by Matt Roberts
Just remember this: we’re all soldiers now, even those of you who don’t fight on the field. Soldiers die – there’s no escaping that – but we’re also survivors. I don’t know what any of you went through to get here but I know it wasn’t easy. Every last one of you made it through hell to get this far so don’t lie down now, no matter how desperate our situation seems. Make sure that if you die, you die for something, whatever you choose that to be. Just make sure you don’t die because you didn’t have the guts to fight. Make sure Kendrick Shaw didn’t die for nothing.”
“Any word on Bravo Squad?” Owyn asked.
Operations was now back to being as busy as always with just Owyn and Sully remaining. Owyn was still sat at the top of the steps looking down on Sully, who had been busily at work on the IC ever since everyone else had departed.
Naturally, he’d already done his research. “They’ve gone dark,” he answered, continuing to type with his eyes fixed on the screen while he spoke. “Looks like they cut communications when Bauer took control of the station, suggesting they’ve at least got an idea of what’s going on.”
“Wouldn’t the DPD already know where they were stationed? Isn’t it just as likely Bauer got to them before he took HQ?”
“Possibly, but can we be sure they were on a DPD assignment?”
Somehow the thought hadn’t even crossed Owyn’s mind that, while so separated from the rest of ISO, Bravo Squad could have been under Ambrose’ direct control the whole time. He dropped his head into his hands. “Dammit,” he cursed.
“Everything about them is so well covered up I’ve got nothing to go off. They could have been taken out months ago for all I know and I can’t find any evidence that Miller even made contact with them while he was here. Even that doesn’t give us much; the data may just have been wiped to stop anyone tracking them. All we can do is assume they’re gone until they contact us.”
Owyn’s list of allies wasn’t growing any longer, that was for sure. It wasn’t like he expected a saviour to appear out of the blue and drag them from the jaws of death, but he needed something – something to inspire him.
He sighed, still drawing a blank. “Get some rest, Sully. We’ll be able to think more clearly in the morning.”
Sully carried on working, not appearing to take any notice.
“Sully,” Owyn repeated a little more loudly.
After one more brief moment of defiance his hands slowly crept away from the console then he climbed to his feet and plodded his way to the door.
“We’ll make it through this.” Owyn tried to offer some words of encouragement, but Sully was smart enough to see that he didn’t really believe them himself. He paused momentarily in the doorway, looked back towards Owyn, then walked out.
Once Sully’s footsteps had faded away into the distance Owyn found himself alone in Operations, accompanied only by the muted humming of all the screens and other electronics surrounding him. He descended from his perch and approached the IC. As the holographic image of Altaris rotated above it he gazed over the simulation of the Tajari desert.
It was a blank slate; completely and utterly empty. There was no sign of the facility he had destroyed or anything else like it. It just begged the question: what else was the DPD hiding? More than that, what else had he been missing, trapped up here allowed only snapshots of what the planet had to offer? What else was down there on the surface, beyond the confines of the cities? A clean planet was something neither he nor any of these people had ever seen before joining ISO. Where Owyn had lived had been one of the least damaged places on Earth but all he ever saw was the forest. He’d never seen mountains, snow or even the sea. Altaris had all of those things yet he’d never been allowed to see them. Most of what he saw were dark city streets and rooftops with only rare glimpses of sunlight, though still confined to strictly urban settings.
Altaris was filled with sights and experiences so different to Earth, yet Owyn barely lived any differently than if he’d stayed with XION. He, like everyone else here, had known exactly what they were getting into – he didn’t exactly come for the promise of a new world – but it was hard not to wonder what it would be like to live down there on the surface.
With laboured strides he climbed the stairs to the Commanding Officer’s quarters. He hadn’t any real intention of taking up residence, but he had a newfound longing to get another good look at the view of Altaris in case this was his last chance. Besides, it wasn’t as though he was going to be able to sleep, so he’d rather spend the night gazing out of the window than staring at the back of his eyelids.
The door slid closed behind him and he approached the window overlooking the planet. He slid down to the floor, clasped his arms around his knees and let his head rest against the ice cold glass. Kyvos was just about to disappear over the horizon, while morning was just breaking over the snow draped mountains surrounding the city of Tahgos in the north. Part of the Tajari desert was in view, looking just as barren as its holographic replica. The surrounding seas, sparkling with Novus’ light, reflected a rich, pure blue, so unlike the murky grey waters Owyn had looked back on as the ship departed Earth at the start of his three year journey through space.
A gentle knock at the door disrupted the silence. Owyn stayed exactly where he was, reluctant to admit his presence, but a moment later the door opened anyway. O’Brien came quietly over to join him and kneeled down at the other end of the window. She stayed silent, drinking in her first experience of the view. Owyn didn’t do anything to acknowledge her arrival, just continued gazing aimlessly out into the vacuum.
“Nice speech,” she said. “They believed every word you said. They trust you, even after everything.”
Owyn took a few seconds before responding. “Do you?”
“Of course I do.”
Owyn finally turned his eyes away from the window to face her. “You really think I can dig us out of this mess?”
