by Jay Korza
The last sentence made Murgag roll his eyes and the captor inched closer, now obviously a little upset. “You don’t think we care about lives, do you? I think your track record shows that we, in fact, care more about lives than you do. Our investigation shows that you have been directly responsible for thirteen deaths. Our employees, our friends, our family.”
“Those people were destroying planets, just like this one! How many lives are taken every day by your company’s operations here? As I swam through the ocean, I could feel the death and the sickness. I could see the ocean life looking withered and tired. I couldn’t even feed while I was out there. I didn’t trust the fish around me would be safe.”
The captor smiled. “You talk about saving the ocean life and in the same breath you talk about eating the local fish. That doesn’t sound too magnanimous to me.”
“I might expect that comment from a human, but not a brother of the sea. You know it’s different. We eat to live and we don’t kill for fun or profit. It’s the natural order of life. A local predator could have eaten me and I would’ve felt no malice towards it and neither would have my family. Because that death is natural. That death is the universe working. You are killing an entire planet, for money.”
“Have you ever seen a homeless sentient?” The Trizites didn’t have homeless people. If a Trizite didn’t want to work, they could always return to the ocean, or one of the many oceans their people owned throughout the Coalition, and survive in the wild.
“I find it interesting when I see a human holding a sign that reads ‘Will work for food.’ Don’t we all?”
“Your point?”
“If we relocated all of the workers to this planet and allowed them to live off of the local population, they would kill the same amount of fish that we are with our business. Instead, they are working for money to buy food. They are working for food. And shelter and family and really, life in general. Unless every sentient being suddenly became a vegetarian, we will always kill animals to feed ourselves, whether the killing is directly or indirectly done.”
“It’s not the same and you know it. And here I thought you said you weren’t going to torture me. Listening to this crap is worse than being beaten.” Murgag sighed heavily.
“That sigh makes me think you have come to a decision.” The captor leaned back in his chair but purposely kept from looking too smug.
“I have.” Murgag wasn’t sure whether his captor would really release him once he gave up the information, so he had a plan to make sure that at least some good came of it. “I want to know the exact amount of money you are offering. From there, I will decide how to have it divided among several accounts. Once I see the money transferred to those accounts, I will tell you where the device is.”
“Agreed.” He now let the smugness set in. “Do you see how easy that was?”
Once the numbers were given to Murgag, he gave his captor the division of assets. “Five percent goes to my parent. Fifteen percent goes to the families of the people you killed from my team. The rest of it goes to the Galactic Oceanic Preservation fund.”
The captor laughed. “Well played, my friend. We will be endowing our biggest lobbying competition. Well done. But I’m curious, nothing for you?”
Murgag just shrugged. “I honestly don’t think you’ll let me live after I tell you where the bomb is. And if you do, I can take a small portion from my parent to get started again. Maybe go back to school or something.” A lie. He was going to escape or die trying.
“Fair enough. Now please hold up your end of the bargain. Where is the bomb?” The captor handed Murgag a datapad with a map on it. One of Murgag’s hands was released so he could work the datapad.
Murgag saw on the datapad that the company’s search team was very close to finding the bomb on their own. He keyed in a couple of commands and the bomb’s location was highlighted on the map.
“Very nice. I’m impressed with the placement location. That’s the best place to do the most damage without being an obvious location for us to look.” He regarded the datapad. “And now, to finish our business.” He stood and loomed over Murgag.
Murgag lashed out with his unbound hand and struck the captor as hard as he could in the face. As the captor stumbled backward, his crony stepped in and began to draw his weapon. The henchman was human so Murgag turned his wrist over and launched one of his barbed darts into the human’s neck. The poison, not effective on Trizites, put the human down instantly. The paralytic would wear off in a few hours if the human survived through it; not all did. They had pulled Murgag’s spines when he was captured but they didn’t harvest them a second time so the next set had already grown in.
The captor was coming back for Murgag and now had a knife out. Murgag swung his chair around and tried to break it against a nearby pole. When that didn’t work, he stumbled, fell to the ground and rolled once. He was able to get back up on his knees and then feet just in time to avoid being stabbed in the neck by the captor. Murgag swung the chair and struck his attacker square in the hip and knocked him back again. The captor tripped and fell on his knife, impaling himself in the eye.
The captor screamed with equal parts rage and pain. Murgag tried to use the moment to his advantage and ran towards the door. He was met by three large men of different species, and even more violently by the butt of a rifle.
When Murgag became conscious again, he was tied down to a board with his arms and legs extended wide. Some superficial damage had already been done to his body while he was unconscious, but nothing too bad. He then saw his captor walk into the room, a bandage wrapped around his head and bulky gauze covering his previously impaled eye. Murgag realized he must have been out for a while.
The captor was in control of himself but just barely. “You fool! You stupid guppy! I was going to set you free! There was no trap. No double-cross. I was about to release you and put you on a transport. And now, now that won’t happen. Now that you have gone back on your word, I will too.”
“I never said I wouldn’t try to escape or kill you. I only said I would give you the location of the bomb and I did that.”
“Semantics.”
