Sandstorm

 

Kayla shielded her eyes from the glaring sun as she tried to track the progress of the sledge.

 

Now, why do they have Sandhogs pulling whatever it is? Why isn’t Ezekiel or Relic doing it? They’re much stronger, and don’t smell so bad. Even Relic, who hasn’t had an oil change in a while and I’m sure there’s bits of Elfspider rotting in the cracks. And where’s the rest of the patrol?

 

Unclipping a radio from her belt, Kayla put a call across to the Depo.

“Kayla, on the roof. Grab two Omnitech, anybody that’s around, and send them to gate seven to help haul in whatever Ozzer and Tank are dragging in. Over.”

There were a few moments of static, and then the response came.

“Gabe here, tank bay. We’re gonna have some trouble with that order, Commander. Over.”

She tuned in to his signal quickly.

“Kayla. What’s the problem, Gabe? Over.”

“Gabe. We’ve only got one Omni in working order at the moment, and that’s Terence. He’s only got one leg, Commander. Over.”

She swore, scraping her sun-bleached hair out of her eyes.

“Kayla. What about Mimi and Bruce? Or Vespers? Harold? Over.”

“Gabe. Vespers is still in the infirmary, and Mimi gave up the ghost last night. She’s gone. Harold and Bruce are out on patrol. Over.”

“Kayla. Bruce can’t go out on patrol; he’s not recovered yet! And Harold’s as simple as a stick man. You can’t tell me you sent Harold out. Over.”

“Gabe. Sorry, Commander, but we’re so short at the moment that we had to send them. With Vespers out of action and Mimi dead, there were two spaces and nothing to fill them. Over.”

Kayla swore profusely before pressing the button again.

“Kayla. Send Terence then. Gate seven. Over.”

“Gabe. Whatever you say, Commander. Over.”

 

She slapped the radio back onto her hip, muttering curses under her breath before searching the dunes for the sledge again. Whatever they were dragging was gleaming white in the sun.

 

Fuck this shit. Don’t tell me what they’re dragging is Ezekiel. We can’t afford to loose another Omni now.

 

Climbing down the sand blasted ladder from her vantage point, Kayla jumped the last six rungs and landed heavily, puffs of dust rising from where her combat boots connected with the paprika coloured rock. Loose grey trousers and a white tank top, stained by the sun coloured sand and soaked in sweat, fitted smoothly around her tanned and muscled frame, a tear in the tank showing a series of weird, pointed symbols burnt into the skin of her shoulder. She was handsome, not pretty, brown hair streaked with sun blonde and dark eyes edged with crowfeet. Few women stayed beautiful on the barren sand dunes of Desertworld, and Kayla, broad in the shoulder and barely five three, hadn’t exactly been attractive in the first place. A blaster, a radio, a knife and a pouch for whatever use she could find hung from her belt, her Commander’s insignia clipped to the holster on her left hip. All in all, she was an unlikely leader, but no less capable for all that.

 

From the shade of the main compound entrance, she could see Terence, a three-limbed Omnitech who’d mostly been used for light work around the base, hobbling back towards them with Ozzer and Tank leading the Sandhogs. It was a testament to the power and efficiency of the Omnitech that even an amputee like Terence was fairly breezing along compared to the four squat beasts, snorting through their nasal filter membranes and clacking their tusked beaks. Kayla moved aside to allow the Omni to clatter past her, and got a very good look at what was on the sledge of scrap metal.

 

It was Ezekiel. Or Relic. She couldn’t actually tell. The fused mess of white metal and limbs was obviously Omni, but whether one model, or two, or which, she had no clue.

 

Tank, a thickset woman whose short sprouting of bleach blond hair had solidified her resemblance to a certain comic book character and thus earned her nickname, flung the leashes on the two Sandhogs she was leading to Ozzer and thumped across to Kayla.

 

“Fucking Elfspiders!” Was what passed for a greeting. Kayla didn’t even have to open her mouth to get the explanation she wanted.