“No. There’s no way out of this; both of us know that. That’s not what I meant. I know you’ll fight for us, however much you doubt yourself. You are different than the rest of us. All most of us have ever known is being beaten into the ground over and over. Altaris was supposed to be a way out of that cycle but it’s ended up the same; that’s enough for a lot of us to want to give up. It might not feel like it right now, but you still have hope – hope that this won’t end the way it should. That’s why they’re prepared to follow you.”
“I thought you didn’t trust the man in charge,” Owyn joked.
O’Brien smiled. “You don’t have to carry this whole ship by yourself, you know. We’re family; we’ve got each other’s backs.”
Owyn raised an eyebrow. “Us; family? Really?”
“Well who else do we have? You, me, Shaw, Sully. We might not have the same blood, but we’ve had each other’s backs and trusted each other with our lives since the day we got here. I’d say that makes us family.”
Owyn’s head dropped at the mention of Shaw’s name. He rubbed his eyes and turned back to the window. “I didn’t have Shaw’s back today,” he said. “If not for you I’d have been happy to leave him there to die without even trying.”
“There wasn’t any way you could have saved him, not this time. You knew the chances of all of us being captured or killed were greater than the chances of anyone making it out of that tower alive yet you still jumped out of a moving aircraft to try. That’s the hope I’m talking about.”
“You jumped first,” he reminded her.
“I just needed to give you a little push.”
“A little push? Is that what that was?”
“It worked, didn’t it?” she shrugged.
Owyn sighed. “Honestly I’m just as lost as the rest of you. I’m not sure I’ve even got a clue what I’m supposed to do.”
“You’ll work it out. You always have before now,” O’Brien assured, not seeming to be deterred by any of his self-doubt.
“What about you? Did you think about giving
up?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“So you’re resigned to the fact we’re all going to die but you still didn’t even think about giving up? How?”
“You’ve wondered about my past, haven’t you? Where I came from, how I got here? You haven’t asked but you’re obviously curious.”
Owyn nodded tentatively.
“When I was a kid I lived with my parents out in a small community near Austin, Texas,” O’Brien began. “The whole state had gone to shit but we had it fairly easy for a while. Even before I was born – years before the war started – rebel militias had ‘liberated’ most of the state. They were too busy constantly fending off the military to be bothered by a few pacifist villagers so we lived peacefully. The problems only started when the war did. Now that insurgents were all over the country the army was spread thin. They couldn’t afford to fight the kind of force that was in Texas so they wrote it off as a lost cause.
I was 9 when they sent men from the city after us. They called us traitors for refusing to fight, burned down as many buildings as they could and killed everyone they could find. My parents hid me under the floorboards and made me promise not to move or make a sound, whatever happened, so I lay there in silence through the whole thing. They broke into our house, gunned down my Dad then took turns raping and torturing my Mom. I don’t know how long it lasted but it felt like hours. I heard every scream as her blood dripped through the cracks in the floor onto my face. Then, once they’d finished, they slit her throat, soaked them both in gasoline and set their bodies alight.”
Even describing her parents’ deaths in such vivid, gruesome detail O’Brien didn’t fluster. There was a weakness in her voice that Owyn had never heard before but she never even verged on tears. He couldn’t imagine feeling anything like what she must have felt yet he was the one with a drop running down his cheek.
“Somehow I escaped the burning building,” she continued. “I can’t remember how; it’s all just a blur of emotions and adrenaline – but I made it out and didn’t get caught. After that I curled up in a ditch somewhere and cried for hours. I’d gladly have died right there and then, but I couldn’t do it, not after what they’d done to make sure I got out of there alive. So I took the only option I had. All our crops had been burned down so I’d have starved if I tried to stay. All I could do was follow the road into the city.”
Owyn’s heart sank even further. While he’d been with XION Austin was one of a few places in the country that was completely off limits. It was a cesspool of all of the worst things about humanity and a death trap for anyone going there with the intention of being anything other than the dirt at the bottom of a violent food chain.
“When I arrived the whole city was stuck in a battle for territory between five militias. That meant the only people who dared walk the streets were armed thugs. They gave me food and water as long as I paid their price – not that I’d have had much choice if I’d refused. It was probably still pretty far from the worst way a girl my age had her innocence taken from her in that place.
The rebels weren’t really freedom fighters, at least not the ones I saw. Most of them were just using the military’s weakness as a way to gain the power to do what they wanted – no laws, no rules, nothing. Some had a real cause, sure, but most couldn’t care less about the state of their country.
I was stuck on the streets for four years before someone decided I was ‘developed enough’ to earn more than just bread and water for my services. That was the real reason they kept me alive and healthy – so that I’d grow to be attractive and desirable enough to be profitable. I was given a place to sleep and three meals a day. All I had to do to keep a roof over my head was satisfy the men who paid for me, whatever it was they wanted from me. By that point it hardly bothered me anyway. It was a job, which was more than most people had. I wasn’t going to get any happiness or fulfilment out of a life like that but I’d convinced myself I owed it to my parents not to give up on living.”
