by Renee Bond
“Liza!” she exclaimed, her voice filled with that motherly warmth she reserved for me alone, her line-etched face stretching into a wide, welcoming smile. “I was just wondering when you’d give up all this soldiering nonsense and come join me in the lab. And here you are!”
It was a well-worn line. One she used almost every time I came to visit her in her lab. I forced a smile, and that was the end of it. We’d had the same argument - the one where she insists that I can do more good in the lab than out taking potshots at Domann, me telling her that combat is where I belong - so many times, that this simple exchange had come to pass for the entirety of it. I’d come to accept that mom would never give up trying to get me off the front lines and out of harm’s way. She’d come to accept that one half-joke was all I would put up with on that subject. The arrangement worked for us. Kept things civil, like we both wanted it to be.
“What’s the specimen do jour?” I asked, peering at the Domann drone-like-object on her work bench.
A drone-like-object that looked suspiciously like an intact Domann drone.
“That’s not what I think it is...is it?” I asked, peering at the thing suspiciously. It was against some very serious rules to have an intact Domann drone inside the base.
“It… probably isn’t not what you think it is,” mom said evasively, putting that little sing-song note in her voice that told me she was fessing up to something.
I shivered, suddenly looking at the object in the center of mom’s workbench with a healthy dose of fear. Domann tech extensively utilized nanite technology, quantum computing, and energy sources that foremost human experts couldn’t come close to understanding. It could be that the drone on her desk was damaged beyond repair. Dead. And, therefore, safe to bring into our very top-secret base. Then again, it might not be. The truth was that Domann tech was so far above our own, that we had a hard time even telling if a piece of Domann tech was functional or not. Whole bases had been lost when “captured” Domann drones had suddenly turned into beacons that lead the Domann military right to them.
“Oh don’t worry,” mom said. “I’ve had this little guy stashed away in here for months. If it was going to bring the Domann down on us, it would have done so already.” That was another of mom’s eccentricities. Referring to Domann drones like they were… like, animals, or something. Like they were her pets.
I mean, they were genuinely fascinating. It was almost scary to think of what we could do with tech like that.
But mom had a bad habit of not regarding Domann tech as fearfully as she should have.
“That’s… comforting,” I said. Very hesitantly. “You know these things could deliver us all to the Domann right? I mean, I know you of all people know that. But sometimes you don’t seem like you know that. Do you know that?”
“Little Russel here would never do a thing like that,” mom said, nodding to the dead Domann drone. “We’ve got an understanding, he and I.”
“Little Russel there,” I said, “belongs to the alien invaders who conquered our planet, and who want to enslave the human race for all time.”
“Faw!” mom said, using that curious dismissal of hers. “Enslave us. I keep telling you, dear child, that you, like so many others, just don’t understand Domann culture. They don’t see us as their slaves. More like their little siblings.”
“Little siblings who they put into forced labor camps, and from whom they take vast quantities of natural resources every year - not to even mention the forced mating!” I said, rising to mom’s bait. Again.
“Those ‘forced labor camps’ offer much better working and living conditions than the majority of human-run enterprises, and you know it,” mom said. “And can you really blame them? The survival of their entire species is on the line, after all. I may not agree with their methods - I don’t, in fact - but you’ve got to admit that the Domann have treated humanity a hell of a lot better than they have to, given their overwhelming technological superiority. We may be part of the resistance, but you shouldn’t get sucked into the anti-Domann propaganda so thoroughly.”
That was mom. The human resistance Domann apologist. I knew her well enough to understand that she was just trying to be objective. To view the world - Domann included - with as much understanding as possible.
At least she had the good sense not to say things like that in front of anyone but her loving, loyal daughter.
To be sure, she sometimes made a good point or two. The Domann hadn’t technically enslaved the human race. The forced labor camps were for criminals and captured resistance fighters, and held only millions, out of a human population of billions. And their demands for natural resources - minerals, water, oxygen, food, select bio-fuels, silicates and sundry elements - actually served to drive a fair amount of economic development in the human societies which met those demands. In fact, aside from the resources, and the women they needed to breed, they were mostly content with letting human governments run themselves, albeit with oversight.
But none of that changed the fact that they were here, on our planet, making demands. And then enforcing those demands with combat drones.
None of that changed the fact that they were invaders.
None of that changed the fact that my father had disappeared only months after the initial Domann invasion, presumed to have been either captured or killed by them.
A fact that my mother, bless her stubborn heart, had never believed for a second.
“So,” said mom with a sigh, “what’s the real reason for this lovely visit? I know you’re not interested in hearing about how you’re wrong and I’m right yet again. Even though you should be.”
“Can’t I just want to visit?” I asked innocently. “Can’t I just want to catch up?”
“Of course you can,” mom said, “but that’s almost never the case. And I’m guessing it’s not this time either. Let me guess - you’re fishing for intel again.” As one of the most senior science officers in the Atlanta Resistance, mom often had access to information that I didn’t.
