Chapter 33: Not Alone

Chapter 33: Not Alone

The inside of the large abandoned factory smelled of dampness, rot and rusted metal. Virtually every surface he could see was coated in some manner of corrosion, slime or thick black dust. This dust seemed concentrated in all the spots the slime was not, likely a mixture of old spores, dust and rust flakes that had been accumulating for who knew how many years undisturbed.

He screwed up his face as the smell hit him, then opened his eyes in mystification as his eyes adjusted to the light filtering through the gaps in the roof far overhead.

The space inside the structure was huge. Like, really huge. He struggled to imagine what he could compare it to, Paulie imagined a whole football stadium inside it as he stepped forward. Then he imagined another, and then a third.

“What is this place?” He wondered out loud. A soldier next to him looked him up and down then seemed to recoil slightly before stuttering.

“Ooh-ho.. it’s you!”

Paulie looked down at the shorter alien, their species immediately recognisable for their pale pink skin and the twin stubby horns poking through the top of their padded camouflage helmet. The nerivith man was clutching a rifle and giving Paulie a look like one might give a lion that has not yet decided if it is quite hungry or not.

He decided to try and break through that layer of horrified mystification that they seemed to be sheeting over him and stuck out his hand slowly while giving what he hoped was a non-aggressive smile.

“Hi there, name’s Paulie. Er.. I’m a human. From Earth. Long way from here ya know?” He said a little stupidly.

Clearly his off-beat humour mixed with the non-threatening stance got through to the slight alien as they gingerly looked down at his offered hand and then back at him before extending his hand the same way and touching the tips of his fingers to Paulie's in what was not at all a handshake.

Paulie snorted and made the alien startle, but then retracted his hand and apologised. “Ok, close enough. I suppose hand-shakes are not all the rage in these parts. Good to meet you trooper..” he left the sentence empty, question implied rather than asked.

The alien returned the smile after a moment and he noted with mild intrigue that the alien had no canine teeth, only a couple incisor-like teeth in the front and then far more large grinding molars than he would have expected from their somewhat devilish appearance. What with the reddish skin and horns and black tufted tail lashing the air behind him like a cat’s.

The nerivithian soldier responded in a clear melodic tone, quite different from the husky rasp that he had come to associate with their kind due to Sergeant Aril. “My name.. is trooper Eyme. Third class, fourth company.” He gave a little salute, then seemed to once more realise just who he was talking to as Jakiikii walked up to them from behind.

“Hey Paulie, Mursk wanted us to stay near the main entrance and not wander too far into the factory. The structure is unstable and the scouts are reporting a lot of activity heading our way from nearly every direction. Looks like we kicked a speet hive for sure.” She seemed to notice the trooper now, the man once more snapping his mouth shut.

She pointed to the man and was about to speak when Paulie’s neck hairs stood on end and he tensed. Something was off, something in the air or perhaps some noise too high to be directly heard rattling through the dense air inside the old factory. He moved to the nearer wall quickly followed by Jakiikii and the nerivith man.

“What, what is it?” She asked, the PDF trooper looking back and forth between the two of them with wide violet eyes.

He shook his head. “I don't know. I just.. got one of those feelings. You know the ones I mean.” Jakiikii nodded, suddenly serious. She had seen on multiple occasions his ‘human intuition’ working at peak capacity. And so she did not even argue with him as he lifted his communicator and pinged Mursk’s personal connection.

A few seconds for it to connect and then Mursk’s personal ident number popped up with no video feed. “Yes, what is it Paulie?” The alien bug asked him quickly, the communicator translating his speech for him instead of the autotranslator. It did a marginally worse job of it, robbing the tone of even the small modicum of inflection the translator usually had.

Paulie suppressed the frown that tried to cross his features and said, “Is the factory clear? Was it checked properly by the scouts?” Mursk’s line was quiet for a moment, likely as he relayed the question to the other mendagoonian in charge of the scouts. Then a moment later, the response.

“Yes, the roof and immediate surrounding grounds were cleared. Why?”

Paulie pulled Nemesis from its holster now as he asked, “What about the interior of the roof? The machinery floor is too complex for them to have checked it all that fast. Right?”

Mursk’s tone stayed flat, but the words came faster. He could imagine the insectoid’s feathery antennae fluttering up and down in his consternation. “Yes, they did not have the time to perform a thorough sweep, why? Have you seen something?”

