by Unknown
Travel through the gate in either direction was strictly controlled. Without a labor pass, one would be turned back. Present an expired pass, and you’d be arrested. Every day, flatbed trucks trundled through, delivering the workforce to one project or another. Everyone above the age of ten worked. Those too sick to do so received no stamp for the weekly food allotment. The elderly or disabled who could not work at all had long since been rounded up, and executed.
School and religious gatherings were things of the past. Cruelty ran rampant behind the wall. On the western portion, where Hubbard Township was located, the citizens were subjected to merciless, wanton acts of undeserved harassment. Random searches of homes, unexplained arrests, and public beatings, even the occasional execution.
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The officers took particular delight in frightening the children. The worst, and most memorable engraved into memory would fall on the earlier days of the occupation, when the troops first rolled into town. Labor gangs were rounded up to begin construction of the wall. The kids had been initially delighted with the cancellation of school, and often played outside in the open field that looked over the construction zone. A few of the kids had brought their dogs with them. A trio of lieutenants caught sight of the children, and approached them, wearing deceivingly friendly smiles.
The officers then proceeded to draw their side arms, and shoot the dogs right in front of the kids. They laughed heartily at their tears, then selected the smallest child in the group, and made him carry the bloody carcasses away.
Over time, there were, however, small acts of compassion, too.
When this did happen, it most often came from the lower ranking Storian soldiers, and usually the females. They sometimes discreetly gave candy to the children, looking about to avoid being discovered by their superiors. As the days and weeks crawled past, the harsh conditions, and poor supply of food took its toll. People were becoming gaunt, and weak. Once eradicated diseases were rearing their ugly heads as immune systems broke down. Scurvy, cholera, and dysentery were the worst. Treks to the graveyard became commonplace.
Ironically, the wave of sickness actually made life a little easier for the survivors in the end. Less mouths to hunger for a meager food supply. Of the initial 8000 that once populated Hubbard, less than half remained by the end of the first year of occupation, whittled away by the mean winter.
The regional commander realized that the Terrans held a
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certain value, being a source of labor. Their work allowed his soldiers to remain doing what they were intended for, and that was manning the defenses against potential attack.
That spring, they began supporting the local farmers, providing them with a larger food allotment in order to have the strength to work their fields. Seed and livestock feed began to circulate among the farms, with orders given to surrender three-quarters of the crop to the regent. The regent then distributed the goods among the working populace, thus keeping them strong enough to continue with their labors. It balanced things out, at least tentatively.
There had been a few farmers too patriotic to bend to the demands. Their entire families were brought to the town square, and executed. Others quickly fell into line following that.
Steven Holloway was a fourth generation farmer whose property bordered the eastern-most line of the kill zone that spread outward from the wall. He had been tasked with building a fence along most of the forty acre parcel that ran its length to prevent his cattle from becoming ground beef on those mines.
Once in a while, a squad of Storians would pull up into his lane with a flatbed truck, and help themselves to one of the steers---shooting it through the head, and dragging the carcass to the truck for meat. They tended to leave the milkers alone, wise enough to appreciate the dairy products that they provided. His wife worked hard making the cheese. In return, they were gifted with the occasional burlap sack of hard-to-find sundries. Soap, chocolate, even coffee.
It helped that he had spent many years trading with the Amish, befriending them, gaining their trust. They had taught him many of their ways in simple living. Other things eased their lives by simple chance. His wife had long been fascinated with the early American west, and invested a painful chunk of money into the
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purchase of an antique-style wood burning kitchen range. At first, Steven had been rather upset at what he considered an extravagant expense. The darned stove just sat there for looks, next to the electric one. A cast iron dinosaur with a wood box underneath, and a warmer up above the range top. He’d even had to bust his butt installing a chimney for the damned thing, just so she could use it once on a lark.
His opinion of it changed on Invasion Day. When the electricity went out, and stayed out, they had not only a way to cook and bake, but an additional source of heat during the cold months. He’d pretended to ignore his wife’s smug look about that.
Then, during a raging storm front in mid-January, with snow piling into drifts that threatened to bury one side of the house, their son had come down with a cough. The cough was followed by a fever. The fever invited some friends of its own, and within a week, their little boy was dead. There was no such thing as going to a doctor anymore, and the Storians were not keen on people asking for their medics. So, Steven Holloway and wife watched their little boy of eight tender years try to breathe through lungs full of fluid. His son took his last, pitiful breath at just after one in the morning on January 29th.
Holloway himself had sat, numb, staring into the fireplace until the first grey light of morning began to filter through the overcast sky. His wife wept the entire time, softly, and inconsolably.
Remembering, Steve closed his eyes against the images, willing them to go away. As always, they refused. The scene replayed itself in his mind, as sharp and painful as the morning itself. He had finally risen from his chair, and stumbled into the kitchen. For what, he didn’t know. His legs just needed to move. He wandered the house aimlessly, feet dragging as if they had taken on pounds. At some point, he ended up in his son’s room. Steve stood there motionless in the doorway for a long time, just looking.
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Looking at the drawings tacked to the walls. The toys scattered about.
