The Lunar Guardsman

The brushwood stirred at the edge of her tired eyes.

“Motion at east, southeast. Unidentified,” Jackie mouthed alongside her signals, her breath rising in front of her eyes.

A faint clicking of acknowledgement sounded off. She waited, ready to aim.

Another click, and she momentarily glanced for the signs; “Non-hostile confirmed.”She nodded her understanding. “Just some stupid fox…” she grumbled under her breath.

A scant few minutes later she felt a nudge on her shoulder.

“Change of guard,” Anthony said. Deep weariness etched the lines in his aged face even deeper.

Jackie quickly traded places. “You don’t look like you slept,” she prodded after a moment’s thought.

“What clued you in?” Anthony smiled as if it was an effort. “I hate being so close to a Gate. Troy, of course, couldn’t give less of a shit.” He nodded towards the post north of them where Troy, bushy eyes and joyfully rested, waved from. “Yes, fuck you too, Troy. Anything noteworthy, Jackie?”

“There might have been a fox.”

“It better have fucked off. I’m too tired for frolicking forest critters. Bambi’s screwed in the mood I’m in.” Anthony pursed his lips. “Girl, I… you get what I meant, right? What I didn’t actually mean.”

“I do. I’m alright,” Jackie quickly responded. She hovered over Anthony for a second, searching for some small talk, a comment to add. When the older man didn’t add anything more either, she made her escape to the center of the camp where a concealed fire was burning.

Everything the long watch had managed to make her forget and ignore was waiting for her.

William reached for the white alien’s eye. The poor thing drew away, her tenuous balance failing her. William quickly grabbed her and steadied her before she fell.

The alien’s large azure eyes moved frantically from William’s roughshod hands on her coat to his face, her jaw shaking. William removed them hastily. He turned to Miny, a deep and tired disappointment carved in his face.

William was a big man. Nowhere near as tall as the sergeant, but wider and more robust, with a large torso and thick arms. Half his face was lost in a thick, tangled black bush, and he looked like a haggard barbarian or a thuggish biker. But when a smile and a laugh settled on him he transformed into a joyful young Santa Claus, as he much preferred to be.

“Miny, some help here?” he asked in a gentle low voice.

Miny was the pixie elf next to William’s Saint Nicholas, being short and lithe, with a rough, hewed haircut.

She snapped her fingers, drawing the alien’s attention to her, and then Miny covered one of her eyes with a palm. Slowly, she repeated the motion for the other one, pointing from herself to the adult alien after she was done.

The white one did as she was bid. William shined his flashlight into her eyes, one at a time. He instructed her to hold one of her legs on the air, and he smiled in satisfaction as the captive alien hesitantly did so. She followed all of his pantomimed instructions.

She even smiled shyly back at William, who beamed even further. She spoke at the two children huddled at her sides with what seemed to be encouragement in her strange language. Shaped bulks of wind formed out of her throat and whittled to an undulating musical tune in a tilt like a rising melody. It had taken some time for them to realize that the aliens weren’t repeating the same sound over and over, but that there was a rich—but subtle—variation. She appeared to finally be at ease.

But Jackie, who watched from the sides and refused to take part in this charade, wasn’t fooled. She saw it all in that strained pull of the adult’s lips, in her unblinking eyes that jumped to their rifles between every action.

The white alien―girl, woman, perhaps a mother as a few had guessed―was scared shitless.

Jackie admired that alien. She hid her fear well for the children’s sake, but she had done more than that. She had, somehow with no words, managed to win over William and Miny. Perhaps, Jackie reasoned, that fearful, sensitive, “oh-help-me-I’m-so-visibly-scared” move the white alien had just pulled wasn’t made in the spur of the moment. It wasn’t the first time William had examined her. The alien made obvious how vulnerable she was at every opportunity.

It’s like I’m watching a soap opera. Jackie wouldn’t be surprised to learn this alien was a Broadway talent if they had anything like it here.

William feared their prisoner was concussed, something that made Jackie frown. Sure, her eyes looked normal enough in comparison with the younger one, but who could tell how their strange large eyes really worked, and she did display other similar symptoms apart from that: loss of balance, weariness, throwing up… They had to slow their pace for her.

You brilliant girl, you, Jackie thought. Nothing that someone couldn’t pretend, huh? Maybe a bit of it is real enough, but if you know we want you alive and healthy, why not play it up a little? You’re probably hoping someone’ll swoop in and save the day.

She liked her. Jackie had been caught in that alien’s spell as surely as Miny and William were. The alien was smart, and she had rushed to the defense of children that—Jackie was as certain as she could be—weren’t hers.

The remaining medical examination passed in silence and the aliens were left in peace at their designated space. A small circle that contained them among a larger circle of the camp.

Leaving the center of the camp in swift strides, she slipped through the dense tree trunks, trying to stay unnoticed by the others.

“—all I’m saying. A nickname. Something that ain’t Ruthus.”

“Ruthus suits you just fine, I’d say.” Curry quipped, finishing his search for an unblemished weed from the forest floor and biting into it, humming delightedly.

