by H. T. Kofruk
“And it will be answered in the most fitting way. But please, patience.”
“Patience? It was I who demanded that all able personnel be present at my arrival on Janpu. Your invasion would have been much more difficult and time-consuming if the military were all in their dispersed, original defence positions. Keep in mind, Shadow, that your little game would not have been possible without my help.”
Qin found the priest’s stupidity almost incredible. This old fool was sure that he would be allowed to live even though he had spent a lifetime spreading the lies and illusions of a false god. He would soon learn that treachery would be punished, even if was to the advantage of the True God.
“As you insist, Your Holiness. I will see to it that your departure to paradise will take place as soon as possible” said the Shadow with a bow.
With that he left the cargo area, leaving smug grins on the priest’s and his bodyguards’ faces. Using the ship Web-Com network, he opened a communication line with the control deck.
“This is Captain Qin. We have found lethal parasitic bacteria in the cargo area. Gas it for disinfection.”
The unsuspecting priest and his entourage soon found themselves choking on a colourless, odourless gas designed to kill all alien bacteria that could have made their way into the cargo area.
Chapter 12: Differences
‘Why do we constantly swear allegiance to symbols and man-made entities? Is there an innate willingness within us to stay loyal to a group, however synthetic and meaningless it is? If there is one force that will destroy us, it is the human disposition to divide “us” and “them.”’ – Andres Luis-Vasquez, Spanish Anarchist-turned-Philosopher,
She couldn’t help it and nor could he. As soon as they saw each other, lust overcame them both, despite their religious and cultural differences. She could barely resist running to him when she saw him in the sick bay. She hoped that he would be the naïve, simple cadet that she had met years ago. He hoped that she would be a proper woman who knew her biological role. But their physical illusions were swept away once they started talking.
She got up from the bed with the rough military blanket wrapped around her. He watched as she glided to the kitchen area and poured herself a cup of strong black coffee.
“Coffee?” she asked him.
He shook his head. “No thanks. I prefer to be free of all mood-changing substances.”
She wondered whether if he knew what kind of drugs had been pumped into him when he was being moulded into a soldier. “Suit yourself.”
She sat down beside him on the bed holding the mug in her hands. He loosened the blanket wrapped tightly around her. How long had it been since he had held a real life woman in his arms? The holographs designed to take care of the sexual needs of soldiers got boring too soon. And despite their intricate design, he was always all too aware that they weren’t real and even their warmth was powered by electricity.
He hesitated. He didn’t want to start another argument. “Heera…why did you come here?” he asked carefully.
She somehow felt that it was starting again. The endless arguments they had in Colorado came flooding back to her memory.
“My country called. You know that I don’t like being outer-space. I have benefitted a lot from my government and this is my way of paying that back. It’s out of sense of duty.”
“But a woman like you. You could be…”
“Married to a rich husband and giving him joy with countless children? Serving my biological duty as a womb-carrier?” she asked with a little sarcasm.
He knew that he was on the edge of her temper. “Outer-space is dangerous. No place for a woman.” He knew he had made a mistake as soon as the last words exited his mouth.
Her ears flushed red, a sign of anger. He expected a rapid torrent of words, even profanity. But instead she calmed herself with obvious difficulty.
“This is why it could never work with us” she said calmly. “It’s not a question of which alliance we belong to. It’s about values, opinions, religion.”
“Religion? You don’t believe in anything” he said with his voice rising.
“Who are you to judge me, Terry? Do you even know what I believe in?” she said in a dangerously low voice. The red in her ears was making its way to the rest of her face. “I don’t kill in the name of a supposed merciful god.”
“Yes, you kill in the name of gain, interest, money.”
“At least I don’t anchor my entire brain to a set of values that aren’t logical or moral. Money? You think your leaders and priests don’t care about money? How much do you think your priests make? You think you’re fighting all these wars and killing all these aliens because your pope wants salvation for all beings? Wake up, Terry.” The words came out so fast and unfiltered that she was shocked at herself. Why was she being so defensive?
“Yeah, well, without something to die for, you have nothing to live for. I would much fight for salvation than for exploitation. Did you forget that the Pacific had legalized the alien slave trade? Even we won’t go that low” rebutted Terry. He looked straight at Heera and realized her expression wasn’t angry, but rather embarrassed and regretful.
After a moment during which Heera struggled to gain her composure, she slowly articulated. “Terry. You need to leave. Now.”
He got up and put on his clothes while Heera pretended to look outside the window into the pitch black.
“I’ll see you around” he said as he opened the door.
“Good night, Lieutenant” she answered.
The following day, Terry went to the base communications officer, a Captain Vanatu, who was sitting at his desk upon which was a sprawl of communications equipment. He entered and saluted.
“What can I do for you, Lieutenant?” asked the dark-skinned, blond-haired officer without returning the salute.
“I need to get a message across to my command.”
Vanatu yawned. “That could take some time. You should have asked me before the new recruits arrived. I could have added it to the communications package.”
“When will the next communications wormhole be opened?”
