by Scott Baron
“Seventeen billion? Wow.”
“Yes, our planet is somewhat larger than yours, and we had developed it extensively. That is possibly what brought us to the attention of the Ra’az Hok.”
“The what?”
“Ra’az Hok is their full name. We simply call them the Ra’az. They are the race of beings who swept over our planet and tried to wipe us from existence, much as happened to your world. Only our physiology proved troublesome to the Ra’az warlords. The adaptive camouflage residing in our every cell allowed us to adapt on a genetic level and overcome the plague they unleashed upon our cities. Faced with an opponent they could not simply wipe out with a contagion, the Ra’az Hok committed the most heinous of atrocities.”
“Worse than sending a plague to kill everyone?”
“We are not a military culture, Daisy. A fact the Ra’az took advantage of immediately. We greatly outnumbered them, but before our leaders could devise a response to their attack, they sent heavily armored commando teams and rounded up all of the women and children they could find, moving them to heavily guarded internment camps. They then gave us an ultimatum. Either we willingly join them in their ongoing conquest of more and more worlds, or they wipe out our species’ hopes of survival by eliminating the young, and those capable of bearing them.”
Daisy felt sick at his words, and the shimmering tears fighting to break free in the stoic alien’s eyes as he recounted the story made it clear he felt the same.
“Some of the patronage families sent their oldest male children to be willing emissaries to the Ra’az. In return, they were spared, and even allowed to retain positions of authority among the people. Those from more modest origins were forced into servitude.”
They’re a race of conscript soldiers, Sarah.
“Sounds a bit familiar, Daze.”
Yeah, it does.
She swallowed hard, imagining the difficult choices his people had to make. The same choice forced upon humans many centuries past.
“You should know, Craaxit, there was a similar occurrence a long time ago in our planet’s history. We called them the Roman Legion. A vast army that spread across a large portion of the globe. They possessed military superiority, both in numbers and tactics, and when they overcame an opponent, they offered them a similar choice. Join us or die. It was this way that the conscript army of the Roman Legion grew so powerful. Disobedience meant death, not only for yourself, but for your family back home as well.”
Craaxit looked shocked.
“Your species was capable of a great evil, Daisy, but our people saw none of this upon arrival. How did you overcome it?”
“We didn’t. Not exactly. The rulers became lax after centuries of victory. Eventually, the system collapsed on its own, without need for battle, and with no fanfare or rebellion. It simply ceased to be.”
“I would that the same happen to the Ra’az, but I fear they have too firm a hold on my people. Many of the younger among us even believe in their cause. They were born and raised into this slavery and have never seen the homeworld. But then, there are those who were taken from our families as adults and placed in stasis for the long voyage to the next world to conquer. For us, it is not some intangible event, but a memory of our loved ones that burns in our hearts. We fight, and work, and obey, but we do so for the sake of our families back home.”
Daisy was saddened by Craaxit’s difficult situation. She was likewise stunned to learn that everything they had believed about the invasion and the forces against which they were fighting was wrong.
“If you are merely the servants, then where are the Ra’az? None of my people have ever seen, or even heard of them before today.”
“They send us to do the fighting, though they are larger and tougher than we are by a fair amount. Once we clear the indigenous from the surface, only then do they descend to the planet to survey their plunder.”
“Yes, I know. The cities are stripped of their technology and resources, then shipped forward to the fleet as they progress.”
Craaxit looked confused.
“No, that is not what happens at all, Daisy,” he said. “The transport ships do not move forward to the advancing fleet. They are sent back to the Ra’az Hok homeworld. The entire purpose of their expansion is to support a planet and society that has outgrown their resources. Rather than spread their wings like other species have done, the Ra’az are a hive-like race, with their royal mother ruling from their homeworld, while her servants fan out and bring her riches in the form of plundered resources and technologies.”
“Like bees,” Daisy realized. “The worker drones and soldiers scout for pollen, but the queen bee stays behind.”
“I do not know what bees are, but you describe the Ra’az society accurately.”
The implications were shocking, to say the least. The Chithiid weren’t the baddies they were believed to be. At least not all of them, and the ships that warped out of Earth’s orbit every so often were not supplying the advancing fleet, but rather the homeworld of the bastards who were actually behind the eradication of the human race all those hundreds of years ago.
“What’s he saying, Daisy? I don’t speak Chithiid.”
You won’t believe it, Sarah. I’ll tell you on the way back to the camp. For now, just hang tight and keep your eyes peeled. I’m getting a huge amount of information from this guy, and it changes everything as we know it.
She pondered the situation, and a new question came to mind.
“This warp drive that the Ra’az use to power their ships, what can you tell me about it? I’ve observed it in operation, but it seems to be a limited-power device.”
“You are accurate in your assessment, though a new, and far more powerful version has been in the works for decades at the main Ra’az transport hub.”
“The facility in Tokyo?”
“No, that is merely one of their three global communications relay centers. The transit hub is in the city you once called San Francisco, though the barracks are across the water in Oaktown.”
“Oakland,” she corrected him.
