by Sarah Snyder
“Lieutenant, who killed these people? Who killed the civilians?” Sawyer pressed for an answer to his question, taking notes on the man’s ranting as he focused on the subject he needed clarification on first.
“We did.”
“We did, why?” Sawyer’s throat closed, his lungs burning with the lack of oxygen.
“Field testing,” the Lieutenant took another large swallow of alcohol.
“The people in the dwelling district.” Sawyer didn’t phrase the words as a question, but the Lieutenant nodded his head anyway.
“There was no blood.” Wil denied, his head shaking in refusal of the Lieutenant’s claims before his eyes widened in understanding. “They’ve been dead long enough for the rain to wash it away.”
Sawyer’s heart thundered in his battered ears as nausea threatened to erupt in a volcano of disgust. “You killed them, for a demonstration?”
“Not me directly, but I gave the order. The rest of the higher Admins thought if the TSS saw how effective it was, they would send a transport down for the rest of us. Less risk of Alien Disorder infection if only we’re left, right? It was stupid. Why would they come? They have what they need.” Lieutenant Pierce sighed and closed his eyes, his head lolling back against the aluminum wall he sat against with a loud ping. The man sat up with a start, swaying with the movement as he glared up at Wil. “You! You’re Dehring’s boy, aren’t you?”
Wil’s jaw worked as he clenched his teeth, the tension in his body tightening visibly as he gave a curt nod in response. A sickening hoot of laughter sprayed Bourbon-tainted saliva from the Lieutenant’s lips. “What’s so funny?” Wil’s question was met with another chuckle and the Lieutenant’s slap of his thigh with his empty hand.
“You,” the Lieutenant pointed at Wil with his bottle of bourbon, “were supposed to be on that last shuttle. They made me give up my seat for you. Dehring’s boy, but here you are! Still on this shithole planet with me!”
“I’m not going anywhere, least of all with my trus father,” Wil’s spit erupted from his lips as the word ‘father’ did from his tongue.
Lieutenant Pierce grew silent and serious at the insult Wil placed with his father’s name. After a moment, the Lieutenant nodded and smiled at Wil sadly; “yes, boy, yes he is. A coward; a traitor.”
“What did he do this time?” Wil sneered. “Other than take your seat on the last transport off this dump.”
“Your old man sold me out; sold us all out,” his chuckle was heavy and dark, not light as it was when speaking of his weapon. “He went up to the TSS and told them we were making these weapons. Didn’t matter that we were doing it to protect their settlements, or that we would have given them the plans for the right incentives. All they cared is that they didn’t have the deadliest weapon in the universe anymore.”
“We can’t let them have this technology,” Wil looked toward Sawyer with a distressed look on his face.
“If they have your father, they have the technology,” Lieutenant Pierce scoffed. “He invented it.”
Wil went oddly still, drawing Sawyer’s gaze to ensure the man was still breathing. His chest jerked once, twice, before laughter erupted from his core with a force that doubled him over. “My father? My father invented that? Not a chance.”
“Yeah, I guess the TSS didn’t believe him either, which is why your trus father went to Beta Sect and offered it to them. If he’d kept his mouth shut, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”
“They’re the ones firebombing us?”
“Probably, as soon as those assholes found out about the pulse tech, they had higher aspirations than this dump. Those bastards took over one of the TSS transports.”
“They what?” Wil’s eyes widened at the information. “What are they thinking? The TSS won’t sit with that; they’ll strike back.”
“Exactly the plan. They were content letting us kill ourselves slowly before. Now, Beta Sect has a means off-world and soon they’ll have the pulse weapon.” Lieutenant Pierce tried to stand, but sat down hard as his legs proved useless. He didn’t notice how quickly Wil turned his pistol on him until he was back into his seated position. He laughed at the sight and pulled out his own. “I’ve got me one of them too, boy. Want to see who’s a faster draw?”
“I guarantee I am, Lieutenant,” Wil’s usual arrogant tone was replaced by a darkness Sawyer hadn’t heard before.
“Probably,” the Lieutenant conceded, placing his gun in his lap with a sigh. “It doesn’t matter now anyway. We’ll all be dead soon.”
