Chapter 2

I

Erica had met Kurt Sandusky before on the Seattle trip. She was uncertain about how to deal with the retired major, a tall man in his late forties, trim and fit with a full head of brown hair, cut short. General Briggs had nothing but praise for him; Kris Boyle has both worked with him and had commanded him ... which was confusing. He had seemed to Erica as a tough, no-nonsense, former field grade officer, and currently Andie’s chief of staff.

Except he came to wake her personally. Then she listened to his briefing that seemed to go on for hours. It actually did go on for hours. He concluded with a final warning: “Arvala is a dangerous place. Things can go out of nominal in seconds. You are in the most danger from dralka -- the winged predators. They can fly at high altitudes, fold their wings and drop four miles in the time it takes to sneeze. When they are at that altitude, only 20-10 vision, or field glasses, can see them. We are getting a radar here in the next few days, so, in theory, we’ll know when they are coming. Except a dralka is about the size of a prehistoric pterodactyl and few of them have been brought down unless they are attacking. Large attacks -- like when Charles Evans returned -- should no longer be surprises. At least here.”

Erica nodded and then Kurt waved at a young man standing a few feet away. “Sergeant Dixon is your escort until I say otherwise. Ditch him, even by accident, and you’ll be back at China Lake in two hours and Norwich a few hours later.”

Three hours later, late in the local afternoon, Erica turned to Sergeant Dixon. “What are the rules about going outside?” Erica was feeling jazzed. She was on an alien planet! She had sighted in her FN-90 machine pistol and it was an unfamiliar weight over her right shoulder. Unfamiliar, but comforting.

“Feeling a little claustrophobic, Cadet?”

“You just went on my shitlist, sergeant. What I want to do is go outside while it is still light, so I can have my first glimpse of an alien planet. Last night it was dark when we arrived, and the vista was indistinguishable from the Mojave Desert.”

“Sure. So long as you agree to jump when I say jump.”

Erica shrugged. He led the way out the door and stopped a few feet from the rookery entrance. Erica pointed, “I want to go where I have a good view of the ocean.”

He waved her forward, and she walked about a mile to a lovely overlook on the ocean.

They stood next to each other as the local sun sank lower to the horizon. The clouds were a glory of color as the light slowly changed. The smell of the ocean was different here than on Earth, but the tang of the salt air was the same.

Erica didn’t notice that the sergeant didn’t turn more than 45 degrees. And she looked the other way only partially. Instead, she was entranced by the expanse of water in front of her; the glowing clouds as the local star headed for the horizon.

Little things, she learned quickly, make the difference between life and death. She heard a sound like the crack of a canvas sail. She reacted instantly, to her eternal shame. She threw herself forward, screaming “Down!”

The scream “Down!” should have been first.

Something slammed into her shoulder, causing a blaze of pain. Sergeant Dixon screamed and crumpled. She could see a large critter flying directly away from her and brought up her FN-90.

She was humiliated again. She’d sighted in the weapon, but now it shot wide to the left. She saw three rounds go through the critter’s wing, even as it dropped below her level, causing it to vanish for fifteen or twenty seconds, then reappear about five hundred yards away. She fired again, but a FN-90 is pretty useless at six hundred or more yards.

Sergeant Dixon was writhing on the ground next to her. She took out some battle dressings and applied them to his wound -- a deep slash in his shoulder -- then grabbed his radio. “Medic! Medic! We need a medic, about a mile due east!”

“Coming!” a laconic voice answered. Erica applied more pressure to Dixon’s wounds, but they were, for the most part, beyond battle dressings.

Another Humvee arrived, spilled a half dozen men who took up defensive positions, and she saw a chain gun on the pedestal, rotating, looking for targets.

The medic quickly treated the man, waved at some of the others, and Dixon was immediately evacuated. The medic had remained behind and now smiled at her. “Noob Mirableu?”

“That’s me.”

“What’s wrong with your right shoulder?”

Erica flashed back on the blow and pain. “I have a feeling I’m fucked up. I felt a blow, but I was still good to go to put a few rounds into the bugger. This damn gun shoots seriously to the left.”

