The Ghost Fleet

by Trevor Wyatt

“Stay there!” I reply, not looking back.

  More missiles strike the settlement. All I’m thinking about now is getting my mom and dad out of that place. I begin to curse the moment I made the decision to go to the waterfall.

  Halfway through the woods, a missile explodes near me. I am caught in the blast radius and flung several yards back. I slam my head against a tree, bounce off another, and come to the ground, unconscious.

  I wake up to a terrible headache and to Kendra crying. Her face, which is over me, is puffy and red from enormous crying. She hugs me the moment she notices I’m awake, and helps me to my feet.

  The first thing I do is look up. It’s fully daylight. I must have been out for hours. The ship is also gone from the orbit.

  “What happened?” I ask.

  Kendra says, “They’re all gone.” Then she bursts into tears again.

  I leave her and limp towards the town. Ten minutes later, I get to the edge of the woods and stop short.

  The town is no more. Everything has been leveled. There’s only powdery piles of rubble and the smell of burnt flesh. I can see across the entire town. Nothing is left standing.

  I fall to my knees and weep aloud, overwhelmed.

  Kendra comes to my side and weeps along with me. Through her tears, she pulls her wrist communicator. “I tried calling others,” she says her words muddled in her tears. “No one’s answering. They are all gone, Jake. Five million people. All our friends. Our family. All gone.”

  As I listen to Kendra I am inundated with an immense feeling of sadness and rage mixed together that threaten to tear me apart.

  Later, we walk through the town. The explosives had been so powerful they had practically vaporized everyone. We don’t find anybody, though we see remnants of tissues and the pervading smell of wasted human flesh.

  It takes us most of the day of walking through and through the ashes of our past existence, and we do come to grips with the fact that our families and lives are gone.

  We’ve come to bitterly accept that we are now the last survivors.

  Our morals. Our integrity. Our lives.

  Nothing else matters.

  The Beruit Massacre

  We are the worst of the worst. The cruelest of the cruelest, yet we cannot say that we are the best of the best. Every Sonali soldier hates the Terrans. At least that’s what we’ve been made to believe. As for me, I am not so sure I hate a people I have not even had the chance to meet.

  It’s barely three months since the Terran Union President declared war on Sonali. It came as a mild surprise to us that a race as painfully inferior as Terrans would take such a step. In fact, most of us in the military caste saw it as an insult, much like a dog would feel if a fly were to challenge it.

  Gladly, we rode to war, butchering the weaklings wherever they were in the galaxy. We’ve been picking them one by one for we are in no hurry to exterminate them from existence. I mean, these Terrans are so weak. Forget our advanced starship vessels. Forget our advanced particle beam blasters. Even close quarter’s combat, they are so weak and feeble, that one must wonder how they rose out of the evolutionary soupy puddle.

  “Fellow brothers!” roars the sub-legate of my hundred man unit, Colonel Zelvin Grayhill aka Colonel Zel. He’s a burly-looking Sonali male with a fierce and furious look and zero iota of love for the Terrans. He’s standing on one of the long and narrow rows of tables that fill up the massive mess hall. He’s holding a bottle of rakjtag on one hand and a pretty looking Sonali woman who’s dressed in such a provocative manner in his other hand.

  “Tonight we drink and we fuck,” he says. The soldiers around yell in acquiescence, drumming their metal cups on the bench and humming deeply such that the entire hall begins to vibrate.

  “And tomorrow night we slay the Terrans, burn their towns, rape their women, kill their leaders, bomb their buildings and level their goddamn colonies for Sonali Prime!”

  “For Sonali Prime!” the entire room replies.

  It’s such a thunderous reply that I shiver. I’m in the back of the room, sitting by my plate of soup and metal cup of water. The soup is syrupy and filled with all the essential vitamins and minerals that a Sonali would ever need. Rumor has it that it’s also infused with some psychotropic agent. How else can you justify some of the atrocities this particular military outfit has committed?

