Exo

by Fonda Lee

  Donovan stooped to lift the lid off a closed box on the bottom shelf. It was filled with folded pamphlets, just like the stacks he’d discovered bound with rubber bands in Sean Corrigan’s toolshed. Insurgent propaganda written by Max. He held on to the lid, thinking he ought to set it back onto the box. This was his mother’s heinous work. His hand moved against his will to extract one of the papers. Small, dense text filled the single page.

  Humans are not only justified but obligated to kill zhree. By coming to our planet, they are asking to be killed. What’s the proper thing to do if a garden is attacked by an invasive species? Merciless extermination of the weeds—by burning, cutting, poison, or whatever means necessary—so that the rightful native species can flourish again! For the same reason, exos must also be killed. They are unnatural creatures, tools of the oppressor, and it’s not murder but mercy to put to permanent rest the souls of the humans they used to be.

  There was more, but Donovan couldn’t read any further. With a shiver of revulsion, he dropped the pamphlet into the box and shoved the lid back on top. As a SecPac officer, he’d always felt tainted even reading that garbage. Now that he knew who the author was, the feeling was a hundred times worse. How could his own mother believe this crap, much less write it? After he’d hidden away her little writing notebook in his drawer at home, it had taken ten more years for him to realize how bad her poems were, but at least they were only benignly overwrought (snow crusted on the ground cracking underfoot like the inexorable burning frost of solitude on the soul, etc.) but these pamphlets … they incited people to violence. These past several days, his mother had been caring toward him, seeking some connection or reconciliation. How was he supposed to match her kind, hopeful face to these hateful words?

  He turned to look for Anya so they could leave. She was standing next to an old screen, its surface coated with a scummy layer of dust. Her back was to him, and when he came up behind her, he saw she was shuffling through a stack of memory discs she’d pulled from a box. She paused on one labeled Archive Compilation—Landing / War Era. Before Donovan could suggest he’d had enough of this place, she slipped the disc into the screen’s read slot.

  Nothing happened. Perhaps the screen was so old it didn’t work anymore. But then it flickered and came to life. Donovan wasn’t sure what he was looking at; it appeared to be grainy old news footage. The newscaster’s voice sounded crackly and distant, as if she were shouting into a microphone during a windstorm. “Russia, China, and the United States have now all denied any involvement in the shocking events unfolding across the world. The consensus appears to be developing that the vessels are indeed extraterrestrial in origin …”

  Donovan blinked, and suddenly the image made sense. It was a nighttime aerial shot of Round Three! Only there was no Round at all; the surrounding landscape looked vaguely familiar but shockingly empty. The camera was focusing in on the area that would later grow into the Round: a circle of devastation that must have been twenty miles wide, just bare earth, flattened and charred trees, and white smoke rising from the scorched ground. The reporter was saying that four hundred and twenty-three people from the affected farmland near the border between Wyoming and Nebraska were missing and presumed dead. It was the first day of the Landing.

  The footage cut away to other locations. The sound and image quality on the disc wasn’t great; the newscasters’ excited voices were interrupted with static as the view jumped all over the world. There were twenty landing sites in total, established in sparsely populated locations across Earth. In the center of each blackened demolition area was a zhree ship. Donovan leaned closer to see that they were expedition-class planterships—huge cousins to the construction and transport paverships he’d seen refueled in the shipyards. On-screen, though, they looked small, and they were small, compared to the Towers that would replace them.

  Donovan glanced over at Anya. She was paying rapt attention to the old footage. He’d seen the next clip before: a somber-looking man wearing a dark suit in the style of that era, seated at a desk in front of a striped flag. He assured viewers that military forces had been mobilized and steps were being taken to establish communication with the aliens. He urged all governments and citizens to remain calm.

  The next scene on the disc showed a chaotic river of people filling the traffic-jammed streets, raiding stores for food and water, boarding up buildings, or swaying together and praying.

  “Didn’t you learn about all this in history class?” he asked Anya.

