Original Design

by William Latoria

  “I understand and would like nothing more than to see her bleeding from the mouth, Za, but we both know what would happen if you did. Life in prison, or worse, death.” he said, as kindly as he could. “She’s not worth it.”

  Blackshade watched Zahera clench her fists tightly, as she fought to get control of her anger. “I know… I know, you’re right. I just hate her so God damn much!” she said through clenched teeth.

  Blackshade smiled as he stood up from his seat and stretched. “I know you do, Za, but there’s nothing to be done for it.” A dark thought occurred to him then, “Who knows, maybe the aliens will prove to be hostile and will take her out for you.” he said, trying to lighten the mood.

  “That’s NOT funny.” Zahera said seriously, turning her anger on him. “If the aliens do turn out to be hostile, you’ll be their first casualty.”

  Blackshade nodded and put his hands up to placate her, “I know, I know. I’m sorry. It was a bad joke.” he said sheepishly. Then he stood up a little straighter and became serious, “Come on then. Let’s go brief the troops and let them know we’re not alone in the universe.” he said as he checked the time.

  “If our Intel is correct, our visitors will be arriving in about five and a half hours.”

  Chapter 3

  It was now exactly one hour before the alien spacecraft was due to arrive in Earth’s orbit. Blackshade knew that, because he couldn’t stop checking the time every ten seconds. He knew he needed to stop; his Air Soldiers kept looking up at him through the transparent walls of his main office. They were just as nervous as he was, but they looked to him for strength, not for another source of anxiety. Every square inch of wall and table space in the squadron was covered with displays, showing news bloggers from all over the world that were reporting about the spacecraft heading their way. The news broke about three hours previously, when the massive ship became visible to anyone with a telescope. It still wasn’t showing up on any form of scanning technology, but now that it could be easily seen through a telescope, it no longer mattered. Society knew that the aliens were coming, and they were responding exactly as he thought they would to the revelation.

  Blackshade wasn’t watching the reports on the displays. He was pacing around his office, checking his forearm display for updates on how the other military units and police forces were dealing with the panic that was rising up all over Candaerica. People were swarming to their personal safe spaces and shelters. Their fear and panic was contagious and fueled others that ran to join in on the hysterics. Eventually, a mob of panicked citizens flooded through the streets of their respective cities in order to get into the perceived safety of the shelters. Blackshade saw on his display that for the most part, the military was doing an excellent job quelling the most concentrated pockets of panicked citizens. It appalled him how foolish the people were acting, as if the government designated safe spaces were going to stop the aliens from killing them if they turned out to be hostile. The safe spaces they fled to were designed for people to go and calm down and find their emotional center when life became too stressful. They were also call centers to get the police involved if another citizen said something hurtful to them. They would do nothing to save them from any kind of attack, whether it came from aliens or humans. If he was being honest with himself, he didn’t believe they did much against regular emotional threats either, and that people simply went to those safe spaces to blog about their day and garner sympathy for their woes.

  The people fleeing to the government provided safe spaces were just as deluded as far as Blackshade was concerned. The shelters were designed to weather large storms or serve as temporary housing for people displaced by a natural disaster. They were very sturdy and had enough supplies to take care of a few thousand people for well over a year. However, they were not hardened, combat rated shelters. If the aliens attacked and found one of these shelters, the people inside would find themselves on the wrong end of a shooting gallery.

  With a sigh, he tapped a sensor on the floor with his boot and sat heavily in the chair that formed from the floor. Rubbing his temples, he did what he could to stop the mounting stress headache he felt forming in his brain. After a few minutes, he knew he was going to need more than just a little head rubbing.

  “Medic.” he called out softly.

