A red glow spread beneath the keel of the silver craft as it scratched the atmosphere above Frobe. Though the private ship was a sliver of flame, stealth was unnecessary. Gash visited a blind world. No ear heard Gash’s low rumble. Frobe was devoid of senses.
Within the shuddering craft, the lone human advisor gripped the arms of the acceleration seat and felt Frobe’s millstone of gravity settle on his chest, making his breathing labored. Thad Jaron nervously bit a lip as the mission neared its climax, and thought, Could we capture the alien pressers and return to Earth? Thad could only imagine the worst in dealing with the pressers.
Thad’s bony frame rattled within the too-large gravity suit. A few strands of black hair slid across his brow, fleeing his gleaming pate. As his right eye blinked at the poking hair, another pitch of the ship sent his teeth through his lower lip. Thad yelped in pain.
“Human draws first blood,” the oot’s translator carried digital sarcasm, “on himself.”
The metal-on-stone grinding laugh of the other oot mercenaries echoed within the eight-meter box of the cargo bay. Thad twisted in his seat to look at Fengor Ool, the oot warlord and mercenary captain. Four sulfurous slits glared at him from within the bony, black carapace of natural armor. Beneath the eyes, twelve white fangs extended past the sharp, serrated edge of the lower jaw. Red remnants of the hunter’s last meal had dried on two blackened tusks.
“I don’t want blood spilled on this mission.” Thad shuddered as the captain’s bright eyes darkened in ootish anger. The human shivered under the unblinking stare. Thad saw the oot fan his mane of fibrous quills about the head. “Never rub an oot the wrong way” was the popular saying.
“Blood of presser captives… oot will avoid it,” Fengor Ool lifted his upper lateral limb to point back to the four squat acceleration couches in the compartment’s rear. “Human picks four pressers to be safe. We oot capture. No harm to four. The rest are game for us.”
Thad noticed the oot was standing on the rolling deck, and none of the eight limbs, interior or lateral, held the metal tie-downs. The multiple Earth gravities of reentry barely swayed the three-hundred-kilogram monster. The sudden curiosity triggered Faction, Thad’s TobrNet implant. An anatomical drawing floated in Thad’s mind and the data flowed into understanding. With a long blink to shut out the fearsome image of Fengor Ool, Thad studied the image. The oot counterpart of a human semicircular canal had its own cardiac muscle that kept the fluids constantly circulating under high pressure. It took more than the disorienting motion of reentry to unbalance an oot.
“You know the pressers hidden talent.” Thad’s worries returned as the ride smoothed. “An entire army could await us. You have only four oot.”
“Three minutes until landing.” Faction’s voice in Thad’s mind predicted his budding thought.
“Oot indestructible,” Fengor Ool’s lower left interior limb brought up a plasma rifle while the lower right lateral struck hard against its chest carapace. The Pyros flame thrower nestled in the tight grip of the companion limb on the right gained a dent from the gesture. “Pressers have no metal. Stone is a poor match.”
“Never bring a rock to a plasma fight.” Faction hoped the dry comment would help his host’s mood.
Nearly smiling, Thad settled back to recall documentaries of oot soldiers. “That one,” his phantom hand reached for a prominent icon within Faction’s catalog. Closing his eyes to concentrate on the scene fully, Thad let the vision spring to life.
An oot was running over a scarred landscape: a battlefield littered with charred bodies and broken machines. The oot’s rear limbs cast the black body ten meters before the upper limbs dug into the ground to maintain breakneck speed. With a mighty bound, the oot topped a low wall and fell to the soft earth in the shadows. Without pause, the oot unfolded the layers of armor on its back, tucked in its head and limbs, and snapped the shell into a sealed black egg. In fewer than two seconds, the blinding flash and tower of flame that was a helio-nuclear blast ended the recording. Faction switched viewpoints to a satellite recon view. Even from high above, the fighter’s carapace was smoking from the blast. He ran for his troop transport with no visible sign of injury. Thad’s implant spoke to his particular curiosities:
“That oot completed the mission and survived radiation levels fatal to all known great races except the oot.” Faction highlighted the scale of radiation levels. “Extreme resistance to radiation is possible with special cellular shielding and—”
Thad opened his eyes to end Faction‘s report. Fengor Ool and his oot warriors were the best bet against the damnable pressers. “We must go over our strategy prior to landing.”
