Authors: Rhi Etzweiler
“Commander Orsonna.”
More than the sound of his title and name, the tone of the human’s voice snagged his attention. Hamm canted his head a fraction, shifting from Reccin to focus on the approaching sniper. He appeared tense, stiff when he halted a few strides away. As though deliberately maintaining a buffer of space. One experimental sniff proved that suspicion true. “What is it, Sergeant Staille?”
Formality for formality, though he didn’t understand Marc’s reason for slipping back into it.
“I’d like to have my weapon returned.”
Marc’s statement caught him off guard. The words communicated one thing, but the tone of Marc’s voice, his body and stance, said something completely different. Demanding, insinuating that he wasn’t Hamm’s prisoner anymore. His hair bristled. Aversion to the death stick, and the human’s competence with it. But more than that, to the prospect of Marc slipping away, out of his control. Was that all it was? An aversion to relinquishing dominance? Hamm rejected that outright. That’s not what it was at all. If he wasn’t a prisoner, he would have to disarm like the rest of the team. That’s what he and Reccin had just discussed at length, in fact. No way would the furrs in headquarters, let alone anywhere else, tolerate the presence of armed forces.
Getting them to accept escorted aliens would be pushing it enough as it was.
Hamm stared at Marc and waited. There was more. He could tell there was more he wanted to say.
Marc’s throat convulsed as he made a coughing sound. “I also need an answer to my question. About what—” the translator paused, though Marc didn’t “—is going on. The team leader will want to know about a defense mechanism that allows you to manipulate humans. With pheromones. I need to debrief them fully. I’d like to do so with the facts instead of just my experience.”
Hamm growled, a sharp vibration he managed to drown with his words. “Securing your death stick on the shuttle is an acceptable alternative.” He wasn’t entirely sure why this conversation annoyed him. Something in Marc’s scent was different; it was the only thing that would trigger an emotionally defensive response. He felt like the male would have him backpedaling if he bothered to step any closer. He took a tentative sniff, wondering what the shift was.
The scent hit his palate, and he bristled. It was that alpha scent he recalled from when he’d first captured the male. Only this time he reeked of it so heavily that Hamm glanced at Reccin to see if his second had caught wind of it as well.
Marc arched a brow. “And then there’s the whole issue of your responses that this thing,” he motioned at the left side of his head with a flick of his hand, “elects to ignore.”
Hamm pinned him with a steady gaze. The male’s behavioral shift was disconcerting, but he would not give ground. “I won’t just abandon my second with these humans while they’re armed unless I know he’s comfortable. You and I have both witnessed how jumpy they are.” He spoke carefully, hoping his words would translate. He canted his head to peer at the human’s neck. The bio-processor shouldn’t still be protruding that way; it looked as though the interfacing had only been partially successful.
If he had no way of knowing that he was communicating successfully, it defeated the purpose of the bio-processor’s insertion. Unless she’d included something else. What had Dehna done? . . . It wasn’t fair to doubt her. She’d had no way of knowing if it could interface successfully with alien genetics. The initial purpose had been for understanding them, not for being understood. The dual comprehension that required took a great deal more programming time.
“There’s a possibility Sergeant Dehna programmed your subroutine to ignore everything but rudimentary communication focused at you. I don’t blame her—as a member of an enemy faction, your interrogation only demanded the most basic translation. She provided that.”
“As long as you’re aware I’m handicapped to some degree. Reccin is safe. I want to keep things that way. But I need an alternate explanation for why I’ve been manipulated, Commander. My superiors will require a debrief. At the moment, the conclusions they’ll draw from the intel I share . . . won’t reflect well on the furrs. Assuming you wish to perpetuate goodwill as opposed to sparking hostilities all over again?”
Sparking hostilities all over again.
Interesting choice of words, and they gave him pause. He leaned in a fraction, more of a faint swaying forward as he inhaled, heeding Marc’s body language as much as his words. “Are you threatening me, human? You think I haven’t been watching you since that team disembarked?”
