The Oppressed

by Matt Thomas

The readouts in front of him told a sad story, but not one without hope. Columbia had taken an orbital position directly between the planet and the sun. The navigational computer calculated that they could make it to Columbia, and its wormhole, in seven minutes. The fighter would get unbearably hot, and many of the systems might fail, but they could make it before the heat damage became catastrophic. Intrepid, and the bulk of her fighters and escort gunships, and drawn the Hetarek fleet away from Columbia as they set up a blocking position. That opened a lane relatively clear of Sickles and Scythes between them and a way out.

  “Cobra Three, Beast Two-Two, request gun-run one hundred meters south our position. Danger close. How copy?” The radio operator’s breathless voice barely made intelligible words.

  Costeaux looked through the twin canopies at his pilot. Sasha returned the look and just shrugged.

  “Beast Two-Two, Cobra One-Three copies all. Inbound.”

  “Yeah, I wasn’t really worried about getting back to Columbia, either.” Sasha said, lining up the fighter. “Guns, guns, guns.”

  The fire at their ship intensified, and more than once Jean felt the slight shudder of projectiles impacting. They were now the only human ship in the sky. “Beast Two-Two, Cobra Three, we’ve got maybe one run left, over.”

  “Beast Two-Two copies.”

  “I figure we got one gun run left and maybe a few hits with the lasers, although I don’t know how well they’re going to work in atmo.” Costeaux said.

  “Maybe we can keep their heads down.”

  “Cobra Three, you see that wooded area just to the south-east on the edge of the hill? We’re headed there. There’s hostiles coming up from the interstate just west of us and south of Objective Bravo. If you can cut them off, we can get some room. Over.”

  Costeaux looked through and identified the spot the team wanted the fighter to hit. Several vehicles rolled towards this hill, dumping out warriors. “Roger, Beast Two-Two. I got them. When do you want it? Over.”

  “Time: now.” It sounded like the man was already running.

  The Petrel took aim and let loose with several bursts of gunfire until the weapons had nothing left to shoot. A few laser blasts kept heads down but did little damage. “Cobra Three, Winchester.”

  “I’m going to see what I can do.” Sasha sent them straight up, until he rolled the ship and angled back towards the ground. Earth rushed at them, and at the last minute he pulled back, the fighter skimming just over the tops of the trees and structures, so close that Costeaux could make out the angry Hetarek faces closing in on the team.

  He also watched small arms flash up towards them.

  Sasha banked ninety degrees over the water, and Jean struggled against the g-forces. When the land came back into view, he saw the team’s running gun battle down the hill away from the house they had occupied, a house now completely engulfed in flames. He could make out several humans carrying other humans, and their robot struggling under the weight of its passengers as it scrambled away down the hill.

  The fighter had nothing to fire, but the Hetarek didn’t know that. The six-limbed creatures stopped firing and found cover, giving the team a little more space.

  Sasha took them over the airfield. Impact craters, filled with debris from crashed drop ships, littered the area, smoke rising from the various fires that caught both along the runway and in the surrounding woods. They flashed over the industrial area to the north too quickly for Jean to make out anything other than the general chaos of a firefight as the second team and partisans pulled back.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the flash from the ground. That quick glimpse of the Komodo behind the incoming fire was all he would get. The rounds stitched up the side of the fighter. Jean watched them unevenly tear through the skin of the starboard wing. It didn’t matter if they hit anything critical. At that speed, that low, with so many impacts, no amount of Sasha’s reflexes would keep them stable.

  The ship lurched, rolling first sharply left as the energy struck the right wing from below, then right as the bullet holes suddenly increased drag. Alarms went off again, although Jean wouldn’t have time to check them.

  Sasha fought hard. The first tree impact occurred within two seconds of being hit. The second, third, and fourth treetop blended together as the sky spun around the canopy until Jean’s helmet slammed against it.

