by Sean Robins
Tarq shrugged and didn’t push it.
I walked out of the Command Center with Kurt. “You remember the conversation we had about respect?” I asked him. “I’m finally getting some around here.”
“Getting some! Ha ha!” said Cordelia.
“Didn’t you recently get married?” Kurt asked.
I tried to mimic his signature pained look that he had whenever I made a stupid joke.
He patted my back, “Yeah. I’ve noticed.”
I blinked. “What do you mean? Is it that obvious?”
“Yes. People under your command salute more firmly when they see you, and they seem to pay more attention when you talk. Things like that.”
“You are the greatest detective in the world!” I exclaimed. “More importantly, they follow my orders without hesitation now, even Liz.”
“You did save her life.”
“I did, didn’t I?” I said humbly. “I just hope she doesn’t relapse into her old ways any time soon.”
San Diego - July 24, 2048
Arminaa opened her eyes and with a groan tried to sit up. She was in a hospital bed in a typical Xortaag military hospital room: small, purely functional, everything sparkling clean, and a few pieces of medical equipment placed next to her bed.
She saw General Maada, all banged up, with bandages all over his head and face and his right hand in a plaster cast, dozing off on a chair next to her bed.
Surprised, she unconsciously started to stand at attention, only to be overcome with blinding pain. She sunk back to bed with a moan.
Maada opened his eyes. Unlike Arminaa, he was not wearing a hospital gown but his uniform. He stood up and asked, “How are you feeling?”
Still in pain but trying hard not to appear week in front of the general, Arminaa answered, “Like I have got first-degree burns on ninety percent of my body.”
“Unfortunately, that’s an accurate description of your current status,” said Maada sadly. “Not to worry. You will be back to active duty in no time.”
“What happened?” asked Arminaa. “I remember we started shooting at the enemy craft, and nothing after that. And who was the enemy?”
“We were attacked by the humans. We do not know why the Voice of God had no effect on them or how they got such advanced space fighters, but we will soon find out. Of the soldiers on the control tower, only you and I survived, but we managed to shoot down a, eh, a few of the attacking vessels. On that note, I have recommended you for a Crimson Deathbringer Medal, for showing extreme valor in the face of certain death. All the others with us will receive the same medal, unfortunately posthumously.”
Despite her pain, Arminaa beamed with pride. The Crimson Deathbringer, inspired by General Maada’s legendary craft, was the highest and most prestigious medal in the Xortaag fleet. “Thank you, General,” she said.
“You have earned it,” said Maada. “Now if you excuse me, I have work to do. I will send a doctor to check on you.”
He was about to leave the room when Arminaa asked, “General, can I please ask you a question? Any news about my unit? Did they survive the attack?”
Maada stopped with a pained expression on his face, and for a second, he seemed lost for words. He walked to the bed, gently held the young woman’s hand, and said, “Arminaa, you know your unit was stationed in the barracks closest to the hangars. They reacted fast and with courage, and tried to fly their Deathbringers off the ground, but by the time they were ready to launch, it was too late, and the enemy was right on top of them. They all died in the battle. I am really sorry.”
Arminaa managed to bite down a scream, but tears welled up in her eyes and then ran freely down her bandaged face. She was an orphan, and she had joined a military school at a very young age. Most members of her unit had graduated at the same time as she, and they had been together in the same unit ever since. They were the only family she had ever had. They had been in several campaigns together, just to die on the ground, on this fucking godforsaken planet.
She suspected the general knew all this, as he just stood there, holding her hands, saying nothing.
Hatred came on the heels of grief. Pure, burning hatred for humans. All humans, not only those who attacked them. They would all pay for taking her family away from her.
SH-1 - July 30, 2048
Mushgaana was sitting in his new office in the Xortaags’ under-construction city, reading the depressing reports on the surprise attack against them. The scope of their failure was shocking. After decades of total dominance, they had lost a big part of their fleet on the ground, and to make things worse, they had no idea where the attackers had come from. All they knew for certain, based on examination of the bodies left at his former residence, as well as his personal observation, was that the attackers were human. But they still had a thousand unanswered questions.
The enemy space fighters had distinct similarities to the Akaki ships they had encountered in the past. This was not conclusive, but the only idea he could come up with was they were somehow involved. He wished he had attacked Kanoor as he had originally planned, but it was too late now. They could not leave this stupid planet until the fleet that had attacked them was destroyed.
After that, they were going straight to Kanoor.
His own ship, which had landed on a nearby base, had also been destroyed. He could have asked for another one, but there was no way he would let his father know he had managed to lose his command ship. He decided to have one of the transport vessels retrofitted to function as a command ship as soon as they arrived.
Lucky for them, they had already transferred the Voice of God’s controls to their bigger city, otherwise controlling nearly ten billion enraged humans would have been impossible. On the other hand, with his command ship destroyed, their only means of traveling in space was now the SDF in Kingdom of God. Fortunately, the device was well protected.
