“Alex, how are we doing in there?” Jackson’s call came over the radio.
I gingerly set the flash-bangs in front of me and grabbed my radio. “We aren’t in here, jackass!” I laughed so he would know I was joking. “I’m doing okay, I just wish that Ka’thak would clean the place more than once a millennium,” I joked.
A humorless laugh. “Try not to get murdered by any dust bunnies on your way, all right? If you can, we need you to hurry up. The reinforcements are here and we’re running out of ways to push them back.”
“Yeah, yeah, I got it.” Fuck you. I was surprised at the anger I felt. There was no reason for me to feel anger toward him. He was the one fending off a group of well-armed soldiers while I trudged my way through a dark and dusty air shaft. A dusty air shaft that might be riddled with bullets at any moment. I reminded myself. How did I get myself into this again? I was a college professor for God's sake. I wasn’t an action hero, I wasn’t a soldier, and I wasn’t a politician. I was just trying to make it through the day with my sanity intact. And now there I was with the fate of an entire species resting on my shoulders because I was skinnier than the actual soldiers. What a joke. What a world.
Well, I guess we’re doing this now, I said to myself. I had decided to do this. No one had held a gun to my head. After all, it was thanks to these people I was still alive. They had bled for me, killed for me, and died for me. I had to face the fact that the reason I kept ending up in these situations was because it was my very nature to try and make a difference. As well-intentioned as I had always been, this compulsion landed me in trouble over and over.
But the truth was that I had made a difference. I killed Turuk after he murdered the prime minister of the aliens in cold blood. I stood and defied a mad CEO and his army of mercenaries. I watched a young woman, in the beginning of her presidential career bleed to death in my arms. I organized the aliens to attack and re-take a shuttle, providing a chance that their children could live, rather than perish on the surface of the Earth. My actions mattered. My life mattered. If I died here, that was good enough for me.
I kept crawling until I reached the opening on the other side of the ventilation pipe. I peered through the slits of the grate and saw soldiers nearby. They were discussing how best to overrun Jackson and the remaining alien soldiers. Shots rang out at one point and I flinched. They obviously had a few men on lookout, ordered to shoot anything they saw that wasn’t human. I was really only going to get one shot at this. I took one of the flash-bangs from my pocket and went over Jackson’s instructions in my head. Pull the pin and toss. But first I had to get the grate of the air vent free. The grill was secured from the outside but I was pretty sure I could kick it free. That meant having to double back and turn myself around. Shit.
I pushed myself backward, trying to ignore the thick coat of dust adhering itself to my clothes and hair until I found an intersection in the piping. I managed to do a sort of K-turn in the ventilation system and stick my feet in front of me. Moving back to the opening facing the wrong way was much slower going. At one point I gave up trying to move quietly and settled for quickly, pushing myself onto all fours. My height worked against me in the tight quarters and my back clanged against the top of the metal. I froze, waiting for the shouts of soldiers or the cracks of gunfire. I heard a few murmurs from ahead of me but the roar of the ventilation was too loud. I had to assume they didn’t know where I was or they would have ripped the grate off themselves and shot me by now. When no such disturbance came, I pushed myself into an awkward crab walk and inched my way back toward the grate.
When I got there, the soldiers had moved. I could still hear their voices but they were no longer right in front of me. Good. That gave me time to figure this out. I dropped myself to the floor of the shaft as gently as I could and thought. The best way to get the most force out of a kick wasn’t going to be laying on my back. I had to turn over again. I rolled until I was on all fours again, earning a face full of dust for my trouble. I made sure to have the flash-bangs at the ready, drew my leg toward my chest, and kicked.