Marc’s posture stiffened. Hamm turned away, shaking his mane in an effort to collect his frayed nerves. Reccin’s scent carried no sign of distress or discomfort. In fact, he couldn’t recall why he’d been concerned about leaving his second to his own devices. Not caring if his manner was construed as rough, he reached out to grab Marc’s arm and moved toward the path in the tree line. It was cooperate or lose an appendage. The alien really didn’t want to start another dominance display with him, regardless of the scent Marc exuded. Hamm had no qualms about reminding him who’d won the first time Marc had tried that.
“You’re correct. Reccin can hold his own with three humans. And the sentries on the far side of the meadow are trustworthy. They won’t let things get out of hand.”
He felt Marc twist in his grip, but kept moving. Probably trying to ascertain the sentry locations, but Hamm wasn’t feeling terribly indulgent just now, not with everything the sniper was throwing at him.
“Sergeant? Stand fast!” The captain’s voice stopped him in his tracks.
Hamm tightened his grip a fraction when Marc stilled and pivoted. His hand just clenched. It was that or flex his claws out, which wasn’t the friendliest alternative. He glared at the landing team’s captain when she leaned around Reccin. She saw him, too. And jerked her gaze away from him to focus on Marc with a finesse reminiscent of Dehna. He bared a fang, unamused. Marc drew himself up taller under that gaze. Cortannas trained a strange glance at Reccin as she tried to sidestep him, but the chief abandoned Andruski in favor of blocking her path.
“Commander Orsonna is escorting me to retrieve my rifle, Captain. I’ll return momentarily.”
“At which time your weapons will be secured in the shuttle until further notice.” Reccin addressed Marc, but shared his gaze among the captain and the rest of the human team as well.
Hamm waited while Makko translated for the captain, and gave a rumble-growl when the captain drew breath to object. “You want to be here, to make peace with us and repay your wrongs.” Marc shifted, pulling against the hold on his arm, and Hamm glanced down, including him as target of the conversation. “You do so unarmed. That is my demand. We furrs—clan
fefa
especially—have sacrificed too much. Now it is time you trust. Sacrifice your capacity for violence as a measure of reparation for the damage you’ve caused.”
Captain Cortannas, to her credit, listened carefully. Her entire being seemed focused on his every sound, despite her inability to understand what he was saying.
Makko stood at her side, murmuring translation in her ear. As the biologist continued, the captain’s skin lost its color, much the same way Marc’s had before. She nodded, though, and didn’t show any sign of going limp like the sniper had, which Hamm assumed was good. “Agreed, Commander Orsonna. We will disarm ourselves. Upon Sergeant Staille’s return with his rifle, demonstrating good faith and trust.”
Good faith and trust?
Hamm swallowed a snarl. If it hadn’t been for the sentries, he wouldn’t have agreed to it.
“Tell the captain her stipulation is acceptable. The prisoner and I will retrieve his weapon and return shortly.” He addressed his response to Reccin, because despite his efforts at feigning benevolence, he couldn’t manage to maintain that demure attitude for even a second longer.
Reccin furrowed his brow, ear twitching. Nostrils flared on an inhale, catching Hamm’s scent. And then he nodded. Understanding. This would present a win-win with only marginal risk on their part. He liked that. They’d risked enough thus far.
Though Hamm tugged on his arm, Marc didn’t need much encouragement to get moving again toward the meadow’s edge. He wasn’t certain why he’d mentioned the sentries. No, that wasn’t true—he did know, whether he was ready to admit it to himself or not. He trusted Marc. Who still had that blade hidden on him somewhere. He hadn’t used it, though. He recalled him twisting and flailing as he struggled, back when Hamm had first flushed him from his perch and pounced on him.
Always place the mission first.
It helped to have a mutually agreed-upon definition of what the mission entailed.
“Commander?”
He almost stumbled over his own feet at the edge of respect infused into his rank. Caught his balance on a nearby tree trunk and stopped to face Marc after traversing a jagged boulder jutting up almost waist-high from the center of the path. And though he tried to catch a scent of what he had going on in his head, the soldier gave nothing away. He was devoid of tells. “You may speak freely, Sergeant.”
