Zed Space Chapter 2

 

Chapter 2

“I cannot morally allow my men out there,” I said, to the woman whose son was missing. “It’s suicide. We barely made it as it is.”

The woman got onto her knees. “Please, please,” she said. “I know he’s still alive. I know it.”

I looked to the civilians. “Does anyone want to volunteer for a possibly suicidal rescue mission?” I said.

No one stepped forward. I turned to the woman. “I apologize,” I said. “We can’t go back out there.”

The woman broke down into tears. I turned away, unsure of how to console her. To keep my mind from that I began the integration process. We had just acquired two hundred more civilians who needed to be tested for the virus. Alice and Jacob took care of that while I surveyed the fifty or so civvies who had been chosen to be part of our militia while we were gone.

“You lot are not soldiers,” I said, “And I do not expect you to perform like you are. But I do expect a certain level of competence from all of you. If you fail, you die. Do you understand?”

The militia members attempted a salute. It was crude, but I wasn’t going to push that, as all we needed were bodies with guns.

I could hear the woman who lost her son wailing in the background. I tuned it out.

“We are going to have to defend against major attacks,” I said. “This planet is level one infected,” I said. “There are five levels. If we get to three before rescue arrives, we’re toast no matter how many guns we have.” I walked up to my pod and tapped it. “In here, spatially stored, is everything we need to survive for the next month. It’s possible that we may get a resupply. But until then this is what we got.”

I turned to Garret. “Find everyone who is a mechanic or has mechanical expertise.” I turned back to the civilians. “If everything goes well, we may be able to retake some of the city. There are doubtless hundreds of pockets of survivors who are awaiting rescue by us. This particular city has been seeded with fifteen drop trooper squads.”

Orange, the leader of Salamander squad, approached me. He saluted. “Salamander squad is all accounted for. We are beginning rescue of Ms. Liber’s son.”

I paused. “You’re doing it?” I said.

Orange nodded. “We have a duty to save as many people as possible.”

“He’s most likely already dead,” I said.

“We don’t know that,” said Orange. “But it’s beside the point. This current situation is bad for morale.”

“I’m not your commander,” I said, “So you go ahead. I’ll be supporting you. I’ll get my sniper on point to keep overwatch.” I waved at Jacob. “Hey, private,” I said.

Jacob saluted. “Need me, Lieutenant?”

“I need you to provide overwatch for Salamander squad’s rescue attempt.”

“Sure thing,” said Jacob. He shouldered his high power sniper rifle.

“Your priority is mutants,” I said. “Salamander squad can handle any regular dorks that come their way.”

“Yes sir,” said Jacob. He turned. “I think I see the best vantage point.” He pointed towards the VIP lounges. “They have a good line of sight over the surrounding city.”

“Get to it,” I said.

Jacob saluted and started walking towards the suites. Salamander squad, with Orange at the front, went towards an entrance on the other side of the stadium. Since the truck entrance we had used before was surrounded by the zombies we attracted with our rescue mission, this was the most logical way to proceed.

“Good luck,” I said. “You’ll need it.”

Orange saluted and started towards the exit. I watched them go and then turned to the civvies who had been selected for militia duty.

“You’re going to have to become fit,” I said. “It takes a lot of speed and endurance to outrun a sprinter.” I began walking back and forth along the line of militia members. “There are three mutants we will have to worry about in the near future,” I said. “Jumpers are the least dangerous. If you spot them first it’s usually easy to take them down. However, if they catch you unprepared, you’ll surely get bit. Jumpers hold you down while the ordinary folk bite you to pieces. They are rather stupid and not nearly as scary as hunters. But we won’t have to worry about those boys until we hit level three infection.” I continued walking. “Sprinters. These zed heads can move fast, like their name suggests. They also have a lot of stamina and endurance. The best thing to do when you see a sprinter is to run and gun. That means you run while simultaneously firing your weapon. Eventually they will go down. Aim not for their head but for their limbs. Sprinters are too fast moving for you to reliably get a head shot, and the best bet is to disable them instead.” I stopped, and performed an about face. “And then we have fats. A fat is a zombie that has secreted a special tissue that absorbs kinetic energy. They are almost impossible to take down with small arms fire, but are very slow. The best way to deal with these is an anti-tank weapon. Thankfully for you, we have a couple. And by a couple I mean over a thousand rounds.” I tapped my feet together. “Any questions?”