“Since it’s clear that there’s no fooling you,” I said, “what do you know about… a new weapon? Very hush-hush, but Adama just let a few of us peek in at the cat in the bag.”
Mom’s eyes narrowed.
“This is the first I’m hearing of it,” she said. “What exactly did he tell you?”
BZZZZ!
Mom and I both jumped. Me an inch, her nearly a foot.
We looked at each other.
Neither of us had made the short, loud buzzing sound that had filled the lab, then disappeared.
We looked around. The lab was as it had been been moments before.
Then I saw it.
Little Russel - dammit, I mean the Domann drone - was blinking.
Mom followed my eyes to the tiny light that had lit up on the front of the thing.
Her mouth fell open.
“Get me a diagnostic rig!” she ordered, grabbing one of her tools and all but diving into her work bench, drawing herself as close to the Domann device as she could.
I selected the requested piece of equipment from a nearby shelf.
All the while, growing more and more nervous.
“This is wonderful!” mom breathed. “I’ve never been allowed to study an intact drone - has it repaired itself? Please let it be functional!”
“We’ve got to report this,” I said as I set the rig down next to mom on the workbench. “Like, immediately.”
This was serious. A fully functioning Domann drone could lead the bastards right to our base!
“NO!” mom shouted. “If you report it, someone will insist that we destroy it. Do you know how rare it is for any human to get to study working Domann technology? This could lead to monumental breakthroughs-”
“Which wont help us if the Domann find us and throw us into a labor camp!” I shouted.
Wip! Wip! Wip-wi-wi-wip!
The drone began making short, high-pitched chirping noises, which were accompanie
d by more winking lights. Most of the lights on the ovaloid shape were a light blue, but a few of the longer ones were an eerie, glowing yellow.
I reached for my heavy pistol.
“Don’t. You. Dare.” Mom had seen me reach for my weapon, and was using her warning tone.
I… kinda froze up, then. My instincts were telling me to run. To get help.
My natural instinct to obey my mom made me pause.
And my curiosity kept my eyes firmly glued on the drone.
Then, suddenly, it popped up off the table, hovering into the air, alight with functional sensors.
The damn thing was fully fucking functional!
“Don’t move!” mom said.
I listened to her.
The drone didn’t.
Very slowly, almost as if it were scared… it began to hover straight towards me.
Chapter 4
Liza
I froze.
I’d shot plenty of these things before, so I knew from experience that they weren’t as durable as full Domann soldiers. One shot from a heavy pistol will put them down, if you hit it square. They’re pretty quick, so quick it’s nearly impossible to hit them while they’re zipping around, but sometimes they stop to scan something, or just change direction.
This one didn’t change direction.
It locked onto me and didn’t waver an inch.
“Don’t interfere!” mom insisted. Very helpfully.
My heart started beating faster - as the Domann drone started circling me. It rotated around my still form once, twice, thrice, it’s “front” always pointed at me. It was almost like it was examining me. Looking me up and down.
Or, maybe it was scanning me.
What the hell did it want from me?
Then, suddenly, every light on the drone’s surface changed to a deep, emerald green.
Then, just as suddenly, the drone crashed back down to the work bench.
I tore my eyes away from it. To see my mother, holding the diagnostic rig, pointing it at the drone.
All color had left her face.
But… shit, had she just shut the Domann drone off?
“Did you do that?” I asked, incredulous. To my knowledge, nobody had ever managed to issue an order to a Domann drone before.
“I… believe so,” mom said quietly.
“Fuck!” I said, flabbergasted. “Do you know what this means? You just managed to shut
down a fucking Domann drone! If you’ve managed to get that far-”
I left my sentence unfinished.
I’d just sworn. Twice.
And my mother hadn’t told me to watch my language.
“Mom?” I asked. Growing concerned.
Mom was staring at the drone - shit, staring through it. Almost like part of her needed to focus on it, but the rest of her couldn’t bear it.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, walking over to her. Putting my hand on her shoulder.
“Liza,” she said, her voice all but quivering, “I need you to be brave. I need you to be rational.”
My eyes narrowed.
“What?” I demanded.
“I’m pretty sure,” my mother replied, “that this is a Domann mate-scanning drone.”
She went on. Something about how she couldn’t be sure, our understanding of their technology is something something blah blah blah.
But the mysterious roaring in my ears was so loud I couldn’t hear her.
A fucking mate-scanner.
All Domann drones look more or less the same. I mean, there are larger ones and smaller ones, but you really can’t tell what they do by just looking at them.
But if there is one person in America who would be able to tell what each Domann droid does, it’s my mom.
A fucking mate-scanner.
I looked down at it.
It was still green. Still silent. But very definitely still green.
Humans thought of green as a positive color.
Just like the Domann did.
A fucking Domann fucking mate-scanner had just fucking scanned me.
And then it fucking turned green.
