by Matt Thomas
He had never visited the home planet of his parents. First, it had been some remote place where the grandparents he had never met lived, with vague memories of seeing trees behind them in photos and during video chat. Then, it became almost a mythical place referred to by his parents as they complained about life amongst the fleet.
Next, he told his computer to find Titan. It highlighted an area of space on the far side of the system, the actual moon not visible but Saturn still reflected the sun, a bright dot. That had once been home. Only four years old, his first vivid memory had been the day the Hetarek arrived. The confusion as his parents panicked. Ahai alerted everyone, their gray faces appearing on nearly every screen as they warned of impending doom and offered to help evacuate any available ship through their wormholes. He had heard of those aliens, and may have even seen an image that wasn't an illustration in a children's book. But that day had been the first time little Jean had heard them speak. As they helped ship after ship pour through wormholes, he remembered asking his father why the other side hated them so. The height of the Corporate War created the opening for the Hetarek to invade, he would later learn in the academy, as the Russian Block and its Sadko Transport Company escalated its war against any who supported the Ahai. As reasons for war go, it couldn't have been more simple: the Ahai's arrival and network of intrasystem wormholes destroyed the transportation-built Russian economy. As the mega space corporations pulled in nations for their war over profits and jobs, the Hetarek saw an opportunity. He looked at Sasha, still asleep, and realized that the two would have been mortal enemies if not for the Hetarek.
Instead, the Hetarek tore worlds and families apart. His mother stayed to help load the petrochemicals into tankers, last-minute emergency hoarding as corporations and governments scrambled together resources they would need in exile. His father worked for Ephemeris Engineering and managed to get Jean and his two older systems into a space-worthy but unfinished ship named Columbia, now the center of the fleet. They managed the escape, but it would be more than a year until they found their mother, who had managed to board a tanker just before the Hetarek took out the last Ahai wormhole ship in the Solar System. She had wandered the fleet like so many others, trying to find out if she still had a family. His father had designed newly needed ships for war, including the Petrel Jean had flown in more than thirty-four engagements with the Hetarek in the previous six years. His father was proud, always happy to hear stories about how his design saved his son's life and protected humanity’s remnants. Jean hoped one day he would be able to tell his father just how uncomfortable the seat was after twenty-four hours in the dark while he stared at his home.
Something about sitting in a cockpit, utterly silent, made him uneasy. It was nearly impossible to be alone in the fleet. A child, his family had shared a tight cabin on a passenger liner that housed civilian refugees who worked for Ephemeris. The makeshift military academy had everyone living in an open hanger bay. Even as a pilot, a rare privilege amongst the space fleet, he and Sasha shared cramped quarters on a utilitarian battleship. Their missions typically meant flying a patrol filled with chatter from dozens to hundreds of ships, or the intense constant communication of space combat. Those missions didn't give him an opportunity to appreciate the silence, or fight off the thoughts that invaded his head.
Alarmingly, one thought naturally flowed to another, so quickly morphing from complaints about the comfort of his fighter to past missions to the number of Hetarek he had probably killed to the definite number of dead friends. From the moment he left the academy, he had been fighting. Nearly every scrap of training he had received in his career had been rushed so that he could fight Hetarek. He rested when his ship powered down for maintenance or the rare occasion he fell off the patrol roster. He couldn't remember not being at war, not expecting the Hetarek to pop out of nowhere, not wondering whether he or his friends would die that day. In the long silence, he had nothing to focus on but himself. It was all he could do not to collapse in an exhausted panic as he sat, silent, alone, and staring at the planet responsible for it all.
*****
Smythstyne sat next to OTIS, another template in one hand and a paint marker in another. Bryan watched the man for a few minutes, trying to pick out the shape before he carefully pulled back the piece of paper, showing a flintlock rifle, surrounded by a box, surrounded by what appeared to be oak leave wreath around it. The execution could have been better, particularly with the wreath, but everyone in the room knew what it was.
“Seriously, he gets a CIB?” Siskind asked.
“He got shot at; he gets a combat infantryman’s badge.”
Kendrick piped in from where he lay rolled in a blanket next to the fire, his dirty clothes surrounding him. “I don’t think he’s an infantryman.”
“It stands for Overland Tactical Infantry Support.”
“That’s what I’m saying. ‘Support.’ Is he going to end up with a ranger tab, too?”
“Jealous if he got one before you did... Sergeant?”
Bryan held up his hands in an attempt to be the adult in the room. “Just don’t put him in for a Silver Star or something.” He looked down at O, who had been huddled over their small computer and satellite link for most of the day. “They should be wrapped up by now, right?”
O nodded. “Thunder should be compiling everything they got from Cobra and sending it... here we go.” The screen started counting up as hundreds of files downloaded. “It looks like they have it broken down into intel packages, mission packages, a SITREP for the outside world, and mail. Mail first?”
“Mail first.” Bryan confirmed.
O tapped a few commands into his keyboard, and everyone’s personal tablet chirped nearly simultaneously as emails and images populated from the uplink. Bryan looked down at his, with a few photos attached to a message from his wife appearing at the top of the queue. The thumbnails showed just enough of the inside of his former living quarters to deduce what they were about. Distracted by them, he didn’t hear Jess come into the room and lean over O’s shoulder. “Did they send anything on Iago?” She asked, cutting right to her own business.