A militia member raised his hand. “What about armor?” he said.

“Meaning?” I said. “Vehicles or personal?”

“Personal,” said the man.

“We’ve brought enough,” I said. “Even spatial packing has a limit, however, so we have to be sparing about it. I will issue armor to every second member of this militia. If you want to be one of those people, work hard during training.” I clapped my hands. “All of you. We’re doing a hundred laps around the stadium.”

There was less resistance than I had expected for that. I suppose everyone realized that their lives were on the line. We needed to be fit to fight this war.

I led the jog. This first one would be without equipment, but eventually we would do twice this distance with a backpack full of equipment.

Alice joined me along the run.

“You don’t have to be here,” I said. “Don’t you have other things to do?”

“It’s been a day since my last good run,” said Alice. “There’s not much running space on a ship.”

“I don’t mind,” I said. Alice and I continued to run in silence.

After fifty laps I could tell that the militia was having a hard time. This was nothing for me, of course, but I decided to cut it short.

“You lot have no endurance,” I said, as I ended the run. “You’re zed bait, all of you.”

The militia looked as if it had been pushed to its limit. I had probably set the bar too high with a hundred laps to start.

But it was time for me to be evil. “Two hundred pushups, all of you! Then two hundred squats and two hundred crunches!”

I watched as the militia strove to do what I had told them to do. When they were done, they were exhausted down to the man. I strutted around in front of them. “In an hour we are going to practice our shooting. Don’t worry about ammunition usage. We have brought plenty.”

The hour passed without much fanfare. When my stopwatch beeped I ushered the militia onto the less inhabited side of the grass field. During the break hour my squad had assembled.

Just before the practice began, Salamander squad returned.

Orange jogged up to me. When I tilted my head he shook his.

“He didn’t make it?” I said.

Orange frowned. “We couldn’t save him. He had already turned by the time we found him.”

The mother’s wailing echoed in my mind. I sighed. “There’s nothing we can do.”

Orange saluted and so did I. I returned to my militia members. “If you want to be able to save people like that,” I said, “Then you had better become good marksmen. I expect all of you to become experts before the month is up.”

“Sir!” shouted the militia.

The shooting practice began. The guns were loud, and would probably attract many zed heads to our position, but there was no substitute for live fire training. I walked along the line of men and women, correcting the posture of the people who were doing it wrong. When half an hour had passed I stopped the practice.

“You’re done for today,” I said. “Go home and be with your families.” I chuckled. “Well, there’s not much home here anymore.”

There was a huge rumbling and the ground began to shake. I stabilized myself, but a lot of the militia members stumbled and fell.

“That was probably the West Tarthing fusion plant,” I said, shielding my vision against the sudden flash of bright light that enveloped the city.

When the light receded, a pillar of black smoke rose from across the city.

“Who knows how many people died in that explosion,” I said.

I turned away. “It’s dinner time.”

The line for the evening meal had already formed. We were rationed a small amount of real food, but most of our nutrition for the next month or so would be Soylent, a super-rich energy paste. Thankfully the designers of the stuff had come up with over a hundred flavors, but even so it was tough to subsist on mush.

The real food today was a bowl of rice and a small piece of dried meat. For my Soylent flavor I chose Red Cherry Surprise, ™. It was one of my favorites.

The Soylent machine resembled a self-service soda fountain that you would find in a civilian fast food restaurant. You chose a flavor from the digital panel up top and placed your cup beneath it. It took thirty seconds to fill and then you had a fully balanced nutritional food substitute to keep you going for the next twelve hours.

I savored my rice and meat before sucking up the tube of Soylent.

It looked like the civvies did not like the idea of Soylent. Since I was a soldier, I was conditioned to eat this stuff, but to a civilian used to McFanks and such, it was a huge step down.

But food is food, and over a Hundred Wonderful Flavors ™ was not something to snuff at.

I sucked down my Red Cherry Surprise ™ and placed the cup inside my personal cube storage for reuse next meal time.

