Requiem of a Nightmare

by Jeremy Spires

  I looked at him. Ivata, Mallory and all of our councilors looked at the Phelb, who nodded slowly. “I see your point.” He said, glancing down at the insignia of chancellor on his sleeve. “I suppose I am still thinking too small.”

  “They just liquified the unborn child of one of my Lieutenants,” I said slowly, lowering my brows at him. “They’re lucky I’m willing to only kill their leadership.”

  “You tortured their soldier, wasn’t that enough?”

  “No,” Ivata, Mallory, and I replied at the same time. “Not even close.” I finished.

  He blinked rapidly and inhaled. “I admit that I have some fear that the anger of the Vandorians may one day return to the Phelb people…”

  “You’re human.” I said. “We hated you, but you have a sense of reason and logic, and you knew when enough was enough of death. These fuckers,” I waved a hand vaguely at the viewport behind the seat of Wingell. “Just want dead humans. You just wanted your god to rule, we just wanted to survive…these bastards just want us to die.” My voice had dropped to a growl. “And I don’t care for people who try to kill me very much.”

  I flexed my left hand, popping the knuckles, and making Wrathe jump, then I looked at the council.

  Advirdia nodded. “You have our approval to exterminate them.” She said softly, then shook her head. “If you think there are enough of us to do the job.”

  Wrathe stared at the deck and I glanced at him. “Chancellor?”

  “Of course.” He whispered. “You will have the whole of the Phelb military at your fingertips.” He looked pale and sick.

  Then I turned to my wife, raised an eyebrow.

  She frowned at me. “What the hell are you looking at me for, Colonel?” She demanded. “I told you to kill them all a week ago.”

  I smirked and turned to Ivata. “They’ll be ready.” He said firmly, with a nod.

  “All right then.” I said calmly. “Let’s get these ships refit.”

  Chapter Three

  ---

  Planet Earth

  Sol system

  I stood staring out the open doors of the beach house where Mallory and I were staying just outside of a city called San Juan, on the island of Puerto Rico. I watched as bioluminescent plankton lined the shores of the white-sand beach, disturbed in their own world, but magnificent in ours.

  Mallory lie sound asleep on the bed behind me, one long leg out of the blanket, bare and beautiful in the moonlight. The doorway had a basic energy shield that prevented the insects from coming in and was discreet enough to keep it from disrupting the view of the ocean. I exhaled softly, looking up to the velvety midnight blue skies overhead, watching the lights of the orbitals twinkle, and thought back to the beginning of this weird life I’d led up to this point.

  I’d grown up thinking that Earth was a destroyed wasteland, and much of it was, or had been until we’d arrived with superior technology. We adjusted the biosphere ever so slightly and remade the Earth into the habitable, beautiful place to live that it had once been. Teams of our scientists had gone to Falsun and laughed when the Phelb people expressed dismay over their planet’s future as the home of humans. We’d remade their entire ecosystem and showed them a way to reclaim land and recycle waste into useful products. The Phelb on Falsun called us saviors, and we laughed because we’d had this sort of technology for thousands of years, just like our genetic modifications.

  I’d also grown up thinking that the avian neighbors of our home planet were our deepest friends and allies and would never betray us, while the Phelb empire was the greatest threat we would ever face.

  I shook my head and glanced down at my body. I was still in perfect physical shape, as was every Vandorian soldier. We didn’t have too many obese or heavy people in our civilization, thanks mostly to editing our cluttered genetic code, and now the Phelbs would enjoy that as well. My chest was crisscrossed with livid raised scars, some from a lifetime of hard training, but the larger and deeper scars were from my captivity at the hands of these people whose planet we now shared.

  I exhaled softly and turned back to my wife, taking in the sight of her lithe body stretched out on the bed, hair around her head in a halo that was, admittedly, much, much denser than the average woman’s. I pondered the fact that I would soon be a father, without the guidance of my own father to help me along. Without my mother, or even my siblings.

