One
It had got late. The moon hung low in the cobalt sky, but its light felt oddly cold tonight. The Guardians sat around the fire pit, none of them speaking. Zek had explained everything he’d heard, but it didn’t reassure any of them.
“Mebbe they was jus’ gettin’ mad,” Zek tried, vainly. Two pairs of eyes swung up to glance at him, the others remained resolutely staring at the dying fire that flickered away in front. “I mean,” the youngster struggled on. “They often say stuff they don’ mean when they’re mad… when they calm down they usually decide it’s too ‘spensive, an’ don’ bother ‘bout it no more.”
“I find that hard ter believe,” Skan said, despondently, the firelight flickering against his elaborate mask and sending odd shadows chasing across his narrow face. “They hate us. An’ it ain’t too expensive to send a coupla packs out huntin’. We don’ stand a chance.”
“Mebbe we do,” Drek said, softly. “Mebbe we jus’ need ter even things out a little.”
Everyone turned to stare at him.
“What yer mean, Drek?” Jark asked, sitting back up – he’d been flat on his chin for most of the time, although not asleep.
Drek stared back, a stony expression on his face. “They want a war,” he said, softly. “So we’ll give ‘em a war. An’ here’s what we’ll do…”
There was a soft noise from the corridor; a low, melodious chime. The slig nearest the door put his head out to see what was going on, and nearly got his eye put out by Skan’s spear.
“Wha’s goin’ on?” he demanded, sleepily.
Skan grinned. “We’re startin’ a war. Want ter lend a hand?”
“A war?” A second slig clattered to the doorway. “What yer on about?”
Skan glanced down the corridor, at where Drek, Jark and Pru were banging on doors and waking everyone up down the corridor. “Management wants ter kill us. We want ter even things out a tad.”
“What’s in it fer us, then?” the first asked, looking more than vaguely interested.
Skan shrugged. “Chance ter be yer own boss. No more glukks yellin’ at yer…”
The second slig honked a laugh. “Hey, yer don’ have ter convince me – I’m up fer a scrap…”
Skan grinned. “Well, c’mon then, yen can gimme a hand convincin’ everyone else…”
Drek had gone back to the other side of the portal, leaving Skan and Pru in charge on the barracks side. The muds were taking shifts to keep the portal open, as it was taking time to get everyone and everything through it.
They weren’t just getting all the occupants to follow them, he thought, with a grin, they were just about cleaning the place out…! There was a growing pile of stolen armoury – weaponry, ammunition, even a few sets of heavy duty combat gear. Then there were the radios, field glasses, maps, general supplies… And Rek was pleased at all the pharmaceutics they’d stolen for him and the medical team. They were shifting most of that and about half of the medical gear down to somewhere a lot deeper in the forest, where it’d be safer, and they could set up a field hospital of sorts…
Drek watched as a small pack appeared through the portal – the lead one tripped over and the one following fell over him, scattering ammunition, and making the others hoot with laughter. Drek just rolled his eyes…
Back at the factory belt, the glukkons were planning their next move, not realising they now had no soldiers.
“Go get a couple of Alphas from barracks,” one snapped at the nearest slig, a youngster named Lek. “I want to tell ‘em what’s going on.”
“Rightio, boss,” the slig skittered off, lightly.
The glukkons swapped looks. “Reckon we can trust ‘em?”
“Trust ‘em to what?”
“Stay loyal.”
“What the frack you on about? ‘Course they will. For one they’re too scared of mummy dearest, and for two, if they don’t stay loyal, they won’t get all them luxuries they always fight over. Hard to find cigarettes out in the woods.”
It was then that Lek returned, almost falling through the doorway in his agitation. “Barracks is empty!” he wailed, helplessly.
“What?!” The glukkons both span to stare at him, as though he’d just said everyone had turned into cabbages.
“How can they be empty?” One demanded.
“So much for your assertions,” the other said, quietly.
“I don’ know, but they are!” Lek babbled. “Ev’ryone’s gone!”
“Gone where?!”
“I don’ know, I don’ know…!” The slig whimpered, clutching at his face, helplessly; the thought of being alone was a scary one to a naturally gregarious creature. “They just have…!”
“Not ev’ryone’s gone, Boss,” a soft, cynical voice said, from the doorway.
Everyone turned to look – a stocky young slig with a fair number of scars mottling his sharp, angular features lounged against the doorframe, arms folded.
“There’s ‘bout twenty o’ us left,” he went on. “Excludin’ the li’l squealer there.” He jerked his head at where Lek stood, whimpering about being left behind.
“D’yer know where the others went?” One glukkon asked, sharply.
“Oh yeah,” the slig nodded, lazily, acting as though it was a stupid question to ask. “Them freak sligs what live with the muds must’ve got wind o’ yer plan, ‘cause they paid barracks a li’l visit.”
“WHAT?!”
“They said,” the slig went on regardless, as though he hadn’t heard his Boss’s bellow. “Somethin’ like ‘Management’s goin’ ter send yer lot out ter kill us – so if yer want ter give us a hand, then look sharp an’ foller us. It’ll be dangerous, but yer’ll have the chance o’ bein’ yer own boss when it’s over’.”
“Why the frack didn’t yer tell someone?!” the glukkon raged. “We could’ve stopped them so fracking easily…!”
The slig shrugged, exchanged a look with two of his pack-mates in the doorway. “If we hadn’t o’ hid, they’d’ve killed us. We ain’t stupid, boss, however much yer think we are.”