“You think I want to be called Ruthus?”

“That’s your name.”

“And Adam is yours but we call you Curry.”

“And?”

“Look, I just want a nickname too. Any nickname. I can’t be tied down by my parents' stupid decisions, a man has dreams. I need a name that shows how desirable and manly I can be, so git.”

Curry looked thoughtful for a couple of seconds. “This reeks of insecurity, Ruthus.”

“Then just call me by my last name. My dad calls me by last name. Bale is tons better than Ruthus. All I need is you to do it until it sticks. Come on.”

Curry shook his head. “I can’t do that, man. Not in good conscience.”

“What?”

“Have you seen the people living here? They might try to eat you!”

“... Bale, hay bale. Oh ha ha, what a master of comedy you are.”

Curry spotted Jackie and waved her over. “Let’s settle this. Jackie! Hey, Jackie!”

“See, she gets to not get called Jacqueline,” Ruthus murmured sullenly.

Oh, boy.

Jackie stepped heavily towards them. She hated it when they tried to include her in their inane talks. Everyone kept doing it. Jackie, come here. Jackie, do this. What do you think about this, Jackie? Wanna play tic tac toe, Jackie?

Maybe socializing the bare minimum was a mistake. She set a precedent, and now it was almost impossible to completely excuse herself and display an air of professionalism. She feared she had already ended up as the team mascot.

“Does he look like a Bale or a Blade?”

Ruthus’ eyes widened in sudden joy. “Holy shit, that is a cool nickname…”

“Ruthus?” Jackie asked for confirmation. She hoped they hadn’t noticed her wincing as she heard the cringey nickname. “I’m not sure how—”

Curry snapped his fingers, cutting off Ruthus from mumbling “Blade” to himself in increasingly macho tones. “Ruthus. See? She didn’t even think about it.”

“That’s baloney and you know it, you railroading son of a brothel ma’am—”

“Can I go now, please?” Jackie asked, suddenly very tired.

Ruthus turned to her, and really looked at her. She fidgeted under the intense examination even as his face softened.

“It’s not just the kids, is it?”

Jackie paused. She was going to say no, and for a moment she considered sharing her concerns. She fixed her stance to parade rest, choosing to be silent.

Ruthus sighed. Curry sighed. Both of them with an air of tiredness. They glanced at each other, shaking their heads. Suddenly, they didn’t seem as much at ease as they’d made her believe to be.

“Don’t let it get to you, Jackie. This happens.” Ruthus said, shrugging.

“Yes. It happens,” she parroted and left, tuning them out.

She made for the southern edge of the camp, a compact thirty meter area, nestled among trees and rocks. Half the number of their team was standing guard at all directions, covering each other in criss-crossing fields of fire and allowing everyone else to truly rest their mind and body. It was as safe as they could make it.

Jackie would have very much liked to sit down and have a good cry on her lonesome. The marvel of a lifetime—of a near-immortal lifetime—turned into a freakshow of shame and guilt. She didn’t believe herself to be suited for Janus anymore. She had been certain that she wouldn’t regret her decision no matter what would happen to her. She’d never given a thought to things she might have to do though.

She got hold of her backpack and pulled out the gun cleaning kit. She deftly disassembled her rifle, splayed its parts on a thready piece of fabric, and started brushing and blowing the accumulated dust and burnt particles away. Busywork, to keep her out of the way.

The night had been dark and the foliage blocked what little light the stars and moon gave. She was too far from the small fire in its dug pit. It was only for the comfort of their victims. Their prisoners. The civilian casualties.

Her teammates were good people. She trusted them as much as she could trust anyone.

She simply didn’t trust herself anymore.

While her hands worked, she found her gaze inevitably drawn northwest.

There was a mountain, and on its side rested a city, glowing silver with golden burnishes.

What a wonder it was to drink in, to meet a species so similar yet so different. Aliens. Honest to God aliens. Even better than the aliens she had believed in, separated by them by a distance much grander than that of the void of space. The answer to the great question of loneliness… And what did they do with such a gift? What did she do?

Jackie knew she’d have to speak to a therapist after their return. She looked forward to it. To unburden her mind, to have a direction given rather than hooks pulling her whatever which way.

Her hands were shaking. The headache she felt wasn’t just anger and stress, and it flared, saying hello in letters of hot brand iron. She dug in her pocket for her allotted dose.

She unfolded her shaking fist. A quarter of a pill. She shouldn’t have forgotten to take it, it wasn’t as effective when you gave the pain time to build. Oh, the things she would do for half a pill and the relief it would bring, things that needed tall bushes to hide behind and would shame her parents.

When she began her first tour of duty as a member of Janus Division, Jackie tried to endure the Gates without the starting packet from home base. After the pain became unbearable Jackie had taken Miny aside, as she was the one in charge of the pharmaceuticals, and promised her twenty-four hour access to her tongue for life, or any other preferred body part, if she only let her have one, just one, of the highly concentrated pills Jackie so foolishly scoffed at.