  At his command, one of the dozens of med-droids his squadron had activated flew down from its position near the ceiling. Med-drones were small, fully automated flying machines that were equipped with various medicines, relief agents, and enhancers used to treat a variety of medical situations, from minor to severe. Being military issued, these were much better than their civilian counter-parts and came with both a triage function as well as a physical well-being scanner. The drone that responded to his call hovered next to him and performed a cursory scan as he sat there with his head between his hands. He didn’t feel the microscopic needle pierce his shoulder, but he did feel the almost instant relief of the medicine it injected into his system. He was also pleasantly surprised to feel the anti-depressants the drone had deemed necessary lift his spirits a bit. He was unaware of the dourness of his mood until the machine improved it for him. Grateful, Blackshade waved the machine away, which sent it back towards the ceiling to patiently await the next time it was needed.

  With his head cleared and his attitude bolstered, Blackshade shifted his attention back to his Air Soldiers. It had only been a handful of hours since he assembled and briefed them on the situation. He had been immensely proud of the men, women, and non-binaries of his squadron. Only four of his troops had passed out upon hearing the news, with only double that number throwing up. Compared to the reports he received of the reactions from other squadrons, his troops were the top of the crop! With one hundred and seventy-two soldiers under his command, he had expected far more to be overwhelmed. Hell, he had expected some of his troops to flat out panic, or just quit and leave upon hearing the news, but not one of them had done so. They simply stood in formation awaiting further orders. He was so proud of them, he thought his heart would burst. Those that had reacted poorly were given stabilization meds by the automatically responding med-drones, cleaned up, and returned to duty. Most had redoubled their efforts to make up for their loss of military bearing. Blackshade took a lot of comfort in knowing that if the aliens did prove to be hostile, he would have the honor of dying in incredible company.

  Checking the time yet again, he saw that only six minutes had passed. The waiting was fraying his already taut nerves. He felt like he should be doing something, but he knew there was nothing left to be done. All of their hardware was fully fueled and operational. Barksdale’s full complement of B52’s, equipped with Anti-life weaponry, were ready to launch the moment they were needed. Troop transports were loaded up and fully stocked, with his Air Soldiers assembled inside of them ready to fight if needed. Medical and voyeur drones were activated and already circling the entire base. The voyeur drones were very similar to the med-drones, but their purpose was to record everything so that upper command could make on-the-spot decisions about the situation, as well as keep the citizens informed about what was going on. The government heavily censored what was being released, of course, but the internet news bloggers had their own voyeurs and could usually fill in any gaps of information.

  To keep his mind occupied, Blackshade went over his own gear for the thousandth time. Pulling his sidearm from its magnetic holster, he made sure he pointed it towards the ground and activated the safety mechanism. A tiny green indicator lit up on the butt of his pistol, letting him know that his weapon was now in safe-mode. This was the only safety on his Siglock 2057 SSM weapon. If the green light was on, the catalyst function of the weapon was disabled and could not fire. If the green light was off, then the weapon was armed and ready to fire. With a flick of his thumb he released the magazine from his weapon and checked the contents. The shaped metal amalgam charges in the magazine were in their benign state and completely harmless. Once primed in the
catalyst chamber however, the shaped amalgam became super-heated with a tremendous amount of pressure build up. When the chamber slide opened the pressure would blast the super-heated amalgam down the barrel and towards its target. The projectile would blaze a path through the air at around eleven-hundred feet per second, leaving a trail much like a tracer round. The color of the trail varied depending on the manufacturer, but Shaped Molten Metal rounds used by the military typically fired in shades of blue. The amalgam that made up an SMM round was typically heated to over three thousand degrees Fahrenheit, which was hotter than molten steel. When an SMM round hit the exposed flesh of an adversary, it instantly boiled all of the moisture in and around the impact sight. When liquids were turned into gas, they expanded drastically, causing critical wounds that were usually lethal. Common barriers that would stop a projectile bullet were mostly ineffective against an SMM round due to the intense heat they generated. If the SMM round couldn’t penetrate the cover an enemy was hiding behind, it would either set it on fire, melt it, or eat through it until it made the cover completely ineffective. SMM weapons were much more effective than traditional solid state projectile weaponry that had been employed in the past. All military members were issued Shaped Molten Metal weapons upon arrival at their first duty location. Solid metal projectile weapons were typically only used by civilians that could obtain the proper permits.