  Atrocities that Sonali Prime would never publicly admit to, yet it is one of the most efficient and most funded division in the Sonali Ground Forces.

  Hell Fire Brigade.

  All is fair in war, it seems.

  I don’t have rakjtag in my cup. I only have water. Unlike Terrans, Sonali don’t really need water to survive. We aren’t wired that way. In fact, we can go months without a sip of water. As long as we’re breathing in argon, we are good.

  But it’s compulsory for every soldier aboard this transport vessel to feed and drink at least once every day because the government needs your strength to destroy the Terrans.

  Yeah, about that, I’m not really down with it. Still, in a system that kills off the weak and prunes the strong, I have to remain strong, otherwise I’ll lose my life.

  You see, the Sonali Army is not like the Tyreesian Army or the other armies of the other races we have come in contact with. The Sonali Army is unorthodox in the way it governs its people. There’s a chain of command. But in other armies, if you breach the chain of command, you are court-martialed or exiled or something along that line.

  In the Sonali Army, if you breach the chain of command, you are killed on the spot by your sub-legate. Of course, the sub-legate has to demonstrate that the soldier has breached the chain of command, not before the Generals in the Army or some board of enquiry like I hear the Terrans have, but before the troops of that unit.

  Sonali Prime thrives on the principle that every member of the society has a place and a role to play in the furtherance of the ideals and ethos of the Sonali people. The systems set up in Sonali Prime and all other Sonali colonies pride itself in defining that place or role from birth and training that child to fit in that assigned role.

  The consequences of going against the set path can be so grave. So much that conformity would not only be the wiser choice but the most sought after choice.

  This is why we feel like we are superior to most other races. We have a perfect society where everyone is working at their peak because they are right where they fit. At least, this is what everyone thinks and believes. From when I was old enough to be literate, I’ve always believed differently.

  I am a member of the military caste today, not a member of the scholar caste, which I desire terribly to be or the merchant caste that make all the money and live large. Not the religious caste that are closer to God either, or the leadership caste that basically decides what the other caste systems can and cannot do.

  This happened not of my own volition, but the volition of those who stood over my neonatal form and pronounced my destiny.

  How utterly cruel. How unabashedly shameful. And to think we pride ourselves in such conduct is totally unsettling.

  At first, in my childhood and early teenage years, I fought against the timeline set for me. I didn’t care about working hard and training and learning how to fire a weapon. In fact, I didn’t associate with the other children that had been pronounced soldiers. I rather associated with people who were members of the caste I wanted to belong to—the scholar caste.

  I would learn the error and graveness of my ways, when I was later called before the Council of Appropriation (the same Council that decides on caste—a sub agency under the leadership caste, of course) and punished. This punishment involved severe beating and torturing to toughen me up. They decided if I wouldn’t go the easy way and grow in strength as my peers did, then I would have to go the hard way.

  For seven days, I was deprived of sleep. I was beaten mercilessly. I was deprived of food. I was tortured. My parents did not visit me. They couldn’t. And it was not because they
were not allowed, but because they didn’t have the strength of heart to walk into the imposing Council of Appropriation building in the Leadership Estate of Sonali Prime.

  They feared that the slightest nonconformity found in them may lead to punishments they were not prepared to endure. But more than that, they also feared what they would do if they found me—their thirteen year old, pre-Ascension daughter—shredded and bleeding out in one of the numerous subterranean correctional facilities (a fancy way of saying a dank, musky dungeon).

  “Are you eating that?” says a deadly low, belligerent voice beside me.

  I don’t look at the soldier. The noise from the soldiers closer to our leader at the middle of the cafeteria is overwhelming.

  I shake my head, keeping my eyes on my food in the present, and my mind in the dark and horrible past.

  I was born a girl. It is still a mystery what a Sonali would see in a girl and decide they should become a soldier. It bewilders me. And it’s not about the Ascension Ceremony, because the Ascension Ceremony works differently for the military caste.