The four oot crowded by the airlock door. Thad’s acceleration seat tilted forward; his bulky boots slapped the floor to gain a purchase. Under gravity more than twice that of Earth, the man over-corrected his motion in the gravity suit, and he fell back onto the front of the chair. Sliding abruptly from the edge, he rattled heavily onto the floor.
“Our leader,” the translator couldn’t do justice repeating the oot’s growl. Its lower right lateral limb clamped on the shoulder of the human’s gravity suit. “Forsake the position of death.”
“Never rest in battle,” the implant explained the translator’s idiom. Thad looked directly into Fengor Ool’s center armor plate, adorned with comets of omen, the comet pattern on Ootare at the moment of an oot’s birth. The yellow jewel called Yarjar in the center of the armor represented Ootare itself, the homeworld that had forged the fearsome fighters.
“Nearly half of the oot who try to earn the yellow jewel, Yarjar, fail and die in the attempt.” Faction floated from within the darkened corner of his mind. “To become an oot warlord, one must hold Yarjar. The comets of omen form the basis of oot religion and prophecy. Fengor Ool’s pattern of comets is particularly favorable, according to the clergy of his nesting grounds.”
“We will land beyond the—” Thad began and halted. The four oot slapped their upper lateral limbs over their stubby ear buds. Quills bristled in annoyance. “What are you doing? I know you can still hear me because your translators lead directly to your auditory nerve clusters.”
“Oot must have sensory truth.” Fengor Ool kept his claws clenched over his head. “A commander must be one with us.”
“You must be able to touch and smell them to command them,” Faction’s thought sensation returned. “You must follow this tradition of oot leadership. The oot only take orders from field commanders who fight.”
Thad slid both gloves from his hands and set them on the edge of the seat. Inhaling deeply, he popped the filters from his nose and the mask from his mouth. Imagining the stench that would meet this next breath, he eyed the massive oot with an imperious stare… and inhaled once more.
Thad fell to the deck, vomiting violently. On six spindly legs, the maintenance robot scurried from its niche. A telescoping arm attacked Thad’s last meal as he christened more of the ribbed, gray floor.
“Assassinate the human,” the oot nearest Fengor Ool grated to his superior. “Assume command.”
“The oldest oot military tradition for unfit commanders,” the implant’s mental voice was grave. “Get to your feet quickly. Grasp the impaling horn near the Yarjar jewel. Stare at the kill point beneath the extension of the chin. Threaten the oot.”
“I’m no military man,” Thad whined inside his mind.
“The oot kill by dismembering prey.” Faction spurred the man’s adrenal glands as it spoke. “Act now!”
Seeing Fengor Ool’s plasma rifle come to the ready, Thad set his teeth against the gagging stench and wrenched his body upright. His bare hands took the barrel of the impaling horn, and he felt the natural acidity of the oot’s carapace sear both tender palms. Staring at the only sensitive point on the oot, he yelled, “Obey me or… or…”
“Use a physical threat.” Faction gave him a mental shake by increasing the simulated volume.
“I will cast your eyes to my dog,” Thad blurted with a strength he didn’t feel. The oot captain froze, and Thad felt cold sweat run down the curve of his back. Tears dropped from his eyes as wisps of smoke curled around his burning hands.
“Excellent!” Thad barely heard Faction through the noise of his pain. “The oot have heard the Earth hunters use dogs as companions!”
To his surprise, Fengor Ool’s rifle fell back to its resting position in the crook of the interior limb. “I hear the human’s words. BlueGreen power is great. Human has truth of scent and touch.”
“BlueGreen is the oot term for Earth.” Faction’s voice was back to normal translation volume. “Release the oot and give your orders. Before your hands become infected, apply the salve in the pocket of your right arm.”
