The full squad ran fifteen deep. The young. The brazen. The immortal. The O.E. military preferred their inductees without familial connections. Refugees. Wards of the state. The repurposed, unmissed people on O.E. called them. But Muungano changed all that. The gbeto duty was rooted in relationship, the work of the individual to safeguard the community. HOVAs knew the cost in more intimate ways than other members. And Fela had been charged with leading them, adopting mother to a brood prone to squabbles, fighting, and playing far too rough.

Without a word, the squad assumed a standard patrol formation, progressing at a slow crawl over the terrain. Advance drones the size of dust motes relayed information to the squad as well as the Hughes for the next communication buoy update. Until then, they’d be radio silent with Muungano.

Her mind refused to accept the idea of the possibility of “aliens,” no matter how much they had trained for the possibility. Fela always wondered how she would react to them. Actual aliens. The concept of beings from another world, whether they admitted it or not, was too big for most people. The entertainment value was one thing, filling their books and movies in preparation of them. The reality had too many implications. She could almost get her mind around them but couldn’t. But they were on a mission, one involving space exploration. Taking their first steps to the stars. Drawing attention to themselves if anything was out here to notice them. Yet here they were, on an alien world. Her planet on the other side of the galaxy, perhaps (astrocartography was limited to mission briefs).

In war, cities were the worst to patrol, with too many possibilities for snipers to hide or leave IEDs in roads or with the alleys veining the city providing too many avenues to escape into. Her readings made little sense. She double-checked them. In this approximation of a city, the structures weren’t like buildings as Fela understood them but closer to apartments carved into a mountainside. Raised boulders that might have served as a home. Perhaps the area had been a city as she knew it once, though now it resembled sandblasted ruins. The surviving debris had the hallmarks of being a place where people lived, played, and did business, all blown to shit. She imagined firefights having broken out, with indications of opposing forces vying for control of the rubble. Winding in and out of the series of alleyways, Epyc Ro held up her hand, and the squad halted for a break, hiding behind an outcrop of what remained of a building.

“Careful, we don’t know what kind of booby traps might be in place,” Epyc Ro said. “No one leaves their home unprotected.”

Fela scowled at her. This was going to be a problem she’d need to nip early rather than later. “Captain, I’ll give the commands, if you don’t mind.”