by Aer-ki Jyr
This was one of 18 simultaneous operations around the planet to ferret out rebel strongholds, and that was barely a scratch against the list of probable targets they’d been collecting. Kirit was notable as having the highest concentration of Archons after Sol and Epsilon Eridani, and that number was rising as the trailblazers dedicated more and more of Star Force’s resources to running the planet.
On the street below Zoe saw a team of Kiritak gather around one of the exits, dressed in full body flex armor that stood out in stark contrast to those Kiritas pedestrians that were topless, barefooted, and baretailed. Zoe could also see the tailor-made stinger pistols Star Force had designed to fit their three fingered hands. Their plate-like heads were uncovered, but otherwise they were sealed up from neck to tail tip in their signature aqua-colored garb.
Thirty seconds after they arrived the door was breached and they rushed in, with Zoe listening to their comm chatter as they conversed in their native English language. They also spoke Kiritas, but they’d initially been instructed in English for the sake of the long term development of their planet and interstellar relations.
Meanwhile other teams collapsed around the perimeter, spearheaded by a pair of Archons on the ground in search of a particular rebel leader they’d tagged as ‘Rebel Ace.’ She’d gotten away from a previous raid and was said to be the kingpin in this area of the planet. Zoe had been positioned up on the rooftop to insure that she didn’t escape again.
Inside the raid went extremely well. Most of the rebels submitted, but the few that were armed were quickly subdued with stinger rounds and those that tried to flee were rounded up by the Kiritak coming in the exits…that was until a few of them started to come out an upper story window and jump across the street to the flat wall on the opposite building.
They didn’t fall to the ground on impact like Zoe expected. Somehow they gripped the wall with their forearms and climbed up to the curved roof and began to flee through the valley-like trenches as one bulbous building top connected to another in a large multiplex.
“Son of a bitch,” Zoe said, triggering her comm. “In pursuit of five rebels fleeing to the north,” she reported before pressing the large button on her armor’s chest and jumping off the roof.
Instead of falling straight down she coasted level across the street, suspended in midair by the armor add-on she was wearing. When the top of the far building was underneath her feet she pressed another button on her chest and the anti-grav pack lowered her down to the rooftop where she shut it off and awkwardly began sprinting through the valleys paralleling the rebels that were several rows down to her left.
She passed through three sections then jumped up to her left, tapping her chest again, and used her momentum coupled with the pack’s limited lift capacity to vault her up to the top of one of the hemispherical bulges where she caught a glimpse of the last of the line of rebels now running off towards the west.
With the help of her pack and using a choreographed on/off sequence Zoe leapt from one bulge to another like a frog, barely keeping up with the rebels that were sticking to the trenches as they hopped down them, one foot landing on the angle to either side where a Human would have been hamstrung by the lack of flat foot space to land on…and they were making good time of it too.
When the rebels got to the edge of the multiplex unit they jumped across another street with ease, continuing to head west. Zoe jumped up as high as she could on the last rooftop bulge and caught her momentum at the peak, using the anti-grav pack like an invisible zip line that pulled her across the street and the next two rooftops before she had to cut it off before it ran out of charge. She landed on the top of one of the bumps and took three normal steps over the hilltop then jumped again, triggering her pack and releasing it over the next one and the next and the next, momentarily recharging the capacitor in the brief pauses.
She saw she was starting to gain ground on the line of five Kiritas as they slowed their hopping down to a less furious pace and hoped that they wouldn’t have the sense to turn around and see her coming. Another 20 seconds or so and she’d be close enough to take a shot at them…
Suddenly the leader stopped and opened up a hidden rooftop hatch, then caught a side glance of Zoe coming in at them just as the Kiritas beside it was hit by a green stinger and stunned into unconsciousness. The leader ducked inside as Zoe shot the others and pulled the hatch closed behind it. Zoe heard a click just as she landed in the trench, feeling her ankle roll sideways as her foot slid down to the center upon landing.
She stepped up onto one of the unconscious aliens and used it to stand on while she ripped the thin, locked door off its hinges with two solid jerks from her armored hands before tossing it aside and jumping in feet first in pursuit, logging a waypoint on her battlemap where the 4 stunned Kiritas were located so that they could be picked up later.
The tunnel leading down into the building was narrow and Zoe bounced around it as she fell, then landed in an equally small hallway that she had to duck down a few inches to run through, following the sound of another opened door to her left and around a blind corner.
The Archon shuffle/ran down the hallway and turned just in time to see her quarry duck down another hallway to the left through the open doorway. Zoe ran after her, catching up inch by inch as the Kiritas had to open doors in her way and the claustrophobic nature of the building didn’t allow the aliens their fast hopping gait.
The small confines slowed the Human down too, but like all Archons Zoe was a scrambler and tore down the hallways in a fast, yet almost comical fashion, running on her knees as much as she was her feet trying to negotiate turns and the tube-like shafts the jumping race used instead of stairs as the rebel seemed intent on heading down to ground level.