Paulie shook his head, despite his video feet not being shown to the alien. “No, but I have a feeling, like I am being watched by something hostile. Can you have some of the royal guards sweep deeper in the structure? Tell them to be on alert, we might not be as alone in here as they think.” He reached out for Jakiikii’s nearer shoulder and gripped it as he gestured towards a nearby set of stairs. “We should move up off the ground, get a vantage in case there is a fight.”

She looked at the stairs then at him and shook her head. “Paulie, I know you are lighter here than you say you are on your home planet, but look at those stairs. They have been corroded by decades of rot, you will go right through them if you try to climb them.”

He grimaced. She was right, he told her as much as he cursed silently under his breath. “Well, we need somebody on overwatch, can you get up to the top Jakiikii?” She hesitated and glanced at them without moving her head.

Another voice entered unbidden into the conversation.

“I can do it.”

Paulie and Jakiikii looked over at the nerivith man. He was standing straight now, not an ounce of fear in his violet eyes as he nodded his horned head and pointed at the stairs. “I can get up there without knocking the rust off the bars if you want me too. And this beam rifle is not for show, Lord.. Sir.” He corrected himself right after.

Paulie shook his head slowly. “I don’t know, they look unstable. Jakiikii might be right.”

Trooper Eyme shook their horned head. “All due respect, but you must not know of the nerivithian reputation for being light on our feet. Just watch me, and I think you will find I am more than up to this and any other task.” He spoke confidently, his savage tone at odds with the musical quality of his voice.

Paulie shrugged and glanced at Jakiikii, she just nodded, making a little circle with two of her eyes like she was telling him to go and see. He turned back to the PDF soldier and nodded again. “Alright, but at the first sign of the structure being unstable I want you to come back down. No need to risk a collapse.” The nerivithian man smiled again, but this time it was cold, the alien looking like a pink shark with blunted teeth.

With surprising grace and speed the pink-skinned alien veritably glided up the rickety stairs. He moved like a shadow, his feet scarcely seeming to touch the floor as he ascended without a sound. True to his earlier word, not a flake of rust was disturbed, not a puff of dust nor streak of slime was marred, it was downright uncanny. He would have called it inhuman were it not for the very alien nature of the man doing the climbing.

He let out a low and quiet whistle as the alien quickly disappeared from sight somewhere in the upper workings of the switchback stairwell. “Well, that was spooky.”

Jakiikii just chuckled low in her chest, the thrumning sound was like a giant bumblebee trapped inside a wall. “Yes. I greatly enjoyed watching you see that first hand. The nerivith are well known for their ability to become ghosts of vengeance in combat. Something about the threat of violence shuts down the portions of their brain that cause distraction, gives them incredible focus. A sort of battle-trance as they often call it. You think that one was spooky now, just wait till you see a fit young female dancing the blades of death for the first time.” She did not elaborate, but her face told him all he needed to know already.

“The blades of death huh?” She nodded with a little flick of her bubblegum-pink tongue. “I can’t tell if that is an innuendo or not.” Paulie raised an eyebrow at the termaxxi.

Jakiikii smirked, then feigned ignorance badly, likely for his benefit. “What? No, I would never.”

Paulie snorted. They were in a precarious spot, but not so precarious that she could not find the opportunity to crack some manner of joke at his expense.

He shook his head slightly. “Okay then, keep your secrets. I have much better things to do anyway.”

“Yeah like what?” She asked before hefting her gun. She stood away from the wall and reached out one of her larger arms towards him then punched his shoulder, not hard enough to hurt but certainly hard enough to feel.

“I need to keep an eye on you for one..” He started, then there was a noise from the hall just next to them and he tensed, in an instant he was turned around and semi-crouched with his revolver up and ready to shoot. Jakiikii was also in battle mode, her own electron rifle poised and aiming directly at where an enemy’s head was most likely to pop around the corner.

Another low sound, multiple hard clanks. Footfalls on the metal plated flooring underfoot, Paulie made sure the weapon in his hand was ready to fire and squinted slightly. He let out a breath, prepared to resort to violence should the situation require it. Presently Hauxsu and Lach stepped around the corner, Lach immediately raising his own weapon in response before lowering it a millisecond later as he realised who it was that had him in their sights.

“Zalcing... Hey, no need to scare last week's dinner out of me now.” Lach chittered, his translator robbing the words of their emotion as his antennae settled back down.