Alice came by me and sat down with her food. She took a small bite of rice and then a large swig of Chocolate Moon ™. Sighing, she leaned back on the astroturf.

“Another mission, another city lost,” she said. “I know this mission is worth something but I can’t help remembering Anelise.”

“Yeah, that was a disaster,” I said. I ate my last grain of rice. “But I think we’re going to do well this time around. The militia is looking good and we have the speedmakers.”

“It’s experimental equipment,” said Alice. “We’re the navy’s guinea pigs.”

“And I couldn’t be happier,” I said. “We have the good stuff and because of that we may be able to survive until the navy comes.”

“Hey, I have something to tell you,” said Alice. She looked around to make sure we were far enough separated from the others. “I think this planet may be progressing in infection level a lot faster than normal.”

I looked up at the smoke from the fusion power plant. “May be,” I said. “But our job is to survive despite that.” I stood up. “And that’s what we’re going to do.”

Zed Space Chapter 1

 

Chapter 1

I shivered. The drop zone was hot. My suit suctioned onto my skin and inserted simultaneously the catheter and the adrenal stimulant probe. The ship’s engines droned behind the bulkhead. My five squad mates donned their drop trooper helmets. I was the last to put mine on.

I stepped into my pod. The door slid shut with a pneumonic hiss and the air pressure equalized. My ears popped. The floor dropped out beneath me and I began my freefall descent into the city.

The city was burning. Fires consumed skyscrapers and explosions were up everywhere.

The civilian population had been holding on for three months without support from outside. We were fighting a war, after all.

I could now see the swarm of zombies that had been detected around the drop zone. We were tasked to land in the middle of Hyatt Stadium, a refugee crisis zone that was still, somehow, holding out against the onslaught. At least a thousand civilians were hunkered down in the green field, barricaded against the zombies.

The planet was at level one. That meant that there were few mutations and the hivemind had yet to insert itself. It wasn’t the worst place I had been inserted in the last year.

My pod streaked through the atmosphere and came closer to the drop zone. I was able to make out individual civilians. They looked up at us as we came down and spread away from the marked landing spots.

My pod smashed into the astro turf and I kicked out the door. I was the second to land. Jacob had been the first and was already unloading supplies.

The other four pods fell in quick succession. Dirt spattered the tents the civilians had been using for shelter.

About two dozen civilians approached me.

“Alice!” I said, turning to my squad mate. “Help me distribute the rations!”

“Yes, sir,” said Alice.

I was the squad’s lieutenant. That meant I was in charge. We had two months worth of rations space-packed in our pods. With the press of a button they returned to full size.

The civilians looked like they hadn’t eaten in days. We prepared meals and handed out the food with little incident.

“Who is in charge here?” I asked, surveying the eating people.

An old man stood up and approached me. “My name is Mick,” he said. “Is the army coming?”

“We are the army,” I said. “This city has been deemed low priority. Our only mission is to protect you until other objectives have been taken and some evacuation vessels can be spared.”

“How much longer until then?” said Mick.

“A week?” I said. “A month? Who knows?”

“Are we going to survive?” said a man in a tattered suit.

“As long as you don’t let any infected in here,” I said. “Before we go any further, we’re going to have to inspect everyone for bites.”

“There’s no one bitten in here!” said Mick. “We made sure of that.”

“We can never be too certain,” I said. I motioned to Ryce, my machine-gunner. “Set up the examination table.” I turned to Alice. “You’re the only girl in this squad. Check up on all the female civilians.”

“Yes sir,” said Alice.

Alice helped me set up our examination device, which had been spatially packed along with the rations. It was a scanner that took a blood biopsy and instantly told us whether or not the tested person was infected. All it required was a small prick on the finger.

Alice set up a large tent that had been spatially packed alongside everything else and had the women line up outside of it. She did their checkups, which required her to remove all their clothing. This wasn’t so much to discover infected people but to make sure that everyone was healthy.

One man refused to get his blood tested by the machine.

“Hey, you can’t do this to us,” he said, as a number of other civilians wrestled with him. “You can’t force us to give up our genetic information!”

I walked towards him. “I’m just a soldier,” I said. “I don’t know anything about the law. But right now I’m in charge. If you think we’ve wronged you, you can bring it up in court when we’ve gotten out of this mess.”