“What do you mean?” Sawyer’s gut twisted with the man’s slurred information.
“The order for a purge came in this morning after the transport was taken,” Lieutenant Pierce offered his bottle to first Sawyer and then Wil. Both men refused, and he shrugged and finished off the last of its contents. “It was set for noon, so they could gather the rest of the Admins and command staff, but they moved it up to dawn. As soon as Beta Sect turned on us and sent in their squads, it became too heated for the TSS to risk their precious transports. Their phase canon will emit a blast powerful enough to wipe out this whole sector – from here to Beta Sect. The EMP following the initial blast will kill all tech on the planet. No Beta Sect, no tech, no threat to their precious Tritons region.”
Sawyer sat on the hard floor of the storage facility, the coolness of the aluminum seeping up through his dampened clothing and chilling what little heat remained from his body. “They’re seriously just going to wipe us all out? There are families here, women and children, innocent civilians who have no part in this war,” Sawyer felt a bubble of rage rise up in his throat at the unjust actions of their species.
“You think they care? Hellfire, boy, Flamouria was never a long-term possibility; no sustainability. Look around; what do we have? Rocks, mud, and a few scrub trees? We can’t survive without the constant supply drops from the TSS. Any useful resources were used up in the first five years of settlement. We were supposed to abandon this place then!”
“But we didn’t,” Sawyer shook his head as he processed the information. “They must have seen a reason to stay.”
“Yeah, they did,” the Lieutenant nodded, his look pitying of what he saw as Sawyer’s naïve ignorance. “A way to appease the masses. Alien disorder was already rampant then, why would they risk bringing us back? You know what my mission was when I transferred here? Contain the savages until the Tritons region could be established. Well guess what? Job’s done.”
“Then why don’t they just leave; go and let us in peace?” Sawyer’s last remaining optimism and faith in the Administration withered. “We’ll die off eventually anyway.”
“That was the plan at first, but it wasn’t fast enough. The overstock and trade routes would sustain this place for a few more decades. The best option was war. Now, well, they can’t risk leaving us now, not after Beta Sect took that transport and we created that,” Lieutenant Pierce nodded in the direction of the weapon his administrative scientists created. “The savages might find a way off world. They might build weapons and start a war in the civilized areas of space. Best to make sure no vessel on the planet makes it off-world.”
“We may have been born on Flamouria, but we’re still human,” Sawyer didn’t believe his words. He didn’t feel human; he didn’t want to feel human: able to abandon his people, to purge them from existence from the safety of orbit.
“We’re not humans to them anymore; we’re no better than the animals and savages,” Lieutenant Pierce sighed again, picking up his pistol and cocking it with a resigned slowness.
“Put it down, Lieutenant,” Wil ordered, cocking his own weapon in response.
“I’ve heard the TSS cannon doesn’t kill quick. You see it coming. You can feel the heat – smell the singe of your hairs and burning of your flesh – before it reaches you. I won’t go out like that,” the Lieutenant ignored Wil’s command. “I’m sorry, you weren’t here for the field test. It was quick and precise. They didn’t feel an
y pain. Hellfire, they didn’t even know what hit them. It was mercy.”
“Mercy? Killing these men is mercy?” Wil’s voice shook with the rage and disgust he tried to suppress, but his hand remained steady on his pistol; his aim never wavered. “I don’t care how you classify it. You’re no better than the Admins in that space station about to vaporize everyone down here.”
“None of us are any better than them,” the Lieutenant looked off into the distance for a moment, his gaze wistful as he remembered some far away, pleasant experience. “It’s a shame. I was hoping to watch my little girls grow up.”
“Lieutenant Pierce, there has to be a way to stop this,” Sawyer insisted, the thought of his brother’s life ending was unacceptable. “Help me stop this.”
“It can’t be stopped, boy,” Lieutenant Pierce looked at him pitifully.
“We all have family we want to see grow up. I have a little brother, remember? He deserves to grow up, just like your girls,” Sawyer was sickened at the man’s willingness to accept their fate. “We can talk to the TSS and work something out. Surely they would be willing to at least transport women and children off world.”
“They already did,” the Lieutenant smiled sadly.
