He smiled.
“You never know,” said Bowie.
And then a new message appeared in the sunglasses’ HUD.
Congratulations, Mr. Bowie. Welcome to Team Nilo.
CARTER
INLAND KUBLAR
11
I’ve never been to a koob town as big as what I’m seeing here in Pekk. Outside of the coastal cities like the Soob, I mean. Inland, the koobs like to live in the mountains, building their huts from the green wood of the trees that grow high above the expansive deserts between peaks—where the cold brings snow, mountain streams and lakes.
Pekk is a massive sprawl of koob living. The craggy mountains the city is nestled in serve as a sort of wall teeming with the aliens. Some of which are herders, others trying to scratch out farms in the thin soil. All of them armed with more than a few seeming to just watch us roll in. Whether they’re sentries or simply lazy, I don’t know.
But there’s a lot of them.
“If these koobs wanted to kill us…” Easy says over comm, letting his words drift off. We all get the point.
Abers hisses. “Yeah, and here we come rolling right in the middle of them with a big ol’ chuck wagon of their dead.”
“These aren’t their dead,” says Winters. “This tribe and the Pekk tribe hate one another. Surber has us coming bearing gifts.”
“Messed up gift, if you ask me,” I say.
“I dunno,” Lana chimes in. “Someone dumps a truckload of vanquished foes on my doorstep, I wouldn’t be mad.”
There’s a pause over the comm before Easy says, “How are you not a legionnaire?”
“Can’t bench enough,” Lana says without missing a beat. “And their helmets would ruin my hair.”
We all get a kick out of this. Lana isn’t the type to get in a fuss about how she looks when stuff is going down. She wouldn’t be on the team if she were.
Our truck begins the arduous task of climbing the mountain road that leads into the village and I can hear its engine straining from the incline.
“Man,” Easy says again. “So many koobs.”
I don’t get a clear look at exactly what he’s talking about until I see from the back of the truck the teeming crowds looking down at us from walkways, homes, and other dwellings carved out of the mountains. The road we’re on is wide enough for us to turn around in, carved out below these rocky, koob-studded banks. Like it was blasted out—or more likely dug out; part of an old river or stream that has long since dried up or been diverted elsewhere.
“These are friendlies, remember?” I say, doing a quick count; one, two, three, four… yep. Way too many to dust and get out alive. These damn well better be friendly or we just rolled into our deaths.
“Ain’t friendly,” Lash says, meticulously cleaning his SAB. “Just not killin’ us.”
Abers joins the conversation, his sniper rifle resting across his lap. “Either way… I got my first four targets painted if it goes down.”
“Yeah, me too,” says the kid, Winters.
He doesn’t seem jumpy, more like he’s following the cool display by the other guys in the back of the truck. It’s not bad by any stretch, just not completely natural. Like he knows how he ought to behave but hasn’t been there enough for it to be second nature like it is for the marines and Legion.
I smile at both men. “Look at you two, killers. KTF, brothers.”
All of a sudden the truck stops short and I’m hurled into a pile of dead koobs. I can feel their corpse-juices squeezing out and onto my new robes where my elbow drives into the pile… and I can hear it, too. Like you’re squeezing out the last bit of gel from a ration pouch.
Nasty.
I’m about to ask Easy what’s going on when I hear him lay in on the horn.
“Sket,” he says under his breath, and then yells out, “Move it! Lak-k’kalikee!”
“Lana,” I say into the comm, leaving Easy to continue yelling at what I assume are some koobs blocking the road, “tell me what’s happening.”
“Bunch of koobs with slug throwers decided to walk out in front of the truck to cross the road.”
“We gonna have a problem?”
“I don’t think so. Just some macho-froggy posturing.”
“You, koob-o!” Easy shouts, and I can hear his voice in stereo over comm and from the front of the cab. “Lak-k’kalikee! That means, move your ass! I shouldn’t have to translate your own kelhorned language, croaker!”
“Don’t agitate them,” I say.
Surber chimes into my comm. “What is the delay back there, Mr. Carter?”
“Nothing serious yet, sir. Bunch of armed koobs decided they wanted to show us that this is their town. They jumped in front of the truck and are taking their sweet time crossing the road.”
“That’s a common cultural posturing among the Kublarens,” Surber says. “Tell your driver to floor it and catch up.”
“Sir?”
“I don’t need to repeat myself.”
“Copy.”
You prick.
I open up my squad comm. “Easy, Surber says to floor it.”
“Say again?”
“Floor it. He says the koobs’ll understand.”
Lash and Abers exchange an oh, here we go look. And I’m thinking the same thing. In my mind, this is the kind of reaction the koobs want. A little provocation to get us doing something stupid and then we’re riddled with blaster bolts. But my job is to do what Surber says.
“Okay, Carter,” Easy finally replies. “If you say so…”
“I did say so. Twice. Now move this truck!”
The bed lurches again as Easy jumps on the accelerator. But this rig is hardly a performance speeder. It begins moving, but it isn’t going to break any land speed acceleration records. I hear the engine roar and then listen for the telltale bump-whump of some koob going under the wheels.
But it doesn’t come.
“They moved,” Lana says, sounding impressed that Easy didn’t run anyone over.
“Good,” I say. “Keep up a steady pace. Don’t slow down or stop again until Surber does.”
We keep rolling, the increased speed jostling us up and down as we move