Luckily, Miny was neither a lesbian nor an opportunist. She gave Jackie a halfsie—the only one Jackie ever had, and what an ecstasy it had been—and then kept Jackie regularly prescribed like the rest of the team.

She gulped the quarter-pill down, and the pain faded back to the soft headache instead of the splitting migraine it was. Jackie sighed in relief, still daydreaming about the complete absence of pain that was now as distant as a childhood dream.

She chortled mirthlessly. It wasn’t the pill she wanted. It was the freedom from a bad choice it had given her. Right now, she’d gladly gulp down a couple of them, overdosing be damned.

Gun parts were still strewn around her feet. Her focus was all over the place. She picked up the pieces, slowly bringing them together. No need to hurry. The longer it took, the less chance of anyone else trying to—

A loud warning cough among loud steps.

No, why would she be left alone?

She ignored the footsteps behind her, as she did the hand that landed on her shoulder.

“Keeping busy, Jacqueline?” she was asked with a quiet merriness.

“Sir,” she replied, cold enough to make the Captain pull his hand off her before he was burned.

She had found the team to run like a well-oiled and extremely efficient family unit. It was an odd balance that relied on fragile fostered relationships. Their ranks were a chain of older brothers and sisters, each looking out for the younger and directly older than them, with the sergeant being the mother hen who was always there at every step of the way with either reprimands or a soothing hand.

And then there was the Captain; standing apart from the group, the distant patriarchal figure. Respected. Commanding. And in a small corner of their mind, daunting.

She liked him, and for his part he seemed to like her. He had been a mentor, teaching her the intricacies of life in this unit she now belonged to, taking her by the hand and showing her how to reforge herself, to build a core that could weather the isolation of the Gates. But his company was now a sour reminder that made her close into herself even more.

Jackie felt a hint of that dread when he sat next to her, close as if he wanted to share body heat in the cold of the night, almost as soon as she felt his sidearm squeezing expertly between the seams of the armor she wore beneath her fatigues.

She could feel the lines of the pistol’s metalwork; the small scratches on the muzzle, the little stubby front sight, and, most forebodingly of all, the angle the Captain held it at. One shot, and the bullet would pierce through her soft intestines and then her lung as it went straight for the heart.

She remained still, her pacing breath leaving faint foggy traces.

The Captain was looking down at her assembly with a smile, the gun hidden between them. “I saw you leaving our guests in a huff,” he commented. His dirty blond locks kept his eyes in shadow.

“I wasn’t aware this was a crime, sir.” Her voice didn’t tremble, but every breath caused the gun to dig anew at her side.

“It’s not, but it’s not like it matters,” the Captain answered. He smiled, crows’ feet forming at the end of his eyes, too deep for his otherwise smooth skin. And his eyes... His age was always there, a young man with ancient eyes. “I’m only looking out for you, Jacqueline. You’re keeping in mind that there are five Gates here, right?”

“I don’t see how that matters,” Jackie said. The pulsing headache that grew with every step wasn’t going to let anyone forget. If it wasn’t for the pills God knows how they’d be able to keep walking instead of running to the gate to make the pain stop a second sooner.

The Captain raised the fingers of his free hand one by one. “Let me remind you of the basic schooling; one Gate, no magic. Two Gates, the weird is almost common. Three Gates, there might be psychics or superhumans, or pigs might fly in the sky. But five… five and above is where true magic lies.”

The fire sparked inside Jackie, and she growled affirmatively. The gun twisted against her as a reminder to quench it down. There was no one else close enough that she could see without turning her head—and even if there was, what would they do? It wasn’t her they would help.

If she was in their shoes a few days before, she wouldn’t either.

The Captain turned and looked at her with such intensity that she had no choice but to stare back. A ray of moonshine traversed the maze of branches, casting a mask of light across his face. Their eyes locked in a struggle, his the color of an old burnt forest and hers the blue of a blooming Morning Glory. “You were watching our guests. Then you ran off, Jacqueline. Something on your mind?”

It finally dawned on her what he had been searching for. “No,” she said firmly. “Do you seriously think they’re poking around in my head or something?”

“Heavens know that they could,” he answered with an easy shrug. “Maybe all the young lady guest needs to do is wait until she clears her head. Maybe she doesn’t. Is that why you’ve been acting strangely? Are you fighting her compulsions? Tell me, and I’ll help y—”

“You can’t be that stupid!”

The Captain frowned. After a few moments of chewing on her statement, he holstered his gun. Jackie couldn’t comprehend why he did so, even as she watched him do so and rest his palms on his knees as if enjoying the cold night wind.

But she wasn’t stupid enough to think for a moment that he couldn’t have it back in his hand again in an instant.

“Would you explain yourself for this stupid man’s benefit, Jacqueline?” he asked as if he was emotionally hurt.

She stood up, full of outrage, and hissed it all out, caustic poison leaving her system. Damn the gun. Damn his years of keeping them safe and led. And fuck the glint of pity in his eyes!

“Guests? Guests? They are prisoners! We’re playing with words to make it palatable, and pretending we didn’t kidnap children! I joined because I believed I was keeping our world safe. Not to take children away from theirs!” she screamed.