He sat on the edge of the bed, and took the pillow in hand. The smell of his boy was still on it. Steven buried his face in it, and allowed tears of his own to come. How long he was swallowed by the grief, he did not know. Minutes. An hour. An eternity. At some point, his sobs spent themselves out. With them, his heart had followed. Drained, emotionally numb, he stood and moved to the window.
It looked out to the west. The sea of snow that spread so smooth, a deceivingly beautiful scene disrupted only by the expanse of the wall and its turrets. Steven watched as his wife trudged barefoot through that blanket of white, the body of their boy in his arms. She was mad with her despair. Part of him wanted to call out to her. To scream her name, to beg her not to go, but another part understood her pain. To love them was to let them go.
The contact mine exploded with a stunning power. The flash appeared an instant before the sharp blast that threw a geyser of snow and earth an impressive distance into the air. Steven looked away, thankful for the quick end to his wife’s anguish.
There was no safely reaching them. He thought about it for hours, wondering if he had the courage to risk going out there for them, but he was able to will himself no further than the drift that lay over the fence. Steven compensated his shame by trying to dig a grave for them instead, telling himself that once it was done, he would go for them. All afternoon, he fought the frozen ground until his hands bled, achieving nothing more than a scraping a few inches deep.
Days passed, with him in a stupor. The remains of his family lying frozen and scattered on the cold, hard ground beyond his reach, but wholly within sight. A week later, one of the Storian army
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trucks pulled into the lane, delivering bales of hay for his cattle. That brought one of th
e first, and most unexpected acts of kindness from them that Steven had experienced.
The truck was manned by a sergeant, a driver, and two others. The sergeant spotted Steve standing by the gate, hands buried in his coat pockets, staring out over the fence. The Storian came over to him, perhaps intending to bark a demand to help unload the bales. He said something to Holloway, but Steve was in no state to respond. He just kept staring. The sergeant followed his gaze, and immediately understood. By then, crows had come, and begun pecking at the exposed flesh, feasting on his family.
Without saying another word, the sergeant went to the truck, spoke rapidly in his native tongue to the others, and retrieved a long-handled detector from the cab. The squad then crossed through the gate, and carefully weaved their way out to what remained of Holloway’s wife and child. The gore was gingerly placed into burlap sacks, and carried back with something very near to reverence.
The sergeant noticed Steve’s torn hands, and the shovel that had been tossed aside next to the attempt at a shallow grave. He said something else to his men, and they took the sacks to the truck. With eyes that were genuinely sympathetic, the Storian touched Holloway briefly on the shoulder, and walked away.
The Storians unloaded the bales themselves, carried them to the barn, and stacked them. They left after that, leaving Steve with a newfound confusion. His assumption up until then was that the Storians were an evil, warmongering race of killers. To find this unexpected compassion rocked his hatred. There were men and women within the occupying army who might not believe in what they were doing. Who likely had families of their own back home. Who were capable of feeling empathy.
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Four months was not enough time for the hurt to go away, but it was enough for it to have eased a little. On this quiet morning on the first day of May, he actually felt pretty well. He was standing at the end of his lane, sipping a cup of twice-brewed coffee, gazing out at the slanted rays of the sun casting their golden glow on the foliage that bordered the shoulders of the highway. He regarded his mailbox with something akin to wonder, noticing it for the first time in over a year. The mail had stopped running at the onset of the war, and in the necessities of staying alive, he’d completely forgotten about it.
He pulled the lid down, half expecting to find a letter or a flyer, but it was empty. Amazing how something so simple as the mail brought the familiar tug of longing for the past. How that bill coming in, or the payment being sent symbolized what was essentially one’s freedom. It might never run again, as far as he knew. That thought filled him with a profound sadness that was nearly as deep as the loss of his family.
His gaze shifted from the mailbox to the Storian wall that swallowed Highway 64 in its giant, iron maw. The castle-like parapets with their machine guns jutting out. The morning watch was relieving the previous one. Soldiers mingled about along the top, only the upper halves of their bodies visible from the trench-ways. Some shared smokes, others sipped at drinks. One straddled the top edge, dropped his trousers, and commenced pissing over the side. It was no different than a shift change for them. Another day at work. He resented their casualness.
Steve was about to start his own workday. There was plowing that had to be done. Sections of fence that needed mending. He turned, starting to walk toward the barn, when something up high caught his attention. Whatever it was attracted the scrutiny of the soldiers on the wall as well. Everyone’s eyes averted to the heavens at the same time, to a sky that was clear, and blue.
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There had been a dim, indistinct flash, high up in the atmosphere. It was there and gone in an instant, but it left behind a curious, flat pancake of thin cloud that spread outward, dissipating to nothingness. The spectacle lasted no longer than a few seconds, leaving an odd, greenish tint to the sky. Then there came the low, menacing roll of thunder. It rumbled faintly, like a dog growling, and faded.
