“Doctor, I need your help. I know you’ve just been through a lot, but I need you to look after your group. Please. My soldiers are exhausted and as you were just saying, none of them are too fond of your people right now.”
I pressed my lips together. I could tell the alien commander was trying his best to be polite but that he too was completely devoid of energy. Being in a position with any kind of power right now meant a whole lot of effort with few results and even less sleep. I was tempted to tell him that his soldiers could handle corralling a few humans, but I felt for him. In less than a year he had gone from a skilled warrior to the leader of an entire people, and now we were asking him to defend our people in addition to his own. The least I could do was suck it up and keep an eye on the ambassadors.
“Yeah, you’ve got it. Don’t worry, my friend. I’ll make sure they don’t do too much damage.”
He smiled and nodded.
“Thank you. We will need to prepare for our landing soon and I’d be very grateful if we could make this process go as smoothly as possible.”
I stood and made my way to each of the diplomats, asking whether or not they needed water, food, or the restroom. They all seemed grateful for the reassurance and as maddening as working with them could be, I felt pity for them. They were people too and deserving of care. If nothing else, it would help them stay calm and organized when we landed. I suspected that the group was in for a bit of a culture shock.
4
Jackson
The battle never stopped. If the difference in numbers wasn’t disadvantage enough, our rapidly narrowing battlefield was what was going to kill us. We had managed to take down the men holding the beam cannons, but two more soldiers had taken their places. It was then that our tactical decision to keep the room dark that bit us in the ass. The shit had truly hit the fan.
Our commanding officers quickly ordered another retreat just barely into the passageways that led out to the roof. I knew that Ka’thak would be staging the evacuation up there and since we found no one in the meeting room, we had to assume that the evacuation was complete. Leading the enemy into a smaller area would give us the opportunity to slow their advance. It also meant that we wouldn’t be able to overpower them by force, but it was still a better idea than getting slaughtered.
A good portion of the soldiers had been able to make it onto the roof. Only my commander and I remained of the alien forces with a couple of human guards standing on the steps below us. We were all running low on ammunition, and if we had to move further up the stairway hand to hand combat would be impossible. If we could give our people enough time to get away before the enemy broke through, that would be enough. My commander and I reached forward to tap the human soldiers twice on the back of their heads, a “fire when ready” signal that was universal. The soldiers in front of us nodded and leveled their rifles at the staircase below us.
More black-uniformed soldiers managed to take firing positions behind the furniture in the meeting room. We fired, but carefully, trying to make our remaining ammunition last as long as possible. I grit my teeth as one of the enemies managed to recover the beam cannon and was struggling to level it at our position. Just as they managed to stand, shots rang out from behind the group. Through the falling bodies of the enemy soldiers, I could catch glimpses of green, brown, and tan-Army BDUs. Somehow the surrounding forces must have been alerted to the attack. From the number of grunts making their way into the compound I could tell that the tide was turning.
“Forward!” I shouted, picking up my weapon and marching down the staircase. My commander and I swept sideways as soon as we hit the entryway into the room, providing covering fire for the human soldiers who were picking off bad guys like it was target practice. The enemy was too distracted with the greater threat and this gave us the perfect opportunity to kill any who wasn’t paying enough attention to his surroundings. Our allies kept coming until the enemy was surrounded. I stepped forward into the middle of the room.
“Throw us your weapons! It’s over,” I said, addressing the few remaining soldiers who were still behind the cover of furniture. “Kick them away right now and I will guarantee you safe passage from this place. You don’t need to die here.” I was met with nothing but silence until I heard the scrape of a rifle being slid across the floor. I glanced down but remained standing where I was. One of the rifles came to rest in front of my boots. “I’ll give the rest of you five seconds to surrender your weapons. Five, four…”
A small object flew into the center of the room.
“Grenade!” I shouted and dove for cover, but I was a second late. The blast caught me mid-air and threw me into the wall. When I managed to stagger to my feet again, I cringed. Every single enemy soldier was dead, including the ones who had been surrendering. Infantrymen were climbing over the mess, checking for survivors. Lucky for them all the people accompanying me were alive or we would be adding a lot more dead people to the room.
An older man stepped into the room. He was a big guy with closely cropped grey hair and a swagger. He sneered as he looked around the room, taking care to step over a dead enemy soldier’s body.
“Hey, dickhead!” I yelled, marching up to him. “I had them surrendering, why the hell did you blow them up?”
“Captain Kyle Vincent.” The officer held out his hand. I didn’t take it. “My orders were to secure the base. The base is secure. Bad guys are dead. You should be thanking me.”
“Lt. Colonel Jackson,” I spat.
“Lt. Colonel, you don’t like you’ve been hanging with your Air Force buddies in a while.” Vincent smiled contemptuously. He looked me up and down, pausing at the knives I had hanging at my belt. His eyes narrowed at the sight of the alien weaponry.