The medic had expertly cut away her cammies and whistled. “What a great rack, Noob! I mean that’s a serious bruise!” He said the word so she knew it was the one that started with a ‘W.’

Erica looked to her right and saw a bruise the size of a dinner plate, extending out of sight around her right shoulder. Her eyes dropped down and she understood the other meaning. “If you think that’s a great rack, Murdock, it’s no wonder you can’t get the time of day from any woman!” Erica deliberately rolled the ‘R’ like only German or Spanish speakers can.

“Wrack, wreck, rack ... it’s a helluva bruise!”

A minute later another Humvee arrived and Erica was bundled aboard without words.

When they were back in the rookery, Major Sandusky was there to greet them. “Report, Murdock.”

“Dixon is seriously fucked, Major. I’m not sure what hit him, but it was large and wickedly sharp. He’s off to home. Likely to lose his left arm, and if not, it will never work the same again. Mirableu has a twelve-inch bruise on her right shoulder. Damned if I know what did it. Bed rest, some pain killers and she’ll be functional tomorrow.”

“Mirableu, report!”

“I wanted to see the outside. Sergeant Dixon showed me a perch overlooking the ocean, and we were standing there watching the sunset.” Erica saw Andie Schultz arrive with her girlfriend. Erica lifted her chin. “I heard a sound like a canvas sail cracking behind us. I hit the deck and yelled at Sergeant Dixon to do the same.”

“In that order, Cadet?” Major Sandusky demanded.

“Yes, sir. I’m aware I should have warned Sergeant Dixon first.”

“If you’d have taken the time, like as not the dralka would have gutted you both. It’s a sad thing, but the rule here is save yourself first, then worry about others.”

“Major, I have an observation,” Erica said to him.

He grinned at her, and Erica continued, not sure what to make of the grin. “I had time for a quick burst from my FN-90. The range was a hundred to a hundred and fifty meters; it was going like a bat out of hell. Then it dropped below my line of sight. Kris Boyle described the dralka to me several times, close to three meters tall, wing spread about eight meters. Sir, the critter that attacked us was about twice that size. My FN-90 shot wide left, and I literally winged it. It didn’t even slow.”

Murdock spoke up, “Dixon’s wound is not consistent with the other dralka-caused injuries I’ve seen, Major. I think what hit Dixon was a talon larger than a dralka’s. What hit Mirableu was a graze by something like a shoulder.”

“Now that’s a fine kettle of fish! There’s a larger species of aerial predator, called the dralha. This fits the description, but they are reported to be roughly a thousand miles west of here; they appear to nest in a mountain range similar to the Andes -- a north-south range of peaks running as high as fourteen to eighteen thousand feet ... and that’s just in the southern end. The Arvalans avoid it like the plague because until Andie Schultz gave them crossbows, it was death to meet a dralha. And they have only had crossbows for a year, and while the tech is spreading rapidly, it’s more than a thousand miles to the mountains,” Major Sandusky said.

He continued, “Did you retrieve Dixon’s weapon?”

Erica said no, and Major Sandusky looked at the medic. “Major, I’m sorry. It wasn’t visible; Dixon was hurt badly, and we had to get him back as fast as possible. He had lost a lot of blood and was losing more fast. With the damage to his shoulder, he would have dropped the weapon, so maybe it was impacted as well and traveled a bit.”

Major Sandusky reached for a walkie-talkie velcroed to his vest and spoke, “Jake, did you hear about the attack?”

They could hear a voice say, “I just got off the radio with Captain Milan at the fort; he reported a dralha sighting, flying low, but gaining altitude, heading southwest.”

“Mirableu brought her weapon back, but Dixon didn’t. The medic was in a hurry and didn’t retrieve it. Take a big patrol out there and retrieve it. Mirabileu has also reported a dralha attacked them. Report back, then we will need to have a meeting with everyone at 1700. Dralhas are another kettle of fish entirely.”

“On it!”

“Miss Mirabileu, if you would. Murdock will escort you back to your quarters. Were you issued a local timepiece?”