Jackie panted as though she finished a marathon. The Captain was looking up at her, and his expression, before he hid it behind his palms, simply crumpled.

A towering shadow emerged from the trunks behind him. “Captain,” the sergeant’s deep voice rumbled.

“Get everyone back to their rest, Darry. Apologize to the men for me. We’ll try to keep it down,” the Captain breathed, his face still hidden.

Sergeant Darry hesitated only a moment then nodded, not that the Captain could see it. “Yes, sir.” A step later he hesitated again. “She’s a good girl, sir. Ain’t nothing in her for no hoodoo to catch on to.”

“No, I don’t think there is, either. Can we be left alone? Please?”

There was no answer but fading footsteps.

“You know why we’re doing this, Jacqueline.”

“I do. But is a ‘what if’ boogeyman worth a child’s life? Much less two?”

“Do dead worlds, Jacqueline? Is one kid worth that boogeyman? That small dragon is the only link we have to The Dragon. That is what we entered a Gate for. This is where it finally took us. What else were we to do?”

Jackie threw her hands aside, completely lost. “Something else?” she half-pleaded. “If we can’t think of another option did that give us permission to take this one?” she questioned. The Captain stared at her, an emotionless mask covering him once more. “It’s our war, not theirs.”

Her Captain huffed and stood up. “It’s everyone’s war. Heavens help me, Jacqueline, I agree with you. What we're doing is rotten and wrong. And we will see it to the end nonetheless.”

Jackie nodded. In another life, she’d have saluted and obeyed her orders. She used to be a good soldier. Until the man in front of her taught her not to be. “‘We don’t hurt anyone if we can. We don’t make ourselves the bad guys. We don’t take the easy road.’ You said that. Your words. We weren’t to do a soldier’s work, but far more.”

He glanced at her with an exhausted shake of his head. “Why can’t you just trust my decision, Jacqueline?”

She paused.

“I do trust you, sir. I trusted you when you said we’d not be invaders and killers. That we would do this the right way. The only way. When you refused to leave Anthony back despite the rules and carried him yourself. When you broke the rules to save people that we didn’t even know. When you dove in the storm after me. I trust you. What I don’t trust is the judgement of the person who took children and killed someone for trying to save them.”

He laid his palm on her shoulder. “You have to let this go, Jacqueline.”

She grimaced. “With all due respect, sir, you should have stopped it. You had a gun. Then I wouldn’t have to let go of anything.”

His lips formed a line holding back anger. “You’ve never led a team, Jacqueline..” With insulting casualness, he pointed at her, his other hand still on her shoulder. “You know what it means to be in charge? Making a choice and sticking to it even when you get second-guessed every step of the way. That’s what leadershave to do, and I do this so you don’t have to. Your job is to do as I say. What’s done is done. No more of this, you hear me?”

It was done, but this wasn’t the peace he thought it would be. “It’s not all done, though, is it?” Jackie reminded him. “What about the kids? Is this the only way or is it that the numbers scare us? Two children versus dead worlds, and it scares us shitless. You know it’s wrong, you admit it. I… I think so too, Captain. Is this the only course we have or it is just convenient?”

The Captain had turned his face away, his hand rubbing at his face. “That’s not fair, Jacqueline. It’s not fair to me, and it’s in no way fair to you.”

He balked. He drooped under a sheet of weariness. The Captain was gone and what was left at his place was a young boy playing games he wasn’t grown enough for.

The view was reversed and she saw herself, a young girl playing at games she wasn’t grown enough for. She stepped closer to him, reaching for his shoulder.

“No, that wasn’t fair to you, sir. I’m sorry. Just… Why don’t we make it a vote, sir? See if anyone else has ideas? Why don’t we all talk about what to do instead of dancing around and avoiding the issue as if it will get worked out on its own? I don’t think there’s a single person in the team who’s content with it. You, most of all.”

He shook his head, gently pulling her hand away. With each word he retreaded his presence and conviction. “No. No, I’m not letting someone else make this choice in my place because it’s easier. I’m sorry for taking up your time. Go get some rest before we move on.”

Jackie caught his arm over the elbow, stopping him from leaving. “What are we even going to learn from this child dragon? Even if he’s the same species doesn’t mean he’ll know the dragon we’re looking for! What are they going to do to him? Figure out what hurts him, what kills his kind?”

“Just questions, Jacqueline. I’m… For heaven’s sake, we won’t hurt a child! Maybe a few tests, but they can’t—they won’t!”

“Aren’t we hurting two of them already, sir?” she said softly.

“We’re leaving behind the small one with the bow on her hair. We’re not monsters.” He tried to pull away from her, but she wouldn’t let him. There had to be a way, perhaps not to make this right but to make it less wrong.

“Why not question them now?”

His smirk was a sad little thing. “It takes a bit more than a few hours to learn a language, Jacqueline. We will bring them both back when the big wigs are done, I swear. Even if we have to do it ourselves. I promise you, you and I are coming back here.”