“We will land in a remote region of Frobe, at least five kilometers from the nearest presser settlement.” Thad pushed away from the oot before slapping at the release on the medical pouch. The ointment spread over one palm, and Thad thankfully rubbed his burning hands together. “We will use the rocky terrain for cover and slip into the presser village in the afternoon’s light. I’ll direct the capture of four pressers. You will carry the captives back to this ship and guard them vigilantly until we reach Earth… BlueGreen.”
“Payment…” The last oot’s claws flexed on all limbs. “Payment…”
“Mercenaries need the promise of fortune,” Faction reminded Thad. “They stay loyal to the wealth alone.”
“The weapons you crave will be yours.” The man’s voice wavered as the throbbing in his hands faded. Thad felt Faction inflate the panels in the suit’s torso to stand tall in the high gravity. “This is a generous payment for the capture of four stone-age aliens.”
“Yes!” The oot drooled at the thought; splatters of saliva dripped from long incisors and gnawed at the deck. As Thad jumped back from the caustic spill, the robot scrambled to spray a neutralizing cleanser and hop aside to miss being scarred by fresh streams of acid.
Faction returned instantly. “The oot salivate in response to powerful desires, much as humans do. They value the success of the hunt, and these weapons will make them feared fighters in Ootare.”
As if he heard the human implant’s virtual voice, Fengor Ool stepped back and licked his teeth with the thick, red band of muscle that was the oot tongue.
“Landing procedure complete,” the implant advised. “Visible perimeter is clear. Atmosphere is acceptable as predicted. Cycling airlock.”
The four oot heard the whistle of air from the outer lock and crouched to fit through the human-sized port. With the first ray of light, Fengor Ool collapsed his armor plates, smoothed his quills, and squeezed through the slowly expanding opening. The remaining three oot fighters pounded down the outer walkway as soon as the door locked in the open position. With the deck rocking from the rhythm and weight of the oot charge, Thad fought to keep his balance in a stiff-legged walk.
The world beyond the airlock was a plain of organic desolation: pure nature with no technology. Golden weed spread past Gash and flowed to the base of the valley. The rocky grade above the craft gradually choked out the grasses until only the stony ground remained.
The oot sprinted off, carving a weaving path through the meter-high grass. Reaching full speed, they leaped in long strides. The grass looked as if a four-toed giant had paced about Gash.
As the oot traced the distant perimeter of the ship, Thad held his breath. There was no presser army, no sudden attacks, no hail of stones, knives, or clubs.
Thad finally took a gasp of the dry air as he realized the mission might succeed. Faction’s biometrics in his mind showed his pulse reduce to a rate of one hundred twenty beats per minute. Feeling the bite of panic recede, Thad looked up in the evening sky of Frobe. Low in the reddening horizon, the Frobe gateway’s two massive silver loops reflected the light from the opposing sun. Panic reached for him again as Thad imagined the telltale flash announcing another ship’s arrival. Perhaps a military probe, a manned cruiser or even the Triad flagship!
“Thad!” Faction suppressed the building thoughts.
Thad looked back at the oot as they rounded a ridge and hopped easily over the low rise. Frobe’s greater gravity did not restrict the oot. The added weight only seemed to exhilarate them.
“Faction, how far is our home?”
“This is the last world of the Livingston chain,” Faction began with the equivalent of a digital sigh. “There are nineteen wormpipe jumps back to Earth, two days of travel. Look at that bright star just above the east horizon. That is Polaris—humanity is more than halfway to reaching that star!”
Bounding away from his sprinting comrades, Fengor Ool returned to Gash’s landing ramp. Frobe’s yellow sun, full in the oot’s face, failed to reflect from the black of the oot’s natural armor.
“Oot own perimeter.” Fengor Ool’s translator was barely audible.
“Understood.” Thad looked out of the port. Faction, lock down the ship, he thought. The outer hatch slid shut but did not pressurize. We might need a hasty retreat to the ship. “We will open the portal fast once we have the pressers. Do you remember your access code?”
“It burns my mind.” Fengor Ool’s head dipped straight into his armor before lifting from hiding. It was the closest movement the oot had to the human nod.