  *****

  He understood why Thrulk had pulled him out the moment the Hetarek led him outside. The building had begun to collapse completely. The walls dropped precariously, smoke and fire rising, screams and calls for help barely discernible over the detonations inside and the firefight across the airfield. The hanger next door, where the EMP weapon had fired only minutes before, no longer resembled anything but a pile of scrap metal, blackened by blue flakes, electricity still arcing around it.

  In a glance, he saw nearly two dozen drop ships either twisted into the ground by gravity or burning munitions like the one inside. Foolishly, he looked up. More fell, but he couldn’t tell where they would land. He had to rely on hope that he wouldn’t be crushed.

  Thrulk dragged him towards an empty Komodo, somehow unscathed.

  “Where are we going?” He managed to ask.

  Thrulk wrenched open the door and tossed the Speaker inside. The human adapted his physiology to seat automatically out of habit.

  There are administrative buildings in the city. If we can get you there you will be safe until the reckoning.

  “I think the reckoning is here, Thrulk.”

  We shall see. He began driving at high speed, dodging debris erratically. There are human fighters to the north. We must get through them.

  They approached the industrial area just north of the airfield. Burned-out Komodos and bodies of both species started to litter the ground as they approached the main road.

  “How is this any safer?” He asked.

  You are not in a collapsing building that is burning with explosives in it. Thrulk answered almost light-heartedly.

  “I guess that’s true.”

  The humans are moving east. I don’t think they’re here any...

  His stomach rose to his throat with the momentum. His right arm flailed out, striking to window next to him with such force he must have broken something. The flash blinded him. When his vision returned, the world outside spun around the Komodo. Then something jolted the armored vehicle, and everything stopped moving. Even him.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  Another meteor streaked overhead. Another escape pod, bit of wreckage, or disabled drop ship finally breaking orbit and plummeting its occupants uncontrolled into Earth. Before her, a crater rooted the black column of smoke to the ground. A miles-high tombstone to Christoph Svensen, a hardworking man from Yakima everyone would remember for his unmitigated kindness and humor, who, months before aging out of what the Hetarek and Metic Ahai considered “usefulness” in humans, volunteered to drive a truck filled with the Runners’ explosives into their oppressors housing complex.

  In the foreground, dead and wounded lay scattered about. The squeals of the Metic Ahai overwhelmed the gurgling of the Hetarek. A few human voices cried out, but her people had already pulled away any who had a hope of surviving. The radio had been silent. She had expected, after the blast, to hear Bryan’s strenuous objections, imploring her to join his own futile fight. So she turned it off. The sounds of the gunfire had bounced off the hills and she had watched as the spacecraft she assumed to be human swept along the treetops striking at Hetarek positions in the distance before they crashed to the surface. She had appreciated the beauty of their maneuvering, but not the futility of their fight.

  The carnage in front of her had been as terribly one-sided as what she imagined occurred a few miles to the west, only her carnage had favored the humans. Her fighters not only destroyed the housing complex, they also killed every Hetarek and Metic Ahai preparing to join the battle. She ambushed the handful of Hetarek who had b
een diverted from landing zones to respond to the bombing. By her kill count, the amount of Hetarek destined to fight the Runners far outweighed the handful of supposedly friendly Metic Ahai fighters who would have only betrayed them too.

  A handful of humans wandered around the scene, making sure their kill count stayed high. Not wanting to draw attention with gunfire, they all had picked up rtek blades. Almost to a man and woman, they mocked the injured with comments about “inventories” and “failing to meet quotas” before dropping the heavy blades onto the necks of wounded aliens. Someone had the bright idea of tossing each head into a pile next to the crater in what they called “Chris’s Cairn.”

  Someone had grabbed a paint brush and decorated the side of the compound wall with the deep blue blood of the Hetarek. Three horizontal lines, one for the Hetarek, one for the Metic Ahai, and one for the Runners. Above the lines sat a solid circle; the Earth rising above them all. Ava had scratched that into the ground after Julian’s murder, describing how her people needed to stand by themselves. Now, these people who had killed for her, who had somehow listened to an enraged young woman rather than professional soldiers, had adopted it their sign. Next to it, in sloppy block letters, they had added a warning. “Earth is Ours.”