This time he pulled harder and he slipped through her grasp. “Why are we not giving talking to them a chance first?” she yelled desperately.

He didn’t even slow down. “Not in a world of magic. We’re leaving as fast as we can.”

“Maybe the dragon learns fast. Maybe he has magic powers that can help. Maybe the other ones do. It’s magic, right? Who knows what they’re capable of. You said it.” She caught up with the Captain, not giving up.

The frustration built. Couldn’t he see he was walking right in her footsteps? He was seeing an incoming threat and his vision constrained to the one path he thought he had to take. To take the shot, to… She took the shot herself, and what had that made of her?

“If you spent any time with them you’d have seen how he follows everyone’s lips!” she called out, brimming with self-loathing and unsure if she was truly talking to him or herself. “I swear, he can tell what we’re saying. We could at least figure out, all of us together, if it’s worth it to—”

The Captain stopped in his tracks. His arm was on her, the tips of his stretched fingers touching her shoulder. “He does what?” he asked, his ancient eyes wide.

The Captain clapped as he walked into the centre of their camp. He jumped on a dirt mound that put him higher and called out loud. “Everyone, gather round. There are changes in the plan.”

If anyone wondered why their Captain spoke so strangely articulated and slow, they didn’t question aloud. They saw his hand pass across his chest, momentarily performing a sign—a loose “gun hand” with the pinkie lazily pulled out— and then another.

Silence

Follow

Jackie stood a bit outside the circle that had formed, minus William and Minny who stood by the prisoners. Jackie’s back rested against an old grey trunk, her height similarly increased by a large root that rose like a wave out of the ground. She was high enough and at the right angle. Anyone looking at her would see her watching the Captain.

“I know we all thought we were going to have an easier path ahead, now that the majority of the monstrosities seem to be behind us. Unfortunately, we were wrong. The inhabitants of this place know where we are. They are coming to save our g—the prisoners,” the Captain announced. Brows furled questioningly, but everyone kept quiet. “We will need to move faster.”

The Captain’s eyes met hers. She slowly turned her head to the left by a hair’s breadth and then to the right.

She saw his Adam's apple convulsing up and down. The proof of his discomfort was a cool kiss on a burn wound. He still was her Captain.

“We can not keep our prisoners with us. They slow us down. We can not let them tell anyone where we are heading. Sergeant!” the Captain called.

Sergeant Darry, standing easily above everyone else, stood at attention as sharp as a cadet fresh out of boot camp. “Sir!”

“Kill the white one and the girl child. We are only taking the dragon.”

Jackie closed her eyes, but the sight had left its imprint. She’d never forget the terror she saw in the child’s eyes. They stood on the other side of the shimmering coals, illuminated in pale red hues. The small dragon had turned to his compatriots who hadn’t been able to understand what was to happen to them.

So much for the chances of dragons being inherently evil. No such escape for their conscience. His trembling lips broke Jackie’s heart. He was just a kid. Just a little kid.

Jackie nodded. She heard the rousing commotion cut short as the Captain cancelled his orders. She strode forward and pushed herself in front of her gathered teammates. Whatever happened next, she was partly responsible.

“Gotcha, little dragon,” the Captain said as he crouched to the child’s level. “Let’s talk, okay?”

The dragon looked around, taking in the small crowd of armed men and women encircling them. The Captain remained smiling and a non-threatening distance away, yet the dragon looked back at him with undisguised fear and distrust.

Another gesture, and William and Minny herded away the quadruped prisoners behind them, leaving the child dragon to face the Captain on his own. The dragon panicked. The Captain grabbed him, ordering the prisoners to remain but no closer than they were.

He waited for the child to calm down, pretending to be interested in something to his left and allowing the kid time to wipe its face and stop sniffling.

Anthony offered his canteen and an old, threadbare handkerchief. The dragon made use of both, and returned them with a word in his own language. After a moment’s hesitation, he spoke again.

“Thank,” he said to the Captain in front of him.

The Captain talked slowly and enunciated each word carefully. “You don’t have to fear.”

The little dragon’s eyes narrowed. He stood up straighter. “F-Fear no,” he said, the tremble almost imperceptible.

The white adult shouted unintelligible words. The dragon spoke a few words at her and exchanged gestures that intrigued Jackie. How strange his mannerisms were; nothing like you’d expect from quadruped races to evolve. She found that exaggerated shrug especially... boyishly cute.

“Good. We’re not going to hurt you. Hurt no. Pain no. Understand?”

The dragon glanced at the white adult and the female child at her side that watched through the legs of the men keeping an eye on them.

The Captain snapped his fingers. “No. No hurt. Not them, not you. Understand? No pain. Safe. Forever. All time. Safe. Okay?”

The dragon nodded hesitantly.

The Captain kept his smile on. “You know a few words, at least. We can work with that.” He examined the two other prisoners, rubbing at his lips. “Why do you know our language and they don’t?” He pointed at his own lips when the child frowned. “Talk. You speak. They don’t. They no speak,” he clarified, pointing back at the quadrupeds.