  Turning once more, I stepped through the force field and sank into one of the large oversize chairs that were on the back porch of the beach house that overlooked the ocean. Running a hand through my short black hair, which had grown slightly over regulation length during my recovery, I tried to force the images of my mother’s smiling face; my father’s stern gaze, my little sister smiling brightly at me, and even my brother’s mocking sneer from my mind. I exhaled softly and could no longer maintain my calm indifferent composure. A sob shook my chest, and I covered my grimace of pain with my right hand. Tears flowed freely from my eyes as the pain washed over me; pain of losing my family, pain of losing my Lieutenant, even the pain that had assailed my body in recent months; first the loss of an arm, and the loss of Vearse.

  Trauma was a funny thing. It was savagely sneaky and would come up on you without warning at the strangest moments. The trauma of losing my family was one thing I hadn’t dealt with, but also the absolute horror of war that I had witnessed, and even caused.

  I sobbed freely, the energy field blocking the door and windows were soundproofed so there was very little chance of Mallory hearing me, and just once I felt the strongest need to let my emotions flow freely. They had been tightly constrained and controlled since I was a child, without any cracks, even when I’d lost my men, lost my parents, I’d not shown more emotion than a deep anger and depression that Ivata and Mallory had snapped me out of, simply by implying I wasn’t fit for command.

  There were just over a hundred-thousand night stalkers in my battalion who were counting on me to find a way to lead the massive human army to victory over the Gilbaglians, and at this time, I had no idea how I was supposed to do that. I had no idea how I was supposed to fight on, raise a child, or even what I was supposed to do.

  The sobs stopped, and I found myself snuffling in an annoying manner, and brushed a hand under my nose in annoyance.

  “That is not something I ever expected to see.” Came a soft voice from behind me. “Not even in my wildest dreams.”

  I gave a guilty start and snapped around. Only a night stalker-trained pilot could be so silent that even I wouldn’t have heard her. Mallory was tall and slender, at one-sixty, she wasn’t a light dainty flower, but I should have picked up her movement. “I was…”

  “Crying.” She said, sinking down in the chair next to me and putting a hand on my back. “It’s all right, we all need to vent sometimes.”

  I shook my head, found myself unable to speak past the massive lump in my throat. I felt like if I spoke another word, twenty-five years of pain was going to come spilling out, the frustration I felt with my brother, the irritation with my father’s rules, everything. So, I stopped in mid-shake of my head and nodded instead, trying to stave off a fresh flow of tears.

  “I know.” She said softly. While Mallory had never experienced the depth of loss and pain that I had, she had lost her mother at a young age and then her father had been killed in the battle of Vandor. She and I were orphans, even if a large amount of lives had been lost, many families remained intact and unharmed, there were only a handful of Vandorian orphans. We were the oldest samples of that group, with most of them being young children, and the only two of the night stalkers who had been left alive while their parents perished. “I know.” She repeated, touching my shoulders lightly. “All we have is each other now, and while that may not seem like much, just remember that we are still here.”

  The odd thought to me was that, while we had each other, what would happen after the war, if there was an after? What would become of the Vandorian 160th Special Operations
Battalion, here on Earth, or wherever we ended up, if any of us survived?

  I nodded once more, rubbing at my forehead with my battle-scarred right hand, the original, not the copy, and I sighed, finally finding my voice. “I am sorry.” I said softly, my voice rough from the unfamiliar emotion. “I lost my composure.”

  She snorted. “You lost your composure after what, killing a few million, losing a few million, being all alone in front of an invading alien army?” She flicked my ear. “You’re an idiot, Destota Valentine.”

  I looked at her sharply with a frown. With an I.Q. score in the low three-hundred range, I was most certainly not an idiot.

  She smiled at me. “But you’re my idiot. You need to learn to express your emotions, and it’s okay if you cry sometimes. You’re a human, even if you pretend not to be.”

  “Yes, well,” I said. “I am still in command and my soldiers expect me to remain in control of myself.”