“Mom?” I asked, suddenly lost. Suddenly a scared little girl again, reaching out for whatever comfort I could find. Trying to hide from the thought of ever being forced to - shudder - mate, with those planet-stealing scumbags.
I realized that mom was hugging me.
“Determining human-Domann genetic compatibility takes extensive blood work,” she was saying. “These scanners can only make a preliminary determination. Besides, it’s not bad. It will be ok.”
“How can you say that?” I demanded, suddenly flaring in anger. I was in no mood for her damn Domann sympathy!
Wait… was that true?
Did it really take extensive bloodwork to determine if a human woman could bear Domann children? I’d never heard anything about that.
How did she know that?
I was just about to ask my mother how she knew that. And, after that, what in the world would make her say that it “wasn’t bad.”
But I never got the chance.
Because right then is when the base-wide alarm began to blare.
The Domann had found us.
Chapter 5
Karkan
The time for battle had come.
Finally.
We’d known about the resistance base for some time now. But we’d been taking our time. Collecting intel. Now, we knew exactly how extensive the resistance base under South Atlanta was. I, and the Domann soldiers I was about to lead into battle, had studied detailed reports. We were familiar with every tunnel, room, and structure. We knew exactly how many people we would find within them. What kind of weapons they had. Where the defenders would position themselves. Even which routes they would take as they attempted to flee.
We were going to capture every last one of them.
I stood on the bridge of my warship, the Dominion, as it hovered in the air roughly a thousand feet above one of the base’s larger secret entrances. My ship wasn’t the biggest in our fleet. Our battleships and fighter-carriers are larger, and have more firepower, and some of our support ships can haul more tonnage. But my destroyer-class ship was still, ton-for-ton, one of the meanest warships in the known galaxy. Nothing humanity had ever invented could so much as scratch it. Or defend against it. Honestly, it could conquer the planet by itself, if it had to.
But we wouldn’t be using its bombardment lasers or missile clusters today. No. Today, we would simply capture any human who dared to resist our rule. And then we would show them the full magnitude of the error of their ways.
“All operations are ready to deploy, Captain,” said Lenth Botich, one of my personal honor guard. Like me, Lenth was dressed in a full combat exoskeleton, his seven and a half foot frame covered by layers of armor and energy shields that made him all but invincible.
“Let’s show these puny humans who’s in charge of this planet,” said Sandora Ventraks, my other honor guard, also suited for combat. At six and a half feet, he was half a foot shorter than I was. But he was still plenty imposing next to the humans we would soon face in combat.
And dominate utterly.
“Begin initial drone deployment,” I ordered.
“Yes sir!” replied one of the logistics officers aboard my bridge, as he began relaying commands into a computer station filled will holo-displays, buttons, levers and other inputs.
With a deep, satisfied sigh, I strode from the central command platform to the command observation dome. The bridge of my warship was in the center of the ship, so no direct view to the exterior was possible. A direct window from the outside of the ship straight into my ship’s command center would be a liability, to put it mildly, during combat. Instead, sensor drones surrounding my ship fed streaming images to my observation dome, a holo-display that curved around me, providing me of a perfect view of my ship, its operations and our environment. My guard and I watched a view of my ship, as seen from the outsid
e, slowly lowering itself towards the densely populated urban sprawl surrounding the human city of Atlanta. Squat, dirty, utilitarian buildings of humble concrete, brick or other plain earthen materials covered the ground under my ship, broken up only by the ugly surfaceways that served as pathways for humanities' painfully primitive transportation methods. As the sun sunk towards the horizon, bathing the scene in orange light, hundreds of combat drones began streaming from my ship’s launch tubes, quickly orienting into assigned attack vectors in formations of several dozen each.
These drones were equipped only with non-lethal weapons. After all, humanity was different than the other species my race had formerly ruled.
Because of a quirk of evolution, humanities' DNA profile meant that they were simply better than the other alien species we Domann had conquered. They were to become our vessels, a valued sibling species. As such, the resistance fighters we would soon bring to heel weren’t to be considered proper enemies. Honestly, they didn’t have the offensive capabilities necessary for us to consider them enemies anyways. If someone has no power to hurt you, or even affect you, can they really be your enemy? No. These humans were like naughty children, disobeying their parents. They needed to be taught a painful, memorable lesson, then redirected into productive pursuits. That’s why we bothered to capture humans who resisted us, instead of killing them. That, and the fact that captured resistance fighters were quite convenient for filling the labor camps that were so necessary to supplying and expanding our warfleet.
“All drones are in position, Captain,” said Lenth.
“Good!” I replied. “I’ve been itching to demonstrate to these simple-minded fools just how utterly futile resisting us really is.”
“I’ll never understand why they can’t recognize our inherent superiority,” Sandora said, “and submit to our rule completely. It’s just so obvious that we can lead their species better than they can.”
“At least some of their species has realized that,” I said, “or at least they’re smart enough not to make trouble for us.” To humanities' credit, many of them at least pretended to accept our rightful rule over their lives.