The dragon’s eyes flared with defiance. “Father.”

He spoke the word proudly. He straightened his shoulders as he said it.

The answer slapped the smile from the Captain’s face.

“Father speak. Father…” the little dragon hesitated for a few moments before pantomiming writing something on the air and then reading a book.

“Who is… Father?”

The dragon seemed to be thinking. He pointed high, straight at sergeant Darry’s head so far above himself. “Father big more. More, more.”

“And is father… here?”

The child nodded. “Father help.” The dragon’s claw pointed at himself then the other two. “Free, Father you leave. No free, Father you hurt,” he said and pointed at the Captain. The child paused as the Captain rose and backed away from him with shaking steps, a hand over his mouth. The kid smiled proudly. “Father fear you no. You good fear father. ”

“Sweet baby Jesus…” Sergeant Darry gasped, his dark skin turned ashen. He addressed the Captain. “It can’t be what it sounds like, right?”

Jackie understood why the usually unflappable sergeant reacted this way. If the child was saying the truth, they had an actual, very big, adult dragon coming after them. God knew if bullets would even slow him down if they were as big as in myths—

Oh.

Oh shit. Oh crap. Sweet Jesus and Mary in Heaven, have mercy on us. That wasn’t what scared the sergeant

The little dragon spoke their language. His father had taught him their language. How would a dragon know the language of a world that wasn’t theirs—

“Break camp! This is now an Ender scenario!” The Captain panicked. “Gather your gear, leave behind everything that will slow you. Burn it and bury it. We leave no trace of who we are or where we’re from. We’re gunning for the Gate and we don’t stop for nothing until we get there! And get your safeties off! Anything or anyone that tries to stop us is killed on sight! Don’t conserve, just shoot! Move, people! I want us running in less than fifteen minutes. Go, go, go!”

“What about them, sir?” Sergeant Darry asked as men scrambled about.

Jackie had bent down to pick apart her own backpack. She hurriedly swivelled around. The Captain held his hand over the holster of his pistol. Sweat had broken on his face, and fear had nested in the eyes jumping from adult prisoner to adolescent. He locked eyes with the huge eyes of the little girl with the bow.

He gripped the holster.

The white unicorn-like alien sprang forward, dodging William and even outdoing Miny’s reflexes. She bobbed and weaved around the sergeant and threw herself forward, her no-longer innocent-looking horn leading the way towards the Captain, snarling in desperate determination.

Jackie slammed the butt of her rifle into her face, bringing the alien down. A thin rivulet of blood peeked out of the new contusion behind her horn.

Jackie realized she had been holding her breath. She let it out in a tremble. Victor lowered his own gun. Liam held his at a half-ready position.

Her knees felt just about ready to give up.

“For fuck’s sake!” William growled as he reached the alien’s side at her feet. “Can we stop breaking her skull for a minute?”

“Victor, Liam.” Sergeant Darry’s right hand was raised in a placating gesture. “Put your guns away, both of you. It’s over. Jackie, you holding on, girl?”

“I didn’t shoot her, sir,” Jackie said in relief, licking her dry lips. She dropped her rifle, letting the 2-point sling catch it and shook the adrenaline out of her shaking hands.

“Cálmate, chica, it was charging at the boss,” Victor nonchalantly told Jackie. “No one would blame you if you did.”

“And you think that’s all the excuse I need, huh,” Jackie hissed.

The Captain stepped in between them. His calm features turned from Jackie to Victor. “She’s a little over one meter tall at the shoulder. I think I could have taken her."

Victor shrugged. “Por si las moscas, Capitán.”

The Captain’s left eye twitched, then his voice dripped with honey. “Thank you, Victor. But loyalty to me or the team shouldn’t blind us, not to this point where we excuse overkill against innocent people.” He patted Victor on the back and moved out from between them.

“Ship has long sailed, amigo,” Victor mumbled.

“How is she?” the Captain asked William who was daintily examining the adult’s skull.

“How am I supposed to know?” William frowned. “Do you know how much damage their brains can take before they develop a life-threatening edema? A clot? Because I don’t! That’s the second time we’ve tried to pop her head open, for God’s sake!”

“William. Take a breath.” The Captain knelt next to the broad man, and unseen from their prisoners he breathed: “The kid can hear you.”

William did as the Captain urged, then faked a cheerier tone. “She’s going to be fine. Okay. Not hurt!” He dropped the cheer when he lowered his voice. "She lost consciousness and she just threw up. She’s nauseous. These are not healthy signs, alien brains or not.”

“Can she walk?”

“Yes. And so can a man shot in the gut. It’s not a good idea to do so either way.”

“Then carry her.”

“I—” William shook his head fiercely. “I don’t know if we can!”

The Captain’s features were firm. “Then we’ll try. We’ll carry all of them. Give the little girl to Mark, and Victor can carry the dragon. You can carry her and watch how she’s doing.”

