The Deadliest Earthling

by Gibson Morales

  “I knew it was bad, but not this bad,” her mom said, her smile attempting to hide a deeper pain.

  “I’m sorry, Mom.”

  “Sit down.”

  Sarah pulled up a chair for herself.

  “When I negotiate, I like to begin with a concession. I say something to show I’m not trying to completely spin things in my favor. We also begin with tea.”

  Her mom walked over to the stove, poured cups, and brought them over. Sarah touched hers, but it was too hot.

  “You’re twelve now, and I know Tobias isn’t easy. He’s not someone you want to live around forever. Normally, my negotiations would go on a lot longer, but I think with you I can cut to the chase. Here is my offer. When you’re done with school in a few years, I’ll bring you with me on my trips. I will teach you how to travel out there so that one day, you can take over for me.”

  Sarah’s face split with a smile. This sounded wonderful. This was her chance to finally get away from her stepdad. It sounded so long, though. She wouldn’t be done with school until she was seventeen.

  “It’s going to go fast, Sarah,” her mom said, reading her thoughts. “And if you really like Nagarkot, there’s a house there you can stay at. For as long as you wish.”

  Her mom had spoken fondly of Nagarkot’s scenic views. She’d said a person could see the tallest mountain in the world, Mount Everest, on a clear day. It was no surprise that she usually painted there after negotiations with New Bagram’s sponsors in one of the restaurants or hotels.

  “You mean…?”

  “You could leave New Bagram and Tobias. But this is all based on one condition. Something I need you to promise me.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Sarah, war has torn our family apart.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Her mom inhaled deeply. “Krem’s gone. Your stepdad suffers mental trauma. And your dad…he died of cancer. But the cancer came from exposure. During the Shroud War, a dirty bomb was set off in his city. It was radiation.”

  Sarah frowned. Her mom reached out a hand and clasped hers. “I don’t want to see you fighting Anunnaki. You can’t ever pull the trigger, do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you promise?”

  “Yes.”

  She thought on that memory even as a tree splintered above. Large enough that it could give her a cut or nasty bruise. She rolled out of the way and stayed low. Pulse surges were ripping into the leaves overhead. Were they targeting her? No, she decided. This wasn’t against her. It was only a smaller part of the greater chaos.

  “Hey,” Hamiad shouted. She twisted her head around. He landed next to her and held out a rifle. “I thought you might need a gun now,” he said. Smiling like he’d saved her somehow.

  After they gave Ibdan the wailer, he asked Sarah if she would fight too.

  “If there’s a point, I will,” she had said, hoping to dodge the question as much as possible. She’d thought of her mom’s promise then. But she couldn’t help feeling a pressure from him. Like she needed to live up to his standards of honor, whatever they might be.

  Still staring at the rifle, she faltered. It might as well be a rotten fruit swarming with maggots.

  “It’s not hard to shoot. I’ll show you.”

  “Hamiad,” she said sternly. “I know how to shoot a gun.”

  Reluctantly, she reached out and accepted it into her grip. She hadn’t held one in years, so she would be rusty. That much was true. But Johnny had given her those medals in earnest.

  Hollering from the street called to her. Somewhere her brother was fighting for his life. Hamiad gritted his teeth, staring hard at the trees that blocked their view.

  “We should find some better cover. Their drones will spot us easy here.”

  Sarah nodded and rose with him. He pointed to the first house past the hotel garden, and they sprinted for it. A staircase led them directly into the second floor. From the hall, they made for a bedroom. Empty and offering a perfect view of the streets. The breeze carried the tangy scent of gunpowder.

  “Over there,” he said, motioning to three Anunnaki running along the street.

  She faltered. Now didn’t seem the best time to tell him she wasn’t going to be shooting.

  “Sarah, I know this is tough. But the first shot won’t be so bad.”

  Sarah felt at once both annoyed and relieved. She wasn’t afraid of the fighting itself. She feared what it meant—that the Naga would consider her a hostile target. And decide she should never see her mother again. If she held her fire, then maybe there was less of a chance the Anunnaki would try to shoot at them. A small hope, but one she had to cling to.