“But we won’t!” said the man. He continued to struggle. “We’re not going to make it!”

I grabbed his arm. “You have to get tested. If you’re not, we’re going to have to expel you.”

“You can’t!” said the man. “My family is here.”

I dragged him towards the testing machine. It took a bit of effort, but I got his blood sample.

It came back positive.

“I’m sorry,” I said, turning away from the console. “You’ve been infected. We’re going to have to quarantine you.” I turned to Ryce. “Bring me an isolation bunker.”

Ryce called forth the isolation bunker from spatial storage. It was about the size of a port-a-potty and heavily armored with superplastic. Garret, our engineer, grabbed the man and pushed him into the isolation bunker.

The man was crying. He didn’t fight. Ryce pushed him into the chamber and sealed it. The chamber was designed so that people could communicate with the person inside, but he was locked in there until he turned.

Two girls and a lady approached the isolation bunker, all crying. The one I presumed was the mother broke down in front of the view window and cried.

“It’s okay, honey,” said the man. “I was stupid and got bit while foraging. There’s no coming back from this.”

Indeed, the zombie virus was impossible to cure and had a one hundred percent fatality rate. There was no escaping it. Planet after planet was lost to the zombie invasion. The only thing we could do was slow it down.

We tested the rest of the two hundred and eleven people in the stadium. They all came back clear.

While I was testing the people, James and Jacob, two private first class squad members, were checking up on the barricades. The stadium had metal doors that locked shut on every entrance. They wouldn’t stop a bull but they were good enough against level one infected.

Jacob returned from his patrol. “Everything is in place,” he said, saluting. “There are no breaches. The civilians did a good job of securing the stadium.”

“Are we going to save more people?” asked a woman, who approached me from behind.

I turned instinctively and pointed my service pistol at her.

“Oh,” I said, returning my pistol to its holster. “Ahem, yes. We are going to try and save as many people as we can, before the infection level increases and we start seeing mutants. After that it will be too dangerous to be out there without armored support.”

“But the army is coming for us, right?” said the woman.

“I can’t say I know when they’ll come,” I said. “Like I mentioned before. We could be here for weeks or even months. We have prepared for that and have plenty of food and tools in spatial storage.”

“So we’ll be here for a bit,” said Alice. She saluted to me. “Everything seems to be in order.”

“Good,” I said. “It’s time to start training.”

“Already?” said Jacob.

“We don’t have any time to spare,” I said. “We need these civilians to become soldiers.” I turned to Mick. “With your permission, we’re going to start arming and training you and your people to fight.”

“We will do everything you say,” said Mick. “We had lost all hope. Now we have it.”

A transmission came though my suit communicator. “This is Salamander squad. We’re in need of immediate assistance. Two hundred civvies are about to be lost along with this squad. Our location is—” The caller noted out a place not too far from our drop zone.

“Looks like it’s time for our first mission,” I said. I turned the Mick. “I need twenty strong individuals who can handle guns.”

Mick looked around at the civilians gathered in front of us. “I can do that.”

He took five minutes to single out twenty people, mostly men.

I took twenty guns from spatial storage and handed them out. “We’re going to rescue another squad and about two hundred people,” I said. “Without our resources we can handle twice that for a month.”

“What about after?” said a woman.

“We’ll figure that out,” I said. “If the army or navy can spare resources, we may get a supply drop. Just wait and do what you’re told.”

“Okay,” said the woman.

“Alice, Ryce,” I said, turning to my squad. “You stay here and protect the base. Also, set up the comm tower and start the selection process for training.”

I took Jacob, Garret, and James with me. We walked to the unloading bay. I poked a camera out of a small barred window. There were about a dozen zombies behind the metal screen, but it wasn’t anything we couldn’t handle. I motioned to the two strongest-looking civvies.

“Open that door when I tell you to,” I said. “When they come, we shoot. Then we make haste to the rescue point.”

“What about vehicles?” said Jacob.

“We can’t be driving around out there,” I said. “The roads are clogged and we don’t have any that would fit two hundred plus people. We’re going to have to do this on foot.”