“... I would like to stay behind, sir. She should be given care by someone who knows what to do with her, not me. I can take her to that mountain city, they’ll have doctors or hospitals, or I can head back where—”

“We can’t afford to let an Ender know more about us than what it might already know, William. If it gets you…” He let the silence hang heavy over their heads. “We take them with us,” he finally said, standing, “and no one stays behind.”

The Captain’s shoulders sagged. He addressed the sergeant next to them. “Ender or not, we don’t hurt anyone if we don’t have to. Rescind the shoot on sight order.”

The sergeant ran off, shouting instructions and barking as soon as he spotted the slightest sign of slacking. Their younger prisoners fought and struggled, unwilling to be tied up and saddled on the backs of the ones who would carry them, trying to reach the adult’s side instead.

Jackie pulled up her backpack, trying to ignore her trembling. The backpack sagged limply, almost weightless. She had thrown off everything apart from ammo, water, a couple of flares, the almost empty personal medkit, and the few working gun part replacements.

She couldn’t believe no one had reprimanded her or smacked her yet. That she had been forgotten in this whole mess. She rubbed her temple, her skull throbbing. Nevermind. Perhaps it wasn’t so unbelievable. They were so fucking close everyone had to be sporting the mother of all migraines.

The little dragon had gone berserk. He kept breathing out gouts of flames, and there was no stopping him. Anything they tried to block his mouth with he either bit through or melted. Whoever walked behind Victor would have to make sure they kept some distance or they’d end up with serious burns.

She hoped the mostly-naked forest was dense enough to stop anyone from noticing the tongues of flame.

The sun.

The sun that had risen less than an hour ago vanished in an instant, replaced by a crescent moon that soared high in the sky.

This wasn’t possible. This couldn’t be possible!

Five and above is where true magic lies.

Jackie crossed herself. She wasn’t the only one.

“Captain… this can’t be about us, can it?” Mark’s question pulled them out of their shock and in the grim reality they faced.

Jackie looked to the Captain. Almost everyone else was still looking upwards and arguing to explain the unexplainable as some kind of mass illusion, or pointing their weapons to all directions in the newborn darkness in anticipation of an army of fire-breathing demons to come down on them.

She doubted anyone else apart from her and sergeant Darry noticed the Captain take a second to glare daggers at the grinning dragon.

No. Surely, this wasn’t done on purpose. They couldn’t move the planet for three people.

No. They were… their villages were of wood and stone. They flew and moved things by magic, but they were small. It couldn’t be the horse-like people. That left the Dragon. Did he really possess that kind of… of sheer power? But why…

Why help them hide better?

“Set up a vanguard and a rearguard," the Captain ordered. "Main force surrounds the prisoners. I want the column spread. If this little dragon’s breath is a portent of what’s to come then I don’t want us bunched up. If something attacks the center, the vanguard and rearguard will perform a pincer as it retreats. We have to slow down as long as this,” he pointed at the sky, “is happening. But if it isn’t for us… this might be our lucky break.”

“What’s the protocol if the front or back gets attacked?” Curry asked.

“There might be an Ender. The rear and front are expendable. Don’t get taken alive.” The Captain huffed. “How many radios are still working?”

“Five, but we only have four batteries left intact.” Sergeant Darry raised one of them on display.

“Give me one, and you take the other. Vanguard and rearguard take one each.”

The shock of what happened to the sky was soon delegated to a tertiary concern. Choosing who would be in what group took precedence. The orders were everything. What was the movement of the planet compared to an entity that had killed billions and was coming for you?

They started moving again. Jackie watched the main force move ahead as she was left behind.

Ruthus and her were the rearguard.

The moon shone barely on them, its light cold.

Not everyone would go home if the Captain could help it. That was the plan, after all. She wondered if she could... if she was given the chance… What would she choose to do when they were at the Gate? If she had a chance to grab one of them and split?

“Any chance you want to start calling me Blade?” Ruthus grinned hopefully.

The moonlight shivered among skeletal branches, casting shadows that piled on one another and formed umbral mounds that naked eyes couldn’t pierce. With each step the shadows shifted, following along and skirting to a different trunk, a different thicket, a different rise and decline.

It had been a couple of hours since the sun set shortly after it rose. The surge of adrenaline had long faded away. The lack of sleep was getting to Jackie, but not as much as the droning pain of the Gates. Every increasing throb in her head was another step that would take them closer to home, the dwindling distance trumping the chemicals in their system.

There was movement in front of her and she brought her rifle up. Ruthus did as well, a hint slower than what Jackie would have expected him to. The pain was getting to him as well.

As sergeant Darry’s tall form approached and became visible, Ruthus and Jackie kept their rifles up.

“Four,” Ruthus called out.

“Six,” the sergeant responded, giving them back the number doubled minus his number in the group. It always seemed a tad too over-the-top measure, but not anymore.

Five and above is where true magic lies.

The suggestion that there was need for such measure, and even more than the team already had it established before this, freaked her out if she thought over it too much.

“All’s well back here?” the sergeant asked.

“Nothing as much as a shaken leaf, sir,” Ruthus answered along with a quick salute. “Not that there’s enough leaves to shake. No changes since the last check-in. Is there something wrong with the radio?”