The glukkon ignored the comment. “So you’re the only ones left…?”
The slig nodded.
“Name?”
“Taik. Alpha.”
The glukkon nodded. “You feel up to a fight?”
Taik grinned. “Sounds fun.”
The taller glukkon turned to scowl at Lek, who was looking terrified. “Will you deal with that first, though…?” he asked, jerking his head at the youngster.
Taik smiled, nastily; “With pleasure…” he purred, walking lazily over to where the youngster stood, bleating and gabbling incoherently by turns in his corner… Taik’s two pack-mates went to either side, neatly boxing Lek in.
“What’s up, Squealer?” Taik asked, coolly, folding his arms. “’Fraid of us…?”
Lek just sobbed and begged them not to hurt him.
Taik laughed. “Hear that, lads? He wants us ter be nice li’l sliggies an not hurt ‘im…”
The other two honked nastily with laughter.
“Jus’ like yer traitor pals, huh?” Taik asked, softly. “I’ll bet that given half the chance yer’d go out there an’ join all yer traitorous li’l friends, huh?”
Lek shrank down against the wall. “No… No, I-”
Taik reached out, idly, and closed his long fingers around Lek’s throat, dragging him closer. “Don’ lie ter me, Sunshine,” he whispered, his voice dripping with menace. “Mebbe we ought ter teach yer a lesson. Yer want ter be taught a lesson, huh?”
Lek shook his head, convulsively, sobbing helplessly. “Please, I didn’ do nothin’, please Boss…!” he shot a pleading glance at the glukkons standing watching impassively.
Taik smiled, nastily. “Yer think the boss is goin ter want ter help yer…?” he looked over his shoulder, as if to say ‘can I?’
One glukkon nodded, curtly.
Taik’s smile turned even more unpleasant, even more chilling.
“Please don’, please don’ hurt me, please…!” Lek seemed to have lost every other word in his vocabulary.
Taik laughed. “I got the Boss’ permission. And last requests?”
The youngster dissolved in incoherent pleading. Taik just laughed, nastily…
Lek wasn’t a very pretty sight by the time Taik got bored and finished him off; both arms broken, one cut cleanly away at the elbow, blinded in one eye, the rest of the maskless face carefully covered in elaborately carved graffiti… He’d been thorough, ensuring it hurt as much as feasible, somehow managing not to cause any fatal injury until the one that took the young sligs head completely off his body.
Taik lifted the decapitated head by its tentacles and stared down into the sightless eyes without a hint of remorse, then flung it out of the doorway. “Any more where that came from, Boss…?”
The glukkons nodded, approvingly. “I think I know where there’s about three hundred, if yer up for a fight,” the taller one said, dryly.
Taik just smiled that chilling smile, and nodded.
Drek sat atop a hill, and sighed, tiredly; it was only three days later, and he already felt exhausted. He’d had set up a very rough camp near the edge of the forest; a lot of the muds felt understandably more than a little wary of the sizeable pack that was now residing close by. Besides, when the army finally reached them and the fighting began it would give them somewhere to go when they fell back… The Guardians had managed to “recruit” around three hundred, but would that be enough…? Only time would tell, he felt… He listened as Skan tried to get some degree of order, so they could hear him speak…
“All right, you lot!” Skan barked at the top of his lungs. “Stop bloody fightin’, I want ter speak wi’ yer!” He stood on the hillside, arms folded, and waited, impatiently. All they’d done since arriving was squabble, or so it seemed. “I said,” Skan howled. “SHADDAP!"
Drek shook his head, tiredly. The younger slig was having difficulty; they were determined not to listen to him…
Next second Pru marched down the hill, over to the nearest two, and cracked their skulls together. That shut everyone up…
Drek left his pack barking orders left, right and centre, and trotted away, in the direction of the factory belt. They’d had reports from a number of the scouts that the glukkons had still managed to form an army of a sort, in spite of not having their soldiers, and it was on the move. He wanted to see it with his own eyes before he decided what was going to happen, though…
Leaving his pants at the bottom of a sufficiently tall tree, he reached up and snagged one of the lower branches in his tentacles… It didn’t take him long to scramble and haul his way up to the top branches, swaying lightly in the wind; away in the far distance, beyond the forest and well into the desert, was a tiny dust cloud, barely visible to his poor eyes. He switched on the gyro-stabilisers in his binoculars and settled himself to see exactly what they were up against, tail firmly round a branch for support…
The army was huge. Fleets of something that looked like an all-terrain version of a greeter rolled ominously along, flanked by mugs bristling with armoury, literally thousands of slogs, automated tanks… It was reassuring, however, to note that there were only a handful of sligs there, all running in the same pack, so the glukks hadn’t “borrowed” any soldiers from other barracks. Drek suspected it would have been a lot harder fighting your kin…
He fiddled the zoom on his field glasses – the army jumped closer and more sharply in focus. He homed in on the pack he’d spotted near the head of the field – roughly twenty-strong, all of them small, worker-class sligs, although they had similar heavy armour to the type big brothers wore in battle. And… there was something about the Alpha… What was that he was carrying? Looked like a standard of some sort. Drek frowned, tried to squeeze a little more magnification out of his binoculars…
His heart sank. Yes, it was a standard – the flag was a little torn, emblazoned with a bizarre, twisted version of the barracks emblem, a vivid splash of lurid scarlet streaking in a diagonal line across its surface, but that wasn’t what made his stomach turn over.
Impaled on the sharp tip of the flagpole was a slig’s head.
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