“Let’s see” he said while using his fingers to change the display on the screen in front of him. “The last opening was a week ago, and our intervals are every Earth month. So about twenty-six and a half days. Local days I mean.”
Terry couldn’t believe it. He was so preoccupied with getting his marines back on their feet, and with Heera, he was only sending a report five days after his arrival! “Isn’t there any other way?”
“We don’t have a wormhole creator on this planet. Oh, and I should mention that your message will be scrutinized by our command before relaying it to your guys, so you should add about another week.”
“That’s a month! You saw what happened to my men. Can’t we send something electronically without wormholes?”
“You could try. We can emit continuous electronic signals in the direction of your territory. Someone might pick it up, and someone might not. Possibly, even the wrong guys could get a hold of it.”
“I’ll have to take my chances. I have the encryption code which is still supposed to be good for a few days.”
“Well then, be my guest” said Vanatu with a lazy smile.
After sending the message, he got into a T-shirt and a pair of shorts and went running with a few of his men. After a forty-five minute sprint, he took a shower and went to the medical section to see his injured marines to see their progress and give them encouragement. Heera was there but she completely ignored him. The same thing happened the following day, and then the next. He wanted to apologize to her but couldn’t figure out what for.
But one day, a week after their first night together on Kheut, he was talking to a marine who had lost both legs in the attack on Janpu and Heera approached. He turned to say something to her but she didn’t even look at him and started talking to the patient. After finishing, she turn
ed to go to another patient. He went after her and grabbed her shoulder.
“What is it, Lieutenant?” she asked coldly as he spun her around.
“Don’t call me that, Heera”
“I expect you to address me as lieutenant, too”
“Heera, I’m sorry” he said, looking into her eyes.
But she merely smiled. “For what?” she asked. “For speaking your mind? Why would you apologize for that?”
The injured soldiers and marines started to look at them. He didn’t want them to know about their relationship so he asked her to follow him outside.
“Lieutenant, I am on duty. If you have something to say that doesn’t concern taking care of your soldiers, please let it wait until I get off” she said in an officious tone.
“For Christ’s sake, please. Just come with me” he said and he grabbed her arm. Although he led her forcefully, he couldn’t feel any resistance from her either.
As soon as they were outside between the sickbay and the temporary rehabilitation that had been put up, he put his hands on her shoulders and looked at her but couldn’t find what to say.
“Heera, I…”
She unexpectedly put her hand on his face and stroked his cheek. “Terry, you don’t have to explain yourself. You’ve been raised all your life to think like you do and the same for me. We’re two passionately opinionated people who won’t change. We just happen to sleep together.”
These words suddenly hurt him. Why did he desire her so much? After their first night together, he found himself wanting her more and more. But not just her body. Was it the lack of women in the Atlantic military? Was it merely because she reminded him of Earth? He wanted to be with her. He wanted to hear her talk, to feel her touch, to smell her slightly sweet perfume.
He kissed her and she didn’t struggle. That night, Terry knocked on Heera’s door again. She opened and he walked in.
Chapter 13: Unearthed
‘Looking back, I realized I had become one those very men I despised; an old man sending young men to die. It is sad that the need or inevitability of war cannot be judged by the eventual victims.’ – Rick Hernandez, Rear Admiral (ret), Atlantic Alliance Navy,
Atlantic Alliance Fleet 11423, led by the mothership IGN Virgin Mary, was sent to Janpu due to the lack of reports following the invasion of the planet. All communication between the invasion forces and the Command of quadrant S4355 had ceased for almost three weeks. When the fleet exited the wormhole and reached Janpu, a dozen Atlantic ships were floating abandoned in orbit. The mothership of the abandoned fleet had disappeared. Exploration of the ships showed that they weren’t in fact abandoned; everybody on board was dead.
Janpu was in a much worse state. Once they got boots on ground they found the bodies of tens of thousands of Atlantic soldiers and millions of butchered locals. The surviving Janpeks looked terrified at the sight of yet another group of aliens landing. Many of them had witnessed the carnage that took place when the strange burrowing aliens had landed. The formidable Renden forces were almost as helpless as the Janpeks when they were invaded.
Admiral Rick Hernandez watched the holographic footage relayed to the bridge by the hover-drones sent to the surface. Soldiers sent down were also sending footage to another projector. The mutilated bodies of Renden soldiers and marines as well as local Janpeks were puzzling him. It almost seemed that animals had ravaged the planet. But a Renden force of tens of thousands brought down by animals? What was even odder was almost the complete lack of enemy bodies. They seemed to have combed the entire battle area and retrieved all of them.
“Admiral Sir, it seems that the defending forces stood little chance. We are yet to find any traces of the enemy” an army major said through the projector.
Were the Janpeks hiding a terrible secret? A few had been interrogated but their tales remained incoherent. Most of them looked terrified and even mentally disturbed. Why would the enemy kill all the Renden occupation forces and not the locals? What was the purpose of the mass killing? It almost seemed that it was a game, a massacre done out of leisure.
