by Joshua Guess
A view from high in Earth’s atmosphere of Gaethe cities, their great connected lines pocked with growing constellations of blackened craters as more orbital strikes fell on them. It was not a battle waged with restraint or thoughts of strategic dominance. It was a slaughter with a clear message I wouldn’t have grasped before talking with Shuul.
We are the conquerors, those destroyed cities said. This is our world, and there is no length we will not go to, no devastation we won’t unleash, to take it back.
The rapid succession of images and videos told a story impossible to misunderstand. The coordinated attack across the globe was the stick agitating the hornet’s nest. Gaethe all over the world responded to the ground assault. They manned guns, concentrated their soldiers to defend stationary targets attacked by the natives in their armored suits. They focused on the threat most obvious, most expected.
No one in the EDF had expressed to me the possibility that they could win. Not the sort of resounding victory that would free Earth from the yoke of the Gaethe presence. Our attack on the warseed was always a strategic maneuver intended to greatly slow the ability of the enemy to power its expansion across the continents.
My arrival changed that. The UEE had clearly been planning something in deepest secret for a long time, waiting for the moment when their strike—a surprise weapon they could only fire once—would do the maximum amount of damage.
The end result was as crystal clear as it was surprising:
Sensor imagery from ships and Sand and sources unknown showed Gaethe soldiers fighting on a hundred battlefields. They killed and died through driving rain, blinding snow, and under the gentle light of the sun.
And presented in the array before me, I saw the moment when the order was given. The fighting stopped. The Gaethe soldiers bowed slightly at the waist, wrists brought just behind them. It was a posture of weakness.
It was surrender.
Thirty-Two
“Mars, they want me to remove the blocks soon,” Jax said, his voice the only noise in my strange isolation. “I am to leave all of your sensory perceptions untouched when I do, which will leave you in pain.”
“It’s fine,” I told him. “I’m ready for it.”
“Very well,” he replied, his voice dusted with uncertainty. A familiar countdown clock appeared, and I couldn’t help smiling to myself inwardly. Which, given my current state as a consciousness trapped in its own brain with no connection to the outside world, was the only way I could smile.
It was another defense mechanism built into my symbiotic relationship with Jax; when severely injured Jax took control of the connections my brain had with my sensory organs and cut me off from them. I wanted to be angry about it but didn’t have the energy. Honestly, I understood. The measures Jax’s programmers had put in place were deep stuff meant to be used in extreme circumstances. I can tell you with total certainty that knowing these things ahead of time would have had an effect on my ability to function.
It’s not unlike knowing for sure that God and Heaven exist. If you know beyond doubt that your life will be judged, your behavior changes. A sort of Uncertainty Principle of the soul. I took comfort from the distance I had been given from my injuries. It was a design feature meant to protect my sanity, a measure of protection to ensure I didn’t suffer permanent psychological damage if it could be avoided.
Of course, Jax exists as part of my brain, making him somewhat rebellious. No one told him he couldn’t port in the propaganda being transmitter all over the planet, so of course he kept me informed. The key to Gaethe culture is dominance, and the human race decided the best way to make sure the enemy knew they were defeated was to show in gory detail just how it happened. The modern equivalent of Vlad Tepes impaling his enemies to make a point.
Pun intended. I apologize for nothing.
The timer hit zero and the false space around me created by Jax manipulating the electrical signals in my brain faded to black. It was the rest in between breaths, however, as the real world slowly swelled into existence in its place.
Sounds grew, the low hum of exchanges dumping fresh air in the background, the steady pulse and beep of medical equipment overlaid. Voices murmured, the words indistinct.
My eyes were closed. Something was in my mouth, stuck down my throat. A breathing tube? Seemed likely. The pain wasn’t as bad as I feared, though it was pretty fucking terrible. Jax didn’t give details about my injuries, but let’s be serious here. They were bad enough to force my brain to be cut off from my body. Pretty much tells you everything you need to know.
My ribs hurt like hell, definitely broken again. My arm didn’t hurt at all, which made sense given most of it didn’t exist any longer. Correction; it existed somewhere, just not where it could do me any good. The reality of that loss hadn’t yet taken root in my brain. I knew it intellectually, but emotionally it was too big. My mind sort of skittered across the concept when I tried to think about it.
My legs both hurt to varying degrees. I guessed a broken ankle on one, maybe a snapped femur for the other. My right arm did hurt, all in the fingers. Broken hand, perhaps.
I had a headache, which could have been anything from a fractured skull to just a bit of dehydration. I looked forward to finding out which.
My eyes fluttered open and I found Governor Kitur standing over me. I raised an eyebrow, which hurt a fucking lot more than it should have.
“Hello, Mars,” she said. “I imagine you’re wondering what I’m doing here.”
I nodded, or tried to. My head was strapped down.
“Don’t try to move just yet,” Kitur said. “You’re put back together but let’s just say the glue hasn’t set. You have questions, I’m sure. Let’s get that tube out and you can ask as many as you like.”