A giant clang rang through the air shaft that made the metal vibrate underneath my hands. I heard the shouts of the soldiers outside and turned. The grate hadn’t even budged. Shit. Shit shit shit. Okay, maybe the first kick did something. Even if it hadn’t, I was out of time and out of options. The only thing to do was to try again. This time I put everything I had into the kick and felt my foot sail through the space where the grate had been. I had maybe a few seconds before the soldiers arrived. I spun, dropped with my back to the floor, pulled the pin, and tossed the grenade. Then I hugged my knees to my chest, covered my ears and shut my eyes. I dimly heard the flash-bang ricochet against the wall and roll away.
The blast was deafening, even with my meager ear protection. I stayed where I was for a few seconds, not daring to open my eyes to risk losing what little vision I had in this tunnel. But the plan had worked. I smiled to myself and waited for Jackson’s signal that it was safe to come out.
31
Jackson
I smiled. That woman was something.
“Forward!” I called and the remaining force sprinted into the hall. Damn, this felt good. Ahead of us was all smoke and I could see the silhouettes of downed soldiers on the floor here and there. We didn’t stop for them, we just shot them as we ran and kept going. It was like shooting fish in a barrel. I normally would have felt bad for shooting a downed man but I reminded myself that if things were the other way around that they wouldn’t think twice about shooting me.
As soon as we passed through the smoke we ran into a group of soldiers waiting for us. It was as if we ran straight into a wall of gunfire. The leading warriors fell, their weapons skittering across the floor as they did. Those of us behind the leaders flattened ourselves against the wall as much as possible. It was plain to see that we weren’t going to be able to make the rest of the run. Try and charge the group and we’d be mowed down. We didn’t have the numbers to sustain another round of heavy losses. I broke from the wall, dove behind the body of one of my fallen brothers, and kept my head down. Others broke from their cover to duck behind doorways and stanchions, laying down covering fire when they could. Maybe one in three made it successfully. We were losing.
32
Alexandra
I pulled my hands from my ears at the percussion of gunfire. I heard yells and screams and the thump of grenades launching accompanying the shots. If it was the aliens getting pinned down, I had to do something. They would be trapped in the hallway and slaughtered like pigs. I slid myself toward the vent’s opening and worked my way out gently. Once I was free I saw that the humans had advanced down the hallway. The aliens were pinned, firing off the occasional shot but every time they did one of their own was wounded or killed.
My exit had not gone unnoticed and several soldiers had leveled their rifles at me. I pushed myself up slowly, taking care to keep my hands raised. I assumed the only reason I wasn’t lying dead on the floor was that the shock value of having a woman show up in an unexpected place still worked in my favor. One of the soldiers leaned into a man issuing directions to the company. He turned and motioned his soldiers to lower their weapons.
“Keep an eye on the lizards, boys. Surely we don’t need all this for just one woman?” he said. “I’m the commanding officer here. Lt. Hasko.”
“You need to listen to me. Do you have any idea who I am, Mr. Hasko?” He and the soldiers who hadn’t bothered keeping an eye on the aliens shook their heads. “I’m going to need you to do me a favor. My CAC card is in my left-hand pocket.” He stared at me blankly. The expression took me back to teaching. He was only a year or two older than my students. Even with his position as a commander, it was obvious that he was as scared as I was. “Reach into my pocket and take my card out. It will tell you who I am and tell you why you need to listen to me.”
He did and looked surprised. I knew what he’d be reading. Ambassadorial position. High cl
earance. That’s right, buddy, I’m the real deal. He blinked and handed the card back to me.
“Yes ma’am. What are you doing here?” He eyed me up and down, taking in the thick coating of dust that covered me from head to toe. “...and what can we do for you?”
“Can you men take care of themselves for a few minutes? Please. For your safety and the safety of your men, I beg you to cease fire. I have contact with these aliens, I can get them to hold their positions.”
“You can?”
“Let me to the front of your line and I’ll prove it to you.” Hasko quirked an eyebrow but motioned me forward. I raised my hands again and advanced past the humans. “Ka’thak, are you there? It’s Alex.”
“Alex?” Ka’thak called. “Are you alone?”