In the renewed quiet, birds erupted from the trees, and flew in wild, uncontrolled flocks. Holloway’s cows began to bellow, and the chickens flapped and cackled as they ran in circles. Steven frowned, turning slowly, taking it all in. He noticed that the Storians on the wall were running frantically, too. Shouting orders. Cursing. A few were pointing toward the north. One that was presumably an officer took a position atop one of the gun towers with a pair of binoculars. He, too, was gazing northward.
Holloway tried to see, but his house, and the giant blackgum tree blocked his view. Curiosity piqued, he jammed his coffee cup into the mailbox, and ran across the side yard to get around back as quickly as he could. Once back there, he checked the wall yet again, and sure enough, every head was facing north. He peered at the horizon, but could see nothing out of the ordinary.
A buzzing alarm began to bray from behind the wall. The sound of it sent a thrill of excitement mixed with fear through him. Something was most definitely going down, and he had front row seats. Squinting, he studied the sky, determined to see what had so captivated the Storians.
At last, he spotted it. Or rather, them. Three dots low on the horizon, sweeping downward, leaving thin trails of exhaust behind them. There was no sound yet, but Steven knew that with the speed those objects were approaching, they had to be jets. They grew gradually in size from black dots to the distinct shapes of fighter planes. They spread apart as they neared, the noise of their engines
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finally becoming audible.
Steve was startled by the sudden eruption of anti-aircraft fire from behind the wall, spraying from side to side; sending winding streaks of hot plasma up into the sky. That was when the jets released their rockets. Four bright comet tails lanced out from beneath the wings of each jet, rushing forward at the wall well ahead of the aircraft. In quick succession, the rockets began striking along the wall, each powerful explosion walking ahead of the other from north to south. The blasts were sharp and immense, the shockwaves knocking Steven from his feet, and shattering every westward-facing window of his house. He writhed on the grass, holding his tortured ears, wondering if he’d been deafened. The over-pressure waves had actually sent a hot wind outward, and as it swept past, lifted his chickens into the air.
Flame, dirt, smoke, and concrete erupted upward like twelve volcanoes releasing their pent-up fury. The conflagration swallowed his view of the sky, casting a shadow over the farm as it blocked out the rising sun.
Holloway no sooner managed to sit up, still holding his head, than when the fighter planes came screaming past no more than a few hundred feet above the ground, whipping the rising clouds of smoke into swirling waves, the power of their jet wash shaking the ground.
Chunks of earth and concrete began to rain down around him, some as large as a watermelon, making him realize that he’d better find cover if he didn’t want to get brained on his own lawn. Staggering toward the open door of his barn, he nearly vomited when a dismembered arm bounced off of his back, and landed at his feet, the hand still twitching.
Inside the barn entrance, Steve wavered on rubbery legs, leaning against the frame for support as he waited for his head to
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clear, yawning and stretching his mouth in an attempt to restore his hearing while debris continued to patter and tick off of the roof. Pitch-black smoke billowed from behind the wall, rising high into the still air. It stank with unidentifiable odors. As the lower wafts of smoke and dust began to clear, it became evident that large portions of the wall had taken heavy damage, blown inward with twisted bones of steel rebar sticking out. Five of the nine gun towers nearest the farm had toppled at the mid-line. The sixth suffered a huge chunk torn from it, and somehow remained standing. That left three untouched. Steve wondered how effective that would leave the wall defenses.
The dangerous shower of broken concrete stopped, and he risked stepping out to see if the jets were going to come around for another pass, but they were nowhere to be seen. Giving in to his elation, Steve let out a whoop of delight, flipping the middle finger toward the battered wall. He d
id a jig, dancing in a circle, and muttering some mindless tune. It felt so damned good to see some suffering turned on the Storians for a change.
Out of breath, he leaned on his knees, panting, watching the fires burn. The anti-aircraft fire had stopped, leaving only the ceaseless braying of the alarm. Soldiers were swarming now, all along the top trenches, filling the intact sections that remained. His ears still ringing, Steve was unable to hear much, but he did become aware of a vibration beneath his feet. A rhythmic thumping that radiated to his chest. He scanned the skies to the north and south---the only visible expanse with the west completely curtained by the smoke, and saw nothing. Once again, he watched the Storians to see where they were looking. This time, it was behind him, to the east.
Stepping around the barn, he saw it.
The sky was literally filled with Huey-shuttle helicopters. Hundreds of them, all flying low, and in tight formation. They were sweeping toward him with shocking speed. The front of the wave
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consisted of larger, bulkier versions that were laden with side guns, and forward-facing rocket tubes. These gunships began unleashing their ordinance as they pounded overhead, raking the wall with heavy suppression fire. As they did this, the waves of smaller helos began descending in a neat line perhaps forty across, hovering scant feet above the ground while troops jumped out, and began to charge in the direction of the wall.
Marines were deploying in vast numbers, advancing into that killing field. Holloway tried to shout a warning to them about it being a minefield, but no one could hear him over the incredible din of the sudden battle. Rifle fire was lancing out from the marines, the thumping roar of the Hueys, and the thunder of their heavy guns drowned him out. Machine gun fire was beginning to sweep out from the remaining towers with withering force, felling marines like grass before a scythe. Mines began going off, throwing earth and bodies in all directions.