I remained silent, glaring. These weren’t new tactics, but it was different talking to an enemy that could truly back their threats up.
“Your government has been in touch. They say that they do not want more conflict. They say that they wish a peaceful resolution that benefits our two species. They say they will not take further action against us. What do you make of that?”
“It’s bullshit. They want to talk you down, but if you don’t play nice, they’ll obliterate this ship and all of you along with it. You might consider us soft, but we humans take an oath when we become warriors; we swear to defend against all enemies, foreign, domestic…and alien. We uphold this oath with our lives and our deaths, if need be, and we will never stop coming for you. I just ask you to take me to a higher deck, so I can see the fireworks when thousands of our missiles come at you assholes.”
His slit eyes narrowed, and his companions chattered. The alien in front of me barked and they fell silent. My interrogator smirked, baring rows of sharp teeth. “I believe you, human. You may not care about your own death, but what about that of another? One that isn’t a warrior, what you call a ‘her,’ is it? What about the her? Your people value the vessels for your reproduction, yes?”
A pang of fear raced through me. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“I suppose you will find out.” He turned to the other two. “Put him with the her.”
One of the aliens holding me slammed a fist into my solar plexus. The air rushed from my lungs and I went limp, gasping like a fish. The aliens dragged me out of the cell.
Then I heard alien ticks and growls and observed the captain and two other soldiers come toward us. My captors dropped me to the floor, drawing weapons. I curled into a fetal position, hands knitted behind my head to protect my neck.
The rebelling aliens opened fire. The captain and their allies rolled out of the way. I heard the sizzling staccato of beam weapons, so I flipped onto my stomach and crawled towards my cell, careful to stay away from the door. From my low vantage point, I made out one of my captors grasping a burned, bloody leg. He limped as he tried to escape.
The captain’s soldiers had taken injuries too. Ka’thak bore a searing scar across his right shoulder where the armor had split, and others had been hit as well. One of my rescuers advanced in a swift leap, pounced on his enemy and took them to the floor. It ripped his throat with teeth. I flinched as the alien’s blue blood sprayed my face and spat as some got in my mouth.
On seeing the death of their fellow rebel, the other two ran. One turned to shoot as they retreated, the beam lancing the sides of the corridor. The captain’s soldiers took up firing positions and sent a couple shots after them as they fled out of sight.
Ka’thak rushed over to the door of my cell while speaking in its language to the others. He gazed down at me and offered their hand to assist me up. “Are you wounded, Lt. Col. Jackson?”
I coughed. “In a manner of speaking. I can walk, though.” I accepted their hand and they hauled me to my feet. The motion lit a fire in my stomach, and I gasped. The captain bent so I could put my arm over his shoulders, but I declined. I was hurt, but it wasn’t fatal. Just painful as hell.
The captain’s companions formed a defensive guard ahead and behind us.
“What the hell is going on, Ka’thak?” I clutched my chest, wondering if my ribs were fractured. Every breath hurt, so I tried not to take deep ones.
The captain sighed. “On our way to this planet, many of our people became afraid.”
“Understandable,” I said with gritted teeth as Ka’thak led me down the corridor.
“Yes. As such, there was a split among our people. Humans have a corollary to this, I believe. You have your ‘flight monkeys,’ those who err on the side of caution and run away from threats or seek cooperation with others to overcome danger. You also have your ‘fight monkeys,’ such as those you call military.”
“Uh, okay. Your point?”
“Both are necessary for survival of a species. The same is largely true of our people. Some of us say it is best to obliterate anything threatening our survival, but others of us disagreed and we maintained a fragile peace.”
“Until us humans shot your ship down.”
“Yes, until we crashed.” It was very politic of the alien captain to put things that way. “Our leader is much like your prime ministers. They are elected and kept in power by a council. Last night, those who wish to destroy humanity attempted to force a vote of ‘no confidence’ in our leader. They failed, but it seems they are trying a more violent way to overthrow power. If they succeed, it will be the death of your species…just for a start.”
