27

“Why didn’t you warn us about the yetis?” Rev asked, wasting no time on pleasantries.

Bunny visibly squirmed. Rev still wasn’t sure Bunny was the top dog here, but she was the one that showed up when the humans wanted to talk to the Po leader.

“We are extremely sorry for your losses. That is very distressing.”

Which didn’t answer the question.

“Why didn’t you tell us the yetis were dangerous,” he asked again.

Rev, Tomiko, Zybar, and a pale, quiet Njuguna were standing in front of Bunny, a Po they’d named Slow Loris, two more unnamed Po, and Pika. Njuguna was in shock, barely coherent. Rev had considered leaving her behind, but he thought the civilian side should be represented.

“This is distressing.”

You already said that, and this is a little more than distressing.

“We believed that the violent tendencies of the Zfthu had been circumvented,” Bunny said.

“What, because you bribed them with food?”

“Yes. And it has worked for seventeen of your years. There must have been something about your appearance that changed the situation.

You think so, Sherlock?

“Seventeen years?” Zybar asked. “What happened before that?”

He was as pale as Njuguna, but at least his wits hadn’t been affected by his injury.

Bunny made some of the grunting/huffing sounds that they now knew was the Po language. Slow Loris replied, and then Bunny addressed the humans.

“You know that we uplifted the Zfthu.”

“Like you did with the Sia.”

“Yes. Like the Siau. And as with them, there were issues as Zfthu found their footing.”

“Two cases of your meddling went bad? Doesn’t that tell you that playing god might be dangerous?” Tomiko asked.

“We only wished to help.”

“The law of unintended consequences,” Rev said. “But the lieutenant’s question is still valid. What was the situation before the seventeen years?”

“First with the Siau, and more than a millennia later, with the Zfthu, the clients wished to break away from our guidance. And they accept the use of force to achieve their goals.”

“And you don’t?” Rev asked.

“We may not harm another life form.”

That shut the humans up for a moment until Rev asked, “You can’t hurt another being? What if they’re trying to kill you?”

“It does not matter what they’re attempting to do. We may not harm them.”

An image flashed into Rev’s mind. The Po who’d been running for the castle during the attack. Instead of bowling over the much smaller Zfthu in their way, they’d attempted to dodge around it. And that might very well have allowed the pursuers to kill them.

“We’ll come back to that. But you still haven’t told us what was going on before you started bribing the yetis.”

“Apologies. Your direct ways are difficult for us to emulate. But I will try.

“When the Zfthu decided they needed to break away, instead of just asking, they decided to use force to manage the breach. Not every Zfthu agreed with the violence. A small group of them, as well as our own ancestors, decided to flee together, and we ended up here on this planet.”

For the first time, Njuguna seemed to perk up.

“You’re not natives to this planet?” Rev asked.

“No. We are interlopers.”

“That makes sense now,” Njuguna mumbled.

“OK, you’ve got pacifists here all kumbaya. What happened today didn’t look too peaceful.”

“Unfortunately, for reasons we still don’t fully understand, that regard for peace changed. The Zfthu here on the planet began to kill our people.”

“And you couldn’t fight back to protect yourself, right? Because you don’t believe in killing others.”

Rev had intended to be sarcastic in saying that, but there was a little bit of a real question there.

“Correct,” Bunny said.

Rev looked at Pika, who said, “That is the truth.”

“So, then what?”

“We tried to reason with them, but they wouldn’t listen.”

“Children never listen,” Tomiko said. “You don’t know that?”

“We experienced that with the Siau. But we were hoping that it would be different with the Zfthu.”

Tomiko just grunted.

“What was the damage?” Rev asked.

“I apologize, but I don’t understand the usage of the terms you just said in the context of the previous comments,” Bunny said.

“The damage. You said your people were killed. How many?”

“Before the violence, there were 20,414 of us on the planet.”

“And now?” Rev persisted.

“The last survivors managed to flee to this area and erect what you call the castle before the Zfthu could arrive. We are the only Po on the planet. Possibly the only ones anywhere.”

That was a kick in the guts.

They’re the last of their kind?

It shouldn’t change things, but it did. Rev was suddenly a tiny bit more generous in his feelings toward them.

“And how many of you are there?”