“We ran into a proper fucking nest of the buggers, and we had four down when one of the wounded ones jammed his sword-thingy into Ezekiel’s wrist and hung on for grim death. Relic squashed the fucker like a bug, but it set off some sort of incendiary it was carrying. Turned Relic and Ezekiel into this pretty sculpture here.”

“And the rest of the patrol?”

Ozzer, dark haired and wiry male with his Sergeant stripes tattooed on his upper arms, one of which was in an impromptu sling, ran the back of his hand across his forehead, as though wiping away the sweat. Kayla caught a vague glimmer in one of his sky blue eyes.

“Right here.” He replied, bitterly, dumping a makeshift bag constructed from Tank’s shirt on the floor. It didn’t come open, but a scorched jawbone fell out and clattered onto the stone floor.

 

Kayla picked it up carefully and returned it to the bundle. “Get these down to the infirmary and get Doc to run DNA tests on them.”

“We brought back everything we could find. God, I hope the spidery bastards didn’t get any of them alive.” Tank’s voice growled with barely restrained rage. Kayla scowled at the thought.

“If they did, we’ll go get them back. Are you two hurt?”

“Not serious.” Ozzer patted his sling. “It’s just a sprain.”

“Get Doc to look at it anyway. We can’t afford to loose anyone right now. Tank?”

The woman was staring at the twisted wreckage of Ezekiel and Relic. Her voice was thick and angry.

“Relic was the oldest fucking Omni on this planet. I don’t even know what his real name was. He was ‘Relic’ when I arrived here. That was eight fucking years ago. And they just blew him up like…”

“Tank…”

“He was only trying to help…”

“Tank! Pull yourself together, woman!” The tall female jerked to attention as Kayla dropped into her Commander’s bark. “We’re at war! We’re loosing people all the time and there’s nothing anyone can do about it!”

“Sir! Sorry sir, but you know how it is…”

“I do.” Kayla’s voice softened. “Relic had been here a long time. He was a good soldier. We’ll give him a good soldier’s burial, same as all the others, and nobody will forget him. But that’s all we can do now.”

“Sir.” Tank nodded. Kayla folded her arms, returning the gesture.

“Good. Get down to the Doc too; take a little nap if you have to. I’ll get the Padre and we’ll bury them tomorrow. That’s the earliest we can have the DNA tests done by.”

“Yessir.” Anybody not familiar with the base would have been surprised by the amount of deference the six foot nothing Tank showed to the diminutive Commander, but anyone who’d been on the receiving end of one of Kayla’s punches would have been equally quick to follow orders.

“And take those Sandhogs down to the corral. Maybe we’ll have one for dinner tonight. Viggo’s Sandhog pit roast sounds good to me.”

 

As the remains of Relic and Ezekiel were dragged away, Kayla strode off in search of the base’s religious authority. Oozie, as Canon Methuselah was more familiarly known, would certainly be upset. Although young for a Canon, only in his thirties, he’d been on this base since he’d been ordained and made a point of knowing everyone by name, even the Omnitech, who were often gone within a week. Ezekiel had been his personal bodyguard up until the Omni had become so short in supply that he’d had to go out on normal patrols. And Relic! Relic was almost twelve years old, an unprecedented age for Omni who rarely even made their twelfth month.

 

Rather fondly, Kayla called up a memory of her last personal bodyguard, a monster of an Omnitech she’d dubbed Amazon. Although not the brightest spark, Amazon had got the hang of Kayla’s entire repertoire of dirty jokes so quickly that she’d become a liability around the more sensitive members of the base. Back in the days when Tarka, her second in command, had still been around, she and Amazon had cleaned up more battlefields that she could count without taking her shoes off. Then, of course, Tarka, a quick witted lad whom, for some reason, nobody minded taking orders off despite him being slim and slightly effeminate, had been tortured to death by the Elfspiders, and Kayla had been confined to base duties until she appointed a replacement. Amazon had stayed with her patrol group. It had only been a few weeks later that the gigantic Omni had taken a spear strait into her biomatter brain. It’d almost been worse than if she’d just died, having her sit in a random corner with her mouth gaping, occasionally getting up and lumbering across the base aimlessly, only to slump back down again anywhere she ran out of steam. Eventually, after she’d broken a technician’s leg purely by accident, Kayla had asked Catch, the Omni’s version of a doctor, to put her out of commission. It had been the only kind thing to do.