“Any chance you’d take me back to that valley? I left the other four members of my squad behind. I’d like to check on them.” He paused to grunt while clambering over the stone, skidding carelessly down to land in a crouch on the ground at Hamm’s feet. “The captain might be able to check on whether they were successfully extracted, but—”
“They were not.” Beneath the firm edge, the concern and foreboding in Marc’s voice turned Hamm’s stomach. He understood what the soldier was asking, and couldn’t see a lick of sense in making him continue to wonder. “We took them all out.”
The line of Marc’s mouth relaxed as his face slackened. His skin flushed darker, and he shook his head. Slowly at first, but then with more vigor. Lips moving, though he didn’t speak. Or if that “nonononono” sound meant something the translator didn’t understand. It rather sounded like some of the feather dialects.
When Marc eased sideways and sat down on the ground as though his legs had stopped working, and still had yet to blink, Hamm realized what was wrong. He dropped into a crouch and shifted so his gaze intercepted Marc’s.
Marc blinked, once. His eyes looked odd, the pupils so blown there was hardly any of their sky color left. “I need to go back and retrieve their remains. Take them home.”
Hamm understood not wanting to leave them lying on unfamiliar soil, their last embrace that of a stranger. Soma would welcome them, but that wasn’t the point. “They were your friends?”
Marc studied him, still breathing raggedly. The white parts of his eyes were filled with red lines, and moisture leaked down his face in a slow trail, making streaks through the dirt and grit on his skin. “They were my squad. My family for the past two years. Yes, they were my friends.”
More than friends, then. More like clan.
“They died swiftly and without pain. We gave them that much, as you gave mine.” He hadn’t thought to tackle the pain of that loss so soon, and certainly not like this, crouching in the dirt with the one responsible for killing them.
It went both ways, though.
He and the alien weren’t so different, after all. They’d both lost comrades back there in that valley. They’d both killed without hesitation. For different reasons and different motivations, but at the core of it, they had a great deal in common.
They sat in silence, staring at each other. The wind gusted, the branches rustling high above their heads as though Soma were rattling the bones of the dead.
Marc scrubbed the tracks of moisture from his cheeks with his forearm. He smelled of guilt, regret, and salt.
“I can take you back there. We will go together, gather our comrades, and build a memorial for them.”
“You don’t hate me for what I did?”
“You care whether or not I do?”
“Yes.”
“Hate is . . . a very intense emotion. Our culture has little use for it. I am sad that things didn’t happen differently. I hate that any of this was even necessary. But no, I don’t hate you.”
“But I killed your entire squad.”
“And we killed yours. Do you hate me?”
Marc shook his head. “Where’s the difference? Do you want me to hate you? Or do you simply hate yourself?” He made a hissing sound, rolled his shoulders, body stiffening.
“Have you never killed before? You are shockingly adept with your death stick, for one who has not.”
“I have killed many creatures. Never another sapient being.”
“How do you know? Did you interview each threat before taking the shot? Are you somehow less because you acted without that awareness?”
Marc hesitated, frowned at him, and then stared intently, focus flicking back and forth between his eyes. When he took breath to respond, Hamm silenced him with a growl.
“We knew it was a suicide mission. They sacrificed willingly. Because the chance to end this madness was more valuable to them than their lives.”
Hamm straightened, reaching down to haul him to his feet. Marc seemed willing to continue moving, so he propelled him forward with his grip. Marc walked beside him, took a few exaggerated breaths. Shoulders lifting, mouth gaping a fraction—to maximize air intake, perhaps. With each exhale, the soldier’s scent shifted. The bitter salt-tang faded, moisture wicked away on the breeze when the dry air gusted. The nip-scent was faint, mixed with something smelling of sun-warmed stone.
One glance confirmed his expression was about as malleable. He had his hunter face back on. Hamm wasn’t surprised by the shift. He certainly wouldn’t air the grief of losing his squad with just anyone. Everyone handled loss differently, but nobody wanted pity. Especially not from someone who’d only feign understanding.
When he finally found the words to continue speaking, he kept his voice to a deep-register rumble of sound. This wasn’t a conversation for anyone’s ears but theirs. “Death is a part of life. You perceived a threat and eliminated it. Your actions have consequences, just as mine do. You aren’t lesser; you have a responsibility, a debt to repay. They knew it was a suicide mission.”