“Yeah. Our friend Lt. Hasko has promised that I can come say a quick hello. Could you lend me one of your people?” Ka’thak motioned a soldier forward. I reached out and took him by the hand. I whispered instructions near his ear. He looked at me quizzically but followed my instructions, putting an arm around my throat and pressing his claws into the skin near my neck. “See this, Lt. Hasko?” I called down the corridor. A flashlight shone in my face and the two of us winced. “Enough proof that the aliens know me and will do what I say?”
“Fair enough!” he called back. I gently pried the warrior’s hand from my neck and patted him gently on the shoulder in thanks.
Before I left, I addressed Ka’thak one more time. “Ka’thak, can you guarantee these humans a ceasefire while their commanding officer and I have a conversation?”
“I’ll play nice if they do” he declared. “If they start shooting, no guarantees.”
“See, Lieutenant? If I wasn’t who I said I was, don’t you think this huge alien would kill me where I stood?”
The human soldiers stood with their mouths agape. I put my hand on the Lieutenant’s shoulder and led him to the back of the group. “Men, rifles down. No one fires without my command until the woman leaves,” he ordered.
“Lieutenant, I need to bring a few things to light that you’re not going to want to believe. I only ask that you hear me out and that you consider where the information is coming from,” I said. He nodded. “The President is guilty of war crimes. He has committed treason against the United States. He has broken a treaty sanctioned by his predecessor and attempted to commit genocide. These are crimes of a very serious nature.”
“We’re just following orders, ma’am.”
“That’s what they said at the Nuremberg trials, Mr. Hasko.” Hasko stared at me, confused. “Ah, you’re a little young to know that. The Nuremberg trials took place after the end of World War II when former Nazi officers were taken in to answer for their crimes. Most of them were just following orders. They were convicted anyway. The law still stands today. Soldiers are guilty of committing criminal actions if the orders they receive are illegal or criminal in nature.”
I could have sworn that the young man started to tremble a little bit. “I—I’ll need to get confirmation of this from my superior officers before—“
“With all due respect, Lieutenant, there isn’t time. You’ll need to make a decision yourself. You have the chance to right a great wrong here, or you can follow your orders and kill the remaining members of a species who is responsible for you continuing to draw breath. I swear to you, if you stand your men down, you will be given safe passage.”
The Lieutenant hesitated a moment, then told his men to keep their weapons lowered. “If the President is indeed a war criminal—and I’m not agreeing with you, ma’am, but such serious claims were worth a temporary ceasefire—who’s in charge? Who am I supposed to be taking orders from? There was never a new Vice President installed.”
33
Alexandra
I wasn’t sure how to answer that question. I wasn’t a military officer and this guy wasn’t exactly likely to trust Jackson.
“Is there any chance you can stand down your men, sir?” I knew as the words left my mouth that he wasn’t going to go for it. Too young and too indoctrinated. He might agree with me but lacked the experience to break out of the rigid doctrine he was trained with. I felt the pressure of the other flash-bang in my pocket and slid my hands into my pockets as if thinking.
“I’m very sorry miss, but no. I can’t do that. I agree with you that we should cease fire and save lives on both sides, and I know how much the aliens have been helping humanity. I certainly don’t want to kill them, especially given the information you’ve given me, but I don’t want to die trying to stop them either. Even so, I can’t let them pass without a direct order from someone above me.”
I wanted to smack myself in the forehead. My mistake. I forgot for a moment that military men weren’t picked for their brains. I toyed with the idea of calling down to Earth to see if I could get a single sympathetic superior officer on the line. Even if I did, Wright’s word trumped anyone standing on the ground. Until he was out of the game, we were sunk. I wasn’t even entirely sure that the President was breaking any actual laws. After all, the Geneva Convention was written by and for humans. Aliens weren’t humans, and I couldn’t be sure about what the courts or Congress would rule about it. They might even side with the President, and what would we be left with then? Shit, it wasn’t like we even had time for that. We had to get out of here.
