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Days Go By

Jenny R. Harlow

Ch1. 1 The Future Is Now

"Now you see me, now you don't

No vow to break, no string of hope

My Hero, your pariah

They're coming after me now"

Alana had been trained her entire life to be a soldier. From her earliest memories there was little more than marching and inspections. She had been taught to shoot from the time she could carry a gun, a soldier, nothing more. She stood, one of a uniformed many, in a crowd before the large screen inside the Felinid dreadnaught. The screen lit up with the image of a wolf, large and black with purple eyes. His face bore a large circular scar just beneath his right eye. "Soldiers!" He wrapped, as they all came to attention, "It is a privilege to see such fine men and women ready to fight and die for our cause. Too long has the prey kept us from living as nature intended, keeping us meek and complacent, denying us any modicum of power. Now we rise up, we rise and take it for ourselves!"

The soldiers cheered with their standard "hoo-rah!" Only Alana remained silent, despite her training, her supposed "instinct to kill," the tuxedo cat had a churning in her stomach. Shooting targets was one thing, but taking a life? That was a different matter. She watched the wolf on the screen salute her brothers and sisters in arms. Kazar Rames, The Inciter, as some of the "prey" animals would call him, The Awakened, the "predators" called him. He had been a soldier, a general in the army fighting to keep the galaxy safe from the serpentine To'Shii, in the war that forged the peace between the predatory creatures, and the prey. Peace was short lived however, the prey refused to let the predatory animals hold power on the neutral worlds, made them live in squalor and humiliation. Having been injured in battle, and almost dying from the venom of a To'Shii fang, Kazar expected a higher station in the new order, when he was denied, he decided to call his people, and all who would join them to arms. What makes us better than the To'Shii? Alana thought, looking down at the loaded gun in her hands.

Alana was stirred from her thoughts by the Ship's Commander. "Report to your assigned drop bays and prepare for deployment." Alana watched as her lieutenant stepped forward, calling her company to march. Filing through the wide corridors, navy-men stopping on either side to salute the passers-by, the troops marched onto the grid-like floors of the bays. Each taking a square on the grid, they were rushed by technicians. The technicians checked, then stowed: weapons, armor, special equipment, and survival rations. The checks were done with equal parts speed and efficiency. Alana was being checked over by a medical tech, who placed probes indiscriminately around her body. Eventually, the maintenance techs grabbed her again, throwing her armor on, and strapping her none-too-gently into the drop pod. The lead tech gave a hand signal across the bay, and the door to the pod closed.

The only sounds she could hear now were her breathing and her heart-rate. A speaker clicked on, playing Kazar's voice. "Remember, not only are the lives of your brothers and sisters in your hand, but your family back home, your friends. You decide the future, the future is now!"

Once more, she was left alone with her thoughts, watching through the narrow window as her fellow soldiers were fastened, and closed into their pods. Seeing the last pod close, she took several deep breaths. The technicians hastily retreated from the grid sections, leaving nothing but the eighty or so pods in the room. There was a cloud of white smoke rushing past the pod as the floor beneath parted. The entire metal cylinder began to whine and shake as the engines on the top flared to life. With a mechanical clank, the pod flew downward towards the large, pink sphere below. The pod shook wildly as it hit the edge of the atmosphere, Alana began to feel a large weight pressing down on her chest, breathing was difficult. The pod slowed as the bottom rockets kicked in to slow the descent. The pod crashed to the surface, jarring its occupant. She immediately began to unfasten the restraints, checking herself over for signs of injury. When she had been released, and had her weapon to hand, she pulled the lever on the door in front of her. With a loud pop, the door separated. Seeing the atmosphere was breathable, she opened the vents on her helmet to conserve her supply of oxygen. Her sensitive nose immediately picked up the smell of stagnation and decay. Pulling up the map on her helmet's HUD she could clearly see a swamp not too far north, the objective marker (a possible enemy camp), was well within the center of the black mass on the map. Stepping out of the pod, she looked around. The other pods had landed, and most of the occupants had blown the doors and stepped clear already, yet there were a few who had not, and a couple were still coming down. The land around her was covered in grass the color of freshly drawn blood, the soil was a dark chocolate color and smelled of recent rain, towards the north were trees covered in red leaves, leading to the pink sky above.

Her lieutenant called the troops to form up. The troops squelched through the soggy terrain, as they complied. Several pods were still bursting open, and the troops came to join the line. The lieutenant took a running head count of her soldiers, making sure they all survived the trip down. The final pod opened, a young soldier, new to service. The poor young cat fell to his knees vomiting on the alien landscape. A medic was given permission to break ranks and inspect the young soldier. "Nothing serious," the medic, a wolf, reported. "Probably just his first time down. That happens to so many newbies." He picked the boy up by the collar of his armor, setting him upright. "Nothing to be ashamed of rookie," he said gently swatting the cat's shoulder.