“Give me a second.” O said. “There’s a lot in here.”
While she stared impatiently and O tried to glance at titles of a few hundred files as rapidly as possible, Bryan read his mail. He let out a single, half-hearted chuckle.
“What’s so funny, sir?” Smythstyne asked, looking up from the reading that had torn him away from painting the robot.
“Nothing.”
“I think I’ve heard you laugh twice outside of a firefight since we got here.” Kendrick said. “Entertain us.”
“I just... my wife... she’s asking me about remodeling our quarters.”
“On the Mir? In the Ahai fleet?” O asked rhetorically, distracted by the task at hand.
“Yep.”
That got laughter from nearly everyone in the room.
Jess didn’t laugh. “She knows you’re never going back there right?”
“It sure doesn’t sound like it.” Kendrick said laughing. “Bryan, we’re either liberating this place, in which case we get to stay here and she can come live here with us, or we’re gonna die here.”
“That thought had crossed my mind.”
“So, fuck it, tell her to change anything she wants. What does it matter?”
“It matters.” Bryan said, trying not to look too hard at the familiar photos of his living room and bedroom, not for the purpose of seeing what they might look like in new colors, but to see something that actually seemed familiar to him. He vaguely remembered picking out a couch more than two years ago. He remembered playing with this daughter in that room, he remembered her smile and giggles. But he barely recognized the photo of her included in the data packet. She would be turning four in a few months, and he had last seen her at two and a half. The child had grown so much since then. His wife’s letters were full of little details about h
er personality as she developed into a small person. He hoped that she’d recognize him when he took her to walk on the trails around Mount Rainier when she finally got to see her real home for the first time.
“Where’s that data on Iago?” Jess asked, not letting the digression stray too far, and pulling Bryan out of his rapid descent along a downward spiral. Whether she could tell that his foundations were beginning to crumble, or whether she had her own reasons for interrupting the conversation, he could only guess. He wasn’t paying attention to much other than the photos in front of him.
“I’m working on it, ma’am.” O replied.
“Not fast enough.” She said more sharply than usual.
“Here, I found it.”
“Put it on the big screen.” She instructed
O complied, forcing everyone to look up from their personal matters. First, a handful of overhead images, obviously taken by Loki, showed a human in his late fifties surrounded by Hetarek in various situations. There was one of him getting off of a Scythe in the desert, and another one with part of his face where he seemed to be staring up at something flying overhead. Two more photos showed the more damning evidence. In one he spoke to what must have been a local speaker while Hetarek held other humans at bay. In the other, he sat behind a building talking with another human while the unmistakeable scene of a Hetarek “inventory” took place. Humans, on their knees, while Heteari stood behind them with blades raised.
Next came a detailed analysis of his pattern of life. It showed that he appeared to live in the main Hetarek camp on the Arabian peninsula, but that he traveled several days a week, visiting the various concentrations of humans sustaining the Hetarek effort. He seemed to avoid going to Asia, or at least had not been observed there as recently in the previously six weeks as he had been seen in the Americas and Europe. He made a lot of visits to the mines in Africa, which made a lot of sense as mining drove much of the Hetarek economy, but not the long-term stays he did in North America.
A social relationship analysis appeared on the screen, a strange geometry somewhere between a spider web and a fractal, with spokes radiating out of his name and connecting to dozens of humans, Hetarek, and Metic Ahai, each identified by a name, code name, and any available image. No matter how one looked at it, Objective Iago, the Speaker, was the glue that held everyone together.
Bryan tore himself away from his mail and stared at the screen. He tapped the blank icon at the top of the screen. “So Hamlet, Kevak Akkad, he’s pretty static and is going to be hard to hit, along with Iago. So we go with the second tier targets that might end up in the area.” He pointed to three names, two Hetarek and a human, that each hosted their own small network branching away from the Speaker. “Who is this guy?” He pointed to the human. A small profile enlarged.
“Objective Banquo.”
“Xander really likes his Shakespeare, doesn’t he?” Bryan muttered.
“He’s the speaker for this region.” Jess read from the file. “He lives in Ellensburg. He’s been speaker there for less than a year. His predecessor was executed after pissing off the Hetarek, apparently.”
“Apparently. Or they got bored with him.” Bryan muttered. “What else?”
Jess shrugged. “MacIntyre gave us some information when we went through those profiles Genovese gave us. I’ll have to take another look. If he’s as vulnerable as he looks, maybe we can flip him.”
“We’ll see.” Bryan stared in deep thought at the pictures, as though they would start telling him how to take them out. “The two Hetarek, Claudius and Othello, should stay on our radar. Claudius is local, and Othello tends to hang out with Iago.” He brought back the photo of the other human. “But let’s see what we can do about Mister Banquo. He’s our new priority.”
Bryan started planning for operations to take out the two Hetarek targets. His thoughts about his family drifted into the background. He couldn’t do anything about them at the moment, anyway.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
"This is a long shot." Lieutenant Colonel Berne said to no one.