The group of soldiers was almost clustered around us now, the enemy down the hall all but forgotten as they strained to listen to the conversation. A couple kept their eyes on the aliens but as it had become clear that they weren’t going to charge down the hall, the men only half paid attention. I watched the body language of the soldiers out of the corner of my eye. They all seemed relieved to have a respite from a firefight. They all seemed to forget that I wasn’t from their side of the conflict too. That wasn’t their best idea.
I pulled my hands from my pockets, flash-bang concealed in one of them, and put my hands behind my back. I looked the Lieutenant in the eyes and shrugged.
“I’d say I understand, but I don’t. You’re participating in the slaughter of innocent beings, none of whom have done a single thing to you. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” Hasko quirked an eyebrow.
“Yeah.” I ripped the pin from the flash-bang and threw it on the ground, pushing the Lieutenant aside as I ran and hit the ground.
The second blast was deafening.
34
Jackson
When I heard the second explosion I knew that things weren’t going as planned. Ka’thak and I looked at each other and didn’t hesitate. He barked a command to his soldiers and the group charged forward. As we ran, I noticed that there wasn’t any return fire. The flash-bang had done its job. The smoke was so thick I coughed, hacking and spitting as I searched for anyone who moved.
“Knock them out!” Ka’thak called. Several soldiers dropped their weapons and were promptly knocked out by alien guns or fists. The few who even bothered to raise their rifles found themselves unconscious just like their colleagues. I admired that even now when fighting the people who betrayed them the aliens remained as non-lethal as possible. It brought me a lot of pride. I waved my hands to push the smoke aside and nearly tripped over a figure sitting on the floor. It was a man, crouched or sitting. I didn’t see a weapon but I still approached him with caution. It wouldn’t do to be shot by surprise now.
“Hey, David.” Alex stood next to a Lieutenant. The man sat the floor of the passage, his hands interlaced behind his head. Alex held his rifle to his head, with her hand on her hip. She smiled.
“Hey yourself!” I replied, shaking my head in wonder.
She laughed. “Everything all right?”
“Yeah, of course, you know how it goes.” I unfastened a set of zip ties from my belt and handed them to her. She deftly fastened them around the Lieutenant’s wrists. I quirked an eyebrow at her and chuckled.
“Know how to use those, do you?”
She rolled her
eyes at me and shoved the man to the ground. She kept her foot on the small of his back but he didn’t show any signs of struggle. Smart man. I had to hand it to her, Alex could be damn scary when she wanted to be. A couple of alien soldiers joined her. One of the soldiers brushed Alex’s foot aside to plant her foot on the Lieutenant’s back. The other leaned down and opened his jaws in front of the man, hissing and letting saliva drip from his mouth. He trembled and yelped as she dug her claws through the back of his uniform. She handed the rifle back to Alex and pressed her weapon against the back of his head.
I turned to Ka’thak. “What now?”
“There’s only one place we need to retake,” he said. I sighed. I knew the answer, but I wasn’t happy about it.
“The bridge.”
“Yes.”
“Any ideas on how to make that happen?” I asked. We were outnumbered and exhausted. Win or lose, this was going to be our last battle. I’d prefer to make the best effort possible.
“No, not in particular. We’ll just have to figure it out on our way,” he said.
Alex walked over to us with the soldier’s rifle hefted over her shoulder. “It’s going to be a shit show, boys. Let's get moving.”
35
Jackson
We made our way to the bridge, jogging in lockstep. Happily, we didn’t encounter any resistance along the way. The President had either recalled his forces to his position or the men had abandoned their posts. Either way, it was nice to not get shot at for a few minutes. I almost felt like I could relax, except I knew exactly what we were running toward. We were down to just a few soldiers now. Less than half the number we had when we landed. If we ran into another large scale shootout, I wasn’t sure how we would have enough to take the ship. As we rounded the last turn that would take us to the command center, I swore. A group of soldiers was waiting for us, their rifles already raised and ready to fire.
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