The twenty civvies prepared, aiming their guns at the door. Jacob and I knelt next to the chain and unlocked it.

“One,” I said. “Two, three.” We lifted the truck door and backed away as the civvies started shooting. Two minutes later all twenty dead heads were on the ground.

I looked both ways. There were only a couple zombies here and there, attracted by the gunshots. No herds, no hoards, no mutants.  A good day to be rescuing a squad and two hundred civvies.

I led the group through the streets, with Jacob holding down the back and James and Garret in the middle. We walked for ten minutes until we came to a nondescript high rise. I held up my hand and used my camera to look behind the corner. There were at least a thousand of them, including two first level mutants. I could take them, perhaps, but with all those dead heads clogging up my line of fire I didn’t know if I could make the shots.

These mutants were of the jump/grab phenotype. They had powerful frog-like legs and long arms for grabbing a tearing into their victims. I was, of course, lucky to be encountering only these and at these low numbers.

I signaled to my squad. James took a number of civvies out another way and I called up Jacob to set up a sniper position.

“Here’s what we’re going to do,” I said. “We’re going to lure the bulk of the dead away from the building. While they’re distracted, we take out the mutants and save the people in the building. We good?”

The civvies nodded. At that moment the distraction began. Fireworks exploded from across the street, taking the attention of the zombies with it. Jacob fired his sniper rifle and took out the first mutant. The second mutant locked onto me and I took it out with a headshot before it could jump.

We rushed past the gap made by the distracted zombies and knocked on the door. The leader of Salamander squad jumped out and surveyed the scene.

“Textbook,” he said, as he began waving. Civilians streamed out of the opening.

“Go, go,” I said, also waving the civilians along. Two members of Salamander squad brought their spatial storage cubes with them. We retreated through the streets leading the civvies like a herd of cattle.

When we returned to the safe zone we got behind the truck gate, waited until everyone was through, and then locked it shut.

Tess, the leader of Salamander squad, began a head count.

A woman approached me. “I can’t find my son,” she said. “I think he’s still out there.”

“Oh boy,” I said, looking through a peephole at the crowd of zombies approaching the gate. “This is going to be difficult.”

War of the Portal Chapter 1

 

Chapter 1

It was Simon’s day off. All he wanted to do was buy a couple packs of his favorite card game at the game store, maybe draft a few games and hang out with his friends. Sure, it was weird for a tenured professor in the field of medieval linguistics and culture to be playing a trading card game, but he enjoyed it and did his best to connect with the twenty-somethings in his local game store. He had built the ultimate blue-green ramp deck the other day and wanted to try it.

Before heading to the shop, he decided to check out Times Square. Christmas 2015 was in full swing. The Rockefeller tree had been put up. Snow drifted peacefully to the streets. The place was as crowded with tourists as it always was.

Hands in pocket, Simon began reciting a lay in middle English. It was a pastime he had a habit of playing around with. After all, he had written his thesis on Beowulf.

The crowd flowed around him. Watching the advertising screens above him, he wondered if he was going to have the time to return to his family back in Wisconsin. Flights weren’t cheap this time of year and he didn’t know if he would make it through a ten hour drive.

Something felt wrong. The energy of the crowded tourist landmark changed. The air suddenly became crisp. It was as if the whole world had held its breath.

Four columns in the classic Greek style appeared out of shimmering light. A roof, comparable to the Parthenon, materialized on top. Something monstrous roared. Dragons—real dragons—spilled out of the opening, ridden by warriors in medieval armor.

A column of calvary marched out from beneath thew dragons.

“His elf sumti!” yelled the man wearing the most ornate hat. He held forth a sword of incredible craftsmanship.

The square panicked. Hundreds of people turned away from the invaders and fled. The horsemen galloped across the street, striking down the fleeing citizens and tourists.

There were hundreds of horsemen and at least two dozen dragons. The dragons set fire to the advertising boards and raked their claws through the windows of the skyscrapers.

Simon backed up slowly, unsure if he should take his eyes off the invaders.

A young woman stumbled and fell, crashing to the ground. A horseman headed straight for her, ready to trample her into the concrete.

Simon dashed for the woman and picked her up with the power of adrenaline. He sprinted away, carrying her, and turned into an alleyway where a dozen people were hiding.