  If you are a boy and you are declared a member of the military caste, then you may or may not have a choice as to whether you want to Ascend to become a fertile girl or to remain sterile. The same goes for a girl, depending on the ratio of males to females in the military. There is a fixed ratio that must be maintained at any fixed period of time, hence a lot of people get to choose, and others don’t.

  I know I didn’t get the choice to choose. I was forced to Ascend because at the time, the military needed more men than women. The same thing with the males at the time. They were barred from the ceremony and hence have to live the rest of their lives as men and infertile. The rest of the Sonali people must attend the Ascension ceremony.

  Just one of the other ways I feel the Sonali government is ruining the lives of its people.

  At thirteen, when I was being reduced to nothing—literally nothing, my flesh being ripped out by spiky whips (I still have those scars on my back, as do most military nonconformists turned conformists) I was but a wide eyed girl who thought she could make a difference in the world reading books. After thirteen, I was tamed. I took my trainings seriously and fashioned myself into a killer.

  In fact, it was my dedication and skill and seeming ruthlessness that got me drafted into the Hell Fire Brigade. At eighteen, the government changed my gender to a male and the subsequent physical developments only intensified my physical strength and ability.

  I am not hardly the best fighter in the Brigade. In fact, I might be considered one of the weaker ones. But compared to the regular army troops, I would be incredibly stronger. And compared to Terran soldiers, I am a super-Sonali.

  I have used my past experiences as an excuse to justify some of my inhumane actions. We have been operational for three months now. We’ve raided about thirteen colonies thus far and committed some of the most unforgivable acts seen in the galaxy. All these I’ve justified with my need to live.

  It’s pretty simple: in the military and more so in the Hell Fire Brigade, it’s kill or be killed. It’s conform or be made to conform (only at this point, your conformity would be death—the ultimate conformity to the true end of all flesh).

  There are many Terran sympathizers in the Sonali Prime. Some scholars sympathize with the Terran claiming they were pushed to war by an action we did not commit. Some religious caste members upbraid the military for dragging the Sonali people into a war with a people we just made first contact with, a people who up until now haven’t had contact with any other species, not even the devious Tyreesians or psychic Reznak.

  Even some leaders protest our approach. They are allowed to.

  But Terran Sympathizers within the military is a taboo. Those even as much as suspected to be sympathizers are dealt with. You don’t have to even speak against it. If you as much as whisper it in your dream and you are heard by a disloyal friend or a superior officer, you will be dealt with—and that is if you’re not killed on sight.

  If you hesitate to pull a trigger, especially during an engagement, your death is sealed and secured by that action. In fact, that is not just considered sympathization, it is sympathization unto death. It’s treason, and execution can occur right on the battlefield.

  So, you see why I’ve had to do all the terrible things I’ve had to do. And keeping quiet about it is the hardest thing. I’ve had to live with myself, even after slaughtering hundreds of children and burning hundreds of defenseless civilians, just to dissuade the sub-legate of my brigade that I am not a Terran Sympathizer.

  I’ve deceived myself into thinking that my instinct for self-preservation is so strong that it permits my morals to assimilate and accept my disdainful and shameful actions. But I wonder just how long this deception will last. I know I can’t go on deceiving myself indefinitely.

  There is a commotion at the center of the cafeteria that pulls me out of the evils of my past back into the present.

  A soldier has been drawn up by Colonel Zel. This soldier is small-statured, but sturdy and muscular. He has been stripped bare except for a tight shorts he has on. His oolna is a visible bulge below his waistline. The ladies around see it and whistle and call out to him carelessly.

  I look at the soldier intently. I don’t know him—it’s a big unit and Zel commands us all. Nevertheless, from the maze-like scars on his skin, I can tell he was once a nonconformist like me…or he still is.

  Colonel Zel has a strong grip on the Sonali’s arm.

  “People, what do we do to traitors?” he calls.