  One of the fighters joined her where she sat on a curb, a rifle acquired from the the Runners across her knees, the same rtek blade she’d used to dispatch Josiah Hernandez, bloodied again, now at her side.

  “It looks like their fight is over. The Hetarek will be headed this way soon.”

  She nodded. “Give them a few more minutes before we leave. It’ll be cathartic.”

  He stared ahead. “Some are wondering why we didn’t go to Seattle.”

  “Because they said they wanted to free us. Look at this.” She said, waving her arm towards the death in front of her. “Doesn’t this look like we’re free? They’re welcome to their ideals and their optimism.” She scoffed. “They think they know what’s best for us. They think they can come back after all these years and save us. We can save ourselves. And we’re not going to do it by bringing in more people who think they know what’s best. We’ve got to purge this cancer first. We’re going to do it by killing every Hetarek and every Metic Ahai on this planet. Once we’ve broken the chains, then we can worry about being free.”

  The fighter set his jaw, nodding solemnly as she preached the gospel. Finally, she stood, brushing the dirt and gore off her pants as well as she could. “Let’s go. And don’t forget to leave someone behind. When they show back up, we can kill more.”

  *****

  He was in a Komodo. In the front seat, no less, wedged between the passenger couch and the armored door. The window in the door showed crushed pavement. The vehicle must have been on its side.

  His head hurt, throbbing, and he still saw stars. He couldn’t remember why he was in a Komodo on its side. The pounding in his ears resolved, and he realized his pulse was only part of it. The rest was gunfire. And explosions.

  It took some time to orient himself. The collapse of the hanger came back to him, as did his escape with Thrulk. He remembered driving through the industrial area, but nothing else until he found himself on his side in the Komodo. The extreme pain radiated from his shoulder, hand, and the right side of his head. Blood splatter, red, not deep blue, painted a portion the door where his head must have struck. The spot on his head he probed with his finger was spongy, sticky, and shooting pain.

  Carefully, gingerly, he raised his head and looked to his left. The driver’s door hung wide open, revealing a blue sky. The driver’s harness hung, unlatched but not torn, from the couch, the metal clasps

  It took a few minutes to try, but he managed to shout Thrulk’s name. He heard nothing. With great difficulty, he twisted to look behind into the cargo compartment and saw nothing there. For several seconds, or minutes, he remained there wondering what had happened to his protector, crying out only to have no one listen.

  Nearly blinding himself with pain, he finally pushed himself up. Trying to avoid using his right arm, he climbed upward, across the Komodo, until he stood on the side of the driver’s couch. He prepared to raise his head, expecting a shot to strike him in the center of it the moment he risked a look. With the humans facing defeat, and the Hetarek, strangely, facing the same defeat, with Divrack dead and Thrulk having abandoned him, it didn’t matter. He stood.

  No one shot him. No one shot at him. He looked up and saw a crater and pieces of the Komodo several meters away in the middle of the road. He heard intense gunfire in the distance. He saw signs of an ongoing firefight in on the northern end of a hill less than a kilometer away. But, within a hundred meters of him, it was peaceful.

  Again, he looked for signs of Thrulk, and failed. Unsure what else to do, the man once known as Ira hauled himself over the edge of the Komodo, and ran.

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  For those old enough, the ones who remembered the Evacuation, the scene conjured bitter memories.

  Columbia hung alone in empty space. Only a handful of surviving Petrels had made it to the wormhole on the first jump, and the command ship had recovered them before making the next jump.

  Redoubtable had finally figured out where the Ahai had deposited the rest of the fleet, not too far from the Twins. Columbia could make the jump, but not immediately. The wormhole generator would need nearly an hour to recover from its last efforts.

  The screens in the operations center started blank. Then, in the absence of any command from the task force, they resumed their default state, tied into the central computer. Admiral Sykora must have ordered a preliminary damage and casualty report. Names, first of vessels, then of people, began to populate the screens. Five abreast, packed in a small font barely legible at any reasonable distance, the names began to scroll.