Looking at the keypad on the outer door, Thad shook his head. Since the oot couldn’t use the genetic verifier that broke down pliant human DNA, Thad had installed an ancient keypad access system. If the decision had been up to Thad, the oot wouldn’t have a code. The boss saw it another way: Thad didn’t have to return. Nor did the oot. The pressers were the only priceless, non-negotiable goal.
“Faction, change the access code for the oot to match mine.” Thad shrugged at the thought before the implant echoed the answer.
“Darian Tobr has locked all oot codes,” Faction answered before his thought was complete. “You can’t be the sole carrier of ship access codes. Prediction mode determined the possibility of casualties. No single team member is critical to success.”
“I love you, too.” Thad chewed his lip again and winced at the swollen knot in his mouth. He turned to see the oot captain waiting, his eight limbs flexing deliberately: alien impatience. “We march to the west. There is a presser village five kilometers away. We will select our captives.”
With a low hiss, Fengor Ool called in the other oot. They formed a triangle around the captain, and Fengor Ool reached out to lift Thad into a sling formed by his four interior limbs.
“Our leader,” Fengor Ool’s translator picked up the undertone of the oot’s laughter, “commands us to advance west. Red Fellowship rises above our march. White Enemy fades among the horizon.”
“A traditional morale-booster,” Faction returned as the oot began a hopping march on long, exterior limbs. “Red Fellowship was a red comet near Ootare many years ago. It signaled the commencement of a successful war against the first human explorers on Ootare. White Enemy, a comet seen as a predictor of strength in battle, told of human weakness.”
The oot bounded to the rocky slope and crouched low to find stealth among the dagger-leafed plants. Though the terrain was difficult and the oot looked like ponderous insects, the group moved in silent haste. While being battered between the oot’s armored limbs, the man was thankful for the gravity suit that shielded him from the oot’s body acid.
“Comets don’t trust Frobe.” Fengor Ool’s voice was more a vibration than a sound.
“Why do you say that?” Thad whispered as he turned his head and nearly poked his nose on the sharp, impaling horn.
“No hiding places.” The upper limbs swung to encompass the landscape. “Where are nests for young? Niches for healing? Tree limbs of confusion for chase? Muddy springs for mating? The comets watch pressers and don’t trust them. The comets want to see all.”
“Faction, display a clip of an Ootare landscape.” Thad closed his eyes and strained to see the murky picture. Rains fell, and mists rose to blur features beyond twenty meters. Tangle trees, the cement of Ootare’s crust, wound together to form a wooden net above the ground. As the swirls of mud flowed beneath the rising trunks, a driving wind snapped lengths of vine among the motionless trees. Rock from the mantle of the planet, once disturbed by a comet strike, sank slowly as the tangle tree roots regrew.
“I doubt you could pick one out, but there are seven oot in this picture,” the implant highlighted a hulking shape in the lee of a crooked tree. Six other arrows identified areas with formless shadows. “The oot ambushed the troop carrier that landed at the edge of this swamp seconds after this clip. This picture was the last one from the craft.”
“Frobe is a battlefield, nothing else,” Fengor Ool continued. “One army is astride. One army feeds soil. No withdrawal—no hiding. Comets laugh at the wounded, for they will die.”
“Though ferocious battles are oot tradition,” Faction rushed to head off Thad’s questions, “the Ootare wars rarely result in complete victory or defeat. Battles are short, limb-to-limb melees that stop periodically so the captains can determine losses. If the struggle goes badly, the losing side can retreat to the trees and live. Open plains are dangerous in battle because the victorious side can press the advantage. There is no mystery about the outcome. Victors kill the wounded without the advantage of a retreat. Remember the human prophecy of the battle at Armageddon? Fengor Ool sees no retreat. Open spaces mean a complete victory or defeat to the oot warrior. There is no room for error.”
Thad watched the silent lope of the oot in front of Fengor Ool. It deftly bounded from rocky outcroppings to weedy patches, illustrating the captain’s worries about hiding places. One fact eluded the oot: the pressers knew this expedition was coming. They had all the advantages. The pressers could pick their own hand before dealing the cards!
