"One of them is still alive," Chang warned, and brought his rifle up. Adams pushed the barrel aside and shook her head angrily. "No, sir. Not you." She looked at Desai, and the two women nodded. One Kristang was rocking side to side on the ground, I'd missed hitting its torso and blown off one arm. Desai put two rounds in its head, then muttered something in Hindi, I assumed it was something like 'adios motherfucker' or whatever the Indian army equivalent was.

"Thank you." She said to Adams. If Chang was angry at a sergeant reprimanding him, he didn't show it. He knew human women had been tortured by the lizards, he understood Desai needed some feeling of payback. Splattering lizard brains across a dozen square meters was a good start.

"Does anyone know where they store food around here?" I asked. "The lizards gave me an MRE each morning, they must have human food somewhere."

"I haven't eaten in two days." Desai said, and Adams nodded.

Damn, now my one meal per day felt like a luxury. We searched the white building, wary for more Kristang, all of us extremely trigger-happy. Desai found a cabinet that contained seventeen packages of American MREs and the Chinese Army version of field rations. Adams and Chang said they weren't hungry, but I insisted they tear open one package and share it to start, eating slowly. They needed the energy. We didn't find anything else that was useful, no human clothing, no spare weapons and ammo. There was Kristang clothing, I gave Desai my pants and put on Kristang pants, she donned a Kristang shirt that was way too big, and gave my shirt back. If we ran into trouble, I thought my shirt, with my rank insignia, would be useful. Kristang boots were much too large for the women, they cut up clothing and wrapped the strips around their feet, I thought that was clever, it was Desai's idea. As Adams was tying off her makeshift shoes, a pair of Ruhar Vulture Dropship attack birds roared by overhead. It was time to leave.

There were a trio of Kristang armored personnel carriers parked by the fence, the doors weren't locked but they wouldn't start, and we didn't have time to look for keys or computer chips or whatever was needed. A Ruhar hamvee was nearby, the windshield was cracked but the powercells had a 70% charge, and it started right away. We circled the compound, so we could drive away down the one road with tree cover. Tree cover was likely no protection considering the Ruhar had eyes in the sky, but it made us feel safer somehow. Our last glimpse back at the destroyed lizard compound was of a Dodo coming in to land, escorted by the pair of Vultures. I crossed my fingers and hoped they'd consider one hamvee to be not worth bothering to investigate.