 

Oozie was tending his little garden when she arrived. Kayla didn’t know what it was about priests and gardens, but ever since she’d been born (Not on Desertworld, but on an IA base not too different to this one) every priest she’d known had had a garden. It probably came with the job description.

“Good afternoon, Commander.” Oozie straitened up, taking off his broad brimmed hat and wiping the sweat from his forehead. The traditional priests robes were a bad idea in Desertworld’s heat for any but the most solemn of occasions, but Oozie still wore a long sleeved shirt and long trousers at all times. Subsequently, or so she had heard, his lanky yet surprisingly well-muscled frame was still shockingly pale, unlike the deep tan most people developed to survive. Strangely enough, Kayla got on well with Oozie – he was someone who technically, she couldn’t give orders to, but in reality was pleasant enough to follow them, while giving the Commander a poke in the ribs any time she overstepped her boundaries. He was always calm, well spoken and genuinely concerned about the well being of his flock, as he called them, which even included the Omnitech. He was good to have around.

 

Kayla nodded in response to his greeting, still too sombre to exchange pleasantries. “I’ve got bad news, Canon.”

He replaced his hat, the smile dying. She only called him Canon when it was bad news.

“We’re going to have a funeral tomorrow. Relic, Ezekiel, and all of Patrol Nine apart from Ozzer and Tank. Well, ‘all’ depends on the DNA tests, but I’m hoping the Elfspiders didn’t get any of them.”

“’The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away.’” Oozie sighed. “I’m sorry to see Ezekiel go. He was a superb student and companion.”

“I don’t know how we’re going to fill out the patrols now that we’re eight men and two Omni down.” Kayla blurted out, then blushed, ashamed as always that she’d shown some weakness. Oozie shifted his rake to the other hand, guiding her towards his little house.

“Come inside and have some tea, Kayla. Well, I call it tea, but in truth it’s just something hot and pleasant.”

 

Inside the room, carved out of the red-brown sandstone, it was surprisingly cool. Oozie put his hat on the stone table, leaning the rake in a corner as he moved to the stone bench reserved for preparing what food he didn’t take with the rest of the troops. Kayla collapsed into one of the four chairs – God only knew why Oozie needed four – and buried her face in her hands.

 

Oozie turned the little electric hob on, sitting the kettle of water on top of it, and then moved to sit opposite her. Reaching out, he took one of the Commander’s hands in his own.

“Kayla… talk to me.”

She almost smiled, noting that he never referred to anyone as ‘child’, as most of his kind did.

“Sorry, I forgot. Mimi died in the night. We’ll be burying her as well.”

“I know about Mimi. What’s troubling you, Kayla?”

“I…” Wiping away the beginning of a tear trace, she forced a kind of hollow laugh. “I’m okay. I’ll manage. It just always gets a bit… stressful… difficult… when we’re getting close to another Spawn and the Omni are getting picked off one by one and we’re losing soldiers because there aren’t enough Omni to protect them…”

“I understand, Kayla. It’s only nine days until Spawn, and I heard mention that the troop dispatch listing would be coming in today.”

“Yeah… yeah. I know. That’s good. I… I gotta pick a new second in command…”

“Tarka was a good man. We all miss him.”

“I miss him.” She replied, treacherous tears starting to run down her cheeks. “That… was the worst funeral… and I’ve been to so many… poor bastard… you didn’t see what they had done to him…”

“His soul is unblemished in Heaven.”

“Tarka didn’t believe in Heaven.” Kayla replied, with a voice that was suddenly strangled.

“That doesn’t matter. He was a good man. He’ll be there, or somewhere quite like it.”