Paulie had already started to lower his weapon before he apologised. “Sorry Lach, Hauxsu. We didn’t know it was you. Can’t ever be too careful, right?” He asked, hoping to appeal to the older bug’s sense of military practicality.

It worked as the man seemed to smile in his own inflexible way, his mouthparts working into a chittering chuckle. He stepped forward and then made an affirmative gesture. “Yes, well.. that kind of surprise works both ways. So always be ready to shoot at anything you point your weapon at. They may just not be as willing to forgive the threat as we are.” He said the words with a gesture of humour, and despite the heavy language barrier that formed a gulf between their species, Paulie smiled and then chuckled in response.

“Yes. Yes I suppose that is fair. Well..” he cocked his head, had he heard..

There was a loud sound in the distance, a crashing, a crack, then a scream. Two more cracks then the sound of something heavy crashing into the ground amid a voice shouting ‘contacts’. Paulie and the others dove for whatever rickety pieces of semi-solid cover they could find as the battle was joined in earnest somewhere overhead.

The sounds of weapons fire intensified as the factory was filled with the sound of fighting. Then several low hissing snaps from somewhere far above them, a searing line of purple brilliance stabbed out three times. Then four more. All around the large open space there were the sounds of things hitting the floor or pained barks and gurgles.

Some more weapons fire stabbed out in both directions, then all was strange, creaking quiet once more. The entire thing had taken less than thirty seconds from the first shot being fired and Paulie discovered that his adrenaline had not even really started going as he stood slowly to his feet. There were a few additional loud clangs then silence.

Hauxsu’s wrist beeped then a voice issued from it in yuuvian. Connected as Paulie was to the man’s suit’s psi-field, he understood the speech. It sounded like Commander Slallm calling for a situation report. As the all-clears came back he recognised the melodic tone of Trooper Eyme’s voice as he reported the top rafters clear of threats.

“What the hell are you doing all the way up there?” was Slallm’s furious reply.

Eyme’s voice was totally calm, nearly devoid of emotion as he spoke stoically, “Well it was the recommendation of the Lord and Lady that somebody take and cover the high ground.”

There was silence as Jakiikii and Paulie glanced at each other. The man was not wrong, but it felt like he was using them as a scapegoat for his own actions. Commander Slallm seemed to think it over for a moment before just returning with a, “Very well. Climb back down Trooper. That is all.”

Paulie pointed at Hauxsu’s wrist and asked, “What is that? Your communicator picking up their radio chatter?”

The mendagoonian guardsman just tapped at it and asked, “Yes, are you not connected to their network?”

Paulie shook his head. “No, how the hell do I do that?”

Hauxsu tapped his wrist and then motioned for Paulie to activate his wrist commie. He pressed the indicated button and the screen showed a sort of loading symbol briefly before making a chiming sound and popping up the text ‘ new psi-net connection detected, join [yes] [no] ?’ He selected the ‘yes’ option and it lit up blue before the screen returned back to normal.

“Should be connected now, I synced it remotely to the encrypted data stream. Now, it is short wave only, with a range of about one hundred meters or so. So stick close to the group or you will lose connection.” Hauxsu warned and Paulie glanced at Jakiikii. She was finishing up syncing her own device with Lach.

Paulie swallowed and then holstered Nemises as he stood a little straighter. “Okay, so this area is clearly not safe, and what’s more we are never going to find Miicree standing around this crumbling dump. Do we have a target yet? I know that Mack was working on it, has he sent a location to Mursk yet? I haven’t gotten anything myself.” he spouted in a rush.

Lach just made a gesture for inclusion. “No information as of yet. Then again, when the sukk-sou went down, so did our secure uplink with the complex. It is possible we may need to find a replacement transmitter if the ones we have with us are not powerful enough on their own.”

“What, all this tech and no connection?” he grumbled.

Jakiikii gestured to the walls around them with a little scoffing noise. “Look around you, some of this tech predates my ancestors I bet. We will be lucky to find a powered sub-block, much less one with a functioning transmitter.”

Paulie nodded then pointed in a random direction. “Well, we certainly won’t find one standing around here all day. Surely we can find one, there are people out here. And people means power, utilities and access to some manner of network. No way they are all out here just camping like hobos.” Jakiikii looked between him and Mursk before finally putting up her arms in a defeated pose. He felt her mind brush his as she shook her head.

“Okay, but don’t make me tell the PDF commander that.”

Paulie just smiled in response.