For every man we dropped it seemed like two more appeared, and we were lightly equipped and lightly armored. Even though both our species had run drills and trained together for months now, this kind of fighting was disorderly and it was difficult to coordinate. The enemy kept pushing us back towards where the diplomats were, and it was clear that their only objective was to make it into that room. They wanted whatever, or whoever it was badly enough that they were sacrificing their forces with little thought. A suicide mission, if we had anything to say about it. In order to make sure of that, we had to regroup. We had to retreat.
Every soldier understood that it was not our job to win. Our job was to buy the civilians enough time to get to the roof. As I dispatched another combatant with a quick cut through his abdomen I felt myself being lifted into the air. I fell to the ground with a crash and skidded across the floor. A big bruiser of a man stood over me, pistol in hand. I whipped my hand forward to shove the gun out of the way, but it wasn’t necessary. The man’s belly opened in a wide red gash. Ripped open by claws. I grinned, face splattered with the man’s blood. Now we were talking. This was what we did best.
With the enemy abandoning their guns in favor of relying on physiology, the alien warriors had the advantage. I shouted for the human soldiers to stand back—no amount of skill would change the fact that we would be in the way. We formed up in a square and returned to the edges of the fight with our guns raised, reinstating the kill-box. I grabbed a rifle from one of the dead men and turned, dropping to one knee so I could sight any stragglers who tried to rush our group.
The next few minutes were a beautiful thing. I watched as my commander opened her mouth to scream a battle cry that shook the fillings in my teeth. The enemy soldiers dropped their remaining weapons in shock and put their hands to their ears, but it was no use. I opened my mouth to roar with them and motioned for the humans to follow. Together we brought forth the spirits of our ancestors, mouths wide, our eyes flashing, tongues out, and teeth exposed. The oldest and best way to make the guy trying to kill you believe that you’re about to rip him apart and eat his organs for breakfast. I wrinkled my nose as at least one of the black-clad force wet himself.
The battle became a bloodbath with the alien soldiers taking advantage of the enemy’s shock to kick their remaining weapons away from them and tear them open. A few of my comrades took special care to make sure the rest of the insurgents had a good view as they gulped bloodied chunks of the fallen. Suddenly, the men who had fought with such zeal minutes before were terrified. They were fighting for their lives and they knew it. The fear made them stupid and more than a few made simple tactical mistakes that cost them a limb or their lives as a result. I caught the sweet notes of at least one enemy soldier screaming as he was cornered by an alien soldier. He opened his jaws and the soldier’s scream was cut off with a wet crunch.
The few who did manage to make it away from the claws and teeth of my brothers and sisters ran straight into the staccato fire of rifles and crumpled. It was like shooting fish in a barrel. It didn’t take long before our soldiers were finishing off the last man. I picked up a severed head that had rolled my way while we were still engaged and handed it to my commander, blood dripping from the stump of the man’s neck. She ripped the black fabric from the head and held it high by the hair, roaring again. The whole room cheered, stamping their feet, and shouting in triumph. The commanders of both forces sent two soldiers each back to the room where the meeting was being held, to report that the threat was neutralized and instructing them to radio back the confirmation the evacuation was successful.
Just as the collective group started to breathe again, we heard the sounds of heavy footsteps advancing. Our soldiers kicked the dead aside, clearing the way while the human commander motioned for his group to set positions. Two alien soldiers walked to the head of the group, guns drawn, snarling as they waited for the next wave of attack. As if in slow motion, two huge men burst through the doors of the building. In their hands, they held a massive contraption that at first glance looked like the end of a fire hose hooked up to a battery pack. The moment the doors swung open I could hear more shots and screams from outside.
We were surrounded. The men we had just defeated were only the first wave. There was an unnatural screeching noise and the room lit up bright white. The soldiers leading our group dropped, their skin charred and blistered where a massive charge of electricity had surged through their bodies. For a fraction of a second, everything was quiet.
“Run!” I bellowed. The unit turned and retreated through the building, racing to avoid the assault. The enemy took their time pressing forward, progressing down the hallways almost lazily. The men with the electric weapons walked calmly in front of the infantrymen, frying any of our men who got too close. We were able to take the odd shot at the enemy forces but every time one of our guys even looked their way for too long they died. Their bodies were left where they fell.
We finally came to the large antechamber of the meeting room and threw together a blockade behind us the best we could. What remained of the chairs and tables became cover for our soldiers. We shot out the lights in the ceiling and covered the light shining through the doors from the room behind with a torn strip of cloth. There was still some light that shone through small windows at the top of the walls, but the room was now mostly in shadow. It wasn’t hard to see shapes but the partial darkness helped to obscure how our soldiers were arranged and we hoped that it would help give us some element of surprise.
Two human soldiers carefully set up next to the doors and waited with combat knives in their hands. The aliens stood next to them, positioned so that they would become plainly visible as the soldiers advanced down the hall. This was so that the alien soldiers would appear as the bigger targets. They would draw the attention and fire of the enemy while the humans would try to take the biggest men down. We didn’t need them dead, we just needed whatever the hell those guns were out of their hands. The rest of us clustered together in formation, two soldiers in the very front, leaving most of us in the back. The idea was to draw the big guys into the room and slash their legs as they came in.
