Chapter 10

Reporter: ...And we will keep you updated on the progress of the herd's spring migration.

Next up, today marked the meeting of two military figures whose careers are each their own chapter in the history books. The legendary General Pitney Scolan landed near Lake Askes today to shake hands for the first time with Second Lieutenant Biaron Tristan, whose own meteoric rise has left many wondering where this brilliant mind was hiding. The mayor of Lake Askes stated that the community was proud to host the publicity event.

In other news, an invasion of winged amphibians is overrunning...

~ excerpt from a local news report for Lake Askes, Virga, 2545

"Tristan's always wanted to be the hero," Pit said mournfully, sitting down hard. Despite the suit, his haunches numbed almost immediately against the compressed snow, but he didn't have the energy to stand. "Of the two of us, I mean. He always wanted history to see him as the hero, even if it meant I was the villain. Especially if it meant I was the villain. I didn't care. I couldn't afford to, mostly, but I thought... I thought he wasn't worth worrying about."

Pit tilted his head back to stare up at Jace. "Why?" he asked. He knew there was no answer, but the question was all he had.

"Why this?" Jace gestured to the spectacle below them, the movement threatening his squat. "Because of exactly what you said. General Tristan wants to be the hero. This is about looking good on camera. When you fall, it's his face that shows up on the holos as humanity's better choice. It doesn't really matter now how you die, sir, as long as...as long as you do. When you die, and he will do everything in his power to ensure that you do, he wants to record it for posterity so he can play it back, analyze it, obsess with the public over every detail of his heroic action to bring you down."

"Gods be damned."

"Yeah." Jace stood up and put his hands on his hips. "That's why I told you to run, sir. It's the only way. Only by not dying do you beat him. Trust me, sir, I don't like asking a brave man to run, much less my commander himself." He sighed heavily. "It's also why I can't go with you. If I stay behind, I can redirect for a while. Give him more plausible theories than the truth, until he figures it out."

Emotions ran rampant through Pit's body. He was angry, sad, bewildered, defeated, betrayed and, more than anything, helpless. A huge part of him wanted to run as fast as his short legs would carry him to gods knew where-anywhere that would offer distraction from his life falling down around his ears. Other, variously persuasive parts of him wanted to worry at a bloody piece of meat, dig a hole in the snow and bury his head in it, or fall onto his back and never move again.

He settled for giving Jace's hand a sloppy lick, an action he hadn't entirely planned before he'd started moving.

Jace smiled, but it was a very sad expression. "May I escort you to the spaceport, sir?"

Pit swallowed the lump that formed in his throat. "Ah, yes. Please do, Jace. I can't be trusted with myself yet. Some of what I've been doing isn't quite...voluntary."

"Like what?" Jace turned in a wide circle, deliberately putting the compound at his back, and began to walk into the swirling snow.

Something instinctual told Pit not to share his tendency to obey commands.

Not even with Jace.

"Tail-wagging," Pit said smoothly, breaking into a trot to catch up with Jace. "And that...hand-licking thing. I have no idea where that came from."

Some synapse deep in his canine brain fired off a cheeky response. Oh really? You just think being a dog is a joyride, don't you? Yeah, okay, you have fun with this. You enjoy the compulsive licking and eating and barking. Trust me. Dogs have it as hard as people.

Pit packed the snow down hard with his young, energetic paws until the ghost of Horus faded into the recesses of their brain.

He tried to think about warm places with no one around, tried to think of Prowess, but part of him was still back in that service room, with a dead body, a dead brain, and a handful of soldiers who might as well be dead.

Since they'd left the Makopsian base behind, lost to the white, Jace had lapsed back into terse responses. Pit suspected it was less the cold and more the thought of Thirza and Liev that held the other's words in check. The cold was bitter, though. Gusts of wind slashed his cheeks and his jowls and the undersides of his ears.

"How much further?" Pit called once, when the wind cut him in two directions and he could barely stand it anymore.

"We'll get there," Jace called back. He offered no further information. His back was ramrod straight.