“With the losses we suffered today, we number one thousand, two hundred and sixteen.”

“Shit,” Tomiko whispered.

“And that’s all of you, not just who’re in the castle?” Rev asked.

“We believe we’re the last of us in the universe.”

“How many of the yetis are there?” Zybar asked.

“We don’t know for sure. But we estimate there are more than sixty thousand. They are a fecund race.”

“You can probably knock about two thousand off that number,” Tomiko said with a smirk.

“Understood, and we thank you for that.”

“Wait a minute. You’re thanking us?” Rev asked. “What about all that thou shall not kill stuff?”

“We cannot kill. But we would never attempt to impose our moral standards upon anyone else.”

“That’s bullshit,” Tomiko said. “You say killing is wrong, but you’ve got no problem with us mowing down the yetis like vermin? That makes no sense.”

“We’ve been around a long time. Maybe too long. But we’ve seen many species and many different ways of existing within this cosmos. For us, killing is something we just can’t do. Nor can we impose our beliefs on others. So, there is no judging, one way or the other, on how each species make its way.”

“Do you fault the lion predator, on your homeworld, for killing a wildebeest?” Slow Loris asked.

Where the heck are they finding out about Earth wildlife?

“So, are you calling us animals?” Tomiko asked, bristling.

A sudden and unwelcomed thought hit Rev.

“You didn’t invite us here so that we could be your enforcers, did you? Let the primitive humans do your dirty work?”

“No. No. I can assure you that isn’t the case. We did have an ulterior motive, though. We hoped that we could entice you to stay for a long period of time. Commerce and trade, with our help, would start, and your example would help show that peace brings prosperity for all.”

Rev stared at Bunny. He didn’t know if the Po lied. He suspected it, with Pika and the Zfthu FC. Just because they said they didn’t kill didn’t mean that was the truth. And even if it was, then that didn’t preclude them from lying about other things.

But he didn’t know them well enough to understand their tells.

This entire conversation had not gone as Rev had envisioned. He’d come into it with righteous indignation, sure that even with some Po casualties, they’d been somehow involved. Bunny’s revelations, however, put a different slant on things, and he wasn’t sure yet how he should take them.

Rev still had about a million questions about them, the Zfthu, even the Sia. But right now, he wanted to take a break and just digest everything.

He turned to the other humans and said, “Let’s table the rest of this until we can evaluate what we’ve just been told.” Then to Bunny, “Thank you for taking this meeting. We’d like to take a break for now, but hopefully, we can meet again soon.”

“Of course, Sergeant Major. We’re at your disposal.”

Pika started to follow them as the four started to leave. Rev waved her back. This was a discussion for humans only.

* * *

“More of them are gathering. You think they put out the word for reinforcements?” Rev asked.

“Come join the holy army to battle the off-world demons,” Tomiko said.

“If some alien killed a couple thousand of us, I might think they were demons, too.”

“And the lesson should be don’t fuck with demons.”

Rev and Tomiko were back at the battlements. Njuguna expressed exhaustion, which was just as well. She was totally ineffectual at the moment. And Zybar had been pushed to his physical limits, so he’d begged off.

With the landing craft gone, taking all of the dead and most of the most seriously wounded, the courtyard seemed bigger. Sailors and civilians settled into easy groups. Someone had opened packs of combat rats. The more lightly wounded seemed to be doing well. As with Rev, the Po-goo had hardened into a flexible, translucent plug, keeping their wounds closed.

Rev wasn’t going to keep them in the courtyard, but it would do for now.

At the moment, though, the two of them were looking out across the village, where there were far more Zfthu than before. It made sense that with the battle, word had gone out to call in reinforcements.

Bunny had said there were more than 60,000 of them out there. The castle was a pretty robust, high-tech structure. But could it stand up to a horde of Zfthu? It wouldn’t be the first time that higher tech was defeated by mass numbers of determined forces.

“Do you think they’re coming?” Tomiko asked.

“Yeah, I do.”

“So, what do we do? Back to the ship?”

“I’ll talk to Njuguna. But yeah. I think all the civilians need to extract.”

Tomiko just raised a single eyebrow.

“OK, Marines, too. But maybe not quite yet.”

“You getting soft for the dragons?”

“No. Maybe.”

