by S D Tanner
The desert was both a battlefield and a bloodbath. Although any chance to escape a planet where they were hunted and culled by monsters was probably worth dying for, it was hard to believe people were prepared to kill for a pod on what Rok had rightly called the death arks.
He shook his head at the battle taking place below them. “Who do they think built the arks?”
“Lunar Horizon,” Brook replied. “Every five years arks land here to pick up colonists. Loading takes four to eight weeks, and people come from everywhere just for a chance to get a pod.”
“Funny selection process,” Judge replied dryly.
“No, it’s not. They only want the strongest.”
Turning away from the battle in front of him, he turned to face Brook. “How do they talk to you?”
“Who? Lunar Horizon?” When he nodded, Brook shrugged. “I don’t know. We just know stuff.” Flicking her chin at the fight taking place in the desert, she added, “Like this. It happens here every five years. Everyone looks forward to it. People train for it.”
“Have you ever fought for a pod?”
Brook looked at the ground as if she was ashamed of her answer. “It comes at a price.”
Snorting, Rok turned away from the fight. “You don’t say.”
When Brook pointed into the far distance, he caught sight of several large venators. The losers were unlikely to escape fast enough to avoid the hunters, and he assumed the smaller quaesitors were also waiting like vultures to clean up the battlefield. Like lambs to the slaughter and for the promise of a better life, the people fighting in the valley had to be prepared to lose everything.
Even from two miles away, the sounds of the battle reached his ears, making his trigger finger itch to join them, but not to win a pod on a death ark. He wanted to kill the enemy that had taken his home, only he still didn’t know who they were. How was he supposed to know the difference between a hybrid and a human? The aliens were hiding in plain sight, so cleverly disguised he hadn’t even been sure Lolo was one. Grief disguised as rage bubbled inside him, making him want to take a decisive strike, one their enemy couldn’t miss. He needed to let them know their reign was being challenged.
“What do you wanna do now?” Rok asked.
“Kill ‘em.”
Sighing heavily, Judge asked, “Kill who?”
Waving his hand dismissively at Judge, he peered down at the battle looking for the best entry point. “Yeah, yeah, I know, I’m a pain in your ass.”
There were no battle lines, only skirmishes where one group tried to stop another from getting any closer to the arks. The skies were thick with different types of airborne transports, dog fighting with one another or providing air cover to the trucks below. The only way through was by barging their way into the fight.
Glancing at Brook, he asked, “How close can you get us to the arks?”
“It depends.”
“On what?”
“Whether you care if we make it out alive.”
Judge sighed. “What’s the plan, Tag?”
“We need to send a message.”
“To whom?”
“The aliens.”
“Which ones? The aliens? The hunters?”
Irritated by Judge’s negative attitude, he snapped, “Whichever one pays attention.” When Judge didn’t comment, he added more patiently, “You know what they do on the arks. Are you prepared to let them take off?”
Holding up his left arm to show it was missing below the elbow, Judge replied, “We’re not exactly in prime condition.”
“Screw that,” Rok said decisively. “Jessica is due in two hours. She can pick us up and put us back together.”
Without waiting for his orders, Rok began skidding down the sandy hill, leaving a trail of dust in his wake. Sighing, Judge strode toward the edge Rok had dropped from. “You’re a pain in my ass, Rok!”
He turned to Brook before snapping down his faceplate. “You should head back to the city. Tell people not to fight for the arks.”
Leaving her with Duke and Ag, he stepped from the ledge on the hill, feeling his body fly before gravity dragged it onto the sand. He thought he heard Brook tell him to stay safe, but he wasn’t with her anymore. They had one mission, and that was to stop the arks from taking off. Dust was skidding over his faceplate so that it obscured his sight. He tumbled down the sandy hill, sometimes landing to one side, only to lurch into another fall. His limbs and body were strong in the way only the dead could be, and whatever magic kept him alive also meant he felt little to no pain.
Reaching the bottom of the hill, Rok and Judge were waiting for him, and together they jogged toward the arks. Bodies of the failed hopefuls grew thicker the closer they got to the epicenter of the fight. Dressed in homemade armor and lying sprawled on the desert floor, vacant eyes stared at the sky as if they still wanted to reach the stars. Bullets whistled past his head and sand exploded around him. They were in the middle of the fight, and the sounds of dying men and women cut through the gunfire. It was little wonder the arks had no children on board, they would never have survived the battlefield.
Only a few feet in front of him, a man used an axe to hack deeply into a woman’s neck. She dropped to her knees, her hands clutching at the wound. Blood exploded through her fingers, sending a funnel of red across the crowd of moving bodies. The man with the axe cleaved open the skull of another victim, making him fall backward as he tugged out the axe head. Brain matter ran down the man’s back, and his corpse collapsed to the ground. Stepping over the body, he reached for the man with the axe. His efforts won him a stunning blow to the chest. The man with the axe had turned, his face running with what he suspected wasn’t his blood. His eyes were wild and his teeth clenched and stained red. Raising his arm again to bring down a killing blow, he intercepted it with the stump on his left arm and punched the man in the gut. The man folded and he finished him by slamming his clenched fist into the back of his skull.