  And what did he mean, the first shot won’t be so bad? Did he know what it was like? Maybe he’d already fired a few rounds at the Anunnaki near the temple.

  “I’m okay,” she said. “Just a little nervous.” It was a lie. But when it came to it, this would be her excuse not to pull the trigger.

  “Don’t worry. I’m right here with you,” he said. For a moment, Hamiad looked ready to give her a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “Your mom was traveling when the firestorm hit, right? So she must be alive. Think of that, Sarah. Think about fighting to see her again.”

  He was the first one outside of her and Krem to bring up this hope.

  Silently, she mouthed a prayer. In truth, fear nagged her. Fear for Krem, not herself. If nothing else, she needed him to live through this. It wasn’t fair that Ibdan asked him to fight. Not when the chance to see their mother still existed.

  “We should find Krem,” she said.

  “I was thinking the same,” he said. “He and Skunk are part of my squad. And I made a dumb mistake.”

  “What?”

  “I should’ve been with them on the street. But Ibdan offered to let me help him at the temple.” There was such regret in his voice. She could see that loyalty worked both ways with her brother.

  “So how do we find them?”

  “We had a planned meet spot,” Hamiad said, searching. He pointed to a field of wheat.

  The problem was the congregation of Anunnaki along the street. They watched a large metallic animal bound along the road. It undulated with the agility and precision of a tiger. Except that its long neck, small, lizard-like head, and metal plating looked too perfect to be organic.

  “That’s an Anunnaki?”

  Hamiad hesitated. “A sirrush. It’s a support unit. Wish I had an electrostatic bomb to shut it down.”

  A wave of gunfire struck the sirrush and the adjacent Anunnaki soldiers with a heavy roar. Sarah cringed and clapped her hands over her ears. It was like someone had jabbed a hot knife inside. All the times she’d fired at New Bagram, she’d at least used earplugs.

  The screeches and chirps of Nebirian echoed from the hallway. They must’ve entered through the roof.

  “Play dead,” Sarah whispered, pressing herself against the floor. As soon as she shut her eyes, there was a creak in the floor, and something soft fell over her body. A blanket from the corner. Hamiad probably grabbed it just now.

  An Anunnaki gave a guttural cry. Had they heard her and Hamiad’s moving? Calm down and listen, she told herself. Her stepdad’s teachings kicked in, and she understood the Naga ordering another to move on.

  The Anunnaki pounded down the hall, and a sigh of relief escaped her.

  “It’ll be all right,” Hamiad whispered, as if she’d been crying.

  That took her aback. Her eyes didn’t feel teary or puffy. What was Hamiad up to?

  Sarah let the blanket fall to the floor. He had tried to hide her from the Anunnaki. Because he thought she was helpless? And out of his honor. But grabbing that blanket could’ve gotten him killed. The Naga soldiers could’ve noticed him. Had he seriously risked his neck to protect her?

  She didn’t know how she felt about having someone who genuinely accepted the responsibility to keep her safe. Maybe if she’d been helpless, the notion would’ve comfor
ted her. But she wasn’t a scared damsel begging for his protection. Still, fighting in this battle just made her picture her mother crying. She didn’t want to hurt her mom again. Even if she wasn’t here to watch, she’d made a promise.

  They grabbed their rifles and stood. Hamiad rotated to face her and cleared his throat.

  “Hey, if you need to stop or you get too…”

  In the back of her mind, Sarah knew he meant this as a kind gesture. More than that, though, she didn’t want anyone’s pity, mistaken or not.

  Hamiad’s free hand wavered, and he quickly placed it under his rifle. “I’m just trying to say it’s all right if you’re afraid.”

  She scrunched up her face, insulted. But she reminded herself that she still needed to pretend fear of combat was restraining her. Otherwise he’d expect her to shoot, and that would only draw more attention from the Anunnaki. Make her a bigger target. “Yeah, I’m afraid, but you don’t have to die for me, okay?”

  The heat in her voice surprised her. Carrying out this act annoyed her more than she’d thought.

  He nodded.