She couldn’t reply. The kettle started to whistle, and Oozie got up with a last squeeze of her hand to pour out the fragrant desert tea.

 

“Thanks, Oozie.” She accepted the battered plasceramic mug a moment later. The Canon smiled.

“It’s not bad, this desert tea, is it?” he sat down opposite her, noting Kayla’s smile. They both knew she wasn’t talking about the tea. It was peculiar stuff, though, smelling strongly of cinnamon yet tasting more like weak iced tea with an orange kick.

 

They sat in comfortable silence, sipping the hot tea, until the crackling of Kayla’s radio interrupted them. She snatched it up immediately.

“Kayla, Oozie’s place. What’s the business? Over.”

“You’re not going to believe this, Commander!”

“Kayla.” She repeated, gritting her teeth at this person’s inability to follow communicator drill. “Who is this? Over.”

“Oops, sorry… Vicky, Communications Room, or at least I was, I’m coming over there right now… we’ve just got the troop dispatch listing through and you’re just going to scream when you see this!”

“Kayla. Calm down and tell me what the fuck is going on. I’ll meet you half way. Over.” Glancing over her shoulder as she got to her feet, Kayla added. “Scuse language, Oozie, and thanks for the tea. I think you better come too…”

“Of course.” He reached for his hat as he rose. The comm. crackled into life again.

“It’s the best news we’ve had in months! You’re just gonna have to read it for yourself, Commander, this is so good…”

“Kayla. Comm. drill, Vicky! I don’t care how excited you are; you’ll follow proper procedures in my base. Over.”

There was a pause, then.

“Vicky. Sorry Commander, but believe me, this is great! Over.”

“Kayla. I’ll be the judge of that. Over.”

 

Marching across the stone courtyard, Kayla saw Vicky, her headset making a distinct dark mark on the side of her tanned face and a blond streaked ponytail bobbing in the slipstream as she raced towards them, a few interested persons following behind. Some of them seemed just as overjoyed as she was. Shoving a long piece of paper fresh out the long distance receiver into her hands, she collapsed on the floor, breathing hard, and let Kayla and Oozie examine the list of names and the paragraph that’d been tacked on to the bottom.

“They’ve given us twenty fewer soldiers than I asked for.” Kayla fumed, having scanned the list first. Then her eyes caught a name, and she scowled viciously.

“Bruce Gavelling? From Titan? Oh, no… he went through basic training at the same time as me, the bastard had a mean reputation, scuse language, Oozie, they’re sending him here?”

“I didn’t know you knew him, Commander, all I know is he’s got a history of being an arse and a bully.” Vicky panted. “Scuse language, Oozie, but that’s not the important bit! Read the paragraph at the bottom!”

So Kayla did.

 

Then she read it again.

 

Then she read it a third time, in case the words had somehow been strung together wrong.

 

“Oh, no, that can’t be… that’s not possible…”

“What is it, Commander?”

Kayla looked up, astonished to see how many of her soldiers had collected around her.

“I… well. I wouldn’t get too over excited. It… it might not be true. It might not work.”

“It will, Commander! It is true! They sent the details and plans too, I only had a scan but they look pretty solid!”

“Well.” Kayla scanned the paragraph a fourth time. “They’re sending us some scientist who’s been working on the Spawn technology. He thinks he can… speed things up… a bit.”

“That’s fantastic!” Someone burst out. “How much? From eighty days to what?”

 

Kayla swallowed.

 

“Eight.” She answered, finally. “Full capability turnaround in eight days. Eighty days… to eight.”

 

There was a stunned silence, and then everyone erupted into excited chatter. There were even a few cheers. Kayla couldn’t fight the overwhelming, yet slightly stunned joy.

