The Tetra War

by Michael Ryan

  “Shall I call for fire, sir?” the driver asked.

  “No.” The rail-guns were busy with hard targets and infrastructure. “Get two suited infantry on this. Detach them from the Third or the Fourth – whichever is closer.”

  “Sir.”

  The heli-jet hovered in front of the transport. “Nothing unusual out there, sir,” the pilot said. “Your primary’s ammo is at near capacity, so I can burn through some rounds if you’d like.”

  “Negative. Hold your position and let the infantry work the soft targets.”

  “Sir.” The heli-jet rose three hundred meters above the rooftops.

  Two minutes later, two TCI-Armored soldiers approached the transport and stood at attention.

  “Your orders, sir?” the lead armor asked.

  “You have a CFMG?”

  “Roger that, sir. Shall we set it up?”

  “Affirmative. Program to conserve bolts, Sergeant. Let’s see how well you can do.”

  The infantry soldiers mounted a centrifugal force machine gun to a section of the road. The programmer took an extra moment to adjust his firing sequence, but the results were reflected in his accuracy. The crowd fell in a smooth wave from left to right. The bolts, one per enemy, were placed center mass into the backs of the fleeing residents.

  After twenty seconds, the gun stopped.

  “Sir, there’s a bend in the tunnel about half a click deep. Shall we proceed?” The soldier fired his assault Gauss every couple of seconds at the few survivors moving among the thousands of dead.

  “Negative. Return to your squad.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The pair broke down their weapon, and the major sighed. “Call for fire on the tunnel,” he said to the driver.

  The transport backed away.

  A breath later, a bright orange fireball exploded from the tunnel mouth. A second passed, and smoke belched from the opposite end. The rail-guns fired additional HE rounds between the columns of smoke, and the entire structure collapsed.

  “I’m going to miss working with seasoned professionals,” the major said.

  “Sir?”

  “Never mind. Drive us back.”

  An hour later, Balestain carried a single duffle bag down the hall of the command center, where a small group of his men were waiting by the loading area.

  “Sir, is this everything?” a corporal asked.

  “That’s it,” he said, handing the bag to the corporal. “I’ve enough souvenirs in my memories.”

  Newly promoted Major Hallscontia extended his hand. “It’s been a pleasure.”

  “Indeed,” Balestain said. “I trust you’ll continue enthusiastically prosecuting the enemy for their crimes, Major.”

  “Sir, with pleasure.”

  Major Balestain left Earth’s atmosphere the following morning. The starship was escorted by six fighter-class ships in spite of the fact that engagements in space were rare in this phase of the war. The Guritain doctrine was that the success rate wasn’t worth the considerable expense involved.

  Once settled into his cabin, he ordered steak and eggs. A steward brought them on an alloy tray, and he ate alone. The eggs were slightly overcooked, the edges singed to a brown crisp, and as he chewed them, he closed his eyes, his mind filled with conflicted memories of his mother, who’d also routinely burned his meals. The widow of a decorated lieutenant killed during the Amazonian conflicts, she’d been a patriotic Tedesconian, one of the many who’d refused to leave New Bailyonne during the Contober Offensive.

  When the city fell, she was imprisoned along with twenty-five thousand Tedesconian wives, mothers, sisters, and girlfriends. Eleven months after the metropolis was overrun by Gurt and human forces, Abast Balestain was born.

  His mother had encouraged him to become a soldier.

  Exemplary work in the officer training program brought not only an early promotion, but also enabled him to get his records scrubbed. Nobody except his doctor and a few of the senior officers were aware of his human heritage. The source of his paternal DNA was a shameful secret he left in the past.

  Two weeks after setting foot on the starship, Balestain attended a briefing with nine senators and a handful of consultants, where the command staff explained the reason he’d been recalled to Purvas.

  “We’ve been working on a new weapon, Major,” General Bolfenter began. “You’re going to be impressed.”

  “Impressing me isn’t easy,” Balestain said.

  A holographic presentation flickered to life, and the room darkened.

  Two hours later, Balestain stood. Unable to hold back a smile, he said, “I’m cautiously optimistic.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  False prophets sell deception, and multitudes purchase death.

  ~ Holy Writs of Vahobra, 37:19

  The Invasion of 2221 wasn’t really an invasion, if you subscribe to the theory that Captain Veersaltious was only an explorer and not part of an imperialist race of aliens that had come to Earth to destroy humanity. My grandfather told me many stories of growing up under Gurt-imposed martial law. He died only a few years ago, while I was killing Teds in some forgotten skirmish. I remember having long talks about politics, philosophy, religion, and alien colonization when I was a teen.

  “The Gurts and Teds are little different than the British in their day. Or the Americans. Or the Greeks and Romans. If you go back far enough in history, the same story repeats itself. I think purvasts and humans are the same species,” he said to me one summer vacation. I was staying at his mountain retreat after my mother died, away from even the little neighboring towns he continued to call “too crowded” right up until his passing.

  “How can that be?” I asked.

  “I don’t know, but your grandmother and I made your mother.”

