The Oppressed

by Matt Thomas

  One of the humans, standing on the Hetarek side of the crowd, sprinted forward unopposed. Wearing the same, warm, heavy, and clean clothes as the Speaker, he needed no introduction. The Speaker had held that role once before, when Divrack had been a low-level governor. His tenure had been on a pair of planets far away, when he was young and barely understood the language.

  “I’ve rounded them up, just as instructed.” The young man said breathlessly.

  The Speaker ignored the man for a moment, taking in the long, flat plains extending past the fence of the compound. Deep red fields of schleckt spread out across the high-desert. Mountain peaks stuck up against the horizon to the west. It was beautiful, certainly. He would have liked living on his species home planet, before the occupation.

  Darga Kahil trotted up next to the Speaker, two of his Crimson Guard behind him. How many do we have?

  “Thirty-two.” The other human replied, in English.

  The Speaker checked his notes. “You should only have thirty.”

  “We had a few births since the last one.” The human said eagerly. “I rounded up. I thought it would be more effective that way.”

  Take me to them. The Darga commanded. The local human led them back, away from the shuttle towards a large building. It reeked of rotting vegetation. It must have been an old barn. There, men and women stood together, trying and failing to hide their shaking hands and weak knees. They looked healthy. Fit to work in the fields. Young enough to still reproduce.

  Darga Kahil tilted his long head sideways, the heavy folds of leathery skin around his nostrils flailing in a smile. These are perfect. With a wave, his Crimson Guard came running in on all six limbs, a frenzy of power. They encircled the humans. Drawing their rtek blades from the sheaths along their backs, the long, sickle-like point sticking forward from above the grip, the broad and heavy blade resting on their forearms, they shoved the humans forward towards the door.

  As they were ushered out, the Speaker pulled aside the other human, making sure he was out of earshot of Kahil and his Crimson Guard. “What’s your name?”

  “Josiah.” The man said. “Josiah Hernandez.”

  “Josiah, I know you have not been doing this long, not since your predecessor was gutted by the Hetarek.” The Speaker muttered. “But you have to be smart. First, don’t give them more than they ask for. Don’t let the Metic Ahai push you around. If you end up a person or two short, don’t get into the math. Just tell them that was based on the best number you have. It’s not worth it to them to check up on you, and they don’t trust the Metic Ahai much more than they trust you. And the Metic Ahai won’t say anything unless they have to. Second, you’re going to have more of these. Play the numbers. If you lose too many fit people now, your numbers go down and next time you lose more. The cycle feeds on itself.”

  The man looked concerned. “I understand that, sir, but the Hetarek . . .”

  “I know what the Hetarek want. But I’ve been doing this long enough to know what the Hetarek care about. They’re about results. The result they want today is fear, which they’re going to get no matter who you pick. The result they want tomorrow is production, which is going to depend upon how well you look after these people.”

  Josiah looked at the Speaker quizzically. “My predecessor tried to look after them and got killed.”

  Speaker! Darga Kahil bellowed.

  The Speaker headed back into the daylight. “No, he got killed because he wasn’t smart enough for the job.” He raised a hand behind him to silence any follow-on questions.

  Surrounded by houses held together with ingenuity and a wall holding them all in, the population of three hundred and eleven humans had gathered. They stood, silently, some crying, some staring at Hetarek with fierce hatred. Some staring at the Speaker with the same hatred.

  Khuu Dirvrack and Dund Kamed stood in front of the crowd, surrounded by the crimson guard. As the Speaker approached his place by their side, Divrack’s bodyguard, weapon still sheathed fell in step next to him. Thrulk had been a sign of some comfort over the previous years, particularly in scenes like this. Divrack had assigned him to the Speaker after one such event caused a riot. No one would get their hands on the Speaker again, and, hopefully, another enclave would not have to be destroyed because a few humans couldn’t control themselves.

  The Speaker and Josiah took their positions, just a few feet in front of the thirty-two kneeling humans, each with a member of the Crimson Guard standing at their backs.

