by Mark Tufo
“Small female hu-man,” the booming voice echoed in the constricted quarters. “Are you alright?” Drababan stooped over, extending his giant hand to help her up. She attempted to swat away his offer of help, but anything less than lethal force was not likely to move any part of Drababan.
“I’m fine!” she shouted, wincing at her outburst.
Drababan didn’t seem to notice or at least he didn’t mind. “But there is water coming out of your eyes. I know that generally signifies pain in your species.”
“Oh, so now you’re a doctor?” Tracy knew Drababan had nothing to do with what she was feeling, but she couldn’t help using him as her whipping boy.
“No, I am not a doctor, but I have studied your species’ physiology enough to probably be considered as such in some of your more backward societies.
Tracy looked up at him, stunned. She was having as difficult a time as Mike when trying to figure out Drababan’s wry sense of humor, if that was even what it was.
“Let me help you up, small female hu-man,” Drababan repeated.
“Tracy, my name is Tracy. Not small female hu-man,” she answered as Drababan nearly sent her into orbit as he pulled her up to her feet. “Thank you,” she mumbled.
“You certainly are welcome,” he said graciously. “Have you been to Mike’s?” he asked.
“You call him Mike, why do you call everyone else around you by a description?” She nearly shouted, more so because he was so tall and she didn’t know if he could hear her from where she stood.
“He has earned it,” he said matter-of-factly.
Tracy knew arguing with him would be futile. In her own way she had more than earned respect for the things she had done and accomplished; why then did she feel the need to earn the ugly alien’s respect? If she had the chance back in France, she would have filled his tough green hide with as many bullets as her rifle magazine could carry.
“You know that I have earned the Navy Cross?” she threw out.
More perceptive than she could have ever imagined Drababan answered back. “Why do you care what I think of you?”
More in a rage than anything Tracy let loose anew with her tears. “I DON’T CARE, YOU FUCKING OVERGROWN LIZARD! I JUST WANT YOU AND ALL YOUR KIND TO GET OFF MY FUCKING PLANET!”
Her shouting drew the attention of a lot of civilians and just as many soldiers who had been ordered to ‘escort’ Drababan around the base ‘at a distance’.
“Ah, look what you have done now, small female hu-man. You have brought my entourage,” Drababan said, but with what seemed like a lot less humor in his voice.
Six soldiers loosely encircled Drababan, weapons not drawn yet.
“Is there a problem, Lieutenant?” the nearest one asked.
“Yeah, there’s a fucking problem,” she said with more control, but laced with more vehemence in her voice. “Why is this fucking lizard walking loose around this bunker?”
Tracy's fight was not with Drababan but rather his kind, he just happened to be within her range of anger.
***
“Because he is my friend,” I said as I broke through the circle of soldiers. “Put your weapons away and leave now,” I said to the sergeant closest to Tracy. A corporal that had been on our detail coming in had come to get me when he saw the rising anger in Tracy. I was grateful that he had, this looked like it had the potential to turn disastrous.
The sergeant looked to Tracy and then back to me.
“Sir, we have our orders,” the sergeant replied.
“Fuck your orders!” I shot back. The sergeant visibly recoiled. “You don’t take your men now and withdraw then I’ll make sure you all are skinning potatoes for the next year!”
“I’ll have to tell the general about this,” the sergeant said, trying his best to save face as he withdrew.
“Do you know who I am, Sergeant?” I asked with more control in my voice.
“I am well aware of who you are, sir,” the sergeant said, swallowing what appeared to be a big knot in his throat.
“Then do you really think that I care if you go run off to the general about what happened here?”
The sergeant finally broke eye contact with Drababan and looked squarely at my hard features, for a moment unsure which of the two of us was at the moment more dangerous.
“Yes, sir. I mean no, sir,” the sergeant stuttered, “We’ll withdraw now. Men stand down, go back to your secondary positions.” The crowd began to disperse as the tension drained away.
“Mike—Mike, what’s going on?” Beth said as she pressed through the dissipating crowd. She stopped short when she came up on the scene. I stood in a triangle with one of the Genogerians and with what Beth would tell me later was one of the most beautiful women she had ever seen to grace a battle dress uniform. Most women got lost in the clothes, this woman’s beauty seemed to rise above her garb, she had said jealously.
“Mike? Is everything alright?” Beth asked, skirting the Genogerian as much as was possible. But from the aura of hatred she could seething from Tracy, she tried her best to keep her distance there too, which in a small corridor was not an easy feat.
“Yeah, Mike,” Tracy mimicked. “Is everything all right?” Her tone was marked with bitterness and barely controlled rage.
“Mike, is something going on here?” Beth spoke.
“You think?” Tracy answered, infusing as much sarcasm as the words could convey.
“Listen, I don’t even know you. What could I have possibly done for you to look at me that way?” Beth asked and then it dawned on her, 'the way she looked at me, the rage that was threatening to overwhelm the woman, the hatred she directed towards her. Only one thing could make somebody that crazy. Love was the answer.' “Is she the one?” Beth asked me.
