Otherworld Squad

Alter blinked slowly as he recovered, adrenalin buzzed and surged through his body as he processed his team’s actions. He swallowed a lump of shock from his throat, leadership was needed.

“Bloody good work boys. Two and three, see to our new friends, I’ll join you in a moment. I need a couple of brave volunteers to inspect those bodies.” He radioed as he stood up.

“Me and Eight will go take a look.” Whim responded, he sounded strangely eager as two figures on either side of the road stalked their way into vision with rifles up and ready.

Immediate business sorted, he turned his eyes to his nearby friends and did not like what he saw. Walross had fallen onto his backside and had one hand covering his eyes, his lips were moving in a steady flow of speech. As Alter moved closer he could hear him speaking softly to himself in german. He couldn’t understand the language but he could recognise the word ‘God’ being spoken often. He knew Walross was not a religious man but Alter understood and sympathised with the desire for some form of forgiveness, particularly after what they had done.

Alter didn’t want to interrupt the man right now so he moved on. Pavejack was motionless, his eye still in the machine gun’s scope but at least his finger was off the trigger, Alter was pleased to see the safety catch was set to ‘on’.

“How’re you doing, Five?” He asked as he crouched down next to him.

“I tried man.” Pavejack began, his voice tight, pupils unmoving. “I tried not to hit the horses but they were so close together, the angle, the elevation.” He rambled.

“Hey, hey, you did your best. I know that five out of twelve doesn’t sound great but honestly for your first real engagement I think you did damn well.” Alter tried to sound soothing but he wasn’t sure it was having an effect.

“If you say so.”

“What’re you looking at?”

“The killbox. When I squint through the scope everything looks sort of … pixelated. It’s helping, I think.”

Alter sighed internally, he needed to get the teenager’s eyes away from the scene. He stood up and poked Pavejack’s calf with the tip of his boot, making him blink and turn towards the squad leader.

“Alright, we need some better security around here. Why don’t you move across to the other side of this valley and watch the road there? Make sure no one's sneaking up behind us.” He suggested with a smile.

Pavejack rushed to his feet and stammered an apology before moving off. Alter watched him go in silence, the lad talked a big game but he was vulnerable to implied criticism. A carefully worded suggestion which, while innocently made, was enough to get him chastised and moving. Anyway, that should be enough to keep him grounded for now, Alter turned his attention back to the German.

Walross had stopped talking to himself and seemed to have regained most of his composure though his face was still grim. His eyes scanned the horizon in slow sweeping arcs as he spoke.

“Is this what we’re going to do? Slaughter people?” He asked.

“No.” Alter answered quickly. “ … I hope not.”

“We’re not killers, Luke.”

The cold emphasis the man put on his real name triggered a chill to race through Alter’s body. It stung, he found himself fighting the urge to make a frustrated comment.

“I know, but right now we’re flying blind so we need to play to whatever strengths we have. Besides, would you have just let those men catch them?”

“That’s abusing hindsight and you know it.” Walross responded testily before sighing. “But no, I suppose I wouldn’t.”

“I cannot prove to you that it was the right thing to do, not yet anyway. But I want you to know that I didn’t do this lightly.” Alter continued.

Walross levered himself upward with a grunt and turned to him.

“We trust you, Alter, I don’t mean to sound like I’m undermining you. I guess I’m worried that everyone else seems to be adjusting so much faster than me.”

“Is that a problem?”

“We don’t belong here, man. But some of the guys, Riptide, Whim … they’re going to start forgetting that, like it's all some fun holiday. I don’t want you following suit and leading us off on some murderous power fantasy shit.” Walross looked him directly in the eyes.

Alter found himself lost for words, his mouth unhinged to reply but all he could manage was a nod. The idea of carving a bloody path through the land had never once crossed his mind but there was a buried nugget of truth in Walross’ warning. He could well imagine how easily they could slip into a vicious routine, particularly with how otherworldly and ‘appart’ this place seemed.

“I’ve got it in the back of my mind, and I’m not some closet psychopath warmonger.”

“I know you aren’t. Still, something to keep in mind mmm? Adam looked pretty shaken, I’m going to give him some company, the kid’s too nervy to vent to you.”

Waross shouldered his rifle, clapped Alter on the shoulder and moved past him to follow Pavejack to the opposite ridgeline. Alter watched him go in silent contemplation for a few moments. Despite all the power the technology they wielded allowed them, he couldn’t help but notice how small he felt. Small and human. Well, standing here alone would solve nothing. He began picking his way back down the slope, eyes seeking the riders they had saved.

The horse had come to a halt a short distance into the valley and stood panting, head bobbing in different directions as its hooves shifted to find better purchase on the loose rock of the valley floor. The boy in blue was still mounted, Alter was heartened to see him in quiet conversation with Riptide and Boozehound, communication and therefore negotiation would be possible. His eyebrows raised slightly as the boy began reaching for the sword at his side, but any fears were quickly relieved as Boozehound gently stepped forward and with the boy’s help lifted the wounded girl from the horse. Riptide looked up at him and gave a tentative thumbs up which Alter reciprocated. The boy dismounted his steed with an expensive sounding jingle before moving to join Boozehound and the girl, cradling her head while the Frenchman inspected the wound.