 

Seventy Omni. That’s our full output, which we’ve been at for the last three years. Seventy Omni couldn’t last us eighty days. But eight? It can’t be true. That much of a jump… eight days… we’ll beat those fucking Elfspiders to the other side of the planet. They won’t know what hit them. And we’ll have revenge for Relic and Ezekiel and Patrol Nine, and Tarka, most of all Tarka, and Amazon and everyone else who ever lost their lives to the ten legged bastards…

 

And then, riding the wave of euphoria, she spotted the name of the scientist in question, and felt the strongest sensation of being kicked in the stomach.

 

Jan Fielder.

 

Jan. Fielder.

 

Fuck.

 

Jan Fielder.

 

 

 

We’re all doomed.

 

* * * * *

 

“Look, commander…”

“Don’t you ‘look commander’ me, Dai!” Kayla snapped, kicking the nearest door open. “I’m pissed off. How dare they offload Jan Fielder on us…”

“I’ve looked through the information they sent with the transmission and it looks watertight.” Dai, resident Overlord (as the caretakers of the Spawn facilities were colloquially known) ran a hand through his bangs in frustration. “I’m serious, commander, even if he’s screwed up in the past, this time the man’s hit gold.”

 

Kayla stopped at the door of the Spawn chamber, then turned away with an exasperated expression. Most likely Dai wouldn’t let her in there at this point in the Spawn anyway, as the Omni were now fully developed, with their full sensory capabilities, and were only being programmed. Not until she calmed down enough not to traumatise their malleable biomatter brains. Dai, or Daisuke to use his full name, wasn’t exactly the weirdest Overlord she’d ever met. Some of them were right oddballs. And although Dai was the only person Kayla had ever encountered with a Japanese name and a Welsh accent, he was at least able to hold a conversation without making up words, demanding a password, alluding to fantastical and/or imaginary peoples, or poking the walls to make sure nothing was going to start crawling through them. It was a lonely job, and one of the few where a certain amount of insular insanity (And recreational drug use) was encouraged. Luckily on Desertworld there wasn’t enough room on the cargo ships to smuggle narcotics and the ground troops were yet to find a kind of plant or animal life that yielded a suitably psychoactive substance, although some of them sure were trying. Dai lived a frugal life of dry rations and smoking what amounted to roughly half the stations total stock of rather poor quality cigarettes, musing on the meaning of life and literally devouring books by ripping out each page as he read it and turning it into an origami crane. God knew how many thousands he must have by now.

 

“I’m serious, there’s gotta be something. He’ll have left out a word or a paragraph or a page that explains the big loophole in the whole damn thing. There’s no way Jan Fielder” She spat the name like it was a bad word. “Has come up with a way of bringing the Spawn technology down by sixty three days.”

“And I’m serious, commander, there is a way cause it’s happened.” Dai shrugged, leaning against a crate as Kayla paced. “What have you got against him, anyway?”

She sighed, burying her face in her hands, and then slumped against a pile of boxes. “We were at school together.”

“Uh huh.” The Overlord rolled his eyes. “And I bet he teased you something rotten.”

“What? Hell no.” Kayla chuckled. “I threw pencils at him in Chemistry and tied his shoe laces together. I think I probably beat him up and stole his lunch money a few times too. I did that to a lot of people.”

“What a wonderful child you were.”

“I was tough. It’s seen me through alright so far.” She shrugged, then continued. “It’s not that, though. At school… he was weird. He was always coming up with these oddball schemes that sounded too good to be true, but we always went along with them anyway because it didn’t seem like there was any way we could slip up. Of course, they always fell through because of something disastrous, which he’d casually forgotten to mention. The branch you needed to stand on to get over the wall was rotten and would break, we’d foil one security camera but there’d be another one he had forgotten to mention. And afterwards… well, afterwards once we’d caught him and were beating the crap out of him, mind… he’d just say something like ‘Didn’t I say that might happen?’ or ‘Didn’t I tell you about that?’” Shaking her head, Kayla covered her eyes. “I followed his career for a bit. He became a biomechanics research scientist. The same thing kept happening. He kept… forgetting to mention these little loopholes. The authorities started watching his proposals like a hawk… I can’t believe they’re taking him seriously now. There must be a rotten branch, Dai. There always is.”