“Korbec Oos sees beasts.” Fengor Ool lengthened his stride and caught the leading oot in two hops. “Cattle beasts.”
“Put me down.” Thad had to plant his legs immediately as the oot obeyed. One interior limb steadied the human in the high gravity.
From atop a rocky slope, Thad looked over the expanse of golden grass. Nestled in the bowl formed by a distant, gentle rise, a dozen pessimists munched at the tops of waving sprouts.
The pessimist was like the Earth llama, Thad decided, but it had shorter, prickly hair and, being a plains dweller, had a heavier, less athletic body. Unlike their Earth counterpart, two sharp horns jutted from a raised bone at the back of the skull. Several of the young beasts played a simple game of hide-and-seek in the tall grass while the parents grazed with the calm of their greater age and weight.
Faction reappeared within his mind. “Notice the various colors of fur on the pessimists: yellow, dark green, brown, gold, and two shades of red. As prey on Frobe, there is no advantage to matching the yellow color of the grass. Camouflage did not fool the top predator, the terradozer.”
One pessimist trotted nearer to Thad’s group, and he saw the unusual facial features of the long-necked adult. Heavy folds of skin drooped over what had been eyes. Nubs remained of the pessimist’s ears; the snout ended in a jaw of under-slung teeth. Small nostrils opened to either side. Shaking his head in disbelief, Thad still wondered how these blind, deaf and mute creatures had survived the millennia.
“And no sense of smell,” Thad muttered. “It has a completely atrophied olfactory system.”
“Prediction mode alert.” Faction’s voice suddenly reached maximum volume in his mind. “Imperative mission action.”
“What is it?” Thad’s training had prepared him for this. The pressers must be making their move.
“You must kill this herd of pessimists.” Faction boosted Thad’s adrenaline level again. “Tell the oot now!”
“Why?” Thad fought against the rising tide of emotion. The beat of his gravity-tired heart was a constant fist-fall on his chest. “They’re dumb herd beasts.”
“Mr. Jaron, you idiot.” Faction’s voice became the gravelly avalanche that was Darian Tobr’s bellow. His boss seemed to shake the very core of his brain with rough hands. “Pessimists attract the terradozer! The pressers avoid those giants, but we don’t want the oot battling one. Kill those pessimists immediately.”
“Yes, Mr. Tobr.” Thad knew the real Tobr was not directing this expedition from Earth. Still, Faction was recording every word of the simulated conversation, and there was no reason to disobey.
“Fengor Ool.” Thad motioned for the oot to bend closer and gagged again as the festering mouth dipped nearer. “Tobr has commanded us to kill these pessimists. Live pessimists will attract a terradozer—”
“No!” Faction’s late warning was simultaneous with the wall of oot bodies that suddenly surrounded the man. “Don’t mention—”
“Terradozer near?” Fengor Ool’s corrosive saliva dripped on Thad’s boots and steamed as it touched the mesh. “Kill terradozer?”
“The oot have heard about Frobe’s massive predator,” Faction reminded Thad of his training. “They think stalking and killing a terradozer is a great honor. Other oot will revere them. Don’t distract the oot. The pressers are your only target.”
Thad’s neck ached as he looked up at the three-meter oot captain. “Avoid the terradozers.”
The three oot soldiers swiveled their heads to their warlord.
“Oot desire is powerful.” Fengor Ool’s four interior limbs lifted to form a ring around the man. “Oot keep secret. Not tell fat man. Take good care of Thad-leader.”
“Return with your new weapons.” Thad didn’t wait for Faction’s prompt. He stood on his toes to glare at the oot. “Hunt the terradozer with your entire clan. You will be a legend and lead many brave oot.”
“Yes… more fame,” the head bobbed forcefully. The other oot broke the closed ranks and raced off to surround the unsuspecting pessimists. Fengor Ool retracted his interior limbs and crouched low to watch his warriors dash to the distant hills. When Korbec Oos was directly across from the main body of the herd, Fengor Ool dug his lower limbs into the dirt. “Attack order?”