His satisfaction was short-lived. Ahead of him, another large man was swinging a club with stunning accuracy. The end of the club was made of metal and round like a baseball, only it had five thick spikes, each at least four inches long. With every swing, the man was disabling his opponent with a single blow. Seeming to prefer the spine and knee joints, he wasn’t killing his competition, but leaving them crippled. Rok was already raising his KLAW, and a single round took off the back of the man’s head, so that he and his club fell to the ground where both were trampled on.
Everywhere he looked, people were hacking into one another with bloodletting determination. The warring men and women were engaged in an all-out fight to claim a pod. The dead and dying lay in pools of their own blood, with some still struggling to reclaim their feet. Others were crawling away from the fight with blood drenching their worn-looking clothes. Those still on their feet were tearing into one another, determined they would be the ones to win. He didn’t want to kill the people he’d been trained to protect, but even if they made it onto an ark their death was guaranteed.
“Light ‘em up, Rok!”
The regular pounding of the KLAW joined the gunfire around them. Pushing into a warring group of several hundred, he found himself in the middle of a life and death fight. Knives and long swords swept across his armor, forcing him to punch out at the bearers. Although he mostly used his fist, sometimes he used his gun like a mallet to clear his way. He pushed through the crowd until he was surrounded by jerking movement. The faces of the fighters were grim as if their lives depended on how well they fought. They didn’t know it, but the outcome would be the same, they were all losers in the eyes of the aliens.
Grabbing a man by the collar, he hurled his body out of his way. Another man was behind the first, and he yanked him backward as he strode through the shifting crowd. Men and women were falling under the endless fire from Rok’s KLAW, making him wonder when he would run out of rounds. Just as he thought it, Rok allowed the KLAW to swin
g down, and began using his fists to beat people out of his way. Judge was to his right punching at people in his path. The sound of gunfire lessened the closer they got to the circle of arks and was replaced by people cursing and screaming with rage.
Punching another man in the back of the head, he could see how the Defensors had taken out the cities. It must have been a massacre and his gut contracted with shame. He was still doing what the aliens wanted; culling humans and bringing the population to their knees. The realization only made him more determined to reach the arks. If he didn’t send a message now, then he was nothing more than an assassin or, at best, a soldier on a fool’s mission.
The surging crowd were stopped at a barrier that was nothing more than a waist high metal fence. Behind it was a line of Defensors like himself, and just their presence was enough to create an impenetrable perimeter. Finding himself at the front line of the battle, he didn’t know what to do next, but before he could decide a voice called to him.
“You! Defensor! Get behind the line!”
A man dressed in the same armor as his own stepped forward and grabbed him by the arm. Yanked sharply, he was pulled through the barrier until he was on the other side looking back at the fight. Bodies continued their brutally violent dance, but on his side of the barrier everyone was calm. None of the fighters tried to step over the metal fence, making him wonder just how frightened they were of the Defensors. All along the perimeter, Defensors were pulling the apparent winners over the barrier and pushing them toward the center of the three arks.
Following the winners of the battle, he found himself in the middle of a sandy field. It seemed the people knew what they wanted and there were no Defensors managing the loading of the arks. Alone or sometimes in pairs, the blood-covered people were climbing up steps leading into the belly of their chosen ark. Having won their pod on the ark they were no longer murderers, but colonists ready to start a new life. No doubt, the carefully crafted illusion he’d seen on their own arks would be enough to convince them they were joining a colony ship.
Appearing behind him, Judge nudged him with his shoulder. “What now?”
When Rok joined Judge, his helmet and armor were drenched red in blood. Flicking his head at him, he said, “Rok, tell Cogless to guide us to the engine room on the ark.”
Instead of confirming his order, Rok shook his head. “That was some bullshit.”
“They think we’re Defensors.”
“We are Defensors,” Rok replied, but the disgust in his tone made it clear what he thought of himself.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Slaves to War
The wide stairs led to a docking bay he recognized from his own ark. Away from the battle, the gray room echoed with the sound of people walking through it. There were no Defensors inside the bay, but he recoiled in surprise when he saw Robert. Identical to their own Medicus, this Robert wore the same slack-faced expression. His soft and cultured voice was telling people to enter the corridor and make their way into the chamber to claim their pod.
Battle weary and bloody, most of the winners had been injured, but the pods would heal them. The people were silent and shuffling more than walking as if they knew the price they’d paid to be onboard had been too high. Their own sleepers on the Extrema must have fought to win their death pod, making him wonder what they would be like when they awoke. Lolo had described the sleepers as the worst of mankind and she could count herself as one of them. Glancing at Judge, the man was always world weary, but now his shoulders were slumped inside his armor, as if what he’d witnessed outside had saddened him. Perhaps it was dawning on Judge just who Lolo was and what she’d been willing to do.
With the faceplates on their helmets still down, they trudged behind the winners through the narrow corridor. He and Judge were missing their prosthetic arm, meaning Cogless couldn’t give them directions, so Rok was guiding them to the engine room. Without Jessica, he didn’t know anything about the arks, much less how to disable one. All he could think was to damage the engines, but he wasn’t sure what would break them. After following the winners for the full length of a corridor, Rok veered away from the column. Once they were alone in another corridor, he flicked up his faceplate.