“Not really, but anyway...I don’t suppose an apology would really mean anything right now, would it?”
“No.”
“I didn’t think so. So what’s on the menu, more dirt?”
“I’m glad you can be so glib; it will make breaking you so much more fun. I was thinking, because you have such an affinity for working with humans, maybe I could make it easier for you to do so.” The captor played with his knife around Murgag’s hand.
Murgag knew exactly what was going to happen. Trizites had webbed hands and couldn’t use most human instrumentations because of it. Some Trizites had their webbing surgically altered or removed so they could use human weapons, and other objects made by the dominant fingered-species.
The webbing was extremely sensitive and even professional surgical alterations could have negative lifelong effects: Pain. Deformity. Loss of sensation or mobility. Most Trizites wouldn’t even think of doing it and even fewer actually had the surgery performed.
Murgag regained consciousness just long enough to feel the knife cutting through his last section of webbing. The captor wasn’t just cutting the webbing down the middle; he was actually excising it almost completely from between each finger. Murgag couldn’t help but scream—he had to, with all of his might. The pain was searing through his mind like a star gone nova inside his skull.
“You took my eye, so I will take both of yours.” The captor was moving around to Murgag’s head. “You’ll wish I had killed you. When you’re floundering around this ocean without sight or webbing, you will die a slow death. You will be eaten by the most lowly predators these waters have.”
Murgag felt the tip of the knife being traced around his eye socket, scraping against his spikes and causing pain that normally would’ve been horrid had his webbing not already been cut from his hands, causing mor
e pain than he had ever imagined possible. The knife was getting closer to his right eye; it was about to happen.
Murgag first felt the spray of blood across his face and then the sound of the knife hitting the ground. A few muffled puffs of air, a sound that he didn’t recognize, and then several bodies flowing past the table he was strapped to. As one of the bodies passed, he saw that it was a Coalition soldier and he was carrying a suppressed weapon of some sort.
Once the room was clear, Murgag felt his limbs being released from the table. A Shirka stood over Murgag. “I’m a corpsman. Are you hurting anywhere other than your hands?”
“I, uh, yeah, a lot of places. But I think my webbings are my only real injuries.” Murgag looked at his hands and couldn’t believe they belonged to him. “Who are you guys? Why is the Coalition saving me?”
“We’re not.” A sergeant, probably the squad leader, stepped into view. “Your friend there on the floor was the lead security agent for the entire company. He was using his position to run illegal guns, drugs, and everything else you could think of all over the galaxy. He’s been a target for a while now but hasn’t been out in the field. This little stunt of yours pulled him out of hiding. Thanks.”
“Yeah, no problem. That was my plan the whole time.” Murgag flinched as the corpsman sprayed a tissue-bonding agent over his hand.
“Hey, Wilks,” one of the other men said, “come take a look at this datapad.”
Wilks walked to the other man. “What have you got, Bloom?”
Wilks read over the pad for a few minutes and then came back to Murgag. “I just looked over everything they had on you and the work you did here. There’s even a debrief on the bomb you set. Pretty impressive stuff.”
“Are you going to take me into custody? I know you aren’t the police, but by Coalition laws, I am a terrorist.” Murgag wasn’t sure whether he even cared at this point.
Wilks looked around at his squad. “I think you’ll find that despite our outwardly aggressive appearance, we’re all really just a bunch of tree-huggers.”
“Are you making fun of me again?” The Shirka didn’t always get human humor. “I told you I wasn’t scared. I was climbing that tree to get dinner.”
Wilks just shook his head. “If you’re interested in fighting the good fight, I can get a good word to the right people and get you into the Coalition military. You’d make a great marine.”
“I don’t think they would let me in with my record. I’ve been pretty good at hiding my tracks but I’m not a complete ghost.”
Wilks just chuckled. “Hey, Bloom, think you can fix that for our friend here?”
“Sure. I’ll have the records fixed by the time we board our transport. I don’t want them figuring out who he is when we get on board.” Bloom started working on a virtual keyboard that only he could see.
“Why would you do this for me? You don’t know what kind of being I am. You don’t know me at all.” Murgag knew that if this offer was real, he wasn’t going to pass it up.
“I do know you. Maybe not you personally, but I know who you are.” Wilks sat next to Murgag. “You are fighting for what you think is right, and regardless of the ways you’re doing it, you’re actually on the right side here. In prepping for this mission we’ve gathered a lot of intel on you and you’d be surprised at what I know about you. All of your targets could have been Coalition sanctioned if you were with us. Just like douchebag here on the ground.” Wilks pointed to the dead captor.
Wilks stood. “We’re wiping your slate clean. Giving you a chance to do the right thing in the right way. I can’t promise you’ll always agree with your orders, but for the most part, we do good things. Think about it.”
Wilks walked away. Murgag got up and followed the Shirka, who led him from the room and onto their watercraft that was waiting for them.
When they made it back to the transport, Murgag found Wilks in the forward cargo hold. “I’ve been thinking a lot about what you said earlier.”
“And?”
“Do you really think I could make a difference if I joined the military?”