“Oh, it was nice of you to bring me up while you two were getting reacquainted!” Tracy shot out before I had a chance to reply to Beth.
“It’s not… it wasn’t like that,” I stumbled across my words, doing my best to diffuse what could only be considered a time bomb with no discernible way to shut it off. “I was in the process of telling her about you, when you were trying to get my friend shot.”
I was only all too happy to see one of Paul’s aide-de-camps rapidly approaching from the far end of the hallway. I knew from experience that I was only summoned this way when something big was happening and usually I dreaded finding out what it was. But at this particular point the aide looked like Gabriel himself coming to rescue me from some far worse fate than whatever was going on in the HQ.
“Does the general need me?” I asked pleadingly before the aide was more than halfway down the hall.
The aide-de-camp was an undersized man who looked more like a child in his father’s uniform but his quick mind and strategic skills made him a respected man when push came to shove.
Major Whittingly knew he was called Dr. Doom behind his back because he only showed up to summon people when the shit hit the fan, so for the most part people, especially the officers, avoided him like the plague. To see someone willingly make eye contact and initiate conversation completely caught him off guard.
“Um, yes, Captain. The general is requesting your presence.”
I cut him off in the fear that the meeting might be sometime in the future, anything less than ‘now’ was unacceptable, I needed to extract myself from the conversation (confrontation) as soon as possible. “Let me get my boots.”
I left the two women to their own devices. Drababan stayed merely to watch the interaction, for long moments they could do nothing more than stare in the direction in which I had so rapidly retreated.
***
“Man, I was never so happy to see Dr. Doom as I was just now,” I said with a smirk on my face. “He saved me from a huge—” I stopped talking when I saw the look on Paul’s face. “What’s going on?” I said, now all business.
“Have a seat.” Paul motioned with his hand.
I was about to sit when I noticed Dennis off to th
e side of the office, the same grave expression written all over his face. I thought, This doesn’t look good, but felt that to say the words would be lost on my audience. I sat silently.
“Dennis, could you please tell Mike what you saw?” Paul said rotely, his attention now miles away.
Dennis stood up from his leaning position and walked solemnly over to the chair next to mine. He sat down with a loud ‘umph’.
“Holy shit, bud. What’s going on?” I asked, an unsettling unease beginning to worm its way through my innards.
Dennis answered with one word. “Ratspindler.”
I was thrown aback by the name, but couldn’t for the life of me get how the name could convey the attitude that was circulating around the room.
“What about him?” I asked.
“He’s here,” Dennis answered.
“Here-here, like this complex?” Yes, that would suck, but the man had no authority over us anymore. Sure he had tried to make our adolescent years a living hell, but that was ancient history, something else was going on here. “Guys, I’m not seeing the big picture, unless he’s got a nuke strapped on his back, who gives a shit. He doesn’t have a backpack nuke, does he?”
“He might as well,” Paul answered. Noticing that Dennis was going to involuntarily draw this out longer than necessary, Paul interjected. “Dennis had a squad out scoping their new landing party in Dedham when he caught sight of thirteen prisoners being led into their HQ.” I was starting to grasp the situation, the worm in my innards was beginning to expand. It felt more like a squirrel now. “One of them was Spindler.”
I stood. I didn’t know what else to do. “Are you sure?” I said looking over at Dennis.
“See for yourself,” Dennis said sliding a picture over on Paul’s desk that I had not noticed before. “I was three hundred yards away and I didn’t even need the nocs to recognize him from his portrait at school. That hook nose is difficult to forget.”
He looked a little thinner than he had when he left Walpole High with his tail tucked between his legs, but there was no denying who it was. Before I could ask any more questions, Dennis continued.
“Thirteen prisoners went into the HQ only eleven came out. Of the two that didn’t come out, one was a woman…”
“And the other was Spindler,” I finished. “Paul, Spindler knows about this place. I mean, not this place specifically but about the silo for sure.”
“I’m not wearing this expression because our old high school principal might be coming back to look for the two individuals who blew up his caddy.”
“You two did that?” Dennis asked, momentarily forgetting the weight of the news in the room.
Paul and I both looked to Dennis. “We never told you about that?” Paul said.
“I always thought it was Lester from two grades ahead of us,” Dennis said.
Laughter ensued for a full minute before the true business came back around.
“Alright,” Paul started as he wiped a tear from his eye. “Our options are limited at best. There is obviously an entire evacuation to consider, but with the Genogerians so close our chance of doing so successfully is greatly diminished. And even if we did escape, where would we go? We couldn’t take enough provisions with us to last a month. Do we stay and do nothing hoping Spindler doesn’t give them any useful information?”
I looked over at Paul, eyebrows raised.
“Yeah, I feel the same way,” Paul answered. “That miserable little fuck would sell us all out in a hot minute if he thought it would buy him one more day. The last idea and probably least likely to pass a majority vote is we go all out on the offensive.”
