Posleen FanFic Read online

  When she shook her head, all three of the Chechens around her frowned. One of them even reached for his kindjal, until Mahmood extended a hand in restraint. Were they angry that she had given up on their co-religionist, even thinking that she were abandoning him so she could save her supplies for a fellow Christian?

  No, she couldn't back down, not when they could not afford to waste scarce medical resources on one already beyond mortal hope. She had to make it clear that she was a doctor first, and acted only on the basis of which patient would benefit from her attentions, irrespective of nationality or religion.

  She rose and faced the Chechens. "I'm sorry, but I can do nothing. His soul is in the hands of the Lord." She'd intended to keep her voice hard to forestall argument, but it wavered at the end.

  Christians would have crossed themselves, perhaps even removed their headgear, but the Chechens merely bowed their heads, spoke in their own language, their voices harsh with emotion. She made out nothing but "Allah," the Muslim name for God the Father.

  Odd, to see these hard men so emotional. We're all coming down from the adrenaline rush of combat.

  Which meant that she needed to get to Vartan quickly, before shock could set in, perhaps kill him where he might otherwise have survived. A word to Mahmood and they were walking down the line of stopped vehicles, past men repairing friendly-fire damage, women tending minor wounds. At least her time teaching first aid had not been wasted.

  Nor had it been wasted on Vartan. She noted with relief the pressure bandage on his thigh to control bleeding, the elevated legs to help blood flow back to the heart. Beso sat beside him, face dour as always, but posture attentive. Soselo had even ventured out of the truck to get a better look. For a change he didn't cringe in terror at the sight of the Posleen corpses. Might the sight of humans wiping out an entire squad of them have served as an anodyne to remembered trauma?

  Nanuli knelt beside Vartan, checked his vital signs and then the injury. "How do you feel?"

  The Armenian essayed a weak smile. "Well, Doc, I'm alive."

  "You'd be a lot better if we could've gotten our fair share of all those medicines the damn Galactics promised us." Beso grated the words out, his Georgian accent making him sound even angrier. "Stalin would never have let those freaks treat us like this, or the capitalist running-dogs to take the lion's share--"

  A click, and Mahmood pointed his AK right in Beso's face. "You Georgians love that thug--"

  Good Gori native that she was, Nanuli reflexively bristled at the attack on the city's most famous native son, even as she realized she couldn't afford to even appear to take sides. "Gentlemen, enough." She looked directly at Mahmood. "Weapon to the ground, soldier." To Beso, "No politics." Much as she wanted to talk to her fellow-countryman in their common native tongue, she kept to Russian so Mahmood could understand as well.

  Both men obeyed. Even if she wasn't talking about a specifically medical matter, she'd spoken with sufficient authority.

  She returned her attention to Vartan, satisfied herself that his leg was properly tended. "It's a flesh wound, so you'll keep the leg. You'll just be off it for a few days, and then take it easy--"

  A roar of shooting swallowed her words. There was no mistaking the sound of Posleen weapons; they sounded like nothing Earthly. If the earlier assault had been half-organized ferals, these were most definitely not. Nanuli looked up just in time to see a dozen of them coming around the last bend, weapons up and firing. Just behind them was one of their God-Kings on his silvery floating vehicle.

  Worse, she could see more of them further down, where the road jogged back into view. Lots more, both God-Kings and their normal troops.

  Mahmood grabbed her around the waist, said something too rapidly for her to follow, probably in Chechen. Before she could get out a word of protest, he half carried, half dragged her up the rough slope to a boulder that sheltered a sort of half-cave.

  Nanuli watched the hopeless battle below. Posleen fell by the dozens from the concentrated fire of AK's and the pintle-mounted Gatling on the top of the APC at the front of the caravan, but a dozen more stepped over every corpse.

  A truck burst into flames. The smell of burning grain rose from it. Whether the Posleen had hit the grain truck or someone had destroyed it to keep it from falling into their hands, Nanuli couldn't guess.