  “You’re not in command here, Valentine.” She said, her voice teasing now. “You’re on leave, and if I have to make it an order for you to relax and unwind then I will.”

  An explosive sigh escaped my lips and she pulled me closer to hug me. “I am trying.” I admitted.

  “I know you are.” She said, kissing the top of my head. “And you’re doing an excellent job.” She let go of me, stretched and straightened up, displaying the fact that she was, in fact, naked. “Should we go for a swim?”

  “You’re nude.” I observed helpfully.

  “Nothing you haven’t seen before, or have you forgotten earlier?” She winked at me and I felt everything I was tighten in lust.

  “I have not…” I began, and she giggled. Giggled, like a little girl.

  “Come on, Destota.” She said. “Don’t tell me a big tough guy like you is afraid of sharks.”

  “Sharks? I asked in alarm, rising to my feet. “Mallory, wait…!”

  She took off at a run towards the beach and I charged after her, sputtering something in a lame protest about shark infested waters, with the intention of dragging her bodily back to shore. I caught her easily, it wasn’t much of a challenge for me, Vandorians could routinely run upwards of thirty-five miles per hour without much effort. I grasped her wrist and she pulled her weight against me. She was as well trained in martial arts as I was, and she used it well against me, knowing I would never harm her.

  She landed, rolled, and ended up on top of me with my back pressed into the sand. “Did you really think I would get into shark infested water, with our baby?”

  I admit that the logic I used was more over-protective than intelligent, so I hadn’t considered it beyond that. I shrugged one shoulder and didn’t speak.

  Smiling down at me, she kissed me softly. “But I do admit that I have always wanted to have sex on a beach.”

  I blinked up at her. “Well, why didn’t you just say so?” I grinned at my wife.

  ---

  If you’ve never had sex on a beach, I have a piece of advice.

  Don’t.

  Its much more awkward and painful than it ends up looking in movies, with tiny little crabs and weird little jumping sand fleas everywhere. It’s nowhere near as romantic as it looks.

  We returned to our beach house shortly after, with a good laugh. A shower was in order for sure, where I was once more treated to my wife’s loving caress. We slept in too late, and ate far too large of a breakfast, and even retired for another short nap, followed by…well, for those of you that have had sex, I won’t bore you with the sweaty details.

  The call came in at just after four in the afternoon while we watched the sun setting into the Atlantic Ocean with an angry eye to the east where it would rise once more in the coming dawn. We held hands between the chairs where we lounged, drinking alcohol and just generally relaxing.

  “Colonel Valentine, please respond.” Came the tinny voice from the speaker. I looked at the device and then threw it into the ocean. Mallory laughed, nearly falling out of her chair, spilling her drink.

  Then her device toned. “Admiral Valentine?”

  She picked it up. “What is it?” She demanded.

  “Ma’am,” It was a night stalker, for sure. “I was tasked with contacting you. Our refits are complete, and it is time to move the fleet away from the space docks.”

  Eternity had been the last ship to get the refit, due to her massive bulk, whereas Phelb ships could be turned out at a rate of six or seven per day, repaired and resupplied, the Eternity and the big dreadnought battleships would need four or five days each.

  “Yeah, all right.” Mallory said with a heavy sigh. “If we have to, I guess.”

  “Ma’am?” Came the confused sounding officer.

  “Send a shuttle to the San Juan spaceport for the Colonel and I.” She replied.

  “Oh, I wasn’t sure if the Colonel was with you, ma’am, we’ve been unable to reach him.”

  “His communication device suffered a catastrophic failure when you called.” Mallory said, deadpan. “Send the shuttle, we will be along.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” The comm officer wisely signed off immediately. Mallory looked at me.

  “We have time.” I said, raising my eyebrows at her.

  “If you hurry.” She replied with a saucy grin.

  “I never hurry.” I replied, and we rushed back into the beach house bedroom.

  ---

  We walked back to the spaceport, picking up some uncured bacon for meals, and some of the treasured Pernil dish that Mallory and I both loved. We took the shuttle back to the Eternity, changing in the small dressing room into our uniforms once more.