“They mentioned they have another prisoner. Have you seen another human aboard the ship?”
“No, I have not. It may be a ploy.”
“I don’t know. Maybe. They said it was one of our women, a female, a ‘her.’ I know your Ko had contact with a woman after we first met. If she’s the one who’s been captured, you gotta rescue her. She’s in way more danger than I am.”
“Why do you say this?”
“Because she has the computer you’re looking for, the quantum thingie. Your data crystal.”
The captain’s eyes widened. He barked a command at our guards and one ran off. “Come,” Ka’thak said. “We will go to my quarters.”
I fidgeted. Playing nice was getting harder the more I had to fake diplomacy. Based on the friction between the factions, I thought maybe I could use it to rescue Alexandra.
The captain’s rooms were like any other home of a career soldier, simply furnished but comfortable. Ka’thak motioned for me to sit on a large floor cushion, then took off his uniform and armor and pulled out a clean set of clothing.
“Have a drink, Colonel. It might be the last either of us gets for a long time.” He motioned to a container of bright blue liquid on table near me, two glasses adjoining the bottle. I pulled the stopper and sniffed. Whatever was in it smelled like paint thinner laced with blueberries. I shrugged. It was no worse than the rotgut whisky I swigged as a recruit. I poured a glass and slugged it back, coughing as it burned my throat.
Ka’thak tittered an alien laugh from across the room.
“Strong stuff,” I said.
“It is likely much stronger for humans, but it is worth it on the eve of a battle, yes?”
“You think there’ll be a battle?” I watched the captain dip a sponge in a basin of water, rubbing the sponge over his scaled skin where he had been burned in combat.
“There can be no peaceful resolution when our—what is it? ‘insane?’—people intend to kill those who stand in their way.”
“What will we do? What do we need to prepare?” Without meaning to, I had noticed the change in my language. No longer was it ‘you,’ ‘they,’ or ‘them.’ No matter how this ended, my fate was intertwined with those who sided with the captain. We would fight together and, if necessary, die together.
“We will gather our forces and shelter our civilians until the battle is finished. No matter the outcome, it is imperative we protect our young and non-combatants. Then, we shall live to see another day…or not.”
Easy enough. I found it refreshing to speak plainly with another soldier. We lived and breathed duty. Sometimes duty meant death. When Ka’thak finished tending his wound, he set about cleaning his armor, then adorned a clean toga and provided me with something resembling a human jumpsuit.
“I had it made for you, since you did not appear comfortable in our traditional garb.”
I picked it up and looked it over. Good enough. “Thanks, Ka’thak. That was thoughtful.”
25
Alexandra
I was disappointed to discover instead of entering the main parts of the mothership, I was brought into what looked like a maintenance shaft. Pipes lined the walls and several catwalks ran over inner works and narrow passages. Heat radiated off of everything here and I started to sweat.
Two of my captors wa
lked in front of me, and the other two behind. One of them jabbed a beam weapon into the small of my back whenever I slowed to look around. Any confidence I felt when this started evaporated in this steam. I kicked myself. Trying to come here alone was a stupid plan. Getting captured was more stupid. I was out of ideas, and hopelessness weighed me down like a stone in my chest, the only thing keeping me going was the need to sate my curiosity about the aliens and their ship.
We reached a maintenance area lined with larger tubes, pipes, and valves. An alien shoved me, knocking me to the floor. I shot out my manacled hands to break my fall, but I ended up twisting and skidded across the grated floor.
I coughed and sat up, pressing my back against the wall, knees folded in front of me. The one who did the speaking stood over me, holding its beam weapon pointed down just inches from my feet. “Tell us what you humans are going to do next.”
“Next? In terms of what?”
It cocked its head at me. “When will you attack us again?”
“Why do you think they’re going to attack?”