  “Kill them!” comes the unanimous reply, followed by cheers and chanting that all call for the Sonali’s head.

  I look around with dismay and extreme consternation. We are supposed to be brothers. We are supposed to be comrades in arms. How did we get this way? How were we turned into a pack of wolves? Even wolves understand the essence of brotherhood and oneness.

  I see the bloodlust in the eyes of my fellow soldiers. I see the desire to see blood spilled. I see a desire to wreak havoc and propagate mayhem. I think about the colony we are descending on tomorrow, the poor hapless and harmless people who are going to feel the wrath and curse of our kind. I can only feel pity.

  Colonel Zel turns and then looks through the hundreds of heads in the room straight at me. I jerk back.

  “What do we do to sympathizers?” he roars, keeping his gaze fixed on me.

  I swallow hard and as the crowd follows with another thunderous response, “We execute them.” I mutter along.

  Colonel Zel points straight at me. “You!”

  His very words seize me, causing me to sit ramrod straight.

  “You will do the honors,” he says, then pushes the soldier onto the ground. Immediately, everyone gives this muscular Sonali a wide birth, forming a wide circle at the center of the cafeteria with the soldier in the middle.

  I haven’t moved at all, because I am not sure of what’s happening. Everything’s happening so fast.

  Hands grab me and set me on my feet. Hands pass me along, my eyes fixed on Colonel Zel who looks at me with disdain. A handle is pressed into my hand by someone and I look down at my hand to see I’m holding a large, curved blade with an edge so sharp it is capable of splitting the air.

  At the edge of the milling crowd, I am pushed into the center and stumble over one of the tables. I have to throw my sword hand away so I don’t impale myself in the gut.

  This gets a lot of cheers and laughter from the soldiers around.

  The one to be executed stands his ground several yards away from me, using another table as a barrier between him and me.

  Movement at the main entrance catches my eye. Filing into the edge of the cafeteria is a group of officers. I recognize them as the B control center crew. The legate is the last to walk in. He’s a fat Sonali with a belly that protrudes outward. He may look lazy, but I know him to be ruthless. Maybe this is why they assigned him to pilot the same vessel as the infinitely ruthless Colo
nel Zelvin.

  It’s unclear who’s in charge, though, in the ship: the legate or the sub-legate. They serve under different arms of the military.

  I walk over to Zel.

  “You don’t have to do this,” I say.

  I see the surprise appear on Zel’s face, which is quickly replaced by fury. “He says we don’t have to do it!” Zel roars.

  There is a shocked whisper that spreads through the room.

  “Have we found ourselves another sympathizer?”

  I feel my heart climb up to my throat.

  “No!” I yell. “I am not a sympathizer!”

  “Prove it, then,” cries someone from behind.

  “Kill the bastard!” cries another.

  Then someone way in the back who’s probably too drunk yells, “By the True Way, kill them both!”

  And everyone cheers to that.

  “You know what?” Col Zel says, “Let’s make this more fun. Give Mailyn a weapon. Let him have the dignity to fight to the death or kill this zhingta standing before me.”

  Colonel Zelvin speaks with total hatred that slams into me and forces me to double back. I turn just in time to see someone throw a blade at Mailyn, who picks it out of the air with practiced ease. He moves the blade through the air with a familiarity that I find terrifying. Then he looks up at me and a dreadful smile spreads across his face.

  I look back at Zel. I step across the space separating us until my lips is by his ears.

  “Don’t do this…” I whisper, “Brother.”

  Zel replies in an equally silent tone, “What brother of mine is unwilling to kill Terrans? Kill him and you will ride out with me tomorrow to destroy that colony. Otherwise, die here with dignity and not a branded traitor. I will not have you bring shame to our father’s name.”

  I shake my head. “Father wouldn’t want me to do this.”

  “You know nothing of father’s wishes,” he whispers with an edge in his voice. Then he backs up and palms my chest, sending me into the air and crashing onto a table right in the center of the space.