Zoe fired off several stingers trying to wing the Kiritas but she couldn’t line up a good shot because there were so many twists and turns in the architecture, enough to make her dizzy and disoriented as if she was back in school on a field trip running through a play maze at the museum. Fortunately she didn’t have to know where she was going so long as she stayed on the tail of the rebel, and it eventually led her out of the building and onto the typically crowded street outside where she got her first clear look at it.
Timing her shot just right, Zoe waited for its hurried bounce to carry it higher than the others on the street and fired her stinger pistol, splatting it on the back of the head underneath its cranial disk and dropping it to the ground where it was swallowed up in the crowd.
Those Kiritas around the Archon immediately backed up and gave her space, but there were literally dozens of people between her and her target so Zoe used her jump pack and leapt up a few meters into the air and hung from that position as her momentum carried her down the street towards where the target had fallen, but from her higher vantage point she could see that it wasn’t unconscious, but rather scurrying half numb along the ground.
Zoe fired three quick shots at it, one of which hit and knocked it the rest of the way out before she eased off the power of her jump pack and gently dropped back into a gap in the street below. When she got over to the downed rebel she saw that another Kiritas had been hit by her wayward shots…make that two if you counted the one with a limp heading off down the street in a panic.
“Seeco,” Zoe said apologetically to the Kiritas standing over the unconscious bystander, then she put another shot into the rebel for good measure and tagged the location on her battlemap for pickup. Dropping to a knee next to the female Kiritas she turned her over and got a good look at her face, realizing that this wasn’t Rebel Ace. Never the less she pulled out a genetic ID module and pressed it against her forehead to get a scan.
The results came back with a positive match, indicating a known mid-tier operative within the rebel hierarchy that had been tagged along with many others by informants.
Zoe waited with the pair until a team of Kiritak arrived and took the rebel into custody. The Archon borrowed one of their destunning injec
tions and woke the unconscious bystander up and apologized for her bad aim before checking on the capture of the four rebels on the rooftop then heading back to base. As it turned out one of those four was in fact Rebel Ace.
Zoe accompanied Yarric-2201 into the interrogation room where Star Force was holding Ace where both Archons pulled off their helmets and sat them on a side table before stepping up to the physical energy shield separating their side of the room from the prisoner’s. Normally it would have been invisible, but the Star Force prison designs added a slight colored element, in this case blue, so that both prisoners and guards would know where exactly the barrier was located.
On the other side Ace was standing in an empty rectangular cubical…little more than a holding cell during the interrogations, which in Star Force’s case were little more than conversations. On the ceiling above the shield was a translation nub similar to the ones used on Babylon, except that this module had the Kiritas native language programmed in, despite the fact that most Archons on the planet had learned at least a basic understanding of the local language and dialects.
Yarric chose to speak in English, however, so the translator could accommodate a more precise conversation.
“Why?” was all the Archon asked, then stood staring down at the rebel through the shimmering blue energy shield.
“Why what?” Ace asked back, translated like an echo by the overhead device.
“The others we’ve captured usually have a reason why they turned rebel. I’d like to hear yours.”
“You feel a need to justify my execution?”
Yarric frowned. “You think we’re going to kill you?”
“Other rebels you’ve captured have not been returned. They disappear from Kirit. It is not hard to imagine what becomes of them.”
“They’re in prison,” Zoe pointed out. “Why would we release them so they could return to aiding your rebellion.”
“We do not rebel,” Ace said vehemently. “We protect. You are destroying Kiritas. The Kiritak are an abomination. You have twisted the minds of our young to serve you, while you reduce our population by denying all but your chosen ones the ability to breed.”
“Some of you still seem to manage it,” Yarric pointed out. “And I shouldn’t have to remind you that before we came this planet was starving to death. We saved you. I would expect gratitude rather than rebellion.”
“We do not rebel!” Ace repeated, not letting go the point. “You save Kirit only to make Kirit your slave. We do your bidding, you feed us…but only enough to keep us alive, not enough to grow strong. You control us with food, and when we seek to feed ourselves you take our crops away from us.”
“Those crops are being used to feed everyone,” Yarric pointed out. “We don’t sell food to you, we give it freely. You’re using food as currency. Who has Kirit’s wellbeing in mind?”
“We will reclaim our planet, Human. Kill me if you wish, but the loyal will grow, and as they do the shaded eyes will open. Kirit will be Kiritas again, I promise you.”
Zoe and Yarric exchanged glances.
“Guess this one isn’t going to be ratting out her buddies,” Zoe said, shrugging.
“No, I don’t think so,” Yarric agreed. “And I don’t see the need to waste our time here.”
“Nope,” Zoe said, picking up her helmet and heading out. Some of the rebels they’d captured had been compliant, telling them everything they wanted after a few misconceptions were cleared up. It was clear that that wasn’t going to happen with this one, so they might as well send her over to the prison and start working through the list of other leads they had.
“Believe it or not, we’re here to help you,” Yarric added after Zoe had left. “And we’re not going to let idiots like you ruin it for everyone else.”
