Gavin Smith: Veteran

‘Calm down, Sergeant. Are there any signs of where it is?’

‘Can you actually hear me?’ I asked as I spun around again. ‘It’s a Ninja, would you like me to spell it? They don’t leave tracks. Oh!’ On the ground by the trench there were tracks. I put my paranoia aside for a moment and crouched down to examine them.

‘Sergeant?’

‘Shut up.’ Rolleston seemed to ignore the insubordination. The tracks showed hiking boots going up the hill, possibly from the four-by-four I had seen the tracks from earlier. They left the hill dragging something, something with two legs and two arms. I relayed what I had found to Rolleston.

‘It would seem that your Ninja was more badly damaged than you thought,’ Rolleston said.

‘They heal quickly.’

‘Well then, you had best find it quickly and destroy it, yes?’

‘What are we dealing with here?’ I asked, but the Major had gone.

I tried to figure this. Who had taken the Ninja and why? Had Rolleston already sent XIs up here? Collaborators? Was there a fifth column on Earth? That didn’t make sense.

There were xenophile individuals and cults on Earth and in the colonies. Many of them were just the young rejecting everything about the total war that gripped humanity. Most of these cults were pure fantasy and few of them were about Them; after all, all They wanted to do was kill and destroy every human they found.

Humanity had first come across Them in the Sirius system, though that was not where They came from. Initially called Sirians until the Syrians in the Islamic Protectorate had complained. Then they were called Doggies for a while, after the Dog Star, but that did not seem to do Them justice. It was still squaddie parlance for Them however. Nothing was known about Them. They had just come across humans in the Sirius system and started killing and never stopped. Their goal seemed to be to annihilate humanity and They had done so right across the four colonial systems. Collaboration with Them was species suicide so a fifth column made no sense.

I followed the tracks to the road, sending out data requests as I walked back to the bike. I straddled the bike, sitting low between the two huge wheels, and pressed the ignition. The bike growled into life. I received an answer to one of my info requests. The checkpoint on the Coupar Angus road had processed a park ranger pickup truck about half an hour before I’d gone through it. The truck had been heading into Dundee.

It may have been nothing, a different four-by-four to the one whose tracks I’d found, but so far it was all I had to go on. Also the pickup, according to the vehicle’s profile, had the correct tyres to make the tracks that I’d found. I received the ranger’s address. It was inside the city limits, some mid-level habitation block. Private but with reasonable security, probably full of police, civil servants and retired officers, as well as park personnel too poor to live in the park.

The gate was opened for me as I approached the habitat. I had sent my clearance ahead of me. The habitation block was a series of four-storey identical flats with a walkway connecting them all, just off the Broughty Ferry Road. You could look down the hill to the skeletal metal city that was the Rigs. A darkened city illuminated only by flickering electric lights and the trash-can fires here and there. I nodded at the security guard with the assault rifle at the gate.

Parking was at a premium and probably something that the inhabitants liked to argue about. I considered parking behind the muddy park service pickup but decided against it. I looked over the vehicle; in the flatbed I found telltale traces of a black fluid. It was definite now: the park ranger had transported it. I was left wondering why some people were storing a dangerous alien killing machine in their apartment. I guess they couldn’t afford a dog. Who could?

Heading up the stairs, I decided that the Mastodon would have the best psychological impact on the ranger and ballistic impact on the Ninja. According to the park service personnel files I’d received, the ranger was one Morton Rayment. He lived in the apartment with his girlfriend Joy Sverdlof. Thermographics told me that there were two human-sized heat sources in there. It seemed unlikely that either of the heat sources was the Ninja. This did not mean that the Ninja wasn’t in the apartment, just that I couldn’t see it. Though both Rayment and Sverdlof still seemed to be alive, which was promising.

Moving quietly along the walkway I made it up to their apartment and palmed my very illegal lock burner. Boosting my hearing, I stopped to listen, amplifying the muffled voices through the paper-thin walls and filtering them until I could understand their conversation. .. what if the authorities trace it to me?’ This was the male voice, local but well educated, presumably Rayment.

‘Bit late for that now, should’ve thought about that before you loaded it up.’ This was presumably Sverdlof, probably second generation but you could still hear traces of her eastern European accent. ‘Look at all this money, just think what we can do.’

‘How? It’s all black, we can’t declare it.’ Rayment said. His voice was becoming a panicky whine. I was wondering how this guy had had the balls to load a potentially dangerous alien life form into the back of his pickup. I wasn’t sure I’d have the balls. I’d have been more likely to turn it into a puddle. I slipped the lock burner into the apartment’s card slot.

‘There are lots of things you can do with black money – you can get stuff you can’t get with real money,’ The woman said. I slipped into their apartment. It was a tiny box. They were stood over their mock-pine table in the dining/living/kitchen area. On the table were piles of dirty paper cash. Rayment, still wearing his ranger’s uniform, was stood looking nervously at the piles. Next to him, greed lighting her eyes, was Sverdlof. Neither of them had heard me enter though they were standing opposite the door. This was good. This meant I wasn’t completely useless.

Rayment looked up as I said,’Isn’t that the truth?’ and lost control of his bladder as he found himself looking down the barrel of the huge revolver. His hand not going anywhere near the automatic holstered at his side.

Sverdlof was made of sterner stuff. She made a dive for the apartment’s personal defence weapon in its rack on the wall. My left fist caught her on the chin, picking her up off her feet and sending her flying onto the small two-seater sofa, which broke under her weight. She sat up glaring at me, looking feral and angry. Clearly I had pointed the gun at the wrong person. I brought the Mastodon to bear on her.

‘This,’ I said, nodding at the revolver, ‘is more than capable of shooting through walls, and I can see through them, do you understand?’ The girl nodded, Rayment just shook a bit. I moved into their small bedroom and as soon as I was out of sight the girl began to move towards the PDW. I poked my head back out of the bedroom. The girl froze.

‘Do I have to shoot you? For fuck’s sake, darling, sit down,’ I told her. She just glared at me.

‘Do as he says!’ Rayment pleaded. Sverdlof gave him a look of contempt before sitting down. Clearly she was poorer than him and the money meant more to her. I searched every place that they could hide one of Them. It was not in the apartment. I had assumed as much when I’d seen the cash but I had to check.

I came out of their tiny bathroom, having ensured it wasn’t in there showering. I headed back into the living area just as the apartment’s rapid response unit turned up. In this case the rapid response unit was a fat guy called Larry with a pump-action shotgun.