  The Speaker pulled out a tablet a Metic Ahai had handed him before they departed for the trip. He hadn’t looked at it ahead of time, not trusting himself to not give away the result until the appointed time. “Khuu,” He bowed towards Dirvrack. “Dund.” He bowed towards the local governor. He activated the tablet and read the data. “This Inventory is conducted in the name of the Hetarek Empire and for the Hetarek Hegemony. The population sits at three-hundred and eleven. In the last year, there have been five births, seven deaths, and four that past the age of utility.” The first one announced. “They have produced eighty-six thousand, three-hundred and eighty-one bushels of schleckt in since the last harvest. That is one-point six percent above quota.”

  Josiah let out a sigh, his shoulders dropping as he looked up with eyes closed in relief. The humans, staring closely at his body language since they couldn’t hear the conversation, seemed to breath with relief as well. The Speaker knew the relief would be short-lived.

  Divrack nodded at the Speaker, who stepped forward, his voice loud enough to carry across the cramped area. “We are here today because of your importance. The work that you do keeps the Hetarek fed and makes the Empire here strong. This region in the Pacific Northwest, along with the valleys further south and Europe, are the foremost producers of schleckt on this planet. You should all be proud. By working hard, you keep yourselves safe and provide for your families. We hope that our presence here today reinforces the contributions you made. The Hetarek Empire thanks you for your continued service. As a reward, we will spare you some of the hardship you face.”

  He looked behind him to Khuu Dirvrak. Four. He commanded.

  The Speaker tried not to linger his gaze too long, hoping that no one could see his doubt or frustration. “Today, we shall only take four of you.”

  His mind already made up, he quickly stabbed a finger at four, three women and a man, all appearing to be in their forties, nearly close enough to be aged out of the ghetto and either sent into exile or simply butchered for sport.

  Swiftly, in a feat designed to show off their strength, the Hetarek behind those individuals reared up on their hind two legs, their rtek blades held high, weighted blade downward, and lunged forward. Each of the four humans received the blow beside their neck. The weight of the weapon cleanly shore through their collar bones and through ribs until the blade came to a stop just below the abdomen. Blood spewed and organs fell from their places. The crowd, which had seen, or ought to have seen, a similar event every year since the establishment of the enclave system, knew better than to let their anger and torment spill out as did the insides of the victims upon the ground.

  He picked them because they had less to contribute than the others. The Speaker avoided thinking that those people had been adults when the Hetarek came, most likely. They had survived the invasion, and the culling, and the concentrations, only to be picked by an over-eager representative. He intoned the conclusion of the ceremony. “This rewards you for your work, and reminds you of the work yet to be done.”

  Before the shouting and crying started in earnest, which it would no matter how hard they tried to repress it, the Speaker turned and left. Brushing by Josiah, who still looked at the bodies in the middle of the square, the Speaker muttered in English so only Josiah could hear. “You got lucky.”

  *****

  They stayed off the cracked and uneven ruins of the highway, but kept it in view, down in the valley to their left. Trees grew up amongst the
concrete, and there was more green than gray, but enough surface remained to make it clear that the Hetarek still used the pass to cross through the mountains. The snow muffled sound and covered their tracks. The long hike up the side of the mountain, against more gravity than they were used to and less oxygen, had its impact. No one had talked or exchanged jabs at each other in a few hours. Finally, at the edge of a mountaintop lake, they saw the the remains of ski runs, streaking down the side of the mountain, rusted pillars from the ski lifts, all leading to the remains of a stone lodge.

  In their short time on the ground, Bryan had not yet grown accustomed to seeing the area in which he grew up in such a state. He had fond memories of the ski resort now falling apart, and superimposing the disaster of the planet with thoughts of family trips. Everything else, all the houses and stores, the re-purposed neighborhoods, were all backdrop to him. The ski lodge was not. He knew how the lodge was supposed to look.