The removal of the breathing tube was an experience best left to the imagination in its unpleasantness. The doctor warned me not to try to talk for a little bit. I drank some water and massaged my throat while Kitur sat patiently at the side of my bed, as if she didn’t have a small nation-state to oversee.
“I’ve been talking with Jax,” she said conversationally while I finished a second glass of water. “I’m sure you must be upset about the deep programming…”
“Rinna,” I rasped.
Kitur blinked. “I’m sorry? What was that?”
“Rinna Gianopoulos. She fell with me. Is she alive?”
Kitur stared at me, then shook her head. “Of course. You would have no way of knowing. I suppose Jax didn’t mention it. She’s alive. In fact, she’s on your right.”
I resisted the urge to yank my head against the straps and instead worked my neck slowly to one side. It only gained me maybe thirty degrees, but it was enough to let me swivel my eyes to take her in.
She was asleep, looking more tired and haggard than I’d ever seen her. The mane of hair was cut short and even shaved in places. Her eyes were sunken and heavily bruised. Her lips dry, the upper split and stitched back together. Casts adorned her legs—apparently we had a harder landing than expected—but my breath caught when I saw her right arm.
It didn’t look even remotely human. The limb rested in a cradle raised off the bed, swollen to at least twice its usual size and mostly black. Its lines were wrong, somehow, as if parts were offset by some greater force.
This is where I’m supposed to say she was beautiful. In fact, she looked like a couple kinds of hell. But she was alive, and you know what? Yeah. She was fucking gorgeous.
“What happened?” I croaked. “Her arm.”
Kitur glanced at Rinna. “The gravitational collapse that destroyed your escape pod did some unpleasant things. It took your arm and almost took hers. You were facing each other when you were inside it, yes?”
“Yeah.”
Kitur nodded. “Had the shearing force hit a foot closer on that side, it would have cost both of you your lives. As it is, she will likely lose that arm. After you passed out, the captain fended off a piece of shrapnel from the
warseed. Bones already broken, and she knocked it away from you. Turned what was left of her arm to splinters, I’m afraid.”
I tried to remember the event that had torn our pod to shreds and came up empty once again. The edge of the shear line in space had to have been at an angle, the intensity lessened as it veered through me and just past Rinna’s arm. As if I was shot with a bullet so powerful that even its pressure wave through the air was enough to nearly tear off Rinna’s arm as well. Getting broadsided by a gravity wave was not the first date I was hoping for.
Sure, it was exciting, but too expensive for my taste.
***
Rinna stayed in an induced coma over the next few days. I did not, which had its own ups and downs. The negatives mostly revolved around being in stupid amounts of pain, but on the whole I considered it well worth my suffering.
Being awake meant I got to stay current with everything going on outside Alpha, which was where I was being treated. Kitur spent an hour with me each day, answering questions with something that had the appearance of total honesty. She painted a complex picture.
The cloud ships were indeed piloted by Blues like myself, an entire crop I had never met led by Garrett. They were part of a long-term effort to create distant assets the UEE could use for the defense of the UEE or to reclaim Earth. The opportunity had been too good to pass up.
“But how did they—and you—get here so fast?” I asked.
Kitur helped me take a sip of coffee, a surprising but welcome maternal air about her. “Those are two separate answers. We have fabrication yards, harvesting collectives, and dark colonies spread over a wide area. You know, you’ve found many of the locations for us.”
I nodded. This was on day three, which was when they took off my restraints. “Yeah, okay. So do we have a science station working on more advanced drive systems or something?”
Kitur smiled faintly. “Nothing so grand. You’ll understand why it was kept classified, but we’ve had bases in the Oort cloud for nearly a decade. Our ships were only a few days away the entire time you’ve been here.”
“How?” I asked incredulously. “That’s right outside the solar system. The Gaethe…”
“Have never examined space past the orbit of Neptune in the entire time they’ve held Earth,” Kitur said gently. “It’s a strategic weakness of species with technology so advanced. They don’t look at things like clouds of comets and planetesimals as something to worry about. They might use them as resources in a pinch, but the idea of using them as raw materials to build from is alien.”
I chuckled. “Alien. I see what you did there.”
Kitur grew serious. “It was a bias we could exploit, but only once. It’s actually lucky for the human race that the Gaethe came for us when they did. We were far enough along technologically to reverse engineer their crashed ship, allowing the UEE to come into being, but not so advanced that we were beyond the grunt work of using every scrap of floating junk as a resource.”
I watched her for a few seconds, taking in her features. “You know the Gaethe were pushed here, right?”
She nodded. It was as direct and simple an admission as could be hoped for. “I do now, at any rate. I’ve suspected for a long time. The Friendly and their alliance have given some diplomatically vague answers in the past, enough to make me question. Which is actually the answer to your other question. The Friendly brought the Neruda here with all her support vessels. When Jax sent a report over the relay confirming the Gaethe invasion was at least partly the fault of our allies, I convinced them it would be in everyone’s best interest to ensure the UEE had a presence in the system.”
I took a stab in the dark. “You threatened them.”