"This whole thing is a long shot." Xander replied.
"Bryan knows what he's doing." Colonel Tamaka said. All three were huddled behind Sergeant Tennison, Xander’s senior NCO, in the intelligence cell, staring at the Loki feed. The extreme sensitivity of the operation kept the gathering private, away from the passers-by who stopped in the operations center.
The screen showed one of the larger enclaves east of the mountains, a center for administration for the farms sprawled across the high desert. At the late hour, and under curfew, the streets were nearly deserted. A few humans, several pairs of Metic Ahai, and scarce Hetarek security were lazily roamed the area in greyscale.
"Which building is it again?"
Xander pointed to what had once been a strip mall. "Right there, ma'am."
"This is Objective Banquo?" She asked.
"Yes ma'am. Josiah Hernandez, the speaker for the region."
The screen next to the satellite image streamed data in shorthand codes that Sergeant Tennison read expertly to herself. "All the collection devices are running." She announced.
"You see anything?" Xander asked.
"Not yet."
"You really think this guy’s vulnerable?" The colonel asked.
"Yeah. Bryan says the locals confirm this guy’s in over his head. A couple of reports say the Hetarek don't seem to work well with him." Berne said.
"Ma'am, the fact that he's here by himself instead of in Seattle with Objective Claudius is pretty telling." Xander added.
"If it gets us some kind of replacement for Helen, it's worth s little risk." Tamaka said.
"Bryan's managing the risk pretty well. He's got a ton of capabilities, at least for their situation, set up." Berne explained.
As if taking cues from their conversation elsewhere in the galaxy, two civilian trucks, beat up and worn to the bone, rolled through the streets. They stayed far enough apart that they didn't look like a small convoy, but close enough to support each other. The second truck rolled to a stop near an alleyway. Two figures emerged, one darting into one building while the other skulked its way out of sight further down the street.
"Serpent Eight-Two, Beast Two-Two Alpha and Bravo in position. Time out this position. Over." It wasn't Howe's voice on the radio, which meant he was also in position.
"Serpent Eight-Two copies all. Good luck." Popov’s voice came through the radio from the next room over.
They watched the trucks slowly roll through the town, taking position on either side of the strip mall parking lot. From the ground, it would have looked like two trucks parking. From the birds-eye view, it was clear each truck were taking strategic positions, covering the mall as best as they could.
Master Sergeant Popov appeared in the door from the operations center to the intelligence office. "Colonel, the admiral's on the line. He's pretty pissed."
"About what? Berne scoffed.
"His exact words were, 'what the fuck do you think you're doing?'"
“Is he eavesdropping?” Berne challenged. “This is a pretty close-hold op we’re running here. It’s not a spectator sport.”
The colonel sighed. "Put him through to here."
"He got briefed, ma'am." Xander said.
"I have no doubt he did. But did he listen?" She replied before picking up the handset. "Good evening, admiral." Xander couldn't hear the other end of the conversation, but didn't need to.
"No sir.” Colonel Tamaka continued. "We are not targeting a human to kill him.... Yes, sir, I understand where he falls on the objective list, but we're not trying to kill him, this is a high level meeting in force... Yes, sir, that's the force part. We're just trying to keep our team safe. I can understand how it looks."
She snapped her fingers at Xander who brought up the concept of operations briefing.
"Admiral, this was part of the Operation Ulysses Twenty One packet.” She read off the
screen. The team put together its mission plans and sent them via QEC back to Tamaka, Berne, and Xander for input and approval, each one part of a series of sub-operation falling under the Operation Aeneas umbrella. Once the Joint Special Task Force approved, they sent a copy to Admiral Sykora more as a courtesy than anything else. Sometimes he understood what he read. “Yes sir, we briefed your Three for awareness and it was part of our last operational overview... No sir, I had approval authority at my level for this one... I will make sure we brief you on the results. Thank you, sir."
She hung up the handset, shaking her head.
"Let me guess, he didn't read the packet because it wasn't sexy." Berne said.
"Nope."
"He's not pulling the plug though."
"Let's just let Bryan do his thing." She replied without answering the question.
The operation was already in motion, so nothing more needed to be said. Pulling the team out at this point would be both wasteful and dangerous. Xander made a mental note for the next time he briefed the admiral. Perhaps he could underscore the right bullet points to keep such unnecessary and distracting attempts at interference from happening.
Everyone’s attention returned to the screen, and they temporarily forgot the admiral. If any of them had been superstitious, they would have crossed their fingers. Instead, they watched and waited, hoping that Howe could use Banquo to get back on track after Helen’s loss.
Loki reported all-clear. The collection devices on the ground reported all-clear. The team was in position.
On the monitor, a truck door opened.
*****
Bryan opened the door and stepped outside. He felt naked after wearing body armor and carrying a rifle every other time he had ventured out in recent weeks. It was dark out, with only a few candles and dim, solar powered lights illuminating the near vacant street. The ragged clothes they had acquired fit him too tightly, jamming his pistol into the small of his back. Only the small, short-range earbud betrayed him as anything other than another oppressed human.
