We made it to the camp without further incident, moving slowly with weapons in hands, the skirmishers doubling back through the forest along the sides of our line and probing for any stunned bodies. A report over the wireless updated us that Lieutenant Kennedy, while not dead, was incapacitated such that Gunnery Sergeant Teodor would be taking over her duties for the foreseeable future.
I kept turning the ambush over in my head. The differing weapon fire and its effects, and how their attack was distributed, they were clearly trying to take out the officers, but non-lethally. They were using stunners too, but only targeting humans with them. The Theos and Doras in the line got full-power blasts. But they also weren't aiming for pure attrition, otherwise they'd be taking constant shots as the column moved, not firing small volleys.
They weren't trying to stop us. They were experimenting.
That was… concerning. Especially because their stunners seemed to punch through force screens way too easily, given how their lethal fire didn't seem nearly so dangerous to us. Far more on the second attack than the first, though… perhaps they were gauging what power settings they'd need to hurt us.
And they were persistent with targeting the officers, too. That meant they were smart enough to recognize them. That did not bode well for this expedition.
Finally, the last of us filed into the camp, past the hastily reinforced barricades which our machines were already reinforcing. It was a good spot if nothing else, about a half-a-dozen temporary structures erected at clear, rocky top of the hill, rising just high enough to give a commanding view of the surrounding forest, stretching on in all directions. The structures were nestled among high, jutting stones that crowned the hill, and something about it just seemed incongruous. I didn't know anything about geology, but I did know that I'd never seen natural terrain like this.
Not far away, down the hill into a valley, we could just see the dig site, a square clearing in the forest with a much larger and more rugged looking path clearing the way. The forest there was thinner, smaller trees spaced out across exposed rocky shield. Only about a mile and a bit away, apparently with the disadvantage that every time it rained the entire valley became a temporary river. Hence the remote base on the high ground.
Ahead of us, Lieutenant Kennedy was propped upright against the side of one of the buildings, still quite unconscious, yet seemingly unmarred. If it was a stunning weapon, it was unlike any we had, and Dr. Bell was looking her over carefully, one of the nurse machines standing by with an array of strange medical tools. Ensign Darley was up and about, though leaning against one of the artillery pieces a bit dazed. I walked the line of my section quickly, looking over the soldiers, paying attention to the injured ones. Nothing too bad, the worst being a Dora struck in the left hand missing three fingers.
And then I came to Sergeant Theda.
"Sergeant. A word." I said, trying to resist the urge to grab her by the collar and pull her along. I could see in her eyes that she knew she'd screwed up, taken it a step too far. Stiffly, she followed me toward the nearest structure, what looked like a barracks for some of the machines on the support team.
"Out. Everyone." I said, pushing through the door. The half-dozen machines, Adams and Eves in a sorry state, vacated quickly, the door swinging shut behind us.
"Ma'am?" she said apprehensively, as I turned and did my best to stare her down.
"For a machine who doesn't think we should be taking responsibility, you sure took some interesting initiative today." I said, walking a circle around her. "I thought we had this sorted, but apparently..."
"My apologies, ma'am." she said, her voice even, neutral, feigning being unaffected. "I thought…"
"You're not programmed to think, Sergeant. You obey orders. That's what they built you for, right?" I said, halting in front of her. "Right?"
"Yes, ma'am." she snapped, clearly on the edge of losing her temper. I finally had real leverage on her, a mistake that was all her own. The anger I was feeling was rapidly being transformed into a smug glee that I finally had something I could use.
"Why'd you order them to fire, Sergeant?" I asked, "Tell me why you thought it was a good idea."
"I believed you would not give the order. That you were hesitating, not biding your time." she said, the anger building in her voice, "That you would let us down. Abandon us."
That she thought that lowly of me stung.
"And you thought you ought to give the order instead." I summarized. "You know, I'm starting to think all of this… the perfect soldier act… I'm starting to think it's bullshit. You sure as hell don't behave like you believe it. You're putting it on."