“They were on that transport you were kicked off, weren’t they?” Wil shook as he spoke, enlightenment hitting him the same time it did Sawyer.
“I’m sorry you’ll watch your brother die,” Lieutenant Pierce sighed, his eyes struggling to stay open as he finished speaking. “Take my advice, son. Take that pulse weapon and do it yourself. It’s quicker; more humane. You don’t have to watch him burn.”
With those final words, Lieutenant Henry Pierce raised the pistol to his temple and – amid shouted demands to stop from the two, younger men – pulled the trigger. The vibration pinged around the metal facility, offering cruel emphasis as the Lieutenant slumped against the blood-sprayed wall.
Wil holstered his pistol. “What do we do now?”
Sawyer opened his mouth to answer, but no sound came. The lights seemed too bright, the air too thick, and the skin over his bones too tight; nothing fit in its place – nothing felt right. Every belief he held, every comfort he claimed, every confidence he kept disintegrated; specks of ash in the thick, acrid smoke drifting up to vanish in the night sky.
A loud tone startled them from their shock, drawing attention to a flashing console behind Wil. Wires extended from a monitor to connect a speaker and communications panel; a red light flashing on the controls insistently as it summoned them closer. Sawyer moved to answer the call, but stopped at Wil’s insistence; “Wait, I’ll do it. Maybe my last name still means something.”
Sawyer stayed beyond the monitor’s view as it sprung to life with a crackle of static. Senior Administrator Fischer Dehring’s face appeared on the screen, his complexion ashen with dark rings beneath his eyes. “Wilhelm! What are you doing there?”
“I’m still on world.”
“Yes, I can see that. I secured a seat for you on the last transport.” S.A. Dehring’s voice shook with fear, frustration, and fury.
“Yeah, guess I missed it,” Wil excused his presence with a shrug.
“I guess,” S.A. Dehring changed the subject with the clearing of his throat. “Is Lieutenant Pierce there?”
“Yes, he is.”
S.A. Dehring shifted anxiously, his eyes darting around his environment and avoiding Wil’s stare. “Put him on.”
“Can’t; he’s dead.”
A look of shocked terror crossed the senior Dehring’s expression, his words stuttering and disjointed: “What? How?”
“Took his own life.”
“He did. Well, that’s,” SA Dehring straightened his posture, a renewed mask of haughty civility on his face, “unfortunate.”
“Yeah, I see how tore up you are,” sarcasm tainted Wil’s sugar-soaked speech.
“Is his second-in-command there; any Senior Admins?”
“They’re all dead; Lieutenant Pierce killed them to field test a prototype weapon.”
“Is that so? And, this weapon the Lieutenant used, is it there?” The excitement in his father’s eyes visibly solidified the ice around Wil’s heart. Sawyer knew Wil held no misconception of Fischer Dehring’s true purpose: the pulse weapon offered technology beyond any power held through the universe. The addition of the pulse technology to the Administration’s current power would give them a power no human should hold. Incorporating the tech into a weapon the size of the TSS’s cannon would destroy a planet through to the core; a true world killer.
Sawyer expected Wil’s answer – “It was destroyed” – as his friend effectively signed their death orders.
“Oh, well, are the pieces still there?” An eerie stillness filled the room, settling over the dead weapon.
“Nope, burned up. Lots of fires down here right now.” Artificial light flared against the prototype’s metal body.
S.A. Dehring repeated his earlier statement: “Well, that’s unfortunate.”
“Yeah, it is,” Wil shook his head, his lips quirking at the first sincerity from the man in the monitor. “I’m sure you can replicate it, right? I mean, you invented it, didn’t you? Not like you just signed your name on someone else’s work and let Lieutenant Pierce kill everyone down here to cover it up.”
“Right, of course,” SA Dehring’s mask of superiority cracked; a fissure he couldn’t repair. “Son.”
“Don’t, don’t ever,” Wil flipped off the monitor without farewell, staring at the black screen for several, silent seconds.
“Wil?”
“We came here for a purpose,” Wil cleared his throat, cutting the emotion from his voice as effectively as he’d cut his father from the communication screen and his life. “We should gather the supplies and get back.”