“And you don’t look like you’ve been using your goddamned brain in a while, Captain.” I turned and searched the bodies for any clue as to who these men were. Each soldier carried gear which, while high tech, could be bought anywhere on the internet. Guns with serial numbers filed off and armor that could be made with a high-end 3D printer. I ripped through the dead men’s pockets and found no identification, no names, nothing. These men weren’t meant to survive their mission. That meant one of two things; they were either highly paid or they had a serious bone to pick. I mentally ran through the list of superpowers who had this kind of access.
There were only three that stuck out—the United States, China, and Russia. If these guys were a foreign agency attempting a hostile take over of either the human or alien ship, we were in for one hell of a fight. It was also possible that these men could be an independent militia. Before the Earth was hit with the first wave of supernova damage, there had been more and more fringe communities who were trying to organize private armies in case the U.S. government ever came for their guns. It wasn’t completely out of the question that a single rich idiot could have equipped these guys and sent them in to try and derail our recovery efforts. Whoever they were, there was nothing to indicate their motivations or associations. Damn.
I watched Captain Vincent walk around the room searching the dead men himself. He smiled as he kicked one of the dead soldier’s legs out of his way. I was as glad as the next man to still be alive, but it was strange that he took such pleasure in seeing them dead. No matter who these people were, if there was a well trained, well-equipped force out there looking to stop the government and the aliens from working together, our problems were just beginning.
That prick Vincent bothered me too. I had met my fair share of assholes in my time but this one was above and beyond. Throwing a grenade into a room of enemy targets after they were volunteering to surrender wasn’t just stupid, it was reckless as hell. He could have killed any of my men with a stunt like that. I vowed that if I ever had to deal with him again it would be on my terms.
5
Alexandra
The shuttles landed next to the mothership where a cadre of alien soldiers waited for us. They stood apart to form a protected path for
the evacuated to walk through. I had been to the ship enough times to feel welcome by this point and it was a relief to be somewhere that felt safe. The aliens helped their human passengers from the shuttles and the group walked towards the larger ship.
The ambassadorial team had gone from slightly frightened to freezing like mice facing a cat. Even the human soldiers were looking a little shaky. Several alien children bounded up to us and I grinned, playing the clapping game that Jackson told me they liked. The group behind me stopped and stared as I jumped around, clapping, and then waiting until they stood still to clap again. The children hopped around me, chirping and chattering. I turned to the ambassadors.
“What? They’re kids. They like to play.”
The rest of the humans still stared, mouths agape. I opened my arms wide and gestured for the children to follow me. A few dropped back to the rest of the group to sniff and poke at the new humans. I snickered as one of the senior delegates stifled a shriek. The alien child investigating him pulled his head away in confusion and bounded back to the front of the pack to join his brethren.
“They’re children,” I said. “Don’t scare them.” The delegate scowled at me as if I should be more worried about his comfort than the child’s.
Ka’thak broke from the group to instruct his soldiers and then fell in step beside me. “I’ve informed our soldiers of what has transpired at the base. They will put the entire ship on high alert. We are locking down. Now.”
“Understood. I’ll do my best to corral the herd here,” I said, jerking my thumb at the ambassadors. As we walked, another shuttle touched down close to us and Jackson stepped out covered in blood. I ran to him but he held out his hands to stop me.
“It’s not mine,” he said. “I’ll explain later.” He turned to Ka’thak. “Captain, we should talk.”
The three of us walked together as alien ambassadors came to escort the human diplomats to their temporary quarters. “The men who attacked the meeting were black-clad soldiers who appeared to have no affiliation with a country or specific branch of military service. I searched their bodies and could find no association with any human country or organization. There were no identifying marks on them either, and they did not carry any identification. We took photos of the dead men and are running them through every facial recognition database we have. But, until we get a hit we have no idea where these men came from or who they are.”
Ka’thak snorted in frustration. “Why are humans allowed to do things like this? Your species is the most fractured and disorganized that I have ever seen. You war with each other over your gods or over nothing at all, you constantly fight amongst yourselves to the point of tearing apart your own government. Your people have fought ours every step of the way when the only thing we are trying to do is save you. It’s completely illogical. It’s no wonder that your people weren’t able to achieve interstellar travel or cure the simplest diseases. Why would anyone want to impede our progress given the threat you all face?”
I sighed. “Throughout our history, there have always been humans who believe in conspiracies. There are members of our species who believe that the Earth is a flat disk and that you can fall off the edge. There are people who deny that we’ve landed on our moon and people who are convinced that there is a secret society running the planet. The latest crazy theory is that the whole alien ‘thing’ and ‘the supernova’ are so-called false flags. They believe that the entire situation is made up, that the government is trying to either work with you to take over what is left of the world or a number of other insane ideas.”
“It could be a foreign power,” David pointed out, veering the conversation back on track. “We’ve been having difficulties with a few of the larger countries that America wasn’t exactly friendly with before the supernova. China and Russia have both threatened to blow us away if we come within five hundred miles of their coastline. If word has gotten out that we have a ship nearing completion it’s entirely probable that one of those countries would send in unaffiliated soldiers to try and take control of the project to gain technology or personnel.”