Maada walked into his office. He had a couple of new scars on his face, and his right arm was in a white plaster cast. Remarkably, he had managed to walk out of this fiasco smelling like the proverbial rose. If anything, the story of him and a small group of Xortaags, carrying only sidearms, defying a thousand enemy ships and shooting down a few had added to his status as a living legend.
Maada went straight to the point as usual. “It has come to my attention that you have killed twenty of my pilots, whom I did not even know were here, I might add.”
Mushgaana thought, Shit! and said, “It was an accident.”
“How long have we been campaigning together, Your Highness?” asked Maada.
Mushgaana chuckled. “Since we were both very, very young.”
“And in all this time, have you ever seen me make a promise and not keep it?”
Mushgaana did not like the way this conversation was going. “Nope.”
Maada leaned over and looked directly in the crown prince’s eyes. “So believe me when I say this. If you hurt another one of my pilots ever again, I will come for you. And do not think your powers can save you from me. I will come with a squadron of Deathbringers. I would like to see you try to stop us from incinerating you and everything in your ten-mile radius from orbit with your voodoo.”
Mushgaana was used to Maada’s fits of anger; still, the pure, unadulterated rage in the general’s eyes made him flinch. He momentarily considered the idea of killing Maada on the spot, but he needed this man now more than ever; plus, to his surprise, he was not really offended. Maada was right. Mushgaana did feel guilty about slaughtering a few of his own men.
Mushgaana understood, better than the general did, that this was the main reason people under Maada’s command loved him to death: Despite his legendary bad temper, he cared for them in ways no other commander would. The fact that he had led them to one glorious victory after another, bringing them all fame and fortune in the process, was secondary. The prince did not look into the minds of ordinary people very often; he was not that interested. But he kept tabs on his general’s reputation,
as he knew his brothers did. Maada’s popularity was one of his assets.
“Do we understand each other?” asked Maada, rubbing the scars on his face.
The crown prince smiled, saluted mockingly and answered, “Perfectly, General.”
Maada saluted, turned on his heel and left.
Winterfell - August 1, 2048
Elizabeth, lying on her bed in her and Jim’s quarters, called Tarq. When the alien’s face appeared on her PDD’s screen, she said, “Hi, Tarq. I’ve got a question for you.”
“Something intriguing, I hope,” said Tarq. “I have had a boring day.”
“Our second anniversary’s coming up, and I want to do something special for Jim,” she said. “I figured with Akaki technology, you can think of things that I can’t even imagine.”
Tarq beamed.
“Eh, Liz?” said Cordelia. “Tarq might not be the best person to ask for romantic advice.”
He wasn’t. His first three suggestions were atrocious. Elizabeth was about to hang up when Tarq said, “Okay. How about this: You slip a sleeping pill in Jim’s drink. We take him to MICI and imprint a memory of the two of you having a huge fight and you leaving him in his mind. When he wakes up the next day and remembers this memory, you jump out of a hiding place and shout ‘happy anniversary!’”
“How do we make that memory?” asked Elizabeth.
“Piece of cake. You act out your part, and I will film it. I will feed it into MICI, and it will do the rest based on the script I will provide. On second thought, I have a better plan: We can give him a memory of you dying in his arms.”
With a sparkle in her eyes, Elizabeth thanked him and disconnected the call.
The idea itself was distasteful, but the possibilities it offered were limitless. The anniversary was still a few weeks away, but she could barely contain her excitement. It wasn’t every day that you could find an ideal present for the man you loved. She called Kurt and asked, “Got a minute? I need your help with something.”
Kurt answered, “It just so happens I need your help with something too.”
I was looking at The Harem’s gate through my sniper rifle scope when Sergei growled, “Humanity’s gone down, but these assholes are still here.”
Two guards were standing outside the gate. Several men were entering and exiting the building. An unfortunate result of things continuing mostly as before the Xortaag invasion was the Russian mafia was still active, and with them, The Harem.
“Not for long,” I said.
We were accompanied by Oksana, Matias, and Kurt, filling in for Allen, who would’ve wanted to be here on account of his young daughter. This was Oksana’s plan, but my friends had to wait until after Operation Free Earth to avoid the off chance the Xortaags got wind of a rescue operation involving a spaceship.
The plan was simple: Kill the goons and most of the clients, round the girls up in a ship, give them a load of cash and let them go in LA, asking them to lay low. Oksana had floated the idea of bringing the girls back to Winterfell. This was immediately vetoed by Kurt, who said having some fifty traumatized women in Winterfell was out of the question.
Kurt had asked Liz to fly the ship, knowing full well she was always ready to dedicate her time and energy to a worthy cause. She’d told me about it, and there was no way I’d let them go without me. Despite growing up in New York, I was a Southern gentleman at heart, and protecting women was sort of our thing.
I had very little weapons training. I certainly didn’t know how to use an M-28 SWS. Kurt used MICI to give me a crash course in urban combat at both the operational and tactical level, so here I was doing something I never thought I was capable of doing: killing a man with a sniper rifle.
A man! More like a rabid dog. Plus, all the bloodshed I’d witnessed recently had thickened my skin.
