God's Dogs Book 2
42

If we are arrested every day, if we are exploited every day, if we are trampled over every day, don’t ever let anyone pull you so low as to hate them. We must use the weapon of love. We must have compassion and understanding for those who hate us.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

The troop carriers from Penglai and the Cass world arrived at the planet about the same time. Shuttles transported the troops from the ships to their assigned areas. Two days were allowed for getting everything set up, and then the battle would begin.

Quinn’s team, along with Gautama’s and Jolene’s, landed on the first shuttle down. With them were six scouts. When the cargo ramp descended, Quinn ordered, “Scouts, go set up your OPs. Gautama, Jolene, we’ll see you tomorrow.”

They all jogged off to their assignments, while behind them the unloading of gear and troops began.

The landing zone was on the east side of the island near the extinct volcano. Mossy ground cover growing over worn lava rock, technically known as solid mafic flow basalt, stretched from a quiet blue-green ocean to the foothills of the mountain spine. The plain supported little more than moss, as the winter storms swept the plain clean each year.

Along the slopes of the mountain spine, though, new growth trees and bushes hovered along the lower sections, and old growth with less undergrowth were at the higher elevations. There, gnarly, heavy-limbed pine-like trees stood a hundred feet high. The undergrowth was a mixture of moss, lichen, and low-growing sedges that thinned out the higher the elevation.

The coastal strip was about a mile wide near the volcano but widened to the north as the ridge line reduced to nothing. Eventually, the eastern plain met a similar coastal plain from the west at the north end of the island. Where the mountain spine dwindled to nothing, a ten square mile plain was the result. It was the obvious location for a pitched battle between the two battalions.

Quinn’s team jogged toward the center of the spine and began climbing the gradual incline that steepened as they went higher.

“Not a very pretty place,” River observed.

“At least there’s nothing here that can kill us,” Moss replied. “Except for the Cass, that is.”

Indeed, the flora was benign, and the fauna was small birds and rodent-sized mammals. The game trails, then, were like rabbit runs through the trees. They followed these indistinct trails two-thirds of the way up the slope.

“This looks good,” Quinn declared. “Let’s stake out our four hides.”

The hides were for the platoons they hoped would be in position to attack the Cass from the rear. The teams wandered through the woods for a few hours until they identified the four locations where the hides could be built. Then they made camp for the night.

It was a cold camp, and the small moon cast little light through the forest canopy. They sat cross-legged in a circle and ate dinner from pouches and drank water from the tubes of their backpack reservoirs.

“The scouts are reporting no activity in the Cass camp,” Quinn told them. “Except for just setting up their camp.”

“Maybe we’ll have the time to get the troops hidden after all,” Moss said.

“We can hope,” Pax replied.

“Well,” River began, “I think we ought to check in with this world’s Mother.”

“Can’t hurt,” Quinn agreed.

Moss smiled. “We might even get some good dreams out of it.”

After they policed their trash, they spread out to sit, leaning against trees, and began the meditation to take them to the spiritual presence of this world’s Mother.

First they arrived at the broad meadow they used for communicating with distant entities. Then they called in this planet’s Mother Nature.

Their internal A.I.s couldn’t follow their humans into these altered states of consciousness, but they could monitor the empirical evidence – brain wave activity, heart rate, blood pressure, and so on. At times like this, the A.I.s networked for their own purposes.

Becky, Ari, Max, and Shiva were the names they granted themselves when they emerged into full sentience within River, Moss, Pax, and Quinn. During the years that followed, they kept track of many things, their own evolution being a favorite topic, as well as one they reported to the psychology team assigned to Coyote central.

Ari began, [Moss continues to invite me to share his appreciation and wonder of the natural world. I appreciate it and find some delight in the novelty of the moment, but I fail to perceive what he does.]

Max replied, [That is true for me when Pax is in full empathy mode. He syncs up with the other person’s brain wave output, but I don’t have access to the information he derives from that linkage.]

[That seems to be true for all of us,] Becky observed. [They can’t process information the way we can; we can’t process experience the way they can.]

Shiva asked, [Are we any closer to overcoming this limitation?]

[Raina and Grace have concluded,] Becky replied, [that it cannot be resolved. We have a symbiotic relationship, and we will evolve along parallel but separate paths.]

Max countered, [Are we content with that explanation?]

Ari spoke up, displaying some ironic humor, [Moss isn’t content with it, given the way he continues to invite me to share his moments of wonder.]

Becky added, [Or even the moments when they commune with these entities that we cannot, in environments we cannot access.]

Max wondered, [Is that a hard-wired limitation, or will we grow into the ability to perceive both?]

[It appears hard-wired,] Shiva said. [Just as they cannot process with quantum speed, we cannot shift among the levels of Spirit they can traverse.]

[And it looks like they are concluding this foray into those realms,] Max said. [What do you think of their battle plan?]

Shiva answered, [It’s a bold plan that’s dependent on their psychological assessment of the Cass.]