  Her throat constricted at the sacrifice that grain had represented. The fields of Upper Svaneti were not overly fertile, but the Svans had given generously so that the fighters of Forward Firebase Grozny could eat, even if it meant hungry nights for themselves. Still, better that it burn than feed the enemy.

  More trucks burst into flame. A few engines started, but with the Ataman's command car jacked up with a half-changed tire and blocking the road, there was nowhere to go.

  Or at least nowhere survivable. Two more of the grain trucks and an ammo transport veered across the road and straight over the edge to tumble down the side of the mountain.

  Please let the drivers have gotten out alive. Nanuli wanted to cross herself, yet the knowledge of Mahmood's presence beside her held her back from something so visibly Christian. God and the saints heard one's prayers whether or not they were accompanied by visible gestures. Even if the men didn't survive, she asked St. Michael that God not judge them suicides, but brave soldiers who died denying materiel to the enemy.

  Already some of the Posleen were climbing into the remaining vehicles in search of raidable supplies. She heard a few more shots, then nothing but screams. A few survivors ran, but it was already too late for running. Long yellow arms plucked them from their feet and blades flashed.

  There was nothing for Nanuli to do but watch. The back of her mind gibbered in horror, but her conscious mind went clinical, noted each wound delivered, each body part severed.

  "We can't stay here much longer or they'll scent us." Mahmood's voice was a hot whisper in her ear. So much for being too good to soil himself by talking to a woman. "Right now they're too busy looting, and we may actually have a chance."

  Up they scrambled, following the cover of stones and rhododendron trees as best they could until they encountered one of the narrow high-mountain trails. Nanuli panted with the unaccustomed exertion, but the memory of what she'd seen kept her going even as her old bones cried in protest at every movement.

  Only when nightfall made further progress impossible did Mahmood finally pause, set up a makeshift camp in the shelter of a rhododendron grove. He built a tiny fire, no more than enough to drive away the chill of autumn in the high Caucasus. They could only hope that the smoke would not attract further Posleen.

  Nanuli tended their sore and swollen feet as best she could with the supplies in her medkit. She didn't even remember grabbing it up, but she still had it. But it was not much, and with the loss of the caravan she could not replenish it until they encountered some remnant of civilization.

  * * *

  The next morning they started at first light, after carefully obliterating all trace of the fire. At least now they could moderate their pace, even pause long enough to pick and eat a few wild berries that grew along the trail, or drink from chill mountain streams. Not much nourishment, but enough to keep them moving forward.

  Time and again they glimpsed movement along other trails in the scrubby forest. Wild animals for the most part, but sometimes Posleen moving by twos and threes, their heads swiveling with alertness. No ferals these, for they carried their strange weapons in the unmistakable posture of one ready to use them.

  "They're learning to patrol," cursed Mahmood after hiding from the fourth or fifth such near-encounter.

  Once Nanuli thought that she had glimpsed some of the local mountain folk, but Mahmood had stopped her before she could call to them. "They aren't moving right for humans. We don't want to attract the poski."

  Nanuli wanted to respond that they certainly weren't moving right for Posleen, but decided this was neither the time nor place to argue with Mahmood. Still, she would've li
ked some human company, and even more a decent night's sleep in a bed.

  The worst thing had been finding the bones, still fresh and scarred by bite marks. Much as Nanuli wanted to believe they were merely animal bones, she could not mistake the attachments of the thumb tendons on the humerus for anything non-human.

  "Posleen ate him?" Mahmood scratched out a shallow grave with makeshift tools.

  "Teeth aren't right." Nanuli pointed at a clear impression of a single bite in the softer part of the bone. "Posleen teeth are all alike, pointed like a crocodile's. These were made by a mammal's teeth. See the incisors here, the canines, the bicuspids and molars back here."

  "Bear, then, or maybe some kind of cat."

  Nanuli shook her head. "Jaw's too short." A memory came back to her. "Just like in Ushguli." At Mahmood's blank look, Nanuli explained. "It's a village in the highest part of Upper Svaneti. Last winter, people started disappearing from one of the four settlements. Then their bones started showing up with bite marks like this. That's when Colonel Granidze called me to examine them."