  The journey didn’t end with their arrival at the small compound of buildings that were once packed with skiers. It took another two hours to establish a perimeter, make necessary observations, and then search the buildings slowly and methodically. The spot had been picked more than a year ago after three months of observation by the Loki satellite. It’s location just on the inside of the Cascade mountain range, close to the remains of a major interstate cutting through the mountains, kept them remote enough to be difficult to find, gave them an abundance of valleys to conduct their training clandestinely, and provided them with access to the industrial camps to the west and the agricultural region to the east. Extended meetings with geospatial analysts, drop ship pilots, unconventional warfare specialists, and intelligence personnel produced such detailed reporting that every member of Bryan’s team had a native’s fluency in the area. Bryan had hiked those mountains with his father, but only as a naive child. He hadn’t looked at the unique mountain peaks off in the distance and thought that they would make good visual navigation points for an invasion, or that the dense rain forests would conceal the training of a militia, or that all of the airports densely packed around the metropolitan areas would make perfect landing zones for drop ships. Now he knew, and had hard drives full of three-dimensional renderings, with color shading to show areas of concealment, with long-term weather forecasts (rain in the fall, rain/snow in the winter, rain in the spring, and a beautiful summer). Nearly every building visible from space, and every compound, had been given an alphanumeric designator and mapped grid coordinates.

  During the twenty-three years of exile, the plan to retake Earth fermented. Bryan had been in strategy sessions with men who claimed, at least, to have started the plan while they were evacuating in the first place. Bryan had been on board for two years, joining Evan Raghnal and Jess Kysley who had been part of the pet project since they identified the Pacific Northwest as the invasion point.

  Finally laying eyes on it for the first time since childhood, Bryan felt like he knew every detail of what remained of the facility and the surrounding terrain. So when he had his team break into pairs and search area, he had a rough idea of what to expect. The lodge itself had seen better days, lines of new tree growth radiating up the mountains where the covered old ski runs. A few out buildings surrounded it, with an oversized parking lot facing west, a mountain lake to the east, and mountains providing a barrier on either side. Certainly, it was not a fortress, but the structures and location gave them protection, visibility, and access to the road passing from one side of the region to the other.

  Securing the small compound took several hours. Slowly and methodically, groups of four would approach a door, push through it, and check every nook and cranny. The room secured, they would mark the likely damaged door frame with a marker, and move to the next room. They had come too far to take risks, even though the observation satellite overhead had seen nothing but wildlife over the previous week. As the sun began to set, Bryan walked through the hallways until he had convinced himself that no rooms had been overlooked.

  The rest of the team gathered in the great room of the lodge. Kendrick, Starek, and Smythstyne had already removed their helmets and armor, which irritated Bryan but not enough to say anything. Everyone looked exhausted, an understandable condition they had invaded their home planet less than thirty-six sleepless hours prior.

  He shrugged. “Welcome home, I guess. Smystyne, where’s OTIS?”

  “I left him a few hundred meters down the valley.”

  “Let’s get him back and get unpacked. Kendrick and Starek, guess who’s got first watch.”

  “Because of the helmets?” Starek asked, picking his equipment back up. Kendrick just glared.

  Bryan pulled off his body armor and unlaced his boots. “Yep.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  The reports poured in, and, even though Xander could ignore them since they didn't apply to any of his missions anymore, he squeezed some time in to read the narratives. The people of the Twins had been isolated for much longer than the rest of humanity, and he found their story fascinating.

  He was in the middle of a report gathered from a fourth generation Geminian, describing how his family had been plucked off Pollux and transferred to Castor more than thirty years earlier by the Hetarek, when Lieutenant Colonel Bern walked in. Xander remained in his uniform, the conventional background kept him from dressing down at work no matter the hour, but his boss wandered in sweats and a baseball hat, his pistol tucked dangerously into his waistband as though a Hetarek would magically appear in the command ship.

