by Aaron Frale
“I don’t know what he told you, but it was Spider who raped-“
“We know.”
“You know?”
“Spider’s already been reprimanded for that, and he’ll be transferred back to the city in a day or so.”
“Reprimanded! Transferred? If that had happened on Earth, he would be behind bars!”
“The Nigs are not citizens of the United Planets of Earth, so they don’t have the same rights.”
“That’s wrong, and you know it, sir.”
“Don’t give me any of that collective propaganda crap. The UPE has over 139 different species including 35 home worlds of nonhumans. There is something larger here than one Nig woman. The decrand can never stop flowing. The entire UPE relies on decrand to keep the lights on. We are improving the life of UPE citizens everywhere.”
“That’s bullshit, sir.”
“You are out of line, soldier!” Sarge yelled.
“No, no, let him talk. I’m a sporting man. A kill is not worth it if there is no hunt,” the colonel waived Sarge away.
Hayden took a deep breath. “Whose life are we improving? Maybe I’ve saved a little on my energy cost, but I still can’t afford anything more than a box disguised as an apartment. Meanwhile, there are people back on Earth with their private forests! We are here to make a few people filthy rich, and that’s the simple truth of it, sir. If it was just about the decrand, then there are tons of gas giants in uninhabited systems. We are here because it’s cheaper to pull it from the surface of a planet then the core of a gas giant. If we are going to value profits over the lives of others, then what have we left of our humanity?”
“What’s left of our humanity is that there are over three hundred worlds that rely on the important work we do. Nigs couldn’t even climb down from their precious trees to see the gift their planet has bestowed upon them. Nigs don’t deserve half of what we give them.”
“Can’t you see? They just want to be left alone!”
“I have no sympathy for you and your beloved Nigs. But I do respect the law, and you have violated the law. The Nigs saw you stand up to Spider and have now gotten it in their head that they can stand up to us, too. They are in a state of civil disobedience at their old village that was started by you.”
Hayden didn’t say anything. He was glad the people of the village were not accepting the bully tactics. Hayden had enough of being bullied and being the bully himself. If it meant that he would be discharged in shame, Hayden was prepared to deal with the consequences of standing up for what he believed.
“I’m going to give you another chance,” the colonel said.
Hayden had expected the worst. This shift wasn’t what he expected. “Sir?”
“If the Nigs respect your authority, then it seems you’ll have a chance to convince them to go to their new village. We have Nig inspectors from Tek coming tomorrow, and we need them gone. You may not understand how society works; that could be because you’re young and rash. You have a chance right now to prove that you are a soldier and a loyal citizen of the UPE. I’m going to send you out on one last mission. If you prove yourself, then maybe we’ll forget this ever happened.”
“Sir!” Spider cried out. He had been silent before, drinking in every moment of Hayden’s fall.
“You stop right there, soldier. This is not about revenge. This is about honor. Hayden has the chance to maintain his honor and the respect of his fellow soldiers, which includes you. Am I clear?”
“Crystal.”
Silence filled the room. All eyes went toward Hayden. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to do. Part of him applauded the Nigramotoians for the courage to do what he could not. The other part of him thought that even though he disagreed with what was happening on the planet, the problem was too big for just one village in one part of the planet. The machines would descend from the heavens and pillage the land regardless of what Hayden did today. How could one disgraced soldier stand up to a society of injustice?
That’s when Hayden formed a plan. His path was clear. Before, he felt that he was wandering through life, going wherever the current would take him. Now he understood his purpose, and he would have the ability to do something meaningful. Despite the overwhelming odds and the likelihood that it would end in failure, he decided to take the first real risk of his life.
Hayden turned to the colonel and said, “No, sir. I will not. We’ve been stealing the land and terrorizing these people long enough. It’s time to take a stand for what is right.”
“You think about what you are saying.”
“I am sir. Get out of Nigramoto.”
“It is the finding of this tribunal that you are guilty of misconduct and insubordination in addition to inciting a civil disorder that led to delays in production of the decrand. You are hereby discharged and stripped of your rank and all rights and privileges it provides. Furthermore, you will spend the rest of your enlistment term doing hard labor on the gas giant of Drangoria. You want your gas giant mining; you’ve got it. Dismissed.”
“It’s better than participating in the murder of both a civilization and a planet.”
“I said dismissed!”
Sarge dragged Hayden away from the tribunal, but Hayden kept yelling, “How many women will we rape! What if it was your daughter!”
Sarge finally got Hayden from the temporary building and threw him to the ground. Hayden ate a mouthful of dust. The ground in the camp was dry where it had once been lush forest before the humans arrived. Even if all the Nigramotoians politely moved to the new villages set up for them, it was only a matter of time before the forest that sustained their life would be extinct. The planet was facing an ecological disaster. Soon it wouldn’t matter where the Nigramotoians lived. They wouldn’t have a planet left. It would be like Earth, where most of the natural world died off years ago and what was left would be maintained by humans. The Nigramotoians would never be free of the humans.
Sarge leaned down and stuck his head in Hayden’s face. “There are better ways to go about getting what you want.”