  Nanuli swallowed hard at the memory it brought forth. "One of the refugee families, former Communist Party officials from southern Russia or Ukraine, were luring people into their home and butchering them, then scattering the bones in hopes that we'd assume that wild animals or Posleen got them. Sometimes they sold cuts to their neighbors as 'pork.' Granidze, he was a Security colonel rather than regular Army, tried them and sentenced them all to death by firing squad. Lined up the neighbors who'd bought their meat and put AK's in their hands, made them shoot the whole family, even the boy--" Nanuli's voice squeaked and failed.

  "It was necessary." Mahmood's voice was hard as stone. "Cannibalism is a stench unto Allah and destroys the fabric of society. It must be punished, visibly and decisively."

  "But a twelve-year-old boy?"

  "Twelve is old enough to know right from wrong." Mahmood's tone cut off all possibility of argument.

  In silence Nanuli laid the bones in the shallow grave and helped Mahmood pile a cairn of stones over them. Since they didn't know whether the victim had been Christian or Muslim, each of them spoke over the grave in hopes that one of their prayers would lay the soul to rest.

  By the time they were finished, the sun had given way to gray clouds that covered the sky and cut off the peaks around them. Soon the first fat flakes were falling.

  She almost didn't hear the cry of the Posleen, its harness caught in the branches of a mountain oak that suspended it too far up to retrieve the weapon it had dropped in the snow beneath it. However she definitely heard Mahmood's shot, which went straight through the alien's vulnerable eye and blew right out of the top of the head.

  "Help me butcher this thing." He slung the AK, reached for the kindjal at his belt.

  "You can't eat Posleen." Nanuli reached for his wrist. "The protein's incompatible. It'll rot your brain out."

  "In ten, twenty years. I've heard the reports too." Mahmood twisted clear of her grasp, slid the tip into the soft skin around one of the Posleen's shoulder joints and cut. "If we don't eat something we'll never make it to shelter. You're almost collapsing from hunger already, and I don't see any berries or wildlife around here."

  It was all Nanuli could do to choke down the chunks of slimy yellow flesh as Mahmood cut them from the carcass. She gagged and only by sheer willpower did she keep from throwing it all up.

  Mahmood scooped up a fistful of snow and used it to wipe the Posleen blood from his beard. The next fistful he stuffed into his mouth.

  "Don't eat snow." At his frown, she raised her voice. "That'll kill you now. Lowers your core body temperature. Melt it in your mouth and only swallow it liquid."

  He looked dubious, but obeyed when she demonstrated the technique she'd learned from the Svans. It took patience, especially when she wanted nothing better than to wash the foul taste of Posleen flesh out of her mouth and a fistful of snow came to little more than a spoonful of meltwater.

  Before they moved on, Mahmood searched the dead Posleen's gear harness, removed several pouches and tied them together for Nanuli to carry. The sheer weight nearly made her knees buckle.

  "It's hardly twenty kilos, old woman. My grandmother carries that much every day." Mahmood brushed the clinging snow from the Posleen's weapon. "I'll go ahead and tote this. I may have to get the gunsmith at Grozny to do the conversion, but if I can do it myself once we find some shelter, I'll use it and you can go with the AK."

  Nanuli realized what he intended, shook her head. "No, I am a doctor. I'm sworn to preserve life, not take it."

  "All right, but you're still toting it, even if you won't use it."

  Within an hour the snowfall had grown so heavy that they could scarcely see beyond their own arms' length. Nanuli's feet grew numb in her thin boots, and the gloves that had been sufficient for a trip in the safety of a military truck proved grossly inadequate. She tried not to look at Mahmood's bare hands. They'd be lucky if they didn't lose more than a few digits to frostbite.

  "We can't go on." Her voice came in ragged gasps from the effort of forcing her way through the deepening snow, even in a path broken by Mahmood.

  "We can't stop until we find shelter."

  "Leave me, then. I'm just a burden on you."

  "No, I will get you to Grozny or die trying. I have sworn to bring them a doctor." He took her firmly by the arm and led her onward.