  When we arrived on the carrier, Ivata was there to greet us, nodding and grinning at us. “Colonel, welcome back.” He said. “Admiral, I was told to inform you that the ship is fully refit with the new weapons and drive systems, and a bunch of other shit that I stopped listening to halfway through.” He held out a tablet for her. “But it’s all on here.”

  She chuckled. “Thank you, Major Noku.” She grasped my arm for a second and looked at me. “I will see you later.”

  I nodded, and she walked off, tapping furiously on the tablet. I watched her go, then noticed Ivata had crossed his arms. “Oh, go get laid.” I said with irritation in my voice.

  “Harder than you think on this ship.” He grunted in reply. “I’m taking the recruits dirtside. I’m told there are many suitable training locations on Earth that will help me.”

  I smiled and nodded, then shook my head. “I don’t know what I’m going to do without you for five years, Ivata.”

  “You were always better at killing things than me, Destota.” He said. “I’m good at showing people how to be like you.”

  I frowned theatrically at him. “There is no one like me, Major.”

  “Of course, there isn’t, what with that weird genetic mutation that makes your mouth go blah, blah, blah.” He mimed a mouth moving with one hand.

  “At least I don’t have white hair.”

  Ivata ran a hand through his hair and chuckled. After the treaty with the Phelbs, we had all taken a gene therapy to help protect us against Phelb diseases, hardening our cell membranes against infection from Gilbaglian diseases, and speeding up our response times. Vandorians received tweaks and boosters throughout life, my previous booster had come when I was sixteen, and that had caused my strange adrenaline ability. This time around, Ivata’s hair had turned pure white, but only on the top of his head. His eyebrows, arms, and I presumed his beard if he were to grow one, remained black. “That was definitely unexpected.” He admitted. “But the girls seem to like it.”

  “Statistically, there was bound to be one thing they actually liked.” I said. It was known in the military as slagging. We all picked on each other, at all times. Seldom did anyone ever engage in slagging with me, as the commanding officer, except for my executive officer.

  He sighed. “Colonel.” He snapped to attention and offered a crisp salute. “Permission to detach from the night
stalkers for the purpose of training, sir.”

  I mirrored his posture of attention and returned his salute. “Granted, Major.” I relaxed and held out a hand. He shook it firmly and we met gazes.

  “Be careful out there, Destota.” He said. “I mean it.”

  I squeezed his hand once more and slapped him on the shoulder. “We’ll meet again soon, old friend.” I said. He was, in truth, my oldest friend. We had been born in the same hospital, on the same day. Our families were close friends, his father was retired from the navy, his mother was an amazing chef. We had been friends since that day, until this, the entirety of our lives. He was the only family I had left, except for my unborn child and my wife.

  He turned and boarded the shuttle that I had departed, and the small craft rose, spun and disappeared out the door. “Best of luck, my brother.” I whispered under my breath, feeling a pang at his departure. I turned around and found MacKenzie of the marauders standing at attention.

  “Sir!” He shouted loud enough to hurt my ears. “MacKenzie, sir. May I request a moment of your time?”

  I was still hung over, so this was annoying. “Yeah, okay, fuck.” I said, rubbing my temples. “Just…lower your voice. What is it?”

  He looked uncertain and then glanced around. “Sir, in the absence of Major Noku, I have prepared a list of officers I would recommend for your command staff, from the marauders.” He hesitated. “If you wanted, sir. I mean no disrespect.”

  I nodded, accepted the tablet and looked over the names on the list. “I don’t see your name, Captain?”

  “It would be highly inappropriate for me to recommend myself, sir.” He looked offended at the idea and that sealed it.

  “Good,” I said. “Consider the job yours. Find me some officers. Mix Vandorian and Phelb officers, I don’t want any one group to have more command than the other, understood, Ex-Oh?” I asked, raising my eyebrows.

  “Y…uh…sir?” He stammered in confusion. “Sir, I think there has been a misunderstanding…”