“Wil, you know what’s going to happen at dawn. It doesn’t matter if we fix the cannon on that wreck or not. It’s no match for what they’re hitting us with.”
“I know there are going to be a lot of Beta Sect assholes coming through that fence come daylight looking for a pulse weapon; a weapon the TSS believes is destroyed.”
“When the TSS fires that cannon, nobody will survive.”
“The TSS canon will wipe out all life from here to Beta Sect, but it won’t destroy that gun,” Wil pointed toward the weapon to make his point. “Someone will find it, someone will fix it, someone will find a place to use it, and the Administration will be powerless to stop it.”
“You don’t want to give it to them,” Sawyer’s tone was doubtful, his own view on the matter clear.
“Hellfire, no! Can you imagine what could be done with that tech in the wrong hands?” Wil shuddered at the thought. “The only way to make sure that doesn’t happen is to destroy it – turn it to ash – and the only force we have strong enough to destroy it…”
“Is that old cannon.”
“You go grab the fuel cells Crazy Carl wanted; we may as well let the kook feel he’s making a difference. It’s his last night on Flamouria, too.”
Sawyer placed two fuel cells on the communication table as Wil dropped a pile of ammunitions and firearms beside them with a clatter. Looking at the supplies, Sawyer questioned his choices; “What are you taking those for? The only weapons we need are the prototype and the cannon.”
“You never know,” Wil shrugged, a childish glee in his slight smile as he ran a hand over the hard steel of the rifles and pistols in front of him. With a cough and a shake, the man added a box of MREs before he noticed Sawyer’s raised brow. “What?”
“And those; the MREs?”
“I’m hungry,” Wil shrugged.
Sawyer shook his head and turned to retrieve the final item they needed: the abandoned pulse weapon. The weapon gave Sawyer an uneasy sense of power; as light as plastic, only her cool, metallic sheen told of her deadly capabilities. A wave of depression descended onto Sawyer’s shoulders, unable to meet Wil’s eyes as he added the prototype to the pile of weapons.
“What is it?”
“Nothing, let’s get out of here.”
“Sawyer,” guilt flared in Wil’s anxious gaze. “I’m sorry. I had no right to choose for you.”
“Shut up, man,” Sawyer placed a forgiving hand on Wil’s shoulder. “You did the right thing. There is no positive solution for this mess; either way we’re dead. And, well, if I’m going to die – if you and Mav are going to die – then it’s damn well going to mean something. Now, let’s get out of here.”
“Yeah, I guess we should get back to the turd,” Wil loaded his two duffels on his shoulders as Sawyer hoisted each fuel cell on a hip. “What are you going to tell him?”
Sawyer stopped midstride, tormented by indecision; “I’ll figure it out on the way back.”
Sawyer spared a momentary glance to ensure their safety before exiting the building, anxious to leave the stale, suffocating odor of copper and decay. Clouds wept over the remains of humanity’s settlement, creating a maze of puddles. The fires were low – only twisted, glowing metal and ember – as they crossed the courtyard and passed the dwellings, but what remained heated the air uncomfortably. Sawyer was relieved to escape civilization; the smells of cinder and burning metals, flickering lights, and red glow of destruction chased them into the night.
Chapter 5. Promise
The ground was more liquid than solid – the pull of shifting sludge on his boots, the cold chill of damp clothing, and the strain of carrying heavy bags of supplies made the trek frustratingly slow – but Sawyer felt confident crossing the treacherous marsh. The moons’ descent illuminated streaks of metal through rust, distorting the abandoned building into a low-lighted beacon for his focus. The smell of moist dirt was more comfort than deterrent, and he inhaled deeply, noting an odd sweetness beneath the standard rot. The fog swirled as they passed, clearing for a moment to blind him with a brilliant moment of life.
Flowers floated on the puddles, shuddering in the chilled air to clean their pink and gray petals of their muddy beginnings to glitter silver in the moons’ light. Unopened buds surrounded the blooming lotuses, their pink and gray streaks reflecting in the thick water. The indentations created from their earlier altercation were deep, clear pools, crowded with new life and expectation. Sawyer stopped before disrupting the puddle at the base of the step, grabbing Wil’s arm to stop his anxious ascent; “Wil, wait.”
