managed to get it, and that was with mil-spec gear.’
‘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.
3
Dundee
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
‘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.
3
Dundee
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
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