  The girl shrugged. “The teachers gloss over a lot of the War Era.” She paused. In a smaller voice, “I didn’t go to class much.”

  Donovan turned back to the screen. The level of panic was almost comical. The zhree hadn’t been hostile, not at first. For two weeks, they made no attempt to engage with humans. Watching scenes of zhree drones circling the perimeter of where the Towers would be, any knowledgeable person today would see that the first priority had been constructing surface bases, establishing communication and supply lines, and building a defensible position in the solar system.

  Earth, it turned out, was a previously overlooked habitable planet occupying a strategic area of space contested by the two most powerful zhree civilizations: the Mur Erzen Commonwealth and the nomadic Rii Erzen. When the Mur Erzen occupied Earth first, dealing with the native species was a distant third consideration after building the Rounds and setting up a military cordon between Mars and Jupiter. The homeworld of Kreet had intended Earth to be not just a vigorous frontier colony but an important beachhead against Rii incursion into Mur territory.

  Of course, the human leaders of the day hadn’t known that. On-screen, many stern, uniformed people were insisting that the appearance of drones preceded an all-out assault on humankind.

  Anya pulled over the two metal chairs so they could sit down. The glowing tails of launched missiles streaked across the greenish on-screen night sky. The War Era had begun. Hours earlier, the zhree had finally finished decoding the multitude of human languages and broadcast their first message simultaneously from all the landing sites.

  RESIDENT SENTIENT SPECIES: THIS PLANET IS SECURE UNDER THE JURISDICTION AND PROTECTION OF THE MUR ERZEN. ANTICIPATE SUCCESSFUL INTEGRATION INTO THE COMMONWEALTH OF COLONIES. CEASE HOSTILE OVERTURES AND STAND BY FOR FURTHER COMMUNICATION.

  By then, it was too late. There was no standing by. Alien integration was not something humans wanted.

  The footage from the War Era went on for a while. Some of it Donovan had seen before, but Sapience had gotten hold of clips that weren’t usually shown, not even to soldiers-in-erze. Disturbing images: squads of Soldiers descending on human military encampments, unstoppable in their perfect coordination and bristling exocels, terrifying in their stripes and yellow eyes and many limbs. A particularly heinous clip of a captive Soldier being subjected to fire, electricity, gas, and all manner of torture in an attempt to discover how to overcome exocel technology. Mushroom clouds over two of the Rounds before the zhree disabled the rest of the nuclear weapons from orbit. Entire human cities obliterated in retaliation.

  It was horrible stuff, three decades of death and destruction condensed into thirty minutes of footage. What a waste, Donovan thought, all because both sides had made epically bad assumptions. To humans, the Landing portended mass invasion, enslavement, extermination—the sort of thing human history and fiction stories told them to expect. And in their ill-prepared rush to beat their enemies in securing the valuable piece of galactic real estate that was planet Earth, the zhree had played into those fears.

  “They underestimated us.” Donovan leaned forward to wipe some of the dust off the screen with his sleeve. “They assumed that because we didn’t have light-plus travel and were confined to a single planet we weren’t advanced or intelligent. The War Era was a lot harder on them than we knew at the time, did you know that? We had home-planet advantage; they were dealing with higher gravity, lower oxygen, dwindling supplies … If Earth hadn’t been so strategical
ly important to the Mur Erzen, they might have decided it wasn’t worth it.”

  Anya turned to stare. “How do you know that?”

  “One of them told me.” An old Soldier, at the trainee graduation ceremony last spring. There weren’t many veterans of the War Era left; Soldier Wysse was one hundred and seventy-two years old. He was fond of talking to humans and could do so for hours; he’d cornered Donovan to expound on his immense admiration for General McDaniel’s heroic last stand at the Battle of Pittsburgh. “Such a noble species,” he’d said wistfully. “Such pluck.”