  And scroll.

  And scroll.

  The Joint Special Task Force staff remained in position, waiting. And recovering.

  Xander thought of nothing. He could think of nothing. Shock had stopped his brain function. He stared ahead at his tablet, not knowing or caring whether it gave him any new information.

  Lieutenant Colonel Berne tapped a stylus rapidly onto his desk, his knee vibrating impatiently.

  Colonel Tamaka reviewed reports while keeping an eye out for any message from Admiral Sykora.

  The purgatory lasted nearly forty unbearable minutes after the jump.

  Then the speakers near the radio popped and fizzled. In the stillness they startled everyone.

  A voice came through, weary, distant, raspy, but real.

  “Serpent Eight-Two, Beast Two-Two. Radio check, over.”

  *****

  Cracks, pops, and hisses slowly faded in with Costeaux’s consciousness. He couldn’t tell what had awakened him, but he felt pain, throbbing pain in his head outmatched by scorching, stabbing pain in his left leg. Everything looked blurry, which, at first he took to be his eyes adjusting until he realized moisture covered his cracked faceplate. Some body of water partially covered his canopy and seeped into his cockpit through cracked glass.

  He looked to his left, and instantly regretted it. Sasha’s cockpit, mere feet and two panes of glass away, within arm’s reach, had completely filled with water. The pilot’s eyes stayed wide open, bulging through his completely shattered helmet. Scratch marks inside the canopy showed how hard he fought to get out. The hands, drifted up near his head, were deformed by the pounding. Debris from the cockpit instruments floated to the top like a halo of garbage. Costeaux hadn’t heard the struggle as his partner survived the crash only to drown still stuck in his harness.

  The Petrel rocked slightly, and Jean’s heart began to pound and his breath came in short bursts as he prepared himself. He tore off the safety harness and reached down for the pistol. As he groped around his right thigh for the pistol butt, he felt something else on his left. Looking down, he saw a shard of white barely sticking through the leg of his flight suit.
The sight of his femur distracted him enough that, when the pounding on his own canopy started, he jumped in his seat, finally grabbing his weapon and pointing it up at the shapes above. He made out two hands, two legs, and a head, all standing upright. Nothing screamed Hetarek. The hands waved, and he started to make out the words being yelled.

  “Stay back, stay back.”

  Somehow trusting, he complied, leaning as far into his seat as he could and turning his face away. Several thuds preceded the shattering of the canopy, and cool air rushed in, smelling of salt water and pine. The senses seemed so alien to him. He realized he had never breathed fresh air.

  The buttstock of a weapon broke free bits of canopy until it was large enough for Jean to escape through. A filthy, very human hand with a bulky watch and fatigues rolled halfway up the forearm reached down and grabbed his arm. A bearded face, with long, sandy hair and sunglasses peered down into the cockpit. “Hey brother. I’m Bryan. Are you Cobra Three?”

  “Yeah.” Costeaux managed.

  “You guys did fucking awesome today.” The man, Bryan, said enthusiastically while looming above him. “You saved our lives. Thanks. Seriously, brother, thank you. You went way beyond. We’re going to get you out of there.”

  “My leg’s broken, I think.” Costeaux pointed to his bone.

  “Shit. Well, then this is really going to fucking hurt.” And it did. Bryan and another soldier pulled him through the canopy, but Jean focused on the blinding pain and tried hard not to scream too loudly. Unceremoniously, they yanked him through the canopy and deposited him on the wing of his Petrel. From the outside, he could see through its skin into the sparking wires and leaking tubes. Half of it had crushed backwards. The fighter looked much more fragile than shooting through space or bombing targets a few hours before.

  Costeaux tried to regather his wits, catching his breath as he tried to let go of the pain. The sun was starting to set over the mountains far to the west. He felt the breeze, and a slight chill as he experienced something new. Through the pain, and the freezing water lapping up against the side of the ship, the surrounding destruction of his Petrel, Jean was on Earth.