“No issues, count our blessings. I’m only checking on you in person. Seeing how you’re holding up.”

“Still going strong, sir,” Jackie reported. “We’ve set trip-ups every fifty meters. Set a fake trail of twenty meters every two hundred. Rework our follow vector—”

“—by thirty degrees every five minutes. Every trick in the book.” He frowned despite his words as he looked them up and down, but said nothing of it and marched along with them. “The Captain doesn’t want you boys—and girls—to relax yet, but this dark boogie-boogie might have had nothing to do with us. Standard practice would have been to assault while under shock and awe and the sudden darkness. If it was for us, assuming it’s not a natural event, they missed their window. Still, keep alert. Just because it’s not for us doesn’t mean something else might not try to use it to its advantage. I’ve had enough spider monsters and rock crocodiles for the rest of my life a week ago.”

For a while it was silence as always, keeping vigil and waiting for the next check-in. But of course, the sergeant didn’t choose to linger after checking on them without purpose.

“Could you give us some space, Ruthus?”

“Blade.”

“Give us some space, Ruthus.”

The thick-built man nodded in resignation, obediently moving four meters to the side. Sergeant Darry shuffled closer, almost whispering in Jackie’s ear.

“You put a fire under the Captain’s arse,” he casually said. Jackie stumbled for an answer for a second, her brain screaming to know what exactly was she thinking with, only to calm when she spotted the sergeant’s teeth shine white and bright through his wide smile.

“I’m sorry for disappointing you, sergeant.”

“It’s not what you said,'' sergeant Darry assured her, shaking his hand as if to scare a fly. “It’s when you said it. Destroying the team’s leadership and chain of command isn’t an activity you should entertain in the goddamn, fucking field, Jackie. What the fuck were you thinking?” His dark lips had pulled up, showing his teeth.

Jackie winced. “Lots of things, sir. Not… not this, though. I didn’t mean to… I’m sorry,” she admitted. Her stomach churned. A whiff of bile rose at her nose, and she burped in disgust. As soon as it did, the subtle but telling smell was gone.

“Well, thanks to you, now I have to juggle all the balls you dropped my way like a court jester.” Sergeant Darry dragged the words out but they came faster and harsher as he kept on. “Forget all the fires you lit among the others that we didn’t need. You know what the Captain’s been saying, Jackie? What you caused? What he’s thinking? He wants to recommend you for team captaincy, you absolute ninnyhammer!”

They walked in silence for a few seconds. Jackie spotted a bird jumping in flight from among some bushes and stopped her rifle from coming all the way up for it.

She cleared her throat. “That’s a joke, right?”

“Do I look like a stand-up comic to ya, girlie? This is serious. He’s off to getting himself locked up in a little cell till his brain melts through his ears.”

“Locked—How the hell do recommendations work?” Jackie wheezed.

“You point at someone good, write down your points, and recommend them. The crucial point that our Captain doesn’t want to recognize is how crazy his reasoning will sound.”

“It is crazy! I’m greener than a baby’s first crap compared to almost everyone else here, and I also… you know.”

“Nice way of putting it.” The sergeant flashed a short-lived—yet dead—smile. “But the Captain says ‘we’ve forgotten that when the Templar Knights started out they were protecting people on the road to Jerusalem. Too much sword and not enough shield’. He might be right, but that doesn’t make you anywhere near a decent choice.”

“I… I know I’m not.”

“No, you aren’t. You think it’s because you don’t have the skills or experience. Yet even if you do get them, even if you get all the experience in the world, you’ll still make a lousy team captain. Do you know why that is, Jackie?”

“Because I’m the type to choose to destroy leadership mid-mission?”

The sergeant’s disappointment deflated, leaving traces of pity. He rubbed at his eyes. “I get what the Captain’s going for, but the powers-that-be back home… The times of trusting a long winded road because you believed God and righteousness were on your side are gone. Progress is the new god. What is demanded is immediate action, and answers that can be used; steps forward. What good is faith in your men if they don’t give you results? And if one of them is babbling moral nonsense that’s unfit to the grander mission, who’s to say immortality hasn’t driven them crazy? That dementia isn’t settling in? Best to get rid of them. Results, Jackie. Rational decisions. Never take too many risks, never do something just because it’s right if it doesn’t have benefits, never put your trust in someone over the immediate—”

“Collateral damage to an efficient operation. What is the life of one or four people in the grand scheme of things?” Jackie filled in with a pout of her own.

“Not as nice a way of putting it, but correct. Right or not, it’s what is expected, demanded. We hide our brightest moments under the rug, but when the chips are down the swords must be drawn and the shields put down.” Sergeant Darry let out a weary sigh, rubbing the side of his face. Tiredness and worry had slumped over his face. “Maybe I’m just a cynic. Just promise me that when he sits you down to discuss this you will do everything you can to convince him not to go through with this stupid—”

A faint crackle came from his belt. The sergeant covered his left ear with his hand. “Speaking of which… This is Two. Rear guard is—”

He stopped as he glanced to his right. Ruthus was gone.