Faction immediately presented a portrait of the oot body with the attack names labeling each limb.
“Lock, Grapple, Smite and Rend.” Thad pointed to the seven adult pessimists, then, to the playing offspring, “Cast and Rend. Remember, no Lance or Flame. BlueGreen can trace these human weapons.”
Fengor Ool growled into his comm to send the commands to the other oot. Thad nearly fell back among the rocks as the four mercenaries released a long, baying call.
“Faction, that sounds just like a hound’s bay.” He listened to Faction’s recorded call of a bloodhound. The softer, throatier version of the dog echoed in Thad’s mind.
Fengor Ool and his warriors struck the pessimists in unison. With a first bound to close the distance from the perimeter, Fengor Ool spread his lower lateral limbs, Lock and Grapple, to form a wide, four-meter span. The next lunge drove the oot’s impaling horn deep into the beast’s flank as the limbs snapped about around the victim in a deadly hug. Suddenly feeling the attacker’s weight, the pessimist reared back on hind legs, lifting the clawing oot from the ground. The upper right lateral limb called Smite swung in a quick arc and caved in the beast’s brain case. Pushing away from the toppling pessimist, Fengor Ool readied the upper left interior limb, a collection of blades called Rend, to slash at the unprotected throat.
Korbec Oos felled one adult before breaking away to use Cast: a handful of heavy carapace darts at the end of an upper lateral limb. A quick snap of Cast sent a blur of weapons at a nearby youngster. As the wounded pessimist stumbled and rolled in the grass, Korbec Oos lunged to finish the job with Rend.
Thad stood at the rocky summit, stunned by the display of cold, ferocious efficiency. As Fengor Ool bounded up the slope, Thad shuddered at the gory alien that would continue to carry him. The red splatters of pessimist blood created a hundred comets on the oot’s breastplate; the red and yellow fur of the victims stuck to the hard edges of the joints of the lower lateral limbs.
“Victory,” the oot troop chanted as they faced Thad. A fresh wave of stench spilled over the shivering human as he swallowed back bile.
“What could they do to a man?” Thad took a step back. “Heaven forbid a war with them!”
“Your orders now, commander?” Fengor Ool smelled the man’s fear. The translator couldn’t hide the bloodlust in his voice.
His hand trembled as he pointed past the ruined pessimists. “The four pressers… We have to capture…”
Every oot spun toward the distant spaceship. Thankful that something else had distracted them, Thad looked in the same direction. The ship hid behind three kilometers of rolling hills.
“Gash’s external cameras have sighted a group of pressers approaching the ship.” Faction’s alert was loud in his ears. Before Thad could turn to order the oot back to Gash, Fengor Ool’s interior limbs swept him into a rough, facedown embrace, and Thad watched waves of grass and knots of rock flash past.
“The pressers are moving up the ramp.” The implant’s voice held a hint of surprise. “They are at the outer door.”
Without warning, Faction disappeared from within Thad’s mind. The comfort of its perfect memory, the constant companionship and the protection from anxiety were gone. The cowering glimmer that was his true self was naked to unreasoning, crippling fear. His mental beast assaulted him with a fateful imagination.
Thad looked at the pumping limbs of the oot and saw himself tumbling beneath the relentless claws. Next, he felt the limbs of Fengor Ool tightening slowly around his brittle ribs. Soon, he knew, the unfeeling alien grip would squeeze away his life. Looking up, Thad saw the impaling horn and the mane of quills beneath the long teeth and sharp chin. It would be so easy for Fengor Ool to lift him inexorably to that waiting mouth. Slowly, the impale horn would dig deep and jab into his stomach. The quills would be next, hundreds of stabbing barbs setting into the tender skin of his arms, chest and throat. Finally, the oot would clamp down on his head with those jaws.
A silver glare in the distance caused Thad to forget the oot momentarily. Gash, still sleek and perfect, sat on a rise in the Frobe plain. No frightening pressers dismantled the ship, but they did something to Gash. The ship’s computer was Faction’s current home, and the pressers had shut down the communications link from his implant.