  On-screen, the War Era was finally coming to an end. One by one, the nations of Earth capitulated to zhree control. It wasn’t a clean process. Some parts of the planet ceded quickly after the Landing and endured practically no War Era at all. Erze employment and interstellar trade had begun flourishing there even as other parts of the planet were being reduced almost to stone-age wastelands. Half of North America agreed to peace with Round Three before the other half did with Round Four. But watching the first Peace Day scenes of human leaders meeting with zhree Administrators, and of people celebrating in the streets, it seemed to Donovan that the emotion on everyone’s faces was one of relief.

  Anya made a skeptical noise in her throat. “They look so happy to be conquered.”

  Donovan shook his head. “They’re happy to be alive.” To no longer be at war. The zhree were reasonable governors. They brought technology, trade, military protection, and jobs. They would allow the natives to live in peace and manage their own affairs. Humans were no longer the dominant species on the planet, but they could adapt. Life could go on.

  The disc ended. Anya ejected it from the screen and put it back into the box.

  “Well, that was cheery,” Donovan said.

  She didn’t seem to notice he’d spoken. She riffled through the other discs absently but didn’t take any of them out. Her gaze was almost unseeing, sunken into herself. He thought she looked … terribly sad.

  Donovan had slouched down in his uncomfortable chair, arms crossed. Now he sat up and leaned his elbows onto his knees, tilting his head to try to catch her eye. “What are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking about how many more will have to die,” she said. “Back in the War Era we had big armies, and nuclear weapons, and millions more people. We have a lot less now. How long will it take for us to finally win and drive the shrooms off of Earth? A lot longer than I’ll be alive.”

  “Longer, as in never, you mean.” Donovan stood up and stretched. “Face it. The war ended a hundred years ago. You can’t roll an avalanche back uphill. The zhree are here to stay.”

  “That’s accepting defeat.”

  “No, it’s accepting reality.” For the very first time, he thought he saw her hesitate and it made him want to press. “The only reason you’re thinking in terms of victory or defeat is because Sapience wants you to think that way. It’s not black and white like that; even if you kicked every zhree off the planet and established new human-only governments, what would you do then? Go back to living like we did centuries ago without modern technology like exocels or light-plus travel? Cut ourselves off from the Commonwealth and pretend we’re the only species in the universe, when we know that Earth is valuable and we’ll just be in danger again?”

  Anya didn’t reply. Donovan took a step closer to her. “The only thing Sapience will ever achieve is more of that—” He pointed to the now-dark screen. “More war. More people dead on both sides. Didn’t seeing those video clips change your mind, even a little bit?”

  She dropped her chin for a minute, her hair falling forward, concealing her expression. “No. We’re still fighting for the same thing we were fighting for back then.” She lifted her eyes back to his. “There’s nothing more precious than freedom. Freedom is worth any cost.”

  “We’re self-governing. We have freedom.”

  “The freedom to determine our own destiny—we don’t have that.”

  He could think of a dozen counterarguments, but when he opened his mouth, every one of his retorts died on his tongue. Reason wasn’t the right way to convince someone like Anya. He moved close and took hold of her arms. Lowering his voice so Brett and Tom out in the hallway couldn’t overhear, he said, “I like you, Anya. I’ve seen a lot of people who throw their lives away to join the cause, and I’d hate to see you become one of them.” He searched her eyes, wondering if his words were reaching her. “Even if I never get out of here, it would make me feel better if you did. It’s not too late to change your mind. To go home.”

  She took a half step even closer and gazed straight at him, her lips slightly parted, and for a second, Donovan forgot what he’d been saying. He could feel her breath on his chin as she spoke. “This is the only home I’ve got now. It’s like you said. Sometimes you can’t go back, only forward.”

  She rocked forward onto the balls of her feet and kissed him.

  It wasn’t a long kiss, but it wasn’t a peck either. Her mouth pressed against his for two slow heartbeats, then tugged gently on his bottom lip as she pulled away. Donovan swayed back. “What was that for?” he croaked.

  “For caring about whether I throw my life away.”

  Donovan ran his tongue over his lower lip, where her teeth had lingered lightly a moment earlier. His head buzzed. He badly wanted her to do it again. He also wanted her to listen to him. “I—”

  A sudden resounding detonation rocked the room.