  An image of the orange shawl floated in the back of Sarah’s mind. Her mom must’ve reached the Himalayas by now. “I’ve got somewhere to be after all this. And I could use company.”

  She hoped he didn’t take this the wrong way. Better he did, though, than get himself captured or worse over her.

  Chapter 14

  Racing from cover to cover, Sarah only caught glimpses of Utbashi. But even those glimpses left her staring at her feet, trying to block it out. The haze of gunpowder and dust thickened as recruits retreated anywhere they could, as scattered as a broken line of ants.

  Others hung from roofs limply, their blood shiny on the pockmarked wooden buildings. A few unarmed locals had collapsed in misshapen heaps in the middle of the road next to scared-stiff cattle.

  The images acted as a shot of electricity, jarring her body, then numbing her completely.

  Hamiad’s eyes dimmed at the sight of two abandoned children in a house. He took three heavy, wavering breaths.

  “Embrace the suck, we say.”

  “What?”

  “Just means don’t get distracted.”

  “I won’t.” Sarah drew her head down. She couldn’t watch the rest of the city for very long without revulsion building in her.

  She felt a pang of guilt, thinking about how Hamiad had almost sacrificed himself to protect her. The alternative was firing a shot against the Naga. But then she thought about her mom and their promise and wanted to explode. At the same time, the humidity seemed to smother her completely. The two opposing forces clashed until she flushed the debate from her mind.

  Think about fighting to see her again, Hamiad had suggested. She knew he meant well. But how could she when the promise she’d made to her mom acted like a shackle that kept squeezing and squeezing?

  Krem. He was the one she needed to focus on.

  They ran and ran, taking every measure to skirt around the Anunnaki soldiers on the street. Flitting from house to house proved slower, but safer. They’d get to the crop field one way or another. And find her brother, she prayed.

  More often than not, she found herself crawling after Hamiad to a new building, her hands and feet scratching against dirt or stone. Sometimes, if they saw an Anunnaki, Hamiad would let off a shot or two without even aiming or stopping to see if it hit. This she didn’t understand.

  “Are you trying to get us killed?” she finally snapped.

  “I know we want to find Krem and Skunk,” Hamiad said, apparently not offended. “But until then, we hit and run. It’ll wear down the Naga little by little.”

  He said it so confidently, she knew there was no arguing.

  Each time he fired, Sarah cringed at the taste of imminent danger in her mouth. That none of the Anunnaki had spotted them yet ranked as nothing short of a miracle. Maybe they weren’t concerned with stragglers at this point. Maybe it was the cacophony of explosions and gunfire around them, bubbles in a pot of boiling water.

  They passed into a house—the man, woman, and two children there giving a small gasp—and out through the back doorway. Sarah half expected Anunnaki to be lurking, but they made it all the way to a large bush without trouble. They were close to the crop field now.

  Sarah’s arms burned with the weight of the rifle as they scurried behind another home. How did Hamiad move forward so effortlessly without showing any signs of fear or strain? Sweat and dirt covered his face, but underneath he wore the expression of a soldier still ready to go. Nothing to suggest the prankster everyone knew him as in New Bagram.

  As they came upon the dip in the dirt surrounding the wheat field, Sarah barely stopped herself from crying out. Two Anunnaki stood there, bearing a few scratches on their faces. But that didn’t compare to their catch. One soldier suspended Krem and Skunk by their collars in each hand. They hung motionlessly as the other soldier pressed its fingers to its hearing slit, saying what?

  Sarah strained to hear.

  I’ve captured two earthlings. But we’re both wounded. We need support.

  Captured, not killed. Her heart skipped a beat.

  “They’re alive,” Sarah said as much to convince herself as Hamiad. The question was how to free them. Given that she hadn’t fired a gun in ages, she didn’t trust herself to take out the one holding Krem and Skunk. But Hamiad’s aim was sharp.

  Part of her wanted nothing more than to shoot the other Anunnaki soldier. That she could handle. She adjusted her grip on her rifle and raised it a couple of inches. Then it occurred to her that word of New Bagram’s fate would spread. Sooner or later, her mother would learn of its destruction. And the news would make her hysterical.