The two guards went down with bullets in their skulls without knowing what hit them. We moved in total silence. There were at least ten more security guards inside, but they were just thugs, good for controlling the girls, making sure the clients behaved and discouraging the competition. They had the proverbial snowball’s chance against us, armed with tactical weapons and wearing body armor.
A few minutes later, Oksana, her eyes sparkling with glee, shot the man whom she said was in charge of The Harem; then she told me, “The sweetest morsel to the mouth that ever was cooked in hell indeed!”
I frowned. “Is that from a movie?”
We kept moving, looking for more goons to shoot.
“You know, you should try reading literature sometimes,” said Oksana. “It’s good for your brain.”
“I read literature,” I said. “I have you know just last night I finished a novel.”
“Let me guess: Was it about spaceships, galactic wars, and sexy alien slaves?” Kurt asked.
“No,” I said triumphantly. “It was about vampires and monsters, sort of Dracula meets Frankenstein, with sexy human slaves.”
Kurt shot another man. “You’re hopeless.”
“This is what I get for helping out with a good cause,” I said, pretending to be offended.
SH-1 - August 5, 2048
As soon as the doctors opened Maada’s cast and told him he could use his right hand, he went to his office, sat behind his desk, and overwhelmed with grief, stared at the list of casualties on his PDD.
Such a long list.
More than twenty-five thousand men and women under his command had died in the enemy surprise attack. He had never lost so many of his people in a single battle. He had failed them all. By being so criminally unprepared, he had played a major role in their death, even more so than the enemy. He was determined to avenge them by finding and killing every single person responsible for their slaughter; still, he would carry this on his conscience until the day he died.
Writing so many letters to the families of the fallen soldiers would take a few days. Let this be the beginning of your punishment, he thought.
He was about to start writing when the door to his office opened, and Mushgaana walked in. Maada rose to his feet, surprised. The prince had never come to his office before. If he needed something done, he would summon the general, or send him a telepathic message.
“I had asked the doctors to inform me when they open your cast,” said Mushgaana. “I thought you could use some help writing all those condolence letters.”
Maada bowed his head in respect, an inch or two more than usual. The only thing more honorable than receiving a hand-written letter from the commander of the fleet was receiving one from the crown prince himself. His office was as Spartan as it got, but he did have a couple of extra chairs for the occasional visitor. He grabbed a chair and placed it next to his. Mushgaana sat down, and the two of them, shoulder to shoulder, started writing.
Winterfell - August 10, 2048
Elizabeth said, “Popcorn’s ready.”
“Where the hell did you get popcorn from?” asked Oksana.
They were in Elizabeth and Jim’s quarters. Elizabeth, who had just found out neither Oksana nor Keiko had watched the movie made about Jim’s life, had invited them over to watch it together. She turned on the hologram TV and told the others, “I asked Barook to change the movie’s format so we could watch it on this.”
When the movie started, Keiko rolled her eyes. “Superman in a Cockpit? Could it be any lamer?”
“The lead actor doesn’t look like Jim,” said Oksana. “And he doesn’t sound like Jim either. What kind of an accent is that?”
“Southern,” Elizabeth answered. “Jim was born in Atlanta. He can switch between his Southern and New York accent at will, but he doesn’t normally talk like a Southerner.”
“So the reason behind this whole you-are-a-racist gag you guys were laughing about the other day is he was born in the South?” Oksana asked.
Elizabeth laughed. “Nope. That’s one of Tarq’s masterpieces. Apparently, when MICI reads your mind, it can also see what your pet peeves are. Once Tarq found out Jim is
overly sensitive to being called a racist, he started teasing him non-stop, and the rest of us just went with it.”
Oksana smiled. “You guys are evil.” She asked Elizabeth, “What is your pet peeve? Being called fat? I’ve noticed you barely touch your food when you eat in the mess hall.”
“And yours isn’t? I’ve noticed you spend half of your time in the gym.”
They drank wine, ate popcorn and watched the movie. Keiko complained incessantly throughout. She said the whole thing was unrealistic, there were many factual errors, and, “They made it look like I shot him down by accident. I managed it because I’m a better fighter pilot than he is.”
“Make sure you never repeat this in front of him,” said Elizabeth. “Because he’ll kill you, and it’d be such a shame now that he’s finally warmed up to you.”
.
Rotterdam - August 13, 2048
Arminaa, leading a group of about twenty armed, stone-faced Xortaags, walked into a shopping mall. It was early evening, and the mall was full of people, mostly families with small children. Arminaa looked at a young couple and wondered why they were sucking each other’s faces. These fucking humans were so strange.
The word that the gods were visiting spread. They were soon surrounded by a big crowd, men, women, and children, bowing down and praying hysterically. A few humans knelt down in front of the Xortaags and started chanting. An old woman tried to touch Arminaa. She flinched and pushed her back.
“Disgusting, filthy animals,” Arminaa murmured.
“Disgusting, filthy dead animals,” one of her companions answered.
They made their way to the center of the mall, where two soldiers put down a machine they were carrying and turned it on.