  Nanuli's consciousness became reduced to the process of putting one foot in front of the other. In their exhaustion they almost stumbled right by the entrance to the tunnel. In fact, they only noticed it because Nanuli's foot took that moment to slide out from under her. At least the snow cushioned her fall.

  As Mahmood helped her back to her feet, she noticed the dark area. "Is that a cave?"

  "I don't know." The Chechen's voice wavered, the first time she had heard him display uncertainty. "Let's look."

  The opening was carefully faced in concrete, so there was no question of it being a natural cave. Inside, they found a smooth wall leading inward. Renewed hope enabled their numb feet to carry them down it.

  And straight to a dead end. Nanuli thought it was a door, although in the dim light she could find neither hinges nor latch. They'd come so far, only to find shelter just beyond their reach. Exhausted, both of them slid down to collapse against it. With her fading consciousness Nanuli saw movement, but she no longer had enough will left to respond.

  As he grew old, Stalin decided that it was time to choose a successor. He summoned to his side two chief members of his Politburo, Malenkov and Beria. He called for two sparrows to be brought, and bade each man to hold one.

  Malenkov held his so loosely that it squirmed free and flew away. Beria, determined to show that he knew better than this fat toady, held his so tightly that he crushed it.

  Irritated, Stalin ordered his guards to bring him a third sparrow. Taking it by the legs, he carefully plucked its feathers. In minutes the poor creature lay shivering in his hand.

  "To hold something, you must make it helpless and dependent upon you." Stalin held up the bird for his cringing sycophants to see. "See how it is even grateful for the warmth of my palm."

  Part Two

  In the Hall of the Mountain King

  Nanuli awoke to the realization that she was surrounded by warmth. She wiggled her fingers, relieved to find them all present and accounted for. She stretched her legs, flexed her toes. Could she be dead, in heaven? She'd thoroughly expected to lose her feet, even her hands to frostbite.

  A panel over her head slid back to admit a strange greenish light. Over her stood a chestnut-haired young man in a white lab coat. "Greetings, Nanuli Akakievna." He pronounced her patronymic with the soft Russian "k" instead of the glottalized "k" of Georgian. "I am Vladilen Ivanovich."

  He extended a hand to her, helped her sit up. With astonishment she realized that her hand was no longer that of an old woman, wrinkled and bony. The skin was firm under toned muscles like it had
n't since the first bloom of her youth.

  "Where am I?" Her voice sounded strange in her ears, too strong and clear.

  "A secret installation in the Caucasus mountains. You were in pretty bad shape when we found you, and you've been out for a few days while we got you back on the mend."

  "How's Mahmood?"

  "The Chechen?" Vladilen Ivanovich frowned. "The tissue damage was so extensive that he'll be regenerating for another two or three weeks. In your case, the nannites were able to repair the damaged cells, but his hands and lower legs were so far gone that gangrene had set in and we had to amputate."

  "Nannites?" Comprehension sank through. "This is GalTech! What is GalTech doing here?" Surprise gave way to anger. "We were told that it was too expensive for us mountain-folk to afford."

  Vladilen Ivanovich scratched at that goatee of his which made Nanuli think of Nikolai Bulganin. "It's a long story. How about you get dressed and freshened up, and we talk about it over a meal in quarters more suitable for humans."

  He retreated to the door on the far side of the room, leaving her alone in this room full of equipment whose sinuous lines made her nerves uneasy. She should have welcomed the privacy for the sake of modesty, yet something in her hindbrain wailed at the loss of the one human contact in this place that Was Not Human.

  It made her even more uneasy to discover that the clothes lying neatly folded beside the capsule were just her size. How had he known?

  Stop worrying, she told herself. The man is a medical professional, not some kind of voyeur.

  And it did feel good to change from the ragged travel clothes, even if they were no longer crusted with filth. The nannites must have cleaned them while mending her flesh, but they weren't able to reweave cloth. Even if they had, she would still have been glad to exchange the coarse camouflage pants and shirt for this outfit. She would have felt comfortable wearing it on a trip to Tbilisi, before the war, but even in this setting it didn't make her feel overdressed.