“How’s it looking, Three?” Alter asked as he approached.

“She’s been poisoned, nasty stuff but it hasn’t done too much damage yet. She’s got a cut on her hip, a thrown dagger with a toxic coating. Nothing I can’t handle.” Boozehound answered as he began disinfecting and cleaning the wound.

The girl shifted and groaned slightly as he worked but her eyes did not open, the sweat on her brow formed thick beads that ran down her neck. The medic reached into his kitbag and pulled out a pair of small objects, placing one on the floor and holding the other up to the light.

“This is a jolt injector. There’s a small needle on the end here, see? In a moment I’m going to jab it into her shoulder, there will be a little bit of pain but it's going to help stabilise her and wake her up, alright?” He spoke in a slow and soothing voice to the clearly agitated boy who nodded.

“Once I’ve done that, we’re going to wait for her to open her eyes. When that’s happened she’ll need to drink this.” He put the injector down and held up a small bottle. “This is called Universal Correctant, an antidote, you open the top like so. She needs to drink it slowly, all of it. Problem is it tastes like shi- ... it tastes pretty bad.”

“And that’ll save her, she’ll make a full recovery?” They boy spoke earnestly.

Alter took a moment to take in the notes of his voice. Strained yes, but well toned with a musical quality. There was an accent present but he couldn’t quite place it yet there were familiar notes and mannerisms to be heard. He was well spoken, that's for sure, the vocals matched the costume quite nicely. Alter couldn’t help but squint slightly as he looked at the clothes, miniature gems and other reflective materials shined throughout the ensemble and caught the light. His face was surprisingly well maintained, even immaculate, especially considering he’d been charging through badlands for his life not five minutes ago. Eighteen was the age Alter settled on, he’d have to stop referring to him as ‘Boy’. She looked closer to sixteen, were they family? They didn’t seem to have any familial features in common.

There was a quiet coughing noise as the girl began to stir, Boozehound immediately moved to give the bottle to the young man.

“Here, you should be the one to do this. We wouldn’t want her to wake up surrounded by strangers, we’ll give you some space.” He pressed the bottle into his hand and backed away, signalling Alter and Riptide to follow him.

The three men stepped away as she continued to recover, the man had tears in his eyes as he fiddled to open the bottle, his hushed voice soothing as he encouraged her to open her eyes. Once they were far enough away Boozehound turned.

“Well, never thought I’d be treating people for real. Good thing this stuff seems to be working.”

“Nice work Marcus. I saw him reach for the sword as I came down, was it a close run thing?” Alter asked.

“Nah, he was just a little nervous about us approaching. He softened up as soon as he realised we were going to help the girl, sure cares for her a lot.” Riptide crossed his arms as he watched the scene playing out behind them.

“Feels good to have helped someone instead of ending them.” Boozehound nodded to himself, a satisfied smile crossing his face.

“You get any clues as to what kind of people they are?” Inquired Alter.

“Rich, but not the pampered softboy type rich. Kid’s got some edge to him, no fear in those eyes.” Booze answered.

“He sounds French.” Riptide quipped.

“Bull. He sounds like a drunk Swede doing an impression. Minus the actual drunkenness.” Booze shot back.

“Whatever. Hey Alter, what’s our play here?” Riptide dismissed the retort with a question.

Alter watched the two teenagers for a moment, the girl was fully awake now. She took a couple of sips of the medicine before coughing and pulling a disgusted face.

“I think we’ve hit the jackpot with those two, or as near as makes no difference.” He began as he turned back to the two other members of his command team. “They’re clearly rich, maybe even nobility, I’m sure they’ll have plenty of resources at their disposal. We’ve saved their lives once, likely hers twice, I say let’s keep that favour train rolling. We offer them our services, help them with whatever problems they’ve got. Build up as much goodwill from them as we can before we run dry.” He continued as the other men reacted in confusion.

“What are you talking about?” Riptide frowned.

Alter pointed to his weapons.

“We’re on a usefulness timer, in case you’ve forgotten. General purpose rifle, thirty shots per mag. One nearly half-used, six in reserve. Standard issue pistol sidearm, twelve shots per. One mag loaded, three in reserve. Squadleader’s throwables, one frag, one smoke, one flash. Last resort combat knife. Once those are used up, that’s it. I’m nothing more than a man out of time with no real usable skills and a knife. How about you?”

The pair shuffled awkwardly as he spoke, eyes shifting around in search of an answer.

“That's a fair point. But…” Riptide trailed off.

“We attach ourselves to them for long enough to get some solid intelligence, then we reconvene and plan our next move. There’s got to be a person we can talk to, or a library we can scour, something to tell us what the hell happened to us.”

“So we stick to them like glue and hope they can get us all that?”

“Exactly.”

“Putain. It makes a weird sort of sense. Besides, I want to make sure the girl recovers properly.” Boozehound grumbled.

“Alright, I guess. Just be careful okay?” Riptide relented.

Alter nodded to the pair and turned back to the locals, it was time for some proper introductions.

Now how the hell was he going to introduce himself?