  “You think purvasts came to Earth a long time ago?”

  “That’s one theory.”

  “You think it means there’s a god?”

  “I think it means the opposite.”

  “Why?”

  “If there is a deity, it seems he or she would have communicated with us.”

  “Maybe there’s a god like the deists believe; you know, one that doesn’t communicate.”

  “Well, then,” he said, “how would that be different than atheism? There’s the same amount of proof for either, if that’s the case.”

  I didn’t know then, and I don’t know now. After the arrival of a species very similar to humans, many of the older religions declined rapidly into obscurity, but in their place dozens of new ones based upon “science” and “alien gods” popped up.

  The aliens brought diseases against which humans didn’t have immunity. If the purvasts had come for conquest, there would have been few weapons more effective than the flu bugs they brought and the deadly viruses stowed away in the livestock they shipped to Earth as part of their colonization efforts.

  Plagues killed billions of humans within a generation.

  “Grandpa, do you think the Tedesconians and the Errusiakos are bad?” I asked.

  “Why would you think that?” he responded, smiling slightly at the sort of question only an eight-year-old would ask.

  “That’s what the kids are saying at school.”

  He nodded slowly. “They are, are they?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, what do you think?” he asked me. I always loved that my grandfather would talk to me as if I were an adult, even when I was a I child.

  “We’re in a war,” I stated matter-of-factly, as if that settled the discussion.

  “This is true,” Grandpa said. “Tell me, do you think that the children in Tedescony think you’re bad?”

  “Why would they?”

  “You’re a citizen of a country that’s at war with them.”

  I frowned in concentration. “But I’m only eight.”

  “Are you bad?”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “But I’m not a soldier.”

  “What if you were
a soldier?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Would you fight honorably and do your sworn duty?”

  “What’s sworn duty?”

  “It’s when you make an oath to follow the commands of your superiors and to fight within the rules of engagement.”

  “I guess, Grandpa. Can I have something to eat?”

  “Of course. We’ll discuss this later, once you have a full stomach.”

  ~~~

  For nearly two decades, the three alien races divided up Earth’s spoils with minimal conflict. Faced with superior alien weaponry and the mounting toll from disease, humanity never had a real chance to fight against the decisions made by the colonizing forces.

  Then, in 2240 HCE, a Guritain senator was assassinated. History is unclear whether it was the Tedesconians or someone inside the Guritain government, but it sparked a war that lasted over sixty-five years.

  I once asked my grandfather if he thought a human had been the unknown assassin.

  “I doubt it,” he said. “The security and technological advances they had over humans suggests that’s just a conspiracy theory.”

  “But it’s possible?”

  “Son, anything is possible,” he said. “But I highly doubt that particular idea.”

  “But weren’t there human resistance groups?”

  He grunted assent. “There still are.”

  I chewed my lower lip. “They aren’t very effective.”

  “There was no chance for humans to stand up to the purvasts, any more than Montezuma could have resisted Cortés.”

  “Who?”

  “You need to read more history,” he answered.

  “I don’t have time. My schedule’s already impossible, and I have finals in a week.”

  “Montezuma was an Aztec emperor with a massive kingdom that stretched from modern Mexico to the areas that are now called Central Guritoanland. Cortés came from a country called Spain.”

  I brightened at the familiar word. “I know about Spain. I did a report in school. They were once a great superpower who ruled the seas and discovered the Americas.”

  “Yes. That should remind you that nobody stays in power forever.”

  “So what happened?”

  “Cortés and other Europeans like him came with superior technology…and disease. They conquered the New World without any serious resistance from the natives. Spain’s troubles and concerns came from other Old World powers, like Portugal, the Dutch, England, and France. Eventually the United States became a force of their own to be reckoned with, and drove the Spanish from the Americas, but it took many years.”

  ~~~

  One day, when I’d just turned eleven, I was playing at the park when a group of boys approached me and asked me if I was a spawn.

  “I don’t know,” I answered truthfully. I’d heard the word, and I knew it was a slur, but I had no idea what it meant.

  “You’re not human,” one of the boys said.

  “Yes I am,” I said.

  “No, your mama is half-breed garbage and your daddy was an alien fucker.”

  My expression darkened. “Don’t talk about my mom.”

  “What are you going to do about it, spawn-boy?” someone taunted, pushing me to the ground.

  I tried to stand. Another kid punched me in the head, and then a third boy kicked me in the ribs. I screamed for help and tears formed in my eyes.

  “Spawn-baby,” someone chanted.

  “Move to the city, spawn-baby, we don’t want you here,” a girl I had once thought was cute shouted from the sidelines.

  I tried to get up, and another kid, some years older than me, kicked me in the head again. This time I blacked out. The next day my mother pulled me out of school and told my grandfather that she was taking me to the city, where it was safe.

  “Why do they hate me, Grandpa?” I asked.

  “They fear you,” he answered without hesitation.

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re different.”

  “But…so?”

  “It’s the nature of man to hate and fear what he doesn’t understand.”