“I wouldn’t have said so if I didn’t think it was true. Besides, it looks like your hands are all but ready to grab some weapons and get to work.” Wilks saw Murgag’s spikes turn a yellowish-green color; he couldn’t quite remember what emotion that color scheme was for.
“Not. Funny.” Murgag looked at his bandaged hands and was thankful for the regional anesthetic the corpsman had applied to both arms below the elbow. “I wasn’t sure if you meant it; that’s why I asked you again.”
“What’s different about my answer this time?”
“This time, my arms are completely numb so I’m not in pain. Because I’m not in pain, I was able to focus on you and feel your emotions. I could tell you weren’t lying. That’s what I needed to be sure of before I made my decision. I’m in.”
“That’s great, but I’m not a recruiter. You’ll have to sign up through your friendly local recruiter. After you get through boot camp, I’ll keep an eye on your progress; if you do well enough, you might find yourself with an invitation to try out for Force Recon.” Wilks sat in some crash webbing in the cargo hold, trying to get comfortable so he could take a nap.
“Thank you. For saving my life, wiping my slate clean, and giving me an idea of how I can do things better. I owe you.” Murgag saw Wilks close his eyes and knew the conversation was over.
As Murgag turned to walk away, Wilks added, “If you ever scan me again, I’ll take a knife to your feet and finish the job that guy started on your webbing.”
Back to Previous
Surgeon
Back to Previous
Davies
The rain was pouring down so hard that Davies felt certain they were using fire hoses to supplement Mother Nature’s already impressive onslaught. With the accompanying wind, he found it difficult to stand at attention but that wasn’t nearly as difficult as it was to watch the rest of his squad performing pushups in the torrential weather.
The drill instructor—DI to the grunts—walked through the ranks as he addressed them. “Oh. My. God! I could not have planned a better night for PT! You all should thank Recruit Davies for his absolute and utter lack of soldiering ability for this two a.m. wake-up call. Why don’t you remind us all why we’re out here right now?”
“Sir, yes sir”, Davies tried to start.
“How about everyone rolls over and gets on their backs for some flutter kicks! And keep those feet at least six inches off the ground at all times. We will keep doing flutter kicks until Recruit Davies finds his big boy voice.” Turning to Davies, he smirked. “You may continue, cupcake.”
Davies took a deep breath and cleared his throat. Raising his voice above the downpour, “Sir, we are out here because while this recruit was on watch, he forgot to secure the fire door in the hangar. In doing so, this recruit left the base vulnerable to intruders. Sir!”
“That’s exactly right, sweetheart. I find it absolutely amazing that every time you fuck up, you are able to perfectly describe what you did wrong. You’d think that with all of the explaining you have to do, some of that information might actually sink into your head and you’d start getting things right once in a while.” The DI continued to pace up and down the rows of recruits still performing the flutter kicks.
To make things worse, the DI had one of his assistants bring out a cot and then ordered Davies to lay down on it. Davies was digging his nails into his legs and trying to cause enough pain to stay awake. Davies held out as long as he could but there was just no way to fight the exhaustion that they all felt. Davies succumbed and even started snoring. When it became obvious to his squad mates that he was sleeping, most of them promised themselves they would kill him in his rack before the end of boot camp.
Around six a.m., Davies awoke to the sound of reveille. When he opened his eyes, he found himself still in the courtyard with his squad curled up on the concrete grinder, shivering and sleeping a
s best they could given the circumstances. As they began to wake up, their eyes were finding Davies and making their best effort to kill him with never before seen human telekinesis.
The DIs rotated every four hours to ensure that they were always in peak condition. This also gave the impression to the recruits that the DIs had superhuman stamina abilities. No matter how obvious the mind games were, the recruits always fell for them.
The fresh DI stepped up. “Good morning, ladies! I heard you had a wonderful PT session this morning with absolutely perfect weather. The great part is, we’re already here on the grinder for our morning PT. Fantastic! Thank you again, Recruit Davies! Everyone hit the deck! Thirty eight-count pushups on my count! Ready...Exercise! One-two-three-four...”
Davies could feel the hate radiating towards him as though a tidal wave of anger was hitting him over and over again. He did his best to review every mistake he had made since arriving at boot camp a little more than six weeks ago. There were so many at this point he knew he couldn’t remember them all. But he tried anyway; he hoped that maybe the mistakes and consequent punishments would help him to do better today. If not today, maybe he could do better tomorrow. He felt as if he were fighting a losing battle but he wouldn’t give up, ever.
After PT, Davies marched to chow with the rest of his company and all of the other recruits in boot camp. The men and women in his company were disciplined enough to not say anything to him as they stood at attention in formation outside the chow hall. He knew that if he kept making mistakes, they would eventually lose their discipline and dish out some barracks justice some night after lights out. The thought of continually disappointing his squad and company was more motivating to Davies than the thought of them retaliating against him was.
Davies also had another form of strong motivation: his father, grandfather, great-grandfather, plus another few generations of men had all been marines. A couple were officers but most were enlisted men. His father had retired as a major after starting off as a private and moving his way through the most of the enlisted ranks before becoming a mustang and going to Officer Candidate School.