  Up until now, Sarah had denied herself a moment to imagine her mom’s reaction, but knew she couldn’t any longer. Not if it meant actually letting herself break the promise.

  The concerns dug into her, nails raking against her heart. She could almost hear her mom calling out to her, urgent and scared. How much despair would her mother suffer? And how long could she hold up under it? Sarah could be her hope, her miracle. But only if she and Krem found their mother.

  The idea of seeing her again proved a spring of pleasure—a haven from all the chaos and craziness of Utbashi. She almost let herself get lost in the fantasy, so blissful that firing at the Anunnaki seemed a sin.

  “Can you take them both down?” she asked. Then she broke out the fake stammers. “I-I don’t think I can.”

  “I’ve shot trickier targets before,” he said with a hint of something close to irritation.

  Had he detected her scripted nervousness?

  A second later the air lit up with hollow-point rounds.

  The first Anunnaki crumpled over, and Sarah breathed again. The other Anunnaki dropped her brother and Skunk, but remained standing. Her stomach plummeted. How had Hamiad missed? She should’ve known he had an exaggerated sense of his abilities.

  She nearly cursed him, but he darted through the crop field. The Anunnaki looked up as he shouldered his rifle. Sarah suddenly understood why he let it live. And evidently, so did the Anunnaki. It muttered angrily and raised its arms in surrender.

  “Heal them,” Hamiad growled. “Revive them!”

  The Anunnaki merely stared.

  They could always wait for Krem and Skunk to recover. But, no, that wasn’t a choice, because other Anunnaki would arrive any minute as backup.

  “Revive them!”

  The Anunnaki said nothing. It didn’t understand English at all. Sarah dropped her rifle and rushed over.

  “It’s not gonna work. Find somewhere to hide,” Hamiad said.

  Sarah started to talk but choked on her words. Her tongue turned to lead. She knew how to say “revive them” in Nebirian. So what was stopping her? They had precious little time before Anunnaki arrived to secure this area.

  In the back of her mind, she kept picturing Mitchell laugh whenever she spoke Nebirian. Even she had
laughed sometimes when her stepfather spoke it. A human making all those grunts and screeches sounded ridiculous. How would Hamiad react when he heard her speak it?

  The real question was why his opinion suddenly mattered. Especially in the middle of battle. Then it dawned on her how much he had done for her in the last two days. Whatever wild reputation he had in New Bagram, she considered him a friend now. And his opinion mattered to her.

  She shouted the order in Nebirian. Hamiad didn’t so much as look at her sideways. The Anunnaki bent over and tapped Krem and Skunk on the neck.

  As they sprang to life, Sarah crouched down to hug her brother, shutting her eyes and letting her chin press against his shoulder. After a few seconds, she released him and glanced at Hamiad. A unique comfort sprouted in her, knowing he didn’t really care how goofy she sounded speaking Nebirian.

  Hamiad dropped the Anunnaki with a hard butt from his rifle, and the four of them hustled inside the house.

  As they shut the door, Sarah noticed the cut on Krem’s arm.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “Mostly,” he said.

  She moved him over to one wall and ripped off a strip of her sleeve. As she wrapped it around his cut, she noticed movement through the faint violet window curtain. Four Anunnaki marched into the field and formed a circle around their fallen.

  Skunk lifted his head up to the window, but Hamiad pushed him down.

  For good reason, because a shadow blanketed the window.

  “Lamasuu,” Krem said.

  Even with its size, it moved in silence. The shape and design of the ship drew parallels to a giant flying bull in its overall shape and proportions. A massive frame with a smaller head-shaped front. It hovered a foot off the ground as a panel slid open and Anunnaki soldiers jumped out.

  The Anunnaki helped load the two fallen; then the panel shut. With this, the craft ascended back into the sky. But the Anunnaki remained.

  Sarah let Krem’s arm free.

  “The bleeding’s stopped mostly. Thanks,” he said.

  She wanted to say something to him, but she could only stare at the bandage, a sign of his mortality. Another reason he was better off with her. Finding their mom.