“We need to break the engines.”
Flicking up his faceplate, Judge asked, “Do we know how to do that?”
Detecting the sarcasm in his tone, he glared at Judge. “Do you have a better idea?”
Rok was trotting ahead of them, but he glanced over his shoulder. “We could just wait for an extract. Jess is due in less than an hour.”
Striding behind Rok until he was hard on his heels, he said angrily, “Our mission is to take back our country.”
“I never agreed to do that and the people in the pods are assholes,” Rok replied sharply.
Stopping in a stairwell, he grabbed Rok by the arm. “Don’t judge what you didn’t live through.”
“What does that mean?”
The people fighting for a pod on the arks hadn’t lived in any world he knew. In this alien civilization, they were hunted and slaughtered, used in every way possible to service masters they didn’t even know they had. He couldn’t blame them for wanting to escape Earth. The aliens had turned his home into a savage place where people were just as likely to be a meal as they were to have one. Other than the medic, Doc, he hadn’t seen any children or anyone over the age of thirty. Life was short and hard in this world, and desperation had a knack for bringing out the worst in a man. Brook had asked him if he felt anything and he did. He felt sorry for people living such a bad life they would tear one another apart just to be somewhere else.
Storming down the stairwell, taking two steps at a time, he overheard Judge talking to Rok. “Don’t be an asshole every day of your life.”
“Did you see what they did to one another? I’m not sure I wanna save ‘em.”
“Have you not been paying attention, Rok? They’re hunted and culled like animals. They’ve got nothing on Earth. They’re treated like livestock.”
“They shouldn’t be murdering one another.”
Judge’s voice sounded tired. “You only think that because you’ve never lived this way.”
“Are you saying people are savages, ‘cos if that’s true then we’re no better than animals?”
They shouldn’t have been questioning their mission while they were on it. Stopping at the door that would lead them into the engine room, he turned to face Judge and Rok. “Enough. Our mission is to take back our home.” Pointing to Rok, he said sternly, “You’re too damned stupid to be a philosopher. The military paid you to shoot straight. Stick to what you know.” Flicking his chin at Judge, he added, “And I’m not too happy with you screwing the enemy. I get you like her, but keep your wick dry. This mission is bigger than that, and you’ve got to make it personal in the right way.”
“Why do we work for him?” Rok asked sulkily.
“Because you’re too stupid to be left on your own,” Judge replied irritably.
“You’re a pain in my ass, Judge.”
He wasn’t listening to them anymore. Cogless had guided them somewhere he’d never seen before. Where he’d expected to find another gray room filled with heavy-duty equipment, all the room contained was a column of light trapped inside a transparent tube. Within the light was a delicate and complex spinning web with sparks traveling along the veins, twinkling as if they were stars. If this was what powered the ship, then maybe they were stars.
“What is that?”
Rok relayed his question to Cogless and the mechanical voice replied through his earpiece.
“It is the lifeforce that drives the ship.”
The answer didn’t sound right and he asked warily, “Is it alive?”
“It lives.”
“Is it the same species as the infestation on the arks?”
“No.”
Judge had walked to the column, studying the energy as it flowed across the web. “
Is it a species?”
“It is perpetual energy.”
Joining Judge standing next to the web, he thought about the question Brook had asked him. “Does it feel?”
“Its emotional state is unknown.”
“You mean you don’t know.”
“It does not communicate. It has no emotional intelligence.”
Judge gave a disgusted snort. “Not talking to you is a sign of intelligence.”
Whatever had taken over Earth knew how to scavenge, he had to give them that. The column of light was another trapped species being used by the aliens. Shaking his head, he looked at Judge. “Is this what I think it is?”
“If you’re thinking it’s another enslaved species, then I’d say so.”
“What are these aliens? Scavengers? Users and abusers of the galaxy?”
Rok stood next to him looking up at the column. “Is that what we are? Slaves to another species?”
Judge snorted cynically. “Adapt and improvise.”
It was an insightful observation and he nodded. “The aliens are like a forward invading army. They use whatever they find to take control of a planet, just like we would.”
“Does that mean the rest of the army are on their way?” Rok asked.
“Maybe Earth is only a forward operating base,” Judge suggested.
“For what?” He asked.
“Same thing we use any FOB for. Holding ground.”
He shook his head worriedly. “But we do that when we’re invading a large region. If Earth is only one FOB in a larger territory, then where’s the main army?” Flicking his chin at the sparkling web, he asked, “And where did this species come from? Our galaxy? Another one? Just what kinda reach do these aliens have?”
Judge harrumphed softly. “Wrong question.” When he glanced at Judge, his eyes had the hollowed look he hadn’t seen since they’d taken control of the Extrema. “It’s not a reach issue. If what we’re seeing is a single FOB, then their army must be sizeable.”
Pulling his last grenade from the vest covering his chest armor, he stepped backward. “There’s such a thing as being too powerful.”