Without another word, Sarge picked Hayden up off the ground and cuffed him with the energy cuffs. Sarge led Hayden back through the camp to the prison unit. Sarge had been kind enough to leave the clothes they gave him for the tribunal on his back. This time, the people in the camp were staring. It wasn’t just an uncomfortable rubbernecking but a full on gawking at the prisoner. It was rare that one of their own was led to the prison.
“Nig lover!” one worker called out. The others followed suit and began calling and chanting names at Hayden. Sarge double-timed it back to the prison before people decided it was time to take justice into their own hands.
Once back at the cell, Sarge removed the cuffs and tossed Hayden back in. Sha was right where Hayden had left him. He was meditating in his cell and didn’t bother to look up at the commotion. Sarge stared at Hayden from the other side of the bars.
“You know I’ve done four tours on Nigramoto,” Sarge said.
“Yeah?”
“In all my tours, I’ve seen plenty to know what happens on this planet. I’ve also seen plenty of men like you. But not one of them had the balls to stand up to Colonel Dodgery.”
Hayden didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t doing anything special. He just stood up for what was right. Now a long, hard life of mining gas giants awaited. Even though gas giant mining was dangerous, at least there were no innocent native populations who just happened to have been born on the wrong planet. Hayden would rather serve his sentence than take part in the oppression and eventual extinction of an alien culture.
“It’s times like these when a person’s true nature is revealed,” Sarge said and left Hayden in the prison. Before Hayden could say anything back to Sarge, he noticed that Sarge had left something behind. It was the electronic key for his prison cell. Had Sarge dropped the key? He would never be so sloppy. Sarge had left it for him.
Hayden reached out for the key and pulled it into the cell. He hit the
button. The lock popped, and the gate slid open. Sha was watching Hayden now. Hayden stepped out of his cell and looked at the elder. He hit another button on the keypad, and Sha’s door opened.
“Thank you, my brother,” Sha said.
“Consider us even,” Hayden whispered. “Now keep your voice down.”
Hayden walked over to the door of the prison building and listened. He could hear Sarge talking with the colonel outside.
“The man deserves one last meal,” Sarge said.
“We can’t let any of this get out. You know the goddamn media back home. If they heard any of it, there would be hype and investigations. All of that means more delays. Don’t let one Nig woman ruin the whole operation.”
“But sir, if you kill Hayden now, some of the workers might question. While I can speak to our own, I can’t speak for any of them. It’s best you come back in the night. Take him into the woods. Kill him there.”
“I like the way you think,” Colonel Dodgery said. “You ever think about going to officer school and becoming a lieutenant?”
Hayden’s face drained of color. He backed away from the door. If they were going to kill Hayden, then there must be something bigger going on than he knew. Everything he had witnessed was unfortunate, but if the media got involved, they would throw Spider to the wolves and blame “one bad soldier.” There was something more he hadn’t seen yet that they were trying to protect.
It wasn’t the villages. The new homes for the native people had been approved by not only the human government but the Nigramotoian governing body as well. The displacement of the natives was legal, even if it was morally questionable. What else was happening that the colonel was hiding? Hayden had to figure it out, but first, he needed to figure a way out of this room.
Hayden signaled to Sha to go back to the other end of the prison. There was a bathroom for the guard that was enclosed. They shuffled into the bathroom where there was a window to the outside. A feature that had been installed to air out the room was now their means of escape. Hayden listened at the window for a moment then poked his head out.
There was no one on this side of the building. They both scrambled out of the window and ran for a pile of equipment. Hayden peered over the edge of the equipment and saw that life was normal for the camp. The colonel and Sarge were no longer at the entrance to the prison building. The other people were too busy to have noticed them. Hayden needed some power armor. He could walk around the camp with armor unnoticed, but not without risk. If someone decided to check his bio-signs or credentials, he would be discovered, but the armor would at least prevent someone from visually identifying him.
Hayden turned to Sha and said, “Go back to your village. I need to investigate here. Stay low until you get to the woods. There is a rubble pile over there. It extends all the way to the forest and should hide you.”
“Good luck, Taktuku,” Sha said, which wasn’t translated by the translator. Much later, when Hayden looked up the word, he found out it meant “friend of the people.”
For an elder, Sha moved very quickly. He was gone before Hayden knew it. For a peaceful people, the Nigramotoians could be formidable warriors as they possessed a natural strength and speed. If they decided to fight off the humans, they would be a force. Not that Hayden wanted them to fight. There were other ways to reveal what was happening on Nigramoto.
Hayden peered out from behind the equipment. The base was in its routine. Hayden saw that the worker changing station was fairly close. Since the decrand released fumes into the air, almost all the miners wore hazard suits. Hayden darted between buildings until he got to the changing station.
Inside, he was blasted with steam as a couple of workers were showering off. There were some open lockers and some clothes about. He looked through the open lockers until he found a suit his approximate size. He donned the disguise and was about to leave when a woman came into the locker room. She had on a mining suit with her helmet by her side. Hayden nodded to her and left without a word.