  “But I’m just a kid.”

  “You’re one-quarter purvast, Avery,” he said. “Never forget that. One-fourth of your genes came from another planet.”

  “But so what, Grandpa? I’m still just a kid.”

  “Do you know why you’re an only child?”

  “No.”

  “Sometime after you were born, the Guritain government outlawed the mixing of purvasts and humans.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. They forced your mother and all the other half-human, half-purvasts to accept a medical procedure to ensure that they couldn’t have children.”

  “The Velreratent Act?” I asked, struggling to pronounce the name of the senator who’d introduced and supported the law.

  “Yes,” he said, nodding. “You’ve read about it?”

  “A little. People were afraid that some kind of disease or something would happen.”

  “That was only a story for the naive. Mixing genetic material nearly always makes a species stronger, not weaker. No, the government was worried because in large numbers, the mixed races would yield political power, and nobody was certain whether people like you would side with the purvasts or with the humans.”

  “I’m a Guritain citizen. Someday I’ll be able to vote.”

  “Exactly,” my grandfather said. “What if there were a hundred million of you reaching maturity in a few short years? The unpredictability made it easy to outlaw crossbreeding in the name of public safety. There weren’t enough like your mother to protest.” He looked away. “I don’t think she ever got over it.”

  “I’m human too, right?”

  “Yes, you’re human. And purvast. And a Guritain citizen as well. More importantly, you’re a good person, Avery. You have to remember that. Character is more important than DNA.”

  ~~~

  When I was fifteen, I had my first real date.

  Her name was Melony, and I was sure I’d be with her forever.

  I approached her house with my heart beating so hard I thought it might jump out of my chest. I pressed a doorbell set into a porcelain tile embossed with a four-leaf clover.

  Melony’s mom answered the door.

  “Hello,” I said.

  “Welcome to our home, Avery,” Mrs. Martinez said to me, holding the front door open so I could enter.

  “Please don’t be nervous, son,” Mr. Martinez said, and took my coat and motioned for me to sit.

  I gave Melony an awkward smile. She’d warned me that her parents were strict traditionalists. They offered me a soda and chatted about school and hobbies, and lightly touched on politics and religion. I’d rehearsed my answers so that I wouldn’t have to lie, while disclosing as little as possible. I felt I was an agnostic at the time, and I wasn’t sure about my politics. I was generally in favor of the ruling party, but then again, I was only fifteen and had no real-life experience.

  When we were finally dismissed, and her father reminded me that Melony had to be home by 11:30, my hands were sweaty. The toe of my new department-store shoes I’d saved up and bought for the meeting caught in the area rug and I tripped when I rose off the sofa. Red-faced and wanting to be anywhere else, I apologized profusely, as if I’d done something wrong. I walked out the door, forgetting in my embarrassment that I’d left my date behind.

  “Aren’t you going to wait for me?” Melony asked from the doorway.

  “Oh, yes, of course, I mean, sorry, I just–”

  “It’s okay, Avery,” she said. She pulled the door closed behind her and walked to me, her face smooth and radiant and beautiful as only the young are, her eyes as dazzling as diamonds in the warm glow of the porch light. “I understand they’re overbearing. I’m sorry.”

  We ordered a car and went downtown. The city was vibrant and crowded. The air was filled with both strange and familiar food smells, and we walked hand
in hand for hours, tasting samples from street vendors and eventually settling on Errusiakos barbecue sold by an old woman who gave us a small discount when she discovered we were on our first date. I can still recall the scents, the sounds, and the feeling of confidence I felt sitting outdoors on a wooden stool in the middle of a city populated by millions, sure that I had the prettiest girl in the world by my side.

  We dated for a year before she invited me to her bed on her sixteenth birthday.

  It was awkward and embarrassing, but we eventually found our rhythm, and by the time she was seventeen, I was certain we’d be married. It was sometime in our last year of junior college, before her eighteenth birthday, that her parents found out about my heritage. I never discovered how they learned the truth about my mixed blood, but I’ve always suspected that a school administrator with privileges to view my records spilled the secret in a misplaced gesture toward the Martinez family.

  During this period, the Guritain authorities only permitted a woman to give birth to one female child.

  Males weren’t restricted, but due to the imbalance, male heirs usually went to live with their wives, assuming they were charming or handsome or rich enough to get one…or they joined the military, which generally meant an early death.

  Melony was the Martinez’s one chance to have an extended family, so in retrospect I don’t blame them for forbidding her to see me. I was devastated at the time, but it ultimately played a huge role in why I joined the military and how I came to meet Callie. This doesn’t mean I believe in fate or gods or anything like that, but I did begin to believe Callie and I were meant to be together after I fell in love with her.

  During the second year of my military service, the Velreratent Act was amended to allow any surviving veteran, regardless of race or species, to produce offspring with any willing partner. During our time of service, we were, of course, rendered infertile, but the idea of settling down with Callie and producing offspring on a colony planet, where there were no restrictions on family size, began to grow on me more as the war raged on and as young men and women continued to die.