“You do more damage than you help,” Ace said with a hiss, which the translator interpreted as an icy demeanor and incorporated that feel into the spoken words. “You’re killing our society. You’re killing our culture. You’re killing all Kiritas where the famine would only have killed part of us. You are worse than famine.”
“We’re changing your society, yes,” Yarric admitted. “Killing your culture…I certainly hope so. It’s what got you into this mess in the first place. As for killing all Kiritas, you’re alive and going to stay that way. Same thing for the other rebels. If you want to preserve your culture within yourself, go right ahead, but we’re showing the planet a better way and you’re going to have to sit on the sidelines and watch. Enjoy the show.”
Yarric left not caring what the rebel had to say after that point. An hour later the Kiritak came and transported Ace over to a Star Force run facility. When the transport carrying her opened up it was connected to a long, narrow hallway with no windows or openings of any kind and the transport was sealed to it, leaving no room for even thinking about escape. The Kiritak guards in the transport unbound Ace’s restraints and nudged her into the hallway, then a thick door slid out of the wall and cut off view of the transport…then that door began to inch forward, pushing Ace down the hallway.
She walked on ahead of it and came to a clear cube at the end. Once inside an equally clear door shut and the elevator car detached from the entry point and moved on a hidden track along the wall of a huge chamber. Ace had never seen so much empty space before, and there wasn’t a single person in sight. All over there were modules of various sizes interconnected by tubes, off on the far end just before her elevator car disappeared inside a wall she saw a crane lifting one of the modules off its rack and carrying it over to another location.
She didn’t know what that meant, but in time she’d realize that the wardens kept reconfiguring the interior of the prison so that there was a different layout month after month. The reason for doing so wasn’t for security’s sake, but to change up the prisoners’ routine and keep them having to learn and adapt to new configurations. Stagnation was one thing Star Force prisons did not allow, and a mobile interior helped combat that greatly.
Ace’s elevator car eventually brought her to another airlock-like door that she was pushed out of by the rear wall as it detached and moved her forward. From there another mobile hallway segment guided her into a Kiritas-style apartment…but one large enough to hold 20 of her people. There was no one else present, however, and by Star Force standards the prisoner’s quarters were standard size, though they hadn’t been downgraded to match the smaller Kiritas physique, so in that regard they were a bit larger than normal, but the idea behind the standard quarters was to get the Kiritas prisoners adjusted to proper living conditions and out of the claustrophobia they were accustomed to living in.
Many, including Ace, had trouble adjusting to the new environment and the amenities it possessed. It made no sense why the rebels would be given clan leader status accommodations, but then again nothing else the Humans did made much sense either.
After exploring the four rooms that made up her prison cell and checking out the few luxury items that were left as if presents for her a blinking light caught her attention just below the wall-spanning video screen set behind protective glass to reduce the chances of damage. A round button was the source of the light and read ‘information’ in the Kiritas language, so Ace pressed it and was immediately presented with an orientation video along with a menu of options. She ignored them and shut the device down, preferring to recheck the rooms for some chance of escape until a tone sounded and led her to one of the four rooms where a compartment had another blinking light that drew her attention.
Ace touched it and a tray with a pair of food cubes appeared. She took one and sniffed it, then gobbled it and the other down before the automated tray retracted and the compartment resealed. It would repeat the process each day, but always at a random time within a 2 hour block.
By the time the third day rolled around Ace was at wits end. Never before had she had this much room to herself, nor had she been separated from other Kiritas for more than a few minutes at most. Here there wa
s no one, not even a cursed Human to talk to. She had more food than ever before in her life, her body was responding to it and pumping her full of energy and drive but she had nothing to do!
It was maddening, and eventually she began exploring the information database just to fight off the boredom, finding a newsfeed that allowed her to keep up with what was happening on the planet. Ace occupied herself with that for another week before finally looking through the orientation information…where she discovered various workout options and work tasks available to her.
At first she only complied to explore, hoping to find other rebels in the workout areas, but to her dismay the dreaded herding walls brought her out of her quarters and onto an empty track. She could only see two lanes, the inside of which were bounded by another wall, but after walking around she discovered that it was shaped in a large stretched out circle with no doors, windows, or other openings around the entire perimeter for her to potentially escape from.
Disgusted, she abandoned the track and the automated system led her back to her quarters, indicating that it would be another 12 hours before she’d have the option of using the track again.
One month into her imprisonment Ace finally broke down and started using the workout programs the Humans allotted for her, fearing that she’d go insane if she didn’t have something to do. She also began using the learning tools in the database, which taught her a great many things if she worked through the programs.
After that point Ace began to make progress in her solitude, not understanding why she was even trying. The Humans may not have killed her, but they were torturing her in a way she hadn’t known was possible. She was alone, well fed, and given luxuries that few Kiritas had ever known…and the worst part of it all was that she didn’t feel like a Kiritas anymore. She had no connection to her people, and had to think through everything herself.
They were forcing her to become an individual, and she hated them for it.