She just glared.
"I don't think you believe any of the shit you say. You know… I think you're projecting. You tried to imagine what you'd be as an officer, and assume I'd be as cowardly, as stupid, and as selfish as you'd be. Right? Am I right?"
I could see her weighing her options, I could actually hear her fan speeding up under her collar as she thought it over. Considered her position. Considered how screwed she was.
"No, ma'am." she said. "I assumed because you have proven yourself incapable."
I don't know what came over me, but that was the final straw. I stepped to her and pushed, and she hit the wall with such force the wood buckled and cracked. I stepped as close as I could, slamming my hand next to her head, nearly punching clear through the structure.
"The only person who proved themselves incapable of their duties here is you." I snarled, my face inches from hers. She glowered, fans racing, having no response, but not willing to give an inch. In that moment, I didn't care about any of the official punishments, about her getting demoted or sent back to the Prussians. All I wanted was for her to say that she was wrong.
"Well?" I insisted.
"Go to hell, ma'am." she responded tersely.
"Wrong answer."
---
I stepped outside and pointed to the nearest two Theos, ordering the Sergeant be placed under arrest, and I strode to Captain Murray to explain the situation. She had nodded grimly and said she had my back through the legal proceedings. Within minutes, Theda was dragged out in cuffs, one of the soldiers carrying the flag case she'd had on her back, and we stuffed her in one of the camp's storage sheds for lack of a space. She didn't say a word, just glared.
The private who'd arrested her handed me the flag case, and when I opened it, I found not a standard, but a steel barrel. Pulling it loose, I found myself holding a needle rifle, its ammunition bundled around it in a tight coil of bundled metal. Unsure what to do, and with a runner calling the officers into the main tent, I slung it over my shoulder for now.
We gathered inside the hastily set up space just as a Dora was placing down a sturdy wooden table from inside one of the buildings. In the corner was a man in a tweed suit, small and mousy looking, who I assumed must be Joseph Parlow, standing nervously to the side with a valet at his side.
Any questions we had about why we were here were answered a moment later as another soldier came through the door with something over his shoulder. He dropped it unceremoniously onto the table, where it sprawled out limply across the ground, and a second later a Jeanette, a nurse machine, stepped forward. She looked like an older model than most, and was dressed much differently than I was used to. Like a human, almost.
On the table was, unmistakably, an alien life form. It reminded me somewhat of a crab, if a crab was shaped like a person. It had a small mouth with four prominent teeth set at the end of a head that seemed to be a sort of boney crest, and it was covered in mottled blue chitinous plates from head to toe. If it had eyes, I couldn't see them, and it wore no clothes save for a metal bracelet of some sort.
"Well, this is the guy." she said casually, her voice indicating… Hungarian? "Last night a couple of them tried pressing up the northern path and one of the workers shot it in the chest, right here-"
She indicated with the end of a pen to a scorched hole punched through the lower portion of its chest plate, about where the bottom of the ribcage would be on a human.
"So it pitched over and its friends left, taking its weapon with it. It was not dead when our machines brought it back, but there wasn't a lot I could do given I knew nothing of its biology. And that it kept trying to attack me, which wasn't pleasant. After it expired, I took some samples and began an autopsy. First conclusions: it shares 0% of its Punnett strings with any of the native life, and I'm pretty sure it's about a month old at the outside."
"Um, if you'll excuse the question, what exactly is it, nurse?" one of the lieutenants asked, and the Jeanette stuck her hands in her pockets with an exasperated look.
"I'm sorry. Doctor Zsanett." she said, "I'm both the medical and biological expert on the expedition. And if you're asking if a creature like this has ever been encountered before, not to the best of my knowledge. We've been calling them Stalkers, because that's what they've been doing to us. Now, important notes."