“In God’s name, this is cruelty beyond imagination” commented one of the soldiers on the surface. “Only blood-thirsty monsters could have created this kind of carnage.”
Rick found the comments ironic. As a young officer, he had seen what his own kind could do and it was far worse than this. Whole populations of intelligent aliens had become extinct because they refused the Pure Bible.
Due to his Mexican descent, his bronze skin colour and dark curly hair had been a major source of disadvantage to his military career. Those with blonde or light brown hair and pale skin were obviously at an advantage in promotions. Had he been a Caucasian, he probably would have made admiral ten years earlier.
It was sheer determination and display of his faith and capabilities that had brought him to this position. He won numerous medals and awards for bravery and service, but was constantly overlooked for promotions that others took for granted. He changed his accent to the standard North-American with painstaking work and attended the most prestigious churches.
Despite his drive to succeed, he had a habit of speaking his mind perhaps less diplomatically than necessary. He had made enemies by embarrassing his colleagues’ incompetence, including those who had the power to postpone any promotions. At seventy-three, he should have been at one of the quadrant commands or maybe even at a Department of Defence position on Earth. Yet he was still combing the galaxy and wouldn’t have it any other way.
The bridge of the Virgin Mary was the workplace for twenty-or-so sailors who worked in shifts. The dark blue uniforms of the service members blended in with the predominantly blue bridge where multiple holographs of engine status, weapons status, vicinity star maps and other things of interest were constantly displayed. Though Rick tried to be as objective in selecting crew members, he couldn’t help noticing that an unusually high proportion of them were Latin American or had Russian surnames.
The army liaison colonel entered the bridge and stood before the admiral. Rick was always amused how this colonel always acted as if he was entitled to an audience with the admiral of a fleet of sixteen ships and twenty thousand men.
“Sir, the attack on Janpu seems to have been recent, in the last couple weeks perhaps. This has to be reported to Command and we need to find the culprits. I would bet a penny or two on the Chinese” he said with an air of arrogance and pretentiousness.
Rick merely observed the trigger-happy colonel, his perfectly combed blond hair that looked like plastic, his West Point arrogance. He obviously looked down on the darker-skinned admiral. Rick knew that he had applied more than once for a transfer, probably beneath a ‘white’ navy admiral.
“Colonel, first of all we need to keep the locals calm. Set up a presence on Janpu with defences as well as humanitarian assistance. I will inform command” he said calmly.
The colonel obviously did not agree with the admiral’s orders. “If I may, sir, we need to try and find traces of wormhole activity. If necessary, we need to engage the Chinese.”
“You have your orders, Colonel. Contacting command and deploying sensors is my job. I suggest you focus on yours.”
Without answering, the colonel clicked his heels and walked out with an expression of dissatisfaction.
Sighing, Rick ordered sensors to be sent into the vicinity to find traces of wormhole activity and to download an updated log of wormhole creation. He then ordered a small wormhole to be opened with the ship’s own small wormhole creator in order to send a message to the Department of Colonial Affairs on Earth and the Command of the current quadrant. But as soon as the orders left his lips, sensors picked up an encrypted electronic message.
“Admiral, electronic data has been picked up. The encryption suggests that it’s one of ours who sent it” informed the communications officer.
“Download, decrypt and display” said Rick.
In a few seconds, the
holographic projector showed the head of an Atlantic Alliance marine.
“This is first lieutenant Terry Southend, 102nd marine brigade, 4th battalion” said the head. “I am the lead officer of a small group of survivors of the Janpu attack. I believe us to be the only ones. We are currently at Kheut, a Pacific Federation planet, where we are receiving medical assistance. This message has been sent by electronic means since we have limited access to wormholes in the hope that it will reach an Atlantic Alliance ship. We have vital information about the attack and what we’re up against. Requesting evacuation. Southend Out.”
With that the head disappeared.
“Sir, the message was created two weeks ago. Would you like to request a wormhole?” asked the communications officer.
“Yes, and relay that message to command. We need authorization from the Pacific Federation to enter their domain. Upon authorization, the mothership will go alone while the rest of the fleet carries out the current mission here.”
Rick knew the value of the information. He had to hurry, if the Chinese had complete control of the Atlantic mothership, they could also decrypt the message. “One more thing, send a warning to Command of the possibly captured mothership. Suggest a sooner transmission of the bacteria mutation sequence.”
***
Admiral Liu smiled at the news of the intercepted data. He was glad that he decided to wait near the frontier with the Atlantic territory even though it would seem more suspect. The Atlantic Alliance mothership IGN John the Baptiste that they now controlled gave them the encryption codes that would be valid for another few days and it was a stroke of luck that they had picked up the message during that period.
The Atlantic officer in the holograph, oblivious of their possession of the code-bacteria, basically gave them all the information they required to tie up all ends. Though the Atlantic was sure to find out about the attack, or probably had already, the secrecy of the program had to be guarded as closely as possible. With sufficient information, the Atlantic and worse, the Pacific Federation intelligence would know what to look for.