After an apprehensive beat, Pit prompted, "So, did you charter me a shuttle or was this suit for hopping into the belly of a cargo plane all along?"

To Pit's disappointment, Jace didn't smile. "Neither one, not exactly."

Jace doubled his speed, leaning into the idly strong wind as he power-walked. Pit followed at a subdued trot, enjoying the little chills where the snow his paws kicked up melted against the fur on his face.

Strange, how many stupid little things this body responded positively to.

Strange, too, how his sadness roared up and threatened to swallow him.

He swiveled his head to try and find something, anything, he could remember about Makops other than those silvery stormy skies. In the process, he stepped on his own ear.

Pit managed to recover before Jace whirled around.

"What was that?"

"Nothing," Pit's mouth said, but despite his best efforts, his feet squirmed and the metal parts of his tail drooped.

And despite his best efforts, the side of Jace's mouth twitched.

"Uh-huh. You tripped on yourself, didn't you?"

Pit furrowed his brow in an effort to scowl. "Is that supposed to-why would-how did you know that?" What started as a babbling protest ended in a genuine question.

Jace shrugged, donning his stoic mask again. "Come on. Night's falling. It gets too cold for most native life on the surface."

Maybe it was the way Jace shrugged the collar of his coat.

Maybe it was the way he said "most."

But Pit got a chill under his fur, and was glad when they speed-walked their way into mutual silence.

*****

They were almost to the spaceport when the attack came.

Makops' native wildlife had evolved to be prickly. Poison-barbed prickly, to be exact, and able to shoot those barbs at will from its hide.

It also had horrific breath.

Whatever it was-bear or spider or dinosaur or some lab's horrific marriage of the three-burst out of a snowbank and charged them, roaring wetly.

Pit's brain became a series of wildly firing synapses begging the body it was housed in to please oh please for the love of the gods get me out of this.

And some tiny part of him that wasn't occupied with running as fast as he could, or not tripping, or focusing on the tiny dot of light somewhere in the incalculable distance that might be (was probably) the one frequented corner of this endless rectangle of cold...

That tiny part wondered, once again, why this was all so convenient. As if someone had packaged and plotted it like a direct-to-brain entertainment experience, pumped into the heads of comatose "deebee"-goers.

Then that tiny part's voice was swallowed up by the very visceral realization that if this was convenience, damned if he wouldn't need to be put out of his misery if he were ever inconvenienced.

Multiple barbed projectiles whizzed past them. One nicked Jace between the shoulder blades, making him stagger. Pit woofed in alarm, but before the sound had completely left his lungs, it became a yelp as one of the barbs cut through the snowsuit and clanged off his tailtip. The barb dented the metal, pressing its the faux-nerves and causing an exhilarating, excruciating pain to dance up and down Pit's spine.

Acid rain from hell pricked and splashed Pit as he ran headlong through the increasing storm, which had changed from snow into sleet and driving rain. Pit's HUD fluttered wildly, giving him conflicting readings about what pursued them.

Either it was a six-legged, horse-sized mammal with sloth-like forepaws, or a phantasmagorical being with no measurable vitals.

Either way.

He blinked hard and wished hard and the HUD faded.

I gotta ask Jace about the proper commands. If we make it. When we make it.

Pit focused everything he had on running, on directing power to his bionic shoulder. He kept having to correct his course, because the extra power he sent to the front leg by thinking about it turned him slightly sideways, but he ran at Jace's heels. Not only could he smell thickening blood from Jace's back wound, but he could also smell exactly how exhausted Jace was, and how likely it was that they wouldn't make it to the spaceport.

The sloth-bear-dinosaur-ghost sent another series of barbs zinging towards them, followed by an acidic belch. Acid mixed with the freezing rain, singeing the cold suit, and all he could think was Oh gods, I'm going to end my life in a stomach.

But then they pushed through something tingly and sizzly that made his fur burn with a horrible acrid smell, and for a moment there was only infinity beneath Pit's paws.