“Oakland,” he repeated. “The warp system has long been a problem for the Ra’az. Even with that technology, it takes decades of travel in stasis to reach their homeworld. Now, however, progress has drastically accelerated, and we believe they will have a fully functional version of the new device within the month. Once they are no longer required to spend years upon years in transit, we worry they will no longer have need of our services.”
“And you’re afraid they’ll kill off your families out of convenience.”
“Precisely.”
“But what changed? Why now? What’s different?”
“The breakthrough came when we delivered the remains of a strange craft that landed in the city nearly half a year ago. The Ra’az scientists discovered an unusual device abandoned within the vessel. A power cascade of some sort. It was barely functional, but the theory behind it was sound, and that in turn led them to drastically alter the way they had been progressing with their research. The result appears to be a stable, high-capacity warp drive.”
Oh, for fuck’s sake, you’ve got to be kidding me!
“What is it?”
Oh, nothing. Just that our friend here informed me that the actual bad dudes are close to perfecting a major warp drive system, and it’s all because of my plasma cascade tech they salvaged from the shuttle I left behind.
“Did you say ‘actual’ bad dudes?”
These aren’t the real invaders, Sarah. They’re just conscripts. The real problem is their bosses had a breakthrough because of one of my designs they found.
“You mean that––”
Yep. I inadvertently helped our enemies. Sonofa–– She found herself grinding her teeth.
“Tell me something, Craaxit,” Daisy said, relaxing her jaw and putting her frustration on the back burner, for the time being. “If you have the planet so under control, then why round up and destroy all the cybor
gs? They’re pretty harmless, all things considered.”
He fixed his gaze on her with with sad eyes.
“That was not us, Daisy. At least, not at first. When the Ra’az fleet moved on from this planet, leaving just a small contingent of leadership caste to oversee my people, the mechanical men you speak of were nothing more than a pest at that point, and they mostly tried to avoid us whenever they could. No, it was the few surviving humans who started attacking them many decades later. First with simple clubs and stones, but soon they discovered new, cruel ways to destroy them. They were sadistic, Daisy, attacking the mechanical people as if they held a personal honor grudge against them. We found it quite confusing, to be honest. Eventually the remaining mechanicals fought back, becoming more proficient in their combat skills and defenses. Because of this, we have now been ordered to destroy them on sight, but that was not always the case.”
“But I’ve only seen a small band of humans. Do you mean there are others out there?”
“I do not know for certain, since you are the first any of my people have been able to communicate with.”
Despite her dislike of artificial people, Daisy felt sick at the horrible things humans were still capable of, even after being brought to the brink of extinction.
“You are honorable, Craaxit, and I thank you for your trust, and for telling me this. I hope our people can learn to live together one day.”
“Perhaps, but they have been fighting for generations, and that is a difficult habit to break.”
“Agreed. But tell me, are there others like you? Men of honor? Men who wish to regain their freedom? What I’m asking is, will you fight back against the Ra’az if the time comes?”
“A great many would gladly help, but they will not raise arms in defiance so long as the Ra’az can kill our families with a single transmission to their battle station orbiting our home planet. I’m sorry, but you must understand the situation we are in. While I can try to help you covertly, so long as the Ra’az communications systems stand, we are unable to assist you in any meaningful way.”
Daisy thought about the situation, and a wild idea flashed through her mind.
“Daze? Why are you planning on blowing up a building in Tokyo?”
Tell you later.
“Craaxit, if we are able to disable the Ra’az communications systems, ensuring no signal can be sent to your home planet, then will you help us?”
He considered the question a long moment.
“Yes,” he finally agreed. “While there are those of us who never will—–and they will continue to be an obstacle for us—–if you eliminate the threat to our families, we will gladly shed this yoke. If we can free ourselves to save our world, we will help you save yours.”
“Fantastic!”
“But,” he continued, “if we do this, I will ask of you one thing.”
“Name it.”
“On your honor.”
“Okay, on my honor. If I can do what you ask, I will. What do you want?”
“If we succeed and save your world, it will only be a matter of time before the Ra’az discover what happened. When that occurs, my people’s lives will be forfeit. What I ask of you in return for our help is the promise that if we manage to save this planet, you will do all you can to assist us in saving ours.”
Daisy considered what he was asking, but given the situation they were already in, how much more difficult could things get?
“I cannot speak for the leaders of our people, Craaxit, but you have my word that I will do all I can to convince them to honor this agreement.”
He nodded his head, apparently satisfied with her reply.
“Very well,” he said. “Let us meet again in two days.” He pulled a small tube of clear goo from his clothing and handed it to her. “This is a biological marker we use to tag resources. This particular one is an older variety not used any more, thus one I can specifically scan for that others will not see. Open this and mark where you wish to meet and I will be there just after dark. I will attempt to procure what information I can in the meantime.” He turned to leave. “I will see you in two days, Daisy.”
She watched him go, then headed back toward camp.