  Content that his weapon was fully functional, he slid the magazine back inside of it and was rewarded by the whirring buzz that let him know the magazine had been properly fed into his weapon and was now ready to fire. Returning his side arm to its holster, he stood up to better inspect his armor. He had donned his officer grade tactical suit, or OGTS. It was made up of hundreds of small metallic plates that bent and flexed as he moved, falling into perfect sync with his body. When hit by a projectile, the plates dispersed the kinetic energy amongst the other plates, instantly reducing what would have been a lethal wound to nothing more than an irritant. Against a Shaped Molten Metal round, the suits were far less effective. The plates still absorbed the impact from an SSM round, but they couldn’t dissipate the thermal energy of the projectile quite as efficiently. Instead, when the armor was struck by an SMM round, the artificial intelligence of the armor would eject the afflicted plates to keep the burn the user would receive to a minimum. Then the armor pulled plates from other sections of the armor, in order to replace the ejected plates and protect the user. The problem with this was that eventually, if the user took too many hits from SMM rounds, they would eventually become completely unarmored and susceptible to a lethal injury. The armor provided better protection than any other armor in existence, but the general rule of thumb was that it was always better to avoid being shot.

  Since Blackshade’s armor was officer grade (OG) it came with a helmet. The helmet provided him with a tactical heads-up display that showed him the status of his assets, how many plates in his armor were damaged or ejected, as well as where his armor was compromised. His helmet also allowed him to issue orders to other units under his command via voice or through a data pad in the arm of his armor. The enlisted grade tactical suit (EGTS) did not come with a helmet. Helmets were simply too expensive to mass produce for the enlisted branch of the military. This was a point of contention for both officers and enlisted members. Enlisted members tended to resent not having armor covering their faces, saying they deserved just as much protection as an officer did. Officers tended to dislike wearing the helmets due to the fact that it made them obvious targets out on the battlefield. An enemy combatant could easily tell who the officers were by looking for the people wearing helmets. There were plans to design and incorporate cheaper versions of the OGTS helmet for enlisted use, but currently those plans were paralyzed by political red tape.

  Finishing the twentieth inspection of his gear, Blackshade exhaled, exasperated. Looking yet again at the time, he saw that the alien ship was still over forty minutes away. At the rate time was currently moving, he figured the stress of the situation would give him a heart attack long before they arrived, making this whole mess someone else’s problem. He was very grateful when a knock at his door presented him with a much needed distraction. Looking up, he saw Senior Sergeant Kash Eagle, his non-commissioned officer in charge of overseeing the well-being of his troops, or NCOIC. Blackshade had come to like and respect this man greatly since taking over the squadron. Senior Sergeant Eagle had proven to be a valuable asset, both as a soldier, and as a human being. He was what was known in the military community as a fast-burner. He was promoted over his peers regularly; he was well-liked by those under his command, due to the fact that he was intelligent, witty, and dependable. Over the years, as Senior Sergeant Eagle went up in rank, they had begun discussing their missions together more and more frequently. He felt slightly ashamed for not calling him into his office to discuss their current mission, but given the situation he was confident the Senior Sergeant would forgive him.

  “Senior Eagle!” Blackshade said smiling, “Come in. What can I do for you?” he asked, thrilled to have a distraction.

  Senior Sergeant Eagle returned his smile as he walked into the room and closed the door. “Hey, boss. Sounds like we’re about to run into a pretty high-tech situation.” he said with a knowing look, “Just wanted to let you know the soldiers won’t let you down. We’re ready. Some of the troops are even eager for the aliens to get here.”