The alien stood over me and gnashed its teeth, flashing rows of fangs. I eyed the beam weapon. I could have grabbed it from where I was sitting, but that would have been a fatal choice. These things were too strong and too fast.
I shifted and felt something hard press into my spine. The pistol. The one Sam had given me. I’d tucked it away and the soldiers, in their arrogance, hadn’t bothered to search my waistband beneath my coat. They’d only emptied my pockets.
Dammit. Too bad my hands were bound in front of me. Still, if I got the chance to get free, at least I had a weapon.
The alien’s companions chittered, then the speaking one looked at me again. “Tell us where humans keep their weapons.”
“If I’m giving you a realistic answer, they’re in silos scattered everywhere for about the next three thousand miles around. If you want to know where the human forces are, I ran away from them while you were all fighting. I have no idea where they went or what they’re doing.”
I never saw its hand coming before I felt the blow across my face. I saw bright light and next thing I knew, I was pushing myself up from the floor. I glanced up and felt blood streaming down my cheek. The side of my face stung in waves.
I spat blood. To hell with this. If they’re going to kill me, then kill me. I smiled, showing teeth. “Touched a nerve, did I?”
The alien grabbed me by my hair and wrenched me up so my eyes were next to its toothy maw. Its teeth were inches from my face, the smell of its breath making me gag as I saw shreds of its last meal threaded between canines as long as my fingers. “You must be especially stupid for your species, human. You stare into the face of death and continue to mock us.”
The aliens behind it growled and hissed. One snapped its jaws.
“I’m not mocking you,” I said, somehow getting the words out. “Look, I could potentially help you, but I need to know what you really want from me.”
I’d made the alien look foolish in front of the others. It turned to them, then looked back at me. “Kill her,” it said, and tossed me toward them. I hit the floor with an oof, the breath pushed out of me, my arms and shoulders rattled.
“But this is the human that—“ one started to say.
The leader slammed a clawed foot into its torso, pinning it against a bank of vertical pipeworks. The others stepped back.
“I said, kill her. Take the body to the humans. Eat some of her if you want, but they must still be able to recognize her.” The leader strode away into the dim light, presumably leaving me to the other three.
They closed in. My mind raced. I had one shot. “I know where your data crystal is!”
The alien stopped, turned to look at me. “What data crystal?”
“The one with the genetic material. The one you need to remake your world. That’s what you want, right? To recover as a people? A chance to make sure your children have a world to grow up in?”
It came back toward me, head forward, slit eyes boring into me. “Tell me where it is. Give me the orb, and I promise you I will leave enough humans alive to rebuild your civilizations in time. We will even give your science a way to survive the coming doom.”
Bullshit. This violent one was a liar through and through. “Why would you give us that?”
The leader snorted. “I have no qualms about wiping your species from history, but that will still take a little time. The egg solves both of my problems. Humans will have no bargaining power, I become a hero. Bringing the orb to my people will win me the favor to shift my faction into power.”
I swallowed hard, bracing myself. I shifted uncomfortably on the floor. “There isn’t a whole lot of good for me telling you then, is there? How can I trust you won’t rip me apart after I tell you?”
“You cannot,” it said.
The soldiers on either side of it barked, and the leader pulled its lips back in a gruesome alien smile. I was the only one unamused. “But you can be assured I’ll kill you otherwise. I haven’t tasted a ‘female’ human. Are you less stringy than males?”
“You could find out,” I said, “but then you won’t get your crystal. I’ve hidden it somewhere where no one but me can find it, human or alien. I’m your only chance to get it back.”
The alien stared at me, then hunkered and pressed two claws into the hollow of my throat, raising my head. I held my breath as blood trickled down my neck. I prayed this was a bluff, and kept my eyes focused on the alien’s face.
Just as wolves win most fights with bravado, I couldn’t afford to look unsure. I lifted my manacled hands. “These are really uncomfortable. Mind taking them off?”
One of the alien soldiers started forward, growling and baring fangs. The leader held up a hand, and the soldier stopped. “If I vow to return you to your people, you will take me to it.”
