I asked, peering up at her. At least she’d stopped wailing now.
“I think I’m okay,” she said, her voice shaky but controlled. “Sorry about before. I’ve never seen someone get…” She trailed off, her eyes looking anywhere but at the dismembered bodies of the two women who had likely been not only her colleagues, but her friends.
“I’m going to come up there and get you down,” I told her, making an effort to sound calm and confident. Not that I wasn’t calm and confident, but it was important that she knew that. If I showed her that I had no reason to panic, hopefully she’d subconsciously follow my lead.
“Okay. Thank you,” she said, adjusting her weight against the straps a fraction.
I used the storage compartment to give myself a boost, vaulting up the sloping floor and grabbing onto the edge of her seat. I propped my foot against the leg of the chair, where it was bolted to the floor, to keep myself in place. “I’m going to release this strap,” I told her, indicating the first of the two, “and your upper body is going to want to fall sideways. So I need you to grab onto this handle and hold tight.” I put one of the stability straps into her hand, closing her fingers around it and giving her hand a squeeze. “You’re going to be taking a fair bit of your own weight on that strap. Then I’ll undo this one,” I said, indicating the second part of the harness. “And then you’re mostly going to fall out of the seat. So get your other hand and grab onto my arm… around the wrist… that’s it,” I coached her through it. “I’ll catch your weight, and then you can let go of the other strap and I’ll lower you to the floor. Okay?”
She nodded, not looking terribly convinced about it. “What are we doing?” I asked her. “Run me through it again.” She repeated my instructions back to me without missing any of the important details. “Very good. Are you ready?”
She braced herself, then nodded. “Yes.”
I counted down from three, then undid the first strap. She slid down the seat a little, but didn’t move any further. Then I released the second strap, grabbing onto the back of the seat as her weight shifted fast, suddenly supported by nothing more than my arm. “Put your feet on the floor,” I told her, tense and wincing, not from how much she weighed, but rather from the entirely precarious position I was in. There weren’t any really good holds to make use of, given that what we were using for a wall was really supposed to be a floor.
“Vosh, can you guide her down from there?” I asked, lowering her as far as I could reach.
Vosh leapt up, her work on the pilot finished for the moment. But rather than making some foolish attempt to catch her, Vosh wisely chose to talk her down instead. “Put your foot here, on the crate… That’s good. Now, bring your right hand up here… When Kade lets go of you, you need to slide down here and land on the side of this seat. Okay, ready? Three, two, one, go!” I let go of her right on cue, and she slid in a coordinated tumble, to land exactly where Vosh had indicated.
“Nicely done,” I told her. “Just let me check where the other two are, then we’ll see about getting you out of here.”
“We’re back,” my master’s voice interrupted me before I could move. I slithered down towards the entrance, relieved to see them both arriving back in one piece. “All Geshtoch are dead. How are we doing in… Oh, fuck,” he cut himself off, catching sight of the two dead women.
“Bidge has a broken arm,” Vosh told Bryce. Our pilot was being rather stoic so far. He’d winced and gasped a few times when Vosh had been wrapping his arm, but he hadn’t complained aside from that.
“Let’s get these two outside,” Bryce said, nodding to Bidge and Associate Nors, “and then we’ll see what we’re left with.”