The silence of preparing for battle settled over the room. Every soldier in the room slowed their breathing. The humans checked their clips and counted ammunition silently. I heard one or two human soldiers quietly murmuring as they prayed. The alien soldiers butted heads or limbs against each other in a bonding gesture that was as clear as day to me. They were saying their goodbyes.
When I had first fought alongside these warriors against Turuk, I was puzzled as to why the aliens were so perfunctory with their dead. Every soldier that fell was immediately disposed of, their bodies pushed aside or hidden. At the time, I had chalked it up to battle tactics—there wasn’t any room in a flying fighter or on a battlefield for dead bodies, so they got rid of them for utilities’ sake
After spending the last half year as one of their own, I learned that the attitude towards death in battle was much like the one we humans held thousands of years ago. Death in battle was a ‘good death’ that should be aspired towards. I came to understand that these warriors lived their entire existence knowing that they could die any day and that these gestures and goodbyes were not mournful, they were joyful. They were thanking each other for their company in life and wishing them an easy transition to the next. When they died, it didn’t matter what was done with their bodies as their souls had already left.
I turned as I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was my commander; she removed her helmet and mine and leaned down to butt my forehead with her own. The tap was a little more forceful than I expected and she chuffed as I pulled my head away to rub it with my hand, still smiling.
The boom of footsteps marching in lockstep got closer and closer. When the enemy got close enough for us to hit, the human commander shouted.
“Come and get us, motherfuckers!”
The enemy remained silent, but the footsteps came faster. The two
men who carried the cannons practically barreled down the hallway and I could hear the escalating whine of the devices charging. My commander signaled for her forces to hold their positions as the two soldiers accompanying the hidden humans readied their knives. The aliens waited until they heard the squealing of the charge hit its highest pitch and dived away from the door, hurtling towards the back walls of the room. As the weapons fired, the humans on either side of the door leapt forward from where they crouched, each grabbing one leg of the men and slashing through tendons.
The men holding the beam weapons shouted, twisted, and stumbled to the floor. As they fell the weapons dropped, firing wildly into the room. The alien soldiers who ran for the back of the room jumped and turned using the wall to spring themselves back at the enemy, claws extended. Soldiers were streaming into the room now and they led the vanguard, ripping into any black uniform that got in their way. They were eventually able to clear a path for the firing lines, but the onslaught was too great. We were losing.
3
Alexandra
“Move it! Everyone to the roof! Move now!”
The alien guards pushed forward to funnel the ambassadors and their guard through back passageways that led to the roof. The human soldiers went first, clearing each hallway as they went. I stayed behind for a moment to ensure that every human had made it out, then turned and sprinted to catch up with the group. On my way out of the room, I pulled a small electronic device from my pocket that functioned as a distress call. With luck, every friendly soldier within a couple of miles would receive the signal.
We brought out groups of three with one soldier in front and one behind. Everyone kept a hand on the person in front’s shoulder. I was familiar enough with military operations by now to know that this was both to keep us in step and to stop the civilians from panicking. When we opened the doors to the roof I was able to hear the now-familiar hum of alien troop transports. As we spilled onto the flat platform I spotted two transports hovering perpendicular to each other over the top of the building. Standing on the deck of the transport that was closest to the rooftop was Ka’thak, decked out in full armor and sporting an impressive gun. He smiled at me and jumped to the concrete.
“You ready to go, little sister?”
“Man, am I happy to see you.” I grinned. “Let’s get these people out of here.”
I turned to help one of the American diplomats into the troop transport, but she pulled her hand away, eyes wide with fear at the sight of the alien commander. I could understand that Ka’thak was intimidating when you first met him, but hadn’t these people just spent well over two hours clustered in a room with aliens that looked the exact same way? They weren’t that scary! I reached toward her again but she was still backing away. The civilians had clustered themselves into a group, pointing and chattering.
“God damn it,” I swore. Panicking humans meant dead humans. I had to get them moving as quickly as possible.
Both human and alien soldiers were trying to move the crowd into the transports with urgency and as much politeness as they could muster but time was running short. I watched the human soldiers start to argue with the civilians. They were trying to get them to move with words and I felt mounting frustration as the group continued to stay where they were. People move faster when they have a gun pointed at them and I wished that they would hurry up and use that option. As the soldiers argued with the ambassadors I could dimly hear the sounds of battle echoing up the stairways from below. It sounded like there were beam weapons firing too. I hoped that meant our guys were winning. When the diplomats still wouldn’t move, I marched up to one of the ambassadors that had been addressing the gathering earlier and grabbed his shoulder.
“What the hell is your problem?” I shouted into his ear over the din. “Get your people on the goddamn transport!”