As the two of them marched back into the line-up the lieutenant laid out her plan. Near nightfall, four patrols of twenty soldiers each, would march toward the swamp taking different paths. The first two would cut through the heart of the swamp, taking the direct route through, towards the objective marker, stopping about a half-mile off. The other two would go around the outside and come through the rear of the swamp, giving a signal when they too had reached the half-mile mark. Once they had closed in on their objective marker, they would either attack or set-up camp, depending on whether or not the enemy troops remained there. Alana was assigned to one of the groups cutting directly into the swamp, under the command of the Wolf medic, who was a ranking officer in the group. After the sun had nearly set, the Wolf gave the signal to march forward into the tree-line, arranging the troops into a skirmish formation in case of resistance. Alana looked up, her feelings of hesitation being replaced with wonder at the totally new environment. This wasn't her first drop, nor Goddess willing would it be her last, but she had barely been out of her native system. Never had she seen such chilling beauty as the leaves falling around her, calling to mind a bleeding giant. The swamp itself was composed of a thick black liquid, reeking of decay and stagnation. The troops steps made suckling sounds in the mire. The march was tedious, the difficult terrain was miserable enough, but the humid, oven-like conditions, within the darkness of the canopied swamp, were stifling. The troops helmets produced illumination enough for them to see a small cone a head of them, yet it was still a pin-prick in the air as dark and thick as the water beneath. Insects buzzed around them curiously, causing havoc with their lights as the bugs clouded around them. It was a four hour march to the two-mile mark. The Wolf gave the patrol permission to rest. The troops found any dry patch they could to sit, or stretch out on, including the forks of nearby trees. Eventually, something akin to a group of dragonflies could be seen coming towards the camp. The second swamp patrol soon sat around their comrades, talking quietly, some drawing idly in the moss with broken twigs. The two officers sat on a stump, talking quietly about the journey on the way.

Alana wasn't intentionally listening to the conversation, but she accidentally got drawn into what the feline commander was saying. "They're here, alright." the Cat said as he rocked back on the stump, stretching his limbs out. "We found fresh tracks, rabbit or hare we're not entirely sure which, heading back towards the objective."

The Wolf nodded, "What I don't understand is why the hell they'd be out here in the middle of this hell-hole without good cause." He shook his head, "I wonder what they've found out here that's so damned important."

"What's worse is I think they know we're coming, and are moving to defend whatever it is," The Cat said, taking off his helmet and combing out the sweat from his orange and white fur. "This could get bloody, even prey animals can fight when they're cornered."

Setting back against the fork of her own tree, Alana's revulsion rose again. Killing someone, even an enemy on the battle field, was not something she'd ever wanted to do. She never wanted to train, march, or fight. It was her parents that had signed her over to the military, before she could even speak for herself. Now her first real battle was closer than ever. All those guard missions, system patrols, she had done little more than issue arrests and perform cargo inspections. Now she was going to be a real soldier, in the middle of blood spilling on either side of her. She stared up into the abyss of the canopy above her, the occasional red leaf wandering down into her view. Yes, she thought rolling over on her side so she could look down at the soldiers below, today there will be blood.

She had closed her eyes without intending to, the heat of the swamp and the surprising comfort of the moss leading her off into a brief, dreamless sleep. She was awakened two hours later, according to the clock on her HUD, by the Wolf and his feline comrade ordering the troops to prepare for a march. In the corner of her eye, she saw the red signal indicating the other two groups had reached their position, and the march was about to begin again. Climbing down from the tree, she nearly fell in the slick mud. The troop was formed up and ready to make the final push towards battle. The signal turned green, and the troop once more trudged into the swamp, lights off this time, hands on the shoulder of the person ahead of them. Within about a half hour, a white glow pierced the veil of shadow. A small complex with a few barracks set up and a large guard tower illuminating the camp and its surrounding area. A skirmish line was set up facing towards the south. In the center of the camp was a pit, where several creatures were climbing out with shovels and digging equipment. The predatory troops snuck through the brush, stopping just short of the light's radius.

The signal on the HUD flashed red, then green again. The Wolf and the Cat both stood, waving the troops forward. The leaves rustled and branches snapped under the heel of the surging line. Alana could feel her feet pounding through the muddy terrain, her visor already marking enemy targets. There was gun fire from the brush line, some of the surprised creatures inside the camp were felled by the hail storm coming at them from both sides. Alana stopped in mid run, watching the mice and rabbits of the camp drop like ragdolls to the ground. There was a loud buzz past her ear, as she was tackled to the mud below. "THE HELL ARE YOU THINKING!" A Cat shrieked in her ear. The cat started to stand up above her, when her helmet shattered. She fell face towards Alana, her eyes wide with shock, a hole through both sides of her helmet. Alana scrabbled back to her feet, getting clear before a second shot came forward. Finally she was shaken into action. Taking aim at some of the riflemen firing from the enemy barracks, tears streamed down her face. Her ears rang, everything seemed to be moving in slow motion. She barely noticed when a mortar struck the guard tower, sending glass and metal shards all around the blast radius.

The battle was quickly over, the prey had been outnumbered and torn to ribbons by the surprise attack. The guards on duty had been expecting a unified attack from one side, nothing like the savage flanking that had just ripped through them. The medics found the injured and deceased soldiers, pulling them into the captured barracks. Of the eighty soldiers that went in, there were ten injured and five dead. Of the prey animals, there had only been fifty. They had lost thirty with five injured, one of which was a vulpine soldier fighting on their side. The medics treated her roughly, calling her a "grass belly," and considering "doing her in for her own sake." Alana did not envy the fox, she was going to experience hell during the duration of her capture. She'd be treated as a traitor, spat on, pissed on, and raped. She looked away as the fox looked towards her, not wanting to make eye-contact. Instead she looked towards the technicians who were hopping down into the pit with sensors, and scanning rigs. Walking to the edge herself, she could barely believe what she saw, there was a rounded piece of metal hued in the black of a To'Shii ship. It looked as if there was more, but it had sunken in the mud long ago. What could they possibly want with this, she thought as she turned back to walk into the barracks. After the adrenaline of battle wore off, she'd realized that her leg was bleeding quite badly. She limped off, still lost in her own thoughts.