“Move, move,” he shouted.

He let go of the girl. She was in hysterics, and couldn’t communicate.

Simon turned back towards the melee behind him. It was chaos. The dragons brought their fire breath weapons against the people who were unlucky or stupid enough to still be out in the open. Blood coated the square.

Simon decided that something needed to be done. He rushed out of the alleyway and into the center of the square. Two dozen horsemen turned to watch him.

Simon held out his hands. “Stop!” he yelled. “Please stop!”

The horsemen laughed in a way that felt foreign. They pointed their swords at Simon and began trotting towards him.

Simon held his ground. The horsemen began to circle him. They pointed their swords and continued to laugh. “Wis come it ta cursis?” said the one who appeared to be the leader.

Where is the military? Thought Simon, still holding out his hands.

A deep root took shelter in his mind. His knowledge of middle English history, his many thesis on the government of feudal France, his knowledge of the Hundred Years War.

He understood their language in a flash of inspiration.

“The otherworlder is a dunce,” said the captain. “He does not believe we shall kill him. For sure, he is merely a servant of the giants who built these glass towers.”

“I’m an American,” said Simon. “I don’t want trouble. If you go back peacefully to where you came from we will not have to kill you.”

Simon thought he heard helicopters. He just needed to hold them off for another minute. This understanding of their language was a godsend and he was not about to let it go to waste.

The captain pointed his sword at Simon. “Where are the giants?” he said. “We have come to defeat them, not their slaves.”

“There are no giants!” said Simon. “These are …” He recognized a hole in their language. “Skyscrapers,” he said, in English.

“Skyfrater?” said the captain. “What kind of childish babble is that?”

The helicopters were definitely coming. Their drone was now audible.

A dozen patrol cars swerved into the square. Cops got out and pointed their weapons.

One of the cops waved to Simon.

Simon gave them a thumbs-up sign.

“We have you surrounded,” said Simon. “Just give up. You don’t know what you’re dealing with. Please return to where you came from.”

“Hah!” said the captain. “The coward is trying to negotiate. We shall not stand to be lectured by a mere slave.”

The helicopters arrived. All at once six dragons ate the full brunt of a helicopter-mounted chaingun. The policemen also opened fire.

The hail of bullets chewed through the horsemen and dragon riders like through cheese. Their iron and steel armor were nothing against a fifty caliber machine gun and rockets.

The battle was over in five minutes. For the entire time Simon was rooted to the ground.

More police cars and fire trucks arrived. Police surrounded Simon.

Simon collapsed to the ground, fainting.

He woke up in a hospital bed. A nurse was standing in the corner of the room, holding a clipboard.

“What happened?” said Simon.

“Hum?” said the nurse. “I don’t understand you.”

Simon realized he was still speaking the language of the invaders. “I’m sorry. I was asking what happened.”

“You’re a hero,” said the nurse. “You stopped the invasion and saved countless lives.”

“Me? A hero?” said Simon. “How is that possible?”

“Who knows?” said the nurse. “Somehow you were able to communicate with them, and you managed to keep them from spreading out of Times Square.”

Simon’s colleague, Dr. Mason Jonson, entered the room followed by two military men and a doctor.

The military man extended his hand. “Major Dennis Elmore,” he said.

Simon shook his hand and was startled by the strength of the man’s grip.

“You’re a hero,” said Dennis. “We have footage of you singlehandedly stalling the invasion until the military could arrive.”

“It was only five minutes,” said Simon.

“We looked into your background. You are one of the premier researchers into medieval cultures in America.”

“Why does that matter?” said Simon.

“The world behind the portal, through which the invaders came, is medieval. We’ve sent scouts through the portal and they’ve brought back enough information for us to understand what we’re dealing with.” Dennis cleared his throat. “This is a portal to a real life fantasy world. And, for some reason, you are the only one who knows their language.”

“Well, I’ve studied a number of medieval languages, and they all just came together in my head when I was faced with those horsemen.”

“And that’s why we need you,” said Dennis. “We’ve sealed the gate with an emergency lockdown module. In two weeks we will be commencing a full-scale incursion into this place. You understand their language. We have interviewed every other person who came into contact with them and you’re the only one who can speak their language.”