Hayden walked through the camp with his head held high. If he walked with a purpose, like he was on an important task, his chances of being stopped were slim. He made his way towards the armory. He glanced around to see if anyone was looking then walked up to the door. He punched a code into the keypad, and the light turned green. They would have turned off his codes by now, but Hayden remembered Spider entering his code once. Hayden was lucky they weren’t as quick to cut Spider’s access.
He found power armor in his size and suited up. He grabbed a standard issue NT-4K and slung it over his shoulder. He shoved the miner’s suit into an empty grenade crate and exited the building. There wasn’t much time to investigate. Eventually, a person would come to check on him and find that he had escaped, so Hayden had to be quick.
After leaving the armory, he felt a little safer. Not only because he was completely disguised in the armor, but also because he had grown accustomed to wearing it. The suit was so well designed, it felt like a second set of skin. At times he would forget that he was wearing it. The armor was a part of his body. It was a part he’d probably never wear again because he had a higher mission in life.
Hayden decided to take the risk and head towards mining operations. The camp was still in a state of non-alert. Hayden punched Spider’s code into the door’s keypad, and a red LED turned green. Hayden entered the building. He expected to be caught right away, but most people ignored his presence. Soldiers had become a backdrop of mining operations, and people went about their business. As long as Hayden looked like he belonged, no one gave him another look.
He walked through the corridors until he got to a room marked archives. He attempted Spider’s code on the doorway, but it blinked red. Soldiers didn’t need access, so he tried a different tactic. He stood next to the archive doorway in a typical attentive guard fashion. A soldier on guard wasn’t uncommon. If a VIP or the colonel happened to be in the archive room, then there would be a guard outside. The entourage of the officers was always in random places, standing outside doors and in hallways.
Hayden thought that his ruse was going to work when a couple of people passed him by without a second glance. A portly man holding a pad with an inventory datasheet on the front screen stopped in front of Hayden. He looked him up and down and said, “I haven’t seen you around before.”
“This is my first day,” Hayden lied.
“Colonel Dodgery or Operations Manager Tony?”
“The colonel.”
“Don’t you honor guard boys have the eagle talons?”
“I haven’t earned the right to customize my armor yet.” Luckily enough, what Hayden said was true. Most of the new recruits had standard issue non-painted armor. What Hayden didn’t tell the man was that honor guard almost never had blank slate armor. They were always recruited from other units. A new honor guard would have recognition, medals, and all sorts of stuff painted on their suits, but Hayden banked on the administrator from the Rasmus’ Decrand Mining Corp. to have little experience with military matters.
“Is that so?”
“Yes, sir. Paint on your armor is a privilege, not a requirement.”
“I did not know that.”
“Now if you’ll excuse me, I want to focus on my duties.”
“Ah yes, of course. Tell the colonel hi for me.”
“I will.”
The man walked down the hall, and Hayden stood at attention. A couple of minutes later, a thin man stepped from the archive room. He was holding a pad with several signature boxes. He saw Hayden, and before he could say anything, Hayden lowered his weapon and ordered the man back into the room. There had been no one else in the hallway, so he didn’t make too much of a scene.
The man led him into a room with a single workstation. Archives were all electronic, so the computer was surrounded by large servers and various network cables. The air was super dry, and it was cold. It would be a miserable place to work without power armor. Hayden forced the man to give him com
puter access. Before the worker could try to sneak out an alert, he stunned the man with the lowest setting on his rifle. His victim would wake in about an hour with a headache, but there would be no permanent damage.
Hayden had full IT access. He was able to get into files that would be restricted to upper management. It didn’t take much digging to find out the extent of the lie he had been told. The native Nigramotoians weren’t being relocated. They were being murdered. It was much easier and more cost effective to annihilate a village and bury the bodies than to relocate them. The few villages that were relocated were just for show.
Hayden pulled a video from the file. An entire village was gathered in the town square. They were gunned down, and their homes set ablaze. The bodies were buried in an unmarked mass grave. Hayden felt sick to his stomach. He couldn’t stop watching the video. Soldiers like Hayden were murdering men, women, and children.
The few villages that were spared from the massacres were put on display. When officials from the Nigramotoian government, members of the media, or any other person came to inspect operations, they were given a tour of the relocation towns. The villagers from those towns were told that their neighboring villages that were not spared were relocated far away.
Something caught Hayden’s attention in the video. The commanding officer at one of the massacres was the colonel. He applauded his soldiers for their efficiency. Hayden was disgusted by how calmly the colonel talked logistics of the purge without any thought towards the loss of life. Hayden saved all the information he could about the happenings here on Nigramoto in the databanks of his armor.
Hayden needed to leave the camp. He had collected enough data to at least merit an investigation from the UPE. Hayden turned back towards the door as it opened. The portly man from earlier poked his head through the doorway and said, “Hey Bob, what was the colonel doing at your station?”
The portly man saw Hayden’s rifle a second after he had realized Bob had been stunned. The blast caused him to topple over in the doorway and shatter the screen of his pad. Hayden heard a commotion from the hallway, and a second later the alarm sounded.