  Blackshade nodded and tapped his foot on a floor sensor. As a chair rose up, he offered it to Eagle. “I know they won’t disappoint me, Kash. I knew that once I saw their reactions during the briefing. I’m immensely proud of them.” he said honestly, as he took his own seat.

  Senior Eagle sat down before continuing, “Can I be honest with you, boss?” he asked, a dark look forming on his face.

  Blackshade nodded, “Always, Kash.”

  “I’m scared to death.” he said, a tremor in his voice giving credence to his claim. “What are we going to do against aliens, boss? Aliens!? Holy God! The aliens can travel in outer space like we can travel to Europe! What can we possibly hope to do against a species that has that kind of tech?!”

  Blackshade completely understood where his NCOIC was coming from, but as his commander, and his friend, he could not let him know he shared his concerns. “Senior Eagle, IF the aliens prove to be hostile, then we will do our duty and defend the land and the people of Candaerica with every means we have at our disposal.” he said with far more confidence than he felt. It felt good to say the words, so he went with it, “Conventional, nuclear, magnetic, and Anti-life. We will use every tactic and strategy we have to stop the aliens from hurting so much as one citizen of our country, just like we swore to do when we signed up. You get me?”

  Eagle leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. After a moment, a broad smile spread across his face before he laughed, “Gods be damned, boss, it is good to hear you say that!” he responded, clearly relieved. “My mind has been spinning, trying to wrap itself around this crazy crap. Felt like my head might explode if I didn’t talk about it!”

  Blackshade relaxed upon seeing his friend’s relief. “I wouldn’t worry too much about the aliens being aggressive, Kash. Why would they come all the way to Earth just to start a fight? There are plenty of planets in the universe, there’s no reason for them to come here just to become antagonistic.” he offered, hoping that he sounded convincing.

  Eagle nodded, “You’re right, boss, you’re right.” he agreed, eagerly, “So what do you think they’re coming here for?”

  Blackshade shrugged, “If I knew that I’d be getting paid a lot more than I currently am.” he replied honestly. “Maybe they’re damaged and need repairs? Maybe they’re coming to have us join some sort of galactic empire. Maybe they’re just lost. They might change course at any moment, and we’ll never know why they were here. There’s a million possibilities, but it’s our job to be ready for one, and only one.” Blackshade leaned towards Senior Eagle and pointed at him, “T
o make those Godless sons of bitches pay dearly if they do decide to become violent.”

  Eagle’s smile broadened at this, “Damn, boss, I’ve never heard you talk like that before.” he said, feigning a shiver, “Gave me tingles all down my spine.”

  Blackshade was so taken aback by his response that he leaned back into his chair and barked a laugh. It felt so good to laugh, given the stress he was under, so he did nothing to fight it. Zahera bursting through his door stopped his laughter cold. The mix of excitement and fear on her face let him know with certainty what she was about to tell him.

  “Colonel Blackshade! The aliens are five minutes from arriving!” she said hurriedly, “According to NASA, their trajectory shows they will take up orbit approximately one hundred miles above the planet. Intelligence can’t determine if that shows a hostile intent or not.”

  Blackshade slapped the arm rests on his chair. “It’s about damn time they got here.” he said, relieved. Eagle stood up when he did and nodded his agreement.

  “Senior Sergeant Eagle, go down to the troops and ensure they all have their communicators on. I shall address them shortly.” he ordered.

  “Yes, Sir!” Senior Eagle replied, before walking towards Zahera who was still standing in the doorway. She was clearly surprised to see the Senior Sergeant and hadn’t noticed him when she first burst in. As Eagle approached her he greeted her courteously, “Under Colonel, may I squeeze past you?” he asked, as he maneuvered around her. Zahera moved out of his way and closed the door behind him. Once alone, she walked to his desk and began bringing up displays.

  “There’s more, Bill.” she said, her concern returning.

  Blackshade was afraid he knew what she was going to tell him, “The aliens are proving to be hostile?” he said, defeated.