She reached down, pulled off her left boot and lifted the leg of her suit up to reveal a deep, gruesome scar all the way down from just below her knee to the bottom of her calf. “Are you still itching to find out the story behind this mess?” she asked.
Owyn had guessed by now it wasn’t a story he wanted to hear, but he was going to hear it anyway.
“When I was 16 one of the militia leaders came to the place I was staying,” O’Brien continued. “The owner lined us all up and let him pick the girl he wanted. He chose me, and apparently I impressed him. As soon as he was done he paid off the owner and took me out to his car. I’d have gone along with it, but then he decided he wanted some ‘entertainment’ for the drive home. He opened his pants and pulled my head over to his lap. Either he’d forgotten about the knife wedged down the side of his chair or he assumed I was too beaten down to think of going for it – either way I’d say he felt a little differently when he felt the blade of a knife rather than the kiss of a prostitute’s lips down there. I tried to pin him down but I wasn’t strong enough. Even through his screams he managed to pull another blade. He went for my throat but missed and dragged it through my leg instead. It’s never quite healed since.” She covered her leg up and pulled her boot back on. “Feel guilty yet?” she jested.
“A little,” Owyn replied in likewise spirit. He was beginning to realise he didn’t have to tread so carefully. However painful and horrific O’Brien’s experiences seemed to him, she wasn’t afraid to remember them. He was looking through the eyes of someone who hadn’t experienced or even seen the worst of what the war had to offer. As someone who had lived through it for half of her life she didn’t see it as the sensitive subject he did.
“I expected it to hurt more than anything, but it didn’t,” she continued again. “It barely stung compared to everything I’d endured in those past seven years. I didn’t scream or cry, even after I ripped the blade out of my own flesh and planted it in his heart. I wrapped the wound to stop the bleeding and used his clothes to cover myself up, although you’d be surprised how uncomfortable cotton and denim feel after spending more than a couple of years without being allowed anything to wear other than at clients’ requests.
I had no idea what I was doing but I guess when you’re as desperate as I was you usually find a way. I managed to drive out of the city, dump his body then get out of the state.” From one of several pouches strapped around her thigh she drew a slim, gilded blade. It was serrated with long, razor sharp barbs; it was the kind of blade that’s hardest to pull from a wound. “I even kept his knife as a souvenir.”
Owyn grimaced at the thought as she spun it around in her hand before returning it to its sheath. “What made you join the army?” he asked.
“I’d seen enough of what America would become if the rebels won to know that outcome wasn’t good for anyone. They hadn’t done much to protect me or my family but joining the army seemed like the only way I could help. I was a perfect killing machine too. 16 years old and I’d already been violently raped more times than I could remember. Every time was like cutting away another little piece of my brain until there was no person left. I was an empty shell that needed filling up, and planting a blade in that man’s heart felt like it filled a bit of that emptiness. The satisfaction I took from watching him choke on his own blood was like a drug. Killing people like him was the only thing that kept me going. You can imagine how much the army valued someone like that.”
“Do you still get satisfaction from it – from killing?”
“Not in the same way, no. After spending the rest of my teenage years killing at command it wasn’t enough anymore. I needed it to mean something. The war wasn’t going anywhere and however many shitty people I got rid of there were always more to take their place. I imagine you know the feeling. That’s why I came here; so I could fool myself into thinking I was making more of an impact.
I never changed too much. I’m still just that same, broken 16-year-old girl, just as lost a
s the day I ran from that burning building. You aren’t all that different. Neither of us have any problem taking a life. You try to justify it by convincing yourself you’re on the right side, but you only believe that because it’s what you’re told. We’re all lost and broken; that’s why we’re here. We’re the type of people ISO needed. We had no families when we arrived – no one to protect. We had nothing to fight for. All we needed was to be convinced that we had a purpose here and we’d do what we were told. No questions asked. That’s what made it so easy for Ambrose to use us.”
Owyn’s head dropped. While her own steely exterior seemed impenetrable, O’Brien could see through his skin with ease. She could even see what he had made himself blind to. Still, there was one element of her analysis that didn’t quite add up. “If you’d figured all this out then why did you keep on blindly following orders? Why not ask questions?”
“I always knew, really. At first I just didn’t care, but now I do have something to fight for – our family. Killing was just a painkiller for me. It was never going to fix me or bring me any happiness. I didn’t know what it was I needed; I think I’d just accepted I was broken for good. I shut people out for thirteen years before I finally realised it wasn’t doing me any good. Now I’ve got a new family; that’s what ISO is. We’re all in this together so I’m going to fight for all of us. That’s why I never thought about giving up.”
Owyn smiled. Perhaps she was right. He’d never thought about ISO as his family, probably because his mind had always been a little absent, but the way she put it made it sound like something worth fighting for. “The lost and broken,” Owyn said. “It’s got a decent ring to it. Might be the title of my next album.”
O’Brien shook her head in disappointment, but she was smiling too.
Owyn took a deep breath. Now, he guessed, it was his turn. “You’ve probably figured out by now that I didn’t have to live through the horrors of the war like everyone else. Miller was hardly quiet about it.”