“It just came to me,” said Simon. “I don’t know what I did.”

“Well, whatever it was, it will be of huge service to us during our eventual incursion.” Dennis’s phone rang. He sighed. “Looks like there are already protestors around the portal.” He took the call and left the room.

Mason looked a bit awkward. “They say you’re a hero,” he said.

“I heard,” Simon said.

“And I believe them,” said Mason. “You’ve always been brave. You had to have been to advance your theories on France’s golden period.”

“Well, I suppose so,” said Simon. He stood up from his bed. “I think I’m fine. I need to get home.”

“You live alone, right?” said Mason.

“I just need to lay my head somewhere that isn’t a hospital.”

Dennis came back into the room. “Looks like we’re in need of you already,” he said. “We’ve captured a living invader and we need a translator.”

Simon sighed. No sleep for him. “Okay,” he said. “I can’t refuse, can I?”

“You’ve been designated a beneficial asset by the military. You have no choice in this matter. You could protest, but the amount of effort that would take wouldn’t be worth it.”

Simon shrugged. “I suppose I’ll take this opportunity to spread knowledge about the usefulness of medieval scholarship.”

“Good attitude,” said Dennis. “We have a jeep waiting outside.”

Simon left the room with Dennis and Mason.

Mason had his hands in his pockets as he followed Simon and Dennis.

“Why are you here?” said Simon. “Did they rope you into this as well?”

“Yep,” said Mason.

Mason’s specialty was medieval metallurgy. He had advanced several prominent theories on the formation of bloom iron into implements.

The three of them left the hospital. Dennis saluted the jeep driver and got in. Simon and Mason climbed into the back.

Dennis looked into the backseat from his position beside the driver. “Dr. Jonson,” he said, “I want you to transcribe everything Dr. Bell translates during the interrogation.”

Bell was Simon’s last name. Dr. Simon Bell.

Simon was just glad that his degree was finally being recognized as useful.

They left Manhattan and headed to Fort Hamilton. Once they got there, they unloaded and were led into a nondescript concrete building.

In one of the rooms, a bloodied and bound soldier from beyond the portal was tied up.

“You bastards,” he said. “Where are the giants?”

“There are no giants,” Simon said.

Both Dennis and Mason turned their heads in surprise.

“I was doubtful,” said Mason, “But you really seem to understand him.”

Simon rubbed the back of his head. “I don’t know how it works. Language acquisition isn’t supposed to happen like this. It’s like magic.”

“You understand me, heathen?” said the soldier.

“What is your name?” Simon said.

“Brith,” said the soldier.

Simon was at a loss about what to say. Thankfully, Major Dennis stepped in.

“Translate this,” he said. “We do not want to harm you. Cooperate and you shall be taken home.”

Simon translated.

Brith spat. “You are heathens. I shall not believe you. Take me to the giants.”

“Again, there are no giants,” said Simon.

“What is he saying?” said Dennis.

“He keeps asking about giants,” said Simon. “He appears to think that they built all the tall buildings.”

“Tell him that it’s all human engineering.”

Simon translated.

Brith looked shocked. “It cannot be,” he said.

“Now ask him about his political affiliation,” said Dennis.

Simon translated.

“I am a vassal of Lord Gywimire,” said Brith. “And I am proud of it. You are nothing more than a peasant beneath his stride.”

Simon noticed that Brith used an euphemism that was untranslatable, something about goats and their milk. He shook his head.

“We do not want to harm you,” he said.

Brith spat again.

“Tell him that we are losing patience,” said Dennis. “And ask him why they attacked us.”

Brith sighed as Simon translated.

“We are conquerors,” said Brith. “We conquer. That is what we do. No less a world beyond the sacred hill.”

Simon translated.

Dennis rubbed his chin. “Ask him if his king or lord is friendly.”

Simon translated.

“Our lord will crush you,” said Brith. “You shall all be put beneath his foot.”

Simon translated, leaving out another strange aphorism.

Dennis shook his head. “Okay,” he said. He turned around. “That is all I have to say.”

He looked at me. “Try and figure him out while I call our analysts.”

He left the room, leaving me and Mason inside with the otherworlder.