“We don’t even know who or what is attacking us! For all we know these aliens have been sent to pick off the last of us and take over the base!” the man shouted back. Xenophobic asshole. Some ambassador. I rolled my eyes and grabbed him by the collar. His eyes went wide as I pulled him close to me and pointed at Ka’thak.
“You see the big alien soldiers over there, right?” I snarled. He nodded. “You see the big alien soldiers with the really big claws and the really big guns?” Another nod. “You think that if they were sent here to kill us that you and I would be having this conversation?” The man hesitated and shook his head slowly. I dropped him and motioned for one of the alien soldiers to give me her gun. She did so with a questioning look but backed away fast as I hefted the gun against my shoulder and went to squeeze the trigger. The gun fired into the air and every human and alien on the rooftop froze.
“Ladies and gentlemen!” I called out. “If you’ll turn to your left and right, you will find our escape route for the day! Those who don’t want to find out what it’s like to be killed by gunfire would do well to move! Now!” I walked to the shuttle where Ka’thak and his soldiers stood waiting and swung myself up and into the aircraft. The remaining humans stared. “If you plan on living through the day, you’d be smart to follow me. Let’s go, people!”
Sheepishly, the assembled human diplomats moved into the two craft. The human soldiers got over their hesitation in seconds and jumped aboard both vessels to help their charges into the transports. As Ka’thak finished seating the woman who had pulled away from me he took me aside.
“You see, this is why I insisted you be our principal liaison with the humans,” he said. “You can speak human better than most of the humans can.”
I chuckled and grabbed a seat of my own. Before both shuttles took off to carry the civilians away from the battle, I heard the pops and screeches of gunfire getting closer. I had no idea about what was going on down there, but I hoped that Jackson and his troops were safe.
I had to admit to myself that I wasn’t bored anymore. Somebody was trying to crash the only plans that we had to spare some fragment of humanity from a horrific death. I sat and tried to do the math, but it didn’t add up. The people who attacked us might be from one of those countries who believed that we were out to get them or religious extremists that would rather sentence the human race to die than to work with beings from another planet. Whoever they were, they weren’t amateurs to make it onto a United States military base and break into the building we were in. No doubt this incident was going to shatter what fragile trust we managed to establish. Humans and aliens just added one more exceptionally large reason not to trust one another. We had to find out who was behind this attack before the efforts to save both our peoples completely unraveled.
It started to hit me that yet again, I nearly just died. As much as I pretended to be used to this, I would forever have trouble adjusting to the reality that there were no more guaranteed tomorrows. In a strange way, this was an idea that brought me a lot of peace. A year ago I had entertained the idea of preparing a ten-year plan. That was wiped off the board and now my life was set in ten-day, or even ten-minute plans. I laughed.
Well, you got into social work to make a difference in the world... I thought. If only my professors could see me now!
In order to rip myself away from the philosophical implications of it all, I decided to check on my ambassadorial ducklings. The diplomats were seated around the shuttle, some in seats, others making themselves comfortable on the floor. More than a few continued to stare at the alien soldiers, leaning in to whisper to each other. The soldiers in turn reacted by staring back, completely ignoring the gazes of the humans, or finding creative ways to pass the time. A particularly large soldier bent down bringing his face close to the man who had given me so much trouble on the rooftop. I snorted a laugh as the soldier opened his mouth and snarled, saliva dripping from his teeth. The man yelped and nearly wet his pants. The soldier threw back his head and guffawed.
“Be nice.” I cajoled, laughing alongside the soldier. “They know not what they do.”
“Klaatu barada nikto, human.�
� the soldier laughed, forming his hand into an alien approximation of the “live long and prosper” gesture made so famous by Star Trek. The human ambassador glared at both of us. I grinned and shrugged.
“What do you want me to do? Tell him to knock it off? You’re the guy who just delivered a soliloquy on how these are probably the people who were trying to kill us. They deserve to let off a little steam.”
The man opened his mouth and raised his hand, index finger extended to tell me off. I shot him my best ‘you’re seriously going to try to fuck with me now?’ look and he shut up. I went to the soldiers and thumped one of them on the shoulder, taking care to look her in the eyes.
“Thank you. I apologize for my fellow humans’ stupidity. As the official liaison between our peoples, I hereby offer forth that you may fuck with them in any ways you’d like that don’t involve bodily harm.”
The soldier chuffed and knocked me in the forehead with her skull. She then turned towards the assembled humans and let out a bark. Several people jumped. One woman didn’t. She stood and walked over to us, holding out her hand.
“My name is Ellen. I too apologize. We humans are a fatefully ignorant species and you deserve better than our fear. May I sit with you and talk a while?”
The soldier looked at me and I raised my eyebrows. “It’s up to you,” I said. She looked thoughtful for a moment and extended her hand to Ellen. They sat down together and I felt a little relief when I saw Ellen take a photo book from her pocket and started showing the soldier her family. I left them to chat and arranged some bags to make a passable bed. I had just shut my eyes and was about to fall asleep when I heard a soft chuff. I opened my eyes again and Ka’thak’s face appeared above mine.
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