  The dull explosion came from somewhere overhead, convulsing the layers of rock and soil above them. Donovan grabbed for Anya, steadying her as the ground and walls shuddered. Both of them looked up, half expecting to watch in horror as the ceiling split open and caved inward, burying them alive in the hillside. It held, though the single light flickered, and the metal shelves swayed and creaked.

  “What was that?” Anya cried.

  Another boom, much farther away, sent a second, faint tremor through the soles of Donovan’s feet. “Air strike,” he said.

  They’re here. His fellow soldiers-in-erze were in the sky right above him, dropping bombs.

  Brett rushed into the room. “We have to go! Now!”

  “Where are we going?” Anya shouted as they ran after him.

  “To the holds,” said Tom, taking up the rear. “This is your first air strike? Don’t worry, they’re not so bad. You just have to wait them out. We split up between four gathering holds; they’re the most secure parts of the Warren. If any one of them goes, at least we don’t lose everyone.” He grunted as another muffled explosion shook the ground. “Wouldn’t want to be caught outside right now, though.”

  People were rushing through the tunnels, quickly but without panic. Donovan followed, turning left, then right, then left again, until he was carried along into a wide, low-ceilinged room rapidly crowding with a couple dozen insurgents. There was no furniture in the room, but one corner was stacked to the ceiling with gym mats, and another held large plastic tubs, presumably filled with supplies in the event the stay grew long.

  A hand fell on Donovan’s arm. “Thank God.” It was Max. Her taut face slackened with relief. “I couldn’t find you in your room. I thought—” She didn’t finish the sentence. Instead, she pulled him aside. “I’m glad you’re safe.”

  Donovan was relieved she was safe too, but he only nodded distractedly, waiting and listening for the next bomb to fall. What was SecPac trying to accomplish? Had they scoured the Ring Belt and were now moving into the Black Hills, trying to flush out terrorists? Did they know or suspect he was down here? Or was this air strike in retaliation for some other Sapience activity unrelated to him?

  The next boom sounded closer. The planes must have swung back around to do another pass on the area. The following explosion was directly on top of them. The entire room concussed with horrific force, and the air itself seemed to quake. A few people screamed, and almost everyone ducked, throwing their arms over their heads, though the instinct was comically pointless. Another equally
massive impact a few minutes later made Donovan’s teeth rattle in his skull. He caught sight of Anya’s pale face, hunched between tense shoulders.

  “It’s okay,” he whispered to her. “These air strikes aren’t really targeted to kill anyone. They’re mostly meant to destroy roads and communication towers so it’ll be difficult for Sapience to use the area.”

  It was true, but with the next explosion, Donovan began to doubt his own words. If SecPac knew the Warren was here, maybe they were going after it in earnest now, trying to blow the hill to rubble. He imagined the tunnels buckling, collapsing, turning this room into an instant, silent tomb. A sweat broke out on his neck. He berated himself; he was a soldier, a Hardened soldier, for crying out loud. But right now, crouching in a bomb shelter with no erze mates and no uniform, he didn’t feel much like one. He felt as vulnerable, as hunted, as the rebels. His mother grasped his hand, and without thinking, he squeezed it.

  Another bomb struck the ground above them. The room went dark.

  Gasps and profanities broke out. Flashlights came on. Beams of light swung around the enclosed space, crisscrossing one another and throwing moving shadows across the walls.

  “Why isn’t it over yet?” a man’s frustrated voice demanded.

  “They know where we are,” someone else murmured. “They’ve got to know.”

  “Calm down.” Max’s voice rose over the small crowd. “They don’t know. They’re just trying to frighten us.”

  “Well, they’re doing a bang-up job.” A nervous grumble of widespread agreement.

  “Aren’t you all forgetting something?” The first man’s voice cut through the others. “They know exactly where we are.” A flashlight beam suddenly turned on Donovan’s face, blinding him. “It’s right here, telling them.”