Kitur smiled coyly. “Me? With what? We’re just a small set of colonies, barely even that. What could I possibly threaten them with?”
I shook my head. “No idea, but it had to be, you know, creative.”
She shrugged. “I told them the people of Earth were about to utterly defeat the Gaethe and knew the invasion was partly their fault. I suggested it would be a good idea to introduce themselves as allies right away. I may have implied that there would be thousands of Gaethe vessels ready for war and that the human race is known for carrying grudges.”
“Wow,” I said, suitably impressed. I chewed on the inside of my lip. “I don’t know if my opinion means much—”
“It does,” Kitur said. “I wouldn’t be much of a leader if I didn’t listen to what my people have to say, and you’ve been here on the ground.”
“Ah, okay then. Well, you may not think so after I say this, but you should meet with the Gaethe leadership about whether an alliance with them is possible.”
Kitur reeled as if slapped. “I didn’t expect that from you.”
“I wouldn’t have, either, before I landed here. Thing is, they’re not some homogeneous monoculture. Talk to Shuul, please, and listen to what he has to say. I think if we can appeal to their reason and show them we’re not just going to gas their species, you might be surprised at what comes of it.”
“Mars, we just killed millions of their people,” Kitur said, exasperated. “Do you honestly think they’ll think we’re acting in good faith?”
I smiled humorlessly. “Your own bias is showing, ma’am. Gaethe culture is built on hundreds of generations of the stronger defeating the weaker and absorbing them into their culture. And they’re not one voice singing in perfect harmony. Many of them didn’t want to attack Earth. I think it’s worth exploring. Just talk to Shuul and see where it takes you.”
She left not long after. I tired easily, so I took a nap.
When I woke up, Jordan was sitting at the side of my bed reading a book. Like, an actual paper book. I caught a glimpse of his face before he noticed I was awake, and I honestly think he was more amazed at holding the thing than its contents.
“What are you reading, there?” I asked casually.
He grinned at me, waving the tome. “Something about mockingbirds, I have no idea. I just started it.” He leaned in and gave me a bit rougher a hug than was called for, but it was restricted to my shoulders so I gave him a pass.
“Didn’t know you came along,” I said. “Kitur didn’t say.”
“I asked her not to,” Jordan said. “The first few days were chaos, and I’ve been working as her aide since we left Ceres, so I wasn’t sure when you’d be up for company or if I would have time.”
“I’m really glad to see you,” I said, maybe the most true words to come out of my mouth since landing on Earth. “I sort of forgot how much I missed home until I woke up with Kitur standing over me.”
“Really? You always complained about it.”
I nodded. “Sure. And not that Earth isn’t everything I hoped it would be, but home is home. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It’s where I’m from, you know? It’s where I can walk around and know the people I see, know their stories. It’s familiar. Not always happy, but mine.”
Jordan studied me. “So what you’re saying is that crashing here didn’t just turn you into a philosopher, it turned you into a really bad one.”
“You’re a dick,” I said. “You know that, right?”
Jordan nodded sagely. “Of course. Your face looks terrible, by the way. That’s also new. It never looked great, mind you, not top-shelf face material, but this is definitely worse.”
I sighed, weirdly content. “I maybe didn’t miss this part so much.”
Jordan clapped his hands. “Yes, exactly! You’ve been away from home. You’ve been hurt. You did some new, and frankly, suicidally dangerous things. Time and distance rub the edges off memories. I promise Ceres is just the way you left it, warts and all.”
I knew he was right. Being homesick probably did cast a rosier glow than reality called for. But Jordan didn’t yet grasp that I was different, and that changed the equation. There would no doubt be months of therapy and evaluations, but coming to Earth had fundamentally shifted my outlook. When I thought of go
ing home, it didn’t come with the same confining sense that I was different, but with the broader understanding that the people there could be small-minded.
Whatever damage it did to my body and mind, Earth gave me that. Being there provided the one thing I couldn’t find in the small and insular home I left behind me.
Perspective.
Epilogue
The Gaethe built a base on the moon in three weeks. Technically they grew it out of draas on Earth and transported it to Luna, but still. Moon base.
The structure was shaped a little like one of those small onions, wide at the base and peaked at the top with the swooping curves so common in Gaethe design. The center was a single large room surrounded by spaces for equipment, power, restrooms, and the like. The conference space had been cleverly designed with dips in the floor to accommodate Gaethe stature, allowing everyone to sit at the same table with relative comfort.
I was there as Kitur’s guest, seated on her right. Rinna was on the left, with Williams and Durham. I folded my hands in front of me, resting them on the smooth draas table. I cradled the light skin of my real hand with the ebony fingers of my artificial one.
The Gaethe in attendance seemed remarkably comfortable. There were seven of them, each of a different racial group. I noted with some amusement that Shuul was one of them.
In fact, the only sentient life forms in the room who looked nervous, inasmuch as any of them could with their weird physiology, were the representatives from the group we were simply calling the Alliance. The Friendly and their partner species used a much longer and wholly unpronounceable name for it, and Kitur wasn’t inclined to stand on ceremony.