“Holy hell, Sarah,” she said. “You’re not going to believe this.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“You were gone a long while. Did you encounter anything out there?” Josiah asked as Daisy quietly approached his lookout position.
“Nope. All quiet,” she replied. “Everything good here?”
“Yes, all is well. The others are resting now.”
“And you got stuck with first watch.”
“It is a privilege.”
“Of course it is. Well, you keep it up. You’re doing a great job.”
Daisy entered the inner room and made her way through the sprawled-out fighters toward Vince.
“You were gone a long time, Daisy,” Arthur said as she passed, echoing his sentry’s observation. “Is everything okay?”
She squatted down next to the reclining man. “Yeah, all good. It took a bit longer than anticipated because I found these.”
Daisy pulled a small cloth from her bag and handed it to him.
“Thought you might enjoy them,” she said as he unwrapped the fabric.
“What are these?” he asked. “I’ve never seen these on the surface areas where we live.”
“Blueberries,” Daisy replied. “There was a tiny patch of them growing under an overhang of a building a few streets from here. Some animal must’ve dropped the seeds there at some point and they took root.”
“Why would an animal drop seeds?”
“Um, they don’t drop them, exactly,” Daisy said. “I’ll get into specifics some other time. So I take it you’ve never had a blueberry, then?”
“No, our foodstuffs are provided according to Alma’s carefully designed nutritional needs guidelines.”
“I saw that when we were packing up. The transit hub’s maintenance break room protein fabricator can’t be your only source of food, though. I mean, a body’s needs are one thing, but you need to live a little,” Daisy said.
He didn’t seem to understand the concept.
“Well, pass them among your people. There aren’t a lot, but there should be enough for everyone to have a few. Give one a try. I think you’ll like them.”
She watched him as he tentatively tasted a berry. A smile slowly blossomed on Arthur’s face.
“See? Tasty, right?”
Daisy rose and walked to where Vince lay quietly watching the discussion.
“Blueberries?”
“Yeah. Found some on the way in. Figured they’ve been working hard and deserved a treat. You know, I checked out their biologics fabricator in the old break room area of their home. It’s a pretty simple unit, installed to provide a busy work team quick snacks, but it was never designed to replicate anything complex. And having an entire society relying on it for sustenance, however few those people may be, still leaves little room to do anything creative with it. They have to conserve those resources, after all.”
“Yeah, I noticed they only have very basic foods in their encampment, nothing terribly exciting.”
“Alma must’ve had them pull all the genetic food replicator supplies from all the adjacent tubeways over the years, I reckon, but one day they’ll need to learn how to garden and forage. I figure now’s as good a time to start as any.” She watched the small team of grizzled fighters’ reactions as they tasted the small berries for the first time and smiled.
“I think we can really make a positive impact on their lives, Vince.”
He squeezed her arm. “Now don’t get all sentimental. Next thing you know, you’ll say you’re actually glad you came down to the surface.”
Daisy flashed a quick grin, then lay down beside him and closed her eyes. Vince drifted off quickly, but for Daisy, sleep was a long time coming. The next day would be a busy one, and with what she had learned that night, o
nce they reconnected the city, and maybe even the planet, to a functioning communications network, things were going to get real interesting, real fast. If they managed to cut off the Ra’az Hok uplink stations, even more so.
The following morning Daisy made a point to quietly speak with Arthur about tactics after the battle of the prior day. Enlightened and energized by the new way of thinking, he decided to split his diminished ranks into two teams. Given the Chithiid encounter of the day before, he agreed it was wisest to approach Vince’s ship from two sides, while combining the remaining squad members into slightly larger units to better provide cover should they run across more of the invaders.
“Daisy, you will travel with Josiah’s team and approach from that direction,” he said, pointing south. “My team will skirt the buildings in the opposing direction and approach from there. It is only another twenty streets or so away, but do not become careless. We lost three good people yesterday, and I do not want to lose any more today.”
Daisy knew the skirmish that had claimed those lives was not her fault, but she still couldn’t help but feel as if Arthur was nevertheless placing at least some of the blame at her feet. She shrugged it off and set out, following Josiah’s lead. At least Arthur was listening to her tactical advice. Once they connected these people with Dark Side and the rest of the planet, their world would change so much for the better, it would all be worth it.
“We will cut through there,” Josiah said in a hushed voice. “Keep to the shadow side of the street, and move quietly.”
Daisy couldn’t help but like the kid.
“Kid? He’s barely younger than you are.”
Give or take a hundred years spent in cryo, she replied. You see anything out of the ordinary?
“Nope. It’s all quiet out here so far. I have a hunch that maybe your Chithiid buddy is running a little interference for us. Sending his pals to work in a different area.”
Possible, she replied. I guess we’ll find out.
For the first dozen blocks things were uneventful, no traces of recent movement by aliens or wildlife were to be seen. As they drew closer to the neighborhood where Vince had more or less executed a controlled-crash of his ship, Daisy noticed a shift in the environment. Many of the buildings possessed solar-powered fountains, still churning with greenish water, ever-replenished by the city’s aquifer system, though overgrown with algae.