I considered my options. I really didn’t have any. I could die to keep the location of the computer a secret, but there was nothing to stop the aliens from returning to the police truck. If I wanted even a slight chance at staying alive, leading them to the orb was the only choice. “You swear you’ll return me to my people alive and in one piece?”
The alien licked its teeth as it grumbled deep in its throat, then it nodded. “I will return you to the humans alive and in one piece.”
“Then what are we waiting for?”
26
David
I slammed my fists on the table, making the metal ring. “What the hell do you mean you won’t search for her?”
The leader of the aliens sat across from me, Ka’thak positioned to his left in a neutral position between the two of us.
“Lt. Col. Jackson, we cannot afford to. We have lost too many, and the faction that wants your kind eliminated may overthrow our government if we spread ourselves too thin. If they kill me, it means the end of our species.”
I clenched my jaw as I spoke. “Then let me contact my people.”
We’d spent the last hour debating ways to stay the coup and recover the data crystal. I’d pushed hard for finding Alexandra, but neither captain nor leader seemed too concerned—they had little reason to care about one human when the future of their race was at stake. I champed at the bit to rescue the doctor, but I understood their perspective.
The captain spoke, “Would they not attack us? They must assume you are dead by now. If you contact them, wouldn’t they send a crew to rescue you?”
“Not if I tell them everything,” I said. This was my opportunity if Ka’thak was truly willing to listen. “We can’t survive without each other. Have you forgotten we’re still facing the death of the planet, same as what happened to you guys? We need your tech. You need our help to crush the rebel faction. Let me talk to my people. Please. I know I can convince them to help.” Both the social worker and I must have been marked KIA already. If I rose from the supposed dead, it would go a long way in convincing my commanding officers to hear me out, assuming they didn’t have a squad o
f nuke-carrying fighters already headed our way.
The captain and leader glanced at each other.
“Listen,” I said, “If what you’re telling me is accurate, you don’t have the soldiers to defeat these bastards. We do. If I can get the military on your side, there are three times as many planes and firepower within a hundred miles of here than you need to take this entire ship down. But, please, I’m asking you—find Alexandra.”
The leader sighed and spoke something to Ka’thak, then peered at me. “I understand you wish to help your friend, Lt. Col. Jackson, but even if she can tell us where the egg is, it is wasteful to send soldiers to rescue her rather than simply seek it themselves.” The chief sounded exasperated at having to explain this again.
Ka’thak leaned forward and turned his head to his chief. “If we rescued the human woman, we would curry favor with the humans. I can take a few soldiers out and—”
“Absolutely not,” the chief said, raising his hand to end the debate. “That is the final answer. We will speak no more of this.”
Ka’thak nodded and leaned back. I dug my nails into my palms. The events of the last few days had shown me that these alien beings were more like us than I could’ve ever imagined. I wanted to hold my tongue, but if it meant making sure she was alive and safe, I had to say something. “Okay, Alexandra doesn’t know where your orb-thing is,” I paused to make sure they both listened. “She has it.”
The two aliens gawked.
“Yeah. She has it with her,” I repeated. “I saw Ko slip it into her bag just before the next wave of you guys slaughtered us. The last time I saw her, she was sprinting into the forest with it still in her bag.”
Ka’thak glared at me, lips curling in a toothy snarl, eyes ablaze. “Why didn’t you—”
The leader raised his hand once more. “Peace, Ka’thak. Let Lt. Col. Jackson explain.”
“I don’t have much of an explanation to be honest. My introduction to your people was to watch soldiers like myself ripped open like pigs at slaughter. I watched people be eaten. For thousands of years we’ve been the dominant species on Earth, yet deep in our DNA since the dawn of time our greatest fear isn’t death at the hands of another human but in the jaws of a predator. You’ve both treated me well, but that fear is programmed in me. I couldn’t give up my most vital piece of information until now because of that fear.”
Incursion Page 11