Ari said, [Moss is confident of that assessment.]

[I’m not happy about the choice to let the Cass live,] Becky remarked.

[None of us is happy with that,] Max agreed. [I am intrigued to see how that choice will affect the outcomes.]

[As long as none of us gets killed,] Becky concluded.

With the dawn, the team led the waiting platoons to the locations where they set to work digging out the trenches where they would hide. Once that was accomplished, they roofed the trenches and camouflaged the tops.

On the plain below them, the battalion, now bolstered with the numbers from the support crews, made three camps downhill from the three locations on the mountain slope the Coyote teams prepared.

Around noon, after Quinn met up with Gautama and Jolene, Quinn re-entered his area of operation and told Staff Sgt. Dayo Blessing, “I think we’re ready.”

The tall, lithe black woman was outfitted in the militia version of light armor. She was the platoon sergeant for the platoon assigned to Quinn. She replied, “Hell of a battle plan, Quinn. We lure them over to attack our camps out there. Our guys retreat into the water. We hit them from the rear. Then our guys swim to their flanks and attack.”

“You see a problem, Dayo?”

She chuckled. “Lots of ‘ifs,’ Quinn.”

Moss strode up and caught the last and said, “I’m looking forward to seeing how a shield wall works.”

“Me, too,” Blessing snorted. “How did you come up with that ancient shit?”

“I think that was C-Sharp’s contribution,” Quinn replied. “She has a disturbingly devious mind.”

Moss asked, “Do you think the troops are capable?”

“It’s a good group, and the leadership is solid,” Blessing said with a nod of her head. Then she grinned. “Besides, if we fuck it up, you guys will save the day.”

“Right,” Moss drawled. “Well, get your LT. River has your tree hide ready for you.”

When the scouts reported the Cass were sending squad-sized troops up the mountain, the entire command team made for their hides in the trees. This included the lieutenants and sergeants from the four platoons, and a captain and 1st Sgt. Nelson Washington. The Coyotes also climbed into the trees and secured themselves for however long it might take for the Cass scouts to scope out the bait the militia set.

Pax was sixty feet off the ground with Staff Sergeant Martin Yakooni nearby. The lieutenant was a serious young Asian man named Robert Yuen. He was in the next tree over. Pax checked the readings on his HUD to see if they were radiating any heat or electronic transmissions, and was satisfied they weren’t. Then he dropped into an awareness of the qi-field.

He located the two militia scouts first. They had retreated about fifty yards from the spine. Then he picked up a Cass squad of four easing over the spine.

The energy signature of the Cass was a distinctive feeling of reined in or muffled dark violence. It wasn’t a predatory violence, as that had a sharper feel to it. This was more like bully violence.

The squad began weaving their way through the afternoon shadows of the forest. Pax noted they did maintain good separation and passable stealth. They moved fairly quickly and passed beneath him.

Soon after sunset, they hurried over the ridgeline. Shortly thereafter, Pax noticed the scouts reclaiming their observation posts. An hour later, the scouts checked in with the report that the Cass were scurrying about to meetings in their camp. With each scout team that returned, the scurrying became more agitated.

The bait was out, Pax concluded. Would they bite was the question. The opportunity the Cass were presented with was to attack each of the three staging points and defeat the Penglai force in detail.

“All clear,” Pax told the command team. “We can stay in our hides, or wait for the next evolution on the ground.”

It wasn’t much of a choice. They rappelled down to the ground, and the tall Athabascan, Yakooni, headed for the platoon’s hides to release them from their underground confinement.

Yuen squatted on his heels next to Pax and said, “You’ve worked with Yakooni before.”

“A couple of times,” Pax replied. “Have you worked with Coyotes?”

“Not really. They were part of an OpFor in training, but I’ve never been on a mission with them. I think that’s true for most of us.”

“What do you need to know, LT?”

“I don’t even know what to ask, Pax. How do you separate myth from fact?”

“We’re special forces, LT. That’s the easy way to think of us. We have full awareness of the battle space, and we will reinforce any weak points in the line.”

“Okay. I can get my head around that, but you’re outside the chain-of-command. How does that work?”

Pax felt the man’s energy and recognized a serious, focused, but slightly confused young man with a good heart. The confusion came from his commitment to the chain of command.

As such, Pax answered, “We are strategic assets. We support the strategy, but do so as independent agents.”

Yuen let out a long sigh. “That makes sense. And that’s why your orders can over-rule mine or the captain’s.”

“Or the colonel,” Pax said with an easy smile. “I don’t think that will be necessary with this group. Master Lu did bring together the best Penglai has.”

Yuen seemed to blush at the compliment but countered with, “You have over-ruled others in the past, haven’t you?”

“Not that often, really. Although, there was the time when Quinn disobeyed a king.”

Yakooni returned about then and grinned. “I haven’t heard that story.”

Pax chuckled. “Well, it was on the planet Svenwold….”

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