The oot troop was at the landing ramp in three great bounds. After dropping his human cargo at the base of the ramp, Fengor Ool turned to his soldiers and gave them two quick signals with his lower exterior limbs.
“Wait, human.” Fengor Ool’s face appeared in the prone man’s field of vision. “Perimeter check.”
Forcing himself to one elbow, Thad watched the jerky lunge of the oot as they sprinted along the valley floor. In less than a minute, the four oot skidded to a stop at Thad’s feet.
“Perimeter clear.” Fengor Ool’s upper right exterior pointed to one long, unbroken path in the frail grass. “One path here, none leave. Pressers in ship.”
“No!” Thad found the strength to stand and fell into the captain’s interior limbs. “Go in and get them!”
With a lower exterior limb, Fengor Ool grabbed the back of the gravity suit and dragged Thad along. Standing aside, the oot positioned his companions at the outer airlock. With four gleaming eyes, Fengor Ool tapped his code into the keypad. The ship pitched heavily as the oot charged in. As soon as the portal opened, Faction flooded back into Thad’s mind.
“The pressers entered your access code.” The implant went to work, sealing off the emotions within the man’s mind. “They entered my disconnect code just before opening the door. Only Darian Tobr knows that code!”
Feeling the fear submerge beneath the implant’s presence, Thad shook free of Fengor Ool’s light grip and followed the oot into the cargo bay. The three mercenaries stood, brandishing every limb and weapon at the presser invaders.
“Aside.” Fengor Ool commanded his soldiers. They parted to reveal four pressers neatly tucked into the specially designed acceleration seats.
Thad chewed his lip again, ignoring the renewed throb. The pressers were squat, muscular creatures built low to live in the high gravity. Heavily padded, three-toed feet formed the foundation of the two stocky legs. Bulges of muscles surrounded a slightly flexible knee joint.
“The pressers knew how to adjust the leg rests to match their stiff legs.” Faction played a recording of a presser tapping commands into the chair controller. “I thought it was best not to intervene.”
Thad noticed the two males had slimmer torsos over wide hips, while the females were slightly rounder. The body continued to narrow until shoulders and neck connected at a ring of bone. The arms were stout, sporting the same muscular bulges of the legs. Supporting a heavy head in Frobe’s high gravity, the short neck provided plenty of strength but little mobility. Thad shuddered as his attention shifted to the presser face. They had solid bone within eye sockets, flattened cartilage in place of nostrils and closed, fleshy cones for ears. Like the pessimists, only fine hair and a series of flat teeth gave the face any character. A presser’s eyes, nose and ears were mere contours in the leathery, sun-browned skin.
“Faction, this is no coincidence.” Thad continued to match the uninvited guests with Tobr’s requirements for capturing pressers in the village.
“The two females are young and appear to have borne children previously.” Faction sounded surprised as well. “This means they are fertile and are likely to bear more children. The younger male is the heaviest of the group and seems to be in excellent physical condition. The older male carries the markings of a visionary, a tribal leader. This is an exact match to your mission parameters.”
“These are the ones we came for, Fengor Ool.” Thad grabbed the arm of his acceleration chair and pulled himself into it. “Have your soldiers stand guard.”
“Mission over?” Fengor Ool’s disappointment seemed near heartbreak through the translator. “Oot not successful?”
“The boss will pay you.” Thad told Faction to prepare Gash for orbit. “You are bringing back four pressers, as you promised. Darian Tobr will honor you with this success.”
“No battle.” Fengor Ool’s quills flattened in oot embarrassment. “No pay for surrender.”
“You battled the pessimists at Tobr’s command,” Thad reminded the oot. “The job is done. The details aren’t important.”
Fengor Ool’s quills fanned slightly, but Thad allowed the oot to fidget in doubt. More hand signals to the other oot caused them to fold their weapons back into hiding and brace their limbs for takeoff.
As Thad thankfully donned his nose filters and mask, he knew Tobr was right. The pressers see the future… and act it out as fate.