Rev scowled. The smart thing to do was to get all humans off the planet. Let the two races battle it out. And if the Po can’t bring themselves to kill, well, survival of the fittest.

They stared out over the view. The sun was getting lower, and the sky was turning all sorts of oranges and blues.

“This really is a pretty place, Rev.”

“Yep. It’s a shame that it’s gonna be the site of a war.”

“I think the gennies had it right, finding a home. If it weren’t for the dragons and yetis, this would be perfect.”

“Maybe.”

“Rev. Maybe? Do you like living in that tin can up there?”

He sniffed, then said, “No. And if I can’t be on Safe Harbor when the rot claims me, I’d like to have my feet on the ground. This would be as good a place as any, if you ignore all the death and destruction, that is.”

“What about the other side of the planet? Some uninhabited area.”

“Right. We’ll build a cottage with a white picket fence. Maybe we can contact the gennies and ask them to send us over some dog embryos, and we can thaw them out.”

“Sounds nice to me.”

“Are you getting soft on me, Miko? You, the warrior queen, being domestic?”

She didn’t change her expression but just stared out into the distance.

Neither spoke for a few moments until Tomiko surprised Rev with, “I’m pregnant.”

He slowly pivoted his head to her. “You’re what?”

“I’m pregnant. Preggie. Bun in the oven.”

“And you came down in the QRF?” he asked, anger creeping into his voice.

“Don’t get your panties in a twist, Rev. I’m only at four weeks.”

“But still—”

“I’m fine. The baby’s fine. Everything’s fine.”

She didn’t sound like she was fine, while Rev could feel the sparks of joy flicker into a full flame.

Rev pulled her into his embrace, and he could feel tears soak through his utility top.

“What’s the matter, Miko? This is great news. I’m happy.”

“I said four weeks. Do the math.”

“What do you mean? Four weeks. Thirty-two more to go. Eight months . . .”

Doc Rima had given him maybe six more months. It could be longer. It could be shorter. But however long he had, he probably wouldn’t see his new son or daughter.

The joy at her words evaporated.

“It’s OK, Miko. You’ve got Kat. You’ve got Kelly. You can handle it,” he said, stroking the top of her head.

“But they’re not you!” she wailed, her words muffled into his shoulder.

“No, they’re not.”

They stood there, hugging each other. This was still a combat zone, though, and Rev’s Marine side rotated his position slightly so that he could watch the village. No one had fired at them yet, but clinging to each other, they had to be a tempting target.

Neither said a word. For the moment, all they needed was to hold each other.

Movement to the left of the octagon caught his eye. Rev thought it must be the Zfthu picking up their dead. He was about to dismiss it until he realized it was a human shape, but something was off. From the uniform, it looked like a prone sailor, but floating over the ground.

Until whoever it was climbed higher, exposing more of—

“Miko!” Rev shouted as he pushed her away.

“What?”

The Zfthu noticed, too. And the sight must have been too much for them. Several started to fire their crossbows.

“Suppress that fire!” he told Tomiko as he bolted for the stairs.

He was barely aware of the chatter of Tomiko’s twenty as he ran across the courtyard.

“Open the gate!”

He had to yell that three times before it opened. Bewildered Marines and sailors wondered what was happening as Rev ran by.

“First team!” Kelly shouted. “Go with the Sergeant Major.”

But Rev was out the gate, his M-51 unslung and ready as he focused on the figure running at him.

“Punch!”

His battle buddy was running up the slope. Over his shoulders was the body of a sailor, which was what Rev had first seen.

“I’m coming. Turn back, Rev!”

But Rev wasn’t stopping. He reached Punch about ninety meters from the gate. He spun around between Punch and the village, his rifle ready to engage.

But up on the battlement, Tomiko had done her job. The incoming had ceased.

First Team reached them fifty meters out, and they formed a phalanx around the three. Within ten seconds, they were through the gate, which slammed shut behind them.

Hands reached up to grab the sailor, who Rev saw was badly wounded but very much alive.

“Get Pika for him,” he ordered before he turned to Punch and enveloped his friend in a hug.

“Where the hell have you been?”

“Trying to keep alive, then I found Petty Officer Torry, so I—”

“Later, Punch. Later. Right now, I’m just glad you made it!”

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