Ka’thak shook his head, muttering to himself about how ridiculous humans are. He paused, and then spoke again. “I suppose that it is not completely unheard of.”
David and I glanced at each other. Both of us had the wisdom to not bring up the recent coup that killed their previous leader.
I cleared my throat. “Is the human ship secure?”
“Yes,” David replied. “It is for now at least. There is a problem, though. A big one.” He waved us toward the shuttle where he had touched down. He reached behind the bulkhead and pulled out a large weapon. It was almost half as long as Jackson was tall and looked like a battery was strapped to the end of a fire hose. “This thing fried more of my men than I’d like to consider. It’s some kind of beam weapon.” He turned to Ka’thak, hefting the cannon towards him. “Does this look familiar?”
The alien captain snarled as he took the weapon from Jackson’s hands. “This looks like one of our weapons, but it’s too simple. It’s like some human tried to pull apart one of our guns and then put it back together again. You said that this functions?”
Jackson nodded. “It’s not the military. As much of a massive pain in the ass as the American military can be, I can promise you that they are not this subtle. Someone clearly stole alien technology and is using it to develop their own. I would like to put together a team to travel south and make sure that the security around the human ship’s construction site is as tight as it should be. Perhaps we could even discover who is responsible for this cowardly attack.”
Ka’thak nodded, but he only seemed to be half-listening. “We must protect the ships. We cannot have any more interruptions in the construction. I have the council to report to and it is becoming less easy to keep our people content with their current situation. As I’m sure you can understand, they want to get back into space and to a safe distance away from all of this.” He turned to us and dropped the weapon to the ground. “You will take a team and a shuttle. Get the infantry to resupply and then go. Doctor, tonight you will stay here with your people. Ensure that they do not cause too much disruption, please.” He kept his gaze fixed on the ground, breaths chuffing in frustration.
“Understood,” I said. David left to regroup with the warriors. Ka’thak followed me and we caught up while he led me to a cabin specially fit for humans. I was brought a small meal and fell asleep almost as soon as my head hit the pillow.
6
Jackson
We were in the air less than an hour later. The best part about joining alien society was that they were efficient in a way that human forces only dreamt about. Ships were kept clean and supplied, with armor and weapons ready to go. These people lived a true warrior’s life, knowing and being prepared to go into battle at a moment’s notice. The attitude on the flight down was somber. We had just lost soldiers not in glorious battle but in slaughter, and the defeat stung. The soldiers were tired, they had been on duty non-stop for months at a time, rotating out only to get sleep or food.
While we flew some of the soldiers slept but most stayed awake in silent contemplation. I knew that many of them had families. I had even been introduced to some of their children. The idea that their departure from Earth could be delayed and that someone had developed weapons that were capable of killing them with the press of a button was a lot to take in. As the sun set behind the horizon, I wrapped myself in some extra cloth we had with us and went to sleep.
I was awoken by the tap of a soldier’s claws on my helmet. “We’re almost there, Colonel,” he said.
I yawned and stretched, feeling the effects of a few hours sleep in an uncomfortable position. It was great to be able to fall asleep whenever you needed to, but I was getting older. I’d be feeling this for the rest of the day, possibly the next few. As the shuttle touched down a small guard of soldiers stepped out ahead of me.
Although there hadn’t been a government
-funded space shuttle launch since my childhood, the place hadn’t changed much. A cluster of buildings lay to the west of us, and a little over a mile away was the launchpad where I had watched privatized shuttles and supply missions take off as a young cadet. We were greeted by a trio of corporate underlings as we stepped onto the grounds. They were all in their twenties and clad in AstroTech branded polo shirts and matching tan slacks. The one in front stepped forward and extended her hand.
“Lt. Colonel, we were told you were coming to see us. How can we be of assistance?”
I took her hand and shook it, trying not to smile as I watched her take in the sight of the hulking soldiers behind me. I guessed that they must not have too many visits from the aliens down here.
“Nice to meet you, and thanks for being ready for us. What’s your name?” I asked her.
“Jane, sir.”
“Jane, a pleasure. My people have some concerns about security around the ship site and we’d like to give it a full inspection.” That’s right lady, the aliens are here to make sure you people haven’t screwed it up.
She sputtered, stammering out excuses until one of her colleagues interrupted. He was a skinny little thing, complete with nerd glasses—white tape held the bridge together. Had I actually stepped into a movie? These kids were too cliché to be true.
He cleared his throat. “We would like to help you, Colonel, but that isn’t something we can fully authorize ourselves.”
I drew myself up to my full height and motioned for one of my soldiers to step closer to me. It was great to see the little puke try to hold his gaze to mine. “That’s perfectly fine,” I said in my sweetest ‘do not fuck with me voice’. “Who can authorize the full inspection that both the alien council and the United States government has ordered me to execute?”
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