“Last I checked,” Dennis threw in, “this isn’t a democracy.”
“No, you’re right,” Paul answered derisively. “But half of the Hill’s population is civilian, what I would be asking is identical to mass suicide.”
“Not so much suicide,” I stated, “as Kamikaze. The Japanese used it with devastating effect in World War Two.”
“So you were actually paying attention in History class,” Paul quipped. “But you have to remember it still ended up in their deaths.”
“Paul, you know where I stand. Every one of those options ends in death, the only one that allows our deaths to have meaning is to make them pay dearly for their conquest,” I said vehemently.
“There’s another plan,” Dennis stated matter of factly.
We both stopped and turned his way.
“Well, it’s more like two of the previous plans combined.”
“We’re listening,” Paul said.
“Alright, we go all out on the offensive with our military and we cause a big enough diversion that the civilian populace can sneak out undetected. The chances that they can get out will be a lot better.”
“That’s brilliant,” I said as I clapped Dennis’ shoulder. I had really hoped there would be a way for Beth to escape. Tracy too, but I knew there was no way I would be able to not have her engage in this final battle. Unless…
“Paul, I think that you should send some troops with the civilians, they’ll need to have some sort of firepower. They would be ripe for any band of rogues unless they had some sort of guard.”
“You have an idea on who you want to send?” And before I could answer, “And also do you have an idea how you’re going to keep her from coming with us?”
My face fell when I realized how transparent my thoughts were.
“Relax, pal,” Paul said. “I see the necessity for what you are saying, it’s the implementation that is going to be tough.”
“Wait, Paul,” I said holding up my hand. A new plan was almost smacking me upside the head. “I thought of another way.
“Don’t let me stop you,” Paul interjected after a pregnant pause.
“Assassination,” I blurted out.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Dennis asked.
“I’m saying we send in a small raiding party and take Spindler out.”
“You’re talking about murdering another human being,” Paul said shaking his head slowly from side to side.
“It’s him or us, Paul. I’m not seeing the dilemma,” I said heatedly.
“You wouldn’t, would you?” he shot back, maybe a little too quickly.
“What the fuck are you implying, Paul? I did what I had to to survive and don’t go giving me that holier than thou shit. I know what you told Sergeant Bolito’s squad to do!”
Paul stood up quickly, his chair toppled behind him. I could see the question of ‘How do you know?’ forming on his lips.
“Men talk, Paul. You did the exact same thing to preserve the secrecy of this base. That’s all I’m saying we need to do now,” I said bringing some of the fire out of my words.
“When does it stop Mike? How many people do we need to kill? Those people haunt my dreams.”
“The burden of leadership,” I told him. “The only one beating you up over your decision is yourself. Spindler needs to die, if he tells them about the silo, they’ll figure it out. They might be ugly, but they aren’t stupid.”
Paul stooped over to right his chair. It seemed gravity itself was weighing him down. He sat before he spoke. “What’s your plan?”
“Mike has a plan? This oughtta be rich,” Dennis said smiling.
So I spent the next ten to fifteen minutes laying it all out there in its naked glory. It did not look nearly as good in the open.
“You sure, Mike?” Paul asked, looking into my eyes for any sort of deception.
“Fuck, no,” I told him honestly, but it gives us a chance.
“They’re not gonna screw with you anymore if they catch you, Mike,” Dennis said. “They’re just gonna fry you with that blue shit.”
“It’s the blue shit or two women here. I’ll take my chances out there,” I told them, stupid male bravado making me do things that were detrimental to my health. As a male of the species I had already attracted female counterparts with my actions; what did I need to
prove now?
I was relieved as I left Paul’s office. I was most assuredly heading to my death and my thoughts couldn’t have been any lighter. The two women I loved would be safe, for how long I didn’t know, but they would be safer for longer than me and that somehow gave me an inner peace I hadn’t had in long, long while.
***
Eastern Seaboard Occupation
“Devastator Commander Turval, what do you want me to do with the hu-man?” Sub-commander Hendalan asked.
“Kill him,” came the terse reply.
“Sir, what if the information he gave isn’t valid?” The sub-commander asked.
“If it’s valid we kill what’s left of these hu-mans’ resistance. If it is not…” He seemed to ponder. “Well, if it is not, then the disgusting little pink thing in there had nothing to barter his life for anyway.”
“As you wish, Commander,” The sub-commander said and gave a small bow.
***
“General Ginson!” the private screamed as he ran down the hall at full tilt.
Paul stopped mid-stride, he had been heading down the hallway to get some much needed coffee.
“Sir!” The private nearly came to a screeching halt. Paul nearly laughed.
“Take a breath private—what’s going on?”
“Sir, Outpost One has relayed that Principal A has possibly been retired. I don’t know what that means but they made sure that I repeated it word for word. Is that serious? Sir, are you okay?”
Paul’s innards had nearly evacuated themselves, either Spindler was the biggest hero Earth might ever know and withheld information that cost him his life or… “Tell Major Wagner that the plan we talked about is in full effect.”