She took the end of the pen, inserted it under one of the plates, and lifted it slightly, and with a horrible squealing noise and a terrible odor the thing's chest was hanging open. I couldn't tell if it looked like that because it was a weird alien, or because of the musket blast to the side.
"So, I can't much tell you about its innards because I don't know what most of it does, but pretty sure this is a combination heart and lungs of sort. Digestive tract is rudimentary at best, with bypassed components that look quite atrophid." she explained, pointing to things as she went like she was explaining to students, "Really not a lot in there, and it's tough as hell, we ended up having to use one of the rock saws to cut its chest open and it ruined the blade. Organs are separated by what I can only call blast walls, and it's got some impressive redundancies. That said, if it's got sexual organs, I can't find them."
"Charming." Beckham said, holding his nose. "Just lovely."
"Wait, I haven't shown you the best part." she said, moving the pen up. This time, she pulled open a part of the crest on the side of the head, exposing the interior of the skull, and I was suddenly very glad I couldn't feel nauseous. "Right, so here's the brain, and you'll notice it sort of looks squished? Just like the digestive tract, this thing's ancestors once had a lot more brain than it does, and it seems to have given it up in favour of more skull."
"This biology lesson is quite fascinating, Doctor, but can you get to the point?" Lieutenant Colonel Harrison asked from the other side of the room.
"Right, yes. It's my belief that this is, in essence, a biological machine. An engineered warrior with restricted mental and physical capabilities which can be grown quickly."
"It's a Theo made of meat." I summarized.
"Yes, exactly, thank you." she said, glancing at me. She then did a double take, looking back somewhat confused. "Why've you got a machine officer?"
"Why've you got a machine doctor?" I retorted.
"Because I went to medical school." she said, shaking her head. "Okay, not for her brains. Questions?"
"Um, do you think it's intelligent? Like us, I mean. Is it a person?" Captain Teague asked.
"Dunno. Might be. It's always a bit of a grey era when you're dealing with something organic. That said, I imagine whoever engineered it did some serious work on its psychology if it was going to be useful, so even if it's smart, it might not be able to hold a conversation or even pass a mirror test. Big unknowns."
"It's got to be somewhat smart. They weren't just attacking randomly." I said, "Um, can I share an observation from the attack?"
"Go ahead, Lieutenant, please." The Lieutenant Colonel said.
"Ah… so the enemy was using a combination of stunners and destructive energy weapons, basically, right?" I said, to general agreement around, "Well, I had a good view of the column from the rear as we were attacked, they did not use them randomly. They were deliberately targeting officers with the stunners, and most of the destructive rounds went into the centers of our infantry column, far away from the officers. Almost like they were going out of their way to not hit humans with anything that might be lethal."
"Well, don't much like the implications of that." Beckham muttered.
"Further, they did a lot more damage on the second attack than the first. I think they might have turned up their guns between attacks. I think it was them trying to figure out our weaknesses." I said, "I think they were testing us."
"Well… that is rather disturbing." Lt. Col. Harrison said, stepping out in front of the group. "That said, It doesn't much change the next part of the plan. My conversation with Mister Parlow here indicates that his dig has almost certainly unearthed what he calls a gateway, and he said he was in the process of trying to activate it when they were first attacked. He suspects these Stalkers may be some sort of guardian left behind, or else something attracted to the signal it gave out during his attempts at activation. In any case, they have continually attacked the dig crew since their arrival, and have destroyed seven machines thus far while seizing the site as well as repeatedly probing this camp."
He gestured out of the tent flap, and I knew just beyond it was the valley and the site.
"The morning after next, we will be pressing an attack on the site in an attempt to take it and hold it, because clearly they are interested. Our level of lethal engagement will depend on their numbers and response, but if they can be negotiated with, it's the only leverage we think they value. And if they can't, we absolutely can't let them have it. We're leaving them a day in case they are smart enough to try and talk, but after today, I don't have high hopes."