  The Chief of Operation’s leaned over his intelligence officer’s shoulder. "That shit's pretty fascinating." He said. "A lost colony ship, crashed more than hundred years ago on two moons, completely separated until the Hetarek show up, their first contact with other humans is when One-Five shows up and we streak out of the sky."

  "No kidding. We should write a book when we're done."

  "I'll try to squeeze out the time. Speaking of which, you weren't planning in sleeping any time soon, were you?"

  Xander looked at the clock. It was only two hours before ship midnight. Still early. "Not really. I thought I'd go to the gym."

  "As much as you need it,” Berne teased. “I think I need to send you over to Wanderer. The Admiral says the Ahai are getting restless about being stuck here with us."

  "They don't like to be alone. But what's that got to do with me?"

  Berne raised an eyebrow like the answer should be obvious. "You have the prior relationship with one of their elders. So just go hold his hand, explain to him he'll get his resources and if he's lonely they can bring in another vessel while we get established."

  "The admiral said that?"

  Berne shook his bald head. "Not in those words, no, but just go rebuild that relationship. We're going to need them."

  Xander sighed. His relationship with the Ahai went back to his early days as a young officer. He knew the aliens and could work with them. That didn’t mean he wanted to, especially while being responsible for "When so you want me to leave?"

  CHOPS grinned, "As I said, you weren't planning on sleeping anytime soon, were you?"

  The intelligence officer rolled his eyes at his superior, a gesture that would have ended his career anywhere other than Special Operations. He must have been getting used to the assignment.

  "A Quinalt's waiting for you in bay one."

  "You want me to back brief you when I get back?"

  Berne feigned shock. "I'll be asleep when you get back. You can brief me in the morning." With that, he spun back around and headed to the operations center.

  The intelligence officer grabbed his senior NCO and told her he was heading over to the Ahai ship.

  "You want us to send a rescue party if your not back by morning?" She asked.

  "Only if they've converted me into collective thinking and I start warning you about mythical threats like the Enki." He joked as he headed down the corridor.

  The Quinalt w
aiting for him in the shuttle bay could have been as old as Xander. The flaking paint and worn, stained cargo netting inside served as a reminder as to just how long the conflict had gone on. While the human fleet wandered the galaxy, resources went to building new and maintaining the old, like this light transport. Nothing could be wasted.

  Xander closed his eyes almost the moment he sat down and strapped himself in. He didn't sleep. He couldn't, anyway, but the short ride gave him some respite. He did glance out the window from time to time, a rare opportunity. The Twins rotated around each other, two starkly contrasting shades of stone. Seeing them through something other than a surveillance satellite was a bit strange. Columbia dominated the foreground, surrounded by small drone fighters. A pair of Petrels flashed by, their sleek lines looking more Ahai than the blocky human ships. The two carriers remained spread apart on either side of the formation, dwarfed by Columbia but still much larger than the battleships and cruisers forming the perimeter.

  Wanderer sat it the center of it all. The smooth, organic lines of the chrome hull stood out. No weapons stuck out from the Ahai wormhole ship. Her position deep within the formation was for the ship’s own protection, not because any human considered her a focal point. Wanderer’s role was utilitarian; she opened wormholes that Columbia couldn't. As the admiral had pointed out, the arrangement wasn't ideal, but it was necessary.

  He braced himself to be once again submerged in the discomforts of the Ahai environment and culture. It had been years since he'd last stepped foot on an Ahai ship. As much as he'd tried to prepare himself, he still felt that disorientation when the shuttle door opened to reveal the Great Fleet's emblem, nineteen identical bars, arranged symmetrically along its length almost like a child's fish, all dark gray save the second bar along the centerline, which contrasted in bright red.

  Setting foot in the ship was it's own challenge, with the limited artificial gravity the Ahai maintained. The weak gravity, along with the dim lights and the cold yet musty atmosphere reflected less their natural environment the species' obsession with resource conservation, a necessity when your species had been forcibly removed from its planet, doomed to wander the galaxy alone.